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The end of an era

21. Nyctophobia

"Twilight. Twilight! Twi-light!" "Mnnnhh... what?" Twilight cracked her eyes open as Moondancer shouted her name and shook her. Why Moondancer of all ponies was doing it was a matter for a more awake pony to deal with. "You really need to go talk to Trixie. Now." "Trixie?" Twilight rubbed her eyes as a few more synapses crept to life, reminding her of who Trixie was, and what had happened the previous night. "Trixie! Is she okay? What happened?" "Do you really think I'd be waking you and telling you to go talk to Trixie if everything was fine? Really?" Moondancer rolled her eyes at Twilight, "How about you go find out what happened, instead of asking me. She's outside." Twilight scrambled out of her sleeping bag and stumbled to her hooves before running out to Trixie, leaping over the recumbent form of Mayfly who seemed to have a big dreamy smile on her face as she slept. Sunset was already outside, hovering near the entrance to the cave, several meters from Trixie, who lay on her stomach staring blankly over the open vista of the jungle. "Thank goodness Twilight. I don't know what's wrong with Trixie, but she won't respond to me. She just keeps staring off into the distance. It also felt kind of weird around her, like... something, I don't know, but it gave me the creeps." "Yeah, it'll do that," Twilight said noncommittally. She gave Sunset a brave smile, then slowly walked over to Trixie. The air around her felt noticeably colder than it was a mere ten steps away, and the sensation was making Twilight's hair stand on its end. Twilight put it out of her mind to pay attention to Trixie, who was lay with her muzzle buried under her legs. The half dried remains of tears streaked her cheeks, and her eyes were locked forwards, staring at nothing. To top it all off, a faint purple and black miasma swirled around her horn, barely visible to the naked eye. Twilight swallowed down her concerns, "Trixie?" There was no answer, so she laid a hoof on Trixie's back and shook her, "Come on Trixie, don't do this." Trixie still didn't do anything to even acknowledge Twilight's existence, so feeling that her options were running low, Twilight did the simplest thing she could think of. She smacked Trixie across the back of the head. "Ungh!" And just like that, Trixie was back. "Ow! What the fuck?" Trixie rubbed the back of her head, and fluttered her eyes rapidly as they were sore from not blinking much. Noticed only by Twilight was that the chill feeling around Trixie was suddenly gone. "What was that for?" "You mean you don't remember being out here for ages staring blankly into the distance?" Twilight cocked her head questioningly, "Yes? No?" "Ages? What do you mean ages?" Trixie suddenly realised that it was daylight, and was surprised that so much time had passed. "Oh," she murmured, rubbing her cheeks free of the crusty remains of her tears. Twilight sat next to Trixie, not bothering to physically comfort Trixie since she knew it wouldn't likely be appreciated. "What's going on Trixie?" she asked. "Why were you out here?" "I- I don't know. I couldn't sleep, so I came out here for some fresh air, and it kinda felt like something was watching me." Trixie tried to laugh, but it sounded fake even to her, "I guess I just scared myself." "You scared yourself to tears then lay here for hours in a semi catatonic state while pretty much leaking dark magic out of your horn." Twilight raised an eyebrow at Trixie, "I hate to say it, but that does not sound legit. In fact it sounds incredibly 'not' legit. What really happened Trixie?" "I just heard something, that's all. Nothing to worry about." Trixie smiled up at Twilight, but she still seemed entirely unconvinced. "Trixie, stop lying to me. Or at least stop trying to hide things. What did you hear last night?" "It was nothing, just a bird or something." "Mm-hmm, and did the bird say?" "What? It's a bird, it didn't say anything." "So it wasn't a bird then." Trixie pushed herself up so she was sitting, and looked irritably at Twilight. "What are you getting at Twilight? I heard a noise, got scared, and-" "Didn't go back in the cave where it would be safer, instead choosing to sit out here for hours frozen on the spot. Can you see why I'm having issues with this explanation? Come on Trixie, you know you can talk to me. What happened last night?" Trixie looked down and studied the ground intently for several seconds. She didn't want to say what really happened, and wished Twilight would just drop the issue. That seemed unlikely though, and became less and less likely the longer she went without speaking, so she gave in. "I did hear something last night. A voice." Twilight nodded slowly. Hearing a voice in the jungle didn't exactly seem impossible, so Trixie being this wound up seemed odd. "Oookay, what did the voice say?" "Ours." "Ours? That's all it said?" Trixie nodded, "Yep, that's it. Well, not quite. It felt like it came from right behind me, like, right in my ear, and when it spoke I turned round to hit it, but there was nothing there. I- I-" Trixie licked her dry lips, trying to get her thoughts out of her mouth. "It was those things, wasn't it? The things that say they own me. As soon as I used dark magic again, they were there." Trixie looked back up at Twilight, her eyes brimming with tears. "I can't do this again Twilight, I just... can't! Please don't let them take me." Twilight didn't even think about it this time, and pulled Trixie into a hug as she cried her heart out. Compared to how Trixie normally acted, this was a bit of a shock to Twilight. Last time this issue had come up, Trixie barely made anything of it, but considering how it ended with both of them fighting, and Twilight tearing Trixie's horn off with her teeth, perhaps knowing how high the stakes could be made it a lot worse for her. Slowly Trixie cried herself out, and just let Twilight hold her as she occasionally sobbed and hiccupped. "I'm scared Twilight. I don't want to be owned by something. Please don't let them take me." "I won't," said Twilight, and she meant it. She'd failed too many of her friends lately, and she was determined to not fail another. If only she knew how to fix this. "You promise?" "I promise. Whatever those things are, they better watch out because they're going to have to deal with me." -0-0-0- The jungle seemed a lot scarier today, as far as Trixie was concerned anyway. For the last week she'd confidently blundered her way through the overgrowth, not worrying about anything much. Now though, every shadow hid something sinister, all eyes were watching her, and every sound was a threat whispered in her ear. She knew that, in short, she was losing her mind as she jumped at pretty much everything. She shrieked as something brushed her side, and built up her magic ready to attack when a purple hoof smacked her on the horn, probably harder than intended since the motion almost slammed Trixie's nose against the floor. "Uh, sorry," Twilight laughed nervously. "Don't know my own strength sometimes. I only meant to stop you drawing attention to us." "'S fine," Trixie said blearily, her vision spinning from the strike, and her horn agonisingly feeling like it was no longer the same shape. "I guess I'm just a bit jumpy today." "No kidding," said Twilight, pointing behind them to where Sunset, Moondancer, and Mayfly were keeping a safe distance. Although not so far away you couldn't see their nervous expressions. "It's understandable that what happened has you a bit shaken, but what you're doing isn't really... what's the word?" "Helping?" Trixie suggested flatly. "Not what I was going for, but I suppose that's one way of putting it. Look, Trixie, I know you don't want to go back to the way you were, and that's fine, great even, but this nervousness is not helping you either. Nothing is going to jump out and get you... or at least nothing related to your fears is going to jump out and get you, and if they did, what would you even do?" "I'd, uh... I don't know. Attack them I guess." "With what?" "My... magic." Trixie sighed to herself as that sounded ludicrous even to her ears. She'd have to use dark magic to attack with any strength, and that was only building up her problems, rather than fixing them. One look at Twilight was enough to see that the alicorn had come to the same conclusion. "So you're scared that something might attack because you don't want to use your magic to fight back, is that it?" "Partially, I guess. We are talking about me using dark magic, right? I'm not going to pretend we are only to be wrong later." "Yeah, we are. You don't want to use it, so you're scared of things that might have to involve you using it. What if I told you that you don't really need it any more? Or at least not unless it's a real emergency, which even I do." Trixie shrugged as she walked, "I'd tell you that you're a liar." Twilight snorted a laugh, "I thought as much. I'm not lying though. I'm sure you haven't noticed, mostly because all magic feels weak compared to dark magic which is part of the trap of using it, but your time using dark magic has greatly increased your capacity for all types of magic. Basically it made you a lot stronger that you originally were." "I get the feeling we've talked about this before. Still, I'm curious. Like, how strong are we talking here?" Trixie grinned excitedly, "Like alicorn strong?" "Uh, nooo," Twilight said awkwardly. "Not that magic really works in terms of strength, but I'll say that you're somewhere between Moondancer and Sunset in terms of power." Trixie's expression went flat, "So still less than you when you were still a unicorn?" "Again, I'm going to reiterate that magic isn't measured in terms of power like that." "So, I'm not as powerful as unicorn you was." Twilight sighed irritably, "No." "You know what? While meeting you was great and all, at least in the long run, it really did burst my bubble. Not only did I learn that I'm not the best, but because of you I've met unicorns that are more powerful than me, meaning that I'm not even second best. I'm actually not even in the top ten, am I?" Twilight rolled her eyes, "I really doubt there's a top ten, and I keep telling you that it doesn't really work like that. I'm the Element of Magic, which should in theory put me as one of the most powerful magic users in existence, but I can assure you that both Celestia and Luna could probably beat me in a fight without too much difficulty, because it's your skill at casting that makes the difference, and they have a lot more experience than me. Power is a factor, but a skilled caster can overcome a powerful one. "Okay, fine, you made your point. So I'm somewhere between Moondancer and Sunset, making me, what? Sundancer? Or Moonset?" "Out of those two, Sundancer sounds better. What it really means though, is that in power terms, that's not too shabby. You're probably more 'powerful' than any Adept we trained in Mareitania." "Ah yes, them," Trixie hummed. "Don't seem like such a good idea now, do they?" "Not so much, but what I'm getting at Trixie, if we stop going off on tangents, is that I'm willing to teach you magic if you want so that you don't need to rely on dark magic to do anything." "Except for emergencies, like you said." "Exactly. I'm even willing to have a go at teaching you light magic to balance things out a little, although I'm not going to count on that one really working." "Don't think I can do it?" Twilight shook her head, "I don't think I can teach it. I'm not even a hundred percent I can do it to any effective level right now if I'm honest, but I'm sure Sunset could have a go at teaching you if I can't. Assuming she's capable of doing it. So how about it Trixie? Do you want to learn some real magic instead of cheaters magic?" Trixie nodded slowly, like she was really thinking it over. "You do mean I'll be learning how to fight with my magic and stuff." "Oh yeah," definitely," Twilight laughed. "I think that's kind of a given considering what we're doing. There is plenty of other stuff we can teach you, but we'll have to leave out the really complicated stuff for now because that's not really something you can teach on the move." Twilight grinned slyly at Trixie, "So, are you in or not?" "I'm in. I'm so definitely in." Trixie held up a hoof as Twilight cheered, "Just don't go calling me your student or anything, because I will... have to invent some cruel and unusual things your alicorn physiology can't overcome if you do." "Deal. Now, are you ready for todays lesson, my faithful student?" Twilight smiled as Trixie groaned at her. "Come on, let me have that, just once." Trixie turned her groan into a begrudging sigh, "Fine, once. So what's todays lesson? Let me guess. It's breathing exercises isn't it." "Uh, no. I'm pretty sure you already know how to breath to an adequate degree, so we can skip that frippery. Todays' lesson, or lesson one, is accepting your limitations." "What? That sounds like a sucky lesson." "It's an important one though. If you can't do something, either keep trying, or accept that you can't do it. Don't try to cut corners by using dark magic instead, because that very much goes against why I'm teaching you this stuff in the first place." "So you're saying I should be okay with not being able to do things. No falling back to dark magic to do it for me." "Exactly. Unless it's an emerge-" "Yes unless it's an emergency! I get it!" Trixie nodded as she thought about that. It was at least a reasonable request, accepting your limitations. Perhaps she might even give it a go at some point. "Okay, awesome. What's the next lesson?" "There's no rush Trixie, it's a long way to Saddle Arabia." "I know that, but I want to learn this stuff! Come on Twilight, don't be shy." Twilight smiled at Trixie, pleased to see her desire to learn. "Alright then, your next lesson is how to blow stuff up... with your mind." "Now we're talking." -0-0-0- "What do you think they're talking about?" Moondancer asked as she, Sunset, and Mayfly kept their distance from Trixie. "Twilight's offered to teach Trixie magic other than dark magic. She's also said that Sunset can teach light magic to Trixie if she can't." Mayfly blanched at the looks Moondancer and Sunset gave her, "What? Could you not hear them?" Sunset shrugged that off as changeling weirdness, instead turning her thoughts towards what Mayfly had said. "I don't know if I can teach light magic. Heck, I don't even know if I can even do light magic. In fact, I don't even really know how to do it." Moondancer adjusted her glasses, "I do believe the general method is to simply think happy thoughts." "Is that from experience?" "Hah!" Moondancer moved her glasses again as her laugh made them slip down her muzzle. Then she caught Sunset's confused expression. "Wait, you're being serious?" "Well, yeah, why wouldn't I be?" "Do I really seem like a happy kind of pony to you? Do you even know me?" "I'd like to," Sunset said earnestly. "I don't know why you're so resistant to the idea of having friends?" "I had friends, once." Moondancer directed a piercing glare at Twilight, "It didn't work out, and I'm never letting myself get hurt like that again." "It's hurting you now," said Sunset. "Don't think I haven't seen the way you look at Twilight when she's alone with Trixie, or with any of us really, except you. You're jealous of her being friends with other ponies." "No I'm not!" "Yes, you are. Is this how you really want things to be? To always be too scared to reach out to another pony because you're afraid of getting hurt?" Moondancer stopped and pressed a hoof up against Sunset's chest, pushing her back. "You have no idea what it was like Sunset! You have no idea what Twilight did to me! I'm never feeling like that again!" Sunset gently pushed Moondancer's hoof away, "Actually I do know what happened. Twilight's already told me what she did, and it's pretty clear how it's affected you. You do realise that she feels terrible for what she did, right?" "I couldn't care less how she feels." "Liar," Mayfly said quietly, reading Moondancer's feelings like a book. "You stay out of this!" Moondancer glared at Mayfly, but the changeling seemed indifferent to Moondancer's rage, so she turned it back to Sunset. "If Twilight feels terrible for what she did, then that is the least she deserves." "But that spiteful attitude is just adding to your own pain!" "I'm used to it." Moondancer turned and started walking again, her head low. "Besides, how terrible do you really think she feels if she can blame me for being friends with her." "She doesn't blame you for being friends with her. She's just bad at expressing the idea that just because she was a terrible friend, you didn't have to abandon your other friends, or the idea of friendship, because she messed things with you up." Moondancer raised a skeptical eyebrow at Sunset, "Is that so? That doesn't sound remotely like what she said." "Moondancer, I don't need to be a mind reader to know you're not only unhappy, but angry about it too, just as Twilight knows it's unlikely that you'll ever forgive her. But all she really wants at the end of the day is for you to be happy. Isn't that something you want as well?" "Of course it is!" Moondancer sighed and grit her teeth, "But I don't know how, and I'm scared because I don't want to get hurt again." "I think you'll find the first step is trying to make friends with ponies, instead of shutting them out." "And who would want to be friends with me?" Sunset smiled at Moondancer. "I would." "Really?" "Sure! I bet Mayfly would too, right Mayfly?" Mayfly nodded affirmatively, "I too have recently learnt that having friends is a good thing, so if Moondancer wants to be friends, that's good for both of us. Also good for understanding traitor Thorax's warped logic. I must admit, he must be well fed if this is how things are with friends." Mayfly coughed awkwardly as both of them looked at her funny. "Extra food fringe benefit. Not the actual point of being friends. Other benefits possible though, like comforts for when Moondancer has another existential crisis." "You'd really want to be my friend?" Moondancer looked at both of them like they'd gone mad, "Really?" "Really," Sunset confirmed. "You're not going to say I have to forgive Twilight are you?" "It would be nice if you did, but no, I'm not going to suggest anything. I will suggest giving Trixie a chance, as she can be a nice pony when she wants to be." Moondancer scoffed at the suggestion, "Yeah, that'll be the day. So is there anything we need to? To become friends I mean. Some kind of ritual?" "Not really. You just sort of become friends." "So, we're friends now? Just like that?" Sunset smiled at Moondancer, "Just like that." "Oh. I guess it's easier because we already know each other." "We'll worry about meeting new ponies some other time, like when there's actually new ponies to meet." "And they aren't trying to kill us." "That too." Moondancer nodded thoughtfully. Not that she'd say it, because she felt ashamed of how much it affected her, but it felt nice to say she had friends again. -0-0-0- Rarity clutched at her stomach, trying to ease the pains it was giving her. Weeks of only two meals a day had taken their toll, and she knew she was coming unattractively skinny, but the thought of one of the others going hungry repulsed her more than the consequences to herself ever could. As much as she tried, her generous streak won out every time, and honestly, she wouldn't have it any other way. Not that she was required to do much more than the bare minimum, imprisoned as she was, so the impact was lessened to a degree. Once a day she was taken away to have the same daft question asked to her, and every day she turned them down in favour of her friends having the extra food. Perhaps its true attraction was that it was the only way she had to rebel against her captors, however small a way it was. Without that she'd have nothing since maintaining her grace and image was becoming near impossible after so long without a wash. "R-Rarity?" Fluttershy quavered sadly, her voice almost lost to the quiet around them. Rarity perked up and shuffled closer to her cell door as soon as she heard Fluttershy say her name, ready to help her friend. "Yes Fluttershy darling?" "I... I don't know, I just thought I'd been left on my own again." "Fluttershy, you know Spike's always here if you want to talk." "Seriously," Spike grumbled. "What I wouldn't give to get out of this cell for even ten minutes. About as much as I'd give to brush my teeth probably." "I-I-I'm sorry Spike," Fluttershy spluttered, "I didn't mean t-to say that you weren't-" "You know, if you're feeling lonely I could always ask the guards to let you share my cell for a while." Rarity shuddered with a mix of disgust and suppressed rage. "Francis, we all know you've already asked that about all of us, and got a hoof in your face from the guards for your trouble. If you don't have anything constructive to add to the conversation, perhaps it would be best if you added nothing at all." "You'll give in eventually, if only to feel the considerate touch of a pony not wearing armour." "As if anything you might do could be called considerate. Now do be a dear and shut up." Rarity unconsciously brushed her mane as she composed herself, then dropped her hoof with a sigh as she bumped it against the inhibitor on her horn. "You know there's always somepony here Fluttershy." Rarity sat quietly for several seconds, but there didn't seem to be a reply forthcoming. "Fluttershy?" "I don't know how much more of this I can take Rarity. I don't know why they're doing what they're doing to us, and I don't know why we're fighting it. I don't want to keep fighting it." Fluttershy sniffled quietly, "I don't know what to do any more." "I know none of this is right Fluttershy, but we can't give in to it." Rarity wanted to spit after saying those words. She'd been saying the same thing everyday for what felt like months, and they were starting to sound hollow even to herself. It seemed a lot more personal to both Applejack and Fluttershy though, who seemed to be losing focus of why they were fighting this a lot easier than herself. Rarity was ashamed to admit it, but she'd understand Fluttershy giving in, but Applejack was no better, and she was the most stubborn mare Rarity knew, so for her to want to give in worried Rarity considerably. "I don't know any more," Fluttershy said in a tiny voice, disrupting Rarity from sinking into her own thoughts any further. "I just don't know." Rarity carefully contemplated what she was going to say to Fluttershy, but was disturbed by the clatter of armour. Rarity swallowed nervously; the sound of armour used to be accompanied by the sounds of defiance, but more and more that was replaced with sullen acceptance. Applejack was allowed to walk into her cell, rather than be thrown into it, and there were no last words shouted after the departing guards. There was only a small thud as Applejack pressed her head against the cell door and sighed. "I can't do this no more," she said in a tone of voice that usually belonged to Fluttershy. Rarity didn't say anything, knowing that the worn out platitudes she'd been spouting had truly run their course. Instead she had only one question on her mind, "Why not?" "Because what's the point? They do the same things to us day in and day out, and all the things they tell us just don't sound like lies to me no more. Celestia, Luna, Twilight, all of them... Faust's right to be angry at them." "Don't be absurd Applejack! You know those are nothing but lies told to try and break us! To turn us against our friends!" "Really Rarity? Because every time I hear it I have three little voices in my head. One tells me that of course it's true, how could it not be? Another tells me that despite what I want to think, what I'm hearing is no lie. And the final voice tells me it's not true because none of them would do such a thing, yet it has no arguments in its own favour. I hate to say it Rarity, but I'm getting pretty fed up of hearing that last voice. Maybe the Lady was right about everything all along." "So what?" Rarity said loudly, making Applejack jump. "Even if what she's saying is true, does it really excuse her going to war with Equestria? Even if Celestia, Luna, and even Twilight have truly wronged her, does the entirety of Equestria really need to pay for their wrongdoings? Come on Applejack! You know what she's doing is wrong! If you can't even think that, then you surely realise she's putting your family in danger for other ponies crimes? Doesn't that mean anything to you?" "What she's doing could put the world right Rarity." Rarity was aghast, and wasn't alone in it judging by the outburst from Spike's cell. From Fluttershy came nothing, and Rarity didn't need to ask to know that Fluttershy was either too beaten down to disagree, or even worse actually agreed. If Spike wasn't there, Rarity might have thought she was going mad to be the only one not agreeing with this. Rarity grit her teeth as her stomach rumbled painfully. Everything really had turned to shit if this is how things were becoming, and yet she found herself too tired to argue further, and had only one thing left to say to Applejack. "What is it you really think that's wrong with the world in the first place?" Applejack didn't answer. Feeling there was nothing more to say on the issue, Rarity crawled back onto her rock hard bed and curled up into a ball, clutching her stomach with her hooves in an attempt to make it feel better. It didn't work, but there was literally nothing else for her to do. The discussions she could have with her friends seemed to be a thing of the past now, and her future seemed that much emptier because of it. She didn't cry though, as all the tears she could have shed simply wouldn't come out. She was simply too worn out by her experiences to cry any more, which was only one of a number of things Faust had taken from her. Minutes later a guard opened the door of her cell and placed on the floor a bowl of the slop that passed for food where they were. Rarity was surprised at the unexpected intrusion, but the thoughts of food quelled her need to be snippy at the guard bringing it. "Is that really for me?" "It is," the guard confirmed. "Lady Faust wishes to see you, so I suggest you eat quickly." That wrecked her excitement at eating, but Rarity wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to fill her belly, grabbing the bowl in her hooves and downing its contents in a most unladylike fashion. Propriety be damned, she was too hungry to care, and she knew it would only be taken off her if she didn't finish it fast enough. It also took her mind off the taste, which lay somewhere between overcooked porridge, and dish water. As she predicted, it was only minutes until the guard returned with company, so she was glad she'd decided to eat as fast as possible, even if meant her stomach hurt for an entirely different reason now. She was still licking the bowl when the guard snatched it out of her hooves. "Get up and get moving. You know what'll happen if you give us any trouble." Rarity nodded, not wanting to experience getting a ring put through her nose to be led around by, as was threatened during her early days here. Stepping out of her cell she fell into place between two guards, following the one in front up out of the dungeons to a room she hadn't been in before. The air had a faint aroma of ozone to it, strong enough to be noticed over the smell of unwashed pony. A low cage sat in the corner, its contents dark and shadowed. At least that's what Rarity thought until the darkness shifted with a clinking of chains, and turned two catlike turquoise eyes on her. Eyes she recognised as belonging to something that no longer was. The eyes locked onto hers for a few seconds, then turned away again, and that was all the time she had to think about it as the guards threw her onto a bench and began strapping her down. Rarity squirmed fearfully as her hooves were strapped down, followed by more straps over her back, her neck, and finally her muzzle, adding a cloth in her mouth for her to bite on, leaving her entirely immobile and vulnerable to whatever was about to happen to her. She clamped her still loose tail between her legs, and discovered that she was in fact still capable of producing tears, even though eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Thank you kind sir's, that'll be all." "Are you sure my Lady?" "I'm quite sure, but thank you for the concern." Rarity cautiously opened her eyes again, seeing the guard ponies exiting the room. That didn't leave her feeling any more optimistic than before though as she had the kindly smiling visage of Faust turned onto her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see whatever was in the cage was warily watching Faust as well. "Hello Rarity," Faust said, her tone pleasant. Even if she were able, Rarity wouldn't have returned the greeting. "I'm sorry for the rough treatment here, but I'm afraid it's necessary for what I must do. You see, Twilight Sparkle isn't in Equestria, or Mareitania, and I would very much like to know where she's gone, so I'm hoping that you might help me with that. Ah-ah!" Faust said quickly as Rarity tried to speak. "I know you wouldn't betray her like that, but it's okay, I have ways around that." Rarity glowered at Faust as she opened the cage in the room and used her magic to tear its occupant out into the open, a black alicorn with a purple cutie mark that looked almost like Princess Luna's. She had a flowing purple-blue mane, and was unmistakably Nightmare Moon, although Rarity did remember Nightmare Moon as being a good bit taller. Rarity squealed and tried to break free as Faust dragged the chain bound black alicorn in front of Rarity. She had no idea why, or more importantly, how Nightmare Moon was here, and a prisoner of Faust no less, but she knew for certain from the way the dark pony was looking at her that Rarity, and what she had done along with her friends, had not been forgotten. "I see you two have at least a passing acquaintance," Faust said, seeing the two ponies reactions to each other. "That'll save some time. Now then Rarity, I'm sure you'd like to know what's going to happen now. I'll keep it simple. This creature is going to break into your mind and search for any clues as to where Twilight Sparkle might have gone. Failing that, you share a connection to your friends, and I'll happily use that to track them down if I have to, but I cannot find that connection myself. This creature however, can." Faust pushed Nightmare forwards, "Begin." Again Rarity struggled against her bonds as Nightmare Moon moved closer, a silvery thread of magic winding up her horn that sparked erratically before coming loose and floating down towards Rarity's head and touching it. Blinding agony tore through Rarity's head, and she screamed into her gag, her eyes squeezed shut as the walls of her mind were torn asunder. Then as abruptly as the pain started, it stopped. Rarity cautiously opened her eyes, and gasped as she saw the ever familiar confines of the Carousel Boutique around her. Her hooves were unbound, her horn uninhibited, and her mane and tail perfectly styled. She was having the hardest time telling if this was real of not. "I thought you'd prefer to see somewhere familiar." Rarity shrieked and turned to find the same black alicorn that had tore into her mind sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Rarity started to back away, but the alicorn looked so miserable and forlorn she stopped. "Why are you here? We destroyed you!" "Not so thoroughly as you think you did, but why I'm here is a long and complicated story that I don't even fully understand myself. Suffice it to say that I'm not Nightmare Moon, at least not entirely, and I mean you no harm." "A likely story. That pain as you broke into my mind, that was very unlike my definition of not meaning to do harm." "I'm sorry, but I'm not as skilled at this as Luna is, and trapped in this body my skill at it seems to be even worse than before. Fortunately, the pain will make Faust think that I'm actually doing as she asked, rather than this." "This? What is 'this?' I have no idea what's going on!" "And I'm going to tell you, if you'll listen. Firstly, so we're on even terms, my name is Nightmare, and I'm a friend of Twilight Sparkle's." "I'm pretty sure she would have mentioned something like you if that were true." "Both myself and Princess Luna asked her to keep my existence a secret. Luna felt it best that Celestia not know I existed because she would only see me as Nightmare Moon and seek to destroy me." "Princess Luna knows about you? Why hasn't she destroyed you?" "Because I asked Twilight to stop her. In return I provided some assistance to her during her time in Mareitania-" "Arrgh!" Rarity stomped her hooves on the ground, but they didn't have the satisfying sound the real floorboards in the real Carousel Boutique made. "Why does everything come back to blasted Mareitania?! On top of what she did, and everything that's happening now, she also managed to resurrect Nightmare Moon as well? I am sick to death of Mareitania!" Nightmare paused and calmly looked at Rarity. "Be that as it may, I was brought to existence in Mareitania, by accident on Luna's part rather than Twilight's. I was however trapped in the dreamscape until Faust found me and tore me out. Then she made her worst mistake and gave me a body, making me a proper alicorn rather than a figment in the dreamscape. She also destroyed her ability to destroy me by doing so, which is what brings us here." "And why would she want to destroy you?" "Because all these things you've been hearing about Faust, they're true, but not entirely. Celestia and Luna didn't imprison Faust. Princess Platinum did, so she could steal Celestia, Faust's daughter, away from her to set up as the ruler of all three pony tribes." Rarity's mouth hung open at what she'd just been told. "You can't be serious!" "I wish." "But wait, what about Luna? Wasn't she Faust's daughter as well if her and Celestia are sisters?" "She is, and she isn't. Celestia's father was Starswirl the bearded, born out of a loving coupling between himself and Faust before her imprisonment. Luna was conceived not long after Faust's imprisonment, after Celestia had already been taken away, through the vile actions of one King Sombra, who forced Faust to unwillingly bear his offspring, not that he was aware of it either." Rarity swallowed, her stomach sickened by the thought of that. "You mean Princess Luna is a child of..." Rarity couldn't bring herself to say the word. "She is," said Nightmare, knowing what Rarity was trying to say. "Suffice to say, Faust despises Luna, and Platinum separating them at Luna's birth was the most merciful thing she could've done. As you are likely aware, Luna became Nightmare Moon, which is all part of where I come from, meaning that I'm essentially Luna as well, which means Faust despises me as much as she does Luna. I'm sure you could tell that much from the way she refuses to say my name." "Then why would she make you an alicorn if she wants to destroy you?" Nightmare grinned at Rarity, "Because she's an idiot. She didn't really know what I was when she agonisingly tore me out of the dreamscape, and since I wasn't really anything solid I couldn't communicate with her. She decided to give me a body, but foolishly let me steer its design, and by the time she realised what was happening it was far too late to stop me." "Then I sincerely hope we don't all come to regret her foolishness," Rarity said coldly. Nightmare rolled her eyes, "Here we go. Rarity, I'm not what you think I am, and while I do bear a passing resemblance to Nightmare Moon, I am not her. I don't want to hurt anypony, or rule Equestria, or to plunge the world into eternal night. I just want to be free to live my life. I'm also trying to help you, so a little less hostility on your part would be appreciated, especially after I had you fed." "How could you have done that?" "I know they haven't been feeding you properly, to try and make you selfish by not giving up your food for the others. I basically told them you need to fed for me to do this, so you're less distracted by your thoughts of hunger. You're welcome by the way." "But why? Why would they do that?" "To break your connection to the Elements of Harmony. That way they won't work against Faust's plans even if you do escape here." Rarity looked away, seeing the sense in what she was hearing, even if she was inclined towards ignoring them due to who was speaking to her. Still, one prisoner to another, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to listen to Nightmare. There was one thing bothering her though, more than the many other things. "Why call yourself Nightmare if you claim to not be Nightmare Moon?" Nightmare shrugged, "I carry all Nightmare Moon's memories within me, including a thousand years trapped on the moon. Quite simply it's a name I'm used to having." "You remember all that? How?" "Really Rarity, we have more important things to discuss. To put it simply, the Elements of Harmony stripped Nightmare Moon away from Luna, but didn't destroy her, instead locking her remains away in Luna's head, along with most of her memories of being Nightmare Moon. Through a series of improbable events, I ended up being made from those fragments, and also from Luna." Nightmare sighed and rubbed the side of her head irritably, "As I said, it's complicated. Now can we please get onto the important stuff? I hate having to explain all this to ponies." "I'd say it's rather necessary to explain it if you wish to garner even a modicum of trust, but for what it's worth, I believe you, and if Twilight trusts you, then I shall trust you." "How generous," Nightmare deadpanned. "Now how do you intend to help me? You have a way to escape?" "Hah! I wish. But no, I don't have a way to escape, and neither do you. I know you're not going to like hearing this, but you need to stop pinning your hopes on a rescue, especially from Twilight." "What?! How could you even say that? There's no way Twilight would just leave us to rot in here!" "It doesn't matter what Twilight wants. I bet she wants nothing more than to save you and the others, but she knows as well as I, if not better, that rescuing you really isn't possible right now." "And why might that be?" Rarity fumed. That Nightmare could claim to be Twilight's friend and then say that about her. Sure Twilight had been a little off lately, but she wouldn't just leave them there. Would she? Rarity suddenly found herself very wary of what she thought she could be sure of. "This is High Rock Keep you're in," Nightmare continued, ignoring how worried Rarity now seemed. "It's a big, magic proof fortress guarded by a well armed and experienced army. Equestria would need an army itself to get in here. And while Equestria does now have an army, it is laughably outmatched, and quite frankly is more concerned with protecting Equestria than saving three ponies and a baby dragon. Then there's the fact that Faust is here." "And why is that such a big issue?" Nightmare tapped a hoof to her chin, "How to explain this... Uh, okay, if alicorns were to be considered gods amongst ponies, Faust would be a god amongst alicorns. She is so far beyond Twilight, or Celestia, Luna, or any of us. Maybe even all of us. While Faust is here, Twilight would only be dooming herself trying to save you." "She couldn't possibly be that powerful," Rarity sniffed, dismissing the idea. "Rarity, she is at least the equal of Discord in terms of power, and I don't think I need to explain the kind of power he has. Faust is not to be trifled with, which is why you need to put these thoughts of getting rescued away. You might get rescued one day, but don't kid yourself into thinking it'll be any time soon." Rarity opened her mouth to argue, and she really did want nothing more than to tell Nightmare she was wrong, but her own doubts quickly gnawed at her assertions before she could even say them. Frankly, Nightmare was speaking too much sense, and Twilight wouldn't throw herself away on a hopeless rescue. Once upon a time maybe, but that time had been and gone. "Why are you telling me this? How is this possibly helping me in the slightest?" "It doesn't now, but hopefully the lack of a rescue will hurt less as time goes on." Nightmare shrugged sadly, "Perhaps now you won't blame Twilight when that rescue fails to materialize in the slightest. It's not because she doesn't want to, but because she literally can't." Rarity slumped to the ground, suddenly feeling inexplicably tired. She'd basically been told to throw her hopes and optimism out the window, and if what Nightmare had said was true, it made sense to do so. The problem was that hope and optimism was all Rarity felt she had left. Without those... "I'm sorry Rarity, but you needed to hear that before you started to blame Twilight for not coming." "You don't know that! You don't know she isn't coming!" "You're right, I don't, but while I'd appreciate the rescue myself, I'd happily call her a fool for taking such a stupid risk." Rarity fell to her stomach and hid her face behind her legs as tears started falling down her cheeks. Now that Applejack and Fluttershy were... slipping away from her, and there was no rescue coming, all she had left was Spike, and she couldn't even see him. "Wait, what was that about Applejack and Fluttershy?" "Excuse me?" Rarity looked up sharply at Nightmare. Nightmare grinned sheepishly, "Sorry, but I can read your thoughts a bit if I pay attention. Not intentionally I assure you. Whatever. You said, or thought, whichever, that Applejack and Fluttershy are slipping away from you. What do you mean?" "And why should you care?" "Because you're all Twilight's friends, and I care about her enough to care about what happens to you. Now please, tell me what you mean." Rarity almost didn't say anything, mostly out of spite, and also because she knew Nightmare could probably rip it out of her head if she so desired. However, the contrite way Nightmare sat before her pushed her to at least have a go, and she explained what had happened with the others earlier. Nightmare hummed thoughtfully. "It sounds like they're succumbing to Faust's mind control spell." "Mind control spell? What do you mean by that?" "It's how she's got everypony here to side with her so fast. From the outside it looks like a love spell, to force ponies to adore her, but there's more to it than that. It also forces ponies to think she's right, or something, I don't know, I'm not an expert. The point is that it's affecting your friends too. It's not their fault Rarity." "Oh..." Rarity sighed, then stopped as a thought struck her. "Wait, why aren't I affected, or you?" "My guess is that inhibitor you're wearing has protected you from the spell. As for me, I have no idea. Maybe being an alicorn has something to do with it." Nightmare shrugged again, "I'm just guessing if I'm honest. Although, I do think I could help your friends if I can get to them, and I think I know just how to do that." Rarity brightened up slightly, "You could?" "Perhaps." "Then yes, please do. I need them if I'm going to get through this." Nightmare grinned crookedly, "Alright then. I'm going to end this now, and I'm sorry to say that it is going to hurt, a lot. I just felt I should apologise for that." Rarity whined in the back of her throat, "Very well, I guess there's no avoiding it. Save my friends though, and I will happily forgive any pain." "I shall certainly do my best." -0-0-0- The world turned white as Nightmare broke the connection between them, and Rarity screamed into her gag as a spear of agony lanced through her head, again and again in time with the beating of her heart which was inexplicably loud in her ears. She sucked in a shuddering breath and screamed again, her teeth and jaw aching from how hard she was biting down. The pain quickly faded though, lessening from blinding agony to mere pain over several seconds. Just in time to hear the conversation between Nightmare and Faust. "What do you mean she doesn't know anything?" "She doesn't know anything," Nightmare stated, emphasising each word. "Her last memories of Twilight's whereabouts was when she left to come here. You've seen Twilight more recently than she has. As far as she knows, if Twilight isn't here, or in Equestria, she could be anywhere." Faust growled with rage and Nightmare flinched as the larger alicorn held up a hoof to strike her. "What of their connection through the Tree of Harmony?" "There was something there," Nightmare lied, having not even bothered to look, "but it was weak. Too weak to follow. If I could get access to the other two bearers I might be able to find, or build a stronger connection." "Very well," Faust said slowly as she lowered her hoof and opened the door to the room. "Guards?" "Yes my Lady?" "Return Rarity to her cell and bring me Fluttershy." "At once." Nightmare sat quietly to the side as Rarity was unstrapped. The poor mare couldn't even stand after her ordeal, so the guards eventually settled for slinging her over the back of one of their number. Nightmare caught Rarity looking at her as she was carried out, and winked at her. In return she got to see a small glimmer of hope that shone in Rarity's eyes. Nightmare held her grin until Rarity was out of sight, then let her face drop. When Faust found out what Nightmare had done, and was going to do to keep that small glimmer of hope alive between the three bearers... Nightmare knew it was going to cost her dearly. "Twilight better appreciate this," she whispered to herself. -0-0-0- Rarity was, for the closest version she could get to it right now, happy. While she had inititally questioned herself for hoping Nightmare actually intended to help any of them, it seemed the black alicorn had been true to her word. She'd returned Fluttershy and Applejack to her, and that alone gave Rarity hope enough that things could be okay. Yes the illusion they'd shared of being rescued had been shattered, but Rarity had accepted the sense behind Nightmare's words, as had the others. In fact, things seemed to be less pressured knowing that they weren't likely to be rescued any time soon, and they could put their thought's towards simple survival instead. "Ah'm telling you Rarity, we'll survive on a bit less food for a day or two. You're going to end up really hurting yourself if you don't eat more." "I know, but every time they ask me, I enjoy the aggravation on their faces when I refuse to give in to them. It's the only thing that helps me sleep at night these days." Applejack sighed and grinned, "You're hopeless Rarity. I'm telling you to say yes to having the extra food tonight. It won't be you being selfish, but you graciously accepting a gift from me and Fluttershy. Seriously, if you refuse it tonight, I'm going to throw my own food at you just to spite you. Don't. Do. It." "Fine, fine." Rarity smiled at both Applejack, and what she could see of Fluttershy. "Thank you, both of y-" A scream echoed through the dungeon, followed by another. Desperate pleas for mercy came afterwards, pleading for something to not be done. "Good heavens," Rarity whispered, pressing her face to the bars of her cells to try and see where the screams came from. The others did the same, including the former Viscount Francis. "What are they doing to that poor mare?" "It sounds awful," Fluttershy whimpered. She stopped and squeezed her lips together tightly as Faust walked down the hallway towards them, unheedful of the screams behind her. "She brought this on herself," Faust said, almost like she could read what they were all thinking. "She could have earned herself some mercy by complying, but instead she had to defy me. Now that creature is paying the price of her defiance. I suppose you think that means you've won, but it matters little in the end, so congratulations I suppose for having her outsmart me." "You can hardly blame us for her actions," Rarity said to Faust. "We didn't even know she existed until you forced her to invade our minds." "As I said, it matters little. I'm also not here to gloat over the fate of a pony that deserves all she suffering she earned for herself. She will no longer be a danger to anypony after this, so worry not for her fate. What I am here to do is inform you that you won't be seeing me for a while. Events have progressed enough to begin the ordering of this world, so I shall be occupied for quite some time. Until such a time as I return, I have instructed your guards to keep you well enough. So enjoy your hollow victory over me, for as I said, it matters little. Good day." "What was that about?" Spike asked as Faust left slowly, the screams of Nightmare falling into a hushed silence. "It means she's about to attack Equestria," Francis said smugly. "About damn time too."

The end of an era

22. It begins

You never got used to funerals being an immortal, and that suited Celestia just fine. She'd always sworn that if she ever got used to going to them, she would abdicate right there and then, because she was no longer fit to call herself a pony, let alone a ruler. As soon as you got used to funerals, and ponies dying, you could soon find yourself getting used to far worse things. Still, even she could say there were varying degrees to funerals, and sadly Celestia could ironically call herself a connoisseur if she really felt like it. Some, where the deceased had lived to a jolly old age and had lived a fulfilling life, could be considered nice in their way. The pony had reached the end of their life, and while it was sad they were gone, it was somehow okay because they were old, and that was how the world worked. For the vast majority of ponies at least. Others were considerably less nice, where the pony in question had their life tragically cut short by the great many dangers that exist in the world. Those funerals were always the hardest to bear, but even so, ponies always tried to make something nice about them, as much for their own sakes than for the deceased. Celestia thought this was because ponies, so often faced with their own mortality, were trying to avoid thinking about it. She also knew that she was in no position to really know, and could be dead wrong, no pun intended. Still, she'd tried to make a little effort for Raven Quill's funeral, and had forbidden it from raining on the day. Raven had never liked the rain, and Celestia thought it was the least she could do to arrange something so simple. Truthfully though, she'd had to arrange most of it. Raven didn't have much in the way of family, and if only they had turned up, there'd only have been half a dozen ponies present at most. What Raven lacked in family though, she more than made up with in friends, and a large number of the castle staff, with or without Royal permission, had attended to say their goodbyes. Rites were said, tears were shed, goodbyes whispered through raw voices, and all that was left was to move on with lives that little bit emptier than they were before. Slowly ponies trickled away until only two remained, save for some Royal Guards stood a discrete distance away as Celestia was finally allowed to remove her mask of Royal stoicism, and let her tears fall down the fresh pink skin of her healing cheeks. Luna wasn't the best at comforting ponies like this, despite all her years of dreamwalking experience. Usually it was children she worked with, so right now, with a mare considerably past her childhood, she felt useless as she held her sobbing sister, which was also made awkward by the size difference. "She didn't deserve this Luna. None of them did." "I agree sister, but if only it were truly that simple." "Please don't Luna, I'm not in the mood." "Excuse me?" Celestia managed a weak and tiny smile to give to her sister, "I know you don't like doing this, and every time you do you end up going all philosophical on me." "Okay, fine," Luna huffed, "but you didn't have to say it like I slapped you and told you to put on your big pony shoes." "Sorry Luna, I just... I don't know. I've been to the funerals of twenty four of my aides over the centuries, but this is only the second one in a millennia to have died in tragic circumstances. I really don't know how to feel about it." "Beg pardon my morbid curiosity, but what happened to the first aide to pass on under such dire circumstances?" "Tripped down the stairs," Celestia said sadly. "That hardly seems like it should kill somepony." "The stairs down the east tower, before we put the guard wall in." "You mean one of the towers with the staircase going down on the outside?" "That's right." "Ah." There was a long sullen silence as both of them contemplated such an event. "I've always wondered about that foolish design." "Luna, please!" "Sorry, sorry." Luna opted to say nothing more, but kept holding her sister as time moved on. And more time. And more again. Luna was beginning to worry that she was actually heartless in not feeling too much about all this. Raven had been Celestia's assistant, and not her own, so their own relationship had consisted of little more than a friendly greeting in passing. It was only natural that Celestia be more upset, but it did make Luna wonder if she was herself upset enough. Eventually Celestia stood up straighter and pulled herself out of Luna's grip. "The world doesn't wait for a grieving heart," she said, moving up to the very edge of Raven's grave until the very tips of front hooves were hanging over the edge. "Goodbye Raven. Thank you for everything." Luna stood back and let Celestia pass her, then turned to follow her as they began the long walk back to the castle, a tradition they had always performed after funerals, where a gentle walk and some introspection was more welcome than getting carted away in some carriage. Admittedly, this was the first time Luna had done it since her return, but even as Nightmare Moon she liked to think she would at least have still have done this. "I get the feeling that we'll be doing this a lot more soon enough," Celestia said in an almost dangerously conversational tone of voice. Wisely, or unwisely, Luna decided to say nothing. It's not like she could dispute it anyway. "Eventually anyway. If Faust could put off attacking us forever, I wouldn't complain." "We have reason enough to believe she won't put it off much longer," Luna said, keeping her voice down as to not be overheard. "Now that she's regained her magic, it's only a matter of time." "Why do it like she is though? She has power enough to sweep into Canterlot and defeat us, so why force ours ponies, and hers, to fight for every inch of a country they cannot keep?" "Because she doesn't just want to defeat us, she wants to defeat Equestria as well." Luna smiled at a pony that was watching them pass, "Perhaps it would be best to hold off such conversations until we are away from the public's ears." "Very well." -0-0-0- Celestia sat upon her throne and held her crown in hooves, studying each burn, scar, and pockmark the explosion that killed Raven had given it, much like herself. Apart from the lack of hair in some places, she was more or less healed. Her right wing did still feel weak after having been mangled in the attack, and she wasn't about to go flying until that feeling passed, but save from that, and her poor vision in her right eye, she was as right as she ever was. Even the charred patches on her horn had flaked off to be replaced by fresh white keratin. Another week and it would be like she was never injured in the first place. Celestia lit her horn with a golden hue, and swept her magic across the surface of her crown, removing every mark marring its surface until it, like herself, was physically perfect again. She was sure there was something symbolic in that, but she wasn't in the mood to go searching for it. She wasn't convinced it'd be a positive symbol anyway. Like her crown, her peytral and shoes were mended, and one by one she donned them, finishing by lowering her crown upon her head. Once again she was Princess Celestia, whatever that truly meant. If anything it meant she was now ready to be thrown back into the bear pit of politics that passed for a good day as one of the rulers of Equestria. "So you weren't tempted to leave your effects damaged?" Luna asked, sitting nearby as Celestia readied herself. "I'd only end up with a thousand offers to make a new crown for me. The reasons as to why I left it damaged wouldn't mean anything to anypony really, at least in the long run. Best to simply fix it and get on with things, especially after what happened with the last attack in Mareitania." Luna winced, and wanted to defend herself, even though she knew what Celestia had said hadn't been an attack on her specifically. "The addition of griffon mercenaries has made things unpredictable to be sure. Ambassador Deetra is yet to provide a reason as to why they were there." "Isn't that rather irrelevant to the fact that they are there?" "Not really. Knowing why they are there may give us an unexpected lever to remove them from there. At the very least it might point us at an hitherto unknown enemy." "The Bloodfeathers have never been known to break a contract Luna. Finding out how and why they are there isn't likely to change anything." "Then it will at least sate my curiosity!" Luna snapped angrily. "We're not the ones spending resources trying to find this out, so there is absolutely no harm in finding out!" Celestia mentally took a step back surprised at both herself and Luna. She knew that finding out was beneficial, so why say all that? Celestia rubbed a hoof down her face, lingering for a moment over her right eye, the vision of which was still a little fuzzy. "Sorry Luna." "It's fine, really. If it helps, you aren't wrong in that our situation isn't likely to be greatly improved by knowing, especially if they won't break a contract. Hopefully the griffons might find a solution even if we can not." "Perhaps we-" Celestia almost bit her tongue as the doors to the throne room slammed open, giving rapid entry to a Royal Guard who removed his helmet and bowed deeply in their presence. "My apologies your Highnesses, but I have an urgent message from Vanhoover." "You may speak," Celestia said evenly, while inside she felt her stomach sink. She shared a quick look with Luna, who appeared to have come to the same conclusion as herself. "Activity has been spotted at the border to Mareitania, two dozen steam tanks and thousands of troops." Luna nodded, trying to maintain an air of confidence. "How long ago were they spotted?" "Around four hours ago your Highness." "Then at the speed those tanks travel, it'll still be hours until they reach our first line of defence. Thank you for the report. Send a messenger to the Wonderbolts' headquarters informing Captain Spitfire that I want all her available flyers in Vanhoover as soon as possible. You are dismissed." The guard saluted and ran out to complete Luna's order, giving Luna a chance to sink back into her own seat and groan. "It seems the time has come sister. At least it wasn't too much to think that Faust wouldn't do something unpredictable." "I wouldn't assume anything yet Luna." "Indeed." Luna stood and stretched, then removed her crown, placing it upon her throne, followed by the rest of her own regalia. She wouldn't be needing it for a while. "Keep the home fires burning Celestia." "And you stay safe." -0-0-0- If there was any silver lining in this, it was that the land around the north of the Luna bay that connected Equestria with Mareitania wasn't very wide. That made it difficult for the Mareitanians to truly attack the Bulwark en masse. If Luna were to guess, they intended to bombard the defences from a distance, then march over the remains. There was one thing annoying her though, and that was the numbers being deployed here. While the number of tanks seemed to fall within the estimates she was provided, the number of troops was lacking, for both ponies and griffons. If their agents in Mareitania were right, there should have been twenty thousand soldiers in the Mareitanian army, and a couple thousand griffons, if not more. So far Luna could only could see maybe five thousand ponies, and barely five hundred griffons. Unless they were coming later, something was definitely up, and needed preparing for. Luna lowered her binoculars, maintaining a calm demeanour for the ponies around her. As always it was easier said than done. "Send a messenger to General Armour at Camp Freedom asking him to prepare as many as he can of his more experienced ponies, including his Hard Corps, just in case. Hopefully it shouldn't be necessary." "Of course Your Highness," General Stormguard, the now former Captain of the Royal Guard said, nodding at a pony to carry out the order. "Is there anything else?" "The countermeasure for their tanks," Luna said bluntly. "Is it ready?" Stormguard pulled a face behind Luna's back, "As much of it as there is, yes." He narrowly avoided cringing as Luna turned to face him. "And what, precisely, does that mean?" "Production of the dragonfire bombs is long and difficult. I'm afraid that the numbers produced have fallen far short of what we need." "But we took steps to increase their production." "That doesn't stop the bombs from being hard to produce." "How many?" "Your Highness, I-" "How many?" Stormguard swallowed the lump in his throat, "Four." "Four," Luna repeated, totally deadpan. "Yes, four." Ignoring the temptation to completely destroy the binoculars in her grip, Luna calmly turned back to where she could see the enemy forces that were slowly inching their way towards them. "While I am disappointed that we have so few, we shall simply have to do what we can. Have the mines been laid?" "Yes your Highness." "And the explosives placed to collapse the land into the ocean?" "That was deemed to be impossible Princess. The ground is simply too hard to collapse. Instead we have placed the explosives at three intermittent locations to detonate as the enemy advances." "Very well, that shall have to do. At the very least we should make them nervous about getting here." Luna lowered her binoculars again and placed them on the table. By her estimates the tanks would be in range in a couple of hours, but she hoped to make it much longer than that. "Wait until most of them are past the first trap before blowing it, then do similar with the others. Between that and the landmines we should hurt them quite a bit." "And the dragonfire bombs Princess?" Luna twitched an ear and smiled grimly as a bang echoed along the ridge from where the Mareitanians found their first landmine. "Leave those to me." -0-0-0- The griffons were quick to deliver their vengeance after the land forces started finding more and more landmines. As a result they'd slowed their approach as they tried to locate the mines before they could be set off. Unfortunate for the defenders, as that wasn't the intended effect of landmines, but well within predictions, just as the griffon's retaliatory attack was, ineffective as it was with Luna conjuring a shield over the defenders. "It seems the mines have little effect on their tanks," Stormguard observed as the Mareitanians drew ever closer. "It seems they're simply too tough to take more than a little superficial damage." "Unsurprising," Luna said back calmly, her horn blazing with power. "Their designer had plenty of time to correct their flaws in the last few months. It seems she thought of more than even I would have to reinforce their underneath to such a degree. I doubt the tanks would survive the entire journey under that much duress though, and it would seem the Mareitanians agree since they're making efforts to dig the mines up first." "And if they discover the traps?" "Then we shall simply have to deal with them arriving a bit sooner than anticipated. If we keep them from destroying the wall, and fend off their griffons, we should be able to hold them for weeks." "And if Faust should turn up?" Luna didn't answer immediately, as there was no good answer she could give. "Then we should pray for mercy for all our souls," she said in a low mumble, not caring whether the General heard her or not. The large wooden platform Luna and Stormguard were using to observe events from behind the wall rumbled beneath their hooves as a heavy-set earth pony galloped up the stairs, withdrew his helmet, and saluted both of them. "Captain Greywhisker reports that your Night Guard and the Wonderbolts are in position in high altitude, ready to attack the griffons on your command." "Very good," Luna purred. "Tell him to hold his position for now, until the griffons are distracted. When the third large explosion goes off, that's when they should attack." The soldier saluted again and ran off to deliver the instructions, again leaving Luna alone with Stormguard. "Are two thirds of their forces past the first trap yet?" "Uh..." Stormguard picked up his binoculars in his wings and held them up to his face, "Almost. Good job they were already past it before they started looking for mines." "Excellent. Prepare to detonate it once we've given enough time for Captain Greywhisker to receive the message." Luna closed her eyes and breathed deeply as the General relayed the order. She was wondering whether she should be glad things were going as well as they were, but the number of enemy soldiers bothered her. Why commit all your tanks to a single battle, but not all your soldiers? Not that Luna would herself either, but with only one avenue of attack available, it didn't seem worth holding them back. Of course there was the possibility that they had more than one avenue of attack, and not all were suitable for tanks, but Luna couldn't for the life of her think where else they could attack without their fleet. The idea left her more than worried, and she had enough to worry about in front of her as it was. Quickly making an excuse to Stormguard, Luna dropped off the platform, spreading her wings to glide down to the ground. She maintained the shield as she trotted through the assembled soldiery, nodding and smiling reassuringly at ponies as she made her way to where the munitions were kept, which was where she was hoping to find a little reassurance for herself. A quick enquiry found her being carefully presented with a well padded case which she opened with the utmost caution. Inside it were four smaller containers, each one individually packed to protect their precious cargo. Luna cracked one of them opened, releasing a dim orange glow that shifted and moved as the contents of the enchanted crystal orb swirled and writhed. She picked it up and held it before her, staring at the mesmerizing dance of light the orb contained. "Liquid dragonfire," she breathed, unable to keep the thought in her head. Truthfully the substance had never so much as seen a dragon, but the effect it had was almost the same as how actual dragonfire worked. It was a pity that there was so little of it, especially when Luna intended to keep one of them for a rainy day. "Has a suitable method been found to fire these?" Luna asked the nervous looking crystal pony mare that ran the munitions store. She already knew the answer, but thought it best to ask so what she did next seemed less suspect. "No your Highness. Most methods risk breaking the orbs on firing, which is obviously not ideal." Luna nodded vaguely, "Then perhaps it is best that I keep them with me to use when I see fit." She placed the orb held aloft in her magic back in its protective case, and lifted the case instead. Hopefully now Luna would be prepared in case that rainy day did happen to come. -0-0-0- Rainbow twitched her ears irritably as the second in a series of powerful explosions set off, her helmet interfering with her ability to move them. It was only a short distraction though, because as soon as the third large explosion went off, there would be little time to think about such things. Shielding her eyes, Rainbow squinted into the distance, trying to make out what was happening far below. It didn't take much to guess. Explosions along the ridge had decimated portions of the Mareitanians advance, although they were still coming. The Equestrian forces were still holed up due to the griffons, but they seemed less certain all the time as the explosions went off. The only real problem were the tanks, which didn't seem to be perturbed by anything much. At least not until the third explosion went off, cutting across the rear of the column of tanks, taking out a few in one go. Rainbow would've cheered, but that was also the signal to attack. Staying in formation, Rainbow followed the Night Guard's lead as they dived down towards the silvery dome of Luna's shield, and the griffons that swarmed it. As soon as they broke through the cloud cover, all of them drew their weapons. That was the only noise to be heard though, save for the sound of the wind whistling in their ears. The griffons seemed to be none the wiser to the Equestrians approach until they were almost upon them, and by then it was far too late as the leading ponies of the Night Guard cut into them, killing a couple dozen of the mercenaries before they even had a chance to react. React they did though, and things quickly changed as the griffons bellowed their war cries and flew into the fray. Rainbow rolled out of formation with the rest of her squadron, and picked up the pace, hoping to strike the griffons at speed while their attention was held by the tougher thestrals. It was the only real tactic the Wonderbolts had with their reduced numbers, and hopefully it worked better than their last attempt at fighting griffons. Rainbow's squadron looped around to the left and split up further into their wings of three as they headed back into the fray. Rainbow kept her blades close to her sides, so as to not accidentally hit any friendlies. There was a distinct possibility of that though, as the fight they were turning back to join was already a total clusterfuck of pegasi, thestrals, and griffons, duking it out in a battle to both kill and survive. Rainbow had no intention of letting the griffons do either. Rainbow angled down and to the right as a trio of Night Guards chased after a heavily wounded griffon, using the opening they made to slip into the fight. Absolute chaos whirled around them as they dodged and weaved through the mass of struggling bodies. A duo of griffons came towards them, and Rainbow dipped and rolled, striking out with a blade, but only managed to cut a gouge into the foremost griffons chest armour before they'd passed over. "This isn't going to work," Rainbow growled. The fight was simply too compact to manoeuvre and attack in at the speeds they were using. They were simply going to have to get down and dirty, a prospect that didn't exactly thrill Rainbow. Rainbow led her wing back to the edge of the fight, skipping around the edge of it to pick their targets rather than simply rush back and forward through the battle without really doing anything besides get in the way. No griffons had decided to make them a target yet, giving them an opportunity to hopefully get some decent kicks in. A griffon hen armed with a spear was hanging around the edges of the fight, and must have had the same idea as Rainbow as she tried to pick off targets rather than throw herself into the fight. Rainbow tried to lead her wing around in a loop that would bring them in behind the hen, but as the griffon followed a group of passing thestrals she spotted Rainbow as she flew in, and raised her spear to block the attack. Rainbow barrelled straight into the griffon, locking her blades against the shaft of spear, preventing the griffon from using it as Cloud Chaser and Thunderlane came around and attacked from the sides. Rainbow pushed her enchanted blades against the spear as the griffon fell, cutting the weapon into two before letting it fall after its owner onto the shield below. Her legs ached from the pressure that entire few seconds had put on them, but it was nothing to worry about, not when there were plenty more targets around them. Their attack must have drawn some attention though as the screech of a griffon drew their eyes up towards another griffon that was coming down towards them, a short sword in each claw. Rainbow was about to shout to scatter when a trio of Wonderbolts shot out of the blue and slammed into the griffon blades first. "Nice of you to join us Lightning," Rainbow joked, telling who their saviours were more by the marks on their helmets and the colour of their tails than any recognisable features of the ponies themselves. "Are you trying to get yourselves killed?" Lightning said back. "A pegasus that isn't moving, is a dead pegasus." "We're not dead yet," Rainbow laughed, following Lightning into a climb that put them above most of the fight. The laugh came out hollow even to her ears though, and she felt a little sick at herself for even being able to laugh in that situation. "Keep that up and you will be. Griffons at five o' clock." Rainbow looked back and to her right to where Lightning had said, seeing a small group of griffons break loose of the fight. She nodded to Lightning and pushed herself into a flip that carried them almost back the way they'd come, and back towards the griffons that had seen them coming. Rainbow led her wing-mates to the right as Lightning took hers left, and held her blades out ready to strike. She rolled at the last moment, skipping under the griffon's weapon and landing a blow on its hindquarters that distracted it enough for Cloud Chaser to slash the griffon across the neck with a wound that would kill the griffon soon enough. Thunderlane followed up by viciously impaling another griffon that got distracted by its fellow's shout of pain. A third griffon fell from Lightning's attack, and the remainder scattered, heading back towards the Mareitanians. A different cry to the usual one sounded amongst the griffons, leading to more and more of them to break away from the fight, fleeing towards the relative safety of their allies as the battle ended after mere minutes. Rainbow started to pursue them when the shouted orders to stand down reached her ears. "But they're vulnerable!" Rainbow shouted back at whoever was bellowing the order. She still obeyed though, and fell back in besides Lightning, Sky Stinger and Vapour as they regrouped. "I can't believe they told us to not go after them." Lightning shrugged, "I imagine they'll be back soon enough. We can have another go then." "I guess. Still though, I think that went better than last time. I guess having the element of surprise really does help." "Maybe, but I also think these griffons are sloppy as hell. I'm hoping not, but they might start learning a thing or two about teamwork if we keep this up." -0-0-0- Luna nodded with satisfaction as the griffons ceased crowding the skies above them and retreated back to their own lines. Clearly the practice in aerial combat their forces had been doing was getting put to good use. Now they were gone she could lower her shield and focus her energy onto other things. Such as catching the bodies that had ended up resting on the shields as they fell. "Oops," Luna muttered as a griffon plummeted to the ground, not even really trying all that hard to catch it. Other ponies were a little less discerning than Luna was feeling, catching as many as they could since a rain of dead griffons wasn't exactly on the cards for the day. Luna couldn't blame them. All in all things were going remarkably well, which to Luna meant that it was time for something to go wrong. The Mareitanians advance had been ruined, the griffons had taken serious losses in their arrogance, and the wall hadn't taken so much as a scratch. Things were going almost too well which was making Luna nervous. Either they were missing something, or the Mareitanians really were caught out by the Equestrians preparations. "What are your orders now Princess?" Stormguard asked, a faint smile on his face, born more out of relief that things had gone as they did than out of any actual happiness. "Now? Now I give them a reason to consider turning around and going home, where hopefully they can fully think about whether they truly wish to do this or not." "And how do you intend to do that?" Luna smiled crookedly and opened the case containing the dragonfire bombs, lifting one up to hold between them. "By seeing if these are truly as effective as advertised." She lifted another two of the glowing orbs up to join it. "Hold the fort while I'm gone, although I suspect I shall not be gone long." "Are you not taking all the bombs with you?" "Not this time. I'm saving the last one just in case I need it." "Just in case of what?" General Stormguard asked slowly. "Believe me, you'll know her when you see her," Luna replied before teleporting away into the air and flying towards the front of the Mareitanians lines. The three bombs circled around around her, ready to be used, but first she wanted to have a better look at what was happening. On observation it appeared as though the Mareitanians were retreating, but after the third explosive trap had rendered a fair number of their tanks at the rear of the column inoperable, that retreat was proving difficult. Their solution seemed to be to use some of the working tanks to shove the wreckage of the destroyed ones into the ocean, clearing a way to escape through. If Luna were in charge she'd press the advance, but if Luna was in charge she'd be relieved to not be up against herself. Beyond the tanks, the infantry seemed to be as numerous as ever, but that was largely down to the eye not being able to really tell the difference between five thousand and four thousand, especially when they stretched back into the distance like they did. If was also ambitious to think that they'd taken a thousand ponies out of the fight, when the actual number was in reality probably less than half of that. The simple answer was that they still had the numbers to press on, but weren't, and that made Luna nervous. She didn't know for sure who was in charge of the Mareitanians here, but she suspected it was likely General Snowbright, and from what she had learnt of him through the Mareitanian civil war was that he was not one to be overly cautious, not without a good reason. It was probably too much to hope that what had happened so far had scared him. Luna tried to put it out of her mind, putting her concerns down to pure pessimism. All she could really do was react to the situation, and right now she was in a position to slow the Mareitanians down even further. Luna swooped down from the sky, heading directly towards the front of the tank column, which consisted of the tanks that had found most of the landmines if the dents and blast marks were any indication. She lined the dragonfire bombs up and released them as she pulled up, letting each one fall towards a different tank. The effect was drastic, and the small tinkle of shattering crystals was a deceptive start to what felt like the birth of a miniature sun. Even at the speed Luna was moving away from the developing inferno, she could feel her tail and feathers singeing. She turned back towards the wall, but stopped, because despite the danger, she had to see what was happening. For all the heat being released, the size of the flames were actually very small, albeit bright, and only coated a small part of each tank. It was more than enough though, as the heat produced by the volatile liquid was enough to cut through steel, and more than enough to melt through the tanks' thick shells. Luna laid her ears flat as screams from the tanks' occupants reached her. They didn't last very long, not as the bodies of the tanks first glowed red, then white, as the dragonfire burned through it. Rivulets of metal ran down from the edges of the inferno, and slowly the tanks drooped and bent out of shape, no longer able to support their own weight as their support structure was made soft by the heat. Luna now had an appreciation as to why the bombs were so hard to make. As ferocious as the liquid dragonfire was, it soon burned itself out, and as the flames died down all around could see the gutted and half melted remains of the three tanks as they still glowed with heat. Behind them, Luna could see plenty of tank crews make a hasty exit out of their own vehicles, not wanting the same to happen to them. That, or they'd been close enough to become uncomfortably warm from the dragonfire. "Bugger me," Luna said slowly, totally stunned by what had happened. "We are going to have to acquire us some more of those," she said as she took to the air and flew back to her viewing platform. "Did they work as intended?" Stormguard enquired as Luna landed on the platform next to him. "You mean you couldn't tell from here?" "Indeed I could your Highness, but I wasn't really sure if that's what they were meant to do." "They were meant to stop tanks," Luna said, lifting her binoculars up to her eyes to look again at the tanks. They were still glowing. "I daresay they were more than adequate at doing so." "So now we wait?" "Indeed. Hopefully the Mareitanians don't have a surprise as good as ours was. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some ponies I wish to talk to while we wait for their next move." -0-0-0- Food was never just food. Sometimes it was a comfort, or an experience. Sometimes it was a talking point, or a burden when you're busy. Sometimes, like now, it was a distraction, because Rainbow wanted desperately to not think about how she managed to genuinely laugh at her own mortality in the heat of battle. Some things were just too messed up to want to think about. "How many griffons do you think there are?" Lightning asked, providing another welcome distraction as they sat around the mess area, quickly shovelling a simple meal into their bodies before A and C squadron had their turn. "I'm only asking because that was less than there were in Stalliongrad." "Less is good, right?" Sky Stinger said, looking to the others for confirmation. "Right?" "This time, sure," said Thunderlane. "When you really think about it though, it doesn't add up. Considering you have us, the Night Guard, and the Air Corps when it's finally ready, why would a few thousand griffons sign up to fight against those kinds of odds? That's suicide, unless there are a lot more of them than we think there are." Lightning almost choked on her mouthful as she thought that one over. "But that would mean there are literally thousands of griffons fighting for Mareitania! No way could there be that many!" Cloud Chaser shrugged at Lightning, "There are plenty of griffons that don't like Equestria for some reason or another. I imagine there are plenty that would sign up just to fight us." "But w-what have we done to them?" Vapor asked, her voice still a little shaky after the battle. "Nothing," said Cloud. "I imagine they just hate us because their parents told them to hate us, and their parents hated us because their parents told them to hate us, and so on and so forth. Racism is learnt, not inherited." Rainbow raised an eyebrow at Cloud Chaser, "Says little miss 'it doesn't bother me to kill griffons because griffons aren't ponies.'" "Meh," Cloud said with a shrug. "I'd be more upset, but every griffon I meet these days seems to want to kill me for some reason. I don't actually have anything against griffons if that's what you're thinking." "I'm not thinking anything," said Rainbow. "I just want to get some chow in me and get back in the air in case they come back." "You seem keen," Sky Stinger said with a hint of sarcasm. "Do you even get what's happening here Sky?" Rainbow asked brusquely. "Do you realise what this really means?" "It can't mean that much since we held them off so easily. Why Rainbow, what do you think this all means?" "That they're trying to invade us you idiot! This isn't some little test of our defences Sky, this is them coming to invade Equestria! Yes I'm 'keen' to stop them from doing that!" Rainbow lifted her bowl to her mouth and drained the remainder of its contents, then got up and placed it on a nearby table. "Really Sky, are you even paying attention to any of this?" "Of course I am, but all I can see is a bunch of assholes over there that are too scared to keep attacking because we kicked their asses!" "And how long do you think that'll last? How long before they work out we blew all our traps stopping them from getting this far? It's not like we can send ponies out there to set more, and we can't do anything to slow them down because of all the griffons. Once they clear those burnt out tanks out of the way, there is nothing stopping them from getting to the wall, and if they get through that, well... that's it, they're in Equestria." "And that's not going to happen," Sky insisted. "Hopefully not." All of them looked up to see Princess Luna had quietly walked up to them while they were talking. "No need for that," she said as they dropped into bows, "although I suppose you are technically meant to salute. I'm not sure about that." Luna smiled as the Wonderbolts sprang out of their bows and saluted her instead, a salute which she happily returned. "At ease, all of you." "Is there something we can help you with?" Lightning asked as they retook their seats. "Actually I came here hoping to speak with Spitfire," said Luna. "I wasn't intending to intrude on your conversation at all. I don't suppose you've seen Spitfire down here?" "She's still in the air," Rainbow told Luna. "It'll be her squadron's turn to have a break once we get back up there." Luna nodded, "Very well. If you could inform her that I'd like to see her when she lands, I'd appreciate it." "Of course." "Good. Other than that I feel I should say well done for chasing those griffons off. Clearly your practice is paying off." "If you don't mind my asking Princess," Rainbow said a little nervously, "why aren't there that many griffons here? There were loads more in Stalliongrad." Luna mulled over whether to answer the question, or just brush it off. It didn't take her long to realise that the two things were actually almost the same thing, because she didn't know why the Mareitanians were fielding all of their tanks, but not much else. "I wish I knew Rainbow. All we can do is prepare for the possibility that not all is as it seems here. Still, we can only deal with what we know about, and react to everything else." Knowing that answer was not what they were looking for, Luna saluted and left. "Well that was helpful," Thunderlane muttered. "And strangely awkward." "You can't exactly blame her for not knowing either," said Lightning. "If this was their big push into Equestria, they're not exactly pushing very hard." "But where else would they attack?" Cloud chaser asked. "We burnt all their boats, and I doubt they've built more." "Unless those griffons also have boats," said Rainbow. "Or airships. Ugh, that's a scary thought." "I'm sure the Princess would have planned for that if they did," said Lightning. She pricked her ears as a shrill whistle sounded, and saw it came from Fire Streak, their squadron leader. "Guess that's our cue to get our butts back in the air." All of them quickly finished what remained of their meals and took off towards where the other Wonderbolts and a large number of the Night Guard were patrolling the skies above the Bulwark. Rainbow lazily flew over towards Spitfire where she was having a quick conversation with Fire Streak. "Sorry to disturb you ma'am, but Princess Luna asked us to tell you she wants to talk to you when you land." Spitfire sighed and nodded, "No rest for the wicked I guess. Alright, if the griffons come back, get together with the Night Guard and let them do the bulk of the fighting. If the tanks and that start moving towards us again, but no griffons show up, stay back and wait for orders." Spitfire tossed a quick salute at them, then descended to the ground, leaving them to start patrolling the sky. Thankfully all seemed to be quiet. The Mareitanian forces had huddled up in the distance, and weren't showing any signs of changing that. The three half melted tanks were still smouldering with heat, blocking the way for the Mareitanians to advance further. There was no real way to tell what the Mareitanians were going to do. With any luck they might just give up. "Well this is unexciting," Thunderlane moaned as they flew another lap over the Equestrian bulwark. "Actually I'm totally fine with this," Cloud snickered. "Not almost dying in ridiculously fast paced fights, is better than almost dying in ridiculously fast paced fights." "So we're just going to keep on flying back and forth until something happens? Sure, sure, sounds great. What if this lasts for a week or something though? Us flapping about up here for all that time?" Thunderlane shuddered at the thought, "No thanks." "The Mareitanians would just be wasting their own time and resources doing that," said Rainbow, adding her own thoughts to the conversation. "They'll do something soon enough, I'm sure of it." Thunderlane huffed loudly, "Define 'soon.' Is soon today? This week? Next week? When Rainbow? I wanna know!" Rainbow slowed herself to playfully shove Thunderlane, "Quit being an ass. I'm just saying I doubt that the Mareitanians would take more than a few days to get moving again. In fact, I'm going to bet that they won't even make it to tomor-" "Guys, shut up!" Cloud interrupting them suddenly. "I just saw something." "Saw what?" Rainbow asked quickly, the interruption forgotten. "A griffon just flew in," Cloud told them, only to get laughed at by Thunderlane. "You saw a griffon. My word, how unusual." "Shut up Thunderlane! I saw a griffon fly in from the north! Why would it do that, huh? Tell me that genius!" "Maybe it got drunk and flew the wrong way," Thunderlane said dismissively. "Or maybe it's worth mentioning to somepony," said Rainbow. "Good eyes Cloud." Cloud beamed at Thunderlane, who rolled his eyes and scoffed. He didn't say anything else, and stayed quiet as what was seen was reported to Fire Streak, who moved on to report it to Spitfire, who had the final say on whether to report it further. That done, Rainbow returned to patrol. -0-0-0- "From the north?" Luna murmured to herself, pondering Spitfire's report. The only place to the north from there was the rather inhospitable frozen north. Unless of course it wasn't exactly to the north, in which case it was possible to say the griffon came from the direction of the Crystal Empire, but that also seemed unlikely. Unless... "We have movement!" Stormguard shouted, shattering Luna's thoughts as she snatched up her own binoculars to see what he was looking at. All at once the Mareitanians tanks all started rumbling towards them, heading over the ground they'd already cleared of traps and landmines, totally without fear or hesitation as they slowly raced towards the Equestrian defences, the infantry right behind them, and the griffons flying above them. "This must have been their plan all along," Luna whimpered as it struck her. Now they were really attacking, and after carefully clearing the mines, and setting off all the traps, the Equestrians suddenly had nothing to stop them with. "Arm the catapults! Prepare to fire!" There was a crash as the tanks collided with the burnt out remains of the tanks that Luna had destroyed, roughly shoving them out of the way as the tanks continued on their path towards the Bulwark. At a signal from Luna the four catapults fired, their explosive payloads scoring hits on two of the tanks while the others struck the ground causing little damage. Not that it seemed to matter as the tanks that were hit carried on regardless, blackened and dented, but not deterred. Whoever was driving them had some serious guts. Luna set up a shield as the tanks came into range to fire their own weapons, backed up by every unicorn capable of doing so. Other ponies took their positions, reloading the catapults, or firing their magic and ranged weapons at the Mareitanian soldiers not safely ensconced inside the tanks. The shield flashed as the first volley of explosives from the tanks crashed against it, and ponies were deafened by the explosions. The shield held though, although it was debatable how long it would against that kind of punishment. The griffons swept ahead of the tanks, swooping down to pick ponies off while Luna was forced to shield against the tanks. The Night Guard and Wonderbolts were quick to grab their attention, viciously attacking the griffons to spare their fellows below, although plenty of them fired back against the griffons as well, some scoring hits, others putting the fliers on their side in as much danger as the griffons. They were soon ordered to stop firing and to let the fliers take care of the griffons. Things were quickly spiralling out of control. The sudden aggression of the Mareitanians was totally unexpected, and without the traps and mines to slow them down, they were hitting as hard as they could. The catapults fired again, bombarding the tanks and soldiers, but now they were so close it really did seem far too little to try and even slow the Mareitanians, let alone stop them. Luna growled in pain as the leading tanks pressed up against the shield. Stopping the bombs they were throwing was one thing, but to try and resist that much weight and pressure being placed on the shield was simply not possible. Unicorns around her were dropping to their knees as they tried to give their all to stop the shield from collapsing. It was a pointless effort, and after mere seconds the shield broke, allowing the tanks to reach the wall. It also allowed them to fire over them. As soon as she had the mental wherewithal to do so, Luna erected another shield above the Bulwark to catch the bombs the tanks threw over the wall. The wall was pointless if the defenders behind it could be obliterated with such ease. To her shame, Luna suddenly found herself short of ideas on how to turn this around. -0-0-0- Rainbow couldn't believe what she was seeing. Within minutes the Mareitanians had not only reached the wall, but had put the defenders severely on the back hoof, desperately trying to hold back the attackers. Rainbow had soon found herself thrown back into the fight as the griffons attacked again, and now was fighting for her very life as the griffons took a far more reckless and vicious stance in their fight. Rainbow dipped and rolled right, avoiding a wing of griffons that were coming right for her and her own wing, and she didn't even have a chance to try and attack them before they were gone. This time Rainbow didn't stop to complain about it, and instead focused on other griffons that were unaware of their presence. Leading with her rear hooves, Rainbow dropped onto the lead griffon, hitting him in the middle of his back and plunging his right blade through his neck and out the other side. The other griffons scattered before Thunderlane and Cloud Chaser could even try to attack. "Rainbow!" Rainbow looked back as Thunderlane shouted her name, and saw him pointing upwards to where some of the Night Guard were getting swarmed, and were in need of help. Rainbow nodded and quickly led them upwards, dodging around both ponies and griffons to strike the griffons attacking the thestrals from below. Keeping her blades close to herself, Rainbow aimed herself close to the side of a griffon, timing it so she passed him as he raised his wing to flap. Just as she was going to pass him, she held her bladed out, not severing the wing, but removing enough feathers to make flight impossible. With the griffons Thunderlane and Cloud had attacked also taken out of the picture, the thestrals suddenly had an opening to escape the swarm of griffons around them. A gap that was made bigger as Rainbow led her wing back down for another go. Given the opportunity, the thestrals pushed back against the griffons, and with their reduced numbers they were forced to fall back. Rainbow sighed with relief, and returned to the thestrals to ask if they were okay, and was surprised when she ran into the familiar face of the thestral Shadow Seeker. "We're okay thanks," Shadow gasped between breaths as she wiped blood from a shallow cut on her neck. "What were you doing to get surrounded like that?" "Protecting her." Shadow pointed back at a pony that was flying in the middle of the thestrals. It was a crystal pegasus in the crystalline armour of the Empire's Imperial Guard. She was wounded, but it didn't seem too bad since she was still flying okay. "She has an important message for Luna, so we need to escort her there." Rainbow nodded, "Then let's get moving before those griffons come back with friends." Rainbow and her wing joined the group of thestrals surrounding the crystal pegasus, and took a direct line towards Luna, smashing through the griffon forces to get there as soon as possible. They quickly pulled up and changed direction as another volley from the tanks crashed against the shield, filling the air with a short lived inferno that they did not want to get caught in. Instead they headed to the rear of the shield, and slipped under it to safety, allowing a few unicorns to deter the few griffons following them. Rather than waste time walking, they flew above the heads of the defenders, while most of the thestrals peeled off and headed back into the fight. Rainbow didn't join them, slightly to her shame, but she wanted to know what was so important that this pegasus was willing to fly into a vicious dogfight just to deliver a message. "Mistress!" Shadow shouted as they got close to Luna. "We've found a messenger coming from the Crystal Empire," she continued once she had Luna's attention. "She says it's important." "It must be if it's worth risking herself like this. Speak guardsmare." "The Crystal Empire is under attack!" the mare shouted. Now Rainbow wasn't fighting, she could see the wild and panicked look the mare had in her eye. "What? How?" "The came from the north, the Mareitanians I mean. Thousands of them! Princess Cadence has shielded the city, but without any forces to fight them off with, it's only a matter of time until they break through! Faust's with them!" Luna froze, almost unable to process what she had just been told. The Mareitanians were attacking the Crystal Empire from the north? And had Faust with them no less? It didn't seem possible. Luna kicked herself as she thought about how it would be possible. The crystal ponies of Caverndown had used a secret way to escape to Mareitania from the Crystal Empire during King Sombra's reign a thousand years ago. Nopony knew where the hidden way was anymore, but there was one pony who might; the alicorn Faust. They hadn't been surveying northern Mareitania for mining opportunities, they'd been searching for the tunnels! Luna looked back out over the mass of ponies trying to break through the wall, and knew she couldn't leave, but she couldn't do nothing either. "Blast it! Stormguard, send a messenger to General Armour informing him of the Empire's plight. Then send another messenger to Canterlot to inform Celestia of all of this, and ask her to find Windy Rush and send her to the Crystal Empire. Rainbow Dash, get back out there and find Spitfire. The Wonderbolts are the only ponies here we can send right now because it'll take too long to send any others." All of them saluted her and rushed off to fulfill her orders, leaving Luna to hold the shield alone, apart from the Imperial Guard that had delivered the message. "You, can you still fly?" The mare nodded confidently, "Yes your Highness." "Good. Fly to Vanhoover, to the Mayor's office." Princess cast a small spell, creating a small token with her seal on it, so that whoever saw it would know that the message was from her. "Tell him to begin evacuating the city."

The end of an era

23. Crystal defence

Snow plastered itself on Spitfire's goggles, blinding her as she and the other Wonderbolts raced to the Crystal Empire as fast as possible, their wings beating hard against the frigid air and cold winds that surrounded the Crystal Empire. The Empire itself was still a dot in the distance consisting of a shining blue dome that was probably the shield now surrounding the city. Apart from that, everything seemed quiet, although that didn't necessarily mean anything. Somewhere out there was an army led being led by Faust herself, and here they were, not even a full fifty Wonderbolts, going to hold them off, without so much as an idea of how to do so. Things became no clearer as they got closer. To the west of the city, rather than the north as was reported, was a massive army, at least twice the size of the one attacking the bulwark at Vanhoover, although this one had no tanks or siege weaponry to speak of. The shield was also smaller than the Empire itself, concentrating itself over the city while ignoring the surrounding area, which was at the very least still being protected from the extreme weather, which came as a relief as the Wonderbolts passed over the threshold, leaving the snows behind. Within moments of that an orange pegasus in Royal Guard armour flew up to meet them from the train station that lay outside the shield boundary. "Boy are we glad to see you guys," he said. "There's no point going any further because you can't get through the shield, so if you'll follow me down to the station I can give you something that'll let you through." Spitfire hesitated as the guard flew off towards the station, but it was only for a moment before gesturing for all of them to follow after him to land at the station. A few other stallions in the armour of the Imperial Guard were there as well, along with boxes and boxes of small coin sized crystals. "What's the situation here...uh, what's your name?" "Sergeant Flash Sentry ma'am, and I have to say it's an honour to meet you all. As for the situation, it's not great. The Mareitanians showed up about six hours ago, along with their leader Faust. They attacked for a little bit, but it didn't seem like they were trying too hard to get through the shield. Then they backed off and now they're just sitting in the temperate zone, like they're waiting for something. With the Crystal Legions deployed elsewhere, we have nothing to push them back with." Flash leant over to look along the train tracks, "I don't suppose there are any other reinforcements coming?" "It's just us for now," said Spitfire. "Vanhoover is currently under attack as well-" "What? How? How could they possibly attack two places at once?" Spitfire ignored him, "-and we didn't have time to ask what the plan was before flying up here, but I imagine reinforcements will be coming from Camp Freedom once General Armour gets the news." Spitfire gestured at the boxes, "What's up with the crystals?" "How can they actually attack two places at once? How are they even attacking here?" Spitfire stomped a hoof, hard. "Hey, focus. What's with the crystals?" "The-uh... the crystals! Yes! You'll need one of those to get through the shield. Crystal ponies can pass through it without one, but the rest of us aren't so lucky." Flash picked one out of the nearest box and tossed it to Spitfire, "Just keep it on you somewhere and you can pass through the shield. We've been stockpiling them for weeks now, just in case of something like this. We did think the attack would come from a different direction though." "Stop thinking about it," Spitfire said pocketing the crystal while the rest of the Wonderbolts started picking up crystals of their own. "Where's Princess Cadence now?" "With the Crystal Heart, maintaining the shield. I'll take you there once you all have a crystal." A couple of minutes later they were flying again, following Flash through the shield and towards the glittering spire of the crystalline castle at the very centre of the Empire. It glowed from the inside as the energies that normally went into the aurora of positive energies the Crystal Heart produced, were channelled into the shield protecting the city. Thousands of Crystal ponies clustered around the castle, waiting for news, but the area directly beneath the castle remained clear, allowing Princess Cadence and her entourage to work unimpeded. Cadence looked up and managed a smile as the Wonderbolts came in to land in the empty space. "Finally, some good news." "Not really ma'am," Spitfire said to Cadence. "The Mareitanians are also attacking at Vanhoover, so until General Armour gets here with help from Camp Freedom, we're all you're getting." Cadence lost her smile. "I see. Then we'll just have to do what we can with what we have for now. I think the first thing we should do is work out what exactly it is we're up against. What numbers they have, and what weapons." "We were told Faust was with them." "She is," Cadence confirmed. "She's not done anything as yet, but if she's as powerful as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight says she is, then I doubt the shield will hold her back for long. To be honest, if the Mareitanians really meant to, they could have taken the Empire by now. I don't know why they haven't, or what they're waiting for." "Maybe they're looking to make a proper fight of it," Fleetfoot said to Spitfire. "Draw our unexperienced forces up here to defend the Empire, then take out as many of us as possible." "Possible," Cadence said, sounding like the very idea made her feel sick. "I was hoping to get some advice from a more military minded pony before I acted. Not that there was much I could do anyway. What do you think Captain?" Spitfire avoided making a face at the question. To her the situation looked pretty hopeless, and without an army of their own there was no way to win this. Perhaps finding out about the enemy forces might help, and would at least mean she could avoid giving an answer for a little bit. "We'll do a scouting run, then come up with something once we know what's going on a bit better." -0-0-0- "There she is," Lightning said of the large white dot standing amongst the Mareitanians army, as her wing and Rainbow's flew above the shield on their scouting run. "Faust herself, the cause of everything wrong that's happening in the world at this moment." "I thought she'd be taller," said Cloud Chaser. "She doesn't look much bigger than Princess Celestia." "Size isn't everything," said Lightning. "Isn't that right Sky?" "Exactlyyy... Wait, why are you asking me?" "No reason." Lightning turned back to the Mareitanians. "Look at them down there. There must be twice as many as there is attacking Vanhoover." "No tanks, or anything like that," said Rainbow. "If Luna can hold them off in Vanhoover, they won't have any heavy weapons to fight with." "Oh no," Thunderlane said sarcastically, "they'll just have their superiors numbers, better experience, griffon mercenaries, and super-powered alicorn to rely on. How terrible for them." "Why are they even attacking here?" Vapor asked before anypony could rebuke Thunderlane. "The crystal ponies don't have an army here, or anything really." "They could just be trying to attack us on two fronts, to weaken us," said Cloud. "It's working too." "Maybe they want the city itself," said Rainbow. "I'm no expert, but there's some seriously powerful magic locked up in the Empire. Perhaps that's what Faust's after." "Does it even matter?" Sky Stinger scoffed. "I really don't think that Faust has the power to get through the shield, so as long as that stays up, we're fine." "And we're not going to listen to that," said Rainbow. "What you think, doesn't mean she can't." "We got griffons incoming," Thunderlane said suddenly, as dozens of griffons broke away from the Mareitanians encampment towards them. Rather than try and fight them off, the six of them dipped back into the safety the shield provided, and waved back at the griffons as they slammed their weapons against the blue dome in frustration. "How fucked would we be if they decided to go raid the train station?" Cloud asked. "I think the answer to that, is very," said Lightning. "Maybe we should suggest they move those crystals somewhere else." Lightning led the way into a long downward loop that brought them back outside the shield, but much lower down. "How are we supposed to identify the enemy's composition if we can't get close? There might be ten thousand soldiers there, but that's all we can tell." Rainbow shrugged, "I don't know. I was expecting to get thrown straight into battle, but then this all happened. Let's just keep doing this until somepony tells us otherwise." -0-0-0- Pinkie watched the snow zoom past the window of the train they were in. A train that was going full steam ahead to the Crystal Empire. A train that was ferrying them into direct contact with the enemy in what was probably going to be an actual battle. They were still weeks from completing their basic training, and hadn't even started to train other members of the Hard corps. To say she felt woefully unprepared was an understatement. Still, despite the news that both Vanhoover and the Crystal Empire was under attack, the atmosphere seemed almost cheery, with declarations that they were going to kick the Mareitanians collective butts. Pinkie liked to think she picked up enough from Twilight to not think like that, and her sisters knew enough that if Pinkie wasn't being cheerful, it had to be bad. That wasn't the only issue though. "Are we really going to run into battle carrying bags of rocks?" Azure whined, wriggling uncomfortably in her combat armour and pulling at her collar. Next to her were saddlebags, filled to the brim with hoof sized rocks. "Gah! I thought these uniforms were supposed to be flexible!" "They are," said Maud, who had requested the uniforms to be just so. Within a few days they'd received uniforms that were very similar to the Wonderbolts' flight suits, except dark grey in colour and slightly more armoured. "Is there something wrong with yours?" "...Nah," Azure sighed. "I think I'm just freaking out a bit. They're sending us to fight without even finishing our basic training, and I'm going to fight using a skill I developed barely even a week ago? That's fucking insane." "Aww," Pinkie cooed, "you'll be alright. You and Top Spin just need to stick with us and do what you can without putting yourselves in too much danger." Top Spin raised an eyebrow at Pinkie's reassurances, "And what makes you immune to danger? Huh? There's no safety on a battlefield guys. I don't even need experience at this to tell you that much." "It'll be fine," Pinkie insisted. "You'll see- Oh hey! We're almost there!" Moments after Pinkie had pointed it out, the line in the snow demarking the temperate climate of the Crystal Empire rushed past, and just like that, they were being bathed in sunshine. The train station lay just ahead, and the train lurched as it began to slow. "I guess this is it guys." A minute later the train ground to a halt, and ponies started to disembark, either onto the station, or by jumping to the ground where the platform couldn't reach. Pinkie led the way, jumping down to the ground before heading around to the station to where Shining Armour should be. "Alright, listen up ponies. The city is being shielded right now, so all of you will need to grab a crystal out of these boxes allowing you to pass through it. Once you have your crystal, head to the city centre as quickly as possible. From there we can assess the situation and protect the Empire. Now get moving ponies; we have another train incoming, and I want this station cleared before it gets here!" Pinkie and the rest of their small unit pushed forwards to the front of the queue, grabbing their crystals as fast as the guards could give them out. Once they had their crystals they set into a brisk trot and made their way towards the city, passing harmlessly through the shield and into the shining metropolis beyond. "I've never been here before," Azure said as they made their way towards the city centre, passing between the shining homes of the crystal ponies. "I thought it'd be bigger being called an empire and all. They definitely got the crystal part down though." "I was told the Empire used to be bigger," Top Spin said to Azure. "The city you see now was the part that was hidden away by King Sombra's curse, while the rest was either destroyed in the battle to free the crystal ponies, or swallowed by the frozen north after the city vanished. Of course that doesn't make sense because they need this land around the city to grow food, and there's other stuff in it, but I'm just repeating what I was told." "There's some very big caves under the mountains," said Maud. "There's some very old buildings down there under the ice as well. I think this city was built after the Empire was made." "How do you know that?" Limestone asked her sister. "I studied the crystal formations in there as part of my rocktorate, although the buildings were interesting too." "Okay," Azure said, nodding slowly. "Why build this place then?" "Why build anything anywhere?" Maud asked back. "If I was to guess, I'd say there's a large convergence of ley lines right under the city that powers the magic here." "And what makes you say that?" "You can feel the power in the crystals. It's impressive." "That doesn't explain why it was built though." Azure rubbed a hoof over the smooth crystal, humming to herself. "I guess this place does kind of feel magical now you mention it though. I thought it was just the feeling of walking on crystals." "Or you're more in tune with it now," said Pinkie. She looked up as they passed between the arch under the castle, then back down, spotting the pink form of Princess Cadence. "Ooh! Hi Cadence!" Pinkie shouted, waving vigorously at the princess, who smiled sadly back. "I didn't realise you were fighting as well Pinkie," Cadence said as their group got closer. "Of course I am! How else am I going to save Equestria and get my friends back?" "How indeed..." Cadence half whispered. "As nice as it is to see you Pinkie, I'm afraid I'm too busy keeping the Crystal Heart running to talk much. Is... Shining with you?" "Yep! He's getting ponies sorted out right now, but I'm sure he'll be along soon enough." "Okay. Thank you Pinkie." "No problemo Cadence. I'll-" Pinkie stopped as somepony tapped her on the back. She turned, and gasped as her eyes caught onto the rainbow mane of the pony trying to get her attention. "Rainbow!" "Hey Pinki- Ack!" Rainbow gasped as Pinkie leapt onto her, dragging her down into a hug that threatened to crush the life from her. "Eeeee! I'm so happy to see you Rainbow! I haven't seen you in ages!" "Take it easy Pinkie!" Rainbow wheezed, her lungs struggling to pull in breath from the weight on top of her. "What have you got in those bags? Lead?" "Nope! Rocks!" Pinkie released Rainbow and climbed off her, offering a hoof to pull Rainbow up after her. "Why the hell do you have bags full of rocks Pinkie?" "It's something our unit's doing." Pinkie pulled her sisters and the other two members of their unit over, "Rainbow, say hello to the Hard corps." "Hi," Rainbow said blithely, seconds before realising that Maud was there. "Wait, you brought your sister into this as well?" "Sisters," Pinkie corrected her. "Rainbow, meet Limestone and Marble, my other sisters. The other two are Azure and Top Spin. They aren't related to us, but we still love 'em just as much! Anyway, everypony, meet Rainbow Dash, one of my bestest friends in the world!" "Hi," Rainbow said again, to all of them, standing there as they returned the greetings. "Pinkie, can I talk to you for a moment?" "Sure! What about?" "About you," Rainbow replied, pulling Pinkie away from the rest of the to talk in private. "Why the hell did you sign up to fight?" "What do you mean? Equestria and our friends are in danger, so what else was I supposed to do?" "Literally anything else! This isn't like that stupid fight between the Appleloosans and the buffalos Pinkie, using pies as weapons. This is real war, with killing, and fighting, and dying! Why would you sign up for that?" "You think I don't know what I signed up for? Rainbow, have you seen how much blood you have on you? If I wasn't prepared for that I'd probably be a lot more freaked out." "That's not what I mean Pinkie! I-" "Oh no, I can see where you're going with this. Poor ole Pinkie Pie's too happy-go-lucky for this. She couldn't possible be able to handle all the stuff that's going to happen in a fight, so she should just go home where it's safe and throw a party for all the ponies off risking their lives to save our country!" "I just want you to be safe Pinkie! Is that so wrong of me?" "No," Pinkie said after a moment of consideration. "But I want you to be safe as well, and the rest of our friends, and everypony in Equestria. I'm not going to make that happen by hiding somewhere until the war's over, one way or another." Rainbow bit her tongue, knowing full well she was being a bit irrational as Pinkie had as much right to fight as she did. That really didn't make her feel better though. "I'm sorry Pinkie. I just don't want any more of my friends getting hurt." Pinkie gave Rainbow a gentle smile, "Don't you worry Rainbow. Me and my sisters, and Azure and Top Spin, are all going to take care of each other. Just like your Wonderbolt friends are going to look after you. Speaking of, aren't you going to introduce me to them?" "Sure, but you already kinda know my wing ponies." -0-0-0- "And that's pretty much the situation," Spitfire said to Shining Armour, getting him up to speed on the situation. "Ten thousand Mareitanians and griffons, as well as Faust, against five thousand of us, hiding behind a shield." "I hate to say that the biggest complication here is Faust," said Shining. "It'd take them some serious effort to bring down or circumvent the shield without her, but I'm betting she could do it in minutes." "Then why hasn't she already?" "Who knows?" said Shining. "She can't be unaware we're all here now, so there must be something to her plan. What would you do in this situation if you were her Captain?" "If I was Faust?" Spitfire hummed and peered at the map of the Empire before them. "Right now, if I was Faust, I'd move my forces south to take the train station, both capturing the trains and cutting off our only means of retreat. Then, since we brought the shield accessing crystals in here with us, I'd either bust down the shield and wipe us out, or simply starve us out. Without Cadence powering the shield through the Crystal Heart, the shield would come down soon enough anyway, and we'd be too weak to mount a decent defence." "Why take the trains?" "So I could send my spare soldiers down to attack the bulwark at Vanhoover from the rear, if it hasn't fallen already. Then I'll need the train to ferry supplies up here for my soldiers laying siege to the Empire. Then once the Empire has fallen, I'd gather my strength and march straight on Canterlot, because if you take Canterlot, the rest of Equestria should fall easy enough." Spitfire coughed awkwardly as she saw the way Shining was looking at her. "I guess I'm getting a bit ahead of myself there." "At bit." Shining shrugged, "Still though, even in that scenario, why take the Crystal Empire at all?" "No idea," said Spitfire. "I'd say she's doing it to divide our forces from defending the bulwark, but she easily has enough forces to take both." "From our last intel, we've only seen two thirds of her forces at most." Shining sighed and twisted the map to look at it from another angle, hoping that might help him figure out what Faust was planning. It didn't. "If she's not doing what you said, what is she doing?" "Does it matter?" said Spitfire. "We don't have the numbers to hold them off, and their army has more experience. I hate to say it General, but if, and when, she decides to attack and get through that shield, this isn't a fight we can win. There's no point throwing all those lives away for nothing if we have no chance of holding the city." Shining closed his eyes and nodded. He'd suspected as much, but to hear it from one of the few ponies with more actual military experience than him was a definite sign it was true. "What do you suggest then?" "Evacuate the city. The sick, young, and elderly can take the trains, while everypony else dresses warm and walks. We'll perform a holding action in case Faust tries anything, falling back street by street until the city is empty, then follow the civilians south, acting as a buffer between the Mareitanians and the crystal ponies." "That's almost forty miles of freezing snow and ice Spitfire! There's no way we can ask all those ponies to walk that far! It'd be suicide!" Spitfire resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her superior. "The other option is to leave them here with Faust after we all kill ourselves in a battle we can't currently win. Your choice General. If it helps you could ask the crystal pegasi in the Imperial Guard to try and clear the clouds out in front of the civvies." "Won't work. The weather up here is wild even for wild weather standards. I guess we don't have a lot of choice though, although the choice is ultimately yours Cadence," Shining said to the other pony standing there, who had remained silent until now. Cadence couldn't even pretend to be happy that the decision was hers as she spoke in a flat, near monotone voice. "I feel that Captain Spitfire might be right in her assessment of the situation. There's no point wasting lives for nothing." "Only if you're sure honey," Shining said, shifting briefly from military leader mode to husband mode. Cadence nodded once, "I'm sure." "Then it's settled. Spitfire, can you handle the defence while I sort out the evacuation?" Spitfire grinned and saluted, "You can count on me General." "Good." Shining returned the salute, and held it as Spitfire flew off. Then he turned to the unicorn holding the only thing as precious to him as Cadence. "Sunburst, you are taking Flurry, and you are going on the first train out of here. Do I make myself clear?" "Crystal- Uh, I mean, yes sir." "Good. Thank you Sunburst." Shining lifted the bubbly baby alicorn out of the crystal basket Sunburst was holding, and took her over to Cadence. "Mommy and Daddy are going to have to go away for a little bit, but don't you worry because uncle Sunburst is going to take great care of you until we come back to find you." Cadence planted a kiss on Flurry Heart's cheek, then another as tears started running down her own cheeks. "Mommy and Daddy love you very much. Always remember that." Cadence nearly choked as Flurry giggled and hugged her nose, totally ignorant of what was happening as only a foal could be. Shining held them both for a moment, then placed his daughter back into the basket, kissing her gently next to her horn. "Stay safe Flurry." He nodded to Sunburst, who turned and ran towards the station. "We'll see you again soon," he said as Sunburst galloped into the distance. -0-0-0- "I'm curious," Thunderlane said as he followed Rainbow Dash through the skies, keeping an eye on both the Mareitanians, and the ponies running about below. "About what?" Rainbow asked a little unsurely. Knowing Thunderlane it was going to be something either stupid, or puerile. "About the crystal ponies. I mean... um, okay, you go for a night out and you meet a nice crystal pony mare, and she's amenable to... suggestions." Cloud Chaser burst out laughing. "Amenable to suggestions? Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?" "I'm trying to be serious here!" "Okay, okay," Cloud snickered. "Right, so you go out and meet a nice crystal pony mare who's 'amenable to suggestions,' so naturally you want to take her home and show her your collection of dolls and mint condition comics." "They're action figures, and no. What I'm getting at is, if you-uh... follow through on those suggestions-" "Good grief Thunderlane," Rainbow groaned. "The fact that you're being so careful about how to say this to two mares already suggests this is about sex, so how about you just get on and say it?" "Alright! Fine! I was wondering, if I were to, totally hypothetically, have sex with a crystal mare, would I be able to see my junk inside her?" Rainbow snorted harshly at the question, and struggled to speak through her laughter. "Wh-ha-ha-what the hell Thunderlane?" she asked as Cloud elbowed him on the side. "Always asking the big questions, as usual." "What? I'm just curious. I think it'd be kinda neat is all." "Typical stallion in love with their own junk," Rainbow sighed. "Thunderlane, can you see the rest of a crystal pony's insides?" "Well, no, I guess not." "There's your answer then." "But it might be different if a non crystal pony were to have sex with a crystal m-" "Movement!" And just like that they were all business again, swinging back around to face the Mareitanian army, that for some reason they couldn't understand were moving north, rather than attacking. They weren't just spreading out either as the entire army moved north, with Faust in the lead. "What are they doing?" Rainbow wondered out loud. So far none of the Mareitanians actions made sense to her. When they'd left the bulwark the Mareitanians were practically throwing themselves at it, but here they were acting strangely and being beyond cautious. It made Rainbow think they were planning something. All they could do was react to the situation, and make sure the crystal ponies had time to evacuate. Something Spitfire appeared to be determined to do as the Equestrian forces rapidly repositioned themselves to face where Faust was moving hers. "I guess it's show time," Lightning said as Rainbow and her wing regrouped with her Squadron. "I guess they didn't want to wait until we could evacuate the city." "Of course not," Rainbow said sarcastically. "That'd be way too easy. Ah!" Rainbow shielded her eyes as a bright light from the north blinded her for a moment. When she dared to look again, the light was far dimmer, but what she saw instead was no better. If there were any doubts about Faust's power, they'd probably been silenced. Rather than bring the entire shield around the city down, Faust was instead just tearing an entrance into it, forcing it wider and wider until a dozen ponies and griffons could pass through it at a time. As soon as they were in, the Mareitanians adepts put up a shield, protecting their forces until there was enough inside the shield to be a threat. Then they started moving forwards. "Ouch time," Rainbow muttered, clipping her muzzleguard into place. -0-0-0- Pinkie gulped as Faust tore a hole in the shield, the clash of powerful magic sending flares of raw, chaotic energy tumbling through the air until it settled down. Then the Mareitanians entered, running through on both sides of Faust, who stood in the hole she'd made, holding it open for her soldiers. A shield went up around the Mareitanians, and suddenly Pinkie felt very silly, standing here, preparing to fight an army led by an alicorn like Faust, with only a bag full of rocks. Thankfully she wasn't alone, and the members of their own Mage Corps put a shield up to protect their fellows, stretching between the gaps in the houses. It would hardly be enough though, as what the Mareitanians had was twice the size of the Equestrians'. "We're so fucked," Top Spin whimpered, looking like she was more ready to flee than fight. Nopony felt could blame her though, as a lot of them felt the same. "Not necessarily," Maud said calmly, pulling a rock out of her bag and testing its weight in her hoof. "Not all of them are stallions." It was a terrible joke, but right then, while staring death in the face, it felt like the funniest thing they'd ever heard, and there were more than a few chuckles going around. Pinkie did at least feel a little better after hearing the laughter. Then the Mareitanians struck. The Mareitanians dropped their shield, and a wave of earth ponies sprinted towards them, while in the sky the griffons screamed their battle cries, pumping their wings to meet the Wonderbolts and Air Corps in battle. That wasn't Pinkie's concern though, beyond hoping Rainbow was okay. Her concern lay on the ponies battering their way through the shield protecting them. "Here they come," Limestone growled, a hoof holding a rock pulled back ready to throw. A crack formed in the shield, and not wasting any time attacking, Limestone threw her stone through the gap as hard as she could, hitting one of the Mareitanians right on the forehead, denting his helmet and dropping him to the ground, either dead or unconscious. Seeing Limestone do that spurred the rest of the Equestrian forces into action, and those that could began firing their weapons through the cracks in the shield, or even stabbing their spears through them if that's what they had. The unicorns held the shield as long as they could, but the Mareitanian Adepts, no longer occupied with shielding their own forces, soon brought the Equestrians shield down. Pinkie yelped and dove out of the way as the Mareitanian earth ponies surged into the now open way. Colourful bolts of magic roared through the air overhead, gouging chunks out of buildings, the streets, and more unfortunately ponies. Pinkie froze as one of the Mage corps unicorns fell, half his head blown away by an errant blast of magic. Pinkie stared blankly at the unicorn as his blood pooled beneath him, and likely would have stayed there had a shout from Azure not distracted her. She quickly searched around and found Azure pinned on her back, desperately holding the spear of a Mareitanian in her hooves to stop it being used against her. "Azure!" Without thinking, Pinkie grabbed a rock out of her bag and launched it the head of the pony attacking Azure, clipping her across the top of her head, not hard enough to kill, or even really hurt, but it was enough to knock off the mare's helmet, giving Azure enough of a distraction to kick up at the mare, off-balancing her enough to wriggle away. To make sure Azure did get away, Pinkie threw another rock, punching a neat dent into the mare's forehead, killing her. Azure scrabbled back from the fallen soldier, her chest heaving as she fixated on the blood dribbling from the mare's nose. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! Pinkie?" Pinkie didn't answer. She was too busy staring at her hoof. "Pinkie!" Azure stood and smacked Pinkie on the side, "Snap out of it!" "That wasn't funny at all," Pinkie whispered. "Come on Pinkie! Don't do this! We need to find the others-" A deafening crunch cut Azure off, and they ducked down as fragments of crystal off one of the nearby buildings rained down on them, followed by a dead pegasus. "Aah! What the fuck?!" "Fall back! Fall back!" "Oh no! We have to find the others!" Pinkie gasped as the call to fall back went out, her eyes suddenly focused and alert. "That's what I've been trying to say!" Azure said, her eyes fixed on the pegasus that had almost landed on them. She yelped as Pinkie dragged her into the lee of a building, where some of the unicorns of the Mage corps had taken shelter. Unicorns they knew. "Come on Pyrelight! We need to fall back!" Lyra pleaded desperately, unaware that Pinkie had slipped in behind them. "Please Pyre, come on!" Pyrelight curled up tighter, blood running from a cut on her left shoulder. "I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die!" "And you won't," said Pinkie, alerting them to her presence. "Azure, grab Pyrelight. Lyra and I will protect you." "We will? I mean, yeah! Just hold on to Azure Pyrelight, and we'll all get out of here!" Pinkie peeked around the corner as the Equestrian line fell back past the building they were hiding behind. It seemed to make little difference though, as the Equestrians were already pretty scattered. At least those still living. "I think we need to go if we're going to get out of here." Pinkie grabbed a rock out of her bags and held it in her teeth as Lyra finished pushing Pyrelight onto Azure's back. She nodded, and Pinkie peeked back around the corner. Thankfully the Mareitanians didn't seem to be in a hurry to follow after the Equestrians, so after waving for Azure to start moving, she ran out, hoping to distract them while Azure fell back. She spat the rock into her hoof, and prepared to make use of her small repertoire of profanities when a shower of rocks from across the street pelted the Mareitanians nearest to her. "Run you idiot!" Limestone shouted, ducking behind the corner of a building to escape the smattering of arrows and bolts of magic that were shot at her. "I'm not the idiot!" Pinkie tossed the rock into the air and delivered a roundhouse kick to it that sent it hurtling at one of the Mareitanians hard enough to knock him over. "They are! Run for your lives!" Pinkie turned and ran, Lyra running out behind her, firing a single blast of magic that felled a single Mareitanian soldier before they could try to defend themselves. From across the street the other members of the Hard corps ran as well, hooves pounding on the crystal paving as they retreated back to the safety of the purple shield set up around the castle. "Twitchy tail!" Pinkie shrieked, her tail almost vibrating. "Twitchy tail!" All of them started weaving as arrows fell upon them, and they picked up the pace again as the ponies firing stopped to reload. Pinkie's tail refused to stop twitching though, and a cursory glance behind them showed that there were a trio of griffons quickly catching up to them, with Maud being their most likely target as she was the furthest behind. "Watch out Maud!" Maud looked back as Pinkie shouted, seeing the griffons behind her. Very close behind her. She veered to the left, onto the grassy verge that lined the streets and sunk her right hoof into the ground as she ran, grabbing a clump of soil, then jumping and twisting in midair to throw the clump of soil into the eyes of the lead griffon as he dove for her. He squawked loudly in surprise, and failed to pull up out of his dive in time to avoid slamming into the ground. He quickly clawed the dirt out of his eyes, just in time to see Maud's rear hoof flying towards him, and that was the last he ever saw again. Maud backed up against the side of a building, trying to figure out how to deal with the other two griffons that had gone past, but were coming back for her. She hefted a rock in her hoof, and waited a second before throwing it in a curve that led it to meet the wing joint of the rightmost griffon with a meaty sounding slap that left it to wobble down to the ground. The other griffon was undeterred however, and dove straight for Maud faster than she could get a rock out of her bag. Her luck held though, and a split second later the griffon smacked down onto the crystal road, sliding to a stop right in front of Maud, Spitfire stood on its back with her backs impaling its back. "I said, fall back!" Maud saluted hastily, and galloped for the safety of the shield. -0-0-0- "It was a simple fucking order," Spitfire growled, pushing herself back into the air. "Was it too much for it to get obeyed?" "But did you see the way she took out those two griffons?" Fleetfoot said excitedly. "An earth pony? One with a clump of dirt, and the other with a rock? That was awesome!" "She could have got herself killed!" "Anypony else having dejà vu?" Soarin asked. "All we need are some diamond dogs and thestrals, and this would feel a lot like the battle at Caverndown. Y'know, falling back as we evacuated the city. Only this time we actually had some time to prepare." "Great, so those poor bastards from Caverndown get to lose another home to the Mareitanians." Fleetfoot sighed heavily. "This is fucking ridiculous." "Truth," said Soarin. "Anyway, I think the north of the city looks clear of civvies and friendlies, so I guess we should fall back too." Spitfire nodded, and led the way back to the purple shield that spread around the base of the Crystal castle, bisecting the city. They passed through it and landed next to the Crystal Heart, where Shining was maintaining the new shield, while Princess Cadence maintained the one over the city, giving the pegasi somewhere to retreat from the griffons if things got too heavy. "North of the city looks to be clear General," Spitfire reported. Shining nodded, "We're almost done evacuating the south as well. What about casualties?" he asked. "Not... great," Spitfire answered hesitantly. "We've barely scratched their forces, while they've taken a significant chunk out of ours. Our ponies just weren't ready." "I know. We'll load the wounded onto the trains if there's room, but I'm afraid we're going to have to leave the fallen." Shining winced as he heard a whimper from Cadence, "I'm sorry honey." "I am too," she said, but not to Shining. "How much longer can you hold that shield?" "Without the love of the crystal ponies powering it, not long. I'm giving it all I have." "Just hold on until the last of the crystal ponies are away, then we'll get out of here ourselves." Shining smiled as Cadence nodded, his heart brimming with love for his dear, brave Princess. "Spitfire, I want you and the all the pegasi up there deterring the griffons from flying over the south of the city. We'll hold them on the ground here until the last of the civilians is away, then we are out of here, understood?" "Yessir!" Spitfire saluted, holding it until Shining returned it. "Just try not to take too long, okay?" -0-0-0- Rainbow was pissed. Even with all the extra fliers from Camp Freedom, the griffons still managed to outnumber them at least two to one. Even one on one the fight would still be in the griffons' favour because they were simply more experienced, better equipped, and born to kill. Ponies simply didn't have that same natural instinct. They could learn it, but that took time, and to have that time you needed to live, and to live in this situation, you had to be good at fighting, which brought them back to the beginning of the problem; the Equestrians weren't very good at fighting. Unsurprising for a nation that tended to sometimes use baked goods as weapons. So far Rainbow felt like she'd spent less time actually fighting the griffons than she did making sure ponies didn't get themselves killed. Admittedly she was doing that by attacking the griffons attacking others, but that little fact had passed her by, swallowed up by her frustration at the situation. They were losing, and Rainbow hated losing, but she was instead having to put her effort into making sure they didn't lose as badly as they could. Rainbow dove towards a cluster of griffons, putting her frustration to the side for now. Saving the other pegasi from getting killed was still important, and as group of them fled the griffons, Rainbow knew it was up to her to save them. She nodded back to her wingmates, both of them nodding back and drifting further sideways away from her, ready to follow her through as she pierced through the heart of the griffons giving chase. She held one blade wielding hoof up as she raced towards them, and brought it down as she passed the first griffon, striking it across the back. Whether she did serious damage or not she couldn't tell as she raced past it, lashing out with her other blade towards the rear of a griffon, missing most of it, but cutting it's paw instead, hard enough to sever pieces that fell to the ground as she pulled up, Cloud Chaser and Thunderlane right behind her, along with most of the unwounded griffons. Two others were falling to the ground, so their attack had some success. Rainbow flared her wings sharply, stopping herself rapidly. The griffons were unprepared for her to do so, and as they chased after them, they were surprised to find their quarry not fleeing, but instead twisting in midair, deflecting the middlemost griffons weapon aside with one blade and plunging the other into the griffon's side, getting dragged back into motion as the griffon fell. Rainbow braced her hooves against the body of the griffon, and tore her blade free, shaking her hoof as the griffon crashed into the side of one of the many buildings. She'd forgotten to account for the sudden momentum that stabbing the griffon like that would give her, and now her leg hurt. Still, it was a small price to pay, and she grinned as she looked up and saw the griffons confusion over whether to split up and chase her, follow her wingmates, or go elsewhere. The Wonderbolts had quickly learnt that while experience in aerial fighting was good, being totally unpredictable tended to work much better. So when another wing of Wonderbolts swooped in, the griffons really didn't see it coming. Rainbow tossed the other Wonderbolts a lazy salute, not entirely sure who it was that had helped her. Recognising ponies simply by the colour of their tail was actually harder than you'd think. Still, they'd helped her, so now it was up to her to meet back up with her wing and pass the favour on. "Are you crazy?" Thunderlane spat as soon as Rainbow joined back up with them. "We're supposed to stick together." "Divide and conquer," Rainbow said back. "You know being unpredictable works." "You had literally no idea what was behind you! You could have gotten killed!" Rainbow ignored him. She knew that following doctrines was only getting their side killed, and yes she knew she was being reckless, but from what she could tell, being reckless in this situation didn't seem to make you any more or less likely to get killed than simply following procedure where you could get killed at any moment by a lucky strike from a less predictable opponent. "Guys, shut up!" Cloud shouted. "Do you see that?" Cloud pointed a blade south, where through the shield they could just about make out hundreds, if not thousands of colourful blobs flying towards them. It didn't take a genius to work out they were pegasi. "What the hell?" Rainbow pulled up, flying out through the shield to get a better look. They were indeed pegasi, and they were flying straight for the Crystal Empire. They weren't uniformed by the looks of it, which concerned her. "Are they on our side or what?" "Should we go find Spitfire?" Cloud asked. "Yeah, probably. Let's go!" Rainbow dove back downwards, her keen eyes searching for a Wonderbolt with a flame coloured tail, possibly flanked by ponies with a short, dark blue tail, and a white tail. In the massive airspace over the Crystal Empire, filled with ponies and griffons moving at high speed, that was not that easy- "There she is!" Thunderlane shouted, pointing down towards the shield around the castle. -Unless you're Thunderlane. Rainbow opened her mouth to ask how he did that, but decided to save her breath for flying through the dogfight to their commanding officer. Rainbow pushed ahead of her wing, holding her blades forward to strike down the griffon locked blade to blade with Spitfire, then changed her mind to lead in with her back legs instead, bringing her blades in to stab the griffon as she impacted against it, then quickly pushing off again. "Captain!" Rainbow shouted, while Spitfire seemed surprised to see her. "Pegasi flying up from the south!" "Pegasi fl- What?" "There are pegasi flying up from the south! Thousands of them!" Spitfire didn't ask again, instead flying straight up to see outside the shield, Rainbow's wing and her own following closely behind her. As Rainbow had said, there were pegasi flying up from the south, and although they were clearly uniformed, she knew they were friendly as they passed over the fleeing crystal ponies without bothering them. "Here," Soarin said, throwing a small monocular over to Spitfire. She fumbled it, then held it up to her right eye, bringing the pegasi flying towards them into sharp focus. They were definitely uniformed, and also unarmoured. They were on the other hoof, armed. There was only one bunch of pegasi that she knew was crazy enough to fly into battle without armour, and they were the liberated pegasi from Mareitania, who hopefully were on the side of Equestria now. Or at least things could hardly get worse if they weren't. "We need to get this shield down," Spitfire said, tossing the monocular back to Soarin. "If those pegasi are who I think they are, we might just all make it out of this. Come on!" It was a short flight down to where Shining Armour and Cadence were, still holding the central part beneath the castle, which was filled with noise as the Mareitanian forces tested Shining's shield. It would only be a matter of time before they started to push forwards again, and that shield wouldn't stop them for long. If Faust was around, she'd likely have it down in seconds. Until then however, it was as close to a safe haven the Equestrian forces could hope for. Spitfire dropped down onto the ground in front of Shining and Cadence, giving them a quick salute. "Sir, we have pegasus reinforcements coming up from the south." "We do?" Shining turned to face south, and squinted at the distant ponies. "We weren't expecting reinforcements. Who are they?" "The pegasi refugees from Mareitania." "Really?" Shining turned to face Spitfire, then the incoming pegasi, then back to Spitfire. "And you're definitely sure they're on our side?" "I am. I'll make sure they kill me first if I'm wrong. Sir. They'll be here in a another minute flying at that speed, so if you want them to help, you need to drop the shield around the city before they get here. Right before they get here if possible, so we can give the griffons a little surprise." "I can barely hold this shield any more," Cadence whispered, her exhaustion showing through her speech, "so we might as well. They'll only get in anyway." Shining looked up at the pegasi once more, then nodded. "Okay, the city is nearly evacuated now, so we should start to think about getting ourselves out of here. Spitfire, head up and meet them. Explain the plan, and make sure they know which side to hit." Spitfire saluted again and raced off up through the shield. "Rainbow, you and your wingmates should get back up there for when they arrive. Try and make sure our own forces don't attack them. Tell them that once the griffons are pushed back, you need to retreat before their ground forces can fire on you." Like Spitfire, Rainbow saluted and went off to carry out her orders. "Cadence. As soon as the shield is down, take the Crystal Heart and get out of here." "Not without you." "Cadence, I'm being serious-" "So am I! I'll wait at the station, but I won't be going any further, not without you." Shining smiled tiredly, "Alright. I'll tell you when to stop. Flash, you keep her safe." Flash saluted sharply, "You can count on me." Shining turned back to face the pegasi, watching as they got closer and closer, Spitfire, Soarin, and Fleetfoot flying at their lead. When they were barely a hundred yards from the shield, he shouted to Cadence to stop. The magic on her horn dissipated, and seconds after that, the shield around the city flickered into nothing, giving the pegasi their chance to ambush the griffons. They took it. -0-0-0- Pinkie and all those around her gawped up at the sky as the shield fell, and a mass of pegasi swarmed into the city, crashing into the remaining griffons forces. Bodies fell from the skies, landing on roads and buildings with sounds that would forever burn themselves into the minds of anypony that heard it. The difference this time though, was that it was mostly griffon bodies falling now as the colourful mass of ponies overwhelmed the griffon forces. Piercing cries sounded above them, and moments after the pegasi's arrival, the griffons were fleeing. "Holy shit," Limestone swore quietly. "Now this is more like it!" "Who are those pegasi?" Lyra asked, watching the spectacle with a horrified fascination. Azure shrugged, "Who cares if they're helping us? You go you crazy sons-a-bitches! I mean, seriously, they must have some real guts to do that without armour." "I wouldn't get too excited," said Maud. "This just means they're more likely to send in their ground forces." "That's bullshit," Limestone scoffed. "Now the skies belong to our pegasi they wouldn't dare atta- Hey! What the hell are they doing?" Limestone's mouth hung open as the pegasi stopped attacking, and fell back to the south. "No!" "Retreat! Retreat!" "Guess that means they're done evacuating the city," said Pinkie, offering a hoof to pull Marble to her hooves, her wild-eyed twin having not said a word since their first contact with the enemy. "Come on Marble, let's get the heck out of dodge!" Pushing Marble in front of her until the slightly younger mare took the hint to get running, Pinkie didn't look back, not wanting to think about all that had happened. She, like so many others, just wanted to get out of there. She slowed as she passed Shining Armour under the castle, taking note that both Cadence and the Crystal Heart had gone, leaving him alone to maintain his shield. "Shining?" "Get moving Pinkie! We are getting out of here!" "But what about you?" "Yes I'm coming too Pinkie! I just have to hold this shield long enough for all of you to get away." "Then I'm staying too. You're Twilight's brother, and I'd be remiss in my duty to her as a best friend if I left you here on your lonesome." "That's sweet and all Pinkie, but this is an order! Get movi-angh!" Shining collapsed to his knees as his shield buckled from a single strike, it's supplier striding gracefully towards them, her tall, white, unarmoured body a stark note in the sea of soldiers that now ran towards the castle. "Okay, time to go." Pinkie pushed herself up under Shining until he was back on his hooves, then dragged him until he started running himself, taking the most direct route towards the train station, even if they didn't take the straightest line running, dodging back and forth to avoid anything that was fired at them. Crystal turned to dirt beneath their hooves as they left the city, bringing up the rear of a massive column of ponies fleeing from the battle. The mass of ponies flowed around the station, running straight for the frozen waste beyond which was ironically the safest place to be. The only ones not running were Cadence, Flash Sentry, and the other members of the Hard corps including Lyra. "Get moving!" Shining shouted at them, slowing enough only to make sure that they stayed in front of them, with Flash taking to the air, along with a large number of the other pegasi that hung back to cover the retreat of their allies. Nothing followed them though. Not a single pony or griffon left the city limits to chase the retreating Equestrians, instead making room for Faust to walk to the front, her horn glowing brightly with a prepared spell that she fired directly at their small group, although who it was directly intended for would remain a mystery. With a shout Flash threw himself into the path of the crackling orb of magic, intercepting it before it could reach any of them, and most importantly before it could harm the princess he swore to defend with his life. Hoping he'd made the princesses proud, he caught the magic on his chest. All of them shielded their eyes from the blinding flare of magic as Faust's attack struck Flash, and when it faded, and they dared look again, there was nothing left save for a faint shadow on the ground marking the point where Flash Sentry had made the ultimate sacrifice for their safety. "No!" Shining bellowed, skidding to a halt and turning back to attack Faust. A pale blue haze of magic caught him, easily overpowering him and dragging him away from the Crystal Empire and after Cadence, who knew just as well as Shining did how much this hurt him. All of them had lost something today, and without the Crystal Heart to hold the frozen north back, she hoped the Mareitanians also failed to gain anything as the frozen north claimed the Empire. Swearing to return one day to make things right, Cadence led their group into the snow, and away from harm. -0-0-0- Faust sighed, her breath condensing in the air as the temperature continued to drop. Whatever the former inhabitants of the city had done before fleeing, it was having a serious effect on the weather. Besides the plummeting temperature, vicious storm clouds swirled around the city, unleashing heavy falls of snow that had already covered the lands around the city. Twice she had cast back the storms, and twice her efforts had been ignored as the storm kept coming and coming. A thin dusting of snow whipped around her hooves and covered the snowflake on the ground beneath the crystalline castle that dominated the centre of the city. A city that now felt almost dead beneath her hooves. When she had first set hoof onto the crystal streets, she could feel the magic interwoven into the very fabic of the city, beating like a heart. She could no longer feel it, and she suspected that was related to the sudden change in the weather. Most importantly it had made the Empire useless to her plans to spread her influence over Equestria. She hoped she could salvage something from the situation though, and let her magic search through the intricate spellwork laced through every inch of the city. Spells designed to spread love and joy to every inch of Equestria. Spells powered by the love and joy of the crystal ponies. Spells designed to rid the land of the influence of negative energy, which fueled far worse things. Spells which felt so very familiar... Faust gasped and let her magic drop. Even after all the time spent apart from him, she could still recognise the spellwork of her beloved Starswirl. Now she could see it, every inch of the city was covered in his work, like it had been built into the city. And the Equestrians had torn the very heart out of it. Faust felt her rage build, then sighed, letting it go just as fast. Minutes earlier she had been willing to twist the magic of this place to her own ends, defiling Starswirl's work. She was no better than they were. Perhaps it was best that this place had been made dormant for now, so nopony could misuse it. "My Lady?" Faust pulled herself out of her thoughts as one of her followers addressed her, and graced him with a smile. "Yes my little pony?" "We've searched the city and found no sign of any crystal ponies left behind." Faust smiled and nodded, as that had been the plan. They simply didn't have the means right now to support the population of an entire city, and she was glad the Equestrians were predictable enough to evacuate the city instead, saving them the effort of having to look after the crystal ponies. It also saved them from now having to evacuate the city themselves as the frozen north continued to push in. "Very good," she said to the soldier who was watching her expectantly. "Any news from General Snowbright?" "Not as yet my Lady." "Then let us leave this place before we become trapped here, so we might lend him our assistance." Just because one avenue of attack had been closed, there were still plenty more.

The end of an era

24. Vanhoover

Luna inspected the hastily made repairs being made to the wall. A wall that was still barely standing after the battering the Mareitanian tanks had given it hours ago. It had held though, if only just, and after some time the Mareitanians had given up their assault after losing a few more of their tanks. They hadn't left though, and were still waiting just out of reach of the Bulwarks siege weapons, ready to try again. Luna suspected the defenders couldn't repel another assault. The dead were far too numerous around the Bulwark, and the living were... living in name only at times. Tanks and explosives were a whole different ballgame compared to what they were used to, and they were having to stand against such things using spears, crossbows, and faith that the magic of others would keep them alive. If the number of dead were any indication, that faith would seem a little misplaced, if unfairly so. "Fie on this entire situation," Luna grumbled. "How are we few supposed to hold this without reinforcements? My horn still aches from the last battle, and I am likely far less taxed than most others here." "Princess?" Luna looked up as Stormguard spoke to her. "Excuse me, I am but thinking out loud." "You don't think we can hold against another attack?" Luna made a sweeping gesture around them, "You can see as well as I that we could barely fight back a dozen foals armed with candy canes right now General. If the Mareitanians had any idea how close they were to breaking our defences, they may not have withdrawn their forces." "Should we withdraw then Princess?" "And give up our most defensible position? Nay General, that would be foolish." Luna turned back to stare out over the mass of water that shared her name. An attack on Equestria coming from over the Luna bay... It was enough to make her blood boil if she let it. "Is the city evacuated?" Luna asked, pushing her ire aside. "As far as we are able to tell. No doubt there'll be some that refused to leave, but there is little we can do for them now, other than hope we can hold the Mareitanians off." "Do you think we can hold them off?" Luna asked pointedly. Stormguard swallowed as he delayed giving his answer. "No," he said after a few moments. Luna nodded, "Correct. Unless we have a miracle influx of reinforcements, there is no chance we can hold this position for long. All we can hope for those ponies too stubborn to leave is that they remain safe as we are forced to fall back to the city. Why did you think I ordered the city evacuated if I thought we could hold them here?" Stormguard didn't answer. He didn't need to. "I'll take your silence to mean you know why I did it. Consider also then, the recent changes in our crystal pony allies. The loss of their lustrous coats, and the change to their demeanours, becoming rather... apathetic. What do you think that means?" Again Stormguard was hesitant to answer. "I suspect it means the Crystal Empire has fallen to the enemy." "I suspect it means more than that General. Either the city has been captured and the Crystal Heart removed from its place, or our forces took the Crystal Heart with them as they fled the city, which is both the better and worst of the two possible outcomes." "Better and worst?" Stormguard asked, confused. "Removing the Crystal Heart from the city would remove what holds back the frozen north from consuming the city. If our side took it, it denies the Empire to the enemy, which is good, assuming they also evacuated the city. However, it does also mean that the Mareitanian forces in the Empire are either on their way here, or intent to attack elsewhere." Stormguard's mouth flapped uselessly for a moment, before settling on a single syllable. "Oh." "Indeed," Luna sighed. "The war has barely begun, and already we are losing poorly." "But if they attack us here, they'll trap us!" "I am aware," Luna said pointedly. "Then what should we do?" "What would you do?" "I'd fall back. There's no point getting us all killed if we stand no chance of succeeding!" "But then the Mareitanians get through the wall unimpeded," said Luna. "Bringing with them their tanks and full strength, making this war even harder than it already is. Hence my dilemma over leaving this position." "Can- Can we even win this war?" This time, it was Luna who remained silent. "Princess?" "We can win General, but only when we have right weapon. Currently we do not possess that weapon." "And when will we have that weapon?" Luna turned back to face the Luna bay."I'm afraid that depends entirely on Princess Twilight. The key to winning this war isn't through defeating their army General, but through defeating their leader. If we take Faust out, the rest of their offensive will more than likely crumble." Or so we hope, Luna thought quietly to herself. "So all these ponies might have died for nothing if she fails?" "There is far more at stake here than you realise General. Nopony here will have died for nothing." Both Luna and Stormguard stopped as one of Luna's Night Guard landed heavily on the observation platform. "Sorry to disturb you Mistress, but General Shining Armour has arrived with reinforcements. He'll be here shortly." Luna nodded her appreciation, "Thank you. If you could inform him that I want to see him as soon as possible?" "Of course Mistress." Luna smiled tightly as the thestral stepped off the platform to deliver her message. While she was highly pleased to be getting reinforcements, if Shining Armour was here, the Crystal Empire was lost, and bad news was sure to be following him. -0-0-0- "So the Crystal Heart is secure then?" "It is. Cadence and Celestia are working on restoring some of its functionality in Canterlot, to help the crystal ponies, and to aid in Canterlot's defence should it fall under attack." Luna smiled at the two Generals, "Finally, some good news. What of the evacuees?" she asked Shining Armour. "A large refugee came is being set up just north of Appleloosa to house the evacuees from both the Empire and Vanhoover, although things aren't great right now, as that's almost half a million ponies they're trying to house. I suspect even more will end up there as the war progresses. I also ordered the movement of Camp Freedom, in case Faust caught wind of its location and decided to attack there." "Where would it be going?" "Horseshoe bay, south of Baltimare," Shining told them. "Celestia assures me that locals would happily agree to help us construct a new camp. Hopefully this one will stay safe." "And what of Faust?" "She's... something else. Tore a hole in the shield protecting Empire like it was made of paper, and vaporised a pony so that all that was left was a shadow." Shining shook his head, "None of you were lying about her capabilities, were you?" "Why would we? Our deceitfulness is what got us into this situation, and it certainly won't help us get out of it. I was, however, asking where Faust is now?" "On her way here, with an army by her side if our scouts are right. I hate to say it Luna, but our forces are severely outmatched by theirs, in both aggression and skill. Not to mention numbers." Luna knew that perfectly well, but showed no sign of agreeing as that would be tantamount to giving up the fight. She knew they stood a chance as long as they knew how to fight this properly. The key, she felt, was in having few, but significant advantages, such as air superiority. With the formerly Mareitanian pegasi now fighting for Equestria, they might be able to achieve that. Luna had to admit though, it felt like there was still something else missing from their efforts, but she couldn't think of what. "Princess?" Luna jerked out of her thoughts as Shining said her name. "Apologies, I was thinking. What would your assessment of our current situation be?" "Right now?" Shining shrugged as Luna nodded. "Right now I think we have no chance of holding the Bulwark, and would only be putting ourselves into a terrible situation if we tried to hold it. We never designed it to hold off an attack from the rear after all. Truthfully, Faust's attack on the Empire has thrown all our expectations up into the air." "So what do you think we should do?" "If Vanhoover's been evacuated, I say we should hold them there. Lay traps, and ambushes, and get our fliers to take out their griffons if we can. If we can take out their griffons, our air forces could do some serious damage with bombs, or even without. It would also make it very hard for them to pin us down and trap us, because there's a lot of ways to escape a city. Stormguard? What do you think?" The grey pegasus General thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "With Faust coming from the rear, holding the bulwark is untenable. Perhaps if some were to hold the bulwark while others distracted the rest of their forces in the city?" "I do not think we can do both," said Luna. "If Faust were to go straight for the bulwark, our forces there would be massacred. I feel that Shining's idea is the best we currently have." "I do have one request though," said Shining. "Return our crystal ponies to Canterlot." "What?! How could you even think of doing that?" "Right now Luna, those ponies are more likely to be a hindrance than a help, and will probably get themselves and others killed. Until we can find a way to reactivate the Crystal Heart enough to overcome their lethargy, they shouldn't be fighting." Luna ground her teeth and groaned in the back of her throat, but didn't argue the point. It was probably best that they be kept back until they were capable of fighting again. "Very well, but you are reducing our forces considerably doing this." "I know, but I doubt getting the Crystal Legion massacred was really the objective here anyway." Luna conceded the point. "Very well. How long do you think until Faust reaches us?" "A couple of hours at least." "Then I suggest moving everypony into the city, and preparing a fireworks display to celebrate her arrival." -0-0-0- Rainbow was concerned. For all the things Pinkie did for her parties, she never imagined that could be translated into a passable knowledge of setting up explosives. Rainbow knew a bit because she'd been trained to do so, but Pinkie, she knew more about it on her own, and was entirely self taught. If Rainbow was honest with herself, she was a little scared of Pinkie at that moment. "And we twist that little dohickey around there, connect it to that, add a little tape to make sure it's totally secure and doesn't fall apart, aaaaaaand... there! One more pillar set to blow! How're you doing Rainbow?" Rainbow fumbled with the sticks of dynamite in her hooves, before letting Pinkie help her get them around another pillar. "You know Pinkie, when they asked for volunteers to set up traps like this, you were meant to be helping the ponies with training to do this. How do you know all this?" "Do you know how much powder it takes to fire a party cannon full of confetti without damaging anything, or setting fire to the confetti and everything the confetti lands on?" Pinkie smiled as Rainbow said she didn't. "I do," she said, pressing her face against Rainbow's until their eyes were almost touching. "Down to the last milligram." "Oooookay," Rainbow said, pushing Pinkie away. "That still doesn't explain how you know to do all this." Pinkie shrugged as she started connecting wires to the dynamite. "All good party planners must have at least a passing knowledge of pyrokinetics, otherwise how would your parties have any bang to them?" "That's still not an explanation." "You're not an explanation!" "What?" "What?" "...What?" Rainbow shut her mouth and decided to drop the issue. Instead she had something else on her mind that she wanted to ask her pink friend about. "How are you feeling after what happened in the Crystal Empire? You know, your first fight?" Pinkie stopped what she was doing, and let her hooves fall back to the ground. "I don't know," she said, shrugging at Rainbow. "I guess I'm okay." "Really? I was in pieces after my first fight. You're really me telling you're okay?" "I'm not saying I enjoyed it, because I really didn't. I killed ponies Rainbow, and that felt really bad. The thing is, if we're going to make everything right again, we're going to have to do it. When I thought about what I was fighting for, it didn't seem so terrible." Pinkie blushed a little, "I must sound silly." "No!" Rainbow said quickly, not wanting Pinkie to doubt herself. "No, you don't. What you're saying is pretty much the same as why I'm doing it. Not because we want to, but because we have to. Because we need to." Pinkie nodded in agreement, "Yeah, I guess. I don't think Marble's okay with it though. She's calmed down, but she still hasn't said much since the battle. Maybe she's not cut out for the fighting, and should try something else. Perhaps she should just go home. I don't know." Pinkie sadly twisted a hoof into the ground, then perked up a bit. "Still, we all made it through that, and I guess that's the most important thing, right?" "Right," Rainbow agreed, glad that Pinkie had managed to perk herself back up. She did worry that Pinkie was totally unprepared for the possibility that she would lose ponies though. Something made worse due to four out of six of her unit being herself and her sisters. Once again Rainbow felt that same uncomfortable feeling that the ponies in charge really didn't care what happened to them. "Anyway, I sure hope those meanies like the surprise we're cooking up for them. Shame about the building though." "You can rebuild a building Pinkie." "I know that! I'm just saying this is a really nice building, and it seems a shame to do what we're doing to it. I sure hope the Mareitanians appreciate it anyway." "I'm sure they will," Rainbow said as noncommittally as she could, because it was that or sarcasm. "Anyway, I think we're done with our section. Let's get out of here and see what's going on." "Sure!" Pinkie followed after Rainbow, happy to be around at least one of her friends again, even if the circumstances weren't exactly the best. She knew that soon they'd be back to fighting for their lives, so until then she could at least derive as much happiness from being around Rainbow as she could. Outside was considerably more frantic than inside the basement of the Royal Canter, the tallest building in Vanhoover. Things were being prepared to draw the Mareitanians down the main street of the city, towards the towering office block. From there things got even more interesting, although there were concerns as to why Luna seemed almost happy to destroy parts of the city if it meant slowing the Mareitanians down. That was also why they were taking care to make sure every building along the way was clear of all ponies, but unless they wanted to spend all day doing it, which they couldn't, there was no guarantee. A fact that didn't sit well with many there. "I guess this is where we split up again Pinkie," Rainbow said as she spotted other members of the Wonderbolts flying by, weaving through the streets far above the ground. Pinkie pouted playfully at Rainbow, "Aww, and I was just getting used to having you around again. See each other again soon?" "Definitely." Rainbow held a leg out, inviting Pinkie into a hug that the pink mare happily accepted, hugging Rainbow tightly until she was forced to wriggle her way out of it. "Catch ya later." Pinkie's reply was lost to Rainbow as she soared into the air, putting some distance between them before she, Pinkie, or the both of them got too emotional. Her destination was the rooftop of one of the many other high-rise buildings in the city, where most of the other Wonderbolts were waiting for the attack to begin. Lightning grinned and winked at Rainbow as she came in to land. "Have to admit Dash, that pink pony was pretty cute. No wonder you wanted to spend some time alone with her." "Har-har, up yours Lightning." Rainbow punched the teal mare lightly on the side, then sat heavily beside her. "What's the news?" "The news?" Lightning tapped her chin theatrically, "Let's see... Oh yes! Imminent doom is heading this way, and should be arriving within the hour, if not sooner, and our glorious leader seems intent to kill both us and them in a city sized fireball that could probably be seen from Canterlot. Also, I must have hit my head on something during our last fight, because there's a dent in my helmet, and it's a little bit uncomfortable." Rainbow rolled her eyes at Lightning, "Quit being a smartass and tell me what's actually happening." Lightning shrugged at Rainbow, "How wrong do you think I am? Okay, maybe the fireball won't be seen from Canterlot, and maybe Luna doesn't actually intend to kill her own ponies with it, but this plan is seriously messed up. Who blows up a skyscraper like this?" Spitfire grunted at Lightning, having heard her complaining. "Your objections to the plan have taken onboard, and summarily thrown back overboard. As for the news Dash, the Mareitanians will be here in roughly twenty minutes, so if you want to grab something to eat, or say a prayer, now's your chance." "...Shit." -0-0-0- "They're heading to the Bulwark," Shining said, watching the Mareitanians coming from the north through a pair of binoculars from the tower rooftop that had been appropriated as their command centre. "It seems you were right Luna." "What's the state of their forces?" Luna asked, not caring about how right she was. "Much the same as it was before. I don't see a lot of griffons with them though. Seems our new pegasus friends made short work of them because there's only a couple hundred left that I can see." "It is possible there may be far more coming from beyond the Bulwark," Luna reminded him. "Let's not get too excited before we know the whole story. Just tell me what happens when she reaches the Bulwark." It took some time before Shining had to speak again, as the Mareitanians didn't seem to be in any particular rush to get there. The griffons did fly ahead to scout, so it would soon become obvious to them that the Bulwark had been abandoned. A smart pony would only assume a trap. All of them suspected that the Mareitanians had plenty of smart ponies working that out, which is why they didn't bother to set a trap there. "Okay, she's on the cliff over the Bulwark," Shining reported. "She's... yep, she's tearing the Bulwark apart." Shining's lips pulled back in a nervous grimace, "I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing magic like hers in action." "Powerful magic or not," said Luna, "she is still but a pony, and capable of making mistakes. Due to the steep terrain both north and south of here, the only feasible way to get her tanks into Equestria is through the city, which is exactly what we want. Let them come Shining Armour. They shall pay for every step they take on Equestrian soil." Shining glanced at Stormguard, catching the pegasus giving him the same look as he was giving the pegasus. A look that said they both felt Luna was crossing lines. Lines they hadn't known were there in the first place. Silently, Shining returned to watching what the Mareitanians were doing, and swore loudly as he saw a lot more griffons. "I suspected as much," Luna said, having asked Shining what the problem was. "I know not how large the Bloodfeathers are as an organization, but I suspected we had not yet seen their full strength. Hopefully they don't outnumber our own fliers once again." "Orders?" Stormguard asked. "Everypony should be in position and ready to attack. All we have to do now is wait." -0-0-0- Pinkie peeked over the edge of the window, seeing the tanks and soldiers passing by below, winding their way through the streets, feeling as equally pensive as they looked. They all knew this was a trap, but only the Equestrians knew when it was to be sprung. She ducked down as a flight of griffons flew past, then took another look. The soldiers coming through seemed endless, even if she objectively knew they weren't. There were far more than had attacked the Crystal Empire, so she could only assume that most of these had come from across the Luna bay. Pinkie dropped back down again, sighing as she watched Marble fiddle nervously with her rear hooves. There were maybe eight thousand Equestrian soldiers in Vanhoover, which had seemed like a lot right up until the point she'd seen the amount of soldiers the Mareitanians had brought into the city. If ponies had any sense, they'd all be doing what Marble was doing. "They're almost to the Royal Canter," Limestone whispered. "That means it's almost time." Pinkie nodded, and saluted the towering building up the road to her left. "Your sacrifice will be remembered comrade." "It's just a building Pinkie." "Why does everypony feel the need to remind me of that? I can see it's a building." "Keep it down Pinks," Azure whispered harshly. "This is going to be an epic explosion, and I don't want to miss it." Top Spin raised an eyebrow at Azure, "So I see you have zero ethical conundrums about dropping a building on a couple thousand ponies." "There's a lot more than a couple thousand down there," Azure pointed out. "I also don't see you arguing against this." "I realise that there are more than a couple thousand ponies down there, but the building's not going to hit all of them, is it. And no, I'm not arguing, because what would that do to help?" "Oh hey!" Azure said, having got bored of listening to Top Spin. "Faust's in the lead down there. If we can get her now, we could end this whole war!" Pinkie decided to not point out that being buried under a hundred tons of rubble was more of an issue to Faust than actually dying. The only thing she could think would happen is the Mareitanians got really pissed off. "Something feels wrong," said Maud. Before any of them could ask what she meant, the Mareitanians reached the bottom of the Royal Canter, and the trap was sprung. The world shook with the deafening explosion that spat a flume of smoke and dust down the street, and tore the tower's foundation to shreds on the side facing the Mareitanians. The tower teetered over, almost looking like it was falling in slow motion, an illusion produced by its sheer size as it broke apart and crashed into the street below, producing a massive cloud of dust that obscured everything for the entire length of the street. "Now!" Everypony that could fired their weapon or their magic down into the street, aiming blindly through the dust that lit up with a thousand colourful streaks of magic. Under other circumstance it'd be beautiful to see, and even under this one it almost managed it, if you ignored the wave of destruction produced when that magic hit the ground. Pinkie and her team didn't participate, as throwing rocks into the street felt silly even to them. Instead they just watched, mesmerized by the lightshow the unicorns were producing, right up until Pinkie's eye twitched, her back itched, and her stomach flipped. "Eye twitch, back itch, stomach flip?" Pinkie's eyes went wide, "Get down!" "What are you on abo-" Azure started to ask before Limestone tackled her to the ground, while Maud did the same to Top Spin. Marble was already hiding, knowing well enough to not question Pinkie's feelings. A split second after all of them hit the deck a pulse of magic shattered the windows, showering everypony with glass. Screams started as ponies who had still been firing into the street, unheeding of Pinkie's warning, suddenly found themselves getting cut to shreds by the razor sharp debris. "What the fuck was that?" Azure shouted as Pinkie stood and shook the glass off her back and out of her mane. She took a cautious peek out of the now glassless window, only to find the street clear of dust, ponies, and everything except for rubble and a single alicorn standing atop the remains of the Royal Canter. "What? How? It was a trick? She was tricking us?" Pinkie gibbered. "She tricked us! All the ponies we saw weren't real!" "Then where are they?" Limestone asked as she picked bits of glass out of her collar. "Down there," said Maud, pointing back down the street to where the Mareitanian tanks and soldiers were sat safely behind a shield, totally undamaged by the collapsing tower. The soldiers were already spreading out into the streets, while the tanks were preparing to fire. All of them dived back for cover as the turrets of some of the tanks rotated towards them. Seconds later the building shook again with explosions, but none too near them. "Run!" Limestone shouted, and not just to her team. Every pony there was in danger, and all of them needed to get out. Pinkie paused to grab Marble, but was surprised to find that not only was Marble already gone, but was holding the door open for them and everypony else as they piled away from the street facing part of the building, dragging those wounded behind them that couldn't drag themselves. "How did she know?" Limestone panted as they ran into the nearest stairwell, heading to ground level, aiming to get out of the building before they got trapped inside by the soldiers. "How could she have fucking known what we were going to do?" "She must've known we planned to do something," Maud replied. "I thought something seemed off about those ponies around her. There were too many with similar colours." "And that's another thing," said Limestone. "How could she have possibly made that many illusions?" "Who cares?" Azure yelled at both of them. "We are so fucked right now it's not even funny!" "It could be," said Pinkie said hopefully. The clatter of hooves on stairs below them made them all stop, and a quick look down showed them that Mareitanian soldiers were running up as they were running down. "Okay, yeah, that's not funny." "Motherfuckers!" Limestone screamed, grabbing a stone out of her bags and throwing it hard enough to embed itself into the skull of a unicorn. "Stop fucking everything up!" They all ducked down as the soldiers below returned fire, then ran back the way they came, slamming serval sets of doors shut behind them and barring them with whatever they could find. "Where do we go now?" a unicorn asked, her face bloodied from the flying glass earlier. "We're trapped!" another pony screamed. "We're all going to die! We're all going to die!" "Shut up!" Limestone shouted at the hysterical pony. "We're not dead yet. We just need to get out of here without using the ground floor, or going to the roof where the griffons can get us." "Jump out a window?" somepony suggested. "Not at this height," a different pony said back. "If it didn't kill us we'd at least break our legs." "It's at times like this, I think to myself, what would Princess Celestia do?" a stallion said. He blushed as a large number of ponies stared at him. "What?" "Princess Celestia has wings you dolt!" the pony next to him said. "She'd fly away!" "Wait! Wouldn't there be a fire exit somewhere on the outside?" Somebody said excitedly, like they'd just had the best idea ever. Limestone pointed a hoof at the pony that had spoke last, "Finally, somepony with a sensible idea! Some ponies go find it while the rest of us hold them back!" A crash sounded from the other side of the door as the soldiers broke through one of the others they'd closed. "Try not to take too long." "Look at you being all take charge," Pinkie said to Limestone as some ponies ran off to find the fire exit. "Well if nopony else is going to do it, I guess I have to." Limestone shoved Pinkie aside and turned back to the mass of ponies behind her, "I need some mages. Do we have any mages here?" A couple dozen unicorns held their hooves up. "Great! I need the best of you at making shields across the front here." Limestone drew an imaginary line across the hallway, "When they bust through the door, we're all going to open fire on them, then you're going to shield us before they can shoot back. The rest of us are either going to use your shields, or whatever cover we can. You got it?" The unicorns nodded and picked six out of themselves to form the shields, just as the doors holding the enemy back cracked and bulged from the soldiers on the other side trying to get through. They prepared themselves, their horns glowing in preparation. "We found the fire exit!" a mare shouted, running back into the hallway. "It's not very big though. It's going to take a while to get everypony out." "Then start getting ponies out. Wounded first," Limestone told her. "We'll hold them-" Limestone flinched as the door cracked again. "We'll hold them as long as we can! Go!" "Marble, go with them," Pinkie said to her twin, only to have her rapidly shake her head in refusal. "I mean it Marble! Get of here while you can!" "I'm not going," Marble said, breaking her silence. "Not without all of you." "I guess we're all idiots then," Limestone said as the door jumped again. "Get ready." The door smashed open in a spray of splinters, and at Limestone's instruction they opened fire on the ponies that had kicked it open. Several ponies fell in seconds, pierced by arrows, or blasted by magic, but the Mareitanians had a similar idea to them, having their adepts put shields up to protect their forces. Fire was returned, but the Equestrian unicorns had already raised their shields to protect themselves and their fellows. "Keep firing!" Limestone bellowed, encouraging everypony around her to keep the Mareitanians from pushing forwards. A stone delivered from her own hoof cracked a shield, which was quickly exploited by an arrow, taking down the unicorn casting it. With the gaping hole in their line, the Mareitanians started to lose more ponies, and were soon forced to withdraw to cover. "Woo!" Pinkie cheered. "Go team!" "Shut up Pinkie! Prepare yourself!" "What? Why me?" "I meant all of us!" Limestone stepped out of her cover and in behind the mages, keeping an eye on things as they waited for the Mareitanians next move. There were still too many ponies in the building to go by far though, and she growled under her breath as they had barely any space to back up if they needed it, the space already occupied with ponies. "What is taking so long? Pinkie, go see what's happening." "But-" Pinkie stopped herself as she saw the look on Limestone's face. The one that bridged no arguments. "Yes'm" she said, running out of her cover and weaving her way towards the fire exit. Through the smoke made by the smouldering carpets, the lights of fresh shields could be seen. Shapes could also be seen moving in front of them, which was all the reason Limestone needed to shout another order to open fire again. A dozen heavily armoured earth ponies charged through the smoke, shrugging off a lot of what was being fired at they, although two fell quick enough, their armour glowing from the magic striking them. The rest slammed into the Equestrians, foregoing weapons in favour of just using their mass to trample ponies underhoof. The mage's shield collapsed as the juggernauts crashed into it, and the mages dived out of the way, letting others deal with them. Not that they could stop them very easily either as arrows and weapons bounced off their armour, and while magic was effective, the quantity needed would very easily result in friendly fire in such close quarters. Maud leapt on the back of one as they stopped, and with a stone in each hoof, she slammed one against the sides of his helmet, bending it out of shape, and possibly the skull beneath as the pony collapsed to the ground, throwing her off. Some of the others were being dragged down as well, while the rest ran back to the safety of their allies, creating an opening for them to open fire again on the disorganised Equestrian forces. Marble screamed as a bolt of magic burned into her left shoulder, and Limestone shouted for shields to get put up, running over to her sister as the unicorns set them up. "Stupid, stupid idiot!" Limestone yelled at Marble, putting pressure on the wound as blood dribbled out of it. "You could have stayed at home where it was safe, but noooo, you had to go with Pinkie and be a big damned hero!" "Because staying at home and being forced to do all the things you make me do was a much better choice." Limestone was speechless for a moment, but only a moment. "Shut up!" she shouted, not knowing what else to say, then dragging Marble back as her mind tried desperately to come up with a plan that would get her sisters, and hopefully everypony else, out of here alive. They'd lost a few ponies in that last attack, but they still had enough left. "Limestone!" Pinkie shouted, pushing through the crowd back to her sister. "I need some of those mage ponies!" "What? Why?" "Because- Oh my gosh! Marble!" Pinkie rushed over to her twin's side, "Are you okay? What happened?" "She got in the way," Limestone growled, making Marble flinch. "Why do you need some mages?" "Huh? Oh! Right! Well, the fire escape's not very big, and there are ponies from upstairs using it as well. It also turns out a lot of ponies suck at using ladders. I was thinking, if we had a few mage ponies, we could use their shields to make a big slide and get every pony out of here a lot faster. We're only four storeys up here, so it'll be fine. It could even be fun!" Limestone nodded as she thought, agreeing with Pinkie's plan, although questioning how fun it could be. "You three," she said to three of the mage unicorns at the rear of the group, "could you use your shields to make a slide? To get ponies out of here faster?" "Yeah, we guess so," one said after a quick discussion. "Great. Go with Pinkie, and set up a slide down to the ground. Pinkie, take Marble, get her out of here." Pinkie saluted Limestone, "Yes ma'am, being all in charge of things for some reason, probably because you're bossy. Come on Marble." Limestone stopped for a breath as Pinkie dragged Marble and the mages through the press of ponies to the exit. Why the hell was she in charge of this situation? What the hell happened to the pony who was actually in charge here? Limestone supposed he was probably killed when the tanks attacked the building, and now the job fell to the bossiest pony, which so happened to be herself. "Lucky me." "Is Marble okay?" Maud asked, sidling up to Limestone as she caught her breath. "She will be. Pinkie's come up with a plan to start getting ponies out of here faster. Naturally it involved making a slide out of magic." Limestone shook her head ruefully. "What about the rest of us? Are they holding?" "For now," said Maud. "I recommend taking out the pillars on both sides of the door, to collapse the doorway. That should slow them down for a while." Limestone peeked around her cover to see what Maud was talking about. The pillars around the door were thick, and probably load bearing. Collapsing them could block the doorway, although it could potentially do a lot worse. "Are you sure that's all that will happen?" Maud nodded once, "I am." That was all the reassurance Limestone needed from Maud, and she quickly instructed for those mages not maintaining shields to start blasting away at the pillars. Chunks were blown out of them, but they adamantly refused to break. The Mareitanians were also catching on to what they were doing, and attempted to push through the entrance. "Shit. Maud, we need to buck the pillars." Limestone dropped into a sprinting stance, ready to make a break for the doorway. "On three. One... two... three!" Both of them sprinted out of cover for the doorway, running as fast as they could for a pillar, with Limestone going for the left, while Maud went right. Both of them turned and bucked at the same time, kicking the now fragile pillars and giving the last push they needed to break. It certainly had the desired effect as the sudden loss of support made a section of the ceiling cave in around the door, ironically dragged down by its attachment to the pillars rather than by the loss of support. Both of them were forced to run if they didn't want to get crushed by the collapse. When the dust cleared though, they could see the way was blocked, although whether it would hold the Mareitanians back for long was another matter. "Let's go ponies!" Limestone said to the now redundant defenders. "Let's get the hell out of... here... What?" Limestone said to Maud who was staring at her wide eyed. Maud pointed a hoof at Limestone's side, just in front of her hip. "You have an arrow in your side." "Huh?" Limestone's head whipped around to see, and as Maud had said, there was an arrow sticking out of her side, right between two sections of armour. "...Oh shit." Her legs went wobbly as the pain set in, like the fact that she knew it was there now was enough to break the spell holding the pain back. "Nnngh... fuck!" Her dark grey armour turned darker around the wound as blood seeped into the fabric, and she had to fight the urge to tear the arrow out, knowing it would only make things worse. Maud was there as soon as she was down, hooves pressing against the wound, but Limestone pushed her away and struggled back to her hooves. "We have to get out of here," Limestone hissed, stumbling on her suddenly useless legs until Maud caught hold of her. "But moving could make it worse." "Staying here could make everything worse!" Maud didn't argue the point. She silently supported Limestone to the fire exit, where the sounds of fighting were still going on, as those on the ground exchanged fire with the Mareitanians on the floor above. Given the lack of choice on getting down, Maud helped Limestone onto the slide, then followed her down, helping her off at the end. "Where now?" Pinkie asked, eyeing the arrow in Limestone's side, but not saying anything about it. "Seriously," Azure spoke up, "let's get the heck out of here. The meet up place to get out of here was the Canterlot rail line wasn't it? I say we head there and let other idiots fight this losing battle." "So long as we help other ponies that need it along the way," Pinkie told her. "Well, yeah, sure. I guess." "If there's a medic pony there, I couldn't care less where we go," said Limestone. She stumbled as Maud removed her support, then yelled with surprise and pain as her sister ducked under her and picked her up entirely. "You could've warned me!" Limestone growled under her breath as Maud apologised, "Nevermind. Let's just get the fuck out of here." -0-0-0- The Equestrian army had fielded almost three thousand fliers of various depictions, between the Wonderbolts, Air corps, Night Guard, and the Exiles, as the formerly Mareitanian pegasi had taken to calling themselves, largely because it was easier, even if it was inaccurate to their position within Equestria. Three thousand fliers... and they were completely useless. The griffons had gone to ground as soon as the battle started, and the fliers pretty much lost their purpose then and there. The bulk of the Mareitanian forces in the street had enough protection and firepower to turn them into a collection of well cooked turkey skewers, while the rest had taken the fight indoors where the Equestrian forces were located, which wasn't exactly the pegasi's forte either. Instead they were left to fly laps around the city, doing diddly squat. Air superiority meant nothing if you couldn't do anything with it. "This is a fucking mess," Lightning said to nopony in particular. "How the hell are we supposed to do anything if we can't even get to the enemy?" "I'll be surprised if Luna keeps command after this," said Thunderlane. "It was bad enough throwing ponies that hadn't even finished basic under the cart, but this is a fucking joke." "Cut the chatter," said Fire Streak, their squadron leader. "The griffons could still attack us at any moment, so stay on your guard." "Or we could attack them," Sky Stinger suggested. "Absolutely not. Spitfire will get back to us with orders soon enough. Just maintain your position." "But sir," Cloud protested, "we can't just do nothing!" "Just hold your damn positions!" Fire Streak sighed and shook his head as he grumbled to himself. "Fucking kids." Rainbow didn't pay much attention. Of all the things she should probably be doing, she instead found herself wishing Twilight were here, because she'd have known what to do in this situation. Better than Luna certainly, since the amount of time they'd spent flying around doing nothing didn't exactly suggest that she had a plan for if it all went wrong. Which it had. Spectacularly. Minutes later Spitfire returned, alone. "Listen up ponies! We are pulling out! Our ground forces are doing what they can to get themselves out, and Luna is doing what she can to help those trapped. Our job is to fly cover for our retreating forces, and stop them from being followed. I'm not giving specific orders here, so split up into your squadrons and do what you think you need to. The Air corps, Night Guard, and Exiles are doing the same, so watch you don't all hit each other. Especially the Exiles, as they don't exactly have a whole lot of discipline. Now move out!" "Finally!" Sky Stinger cheered. "I was going nuts up here." "Don't get too excited," Fire Streak told him. "As soon as we start hitting the Mareitanians, those griffons are probably going to try and stop us, so keep your eyes and ears open." Their squadron drifted left as they all spread out, and they could already see groups of pegasi diving down to the streets, trying to take the pressure off their beleaguered allies. Rainbow spotted a group of a few hundred ponies running below, an almost equal number of Mareitanians hot on their tails as they shot after the fleeing ponies. Amongst those fleeing ponies she saw a spot of vibrant pink. That was enough for her. "Down there!" Fire Streak looked down and nodded, "Okay, dive!" Rainbow led the way down, pushing herself faster than the others, because if that was Pinkie down there, and something happened to her... Rainbow really, really hoped that nothing would happen to her. They aimed for ponies at the rear of the group, for their own safety mostly, as hitting the ponies in front was just asking to get yourself shot. Rainbow struck first, being in the lead as she was, and her blades sank down into the back of a unicorn mare. She pushed off to free her blades, then darted forwards to strike another pony, and another, pushing her luck further and further with each pony she took down. The Mareitanians had figured out what was happening by the time she'd killed her fourth, and she was finally forced to take back to the air, only for a group of Exiles to dive in from another direction and take the Mareitanians by surprise, taking down a couple dozen more before pushing off again. A shield went up over the Mareitanians, stopping the pegasi from attacking them. It also stopped them from following the ponies they were chasing after, and since that was the point, nopony felt the need to attack any further. Not when they had other problems. As Fire Streak had predicted, their attacks had drawn the griffons back into action, and the sky filled with the battle-cries of thousands of griffons, intent on regaining their air superiority. None of the pegasi had any intention of giving it back to them. Postponed as it had been, the battle for the skies over Vanhoover was back on. "That's a lot of griffons," Cloud said in a low, fearful voice. The rest of them agreed. Maybe they could put the battle back off again, until next time. "I think we should go down to the streets," Thunderlane said, sounding hopeful that his suggestion would be listened to. "I really, really, think we should." "Don't have to tell me twice," Fire Streak replied, leading the squadron into a steep dive down to street level. All around them pegasi had the same idea, heading down to the narrow streets where their greater agility should give them a small advantage. Of course that mean they were in range of the Mareitanian ground forces again, but you couldn't have everything. The griffons thundered down after them, their piercing cries echoing off the buildings, confusing attempts to tell which direction they'd come from, so they had to rely entirely on their eyes instead. A quick glance backwards told Rainbow that a dozen griffons were chasing after their squadron, and gaining, until a quick right turn up a street put some distance between them. "Split up!" Fire Streak commanded as they came up to a cross roads. Lightning went left, while Fire Streak went straight on with Pizelle's wing. Rainbow banked right into a narrow street, and nearly flew straight into a washing line suspended between two buildings, her wing tips brushing the thin string. Dozens more like it went across the street, and Rainbow found herself having to rapidly weave through them. The griffons that decided to follow them weren't so quick. The first one caught her wing on the first line Rainbow had dodged, and found herself flying towards a fire escape as the line on her wing knocker her off her trajectory. The clang of metal, and the sickening crunch of bones left no doubt that it was the last mistake that griffon would be making. All of them stopped in shock as the deceased griffon smacked onto the ground below, and the remaining griffons glared at the three Wonderbolts. Rainbow saluted them mockingly, then kept flying as the griffons began to navigate the vertical maze of washing lines. For a moment Rainbow got frustrated at how slow they were, then remembered that they were trying to kill her. "Come on," she said, flying to the end of the street and banking left around the corner. She then promptly stopped, and gestured for Cloud and Thunderlane to squeeze in close to the wall and stay quiet. They could hear the complaints of the griffons as they tried to follow the three ponies, and for a second Rainbow thought they'd given up when the two griffons flew around the corner. Rainbow launched herself at one, stabbing her blades deep into its chest, but not without getting clawed across the face for her effort, the griffons sharp claws cutting gouges into her helmet and muzzleguard, as well as hooking a single claw behind her goggles and dragging it down over her left eye. "Ah!" Rainbow squawked, pushing herself off the griffon, and almost back into the wall. She dropped to the ground slowly, frantically trying to sheath her blades so she could tear her helmet off. Blood ran into her eye, and she cried with pain as she tried to wipe it away. A few seconds later Cloud was there, holding her hooves back from rubbing it more. "Let me see," Cloud said calmly. Rainbow tried to pull away, but Cloud held firm. "Open your eye, and let me see Rainbow." Rainbow obeyed, ignoring her pain and opening her eye with a flutter that flicked blood off her eyelashes. More blood ran into her eye, and she quickly squeezed it shut again. "I don't think he got your eye. Can you see out of it?" Rainbow flickered her eye open again, and although the colour she could mostly see was red, she could see out of it. "Yeah, I can." "Good. Thunderlane, go back up to those washing lines and find me something to clean this blood up with." "On it." Cloud pulled Rainbow's head down a bit as she waited for Thunderlane to come back, seeing that a chunk had been torn out of Rainbow's ear as well. "What?" Rainbow said as Cloud told her about it. She could feel it stinging now it had been pointed out, whereas before it non-existent compared to the pain of her eye. "Motherfucker. I'd kill him if I hadn't, y'know, already done that." "Do you want to keep going Rainbow? Or should we head to the fall-back zone?" "Nah, I'm good, I'm good. Just get me cleaned up and we'll get back in this." "If that's what you want," said Cloud, holding her hoof out for whatever Thunderlane gave her as he came back. "Y'know, that's probably going to leave an awesome scar if you don't get it healed," he said as Cloud gently wiped the blood from Rainbow's face. "It would look pretty badass. The ear's already pretty damn metal." "Oh yeah? Let's do the same to you and see how you like it." "Knock it off, the both of you." Cloud picked up Rainbow's helmet and wiped the blood out of it, then gave it back to Rainbow, who gingerly placed it on her head. "Alright, not to give credit to Thunderlane," Cloud said as Rainbow clipped the muzzleguard into place, "but the scratches on your helmet do look pretty cool." "Sure, whatever." Rainbow blinked her eye rapidly to try and get it to focus properly. It slowly did, but it certainly wasn't rushing, and it was watering a lot as well which didn't help, nor did it stinging like hell. "For fuck sake. This whole thing is bullshit. Come on, let's get out of here and see what we've missed." It was only a short flight back to where they came from, and they were surprised by what they saw. In the short time they'd been gone the Exiles were dominating the fight, flying with an almost supernatural synchronization, like swallows. Down here in the streets, the pegasi could pick the griffons apart piece by piece, and that was exactly what they were doing. Not that it was going entirely the pegasi's way, as amongst the scattered griffon bodies were plenty of pegasi. Even though she knew how messed up it was, Rainbow was still cheered up by the success of the pegasi, and thought it was time to add some of their own contributions to the fight again. Rainbow backed her wing up a bit from the entrance to the street, then put on a burst of speed, rocketing out of the street into the larger one. A group of Air Corps ponies were coming the other way, tailed by several griffons, who were unaware of the coming Wonderbolts. The Air Corps rolled to the side, giving them the room to pass by and strike at the griffons. One fell to each of them, while the others pulled up and broke off. Rainbow suddenly knew how they were winning the fight. They'd all been trained to fly and fight in close quarters. The griffons hadn't. Tossing a salute back at the other pegasi, Rainbow pushed on, looking for more targets. Instead they found her as the remaining griffons that had been tailing the other pegasi looped around to follow them. All of them put on speed to try and lose the griffons, but the four griffons weren't so easily shaken. Trying to outmanoeuvre them only bought seconds that the griffons stole back on the straights. They banked left as the griffons were hot on their heels, and swore as they turned into a dead end. "Keep going!" Rainbow shouted, pointing to a window halfway up the wall at the end. Holding her blades out in front, Rainbow dived through the window, shattering the glass. She dropped to the ground, letting Cloud and Thunderlane pass over her, then turned back to the window as the first griffon reached it, thrusting with her blade and stabbing the griffon through the mouth before she was even half way through. Rainbow yelled as the griffon gagged on the blade and bit down hard. Then the hen stopped moving, like her body had only just realised what had happened, and went floppy, sliding back out of the window. Rainbow held her weapons up, daring the three other griffons to follow, but none did. Thunderlane had already wrenched the door opposite open, and was ready to go, along with Cloud. Rainbow held her stance for a moment longer, then turned and flew for the open window. As soon as she did, the griffons tried to follow her. Or one did anyway. Outside the door was a hallway, with a small window at the end to the left. Thunderlane took the lead, smashing the window and squeezing through, followed by Cloud. The griffon was running out through the door by the time Rainbow was squeezing through, and she pulled upwards as he leapt after her, flipping up and over until her hooves pressed against the wall above the window, holding herself against it like she was standing on it, even if she had to flap her wings awkwardly to keep herself there. Rainbow started to laugh as the griffon struggled to get out, his larger frame and armour trapping him in the window. "Sucks to be you," she said, stopping her wings to drop onto him blade first. "Does it ever occur to you that we're getting pretty good at this?" Thunderlane said as Rainbow pulled herself free. Cloud gently smacked the back of her hoof across the side of his helmet, "Don't say things like that. Those are like the perfect last words right there. If you get yourself killed now, you got no-one to blame but yourself." Rainbow flicked the blood off her blades as the other two bickered. While Cloud was just being silly and superstitious, Thunderlane did actually have a point. They did seem to be getting better at this, and not just the three of them. The rest of the Wonderbolts were racking up an impressive amount of kills now, and the Night Guard tended to speak for themselves, although their unique biology did give them one hell of an advantage. The Air Corps had yet to prove itself, but they might not get the chance as the Exiles were dominating the griffons. They were fearless, if them not wearing protection was anything to go by, and they were coordinated to levels that even Rainbow was jealous of. If today went well, for the fliers at least, Equestria might actually establish air superiority for the rest of the war. "We should probably try to find the rest of our squadron," Rainbow said, cutting off the other two. "Probably before we get shot down," she added as Mareitanian ground forces passed by the end of the street. Rather than fly over the obvious danger, Rainbow led them up out of range, and up out of the streets to try and get a better view of what was going on, and maybe find the rest of the Wonderbolts, if not their squadron. The battle seemed to be dying down, pulling in tighter to the city centre where the ruins of the Royal Canter building were visible by the smoke it was putting out. "There!" Cloud shouted, pointing to the right where a cluster of ponies in the blue uniforms of the Wonderbolts were occupying part of a rooftop. The distance between them and the others was clear of griffons, so they flew directly to the rooftop. From the colours of the tails they could see it was mostly A Squadron, and a few dead griffons, but they were also gathered around something Rainbow couldn't see, not until they got closer. It was Fire Streak, and he was injured. Badly. "No!" Rainbow shouted, slamming down on the rooftop and running the rest of the way over. Fire Streak could barely look up as she pushed her way through the other Wonderbolts, and she fell to her knees in front of him. He was bleeding heavily from a wound on his chest, and a trail of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Even Rainbow could tell he didn't have long left. "Nice to see you're okay guys," Fire Streak croaked. "Have you seen the others?" "No. I guess they're still out there," Rainbow told him, removing her helmet and revealing her own injuries. "Heh, mine are better," Fire Streak joked. Rainbow turned to Spitfire, "Why aren't you getting him help?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Most of our forces are now outside the city," said Spitfire. "To get him help we'd have to carry him, and as soon as we do that..." Spitfire shook her head. She didn't need to finish that sentence. "But... Fuck! No!" Rainbow slammed her hooves down on the rooftop. "I thought we were winning?" "We are," said Fleetfoot. "We've pushed what's left of the griffons back to their shields, although I think the exiles did most of the work. But with our ground forces pulling out, we have to as well." Cloud squeaked as she worked out what Fleetfoot was saying, "You're just going to leave him here?" "No, of course not, but he's not going to survive the journey if we bring him with us, and we'd rather have his last moments be around his friends, rather than in agony." Fleet sighed and rubbed a hoof back over her mane, her eyes stinging with tears. "Don't think this is easy for any of us Cloud. Fire Streak trained some of us. Heck, he was even my favourite when I was a filly." "I-" Cloud backed away, until Thunderlane held out a leg to stop her, and she pulled off her helmet as she leant against him. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to-" "It's alright, really. It's hard for all of us." "Who's going to lead us?" Thunderlane asked, feeling guilty for doing so when Fire Streak lay there, dying. He was only asking for the distraction from his own feelings. "Replacing me already?" Fire Streak laughed. He flopped a hoof as Thunderlane started to stammer apologies, "I'm joking, I'm joking. Mostly," he sniffed, before launching into a coughing fit that looked like it could have killed him if the wound didn't. "I- I wish I could say it was a hard choice, but it's not. You three are fine fliers, and I couldn't have been prouder to lead you, but you're headstrong and reckless. Too reckless. With Spitfire's blessing I'm passing command of B squadron to Lightning Dust. Any arguments?" All of them shook their heads. "Good. She's a good filly Lightning. Keeps her head well in a fight. You'll need that-" Fire Streak trailed off into horrible wet coughs as his breathing became harder. "Altius Volantis Wonderbolts." "Altius Volantis," they all replied, saluting him and holding it until his breathing stopped and he slipped away moments later. It took a while before somepony gathered up the courage to speak. Spitfire sighed and rolled her helmet in her hoof to place it on her head. "Fast Clip, Soarin, take care of him. The rest of us, spread out and start telling whatever fliers are left to get the hell out of here. This battle's over; there's no point in losing any more of us." -0-0-0- "This way!" Luna stopped to let her soldiers pass between two buildings, intending to protect them as they fled to the distant purple dome where Shining Armour was protecting their extraction point. Ponies should already have been getting loaded onto trains to get out of there, and if Luna had any say in it, a lot more would be joining them. Ever since the battle had gone south, she'd put all her focus into making sure as many of her ponies got out of there as possible, even if it meant getting her hooves dirty, which she honestly didn't mind too much. Luna stepped back around the corner as the Mareitanians got closer. The first fell to a blast from her horn, while another fell to her glaives. She jumped to the side as an Adept returned fire against her, then teleported to the offending unicorn, bringing her blade Apollo into a downward strike that decapitated the stallion. She pulsed her magic, sending ponies flying into buildings as she let loose, having no fear of harming her allies while she was alone. Her horn glowed as her magic and weapons put down as many soldiers as she could before they recovered, and she found herself even more alone after that as they fled back into the depths of the city. She let herself sag against the side of a building as exhaustion hit her. She'd been fighting for hours before the attack on the city even began, and had hardly taken a moment of respite since the Mareitanians first attacked the Bulwark the day before. Luna sighed and let her rear slip to the ground, and watched the pegasi fly above her as they too decided to flee the battle. Two days into the war, and all they had done was lose and retreat before the Mareitanians. Before Faust, who had been conspicuously absent since the destruction of the Royal Canter. The Equestrian forces had put up a noble fight, but they were outnumbered and outmatched, for obvious reasons, and less obvious reasons. She could tell enough that they had taken back control of the skies from the griffons, which was at least one silver lining to this whole debacle, but for the most part that control was useless while the Mareitanians had the power to shoot down any pegasi that got too close to their forces. Then there was the magic issue. Equestria had been practicing magic for centuries, yet even with highly skill unicorns fighting at their side, it seemed to make little difference as the Mareitanian Adepts could protect well enough from most of what they could do. Moreover, the Equestrians just lacked a certain something. They lacked that push that the rebellion had possessed in their fight against the Grand Army of the Duke back in Mareitania, even if they'd been fighting an army of just earth ponies. Sure the rebels had Twilight fighting with them, which made a significant difference, but not to the level that they were useless without her, as the absence of Faust proved in this battle. There was something missing though, that had made all the difference when the rebels were fighting armies twice their size, and prevailing. Trixie. Luna sighed as she worked it out. Trixie had been brutal in the civil war, and it often felt like she could sway the outcome of a battle through her actions alone. The Grand Army had been terrified of her, and Twilight as well, albeit for different reasons. Trixie's dark magic had torn through the Grand Army's ranks like she was fighting sock puppets rather than soldiers, and the Equestrian army had nothing like that. Luna stopped herself before she followed that line of thought too far. Even if you ignored the ethical ramifications, there are a lot of ponies that would oppose the idea, herself and her sister included. Perhaps it best she focus on the here and now. Luna pulled herself back to her hooves. There might still have been ponies trapped in the city, and she didn't have the time to sit around and daydream. She spread her wings and took off, searching for signs of fighting, of which there seemed to be less and less. The city had almost become unbearably quiet as the Equestrians retreated, and Luna hoped that meant there were no others to save and she could leave herself. Faust was likely looking for her, so, given the lack of much else to do, she turned to leave, and only just spotted the flash of magic out of the corner of her eye towards the outskirts of the city. Pumping her wings she raced to the source of the magic, finding a large group of her soldiers trapped in a courtyard, hemmed in on all sides by enemy soldiers. They were shielding themselves, but with nowhere to go it was only a matter of time until the Mareitanians broke through. Luna teleported into the shield, almost getting herself attacked as she appeared amongst the tense ponies. She ignored that though, and the ping of magic bouncing off her armour, and quickly reinforced the shield. Around her was five hundred or more ponies, all crowded into the courtyard. How they'd managed to get themselves stuck like this was beyond her, but the facts were irrelevant. "Princess Luna!" the familiar voice of Pinkie squeaked. "Thank goodness!" Pinkie ran up to Luna and jumped up, pressing her two forehooves against Luna's chest. "We need to get out of here! My sisters are hurt, and if we don't get Limestone help she- she might-" Luna pushed Pinkie back to the ground, but kept a hoof on her shoulder. "I understand Pinkie pie, but it is not that easy to get all of you out of here when you're surrounded on all sides. How did you get trapped here anyway?" "We were leaving, but heard some ponies cornered in a building calling for help. We got them out, but now we're all stuck. At least until you came along." Luna nodded vaguely at Pinkie's words, her thoughts already turning more towards how to get them all out. They were backed up into the corner of two buildings, and there weren't any doors near them, while the windows were both high up and narrow. Honestly the solution was pretty straight forward for her, but she doubted many other ponies here had the strength or power left to carry it out. Luna walked to the corner of the building and tapped a hoof on the wall. It didn't seem too thick. "Pinkie, get everypony ready to move," she said, focusing her magic and aiming at the wall. A second later she unleashed the spell, punching a hole in the wall into the room beyond, destroying the furniture of whoever's living room it had been. She cast the spell again, punching a hole on the other side. "Flee to the extraction! Do not stop for anything!" Luna held the shield as ponies piled through the hole she'd made, shrinking it slowly as ponies left to concentrate it's strength as the Mareitanians stepped up their efforts to break the shield down. It took a few minutes to get everypony out, and by the time Luna was able to follow the courtyard was filling with soldiers. To stop them following she tore at the building with her magic, filling the hole with enough rubble to put the soldiers off from following the same way as she turned and sprinted. The space beyond was clear, but the sounds of soldiers running after them was clear. Luna encouraged them all to run faster, while firing her magic back at the Mareitanians to encourage them to run slower. It seemed to be working as they got closer to Shining's shield, and the soldiers stopped chasing. Luna breathed a sigh of relief, pleased that they had escaped. "Twitchy tail! Twitchy tail!" "What?" A flash of magic struck the ground, throwing up a wave of rock and soil. Luna stumbled and fell from the force of the impact, and she struggled for breath as the shockwave winded her. Her head also swam as she tried to work out what had just happened. "Found you." Luna looked up and around as a shining white alicorn descended gracefully from the sky and landed a dozen meters from Luna. She scrambled to her hooves, her head spinning as she moved well before she was ready to. "Faust." "You," Faust said back, her voice laden with scorn. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see you leading the efforts here. Your poor tactics and lack of organisation speak volumes of you as a leader." "You try to build an army in so short a time, without brainwashing ponies, and we'll see how well you do," Luna retorted. Luna stood up straighter as her head cleared, and she mentally prepared herself to fight. "Of course, without the brainwashing you probably wouldn't have succeeded at all." "You'd be surprised actually," Faust said lightly. Luna didn't believe her. "But this is not why I'm here. I would naturally be delighted to say that it's appropriate that you should fall first, but I already have your sad little doppelganger, so you could say I have already defeated you once." Luna was surprised. She'd just assumed Nightmare was hiding in the dreamscape, and had gotten better at doing so over the last couple of months. She never assumed that she wasn't there at all. "What have you done to Nightmare?" "After the deceit she laid upon me, I've given her everything she deserves, just as I shall give the same to you." Faust dropped into a fighting stance, which Luna didn't mirror. Instead she chuckled. "I guess that rainy day has come already." Luna summoned the crystal orb of liquid dragonfire, and tossed it into the air. Faust summoned a shield to intercept it, but Luna hadn't thrown it at her. She'd throw it up, and as it fell back down she fired a single bolt of magic at it, shattering the crystal and spraying its contents over Faust in a wave of brightly burning liquid. Faust had barely reacted. "And what was that supposed to do?" "You'll see." Luna grinned at the panic that arrived on Faust's face as the dragonfire burned intensely on her shield, heating its inside to uncomfortable levels within seconds. Luna smiled at her dilemma, as Faust could either hold the shield and cook herself, or drop the shield and have the burning liquid drop directly onto her. Neither option was particularly pleasant. Faust seemed to make her choice, and dropped her shield, choosing to teleport away, but not before some of the dragonfire could land on her. Luna heard the ghost of a scream as the larger alicorn vanished, and as she failed to reappear where Luna could see her, she could only assume Faust wasn't coming back. At least not soon. "Arrogant cow," Luna grumbled. "At least now she has an even better reason to hate me." Luna turned and ran for the train, leaping up inside the last carriage where Shining was waiting to greet her. "Glad you could make it. I thought you were done for when I saw Faust attack you." "I see you decided to not help me." Shining shrugged apologetically, "Sorry, but if you couldn't get yourself out of there we wouldn't be able to do much. How'd you get her to run away like that?" "I think you'll find I'm full of surprises Shining Armour. Now come, we can discuss it once we're safe in Canterlot. I didn't beat her so thoroughly that won't be coming back, and I very much doubt that would work twice." "Why not?" "I don't have any more vials of dragonfire for starters." "That's what you used on her?" Luna smiled sideways at Shining, "As I said, I'm full of surprises. Or I was at least," she added, her smile fading. "I'll have to find some more for the next time we meet."

The end of an era

25. So now what?

Luna paced back and forth in front of the throne, not speaking, or even really thinking. All she had was a quiet rage simmering beneath the surface, and no outlet for it. The Bulwark had been designed to hold Faust and the Mareitanians back for weeks if possible, but even if it weren't for Faust's surprise attack on the Crystal Empire, she doubted the bulwark would've held for more than a few days. As it is, it lasted two. Then there was Faust's tactics in the Crystal Empire. Besides turning up rather unexpectedly in the one place they suspected wouldn't be attacked, her tactics in the battle were suspicious. Luna had come to suspect Faust had acted as she did because she wanted the city to be evacuated, which she could understand to a point. The Mareitanians wouldn't have had the supply lines to support the Empire, which would make sense if the Empire couldn't sustain itself, which it could. So why give time and space to evacuate the city? Her tactics almost sounded gentle in the Empire compared to Vanhoover, which was an almost unmitigated disaster, as her sister had reminded her several times now. "Luna, please stop pacing. You're making me giddy." Celestia sighed as Luna glared at her then resumed pacing, her hooves clacking noisily on the marble floor when there wasn't carpet to muffle her movements. "Luna, please, we need to talk about this." "What is there to talk about? You said yourself it was an unmitigated disaster. The Empire has been lost utterly, and they now have a hoof in Equestria by taking Vanhoover. We were supposed to hold them back for weeks Celestia, not two days!" Luna grunted and muttered, "She fights like Twilight." "Faust you mean?" "Indeed," said Luna, finally stopping her pacing. "I'm not sure Twilight ever really realised it, but she could throw some complete curveballs at times. At least I think that's the saying. That illusion of the army Faust created felt like something Twilight would do if she had the raw power to do such a thing." "And what would Twilight do now?" "How should I know?" Luna lowered her head and resumed pacing. "I'm not Twilight." Celestia fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Then what do you think Faust would do?" "Faust?" Luna went quiet for a moment as she thought. "If I were her I'd press the attack while we're still reeling from the loss of both the Empire and Vanhoover, but I don't think Faust would do that." "Why not?" "Because if what happened at the Empire was any indication, she wants us to see her coming, and have time to prepare." "Why in the world would she do that?" "To minimise civilian casualties," said Luna. "We can at least give her credit there for not wanting civilians to get stuck in the middle of this, which is precisely why she's not pressing her attack, even if it costs her own forces more. Frankly she seems capable of doing the extra work herself." Luna shrugged at Celestia, "Of course the other theory is that she's preserving both our ponies and infrastructure to use for her own ends later." "That would fit in with what we know of Faust's plans," Celestia agreed. "You still haven't suggested what she might be doing now though." "Now?" Luna shrugged again. "Fortifying her position in Vanhoover probably, while she rebuilds the railway between there and Mareitania, giving her a speedy and reliable supply line. If I'm right about that, it should give us a couple of weeks without incident to prepare. She also needs time to heal, so that may buy us time too." "Prepare for what?" Luna almost laughed at the question. "Anything!" she said. "As soon as I have some information on what's happening in Vanhoover, I'll be able to make some plans. If I'm honest, although I realise I pulled a lot of them early from their training, that extra month wouldn't account for how poor some of them performed. Especially the Air Corps." "Just the Air Corps?" "The Mage Corps were marvellous, but that's about it. The Earth Corps and the Uni Corps still need some work, while the Hard Corps were I feel ill suited to the sort of battle they were in. The only silver lining here is that with the Exiles' aid we were able to do significant damage to the Mareitanians griffon allies, meaning Equestria does at least own the skies for now." "I still don't approve of you pulling ponies out of training early just because you found yourself short hooved." "And I'm sorry for that," Luna said back curtly. "But between the unexpected attack on the Crystal Empire, and the effect that had on the crystal ponies, as well as everything else, we needed the troops. If we do have the time, I would like to have the Wonderbolts give the Air Corps a week or more of intensive training, while I keep my Night Guard and the Exiles available for duties." Celestia raised an eyebrow at her sister, "And what duties might those be?" "Once I know more, I'll tell you. Our reconnaissance flight should be returning before too long, and then we can make some plans. Until then, there's nothing more we can do, especially with General Stormguard off overseeing construction of the new Camp Freedom, and General Armour visiting the wounded with Cadence. Although, if you have some news for me concerning the Mareitanians employment of griffons, I'm all ears." Celestia sat back and shook her head, "There's not much to say. From what I've heard off Deetra, there's no indication that the Emperor was involved, but that doesn't mean much. All it would take is one word from the right person to the Bloodfeathers to get them to offer their services to Faust, rather than have Faust ask them. I'm afraid we might never know the entire truth of the matter Luna." "Then perhaps I better go visit our own intelligence ponies, to see if they have learnt anything." -0-0-0- Pinkie, Maud, and Marble sat quietly to side of Limestone's bed in Canterlot hospital, the only sound being that of the machines keeping her and dozens of other ponies alive until they had their time with one of Twilight's healing devices. None of them knew what to say to the others, which was helpful in some ways, as it stopped them saying the wrong thing. Pinkie hated the silence though, and if nopony was going to say anything, then she was, even if it was irrelevant to the reason they were sat where they were. "How's your shoulder Marble?" "'s okay I guess. It aches a bit, but that's fine. I won't be able to get it healed until there's a device free, but that might take a while. I guess the queue's quite long if they haven't even gotten around to Limestone yet." Pinkie nodded vaguely at Marble's words. "Are we going to talk about what happened?" "What is there to talk about?" said Maud. "We lost, and Marble and Limestone got hurt. There are a lot of ponies who didn't come back at all, so you could consider us lucky." "I don't feel lucky," Marble sighed. "I do," Maud said back to Marble. "If Princess Luna hadn't found us, we could all be a lot worse off than we are now." "What could be worse than this?" Pinkie asked. "I could be dead for starters," said Limestone. "Yah! Limestone!" Pinkie felt a smile tremble to life on her lips as Limestone half opened her eyes to look at them. "Thank goodness you're okay!" Limestone chuckled weakly, "Not sure I call this okay Pinkie, but whatever." "Should I call a nurse over?" Marble asked. "Nah, I'm fine." Limestone started to push herself up, but gave up as her legs failed to let her do that, and the pain in her abdomen suggested staying still was a good idea. "Where are we?" "Canterlot hospital," said Pinkie, her ears drooping. "A lot of ponies came here after what happened in Vanhoover." "That was a bit of a shit-show," Limestone grunted. "Did we all get out? Where are Azure and Top Spin?" "They're fine," said Maud. "They're getting something to eat." Limestone sighed with relief and nodded, then remembered something. "Marble! Are you alright?" "Mmhmm." Marble rubbed a hoof over the bandages on her shoulder, then stopped as she felt something more was expected of her. "I'm fine." "Marble, you..." Limestone hesitated, not sure how much she wanted to bring the topic up again. "You said you didn't want to stay on the farm with me." "I-uh... did, sort of." Marble shrank down, really not wanting to have this conversation, now or ever. The way Pinkie and Maud looked at each other didn't help either. "Why?" "Ummm..." Marble cursed internally as her voice tried to hide away. "Could we... maybe talk about this later?" "No, I want to talk about this now." "But there's nothing to talk about!" "Yes there is Marble. Don't you try and pretend like you didn't say it. Tell me what you meant." Marble almost didn't, but suddenly faced with this situation now, where Limestone for once couldn't do a thing against her. The only one she had to fight to be heard now was herself, as she screwed her face up trying to force the words out. "Y-You... you-" Marble growled under her breath, and forced herself to say it, even if she had to shout it. "You bully me Limestone! You bully me! You talk to me like I'm dirt, you push me around, and you make me do horrible things! And you never do it when other ponies are around, and threaten to hit me if I tell somepony! Mother suspects you bully me, which is why she does so many things with me, to stop me being around you! Her hoof problems were cured months ago, but she kept up the pretence so I could get some peace. I never even helped her with it in the first place in fact!" A shocked silence filled the room, and Marble curled up on herself as a lot of other ponies turned to look at her. "Sorry," she whispered, looking instead at the agonised expression on Pinkie's face. Maud appeared sad as well as she turned away. "She really did that to you?" Pinkie asked squeakily, like she was nervous of the question. "A week before you came home last she made me eat a worm. Pinned me down, forced my nose into the dirt, and made me eat it." Maud turned her sad eyes back on Marble, "Why didn't you ever say anything?" "Because I was scared to. Because I couldn't. I love you Pinkie, but the way you always talk for me left it so that I can barely talk for myself. And then you left, and suddenly I had no voice at all. Then you left as well Maud, and that's when Limestone started doing the things she did." "Why Limestone?" Pinkie asked tearfully. She hated the idea of her twin getting bullied like that. In fact she hated the idea of it for anypony. "Why'd you do it?" "Because... Because I'm angry! You and Maud get to go off and leave the farm and have fun lives, but I have to stay at the farm, and slave away, and basically have all my decisions in my life made for me! Nopony asked me if I wanted to inherit the farm! And nopony bothered to find out how I feel about having my life planned out for me! I'm angry, and Marble was the easiest target for me to take my frustrations out on, because I couldn't do anything to the two ponies making me so angry." "Mum and Dad?" "Exactly. Even now, I'm the one breaking my back to run the farm, yet Mum and Dad are the ones that get the final say in everything. I can't even count the times I've come up with new ideas, only to have them say 'that's not how it's done.' It's enough to make me scream at times." "That didn't mean you had to bully Marble," Maud told her. Limestone stared up at the ceiling and sighed. "I know, and I know it's stupid of me to say this, but I always hated myself for doing what I did to you Marble, but that only made me angrier. I'm sorry Marble, I really am. I swear I will never do anything like that to you again." "Promise?" "I promise. I just want us to all go home safe after this is over." Marble thought about it, and if she were honest with herself, she still didn't want to be around Limestone all that much, but when she'd got hit by that spell in Vanhoover, it was Limestone who was there to drag her to safety. Not Pinkie, or Maud. Limestone. It was also Limestone that got herself hurt trying to save them. Maybe she deserved a little forgiveness. "I forgive you, but if you ever treat me like that again, I'm gone. I'll move to Ponyville with Pinkie, and you'll be left alone to do all that backbreaking work that I also helped you with, even when you were grinding my face in the dirt." Limestone nodded, tears in her eyes, even though she still managed to look angry. "I won't. I swear I won't. Thank you Marble." Limestone rubbed her tears away, then barked a laugh. "I haven't done this in a while. Feels pretty good actually." Pinkie rubbed her hooves anxiously, not sure whether it was over or not. She felt terrible for not realising what had been happening to Marble, and the news that Marble didn't appreciate her doing all the talking left her feeling guilty. "I'm sorry too Marble. You were just so shy back when we were young. I thought I was trying to help you." "I know Pinkie, I know." "Ahem." All of them turned to whoever had tried to get their attention, and all that could jumped up to attention as they saw it was Shining Armour. "At ease. This is a hospital, not a parade ground. I'm just here to have a little talk with Limestone." Pinkie pointed a hoof over her shoulder towards the exit, "Should we go?" "No, you can stay since this does affect all of you in a way. It's about your unit, and how it fared in the last battle." "What do you mean?" Limestone asked. "From what I heard, you really took charge in Vanhoover Limestone. A lot of ponies probably owe their lives to you. Not many could have stepped up like you did right at that moment, which is why I'm placing you in command of your unit." Limestone felt guilty for a moment, getting put in charge of her sisters after what they'd just been talking about, but she wasn't about to argue with the General. "Thank you sir." "I'm also changing the Hard Corps," he told her. "I think that perhaps a unit of just earth ponies isn't the way forwards. Not that I'm doubting your abilities of course, but I could tell you not only worked better with a mixed unit, but that fighting in the city wasn't perhaps your thing." "Sir?" Limestone glanced questioningly at her sisters, then up at the door into the room where Azure and Top Spin were drinking their coffees and listening in. "What do you mean?" "I've been given permission to shift two unicorns from the Mage Corps into your unit, as their skills would complement your own wonderfully as they did in Vanhoover. I haven't decided who yet, but I'll-" "Lyra Heartstrings and Crystal Moon," Pinkie said quickly. "Excuse me?" "They're two unicorns we shared a tent with in basic training," Limestone explained. "Both of them went on to join the Mage Corps, along with Pyrelight, but she's kind of a..." "Stuck up bitch?" Azure suggested. Limestone nodded in agreement, "Not my words sir, but yes." Shining held back a smile, "I guess that saves me having to work out who would work best with you. I also believe I heard the name Pyrelight going in for psych evaluation after getting injured in the Crystal Empire, so she might not be an option anyway." He turned to Azure, giving her a look. "Even if she wasn't a stuck up bitch." "She called me tacky sir. Only my mother gets to call me that." Shining's brain hiccupped for a moment, then decided to ignore it had just heard. "Anyway, since you've decided who should join you, I'll leave you to rest." Shining stood and saluted Limestone, then was about to leave when he remembered something. "Hold on. Pinkie?" "Uh, yes Shining, sir?" "Cadence asked me to tell you that Rainbow's here as well. Not for anything serious," he added quickly, seeing Pinkie's horrified expression. "Cadence thought seeing you might cheer her up a bit. She's in the minor injuries unit if you want to see her." "Uh... um." Pinkie smiled apologetically at Limestone, who rolled her eyes. "Go on Pinkie." "Thanks Limestone, uh, sir, ma'am, sir. That's going to take some getting used to to. See ya later." Pinkie rushed out of the door and went left, following the signs down the clean white corridors until she found the minor injuries unit. Cadence was just leaving it, but stopped when Pinkie gave her a cheery greeting. "Oh good Pinkie, I'm glad to see you're alright. I'm sorry your sisters got hurt." "And I'm sorry your Empire got taken away by that mean ole Faust." "We'll get it back one day Pinkie. For now though we still have the Crystal Heart, which is something. Or it will be once Celestia and I work out a way to get it working again, even a little." "I'm sure you'll work it out. But what about you Cadence? Are you okay?" "I'm-" Cadence closed her eyes and sighed, "I'm keeping it together Pinkie. Between all this and losing the Empire, it's a lot to handle, and it's only going to get worse." Cadence's eyes went wide as she realised what she'd just said. "Sorry, I just- Sorry. I need to go see Celestia. It was nice to see you Pinkie." "And you Cadence." Pinkie waved after Cadence as the flustered alicorn stopped just short of actually running away. Then she let her hoof fall back to the ground, sad to see Cadence so upset, even if she was trying to hide it. Knowing she couldn't do anything about it, she pushed the door open to the minor injuries unit and walked in. There weren't as many ponies in here, with what few there were getting small cuts and scrapes seen to. Rainbow was easy enough to find as she grunted and cursed under her breath, her rainbow tail swishing irritably off the side of a bed as a unicorn stitched her injuries up. "Aww Rainbow! Not your pretty face!" Rainbow didn't even need to look to see who had spoke to her. "Thanks Pinkie, that makes me feel soooo much better." "Oh. Heh-heh, sorry. What happened to you?" "A griffon happened to me. Hooked a claw behind my goggles and did this. I think I came out slightly better than he did though." "Oh? What happened to him?" Rainbow rolled her eyes, then winced as it stung. "I killed him Pinkie. What did you think I meant?" "I don't know. What I do know is that you need to work on your definition of slightly." "I'll get riiiight on that. Anyway, what are you doing here Pinkie?" "Limestone and Marble got hurt in Vanhoover, and they brought them here to get fixed up." "Oh, well, sorry to hear that." Rainbow went quiet as the unicorn finished with her stitches, then sat up so she could finally see Pinkie. Her face felt uncomfortably tight with the stitches, but there wasn't much she could do about it. The healing devices were being prioritised for ponies with serious injuries, so hers didn't even get a look in. "Hmm, it's not that bad I guess." "Still not helping Pinkie." "Sorry." Pinkie smiled apologetically, "I'm not really sure what to say now. What about the rest of your squadron? Are they okay?" It took a moment for Rainbow to answer, and when she did her voice was no louder than a mouse's. "We lost Fire Streak." "Aww no." Pinkie held her legs open, offering a hug, but Rainbow waved her off. "Okay then. I'm sorry for your loss. Who's going to lead you now?" "Lightning Dust." "Really? Not you?" Rainbow cracked a weary grin at Pinkie, "Nope. Apparently I'm too reckless." "Is that- Is that like a codeword for awesome? It feels like it should be." "It should be, but while Fire Streak knows I'm a great flier, he wanted somepony else to lead the squadron, which I'm actually fine with. I guess I do have a tendency to go and do my own thing in battle sometimes, and leading the squadron would only mess that up for all of us." Rainbow shrugged at the situation, "So yeah, not bothered." "Wait, wasn't Lightning Dust way more reckless than you back at Wonderbolts Academy? Isn't that part of why she got kicked out?" "Yep," Rainbow laughed. "Now it seems like we've gone and switched places. I do the stupid things trying to win, and she's, well, probably more sensible than me." "As long as you don't go getting yourself really hurt doing something silly." Rainbow puffed her chest out, ready to brag that nothing like that would ever happen to her, but she soon deflated as she knew it could, and she knew Pinkie knew that too. "I'll try," she said instead. "I wish I could stay and chat more, but I only came to get some stitches. We're going to be heading out to the Wonderbolts' h.q. soon to give those ponies in the Air Corps a week or two of intensive training. Gotta get them ready for what this war's going to throw at us." "Aww, shoot. And here I was hoping to go on a shopping trip around Canterlot. Oh well." "Yeah, no, and not just because I hate shopping. Seeing Rarity's shop..." Rainbow sighed and shook her head. "I'm not sure I can handle that." "I guess. I miss them too." This time it was Rainbow who offered the hug, and far be it from Pinkie to turn it down. "None of this should be happening." "I know Pinkie. I know." -0-0-0- If Rainbow hadn't been flying, her hooves would've dragged the entire way back to where the Wonderbolts were located at the edge of Canterlot park, which itself was at the edge of Canterlot. Bringing up Rarity's boutique had really bothered her, because now she was really thinking about it, and she did miss them a lot. A messed up part of her almost wished she'd been captured as well so she could be with them. She knew that was stupid though, and tried to pay the thought no mind, because Pinkie was still here, and Twilight was out there somewhere. Rainbow winced as she thought of Twilight. There was a pony she owed some apologies to, although Twilight would probably be the one apologising for getting them into this situation, even if that wasn't really necessary. The fact was, both her and Pinkie had killed now, and even if they hadn't killed in the quantities Twilight, or with anywhere near the same proficiency, they still had no right to judge her. Rainbow laughed shortly at herself, agonising again over what she was going to do and say the next time she saw Twilight. It was such a silly thing to spend her time thinking over when she had far more pressing issues to deal with. "About time you got back," Spitfire said as Rainbow slowly flew in over the mass of Wonderbolts and Air Corps ponies. "We were almost ready to set off without you." "Sorry Captain. I was getting my face stitched back together." "Uh-huh, I know, but now you're once again as pretty as a picture, you should get yourself ready to move out." Spitfire suddenly took a less serious stance and sighed. "Maybe you should have a talk with Lightning Dust as well. I don't think she's taking to her new role very easily." Rainbow saluted Spitfire, "Yes Captain." Rainbow held the salute until Spitfire returned it, then searched through the assembled ponies until she found Lightning Dust slowly packing her gear, like she was on autopilot. "Lightning? Hello? Ground control to Squadron leader Dust? Can you hear me?" "Squadron leader Dust..." Lightning closed her eyes and laughed bitterly. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that." "Why not? You pretty much got promoted to a Lance Corporal when you were picked to lead your wing, so Squadron Leader isn't that big of a jump." "Has it never struck you as odd that in the academy you train in pairs, but on active duty you work in threes?" Lightning waited for Rainbow to give an answer, but all she did was shrug. "Lead pony and wing pony. So simple, but now we have squadrons, and wings, and actual ranks, with an unspoken authority over the Air Corps, even when some of them might technically outrank you. I actually need to think about this stuff now, as well as the wellbeing of my squadron." "Y'know, you could refuse the position if you want. Fast Clip's a senior Wonderbolt, so I'm sure he could take the position." "He's also too cautious," said Lightning, "and so is Pizzelle's wing. I'm not entirely sure why you weren't considered, but if Fire Streak chose me, then he must think I can do it." "He thinks I'm too reckless," Rainbow told Lightning with a laugh. "Apparently I've taken your old place in things. Guess he thought I'd push the squadron too hard if I was in charge." "Maybe. Or maybe he doesn't think we're ready to weaponise sonic rainbooms yet." Rainbow smiled at the idea, "As awesome as that would be, I don't think it'd really have the effect you want. Even if I could turn it into a destructive force, it'd be pretty... What's the word?" "Indiscriminate?" "Yeah, that." "Then perhaps we could work on something else." Lightning glanced around surreptitiously before whispering to Rainbow. "You know the old stories about how pegasi could throw lightning off their wings?" "Yeah, of course." "I've been trying to do it, in my free time, and I think I might be getting close." "Really? I'm not going to say it's impossible, because I've done plenty of impossible things, but you have to forgive me if I don't totally take you at your word." "That's fair," said Lightning, "but I'm not joking. You already know how to do a lot of it with those lightning contrails you used in the shows. The secret is to take the energy from that contrail and direct it somehow." "Somehow," Rainbow deadpanned. "It's harder than it sounds, and I'm still working on the details yet, but yeah. If we can work this out Rainbow, we'll give ourselves a much better chance. Imagine how effective we'd be if we could attack from range!" "Alriiiight," Rainbow said slowly, stretching the word out as she thought about it. "I guess that does sound good, in theory. If you think we can do it, then I'm game. Frankly it sounds way too cool to not even try." "Sweet! I know we'll be busy for a lot of the time, but hopefully we can get some time to work on it. Maybe I can even pull rank to get us some private time to do it." "So long as you don't call it that. You and me having private time? Ponies are going to talk. You already know the amount of talk that goes around about Spitfire's and Soarin's private time." "Aww, but I might have the hots for you now you look like such a badass." Rainbow placed a hoof on Lightning's chest and pushed her away. "You're a regular Casanova Lightning, but no thanks. Everypony already knows I'm in a polygamous relationship with Cloud and Thunderlane." "You are?" "Pfft, no. I wouldn't dream of getting into the middle of whatever those two have going on. Just like you'd never get into the middle of whatever Sky and Vapor have-" "As soon as Sky works it out." "Yeah. Do you think we should tell him one day that Vapor really wants nothing more than to ride his gigglestick?" Lightning made a bemused face at Rainbow. "Gigglestick?" "That's the kind of thing that happens when you hang around Pinkie too much," Rainbow groaned. "Anyway, what I was going to say before we went flying off course, was that I think we should get our wingponies involved. Six ponies could probably work this out faster than two. That, and watching Sky electrocute himself a few dozen times would probably be funny." Lightning stroked her chin and smiled deviously, "You make an intriguing case Rainbow, as seeing Sky in self-inflicted pain can be amusing. Alright, let's do it. But try and keep it quiet until we really work it out. No point in getting ponies excited if we can't actually figure out how it's done." "Awesome. Think of the difference this could make if we pull this off." "I know, and if it can keep the squadron alive, all the better." "Let's move it out ponies!" Spitfire shouted, pulling them away from their conversation. "Guess we better teach these scrubs how to fly properly first though," said Lightning. -0-0-0- Fleur massaged her eyelids, trying to ease the strain of looking at, well, anything. Equis had been busy over the last few days, trying to pull off an operation that had resulted in the capture of several Mareitanian Shades, which was great, right up until the invasion began. Now it seemed so insignificant in comparison, and judging by the attitude of some within the organisation, a total surprise. Fleur had often been left with the feeling that some ponies in Equis had thought they could avert the invasion by ending the short term threat posed by the Shades, as those had been the only active threat within Equestria. Until now at least. Fleur hadn't thought like that once, but that could be down to a better understanding of how Mareitanians operated. You think us sneaking around your country couldn't get worse? Hold my beer. "And now we're all going to hell in a hoofbasket," Fleur muttered to herself, forcing her eyes open to once again read through the reports she'd been given. The last twenty-four hours since Vanhoover had fallen seemed to accrue a large amount of paperwork, a lot of it saying the same things. Fleur was about ready to scream quietly into her coffee when somepony knocked at the door to her tiny office. Before she could even pull together the mental wherewithal to tell the pony to enter, the door was pushed open, letting Luna into the room. "Luna! Uh, hello! Um..." Fleur quickly gathered the mass of papers into some semblance of tidy. "Sorry about the mess." "That's quite alright Fleur. I'd rather see you being messy and busy at this time than otherwise." "You're not wrong there. I'd be worried if we didn't have anything to do after all that's happened. I don't suppose you've come to ask about our new prisoners?" "New prisoners?" Luna pulled up a cushion to sit opposite Fleur. "I've not heard anything of any new prisoners. Who are they?" "Shades. We found some decent information on some Shades operating within Equestria, so we pulled together an operation a few days ago and captured some. I think you were on your way to the Bulwark at the time, so you may have missed it." "That is indeed good news, but it's not why I'm here. Did you at least get some useful information out of them?" "Not as yet," Fleur said tiredly. "They're as tight lipped as the Shades Twilight captured back in Ponyville. Fanatical to the last, every one of them." "A pity. Still, we have higher priorities now. Have your reconnaissance flights over Vanhoover turned up anything yet?" Fleur pulled a face. "Yeesss, but I really wish you hadn't stopped us from using the Wonderbolts, because they were so much better at it." "Forgive me, but the Wonderbolts have other duties to attend to." "And I appreciate that, but I'm still saying that they were so much better than our own fliers. Our fliers don't seem to want to get that close to things, meaning that we might miss something important." "You have misgivings about how they operate?" Fleur hesitated, not wanting to throw anyone under the cart, but she also felt now was as good a time as she would ever have to get some things off her chest. "If I'm honest Luna, I have misgivings about how the entirety of Equis operates." "Oh?" Luna raised an eyebrow at Fleur, "Do tell." "Alright, well, for starters... what is it Muckraker and Eclipse actually do?" "What do you mean? They are the heads of Equis Fleur, their position is very important. The decisions they make could affect a great many things." "Really? I thought that as the Supreme Commander, or whatever you are, that you would have the final say in those decisions." "I can't do everything Fleur." "So if I told you that our agents in Mareitania captured Honeydew, the Mareitanians Chief Engineer, while destroying the remains of the airship you parked in their tank production facilities, you're fine with letting us get on with that?" "What? I wasn't informed of that?" "They thought it was beneath your notice." "I think I'll decide what's benea-" Luna stopped, suddenly catching on to what Fleur was saying. "I see. Perhaps I ought to have a little talk about this with both Muckraker and Eclipse. Since we're here though, why did they capture Honeydew?" "Actually they found her, and she surrendered for the same reasons she defected during the civil war. She just wants to get away from ponies using her to build weapons for wars she wanted no part of. In exchange, she was willing to let our agents use her knowledge of Mareitania's inner workings." "And she was unaffected by Faust's mind magic?" "She did seem to be." "Then I see no issue with giving her a chance. If she could help slow down the Mareitanians war machine, all the better." "That's what I thought. Muckraker and Eclipse thought differently." Luna went quiet, and Fleur swore she could feel the disappointment radiating out from her. "What did they do?" she asked coldly. "They ordered her death, to stop her falling back into Mareitanian hooves." Luna closed her eyes and sighed angrily. "I can understand their line of thought in that, but did they not think that a slight modicum of effort from our agents, and maybe a disguise, would prevent that? Do I still have a chance to rescind that order?" "This was almost two weeks ago now." Fleur kept her face emotionless as she watched Luna's face fall. She knew Honeydew was alive and well, but wasn't about to share that fact until she was sure of Luna's reaction. "Damn and blast! Honeydew was a victim of circumstance Fleur, and certainly deserved no such fate. I found her company to be quite pleasant in the short time I spent with her during the rebellion." "Then it's a good job I convinced our agents to spare her." Luna quickly breathed a sigh of relief, "Confound it Fleur! Couldn't you have told me that in the first place?" "I wanted to be sure of your reaction. It's not as though I have the authority to countermand Muckraker's and Eclipse's orders." "Not yet," Luna stated firmly. "I shall be having words with those two once we are done here. They shan't be pleasant. Although I shall keep your defiance of them quiet if you so wish?" "Yes please. I already feel as if I'm doing half their work as it is without them having an actual reason to dislike me." "Very well. Have our agents found any use for her knowledge yet?" "Not as such," Fleur admitted. "Security has been increased considerably since their last mission in Stalliongrad. They want to pick their targets wisely if it's going to be worth the extra risk." "Is that where the remainder of Faust's forces are?" Luna said thoughtfully, before brushing it off. "No matter. I am giving you full authority to decide our agents' actions in Mareitania, and will leave that all to you. I will still be having that talk with Muckraker and Eclipse though." Fleur smiled gratefully at Luna, "Appreciated, although we should probably get on and discuss what you actually came here to talk about." "Don't think I had forgotten Fleur. Now, please tell me there's some good news coming out of Vanhoover." Fleur flicked through the papers on her desk until she found an aerial photo of Vanhoover that was at this point, eight hours old, but it was still the most recent they had. It was admittedly not much different to a photo of Vanhoover from before the war, save for the now destroyed Royal Canter building, but you could at least see where the Mareitanians were. "With the Royal Canter blocking the main route through the city, they do seem to be taking a bit of time to clear it out of the way, which will take a while. They're also reconnecting the railway, as I believe you expected. Between those two things, they won't be doing much for a couple of weeks if they want the numbers to do those jobs quickly. In the meantime, they're fortifying their position in the city, and sending their griffons out on scouting flights around the city and down around Tall Tale. They don't seem to be going any further though." "Probably afraid of being attacked while out on their scouting missions. I take it there hasn't been an increase in the number of griffons as yet?" "None more than took place in the attack on the city. I couldn't say for certain if that means you've crippled the Bloodfeathers, but until we see more we can only assume this is all they have left." "Yes..." Luna leant against Fleur's desk and rested her chin on a hoof. "Perhaps the situation isn't as immediately dire as I feared. With Faust possibly wounded, and with them clustered in Vanhoover, rather than both Vanhoover and the Crystal Empire, we do still have a chance to slow them down." "Only slow them down?" "We don't have the numbers to push them back from a fortified position, or even contain them if they decided to attack elsewhere, but with their griffons so reduced we have a chance to hurt and slow them." "Uh..." Fleur glanced down at the photo, then back at Luna. "How? If you don't mind my asking?" "By bombing the stuffing out of them. Thankfully we had the foresight to place most of our production of war materials on the east coast, far away from any potential fighting. That means there is nothing of much use to them in the city, and nothing we should fear destroying ourselves. Yes, nocturnal bombing strikes upon the Mareitanians should keep them distracted, and stop them from thinking we are so easily defeated." "I'll leave that to you," said Fleur, and she meant it. The idea of doing that to ponies irked her, but not to the point she'd argue against it. Military stuff was for military ponies, not her. "Is there anything else I can assist you with until we get more information?" "No Fleur, that'll be all for now, thank you. I will remind you that should you have issues with Muckraker and Eclipse again, you can come to both myself and my sister. Even Cadence has some authority over Equis, although I doubt she would care to exercise it." "Of course." Fleur grinned cheekily, "What are you going to say to them?" "Besides the obvious message to keep myself or Celestia in the loop, and that their authority is not absolute, I will take pains to remind them that neither of them are irreplaceable." Luna stood, followed by Fleur, the latter offering a small curtsey. "Good day to you Fleur." "And you Luna." Fleur kept standing as Luna left, and was about to sit and get back to work when the filly scurried in through the still open door, followed by Octavia and Summer, who seemed disappointed that Luna had brushed past them without so much as a hello. "I wasn't expecting to see you two," she said, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "Are you even allowed in here?" "Apparently we get off lightly for our previous service to the country. Frankly I consider that to be bullshit seeing as how that service had led to our current problems." Octavia shrugged nonchalantly, "I suspect the truth is they don't care enough to stop us." "Besides, they let me in," the filly said, jumping on the cushion Luna had vacated seconds earlier. "I'm probably the least trustworthy of all of us." "That's another thing," said Fleur. "Why aren't you at the hospital for your treatment?" "Probably because of all the wounded ponies there," the filly replied. "Didn't have any healing thingies spare to use on me, so I have to go back tomorrow, or the day after. I was on my way back here when I ran into these two." "Oh, yes. I suppose that's rather obvious in hindsight." Fleur rubbed the side of her head, hoping to dislodge the fatigue clouding her mind. A solid eight hours of sleep sounded like a distant dream at this moment though. "Sorry," she mumbled, realising she'd gone quiet. "What brings you two here?" "I'm sure you've heard that the camp at Rainbow Falls was abandoned," said Octavia. "On hoof as well, to avoid taking the train past the Crystal Empire. "I guess that makes sense. Doesn't explain why you're here though." "It's a long walk from Rainbow Falls to Manehatten, and during it, Summer and I decided we'd done enough. We've passed on what knowledge we could, and now we're returning home to Ponyville. We thought we'd head straight home from Manehatten, rather than go all the way to Baltimare, but then we decided to come see you as well." "Oh. Well, I wish I could be more entertaining for you, but I'm afraid that I'm rather busy." "We understand," said Summer. "We only wanted to make sure you and the filly were okay." "As okay as we can be," Fleur sighed. "I wish I could say better, but-" "I know Fleur," said Octavia. "I know. Not to change the subject too abruptly, but I do have something I wanted to ask you, since I thought you might know." Fleur offered Octavia a smile, "That depends entirely on the question, but I can at least try to help." "Right, well, I was wondering, since I still feel bad about not going with them, has anypony heard off Twilight and Trixie?" As soon Octavia finished asking she suspected something was up as Fleur made a face and chewed on her bottom lip. "What's wrong?" "We've lost contact with them." "What? When?" "Weeks ago. Celestia suspects their speaker stone was damaged or destroyed." "And you didn't tell us? Are they okay?" "I have no idea. None of us do, because we lost contact with them, hence our dilemma. I only know this much because I heard a bit of conversation between Celestia and Luna talking about it. They seem to think that they're fine, and since this is Twilight we're talking about, I'm inclined to agree." "But what if they're not? This entire war depends on them succeeding. What if they're... I don't know-" The filly grinned at Octavia, "You were going to say dead weren't you." "Yes, and that could still count for three out of four of them," Octavia replied haughtily. "I'm just questioning whether it's right to keep fighting when there may be no chance of winning without Twilight's solution." "I guess we just need to have faith," said Summer. Fleur pointed a hoof at Summer, "Exactly. Twilight won't let us down. All we have to do is make sure she has the time she needs to fix this." Octavia crossed her forelegs and gave Fleur a cool stare. "War is pretty famous for creating problems, not fixing them." The filly shrugged lazily at Octavia, and spoke before Fleur could. "It worked in Mareitania." "Yes, and now look at the problem it created." The filly held a hoof up, but let it drop as her argument died before it could even begin. "Shit." "Indeed." Octavia stood and smiled tightly at Fleur and the filly. "I really do wish we'd gone with them. I feel so stupid now for refusing at the time." "I said we should have gone with them!" the filly squeaked irritably. Fleur ruffled the filly's mane with a hoof, "I know, and we should have listened. Too late now anyway. I guess from the way you're standing that means you're going?" she asked Octavia. "I don't mean to be rude, but I was hoping for better news. Now I feel even worse about this whole situation than I did before, and there's no point in us interrupting your work any longer just so we can mope. Our train to Ponyville leaves in a bit as well, so it's probably best we get out of your mane." Fleur smiled gently at both Octavia and Summer. "I'm guessing we won't be seeing you for a while?" she asked. "Who knows?" Octavia said back. "While I have no intentions of leaving Ponyville for a while, I suspect we'll see each other at some point. Goodbye Fleur. Goodbye filly." "Bye," both Fleur and the filly said, neither of them feeling particularly enthused as the two ponies turned and left. "This is super depressing," the filly sighed, flopping onto the cushion opposite Fleur. "No kidding." Fleur cupped her chin in a hoof and stared blankly at the wall for a few seconds. "Filly, I don't know about you, but I fancy moving to Ponyville once this is all over. Canterlot seems to have lost its charm these days." "Uh-huh. When this is over, good ending? Or when it's over, bad ending?" "Good ending preferably." "Then yeah, count me in. The ability to annoy Trixie full time is way too good to pass up on." The filly rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. "I don't suppose you have some good news somewhere do you?" Fleur reached into her desk and pulled out the speaker stone she used to keep in contact with Bon Bon and the other agents of Smile in Mareitania. "Let's find out shall we?" "Am I even supposed to be here to hear all this?" "Y'know what, I don't even fucking care any more."

The end of an era

26. Industrial assassination

"And just what exactly are we supposed to do that's worth the risk of dealing with all these extra soldiers guarding everything?" Rocky asked as Bon Bon tucked the speaker stone back into her bags. "I really think we would have done more as it is if it were actually that simple." "We'll find something," Bon Bon retorted. She stood and moved to the small window of the hotel room they currently occupied, and observed as much as she could of the city of Prance, for all it was worth. Even she had to admit that coming to the city was barely worth the effort considering there was no real industry or anything here that supplied the Mareitanian military. "Like it matters that much," said Creme. "Unless we're going to disrupt the supply runs moving into Equestria, which would be pretty much impossible for us, their army already has pretty much everything it needs, and the rest it can claim from their newly conquered parts of Equestria." "I know," Bon Bon said quietly. She turned to the newest member of their little group and asked if she had any ideas. "Not really," said Honeydew. "If you're no longer going after industrial targets, I'm afraid I haven't many ideas to help you with. My only suggestion is that if you're not hitting the industries themselves, you may be better off-" Honeydew swallowed hard as the words fought to not be said, "-killing the ponies that run them." "Would that really make a lot of difference?" Creme asked. "Who even owns the industries?" "The noble families mainly," said Honeydew. "After the civil war their agreement with Twilight Sparkle left them in a position to purchase the old industries that had been under the Duke's control, or develop new ones using the ideas coming in from Equestria. Since the current government was in no position to do this themselves at the time, it was seen as a benefit to both sides as making Mareitania functional was the main goal at the time. Of course the government does have its own privately owned industry, such as the tank factory you destroyed, but a lot of the others are owned by the noble families." "And how many of those did you help build?" Rocky asked Honeydew. "Too many," she replied. Bon Bon moved from the window and sat by Honeydew. "And what would happen if we did start assassinating the nobles owning all these companies? Wouldn't ownership just revert to their descendants, and nothing really change?" "Or it'd fall under the full or temporary control of the government if it was essential to the war effort. But as you said, with the army invading Equestria, a lot of these industries have a lesser importance. Well, apart from arming new recruits into the army." "I hadn't even considered that," said Creme. "I suppose there are probably a lot of ponies still seeking to join the army and join their comrades in Equestria, wanting to cast down the treacherous princesses that dared harm their precious 'Lady.' How many ponies do you think there are at this Puddingarde place?" Bon Bon shrugged, "Who knows? With this mind control business, there could be thousands, with more joining up every day." "I still don't know how you're immune to that," Rocky said to Honeydew. "Seems suspicious." "You said it affects a pony through their magic, correct?" "Yeah, that's right." "Then maybe this is why." Honeydew raised the bangs of her mane up, revealing a small scar in the middle of her forehead. Rocky raised a eyebrow in surprise, "You're a unicorn?" "I don't know," Honeydew said earnestly. "I've never been told that I'm a unicorn, but I've suspected I am for a while now because of the scar. The thing is, this sort of thing only happens in the noble families, where having a unicorn in the family is considered taboo. My family wasn't noble, and my mother was actually a unicorn, so I don't see why they'd have had my horn removed." "Haven't you asked them?" "I can't." "Why not?" "Because they're dead." Honeydew leant back and sighed. "Father died a couple of years ago now. My mother died years before that. She suffered a complication while pregnant, which killed both her and my younger sibling. Now all the ponies I could have asked are gone." Honeydew sighed again and shrugged. "Since it's saving me from Faust's influence, I guess I can't complain too much." "As sad as that is, can we stick to the point?" Creme said curtly. "Equis is expecting some results off of us, and so far we've not given them a huge amount. No offense Honeydew." "None taken." Bon Bon lightly smacked Creme on the back of the head, then turned to Honeydew. "Where are the army's weapons made?" "Depends which weapons you mean. Crossbows are made in Bitmark, swords, blades, and explosives in Stalliongrad, and their armour and uniforms are made in Neigh Orleans by the same ponies that made them during the civil war, although there are more of them now, and they don't operate out of Puddingarde any longer." "And there's nothing made in Prance?" Honeydew hummed for a second as she thought the question over. "Not in a production sense. Being surrounded by farmland, Prance is where the army's food is gathered, sort of. I don't really know the full story behind that one since I didn't have to design anything for it." "At least now we have some ideas of what to hit," said Rocky. "If we can slow down the amount of Mareitanians heading to the front lines, that'd be something. Since we're in Prance, I guess we're taking out their supply depot first?" Bon Bon nodded, "Once Tootsie gets back from scouting around the upper city, yes. Do you know where the supply depot is Honeydew?" "It's in the east of the city, where the wall was broken down in the civil war. They decided to rebuild the gap as a private entrance for military business, so they didn't have to keep carting everything through the city. There should be a warehouse near there, although it's possibly in the industrial quarter near there, which was heavily remodelled since a lot of it was burnt down in the riots before the civil war, and damaged again during it." Bon Bon patted Honeydew on the shoulder, "That's a good a place to start as any. When Tootsie gets back we can go for a little walk to see what the situation is." -0-0-0- "Are you sure?" Bon Bon said to Tootsie as the blue mare delivered her report. "I'm not lying Bon Bon. The Shades are operating out of a house in the upper city, rather than from the castle. From what I've heard, with the army deployed in Equestria the castle is largely empty, but if they weren't deployed, the castle would be home to a garrison." "I don't care about that!" Bon Bon half shouted. "I care about the part where the Shades are operating out of Prance and not High Rock Keep!" "Maybe it's just a safe house for them or something," said Rocky. "Seems odd to have them based here of all places. Are you really sure about this Tootsie?" "I saw a pony that I recognised from the description of all the known Shades Fleur could remember. Flicker I think her name was. A dark grey unicorn with a purple mane and tail, although her horn did look damaged. Has a cloudy night sky for a cutie mark. I saw her slinking through the streets, which honestly caught my attention more than if she was walking normally, so I followed her to a house in the north west corner of the upper city, which was unnamed." "That's probably worth investigating then." Bon Bon ran a hoof down her face and sighed under her breath as she found them with two jobs to do. "Great. Tootsie, you head back out with Honeydew to find this supply depot." "Supply depot?" "She'll fill you in. The rest of us are going to find out what's going on in the upper city." "Sneaky or no sneaky?" Rocky asked. "It's daylight with few places to hide, so no sneaky. We'll meet back up here in three hours at most, although nopony should be surprised if any of us are late." Together they left their room and the hotel, where Bon Bon gave them a friendly nod. "See you two later." "Good luck boss," Tootsie said back, both of them waving to the others. "You don't believe her, do you?" Rocky asked Bon Bon as they started walking the opposite direction towards the upper city. "Do you?" Bon Bon asked back. "Something does perhaps seem a little bit off, I admit, but it's not like Tootsie to imagine things either." "Exactly," Bon Bon agreed. "That's why we're going to investigate." It was only a short journey to the upper city, and compared to the lower city it was almost deserted. Barely a pony could be seen doing anything, and the sheer absence of... life, save for a few soldiers guarding the gates around the castle, put Bon Bon on edge. Still, at least it made it easier to find the place, which was unnamed as Tootsie had said, but only because somepony had taken great effort to tear off the plaque if the scratches around where the name should be were any indication. "I guess this is the place," Creme said, hopping up the steps to the front door to open it, but stopped as she noticed the wood around the lock, as well as the lock itself were busted, and had been for some time by the looks of it. "Or maybe it isn't." "It's not like Tootsie to get her places wrong," Bon Bon said firmly. "We're going in." "Alright then." Creme pushed the door, but stopped when it resisted her efforts. A quick scan with her magic told her it had been bolted from the inside. Shrugging to herself she flicked it open with her magic and tried again, opening the door with ease. "That lock looks recent," Rocky observed as they entered. "Whoever put it in has no idea how to use a screwdriver though," he added, noticing that a lot of the screws weren't in properly, and had at times been bent and hammered down. "This really doesn't feel like a Shades operation." "I know," Bon Bon said, fully agreeing with him. "Something is definitely wrong here." She stopped by a picture hanging crookedly on the wall above a sofa covered in a dust sheet, depicting two young mares in fancy clothes. One was a very light brown with blonde hair, and the other a pale blue with almost black hair. Behind them, with his hoof over the back of the brown mare, was a rotund grey stallion. Something in his eyes gave her the creeps. "Hey guys," Creme whispered as loud as she dared, "I found some hoofprints." She pointed at a trail of hoofprints that went further into the house. "Still pretty fresh too." Bon Bon gestured for Creme to lead the way, and followed quietly as she led the way deeper into the house. The hoofprints soon ran out, dried up by the thick carpeting, so they had to rely on what they could hear of their target. Eventually, through a process of elimination, they were led to a large double doors, through which gentle snoring could be heard. Bon Bon put a hoof to her lips, then pushed the door open. Beyond it was a bedroom, with a large king sized bed, in the middle of which was a small dark grey unicorn curled up in a nest of blankets. Bon Bon gestured for Rocky to stay out of sight outside the door, then crept with Creme up to the bed. Not sure what else to do, she tapped the unicorn on the side to wake her. "Hmm?" Flicker opened her eyes to peek at Bon Bon, then closed them again, mumbling to herself. A second later she slammed her eyes back open and leapt to her hooves. "Aah! What the fuck!" "Relax," said Bon Bon, gesturing with her hooves for Flicker to calm down. "We're not here to hurt you." Now that she was standing and moving, Bon Bon could see the unicorn was sweating and trembling. "Are you alright? You look a bit ill." "What?" Flicker shook her head, then winced at the motion. "Never mind. What do you want from me?" "We just want to ask you a few questions." "I'm not telling you anything!" Flicker leapt off the bed and over the two of them, stumbling slightly as she landed. She recovered quickly, and shot out through the door, only to meet Rocky who stuck a leg out and hit her hard enough to flip her onto her back. She screamed as she landed, and squirmed in pain as Rocky placed a firm hoof on her chest. "You ain't going nowhere missy. Now how about you..." Rocky trailed off as pus oozed out of a crack on the unicorn's horn, and went into her mane. "Now that's just nasty." He hauled her back to her hooves and shoved her back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him and standing guard to stop her running again. "Who are you guys?" Flicker asked as she backed up into the corner of the room. "Are you Shades?" "Why should that worry you?" said Bon Bon. "Aren't you a Shade?" "Not any more. Now answer my question; are you Shades?" "No, we're not. You seem awfully concerned about that. Are you hiding from them since you claim to no longer be with them?" "I very much doubt they look kindly on ponies that abandon them." Flicker eyed them all suspiciously, "Who are you if you're not Shades? Nopony knew I was here until you walked in." Creme smiled kindly at the grey unicorn, "You're name's Flicker isn't it?" "How do you know that?" "That doesn't matter. You're horn's damaged, and I'm guessing from the pus that it's badly infected. I can help you clean it up if you want? It could do some serious harm if you don't get it seen to soon." Flicker shook her head and backed up into the corner even tighter. "No. If you clean it up it'll heal, and I'll end up back under her control." Bon Bon raised an eyebrow in surprise, "You're aware of the magic Faust is using to control ponies?" "Magic? Is that what it is? I just know that after my horn was cracked it was like I could think clearly again. I only assumed having a broken horn stopped whatever was twisting my thoughts." "You're not wrong," said Creme. "But if you put on an inhibitor you'll be protected from the magic as well, which is a lot better for you than having a cracked and infected horn, which could leave you magicless for life at best, or kill you at worst. Now please, let me help you before either of those things happen." It was several moments before Flicker made a move, like she was weighing up her options. Eventually she seemed to reach a decision and jumped back onto the bed, wrapping herself back in her nest of blankets. "How do you know it's magic she's using to control ponies? Are you working for her?" "No more than you are," said Bon Bon. "We're..." Bon Bon bit her lip, unsure on whether she should really tell this pony who they were. The problem was that she knew they were unlikely to get much further if Flicker didn't trust them a little, and telling her who they were was the first part of building that trust. In this case it seemed that trust was going to have to be a two way thing. "We're Equestrian intelligence. We know all about the magic Faust is using, which is also why we know your broken horn is saving you from it." "Equis? Great..." Flicker sagged into her blankets and sighed. "Just my luck to be found by you." "Sorry, but we recognised you from a dossier on known members of the Shades. We assumed this was a Shades operation until we found out this was an abandoned house. Why are you running from the Shades?" "Because... I..." Flicker lapsed into silence for a moment. "It's a complicated story." "We got time," Bon Bon said as reassuringly as she could. "I'm guessing that since you're with Equis, you know all about what the Shades did in a place called Ponyville?" "We do. You kidnapped some ponies." "Right. I was part of the group that went after an earth pony called... Applejack, I think it was?" Flicker smiled wryly, "Put up quite the fight. Gave me this to remember her by," she added looking up at her horn. "After that I slowly started to see how wrong things were. Equestria sent us food and supplies during the rebellion, and it was Equestrian ponies that started and led the rebellion. Yet ponies kept talking like Equestria was some big enemy, and I remember agreeing with them, but I don't know why. And Faust..." Flicker shuddered. "She pretty much took control of everything, and we wanted her to." "And once you started seeing clearly-" "I had to get out of there in case ponies started to suspect me. I was still confused about the whole thing then, but things got clearer as time went on." "You know running away would only have made you more suspect?" Rocky said to Flicker. "I know, hence why I'm hiding. It doesn't hurt that they're rather distracted with other things either." Flicker went quiet again and shifted her hooves uneasily, "So now I've told you all that, what do you want with me?" "Since you're not with the Shades, nothing, except perhaps your silence." "You've got it," Flicker said quickly, making Bon Bon smile. "Since you're here though, I don't suppose you have an inhibitor I could borrow? Perhaps I should get my horn looked at before I die." "Actually, I have a proposition for you." Bon Bon sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at Flicker. "I'm guessing you're no fan of Faust and what she's doing?" "I didn't join the rebellion to fight a tyrant, only to wind up with a psychopath leading us instead. I want things to go back to the way they were before Faust turned up." "So do we," said Bon Bon. "If you're willing to join us, we'll happily take care of your horn, and make sure you never fall under Faust's control again. That way you can help us start changing the country back to the way it was before Faust came along. What do you say?" Bon Bon didn't care that this is probably exactly the opposite of what Equis would likely order if what had happened with Honeydew was any indication. She was trusting her gut with this one. "You're really trusting me, a former Shade you don't really know, to help you sabotage my own country?" Flicker looked sceptically at Bon Bon, "Really?" "Really. The problem here is that you're a former member of an intelligence service working for a country currently at war with our own. We should probably kill you to stop you revealing us." "Even though I have no desire to go back to the Shades in case they kill me," Flicker said flatly. "The information you could tell them might save your life. Or you could accept our offer, get your horn fixed, and help us protect our country in a way that undermines the problem with your country. How about it?" Flicker pulled her blankets tighter around herself and shivered. It wasn't hard to tell at this point just how unwell the mare was. "So you're going to kill me if I refuse?" "No, but if we start getting hunted we'll make sure the Shades get you as well. They're probably less gentle than we are." Flicker shivered again, "I'm not going to argue with that. Look, if you help me get better, I will help you with whatever you want." Bon Bon clapped her hooves together gleefully, "Excellent. Rocky, head back to the hotel and grab our stuff along with the others'..." Bon Bon frowned as Rocky stared out of the window behind the bed, ignoring her. Then she noticed Creme was doing the same. Then she looked herself, and saw the large plume of smoke rising from the east of the city. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. I'm going to kill her." "Kill who?" Flicker asked, sounding a little panicked. "One of our other members. Rocky, get back to the hotel, grab the others and our stuff, and drag Tootsie back by her ears if you have to. Creme, get started on cleaning Flicker's horn." "What are you going to be doing?" asked Creme. "Picking up a few things." -0-0-0- Bon Bon quickly rifled through the supply cupboard of the small hospital Prance had, keeping an ear out for anypony that might be approaching. She doubted that anypony would be impressed to see her there stealing things that were as precious as gold dust now that trading with Equestria had stopped. That was also why she wasn't surprised to see that the disinfectant, the antiseptic cream, and the antibiotics had writing on them saying they were made in Baltimare. The bandages didn't, but Celestia help the Mareitanians if they couldn't even make their own bandages. Quickly bagging the four items, Bon Bon slipped out of the cupboard and back into the corridor, largely unnoticed by all as they were far too occupied with ponies coming in from the fire suffering from burns and smoke inhalation. Like the guard pony, who was far too distracted to pay attention to Bon Bon as she brushed up beside him and slipped an inhibitor off his belt. Stepping quickly to the side as a nurse rushed past, Bon Bon made her way back to the exit and slipped out of the hospital, like she'd never been there at all. She might've felt guilty for stealing medicine from ponies that needed it, but she was in the wrong country to worry about that. What they were going to do once they ran out of medical supplies was anyponies guess, but it certainly wasn't her problem. -0-0-0- Everypony else was there as Bon Bon sauntered into the bedroom of the house and dropped the small bag of supplies off next to Creme, who was gently washing Flicker's horn with a cloth and warm water. "I think I got everything you need." Creme tipped the contents out on the bed and nodded, "Thanks Chief. Hopefully this shouldn't take too long, although I can't do much for the fever." "Don't worry about it. We aren't rushing anywhere." Bon Bon turned to Tootsie, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "What the hell were you thinking?" Tootsie tapped her hooves together nervously, while behind her Honeydew did her best to look like she had nothing to do with anything. "Well, y'see Bon Bon, the entire building was made of wood, save for some of the foundations, and there was a big dragon that attacked, burning it all down. Then we came back." "To escape the heat?" "Maaaybe?" "You're a total shit Tootsie, but whatever. I guess that achieves one of our objectives for now." "Did the fire at least smell good?" Rocky asked them. Tootsie grinned at Rocky, "Once it got going, yeah. I think we must have found some apples, because there was a really nice baked apple smell for a while." "Nice." Bon Bon stamped a hoof to get their attention. "As pleasant as that sounds, could you at least consult us before you go setting things on fire?" "Okay, sorry. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Besides, it's not like you can say much either, trusting a wounded former Shade to join us even though we know nothing about her or her loyalties." "Don't you worry about me," Flicker mumbled, wincing and hissing as Creme wiped the disinfectant over her horn. "If you're looking to take Faust down I won't stop you. Assuming this doesn't kill me, I might even help you." "But why?" "Because she mind-raped us all into doing her bidding perhaps? Because she's happy to destroy Mareitania fighting a stupid war with Equestria?" Flicker sniffed hard and coughed wetly into her blankets, "Fuck Faust, and fuck whatever it is she wants. Fuck this fever too." Tootsie stared at Flicker for a moment, then turned back to Bon Bon. "Even so, I still think it's too big a risk after we defied certain orders concerning a certain pony." "I know, but if Fleur really is in charge of us now, I doubt she'll object to it either." "That's because Fleur's a soft touch," Tootsie grumbled. "Do you mean the Fleur that worked with the rebellion in the civil war?" Flicker asked. "That's right," said Bon Bon. "I take it you remember her?" "Yeah, she was nice. A lot nicer than that fucking zebra was anyway." "Why? What did she do to you?" "Broke three of my legs and accused me of being a spy for the Duke, even though she was the spy all along." Flicker stared flatly at Bon Bon. "I'm really not fond of her." "Fair enough. Anyway, now we're all here there are some things I want to talk about. You mentioned being part of the team that kidnapped some of the Bearers of Harmony. Where are they, and do you know how to rescue them?" "They're in High Rock, and no. The only pony that pulled a rescue from there off was Lady Twilight, and I doubt any of us have the skills she has." "I guess that's out the window then," Bon Bon muttered. "What about Faust?" Rocky asked Flicker. "Do you even know what she wants? What she's planning to do? Or were you all too wrapped up in her mind-fuckery to question it?" "I guess it's the latter. I know she wants to take down Equestria and the princesses, but now that I'm free of her control I can see that's only of benefit to her. All of this is only of benefit to her." "So you have no idea what her plans are beyond conquering Equestria?" Flicker shook her head, and Rocky lightly stomped a hoof. "Well damn it. How about the Shades? Do you know what they're up to?" "Not for a while now. I've been on the run for a couple of months now, so they've probably done a lot I don't know about. I'm sorry." "Don't be sorry," Bon Bon told her. "Do you at least have any idea what 'the plan' is?" "The plan? What plan?" "Faust's grand plan once she finishes conquering the world. It's kind of a concern for us." Flicker shrugged helplessly, "I have no idea what that is. She tends to keep a lot of things to herself, so there's a lot of stuff we don't know. How do you know she wants to conquer the world?" "That's as much as we do know. She wants to conquer the world and enact something she calls 'the plan.' What that plan might be is a mystery, although we guess it's nothing we want to happen." "And she wants to do that to Mareitania as well?" Flicker bit her lip as Bon Bon nodded at her, "Fuck. Okay, you know what? I was going to help you anyway, but now I'm all in if she intends to fuck up my country even more than she already has." "Good. Now I know this might seem a bit redundant since you've not been in touch with them for a while, but do you know of any Shades operations going on in Mareitania?" "Actually we aren't operating in Mareitania much. Or at least not in the way you mean. Apart from their base of operations in High Rock, they tend to put all their focus on Equestria." "Why is everything good in High Rock?" Tootsie groaned out loud. "The damage we could do if we got in there without getting caught." "What about the griffons?" Creme asked Flicker as she squeezed the antiseptic cream into the crack on her horn. "Do you have any idea how they ended up fighting for Faust?" "Well, yeah. They just came and offered their services one day. Apparently they were told of the possibility of work by the Emperor's brother, although how he knew is a different matter." "And what did the griffons want in return?" "Their pick of the riches in Equestria, and maybe more, but I have no idea what." "The Emperor's brother?" Bon Bon said thoughtfully, having ignored the conversation after that. "I wonder why he would want the Bloodfeathers to fight for Mareitania?" "Isn't his nephew in the Bloodfeathers?" said Tootsie. "Maybe he's trying to get his nephew killed to remove his claim to the throne." "Or maybe he's trying to give the nephew a chance to prove himself to the Emperor," Rocky suggested. "Maybe he wants his nephew to get his claim to the throne back?" "I'd say Tootsie's closer than Rocky," said Creme. Bon Bon shrugged at all of them. "Maybe, maybe not. Either way I'm smelling some kind of power play by the Emperor's brother if this is true. I guess we should report this back to Fleur either way." "Then I guess we're moving on?" Rocky asked. "Yep, to Neigh Orleans, to pay the Mareitanians' blacksmith a visit." Flicker's expression turned worried, "What do you want with him?" "To kill him," Rocky said bluntly, "and destroy his operation." "Oh," Flicker said quietly before shrugging. "Can't be helped I guess. I don't suppose I could have a shot at a pony named Rusty while we're there?" "You're too ill to be doing anything too extreme," Creme told her firmly. "Aww, fine. So what's the plan after killing Iron Prize?" "That's something you can find out when we're doing it," said Bon Bon, taking note of the relief showing on Tootsie's face. "Anyway, Creme and I have something that we need to go and do, so pack whatever you have and then we're off to sunny Neigh Orleans." -0-0-0- "I think there's a flaw in the whole weather thing," Rocky said as they stepped off the train and into Neigh Orleans. "Without Faust here, there's nopony to control the weather. It's just going back to being permanently grey again." All of them looked up at the blanket of grey clouds that filled the sky and blocked the sun. "It's almost like when the Duke still ruled," Flicker said sadly. "Only with less, y'know, enslaved pegasi." She coughed and pressed a hoof to her head as it throbbed. "Urgh, I hate this. Thanks by the way, for doing this." "You're welcome," said Bon Bon, still looking up at the sky. Without seeing the sun it was difficult to tell the time without getting her watch out, which was probably a bad idea considering nopony in Mareitania had anything like that. If she was any judge, it should have been around seven in the evening, meaning they still had a couple hours of daylight to go. "Okay, first we need to find somewhere to stay. Any suggestions Flicker?" "There's a place called the Rising Sun here that might suit your needs. It's not too far from the foundry you're looking for either." "Lead the way then." "I'm curious," Rocky said after a couple of minutes of walking. "Why make the armour here when all the metal production's in Stalliongrad? Seems a bit inefficient if you ask me." Honeydew gestured with a hoof towards where she thought the north was. "There was a small mine to the north west of here, a bit past Puddingarde. It was abandoned, but the rebellion took it over at the beginning to make weapons and armour since they couldn't exactly get them from Stalliongrad. It's still in use now, and quite a bit bigger, so I suppose that's why the armour is still made here." "Makes sense," said Tootsie. "Do you want to add the mine to our to do list?" Bon Bon considered it for a second, then shook her head. "Nah, we have enough to do. Frankly we're going to end up as the most wanted ponies in Mareitania as it is, without buying ourselves more notoriety. Let's try to get our main objectives done first." Ten minutes later they were at the Rising Sun, paying for a room that smelled more than a little used. "You know, we could try for two rooms," said Tootsie. "We're not made of money," Bon Bon replied with a faint grin. "Anyway, I thought you liked snuggling up with Rocky?" "I do," Tootsie said primly. "It's the rest of you that bothers me." Tootsie opened her bag and pulled out her black tactical suit, placing it on the bed beside her. "What's the first move Chief?" Bon Bon turned to Flicker, "Do you know where Iron Prize lives?" "I know he lives in the city, but that's it. I can tell you he's a bit of a workaholic, and is probably still at the foundry right now. You could either take him out there, or follow him home since the foundry will probably have guards." "Okay, Flicker and I will follow Iron Prize to his home and deal with him there- Wait, does he have a wife or kids or anything?" "Not that I know of," said Flicker. "Okay, good, that'll make things easier. Now as I saying, Flicker and I will follow him home and deal with him there. You guys deal with the foundry once it goes dark." "What about me?" asked Honeydew. "You can either go with them, or stay here," said Bon Bon, pointing at Rocky, Tootsie, and Creme. "Unless you have some other ideas you want to share?" "Neigh Orleans, Neigh Orleans..." Honeydew muttered to herself. A second later she shrugged and smiled helplessly, "Not much I can think of here that I can tell you about. There's Puddingarde not far away, and the old hideout of Pierre under the city, but one's a fortress, and the others a set of dank old tunnels. There's not much to do with either of those." "Alright then. Make sure you stay here then, otherwise we will take great pains to find you again. Understood?" Honeydew nodded rapidly. "Alright then. Come on Flicker, let's go." -0-0-0- "So what's the deal with Bluebell?" Flicker asked as they waited in the shadows near the entrance to the foundry. "It almost sounds like she's your prisoner." "She's only been with us like a couple of weeks, so I'm not willing to trust her that much, even if Fleur does. Same goes for you by the way." Bon Bon blinked as she remembered something. "By the way, Fleur says welcome back to the good guys." "Whoopee..." Flicker said tiredly, suppressing another shiver. "Excuse me? You're not thinking of backing out of this are you?" "No, not at all. It's just we're going to be killing a pony that was once one of the good guys as well, and still would be if it wasn't for that fucking Faust. You'll have to excuse me if I'm not too excited by this." Bon Bon nodded, not saying anything. She hadn't really considered Flicker's position on this, so considering the mare was still willing to help said a lot about her. Bon Bon wasn't entirely enthusiastic about it either, as the ponies here weren't exactly working of their own free will. It felt like they were killing innocents if she thought about it too much. Perhaps claiming to be the good guys was also a bit much when your enemy were the good guys, once. "That's him," Flicker said a few minutes later, pointing at a large brown stallion that was walking out of the gates, a hammer and tongs emblazoned on his flank, visible just behind his bags. He paused for a moment, then turned right, walking away from them. "An earth pony that big might be an issue if he fights back," said Bon Bon. "Actually, he's a unicorn." "But he's got no horn. Oh, wait, you mean he's one of those that had it removed when he was young, don't you? Bluebell's the same." "Welcome to Mareitania," Flicker said sarcastically. She started trotting after Iron Prize, leaving Bon Bon to catch up as she maintained a reasonable distance behind him. "I guess having no horn would make him immune to the magic Faust is using, but he always was a true believer of the Lady, so I suppose it doesn't matter." "What was your job in the Shades?" Bon Bon asked, genuinely curious about her new companion. Even with a broken horn and a fever she was still performing admirably. "Field work mainly. My talent's in stealth, so anything where that was useful really. Of course I'm better when I can use my magic to help me. I feel almost useless without it." "I think you're doing fine," Bon Bon said to reassure the smaller mare. She stopped as Flicker did, waiting as Iron Prize stopped outside a takeout shop. Ten minutes later he left again, a paper bag of food in his mouth as he trotted towards the waterfront. Not long after that he stopped outside a modest house in a street not far from the waterfront itself. He fished a key out of his bags, unlocking the door and entering. A few seconds later there was a click as he relocked it. Lights started coming on in the house, but other than that it seemed pretty quiet. "Now what?" Flicker asked Bon Bon as they walked up the opposite side of the street until they were directly across from the house. "Do we wait for him to go to sleep? Or what?" "I guess so. At the very least we have to take him out before the others attack the foundry. If he sees something wrong there he'll definitely go back there, and we'll miss our chance." "Then we should go now." "I suppose we could. I'm just wondering how we should do this. Should we make it look like a burglary gone wrong?" "That won't work. Ever since Faust took control, the crime rate's really dropped. Something to do with anything that hurts another pony, hurts the Lady. Or something." Flicker rubbed her head hard, "You seriously have no idea what's it's like to have that kind of stuff going on in your head. Besides, they'd only connect the foundry to Iron being dead, so it hardly seems worth trying to make it look like something else." "I guess. I'm starting to get the feeling that we're going to start having ponies come after us if we do this." "All part of the fun, right?" Bon Bon smirked at Flicker's confident grin, but it was mostly for show as her words had triggered a thought. She started actually wondering if the mare really had been part of a Shades operation to find them. Have her play to their sympathies, then use her to report on their activities. Bon Bon had maintained some healthy suspicion before, but now she suspected herself of being an idiot for letting Flicker tag along. She supposed there was only one way to find out. "Let's see if there's a back entrance to this place." Taking a second to memorise the position of the building, Bon Bon turned back the way they came until she found a narrow entrance that led to small, damp back alley that squeezed between two rows of houses. Taking care to be quiet, Bon Bon led the way down it, counting the houses off until she was reasonably sure they behind Iron Prize's house. There was a door there, much to her relief, but it was locked. Taking a moment to cinch the bags she was wearing a little tighter, she pulled out her spring loaded blade and wrapped it around her right hoof. Then she found her lock picks and set to work. "I could do that in seconds if I had my magic," Flicker whispered as she kept an eye on the alleyway. "Guess I won't be doing any of that for a while." "Shh." It was only a few seconds until Bon Bon unlocked it herself, and as the door clicked open she paused to try and hear if it had been heard. Ten seconds later there hadn't been any noise from inside, so she placed her lock picks back in her bags and gently opened the door into what appeared to be a kitchen, although a rather underused one by all appearances. "Okay then Flicker," Bon Bon whispered to her erstwhile companion. "I'm guessing you don't want to see this since you know this pony, so you can either stay here or wait outside. Your choice." Bon Bon raised an eyebrow as Flicker bit her lip and shifted awkwardly on her hooves, but didn't say anything. Eventually Flicker nodded. "I'll stay here and make sure our exit is good." "Alright then." Bon Bon nodded at Flicker, hoping to whatever might be listening that she hadn't made a mistake in bringing the mare along. She moved out of the kitchen, moving slowly so to not advertise the fact that she was there, and passed into a living room that doubled as a dining room. The remains of a half eaten meal were on the table, but there was no sign of her target. Bon Bon sat quietly for a moment, moving her ears about as she tried to work out where he had gone. A muffled thump from upstairs told her where he was, and she crept over to the stairs, cautiously peeking up it to check that he wasn't about to come back down. Things went quiet after a minute, so she started climbing up the stairs, only to be surprised when Iron Prize came around the corner and saw her. "What in the Lady's light do you think you're doing?" "Uh... shit." Bon Bon charged up the stairs at Iron Prize, and ducked under the punch he aimed at her, ending up behind him. She ducked again as he bucked at her, then rolled away as he almost brought his hooves down on her. Springing back to her own hooves as he turned to face her, she ran in close, dropping low as he swung a hoof at her, then got in even closer and raised her right hoof to just under his jawbone and flexed, triggering the blade to spring out and stab him, killing him instantly. She stumbled and fought to keep her balance as all his weight suddenly ended up on her, and as she twisted out of it she pushed the body enough so it fell down the stairs in a series of sickening crunches. Gawping at the battered body as it came to a rest at the bottom of the stairs, Bon Bon very quickly decided that she could have done that better, and quickly decided to leave. Running back down the stairs and leaping over the body, Bon Bon skidded on the threadbare carpet as she turned to the kitchen, but quickly righted herself and kept running. Much to her surprise Flicker was exactly where she'd left her, although she did look ill for different reasons this time. "I take it that wasn't exactly what you planned?" "Not exactly." "Want to torch the place?" "What? No, the entire street will go up if we do that. Let's just get out of here." Bon Bon opened the back door and glanced outside, finding the back alley as empty as when they arrived. Both of them slipped out, and Bon Bon spent a moment relocking the door before removing her weapon and walking away, trying to look as innocent as hell as a bright glow lit up the sky from elsewhere in the city. "I guess the others succeeded then," Flicker said as she noticed the distant conflagration. "Seems so," Bon Bon replied stiffly. "Good. Can we head back to our room now? It's like twenty degrees out here and I'm still freezing." Bon Bon stopped, letting Flicker trot on for a few steps before she stopped as well. "Why the hell are you really helping us Flicker? You're on the run from the Shades apparently, and running a fever, which is more than enough of a reason to refuse to help, yet here you are, letting yourself suffer to sabotage your own country. I wish I could say I honestly believe your intentions here, but the more I think about it, the more I question it. What is it you want Flicker?" Flicker silently regard Bon Bon for several seconds before speaking. "You're not the only one with a trust issue here. You waltz into my hideout, patch me up, then drag me along on the merest word of me saying I want to help, which I actually do, but I still think you're insane for accepting me like that. Thankfully it seems you're not that dim." "Believe it or not I wasn't kidding when I said we could kill you to protect ourselves. The thing is though, is that none of us like thinking like that. If we could drag you along where we can watch you, all the better for all of us. But you seem far too eager to help, and that's actually making me more suspicious. So I'm asking again, what do you want?" Flicker went quiet again, but for much shorter this time. "My father was a noble," she said. "Took one look at me and threw me away for having a horn. I'm not here to cry about it, because it's probably the best thing he ever did for me, rather than try and turn me into a 'proper' earth pony." "And what? You want us to help you get even?" "Yes and no. To me the nobles represented the worst excesses of the Duke's rule, living like they were the most important things in the world, and that nothing could touch them, no matter what terrible things some of them did. I despised them, but when the rebellion started, I came to hate some of them even more. A lot of them cozied up to the rebellion for fear of losing their wealth and comfort, and while I could understand the practical reasons for Lady Twilight accepting their allegiance, it pissed me off to no end that she gave those bastards more than the noose they all deserved. I actually have more respect for those that stuck with the Duke, because at least they stuck to their principals." "Your point?" "My point is that I want nothing more than the noble houses torn down, and I will help you if you help me, because you helping me also helps you." "So you want us to help you kill your father, who's a noble, for abandoning you? How does that help us?" Flicker shook her head slowly, "No, I want to kill all the nobles, which helps you. I wasn't going to bring this up until I was sure I could trust you, but time's an issue, so here we are. Think about it Bon Bon, killing the ponies that run all these industries at once could do so much to help your cause, more than destroying one factory at a time ever could. I have a plan to kill all of them, including Lord Hayfield." Bon Bon swallowed nervously, even though she tried to hide it. Earlier they'd dismissed the idea of killing the nobles as impractical, yet Flicker's plan had the merit of being effective, if still horrific. Killing one of the ruling council whom happened to be among those nobles almost made it worth it alone for the chaos that would cause. "I'm not agreeing to anything yet, but I would like to know how you intend to do this?" "There's a gala coming up for the nobles at Lord Hayfield's country manor. I'm sure I don't need to tell you who he is. My plan was basically to trap them inside somehow, then burn the whole thing down with the nobles still inside. But then I got sick, so I couldn't really do much until I got better, although that apparently wasn't going to happen if Creme was right. I was happy for the Shades to do whatever they wanted to me once I'd done that, but if you help me do this I will help you do whatever you need to do." "I..." Bon Bon didn't want to say one way or the other to this plan, as it could in theory still be a trap set by the Shades. There was also the fact that it was a horrific plan, and that was winning the fight against the practical effect taking out all those nobles might have had. "Surely not all of them are that bad to warrant this?" "Maybe not, but if you start picking them off one by one they'll only increase their security to the point it's impossible to take them out. Killing them all at once removes that issue." Bon Bon nodded, seeing Flicker's point. "I'll need to discuss this with my team first." "Understandable." "When is the gala?" "A couple of weeks from now. If you want to spend that time going after your other targets, whatever they are, I'm more than happy to help, so long as you agree." "I don't know Flicker. It might take a while to think this one over. You're welcome to stick with us for now, but any help you give is purely voluntary as we might still refuse. As I said, I'll have to talk this over with my team, and probably Fleur before we make a decision. Until then, we have work to do." -0-0-0- Celestia stopped outside the door to Ambassador Deetra's quarters in Canterlot castle, trying to decide how best to broach the issue she was about to bring up. It seemed to odd to her that their agents in Mareitania had found a reason for the Bloodfeathers joining Faust, while the griffons themselves, who should have easily found the truth, found nothing. It was more than a little suspect. Still not sure of how to go about it, Celestia knocked on the door, and listened with interest to the string of curses uttered in the griffish tongue. There was a thud, then a second later she finally got the response she wanted. "Come in." Celestia pushed the door open, but slowed as she saw the room beyond in chaos, with everything being rapidly packed away into a collection of travel trunks, with a bewildered silver griffon standing in the middle of it, trying to smile for Celestia's sake. "How can I help you your Highness?" Celestia studied the scene a little longer before answering with a question of her own. "You're leaving?" "Unfortunately yes. I received the order to return to the Griffonia this morning." "And you weren't going to tell us?" "I was, but I thought I'd start packing while I thought about how to tell you. Apparently the Emperor wishes me to return to the Eyrie now that Faust has actually attacked Equestria." "I see," Celestia said carefully, picking up a dress and carefully folding it to place in one of the trunks. "And this has nothing at all to do with his brother being the reason the Bloodfeathers are fighting for Faust?" Celestia took note of the way Deetra cringed. "You've known about that for a while, haven't you?" "Long enough," Deetra admitted. "I was forbidden from telling you, in case you decided that Griffonia was working against you." "I take that to mean you aren't?" "Not intentionally. I'd say it matters little now since you've almost wiped most of the Bloodfeathers out, including the Emperor's son." "Oh. I'm terribly sorry to hear that. Please pass my condolences on to the Emperor." "I shall, but I doubt he'll care. He washed his claws of his son years ago, so his death at the hooves of ponies would only reaffirm to him how weak his son was." Deetra remembered who she was talking to and winced, "No offense." "None taken," Celestia lied. "Do you know why the Emperor's brother would suggest for the Bloodfeathers to fight for Faust?" "That's... hard to tell. The prevailing theory is that if Faust wins, he could win political favour with her by being the one that aided her victory by bringing the Bloodfeathers into her forces. However, he also gains by removing opposition to his claim to the throne should the Emperor's son die fighting. There's also the small possibility that he hoped Faust and the Bloodfeathers would be enough of a distraction to make his move for the throne." "If he had appeared to have actually done anything?" Celestia asked, Deetra nodding in reply. "I see. How popular is this brother's claim to the throne?" "Amongst the old families, not very, but he tends to be popular amongst the general population for being a modern, forward thinking griffon. None of that is true, as he's... well, I probably shouldn't say what I want to, but I will say that the griffon he is behind closed doors is very different to the one the public sees. He's just out for power, and is happy to play to the public to get their support." "But that support doesn't actually win him the throne," said Celestia. "Hence why he's happy to do silly things like deal with Faust." "So it would seem. Suffice to say that the political situation in the Eyrie is rather taut right now." Celestia nodded sadly, "I suppose that means we'll no longer have access to information from your intelligence services?" "I'm afraid so. We'll be keeping an eye on things for security reasons, but until this situation is sorted Griffon Intelligence will be looking mostly inwards." Deetra sat and sighed as she ran a claw back over her head, "I'm sorry about this Princess, I really am. The timing couldn't have been worse if we tried." "It's really not your fault Deetra, and for what it's worth I thank you for your efforts on our behalf. I'll leave you to your packing." Celestia paused at the door, and looked back at the griffon who had yet to resume packing. "Goodbye Deetra. Hopefully we can meet again under better circumstances." "Hopefully. Goodbye, your Highness." Celestia closed the door behind her, and stopped to sigh just as she heard Deetra do the same. "Like rats from a sinking ship," she muttered to herself.

The end of an era

27. Helpless to act

"You can't be serious," Fleur said to Bon Bon as the plan was explained to her. "Killing all those ponies just to get back at one? Even if they are all tied up in supporting the war. And Lord Hayfield..." "That's why we're putting this plan to you Fleur. I know you knew some of these ponies, so I thought I'd let you decide if you want to go ahead with this." Fleur frowned to herself, trying to think of whether such a plan could be worth it. The problem was, besides the horrific nature of the plan, was that she didn't think it would have as much of an impact as it could. She suspected that Faust, or whoever's ruling in her stead while she was occupied with invading Equestria, would just near seamlessly take over all those industries essential to the war. They'd have killed all those ponies for almost nothing. The only death of any real effect then would be Lord Hayfield's. On the other hoof, it could have exactly the outcome they desired. Fleur couldn't tell which would be the most likely to happen, or whether it was worth doing just in case. "I think I might have to put this to Luna. I'll be in touch Bon Bon, but for now, keep doing what you originally planned." "Understood. Over and out." Fleur sat there for a moment, idly tapping a hoof next to the speaker stone as she tried to think. "I am so not getting paid enough to do this." Rising from her cushion, Fleur set off through the castle towards the war room, hoping to find Luna there, and also hoping that she might have a better perspective on what Bon Bon had proposed. At the very least she could take the decision off herself, absolving her of some of the responsibility. The war room was mostly empty when Fleur got there, save for a few ponies that seemed to be purposefully avoiding the aggravated looking alicorn that was poring over the map on the large central table. Fleur walked quietly over to her, not wanting to disturb her until the last possible moment where she delicately cleared her throat. "Hmm? Ah, Fleur, I was planning to come and see you in a little bit." "You were?" "Indeed. I received a report last night from my Night Guards bombing Vanhoover, telling me that the city was devoid of griffons. I was hoping Equis might have heard something." "Not that I know of, and I'm pretty sure this is something they'd tell you as soon as they heard of it." Luna growled a sigh, and stomped a hoof lightly next to the map. "Well if Equis doesn't know where they are, then just where exactly have they gone?" "Maybe they withdrew their services from the war?" said Fleur. "There can't be that many of them left compared to when this started, so maybe they left to save their own skins." "Unlikely. Bloodfeathers have never been known to renege on a contract, even if it means their own death. No, I suspect something far more sinister is a-hoof." "Maybe they're doing what we did with the thestrals in Mareitania. Sending them out to cause as much disruption as possible. It'd also distract our own forces from what's going on in Vanhoover." "That's what I suspected, but so far there's been no sign of any griffons anywhere, and no attacks." Luna shook her head and finally turned to face Fleur, "Maybe time will have to tell on that one. Anyway, since you've come up here I suspect it might be for a reason, so come, tell me what it is you want." "Uh, sure. Do you remember Flicker? She was a Shade during the rebellion." Fleur waited for a moment for Luna to say something, but the Princess remained blank. "She's the one Seeker accused of being a spy? Broke three of her legs?" "Ah yes. I still don't recognise the name, but I know who you mean." "Right, well, our team in Mareitania found her." "Then I can assume that there's one less Shade in the world. Excellent news." "Not... quite. She joined them, and says she has a plan that could wipe out most of the nobles in Mareitania in one go, including Lord Hayfield." "Then it is clearly a trap." Fleur frowned at Luna's blunt statement, "How so?" "Because she's under the influence of Faust, and couldn't possibly be working against her." "Actually, her horn was damaged by Applejack when the Shades kidnapped her, so she's free from Faust's influence. Or claims to be at least. She did assist Bon Bon with eliminating a target. Anyway, Lord Hayfield is hosting a gala in a couple of weeks, and Flicker wants to either bomb it or burn it down. If we help her we could potentially do some damage to the Mareitanians industry, besides those we've destroyed directly." "Is that so? How can we be sure the Council wouldn't just take direct control of those industries, thus gaining us very little?" "It's a possibility, which I why I thought I'd bring it to you. At the very least, even if we don't get the best outcome, we don't lose anything." "Are you sure about that? Think on this for a moment," Luna said slowly. "You said this is a gala, correct? With all the nobles." "That's what I've been told, yes." "Including their families? Children too? Innocents?" "Ah." Fleur was ashamed that hadn't actually occurred to her. Luna nodded at the sudden change in Fleur's stance. "I cannot condone the murder of children Fleur, even if the best possible outcome of this were guaranteed. Tell Bon Bon that we do not approve this mission, and that if Flicker is to attempt it alone, she has our permission to stop her, if that is what she wants." "Understood. I suppose I should have thought of that myself." "I don't fully suspect Flicker herself has thought of that, or is quite deranged if she has and still wants to go through with it. Does she have something against the nobles to propose such a plan?" "Something to do with being abandoned at birth by her noble parents for being a unicorn. Typical Mareitania bull-shittery." "I see. All the same we shall take no part in this, and will seek to prevent it as best we can." Luna smiled gently at Fleur, "This is exactly why I put you in direct control of our agents in Mareitania. Because you have the sense to ask me these things." "Happy to help. If there's nothing else I can help you with, I should probably get back to work." "Actually," said Luna," there's one thing, although it doesn't require much work on your part, if any. Do you remember the crystals we implanted into Bon Bon and her team?" Fleur nodded unsurely, "Yeah, of course." "Good, because with Faust now in Equestria, we cannot discount her trying to spread her influence to our ponies. We suspect that might have been why she tried to capture the Crystal Empire, to use its magic for that end." "Okay, and the crystal implants?" "We will be implanting them into all the citizens of Equestria, beginning with our military bodies, and including Equis. I thought I better warn you of this." "Is that even possible? Implanting those into that many ponies?" Luna shrugged at Fleur. "Doesn't matter. If we don't want Faust to take control of our ponies, it must be done. As it is, given enough time she could turn our own ponies against us, and we'd be at even greater odds of winning this war than we currently are. I rather suspect we should have been doing this from the very beginning." "I see. In that case, could I request that the filly has one when I do? If it's not a problem, that is." "I was about to offer you as much," Luna said with a smile. "I would say that's nepotism at its finest, but she'd receive one anyway. The families of those serving would be given priority anyway, so our soldiers have one less thing to worry about." "Oh, okay. Thank you Luna. Does that mean Fancy Pa-" Boom! Fleur shrieked as an explosion shook the room like a foal with a toy, knocking her off her hooves, along with everypony else in the room. A cloud of dust fell from the ceiling, and Fleur covered herself with her legs, holding on for dear life as everything shook, then stopped. The sound of ponies shouting reached her, and she braved opening her eyes to find the room she was in was actually intact, and save from some dust was mostly undamaged. The explosion had been further away. Luna was the first to her hooves, and galloped out of the door towards where the explosion had originated. Fleur followed her at a more sedate pace, as she suspected exactly where the explosion had been, as it felt like it came from where the offices of Equis were. She ground to a halt as the realisation hit that she'd probably have just been killed if she hadn't gone to see Luna. "Oh fuck..." Fleur pressed a hoof to her chest as her breathing became rapid. "Oh fuck!" "Are you alright miss? Are you hurt?" a Royal Guard asked, stopping by her as she sank to the ground. "I'm fine! Just... go help the others!" Fleur stayed where she was as he kept running, and didn't move as even more guards ran past her. The only time she did move was when she felt the tips of feathers brush up her back, and she looked up into the worried eyes of Celestia. "Princess! I-uh..." "Are you hurt Fleur?" "No!" Fleur blurted, annoyed at being asked again when she was obviously uninjured. "No, I'm not," she said a bit calmer. "I just- I could've been in that. I could be dead right now..." "Don't think of it like that Fleur," Celestia said kindly. "Perhaps you should go somewhere else while others take care of this." "No," Fleur said firmly. "I can't just be pathetic and sit this out." Fleur pushed herself into a swift stride, forcing herself to confront the carnage through the double doors into the offices of Equis. Immediately inside the doors wasn't too bad, save for some smoke and dust, as well as some rather ominous cracks in the walls. The worse part was the noise of the ponies wounded in the attack, even if there were only a couple dozen of them at most. More ponies of the Royal Guard pushed by, followed by Celestia, who clearly had more on her mind than wanting to follow Fleur as she stumbled around numbly. Fleur shook the feeling off and followed the Princess, stepping over the increasing amount of ruin that lingered around the epicentre of the bomb, which was just outside the doorway of Muckraker's office. Or what was left of it, and the offices around it. Muckraker himself was gone, little more than a pile of gore in the corner, while Eclipse, although badly injured, was still alive if only just. Luna was by her side grasping her hoof as the mare struggled to breath through her ruined muzzle, and choked on her own vital fluids. Fleur chose to say nothing, but stood there dumbly as Eclipse gave up her struggle for life, her blood pooling around her body. Fleur remained there as Luna stood and uttered a small prayer for the thestral. She supposed that considering the near religious reverence with which the thestrals held Luna, having her by your side as you lay dying was probably the best way a thestral could hope to go. Her mind still reeling and numb from what had happened, Fleur left them, not wanting to intrude further on what was probably an incredibly private moment, Fleur decided to go investigate her own office a few doors down, not that there was much left intact between where she was and her office. She was unsurprised to find she couldn't get in as the ceiling had collapsed into it, the destruction of the bomb having a different effect here where the walls were for little more than show. She eventually wedged the door open, and put everything she had into lifting the large chunks of ceiling off of her desk and searching the room, hoping beyond hope that something could be salvaged from this mess, but it seemed she wasn't even allowed to have that as the shattered pieces of the speaker stone she used to keep in touch with Bon Bon and her team tumbled from the wreckage of her desk. She gathered the pieces carefully, hoping that the princesses might have a way to repair it. "It seems that even here isn't safe." Fleur started at the voice, and quickly turned to find Luna stood in the doorway, her ears low, and her stance tired. "I'm sorry Luna." "I don't believe you have anything to apologise for," Luna said back. She looked up at Fleur, and noticed what was held in her magic. "And the bad news continues pouring in," she sighed. "How could this have happened?" "Can't you fix it?" "Sadly not. If one stone is broken, you cannot repair it, or the connection between them. Did we not send spares with them?" "One, but I kept my part of the spare in my desk, and..." Fleur gestured to the ruin of her desk, "Yeah... I guess that means that they're on their own now." She dropped the remains of the stone and sighed wearily. "Nonsense," said Luna. "We shall simply have to deliver another to them." "And how should we do that?" "I'm afraid that is for you to decide." "Me?" "Indeed." Luna gestured for Fleur to follow her, leading her slowly out of the destroyed office. It struck Fleur that it seemed quieter now, and there wasn't a single wounded pony, or body, anywhere, leaving her to wonder just how long she'd spent in her office as she let Luna lead the way, ending up in part of the offices that weren't destroyed, or even damaged. "Not all of Equis was destroyed," said Luna, "but with Muckraker and Eclipse both... gone, it is currently leaderless." "Oh boy, I can see where this is going." "Can you indeed?" Luna stopped before the doors of the break room and opened them. Inside was a dozen individuals, consisting of ponies, two griffons, and a zebra. "This is all those that were neither killed or wounded in the attack. Our field agents are also still out there." Luna turned and smiled sadly at Fleur, "They are leaderless though, and I consider you the best pony here to lead them." "I knew it. Seriously Luna? None of the ponies out there are even cold yet, and here we are sticking me in charge?" "Without Equis, we have lost one of our eyes Fleur, and while I would like to stop and fix this properly, our enemy isn't going to wait for us. We need information, and we need a pony in charge." Fleur groaned quietly, "Are you giving me a choice here?" "Certainly." Fleur snorted bitterly, seeing that choice for what it probably was. Each one of the people before her were just as qualified to lead, but because of her lovely past experience of being in charge of the Shades for a short time, the burden of leadership was being put on her. Once she hated not being at the heart of matters, and now she was getting her just desserts by being thrust into it. She could tell that Luna knew she wouldn't refuse. "Fine, I accept," she said as begrudgingly as possible. "Thank you Fleur. I still have much to do, so I shall leave you to it." Luna smiled sadly at Fleur again as she left. Fleur stood dumbly staring at the floor for a moment, trying to think of what exactly she was meant to do now. The answer wasn't exactly rushing to her, as she now had to fix this before it fell apart further. Fleur had somewhat considered Equis to be a joke before, but now she'd reached the punchline it wasn't funny at all. "Ma'am?" Fleur looked up into the eyes of the cerise unicorn mare that had spoken to her, noticing the vivid streaks of colour under her eyes where her tears had washed the dirt on her face away. Fleur then blinked as she realised they were waiting on her. "Sorry." "It's okay, I know this must be a shock to get put in charge like this. I mean, another shock after all that's happened." "What? Not even twenty minutes after the bomb went off?" Fleur said sarcastically. "I find it amusing how this was the most important thing they could think to do." Fleur sighed as she noticed the way they were all looking at her. "Sorry. It's been a shit of a day." "Actually, it's been more than an hour since the bomb went off," the male of the griffons informed her, not saying anything on whether he thought it was a shit day either. "It has? Huh. Guess I spent more time searching my office than I thought." Fleur shook it off, "Anyway, while I would typically like to give you at least the rest of today off, it seems we don't have that luxury. Who was in charge of getting reports off our field agents?" "That was Hessian and his team," said the unicorn mare. "They were all killed in the blast," she added quietly. Fleur nodded and sighed, unsurprised by the news. "Okay, then first we need to salvage as much of their equipment as we can so we can at least maintain receiving information. Were they using speaker stones? Or something else?" "Something else," said the unicorn. "Only unicorns can use the speaker stones. Our field agents were using a short distance communicator that consists of a gem matrix to generate a short wave-" "Woah, I don't need to know how it works right now. What I do need is a pony capable of using this stuff. What's your name?" "Celia, ma'am." "Okay, Celia, I'm putting you in charge of salvaging our communications." Fleur pointed to a the rest of the ponies, "You help her for now." Fleur waited until they were gone, then pointed at the zebra stallion. "You, what's your job?" "I'm a translator ma'am, and a code breaker. I speak most of the major languages from around the world." The stallion smiled sardonically at Fleur," I also make a mean cup of coffee, since languages and code breaking don't seem to be in high demand right now." "Oookay... uh, since you don't have a high demand for any of that, can you start compiling a list of essential equipment we need to have replaced, such as communication devices, and stuff like that?" The stallion nodded confidently," I can do that." "Good. Go start with what Celia needs." Fleur pointed at the two griffons as the zebra left, a male and a female. "What's your job?" "Aerial photography," said the male. "I'm a field agent," said the hen. "And what does that mean you do exactly?" "Whatever you need me to. We're kind of trained to do everything that we might need to do out in the field. Recon, sabotage, you name it, we'll do it." "Excellent. I have a special job for you then, although you're probably going to hate it. As for you," Fleur said to the male, "do we have up to date images of Vanhoover?" "Sure, but they haven't been developed yet. You sent the mare that does it with the others." "Do you know how to do it yourself?" The griffon nodded. "Then go do that, please." Fleur waited until he was gone, then turned her attention back to the hen. "Do you think I'm doing this right?" "Why are you asking me?" "Because a field agent probably knows more about this than I do. Anyway, I have a special job for you, and since you're a griffon you'll fit in nicely where I'm sending you." The hen saluted Fleur, "Ready for anything ma'am." "We lost our communications with our agents in Mareitania. Since we can't really leave them to their own devices, we need to re-establish contact with them. Basically, I need you to deliver a new speaker stone to them." "Okay, no problem-" "We're not entirely sure where they are though." "Oh." Fleur smiled sympathetically at the griffon, "As I said, you're probably going to hate this job. I can give you a list of places they might be over the next couple of weeks, but you're pretty much going to have to find them yourself." "Understood. When am I leaving?" "As soon as you're packed and ready to go. Obviously the idea here is to not get caught, but I'm not about to tell you how to go about this. I'll also have to organise one of those crystals that give you immunity to Faust's mind magic before you go as well. As soon as it's delivered, return here, and hopefully we might be a bit more organised by then." -0-0-0- Romantically speaking, Fleur wanted the throne room to be quiet, with ponies mourning the loss of those that had died that morning. Fleur also knew she was being stupid, because as she more realistically expected, it was hectic. Ponies scurried around, doing whatever was bidden by Celestia who was sat upon her throne at the far end of the room. Fleur had actually been expecting Luna to be here as well, but the dark blue alicorn was missing. Who was there though, was Fancy Pants. "Fancy? What are you doing here?" "Fleur!" The large stallion ran over and swept Fleur up in a hug. "Thank goodness you're alright! I've been so very worried!" Fleur idly patted Fancy on the back, scared to move more as it felt like her bones were grinding together. "I'm fine Fancy, really. You didn't just come here to check on me did you?" "While you were my main concern, you aren't my only one. The fact is that this attack was allowed to happen because a large number Canterlot's guard has been deployed elsewhere, leaving the city poorly defended." "That's ridiculous Fancy." Fancy looked like he'd been slapped. "Excuse me?" "The difference between a dozen guards or a single one in this case is zero. We have no idea how this bomb got here, and any pony with the right passes could have waltzed in and planted it. Unless you're planning on restricting travel into the city to those without proper security clearance, the amount of guards won't make a difference. In fact, you'd need more guards, when there simply aren't any." Fancy was stunned into silence for several seconds, and spluttered incoherently for even longer. "Are you saying that there's no way to prevent such catastrophes from happening again?" "Not easily, and not without the risk of harming the liberties of Equestria's citizens. I doubt Celestia would ever agree to anything like that. What should have happened though, is that everypony coming into the castle should have been searched, but again, a pony with the right passes to get in the Equis offices would probably have been let off." "As we are well aware," Celestia said, having walked up while the two ponies were talking. "I've already had my Captain question the ponies that were supposed to be checking those entering that part of the castle, and apparently they've not been searching ponies for a while now." "What?" said Fleur, surprised. "Why not?" "Because they came to recognise the ponies moving in and out of there, and got lazy. What we do know is that a stallion they didn't recognise entered the offices this morning, with the right passes, and since he didn't leave, we're assuming that the scant remains of the pony we found at the bomb site was in fact the bomber. Whether he intended to die in his own attack we don't know, but this does mean we have no way of finding out who he is, or why he did it." "But how would he have the right passes?" Fleur asked, although she didn't expect an answer. "That's just it," said Celestia. "I've had most of my guards questioned, and apparently this pony has entered and left the castle quite a few times over the last month, but today was the first time he's ever gone to the offices of Equis. I suspect they've been planning this for a while, and used their previous visits to either steal passes, or learn what they look like to forge their own." "I guess we still haven't got all the Shades operating in Equestria then..." Fleur ran a hoof back through her mane and sighed. "Or we missed one, and this is a revenge attack. I would say Equis is on the case, but we really, really aren't right now." "Surely Muckraker could spare a pony or two to investigate?" Fancy said, although a little unsurely as he saw the way Fleur was acting. "Muckraker's dead, and so is Eclipse, and so are a lot of the other ponies that worked there." Fancy Pants' mouth hung open, having not realised in the slightest just how bad the damage was. "But I've known Muckraker since we were colts..." "I'm sorry Fancy," Fleur said softly. Fancy closed his eyes and bit back a curse, only opening them again when he felt ready to. "So who's leading Equis now that Muckraker is no longer with us?" "Me," Fleur said simply. "I think the technical term is Director, but I honestly don't care about that. It does give me a unique perspective on how well Equis is performing though, and since we missed this coming in the first place, it's not great news." Fleur patted Fancy on the side in a semi comforting way, then turned to Celestia. "I don't suppose I could request that you search everypony coming into the castle?" Fleur didn't say that she thought that was what was happening anyway. It certainly should have been in her opinion. "I was planning on doing so, yes." "Good. Thank you Celestia." Fleur gave the Princess a small curtsey, then turned to leave, thinking that Luna was probably in the war room if she wasn't here. "Fleur, wait." Fleur stopped as Fancy jogged up to her, his face creased with concern. "Are you sure you're alright?" "Fancy, I'm still breathing, and I have a job to do. I know you're worried about me, and that's totally fair if I'm honest, but really, I'm fine. I have too much to do to have a breakdown over this anyway. Speaking of too much to do, do you mind picking Swift up from school and taking her to her treatment?" "But she usually goes on her own." "I know, but I get the feeling she'll come running here if you aren't there to stop her. Honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't escaped school to come here already. Tell her I'm fine, and that I'll see her later." Fancy seemed like he was going to argue for a moment, but he eventually relented. Fleur did feel sorry for him, as this was clearly too much for him to handle. "Very well, but I won't be held responsible for anything past her having her treatment. That filly's slipperier than an eel at times." "I know. It's great isn't it?" "Hardly the word I would use." "I know." Fleur pecked Fancy on the cheek and smiled at him, "Thank you Fancy. I'll see you later." "Fleur, please take care of yourself." Fleur nodded and smiled again, then left, making sure to keep a small amount of bounce in her step. It was purely for Fancy's benefit though, because as soon as she was out of sight she stopped and leant against the nearest wall to groan in frustration. She must've knocked her head at some point today, because none of this was making sense to her. The bomb, ponies dying, getting make head of Equis... In her head she was still laying on the floor after the explosion. "Fuck everything," she muttered, pushing herself back upright and making her way to the war room in the hopes of tracking down Luna. Thankfully the alicorn was where she thought this time, although Luna didn't seem to be in any position to be useful, slumped as she was over the centre table, all alone. "Luna?" "Hmm? Oh, apologies Fleur." "Guess I'm not the only one a bit put out by today." Fleur sat down next to Luna and crossed her legs on the table. "Do you want a pep talk?" "No, no thank you. I was only thinking." "What about?" "About the fact that we've managed to teach the Mareitanians how to wage war better than even we can ourselves. The Adepts, the Shades, those earth ponies in heavy armour... Did they ever get a name?" "Actually I don't think those were our idea as such. All our ponies had decent armour, and we didn't exactly have a need to break through unicorn shields. They just took the heavy armour idea and ran with it." "Ah, my mistake. I would say that it was a good job that the pegasi left there since I wouldn't want to fight them as well, but they hired griffons instead. Although, I dare say the griffons were less effective than they hoped." "Or we're better than we thought?" Fleur grinned as Luna snorted a single laugh. "Thank goodness we didn't do more to make the Mareitanians stronger. Imagine what would've happened if we let Trixie teach dark magic. Good job Twilight put a stop to that idea." "Indeed, because that would nullify one of our potential advantages." Fleur gawped at Luna, "You cannot be serious. Dark magic? Really? You're really considering it?" Fleur frowned as Luna looked at her out of the corner of her eye. "Good grief. Trixie was terrifying enough on her own, but a thousand more like her?" Fleur shuddered. "I guess the only good thing I can say is that the war would've been over in a fraction of the time." "I had the thought back in Vanhoover," Luna murmured. "I had dismissed it, but today seems to have brought it back to mind. I have no plans to train thousands in its use, but even a few would make a difference." Luna shrugged, "It matters not, as I have no real wish to do such a thing." "Good. And I mean that. We should at least try to maintain some integrity." "Quite," Luna said, although she didn't really mean it too much. Integrity meant nothing to dead ponies after all. "Anyway, I doubt this was supposed to be a social visit. Do you have something you need of me?" "Hmm? Oh yeah. Our griffon field agent here is going to deliver a new speaker stone to Bon Bon, but I need a stone to send with her, and I think she better get one of those implants that protects you from Faust's influence." "Very well. Have her report to the medical staff in the castle for her implant, and I'll have the stones ready for you by the end of the day." "Thank you Luna. Now, uh, no offense, but shouldn't there be something you could be doing instead of stewing here like this?" "I've contacted our new training camp and other military bases, and none of them have been attacked, so that's something I don't need to worry about. Other than that, my ability to plan has been stymied for now until Equis gets back on its hooves a little bit. We don't know what Faust is planning in Vanhoover, and we don't know where the griffons are, or what they're doing." "We'll have some recent aerial photographs soon, and hopefully some up to date news once our communications are brought back up." Fleur stood back up and waited for Luna to do something, but all she did was trace a hoof over the table in a circle. "Luna, what the hell is going on with you? Get up. Do something." "And I shall." Luna stood and looked Fleur in the eye. "Not even I am immune to despair Fleur. Faust is coming, and if she is to be believed, she has something unpleasant in mind for myself and every other alicorn. Then there's the fact that she's attacking Equestria, and, well, winning thus far. Then her agents almost destroyed Equis this morning, as you well know. Excuse me for taking a few minutes to gather my thoughts." "I'm sorry, but I saw that look on Twilight's face enough times during the rebellion to know when a pony just wants to wallow in misery." "And like her, I apparently have ponies willing to drag me out of it." Luna managed to give Fleur a tiny smile. "Anyway, you are right in that I do have much to do. I shall be with Cadence in the castle's observatory, working on the Crystal Heart if you need me." -0-0-0- "Please tell me there's good news," Fleur said to Celia as she made her way back to the ruined offices of Equis, where the ponies she'd sent to scavenge their communications were sifting through the rubble, along with a significant number of Royal Guards. There were also others there, shoring up the building, and if things weren't so dire, Fleur might have suggested leaving until they were done. "There's some good news," Celia said, flicking her dusty pale violet mane aside with an equally dusty hoof. "We've managed to recover some of the sets, but I'd say we're probably not going to get any more out of this mess." "How many is some?" Celia winced, "Less than half. But, we can use one to contact multiple agents, so we can still get in touch with those out in the field. Msemaji has already listed what we need, and we'll have the requisition forms filled out soon." "Muzzy-who?" "Msemaji," Celia repeated. "The zebra." "Ah, okay. Have you heard anything from anypony yet?" "Not yet. I think the transmitter in the castle must have been damaged, because all I'm getting is a load of garbled nonsense. One of the others is up with it now, so hopefully we can get the sets we do have working." Fleur regarded the boxy device in front on Celia, with all its switches, and buttons, and... other things she didn't understand. All she could do was take Celia's word for it. "Has our aerial photographer come back with anything yet?" she asked instead. "Derrek said the developing stuff was ruined by the dust, so he's had to clean the whole thing and replace it all." "Okay, I'll go check on him now." Fleur left them to it, and headed towards the rear of the offices to where the dark room was located. The damage didn't seem anywhere near as bad back there, with only some cracks in the walls, and a coating of dust hinting at anything having happened at all. Again this all felt far too surreal to her, and Fleur found herself wondering what would have happened had this been in a public place. Was this all being kept relatively quiet because it was in the castle? Or was the lack of panic more noticeable because that's what you'd expect? All the things that should have happened, happened as they should, but then it all seemed to go back to relative normal instead of being a massive thing, which it was. Fleur stopped with her magic gripping the door handle of the dark room. Was this bomb expected? Was that why it seemed to have absolutely no fanfare around it? Or was it herself that was missing things, focused as she was on dragging Equis back up out of the dust and ashes? Did it even matter? Fleur decided it probably didn't, and finally pushed open the door. Beyond was as she expected; a dark room with a red glow, and a griffon developing photos which hung from a short line over the bench. She acknowledged Derrek with a quick nod, then picked up the nearest image on the line. It depicted some ponies hard at work clearing up the remains of the Royal Canter, clearing the way for their tanks and everything else to move through the city. That wasn't exactly new information though. Fleur replaced the picture, then picked up the next, then the next, trying to find something new in the details, but all they seemed to show was the Mareitanians clearing up, repairing the train line, and otherwise making themselves at home. The only thing majorly different was the city getting increasingly damaged by the bombing the Night Guard were dropping nightly. It didn't seem to be having much impact though, not with the small bombs they were dropping. "Notice anything missing?" Derrek asked Fleur after a couple of minutes. "We already know there's no griffons." "Not jus' them. There's no tanks either. They hid them after the first night, although I don't know why they needed to." "I'm guessing to protect them," Fleur replied snarkily. "Not what I mean. What I mean is, why hasn't Faust simply shielded the city? Did her lil bout with Princess Luna hurt her that much that she can't even do that?" "Maybe," Fleur murmured. "Obviously we'll have to keep an eye on it." There was a short sharp knock at the door, "Come in." The griffon hen from earlier came in, dressed in the mismatched yet effective armour the Bloodfeathers. "Sorry to disturb you. I've had the implant, and the new speaker stones have been dropped off, along with a spare set for them. Do I have your permission to start tracking Bon Bon and her team down?" "Uh, yeah, I guess." Fleur was a little bit put out by the idea that these people needed her permission to do something, but she supposed it made sense, and it at least stopped her from wondering if the griffon had left or not. The perks and pitfalls of being the boss. "Hold on, do you even know where you're going?" "On the map, yes, but actually finding them is the trick here." "Alright then, but I suppose I better tell you that there's six of them now. The extra ones are a blue earth pony, and a dark grey unicorn." "Understood ma'am. Hopefully I won't be gone too long." "Hopefully," Fleur repeated as the griffon saluted and went on her way. "Hopefully you'll find them before they do something terrible." "Ma'am?" Fleur jolted as Derrek spoke to her, having completely forgotten he was there. "Sorry, what?" "Why would Bon Bon and her team do something terrible?" "I'm hoping they won't. It doesn't matter. When are you next due out to take more photos?" "T'night, if I can." "Good. Hopefully we'll have something off our people out in the field before then." Fleur rubbed her face tiredly, "So much to do. So very, very much." "Equis will rise again, eh?" "Yeah, like flatbread." -0-0-0- "I'm telling you Bon Bon, it's not working. There's only so many times I can keep trying before I come to that conclusion. The stone is dead. The spare is dead. They are both dead." "Then how are we supposed to ask Fleur what we're meant to do about this whole Hayfield thing?" Creme shrugged at Bon Bon, "Heck if I know. Maybe it's just a temporary issue or something, and Fleur'll get back to us as soon as she can." "Or something's happened back at Equis," Rocky suggested. "Maybe she broke the stones." "There's only one reason I can think of that would make Fleur do that," Tootsie said apprehensively. "Equis has fallen. Maybe all of Canterlot. Maybe even Equestria! What if the war's over, and we lost, and we don't even know it?" "I'm sure somepony would mention the war being over at some point." "Not that quick," said Tootsie. "What should we do Bon Bon?" "We should stop overreacting for starters. I doubt the war ended since this morning, so you can stop that line of thought right now. As for us..." Bon Bon glanced at Flicker, who quietly stared back. "We'll follow our original plan for now. Hopefully Fleur will back to us soon with instructions. If not, we'll have to decide for ourselves." "You know there's only one decent choice here," said Flicker. "Just think of the benefit this could bring to your side." Honeydew huffed at Flicker, then looked imploringly at Bon Bon. "It won't make as much of a difference as you think. All you'll be doing is killing a lot of innocent ponies to get maybe a few collaboraters. It's not worth it." "There are no innocent ponies amongst that lot," Flicker said nastily. "Come on Bon Bon, you know the right thing to do." "Shut it, both of you." Bon Bon stared both of them down, but reserved most of it for Flicker. "As I said, we'll go through with our original plan, by which time Fleur should have gotten back to us. If not, then I guess we'll have to decide for ourselves, one way or another." -0-0-0- Cadence set another small gem in place on the elaborate golden cage she, Celestia, and currently Luna, had constructed around the Crystal Heart. She wired the gem in place using a thin strand of gold, then used her magic to melt it all onto the frame. She stepped back and sighed, yet again questioning what the hell it was they were doing. "Are you and Celestia really sure this'll work?" Luna blinked at Cadence a few times, "You're asking me? You're the expert on the Crystal Heart and its workings Cadence, so if you don't know, we certainly don't. I mean, the science is there. Use the gems as a focus much like the tower in the Empire, and reflect the Heart's energy back on itself so the runoff of energy is reduced, allowing you to use it for longer. I mean you'll still have to recharge it once a day, and will have to feed it to maintain a shield, but... yes, this should work. In theory." "All so my poor crystal ponies can fight and die in this stupid war." Luna raised an eyebrow at Cadence, "You aren't thinking of back out are you?" "Of course I am! I never wanted this in the first place." Cadence met Luna's gaze, "I'm not going to though, if that's what you're thinking. My ponies aren't going to want to give up after losing their home, and I don't want them to be forced into another kind of slavery by Faust." "You're making the right choi-" "Don't tell me I'm making the right choice Luna!" Cadence yelled. "For all I know I'm making a terrible one that's going to cost my ponies dearly, all because of the foolish choices you and Celestia made, starting with sending Twilight to Mareitania in the first place! You should've gone yourself! Or nopony should have gone!" "And you would be content to let all those ponies continue to suffer under the rule of the Dukes? You know what they did to the pegasi." "Is it any worse that the war you've dragged us into?" "Yes. Cadence, do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pegasi lived and died in slavery over the last thousand years of the Duchy's rule? Because it was a very large number. Then there's the unicorns that suffered and died under their rule too, and probably a large number of earth ponies." "Then why didn't Celestia do something about it sooner?" "Because we didn't really know for the longest time, and we had many of our own issues to deal with as well. Then I fell from grace, and Celestia... she's not a fighter. She tried diplomacy, and diplomacy failed." "And Twilight paid the price for it." Luna sighed and took up another gem in her magic, setting it into place. "Cadence I know what you think of us right now isn't great, but we never intended this. In hindsight, yes, it was a mistake to send Twilight, but not even she thinks deposing the Duke was a mistake. Our current troubles have nothing to do with our intentions when we sent her, as we didn't even know Faust existed. Twilight finding her was as much a surprise to us as it was to her." "And yet, here we are," Cadence said coldly. "You gave her the perfect platform to take over a country still trying to rebuild itself. If you had just let her go, maybe things would have been different." "Indeed," Luna said sternly. "It might have been even worse." "And how do you possibly think it could have been worse?" "I'm sure Faust would have found a way. Cadence, I know you think us monsters for sealing Faust away, but was to be a mere temporary measure. We only wanted to keep her there until we found a way to contain her ourselves, and until Mareitania was stable so did happen, wouldn't happen." "And what would happen once she was contained?" "For my part, nothing," Luna admitted. "Faust despises me, so the less time I spend around her the better. The goal though, was to treat her nicely, and slowly get through to her. Befriend her, until she was no longer a threat. Celestia tried that while she was in Mareitania, but she didn't have enough time, and Faust refused to listen, which was why we were going through with that plan." "Instead she got free, and now here we are." "We hadn't counted on the Viscount knowing of her. If it weren't for him this war wouldn't be happening." "Ah, so this is all his fault," Cadence said mockingly. "Of course." "The pony's whose fault this is, is Platinum's," Luna growled. "Right, of course. How silly of me to think otherwise..." Cadence trailed off as Luna jerked like she was shocked, and whipped her head around to look out of the window. "What?" Cadence asked as she turned to look at what Luna was watching. All she could see was the sun setting... almost an hour early. "Is the sun supposed to be setting yet?" "No," Luna replied as she cantered over to the window for a closer look, "it isn't." She kept watching as the sun dipped below the horizon, her concern growing with every passing second. "Something's wrong here." "Why would Celestia set the sun early?" Cadence asked, her anger from earlier gone, only to be replaced with worry. "Celestia wouldn't set the su-aah!" Luna collapsed to her knees, a sharp pain shooting up her horn. Cadence started to look like she was panicking, and kept asking what was wrong, but Luna ignored her, forcing herself up to look through the window as the moon slowly rose, totally without her guidance. Eventually the moon slowed in its path, and the pain subsided, allowing Luna to get back onto her hooves. "I need to find Celestia," she said, turning and galloping out of the observatory, Cadence close behind her. Both of them raced through the castle, dodging around ponies they could avoid, and leaping and gliding over those they couldn't. They hadn't gone too far when Celestia galloped around the corner towards them, and all three of them crashed into a heap in the middle of the corridor. "Luna!" Celestia gasped before she even attempted to stand up. "That wasn't you was it?" "Urgh..." Luna raised her head, then pushed aside one of Cadence's legs that was resting on it. "No sister, that was not I. I'm assuming that since you're asking, it wasn't you either?" "Of course not! I wouldn't set the sun so early yet!" Celestia disentangled herself from the princess pile-up and brushed herself off. "I guess there's only one explanation then." "What's that?" Cadence asked, having hauled herself back to her hooves. "Faust has taken possession of the sun and moon," Luna explained simply. "We no longer have control over them." Cadence's eyes went wide, and she gibbered for a moment as she tried to comprehend what exactly that meant. "W-what do we do?" "For now, nothing," said Celestia. "I would at least hope that Faust knows better than to harm the world by altering the orbit of the sun and moon. Hopefully the schedule she keeps for them is not much different to our own." "But how? How could she do this?" Luna barked a short bitter laugh, "I'm sure if we were to ask her, she would only say she was reclaiming her property." "What is that supposed to mean?" Cadence asked. "The sun and moon rose and set long before unicorns performed the task. Who do you think was responsible for that?" "Oh." Cadence went quiet, no more sure of what to say to either of them that they were to each other. "What should we tell our ponies?" "Absolutely nothing," Luna replied quickly. "To tell them we have lost control of the sun and moon would only create unnecessary panic. I feel it best that we pretend everything is fine. At least assuming Faust doesn't do something with them that we cannot defend or explain." "Oh great," Cadence growled, "more lies." "I'm afraid Luna is right," Celestia said soothingly. "We should maintain that everything is fine, so as to not cause undue panic." "Undue panic?" Cadence took a step back from both of them in surprise. "I think some panic is incredibly due by now!" she said, sucking in short sharp breaths as she tried to think around her renewed anger. "Just what exactly have you dragged us all into?" Neither Celestia or Luna provided an answer, or even met her gaze. "You know why we have to do this Cadence," Luna said eventually. "This is bigger than just Equestria." Cadence narrowed her eyes at both of them, but said nothing, instead turning on the spot and going back to the observatory, her mind racing as she tried to think of ways to end this peacefully. If she couldn't talk Faust down, maybe she could talk Equestria down instead, even if she had to go behind Celestia's and Luna's backs to do it.

The end of an era

28. Sunshine in Saddle Arabia

Sunset glared at Twilight, annoyed that the purple alicorn could be so nonchalant in this situation. "I'm telling you Twilight, the sun rose early today. Doesn't that mean anything to you in the slightest?" "Of course it does. It also means something to me that the sun set early last night, as well the moon rising early." "Then why are you being so calm about it?" "Because the sun still rose," said Twilight. "If it hadn't, then I would be giving the issue my full attention. As it is, apart from rising a bit early, I don't see it as something we need to worry about." "How could you possibly say this is something not worth worrying about? Celestia never rises the sun early! Or late! This could be a sign that something's really wrong!" Twilight sighed through her nose, and stopped to face Sunset, who didn't seem to want to drop the issue. "I'm not saying it isn't something worth worrying about. Not at all. But I am saying it's not something we need to worry about." Sunset stared at Twilight, her mouth hanging open. "How can you possibly think that?" "Because the issue is in Equestria, and we-" Twilight gestured at the rocky, arid landscape around them, "-are in Saddle Arabia, with absolutely no way to do anything about it. I'm sorry Sunset, but this is something Celestia and Luna are going to have to fix themselves. We have our own job to do, as they have theirs." Sunset seemed like she was about to argue, but a quick glance at the others confirmed that they were all waiting for her to admit that this was something they couldn't do anything about. "Okay, okay, fine, I get it." Sunset sighed deeply, "It still feels wrong to do nothing though. What if this is a sign that something's really wrong? What if this means that the war has started?" "Then we still do what we're supposed to?" Trixie said like it was obvious. "Pretty sure we're supposed to be looking for that happy little deus ex that fixes everything. That's why we're here, in Saddle Arabia, getting baked by the sun and eaten by insects." "But I'm not even hungry," Mayfly said with a pout. "You really consider yourself an insect?" Moondancer asked the changeling. "It was a joke," Mayfly explained flatly. "Too subtle? And no, I don't consider myself an insect. Insectoid yes, obviously, but not an insect." "Anyway," Twilight said to Sunset, drawing the word out as she scowled at the others, "the point was that we help Equestria by doing what we're doing. The sun issue is something we can't fix, so let's not waste energy agonising over it." Sunset sighed again. She could feel how wrong it was to have the sun rise too early, like an itch in the back of her mind. But Twilight was right in that there was nothing they could do about it, no matter how much it bothered her. Instead she adjusted her pack to be more comfortable, and smiled weakly at Twilight. "I guess we better get on and save Equestria then." "Exactly," Twilight said back. "We're not far from the capital Ammare now, so we can restock with what we need, and start looking for that mirror, or however much is left of it. That also means you have to start disguising yourself Mayfly." Mayfly nodded stiffly, like she was irritated by the suggestion. "Are you sure I must?" "Positive," Twilight told her. "I hate to say it, but changelings tend to not be welcomed anywhere, so it's probably best you pick a disguise and stick with it." "Okay then, how about this?" A wave of vivid green magic swept over Mayfly's body, leaving in its place a tall white Saddle Arabian mare, with a long, baby blue mane and tail. "Will this do?" "Not... exactly," Twilight said, although she didn't want to. Mayfly did look the part, but there were other issues with the disguise she might not have considered. "Why not?" asked Moondancer. "She looks exactly like a Saddle Arabian. She's going to fit in a lot better than we are." "The problem is that while she might look the part, she wouldn't act it. She's not wearing the traditional garb of a Saddle Arabian, and I doubt she knows the cultural customs of a Saddle Arabian. Do you even know how to speak Saddlan?" Mayfly twisted her hoof awkwardly, "I... don't even know what that is." "It's the language of Saddle Arabia, and if you can't speak it, or act like a proper Saddle Arabian mare, I doubt it's a good idea to go around looking like one. Perhaps you should go with looking like a pony like us instead." "Okay." Another wave of magic swept over Mayfly as she turned into a unicorn, using the same colour scheme, and with a horseshoe cutie mark. "Will this do?" "Are we really going to get away with having another unicorn with us?" said Trixie. "I'm pretty sure we're going to look pretty damn tribalist soon. Why don't you go as a pegasus?" "Because with my wings busted, I wouldn't be able to fly." "Why not?" Mayfly changed herself into a pegasus, and held her wings up to show them. Large chunks of feathers were missing, and what feathers were there were damaged. "Art reflects reality," she said sadly. "Why not go as an earth pony then?" Sunset suggested, only to get laughed at by Trixie. "Hah, good one." "I'm not joking, and that was seriously tribalist," Sunset said coldly. "I know, and I'm sorry, but if ponies could pick what kind of pony they wanted to be, I imagine there'd be a lot less earth ponies in the world. Flying or magic against neither of those? Yeah, tough choice." Twilight gawped at Trixie, "Are you even kidding right now? There is nothing wrong with being an earth pony!" "And I'm not saying there is, but given the choice..." Trixie shrugged at all of them, "Why don't we ask the only one of us here that does have a choice? Mayfly?" Mayfly shuffled awkwardly under the attention she was suddenly under. "Uh... not that I want to agree with Trixie specifically, but since I can't fly," she quickly changed back into a unicorn, "I would like to still be able to us my magic." Trixie grinned at all of them, "I think I've made my point." Moondancer narrowed her eyes at Trixie, "A moment ago you were worried about looking tribalist. What happened to that, hmm?" "Nothing. I'm just saying that given the choice of being a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony, hardly anypony is going to choose being earth pony. Mayfly just proved that for me." "One example is not a case study!" "Twilight, is there a way we can turn Moondancer into an earth pony?" Moondancer backed off a few steps and protectively held a hoof to her horn. "Don't you even dare!" "Example number two," Trixie said gleefully. Twilight groaned into her hoof, "Trixie, there's no such spell capable of turning a unicorn into an earth pony-" "Because why waste your time developing a spell nopony would ever want to use." "There isn't a spell that could turn you into a pegasus either! You can't change the type of pony you are." "Sadly for all those earth ponies." Twilight kicked a stone at Trixie, hitting her on the chest. "Seriously Trixie? Are you done now?" "Yeah, I think so." "Good, now come on. The sooner we get to Ammare, the sooner we can start looking for information on the mirror." -0-0-0- If there was one way to describe Ammare, it was busy. However, it was also capable of being described as dusty, hot, loud, annoyingly tall, and having an over fondness for onion domed towers. The palace on the small rise looking over the city especially had a thing for them. It was also pretty well secured if the pairs of guards walking around in matching uniforms with their scimitars slung at their sides were any indication. She wasn't sure why, but their presence made Twilight nervous, like they were looking for something, and she hoped they weren't it. Twilight stopped the group under an arch that bridged two buildings as another pair of guards wandered by. "This isn't exactly what I expected. Actually, I don't know what I expected." "Everything here's making me feel really short," Trixie whined. "I mean, I know Saddle Arabians are tall, but did they have to make everything half as high again? I feel like a foal." "Out of interest," Moondancer said, pausing as a trio of Saddle Arabians passed by, arguing loudly in their native tongue, "where were you expecting to find information on the mirror? If there's any to find." "And not in the wrong language," Sunset added. "Weren't you the one to bring up Saddle Arabia?" Moondancer asked Sunset. "Didn't whatever you were reading say more about where the mirror was?" "Yes, but Starswirl travelled around here a lot, so I couldn't pin down where he kept the mirror, and this is a civilised country so I very much doubt nopony here has never found it. I was thinking it might be in a museum or something." "Assuming nopony thought it was a piece of trash and threw it away," said Trixie. "Also a possibility," Sunset admitted sheepishly. "A couple of days of trying to find out about it won't hurt." "I suppose not," said Twilight. "So we'll start by looking for a museum then. Even if it isn't there, perhaps they might know something about where it could be." Trixie snorted a laugh, "Great! That just leaves the issue of where to find the museum, assuming they even have one." "We could ask somepony?" said Mayfly. "Be my guest," Trixie replied, stepping aside and gesturing for Mayfly to go do that, adding a small bow for emphasis. "Of course, they might not understand you, and you probably wouldn't understand them, but I'm sure it'll all work out if you just speak slowly and loudly." "Oh! Okay then." Mayfly nodded eagerly and started to trot towards the only ponies she could see, only to get dragged back by Twilight's magic." "She was being sarcastic Mayfly, just ignore her. In fact, ignore her, period." "Hey..." "Come on," Twilight said, enjoyably ignoring Trixie. "We won't find anything standing around here. Let's have a look around, and if it comes down to it, we can always ask a guard, because hopefully they might speak Equestrian." Twilight smiled encouragingly at her friends, then led the way deeper into the city. It really did remind her of Canterlot in some ways, with its many towers, bridges, and archways, as well as the bustle of many ponies. That's where the similarities ran out though. Dust blown in from the nearby deserts coated everything, and the roads were nothing more than solidly compacted dirt. What did get her the most though, was the stares. Especially once they reached the marketplace, where ponies would stop what they were doing just to stare at them. So far she hadn't seen a single other pony from Equestria, so she could only assume that they were a bit of a rarity. None of the stares were hostile though. Most of them were simply curious. They were also mostly directed at Twilight, leading her to think that maybe she should have considered hiding her wings as ponies here were in all likelihood capable of identifying her as a princess. It was probably too late now though. This went on for a while, wherever they went in the city as they searched fruitlessly for a museum, library, or anything like that. Twilight was starting to think that they could have passed by any number of such things, and not realised due to not knowing the language. She was about to suggest they ask a guard when Sunset gasped and ran over to a small newsstand. "Guys! Look at this!" Sunset picked a paper up off the stand and held it in front of them with her magic. "It's in Saddlan," Trixie said flatly. "I know that, but look at the picture." All of them focused on the picture, which was a map of Equestria with arrows pointing into it from Mareitania, one finishing at Vanhoover, and the other on the Crystal Empire. "This has to mean Equestria's being attacked! If only we could read what it says." "Perhaps I could be of assistance?" All of them turned to the voice, finding it to have originated from a light grey Saddle Arabian stallion flanked by two of the armed guards that were patrolling the city. Twilight cleared her throat nervously at the sight, suddenly feeling like they were in trouble. "I'm sorry, can we help you?" "I believe it was I offering to help you, but no matter. Let me introduce myself." The stallion bowed deeply to Twilight, "I am Hakim, Vizier to the Sultan, and you," he said before Twilight could speak, "are Princess Twilight Sparkle." "You know who I am?" "But of course. The small number of alicorns in this world does make you rather easy to recognise. That does lead me to ask why a princess of Equestria is here in Saddle Arabia? We are also curious as to why you are here without informing us." "Uh... Well, y'see-" "Ah-ah, hold your answers. You can tell them to the Sultan directly." "The Sultan wants to see us?" Hakim nodded, "More you specifically, but the... invitation will be extended to your companions also." "You hesitated on invitation," Trixie pointed out. "I'm guessing we don't actually have much of a choice here." "Of course you do, but I very much suggest you accept his offer of hospitality." The stallion waited a beat as he let that sink in. "Please, if you would follow me." "Wait," Sunset said quickly, then blushed as the Vizier raised an eyebrow at her. "Sorry." She held the paper up in front of him, "Could you tell us what this says? Please?" "Put basically, the alicorn Faust has attacked Equestria, invading both the city of Van-hoo-ver, if that is how you say it, and the Crystal Empire, but a few days ago." "She really attacked the Crystal Empire?" Twilight gasped. "Why would she attack there? How would she attack there?" "I do not know," said Hakim, "and it seems to have gained her little as the city was swallowed by the voracious cold of the frozen north soon after." Hakim softened slightly as he watched Twilight's ears fall, "I guess you have been away from Equestria for a while to not know that." "It's part of the reason why we're here," Twilight admitted quietly. "I see. Perhaps these are things better discussed with the Sultan himself. Again, if you would follow me, I will take you to him. Then we shall see if we can perhaps aid you in some way." -0-0-0- The area around the palace was considerably different to that in the city, and that was before you even got to the palace itself. They were led through a large gate surrounded by an equally large wall, and immediately found themselves in a different world, or so it felt. A large water garden spread out before them, filled with lush green plants, and numerous fountains that playfully sprayed water into the large angular pools that made up much of the garden. All of it was built with the same white marble the palace appeared to be made of. As the Vizier led them up the large path through the gardens, Twilight took note of the large number of exotic birds that called the gardens their home. Flamingos, parrots, parakeets, and far more stood around the pools, or flew around them, and there were plenty of other creatures besides. Hakim smiled at Twilight, "It seems like you are enjoying the palace gardens?" "They're wonderful," Twilight gushed, while behind her Trixie snorted. "So this is half of where the country's water went to," she muttered bitterly. The difference between here and the city was reminding her a bit too much of what she and Twilight fought to overthrow in Mareitania. "Heaven forfend royalty not live like royalty for once." "Trixie!" Twilight shouted, horrified that Trixie would say such a thing, even if she didn't entirely disagree. Her horror was soon replaced with confusion as Hakim chuckled at them. "I'm afraid you'll have to blame the ostentatious nature of this place on the ponies that built it centuries ago as a rival to your Princess Celestia's palace in Canterlot. As for the water, the palace has its own private supply, and often shares that with the ponies in the city when times are hard. Free of charge I might add." "That's generous of you," said Sunset. "As you can imagine, water is quite the commodity in this land. Somepony could be your worst enemy, but you would still share a glass of water with them when times are hard." "Clearly you haven't found some proper enemies," Trixie grumbled as they made their way up the marble steps that led inside the palace. Even she had to admit the place was nice as she admired the silk drapes and many mosaics. She didn't have enough interest to admire them in depth though, which was fine as the Vizier seemed determined to get them to their destination. He stopped them before a thick double door, and turned his rear to it to talk to them. "I feel I should warn you that the Sultan may be a little... distracted. We have been having some issues lately, and they do not seem to be resolving themselves to anyone's satisfaction, or at all really." "What kind of issues?" Twilight asked. "That is not for me to say I'm afraid. The Sultan may divulge more if you ask, but perhaps it is best you stick to why you're here rather than worry about our problems." Hakim smiled at them and signalled the guards to open the doors, "Sire!" he shouted happily. "I found our unexpected guests!" Twilight followed the Vizier as he trotted up to the raised throne that was built on a raised platform much like Celestia's and Luna's, but that was where the similarities ended. The throne itself was more like an open oyster shell, although considerably more ornate, and was filled to the brim with cushions, amongst which sat a stallion with a simple brown coat under his simple royal garb. He couldn't have been any older than herself. "Introducing Princess Twilight Sparkle," Hakim continued, "and her friends Moondancer, Mayfly, Sunset, and Trixie." "It's an honour to meet you," said Twilight, dropping into a bow which the other copied with varying degrees of speed and reluctance. "We're sorry for intruding into your country uninvited, but we wished to avoid unnecessary attention." "Then perhaps you might consider a disguise," said the Sultan. Thankfully he didn't seem offended, and gestured for them to rise. "I will have to admit to being surprised when my guards informed me there was an Equestrian princess walking around my city. Considering the duress Equestria is currently under, I doubt you have come here for a sightseeing trip." "You've... guessed correctly, your Highness. We seek an artifact, one of many, that can lead us to the location of Starswirl the Bearded." A slight lie, but Twilight was pretty sure the secret retreat of Starswirl should remain a secret. "Ah yes, the legendary Starswirl the Bearded." The Sultan rose from his throne and descended to stand before them. "It is my understanding that he vanished long ago, yet you hope to find him alive?" "Not strictly, but wherever he is might have information on how to defeat Faust. As you can imagine, that knowledge would be quite valuable to Equestria." "Indeed. While I have no interest in involving myself with a war Equestria made for itself, I see no harm in assisting you in this small endeavour if it stops the fighting." The Sultan made his way to the side of the room, where a curtained opening led into another room. "Come," he said, holding the curtain aside, "you must be hungry and weary from your travels." Twilight led the way into the next room, finding a large dining room furnished with a long, low table that was lined with cushions. The nearest end was prepared, so Twilight took a seat near where she suspected the Sultan himself would sit. She leant back as a tall serving mare poured her a drink, that on closer inspection turned out to be wine. Twilight shrugged and drank a mouthful while Trixie attacked hers with relish. Sunset and Moondancer were a little more measured with their responses, while Mayfly sniffed hers and went cross-eyed. "Please, help yourselves," the Sultan said as he took his own seat. "There's no need to stand on ceremony here. Eat your fill, then we will talk." Twilight, or in fact none of them, argued with that, piling food on their plates to eat, even if it was mostly for show in Mayfly's case. What did bother Twilight though, was the fact that the Sultan was being so hospitable. It was making her think that he wanted something. "So, your Highness," she begun, only to be interrupted. "Please, call me Batal." "Okay then, Batal. Your Vizier told me you've been having some troubles of your own lately." "Indeed, but nothing so troubling as a war. Some of our citizens, a couple dozen at most, have gone missing over the last month." "Ith that why there'th tho many guardth in the thity?" Trixie asked, her mouth half full. She swallowed quickly as Twilight gave her a look. "Sorry." "Indeed it is," Batal answered, "although it seems to have made very little difference. Even with them patrolling, ponies still vanish." "Do you have any idea how?" asked Sunset. "All the evidence we've found would point at an animal attack," said Hakim. "The problem is though, that there's no blood or remains of any kind. They're taking the bodies away, which is unusual for animal attacks as you can imagine." "Then what evidence is there that it's an animal attack?" Sunset enquired, her meal forgotten for now. "All of the attacks happen on the outskirts of town, and always outdoors, and the tracks are nothing a pony would make, or even a griffon or some such creature." "We were thinking," Batal said quickly, before anyone could speak, "if you're willing to help us with this problem, we could be able to help you with yours. What is it exactly you're looking for?" "A... mirror," Twilight told him. "Specifically a magic one, made by Starswirl the Bearded." While the Sultan didn't appear to show anything towards what she was saying, Hakim was a different story. He stared straight ahead, his eyes slightly wider than normal. "We believe it's the key to locating Starswirl himself, as I believe I said." "A magic mirror you say? What would it look like?" "I'm not entirely sure, but it would be bigger than yourself most likely, and is surrounded by magical gems. The only way I could really be sure it is what I'm looking for would be to study it with my magic." Out of the corner of her eye, Hakim's pupils shrunk slightly, before he seemed to remember himself and relax. "I'm afraid I know of no such mirrors," Batal continued, seemingly unaware of what his Vizier was doing. "Hakim? Do you know anything?" "I'm afraid not your Highness," Hakim said smoothly. "Since we have no magic ourselves, I don't see how we Saddle Arabians could have produced such a thing." "I said Starswirl made it," Twilight pointed out bluntly. A little too bluntly, but the way Mayfly was watching him had caught her attention. He was definitely lying to them, but she couldn't just call him out on it. "Ah yes, my mistake. Still, I know of no such mirrors. It seems we cannot help you." "A pity," said Batal. "I suppose this now means you're no longer willing to help us then?" "I didn't say that..." Twilight trailed off as a guard trotted in swiftly, and up to Hakim, urgently whispering something in his ear. "What?" Hakim stood quickly, banging his knees on the table. "I seek your permission to leave Sire, there has been a break-in at my family's estate." "Of course, of course, by all means." Hakim bowed low to his Sultan, then to the rest of them, although not with the same depth. "Anyway, you were saying Princess Twilight?" "Since you can't help us find the mirror, we'll be spending a few days here searching for it. I don't see why we can't do both." Twilight turned to Sunset, "Would you and Mayfly mind helping the Saddle Arabians while we search for the mirror?" "Uh... no, I guess not," Sunset said unsurely. She looked at Mayfly, only to find the disguised changeling playing with her food. "In fact, we'd be happy to help." Batal clapped his hooves once, "Excellent! I'm so glad you could help us! Your magic could make unravelling this mystery so much easier. Now then, I'm sure you must be weary, so once you finish your meal I'll have the servants show you to your rooms." "Our rooms?" Twilight asked. "But of course! I'd be a terrible host if I didn't allow you to stay here for the duration of your visit." "Oh, uh..." Twilight invented quickly, not wanting to be kept in the palace where they'd be under quite a lot of supervision. "I appreciate the offer, but I feel our search for the mirror, and for whatever's taking your ponies, would be far easier to do from out in the city." "Are... are you certain? The palace would be far more comfortable I think." "I'm certain. We'll be out and about most of the time, and having to travel back and forth to the palace will only take up time we don't really have to spare since Equestria is under attack now. Sorry." Batal waved a hoof, "Very well, no need to apologise. Please though, I insist you enjoy what hospitality I can give you before you depart again." -0-0-0- "What was that about?" Trixie asked Twilight angrily as soon as they had exited the palace grounds. "We could have stayed in a palace Twilight! An actual, honest to Celestia palace!" "Yeah, where we'd be watched every moment of the time we spent there, leaving us totally unable to do the things that are going to be needed of us to get the mirror." "What are you talking about?" Sunset asked Twilight. "We don't even know where the mirror is." "Yes we do, sort of. I take it none of you except Mayfly noticed the way Hakim was acting when I brought up the mirror?" "Not really," said Sunset. "What was he doing?" "He was lying," Mayfly told them. "Or at least he felt like he was lying." "He was," Twilight confirmed. "I'm not only willing to bet he knows where the mirror is, but that it's also in his possession. Probably in that estate of his that was broken into." "I hope that means that somepony else isn't after the mirror then," said Sunset. "That's the last thing we need." Twilight shrugged at the idea, "We still need some kind of proof he has it first. Then we can worry about who else wants it." "Couldn't we offer to buy it off of him?" suggested Moondancer. "He tried to hide that he has it," said Trixie. "Kinda suggests that he isn't looking to sell." "So what are you suggesting we do?" Trixie smirked at Moondancer, "Take a wild guess." "Murder him for it?" The way Moondancer said it did at least suggest she wasn't comfortable with the idea. "Woah there," Trixie laughed, surprised that's where Moondancer went. "Less wild Moondancer. Considerably less wild. I meant we just steal it off him, somehow." Moondancer blushed with embarrassment at having been the one to suggest murdering the Vizier, then blushed in frustration at not really knowing why she was blushing at all. "This all sounds like a massive collection of long-shots so far. How are we meant to find out if Hakim even has the mirror?" "I... don't know," Twilight admitted. "Let's just find a place to stay first, then we'll worry about it." "But how? We don't have any money we can use here." "Actually bits are widely accepted here," said Sunset. "Almost preferred actually." "Oh." "What I was going to say though," Sunset continued, "was that you should probably hide your wings Twilight. The less attention we draw the better." "Good thinking." It had been a while since Twilight had used the spell, possibly since leaving Mareitania, but she was nowhere near forgetting it, and with a spark of magic her wings disappeared from sight, so long as you didn't touch them. Sunset nodded in approval, "There was also something else I was going to ask. Do you really mean for Mayfly and I to help with their missing pony problem?" "Up to you," said Twilight. "I just agreed so that the more you at least appear to help them, the less attention they'll put on the rest of us. If you actually want to help them, go right ahead. I'd happily help them myself if we had the time." "Okay, I was just checking. Let's find a place to stay, then we can all get to work." -0-0-0- By the time they'd found a place to stay, and Sunset and Mayfly had wandered back to the palace to begin their investigation, it was nearing mid-afternoon. Sunset wasn't sure if daylight hours in Saddle Arabia were the same as those in Equestria, but she didn't really need to know to tell it was going to be light for hours yet. Two guards were leading them silently and stoically towards the location of the last abduction, although whether they were quiet through instruction, or because they simply didn't speak Equestrian to have a chat, was a mystery to Sunset. She didn't mind though, as she wasn't sure what to say to them. Seeing as how the weather tended to not change for months at a time here, talking about it seemed a bit pointless, but she didn't know what else to talk about. The coarseness of the sand? How hot it was? How about those drinks strong enough to feel like they've burnt holes in your oesophagus? "Here," one of the guards said, stopping at a part of the narrow street they were in, between two buildings that had been cordoned off. Sunset waited for him to say more, but the stallion remained resolutely silent. "Okay then, are we supposed to get started?" Again the guard said nothing, so Sunset shrugged and ducked under the barrier into the closed of section, Mayfly following after her. There were some gouges cut into the compacted dirt of the ground, and some knocked over crates which could be indicative of a struggle, but other that that there was nothing much to see. It did feel a little off though. Sunset stood and studied it for several moments, wondering if this place had already been investigated by the Saddle Arabians, then sighed explosively. "I have no idea what I'm doing. Are you getting anything from this Mayfly?" "This place smells weird," Mayfly said, raising her nose in the air and sniffing rapidly. "Something was here, but it wasn't an animal." "A pony then? Or something like that?" "No. Something... something different. Not mammalian at all." "Oookay... Keep doing what you're doing then, and I'll try something else." Not sure what else to do, Sunset decided to focus on the feeling of the place. It was a feeling she was all too familiar with, having performed the cause of such a thing herself, as well as be around others that had. The entire place had the unusual chill of somewhere that had recently seen dark magic. What could have performed dark magic here was a mystery since Saddle Arabians couldn't do magic of any kind, so she was left with more questions and no answers. Still, it was somewhere to begin. "I hope I can still do this," Sunset said, raising her horn and casting a spell that cast a soft glow over the area. Nothing happened at first, but slowly wisps of a dark mist started to appear, the lingering remnants of dark magic, growing in number until they started to join together. Then they started appearing along a path, showing the direction the caster came and went from, which seemed to be the same direction in this case. The only problem was that it went straight up the side of a three story building. "That's impossible," Sunset whispered to herself as Mayfly crawled around, her nose to the ground as she followed it to wherever it was leading her. Sunset wasn't so crass as to actively mention the comparison to a dog, but that certainly didn't stop her from thinking it. "Found anything yet?" Mayfly didn't answer, too wrapped up in what her senses were telling her. Something smelled oddly familiar now she was really smelling for it, and it was leading her over to the crates. She clambered over them, then squeaked with surprise as her face got stuck in something sticky. She tried to pull it off with her hooves, only for them to get them stuck too. Sunset jumped up on a crate as Mayfly struggled, and pulled the changeling free with her magic, although it cost her disguise some of its facial hair. Sunset pulled some of the thick, white, sticky strands up to inspect them, but couldn't work out what they were. "Do you know what this is?" she asked Mayfly. "Webbing," Mayfly replied shortly. "I thought something smelled a little familiar." "So this was changelings?" Mayfly shook her head. "What then?" "Changelings don't use webs. That's spider web." Sunset smirked lopsided at Mayfly, "Spider webs aren't this thick." "Depends how big the spider is." "And how big do you think this spider was?" Mayfly looked up the side of the building where the lingering remains of the dark mist were. "Big enough to drag a pony up the side of a building." "That's..." Sunset released the webbing and stepped back. There was no way what Mayfly had said could be true, or so she hoped. "There has to be some other explanation." Mayfly shrugged, uncaring of what Sunset thought. "You can think that if you want, but I know a giant spider when I walk into the web of one." "But there's no such thing as giant spiders!" "Tell that to the giant spider that did this." "There's no such thing as giant spiders!" Mayfly looked sideways at Sunset, "Then explain the giant cobweb." "I can't!" Sunset growled in the back of her throat, trying to release the frustration she felt from how ridiculous this was. There was no way this could have been a giant spider, because there was no such thing, even if what little evidence they had would suggest so. Apart from one thing that is. "Even if it was a giant spider, what does that have to do with dark magic?" "What do you think made the spider so big? There's no such thing as actual giant spiders. Even I know that." Sunset blinked at Mayfly, "Uh... you just said this had to be- What? Now you're saying giant spiders aren't real? Will you make up your mind!" "I have made up my mind. Giant spiders aren't real, but this was clearly the work of a giant spider, made that way by the dark magic you say is here, and possibly controlled by it since a spider wouldn't really come here with the intention of abducting ponies." "And the changeling would know all about that," Sunset said, immediately cursing herself as Mayfly's expression turned hurt. "Sorry! Sorry... that was uncalled for. I didn't mean it. I'm just frustrated, and I shouldn't take it out on you. How could this be a giant magical spider? That shouldn't even be possible!" "I can only tell you what my senses are telling me," Mayfly said sadly. She stiffened as Sunset pulled her into a hug. "I'm sorry Mayfly, I didn't mean what I said. And for what it's worth, I'm not saying you're wrong, but a lot of me really, really hopes that giant magical spiders aren't a thing. I don't think this is really something we can take back to the Sultan either. I'm pretty sure he's not going to believe giant spiders did all these kidnappings." Mayfly smiled as she gorged herself on Sunset's affections, "Perhaps we should see what Twilight has to say on it first?" "Not yet. Let's see where the trail goes first." Sunset focused her magic, teleporting the both of them up to the top of the building. Then she put her horn to work revealing the remnants of dark magic in the area, and swore as the mist formed a trail that leapt right over the street to the building opposite. "No way..." "A giant spider could do it," Mayfly said a little smugly. "And I'm still really hoping for some other explanation." Sunset teleported them over the street to the next building, finding the trail leapt over a wall and out into the open desert. A quick glance at the position of the sun told her it was going in a southerly direction. "Yeah, I'm not following that out there." "Twilight?" Mayfly asked. Sunset nodded, "Twilight." -0-0-0- "Giant spiders..." Twilight said flatly, the book she had been reading floating in her magic, where it had stayed since Sunset and Mayfly had told her what they'd found. "Giant dark magic spiders," Mayfly corrected her. "Oh I'm sorry, I forgot the thing that makes this even more ridiculous. Giant dark magic spiders." "I know what it sounds like," said Sunset, "and I really wish I could give you some other explanation, but between the lingering dark magic, the giant cobwebs, and climbing up the side of a building and leaping across the street while carrying a full grown pony, I have nothing else I can think of capable of doing that-" "Except for giant dark magic spiders..." "You don't believe us do you?" Twilight snorted with mirth, "Can you really blame me?" "No, I guess not," Sunset sighed. "I'm telling you though, there's literally nothing else I can think of that could do such a thing." "How about changelings?" Trixie suggested. "They can climb walls and stuff." "Not how changelings work," said Mayfly, a little coldly. "I do believe myself capable of telling if this was a changeling attack." "What if they're a different kind of changeling?" "Then are they really a changeling in that case?" said Moondancer, who still hadn't looked up from her own reading material. "Ooh, deep." "It's not. It's really, really not." Twilight rolled her eyes at the both of them, then turned her attention back to Sunset. "I'm guessing you've decided to not tell the Sultan?" "Yeah, there's no way he's ever going to believe that. I don't even really believe it myself if I'm honest. We were kind of hoping you might have some input on it." "Mmhmm. Hey Trixie?" "Yeah?" "Did you ever feel you were capable of turning a spider into a huge, pony-napping freak of nature while you were into the whole 'dark magic' thing?" "Uh... no, I don't think so. Of course that could be down to Trixie never wanting to do something so utterly horrifying as creating giant spiders." Twilight shrugged at Sunset, "And there you have it, we know exactly as much as you do." Sunset pursed her lips at Twilight, "I'm guessing that since you have your sarcasm dialled up to eleven, you haven't found anything about the mirror?" "Not in the books we've found that were in a language we're capable of reading." "What books are those? Why are you even looking in books?" Twilight flipped her book around so Sunset could see the cover. "Artefacts of Saddle Arabia," Sunset read aloud, "by B. Spectrum. Broad Spectrum? You're really reading something by that charlatan? According to him half the people of the world are uncultured savages Twilight, so I really don't think he's the best source of information." "And the fact that I found this in the recent history section suggests he might not be far wrong," said Twilight with a faint smile. "Unfortunately this, and a few other books are all we have to go on." "And you're hoping they might mention the mirror and what happened to it?" Twilight grinned at Sunset, "And that's where you'd be surprised by this book. Rather than go looking for artefacts like a proper archaeologist, Broad Spectrum wrote about ones that had already been discovered and were on display in museums and suchlike. He also mentions that several items had fallen into the ownership of private collectors, the most prevalent of which happened to be-" "The Vizier?" "Currently yes, although I was going to say his family. According to this, there should be any number of artefacts kept at his estate, and since he went all coy about the mirror when we brought it up, I think that's good enough reason to go and have a look for it." "I really think we should just bring it up with him," said Moondancer. "Breaking into his estate seems like such a stupid thing to do. If we tell him why we need it, I'm sure he'll be reasonable." "He already knows why we need it," said Trixie, "and he decided to act like he knew nothing about it. The only way we're going to find it is to go looking for it ourselves, so I'm with Twilight." "Which automatically wins any arguments," Moondancer grumbled bitterly. "Actually, I have a different idea for now," Twilight told them. "While you were off investigating your giant spiders, and we were looking for surprisingly helpful yet trashy books, I heard some of the guards shouting, and when I went to have a look they were dragging a pony in robes through the street." "So?" Sunset asked hesitantly. "So she was an Equestrian pony, the only other one we've seen, which strikes me as odd seeing as how Equestria should probably have an ambassador here somewhere. Probably sent home after the whole Mareitania thing upset the Sultan so much," Twilight answered herself with a shrug. "Anyway, my point was that I highly suspect that since she's not native, and was clearly a wanted mare, she might be connected to the break-in at the Vizier's estate." Sunset raised an eyebrow at Twilight, "And you want to go ask her some questions, even though you have no idea who she is, and if she'll even want to help us." "Ah, well, that's where we say that since she was caught trying to steal a magical artefact, or so we hope as we'll be bluffing, we're wondering if she's involved with the ponies disappearing, and would like to ask her some questions." "Sounds better than reading this," said Trixie. "I'm in." "Actually you'll be staying here," Twilight told her. "Sunset and Mayfly are the ones investigating the missing ponies, so they'll be less suspect of them going to ask some questions." "But I suspect you're going too," Trixie said flatly." "Of course! Being a princess will probably smooth over any issues we might have. I need to get some perks out of this somewhere." -0-0-0- "No," the guard at the desk said plainly. "Nopony is questioning the prisoner until the Vizier has had a chance to talk with her." "But we suspect that she may be involved with the disappearances taking place in the city. We were asked by the Sultan himself to investigate the disappearances, and you are interfering with that." Twilight smiled inwardly as she let that sink in for a second. "If you want us to go to the Sultan and tell him you're impeding our investigation, I'll just go and do that. Of course, I'm sure his authority supersedes that of the Vizier, so I'm sure we'll see her one way or another. One of those ways involves you not getting in trouble with the Sultan." Twilight could have sang as she watched the hamster wheels start turning in the pony's head. Very few ponies had the balls to stand up to the fear that disappointing their leaders instilled. Yes the Vizier had some sway, and this did involve his property, but the Sultan was the Sultan, and tended to win arguments of authority. "Alright, I'll give you ten minutes with the prisoner, but that is it. If she doesn't answer your questions, you'll just have to wait until after the Vizier is done with her. If she's still capable of speaking afterwards that is." The guard laughed to himself as he stood from the behind the desk, missing Twilight's face as she failed to hide her small desire to shove Swordy where the sun didn't shine. He led them back into the hot and unpleasant cells, where more than a few ponies were being kept in poor conditions, and back to a separate room with a small flap being the only way of seeing in. The guard opened the flap and peered through, nodding to himself before unlocking the door to let them in. "Your ten minutes begins now." Twilight, Sunset, and Mayfly hurried into the room, the door slamming shut behind them. Inside the room was a single table, with a brown pegasus slumped over it, her forehooves shackled down onto the table. Twilight gasped in surprise, as even though she couldn't see the pony's face behind her tri-toned dark grey mane, she didn't need to, to recognise her. "Daring Do?"

The end of an era

29. Dumb times in the desert

Daring Do raised her head to see who had spoken to her. One eye was swollen shut, accompanying the smudge of blood on her muzzle from a split lip. The other though, widened in recognition. "Princess Twilight? I know I said I wanted my lawyer, but I didn't think they'd go that far." "Actually, we're here for our own reasons," Twilight told her. "I had no idea that you'd be here, or that you'd be the one to break into the Vizier's private property to steal from him." "You know about that? Then you have to help me! There's a mask Princess. You have to get the golden mask out of here before she comes for it! It's in the evidence locker!" "Uh... what mask? Who's she? And why should I do that?" "Because if she gets her hooves on it she'll unleash an army of giant spiders on the world!" "Hah!" Mayfly laughed triumphantly. "This one told you it was giant spiders!" "I know," Sunset said in a low, near sarcastic voice. "I'm not entirely sure being right about that is something we need to be excited about." Mayfly sucked in a breath to argue, then released it all at once as she figured out the point Sunset was trying to make. "Oh, right. Giant spiders are probably bad." "Exactly." "First things first," said Twilight, "I want to know something about the Vizier's private collection." "What? No!" Daring struggled against her bonds, "We don't have time for this!" "We have plenty of time, actually. While you were in there, did you see a mirror? Lined with gems?" "Uh, yes? Maybe? I think I saw a mirror in there, but it was kinda broken. There's a lot of other stuff in there too." Daring tried again to free her hooves, "Look, I will help you do anything to get that mirror if you want it, but only if you help me first!" Twilight considered it for a moment. Having somepony that had already broken into the Vizier's collection would be useful, and having another adventure alongside Daring Do did make her feel a little giddy, even if Daring was acting horribly out of character by being so worried. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to scratch each others backs. "Alright Daring, you have my full and undivided attention." "Great! Now you just need to break these bonds and help me get the mask-" "Woah-woah-woah... Maybe you should explain yourself a little first." "But there's no time!" "I assure you there is." Twilight sat opposite Daring and crossed her legs on the table before her, indicating that she wasn't going anywhere until Daring had explained herself. "Alright, fine. Long ago a dark wizard type pony, I forget his name, used dark magic to create a deadly army of giant spiders. He was stopped, but not before he created a golden mask that controls them, the Mask of Terrors. The ponies that stopped him took the mask and sealed the spiders up in a place out in the desert, as they couldn't easily be destroyed." "I'm sensing a huge 'but' here," said Sunset. "A unicorn who calls herself Arachiss broke the seal into the spiders' prison, and has taken control of some of them. But to take control of all of them she needs the mask, and once she has it she'll unleash a wave of horror on the world like you would not believe. We need to get the mask and take it somewhere safe before she can use it." Twilight raised an eyebrow at Daring, "And breaking the mask out of the secure vault it was in helped it be safer did it?" "I got in there easily," Daring retorted, "so it really wasn't that secure. Arachiss could have broken in there and gotten the mask without even trying." "Mmhmm. Alright then Daring, apart from the fact I have zero proof of what you're saying, I believe you. The problem is that busting you out of jail and re-stealing the mask is going to upset a lot of ponies." "I'm pretty sure those ponies will thank us when they're not getting devoured by giant-" A loud thud cut her off as it echoed down the hallway beyond the door, followed soon after by screaming. "She's here! I told you there wasn't any time!" "That... doesn't mean it's what you think it is." Twilight stood and walked over to the door as the screams continued. She opened it and poked her head through, seeing the large black spider at the other end of it tossing ponies around as they tried to fend it off. She quickly withdrew her head and slammed the door shut. Then she opened it again just to be sure. The spider was still there. "Well fuck. I wasn't actually expecting them to be real." She opened the door a third time just to make sure she definitely wasn't hallucinating. "Now do you believe me?" Daring cried. "Seriously, get me out of these cuffs so we can go get that mask!" Twilight tore the cuffs off the table with her magic, freeing Daring. "You and Mayfly can go get the mask. Sunset and I will take care of the spider." "What?" Sunset protested straight away. "Noooo-no-no-no! I am not fighting a giant spider! Not now, not ever!" "I'm pretty sure it's something you're going to have to get used to if this Arachiss succeeds," Twilight politely informed her. "I don't exactly want to do this either, just so you know. Now come on." Twilight pulled open the door and marched out, her head held high as her stomach tried its best to escape through her ass. She didn't show it though, and marched stridently up to the massive arachnid, Sunset by her si- Twilight turned to look back down the corridor, seeing Sunset still stood at the far end while Daring Do and Mayfly sneaked out to retrieve the mask. "Doing great Twilight! You occupy its attention, and I'll attack it from back here!" "Luna fucking damn it Sunset!" Twilight grunted irritably and turned back to the spider. "You could have brought Trixie," she muttered to herself, "but noooo... you had to insist she stay behind. Idiot." She was fairly close to the spider now, which was more than twice her height at its highest point, which wasn't actually its head. It was also busy wrapping one of the guards in a cocoon, and hadn't noticed her in the slightest. "Hey you! With your multitudinous eyes and extraneous legs!" Twilight shouted at it, only to be ignored. "I bet your mother regretted not eating you straight out of the egg sac you ugly excuse of an Araneus Diadematus! That's right! I called you a common garden spider! What do you think of that, huh?" Evidently it wasn't much as she continued to be ignored. Twilight levelled her horn at the beast and shot at it, gouging a chunk out of its bulbous abdomen, which sent it scurrying into the corner, squealing horribly, similar to the noise Twilight made as she almost ran away. Even though she had done it intentionally, Twilight now regretted her actions as eight beady eyes set on her, sizing her up. The spider crept back out of its corner, suddenly seeming intent on adding her to its collection of ponies. She jumped back as it lunged at her, then blasted it again, blowing through the underneath of its thorax. Twilight grinned triumphantly, but soon lost that grin as the spider thrashed one of its limbs at her, smacking her away to crash into the hard stone wall. Twilight rolled onto her belly as she landed, shaking her head as her vision swam from the impact. She got some of her sense back just as a dark limb reached for her, and she grabbed it in her magic as she summoned Swordy, bringing the blade down on the leg and severing it easily in a spray of brownish ichor. "Now why didn't I do that from the beginning?" Twilight swung Swordy down, severing another leg, then another, until the spider could no longer support itself and collapsed to the ground, snapping its fangs at her until she plunged Swordy down through its face and pinned it to the floor. Then she jumped back and did a little dance, her skin squirming. "Grossgrossgross! I feel like I'm never going to be clean again! And thanks for the help Sunse-" Twilight cocked her head slightly at the sight of Sunset, still down the corridor, getting wrapped up in the web of a different spider. "Oh. Shit." Twilight tore her sword out of the spiders' body and charged down the corridor towards the spider cocooning Sunset, a near feral cry coming from her throat. She hacked three of its limbs off in one go, and dragged the cocoon containing Sunset out of the way as the spider fell, saving her from getting crushed. Twilight stabbed down, impaling the spider straight through the thorax, and holding it there until it stopped moving. Then she released Swordy and threw up what felt to her like pure adrenaline, but really wasn't. Twilight wasn't unaccustomed to being covered in blood, which was sad enough as it was, but being covered in the blood of the giant spiders she'd slain was something else entirely. Something she could happily live with never doing again, but she'd said that about ponies once. "H-help..." "Hmm? Oh!" Twilight jumped up as Sunset's feeble request for aid reminded her that the amber unicorn was suffering some issues. She sliced through the webbing with her magic, pulling it aside to release the pale and tearful pony within, who clasped onto Twilight as soon as she was able to move her hooves. "Uh, I'm kinda covered in spider goo." Sunset just shook her head and squeezed tighter. "Okay then." Twilight let Sunset have her time, and perhaps got as much use out of it as she could, because despite the calm exterior she was showing, she would've been fine with her and Sunset swapping places, and she was holding onto Sunset just as much as Sunset was holding onto her. "I really, really, really hate spiders," Sunset whimpered after a few minutes. "I just didn't realise how much until just now. I'm sorry." "Uh... for what?" "That spider came straight for me, and I... I panicked, and I-I-I just... froze! I didn't do anything! I could have blasted it, or shielded myself, or just teleported away! But I didn't. I just sat there like an idiot and let it get me." Twilight released Sunset and smiled at her, ignoring the bit of vomit she could feel on her chin. "Sunset, this is beyond fucked up. I mean, I could face down a lot of other things, but giant spiders is taking the biscuit. All the biscuits. And the milk, and is sitting in the corner giggling over its hoard. Don't sweat it." Twilight wiped her chin and yanked Swordy free, flicking the gooey blood off of him, "Of course, if you happen to remember a lot of fire spells we could use, that'd be just... that'd be just swell." "Are we interrupting something?" Both of them turned to see Daring Do, although Sunset quickly turned her head away as it involved looking at the spider again, which Mayfly was poking with a hoof. "Oh hey guys!" Twilight said with forced cheerfulness. "I have good news! The spiders aren't invincible, or un-killable, or anything like that." "And the bad news?" Daring asked hesitantly. "Well... the fact that they exist is the bad news, mostly. Y'know, that whole unfortunate tid-bit of news. I'm questioning my sanity, and seriously considering peeling my skin off and regrowing an entirely new epidermis after touching these things." "Uh..." Daring looked at Twilight like she'd gone insane, which, to be fair considering the situation... "Wouldn't that kill you?" "In the short run, yes, but I think it'd be worth it." Twilight cleared her throat awkwardly as Daring continued to look at her funny, "So... did you get the mask?" "Yep, we got it." Daring held up a golden mask that was mostly like a curved disk with a U cut out of it, which Twilight suspected was for the muzzle of the pony wearing it to fit through. There were two holes to see through, and two smaller ones up and to the sides of the actual holes. Twilight had no idea what they were for. "Shiny," she remarked casually. "Can I try it on?" "Oh no, not a chance." Daring carefully wrapped the mask in a piece of cloth, "If my research is correct, putting on this mask causes a transformation. Into what was a little vague, but I doubt any of us actually want to find out. "I was kind of joking anyway. The Mask of Terrors doesn't sound like something you want to be messing around with." Twilight glanced about at the carnage around them, "Soooo... what now?" "I was hoping that taking the mask away and keeping it safe would be enough, but between this and the ponies getting kidnapped, I don't think so. We need to take this and use it to reseal the spiders' prison." Twilight nodded at Daring, "That sounds like an awesome plan. First though, I suggest we get some more back-up." "From the Sultan? Are you insane? He'd just arrest me again!" "I think we have some extenuating circumstances going on here, so you might get off with a warning, but no, I was thinking of somepony else actually." Twilight started leading them to the exit, "Trust me, if we're going to be doing this, more back-up is better." Twilight pushed the large double doors open and walked out into the street, stopping sharply as a spider even bigger than the others stood there, venom dripping off its fangs that clacked together threateningly. Most significantly, although somewhat of an afterthought compared to the spider itself, was the white unicorn mare riding on its back. It didn't take very long for Twilight to notice her curved and discoloured horn, and the smoke wafting from her eyes, hinting at something she recognised all too well. "I'm guessing you're Arachiss," Twilight said, trying to ignore Sunset as she attempted to hide in Twilight's tail. "I killed some of your pets, just so you know." "You say that like I should care-" "You'd be surprised at how much some people do." "-But I have thousands more waiting to serve me, once you give me that mask." Twilight sniggered at the pony still riding the huge threatening spider, "You really aren't the best at incentive, are you? 'Give me that mask so I can unleash my army of giant spiders to swarm across the land!'" Twilight tapped the flat of her hoof against her chin, "Hmm, no, I don't think so. That sounds horrible. How about you put that spider back where you found it, and I don't kill you?" "Kill me? You poor deluded fo-" Arachiss yelped and ducked as a bolt of purple magic whistled past her ear. "Warning shot," Twilight said cheerfully. Arachiss leapt off the spider, "Attack!" Twilight thrust Swordy forwards as the spider lunged at her, stabbing it right in the mouth before twisting the blade upwards and pulling up in a move that neatly bisected the top of the spiders' head. The spider fell to the ground, thrashing its limbs around in its death throes, forcing Twilight to teleport away a few meters before she got hit. "Well that was easy." Twilight turned to the others, only to find them cornered, with Sunset shielding them from Arachiss' dark magic. The shield couldn't hold though, and broke forcefully, scattering those behind it and making it all too easy for Arachiss to claim the mask. "At last it is mine!" Arachiss placed the mask on her face and held it there, which was pretty much the only thing stopping Twilight from separating her body from her head, because damaging the mask seemed like a terrible idea. She was also admittedly rather curious as to what the transformation would be like. She wasn't the only one to be disappointed as nothing happened. "Why isn't it doing anything?" "Maybe you're in the wrong place?" said Twilight. She shrugged and brandished Swordy at the unicorn, "I guess we'll never know." "Of course! The temple!" "Yeah, that." Twilight pointedly cleared her throat, and tried to make the blade she was holding more obvious. "You can give that back now." Arachiss turned to face Twilight, and Twilight suddenly suspected she should have foregone with asking nicely. Her suspicions were proven correct as a dark, vaguely spider-like blob leapt out of Arachiss' body towards her, and by the time she'd hacked at it Arachiss was gone. "You let her get away!" Daring shouted at Twilight as she struggled to her hooves. "There's no u in team," Twilight retorted. "I didn't exactly see you jumping in to stop her." "I was hurt!" "But you aren't now, which is convenient seeing as how we need to go and stop her. First though, let's go get that back-up I mentioned." Daring leaned over towards Mayfly, "Are you sure she's not a changeling? She really doesn't seem like the Princess Twilight I met once." Mayfly carefully considered the question, "I can assure you, she is not." -0-0-0- "Okay, so run this by me again," Trixie said, her eyes fixed firmly on a point in the distance as the ground flew beneath her hooves far below. "I'm not explaining it again," Twilight growled. "I really don't get what's so difficult for you to grasp here." "Besides the sheer insanity of what you're describing? I'm just wondering how any of this helps us with our own goal." "Do you want the world to be flooded by giant spiders?" "Fuck no, Trixie hates spiders. Almost burnt my caravan down once trying to kill one." "And that's why we're doing this. That and Daring Do said she'd help us get the mirror if we helped her." "Seems like a poor trade," Trixie muttered. "Not even seeing Moondancer's mind getting blown by meeting Daring is worth this. And when are we telling Daring Do that we killed that Auhizotl character?" "Shush Trixie! Don't-" "You did what?" Daring stared wide eyed at the both of them, her mouth also hanging open. "You killed Auhizotl?" "Well yeah," Trixie said as Twilight dragged her hooves down her face and groaned. "He was trying to kill me, and wanted to eat Twilight's heart to steal her powers-" "Which was ridiculous," Twilight added quietly. "-And he wanted to give Sunset and Moondancer to some tribe ponies to use as..." Trixie rocked her head as she tried to think of a tamer term than 'the tribes' cum buckets.' She failed. "Well it wasn't going to be nice for them anyway. So yes, I killed him." "But- But-" Daring threw her legs up into the air, "He was like one of my biggest nemeses'! How the hell am I supposed to explain why he never shows up in my stories again?" Trixie theatrically tapped a hoof to her chin, "Hmm, I don't know... maybe you could make something up like any other writer would?" "But I suck at making stuff up! All the things that happen in the books are one hundred percent real! I don't have to make things up!" "And that's the biggest tragedy here, us interfering with your carefully written narrative of a life. Heavens forbid that stopping evil from succeeding being the bigger and more important goal." Daring opened her mouth to retort, but closed it again as she found she had nothing to retort with. Stopping evil was the greater goal here, not pleasing her publisher. "Dammit," she grumbled. "In all the years I've been doing this I've never had to kill once. It's just... annoying to find that somepony else came along and killed one of the creatures your life revolves around." Trixie shrugged lazily, "You must be one hell of a masochist to do everything the hard way." "Anyway," Twilight sang, cutting into the conversation before it turned any nastier, "not to make things even harder for you Daring, but I will have to ask you to omit our involvement in this." Daring grasped her head in her hooves and growled, "Oh sure, some other alicorn came along and helped me get out of prison before slaughtering a bunch of giant spiders! That'll look believable!" "Actually," Moondancer said hesitantly, like she was afraid of disagreeing, "Twilight, as in a princess, helping you sounds pretty unbelievable as it is. Maybe you could say she's a unicorn, and give us all different names?" "Or at least just change Twilight's name, and alicorn nature," Sunset suggested, not minding featuring in a Daring Do book. "I guess?" Daring shook her head in irritation and pointed down to a crescent shaped canyon in the desert. "Down there, that's where we need to go," she said, diving towards where she pointed, leaving Twilight to carry the others down in her own time. They landed outside a temple of some kind that had been carved into the red rock of the canyon wall. Pillars framed a large entrance, while more pillars framed the rest of it, and frescoes adorned much of the areas between. None of it seemed to involve spiders in the slightest though, prompting Twilight to ask if this was the right place. "It is," Daring assured her as she started up the steps into the temple. She peered in through the entrance, but could discern nothing in the inky darkness beyond until Twilight lit her horn, revealing a small interior space which led to a rough hewn tunnel beyond. "I guess there's nothing for it but to go in." "Or..." Trixie said hopefully. "Or nothing," said Twilight. "Come on, let's just do this." "Actually," Moondancer said nervously, "I volunteer to stay here and... protect the entrance." "Mmhmm, and what do you intend to do if one of those giant spiders turn up?" Twilight asked. "How big could they possibly be?" "Big," Sunset said, her expression haunted. "Very, very big." "Like... as big as me?" "Bigger. A lot bigger." "Oh." Moondancer trotted awkwardly on the spot. "Argh! Why did you even bring me here?" "Yeah," Trixie said with a sly grin, "Why did you bring her?" "Because I thought we should stick together, and... because she'd probably moan at me if I left her behind, again. I don't know." "Gosh, you know her so well Twilight." Trixie kept grinning as Moondancer fumed at the both of them. "Anyway, let's get on with this, Moondancer or no Moondancer. Mayfly, you should go first." "Me?" Mayfly asked, pointing at herself. "Why me?" "Because you and these things are pretty much cousins, so they probably won't eat you." "We aren't even remotely related!" Mayfly protested. "Why would you even think that?" "Yeah," Daring asked quietly, "why would you?" "She's a changeling," said Trixie, not even bothering to hide that fact since she assumed Daring wouldn't care. "A nice one, in case you're wondering." "Huh, haven't met many changelings before. So, do you normally look like this? Or is that just a disguise." "Trixie is the worst pony," Mayfly hissed, reverting to her true nature. She stared up at Daring, challenging her to do or say something, but Daring only shrugged. "Yeah, I don't see the resemblance between her and those spiders. Now seriously, we really need to get on with this." Daring trotted up the stairs, Twilight close behind to provide some light, leaving the others to come at their own pace, except for Moondancer, who trotted on the spot again as she decided whether to follow or not. "I didn't agree to any of this!" she shrieked, charging in after them, following the flash of Trixie summoning her armour and assembling it upon herself. The tunnel leading deeper into the rock was surprisingly dry, but only because most of them were expecting it to be dank and damp, even though the outside world didn't exactly encourage damp conditions, and as Twilight pointed out, spiders don't really like the wet. For the most part though, beyond the dryness, was how clean it was at first, with just the bare rock of the tunnel around them. Slowly though, as they went deeper and deeper, the growing presence of spider webs all over the walls, containing everything from birds to rodents to even a pony skeleton, confirmed they were in the right place. There were also normal sized spiders scuttling around, but considering what else was in there, they were being largely ignored, until one dropped onto Sunset, who shrieked as loud as she could as she panicked. "Shut up!" Twilight ordered, picking the spider off Sunset and crushing it before throwing it away. "Do you want everything in here to know where we are?" "I don't know if I mentioned it Twilight, but I really fucking hate spiders!" Sunset's ears pricked as something made a noise up ahead, and a moment later eight eyes shone in the light from their horns as a large arachnid crawled towards. "Aww fuck," Sunset whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut. "You really weren't kidding when you said they were big," Trixie said as she sized the bug up. A moment later her horn bubbled with of dark magic, and a spear of dark crystal burst up from the ground beneath the spider, impaling it through the middle, making it screech louder than even Sunset had. It struggled to move, tearing itself apart more and more as it fought to free itself, then suddenly stopped moving save to curl up as if it had suddenly worked out it was dead. "See? Back-up," Twilight said, nudging Daring with a elbow. "Did she just use dark magic?" "Oh boy," Trixie muttered, "here we go." "Are you really going to complain when she's helping us?" Twilight asked, narrowing her eyes slightly at Daring, who stepped away and help up a hoof in surrender. "Not at all. I'm just not used to seeing ponies using dark magic so... helpfully." "That's because it doesn't have to be used for evil," said Twilight. "I mean, traditionally yeah, evil, but not always. Trixie's one of the good guys, aren't you Trixie?" Trixie held a hoof up so it was next to her head, "Filly scouts' honour!" "I very much doubt you were a filly scout," Moondancer said flatly. "And you'd be correct, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the principals behind it." "I smell ponies," said Mayfly, her tiny voice cutting through the discussion. "Ponies that aren't you," she added as Trixie opened her mouth. "How can you be sure?" Trixie asked instead. "Have any of you recently soiled yourselves?" "No, I don't think so. Sunset?" Sunset blushed at the question, "Number one or number two?" "Number two, I guess?" "Then no." "Then it is definitely other ponies," said Mayfly. "Some of them smell like they've been here a while. There also being a lot more than just five of them was another clue." "It must be the kidnapped ponies," Twilight reasoned. "Can you lead us to them Mayfly?" "Probably." "Then lead on." They all squeezed past the deceased spider, and let Mayfly lead the way further into the nest, the changeling occasionally stopping them to sniff the air, and to warn them about incoming threats. More than once did Trixie take inordinate pleasure in killing the spiders before they got too close, and at no point did Twilight, Sunset, or any of them think twice about her using her dark magic in this situation. They wouldn't dare in case she stopped. Eventually Mayfly led them to a larger cavern, the sounds of groaning ponies coming from within. Twilight patted her on the back and led the way in, brightening her horn to light up most of the empty space, except for the ceiling which was much too high. Around the room at various points, either stuck to the walls or hanging from the curvature of the ceiling, were thick cocoons with the head of a pony sticking out of them. Some of the ponies were deceased, the cocoons having burst open, showing the remains inside that had been picked clean. The rest though were very much alive, and there was more than twenty of them. "Dear Celestia," Sunset whispered. "We have to save them!" "Do we have to?" Trixie whined. "That sounds like effort." She raised an eyebrow as the others, save Twilight and Mayfly, stared at her with open mouths. "That was sarcasm you heathens. Of course we should save them!" Twilight walked up to the nearest one, a stallion that was lolling his head about, gurgling in the back of his throat. "Uh, hello? Can you hear me?" The stallion flopped his head towards here, but didn't really see her. She poked his cocoon to get his attention, and jumped back as he started screaming. "What the hell? Why are you screaming?" The stallion didn't answer, his screams becoming more pained and frantic until he started coughing up and choking on his blood. Not knowing what else to do, Twilight blasted him point blank in the head, ending his pain. She stepped back again, utterly speechless at what happened, watching as his blood soaked through the cocoon, which started squirming even though he was dead. A second later it burst open, spilling a chittering tide of blood-soaked baby spiders onto the ground around her hooves. "Aaahh!" Twilight quickly scooped them up in a shield and back into the cocoon, trapping them all there. "Aaahh!" She contracted the shield then incinerated its contents, screaming all the while, just as the tiny spiders within did as they were destroyed, but their cries were answered by another from above that echoed around the cavern. "Aaahh!" "Guess we found momma spider," Trixie said as some of the darkness above detached itself and crawled down to the ground, its bulbous body the size of a small house. "I call dibs!" "You can fucking have it!" Twilight screamed as the others crowded around her. Trixie grinned, confident in the fact that there was nothing she couldn't kill. Dropping into low stance, she let the energy of her dark magic flow through her, creating a single blast that would tear the massive creature in two, or so she hoped. She unleashed it, watching as the roiling bolt of energy soared towards her target. The spider blocked the attack with a leg, costing her half of the leg in the process, but saving its life, even as its shrill screeches filled the cavern. "Twilight! I need help!" Trixie screamed as she backed up against the shield the alicorn was using to protect the others, getting let in just in time as the spider slammed one of its remaining legs down where Trixie had been. "I may have overestimated my ability to destroy it." "Ya think!" Twilight studied the situation, trying to think of a solution, but all she could come up with was the tried and tested method that had worked so well before; take out the legs, and the rest would follow. "Take the shield Sunset." Twilight waited until the shield changed to the colour of Sunset's magic, then teleported upwards, taking flight and blasting the spider with her magic to get its attention away from the shield and its contents. Unfortunately it worked, and the spider turned to follow her, although it could do very little to catch her. Twilight summoned Swordy as she flew, and stopped, waiting for the spider to stop turning. It did, and with a snap of her wings she dived towards it Swordy held above her ready as she flew beneath one of the behemoths legs near the body, swinging Swordy down, only to feel him get snatched out of her magic as the blade failed to cut all the way through the leg. It cut through enough though, and as the spider put weight on the leg it snapped off, eliciting another horrific screech from the beast. Twilight summoned Swordy back to her side, finding the weapon to thankfully be undamaged, which was more than could be said for the spider as it backed up against the side of the room, waving two of its legs threateningly at her. She removed them, the massive limbs tumbling to the ground with bone shaking thuds. Unsure of where to go from here, Twilight tried to think of a solution, only to get beaten as a spear of black crystal was fired at the spiders' face, ending its miserable existence. "My kill!" Trixie shouted happily. "I really don't fucking care," Twilight said back as she drifted back to the ground, watching the spider as it curled up. "When I woke up this morning, this was not how I imagined my day would go," she said, before letting her stomach do whatever it wanted to do, which was mostly dry heave since it was still empty from last time. "How are you not terrified? You said you hate spiders!" Trixie shrugged happily, "I don't know. They just seem silly to me being this big. I mean we just killed the mother of all spiders, so everything else seems laughable in comparison." "You're insane." "Also a possibility," Trixie admitted. "I'm just happy to know it's not just Equestria that has to put up with this kind of shit. Anyway, what about all these poor fuckers in those cocoons? What are we going to do about them? Barring the fact that they've been impregnated with spiders." "No we haven't!" the nearest pony, a light green mare, shouted in heavily accented Equestrian. "That thing only laid the eggs around us! We're just food for the hatchlings!" "Oh, well, that's less horrific than I imagined," said Trixie. "Still pretty horrific though." "Get us out of here before they all hatch!" "Okay, okay." Trixie stood before the cocooned pony, humming to herself as she tried to figure out how to release the mare. A moment later there was a purple flash, and the mare stumbled on her hooves next to Trixie as Twilight teleported her free. "Works for me." "Go get Sunset and tell her to start doing the same," Twilight said as she made her way over to the next pony. "Then start figuring out how to make lots of fire." "Can do." Trixie sauntered over to the still erect shield that Sunset had set up over herself, Moondancer, Mayfly, and Daring. She was unsurprised to see it was opaque as she tapped a hoof against it. "Spider's dead, so you can come out now." "And how can I be sure that's true?" Sunset asked a little rattily. "How can I be sure you're not a ghost?" "Come on Sunset, everypony knows ghosts aren't real." "And this morning I would have believed you, but I've seen a lot of things since then!" The shield dropped and Sunset squinted at Trixie with one eye, like she was afraid of seeing something else. "Oh thank goodne-" she began, before spotting the massive body of the spider and nearly losing her own lunch. "If you're quite done, Twilight wants you to start teleporting these ponies out of the cocoons-" Moondancer cocked her head, looking slightly green herself. "But aren't they, you know..." "The eggs were laid around them, not in them," Trixie told her, "although I don't blame you for thinking that, since I thought the exact same thing." "What should the rest of us do?" asked Mayfly. Trixie shrugged at her, "Keep an eye out for more visitors I suppose. Come on Sunset, let's get to work." Sunset nodded and followed after Trixie, who stayed close because she felt like Sunset wanted somepony to protect her as she worked. When Twilight had brought Sunset into this, she'd been expecting somepony with a little more backbone, but given the situation, she supposed she couldn't blame Sunset for being a little put out. "So, Trixie," Sunset asked as she focused her magic, teleporting a pony free of their cocoon. "I can't help but notice you seem particularly calm about this. Have you done this sort of thing before?" Trixie snorted a laugh, "Fuck no! This has got to be the single most weirdest thing I have, and will ever do. I mean, really, this whole situation is literally the dumbest shit I have ever come across." "Oh, okay. I was just, y'know, wondering." Sunset teleported a stallion free, and was about to ask Trixie something else when the stallion screamed and charged at the wall, dashing his brains out on the hard rock. "Aah! What the fuck? Why would he do that? I didn't mean for him to do that!" "And what does that have to do with him doing it?" Trixie said, completely nonplussed by the stallions actions. "After what he's probably been through, I can't say I blame him." "How could you possibly say that?" Trixie shrugged, "I'd probably have killed him myself if he'd asked. For all we know he could have been asking us all along, but we couldn't understand him." "But- But-" Sunset stared at the crumpled remains of the stallion, her stomach in her throat. "I hate all of this so much." "And I can appreciate that," said Trixie, giving Sunset a patronising pat on the back. "But there are ponies here waiting for you to save them from getting eaten alive by hundreds of baby spiders. Perhaps it would be best to just focus on that." Sunset rubbed a hoof back through her mane, "Right, yes. Is this some kind of soldier mentality? Focus on what you're doing rather than the horrible stuff around you?" "I don't know. Maybe?" "What do you mean maybe?" Trixie smirked at Sunset, "I mean maybe in that I was usually the cause of the horrible stuff, so I was fully aware of what was happening at all times, and I turned out fine." Trixie patted Sunset on the shoulder this time, "Keep working on trying to figure me and Twilight out though." -0-0-0- Twilight's horn sparked, freeing the last of the ponies from their cocoons as Daring walked over to her. "I think I've discovered something to put at the top of my 'fates worse than death' list. Getting perpetually devoured by spiders, unable to properly die to escape it." Twilight shuddered, "Fucking nasty." "I'm sure that would only happen if you can't die." Daring raised an eyebrow as Twilight gave her a look, "You're really telling me you can't die?" "Not permanently. It's an alicorn thing. We die, we heal, we come back to life, with absolutely no choice in the matter." "Huh, sounds kind of useful actually, apart from the bit where you mention fates worse than death." Daring cleared her throat, "Speaking of, I really think we ought to get on with stopping Arachiss, before she does whatever she does." "Yeah, I know. Sunset?" "Uh, yeah?" "Can you, Moondancer, and Mayfly get these ponies out of here? Just take them outside and stay there." "And if you don't come back?" "I don't know. Improvise!" "Helpful. Come on guys, let's go." Twilight watched for a moment as Sunset, with the help of the Equestrian speaking mare, ushered the ponies out of the chamber, and hopefully to freedom. She had to wait until they were gone before she could do what she planned to do next. "Trixie?" "Yes Twilight?" Trixie asked sweetly, having anticipated what Twilight was going to ask next. "Burn it. All of it." Twilight focused a fire spell on the wall of the cavern that smouldered for a moment before setting fire to the webs all over them, a which quickly spread. A second later a jet of purplish flame joined it as Trixie contributed her own efforts. The fire spread up as webbing on the walls caught fire, as well as the cocoons, which started to pop and sizzle as the eggs burst in the heat. It wasn't too long before most of the chamber was aflame, and they were forced to back out of it as the heat grew too much, as well as the amount of smoke. Twilight stopped casting the flame spell, letting the fires in the chamber do the rest of the work, and watched the flames for a moment. "You can stop now Trixie. It's time we went to pay a visit to Arachiss." "Sweet! I've been looking forward to this!" Twilight was aghast, "How could you have possibly been looking forward to meeting her?" "You said she uses dark magic right?" Trixie smirked as Twilight said she did, "Well that got me curious. If she uses dark magic she's possibly gained the attention of those things that claim to own me, and I was wondering if they'd let me kill her, or stop me somehow? It'd be nice to know if Trixie's will is truly her own." "That's what's driving you here? Not the inherent need to stop all this crap being unleashed on the world?" Trixie levelled a hoof, "Eh, it's kinda fifty-fifty. Come on Twilight, wouldn't you be curious if you were in my position?" "Probably, but I wouldn't consider what you're doing a priority, now come on, it can't be that much further until we find her." -0-0-0- As Twilight had hoped, it wasn't too much further until they came across a large open chamber, illuminated by the light from a series of crystals. In the middle on the ground was a large pyramid with an altar at its peak, where Arachiss could be seen doing something. That something was being ignored because the rest of the cavern was rippling with the movement of hundreds upon hundreds of oversized arachnids. "I sure as hell hope you don't expect us to kill all of them," Trixie whispered to Twilight. "We'll be here all day if you are." "Not if I can help it." Twilight glanced around the cavern, trying to figure out a way to stop Arachiss before she finished what she was doing, and breathed an angry sigh as she couldn't think of anything. "We need to get closer." "Okay," said Daring, pointing to a ridge of rocks below. "It doesn't look like there's any spiders that way. Come on." Daring kept low as she walked over to the ridge, the others close behind her, then followed the ridge to the pyramid until they were as close as they could get. From their new vantage point they could see a set of stairs climbing up the rear of the pyramid, and they crawled towards it, hoping to ascend without being noticed. It wasn't to be though, as before they were even a quarter of the way up their hooves were locked in place by a dark force that spread up around them, even blocking Twilight's and Trixie's magic. "Tut-tut-tut, all you ponies, ever so predictable." Arachiss stepped into view at the top of the steps and smiled smugly at the three trapped ponies. "I'm guessing you were hoping to sneak up on me, grab the mask, then attempt to use it to reseal the temple?" "Something like that," Daring muttered as she strained to free her hooves. "And yet, even with help you failed." "And now you're going to make us watch as you put on the mask?" Trixie said sceptically. "Force us to pay witness to your moment of triumph?" Arachiss narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at Trixie, then used her magic to turn Trixie's head to the side as if to inspect her. "You too serve the masters?" Arachiss turned Trixie's head the other way, "No... you serve only yourself, but you have their interest at least. Unfortunate, as I do hate to disappoint them by killing you." "And my friends?" "What interest do you think I have in them? They are food for my army, nothing more." Arachiss waved a hoof and two of the large spiders descended from the roof on strings of silk, grabbing both Twilight and Daring and wrapping them in cocoons. Trixie ignored their screams as best she could to glare at Arachiss, "I'm curious. Who are these so called masters?" "Ancient creatures that transcended death itself. They are no longer with us in this world, but their influence can be seen in so many things, such as this temple, and my servants." "Last I heard, this temple and these creatures were here long before you. You're just taking them for your own." Arachiss smirked at Trixie, "And is that not the way of the world? The living taking the achievements of the dead and using them for their own ends? The pony that built this army is long dead, yes, but his legacy lives on to be used by me, unhindered by the likes of you." "That depends doesn't it?" Trixie retorted with a smirk of her own. "Your masters already saved me from death once, so we'll have to see which one of us they deem the most useful." Trixie wasn't about to say that she really, really hoped it was her and not Arachiss. "I guess we will," Arachiss hissed back, her horn coming to life with the dark magic Trixie knew so well. She pointed her horn at Trixie, and... did nothing, her magic fading, refusing to cooperate. "No..." "Oh yes!" Trixie said gleefully as she easily lifted her hooves free of Arachiss' grip, her own horn coming to life. "No! Masters?" Arachiss shouted up into the air. "Have I not served you well? Have I not given you every fibre of my being?" She was answered with silence, not that Trixie expected any different, and she screamed up into the air, "Masters!" "Guess I'm the favourite!" Trixie sang, ignoring the knot of worry building in her stomach over why that might be true. "No! Maybe this just means they wish for us to be allies instead!" Trixie conjured a small slither of crystal, and slashed it across Arachiss' chest, creating a shallow cut that sent the mare recoiling. "Nope, I guess not. Not that it would matter anyway since I don't exactly need dark magic to kill you. I guess they know only one of us is walking away from this, and we don't need to know which one they're backing." "No! This isn't how it ends!" Arachiss turned and sprinted back up the steps to the altar, grabbing the mask and placing it on her face. The mask shone with a dark power that spread from the mask and coiled around Arachiss, changing her body with obvious agony if her screams were to be believed. Her tail grew in size until it started to form an abdomen, and her back legs spilt into three, lengthways, as they grew and turned into the legs of a spider. Mandibles forced their way out of the corners of her mouth in a spray of blood, and her teeth became pointy as fangs developed rapidly. The flesh on her forehead split as two new eyes opened behind the mask, and glared balefully at Trixie. "Now we shall sssssee who their favourite isss," she hissed in a raspy, sibilant voice. "Nope!" Trixie fired a single crystal at Arachiss, punching through the mask and hitting her square in the forehead, right beneath the horn, splitting her head open in a spray of gore and viscera. A dark form tore itself away from the body, screaming in a voice that was felt more than heard as it faded to nothing, leaving behind the unchanged body of a pony, save for the massive chunk of her head that was missing. "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!" Trixie reiterated. "There'll be no spider-ponies on my watch!" There was a crack from above, and a spider fell to the ground with a tremendous splat. At first Trixie thought it had just died, but when a large rock followed it, she figured that the place was collapsing. Her theory was further confirmed when the pyramid trembled, almost knocking her off her hooves. "Okay! Time to go!" Trixie didn't hold back, tearing limbs off the two spiders that had Twilight and Daring until they had no choice but to give up their prey. She didn't even bother to start unwrapping them until she'd left the cavern, which was starting to rain spiders and rocks as she left. Once she was into the tunnels she quickly tore the webbing off them and set them on their hooves without even stopping. "What the fuck's going on Trixie?" Twilight screamed, still rather freaked out by getting wrapped up by a spider. "Arachiss put on the mask and turned into a freaking spider-pony, so I killed her a broke the mask doing so. Then everything started to collapse." "But the mask was indestructible!" Daring panted as they kept sprinting, following the largest tunnel towards the exit, ignoring all the others that branched off. "Then I guess you were trying to destroy it with the wrong thing!" Trixie stopped talking, saving all her breath for running as the tunnels started to collapse behind them. Daylight showed up ahead, and they exited the temple as the last of the tunnel collapsed behind them, spitting them out in a rush of air and dust that tossed them onto the ground. All was quiet for several seconds until Trixie started to laugh, "Could we never do this again? Adventuring like this is way too dangerous." "There's no way in hell I could put any of this in a book," Daring sighed. "My publisher's going to be seriously pissed at me." "We might have bigger problems," Twilight said as the dust cleared, revealing the semicircle of soldiers surrounding them. Sunset and the others were sat nearby with their forelegs behind their heads as the soldiers kept them under guard. "No problem," said Trixie. "Do you want the two hundred on the left, or the two hundred on the right?" "We aren't fighting our way out of this," Twilight told her. She hauled herself to her hooves and cleared her throat, spat out a glob of snot and dust, then tried again. "Sorry. Ahem. Can we help you?" The semicircle split, allowing the Vizier to walk up to the three ponies. "I'm not sure where to even begin Princess Twilight. You aided in the escape of a criminal from custody, stole already stolen property, and caused considerable damage doing so, but you also saved some of our city guards from a terrible fate, returned even more ponies than we knew were missing to us, and, well, the bodies of those creatures you slew speak for themselves. Since you saved our country from a terrible affliction, you will be given a chance to explain yourselves to the Sultan." "All of us?" Twilight nudged her head towards Daring Do. "All of you," the Vizier agreed.

The end of an era

30. The distant rumble of thunder

"So you stole the mask to stop the spiders..." the Sultan said flatly, his expression slack with muted disbelief. "You never thought to simply inform us of the masks' purpose, and the connection between it, the spiders, and the disappearances?" "Of course I thought about it," Daring Do replied, a slither of frustration sneaking into her words, "but who would have believed me? I barely wanted to believe it when I found out! Giant spiders? So few ponies know about their existence that they're not even a myth. This whole thing literally turned up out of the blue! Did you know what was contained behind that temple?" "That temple has been there for millennia," the Vizier Hakim said. "None of us had any reason to believe an army of giant spiders was lurking behind its benign façade." Daring pointed an accusing hoof at the Vizier, "So you're basically admitting that you wouldn't believe me!" "Ahem." Twilight forced Daring's hoof back to the ground and smiled politely at the Vizier and Sultan. "You can't deny that what happened was unusual, but we're focussing on the wrong thing here. Thanks to Daring informing us of the threat, we were able to stop it before it spun out of control and return a large number of your ponies to you. Not all of them unfortunately, but more than you knew was missing. Perhaps in light of this you could afford to be lenient? Her intentions were good after all." "She is still a thief!" the Vizier protested, looking at his Sultan for support. "She helped to save your country from a terrible fate," Twilight retorted. "Frankly I'm wondering why you're treating her like a criminal." The Vizier narrowed his eyes at Twilight, "Let us not forget you and your friends' part in all this. Not only did you assist this criminal in reclaiming stolen property, but you enabled her to by breaking her out of custody!" "We're also the reason you're not currently getting eaten alive," Trixie pointed out from behind Twilight. "Maybe you should think about that." "Or maybe we should think on your desire to kill our soldiers to escape your predicament!" "I was joking!" "Enough!" the Sultan shouted over all of them. "You Hakim, will remember your place, and you Princess, rein in your companions." Batal waited until all of them had gone quiet before speaking again. "Daring Do, your actions, while beneficial, weren't intended as such. By your own words you intended to take the mask away for safe keeping, leaving us with an army of giant spiders in our lands, and no means to return them to whence they came. You simply intended to steal it." "She was trying to help!" Twilight started, only to get spoken over by the Sultan. "However," he continued, "your actions past that prove you acted without malice, and aimed to help us, even if through underhooved means. You have my thanks Daring Do." "Uh, you're welcome," Daring replied, a bit stunned by the turn of events. "And Princess Twilight." Twilight looked up as the Sultan said her name. "You and your companions have our thanks as well, for doing what we likely could not have done our self. Unfortunately, that cannot be the end of it." Twilight's stomach sank at that. "The laws of Saddle Arabia are sacred and cannot be ignored, even by me." "What do you intend then?" Twilight asked evenly, denying herself her desire to curse, or at least sound sarcastic. "Even with her actions, Daring Do broke many of our laws, and for that she will be deported from our country. Your own transgressions are unfortunate, but can be perhaps overlooked in lieu of your service to Saddle Arabia, and that you never intended to break our laws, while Daring Do did." "But she saved your country." "I know," the Sultan said sadly. "You enabled her to. If she hadn't been caught and met you, she'd be on her way to prison." Trixie rolled her eyes, "And you'd be swarmed with spiders." "I realise that as well, which is why I will keep her detained in comfort here until you are ready to leave yourself, and she may accompany you on your own journey past here." "But Sire! She stole my property! Property I won't be getting back because they destroyed it!" "Silence Hakim." Batal gave Twilight a small smile, "I realise this may seem harsh seeing as how you saved us all, but I'm afraid the law remains the law. In spite of them though, I'm allowing Daring to leave with you and our thanks." Twilight sighed and nodded, giving Daring a minimal shrug. "We understand, and thank you for your leniency." Twilight stood quietly as a pair of guards led Daring away. "What about us?" -0-0-0- All of them blinked in the fresh sun of the morning, freshly risen by whoever had done it, which was still too early by Sunset's reckoning. The rest of them ignored her though as they made their way down the marble stairs of the Sultan's palace, having been giving a token of thanks, and an unspoken desire to have them out of the Sultan's mane. "What a pair of cunt-monkeys," Trixie remarked as they exited the palace grounds. "We save their Luna damned country for a pat on the back, and we're still no closer to locating the mirror, and are probably further from it now that Daring can't help us." "We should count ourselves lucky to not be getting deported as well," said Twilight. "If we hadn't saved the day we still broke the law busting Daring out." "But we did save the day!" Trixie whined. "And it was a lot harder work than the reward of not getting kicked out of Saddle Arabia required. They owe us big time." "Which is why you should have brought up the mirror," Moondancer grumbled. Twilight rolled her eyes, "Considering the lengths the Vizier was willing to go to get that mask back, and was furious we destroyed it, I very much doubt he'd even admit to having it, let alone give it to us." "But he might have!" "Or he'd deny it and step the security on his estate up even more than he must have after Daring broke in. The existence of whom you took very well by the way." "At this point I wouldn't even be the slightest bit surprised if the Pony of Shadows turned out to be real," Moondancer said dismissively. "Anyway, that's all irrelevant in the face that we're back to not knowing what to do." "I know exactly what we're going to do," Twilight said evenly. "We're going to-" "Steal the mirror," Trixie, Mayfly, and Sunset all said together. "And how do you intend on doing that without getting caught and causing a huge diplomatic problem?" Moondancer asked. "We have four capable unicorns and a changeling," said Trixie. "I'm pretty sure we'll be fine." "You're all insane," Moondancer said quietly. "You'll have to excuse me if I don't immediately think this is going to work out perfectly." Twilight shrugged at Moondancer, "I'm not saying it will, but we need that mirror, so we have to do this." "I'm still saying that we could just ask the Vizier again." Moondancer pouted a little at the looks the others gave her, "Or not, because that might actually be sensible, and we don't have time for that. I can't believe you agree with them Sunset." Sunset smiled apologetically at Moondancer, "I hate to say it, but if we ask and he denies having it, we'll have just made it harder for us to get it. So yeah, I think doing this might actually be the best idea." "As morally reprehensible as a certain purple princess might have once found that," Trixie said, teasing Twilight. Twilight glanced back at her wings, then cast the spell to hide them. "That purple princess is currently living in a retirement home with a certain blue showpony, so I don't think we need to worry about what they might think. "Twilight frowned to herself, hunting for a trace of feeling on that, but it just wasn't there. "And how are we doing this?" Sunset asked, pulling Twilight out of her thoughts. "First we need to find the Vizier's private estate. Then we need to scout it out and find out what guards are there, what patrols they use, and all that. Then we need to locate the vault, before finally putting all that knowledge to use and breaking in and getting the mirror before running like hell." Trixie nudged Twilight, "Fleur would be so proud." "I could take that several ways, but I'll take it as the compliment it was probably intended as." Twilight looked up at the sky, trying to work the time out, but if the sun was rising early it was pretty hard to tell. At the very least she could hope that it was early enough to go scout out the Vizier's estate before ponies started waking up. "Okay, you guys head back to our room, I'm going to go find the estate and have a look around." "Try not to get caught," said Trixie. "I think having to bust you out of jail will definitely get us into trouble." -0-0-0- The estate was to the east of the city, outside it by maybe half a mile. Or at least Twilight hoped it was, as she was looking completely at the wrong place if it wasn't. There weren't any other private estates that she could see, and the security presence at least made it seem like it might be the right place. Twilight hovered in the air at a distance, hoping she wouldn't be spotted, or would at least be mistaken for a large bird if she was. In a country with no native pegasi she hoped that they would just assume she was a bird and move on. She figured she'd better not spend too much time in the air just in case. Still, in what time she had she could tell that the Vizier had made himself a small fortress, albeit a fairly luxurious one. A large mansion sat at the rear of a large walled square with a small minaret at each corner that doubled as a guard tower, while the rest of it was made up of a garden, and an interesting one at that. The water gardens at the palace had been almost exclusively native with its flora and fauna, while the Vizier favoured a large number of non-native species. Likely because they were rare here, and therefore collectable. While not particularly important, it did at least mean there were a lot of plants to hide amongst. Twilight turned her attention to the security detail, trying to figure out how large it might be before committing to working out their patrol routes and finding any exploitable holes. The garden alone sported ten guards, with another half a dozen on the wall and guard towers, and she had no way of working out how many guards there might be inside. Other than that there wasn't much to say, not without spending a lot more time watching, and the longer she did that, the less she liked what she saw. Whoever had planned the patrol routes was clever enough to have them so that there was always at least two pairs patrolling the garden at all times, and even without those there were plenty more watching from a distance. Yes you could hide in the bushes, but how long you could do that for without getting spotted was debatable. Twilight was starting to think that if she wasn't trying to divert a serious diplomatic incident by being a princess, she'd simply do this the hard way and attack directly. "Luna fucking damn it," she groaned. She wasn't mentally equipped for this kind of thing, and she knew it. Stealth and subtlety were things ponies better than her did, while she knew full well she could beat most things through sheer power and tenacity. You tended to ignore subtlety when you could do that. "If only invisibility spells worked when you moved. Okay, so..." Twilight stopped as she saw something flit between bushes in the garden below, something purple. A moment later it moved again as a pair of guards turned and put their backs to whatever it was. "Huh, interesting." She kept watching, hoping to see what it was, but the distance was too great, so, finding a reasonably empty spot she teleported down, hiding herself amongst some plants and keeping an eye out for whatever, or whoever, was sneaking around. She got her chance a minute later as the intruder moved again, and Twilight was surprised to see it was an Equestrian pony, dark purple with a mohawk of bright magenta hair. She was also wearing dark coloured armour that seemed a bit on the thin side to Twilight, but was probably practical enough. It was also adorned with a blue Y-shaped symbol where her cutie mark should be, but Twilight didn't recognise it. "I wonder what she's doing here? Oh shit, is she here to steal something too?" Twilight wasn't sure what to do if she was. Try to follow her in and get what she wanted? It risked issues if she got caught, but there was another issue where security got even tighter after a second theft from here, and Twilight was struggling as it was with how to get in here undetected. There was the third option of asking the pony if she minded Twilight tagging along, but Twilight thought that would be highly unlikely as no decent thief would want to do that in her opinion. Twilight was seriously considering that, when the pony pulled a notepad out of her armour and wrote something down using a pencil in her mouth. Twilight frowned, trying to work out what was happening, and unable to think of anything other than the pony was trying to do the same thing as herself and plan a route in. Twilight thought that if she wasn't breaking in right now, the pony might be more amenable to getting approached. Twilight quickly scanned around, seeing nopony nearby watching where she was, and where the pony was, giving her a chance to do this without getting spotted. Twilight teleported, appearing right next to the pony, and had a split second to raise a shield as the pony turned to her, firing erratic bolts of lightning from the shattered stump of her horn, that squealed loudly over the surface of her shield. "Stop!" Twilight shouted. "I'm not here to hurt you!" She blinked at the jagged stump of the horn, "How are you even doing that?" The pony opened her mouth to shout, her teeth showing in a snarl, when shouts in saddlan started echoing around, their violent meeting having been heard. The pony's face quickly morphed from anger to worry, "You have got to be kidding me..." "I'm sorry! I wasn't expecting you to attack me! Hold on." Before the other pony could object, Twilight teleported, taking the both of them away from the estate and towards the outskirts of the city where they wouldn't get caught. Before her magic had even properly settled Twilight found herself getting kicked sideways into the dirt and pinned down by the irate pony as her horn crackled and popped with energy. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Who are you anyway? Why did you approach me in there?" Twilight teleported herself out of the grapple, and brushed the dust off herself. "My name is Twilight, and I'm sorry that happened, but I wasn't expecting you to attack me. How did you attack me anyway? You shouldn't be able to do that!" "Really? You're telling me what I can and can't do?" "Uh..." Twilight cleared her throat with embarrassment, "Sorry. I was actually hoping to ask you if you were planning to break into that place, and if I could possibly come with you?" The pony straightened up, seeming more confused than angry now. "You did that in the hopes I would help you? And you expected that to work?" "Yes, I did," Twilight lied. "If we both want to get in there, we stand a better chance working together." "Because so far you've made it so very clear that working with you would be beneficial..." The pony shook her head, "Look, even if I was tempted to consider it, I want to know what you're after, just so I know it doesn't conflict with my own interests." "My friends and I are after a mirror that was part of a teleport network Starswirl the Bearded once used. If that's what you're after I would recommend us working together as having us help you with it would benefit you." "Actually I'm looking for something else altogether, so no, I have no interest in helping you, or letting you hinder me further. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a scouting mission to start over with." "Wait, look- What's your name? If you don't mind me asking?" The pony stared down at Twilight, her nose raised imperiously in the air as she considered whether to share her name or not. "My name, is Tempest Shadow," she said after a moment. Twilight shrugged internally at the name, which seemed a touch too villainous to her to be the pony's original name. Who really names their child like that? "Alright, Tempest, I'm serious about working together. This is a secure vault you're breaking into, and it's not something you can do easily on your own." Or it could be as Twilight was lying through her teeth, making it seem like she knew more than she did. Daring Do got in there without magic, so it couldn't really have been that hard. "This place has state of the art security, and you'll need help to get past all that." "And what kind of help are you offering in that regard?" Tempest asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Hmm?" "Myself, and two of my friends, are accomplished spell-casters, which will be useful to get through the security. Security that you can't brute force your way through. If you can get us into the building, we'll get you into the vault." Tempest looked like she was about to refuse, but she didn't. Instead she just stayed quiet as she thought about it. "I want to meet these... friends of yours." "You'll mean you'll help us?" "I'm considering it. Honestly, I have no interest in helping you, but if you're right about the security in that place it might be worth it if you're as good as you claim to be. Of course, the fact that you can teleport so easily is all I have to base that on, so you better not be lying to me." -0-0-0- Tempest glared at Twilight's friends with unconcealed disdain as she was informed of their names, not very impressed with what she could see. Two of them were rather bookish, one more obviously than the other, two of them had occasional issues with pronouns, and one of those, the blue unicorn, met her glare for glare. Tempest would have objected to that, violently, but a little voice in the back of her head told her that she might not actually win that fight, so she let it slide. "So these are your... friends?" she said, like the word was unworthy of being said by her. "Friends might be a bit strong of a word for all of us," said Moondancer. "Perhaps acquaintances would be more apt." "And here I thought you'd all be claiming to be 'b-f-f's.' Interesting, but not so much that I actually care." Tempest turned back to Twilight, maintaining her air of disdain, "So whom among these would be your accomplished spell-casters?" "That'd be Sunset and Trixie," Twilight said, pointing at the ponies those names belonged to. "Mmhmm," Tempest hummed, taking note of the way Moondancer narrowed her eyes as Twilight failed to say her. "I'm afraid you're going to have to pick one of them then, as I'm only going to bring two of you with me at most, and that's me taking it on massive faith that these ponies are actually as good as you claim they are." Twilight raised an eyebrow at the little smirk Tempest gave her. Clearly the mare derived amusement from having to make her pick. Too bad for her she was going to be disappointed. "I'll leave it to you guys, depending on who wants to come or not." "Nah, I'm good," Sunset said quickly. "I won't be as much use as Trixie if you get caught." "And once again Trixie's talents shine through." Trixie grinned at Twilight, "Almost thought you were rid of me, didn't you?" "And I was so close I could taste it." Twilight rolled her eyes at Trixie, then looked up at Tempest, "I guess we've decided." "Good. Meet me just south of the Vizier's estate as soon as the sun sets, and we'll get started. Don't be late because I won't be waiting for you if you are." Twilight held up a hoof to stop Tempest as she started to leave, "Aren't you going to tell us the plan?" "I've had to change the plan a little, but don't worry, you'll know it when you see it. However, I will have to tell those of you not coming with us to stay here, just to be safe." Tempest left, leaving Twilight to grimace as she could feel the others staring at her. "Who the fuck was that, and where the fuck did you find her?" Trixie asked as soon as she thought Tempest was out of hearing range. "I found her in the Vizier's estate while I was doing my fly over, and when I tried to talk to her she attacked me and alerted the guards, so I had to teleport us out. Then I offered her our help getting into the Vizier's private collection if she could sneak us in." "Even though we have no idea what's in there ourselves," Moondancer pointed out. "So I might have embellished the truth about what's down there a little. I know it can't be that bad if Daring Do could do it on her own. Look, she was sneaking around, and doing it well, so if she can get us in without getting caught and causing a huge diplomatic incident, all the better for us." "We have a changeling!" Moondancer shouted in exasperation, pointing a hoof sideways at Mayfly. "A literal master of infiltration! Why the hell are we relying on some mare that you found sneaking around the Vizier's back yard?" "Because..." Twilight waved her hooves around as she tried to formulate an answer. "I don't know, alright? I thought that since we had common goals that maybe we could work together. I'm sorry if that was the wrong thing to do." "So you ruined her attempt to sneak in, to offer help to sneak in," Trixie said unsurely. "Masterful plan there Twilight. Still, if it gets us the mirror and keeps us out of the papers, maybe this could be a good idea... once you tell me why we're relying on a magicless unicorn to do this?" "She's not magicless," said Twilight. "She has a broken horn." "I know what she has, but when I found her she attacked me with magic, like she pretty much forced the raw magic out of her horn in a crude but powerful bolt of lightning." "That's impossible," said Sunset, Moondancer nodding in agreement. "I know it should be, but I also know what I saw. If I hadn't shielded myself I'd be wearing the evidence all over my horribly burned body. She can use magic, but not very well." Trixie nodded thoughtfully, "So not in any way that actually helps us sneak in then." Twilight growled under her breath at the interrogation she was getting over enlisting this unicorn for help. "Okay, I don't know what's going on here, but she is probably our best chance to get the mirror, and once we have it we can part ways as unlikely friends and all that. She's not after the mirror herself, doesn't work for Faust, and isn't directly connected to Equestria beyond probably coming from there, so if she gets caught without us, we should be okay. Can you please trust me when I say this is the best plan we have right now?" "Sure," Trixie said easily, while the others nodded as well after a few seconds. "I will however, be reserving to the right to say I told you so when she suddenly betrays us." "I don't think she will," Twilight said confidently. "Tempest might seem a little cold, but I have a good feeling about her." "Yeah, well, let's just see this plan of hers before we decide what kind of pony she is." -0-0-0- A long and fairly productive day passed, having been spent preparing for the journey past Saddle Arabia, whether that was to Starswirl's retreat or elsewhere, depending on their luck tonight. Night soon came though, and Twilight and Trixie made their way out to the Vizier's estate to wait where Tempest had indicated, watching the last vestiges of the sun as it slowly slipped below the horizon. "So where is this pony we're waiting for?" "I don't know, let me just check the tracking spell I put on her." "You actually did that?" "That was a joke Trixie." "You didn't make it sound like a joke." Trixie grumbled to herself and looked away, noticing some clouds growing on the horizon. "Late to her own meeting. Quality help you've found us Twilight." "You know you're just inviting her to sneak up on us when you say things like that?" "Of course I do! How else would she possibly hear us bad-mouthing her?" "Us? I'm pretty sure you mean you." "Pfft, details. I still think you're making a mistake trusting this pony. You don't even know anything about her!" Twilight raised an eyebrow at Trixie, "Who said anything about trusting her? Our goals are similar, so we're working together-" "Which requires some trust on some level," Trixie pointed out. "Even if it's just enough to not screw each other over at some point." Twilight said nothing, not wanting to validate or argue with Trixie's concerns. What she did do though, was grow a small but mischievous grin as she spotted Tempest calmly walking up behind Trixie. "Anything else you want to say?" "Now you mention it, yes. How does she get her mane to do that? She must have so much product in there that her mane would probably echo if you smacked it." "Actually, this is all natural," Tempest said, making Trixie squeal in surprise. "I didn't realise my mane was of such interest to you?" Trixie eyed Tempest, then shrugged. "You were late, and we had to talk about something. Also, thank you Twilight, for letting her sneak up behind me." "You're welcome, as always." Twilight grinned playfully as Trixie stuck her tongue out, then turned her attention back to Tempest. "I don't suppose you could tell us the plan now?" "Wait a couple of minutes, and you'll see it for yourself." "Why can't we ever meet a straight talking pony?" Trixie whined under her breath, but otherwise stayed quiet as they waited. She noticed Tempest was watching the clouds she'd spotted before, and couldn't hold back her derisive snort. "I'm sorry, is the plan to wait for it to rain?" "Of sorts." Trixie threw her hooves up, "Argh! Just tell us the fucking plan!" "Is she normally this impatient?" Tempest asked Twilight. "You have no idea." Tempest shrugged at the answer. "So, I'm curious, what is it you need this mirror for?" "It leads to a place that we hope will contain the knowledge we need to defeat Faust," said Twilight. "Faust? Who's Faust?" "Really?" Trixie snickered. "You have no idea who the ancient goddess of an alicorn who's currently attacking Equestria with an army of mind controlled fanatics is?" "We don't get a lot of news from Equestria down south, so no, I have no idea who that is." Tempest went quiet from a moment, her expression changing as she thought. "Is Equestria actually fighting back?" "As well as they can," said Twilight. "It's not a fight we can really win without stopping Faust, which is why getting this mirror is so important." "How bad is it?" "We don't know," Twilight admitted. "We only found out the war had begun yesterday after seeing it in the papers." "I didn't even think Equestria had an army." "Until a couple of months ago it didn't." "But now," Trixie interrupted, "now we have a few thousand idiots to send charging at a few thousand of their idiots in a orgy of violence with all the blood, guts, and screaming you could possibly want. It's just a big ole murder party." Tempest raised an eyebrow at Trixie, "You sound like you have experience with that." "If only you knew. You're looking at two of the idiots that inadvertently gave Faust a ready made army to attack Equestria with." Twilight was about to say something to stop Trixie, but shut her mouth with a click as the clouds started racing closer. Moments later a horn blared and a quartet of airships broke out of the clouds, each bearing the same symbol as the one on Tempest's armour. "What's this?" "This is our distraction," Tempest replied as large bipedal creatures started dropping from the ships, covered in thick armour and carrying weapons. "Are you insane?" Twilight gasped. "You're really attacking the city just to break into this place? Nopony needed to die for us to do this! Our friends are still in the city!" "And nopony will die," Tempest stated. "The Storm King doesn't kill unless absolutely necessary. As for your friends, if they stay put they'll be fine. I marked the building so my troops will leave it alone." "Why doesn't this 'Storm King' kill?" asked Trixie. "Kill someone, and you can only rob them once. Spare them, and you can rob them again the next year." Tempest turned to look at the estate, where the guards were stood on the wall watching what was happening in the city. "Hmm... they were supposed to attack here as well. Damn it Grubber, you worthless slug." "So now what?" Trixie asked, giving Twilight a long, cool stare. "Now we do things the way I was originally going to do them. Come along ladies, let's go sneaking." As they followed Tempest, Twilight didn't even need to see Trixie to know the way she was looking at her. "I'm so glad we're sticking with this plan. This is a good plan. You should be proud of yourself Twilight, because there's no topping this one." -0-0-0- Sunset peeked fearfully out of the window, watching the hulking bipeds down below as they trashed the city, taking whatever they wanted as the city guard failed to do anything meaningful to stop them. The creatures were simply too large and powerful, beating the guards senseless before they could even attempt to fight back. "Does Twilight even know what she's done?" Moondancer snarled, pacing back and forth behind Sunset as Mayfly sat quietly nearby. "Those... beasts, are wearing the same symbol as that pony she brought here was!" "There was no way she could have known about this," Sunset said, partly to reassure herself because she wasn't entirely sure whether Twilight knew or not. She really hoped Twilight didn't, because the alternative was far too messed up to want to consider. "They're not killing ponies," said Mayfly. "Maybe it's not as bad as it looks." "Hah!" Moondancer laughed nastily. "Right, and why do you think that is?" "Why does it matter? Living ponies can rebuild. Dead ponies can't." "Yep, and those living ponies get more stuff, then these guys come back and steal it all again! It's a beautiful cycle of... something!" Moondancer stopped as a mare started screaming from the street below. "That better not be what I think it is," she muttered, heading over to the window next to Sunset. "They're capturing ponies," Sunset murmured as a trio of Saddle Arabians, two mares and a stallion, were forced into some kind of muzzle covering bridle and heavy iron collars by the hulking soldiers, before being dragged away, kicking and screaming. "Oooooh, is that why they're not killing anypony? So they can enslave them instead? My goodness, why didn't I think of that?" Moondancer grabbed Sunset's shoulders, "Come on, we need to do something!" "Like what?" "I don't know! Something! Anything!" While Sunset was surprised at Moondancer's willingness to do something, she knew there was nothing they could really do. "We wouldn't stand a chance against those things, and the two ponies that could, aren't here." "And what if the Sultan comes begging for our help, what then? 'Sorry, Twilight and Trixie are out right now. Please don't connect that to the Vizier getting robbed again.'" Moondancer slammed her hooves on the windowsill and turned back into the room. "We could've just asked about the mirror. We didn't even need to keep it! This has all been so... so... fucking stupid it hurts!" "Maybe we should count ourselves lucky they're leaving this place alone," said Mayfly. "I could hide, but you two might not do so well." "And who's to say that they won't attack here eventually? We should- We should-" Moondancer sighed, finally admitting to how hopeless it would be to try and fight back. They were lucky the place they were staying was being left alone, and they all knew it. "Oh shit!" Sunset cursed. "They're attacking the palace!" Moondancer snorted at Sunset, "You mean where all the best stuff is?" "Moondancer! If they kill or capture the Sultan, do you have any idea what that would do? Saddle Arabia would be in chaos!" "And? You said it yourself Sunset, there's nothing we can do about this. We're just three litt- two little ponies and a changeling, and we're way out of our depth. All we can do is look after ourselves, and hope the Sultan hides somewhere." -0-0-0- Progress had been quick sneaking into the estate with the guards busy watching the events unfolding in the city. It got even quicker as half of them left when they saw the palace get attacked, even though Tempest insisted that wasn't supposed to happen. There were still plenty of guards left though, even if they were distracted. "Like taking candy off a foal," Tempest remarked as they crept through the shadows to the side entrance of the mansion. "Last time I checked," Trixie sneered, "taking candy off foals didn't require an army." "Depends on the size of the foal," Tempest said back. "Now shush." Tempest pressed a hoof against the handle of the door and pushed down, but nothing happened, suggesting it was locked. "Alright accomplished spell-casters, time to show me what you got." A pink glow surrounded the lock for a moment, then it clicked open. "Okay then," Tempest said, trying to not sound very impressed, "not bad." Trying the door again, it swung open with the barest hint of a creak, letting them into what seemed to be a kitchen. Tempest signalled for the others to stop, then entered on her own. A moment later there was a strangled squawk and a loud thump, before Tempest spoke. "Okay, it's clear." "Oh my, the cook," Trixie deadpanned as she saw a mare unconscious on the floor. "Such a threat to us." "You're the ones that don't want anypony to see you in here," Tempest snapped back, getting tired of Trixie's attitude towards her. "Excuse me for actually doing what you want when I could've done all this without you!" Twilight stopped Trixie, knowing there was a retort coming. She wasn't exactly pleased with Tempest's method of distraction, but since they were all here it wouldn't kill them to actually do what they came to do first. "Lead on Tempest." Tempest glared at Trixie for a moment, then pushed open the door at the other side of the kitchen, which led into a large dining room that was thankfully empty. "I don't suppose either of you has a spell that will lead us to where we need to go?" "Only if I know where it is we're going," Twilight said apologetically. "I'd say it's probably downstairs though, if not underground." "How could you possibly know how good the security is if you've never been here... before..." Tempest's eyes went half lidded as she worked it out, "You lied to me, didn't you?" "Fortune favours the bold," Trixie said cheerfully as Twilight wilted under Tempest's gaze. "In my defence, it might have some serious security, so you might still need us." Tempest rolled her eyes and gestured with her head for them to keep following her. Beyond the dining room was several other doors that lead to various rooms that at the very least looked nice, even if they weren't what they were looking for, not until they came to the end of the hallway to a large staircase. Around it were various items and trinkets in display cases, but nothing like what they were looking for. "This stuff would all be for the taking if Grubber hadn't messed up," Tempest grumbled, before spotting a door to each side of the stairs. She pushed it open, finding beyond it a small, white, well lit gallery of sorts, filled with empty display cases, heavier than the ones in the previous room. Most telling that they were in the right place was that one of them was broken. "They're empty," Tempest said blankly. "Why are they empty?" "This place was broken into a couple of nights ago," Twilight explained. "They probably moved everything here into somewhere a bit more secure. "But they were meant to be here." Tempest's horn crackled with energy for a moment before settling back down. Twilight looked sideways at Trixie to see her gawping with surprise at Tempest. "They can't be too far away." "If I were to guess, I'd say they were in some kind of vault," said Twilight. "Maybe through there," she added, pointing to a door at the far end of the room. She teleported over to it and peeked through, finding a set of stairs that went down below ground level. At the bottom it opened out into a small area, with a large steel vault occupying one end of the room. "Bingo. Now we just need to get in." "And how do you intend to do that?" Tempest asked. Twilight stared up at the large, circular steel door, with its big strong lock, and gave the only answer she could think of. "With science!" "This should be good," Trixie snickered. "There should pins inside the door... three of them judging by the mechanism. Two at the top and bottom, and one at the side. So, all we need to do is bust the lock and turn the wheel, and it should open." "And how do you intend to do that?" Tempest enquired politely. "Last I checked, metal wasn't the easiest thing to bust with magic." "As I said, science." Twilight summoned Swordy and inserted his tip into the lock. Using the least utilised of the runes she had engraved him with, she started channelling intense cold down the blade and into the lock. "We're waiting," Trixie sang. "And you can keep waiting," Twilight sang back. After a minute frost started forming around the lock, getting thicker and thicker the colder it got. Another minute after that Twilight withdrew Swordy and dismissed him, then planted a tiny crystal inside the lock before gesturing at the others to move back. "Good job this vault door is pretty primitive," Twilight said, pumping her magic into the crystal, increasing it in size. She struggled as it reached the confines of the lock, but she kept going, and eventually the cold, brittle steel gave in to the pressure coming from within, popping the lock open in a spray of metal and crystal shards. With the lock mostly gone, it was easy enough to pull the pin locking the wheel, and even easier to spin the wheel to open the door, although pulling it open was a good deal harder than it needed to be, even with alicorn strength. "Tada!" "Well done," Tempest purred, stepping into the vault and breathing deeply. "Now where are you?" she asked, finding everything was in its own protective drawer within the vault. Trixie immediately ran over to the widest drawers, pulling them open one by one until she found the one she wanted. She pulled the mirror out and held it up for Twilight to see. "Pay dirt!" "There it is! It's all there!" Twilight gasped. Apart from a large crack stretching from the top right of the mirror to the bottom left, all the mirror was whole. Wooden frame, the gems lining it, all of it was there and perfectly preserved. All they had to do was repair it. "I can't believe it." "Faust better watch out now, because we've got us a mother-fucking mirror!" "Hopefully now we can end this war before it gets too much worse." Twilight stroked a hoof down the mirror, a genuine smile creeping onto her face. "Rrr! Where is it?" Tempest growled, searching through drawer after drawer. "It has to be here! I know it is!" "What are you looking for?" asked Twilight, ready to offer her help. She was ignored though as an increasingly frantic Tempest kept tearing through the Vizier's collection. "Tempest?" "Yes!" Tempest suddenly shouted, pulling a large blue coloured staff out of a drawer. It had a two pronged claw at the end, and a large gem set between them. "Finally!" "What is that?" Twilight asked Tempest, not recognising the staff in the slightest. Tempest turned to Twilight and grinned, "This... this is the Staff of Sacanas. With it I shall finally get my horn back, and show the world just what I'm really capable of." "Uh, shouldn't your horn just grow back anyway?" said Trixie. "Without the help of a big magical stick?" "Not mine," Tempest said darkly. "Really?" Twilight twisted her head to study the remains of Tempest's horn, ignoring the scar over Tempest's right eye that creased as she narrowed her eyes at Twilight. "Y'know, I've invented a h-" Twilight twitched her ears as she was interrupted by shouts from upstairs, "Shit! Guards! They can't tell anypony we were here!" "Can't you just amnesia them?" said Trixie. "Not when they can fight back." Twilight summoned Swordy again, "I guess there's nothing for it." "No need for that," Tempest said smoothly, pushing Swordy aside with an armoured hoof, missing the nick that was cut into the shoe just by touching the blade. "I don't care if they see me, so I'll take care of it. Hold this," she added passing the staff to Twilight. Twilight took the staff in her magic, but dropped it into her hooves after a moment because it felt like the staff was trying to suck the magic out of her. "What is this thing?" she asked out loud as she turned it in her hooves. Whatever it really was, she was getting a bad feeling about it. Still, it wasn't her problem, so she decided to not worry about it. "I wonder what she's doing up there?" Trixie said as she looked up the stairs. There were still shouts coming from the ponies up there, but they seemed rather more frantic and pained compared to the ones from before. "Screw it, I'm going to have a look." "Wait!" Twilight propped the staff next to the mirror and scurried up the stairs after Trixie, who had stopped to peek around the edge of the door. Twilight did the same, and was amazed by what she saw. Tempest was surrounded by a dozen guards, although four of them were already down, slumped unconscious on the ground or against the walls. The rest of them seemed reluctant to attack now, even armed with the large scimitars they had. One ran in from behind her, bringing his sword down in a slice that would have come straight down on Tempest's back if she hadn't dodged it. She stepped to the side and twisted, punching him between the eyes, leaving him to drop to the floor as another guard ran at her. Tempest back flipped, kicking the guard on the back of his head as he passed beneath her, then brought her rear hooves down on the head of yet another guard, using him as a springboard to flip forwards and kick the first guard again. "Holy shit!" Trixie whispered. "Is she like some kind of ninja?" Both of them cringed as Tempest ducked below a swinging blade, losing a few hairs from her mohawk, and bucked the stallion wielding it into the wall. "I wouldn't like my odds in a fight against her." "Oh please," Twilight scoffed, "she'd be dead before she could even get close to you." "There's no need to say it like that. I like to think I'd give her a fighting chance." They winced as a guard slammed into the wall nearby. "Yeah, maybe I wouldn't. Give that mare an inch, and she'll take a mile." "Exact- Ooh!" Twilight squeezed her legs together in sympathy as Tempest potentially ruined one of the stallions chances to procreate. Mercifully she punched him in the head a second later, sparing him from the immediate agony. "It does make you wonder though," Trixie continued. "We're both thinking that she's the bad guy here, but we would've killed these guards just to hide our identities. Tempest on the other hoof, is sparing every single one of them. Makes you wonder who the real bad guys in the room are." "Thanks Trixie, I really needed that reminder of the kind of ponies we are now." "If you were that worried, why didn't you teleport us out of here the moment we got what we wanted?" "Three of us through an underground vault with two magical artifacts? One of which is a portal, which tends to get upset by being teleported itself? Admittedly it's not active now, so it likely wouldn't have made a difference, but it would still be hard." "Okay, sheesh, miss magic pants. I can't even begin to fathom teleporting... or shields... or many other things, so excuse me for not knowing." Twilight patted Trixie on the shoulder, "You'll get there. You just need to stop saying the spell you want to cast, followed by the word go, and you'll start to improve." "It's my process!" Trixie shoved Twilight aside as Tempest took out the last guard with a shoulder toss and a quick hoof to the back of the head, and trotted up to her as she took a moment to make sure none of the guards woke up too soon. "Nicely done." "My goodness, a compliment, from you of all ponies." Tempest brushed past Trixie towards the vault, letting Twilight lead the way back down. "I really do suggest we get out of here sooner rather than later. My soldiers will hold their attention for a while, but we want to be out of here before the army comes." "Then let's get mov- Hey!" Twilight shouted as she saw a blue glow around the mirror that was getting drawn into the Staff of Sacanas. She ran down and snatched the staff away, breaking the connection. "What the hell?" She probed the mirror with her magic, finding that although the portal spell was mostly intact, the gems powering it were completely drained. "No! No-no-no! Without the gems this mirror is useless!" Twilight turned and pointed the staff up under Tempest's nose, "Fix it. Now." "Do I look like I know how?" Tempest said back, pushing the staff aside. "I'm sorry that happened, but if you don't know to fix it, I certainly don't. Can't you just charge them with your own magic?" "Not from a completely drained state using different magic than what they're used to. It ruins their stability." Twilight probed the gems again, finding that half of them retained some magic, so they could be recharged, but that was it. "For fuck sake! We were so close!" "What about the gems we found with the other fragments?" said Trixie. "Could you replace the broken gems with them?" "I'm not sure we have that many, or the right ones." Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled a long drawn out sigh, "Forget it. Let's focus on getting out of here first. Maybe I can create new gems if comes down to it." "That's the spirit!" Trixie cheered. "Now let's go before those goons back upstairs wake up." -0-0-0- "Don't drop the mirror Trixie." "I'm not going to drop the mirror." "I'm being serious Trixie!" "Trixie is too!" There was a brief pause as Trixie felt embarrassed, "I realise that talking in the third person isn't the most stunning endorsement of how serious I'm being, but I can assure you that Trixie is being... Hmm." "Just take the fucking mirror Trixie!" Twilight let go of the mirror as Trixie's magic took hold of it, then teleported to the other side of the wall before Trixie had even brought it halfway to the ground. A moment later Tempest jumped onto the wall, then down the other side, the Staff of Sacanas grinned firmly in her teeth until she took it in her hooves instead. "And there we go, we both got what we wanted, so our business is concluded." "Not until you get us back to out hotel," said Twilight. "Without you with us I don't trust your goons to not consider us fair game." "Actually, my Storm Guard, or 'goons' as you so eloquently put it, should be falling back to the airships to exit the city. They shouldn't have any interest in you." "I'm not buying it," said Trixie. "They're here to loot the place, and we have loot." "Alright, fine," Tempest growled. "I'll get you as far as your hotel, then we are parting ways. Although, if you want you could come with me instead? The Storm King is always interested in talent like yours Twilight." "No thank you. As interested as he might be in my talents, I'm not interested in what he has to offer me." Tempest shrugged, "Suit yourself, although the offer will still stand for the next five minutes if you change your mind." "Again, no thank you." Twilight hefted the mirror in her magic, holding it along her right side with the glass held towards her to protect it. "Let's get moving. I have the feeling that leaving the city sooner rather than later would be beneficial to all of us." Much to Twilight's surprise, the city was much as Tempest had said, with her Storm Guard now absent in the outskirts of the city. They had definitely left their mark though as anything weaker than concrete seemed to have been smashed, and that was because it wasn't worth stealing. It also occurred to Twilight that being seen running through the city with a pony wearing the mark of the ones responsible for this wasn't the best idea she'd ever had. Thankfully most of the ponies around were either too distracted, or weren't looking too closely, seeing just three ponies running through the city with a mirror and a fancy stick. Nearer the city centre, where they were staying, was a different story though. The sounds of fighting were everywhere as the Saddle Arabians attempted to force the invaders from their city. Again they were too distracted to pay attention to three little ponies. It was becoming pretty obvious that they shouldn't be seen around Tempest any longer though. "I think we need to split u-" "Look out!" Trixie shouted as a member of the city guard that was fighting the Storm Guards was picked up and flung towards them. Twilight eyes widened with horror as the guard came right towards her, colliding with the mirror before smacking into her, sending them both flying into a wall. Twilight's vision blacked out for a moment, and when she came to she was slumped next to a wall, covered in blood from a dozen different cuts, half of which still had glass in. Trixie was staring at her with her mouth open, and Tempest was fighting some guards, her shattered horn spitting arcs of lightning. Twilight shifted painfully, and picked the glass out of a cut on her leg. It was reflective. "No!" Twilight shouted, suddenly feeling a lot more aware as she saw the mirror shattered all around her. "No..." "Twilight!" Trixie ran up to Twilight, having come back to her senses. "Twilight! Are you alright? Can you get up?" "The mirror." "What?" "The mirror. Get the mirror." "The mirror's fucked Twilight!" Twilight forced herself to her hooves, hissing from the pain of doing so. It felt like there was more of the mirror inside her than at that moment than outside. "We still need it," she grunted. "Find as much as you can, and bring it before more guards show up." "But-" "Now!" Twilight stared Trixie down until the mare gave in, and stood there concentrating on her breathing until Tempest caught her eye, staring at her a little blankly. "What?" "That shouldn't have happened." "Well it did," Twilight growled, the pain focussing her anger wonderfully. "We have a medic on the ship if you come with me." "I'll be fine." "You really don't look like you'll be fine." Twilight yanked some shards of mirror out of her side and tossed them in a pile, and ignored the blood running down her side. "I said I'll be fine, and I meant it. You have your prize Tempest, so just go." Tempest appeared as though she was going to argue for a moment, but then her face returned to its usual aloof expression. "As you wish. The Storm King thanks you for your assistance," she said before turning and trotting away. "I bet he fucking does," Twilight grunted. "I got as much as I could find," Trixie said as Twilight watched Tempest go out of sight. "It's not the whole mirror though." "Then we can work out how much we have once we find the others and get out of the city." "Out of the city? Twilight, you are in no condition to travel anywhere." "Give me ten minutes and I will be. Besides, I'm not joking about getting out of the city. If the army arrives they'll lock this place down hard, and we might end up trapped here." Twilight sighed as Trixie eyed her, "I'm not joking Trixie." "Fine, but if you bleed out on us, one of the others can drag your corpse until you come back." -0-0-0- "Ooh, hey, you got the thtaff you wanted!" "No thanks to you," Tempest said as she reached the top of the ramp into her airship. "You were supposed to attack the estate over there Grubber, not the palace!" The short, grey, chubby hedgehog backed away and chuckled nervously, expecting lightning and pain at any moment. "In my defenth," he lisped, "I am not known for my senthe of directhon. Thtill, you got it tho it all worked out, am I right?" "Grubber, do me a favour and remind me to punish you later." Grubber nodded sadly, "Yeth Tempetht. Are we thetting courthe for Equethtria after we take all thefe thlaves back to the Thtorm Isleth?" Tempest didn't answer immediately, weighing up their options in her head before making a decision. "Not yet. If what I've learnt is true, Equestria is currently at war with another nation, and I very much doubt the Storm King wishes to throw himself into the middle of it. Until the war is over and we know more, Equestria will have to wait. The Storm King will understand." Grubber nodded slowly, "Okay, tho, what now?" "Now?" Tempest sighed to herself, "Now we go back to the Storm Isles and hope the Storm King is feeling forgiving." She braced herself as her airship lurched, taking off into the air. Then she turned to regard the pile of riches in the middle of the cargo bay that was pilfered from the palace, and the captured Saddle Arabians chained to the walls. "Perhaps we should find a few more places to raid to find an apology gift or two." -0-0-0- "What the hell happened to you?" Sunset asked as a blood soaked Twilight slouched in through the door to their room. "Are you alright?" she asked, having taken in the extent of Twilight's injuries. "I'll be fine," Twilight said mechanically, more annoyed at getting asked than anything her injuries were doing to her. She wasn't lying though, as the bleeding had stopped on the way to their room, and the wounds were already spitting out fragments of mirror as they healed. "Are you guys alright?" she asked. "Oh we're fine," Moondancer said, a sarcastic edge to her words. "I can't say the same for all the Saddle Arabians they attacked, stole from, and captured." "Captured?" "That's right, captured. Those things chained them up and dragged them into their airships to be carried off to a bright future as slave labourers, or maybe food judging by the look of those things." "But... what?" Twilight looked to Sunset and Mayfly, seeing the same look in their eyes as she could see in Moondancer's. "You're kidding, right?" she asked hopefully. "I wish she was," said Sunset. "You really had no idea about this?" "Of course not! If I'd known that I would have stopped this before it even began! It was bad enough knowing they were attacking the city, but Tempest never said anything about capturing ponies!" "And how can we be sure you're not lying to us?" Moondancer narrowed her eyes at Twilight, "For all we know you could be putting on an act, while not actually caring in the slightest." "I did not lead a rebellion and fight a war to liberate a country and its slaves just to suddenly be okay with slavery!" Twilight roared, stunning them all. "If I could fly right now I'd be chasing after those airships and getting those ponies back! And you can be damned sure that once this thing with Faust is all over, assuming we win, I will be doing something about this!" "She's not lying," said Mayfly. "I can usually tell when a pony is lying." Moondancer stepped back, her mouth hanging open. "Okay, I believe you." Twilight nodded and sat hard, her head spinning a little. "Thank you. How much mirror do we have?" She waited as Trixie laid out the mirror pieces she'd picked up in front of her. It was barely a half of the entire mirror. "This is this really all you found?" "What do you want from me?" Trixie replied defensively. "That mirror went fucking everywhere, and we didn't exactly have time to hunt for it all. I at least got most of the functioning gems." Twilight canted her head back and groaned, then picked up the bag containing the rest of the fragments they had found, and placed them on the ground with the rest. Altogether it came up to almost an entire mirror. Almost, but not quite. "For fuck sake! We had an entire mirror, and this is all we're left with? Five sixths of a mirror? Argh!" "I guess this means we're going to the Circen desert then," said Sunset. "At least our odds of doing this are better with only a small amount of fragments to find." Twilight wanted to concede the logic of that, but she was far too annoyed after the fact that they could have fixed the mirror by now and be where they needed to be, assuming that the Staff of Sacanas hadn't broken it completely. "Yeah, we're going to the Circen desert," she said instead, a bit flatly. "And we're going now before the army gets here and shuts this place down in case of another attack." "But the palace was attacked," said Sunset. "Shouldn't we go check if the Sultan is okay?" "Ideally yes, and I'm going to, but if we get too involved now it might be ages before he lets us leave, and ponies in Equestria are counting on us to get this done. I'm sorry Sunset, but we need to go." Sunset nodded unenthusiastically, "Yeah alright, I get it." She hefted her bags onto her back as Twilight swept the fragments back into their bag. "What if we don't find enough fragments in the desert?" Twilight shrugged, "That's always been a possibility since we started this. All we can do is hope." "Which is a pretty feeble thing to have to count on," said Trixie. "I know." Twilight sighed and tossed her bags at Trixie, "You guys get on out of here, I'm going to go get Daring." -0-0-0- Twilight had expected the palace to be in worse condition than it was, but while the gardens were destroyed, the palace itself didn't seem particularly worse for wear. At least not if you didn't look to closely. Twilight made her way up the steps unopposed by the guards, who were looking at her with wide-eyed horror upon seeing her injuries. Twilight ignored them, just as she ignored her injuries, and entered the palace to find the interior in ruins. Anything shiny had been stolen, and what hadn't been stolen was destroyed. Twilight wandered through the middle of it all, taking in what she felt she had allowed to happen. She knew that wasn't really true, as it would have happened anyway, but no matter how much she told herself otherwise, she still felt complicit. She would have done her best to stop it if she wasn't. The throne room was heavily guarded, and somepony finally challenged Twilight as she made her way through the palace. The guard said something to her in saddlan, which Twilight failed to understand. "Tell the Sultan, Princess Twilight wants to see him," Twilight said in carefully pronounced Equestrian, falling into the same trap as so many others of talking slowly to foreigners. She was vindicated in a way as the guard grunted and gestured for her to follow. She was led to the throne where the Sultan was sat, looking every inch a broken stallion. He glanced up as she stopped in front of him, and gasped at the state Twilight was in. "Are you alright Princess? Do you require medical assistance?" "I'm fine," Twilight assured him. "Alicorns heal quick. I'm more concerned about you." "My guards protected me, but they could not protect everything." "It does look like some stuff has gone missing," Twilight agreed. "Stuff? I'm not concerned about stuff! Stuff can be replaced! Those beasts hurt my people! Took their belongings, and took fit ponies as slaves. They took some of my wives, and they took Hakim." Twilight's ears perked up, and she instantly felt ashamed for being even slightly pleased that the Vizier had been taken. As big a threat as he might have been to her current and future plans, he didn't deserve to be made a slave. Nopony did. "I'm sorry," Twilight said, meaning it. "You have nothing to apologise for," the Sultan sighed. "I though, have everything to apologise for. My name means warrior in my tongue, but I am no such thing. My people were in danger, and I did nothing to protect them. Even an all-powerful alicorn princess like yourself wasn't safe in my country." "I'm not all... never mind. Look, I am sorry for what happened, and I wish I could have done more to stop it." "Why is it your concern to stop what happened?" "Because I don't like to see people suffer, and knowing some of your ponies are being forced into slavery... hurts me more than you know. I wish I could do more to help you." The Sultan snorted a bitter laugh, "And we could use the help, but the only country I could reliably ask for help was Equestria, and I turned my back on you. Now we both need help, and cannot give it to each other." "I didn't think the damage to your country was that bad. I thought only the city was attacked? "Nagdad south of here is being attacked as we speak. Apparently Ammare wasn't enough for them. After that I shall have to use my army to protect from further incursions. Even if I didn't have to protect my lands, I have no means with which to reclaim our taken ponies. As I said, I wish I could have Equestria's help." "I'm not sure we could help you right now anyway," Twilight said, more bluntly than she meant to. "If anything it's better for your people that your army is here to protect them." "Even supplies would help your cause, and I didn't even give you that. If even the few things we have left would be enough to gain your aid if rescuing my people, I would gladly give it." Twilight sighed unhappily, "I wish I could accept that, but I've had no contact with Celestia for some time. If you wish to give us aid, I'm sure we'll appreciate it, but we can't do anything until the war has ended, and even then, Equestria might be in no fit state to help you for a while." "I... understand." "However," Twilight continued, "I will do everything I can to get you that help, even if it means me doing it alone. That much is a promise. You will get your ponies back some day." The Sultan smiled at Twilight, "The promise of a Princess is a certain thing indeed. I only wish I could have a certain time frame in which to work. I worry for those taken." Twilight said nothing, knowing full well that the time frame she was speaking of was in years rather than days, weeks, or months. "Is there anything I could do to aid you now, if I can?" "I know this seems like bad timing, but with everything that's happened my hunt for the mirror seems... unlikely to get very far. I was coming to tell you that I'm leaving to look elsewhere, and to collect Daring Do." Twilight smiled sympathetically as the Sultan slumped, "Sorry, but the war in Equestria takes precedent for me, even now." "No, I understand. I only hope that distance doesn't make you forget your promises." "No," Twilight stated firmly. "I meant that when I said it, and I will keep on meaning it." "You almost make it sound personal." "It is a bit. After what I saw in Mareitania, I despise slavery, which is why I intend to put an end to it where I can." What Twilight didn't say, since it was the lesser point by a long way, was that she felt a bit used and now had a serious score to settle with Tempest Shadow. She intended to settle it.

The end of an era

31. Good soldiers follow orders

Rainbow's feathers vibrated, crackling with static energy that streamed off her in a contrail that sparked and buzzed with lightning. Now all she had to do was figure out how to gather all that energy from behind her, and direct it into something coherent in front of her. That was where things usually fell apart. Rainbow slowed, letting the contrail catch up to her and gathering the energy on her wings. Tiny arcs of lightning jumped from feather to feather, then exploded off in random directions as she failed to direct it anywhere. "Damn it!" "At least you didn't electrocute yourself this time," Lightning said as she watched from a outcropping of rocks nearby, along with hers and Rainbow's wing mates. "But we're not getting anywhere! Argh, this is so frustrating! We've been trying this for over a week now, and we're no closer than when we started!" "We just gotta keep trying," Lightning said soothingly. "One of us is bound to work out the key to this soon." "Speak for yourself," said Sky Stinger as he brushed a hoof over patch of blackened hair on his leg. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty fed up of getting shocked by lightning... uh, Lightning." "Alright, alright, let's call it there for now," Lightning sighed. "It's probably time we were heading back to HQ anyway." "Good job we got our squadron leader to give us permission to do this," said Thunderlane. "I hate to think what Spitfire does to ponies that go awol." "Do you think whips and chains are involved?" Cloud Chaser gasped. "That almost sounds like fun!" She smirked at Thunderlane, her eyes half lidded. "I'm not sure whether to be terrified or aroused you thought of that," Thunderlane said back. "Why not both?" "Okay!" Rainbow said loudly before they could go any further. "What you do in the showers tonight is your business, and yours alone," she emphasized. "I do agree we should be getting back though, before Spitfire starts getting creative with her punishments. And I do not mean fun ones Cloud." "I can dream." "As long as I'm in those dreams as well," Thunderlane said, faking being offended. Cloud pecked Thunderlane on the cheek, "Of course you are sweety, of course you are." "Maybe we should head to the showers when we get back as well," Vapor said to Sky, a hint of longing in her voice. "Hmm? Oh, yeah, you can help me scrub this soot out of my coat." "I-uh, I can do more than that." Sky shrugged, "Alright, but I don't see the excitement you'll get from brushing the knots out of my tail." Thunderlane laughed at Sky, "At this rate dude, you are dying a virgin." "What's that got to do with anything?" "What indeed?" "Alright guys, that's enough." Lightning stretched her wings and took flight, "Let's get back to HQ before we end up in trouble." -0-0-0- The Wonderbolts HQ was in chaos when they got back there, with ponies, both Wonderbolts and the Air Corps, flying back and forth carrying crates of gear that were being packed almost as fast as they were getting taken away. The six of them flew through it all, wondering what exactly it was that was happening. "About time you six got back!" Spitfire yelled at them as soon as she saw them. "Get to the barracks and pack your belongings pronto!" "What's going on Captain?" Lightning asked, looking around at everything that was happening. "It looks like we're leaving." "We've received orders to abandon the headquarters," Spitfire explained, looking none too happy about it. "When the Air Corps returns to their usual posting, there'll only be us here, and that makes us a prime target for the griffons still fighting for Mareitania." "But I thought they'd gone," said Cloud. "We've had confirmed sightings all along western Equestria, ranging from the Smokey Mountains to Las Pegasus, so they are very much still within Equestria, and if they attack us here we are incredibly screwed. That's why we'll be joining up with the rest of Equestria's forces in Las Pegasus." "Las Pegasus?" Rainbow said, confused. "Why there?" "Because that's where Princess Luna believes Faust will be going next, judging by the griffons scouting around the area. We intend to work with that." "But what about Tall Tale? Shouldn't we be trying to hold them there to stop Faust heading south?" "The train line doesn't go through Tall Tale Rainbow, and Faust is almost definitely going to be moving her forces by train if she can. Thanks to the griffons in the area we haven't been able to sabotage the lines without making it a major operation, which is why we're heading straight to her destination, to stop her there rather than try and slow her down. I hate to say it Rainbow, but if they take Las Pegasus, the west is hers, including Tall Tale, without having to fight for it. Honestly I'm surprised she hasn't taken it already since it's undefended." "But why is it undefended?" "Because of its proximity to Vanhoover," Spitfire said patiently. "It was deemed too costly to defend with the Mareitanians breathing right down their necks. It also has no strategic value-" "That's bullshit!" Rainbow yelled. "Ponies live there! Our ponies! We can't just leave them to Faust!" "And we haven't. Refugees have been leaving the city all week. The thing is Rainbow, we can't keep evacuating cities before Faust turns up. It's just not feasible. We need to draw a line in the sand somewhere, and right now that line is in Las Pegasus." "And what's so special in Los Pegasus that we have to hold them there?" "Ship yards mainly. If they take the ship yards, they can use ships to attack Manehatten, Baltimare, and Fillydelphia, which are right now fuelling our war effort. They've removed the ships from the harbour there, but as we've seen, the Mareitanians are fully capable of building their own." "I don't see why they'd bother," said Thunderlane. "From Vanhoover they could go through the Unicorn Range and attack just about anywhere in the heartlands; Canterlot, Cloudsdale, Ponyville... Why waste effort attacking these other places when they could go straight for the throat at Canterlot?" "Cloudsdale is being relocated to near Manehatten, and Ponyville has nothing the Mareitanians want or need, except to deny us food supplies, but we can get those from at lot of other places. Canterlot is a target, yes, but that place is far too defensible for them to take without serious losses, which is why they need to eliminate our ability to fight first, meaning capturing Manehatten, Baltimare, and Fillydelphia. Thankfully using trains to move around stops them heading straight to the east coast through the north, as most of the trains go through Canterlot, and they ruined their own ability to go up through by the Empire. On hoof wouldn't work for them either as that's a lot of open ground for us to attack them over." "But-" Rainbow began, only to get cut off by Spitfire. "No, that's enough. I told you to go pack your gear, so I really suggest you start doing that." Spitfire sighed and softened her stance, "Look, I know you want to think we can stop Faust in her tracks, but it really doesn't work like that. If we can hold Las Pegasus, it forces Faust to either go through the north, which is prime territory for us to ambush her forces, or she has to go through Canterlot, which is our strongest position. If we don't hold it, she can build ships, or move through into Somnambula, Appleloosa, and Dodge Junction, which puts our refugees in danger. Las Pegasus is important." "And what about Ponyville?" Cloud asked. "We'll splitting our forces to protect Ponyville if it comes to it, but its closeness to Canterlot should keep it safe for now," said Spitfire, knowing full well that three of them called the town their home. "Now get on. We're moving out in the hour, so you better be ready to go. It's going to be a long time before you can come back here to get anything you forgot." -0-0-0- Rainbow sat on her bed, holding her helmet in her hooves as she looked at the scratches the griffon in Vanhoover had given it, then rubbed a hoof over her eye, feeling the scar he'd given her as well. "This is bullshit." "As you keep reminding us," Thunderlane said as she zipped himself into his flight suit. "You have to admit that a lot of what Spitfire said made sense though." "I don't care if it makes sense! What I care about is us abandoning a load of Equestria because it doesn't have 'strategic value,'" Rainbow said with air quotes. "But most of western Equestria is empty," Lightning pointed out. "If Faust wants to waste time discovering the undiscovered west, then all the better for us, right?" "But it doesn't feel right." Thunderlane shrugged at Rainbow's words, "I hate to say it, but how we feel about it doesn't mean shit." Rainbow sighed and dropped her helmet onto her bed, "I know. The thing is, we're trusting these decisions on one of the ponies responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place. That doesn't exactly suggest a good history of decision making." Rainbow picked up her bag and gripped the zipper in her teeth, dragging it closed. "In fact, it kinda says the opposite. What if holding Las Pegasus isn't the best idea?" "And I suppose you have a better one?" said Thunderlane. "...No," Rainbow admitted after a long moment. "I just- I don't fucking know, alright? I'm just... annoyed." Lightning smiled sideways at Rainbow. "I'm afraid that speaking as your squadron leader, I have to tell you to suck it up. If I'm honest though, if I was speaking as a friend I'd probably have said that anyway." "You're all so nice to me," Rainbow joked. She stood and put on her flight suit, taking time to do it up and strap on her blades. Then she sighed and patted her bed, "Goodbye bed, who managed to be lumpy in all the wrong places. Goodbye barracks, where we often had to overhear naughty stuff between Soarin and Spitfire. And goodbye Wonderbolts HQ, where I learnt that Lightning both is, and isn't, a jerk." "You old romantic," Lightning snickered. "Anyway, I have five other members of a now incomplete squadron to track down, so I guess we better do that and get out of here if you're all ready to go?" Rainbow flipped her helmet up into the air with a wing and dropped it onto her head. "Ready to go, Squadron Leader." "And the rest of you?" Lightning waited until she had confirmations from the rest of them. "Alright, let's find the others and get moving before Spitfire has a fit." "A sexy fit?" asked Cloud. "Nah, just the regular kind. Seriously though Cloud, I know you've been denied your alone time with Thunder so you're all frustrated, but get your mind out of the gutter before you destroy Sky's innocence." -0-0-0- The rest of the squadron was waiting outside for them. Fast Clip looked forlorn, as the only original member of his wing left, having lost both Fire Streak and Lime Jelly. Lime Jelly had been replaced with a former Royal Guard called High Rise, but Fire Streak's space was still empty. Pizzelle's wing was still full after the loss of Meadow Flower, having been replaced weeks ago with a pony from E squadron, Roller, who hadn't quite got over the loss of most of his squadron in the ambush at Stalliongrad. All of them were feeling the losses, and Lightning was proud of them that they were all determined to keep going. "Hey guys," she said to them, saluting them with a wing. Lightning tried to keep it informal, mostly because formal wasn't her style, but also because she was worried about what Fast Clip, who was a Wonderbolt before this all began, thought of her taking the position of Squadron Leader. Having Fire Streak pass straight over him to name Lightning as lead must have annoyed him. Lightning dropped the salute as they returned it. "I'm guessing you're all ready to go?" "Yes ma'am," said Fast Clip, who was showing no sign of being miffed at Lightning if he was. "Good. I would give you orders, but I have no idea what it is that Spitfire's planning." "We're waiting for an airship," Fast Clip told her. "All our stuff is going on the airship, then we'll be escorting it to Las Pegasus." "Aww man," Rainbow groaned. "Airships are really fricking slow." "What about this place?" Thunderlane asked. "Are we really just leaving it here?" "We can't exactly bring it with us," said Cloud, smacking him with a wing. "I know that, but what if the griffons come here and take it over? Are we really going to let them do that? What if they destroy it?" Rainbow stepped between them and pulled them into an embrace with her wings. "So what if they do? It's just a bunch of buildings. We're the Wonderbolts, and we'll still be here even if they do take this place over. Then we get the fun of kicking them back out." Lightning smiled at Rainbow's show of optimism, "Exactly, the important thing is that the Wonderbolts go on." Lightning looked up as a horn blared, and a airship rose up through the clouds. "And there's our ride. Get your stuff over to the dock, and Rainbow? Ask Spitfire what she wants you to do while I have a chat with Fast Clip." Rainbow waved a wing in answer and trotted off with the others in tow, leaving Lightning with Fast Clip. "What do you want ma'am?" "Please, call me Lightning." "Going for that informal thing again huh?" "Is that wrong?" "Ponies respect the chain of command. They also tend to dislike getting ordered around by their friends. It's up to you how you want to lead, Lightning, but even Soarin calls Spitfire Captain, or ma'am, when they're on duty." Lightning nodded at the idea, but had issues with it because half her squadron was actually her friends, while the rest were still friends to a lesser degree. Having them call her by an honorific felt wrong. "I'll think about it," she said, meaning to at least consider the idea. "I was actually hoping to ask you if you're alright with me being made Squadron Leader?" Fast Clip snorted loudly, "I'm not sure when it came down to Fire Streak to decide who his replacement was. That should have been the Captain's call, but she's not arguing with it, so neither will I. Why? Afraid I might have issues with it?" "I was as surprised as anypony that he picked me," said Lightning. "As you said, it should have been Spitfire's call, and I'd bet my bottom bit she'd have picked you as the only other senior Wonderbolt in the squadron. I just want to make sure there's not going to be any issues between us because of how this was done." Fast Clip paused, then pulled the corner of his mouth up in a smile. "No ma'am. The fact that this worries you tells me enough that you're a decent pony, and I'll be honoured to follow you. Just don't forget to look outside your little bubble you have around yours and Rainbow's wings now and then." Lightning sighed with relief, "You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. Seriously though, don't be afraid to tell me when I'm screwing things up." "Never even crossed my mind not to." -0-0-0- Las Pegasus was an oddity compared to other cities in Equestria, at least by Equestrian standards. Besides being a both a cloud city, and a land based city, with one floating directly above the other, the entire place seemed to be devoted to entertainment. A fallacy of course, but as they flew towards the brightly lit city, you could almost believe it. "They must be mad," Thunderlane muttered. "The city's in danger, but it's still lit up like a Hearths Warming tree." "Clearly you've never been to Las Pegasus before," Pizzelle said from behind him. "The lights never go out in this city." "You're from here aren't you?" Rainbow asked, drifting aside to make room for Pizzelle and her wing. "Anything you can tell us about this place?" "Alcohol, gambling, sex, and other... debauchery. This place has it all! The cloud section is mostly just a giant theme park owned by an asshole of a pony called Gladmane, while the ground city is where most of everypony lives. It's not as nice as it looks, believe me. Still, there's also Applewood, as you can tell by the giant sign on the hill." Pizzelle pointed at the large white letters spelling out Applewood on a hill overlooking the city. "If it wasn't for the film industry here, the ground city would probably be forgotten about in favour of Gladmane's big shiny atrocity." "You don't exactly sound like you're very fond of this place," said Cloud. "A lot of bad things get swept under the rug here, just to maintain its friendly reputation, instead of making efforts to make that reputation a reality." Pizzelle shrugged, "I can appreciate this place being fun to visit, but living here is a very different story. I was glad to leave when I could." "Anything strategic you want to add?" "Not really. The entire place is dedicated to separating ponies from their bits, not strategic defence. I'm guessing we won't actually be fighting in the city if we can help it." "I'd say not," said Rainbow. She gestured to a large clump of lights outside the city, sitting across the railway that led there from up north. "I'm guessing that's where we're making our stand." "I'm lacking the experience of a pony that lives on the ground," said Fast Clip, "but that looks like a terrible place to stage a defence. There's no cover, or anything really. It's just open ground." "It's probably just our camp," Lightning said before the debate got going. "I imagine we'll actually be fighting elsewhere. We passed over the Canterhorn river a couple miles back, and that seemed like a good place to me." "And what's stopping Faust from driving a train straight through the middle of the camp?" Rainbow pointed out. "They better have been sabotaging the lines up ahead, or I'm not going to be very happy." "Actually, that's job number one," Spitfire said, having overheard them as she flew up to them from the camp. "Princess Luna wants us to rig the bridge over the river to blow while the Night Guard fly cover for us. We'll be doing it at night though, so the Mareitanians hopefully won't know about it. They'll also be lifting the rails from the camp to the bridge, but that's ground pounder work." "What about for now though?" Lightning asked, since it was still a few hours until night fell. "For now you can unload the airship and get settled in. It won't have the comforts of the HQ, but it beats waking up at night with a griffon halfway through cutting your throat." -0-0-0- "What the heck are those supposed to be?" Lightning asked as she and her squadron looked at a dozen things they had found shortly after making camp. They consisting of large, thick steel tubes bolted into a wooden frame on wheels, and were closed at one end, while the other bore a stylised dragons' head. Nearby sat piles of black iron balls. "They remind me of Pinkie's party cannon," Rainbow said in a low voice. "Y'know, if she fed it a bunch of steroids and made it look scary as all hell, then made it shoot metal balls instead of confetti. I get the feeling we should be afraid of these." "But they'll be pointed at the enemy, won't they?" "I guess?" Rainbow shrugged, "At least, I really hope so." "Of course they will silly!" Rainbow immediately brightened up at the voice behind her, but didn't even have the chance to turn around before she was sent sprawling onto the ground with a pink pony latched onto her. "Pinkie!" "I know, I'm so happy to see you as well!" Rainbow twisted so she could see Pinkie, and tried to pry the pink pony off her, but with poor results as Pinkie refused to budge even an inch. "Pinkie, get off me." "Okay!" Pinkie sprang up off Rainbow and waited until she stood and brushed herself off. "Your eye looks better," she observed. Rainbow felt her scar and sighed, not sharing Pinkie's thoughts on it. "Yeah, sure. So I'm guessing you got deployed here as well Pinkie?" "Not just me Rainbow, but everypony! The entire Equestrian army is here, except the crystal ponies and Mustangians. They're sabotaging the railway that leads towards Ponyville, along with a bunch of those Exile ponies, in case Faust decides to go that way instead. Then ponies are watching them to make sure they don't try to sneak around anywhere else." "Oh thank goodness," Rainbow breathed, releasing a sigh of relief she hadn't known she was holding. Ponyville was closer to Vanhoover than Las Pegasus by a long way, so having Ponyville protected was good. "And now you're here," Pinkie continued, "so we're bound to win! Well, with the cannons and Luna's plan we will." "Luna's plan didn't work so well last time," Rainbow said flatly. "Vanhoover was a massive screw up." "This time will be different! Pinkie promise!" Rainbow wasn't about to hold Pinkie to that, and she really hoped that Pinkie didn't hold herself to it either. Promising positive results out of the bloodbath this could always end up as didn't seem like something to bet on. "I don't suppose you know what Luna's plan is do you? We haven't been briefed yet, apart from orders to rig the bridge here to blow." "Sure! Luna's setting a trap for the Mareitanians at the bridge. It involves the cannons and everything, so it's going to be awesome!" "What?" Rainbow's face screwed up as she thought about what Pinkie was alluding to. Did Luna plan to blow the bridge as the Mareitanians were crossing it? Then blow the crap out of them with the cannons? If so that was one violent sounding plan. "Damn... Luna's not messing around here." "It gets better!" Pinkie sang. "Or worse, y'know, if you really think about it," she finished in a quiet voice. She led them over to a pile covered with a tarpaulin, and pulled the corner of it up to reveal a stack of the bombs pegasi used. "Fucking hell," Rainbow swore. "There's not going to be enough of the Mareitanians left to fill a jam jar at this rate. Where's Luna getting all this stuff from?" "Heck if I know," said Pinkie, "but this is a lot of boom. Too bad I'm not going to get to play with any of it." "Why? Where are you going to be?" "The Hard Corps have their own little mission to complete the trap, so we won't be anywhere near the explosions." Rainbow found it hard to gauge just how upset by that Pinkie really was. "Anyway, the plan should work out just fine." Seeing the amount of ordinance that Luna had brought to throw at the enemy, Rainbow was inclined to believe her. She glanced at Lightning, but only got a shrug in return, and none of the others had anything to say to it either. They all just fervently hoped that Luna was on the ball this time. -0-0-0- The bridge over the Canterhorn river, named for the mountain it originated from, wasn't an impressive piece of engineering. Sure it was well built, but despite the river being reasonably wide, and fairly deep, it was calm by where they were, and thanks to meticulous management by the weather teams it pretty much never flooded either, so the bridge wasn't exactly awe inspiring as it didn't need to be. What it was though, was the only bridge for miles around. There was another one was just south of the Everfree, and another in Ponyville, and if they destroyed both of the other bridges, it suddenly became a lot harder for Faust to attack the south. As she wired the explosives underneath the bridge, Rainbow couldn't help but think they were only going to force Faust to go through Ponyville instead, which she really didn't want to happen. "You almost done Rainbow?" Rainbow spat the little torch she was holding in her mouth into her hoof to answer Spitfire. "Just another minute." "Alright, just be sure that the sticks are hidden from view." "Yes Captain." Rainbow placed the end of the torch back between her teeth and resumed wiring the explosives, finishing by linking it up to the main cable that led back to the plunger on their side of the bridge. That done, she pocketed the torch and rolled off the diagonal beam she was laying on as she worked, and flew back up to the top of the bridge. "All done Captain." "We're still waiting on some of the others yet," said Spitfire. "Captain Greywhisker reports no griffon activity in the area, so we're staying put a bit longer while the Earth Corps bring the cannons up into position and hide them." "Is blowing up the bridge really the best idea Captain?" Rainbow asked, voicing a question that had been brewing for a while in her head. "If we destroy the bridge, and Faust decides to attack somewhere else, we're kinda screwed." "Not entirely. Most of us can fly, and we aren't using the same heavy machinery as the Mareitanians. That's their biggest problem here, because as effective and deadly as those tanks are, they're slow, which is why they use trains to transport them. We don't have that same burden. It's also why it makes crossing the areas north of Canterlot extra dangerous for them, because of the tanks. They'd have to transport all the fuel they need, and the tanks themselves, across open land at a snails pace. A good night raid or two would do some serious damage to them in that scenario." "And if they go through Ponyville?" "Then we stop them at Ponyville," Spitfire said bluntly, like it wasn't obvious. She wasn't unsympathetic to Rainbow's worries, but nowhere got to be immune to the war, and Ponyville less so as it was a direct route through to the east coast of Equestria. She couldn't deny that she'd be just as worried if Cloudsdale was in the firing line, but she couldn't actually say that. "But that's the problem! I want to stop them before they get to Ponyville!" "Rainbow, you want to stop them going everywhere. You know that isn't possible though, especially when they outnumber us like this." "But Ponyville wouldn't stand a chance against the Mareitanians!" Spitfire sighed and patted Rainbow on the shoulder, "I know Rainbow, but that doesn't change anything. Now get back in the air and keep an eye out for griffons. The last thing we need is our surprise for the Mareitanians getting ruined." Rainbow raised her hoof to salute, then remembered they weren't really meant to do that out in the field, and dropped her hoof again. "Yes ma'am," she said half-heartedly. The skies were quiet above the bridge, save for the occasional flapping of wings. Say what you want about thestrals, they were not the best at flying quietly. Gliding yes, but flapping made more noise than a feathered wing. At the very least Rainbow could assume they were doing their job, as not a sound could be heard from the griffons. Not a screech, or cry, or anything. With luck they might actually pull this plan off. She was joined a few minutes later by the other members of her squadron, with orders from Spitfire. "She wants us to push ahead north of Ponyville," said Lightning. "Griffons have been spotted up there, and she wants us to give the impression that we're operating around Ponyville, instead of down around here. Make them think here's the less defended place." "On our own?" said Pizzelle? "Is she crazy?" "Watch it Pizzelle," Fast Clip warned. "We're joining up with a squadron from the Night Guard," Lightning said before Pizzelle could retort, giving Fast Clip a dirty look as well. "We also have permission to engage any griffons we find, just to make a point. That's where the Night Guard come in, because we'll be pretty fucked in the dark if we're attacked, because griffons can see in the dark. Obviously we can't." "This sounds like a great idea," Thunderlane muttered. "Mostly we're just making a show of this," Lightning explained. Spitfire thinks that seeing regular Equestrian forces up around Ponyville will sell the idea that's where we plan to hold them off, and steer them down here instead. Any questions?" Sky Stinger held up a hoof, getting a nod from Lightning. "Why do farmers raise pigs when we get absolutely nothing from them? Cows, Sheep, and chickens make sense, but why they raise pigs is beyond me." "Any helpful questions?" Lightning said flatly, although she had no idea what the answer was to Sky's query now he'd asked it. "No? Alright then, let's move out." -0-0-0- The entire journey was conducted in silence, each of them carefully listening out for any sounds that might lead to an attack, even at the high altitude they were using to evade detection. There was no sign of any trouble though, which was both a relief and a disappointment, depending on who you asked. "Where's those Night Guards?" Rainbow asked as they flew past the route to Ponyville. She could see the campfires of the soldiers protecting the town a couple of miles outside it at the entrance to the tunnel through the hills to the village, and she could only guess at how worried the towns' inhabitants were about their apparent need to be protected. Almost as if in answer to Rainbow's question, a shrill squeak came from the woods below, and a collection of dark figures flew up to them, their eyes shining in the moonlight. Their leader winked at Rainbow, making her roll her eyes. "Hey Shadow. Funny how I keep running into you." The grey thestral shrugged at Rainbow, "Eh, divine providence. That, and the Captain always picks me for things like this. Anyway, you ready to help us hunt some griffons?" Lightning looked around, unsure. "Nopony said anything about hunting griffons. We were supposed to do a fly-by up past Ponyville so the Mareitanians think this is where we're operating." "And we will," Shadow reassured her. "First though we got some griffons to hunt. There's an encampment in the White Tail Woods, which is where they've been performing their recon from. Captain Greywhisker wants us to take them out and destroy their intelligence." "Wouldn't the griffons be out doing that recon though?" said Rainbow. "Some of them, yeah. There should be a dozen griffons at the camp right now, while the rest are out and about. Other members of the Night Guard will be taking on the ones out scouting south of the camp, while we're taking out their encampment because we're the only ones in the area that can." "Isn't wiping them out the complete opposite of what we're supposed to be doing?" Fast Clip said sceptically. Shadow pulled the skin under her eyes down in frustration, "Good grief, I never knew Wonderbolts were so fussy. We're taking out the ones south from the camp, and we'll make a show of looking for the ones north of it, which we'll count as your fly-by. Is that alright by your highnesses?" "I'm starting to suspect none of these orders actually came from Luna," Lightning said flatly. "I doubt she likes to contradict herself that much. But yeah, if we can defer all responsibility onto you and Spitfire by claiming to simply be following orders, I guess we're in." "Great! Come on, the camp's this way." Shadow gestured for them all to follow her, and led them out over the woods. In the distance was a shady clearing in the trees, darker than the rest of the woods. There was no light coming from it, but under the light of the moon they could just about make out some tents set up in the clearing. Apparently the griffons had thought there wouldn't be any ponies coming out this far, and had made no attempt to properly camouflage their encampment. "There it is," Shadow whispered. "We'll stay up here and make sure no griffons come back. You guys take out the encampment." "Shouldn't that be the other way around?" Lightning pointed out. "Can you see the griffons coming in the dark?" "No, but we can't see down there either." Shadow sighed quietly, "Fussy and whiny. Fine, we'll split our squadrons fifty-fifty. Misty and Echo, your wings stay up here while I take the rest down." Lightning nodded, liking this plan slightly better. "Fast Clip, Pizzelle, your wings are staying up here. The rest of you, with me," she said before letting Shadow lead the way down. They dropped to tree level, then below it a hundred yards from the camp, choosing to cautiously approach on hoof to avoid being spotted. It also gave the Wonderbolts' eyes a chance to adapt to the darker surroundings, allowing them to see much better by the time they reached the edge of the camp. There was three tents in all, two much larger than the other one, leading them to suspect that the two bigger ones were where the griffons slept, while the other one was where they collected their intelligence. Two griffons were stood inside that tent, chatting quietly to each other as they studied something under the light of a lamp. The thestrals didn't waste time listening to them. Two of them skirted around the edge of the camp and in through the open tent flaps. A second later there was some muffled cries that quickly ended, and the two thestrals waved to the rest of them. "Move in," Shadow ordered in a whisper. All of them kept low as they crept into the camp, eyes and ears alert for the sound of any griffons they might have missed. They split up, the thestrals going left to the one tent, leaving the Wonderbolts to go right to the other. "Make sure they don't make a sound," were Shadow's parting words. Gripping the zipper in her teeth, Rainbow gingerly opened the tent, doing it slowly to minimize the sound made, then slipped inside, the others close behind her. Six sleeping bags were set out in a row, filled with five griffons and a pony, much to her surprise. She hesitated a second, then went to the pony, deciding to spare the others from having to kill him. Rainbow knew it shouldn't be different to killing a griffon, but she also knew that on some level it was. They were a lot more used to fighting griffons at this point. Rainbow drew her right blade, and pointed it down at the pony's throat. She wasn't even sure if he was a Mareitanian. He could have been an Equestrian that was taken prisoner, even if that seemed unlikely as a prisoner would probably be tied up or something. Either way, that lack of surety was making this harder, because the last thing she wanted to do was kill an innocent. Rainbow chose to not think about it, and looked sideways at the others. None of them seemed happy about this, killing people in their sleep. This was not what the Wonderbolts were about as far as they were concerned. This wasn't fighting a war. It was cold blooded murder. "On three," Lightning whispered, barely loud enough to hear. "One, two, three." All of them thrust their blades down and grabbed the beaks of the griffons to keep them quiet as the struggled. Rainbow did the same for her target, wrapping a leg around his muzzle as she stabbed him. He struggled, his eyes wide in fear, pain, and surprise as he gurgled beneath her grip. Rainbow turned her head away, unable to look in his eyes as the life drained out of him. The most she allowed herself to think, for her own sake, was how much easier that was to do without there being feathers in the way. To think of anything more than that was to think about what she'd just done. After an incredibly long few seconds the stallion stopped struggling, and when Rainbow released him he was still, his eyes glassy and unseeing. She wiped her blade clean on his bedding and sheathed it, then left the tent before the others, refusing to look back at what she'd just done. Vapor was the next out, fumbling with her strap on her helmet as she fought to tear it off. She tripped over her hooves, Rainbow catching her and holding her until she calmed down enough to listen. "Hold it in until we're back to camp," Rainbow said quietly, lifting Vapor into a sitting position. "B-but that was horrible! We... we just killed them. They were asleep, and couldn't even fight back and we just killed them!" "I know Vapor, but we have a job to do, and we can't let what we think and feel get in the way of that." Rainbow caught her reflection in Vapor's goggles, seeing her own tired eyes reflected back at her. She hated herself a little for making Vapor more like herself. "I'm sorry Vapor." Vapor sighed and pulled her goggles up to wipe her eyes. "No, you're right. I really don't think I could do that again though." "Hopefully you'll won't have to," Rainbow said as the others left the tent behind Vapor, all of them appearing to be disgusted as she was about what they'd done. To their left the thestrals left their tent, seemingly no different for having killed a bunch of griffons in a vile and unmerciful way. It made Rainbow wonder just what kind of training they received to be able to do that, and why they'd need that kind of ability in the first place. "All clear?" Shadow asked, getting a nod back from Lightning. "Good. Now let's see what these birds with cats' asses have been digging up on us." "Hopefully they haven't caught wind of what we're up to in Las Pegasus," Lightning said, walking beside Shadow to the third tent. "Last thing we need is them anticipating our ambush." "I think we're in luck," Shadow said with a grin, poring over a map of the local area. There were annotations on it mentioning the build-up of Equestrian forces by the train tunnel leading to Ponyville, and that the Night Guard were patrolling further south, but that was it. The military build-up north of Las Pegasus was unmentioned. "Perfect," Shadow purred with a toothy grin. "All we need to do now is to make a show of operating around Ponyville, and the trap is as good as set." Shadow stopped and twitched and ear, "Shit, we have incoming griffons from the south. Seems like Greywhisker's getting sloppy in his dotage. Get your ponies back into the woods and we'll ambush them." Lightning ran back out of the tent, whispering as loud as she dared for her Wonderbolts to get back into the trees. They'd only just made it when a quartet of griffons came in to land. "What the fuck 'appened 'ere?" One of the griffons shouted, finding the two dead bodies of the griffons in the intelligence tent. "Check the other tents, quick!" Two of the other griffons ran to the other tents, pulling them open to reveal the grizzly scenes within. "They... they're all dead!" a griffon hen cried, recoiling from the smell of the blood. "Even the Shade!" "Shit... We need to get this info back to Faust now! If they catch her forces in that ambush, it'll be a massacre. We'll split up, give ourselves a better chance of one of us getting a warning back to 'er." The griffon spread his wings to take off, only to have a thestral drop onto his back from above, killing him with a single thrust of her weapon. "Now!" Shadow shouted as the other griffons tried to take off in shock. One was quickly cut down by Lightning, being quicker off the mark than even Rainbow. The other two took off, but one was intercepted by the ponies in the air, and quickly fell back to the ground, as lifeless as the rest of them. The last one evaded his attackers though, and took off as fast as he could. "Rainbow!" Lightning shouted, taking off after him. "On it!" Rainbow jumped into the air, pumping her wings as fast as she could. She caught up with Lightning after a moment, but the griffon had a head start over them, and was still building up speed. "Damn he's fast for a griffon!" "We have to catch him or the trap in Pegasus is fucked! I don't care if you have to do a Rainboom! Just catch him!" "I don't know if I can wearing this armour!" Rainbow shouted back. The helmet alone created enough drag to slow her down, let alone the rest of her gear. "Just try!" Rainbow nodded, putting her all into speed. The other disadvantage was that she wasn't using gravity for this either. Sure she didn't need to be flying downwards to do a Sonic Rainboom, but it made it a lot easier, and might even have overcome the drag from her armour. "Winners never quit Rainbow! Come on!" Rainbow shouted at herself pushing herself harder, the wind whistling off the tips of her blades as a cone of air started to form around them. She pushed even harder, knowing she was going to feel it later, but knowing it was worth it as the air around her flashed as she came close to breaking that unseen barrier. She pushed even harder, and the world exploded with colour around her as she broke that barrier and created a Sonic Rainboom, which she shot out of the other side of like a cork out of a champagne bottle, wind resistance no longer a factor. The griffon was easily caught up with after that, and she was suddenly presented with a new issue after that, of how to attack the griffon at such a speed. She wasn't given much time to think about it, and she swept her right leg down across his back as she rapidly approached him on his left. The attack was successful, almost tearing the griffon in half, but at the same time she screamed as the bones in her leg shattered from the high speed attack. She tumbled through the air as the laws of physics reasserted themselves upon her, and she wobbled down to a landing on a tree, howling in agony from her broken leg, distant parts of her mind watching the remnants of her Sonic Rainboom dissipate. Slowly her leg went numb, burning with distant sensation of being both hot and cold as adrenaline coursed through her. By the time Lightning caught up to her she was no longer howling, but sat quietly as she clutched her leg. "Holy shit Rainbow! We wanted them to know we were here, and I think that mig-" Lightning cocked her head as Rainbow rocked back and forth, her right leg protectively held in her left, the blade still attached to it. "Rainbow? What's wrong?" "My leg... it's broken." "Aw shit. Here, let me have a look." Lightning gently eased Rainbow's left leg away from her right, and immediately pulled a face at the way it bent. "Yeah, that's broken. Here, let me get that blade off." Lightning nudged her hip up against Rainbow's right hoof, using her holster to ease the blade off as Rainbow hissed, catching it before it fell to the ground and sliding it back into its sheath. "Come on Rainbow, let's go before griffons come looking for us. Hopefully they can get you fixed up back at camp. After all, it might be a busy day tomorrow."

The end of an era

32. Not how we imagined it

"What's the news General Stormguard?" Luna asked, finding herself in a strangely good mood despite everything. If what had happened last night worked, the Mareitanians would find themselves falling into a trap, and that ability to take control of the situation, even if for a short while, was worth being cheerful about as far as Luna was concerned. "Not much news at the moment Princess. There's some concern over Faust splitting her forces and attacking both here and Ponyville, so I've taken the precaution of ordering the tunnel to Ponyville be rigged to collapse should they attack there, which would also, hopefully, further encourage them to attack down here. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I'd rather we be prepared." "Very good General. Assuming that we can hold them here, we may force them to go north, which is a dangerous route for them indeed." Luna smiled and nodded to herself as things were starting to look up. "Is everything prepared here?" "The bridge is rigged to collapse, the cannons are set up and hidden, and the Hard Corps assure me that their part of the trap has been prepared, so everything should be ready." "Excellent. All we have to do now is wait." -0-0-0- "I think you're determined to hurt yourself," Pinkie said decisively as she loomed over Rainbow Dash in the middle of getting her leg healed. "I think you should stop that." "Thanks Pinkie," Rainbow said with sarcasm heavy enough for Pinkie to pick up on. "I'll be sure to remember that the next time I break my leg." "And you should. I don't even want to imagine what would go through your head if your squadron was out fighting, and you had to stay here in this cramped little tent unable to do anything. You'd probably go nuts!" "Do you seriously think I enjoy getting hurt Pinkie? Because let me tell you, I really don't. The only reason I did this was because I really needed to stop that griffon getting away. And... also because I didn't think this would happen." Rainbow moved her leg a little, hissing as pain shot through it. "Y'know, this is going to take longer if you don't stop moving," the unicorn medic waving the healing device over Rainbow's leg grumbled. "It's not like I have unlimited magic either," she added. "I'm probably going to need some for later." "Sorry," Rainbow sighed, resolving to stop moving. "At least it's fixing your ear a bit," Pinkie said, seeing the look on Rainbow's face. "Silver linings and all that." Rainbow didn't respond straight away, having something on her mind since the night before. "Pinkie, have you had to do something in this war that you really don't agree with? Besides the fighting and killing that is." "I'm not really sure what else there is to disagree with there then," Pinkie replied seriously, sensing from Rainbow's tone of voice that this wasn't the best time to joke around. "Alright, I probably could have said that better. Do you think there's a right way and a wrong way to kill in a war? Y'know, the difference between killing a soldier on the battlefield, and killing one while he's... unable to fight back." "You mean like a prisoner? Everypony knows killing prisoners is wrong Rainbow. Did somepony make you kill a prisoner? Or did you kill them while they were trying to surrender? Or-" "No Pinkie, there were no prisoners, so I didn't do either of those." Pinkie breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh good." "I killed a pony... in his sleep." Rainbow cringed as Pinkie gawped at her. Even the medic turned her head away in what Rainbow assumed to be disgust. "What? Why would you do that?!" Pinkie shrieked. "I didn't want to!" "Then why do it?" "Because we were out with the Night Guard last night, and they altered our mission and made us... do what we did." Rainbow felt a lingering desire to cry, only partly at the way Pinkie was looking at her. That she couldn't bothered her almost as much as what they were talking about. "We weren't supposed to do that, and I shouldn't have to tell you that isn't what the Wonderbolts are about, but we did it anyway..." "You should've refused." "But refusing to follow orders is a whole different problem! And those griffons and that pony would've been killed anyway!" "But it wouldn't have been you doing it!" "I wasn't given a choice at the time!" Rainbow regretted telling Pinkie now. She wasn't even sure why she brought it up, apart from some self destructive need for somepony to tell her she was a bad pony, rather than hear the rest of her squadron reassuring each other it was the right thing to do. It wasn't, even if it somehow was. "You always have a choice Rainbow," Pinkie said, lowering her voice a bit. "Would you do it again?" "I don't know." "What do you mean you don't know?" "I mean 'I don't know.' I don't want to do it again, but we don't always get to choose." "Of course you do! You don't want to- to- to kill ponies like that, and you don't have to! If you can't see that, then I'll just go to Luna to make sure this never has to happen again!" "Who do you think gave the Night Guard those orders in the first place? They answer directly to Luna, Pinkie. Who do you think had them trained to do those kinds of things without hesitating? Luna understands what we're doing better than any of us, and she knows what it's going to take to win this war!" "That doesn't mean what she orders us to do is right!" "Are you seriously taking the high ground here Pinkie? You're helping to trap hundreds, if not thousands of ponies in what is going to be a massacre! On. Luna's. Orders. You can't seriously tell me that's any better than what I did to make sure that trap works!" "At least they have a chance to surrender! That pony you killed didn't! That makes a whole lot of difference!" Pinkie wiped the moisture out of her eyes, unsure when the tears had built up. "You asked me if there was a right or wrong way to kill in this war Rainbow. I'm not sure there's a right way, but there seems to be an awful lot of wrong ones, and some of those are a lot worse than others." Pinkie stood and walked to the exit, then stopped. "Get well soon Rainbow," she said before leaving without giving Rainbow a chance to say anything else. "Aww... fuck!" Rainbow cursed once Pinkie was gone, slamming her head down on the pillow in frustration. "Why the fuck did I even say any of that? I'm so fucking stupid!" "Hey!" the unicorn growled. "Quit moving or this'll heal crooked... or something, I don't know, I have no idea how this thing works. But stop moving anyway." "Who even cares?" "I do, funnily enough," the unicorn retorted. "It's kind of my job to." "Alright then, if you care so much, what's your opinion on what I did?" "Seriously? You followed orders that you shouldn't have been given. I think that actually makes you the consummate soldier. In my semi professional medical opinion, you either deal with it, or you let it eat you from the inside. Your choice. You friend will have to do the same." Rainbow gave the unicorn a sceptical look, "How are you just a medic?" The unicorn shrugged back, "The difference between you and me is that while we both understand orders, only one of us could bring ourselves to follow them, and that pony isn't me. Now stop letting this get to you, because you killed one of the enemy, and they'd probably do the same to you if they had to." -0-0-0- "What's up with you?" Limestone asked Pinkie as the pink mare slunk back into their tent and sat down, hugging herself. "This war's destroying everything I love," Pinkie said weakly, tears running down her cheeks. "Ooookay..." said Limestone, drawing the word out. "I feel like I should remind everypony that we could have stayed at home, but that'd probably be insensitive of me." "Our home lies between Las Pegasus and Appleloosa," said Maud, who was watching Pinkie very carefully. "I think I'd rather be here where we have a chance to protect Mother and Father from the Mareitanians, than on the farm with them when the Mareitanians come." Limestone grunted, neither conceding or denying the point. Instead she sat next to Pinkie and tried her best to be sisterly. "What happened?" she asked, awkwardly patting Pinkie on the back. "I had an argument with Rainbow. She did something really bad, but she was just following orders. I said she should have refused to, but she said that this trap wouldn't work if she hadn't, then said that what we're doing to help the trap was just as bad. Now I don't know what to think." "What could she have possibly done that could be that bad?" "She killed a pony in his sleep." Limestone shrugged at Pinkie's revelation, having been expecting something that at least sounded worse. "That's not great I suppose. Probably beats bleeding out on the battlefield, screaming for help that isn't coming though. Almost sounds peaceful compared to that." "What?" Pinkie gasped in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? Killing a pony like that in cold blood is- is... it's horrible!" "I'd rather them than me," Limestone said back. "I hate to say it Pinkie, but I'm agreeing with Rainbow on this one. Sure it sucks, but if that's what you have to do to win, then what of it?" Pinkie blinked in disbelief, "Has everypony gone mad? You're with me aren't you Maud?" Maud looked down and shook her head, "As bad as killing a pony like that is, what you want requires us to give mercy at a time when we can't afford to. I am sorry Pinkie, but I don't think I can agree with either side on this really." "And this is what I meant when I said this war is destroying everything I love," Pinkie said, hugging herself a little tighter. "Then you need to stop thinking you're above it," said Limestone. "You wanted to come here, so you don't get to bitch about not liking it. You knew killing would happen, and you knew we'd all have to do these things. Really Pinkie, speaking as both your sister and your commanding officer, you're kinda going to have to suck it up a bit, and not judge ponies for doing what they have to." "B-but-" "No. No but's. Now get up and pull yourself together because we have work to do. Marble said that she thinks some parts of the trap might not collapse right, so we better get back there and make sure it all works perfectly. Frankly I refuse to be the ones getting the blame if this fucks up." -0-0-0- "Knock knock," Lightning said as cheerfully as she could, entering the medical tent to find Rainbow flexing her formerly broken leg. "Oh hey, you're all fixed up?" "I guess so," Rainbow said hesitantly. "It aches like you wouldn't believe. Doc says that should pass though, and that I'm fit enough for duty again." That Rainbow suspected the unicorn was maybe lying about it was irrelevant. She knew how much Rainbow wanted to be ready for when the attack came, and in return Rainbow appreciated her discretion. "Is it good to go though?" Lightning asked, totally unaware of how the Sparkle Healing Devices even worked, let alone how fast. She was honestly expecting Rainbow to be out for a week, so having her ready to go in less than twelve hours was great. "Can you walk on it?" Rainbow pushed herself off the bed and gingerly brought her leg to the ground, slowly adding more weight to it until she was standing naturally. It still just ached, which was neither good or bad. At the very least it didn't hurt. "I think I'm good." "Sweet." Lightning nodded her appreciation to the medic then led Rainbow out of the tent, "We've heard from Equis that a large troop train has departed from Vanhoover, and Luna thinks the attack must be coming soon. We need to be ready for when they get here." "And here I was thinking they'd be here sooner. What if they go to Ponyville?" "Heck if I know," Lightning replied with a shrug. "I've heard the train tunnel was set to collapse if they try to go up there, so I guess Ponyville's probably safe enough." "Oh good," Rainbow breathed, feeling relieved that they had a back-up plan to protect Ponyville. There was something else on her mind though, about what had happened the night before. "Is everyone alright after last night?" "More or less. Vapor was a bit shaken up over it, but she's... managing with it. Honestly, as much as I love Vapor, I really would consider washing her out if we didn't need the ponies. We can't keep running into this problem with her, but if we lose her we probably lose Sky as well." Lightning shook her head, dismissing her worries. "The rest of us are staying on top of it though." "And what did Spitfire have to say about it?" "Plenty, but due to the success of the operation, Luna's just brushing it under the carpet. She claims that the Wonderbolts should be prepared for all kinds of missions, completely missing the problem where Captain Greywhisker pretty much hijacked our squadron for his own objectives, while ignoring what we were originally ordered to do." "Oh good," Rainbow said sarcastically, "that just means it can happen again. Yay." "Yeah, well, we'll see." Lightning led Rainbow over to the rest of their Squadron as they were preparing for the battle. Cloud and Thunderlane gave her a friendly smile and a nod, while the rest were wrapped up in what they were doing, amongst the thousands of other ponies doing the same. Lessons about overconfidence had been learnt over the last month by all of them, and they all seemed grimly determined to apply those lessons, hard learnt as they were. "This'd look a lot more impressive if the Crystal Legion, Exiles, and Mustangians were here," Thunderlane said as she looked around the masses. "I hope they can hold the Mareitanians if Faust does go for Ponyville." "Apparently they're going to blow the train tunnel if she does that," Rainbow said back, giving Cloud a smile as the purple mare passed her flight suit over. "And do you think that's really going to stop her. What's to stop her pulling the same thing here with the illusions that she did in Vanhoover?" "The difficulty of creating a convincing illusion of a train," Spitfire said as she wandered over to them. "At least that's what Luna says." Spitfire smiled at Rainbow, "Good to see you back on your hooves Dash." Rainbow saluted Spitfire, a cheeky grin working its way onto her face as she spread her wings. "You know a busted leg wouldn't slow me down that much ma'am." "Glad to hear it, but don't go pushing yourself for no reason. Anyway, I came to tell you that the train should be here in the next hour, although we've received reports that a second train has departed Vanhoover. Whether that train's coming here or going to Ponyville is unknown, but the Crystal legion has been informed, and hopefully they can handle it." Rainbow shared a worried look with her wingmates, but neither of them had anything to say on it. If everypony says the ponies there can handle it, then maybe it might be true. "What will we be doing?" Lightning asked as Rainbow swallowed and turned back towards Spitfire. "The Air Corps are taking care of the bombing, so all we'll be doing is attacking the rear of the train to stop ponies getting away and telling whoever sent them about the trap. If we can catch another train in the trap, then all the better. I'm not going lie though, we'll be staying away from the train for a while because with that much iron and shrapnel flying around... yeah, you don't want to be anywhere close to that." "So we're just going to stop them getting away with a warning?" Lightning asked, wanting to be sure. "What about the actual fight? What if griffons turn up?" "Then the griffons become our priority, but our intelligence ponies still have no idea where most of the griffons are. It seems unlikely we'll see them in any serious numbers if at all. As it is, we'll be watching the rear, while the rest of them batter the Mareitanians into submission or oblivion. Whichever comes first. If the Mareitanians do put up a fight I'll leave it to you to decide what to do, since your squadron seems to make its own decisions anyway." "Yes ma'am," Lightning said dutifully, saluting Spitfire. "Are we staying on the ground or in high altitude until the trap is sprung?" "You know, Fire Streak never asked me these sorts of questions," Spitfire said with a sad smile. "We'll be sticking to the ground until the trap is sprung, but after that you have your orders." Lightning saluted again, getting one in return. She held it until Spitfire left, then sighed. "Light on the details, as usual." "Aww c'mon Lightning," Rainbow said playfully. "You know that just means we have flexibility." "Yep, the flexibility to get ourselves killed, instead of letting those in charge do it." -0-0-0- Luna was waiting, trusty binoculars held in her magic as the moment of their attack arrived. The pit they'd dug around the cannon to lower it out of sight was chilling her hooves with its dampness, and the camouflage netting over it kept catching on her horn, but she honestly didn't care. The time had finally come to test the cannons out in a proper battle, and it left her feeling giddy as a schoolfilly. A faint plume of smoke was visible in the distance, slowly drawing closer. There had been no further news on the second train to leave Vanhoover, so for now they could only deal with what was in front of them, which so happened to be the first step of putting up some serious resistance after the debacles at Vanhoover and the Crystal Empire. Maybe now Faust would treat them as an actual threat. Maybe Faust would treat her as a threat. "Two miles," Luna said out loud. "One mile," she said a minute later. The train was in full view now, and showed no signs of slowing, which was absolutely perfect. She gripped the plunger in front of her with her magic, keeping a careful eye on the train. Blow the bridge too soon and the train could maybe stop in time. Too late, and the Equestrians had several tons of steel flying towards them at speed, which was less than ideal. Luna counted it down until the train was ten seconds from the bridge, then pressed the plunger down, igniting the bridge with a fiery inferno that destroyed it utterly, collapsing it into the river with a boom that threatened to deafen all there. It also left the train with nowhere to go, apart from down into the river as it sailed off the tracks, having not had the time to even put the brakes on, let alone actually slow down. The long, sleek engine crashed down into the river, creating a splash that almost reached the Equestrians on the opposite side as the train's momentum carried it through the river and up the bank on the other side, dragging its carriages with it until its sudden loss of momentum made them start to violently pile up. The first carriage was crushed beneath the second as the coupling broke, allowing it to ride up over the one in front. The carriage after that pushed to the left, dragging the ones after it until the speed of the carriages behind overtook it, piling carriage after carriage into the one before until the main source of their momentum joined them in the form of a quartet of tanks being transported. The chains holding the tanks secure broke, allowing the tanks to fly free of the wreckage, but doing nothing to save the tanks themselves as they smashed themselves to pieces on the wreckage, and were similarly crushed by the next carriage, and the next out of the two dozen carriages there were, until there was no more to come, the last few supporting the weight of some that dangled off the end of the shattered bridge. Luna had watched all of this, wide-eyed with shock, amazement, and horror. In her mind the train would simply crash down into the river and grind to a halt. She had never seen a train wreck before, and never had she envisioned the carnage involved in one. She watched as everything went still and silent, then more explosions started as the Hard Corps completed the trap. -0-0-0- "Do it!" Limestone shouted at Azure, prompting the purple mare to slam her hooves down on the plunger, setting off a string of charges through the carefully dug tunnel that went in a semi circle from the river bank above the train tracks, around the rear of the train, and back to the river. Hours of digging by dozens of ponies besides those of the Hard Corps, had created a large tunnel that was shored up and rigged to collapse, creating a trench around the train that effectively trapped the ponies on a small island, unable to really escape as the waters of the river flooded through the newly created channel. It was besides the point that the channel they'd created was far larger than required after Luna's misjudgement of how far the train would still travel during the crash. "Oh yeah..." Azure sighed as the explosions set off, collapsing the ground they'd undermined. "I'm touching myself tonight." "Shut up and come on!" Limestone shouted at her, dragging her deeper into the woods out of sight. "We need to get back to the other side of the river before they work out we're here." "Alright, sheesh. Excuse a mare for liking things that go boom." Azure ran after Limestone through the woods, heading towards a small rowboat that had been given to them to make their way to safety after completing their task. The others were already there waiting for them as the two mares piled into the boat, letting Maud and Top Spin start rowing them to the other side. "Who knew mining was a useful skill in a war?" Limestone remarked as they pushed out into the river. "Anyway, I'd call this a total success. Good job guys." "Yeah, go us," Pinkie said sadly, watching traces of red in the water passing by. -0-0-0- "Should we open fire Princess?" Luna shut her mouth with a click, her mind still caught on what was happening in front of her as it continued to progress. Even with the new channel, the train was still blocking much of the river, and the water building up behind it was starting to flood through the carriages. Those ponies lucky enough to survive the crash now stood a chance of drowning instead. "Princess, should we open fire?" General Stormguard asked again. "Nay, hold your fire until we know whether the survivors intend to attack us." Truthfully Luna wished to aid the survivors before they succumbed to the water, but she knew that was to invite a knife into her back as she had no idea how the brainwashed Mareitanians would react. Would they rather die trying to fight? Or would they recognise their defeat and accept their help? It didn't seem practical to risk her soldiers if the former was true. Luna hauled herself out of the pit and carefully walked down to the river bank, stopping in front of where the crumpled engine was still hissing steam from the splits in its boiler. A pony was crawling up the bank towards her, his body covered in lacerations that left a trail of red behind him. He stopped at Luna's armoured hooves, uttering his thanks to Faust for sparing him and having found somepony to help him, unaware of whose hooves it was before him until Luna's silence made him look up into her face and see the waves of pegasi taking to the air behind her. "Oh fuck." More ponies started to fight their way out of the wreckage and make for dry land as the river washed through the stricken carriages. Luna pulled some of them up to safety, then took to the air to help others as the Wonderbolts and the Air Corps circled around, unsure of what to do. "Your Highness!" Stormguard shouted up at Luna as she pulled more Mareitanians to safety. "What are your orders?" "Move forwards and secure the wreckage. Help those you can and take them prisoner. Eliminate those that fight back, should there be any." -0-0-0- "You've got to be kidding me," Rainbow said in disbelief. "Now she wants us to rescue them? All this effort to set up this whole thing, and Luna wants us to save as many as we can because she, what, regrets it?" "I really don't think there's that many survivors," Lightning said back. "I don't see how there could be. That crash was beyond brutal. Anyway, less bitching, more doing." "Yes ma'am." Rainbow flew down to the roof of a carriage that had settled on top of the others, safely out of the rising waters of the river. She pulled the door open, and recoiled at the blood splatters and dead ponies within. However this carriage had ended up on top, it was not a peaceful journey. There was some survivors though, and Rainbow dove back out of the door as a unicorn shot at her with their magic. "Hey assholes, I'm not here to fight you, I'm here to help." "And how are we to know your help doesn't mean cutting our throats?" Rainbow rolled her eyes and sighed, "Okay, I can see why you mightn't believe me, but we're really trying to help you. Put simply, if you surrender and come with me, you'll be taken prisoner, and get to live worshipping your Lady's fat ass. Fight back, and we'll be forced to deal with you. Your choice." "And why should we possibly believe you after doing something like this?" "Let me put it this way, if I'm lying, you're dead anyway, so what have you got to lose? And you're the ones invading us jackass. If you don't like how we're fighting back, feel free to go home and stay there!" Rainbow huffed and crossed her legs as the ponies inside deliberated over her offer. Nopony else seemed to be having to talk it over as they pulled ponies from the wreckage and out of the river. She was about to yell at them for wasting her time when a crash to the left of her made her jump as the carriages dangling off the bridge lost their fight against gravity, along with the ponies inside. "For fuck sake! Will you guys hurry up? Ponies are dying out here while you're wasting time." "Alright, we surrender." Rainbow sighed harshly with relief, "Finally. I want you to step out here one at a time and head right towards our forces. And leave your weapons behind, or I will remove them from you forcefully." To reinforce her point, Rainbow drew her weapons and hovered by the door of the carriage as the ponies inside stepped out one at a time. Rainbow pointed in the direction they should go, and kept an eye on them as they clambered slowly over the wreckage, the injuries they sustained slowing them. For all the bodies Rainbow had seen in the carriage, only a dozen had survived. Once they'd made it to the river bank, they were gathered up by the Equestrian ground forces and kept under guard on the bank, well in front of the threatening collection of cannons and unicorns that were prepared to attack should they try anything. Rainbow moved on, sheathing her weapons once those ponies were somepony else's problem. Her ears pricked at a shout for help from the side of the wreckage facing upstream, and when she went to investigate she found a white stallion in a bloodied uniform struggling to free himself from between two carriages as the river rose around his chest. "Hold on!" Rainbow zipped down to the stallion and grabbed his hooves, bracing herself against the carriage to pull him free. With a grunt from her, and a cry from him, she pulled him free, falling over backwards with him landing on top. "Thanks," the stallion said with genuine sounding gratitude. Rainbow was about to tell him he was welcome when the earth pony slammed a hoof down on her gut as hard as he could. Rainbow cried out in pain, and didn't even try to stop the stallion as he ran. He didn't get far though as Spitfire landed heavily on the carriage in front of him, her blades held ready to fight. "Hello Snowbright," Spitfire said with a hard edge to her voice. "Sorry, General Snowbright. How's the 'stabbing us in the back after all we did for you' business going?" Snowbright scowled at Spitfire, "Don't act like you're better than us. You fight for ponies that betrayed both us and you by forcing you to fight a war you cannot hope to win." "Sure, sure. Well if you're not too busy, I'll be accepting your surrender now. Let's see how Faust does without you holding her hoof." "I think you'd be surprised how little she requires me to do that." Snowbright narrowed his eyes, making clear his intent to attack, then cried out in pain and fell as Rainbow dragged a blade across his back legs, cutting deep into the flesh above the knees. "You have a really shitty way of thanking ponies that save your life, you know that?" Rainbow spat and sheathed her weapon, clutching her leg around her stomach which hurt considerably after the larger pony had hit her there. "Permission to make him a gelding ma'am?" "Denied," Spitfire said with an odd amount of glee. "We have rules about mistreating prisoners of war, even though the ink that wrote them is barely dry yet." Spitfire grinned at Snowbright as he cursed at her, "That's right, you're a prisoner of war now. Congratulations. Rainbow, go get Luna." Rainbow saluted and took off slowly, her hoof still held protectively to her gut. She found Luna overseeing the prisoners on the riverbank, and landed beside her. "Princess? We found somepony you might be interested in." "Oh? And who might th-" Luna stopped as she saw Rainbow's hunched up stance, with her hoof held to her stomach. "Are you alright Rainbow?" "Yeah, I got punched. I'll be fine." "If you say so. Now, who is this pony you found?" "General Snowbright. The Captain's keeping an eye on him. "Take me to him," Luna said quickly, surprised that such a high profile pony like him were here on a mere troop transport. She flew ahead of Rainbow when she saw both Spitfire and the General, and landed on the carriage roof with a solid, intimidating thud. "Hello Snowbright," she said coldly. It was gratifying to see him like this, but that wasn't enough to override her anger. "Oh good, Princess Luna. Just the pony I was hoping to see." "Is that so?" "It is, although I was hoping our places would be the other way around. It's good to see you're sticking with the destructive, overblown tactics typical of you Equestrians. I'm sure Twilight would be proud, wherever she is." Luna smiled at that casually tossed out bit of information there. It seemed that the Mareitanians really didn't have any idea where Twilight was, which was a relief. It was just too bad that nopony besides Twilight and her friends really knew where Twilight was. "A lot of this is your fault Snowbright, more than you know. Your dislike of Equestria is what she based a large amount of her mind control magic on." "Mind control magic? What mind control magic?" "The mind control magic that allowed her to take control of you, the Council, and the entirety of Mareitania in the space of a few months and lead you into this foolish war. But of course you wouldn't know about that, as that's how mind control works. Perhaps we should start with a simpler question. How many ponies are on this train?" "A couple thousand," Snowbright replied easily, not even trying to hide it. "I imagine there's a lot less now." "And what were you hoping to accomplish by coming here?" "To set up a vanguard for when the rest of our forces arrive. Come on Luna, you don't need to be a tactical genius to work out what we were going to do here." Luna scowled at Snowbright, "You say that, but here you are falling into our trap. I take it you had no idea we'd be here?" "Our griffons reported that you'd driven them from the south, and had attempted to push them further north than the Smokey Mountains. We thought with you so focussed on finding them, we'd be able to get here without too much difficulty. It seems we were wrong." "Very wrong." "Princess, we have a problem." Luna closed her eyes and sighed through her nose, then reopened them to find a pegasus of the Air Corp hovering nearby, looking nervous to be the bearer of bad news. "What is it?" "A couple hundred of the survivors have organised themselves on the island," the pegasus said, pointing across the river to the land now cut off after the Hard Corps collapsed their tunnels. "The other survivors are heading towards them now. We've also lost some that were swept downriver, so there's a chance they might get a warning back." "And today was going so well." Luna dragged Snowbright up by his collar until they were face to face, "Tell them to stand down." "Sure, I'll just walk over there shall I?" Luna spread her wings and took flight, dragging Snowbright up after her. She held him in front to discourage any of the Mareitanians taking pot-shots at her, and stopped just within shouting range. "Go on then, tell them to stand down." Snowbright sighed and nodded once, "Stand down soldiers. There's no point in getting yourselves killed when you can't win. Hint-hint," he added, looking back at Luna out of the corner of his eye. "We'll have to see how good your odds of winning are after today," Luna growled back quietly. "I'd say they're still considerably in our favour." "Mm-hmm..." Luna hummed as her fliers moved in on the survivors. "The second train that left Vanhoover after yours. Where is it going?" "Ponyville." "I don't believe you." "Oh, well, it's coming here then." Snowbright grinned cockily back at Luna, "What? Still don't believe me? There's only two places they can possibly go to, so take your pick." Luna ignored him and tried to think. The problem here, Luna considered, was numbers. Not her own, but that of the Mareitanians. Faust had tens of thousands of soldiers at her disposal, and yet had sent a couple thousand here on a train, and a couple thousand more on another. What about the rest of her soldiers? What were they doing. "Y'know, I am bleeding quite heavily here," Snowbright said as Luna was thinking. "I'm not above asking to not bleed to death." Now she was listening, she could hear the pain in Snowbright's voice. "Very well, my questioning of you shall have to wait anyway until I know what will happen next at least." Luna breathed deeply and lit her horn, forming a bridge over the river using her magic. Shortly after her ponies started shooing the prisoners across it. "Captain Spitfire?" Spitfire saluted crisply, partly to make a show of it for Snowbright. "Yes ma'am?" "Begin organising your Wonderbolts and the Air Corps to start performing sweeps of the woods to find any Mareitanians hoping to get this news back to Faust. I also want you to send your fastest flier up to Ponyville, because I suspect that they might be in trouble soon. If Ponyville is under attack, they have orders to tell them to collapse the tunnel and start making their way down here. In fact, they have orders to tell them to do that even if they aren't under attack." "Down here? What about Ponyville?" "The mountains will protect Ponyville, for now at least, but that won't help us here. You have your orders Captain." Spitfire saluted again, "Yes ma'am. Rainbow, did you get all that?" "Off you go then, and try not to take too long." -0-0-0- Rainbow had seen the smoke for a while, and it was with considerable relief she saw it was coming from the west side of the mountains, and not Ponyville itself. Still, the smoke was bad news, and as she got closer she could see an army preparing to attack, three times the size of the one that was going to attack Las Pegasus. Six tanks, and thousands of ponies all set up to attack a peaceful farming village. It was enough to make you sick, especially considering that Ponyville held no particular advantage to either side, other than as a halfway point between Vanhoover and the east coast. It just happened to lie along the train tracks, which seemed to be dictating the direction of the war. Rainbow angled away from the Mareitanians towards Ponyville, seeing that their side was preparing to put up a fight. Either they hadn't seen what they were up against, or they were determined to follow their orders to the letter. It didn't take a birds-eye view to see that when those tanks rolled in it was going to be a massacre. Over the mountain was a different story, and where the Exiles were all waiting on the ground for their next move, whatever that was. Rainbow suspected they were planning an ambush, but it would only take one of them in the air to see how fruitless that would be. A hundred adepts could hold off that ambush long enough to get their forces through the tunnel. There was a small island of calm amongst the pegasi, and it was there that Rainbow found Shining Armour, grimly watching the tunnel like he expected the Mareitanians to come running through at any moment. "Shining Ar- I mean, General Armour!" Rainbow landed hard besides Shining Armour, panting from the flight up. "What are you doing? There's like six thousand Mareitanians about to attack you!" "I am aware Rainbow Dash, and I've planned for it." "You have?" "Indeed. I was planning to draw them in then detonate the tunnel. You didn't think I was just going to leave my ponies out there to die did you?" "Uh..." Rainbow cleared her throat awkwardly, "Sorry sir. I guess this means they approached our bait in the wrong way by attacking here where we were supposedly strongest." "Or they saw right through it," said Shining. "Did your trap fail?" "Nah, it worked fine. We didn't even need those cannon things because the train crash was enough to take most of them out, and the rest surrendered. We also captured General Snowbright." Shining hummed thoughtfully, "I see. Faust must be pulling the strings herself and be leading this attack then, unless she's picked up some other ponies to be in charge." Shining shrugged and shook his head, "I suppose that makes little difference. Anyway, was there something you wanted Rainbow?" "Huh? Oh yeah, I have orders from the Princess. She wants you to blow the tunnel and start heading towards Las Pegasus. I think she wants to funnel the Mareitanians down towards us there." "No." "No?" Rainbow was speechless for a moment after hearing that, and had to force the words out as she gestured wildly. "What do you mean 'no?'" "I mean no, or at least not yet. I have a chance to thin our enemy out a little, and I intend to use it. Once that's done I will be sure to start moving to Las Pegasus as soon as I am able. If you have to, tell Luna we were already engaged when you got here." "But- But-" Rainbow dragged her hooves down her face, only to get frustrated as they met her goggles. "You can't disobey the princess!" "And I'm not. I'm assuming she gave orders on the premise that we might be under attack?" Rainbow nodded. "Then let's pretend that's what actually happened. Heck, give it a minute and it might be happening anyway." Rainbow tapped a hoof as she thought, and found her objections to Shining's plan to be based entire on him not jumping to obey, which seemed like a flimsy thing to object on when he was a general, and probably knew what he was doing since his plan was pretty solid. "Alright, what can I do to help?" "You could join the Exiles if you must, but I would suggest sitting this one out myself." Rainbow thought about it and shrugged. Maybe she'd spent enough time in the line of fire recently, and it wouldn't kill her to pass up the opportunity to maybe get herself killed again. "Alright then." -0-0-0- It was nearly twenty minutes before the first explosion rang around the mountains as the Mareitanian tanks began their advance. That meant for Rainbow that it was nearly twenty minutes of sitting in Ponyville feeling like a guilty piece of shit for being part of the war disrupting Ponyville's peace and quiet. More than a few residents were watching from a distance despite Shining Armour's insistences' that they head to safety. It was almost a relief when the attack began and she could think about that instead, even if she was only watching, overhearing the cracks of explosives, and the hollow booms of shields from those few Mage Corps unicorns they had to protect themselves with. From their position they could see right through the tunnel, although the far end was little more than a pinprick of light that gave few clues about what was going on out the other side. If Shining Armour was right, their ponies should be pulling back, drawing the Mareitanians into the tunnel, and what would be a bottleneck on the Ponyville end. An advantage for the Equestrians, but the Mareitanians had to push through if they wanted to win the day. The reality would be much different. The light in the tunnel changed colour, filtered by the shields protecting their forces as they pulled back through the tunnel. Then the light was cut in half as something large entered, and Shining cursed under his breath. "What? It's only a tank." "I know, but that's a problem. The Mareitanians are likely planning to use it as cover at this end, and we'll struggle to stop it if it makes it through. We'll have to blow the tunnel sooner than I planned. Oh well, costing them a tank is probably worth it." It suddenly occurred to Rainbow that they were about to collapse the tunnel on what could be hundreds of ponies, then further figured out that she was actually rather indifferent to it, which might have been why it took her that long to figure out. Rather than sitting where she was agonising over it, she didn't really feel one way of the other very strongly. It was just something that had to be done. The last of their ponies ran out of the tunnel, and Shining set his hoof on the detonator as they made their way to their hastily set up defences, waiting for the tank to be most of the way through before triggering the explosives. It was only when the tank was almost to the exit that he pushed his hoof down. Explosion after explosion set off down the tunnel, tearing it apart from the inside. A hastily made shield around their end saved the Equestrians from the plume of flame and rock that erupted out of the tunnel. The Mareitanians weren't so lucky. Massive chunks of rock rained from the ceiling, filling the tunnel completely. You could only hope that the explosions killed them before that, but either way it was a quick demise, unlike that of the tank which was crushed under the weight of the collapsing tunnel. Then it exploded further as the pressure triggered its payload, and Shining Armour's shield couldn't hold it back. Shouts filled the area as the exploding tank sprayed shrapnel in a concentrated blast that tore the nearest defences, and the ponies behind them, to shreds. Those shouts turned to screams as those ponies still living made their agony known. "Shit!" Shining swore. "That wasn't supposed to happen! Uh..." Shining grabbed his hooves in his head, no longer sure what to do. "Rush! Make your attack! Go!" The white and blue pegasus nodded and took off, the large number of Exiles following after her. Rainbow saw them fly over the mountain, then dive down, giving Rainbow enough of a clue to work out they were striking the Mareitanians in the confusion following what had just happened. "The rest of you, help the wounded!" Rainbow ran forwards as the others did, skidding to a halt next to a crystal mare that had been shredded by shrapnel. Her face and chest were covered her blood, and her eyes... her eyes were something Rainbow would never forget. Rainbow tore her helmet off, then stood there not knowing what to do in the slightest as the mare screamed and screamed. All she had was a growing appreciation of the guts that medic pony that fixed her leg had to have to be able to do this while under fire, and felt bad for thinking otherwise. "Move!" Rainbow jumped aside as a medic ran up to the mare, took a quick look at her, then pulled a small package out of his pack. He tore the end off in his teeth to reveal a needle which he jabbed into the mare's flank. Seconds after that the mare relaxed slightly. Rainbow looked up as the Exiles returned from their attack, most of them with bloodied blades, and some of them with injuries of their own. How they fought without armour Rainbow had no idea. She was so intent in watching them that she missed the medic shouting at her until he threw a stone at her. "Hey! You listening?" "Yeah! Sorry, I-uh... yeah." "Good. See that stallion there?" The medic pointed at a large crystal stallion. Blood was pouring from a deep wound on his side. "Put pressure on the wound, and keep it there until I tell you to stop." "Got it." -0-0-0- Rainbow experienced a new thing that day, which was to have ponies die when you were desperately trying to save them. Normally she was purposely trying to end the life of ponies, but to have them die when you wanted them to live? That was something else. It was worse than losing Fire Streak had been, because at least he knew it was coming, and had a chance to say his goodbyes. These ponies just expired in a haze of blood and agony. The stallion had died despite the pressure she'd placed on his injury. The blood had kept coming, if only slightly slower, and from the dozen lesser cuts he'd sustained in the explosion. It had left Rainbow feeling so helpless it hurt as he gave up his fight to live. The Mare had pulled through, even with all the cuts, and the loss of her eyes, and as Rainbow sat cradling her helmet in the quiet aftermath, she couldn't help but wonder if dying was a mercy the mare had been denied. She'd make a full recovery now, thanks to Twilight's invention, but the words 'full recovery' only really covered half the story. Rainbow shuddered, and tears spilled down her cheeks, feeling strangely hot. She hugged her helmet to herself and cried, and personal image be damned, she felt a hell of a lot better for doing it. She only stopped when she felt a hoof touch her shoulder. It was Shining Armour. "Sorry, I didn't want to disturb you particularly, but I'm afraid time is a luxury." "How many did we lose?" "More than we should have, but there's nothing we can do about it now. I've requested a train from Canterlot for the wounded and deceased, so once they're on their way we can start the trek down to Las Pegasus. Chances are we're going to need everypony to hold the Mareitanians back after today. I want you to head on back to Luna and tell her to expect us in two days or less, which will hopefully be before Faust gets there." Rainbow nodded and rubbed her tears away, "Alright. Are the Exiles coming with me, or sticking with you?" "They'll go with you in case Luna needs them." Rainbow nodded and brushed a hoof back through her mane before dropping her helmet back onto her head. "Alright, two days. Piece of cake."

The end of an era

33. Opportunity

Bon Bon didn't know which was worse, the fact that Fleur had failed to get in touch with her, or the dozen scenarios she had invented as to why that was, ranging from Fleur simply misplacing her part of their highly essential method of staying in contact, to the invasion of Canterlot. She knew that the invasion of Equestria had only really just started, so that seemed unlikely, but it was still in her head. If Bon Bon had clear objectives she'd push on with them, but the time was quickly coming for a decision to be made concerning their attack on the Hayfield estate, and the nobles that would be there. Flicker was pushing for it to happen, while Honeydew was pushing against, and the rest of them were relying on Bon Bon to make a decision based on what Fleur said, and Fleur had said nothing. Bon Bon groaned and smacked her hoof down on the speaker stone, frustrated at how things had gone. Their attempts at whittling down the Mareitanian war machine seemed to be having mixed results. Denying the enemy their production ability was in her mind a good way to slow them down, but the Mareitanians had invaded Equestria anyway, and seemed to be doing just fine ignoring the problem. They even seemed to be seeking out other means of arming themselves from smaller entities. Even your average blacksmith could hammer out a sword with a bit of know how and the right incentive. If anything, their efforts were being undermined by increasing recruitment into the Mareitanian army. Ponies seemed more willing to fight Equestria when Equestria was aggressively blowing up their source of employment. It made the whole thing feel kind of pointless, even if those recruits weren't exactly the best equipped. A poorly equipped army can defeat a well equipped one half its size. What they needed was a solid hit on Mareitania, and if Bon Bon was honest with herself, the attack on the nobles at the Hayfield estate didn't really sound like it. Not entirely. Killing Lord Hayfield himself seemed worth it, but not at the cost of killing what was potentially a large number of ponies that didn't need to die other than to fulfil Flicker's almost insane need to have them dead at her hooves. Was getting Lord Hayfield worth that cost? Bon Bon didn't think so, and without any word from Fleur saying one way or the other, she was going to play it safe. Hopefully Flicker would understand, although Bon Bon doubted she would. The mare's need for revenge was shifting to a near psychotic degree as the time approached for Bon Bon to make a decision. Bon Bon stood and brushed herself off, starting the process of walking back to camp. She'd spent quite a bit of time on her own in the woods over the last couple of days they'd spent there, just trying to get her mind back to some middle ground. The week before had been an almost nonstop trip around the country, doing everything they can to stymy Mareitania's production of war materials, so it was nice to have a little peace, even if it was spent fuming at the lack of direction from the pony in charge of her. Their camp was a humble affair, with one tent shared between all six of them, and they'd scrounged all the marcs they could to buy it. Without management by pegasi or Faust, the weather was becoming increasingly stagnant, and it often rained as the aging clouds broke down and forged their own weather. As a result the tent became necessary. It did leave them wondering if the weather was turning wild without pegasi or Faust to maintain it. The griffons hadn't touched it once in the time Bon Bon knew them to be there, so it could be possible. Frankly none of them knew enough on the subject to be sure. "Morning Chief," Rocky said cheerfully as he cooked something over a small fire that managed to be smokeless in the way only Rocky knew how to make them. "Any word?" "Nothing," Bon Bon replied glumly. "I really do think something must have happened back in Equestria." "And if something has? What then?" "I... I don't know. We were never given any contingency plans in the event of Equestria falling, or Equis falling at least. I guess we'd have to go into hiding, because without the war to distract them they'd put a lot more focus into hunting us down. There'd be no point in getting ourselves caught, trying to fight a war that'd already been lost." "Ah." Rocky nodded sagely, "I see you've reached the glum, introspective part of your mental journey.Really, I'm sure it can't be so bad as you're imagining." "Or maybe it's worse. That's just it, we don't know." Bon Bon groaned and grabbed a tin mug, filling it from a pot of coffee that permanently lived on the edge of the fire. She downed half of it, topped her mug up, then sat by the fire, wishing for something so innocuous as a bagel for breakfast. "Where are the others?" "Honey and Creme are still sleeping, and Tootsie and Flicker are off scouting the estate, since the gathering is tonight. I think Flicker's going to explode if you don't make your mind up soon." "Actually I have made my mind up." "And?" "And... we're not doing it. That's a lot of ponies dead for the few that would actually make a difference. Although, if we can, I want to take Lord Hayfield out." "You mean... kill him?" Bon Bon rolled her eyes, "No, I meant dinner and a show. I have no idea what you're thinking of." Rocky ignored the sarcastic reply, "And what if there are other Council members there? Are we going to go for them too? Make it a double date?" "Then yes, although from what we know of the Council, the only other one we can expect to be there is Ivory Spire, and that's a maybe." Bon Bon sipped at her coffee, then shrugged, "Perhaps we should focus on the one pony we definitely know will be there, as I'm pretty sure killing Ivory Spire, and probably Daybreak, wouldn't make us any friends back home." Rocky snorted a laugh, "At the risk of upsetting our pay masters, who cares what they think? These ponies are heavily involved in starting this war, so who gives a fuck if them and a few of ours were friends once?" "Yes they might have had a hoof in starting this war, but should we actually stop Faust, they might be the only ones that can end it." "Perhaps," Rocky admitted with a shrug. "But if that's true, why kill Hayfield?" "Because he speaks for the ponies that run most of the industries. Those same industries we've been dismantling for the last fortnight. Those nobles are probably in a complete panic by now, so imagine what they'll be like if Hayfield gets killed. It might undermine their support for the war if they feel that threatened." "And if it doesn't?" "Then they called our bluff. Good on them." "And if the government takes over those industries?" "Then the government shows its true colours as being willing to do anything to support Faust's war. At the very least some ponies should take notice of that." "Considering the brain washing and stuff, I doubt that's going to have the effect you want." Bon Bon drank more of her coffee, "I know, but we'll have to see. Depending on what Tootsie comes back with, I might call the whole thing off. I'm not putting us into serious danger to do this." "Oh thank goodness." Bon Bon rolled her eyes at the voice in the tent that had probably intended to not be heard. "Good morning Honeydew." "Oh, uh, you heard that?" "We did." "Oh. Sorry." "Don't apologise," Bon Bon sighed. "I know you've been against this whole thing since Flicker brought it up." The flap of the tent was pushed aside, and Honeydew stepped out, looking dishevelled. The roots of her natural yellow hair was showing under the blue dye, and Bon Bon decided that would have to be fixed before Flicker got suspicious. She sat beside the fire and groped about for a mug, filling it with coffee and downing it. "Right, good morning. What I was going to say was that Rocky is right, this won't have the effect you desire, at all. I'm still not convinced this isn't a trap. You'd probably be safer forgetting about it and moving on." "So you have no opinion on us targeting only Lord Hayfield?" "It's an improvement over killing all of them, yes, but still not a good target." "Then what is?" Rocky asked pointedly. "I don't know, just not this! Flicker shouldn't be trusted." "Any more than you?" Rocky said sweetly. "You're both Mareitanians, need I remind you?" "I was never under Faust's control," Honeydew spat angrily. "Who knows how messed up that's left her. What if this whole idea was left in her mind to lure you into a trap? What if she isn't actually free from Faust at all? Or is loyal of her own volition?" "She helped me kill Iron Prize," Bon Bon said with surety, "who was a rather important pony to the war effort, and a friend of one of the Council. I doubt the Council would let him be killed just to have her prove how she's not under Faust's control. Not when he was also one of the founding members behind the rebellion." Honeydew shook her head at Bon Bon in disbelief, "You have no idea how far these ponies would go now." "Maybe, maybe not. I like to think they wouldn't betray one of their own like that." Bon Bon waved her hooves frantically at Honeydew before the mare had a chance to answer back. "Look, I'm going to wait until Tootsie and Flicker get back and I have more to base my plans off. If it's too risky, we'll forget it. But if not, it might be worth it. We'll have to see." -0-0-0- "There's guards," Tootsie said bluntly. "Like lots and lots of guards. I think we've made them nervous. There's actually a few guests not turned up either, so perhaps they're expecting an attack from us. Or they're late." She levelled a hoof, "Y'know, one or the other." "They should be nervous," Flicker said with an edge to her voice. "Those arrogant pricks are going to pay." "Perhaps," Bon Bon said evenly, "but we aren't the ones collecting." "What? What do you mean?" "I mean we're not going ahead with the mission. I've heard nothing back from Fleur, and I'm not giving this the go ahead without her. It's too big a risk for something she might not want to happen." "Fuck what she wants! She's not the one that's been helping you! I have! You owe me!" "And we saved your life, so that debt has already been cleared." Bon Bon narrowed her eyes slightly, "I warned you from the start that we mightn't go through with this, and we're not." "But killing those pricks helps you!" "There are families and children there," Tootsie said quietly, earning herself a glare from Flicker. "I'm not exactly keen on going ahead with this." "Me either," said Creme. "I know you're angry at them Flicker, but killing children isn't going to help us or you. I really suggest you let it go." Flicker stood and stomped a hoof, an angry sneer on her face. "No! No I will not let this go! If you aren't going to help me, then I'll just have to do it on my own!" Bon Bon closed her eyes and sighed, "Rocky?" Rocky nodded once, then swept a hoof out, knocking Flicker to the ground and pinning her down. "Hey! Get off me!" "I'm afraid we can't let you do what you're going to," Bon Bon said to Flicker, doing her best to sound sympathetic, but not feeling it as the more the mare struggled in her insistence to murder a large number of ponies, the less Bon Bon actually cared. "I can't in good conscience let you kill innocents." "There are no innocents there. Those children will grow up to be just like their parents, then create more ponies to grow up in their image!" "Yeah, this is bordering on a creepy obsession now," Tootsie said as she pulled a rope out of her bags and tossed it to Creme, who in a matter of seconds had Flicker securely hogtied. "Permission to gag her as well Chief?" "Eh... denied, for now." "Maybe Faust's magic left its mark more than we realise," Creme said as Flicker struggled to free herself. "That obsession with obeying Faust might have turned itself into an obsession with something else instead, like for example, destroying something she hates." "They deserve every bit of my hate!" Bon Bon shrugged at the theory, paying no attention to Flicker. "Maybe? That's something for somepony else to work out. For we should think about our actual mission. Tootsie, what are the odds on us successfully assassinating Lord Hayfield?" "Hmm, depends on the method really. A direct assassination probably wouldn't work, and trying to get him from range sounds difficult. You'd probably have the most luck with something indirect like poisoning him." "Surely that would require infiltration?" Creme pointed out. "Probably," Tootsie agreed, "but what's easier to infiltrate than a party? Just go as a serving pony and nopony would be any the wiser. All these ponies bringing even more ponies in their retinues, who's keeping track of all of them? Probably nopony." "Do we even have poison?" Rocky asked, feeling it was a pertinent question if this was the plan. "Of course!" Tootsie went back into her bag and pulled out a few small vials. "We have fast acting, slow acting, delayed reaction, untraceable, and our personal favourites, cyanide capsules in case we're captured. You'll have to forgive me for not bringing those up, since there is no way in hell I'm taking one under any circumstances." "Forgiven," said Bon Bon. "I guess we'll have to use the delayed reaction one to allay suspicion in this case. Fast acting would be too obvious, and I doubt anypony fancies watching him die slowly." "Delayed it is," Tootsie said cheerfully, placing the other vials back into her pack, and spinning the remaining one on the tip of a hoof. "That just leaves the question of who the lucky pony to go in will be. Personally I recommend a pony that would be invisible to most of these nobles for all the wrong reasons." Creme's face went slack, "You're talking about me, aren't you?" "Nothing more invisible to these nobles than a unicorn, right Flicker?" "Fuck you." "Exactly. All you need Creme, is a servants' uniform and you're just another supplier of hor-d'oeuvres' to them. Then you just need to pick your opportunity, and boom, we have one dead Council member. Only, y'know, without the boom. Poison doesn't work like that. Chief?" "Sounds good to me," said Bon Bon. "Creme?" "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Sneak in, acquire a uniform or whatever, blend in, and pick my opportunity. Piece of cake." -0-0-0- The guard situation was just as Tootsie had described it; extensive. There didn't seem to be a patch of ground around Hayfield manor that didn't have at least one guard scrutinising it at all times. It was almost enough to make Creme concerned as she scaled the wall at the rear and dropped into the manor grounds. She swept across the grounds, moving from cover to cover while avoiding a pony next to a tree with a serious beetle issue. She rolled into the shade of a log shelter, then jumped atop it, pushing open a window and clambering inside, taking a moment to check for ponies in the room before shutting it again. As she had hoped and predicted, she'd managed to end up in the servants quarters if the shared bedroom she found herself in was any indication. It also wasn't as nice as she expected the guest rooms to be, which was also another clue, but that wasn't to say it was unpleasant by any means. The furniture was of decent quality, and the bed reasonably soft and comfortable, and the wardrobe contained nothing a female servant would wear. "Shit," Creme cursed, under her breath. Not finding anything of use she slipped out of the door and into the traffic of the corridor beyond, earning herself a few raised eyebrows, but no actual interference from the other servants as they hurried about. A strong smell of food made Creme's mouth water, suggesting she was near the kitchens, but she remained focussed on her task. Whether by luck or circumstance, she passed a laundry room just as another mare left it, giving her a good look within. There seemed to be very few ponies within, so she entered and moved through it past the washing area to the drying area, finding piles of freshly ironed clothes. Creme had just started to go through them when a pony behind her pointedly cleared their throat. "And what exactly do you think you're doing?" Creme turned and found herself eye to eye with an aging yellow mare with far too many chins beneath her withering scowl. A rotund body perched on stumpy legs completed the image. "Sorry," Creme said, genuinely concerned about the glare the pony was giving her. "There wasn't enough uniforms to go around, so I was sent here to find one." Creme hoped to hell that was a convincing lie. "I thought I didn't recognise you. You must be one of the extras that Lord Hayfield got in from the town." Creme slid into an easy smile, relieved to have gotten away with it. "That right. I'm Creme." "Mmhmm," the mare grunted, totally disinterested in Creme and her name. "I'm pretty sure I made certain there was plenty of uniforms for the extras when they were hoofed out earlier." "And there was," Creme reassured her, smoothing over her lie from earlier. "Unfortunately there was none left in my size, so I was sent here to see if there were any more." The mare rolled her eyes and violently turned Creme to the side, her eyes roving over Creme's body with practiced ease. She then walked over to a pile and pulled out a uniform. "Here, this should fit you, now put it on and get outta my laundry room." The mare departed, grumbling to herself. Creme quickly pulled the uniform on, her magic playing over the buttons and doing them up in seconds. She smoothed the bit of skirt that went over her tail, and straightened the cuffs on the sleeves, before pulling on the cap, wishing she'd had a chance to clean up her mane a bit. Thankfully it didn't look too bad. "Okay, surprisingly modest maid uniform... check. Now to just figure out the rest of this crazy plan." Creme pulled the vial of poison out of the pouch hidden in her tail, and placed it in one of her breast pockets for easier access, then made her way out of the laundry room. Before she could do anything, she needed to learn her way around. You couldn't exactly ask for directions when running for your life. -0-0-0- Tootsie rested her chin on her hooves, boredly watching the manor from the edge of the woods, next to Bon Bon. Neither of them had seen anything of interest, and couldn't hear screaming, so they could only assume Creme's insertion had worked out. "Do you think one of us should have gone with her?" Tootsie asked after a few minutes. "Too suspicious," Bon Bon replied curtly. "Why, are you worried about her?" "Forgive me if I say this too often, but I have a really bad feeling about this." "This was your plan." "And? That doesn't make it a good one! I'm starting to think we should call this off." Bon Bon shrugged at Tootsie, "Too late now. Creme's already in there, and we can't exactly go get her. All we can do is hope she has everything under control." "Ah, such blind optimism. It's pretty cute on you." Bon Bon smacked Tootsie on the side, then resumed watching the manor, burying a sigh. It was going to be hours until the main event actually started. -0-0-0- It turned out that they layout of the manor was reasonably simple. The ballroom, drawing room, and smoking room was in the east wing, the dining room in the west above the kitchens which were underground for some reason, and that was pretty much all Creme felt she needed to know. All she figured she needed to do now was work out how to get the poison from her pocket to inside Hayfield. Since the evening hadn't started yet, she didn't actually have a way to do that. Instead she intended to spend her time catching up on the gossip that passed between the nobles. What she'd learnt so far was quite pleasing, from a personal point of view anyway. The nobles were terrified of Creme and her team. Not openly, as that would never be said, but they were spoken about in hushed whispers, and were given cute names like 'those devils,' and 'the fiends.' It had put quite the bounce in her step until she forced herself to tone it down. There was also an opinion amongst the nobles that the war wasn't going as well as they were told. Creme figured this was largely down to them bearing the brunt of Equestria's reprisals, or at least what reprisals four ponies, one turncoat, and Flicker, who had really been neither help nor hindrance until now, could dole out. Ultimately this knowledge was pretty useless, but it still warmed Creme's heart to know that they'd got all these prissy nobles in such a twitter. It was just too bad that the underlining theme was that they would happily risk their wealth and more to aid Faust, as the Lady would surely lead them to victory. That alone was enough to make Creme want to spit, but she was content to take what victories she could. "You there, serving girl." Creme jumped as the voice behind her stamped its hooves all over her thoughts, and she spun to face the stallion talking to her. Thankfully she'd already delivered what was on the tray she was carrying to the pony on the balcony, otherwise she'd had made a mess. "Yes m'lord?" "I don't suppose you've seen Lord Hayfield around, have you girl?" "I'm afraid not m'lord. I haven't seen Lord Hayfield all day." "Then perhaps you ought to go and find him. His guests are waiting for him." "Uh..." Creme made a face, as she hadn't made a point of finding out where her target was, assuming she'd find him later. "I'm afraid I don't know where he is m'lord." "He's likely in his office, so go find him." Creme clutched her drinks tray nervously to her chest with her magic, wishing that it was entirely an act. "I'm afraid I'm only temporary staff here m'lord. I don't actually know where that is." "Oh for the Lady's sake. I suppose I shouldn't have expected more from one of your kind. I'll find him myself." The stallion stomper away angrily, and as soon as his back was turned Creme was glaring at the him, motioning with her tray like she intended to frisbee it into the back of his head, at least until a playful titter caught her attention. "Rather unbecoming of a maid, don't you think?" a mare said, smiling playfully at Creme, who had totally forgotten she was there despite having just delivered a drink to her. "Perhaps, but is it unbecoming of one of my kind?" Creme asked back, making the cream coloured mare laugh, her long blue-grey tresses falling over her back in a way that caught Creme's attention, because it highlighted the bulge of a short blade hidden in her dress. "I had a feeling you weren't the usual maid material. I could tell from the way your cutesy little 'yes milord' accent seems to have vanished." "And it wasn't me wanting to throw a tray at the back of his head?" "Wanting to throw at tray Lord Chiseltine is par for the course. You'd only be the first if you'd actually thrown it." "Aww, now I actually feel like I've missed out on a unique opportunity." Creme coughed awkwardly into her hoof, realising that she should probably stop being herself. "Apologies m'lady." The mare snorted with amusement, "And now we're back to you being a demure little mouse again. This'll never do. Tell me, what's your name?" "Creme." "A delightful name. In return you can call me Rose." "Shouldn't that be Lady Rose?" Creme took note of the rose in the mare's mane, but didn't comment on how cliched that seemed. Rose laughed again, "No, I am no Lady. Just Rose will do. Tell me Creme, any particular reason you're working here tonight?" "Just for the extra marcs if I'm honest. I'm told it could be a particularly hard winter this year, and the extra money will help, either to buy food or firewood. Last winter was particularly difficult right after the war ended, and I don't want a repeat of that." "Indeed not. I take it you live in Hayfield's delightful little town?" "Nearby, out in the countryside, where it's quiet and I don't have to worry about pegasi attacks." Creme hoped that a little bigotry might help her fit in a bit more. She thought she'd failed as a hint of disappointment flashed through Rose's eyes, but it quickly vanished. "There haven't been any pegasi around here since the Council sent Equestria's spies back home. There certainly hasn't been any attacks here." Creme shrugged at Rose, "Better safe than sorry." "I think you might be taking that to its extreme, but very well." "Uh, I don't mean to offend, but I am rather busy and do need to get back to work. If there's nothing else you need from me?" "Hmm? No, not right now, but another drink in say... half an hour would be greatly appreciated, thank you." "Same again?" "Please." "As you wish, my lady." Creme turned on her heel and hurried away without trying to look like she was hurrying away. She wasn't sure what had just happened, but she had the faintest suspicion she should be concerned. -0-0-0- Evening rolled around soon enough, and was just the prelude to another round of complaints from Flicker, who had been doing her best to make her displeasure known all day. Some of her complaints were more legitimate than others though. "I need to pee." "Then try not to do it in the tent," Rocky said to her, amused by the angry little snort she directed at him, even if it was through the wall of the tent. "I'm tied up you asshole!" "Is that so? Tell me more..." "If you don't take me to pee I'm going to do my best to get it all over everything!" "Including yourself and Bluebell?" "If I have to!" "I'd rather that not happen," Honeydew said after a short silence. "Alright, fine! Sheesh." Rocky aggressively poked his campfire once more, and stood to poke his head into the tent. Flicker glared up at him, still immobilised by her hogtie, while Honeydew was sketching something in a notepad. "What you drawing?" "A machine for the automated removal of shells from nuts." Rocky twisted his head to get a better look at the blocky device, and saw the scale image of a pony next to it. "Why's it the size of a house?" "I'm... working on streamlining it a bit." Rocky noticed a smaller sketch in the margins of the notebook. "And the thing that looks like it's supposed to hurl large flaming rocks over a mile?" "Old habits die hard," Honeydew sighed. "Hey! Peeing being increasingly imminent here." "Alright y' impatient pain in the flank." Rocky wriggled a hoof under Flicker and hefted her onto his back, trying to hide his grin from the squeaks she made as he jostled her bladder. He left the tent and walked a dozen meters away before plonking her back to the ground. "Try to make it quick." "I can't go while you're watching me," Flicker said flatly. "Turn around, or even better, leave." "Yeah right, I'll just leave you here on your lonesome, because that seems like a really good idea." "I'm tied up." "Yeah, I've been playing this game longer than you, so I suggest you get to peeing before I change my mind." "Can you at least turn around then?" Flicker asked. "Please?" "The more you ask, the more suspicious I get, but fine. If I don't hear peeing in the next ten seconds..." Rocky said, leaving the threat open. He stomped around, and after a few seconds he nodded as he heard Flicker go about her business, and stood there until the sound stopped. He was even faintly surprised to find Flicker still there when he turned back around, although the biggest surprise was when she punched him, the rope around her ankles now on the floor. "Fucking asshole!" Flicker screamed. "First you hit me in Prance, then earlier, and you only had to let me pee!" Rocky swung a hoof at Flicker, but the mare dodged it easy enough, and the next. Apparently attacking Flicker when she was ill and unprepared was nothing like attacking her when she was fit and ready. The smaller mare dodged every one of his strikes with ease, and even returned a few of her own. Rocky was actually glad she didn't have her magic, as that would be a fight he wasn't sure he would win. He could certainly suspect why she was considered Shades material. "Knock it off Flicker! Why are you so determined to kill all these nobles? I know you're pissed at one or two of them for obvious reasons, but all of them?" "They were part of the problem when the Duke ruled, and they're part of the problem now!" Flicker jumped away as Rocky tried to kick her legs out. "They're always going to be part of the problem until somepony stops them!" "I won't deny some nobles deserve a good kicking, and a lesson of what it's like living at the bottom of the pile, but you're going way too far with this! Stop before you get yourself killed!" "You wouldn't understand." "Of course I don't! I wouldn't be trying to stop you if I did!" "Uh, guys? What's going on?" "Stay in the tent Blueb-" Rocky went cross-eyed as Flicker took advantage of the distraction and ducked beneath him, moved to his rear, and did something very unladylike as hard as she could. Rocky collapsed to the ground, his mouth open in a silent scream until he vomited into his own mouth. Flicker wasted no time worrying about him. She ran to the tent and shoved Honeydew to the floor before rummaging through the bags to find a short blade she strapped to her foreleg, and a small crossbow complete with a quiver of arrows. She glared at Honeydew to ensure the mare didn't try to stop her, then ran for the woods. Honeydew waited a moment, then leapt to her hooves and ran to Rocky, whose only movement since Flicker had bucked his somewhere sensitive, was to fall on his side and protectively hold his front legs between his rear. "Are you alright Rocky?" "There should be a law against kicking a stallion here," he hissed between his teeth. "Where's Flicker?" "She grabbed a dagger and crossbow and ran into the woods. Should we go and find her?" Rocky shook his head, "There's no point with a talent in stealth like hers. She'll be heading to the manor, so we should go find Bon Bon and let her know. Perhaps we can stop Flicker before she tries anything then." Rocky shuffled his hooves to try and stand, but stopped as it hurt. "I really think she's cracked my eggs." "Do you want me to go and find Bon Bon?" "No, you're staying here where it's safer." Rocky tried standing again, and rocked onto his hooves, keeping his rear ones apart to lessen the pressure on his tender bits. "She's going to pay for this one." "Are you sure I should stay here? You look like you need help." "I'm sure. Stay here until one of us comes for you." Rocky pointed at the tent until Honeydew took the hint and entered it, then set off into a shuffling waddle that spared his tenders from the discomfort that walking now provided, although things had improved by the time he had reached Bon Bon's position. "Rocky?" Bon Bon said in surprise. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be watching Flicker." "Yeah, about that." "What?" Bon Bon worked it out from Rocky's expression, and dropped her head to rest on her fetlock. "For fuck sake. Did you see where she went?" "She ran off into the woods, but I wasn't exactly in a position to be watching. It's pretty obvious where she'll be going though." "Yeah." Bon Bon raised her head and tapped her hoof irritably. With the amount of guards around the manor grounds, it seemed unlikely that Flicker would get very far, which she was fine with, but if she succeeded... Creme was in there. There was also the chance that what Flicker did could compromise their attempt to assassinate Hayfield their own way. "We need to stop her." "Yeah, no kidding," Rocky grunted. "How though?" "We'll have to wait for now, until she shows up. Tootsie, go keep an eye on Honeydew." "Me? Rocky's the one that fucked up, so why am I on babysitting duty? I also don't have the same... weaknesses as him." "If this goes south, I'm trusting you to get Honeydew to safety and scrub away any signs of us being here. Sensibly I should be throwing Creme under the cart here, and hope she makes it, but I refuse to do that. Either way, go keep an eye on Honeydew." "Ugh, fine." "And Tootsie, if we're not back in three hours, get out of here." Tootsie froze, then nodded. "Understood. Good luck Chief. Good luck Rocky. Bring yourself and Creme back safe." "That's the plan," Bon Bon muttered as Tootsie left. "This whole thing really was a bad idea." -0-0-0- It bothered Creme as to how ponies performed maid duties for a living, and it outright horrified her that ponies ended up with this crap as a destiny, and got stuck with a cutie mark displaying their aptitude for servitude. You might as well change your name to Bottom Bitch with a destiny like that. At least as far as she was concerned. For all the running around she'd done, she was sure she could count the number of times she'd heard the words 'please' and 'thank you' on her hooves, and those few times tended to come from the same ponies. If she'd known that this plan would involve dealing with these ungrateful nobles, she might have told Bon Bon to shove it. So far the evening had dragged her from serving dinner in the dining room, to hoofing out hor-d'oeuvres in the ball room, and moving on to serving drinks in the smoking room, where she could almost feel her lungs burning from the clouds of cigar smoke choking the air. To think that these ponies found this pleasurable. She was also no closer to completing her one task, which was to slip a small measure of poison into something Hayfield was going to consume. He'd spent all evening in the company of a group of ponies, and before Creme could ever get a chance to get close, some other servant was always there first, denying her any opportunities. "Girl? Another brandy if you would?" "Of course m'lord," Creme said politely through clenched teeth, turning away before any of the stallions' companions could make a request. Chances were they'd all ask for the same thing anyway, but that was besides the point. "Yet another brandy," she said wearily to the bar pony in the back corner of the room once she'd trudged the full ten meters over to it, irritated that none of these assholes could be bothered to make the journey themselves. "Coming right up," the bar pony replied. Creme thought that either the mare was a better actor than herself, or was genuinely happy to serve the same drink for hours to ponies that would probably laugh if she died right then. It irked Creme that a year or so earlier, this house was then centrepiece of a plot to get these very ponies to side with the rebellion. It seemed to be a far cry from what she could see of the place now. She'd romantically imagined Hayfield as a genuinely noble noble, but his ability to indulge himself and his cohorts had tarnished that image considerably. The fight for freedom must have seemed worth it so long as they could maintain their supply of cigars and brandy. "It's ready." "Hmm?" Creme rose out of her thoughts to find the bar pony giving her a funny look over the glass of brandy sitting on Creme's tray. "Oh, thank you." "Are you alright? You seem a bit put out. None of these ponies have tried anything with you, have they?" "Uh, no actually. Does that happen a lot?" The bar pony's gaze turned dark for a moment, "Eh... more than it used to. Ever since the Viscount and his parties ended, the debauchery that everypony knew went on at those tends to spill out in other places, even if it's not as obvious. Did you know that it's also considered bad manners to refuse these ponies?" Creme raised an eyebrow at the mare, "I'm guessing the ponies that say that happen to be the same ponies that benefits?" "Perhaps. All I'm saying is that you should take care before you end up in trouble... like some unfortunate mares. Anyway, I'm sure the gentlepony would like his drink now." "Right." Creme took the tray and tried to put what she'd heard out of her mind. The last thing she needed was to feel like she had dozens of eyes roving over her. Hopefully they'd get as far as her horn and stop. "Your drink sir." Creme placed the glass down and swept the empty up in one smooth movement, moving on before the other stallions could get a word of an order out. As she walked away she thought about what the bar pony had said about the nobles supposed behaviour, and why she hadn't seen any of that so far. She suspected that might be down to the one other mare in the room that wasn't a servant. Rose. Draped along a chaise longue in the company of Hayfield and his cohorts was Rose, relaxing, drinking, and shifting between raucous laughter and seductive poses. She seemed utterly at ease in her exclusively male company, and it had Creme wondering about the mare. She supposed the bar pony might know more, and maintained a deaf ear to any requests of her as she made her way back to the bar. "Let me guess," the mare said with a tired smile, "brandy?" "Actually no, although I would love a martini myself. I was really wondering what you knew about the mare over there? The one with Lord Hayfield?" The mare looked over the crowd at Rose, and shrugged. "Honestly not much. She's probably the only pony here I don't know much about. Her name's Rose, although I question how real that name is, and she's supposedly related to one of the noble houses through some means, but that's it. I do know she's the reason a large number of these 'fine' stallions are watching their tongues." "Huh. I thought there'd be more than that." "Why are you so interested?" Creme turned back to the bar mare before she was caught staring, finding the earth pony was giving her a funny look instead. "I don't know really. There's just something about her. Some kind of presence." "And it has nothing to do with the way she looks? Or because she's the only mare in here that isn't a servant?" "Eh, as beautiful as she might be my barn doors don't swing that way. Mostly I'm just curious." And curiosity was all it was, as Hayfield was really the only pony she should be interested in. Speaking of. "I think Lord Hayfield's drink is dry. Is there anything in particular he drinks?" "It's called having cigars and brandy for a reason." The bar mare whipped a brandy glass out and poured a generous glug of the amber drink into it. "There you go, don't keep him waiting." Creme placed the glass on her tray and departed the bar, taking a slightly circuitous route that she hoped would obscure her actions as she removed the vial of poison from her pocket and poured it into the brandy, swirling it around to mix it in. She replaced the vial into her pocket and corrected her route to head directly for Hayfield, picking up his empty glass and replacing it with her poisoned one. She turned away, not waiting to see if he drank any, but stopped when a quiet tink of glass caught her attention, even over the sound of the room. "That's her." Creme turned back towards Hayfield, and found Rose looking her directly in the eyes, her outstretched hoof resting on top of the glass. "That's your assassin." Creme tried to hide her surprise, but the faint curling of Rose's lip into a smile informed her she hadn't done very well. "I don't know what you mean Miss Rose, I'm not an assassin." "You're certainly not a maid either." Rose waved her free hoof, and a few of the other ponies serving in the room walked over, including the bar pony much to Creme chagrin. "But I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to make sure either way." Rose removed her hoof from the glass and gestured at Creme, "Drink up." Creme picked the glass up in her magic and looked into it. She had no idea how quick the poison worked, or if Tootsie had an antidote if she did drink it. Either way she'd failed her mission as the poison would be drank by the wrong pony. The thought of killing herself didn't exactly appeal either. She sighed and poured the drink onto the floor, dropping the glass and sitting to place her hooves behind her head. "Fine, you got me."

The end of an era

34. Black

Bon Bon stopped by the body of a deceased guard, an arrow sticking out of his side. If this wasn't proof that Flicker had come this way, she didn't know what was. Apparently the mare had been busy in the few minutes that had passed since they'd spotted her running for the manor. "How the hell are we supposed to know where she's gone?" Rocky whispered urgently. "A dark coloured pony with a talent for stealth in the dark? Give me a break!" "We'll find her," Bon Bon stated. "We have to, because if she gets caught she could compromise us. Never mind the fact that we don't exactly want her to do what she's planning on doing." "Definitely a few too many bats in her belfry. Especially if she's doing sloppy work like this. We should have brought Tootsie with us." "She needs to watch Honeydew. I'm also not convinced she could taker Flicker in a fight, and I don't want her getting killed over this." "But we're expendable?" "We all are," Bon Bon grunted, acknowledging that they could all die, and Equestria would deny their existence. Even if they didn't die they'd still be left hung out to dry. "Doesn't mean I'm okay with it though." "In that case we better get on and find Flicker before she wrecks Creme's mission, or gets her killed." Rocky was about to stand up when a thud from up ahead alerted them to a guard falling off a roof. "Y'know, for her lack of magic, she's handling that crossbow pretty well. I hate to think how good she is with magic." "That wouldn't change anything about what we need to do." Bon Bon stood and crept forwards out of the gap between a bush and a shed, sticking to the shadows as best she could as they followed the sounds of Flicker being lethal. The manor lay across the gardens to their left, the bright lights of which illuminated patches on the ground that would give them away pretty quick if they stood in them. It did give them a view inside the manor though, and it was through one of the windows that Bon Bon was able to catch sight of Creme being escorted somewhere by a group of well armed ponies. "Shit, that's not good." "I dare say that's worse than not good," said Rocky. "What now?" "We split up." Bon Bon adjusted the strap on her ankle blade, making sure it was firm before testing the blade. "There's no way we're leaving Creme in there. I'll get Creme, you keep going after Flicker." "After last time? I'm not sure that's such a good idea. I don't have my suit either, with it's wonderful pieces of armour in certain places." "Which is exactly why I'm going after Creme. Get moving Rocky." "Ugh, yes ma'am." Bon Bon waited until Rocky had moved on before moving herself, and took a moment to appreciate the irony that Flicker killing some of the guards was helping them. It certainly made it easier to sneak over to the side of the building without getting spotted, and find a window to climb in through. Bon Bon raised her head to see in through the window, finding it to be an unoccupied bedroom with two beds in it. Judging by the smell of food emanating from nearby, she could only assume it was part of the servants quarters, and happened to be near the kitchens. That could be a problem as it was likely to be busy around there, which ironically meant her tactical suit was less advantageous as she though, as it made her stick right out. Bon Bon briefly considered finding a window further along, but decided not to as this one at least put her along the same direction that she saw Creme being taken. Pushing the window up, she clambered in and quietly closed it behind her. She knew the room was empty, but drawing attention to herself so soon would only create trouble, and that's the last thing she wanted. Bon Bon felt her frustration boil over for a moment, irritated that it had come to this, rescuing a teammate from a botched mission. "I should never have agreed to any of this. I should've left Flicker to her own fucking devices. Idiot." She hoped Rocky could get Flicker alive, just so she could make her displeasure known by giving the mare a swift kick in the kidneys. The hallway outside the room was empty, although there was plenty of commotion coming from her left, leading her to suspect that was where the kitchens were situated, or was where the washing up was done, as events such as the one currently happening at the manor tended to accumulate mountains of dirty dishes. Thankfully Bon Bon was going the other way, and slipped out into the corridor unnoticed by anypony, which was lucky for them as there was only one reason Bon Bon checked her weapon was functioning properly. Even so, she kept her eyes and ears open, and stayed ready to slip into the nearest room if she had to. Very few of the doors had locks, which helped considerably. Nothing happened though. Nopony came out of the rooms, nopony saw her, and nopony heard her as she slipped through the lower depths of the manor like a ghost. This served to make her more suspicious than relieved. There should have been ponies around, and there should have been guards. Either she was lucky beyond measure, or this was in fact a trap. Bon Bon would sooner expect the latter, than even consider the former. That left her with two poor options. Either she had to leave to avoid springing the trap, or fall into it and hope she could get back out of it along with Creme. Neither option thrilled her. Still, she'd come to save Creme, and that was what she intended to do. Somehow. At the end of the corridor was a stairs leading downwards into what Bon Bon could only assume was the cellars. Perfect trap territory as there tended to be few exits. Too bad they were trapping her down there with them, as she would fight her way out if she had to. Bon Bon stopped at the bottom of the stairs before it turned left into a large open area. She peeked around the corner, trying to assess the situation before charging in. There were a lot of doors leading off the central area, but again there was no guards to see, although there was plenty to hear as smacking sounds and a pained grunting came from one of the rooms on the right. Bon Bon's blood boiled as the sounds continued. Wasn't it enough that they'd caught Creme? Did they really need to beat her as well? They weren't even asking her questions. Throwing caution to the wind, Bon Bon ran over to where she thought the sounds were coming from, stopping at a few doors to listen in before moving to the next. She stopped at a door where the sounds were loudest, and she could tell they were coming from within. There were probably only a couple of ponies inside by the sounds of it, so she thought she'd be better off attacking head on, rather than trying to be clever. Not that there were many ways to be clever about it. Placing her hoof on the latch, Bon Bon took a breath to prepare herself, then pushed the door open, running into the room after it. She was surprised as a pony stood to the right of the door kicked her legs out as she ran in, and before she could recover a pony pinned her down, then another. She tried to lift her leg to extend her blade, but a hoof stamped down on it, making her squeak in pain. Bon Bon followed the leg up to its owner, finding a cream coloured earth pony mare with long blue-grey mane smiling down at her. Behind her was Creme, gagged with her forehooves shackled around the wooden support of a large wine rack. She was completely uninjured. "Hello there," the pony standing on her weapon said in a darkly seductive tone. "I see you have fallen into our little trap." Rose followed Bon Bon's gaze to Creme, and giggled. "No we weren't actually hurting her. Didn't need to." She gestured to two ponies, and mare and a stallion. The stallion punched a sack of grain, and the mare grinned as she faked a grunt of pain. "Shit." Bon Bon dropped her nose to the ground, purposely pretending that she hadn't seen the eye roll Creme had given her. "Indeed." Rose reached into her dress and pulled out a knife, using its tip to unlock the clasps on Bon Bon's weapon to remove it and pass it to one of the other ponies in the room. "I don't know how you've managed to elude us for so long if this evening is the best you could manage. I almost feel embarrassed. I will be if we don't find the rest of your merry troupe." "Who are you?" "My name is Rose," the mare replied politely. "Uh-huh, and how did you know we'd be here?" Bon Bon asked, hoping to keep the mare talking while she tried to think of a way out of their predicament. "Like you wouldn't take interest in this large event where quite the number of influential ponies, including Councillor Hayfield, would be. Judging by the way dear little Creme here tried to poison Lord Hayfield, I think it's obvious what your intentions were." "You told her your name?" Bon Bon said to Creme, the mare shrugging sheepishly in return. "For crying out loud..." Rose smiled confidently at Bon Bon, "That's not all you'll be telling us in time. First though we need to track down whoever else might be lurking around here." "There's nopony else here." "No? While we might have been a little slow to catch on to your use of trains to travel around, once we did it wasn't hard to learn that there's five, maybe six of you. Yourselves, two blue mares, a big red stallion, and maybe one other. The simple fact is that we know there's more than two of you, so don't try and pull that kind of poorly thought out misdirection with me." "I didn't say they don't exist. I'm saying that they aren't here." "Evidently." Rose gestured at the ponies pinning Bon Bon down, and stepped aside as they dragged the mostly helpless mare to an upright opposite Creme, chaining her forehooves around it in much the same way. As that was happening Rose pulled the gag out of Creme's mouth, allowing her to work the stiffness out of her jaw. "Sorry," Creme said after a moment. "Yeah, me too," Bon Bon said back as Rose left the wine cellar along with most of the other ponies, save two that were left to keep an eye on the captives. "I don't suppose that maybe we were a bit cocky coming here?" Creme looked up and down the large piece of wood she was chained to and shook her head, "Nah. We might have underestimated these ponies though. Totally different thing." -0-0-0- Rocky sighed bitterly as he tried to follow after Flicker, not even sure what the mare was trying to achieve as all she'd done so far was kill some poor bastards guarding a party for what was probably a low wage. All because of some convoluted idea that she couldn't get out of her head. He wasn't going to say it to Bon Bon, but he'd thought from the start that bringing Flicker along was a bad idea. Too bad it had taken until now for her to agree with him. They should have left her in Prance after patching her up, because he wasn't totally heartless, to save them from the kind of situation they found themselves in now. At the very least it was confirmed that Flicker wasn't setting up a trap for them. She didn't need to as Creme had gotten caught anyway. He was also getting frustrated that he hadn't seen head nor tail of Flicker. She could've been dancing circles around him for all he knew, and he'd be none the wiser. There was plenty of evidence of where she'd been, mostly because of the bodies, but that was only going to get her caught, which was why he'd started on the habit of hiding them when he could. Such as the poor bugger he was dragging under a bush right now. "Rest well ya poor bastard," Rocky said to the departed stallion, shoving him under the bush before moving on, keeping low to the shadows. At the end of the row of bushes he stopped, finally catching sight of his prey as she sat outside a pair of double doors, her head grasped in her hooves as she rocked back and forth. Rocky raised an eyebrow at Flicker as she brazenly sat in the open, a faint murmuring escaping her lips. He glanced about quickly, seeing nopony around, and crept over to Flicker, being careful not to spook her and her itchy trigger hoof. "I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it!" "Can't do what?" Rocky asked. He held his hooves up as the crossbow swung round to point at him. "What can't you do Flicker?" "This! Any of this! Trapping everypony inside and burning the place down? That's impossible! I-I don't... I don't know why I thought I could do this. I..." Flicker dropped the crossbow and resumed holding her head in her hooves, "My head hurts, like it's full of bees buzzing around." "Hey, it's alright, we all make mistakes." Rocky gently picked the crossbow up and removed the arrow, then slung it over his back. "Come on Flicker, you're in full view here. Let's go somewhere quiet for a little chat." Flicker nodded vaguely, letting Rocky pull her onto her hooves and lead her away. "I'm sorry I attacked you before. I don't know what came over me. I just felt like I had to do this, but now I'm here I... I feel kinda lost. I sound like such a stupid little filly." "Look, a couple of weeks ago you were feverish, and might've been suffering some effects from having your horn banged up and infected. It's been known to affect unicorns in funny ways when that happens. You were also cut off from some strong magic controlling you, so delusions of wanting to kill all the nobles might just be part of that." Flicker hit Rocky on the side, "This isn't a delusion! I want nothing more than to kill every one of those bastards. It's just that now I'm here I have no idea how. Maybe if you were helping me I could, but you all refused!" Rocky gestured with his hooves to lower the volume. "Hush up will ya? There are ponies around. And frankly, a refusal to kill innocent ponies and children isn't exactly a hard choice." "Apples don't fall far from the tree," Flicker said darkly, but didn't resist as Rocky led her on. "I get the feeling Bon Bon's not going to let me stay with you guys after this." "We'll see. Frankly we have bigger problems. Creme got caught, and Bon Bon's trying to rescue her as we speak." "What? And you still came after me? You should be helping her!" Rocky ground his teeth as Flicker's voice rose again, "And I would be, except she ordered me to find you and stop you from making a mistake like killing Creme in whatever plan you concocted." Flicker pulled her hoof free from Rocky's, "That doesn't matter now. We need to help Bon Bon save Creme." Flicker held Rocky's cheeks in her hooves as he looked like he was about to refuse, "Come on Rocky, those are your friends in there." Rocky eyed Flicker suspiciously, wary of the sudden change to her demeanour. Not a minute earlier she was having a minor breakdown, only to be fully aware and insisting on saving the others. "My orders were to get you somewhere safe." "Forget orders! Those orders don't mean anything if Bon Bon gets caught as well. We save Creme together, get out of here, I apologise for getting you into this mess, and we all live happily ever after." "Happy ever after? Are you kidding me? They probably know who Creme is now. After this we have to lay low, or even seriously think about getting out of the country. Until we're safe back in Equestria we don't get a happily ever after." "Does that include me?" Flicker asked nervously, her eyes dropping to the ground. It finally struck Rocky that for all the bravado and proficiency at killing, Flicker was really not much more than a child, and a vulnerable one at that, even if she was a bit crazy. As a Shade she should've known that orders came first. "Yes, and you, since I'm guessing you have no real desire to stay in Mareitania now?" "Not really. I don't know what I want." "The same as the rest of us I imagine, an end to this war." Rocky shrugged, "That's not easy though, and it starts with ponies following orders." Flicker cringed at Rocky's words, but nodded in agreement. "Alright then, come on." Rocky led the way again, drifting from cover to cover as they made their way to their exit, a small door in the wall around the manor that opened out into the fields, and beyond that the woods where their camp was. There was a lean-to next to it, used to store various bits and bobs, and lurking in the shadow of it was a pony. Their exit was being watched. Rocky cursed under his breath as his concern for Creme and Bon Bon grew. If this pony was here right next to their exit, who knew how closely they were actually being observed? Had this really turned out to be a trap, sprung without the help of Flicker? Rocky jumped as a hoof poked his side, then wiggled the crossbow on his back. Fully understanding Flicker's intent Rocky shook his head. He looked around for a moment, and to his lack of surprise there was a pony across from the gate, hiding in a pool of darkness between two windows, and another on the roof. The exit was being heavily watched. They'd have to find another way out. They doubled back, aiming to take the long way back around the house and leaving through the front of the gardens. It carried a high risk of being spotted, but none so high as two ponies stood next to and opposite their preferred way out. They had barely made it halfway around when they saw that there were ponies coming the other way, a line of them that stretched across the gardens. Thankfully Rocky didn't have to tell Flicker how to hide as the mare was better at it than he was. It didn't seem to make any difference though, as the line stopped and prepared their weapons to fire. "We know you're there," a stallion said. "Come out and sit down with your hooves behind your heads." Rocky did nothing, clinging onto the slim hope that the stallion was bluffing. "Fire a warning shot." Rocky squeezed himself tighter to the ground as one of the ponies fired their crossbow, a little too low to be a warning shot, but not low enough to hit either of them so long as they ducked. "I won't ask again." Flicker grabbed at Rocky as he stood, "What are you doing?" "They have us Flicker, there's no point fighting it." Rocky walked out of their cover, theatrically dropping his crossbow before sitting and placing his hooves behind his head. A few moments later Flicker joined him. "Good choice." The stallion gestured to his subordinates who gathered around the two ponies, "Take them to the others. The rest of you, keep searching for the remainder of their group." -0-0-0- "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with... C." "If it's cellar I'm going to have to kick you." Creme smiled smugly at Bon Bon, "You say that, but you can't actually reach me." "I never said I was going to do it now." Bon Bon rolled her neck and set about finding what Creme was thinking of. "Chains?" "Nope." "Uh, ceiling?" "Not even close." "Ummm..." "Will you two shut up?" Bon Bon smiled up at the mare that had spoken. "Is that a question or a request? You should at least try to sound like you're in charge when you're guarding somepony." The mare's horn lit up, grabbing Bon Bon's ear and pulling her head down to the ground as her male counterpart grinned at her. "Does this make it clear that I'm in charge?" "Oh yes, nopony would ever question your ability to intimidate ponies that are tied up ever again," Bon Bon gushed falsely, not sounding the slightest bit intimidated, even if what the mare was doing to her was quite uncomfortable, if not actually painful. "You're being a bit too smart mouthed for captives," the stallion said, an earth pony that could easily be mistaken for a mare even in a good light. "I suggest you start showing us some respect." "You say that," Creme purred seductively, "but I'm questioning whether you realise who's trapped in here with who?" "Uh, you are, with us." Creme nodded thoughtfully, "I can see why you might think that." Creme didn't flinch as the stallion stomped over and pulled her up by the collar of the maid uniform she was still wearing, until they were muzzle to muzzle. "I don't know what you're trying here, but were in charge here. Not you. Us." Creme kissed him on the nose, making the stallion drop her in surprise as Bon Bon laughed. Even the unicorn guarding them had to suppress a snigger. "Keep telling yourself that big boy." The laughter stopped when the stallion backhoofed Creme across the face. "You won't be finding this so funny when we cart you off to High Rock for questioning. I'll be sure to visit you as often as I can to remind what's left of your broken husk that I'm in charge." Creme wrinkled her nose and rubbed it gingerly with a hoof, "Looking forward to it." She then turned to Bon Bon and shrugged, "Seems we're going to High Rock. Guess that means they aren't just going to kill us." Bon Bon shrugged back, "I don't think I'll be starting any long books though, just in case." "Oh that is it!" The stallion pulled back a hoof and swung at Bon Bon, only just missing her as the door to the cellar slammed open, rattling the wine bottles in their shelves. More ponies entered, leading Rocky and Flicker in at crossbow point. "Were you about to hit that prisoner?" One of the stallions asked, eyeing the stallion next to Bon Bon suspiciously. "No sir." "I thought not. Just to make sure you don't, you can go find Mistress Rose and tell her we've apprehended more of their party." "Yes sir!" "Found her then?" Bon Bon said to Rocky as the pony that was going to hit her scurried away. The fact that Flicker was a prisoner along with Rocky mostly put an end to her thoughts that this trap was set up by her. "Yeah. Wish I was the only one doing the finding though." Rocky gestured with his head at the ponies behind him, "They were a bit more on the ball tonight." "I'm really sorry," Flicker said softly. "This is all my fault." "Sort of," Bon Bon agreed. "But not all of it since it's pretty clear this wasn't a trap made by you." Flicker grunted as she was pushed over to the wall and her hooves shackled like Bon Bon's through a rusted loop set in the bricks. On the opposite side of the room the same thing was happening to Rocky. "I was so stupid to think any of this would work. I don't know why I ever thought it would." "Because you were always prone to flights of fancy," a strongly feminine voice said from the doorway as Rose entered the room. "Still, this is a pleasant surprise Flicker. We'd lost track of you after you entered Prance, although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you ended up in the company of these ponies." Flicker shrank at the sight of Rose, "Aww... shit, this explains so much." "Explains what?" Bon Bon asked, having no idea what Flicker was talking about. "Don't you know who this pony is?" "I know she's called Rose, but that's it." Flicker's face went flat. "Her name is Black Rose, and she's the head of the Shades. How could you possibly not know that?" "Because we went to efforts to not let them know that," Rose told Flicker. "As far as they know the Shades are still led by Head Shade Mouser, who was appointed by Fleur de Lis herself. If you had been more attentive to your job you might have been allowed to know these things." Flicker fumed at the insult, "I was perfectly attentive!" "Out in the field, sure. You were actually one of our more capable field agents, but you're weren't cut out for the rest of it. None of us were surprised when you turned traitor." "You mean when I started seeing the truth? That Faust is controlling all of us with magic to fight this stupid war against the ponies that helped us?" Rose slapped Flicker across the muzzle, performing the action like it was nothing more thoughtful than brushing some crumbs off her coat. "That's Lady Faust to you, Flicker. And if she wishes to remove the false rulers of Equestria, who are we to stop her?" Flicker looked at Rose with disgust, "You're so wrapped up in her shit you can't even see how wrong it is." "Mm-hmm, and I look forward to seeing your treacherous face swinging from the gallows." Rose smiled nastily as Flicker closed her eyes and cowered at the mention of hanging, "As for the rest of you, a pleasant trip to High Rock for questioning is in order before you join the traitor here. We'll be leaving in the morning, once we find your other companions, so I suggest making the most of your time." Bon Bon stared defiantly up at Rose, "There are few times I relish the thought of killing, but I think I can make an exception for you." Rose gasped into a hoof, "Oh my, such bravado. Too bad it'll do you no good. I will see you all in the morning. Sleep well." Rose swept out of the cellar, leaving the four ponies in the darkness as the door slammed shut. "This is a damn fine mess," Rock grumbled, heaving on his shackles. He gave up, quickly working out there was no chance of breaking them. "I'm guessing you have a plan Chief?" "What? Of course I don't. You actually bought that?" "Who am I to question you?" "Well, you should," Bon Bon sighed. "I got us into this mess, and I have no idea how to get us out of it." "Pretty sure I got you into this mess," Flicker said apologetically. "Guess I'm getting what I deserve for it soon enough." "Nopony deserves to hang," Creme told Flicker, offering the mare a smile that went unseen in the darkness. "I guess all we can do is hope Tootsie comes up with something." "Not likely," said Bon Bon. "I told her to leave with Honeydew if we weren't back in three hours. Hopefully the ponies searching for her will encourage her to go sooner." "So we have nothing then?" "Nope." "...Shit." "Yep." "Who's this Black Rose?" Rocky asked Flicker as an awkward silence threatened to fill the cellar. "How come we've never heard of her?" "She got the position not long after Faust came about, although how they kept it from you is anyponies guess. She's related to one of the noble houses in some way, but I really can't tell you more than that." Bon Bon sat up, her interest peaked, "And what happened to Mouser to let her get the position?" "He quit. Couldn't handle being the Head of the Shades, and there Rose was ready and willing to take over." Flicker went to tap her chin thoughtfully, but failed as she forgot her legs were attached to the wall. "Now I think about it though, it seems a bit suspicious. I suspect some kind of blackmail might have been involved, or something." "Oh good," Creme said airily, "a mystery mare. Can't wait to find out what the story behind this is." Bon Bon shrugged, "Who cares? As long as she dies like the others I don't care where she's from, or what her story is." Rocky chuckled at Bon Bon and rattled his shackles, "Counting your eggs before they hatch are you?" "You bet I am. I've got absolutely nothing else to go on here." "One question?" Flicker said a moment after Bon Bon's declaration. "Did you just say Honeydew a minute ago?" "Ah... fuck." -0-0-0- It was a long and uncomfortable night. Their means of going to the bathroom was a single bucket thrown at Bon Bon after a few hours. She'd been unable to pass it to the others, and hadn't been able to unzip her suit to use it anyway. Suffice to say she was not very happy by the time they were rounded up for transport to High Rock. "Good morning darlings," Rose said cheerfully as she waltzed into the cellar, devoid of her dress, but still wearing a black choker and her dagger. She stopped and wrinkled her nose at the smell, and showed her first twitch of annoyance as she shouted back out of the door. "I gave you strict instructions to care for the prisoners properly! Did you not think about whose cellar this is?" Rocky raised an eyebrow at Rose as she turned back to them, all smiles again. "So sleep deprivation counts as proper care does it?" "Of course not, but it does tend to make ponies a bit more malleable. The former rulers of this country used to rely on torture to get what information they want out of ponies, but we like to think we're not so crass any more." "Uh-huh, and yet your minions couldn't even be relied on to give us a pot to piss in." Rose dismissed his query with a wave of a hoof, "That's more out of respect for our host's property than anything else. I'll be sure to have those responsible for letting this happen give the place a thorough cleaning before they go." "I can tell High Rock's going to be fun already," Rocky muttered darkly. "Whatever enjoyment you get out of it is between you and yourself," Rose informed him before stepping aside to let other ponies into the room, bearing ropes and sacks that were thrust over the four ponies heads to keep them disorientated as they were hauled up out of the cellar and outside. They were roughly thrown into a cart where they were re-shackled to loops in the floor, forcing them into a sitting position, the bags left over their heads so they couldn't work out what was happening, not that it took much imagination to figure it out. Bon Bon wouldn't admit it, but she was worried, besides the obvious reason for being so. Director Mouser was a known figure, and could be reliably counted on to follow the habits the Shades were instilled with from their inception. Rose changed that. She was an unknown quantity, and at this point Bon Bon couldn't tell if her demeanour was an act to hide the intelligent pony beneath, or was actually who she was, and she'd gotten the position as Head of the Shades by other means. Either way it made her unpredictable. "Tootsie isn't here," Creme said quietly after a minute when she was reasonably sure nopony was listening. "Only four of us got in." "Unless they have a separate cart," said Rocky. "Seems unlikely," Bon Bon argued. "Apart from being a waste of effort, knowing Tootsie and Ho- Bluebelle got captured would hurt us, and they'd take great joy in letting us know. What do you think Flicker?" "Hmm? Oh, uh, yeah, you're probably right. I'm just wondering why they has this cart here to transport us when they didn't really know we'd be here." "Clearly they were super prepared," said Creme. "Too prepared even. Or we were sold out." "Not by me if that's what you're thinking," Flicker blurted quickly. "I wouldn't exactly do this to myself." "And I doubt Bluebelle would do something like this," Bon Bon surmised, shrugging helplessly even though she knew none of them could see it. "I don't know. Maybe they have genuinely outsmarted us." The cart lurched as they set off, the bags over their heads making the sensation oddly pronounced in the absence of sight. Nothing was said. There was nothing to say. They all knew that for all their joking and false confidence they were well up shit creek without a paddle. -0-0-0- It was over an hour until they stopped, but by Bon Bon's reckoning it was hours too early until they should be stopping. Even without her vision being obscured she doubted she could see what was going on, but thankfully she could still hear. "What are you doing griffon?" the voice that distinctly belonged to Black Rose asked. "All your kind should be fighting in Equestria." "I'm on my own mission," a different voice said, possessing that certain resonance that only a creature with a beak could create. "What's in the box?" "It is no concern of yours griffon!" The cart rocked as somepony stood quickly. "Remove yourself before we do it for you!" "Mmm... nah. I want what's in that box." "Are you deranged? Be gone, or we will attack." "Now you're speaking my language!" the griffon said happily. "Six against two sounds like good odds." "Two? What do you mean two?" There was a scream from behind the cart, although what caused it was a mystery to the cart's unwilling occupants. They didn't have much time to ponder on it as the cart rocked hard, the griffon leaping onto it and roaring. A moment later something dripped onto the floor in front of Bon Bon. Even through the bag she could tell it was blood. The cart rocked again as the griffon jumped back off it, a pained scream following the action. "Run!" Rose shouted, meaning that at least more ponies than herself had survived the ambush. "Yeah you better run!" the griffon shouted after what fleeing ponies there were. "What the fuck just happened?" Rocky asked as things went quiet. "Did we just get saved by a griffon?" "You better believe it," came his answer from outside. There was a crack from the rear of the cart as the lock was torn out of the wood, and the cart moved as the griffon climbed inside. "Seriously, you might as well call this meals on wheels." "You better be kidding," Bon Bon snorted, her worry suddenly increasing tenfold. Her ears twitched at the bag was lifted from her head, and she found herself looking up into the green eyes of a griffon hen. "Of course I'm kidding," she said, pulling the bags off the other's heads. "Although temptation is a very real thing," she added, making it sound obvious that she was joking. "Agent Sonny, nice to meet you." "You're with Equis?" "That's right. Uhh... I suppose it's a bit much to hope they left the keys. Hey Tootsie, you got anything to pick these locks with?" "Yeah, hold on." "Tootsie's with you?" Creme asked, relieved that their fellow agent had escaped being apprehended. She looked back at the exit to see Tootsie grinning at her as she patted the pockets of her suit. "Not that I usually aren't, but I'm really glad to see you." "You didn't really think I was going to leave you here did you?" "Those were your orders," Bon Bon reminded the blue mare, but she quickly softened into a smile. "Guess orders are overrated anyway." "Actually I was all set to go." Tootsie found what she was looking for in her pockets and tossed it to Sonny. "You hadn't come back, and I figured you were either captured or dead, so I was going to leave as you ordered when Sonny found us. I figured having her to help would change things a bit, so we came out here to ambush the most likely looking cart." "And where's Honeydew?" Bon Bon smiled sheepishly as Tootsie's eyes flicked to Flicker. "Yeah, I fucked up a bit." "Uh-huh... Honeydew's in the woods. Anyway, less chatting more moving. I don't want to be here when more ponies turn up." Bon Bon felt her ankles come free, and thanked Sonny. She stumbled exiting the cart, her legs not feeling particularly alive after the night they'd had. Tootsie caught her as she started to fall, then scrunched her nose up as she caught the various odours coming off Bon Bon. "Rough night?" "You have no idea. Which way did those ponies go?" "The opposite way to where Honeydew is thankfully." "Good. Too bad you didn't get all of them. Especially that mare with the long hair." "Why?" "According to Flicker she's the leader of the Shades. Head Mouser quit months ago, but we never found out." "Why would the Head be out on a field operation?" Tootsie asked, her expression changing from surprise to confusion in the space of a second. "Does she usually do that?" "No idea. Maybe she's here because she was invited to the party?" Bon Bon shrugged and made a face, indicating how little she cared about the nuances of Rose's presence. "The point is that she knows what we look like now, so we are super screwed." "It gets worse than that," Tootsie said sullenly. "I'll give you the full story when we're safe, but there's a good reason we haven't heard off Fleur for so long." "She's not dead is she?" "No, but a large amount of the rest of Equis is. There was a bo-" Bon Bon blinked as blood sprayed out of Tootsie's mouth, an arrow hitting her in the neck so suddenly that it took both of them a moment to register what had even happened. Bon Bon caught Tootsie as she fell, pawing at her neck and struggling for breath as blood gushed from around the wound. Out of the corner of her eye Bon Bon saw one of the ponies that had escaped the ambush reloading his crossbow, his magic slotting an arrow into the weapon with a practiced ease that gave her very little time to react. She snatched a knife out of Tootsie's belt and dove to the side as the arrow tore through the space where she had been a second earlier. Grabbing the knife in her mouth she sprinted for the attacker, leaping at him before he could reload his weapon. She rolled to the side as he tried to slam the butt of the crossbow down on her, and spat the knife into her hoof as she darted back towards him, piercing it deep into his chest where she held it until he stopped struggling. As soon as he was dead she ran straight for Tootsie. Creme was holding her limp body, the wound having killed Tootsie in seconds. Bon Bon collapsed to her knees, her mind totally blank save for the agonising point that Tootsie was dead. They'd killed her. She'd killed her by distracting her with chatter. Bon Bon closed her eyes, fighting back her tears as Rocky held both of them. Thankfully Flicker and Sonny had enough presence of mind to keep watch. "Why?" Creme asked out loud, her voice breaking with grief. "Why her? She wasn't dumb enough to get captured, so why her? Fuck!" She choked a sob as Rocky hugged her tighter. "There's a cart coming," Sonny said after a moment. "I'm sorry to do this guys, but we need to get off the road." Bon Bon nodded stiffly, lifting Tootsie up onto Rocky's back with Creme's help. She wanted to give the order herself, but words failed her, her voice simply gone, stolen away by pain and shock. Her team were like family to her, and now one of them was gone in the blink of an eye. She wasn't sure she could say anything anyway, not without screaming. -0-0-0- They buried her in a clearing in the woods, her grave unmarked. It wasn't what any of them wanted for Tootsie, a sad grave in the woods of a foreign country, but it was all they had to give at that moment, save for a few words if they had been able to say them. None of them had been able to bring themselves to speak yet, either not wanting to disturb those who knew Tootsie the best, or because their voices fought to stay hidden. "I always thought I'd go first," Rocky said eventually, having to break the long silence. "Something about that just felt right. But Tootsie? She was the brains of the outfit, she... she shouldn't have gone at all." None of them dared to say that Tootsie knew the risks of being there. They didn't need to. A sudden and untimely death was a risk they always lived with, but that didn't make it any easier to say goodbye when it happened, and it certainly didn't help having to do so and carry on. "She said something had happened to Equis," Bon Bon said to Sonny, not taking her eyes off Tootsie's grave. "What did she mean?" "The Shades bombed Equis' headquarters. Killed Muckraker, Eclipse, and dozens of others. Less than twenty at the offices survived, including Fleur, who's in charge now. That's when we lost contact with you. That's why I'm here." Sonny reached into her armour and pulled out the speaker stones, tossing them to Bon Bon. "We thought having a spare might be sensible." "How did you even find us?" "I've been looking for you for almost two weeks, but I only found you because Fleur said you'd be in this area at this time. I saw your campfire from the air, and Found Tootsie and Honeydew. You know the rest." "And the operation?" "You mean last night?" Bon Bon nodded. "Fleur didn't want you to go ahead with it," Sonny told her, making Flicker wince guiltily. Bon Bon stared at the grave a little longer, then whispered a goodbye, pulling herself away before she stayed there forever. "Can you carry Honeydew back to Equestria?" "What?" Honeydew gasped, shocked. "You're sending me away?" "We're wanted ponies now, and it's going to get even more dangerous for us. You're too important to get killed. Sonny, can you take her?" Sonny rocked her head side to side as she thought, "Yeah, I think so if I dump my armour and she brings nothing with her. You want me to get her back to Equis?" "I do. I promised I'd keep her safe and get her back to Equestria, so that's what I'm doing. I'm sorry Honey, but I'm not taking any arguments on this one. You are going, and that is final." Honeydew nodded sadly, "I understand, and thank you. But I still want to know what you're going to do now?" "That's up to Fleur. Are you still with us Flicker?" Flicker nodded once, "I am. I at least owe you that much, even if I didn't get what I wanted." "Then I think we'll be okay," Bon Bon finished, giving Honeydew a faint smile. "You two better get moving if you want to get back safe, because they're bound to be keeping an eye out for any rogue griffons now." "We'll go south," said Sonny. "It's riskier going over the ocean, but if I can make it to the coast around the Undiscovered West, I can make it to Equestria." "Good. Thanks for helping us out of this mess Sonny." "Anytime, really. I'd stay if I could, but I guess getting Honeydew back is a higher priority now." Sonny started removing her armour, but paused as a thought struck her. "That's assuming there's an Equestria to go back to. Ironically you're probably just as safe here as you are back in Equestria." "I think I'd take my chances with Equestria," said Bon Bon. She waited quietly as Sonny stripped off and crouched to let Honeydew climb on her back. "Finally getting your wish Honeydew, so try and make the best of it." "I'll try. Goodbye Bon Bon, Rocky, Creme... Tootsie. You too Flicker. Thanks for everything, and good luck with whatever you do next." "You too Honeydew," Bon Bon said as Sonny took off, Honeydew gripping on tightly as she raced into the sky and out of sight. "I can't help but feel you have an ulterior motive here Chief," Rocky said to Bon Bon as they watched them go out of sight. "I think it's pretty safe to say Flicker didn't betray us, but we can't say the same for Honeydew. On the off-chance she did sell us out, I think it best she no longer be anywhere near us in case it happens again. Creme?" Creme wiped her eyes and blinked rapidly, turning her red, puffy eyes to Bon Bon. "Yeah?" "I think it's time we talked to Fleur." -0-0-0- Fleur had hoped for good news from Bon Bon, and some of it was, but the loss of Tootsie had been a blow she hadn't expected, and the existence of Black Rose was also surprising. Her own news for Bon Bon hadn't exactly been encouraging either, telling her how far Faust had crept into Equestria while they were gone. At least the safe passage of Honeydew to Equestria was good news. "I know you're looking to me for orders Bon Bon, but I'm not sure I could give you any that wouldn't cause you issues. You've already done a lot to damage Mareitania, but it seems to make less of a difference than we expected." "Our ability to travel quickly has also been ruined without the trains," said Bon Bon. "Not unless we get disguises. I honestly don't know how much more use we can be to you if we can't travel quickly. I'm sorry Fleur." "Don't apologise Bon Bon, you've already done so much. Perhaps it would be best if you laid low for a while. Get those disguises and stay put somewhere safe for a few weeks until I have something for you, and hopefully by then the heat will have died down enough for you to travel again. Fleur sighed guiltily as Bon Bon sighed. "Understood ma'am." Fleur pushed the stone aside as it crackled to silence, feeling that they'd lost yet another asset. Equis bombed, Bon Bon hunted, and the building situation around Las Pegasus. Fleur stood and walked over to the small map she used to keep track of the Mareitanians movements. Luna's actions had essentially trapped Faust's forces in the west of the country, unless they braved the open ground to the north. If Luna failed to keep them from crossing the Canterhorn river and taking the city, losing Bon Bon as an asset would be trivial in comparison.

The end of an era

35. Troubled waters

It occurred to Luna, perhaps slower than it should have, that the trap they'd placed on the bridge had spent its use on a far smaller force than they had anticipated. The Mareitanians now knew they were waiting for them, and after having the way to Ponyville cut off, would probably be interested in looking north. Admittedly the north was still a poor choice of route, but now it had been made clear that going south wasn't exactly a bed of roses either. If Faust did go north, all of Luna's forces were in the south, and only the fliers could get there in time to slow their advance. Overall, the whole thing made her think she might've fucked up a little. If Faust took the easier choice and went north, she would lose quite a few soldiers from pegasus attacks, but would inevitably make it to Manehatten. If she pushed south, all she had to do was cross the river, and the Equestrians had nothing to push back with. "Shining, what do you think the best way to cross the river would be if you were Faust?" "If I was Faust? There's a fantasy shouldn't entertain." Shining Armour ran a hoof through his mane as he studied the river before him. The command tent had been set on a small bluff overlooking the Equestrian defence, and afforded them a good view of the opposite side of the river as well. "Build a bridge with magic?" "Possible I suppose, but we've considered that. It's too obvious." "If it works it works." Shining shrugged at the princess, "I hate to say it Luna, but I don't think like Faust, and she doesn't think like us. She wants to fight this war, but does very little herself. If I was her I'd probably be a bit more proactive in ensuring my success." "Hmm... yes," Luna said, conceding the point. "Perhaps counting on her to do anything would be a large assumption on our part. Perhaps that is why we haven't been attacked yet, because they are looking for a non-magical solution." "It's what I would do, but that's also assuming they know nothing about our cannons." Shining pointed along the line of hidden cannons set back from the riverbank. Ponies were currently laying mines in front of them. "They're the game changer for us here. If I knew these were waiting for us here, I'd be going north in a heartbeat." "We don't know who's making those decisions," Luna said to Shining, frowning into the distance towards where the Mareitanians were. "We have General Snowbright now, so we can't assume they'd reach the same decisions as him. He knows going north would be a massacre, but fighting towards Las Pegasus would be less of a supposed massacre if you didn't know about the cannons. Plus Las Pegasus is a viable target for occupation, whereas the north is nothing but open land fit for pegasus ambushes most of the way to Manehatten, where for all they know we have a force waiting for them, which we could, maybe before they get there." Shining turned to the map of Equestria on the folding table in the tent. "What about this place called 'Our town?" "Abandoned, and heavily damaged during my fight to subdue the criminal Starlight Glimmer. There is nothing of use to them there. Even if it weren't, there's nowhere near enough buildings to provide protection for the thousands upon thousands of Mareitanians." "So they'd take a straight shot at Manehatten," Shining said, half expecting Luna to disagree with him. "More than likely, although Fillydelphia is also an option should they pass through Hollow Shades. That territory wouldn't be friendly to their tanks though." "So basically we have no real idea what they might do." Luna nodded once, not wanting to voice her agreement with that fact. "It's very much in our interest that they attack down here." "And should they decide to do something else entirely? Like literally anything else?" "If you can tell me what that might be I'll happily provide a reactionary measure to you," Luna said haughtily. She was rather pleased when Shining failed to say anything at all. "So, besides the gloom surrounding this entire situation, is there anything else of note going on?" "There's one thing, but it isn't exactly important. There's a peace rally going to be happening at the refugee camps in a few days time." "There? So close to here? Are they insane? Why would there even be a peace rally?" Shining stared blankly at Luna for a moment, struggling to decide if she was being serious. "You're surprised by the idea that not everypony supports the war?" "It's- It's... unpatriotic! And insulting to those willing to put their lives on the line to protect Equestria! Who even came up with this peace rally idea?" "All I know is that it was set up by a mysterious benefactor." "Hah!" Luna laughed nastily, "Benefactor indeed? Let's see how beneficial they're feeling when Faust rules Equestria." "They're also hosting some of the biggest names in music," Shining continued. "Sapphire Shores, Songbird Serenade, Coloratura... I get the feeling a lot of support is going into this." "Then we'll have to stop it. This... rally, could undermine support for the war entirely, and can't be allowed to go ahead." "Do you even hear yourself? What you're suggesting is a serious breach of civil liberties Luna, the kind of things we're fighting to preserve. You can't stop it, so forget about it." "Really Shining? You're being naïve. The only way we can effectively have peace is to surrender. Do you honestly think that is a serious, or even viable course of action? These ponies are only deluding themselves by thinking giving up has a happy ending." "Worse than losing? I doubt that. All your hopes are pinned on Twilight, and we have no idea where she is!" "Where is this treasonous talk coming from Shining?" Luna asked softly, burying her anger for the moment as she knew it wouldn't be constructive. "If you have concerns about the war, voice them." "Luna, I hate to be the pony that says this, but throwing ponies at Faust's army to slow them down while we wait for Twilight to find a miracle solution is stupid. How is it any better than surrendering?" "We're buying time-" "Yeah, with lives!" "It's more than that! You know Faust's intentions! Do you want to be the pony that gave up and let the world suffer? We have to do this Shining, you know that." Shining nodded slowly, but not in agreement. "We've stopped Faust from using our ponies with those implants, so if we sabotaged our country's infrastructure to stop Faust from using that as well, we could buy months of time before she takes her war elsewhere. More if we used guerilla warfare to keep sabotaging things. Far less lives would be lost." "She'd also hold our entire country hostage," Luna said back. "There are plenty of ways to coerce ponies without magic. If she executes a hundred ponies for every structure your guerrilla warriors destroy, how is that better?" "Do you really think she'd do that?" "Do you know that she wouldn't?" Luna smiled as Shining failed to reply, although it felt hollow even to her. "I wouldn't trust her not to." Shining sighed. There were far too many arguments for doing too many things, and spending lives to save lives always had that odd distinction to it where you were fucked either way, especially if you lost. At least a pony could fight for their survival in a war, but a mass execution to get ponies to obey you was... He didn't even have a word to describe it as beyond being horrible, but the war was horrible too. "What about the peace rally?" Shining asked after a moment, having almost forgot that's how the discussion began. "You can't seriously expect to stop it. You'd only make those ponies think they're right." Luna gestured dismissively with a hoof, "Let them have their rally then, for all the good it will do them." "Movement! We have movement!" Both of them looked up as the scout flew in to land at the command tent. She removed her helmet and wiped the sweat off her forehead. "We have incoming Princess." "How many?" "Thousands at least." -0-0-0- "Fucking hell Pinkie! Those aren't toys!" Pinkie stopped twirling the landmine on her hoof and lowered it into the small hole she'd dug on the riverbank. "I'm just trying to make this more fun. Celestia knows there's a severe lack of that going around these days." "It won't be fun when you've blown your leg off. In fact, it'd be decidedly not fun." "But I haven't activated it yet!" "I don't fucking care! Knock that shit off!" "Alright Captain Grumpy, sheesh." "That's Sargent Grumpy, thank you very much." Limestone eyed Pinkie as the mare activated the mine and buried it with exaggerated care. "That's better." "Hey guys!" Both of them looked up, along with the rest of the Hard Corps, to find Lyra running over to them, her eyes wide with panic. "Didn't you hear? We have incoming!" "Incoming what?" Pinkie asked, earning herself a groan from Limestone. "Seriously?" "What? It's a legitimate question." "Mareitanians Pinkie!" Pinkie narrowed her eyes and nodded as she stared at the horizon. "I suspected as much." After a moment she stopped and turned back to Limestone, "Sooooo, what are we supposed to be doing exactly?" "Not standing here for starters." Limestone whistled sharply, alerting the others along the bank. "Incoming! Get back to the line!" Limestone led by example, turning Pinkie in the direction she wanted her to run and passing by Lyra who turned to follow her towards the gap in the line of cannons where the bridge had crossed the river. A minute later the rest of the ponies laying mines joined them, although they were ignored in favour of her Hard Corps as they ran up to her. "They're actually insane enough to come back here?" Azure panted as she stopped in front of Limestone. "I seriously thought we were wasting our time staying here." "Don't ask me why they're coming back, but feel free to enquire how much they might go on to regret it." "Uh, alright, how much will they-" "That was rhetorical Azure! Fucking hell." Limestone rolled her eyes, "Anyway, we're sticking here in case they make it this far, so you might as well make yourselves comfortable and enjoy the show. I don't know what these cannons are really meant to do, but I'm betting they fire more than confetti." "More's the pity," Lyra whispered to Pinkie, trying to at least get a smile out of the mare. She succeeded, barely, but it felt like Pinkie was making the effort for Lyra's sake rather than her own. Pinkie actually seemed oddly focussed, which was different from the mess she was the other day. Lyra wasn't sure which worried her more. All of them stepped back as ponies ran forwards to start loading the cannons, watching with interest as they shoved a cylindrical packet of gunpowder into the cannons muzzle, pushed it down with a stick, then repeated the process with the cannonball. They then moved the cannon so it was pointed directly at the opposite side of the river, where there was nothing to aim for as yet. A unicorn stood nearby, a pole with a slow burning fuse at the end held ready in their magic. "Is it just me or do those things seem a bit... primitive?" Crystal Moon asked, the other unicorn to have joined the Hard Corps after Vanhoover. "We've invented steam trains and other stuff, but here we've stuck a ball down a metal tube with a packet of gunpowder. It's rather underwhelming." "More than running at each other with pointy bits of metal?" said Maud. "Well, no, I suppose it's a bit better than that." -0-0-0- Luna counted six tanks on the opposite side of the river, slowly crawling into position in what she supposed was an intent to bombard them over the river. She wasn't really sure what the range on their catapults were, but she had taken reasonable care to ensure her forces were probably out of their range. On the other side of that she'd taken care to ensure her cannons could reach far enough to strike the enemy ranks, which they could, so she had the advantage on two counts, in theory. "That's a lot of ponies," Shining Armour murmured as Stormguard nervously looked on. "I'm counting five thousand at least. They could overrun our cannons before we've taken out even a tenth of them." "That would involve some rather reckless behaviour on their part," said Luna. "I'm guessing since they haven't sent their entire army to attack us, they have no idea what our numbers here are. It's like they're sending those ponies here to die." "Or to test our defences," suggested General Stormguard. "Why send so few if they were serious about crossing the river here? We haven't heard anything about them crossing the north?" "Not as such," said Luna. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to find out, although with the griffons out there capable of waylaying our messengers it shall have to wait until the attack has ended one way or the other." "The Mareitanians have upwards of thirty thousand soldiers," said Shining. "There's no practical reason they couldn't overwhelm us down here and go through the north while we're distracted. Our own numbers are still too few to fight back if that happens." "If that happens we've lost," Luna told him. "Once they dig their hooves into the east coast it'll be impossible to get them back out." Unspoken was the fact that it was only the Mareitanians hesitance preventing that. Should Faust decree it, they could swarm across Equestria, and there was little that could be done to stop them. It would be a costly campaign for them though, as Luna would make them pay for every inch. "I think they're preparing to fire," Stormguard said after a moment. Luna moved to stand beside him to see what he could. As he said, the tanks were in position and seemed to be ready to fire. As they were watching, one of the tanks launched its payload across the river, although it would fall far short of the defences. Instead it landed on the riverbank and exploded. Two more explosions set off, the first one having set off a couple of the landmines they'd laid. "By my sister's morning breath," Luna cursed as the other tanks turned on the spot to start firing on the riverbank. "They intend to destroy our minefield!" Luna grit her teeth as more explosions rumbled along the riverbank, destroying yet more landmines. "Stormguard, get our pegasi into the air and order the Air Corps to start bombarding the Mareitanians. Shining Armour, order the cannons to focus their fire on the end tanks." Luna stood still, hissing between her teeth as her generals ran off to direct things from nearer the front. The tanks fired another volley, destroying yet more mines, each one firing a plume of fire and earth into the air as they were denied their purpose. As the last explosion echoed off the hills, the pegasi took wing, flying off over the river to deliver some payback. Beams of colourful magic shot up into the air as the pegasi flew over the Mareitanians, and the sheer volume of it was enough to take out some of the fliers, rather than any decent accuracy on their part. Seconds later flashes of light went off throughout the enemy ranks as the bombs fell, but it was only for a few seconds as the Maretanian Adepts changed from attacking to shielding, and the flashes were suddenly happening a dozen meters in the air as the bombs struck a shield instead. While the Adepts were forced to shield their forces they were unable to do anything else, which suited Luna just fine as they'd neglected to cover their tanks with the shield, probably to allow them to continue firing, but leaving them vulnerable to the cannons as they fired, concentrating their fire on the left and rightmost tanks. Not all of the shots hit their targets, but it was enough to send the tanks scurrying away. Luna smiled to herself. Barely minutes into their attack the Mareitanians were already on the backhoof, their assault having amounted to very little. It took her a few minutes to notice the Adepts' shield had reached the river, and that there was more to their attack than she had anticipated. -0-0-0- Pinkie covered her ears as the cannons fired again. They didn't have the fun sound of her party cannon, but instead a bang that rattled your brain inside your skull. She didn't like it one bit, but didn't have the means to stop it, so clamped her hooves over her ears and hoped it would end soon. Even then it wasn't enough to block the sound of Limestone swearing. "What the fuck are those bastards doing?" she asked out loud as she watched over the defences. "Which bastards?" Azure asked, gaining herself a funny look from the team. "I stand by what I said." "The Mareitanians," Limestone emphasised, "are doing something at the river." As she spoke the Mareitanians broke apart letting three large teams of earth ponies through to the river. Between them were long wooden platforms on wheels that they shoved into the river, one above the train wreck, and two below, pushing them further and further until they rose up the other side. "Oh shit! Bridges!" The Adepts changed their tactic, shifting their shield to protect the bridges as their forces crossed, with Adepts leading the charge so that those crossing the bridge had protection at the other side. They waited until they had a sizable force across the river before advancing towards the Equestrians, trudging over the mostly destroyed minefield. Mostly. "All cannons fire on those bridges," Shining Armour shouted. It took almost a minute before the first shot was taken at the bridges, and although the Adepts shields couldn't withstand that kind of firepower, the bridges remained intact. The ponies on them were a different matter, as the Equestrian air forces started swooping in during breaks in the cannon fire. "Damn, that's ballsy," Azure commented on the pegasi as they dived the ponies trying to cross the bridges. The Adepts and archers on the opposite bank responded to the pegasi attacks by firing at them as they dived, the bodies of those hit splashing down into the river. "Please be okay Rainbow," Pinkie begged as the pegasi broke off their attacks, allowing the Mareitanians to continue crossing. The cannons roared again, striking the bridges with their fury. The middle bridge was hit directly, its frame shattering as a pair on cannonballs sheared through its frame in the middle. It sagged, then broke completely, dumping the ponies crossing it into the river. A ragged cheer went up from the defenders as the bridge collapsed, but there were plenty of ponies still crossing to cause an issue. With the Adepts shielding them, and the cannons focussed on the bridges, there was nothing stopping the ponies that had already crossed from advancing further. "Mage Corps, raise shields behind the cannons!" Shining Armour commanded. Seconds after he did a line of shields popped up behind the cannons. "Advance past cannons when I say. Everypony else, get ready to hold off the attackers!" "What the hell is going on?" Lyra asked, hoping for some kind of detailed plan off Limestone, but all she got was a shrug. "I'm guessing the cannons can't attack while they're swarming us, so we hold them here while the pegasi deal with the bridges. Or something. More likely something." "But that's stupid." "Their plan or ours?" "Both!" The cannons fired again, then fell silent as Shining ordered the shields to pass the cannons, their crews falling back away from the fighting. The Mareitanians were barely a dozen meters away, safe behind their shield, just as the Equestrians were safe behind theirs. The Mareitanians moved, overlapping their shield with the Equestrian one and raising theirs above it to start pounding on it with everything they had to try and break through. The Mage Corps unicorns all braced themselves for the inevitable backlash that the shield collapsing would create. Pinkie swallowed nervously as cracks formed in the shield, her hooves running over the surface of the rock she held in her hooves to try and keep her mind away from what was about to happen. She glanced at Lyra who was watching the shield with apprehension, but didn't contribute to it as she was no longer part of the Mage Corps. Under her breath she started counting down from ten, but didn't even make it to three before the shield buckled, breaking completely, knocking ponies back with the backlash. A bright light filled the gap between the two groups as Luna teleported onto the battlefield, her glaives shining at her side for a second before being put to work, carving into the Mareitanians ranks. "Advance! Earth Corps with me! Mage Corps and Uni Corps maintain ranged fire! Push them back to the river!" Pinkie hesitated as the rest of the ponies around her ran past the Hard Corps, following Luna's orders to repel the attackers. The rest of the Hard Corps hesitated as well, unsure whether Luna's orders had included them or not. "Are we meant to be doing something?" Top Spin asked, hoping Limestone hadn't ordered them forwards for a reason. "I have no idea," Limestone admitted. "We're not ranged or melee! This is so fucking stupid! What the hell are we supposed to be?" "Unconventional," Maud said bluntly. "Which we are. I think I have a plan to destroy those bridges, but we're going to need two really big rocks." "And what are we going to do with these really big rocks?" Limestone asked sceptically. A faint smile tugged at the corners of Maud's mouth. "We're going to teach them to fly." -0-0-0- This felt more familiar to Luna, throwing herself into a chaotic mêlee of blades and spells. It was also something she excelled at, compared to other parts of warfare. The bridges had completely thrown Luna off, and not least because they'd placed them so close to the train wreckage. That meant they'd also bridged the trench made during the trap, which had come to her as being unnecessarily hard to do, which could explain why she hadn't anticipated the attack coming from directly in front of them. She'd cursed herself hard for that. She'd been so convinced some big grand event would happen to get them across the river that she'd overlooked the simplest method. The river was only a few dozen meters wide, so what the Mareitanians had done should have been obvious. The fact that they did it in triplicate was just insulting. Now they had crossed the river, forced the cannons into silence through fear of hitting their own, and were doing far too well in their attack as far as she was concerned. Her soldiers needed an edge to push back with, even if that edge was herself. All they needed was an opening, and she'd give them one. "Push forwards!" Luna cried, her glaives sweeping round to cut down an earth pony that had thought to attack her from the side. She kept a space clear in front of her to move into, cutting deeper and deeper into the Mareitanian ranks. The fact that it had come to a charge like this was bad enough, but if the Mareitanians made it past the defences, it would've been a nightmare to push them back out again. It may even have cost them the position, as well as the cannons, which Luna would rather not see in the hooves of their enemy. A large pony in thick armour pushed into the space she kept in front of her, unexpectedly ramming into her to try and push her back. She braced herself, her hooves digging into the ground as she halted the pony's attack. She brought her glaives down on the pony's sides, stabbing them through the chest until the two blades met. She was surprised to hear a feminine cry come from the pony before pulling her blades free and kicking the pony away. That short loss of momentum did have consequences though, as more of the armoured juggernauts were able to halt the Equestrians push, although not to the point that they had pushed them back, as even they couldn't push back a few thousand ponies. As it was, all they had really done was slow it, as the juggernauts were outnumbered, forced to the ground, and summarily killed. Perhaps their sacrifice was worth it, but Luna doubted it as she raised a shield to fill the gap that the juggernauts had allowed to form between the two sides. Arrows bounced off the shield Luna had erected, the gaps quickly getting filled by the Mage Corps as they caught on to what Luna was doing. Their attack thwarted, the Mareitanians did the same. Luna looked up in the short respite that had been made. The two sides had turtled up now, shielding themselves from the other. Chances were the Mareitanians wouldn't attempt to try what they did before and batter the shields down to attack the Equestrians. They still had plenty of distance between them and the river, and it seemed unlikely that they were going to retreat, so something had to be done to break the stalemate as Luna wasn't exactly keen to drop her shield either. What that something was she had no idea. -0-0-0- If there was ever a more pointless activity Rainbow could think of in this battle, it was escorting the Air Corps fliers as they dropped bombs. If the griffons were here she could see the point, but they weren't, so what she was meant to be protecting them from was a mystery, especially as it put her and all of the other fliers at risk of getting hit by the Mareitanians attempts to stop them with magic and crossbow fire. Rather ineffectively at that. It seemed to her that this war, and the weapons that had come into being because of it, had severely changed the typical balance in pony versus pony combat. With bombs pegasi no longer had to get close to attack ponies, so unicorns lost their ranged advantage. In fact, with bombs pegasi could dominate any force, so long as they didn't hide beneath shields like the Mareitanians currently were. In fact the entire battle had come to a deadlock as far as she could tell, with the Equestrians so determined to defend themselves that the Mareitanians simply couldn't push forward, and vice versa. The cannons were stuck not being able to fire, so no help was coming from them, and the sheer volume of bombs required to bust through the shield was more than the pegasi could drop at any one time. Contrary to that, the order to cease wasting bombs was going out, allowing Rainbow and her squadron to fly back to the southern side of the river to safety. "Wonderbolts to me!" Spitfire shouted, separating herself out from the rest of the fliers to address her squadrons. "We have a problem," she said once the four squadrons were assembled. "This battle is going nowhere at the moment, and it's up to us to get it moving again. We need to get the Mareitanians shield down on this side of the river." "Why us?" Rainbow asked. "Couldn't Luna do it?" "Both Princess Luna and General Armour are down in that mess somewhere," Spitfire replied. "While they're keeping our forces safe they can't begin to break the shields. Pegasi are the only ones free to get through it." "Isn't keeping our forces safe a bit stupid?" Sky Stinger snickered. "Last I checked this was supposed to be a battle, so why are they all trying to stay safe?" "I'm guessing this wasn't what the Mareitanians had in mind when they decided to attack here again," Spitfire told him. "The cannons must have changed things for them, and I bet they never expected Luna to lead a charge against them either. Now they're stuck, unable to advance or retreat because we'll tear them to shreds as soon as they try either of those." "So what's the plan Captain?" Lightning asked. "I'm sure you all remember your shield busting training?" "Well, sure." "Good, because we're not doing it. The Air Corps are." All of the Wonderbolts shared glances. "Did you hit your head at some point?" Soarin said, turning Spitfire's head to inspect it. "Get off me," Spitfire grunted, pushing Soarin away. "The Air Corps are busting the shields, and we're following them in along with the Exiles and Night Guard. It's not complicated." "Then why bring up our shield busting training?" said Rainbow. "Because it's relevant. When the big shield goes down, the Adepts are likely to try and put up a bunch of smaller shields. We'll have a few seconds to do as much damage as we can, but then we'll have to go into busting the smaller shields. The Air Corps will probably take a few hits, so they'll pull out after busting the shield, meaning we'll have to do it ourselves from there on." "What do you mean they'll take a few hits?" Cloud asked once Spitfire was done explaining the plan. Spitfire groaned and looked away, not meeting their eyes as she explained. "The Mareitanians are likely to open fire as soon as the shield goes down, and the Air Corps will be between us and them..." "So we're using them for cover?" Rainbow said, shocked that they would do that. "We're seriously making the Air Corps into meat-shields?" "It would happen anyway," Spitfire snapped. "If it's going to happen anyway, we might as well try to get something out of it. Believe me Rainbow, I'm no happier about it than you, but its simply something that's unavoidable." "Okay, I get it," Rainbow lied. "Anyway, We'll be busting the shields with the Night Guard from there on, so we'll be taking plenty of fire after that while the Exiles clean up. Any questions?" Spitfire tightened her jaw as a dozen ponies raised their hooves, "No? Good. Let's move out and make this happen ponies!" "This is going to blow," Rainbow said as Lightning led them higher into the sky. "Who's keeping the Mareitanians on the other side of the river occupied while we're doing this?" "I think the idea is to do this quickly," Lightning said back with a shrug. "They can only be a problem if we give them the time to be. Anyway, enough questions and all that, get yourself ready for the attack." Rainbow nodded and drew her blades, scraping them up and down the other as a means of passing the time until the attack began. They didn't have to wait long as the Air Corps gathered just below them. They waited a few seconds, then dived as one to strike the shield simultaneously. Seconds after they dived the rest of the fliers followed. The shield vanished, but not because the Air Corps had hit it. The Air Corps overshot their intended distance as the shield dropped ahead of them, flying straight into a hail of magic and arrows that they scrambled to avoid, scattering quickly. The Wonderbolts, Exiles, and Night Guards held their course, dodging and weaving between the incoming fire. There were no smaller shields being formed so they flew straight in to attack. Rainbow landed heavily on a stallion that was aiming a crossbow away from her, making him fire the weapon in his shock, the arrow hitting a pony on his side a few meters away. Rainbow took back off to the safety of the sky, a lot of the other pegasi following her up. "Cloud! Thunderlane! You still with me?" Rainbow looked back to see if her wingmates were still there, and grinned as she found they were. It also gave her the chance to see Princess Luna begin pushing against the Mareitanians. It had only been a single strike, but it was enough to get the ball rolling again. -0-0-0- Luna could have cheered. In fact she might have, but hadn't been able to hear it over the renewed sounds of battle. As soon as the shield had dropped, Luna had ended hers to start attacking. A single blast from her horn had blown a gap in the Mareitanians in front of her, allowing her to race into the gap and start pushing it wider. A sword clipped of the rear of her armour, and she spun to face the pony that had struck her, swinging her blade around to behead the pony. Such an act was almost an afterthought, but it did allow her to see something which she hadn't thought to pay attention to before because she was so occupied with fighting. The Mareitanians were retreating back across the bridges as fast as they could. Luna hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether to cut off the bridges to halt their escape. Even if they refused to surrender, costing her own side more, taking out such a number of the enemy was almost too good to pass up. Her own forces were becoming rather stretched pushing forward like they had, and there was the risk of a counterattack damaging her forces if she got it wrong. She was stuck deciding what to do, when a shadow passed over her, preceded by a shout of "Timber!" "Pinkie Pie?" -0-0-0- "So we have to hold our shields like this?" Lyra asked, nervously eyeing Crystal just across from her, who was making the exact same face back. "You do realise that neither of us have a chance of holding that kind of weight? Especially when it's moving." "I know," said Maud. "You won't need to." Maud shielded her eyes as she looked up the steep slope where Pinkie and Limestone were roughly carving two channels into the rock, starting at the plateau above them, and ending them by where Maud was stood with Lyra and Crystal. Two ramps had already been built, so all that remained was for Marble to craft two perfectly round boulders with Azure and Top Spin, and for Maud to get the spin just right using the two unicorns' magic. Maud placed her hooves on the square shield and tried to shape it a little. She was rather surprised to find that she couldn't. "Could you make the shield soft so I could shape it?" Lyra nodded, and the shield started to shift in her hooves. She twisted it a little, looked down at the nearest bridge, then twisted it a little further, nodding to herself. "Okay, make it hard again." "Are you really sure you know what you're doing?" Lyra insisted. She'd never come across earth pony magic that didn't involve growing things before now, and had no idea if that was what she was looking at, or if it was all Maud. Either option worried her. "Yes," Maud said bluntly in answer to Lyra's question. She morphed Crystal's shield, shortening it a bit and adding a flick to the end that would add a nice spin to the boulder as it flew. "I feel I should apologise, to both of you." "Why?" Crystal asked nervously. Whatever Lyra was thinking about what was happening, it was worse for her. Lyra had at least spent a significant amount of time around earth ponies, long enough to pick up on their eccentricities, but she'd lived in Canterlot her entire life and had limited experience with what earth ponies could do. Now they were practically throwing boulders at her. "For the headache," Maud said. "I get the feeling giant boulders smashing through your magic won't be pleasant." "Then why are you doing this?" "This needs to be perfect, and they'll last long enough to give us what we want." Maud gave the shield one last little tug and nodded. "Okay, don't change these shields. I'm going to make sure everything is ready." "I should never have agreed to this," Crystal sighed as Maud near sprinted up the near vertical slope. "And you'd rather be down there?" Lyra said, gesturing with her head towards the battle below them. "Y'know, I almost feel that would be safer." "Then clearly you don't know Pinkie. I wouldn't be doing this if she didn't agree with it." "Oh, and Pinkie's the expert on everything is she? Huh? What is it about her opinion on this should we trust? Her stunning knowledge of geometry and geology? Or her ability to, what? Punch rocks?" Lyra gave Crystal a funny look, "No. We should trust it because she's Pinkie, and that's all that matters. It's a thing back in Ponyville." Lyra grinned at the incredulous expression Crystal adopted, "Hey Pinkie, where exactly would you say these boulders are going to land?" "Well the near one is easy," Pinkie shouted back down the slope to Lyra, stopping her work to look at the bridges. "It's going to land right on the nearest edge in the middle of the bridge. The other one though... it's going bounce off the top of the highest carriage in the river, hit the shield and break it, bounce directly upwards, then land on the bridge either breaking it or not breaking it. That's up to the bridge. I'm not exactly an expert at bridges, so I can't tell." "Cool. Thanks Pinkie." Lyra raised her eyebrows at Crystal, "And that is exactly what will happen," she declared. "You're all insane," Crystal muttered back. -0-0-0- Azure leaned against the boulder that was near three times the height she was, and grinned at Maud as she clambered up over the edge of the slope. "Two big, smooth, hairless, dragon balls sized balls, ready to go," she said, trying to sound like she came across those things all the time, and therefore knew exactly how big they were. "Dragon testicles are only the size of your head," Maud said dismissively. "Depending on the size of the dragon of course. These are just big rocks." Azure pouted at Maud, "Right... yeah, whatever. Big rocks. Yep. I'm guessing dragon jizz isn't as hot as lava either?" "I'd say not." "Damn. I feel like my entire childhood was a lie now. Anyway, did we make good balls?" Maud inspected the boulder that Azure was leaning against, chipped a few bits off, then nodded in satisfaction. "Sweet. Worked hard on this." "Marble did most of this. I recognise her work." Azure hung her head and nodded once, "Yeah. She's a lot faster than me, and better, and she's so adorable I can't even get mad at her." "No hitting on Marble!" Limestone shouted from over the edge of the plateau. Azure rolled her eyes, "Yes mooom!" "Especially since that would actually make Marble your aunt!" Azure blinked as she thought about what Limestone had said, "Oh yeah... that is a bit gross." "Also, it's Sergeant to you, you purple pain in the-" "This one looks good," Maud said about the other boulder Marble and Top Spin were working on, effectively ending the conversation between Azure and Limestone. "Thanks Maud," Marble said appreciatively. "I'm trying to get them as round as possible, but it's a bit hard doing it like this." "It's fine, they don't need to be exact. I think they're both acceptable, and ready to-" "Roll?" Azure said excitedly. She cheered when Maud nodded. "Finally! I said something and didn't get argued with! Can I push one?" "Nope," Limestone said happily, climbing up onto the plateau with Pinkie. "Pony in charge gets to push one, and pony that thought of the plan gets to push the other." "I don't mind-" Maud began to say, getting interrupted by Limestone. "Don't care. Pony in charge gets to say who does the pushing as well. Frankly, anypony but Azure, who got to blow up the trench the other day." "Oh yeah," Azure said dreamily. "I'd almost forgotten about that." "I don't see how," Limestone grumbled. "Anyway, the ramps are ready to go, so all we need to do is get on with it." She walked around the back of the nearest boulder and placed her hooves on it, pushing with all her might, but only moving it a couple of inches. "Damn it. Azure-" "Yes ma'am!" Azure quickly joined Limestone, along with Marble as Top Spin and Pinkie helped Maud to push the other to the edge. They stopped at the edge, making sure to line the two boulders up with the ramps before shouting down to see if Lyra and Crystal were ready. They were, so with an almighty shove they pushed the two boulders off the edge of the plateau. "Timber!" Pinkie shouted as the two boulders rumbled down the slope, bouncing a little as they quickly gained speed, creating a massive trail of dust in their wake. They reached the ramps that would launch them into the air, and shot off the end, Lyra and Crystal crying out in pain as the boulders crashed through their shields, but holding them long enough to alter their trajectory slightly. The right boulder flew directly at the nearest bridge, punching directly through the shield and hitting the edge of the wooden structure, smashing through most of it so that the barest bit of solid structure remained. It couldn't support the weight of the ponies on it, and snapped, throwing them into the river. The other boulder flew majestically through the air as only a boulder could. It clipped off the top of the highest carriage in the wreckage from the train still in the river, knocking the carriage over as it continued. It smacked into the side of the shield tunnel, bouncing up off it as the shield held long enough to totally alter its direction to upwards. It quickly succumbed to gravity though, and fell directly onto the bridge which half snapped, the weight of the boulder dragging it beneath the water. "Nailed it!" Pinkie shouted gleefully. "And that is why we don't question Pinkie," Lyra said to Crystal, her hoof squeezed to the side of her head to stop the feeling that her head was going to split in half. -0-0-0- "Good grief," Luna muttered, stunned by the sudden arrival of the boulders, and stunned again by the sudden removal of the bridges. "Excellent work Pinkie, as always." Luna pulled back a little, ordering her troops to do the same. With the sudden loss of the bridges, the Mareitanians were without their sole means of both gaining reinforcements, and retreating. They were now effectively trapped on the Equestrian side of the river, and were likely to be feeling a bit desperate, meaning they would either face reality and give up, or lash out in an attempt to hurt the Equestrian forces as much as possible. Luna hoped that by denying them the chance to attack, she could force them to surrender instead. Some of the Mareitanians were already tossing their gear to swim back across the river, and Luna wished them luck as the river would claim at least some of them before they made it. The rest though, she offered them an ultimatum, her voice blasting out over the battlefield. "You're trapped here now with no hope of succeeding. Stand down and you shall be granted mercy, or face a bloody end if you resist. It's your choice." Nothing happened for a little bit. Luna thought they were actually going to reject her offer, or die through inactivity as she had no intention of standing here all day waiting for them to decide their future. Across the river their forces were already falling back, their attack thwarted by the destruction of the bridges. Luna was thankful, as their attack had proven far too successful considering how close they had come to overrunning the Equestrians' defence. Her charge against the Mareitanians had been a gambit, if a successful one. It could easily have gone wrong. "Please surrender," Luna sighed. "Your Lady isn't coming to save you, so give up. I'd rather not have to drag this battle out if I don't need to. Accept your defeat, and surrender." By Luna's estimation there was maybe a thousand Mareitanians trapped with them. Behind her Luna had thousands of ponies. Not all of them were on the battlefield, but the disparity of numbers had to have been obvious, and it did seem to be as the Mareitanians started throwing their weapons down. "Excellent! General Armour, are you still with us?" "I'm here," Shining said, pushing his way to Luna. "What are your orders?" "Claim their weapons and start rounding them up into small groups. Make sure our numbers remain obvious to them, so that they don't get any funny ideas. We'll transport them to the prisoner of war camp at Dodge City tomorrow." "Yes ma'am." Luna sighed as Shining ran off, barking orders. She returned her blades to the nether and pulled her helmet off her head, letting her mane loose. While she was pleased that they had seen off the enemy, she couldn't help but feel that they had come far too close to the edge of disaster against what was less than a quarter of the Mareitanians forces. This defeat would get back to Faust, and whatever she tried next would likely be a lot worse than what they'd seen so far.

The end of an era

36. Good news, bad news, and interesting news

Celestia's hooves over echoed off the cold stone of the dungeon's floor as she made her way into the deepest part of Canterlot Castle, providing an fitting accompaniment to this rather dreary place. She'd just received the news from Luna that they'd repelled an assault upon the defences north of Las Pegasus, and while that was good, in the back of her mind she was counting an increasing number of lives lost. And now she was going to visit one of the ponies responsible for inflicting Equestria with its current predicament. "Good morning Princess," Fleur said to the approaching alicorn as she stood outside one of the cells, a clipboard held in her magic. A small box was beside her on the ground. "Good morning Director," Celestia said back, noting the hint of distaste Fleur's expression grew upon using her title rather than her name. "I suppose it's unnecessary for me to ask if you've heard the news?" "About Las Pegasus? No, we've heard, and obviously we're pleased about Luna having held off another assault. I will have to get an update on her future plans though, as I doubt the Mareitanians would attack there again. Hopefully 'master strategist' Snowbright in here will agree. I'm still confused about why you want to be here for his interrogation." "Because I-" Celestia bit her answer off, finding it silly even to herself. The only reason she was here was because she felt she needed to be, to look Snowbright in the eye and ask why he did all this. "I just need to be." Fleur shrugged at Celestia, "You're the princess, Princess, so far be it from me to stop you. I will warn you that I very much doubt you'll get whatever answers it is you're seeking. He was a stubborn ass during the rebellion, and I really don't think he'll be any less of one now." "Maybe, maybe not. There's only one way to find out." Using her horn, Fleur opened the cell door into the interrogation room. Formerly it had been just another cell, but Fleur had requested a few changes to it since dragging prisoners through the castle each time you wanted to ask them something was beyond stupid. Realistically, all that had changed was the removal of the bed and other items, and a table and chair placed inside, but that was all it took to become a interrogation room. Fleur nodded to the two Royal Guard ponies on the inside of the door, then met the eyes of the white pony shackled behind the table. Neither of them said anything to the other, but that didn't stop Snowbright from gazing defiantly at Fleur. His expression changed as Celestia entered, but only to convey a hint of anger. "Hello Snowbright," Fleur said pleasantly, getting a pleasant smile in return. "Hello Fleur. Nice to see one of the few ponies here worth a damn, even if you had to drag one of the ponies holding your leash in here with you." "I am holding noponies leash," Celestia snapped. "Besides, how can you talk like that when Faust has such a tight hold on your leash?" "Ah here we go," Snowbright sighed, rolling his eyes. "Faust is controlling us using magic, and is using us to enact her vengeance on Equestria and the ponies ruling it. Blah, blah, blah... tell me something new." "How about that she's using you and your belligerence towards Equestria as a template for her mind control?" said Fleur. "You mean that mind control that doesn't exist?" "If that mind control doesn't exist, how did she convince your entire country to go to war with us just for her revenge?" "Because she's the Lady! You wronged her and imprisoned her!" "I didn't even know she existed until just before you did!" Celestia yelled. "I didn't imprison her! Equestria didn't imprison her! Why are you making us suffer for things we didn't do?" "You didn't free her," Snowbright said quietly, like he was setting down a trump card. "She told us about your visits with her while you were there. She told us how you mocked her for her suffering when you could have set her free, pretending to care while doing nothing to help her." "I did no such thing! I would have freed her were it not for her wretched insistence on destroying Equestria, and seeing my sister and I, as well as Twilight, locked up like she was. I don't know if you know, but what she's currently doing to Equestria is something she intends to do to the world!" "Oh I know," Snowbright said smugly. "It was one of the bigger selling points for me after all." "Excuse me?" Fleur said, shocked. "You wanted to attack us?" "Not at the time, but I have no real love for Equestria. I could see it during the rebellion, those little things that would have made Mareitania more and more like Equestria, wearing away our identity bit by bit. So when Faust told us her wish of seeing Equestria and the world led into a new golden age guided by her hoof, how could I resist? Equestria, regarded as one of the greatest countries in the world, conquered by Mareitania, repeatedly described by many as being the worst. It couldn't have been more perfect." Fleur gawped at Snowbright for several seconds before managing to find her tongue again. "But Equestria helped you! We helped you! If it wasn't for us rescuing you after your stupid attempt at killing the Viscount, you'd be dead, or even worse a guest of Pearl's in her dungeon." "And the Viscount would have been dead, destroying the line of succession! Mareitania would've been freed from the Duke's grip when he died anyway, but you stopped me and dragged us into a bloody civil war!" "You know somepony else would've claimed the throne, or even worse a war would've started as different ponies fought for it. Ponies would die anyway, and in the end you'd have a ruler you still didn't want!" "You don't know that," Snowbright said, leaning back. "You're right, I don't," said Fleur. "But what we did was put good ponies in charge of Mareitania, and how did you repay us? By letting Faust control you and use you all as a weapon to destroy us." "She isn't controlling us!" Fleur picked up the box she had with her and slammed it down on the table. She unlocked the clasps and pulled out a familiar looking item, a wooden depiction of Faust. "Do you know what this is?" "It's an icon of Faust. Pretty much every household has one." "At her insistence?" "One was gifted to every household in celebration of our Lady's return." Snowbright squinted suspiciously at Fleur, "How did you get it?" "One of our pegasi picked it up a few months ago when we were scouting your country. She became completely obsessed with it, and attacked anypony that tried to take it off her." "Sounds like my kind of pegasus." Fleur pulled the icon in two, letting the small enchanted gem spill out onto the table. "This was inside it. A magic gem spreading Faust's magic to everypony who has one of these things." "You could have made that yourself. Besides, if what you're saying is true, why aren't you affected by it?" "We've immunised ourselves to it, but I was affected when we went to High Rock keep when this all started. The only ponies totally immune to it are alicorns, and Twilight was able to save us from it." "Uh-huh. If that's true, why aren't you removing its effects from me?" "Because we have reason to believe that ending the effects of the spell on a pony that's been exposed to it for months potentially has side effects." What Fleur didn't suggest was that Flicker was actually batshit crazy anyway when her horn was damaged, and there weren't any actual side effects so to speak. She wasn't going to take that risk though. "We're still working on how to safely remove the enchantment from ponies." Snowbright nodded slowly, "Okay, that's nice and all, but you haven't actually proven there's any mind control magic to speak of. Even if there was, what does convincing me of its existence really do for you?" "It helps us to show you you're wrong," said Fleur. "But I suppose that wouldn't matter to you anyway since you're kind of an asshole anyway. Instead, let's talk strategy." Snowbright chuckled at Fleur, "Prepare to be disappointed then, because even if I was willing to tell you, I don't actually know that much. You'll have to ask Faust about the entire story." "Ah, that'd be why they attacked where we caught you again, because they didn't have you to tell them it was a bad idea. We fought them off by the way." "What?" Snowbright said with fake surprise. "Without collapsing bridges, buildings, tunnels, or throwing deadly weather at them? I'm almost impressed." Fleur consulted her notes, "I do believe we threw a couple of five ton boulders at them, but that was to break their makeshift bridges. The rest was done the old fashioned way. We also captured... one thousand three hundred and ninety two of your soldiers, since they at least still have the sense to not get themselves slaughtered." Snowbright snorted at Fleur, "We'll aren't they lucky you gave them a chance to surrender." "I imagine you can thank Luna later at some point. The thing is, you can't keep throwing yourself at our strongest points. The attack on the Bulwark must have been costly, and between the train crash and the latest battle, as well as the loss of your griffon mercenaries, Mareitania must be feeling the losses. I wouldn't put it past Faust to keep throwing lives away, but I don't think even you would agree with that. There must be a plan b if you failed to capture Las Pegasus." "Of course there is," Snowbright laughed. "I just have no idea what it is since you denied us proper access to Ponyville as well. The Lady planned the strategy, I planned the battles." "Including the attack on the Crystal Empire?" Celestia asked. "No, that was all our Lady's work. I would've been more direct, but she likes to spare ponies where she can." "Why? To save ponies to use in her war against the rest of the world?" "Probably," Snowbright shrugged. "Why do you think she hasn't flown around destroying your war industries? She has the power to do so, and I know you know you couldn't stop her if she decided to do that." "She hasn't shown herself since Vanhoover," Fleur said, making a show of consulting her clipboard again. "For all we know her little fight with Luna could have left her unable to do so, and you could be bluffing." Snowbright shrugged again, "You'd only be kidding yourselves in that case." Celestia slowly and deliberately cleared her throat, "In the times I, and others, spoke with Faust, she often made reference to something she called 'the plan' concerning her intentions for the world. Do you have any idea what that is?" "Uh, Princess, I was aski-" Fleur shut her mouth as Celestia held up a hoof. "The plan?" Snowbright repeated back to Celestia. "I've never heard her say anything about any plan like that. She said that she wanted to lead the world into a golden age-" "Guided by her hoof, yes," Celestia finished. "Then it's clear to me that she really is just using you. Please continue Director." "Uh..." Fleur glanced at Celestia, seeing the dark expression on her face. She'd also lost track of her thoughts, and silently cursed Celestia for interrupting her like that. "Okay, since you can't go to Ponyville, and you've failed to even reach Las Pegasus twice now, your only options we see are to keep trying to capture Las Pegasus, or go through the north, which since you haven't done, we feel you must agree with our assessment that it's miles of deadly open ground to cross." "I'll agree that it wasn't plan a or b," said Snowbright, "but it's a plan should we need it. The fact is that the west holds nothing of use to us save as a hoofhold in your country. I suspect you intentionally made it to be that way, placing most of your critical industries in the east." "And yet you say Faust could destroy them herself, even though she hasn't, meaning she intends to capture them. Or that she's exaggerated her abilities to you." Fleur smiled as Snowbright glared at her. "Thank you for that information at least." "Yes you've made it difficult for us," Snowbright said evenly. "Luckily for you your very geography makes it easy for you to defend your country from the west, but don't kid yourselves into thinking we're done. As the Crystal Empire taught you, we are capable of surprises, just as you are. Whatever plan our Lady is thinking up, I'm sure I wouldn't even see it coming." "I see. In that case, should she attack our defences at Las Pegasus again, I'll let you know." Fleur stood and placed the icon securely back in its container, "Good day Snowbright. Guards, return him to his cell." Fleur started to leave, then remembered who else was in the room, and bowed to Celestia. "After you Princess," she said, letting Celestia leave first. They'd left the dungeons entirely before either of them spoke again. "I'm sorry Fleur. I suspect my presence there was more hindrance than help." Fleur shrugged easily. She'd not expected much out of the meeting, and ended up with a few bits of information that might be worth something. "I wouldn't worry about it. Snowbright's a highly trained individual, so it's going to take time to get anything useful out of him. I'm not exactly an interrogator either. I'll get our actual interrogators to work on him straight away." "I know, but... he was always fairly unpleasant to me during my time in Mareitania after the war ended. Having him here, I just wanted to know why he had such an issue with me. I'm still none the wiser really." Fleur smiled sympathetically, "I really don't think it was you. He was never the nicest of ponies, and even had issues with Twilight towards the end. He almost pitched a fit when he found out who Luna was." Fleur shrugged at Celestia, "As I said, we'll keep working on him, and hopefully get him to let slip some useful information." "Of course. Thank you, Director." Fleur bowed to Celestia, "You're welcome, although I'd appreciate it if you called me Fleur." "As you wish Fleur. Now I imagine we both have plenty to do, so keep me updated on events as best you can." -0-0-0- The journey from the dungeons was conducted in silence, and not just because Celestia lacked anypony to talk to as she meandered around the castle, avoiding going to the throne room for a little bit. The meeting with Snowbright had left her in a thoughtful frame of mind, and her thoughts only seemed to be chasing after one another as they sought the elusive answer to the question, why? She understood Faust's reasons for what she was doing, as deranged as they were, but considering none of the Mareitanians knew they were ensorcelled, how were they coerced into agreeing to attack Equestria? They weren't puppets, so why weren't they aware of how their very thoughts had been twisted into making them do something they wouldn't really want to do. Everything else felt irrelevant to that. Snowbright wasn't going to share Mareitania's strategy with them, not without the kind of coercion Celestia refused to adopt, so she doubted they would get anything useful out of him. Even then, she would constantly question whether what he told them was true or not. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she almost tripped over Flurry Heart as she played outside the door to Cadence's room as she passed. The foal burbled happily at her, raising her legs to try and get Celestia to pick her up, which she did so, rubbing her nose affectionately against Flurry's. "And what exactly are you doing out here, hmm? I very much doubt mummy would normally leave you laying around like this." Celestia smiled at the string of nonsense Flurry spouted, gesturing wildly with her legs as she flapped her large wings. "Perhaps we should go and find her." Flurry sighed in a way which perfectly conveyed 'that was what I was trying to tell you.' Celestia banged her hoof against the door to Cadence's room. "Cadence? Are you in there?" "Uh, yes, yes I am!" Celestia paused, suspicious at how much guilt Cadence had managed to squeeze into those five syllables. "Are you alright Cadence? You sound a bit off." "I'm fine! Really! I'm just a bit tired." "Ah, I see." Celestia waited a beat, "Care to explain why I found Flurry outside your door?" "But she's right her-ah!" The door flew open in a haze of blue magic, revealing the panicked and dishevelled pink alicorn that had been hiding behind it. "Flurry Heart! What have I told you about teleporting around?" "Gleerh!" Flurry squeaked, seemingly pleased with her cunning argument. "I thought her magic spurts had been stopped?" Celestia asked Cadence, confused at how Flurry had done such a thing. "Well, yes, but that doesn't stop her doing it on purpose." Cadence took Flurry off Celestia and placed the foal on her back. "Thanks for bringing her back to me Celestia." "Quite alright, although I am curious as to what you're doing to not notice Flurry was gone. Especially since she'd only made it as far as outside the door." "Uh..." Cadence glanced back into her room, "Just a small personal project. Nothing much." "Uh-huh... Cadence, I don't need over a thousand years of experience to tell when somepony is lying to me." "Please Auntie, it's really nothing important." Cadence gave Celestia her most convincing smile, although it ran up against Celestia's most sceptical eyebrow, which met it movement for movement, raising higher as the smile grew wider. "Why are you here anyway? Shouldn't you be in the throne room?" "I was taking a walk to clear my mind," Celestia replied, her eyebrow returning to its usual position. "I had an interesting meeting with General Snowbright, and I still don't feel any closer to understanding any of this." "Then all we can hope for is a quick resolution to this entire thing," Cadence said, rather pointedly in Celestia's opinion, although she would certainly like an end to all this as much as anypony. "Indeed. Would you perhaps join me in the throne room?" Cadence hesitated, her eyes drifting back to her room. "I'm not exactly presentable at the moment-" "Please Cadence, I'd appreciate the company. I also think Flurry would like to get out and about," Celestia added, getting a burble of agreement from the young alicorn. "Uuuuurgh... okay. Give me a minute to clean myself up." Celestia smiled and nodded, then waited patiently as Cadence got herself ready, which seemed to involve the sound of papers being hidden beneath a mattress for some reason. Obviously that wasn't suspicious in the slightest, so Celestia could only consider her impulse to tear Cadence's room apart until she knew what was going on as a bit of an overreaction. A minute later Cadence re-emerged, less bedraggled, and adorned by her regalia. With Flurry firmly in tow, the two alicorns made their way to the throne room, the beginnings of an awkward conversation forming between them. "So, Auntie, why exactly did you want me to accompany you?" "Besides the fact that you've been sequestered away for the last fortnight? I've barely seen you in a week. I'm just concerned that these events are weighing you down." "And shouldn't they?" Cadence said, a trace of harshness unmistakable in her words. "Yes, but our duty is to our ponies first, no matter how heavy our heart is." "Oh? You mean my ponies fighting for Equestria? Or the ones living in a refugee camp?" "Both," Celestia replied simply. "Cadence, I realise you no longer support this war after losing the Empire, but your subjects still need their leader during this time, if not more so." "And what makes you think I'm not doing that?" "The fact that you're staying cooped up in your room to the point that even Flurry wants to get out of there?" Cadence nodded slowly, but not in a friendly or agreeable manner. "I see no reason to go around pretending everything is fine, Celestia. My ponies are homeless, or are fighting a war they cannot win. That seems a long way from fine to me!" "And I understand that, but-" "No, Celestia. No, I'm not discussing this any further. I am trying to help my subjects, I am, but with the focus on the war I have limited options." This time Celestia nodded, not disagreeing with Cadence's words, but also letting her suspicions out to be voiced. "You're the mysterious benefactor behind the peace rally happening in Appleloosa, aren't you?" Celestia smiled as Cadence blustered at her, "I suspected you were." Cadence nervously chewed her lip, occasionally glancing sideways at Celestia, expecting her wrath at any moment. "I'm not stopping." "I wasn't going to ask you to." "You weren't?" Celestia smiled serenely at the younger alicorn, "Cadence, I've always tried to be an advocate for peace. I've not always succeeded, but I try. While I'm sure Luna has her own opinions on what you're doing, for me to stop you would be highly hypocritical. Those wishing for the fighting to stop need their own voice, although even I can tell you that for that to happen we'd have to completely surrender, which isn't ideal. I will ask one thing of you though." "What's that?" "Be pleasant about it. While some want peace, others want to fight, and you should respect that just as you want your point of view to be respected. Nothing saps a soldier's morale faster than thinking their own people are against them." "I can only see that as further incentive to stop fighting," said Cadence, "but I'll try." Cadence smiled sadly at Celestia, "I am sorry for undermining you like this, but I don't want Flurry to grow up in a war. I also want her to grow up with a father that's around... and alive." "I understand completely," Celestia stopped them outside the throne room, holding up a hoof to stop the guards from opening the doors. "If I could see a better way out of this situation, I would gladly take it, but I don't see surrender as that better option." "Surely surrender is better than throwing away so many lives, only to lose anyway?" "We haven't lost yet Cadence. I have faith Twilight will find what we need to end this." Celestia gestured for the doors to be opened and entered the throne room, slowing her pace a little as she saw the group of people clustered near the twin thrones, surrounding the tall form of Amira, the Saddle Arabian ambassador. "Excuse me? Is something the matter?" The group broke up at the sound of Celestia's voice, and Amira was allowed to the front. Celestia could tell something was wrong as her usual immaculate appearance was absent, and her eyes were puffy and red as though she'd been crying. "I have received a letter for you from my country, but with it I have also received dire news. An army of creatures under the command of one calling himself the Storm King has ransacked my country, pilfering riches and taking ponies as slaves. He attacked the capital Ammare little more than a week ago, and attacked many places besides as he left with his prizes." Amira swallowed hard, like she had to choke the next words out, "They took my sister." Celestia was stunned, and it took her a moment to realise that she was just staring at the ambassador. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Is the Sultan unharmed?" "They attacked the palace and captured Grand Vizier Hakim, but the Sultan eluded capture." Celestia nodded sadly, "That is something at least. I very sorry this has happened to your people, and to you for losing your sister. I... truly wish I could do something, anything, to help you, but at this time I'm afraid I cannot." "I know," said the ambassador, absent-mindedly playing with her long blue mane for a moment. "The Sultan sends his regrets at not having lent you his aid when you needed it most, as now when we could desperately use your aid, neither of us can help the other as our army is now being used to secure our borders from further incursion." "Our help?" Celestia asked, confused at the request. "Not that I would refuse to give aid if I were able, but why would you need our help specifically?" "The army that attacked us was in possession of vast air ships, against which we have no real hope. Without ponies that can fly, we have no way to follow them to where they have taken our ponies." "Air ships?" "A half dozen attacked the capital, containing hundreds of large, bipedal creatures with a strength in battle we could not match with what few city guards we had. They were few in number though, less than a thousand. We fear they may be a vanguard to a greater invasion." "Possible I suppose. I'd say that using your army to secure your lands is the best thing you could do at this time. Perhaps, once this war is over, we could see to the safe return of your people, and your sister." Amira choked back a tear and nodded, "Princess Twilight has already promised the Sultan her personal help with saving our people, but any further help you could offer would be appreciated." "Twilight was there?" Cadence said excitedly, forgetting herself and the situation upon hearing those words. "Is she alright?" Amira frowned a little, unable to hide her irritation at Cadence's outburst. "She was, along with four other ponies. She saved us from an evil sorceress and her army of giant spiders, but even she could not stand against these creatures." Amira pulled a scroll from her garments, "This letter is from her." "Giant spiders?" Cadence asked quietly as Celestia gently took the scroll in her magic, forcing herself to not snatch it from the ambassadors hoof. "Thank you ambassador," Celestia said earnestly, taking the scroll in her hoof and holding it to her chest. "As I said, I'm sorry we cannot do much to help you at this time, but once we can I shall certainly do my best to." Amira bowed to Celestia, then to Cadence, "We understand. Hopefully fate works in both our favours to bring this war to a swift conclusion." Amira raised from her bow and left, her rigid posture fighting against her feelings as she stiffly walked away. After a few seconds the other ponies dispersed as well, leaving Celestia and Cadence alone with the letter from Twilight. "It seems the world is unravelling," Celestia said sadly. "First us, then the griffons' troubles, and now an attack on Saddle Arabia by an unknown enemy." "You do realise that to help the Saddle Arabians we would only have to attack this 'Storm King,'" Cadence said to Celestia. "Meaning yet more war." "I realise that Cadence, but I had to say something. I have no wish to throw Equestria into another war so soon. It seems Twilight has other plans though." "What about the letter?" Cadence said, gesturing her head towards the paper still in Celestia's hoof. "And what did the Ambassador mean when there were four other ponies with Twilight? She only left with three." "It seems Twilight hasn't lost her touch at making friends," Celestia said with a smile. She broke wax seal on the letter, unfurling it and catching a second letter than was inside the first. "Hmm? Two letters, both from Twilight?" "Maybe she wrote a second one after the attack?" Cadence suggested. "Perhaps." Checking the date on the letters, Celestia chose the earliest one and began to read. Dear Princess Celestia Sorry you haven't heard from me in so long, but we had a bit of a run in with Queen Chrysalis in the Badlands, and she destroyed the speaker stone after capturing us. She did let us go though, after a intervention with Chrysalis from Primus, the original queen of the changelings, who lives in a pool of primordial goo. I'm not exaggerating, and she's just as worried about Faust as we are. I learnt a lot about Chrysalis and changelings during this time, and have received an interesting insight into them in the form of Mayfly, who was cast into exile by Chrysalis, and is now travelling with us. Anyway, we are making progress. We've deemed it unlikely that we'll locate an operational mirror as part of Starswirl's portal network, and are instead searching for existing fragments from which to create a whole mirror. We found some in the Badlands, and more in the Tenochtitlan basin, although we may have killed the creature Auhizotl, a villain from the Daring Do series, after getting captured. Again. He wanted to eat my heart, and Trixie took offence to that. Now, after an amusing adventure involving wonderfully musical pirates, we have sailed to Saddle Arabia, and arrived in the Capital Ammare this morning. After meeting with the Sultan we have no reason to think there might be an entire mirror here, but it might be here anyway, so we're doing more research just to be sure, while Sunset and Mayfly assist the authorities with something involving some disappearances. We've also heard that the war has truly begun in Equestria, and we are doing everything we can to find Starswirl's retreat. Hopefully our research here turns something up, and if we can really find an entire mirror here we might fix this sooner rather than later. Twilight. "It was written before the attack," Celestia said slowly, giving the letter to Cadence to read. "I know she's okay because she promised her help to the Sultan, but I'm actually a little scared to read the next one." "Let me read this, and we'll read the next one together," Cadence offered. "Is that alright?" "Yes, thank you." Celestia waited quietly as Cadence read the letter, watching the various expressions she wore that had been similar to her own as she read about Twilight getting captured twice. Once again she got the feeling that she'd given Twilight a task she shouldn't have. "Oh dear," Cadence said quietly, lowering the letter. "I'm glad they're okay, but what they're doing sounds a lot more dangerous than I'd anticipated. Especially after the attack on Ammare." "I know. Did the second to last paragraph seem odd to you?" Celestia waited as Cadence read that part again. "Doesn't seem like Twilight's usual form of writing, does it? I'm guessing they have found a mirror, but it's somewhere they shouldn't know about." "I have the worst feeling that Twilight's got herself into trouble," said Cadence. "I'm suddenly a lot more worried about reading the next one." "Indeed." Celestia By now I'm sure you've heard about the attack on Ammare. Rest assured that we're all fine, and that we were far away from the fighting for most of it. Apart from when I was thrown through a window. That did hurt a bit. Anyway, nothing much of note here, but I will remind you to practice the spells Mercury's Magical Messenger, Vulpin's Visual Vocabulator, and the counterpart to Starswirl's Enigmatic Encryptor, and to try mixing them a little, preferably somewhere private. You may be surprised by the results. Twilight "What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Cadence asked, having expected something different. "What's with those spells?" "She's hidden another message in this letter," said Celestia. "A message that only a skilled magic user could read. Clearly she wants us to combine those spells and use them on the letter." "Seems a bit ridiculous to me, but carry on." Celestia did so, combining the three spells Twilight had mentioned, except swapping out the Enigmatic Encryptor for its counterpart, which was the decryption spell. A swirling orb of golden magic formed on the tip of her horn, which she lowered to the letter. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the words stretched out into one line which started wrapping around itself until it formed a cartoonish facsimile of Twilight's head and face, which was heavy with sorry. "Hi Celestia," the image began to say in Twilight's own voice. "Sorry about the way in which this letter was sent, but I had to do it like this in case the Saddle Arabians tried to read it. As I said, I'm sure you've heard about the attack by the Storm King's forces on Saddle Arabia. What you might not know is that I'm unwittingly complicit in it. Please hear me out before you think I've gone mad though." "We found an entire mirror. It was broken, but nothing I couldn't fix. It was however, in the possession of the Sultan's vizier, who acted like it didn't exist, making it clear he had no wish to part with it. Anyway, after some... thing that happened with Daring Do, a mask, a unicorn called Arachiss, and a forgotten army of giant spiders, which we took care of so you don't need to worry about it, we decided to steal the mirror." "I started by scouting out the Vizier's estate, during which I found a unicorn with a broken horn by the name of Tempest Shadow, although I fully suspect that isn't her real name. She also sought something in the Vizier's collection, so I offered her our help if she offered us hers. That was a mistake." "It turns out that this pony was a commander in the army of the Storm King, whoever that is, and her distraction while we stole the mirror was to attack the city with her forces and ransack it. I wasn't very happy about that, but I felt I had no choice as we needed that mirror. She promised nopony would be killed if possible, and to her credit, almost nopony was. Instead... they were taken as slaves. I didn't learn that until after though." "To make a short story even shorter, we got the mirror, but it was destroyed while getting it somewhere safe. A pony was thrown at me through the mirror while it was next to me, destroying it, and filling me with so much glass I was almost jingling. We found as much of it as we could, but in the chaos most of it was lost." The image of Twilight sighed and ran a hoof back through its mane, "We had an entire mirror Celestia, and... and it's gone. But I'm not here to lament about that." "I fucked up Celestia, I fucked up bad, and now a lot of innocent ponies are going to suffer for it. I'm not saying I want you to jump up and go save them, but after this is done I'm getting them back one way or another. What I do want you to do is find out about the Storm King and his army, as I get the feeling they might be a threat worth knowing about. Especially the unicorn. She took down a dozen armed soldiers with her bare hooves, and she can cast magic with her broken horn, which I thought was impossible. It's crude mind you, but powerful enough to concern me." "I also believe she's from Equestria, which means you can trace her. She's a dark purple unicorn with a bright magenta mane and tail, but her most striking feature is her broken horn, which she claims won't heal. Without her real name I know this'll be hard, but a search through Equestria's medical records for her injury could turn something up." "Then there's what she took from the Vizier's collection, the Staff of Sacanas. I've never heard of it, and while Tempest claims it could fix her horn, I doubt that. The staff appears to absorb power, and even drained some of the magic from the mirror while it was still whole. What she and her Storm King wants it for worries me." "I'm saying it again, I did not want any of this to happen, and with the mirror shattered I failed to even make the best of a bad situation." The image of Twilight looked back over her shoulder, "I'm not sure how much longer I can keep talking like this, so I'm just going to say that I intend to fix this. Not now, but soon. For now I'm staying focussed on our mission, and we're heading to the Circen desert to try and find some more mirror fragments, because we almost have enough to forge a new mirror now. If there isn't a mirror there... I don't know, but that's always been the risk. Hopefully I can find a way to get in touch soon, preferably with good news. Bye." The letter returned to normal, and both Celestia and Cadence sat in a stunned silence for several seconds before either of them worked out what to say. Celestia was the first to break the silence. "Why does she always blame herself?" "Did she at any point indicate that she thought it was her fault?" Cadence said, wondering why Celestia would say that. "She doesn't need to say it. You can tell by the way she talks that she blames herself for what happened, even if there's no way that it could actually be her fault. Clearly this 'Tempest Shadow' had her forces nearby, with the intent to attack the city. Twilight just unwittingly asked for help from the wrong pony." "Yes, well, seeing as how Twilight intends to put this right, I think Tempest offered her 'help' to the wrong pony as well." "Indeed," Celestia agreed. "Thankfully she's staying committed to stopping Faust, but after that, who knows what she'll do. I'll get this information to Equis at any rate, and see what they can find on Tempest Shadow and the Storm King." -0-0-0- "This is the kind of stuff that leads ponies to drink," Fleur said to Celia, her appointed second since coming to lead Equis. "They want us to investigate some pony involved in the attack on Saddle Arabia, as well as some mysterious Storm King. It's not as if we don't have enough on our plates already, what with the hostile nation invading us, our capabilities being crippled by the bomb, and our assets in Mareitania being temporarily unable to operate after getting found out and losing one of the team." "Actually, tracing the unicorn wasn't too difficult," said Celia. "I had some of our agents search historical records over the last twenty years for ponies with rare and unusual conditions, like unicorns with broken horns that weren't healing, and we found something which led to the pony's actual medical record. Interestingly she's also on the missing ponies list, having gone missing years ago." Fleur's eyes were wide, "You're pulling my leg right? You really tracked down that about her already? It's only been a couple of hours since Celestia brought it to us." "Just doing my best ma'am, although it's our agents that did the work." "Right, of course. Still though, nice work." Celia smiled at the praise, "Thank you ma'am. Do you want to hear who she is?" "Certainly." "Alright, her name is fake as Princess Twilight suspected, and her real name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist." "Fizzlepop... Berrytwist," Fleur said slowly. "Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Really? That name is pretty usual even for pony standards. I mean, Fizzlepop, okay, but the Berrytwist seems a bit out of place after that." "Perhaps she has a mark in producing fizzy drinks?" "Fizzy drinks and leading armies. Yes, those things go hoof in hoof quite well. At the very least I can understand why she may have changed her name, even if 'Tempest Shadow' suggests she's going through a phase. I bet she wears a lot of black." "Were you to ask her, I'm sure she'd tell you it's not just a phase," Celia said with a smile. "Anyway, she appears to be a native of Ponyville, and lost her horn to an ursa minor after wandering into its cave in the Everfree forest when she was just a filly." "Just a filly? Yeesh. How old is she then?" "Twenty-seven." "A twenty-seven year old unicorn from Ponyville, who lost her horn as a filly to an ursa minor, ran away from home, and ended up becoming a commander in the army of the Storm King after changing her name to Tempest Shadow to appear all edgy." Fleur leant back and sighed, "Ponyville really does produce the strangest ponies. Seriously though, Fizzlepop Berrytwist. I'm going to be laughing about that one for a while. Find anything on the Storm King." "Not a thing," Celia shrugged. "He's a king, he likes storms, he takes slaves, he ravages countries then leaves, and is probably a bit of a dick." "That's a given. Oh well, I'm sure more will turn up on him eventually as he isn't exactly a priority. What about the Staff of-" Fleur quickly consulted her notes, "-Sacanas? The Staff of Sacanas. Yes, that." "I've put a request into the school for gifted unicorns to research the staff, but I've not heard back from them yet. They mightn't find anything if I'm honest. It's not like we have an extensive knowledge of everything after all." Fleur nodded vaguely, "So, in conclusion, we could tell you all about Tempest Shadow, but the pony, or whatever, leading a rampaging army through the south, and the staff he acquired, is a complete mystery." "That sums it up quite nicely, yes," Celia agreed with a taut smile. "Should I add this to the pile marked 'shit I don't need to worry about right now?'" "Please." Celia shrugged and held onto her notes as there wasn't actually a pile to put them on. As far as they were concerned, it was their job to worry about everything all the time. "So, what happened with Snowbright this morning?" "Eh, not much. We don't torture, so we have absolutely nothing to scare him with enough to talk. I'd said we'd get our interrogators onto him." "Uh..." Celia cleared her throat politely, "Who might they be?" "I don't know!" Fleur shouted, throwing her hooves up. "The job belonged to a fella named-" "Speakeasy, yes, but he died in the explosion. We haven't been able to replace him yet, but you already know that." Celia nervously chewed on her bottom lip, "I have a few ideas if you're willing?" "I'm all ears, because I have nothing else." "There are ways of torturing a pony with actually torturing them," Celia said slowly. "Sleep deprivation, white noise, sensory deprivation, things like that. A few days of no sleep and a barrage of mind-fuckery would have most ponies singing like a bird." Fleur raised an eyebrow at Celia, "How the hell do you know about that sort of thing?" "It's how we used to get changelings to talk back when I was an agent in Smile." Celia smiled nervously, "There's a number of reasons Celestia wanted total deniability, and that's one of them. We were not nice ponies." Fleur stared at Celia with a look rich in scepticism, "If you were an agent in Smile, why are you here shuffling paper in a desk job?" "I was attacked by a rampaging maulwurf. Shattered pretty much every bone in my lower body. I recovered, but I couldn't be cleared for active duty due to health issues, so I was given a desk job. Six months after that the bugbear incident happened and Smile was disbanded. By the way, you are hearing none of this from me." Fleur held up her hooves, "My lips are sealed. I'm curious though, did you know all along about Bon Bon and her team? Do they know about you?" "Smile was heavily compartmentalised, so I doubt they know about me. We all know about them though." "Why? Were they like legends in Smile?" "They were some of the best, yes, but the reason we all know them is because they're the ones responsible for the bugbear incident that led to six civilian deaths, and Smile getting exposed. I doubt any of us blame them because it was just sheer bad luck that it happened." Celia shrugged, "It could have happened to any of us. Sometimes a plan just goes wrong." "I see." Fleur shrugged internally. While what she'd just heard was fascinating, it didn't actually help her. She was about to give Celia the go ahead to start working with Snowbright when there was a knock at the door, and Derreck, the griffon photographer, stuck his head in. "Sorry to barge in, but Sonny just got back from Mareitania with Honeydew. What do you want me to do with them?" "Have them both come here," Fleur said to him. "I'll probably have to debrief them and question Honeydew before I can allow Sonny to have even five minutes of a break." "Yes ma'am." "Celia, I'm somewhat nervous to order it, but I'm giving you the go ahead to start working on Snowbright. Take whatever ponies you need, and if this causes issues with Celestia and the Royal Guard, have them come to me." "Yes ma'am." Fleur sat back as Celia left, hoping to enjoy the few minutes of peace she could get before Sonny got here with Honeydew. She was now sanctioning the mental torture of a pony, and wasn't sure if she didn't feel too strongly about it because it was Snowbright, or if it was because of other reasons. Fleur unbuttoned the sleeve of her uniform, sliding it up to expose the scars on her leg. She couldn't help but wonder if she'd been marked for this kind of life the moment she'd received those burns. It was certainly a reminder of the twists her life had taken over the last couple of years. She was still inspecting it when Sonny walked in, escorting Honeydew, and she quickly forgot about it, neglecting to pull the sleeve back down. "Thank you Sonny. I'll get you debriefed as soon as possible so you can have a break, but first, welcome to Equestria Honeydew." "Uh, thanks, and thanks again for sparing my life back in Stalliongrad." Fleur waved it off, "It's nothing really. Seemed silly to throw away the life of a pony like you. But now you're here, so... let's talk." "What about?" Fleur shrugged playfully, "About Faust of course. Her release, her coming to power, and her plans. What else?"

The end of an era

37. How the end began

"Everything?" Honeydew said, surprised by Fleur's request. "I don't even know where to start." "How about you start at the beginning, when they found Faust?" "The beginning?" Honeydew nodded slowly, "Alright. It began... it began with a bargain, desperately made by a pony due to be sentenced to death for his crimes, and the crimes of his predecessors, committed against Mareitania for over a thousand years. As you can imagine, he was not impressed." -0-0-0- "This trial is a sham!" Many of the ponies in the room gasped at the outburst from the Viscount, directed at the four ponies sat in a row before the dais bearing the shattered throne of the Duchy. "It is important that you and your forebears be brought to justice for the crimes you've committed against Mareitania," Daybreak said calmly, unfazed by the outburst. "Even with those words you admit that you consider me guilty," the Viscount shouted, pointing an accusing hoof at the members of the Council. "Stop acting like this is a trial when it already has a foregone conclusion. This is little more than a sentencing!" "It's a trial-" Sour Mash started to say, only to be interrupted by the Viscount. "What about you, Ivory?" he said to the pony at the left end of the Council. "You're being very quiet there because you know how this ends." Ivory tried to maintain her composure, but even to the casual observer it wasn't hard to see the slump in her posture. "It's important that justice is done Francis. You and your family committed terrible crimes against Mareitania during their rule." "And so the child must pay for the sins of the father," the Viscount said gruffly. "Laughable." "Your own crimes alone are enough to see you hung," Daybreak pointedly told the Viscount. "Is that so?" "It is." Francis was quiet for a moment, then smirked at the Council. "Then that is just yet more proof that this is a sham. Your laws are based upon Equestrian laws, yes?" "They are," Daybreak confirmed. "In that case you'd know full well that in Equestrian law you cannot retroactively prosecute ponies for crimes committed before new laws come into effect. You speak of me paying for my crimes, but the problem there is that nothing of what I did was illegal at the time. You are prosecuting me retroactively, which is by your own laws illegal, proving without a doubt that this trial is a sham, on top of you already deciding that I am, without a doubt, guilty." The throne room went quiet as the Viscount called the Council out on their actions. The Viscount himself stood proudly, smiling smugly at the four ponies before him. "Are we going to start acting like this is what we all know it to be? A sentencing to death of a falsely accused and innocent pony, denied the right to a proper trial?" "Like there's a single pony in this room that could possibly deny what you have done!" Snowbright shouted from the side of the room, breaking the silence he'd carefully maintained during the proceedings. He grunted as Daybreak waved him down. "Very well, Viscount, since you hold such contempt for us, perhaps we should proceed with what you think this is." "Or perhaps you could tell me my supposed crimes? Maybe not though, because then I'd be forced to remind you that nothing I did was illegal at the time." Francis nodded thoughtfully, "You're right, that'd be a waste of all our times since you'd only ignore me anyway." "Oh for goodness sake." Daybreak sat and gestured at Sour Mash, "I think we should just get on with this. These ponies here all know how guilty he is." "Need I remind you that all these ponies here are part of your movement," Lord Hayfield said, leaning over to whisper. "This was hardly going to be the most impartial crowd to begin with. I hate to say it, but the Viscount isn't entirely wrong." "I know," Daybreak admitted. "That's why I say it's best that we just do what we always intended. Carry on Mash." Sour Mash stood and cleared his throat to read off the scroll in front of him. "Francis, former Viscount to the deposed Duchy of Mareitania. You have been accused and found guilty of numerous crimes against the peoples of Mareitania, including murder, slavery, and other more debauched crimes. For these crimes, you are to be hung from the neck until dead. Is there anything you wish to say?" "Certainly. Kill me and you will never find your precious Lady." "Excuse me?" Daybreak said slowly, unsure of what the Viscount was saying. "What are you talking about?" "The Lady?" said the Viscount. "You know, the mythical figure that led you to overthrowing our nation's true masters? The alicorn that many of you claimed Twilight Sparkle was a messenger of? I'm sure you've heard of her." "Of course we have heard of her!" Daybreak snapped. "What I was to know is what you're talking about!" "She's real, and is here in this very keep, hidden away where only I can find her. If you kill me, you will never find her and she will suffer for eternity because of it." "Just ignore him," Snowbright said to the Council. "He's just desperate to save his slimy hide." "You're right, I am," Francis said sternly. "What I'm telling you is no lie though. I can give you your Lady, and all I ask for in return is my life and my freedom. If I'm wrong, then you've lost nothing but time, of which you have an ample supply of." Daybreak groaned under his breath, ready to dismiss the Viscount's words, when a figure in the assembly stood, making him groan again. It was Guiding Light, leader of the church of the Lady. "Yes Guiding Light?" "I demand that you at least investigate his claims. If our Lady truly is here in this keep, then is it not worth seeking her? I realise your need for justice is great, and I do not deny that the Viscount should pay for his crimes, but the return of the Lady is too great a hope to ignore. What better cure could there be for the ailing spirit of our country than the one being that could truly unite us all? Please councillors, I implore you to at least see if this criminal speaks true before you execute him." "And now we have ourselves in a bind," Mash whispered to Daybreak. "You know those nutters will never stop seeking her if they think their bloody Lady might be here. Perhaps it would be easier to see if he's right, and have Guiding Light there with us just so she can be sure he was making it up." "I agree," said Hayfield. From the other side of Hayfield was a nod from Ivory, denying Daybreak the chance of refusing it. "Very well," Daybreak said solemnly. "We will investigate the Viscount's claims, so until we know for certain he is telling the truth, this court is adjourned." "You can't possibly let him live!" A mare shouted from the crowd, getting shouts of agreement from others, while most of them stayed quiet. "He needs to pay for what he did!" "And he shall," Daybreak said evenly, although he wasn't sure how to go about giving everypony what they wanted. "Now please, go in peace until you are summoned again. Except for you Viscount, and you Snowbright." The Council waited until the room was empty save for themselves, Snowbright, Francis, and a few guards that were waiting to return Francis to his cell. He smiled smugly at the councillors, feeling superior in the knowledge that he was about to save his skin and get revenge in one fell swoop. "You can't seriously believe him," Snowbright said to Daybreak once it was just the few of them. "Everypony knows the Lady is just a myth. He's just making this up!" "I can assure you she is quite real," Francis said smoothly. "My father showed me her several years ago, calling her our greatest secret, and the reason why there must always be a Duke on the throne of Mareitania." "To keep her there?" Ivory asked. "Perhaps. I don't honestly know. My father acted like she was a threat to him, but all I saw was a starving and broken pony." Francis shrugged, "She doesn't seem like a danger to anypony, except maybe myself, but I have nothing to lose in that case." "And how could your father have possibly captured and contained somepony like the Lady?" Mash said, his scorn clear in his voice. "He didn't," Francis replied. "She's been there since before the Duchy was founded. Since before the exodus even. She was put there by none other than Princess Platinum, although I have no idea why. I wouldn't be surprised if nopony knows, including the Lady herself. I can tell you though, that both Twilight Sparkle, and Princess Celestia knew about her, and not only chose to leave her there, but to seal her in even tighter." "That's bullshit," said Snowbright, only to get a faint smile from Francis. "You can ask her yourself when we find her. Of course, there's still the matter of my life. If I help you find her, I want a full pardon and enough marcs to start a new life in comfort where I will be no trouble to you at all. You can even monitor me if you feel the need." "You haven't even begun to prove your claims," Hayfield pointed out. "Perhaps you ought to before making demands." "Very well." Francis pointed up at the shattered throne, at its highest point where an ornate disc sat at its peak. "The disc at the top of the throne. That's the key to her cell. You can simply pull it out with your magic." "Uh-huh," Daybreak grunted, grabbing at the disc with his magic, and pulling it. To his shock it slid free, turning out to be a couple of inches wide. It was also rather heavy, and when he brought it to himself he turned it over, revealing a collection of mechanisms on its underside. "Huh." "Now that's over with, let's move on to my monthly stipend." Snowbright grabbed the Viscount's mane, pulling his head down until his ear was level with Snowbright's mouth. "You haven't proven anything yet, not until we know where she really is." "She's in a section below the dungeons, in the part all but the Duke was forbidden to go. You know exactly where it is, or where it should be anyway." "What do you mean where it should be?" Ivory asked as Snowbright released the Viscount's mane. "In an attempt to prevent the Lady's release, Princess Celestia sealed over the entrance so you can hardly tell it's there." Sour Mash snorted a laugh, "Then maybe we should do the same. If Princess Celestia thought this alicorn, who might not even be the Lady, was dangerous enough to seal away forever, perhaps we should pay attention to that." "I doubt she's dangerous," Francis insisted. "I've seen her, and she is not a threat. Even if she was, what better way to spare yourselves her wrath than to be the ones that rescued her?" "And set her on Equestria instead?" said Hayfield. "Our only allies in this larger world we find ourselves part of now? Don't be ridiculous." Francis rolled his eyes, "She'll get out one day anyway, either by being discovered, or simply through time wearing away the mountain. Wouldn't it be better to do it now, so you can be in control of it?" "What do you think Daybreak?" Ivory asked the yellow unicorn, who had gone quiet as he stared at the key in his magic. "All my life I've heard about the Lady. I never really believed in her, but holding this key... I don't know. I want to believe, and there's only one way to be sure." Daybreak looked up sharply, locking eyes with the Viscount. "Francis, you won't be getting a monthly stipend or anything like that, but if you are right, you have my guarantee that your life will be spared, and even kept comfortably. Agreed?" he added, looking at the other councillors, getting a nod in answer. "Refuse," said Snowbright, "and we'll go looking anyway since you already pretty much just told us where she is." Francis cursed under his breath. He had lost control of negotiations, he knew that, but now they had him by the throat so he couldn't refuse if he wanted to live. "Fine, I accept." Daybreak nodded once, "Good. Take us to her." -0-0-0- "So they just accepted the Viscount's word for all of it?" Fleur raised an eyebrow at Honeydew, "Really?" "He wasn't important to the Council, other than as a pony to direct the blame onto. All he had to bargain with was his life. If they didn't find the Lady, he knew they'd only proceed with executing him. "Since I already know they found her, I suppose it's too much to hope that he was wrong, and they executed him anyway?" "It is unfortunately. Unluckily for all of us, he took them straight to where they needed to go." -0-0-0- "Here," said Francis, running his hoof over the small indentation left in the rock after Celestia had sealed the entrance. "This is where the entrance to the Lady's prison is. Or was, at least. I can't begin to guess how thick the rock is." Daybreak looked over the mostly blank wall that the Viscount had led them to through a long corridor of empty cells. Apparently the entrance had been left uncovered and unprotected for the entire time the Duchy had existed, save for the threat of horrible things if you went down there. Now there was a blank wall with a dent in it, and the slightest hint that the wall had almost flowed like water to become that way. "And you're sure this is the place?" Mash asked, eyeing the Viscount. "Positive," said Francis. "Unless Celestia did this to the entire passage, all you have to do is break through this rock." "I really dislike the way he seems so happy about all this," Snowbright whispered to Daybreak. "I seriously think he's planning something." "I'd be surprised if he's not," Daybreak whispered back. He glanced at Guiding Light and the collection of other ponies they'd brought with them to prove that this was either real or a hoax. "It's too late to stop now." He gestured at a couple of ponies bearing an iron bar and a large hammer, to start breaking through the rock. The one holding the bar placed its point on the indentation, and held it there as the one with the hammer repeatedly struck the other end with a painful sound that echoed around the dungeons. It took a couple of minutes to break through, and then they did the iron bar flew through the hole with nothing there to stop it, and it was as much as the hammer pony could do to not smash the hammer against the head of his counterpart. "See!" Francis shouted triumphantly. "It's hollow behind it! Now you just need to break the rest down so we can find your Lady." "With all due haste!" Guiding Light added. "I hate to imagine the condition she must be in to after having been sealed away for so long." "There's no guarantee we're going to find anything," Snowbright reminded her as the two ponies started working to clear the entrance of rock, hammering away at the obstruction. "She's here," Guiding Light stated firmly, her eyes shining. "I know it." Daybreak merely rolled his eyes, pinning his ears back to protect them from the sharp ringing of the hammers as they broke down the entrance inch by inch. He briefly paid attention to the Viscount and how keen he seemed about all this. He'd been pretty unrepentant about everything so far, so to think he was helping to free the Lady for her benefit alone seemed unlikely. He gained something from this, but what? It took a while, but eventually the entrance was cleared, and they put aside their tools as they prepared to venture into the darkness. Daybreak led the way, his horn glowing to provide a light by which to see as they descended down a spiral stairs cut into the stone, each step made treacherous by the rubble covering them that Ivory swept away as she passed. "Up there, the blue glow," Francis said as they reached the bottom, pointing up the dark hallway to a blue glow at the far end. "That's her cell." Daybreak only nodded and started heading in the direction indicated. There were other cells down here, but each of them seemed to be empty of even the most basic of amenities. Eventually he stopped looking as something blocked most of the light from the far cell. "Who's there?" a voice called out, raspy and weak. Daybreak was readying himself to respond when Guiding Light pushed past him and sprinted for the cell. "My Lady? Is it really you?" Guiding Light placed her hooves on the door to see in through the small window in the door. Blue eyes stared back at her, framed by strands of a thin, burgundy mane attached to the head of a white alicorn. "It is you! It is! You are real! You're-" "Who are you?" the voice asked again, her eyes flicking to the others in the passage as they came closer. "We're here to save you," Guiding Light said, sounding a little unsure. "I am Guiding Light, leader of the Church of the Lady, and we're here to release you." "Release me?" A small smile crept onto the corners of the alicorn's mouth. "You really intend to release me?" "Of course! Daybreak, give me the key, please?" Daybreak kept the key out of Guiding Light's grasp as he stepped up to the door. He eyed the alicorn within, seeing her bone-thin and ragged appearance, the black bands around parts of her, whose runes glowed blue as they nullified her magic, and the glimmer of hope in her eyes. If this wasn't the Lady, he had no idea who else she could be. He still felt it prudent to ask though. "Who are you?" "Me?" the alicorn said, like she was surprised to be asked. "Is it not clear she's the Lady!" Guiding Light growled. "Give me that key so I can let her out!" "The Lady?" the alicorn said, giving Guiding Light pause. "Yes, the Lady, or the Lady of the North if that is the name you prefer. The first alicorn, whom protected us from the terrors of the frozen north? The alicorn that made us? The alicorn that helped shape the world?" Guiding Light trailed off, her voice growing weak with a fear that this alicorn wasn't who she hoped it was. "That is you, isn't it?" Daybreak couldn't help but notice the guilty expression that flashed across the alicorn's face at the mention of the 'terrors of the frozen north.' "I am whom you speak of, yes, but I was never called the Lady." "Then who are you?" Daybreak asked. "My name... is Faust." "And you know nothing of being the Lady of the North?" "I've been here for fifteen hundred years, and I was never called such a thing, not even during those scant visits I received off the various dukes that ruled over the centuries I've been here." "How are you not dead?" Snowbright asked, rather tactlessly. "Because I have no choice in the matter." "Just like Twilight," Ivory murmured. Faust's eyes flashed with anger upon hearing Twilight's name, "I'm guessing you must be Twilight Sparkle's rebels to speak of her in such a way. Would it please you to know that she, Princess... ngh, Luna, and Celestia, all conspired to keep me here?" "I told you they knew," Francis said smugly. Daybreak pointed a hoof at the Viscount, "You, shut up. I refuse to believe that Twilight, Celestia, and Luna would have kept Faust here without a good reason." "I- I don't know," Faust whimpered. "Please, just... please let me out. You're rebels, so you must know what it's like to want to be free? That's all I want right now! To not be trapped in here any longer!" "Please!" Guiding Light begged, falling to her knees before Daybreak, "Can you not see she is suffering? Please release her." Daybreak closed his eyes and sighed, unable to escape the feeling that this might have been a mistake. "Alright," he said. "We'll free her." "Thank you," Faust said wearily as Guiding Light squealed with joy. Daybreak turned the key in his magic, lining up the notches on it that corresponded with those in the lock, then slid it in. Glowing lines flashed to life on the key, forming a jumbled confusion of picture fragments. Daybreak stared at it dumbly, not even beginning to see what it was supposed to be. "You have to complete the image," Faust explained. "I don't know what that's supposed to be though," Daybreak admitted. "The key was forged by skilled artificers in the service of Princess Platinum as part of her plan to trap me here and secure her legacy, and that of her people," Faust explained. "The image forms the coat of arms for Unicornia." "That was the profile of a unicorn head, wasn't it?" said Mash. "On a blue background with stars?" He reached out to move one of the sections of the image, only for an arc of magic to strike his hoof, making him rapidly pull it back. "Son of a bitch! Ow!" "It was forged by unicorns to only be used by unicorns," Faust explained further. "One of the unicorns will have to use their magic to manipulate it." "Oh good," Daybreak grumbled. "I am famous for my love of puzzles." He sighed and set to work, moving piece by piece into what was hopefully a coherent image. "Who was that?" Snowbright asked, peering into the cell to the right of Faust's, its sole occupant being a rather elderly skeleton that seemed to have been dismembered at some point. "That was the pony that led the rebellion some four hundred years ago," Faust told him with a hint of bitterness in her voice. "They forced her to surrender herself, and brought her here." "So they knew she couldn't have been the Lady as she claimed, because they had the real one here all along," Hayfield said thoughtfully. "Did you not learn of the Lady through her?" "I wasn't aware it applied to me, and her pained ravings as she was cut to pieces and left to die weren't the most enlightening things I've ever heard. I don't think she really knew who I was before that happened, other than I was just another prisoner here." "She died the death she deserved for daring to impersonate you," Guiding Light said with conviction, drawing some concerned looks from those around her until she was corrected by Faust. "She tried her best to help ponies. Nopony deserves to die for that." "Oh, um... apologies my Lady, I didn't mean to-" "Got it!" Daybreak shouted gleefully. There was a click, and the blue lines extended from the key to the door, travelling along lines cut into its surface as various noises came from inside it. Just as it seemed to be building to something, the magic faded, and the door swung ever so slightly inwards. Faust backed up as Daybreak gently pushed the door open and recoiled at the smell, then gingerly walked back to the doorway, setting one hoof outside her cell, then another, then all of them. She suppressed a cry of joy in her throat, but not enough to stop an excited sounded whine escaping. She started walking, ignoring the stares she got at her gaunt frame and fraying feathers. She had spent a millennium and a half with nothing but rock over her head, and now she felt a pressing need to see the sky. He legs protested against the activity, going both stiff and weak, but she persevered as there was nothing that was going to stop her now. All of them followed her up the stairs in silence, keeping a watchful eye on the shaky alicorn. She stopped for breath at the top, which allowed Snowbright a chance to catch the amused grin the Viscount was wearing. He held a hoof to the Viscount's chest, slowing him as Faust and the others set off again. "You might have been right about her, but something tells me this is far more than just an exercise in altruism for you. You're planning something, and I'll be damned if I don't put a stop to it." "I have done nothing except that which I promised," Francis blustered. "In fact, since I have done just that, I think I'll be taking both my life and my freedom, thank you very mu- Ah!" Francis shouted as Snowbright grabbed him by the collar and swung him in through the open door of a cell, slamming it shut behind him. "What do you think you're doing?" "You may have bought your life with this, but there is no way in hell that we would ever let you go free." Snowbright reared up and slammed his hooves against the bars of the cell, "You will rot in here for the rest of your miserable life, until you wish we'd killed you!" His piece said, Snowbright pushed away from the cell and followed after the others. Francis pressed his face against the bars, but even he had the sense to realise that nothing he could say would matter. All he could do was rest assured that the seeds of his revenge had been sown. -0-0-0- "Of all the things I wish could've been different about our time in Mareitania," Fleur sighed, "killing the Viscount is now number one. All of this could have been avoided so easily." "It is such a small oversight to cause so much trouble," Honeydew agreed. "Frankly he would have deserved it anyway." "Quite. Still, spending the rest of his life in a cell is a comeuppance of sorts." Fleur raised an eyebrow at Honeydew as the mare nodded her agreement, "How do you know all this anyway? You weren't there for any of this." "Actually I was at the trial, but the rest was pretty well known. The return of the Lady wasn't something to not talk about, and there were enough ponies around spreading rumours to be able to create quite a comprehensive story. It was all common knowledge by the end of the week." "I see. Please continue." -0-0-0- It didn't take long for Snowbright to catch back up with the others, running into them on the steps out of the dungeons. All of them were watching Faust as she struggled upwards, but none of them dared to lend a hoof. Even Guiding Light kept her distance, choosing to watch her god labour step by step. It could easily have been half an hour before Faust conquered the steps out of the dungeons, and she stopped to gasp for breath at the top. Still they were too afraid to offer her help, but not once did Faust ask for it either. "Are we really humouring this?" Snowbright asked Daybreak as Faust set off again, making her way towards the main entrance to the keep, none of them particularly wondering how she knew the way. "I don't think I need to remind you how dangerous alicorns are, and we know next to nothing about this one." "Other than she's the Lady," said Daybreak. "And? Get serious Daybreak. All we know about her are stories. We don't know for certain if any of them are really true, or why this Princess Platitude, or whatever her name was, really put her down there. We need to find out if she's dangerous before we can't stop her." Daybreak rolled his eyes at Snowbright and his overcautious attitude, "And maybe you need to wake up to what's in front of you. This is the Lady Snowbright, the Lady!" "You said it yourself Daybreak! If Twilight, Luna, and Celestia kept her in there, it had to be for a reason! Why would three other alicorns be so afraid of this one to want to seal her away? Stop being awed by all this, and think!" "Does she look dangerous to you? She can barely climb stairs without collapsing! Besides, the cat is well and truly out of the bag now, so there's no way we could possible hide her again." "Then contact Twilight, Celestia, or any of them, and ask them about Faust. I'm sure the knowledge that she's a genocidal maniac would be useful before we give her too much freedom!" Daybreak snorted a laugh at Snowbright, "You want to ask Equestria for advice? You? You hate Equestria!" "So? If they can save us from making a huge mistake, I think it's worth it." Daybreak patted Snowbright on the side and shook his head, "You're really overreacting here. Let's give her a chance to say her piece, then we'll consider asking the princesses for advice if we need it. For now, let's give her a bit of time out of her cell, yes?" "Fine," Snowbright grunted, "but if this goes wrong, it's on your heads, not mine." Daybreak shrugged, considering the matter resolved as Faust made it to the entrance. The two guards standing to either side of the double doors pulled them open, eyeing Faust with amazement. It was raining outside, and Guiding Light dashed in front of Faust to say so, but the alicorn shook her head. "I don't care. I need to be outside." Guiding Light frowned but nodded, stepping aside to let Faust out. She walked out into the rain, her skin twitching as the chilly droplets landed on her threadbare coat. She raised her head and smiled, laughing as she let the rain wash the filth of a millennia off her, then sat and opened her mouth, catching raindrops on her tongue. "Ooo... so dangerous," Daybreak snarked, nudging Snowbright on the side. He walked out into the rain to Faust, clearing his throat to get her attention. "Sorry to disturb you, but as you can imagine, some of us are rather curious as to how you came to end up in that prison. Other than stories, we know very little about you." "Of course, my apologies. I was just ecstatic at the thought of seeing the outside world again." Daybreak bowed apologetically, "I don't mean to stop you from enjoying this moment, but... Twilight, Luna, and Celestia sealed you down there for a reason. We need to know why they did that." "Because they fear who I am," Faust said cryptically. "I will explain all, but while I do, might I trouble you for a little food and water?" -0-0-0- "Well?" Fleur asked, hanging on the edge of her seat. "What did she tell them?" "I don't know," said Honeydew, giving Fleur a helpless shrug. "Nopony except the Council, Snowbright, and Guiding Light knows, but when they left they had removed the bands inhibiting her magic, and said nothing of it except Snowbright. Even then, all he did was claim that he was right about Equestria and the princesses all along." "So she could have told them anything? Anything at all? She could have told the truth, or a lie, or anything?" "Anything," said Honeydew. "I wish I knew more just so I could tell you. Just so I could know myself, about why she dragged us into this war. I guess that's between her and the Council though." "Actually, quite a few of us know the real reason why, but what I want to know is if Faust told them the truth, because I've heard it mentioned that she cannot lie. Even so, if the Council knew her story, they couldn't have agreed to attack Equestria based on that alone? That'd be madness." "No, but there never was any proper reason. You know she used magic and the faith ponies had in her to compel Mareitania to enact her wishes." "I know. Anyway, Faust told the Council her story. What then?" "After that nopony saw Faust for a week save the Council, Snowbright, and Guiding Light. I was surprised when she asked to see me." -0-0-0- Honeydew gulped nervously at the alicorn before her. She'd been washed, brushed, and fed, but a week was far from long enough to remove a millennia and a half of neglect, even from an alicorn. Faust was still painfully thin, and the bald patches where the bands had worn away her coat stood out. There was also no warmth in her eyes that Honeydew could see. It felt like the look Faust was giving her was the look of a workpony inspecting their tools. "I'm told you create wondrous machines," Faust said before the silence became too thick to break. "Powered by fire and steam no less." "T-t-that's right," Honeydew stammered. "Steam power is the future of our country." "Of course it is, yes, but what about the weapons? Are those the future too?" Honeydew shook her head rapidly, "No! I regret ever designing those horrible things! I'd take it back if I could." Honeydew cowered at the hint of disappointment in Faust's eyes. "But a machine like that is but another tool, and in the right hooves could be used to protect rather than harm." Honeydew twisted her hooves together, wishing to be anywhere but where she was. "I guess, but it would only protect by causing harm to others. I'm not sure that's much better." "It seems strange for such a gentle soul to have created such terrible machines, and even stranger for a creator to hate their creations. Still, I cannot fault you for your honesty." Faust smiled kindly at Honeydew, "I have a request to make of you. I wish for you to continue designing and building these tanks." Faust's horn flashed, and Honeydew looked up at it, unsure of what that meant. "I'm pretty sure only the Council can ask me to do that, and I made it clear that I wouldn't without good reason." "Is the safety of Mareitania not a good enough reason?" Faust said sharply, a trace of anger creeping into her words. "Not unless I know what I'm keeping Mareitania safe from?" "Equestria." Honeydew almost laughed, but managed to hold it back as she saw how serious Faust was being. "B-b-but Equestria are our allies. They helped to free us from the Duke. Didn't they?" "Yes, but I'm sure they only seek to use you for their own ends in the future. I'm sure they're more than happy to steal your steam powered machines from you to use." "But Equestria already has steam power. We actually stole a lot of our knowledge on it from them rather than the other way around." Faust's expression darkened, "So they already possess steam tanks? Troubling." "I don't think so. Equestria is a pacifist country, and they don't even possess a standing army, let alone maintain things like steam tanks." "But we shall have to prepare in case they do, meaning you shall have to build and design more steam tanks." Faust's horn flashed again, and again Honeydew stared at it quizzically. "You sound like you want to attack Equestria." Faust opened her mouth to answer, shut it slowly with a click, then tried again. "Celestia and Luna kept me imprisoned here, and I wish to be prepared in case they try to imprison me again." "Not Twilight Sparkle though?" Honeydew quickly decided to stop talking as Faust grit her teeth. "Twilight Sparkle is a hero of Mareitania," she said, although it seemed to pain her to do so. "I have no direct quarrel with her, but with her masters." "You mean Celestia and Luna again? I thought that as a princess she was their equal?" "It doesn't surprise me you would think that way. Twilight Sparkle is little more than a servant from what I've seen, and I'm sure the Council would like to see her freed from her bonds of servitude. You could help that by designing more tanks." "I... don't think that's a good idea. Maybe I should talk it over with the Council before I decide." Honeydew wasn't about to say it, but she was convinced that Faust definitely planned on attacking Equestria at some point. She hoped the Council would put a stop to that. "Very well, but I think you'll find the Council agrees with me in that we should build Mareitania's defenses," Faust said matter of factly, like her say on it was final. "Go discuss it with them if you must, but don't be surprised when they tell you the same as I have." -0-0-0- "What did the Council say?" "They said that if Faust thinks we should build more tanks, we should build more tanks. It's clear to me now that they were quite under her control by that point." "You mentioned her horn flashing. Do you think she was trying to control you as well?" "Most definitely," Honeydew said with a firm nod. "I can't think of any other reason she'd want to see me in person. I think it was after that she started creating her widespread form of mind control, after her failure with me told her the magic wasn't fool proof. Maybe she hoped that individuals like me would be so outnumbered by her followers that we'd have no choice but to go along with it all. It worked too." "Perhaps," Fleur agreed. "Do you know how she cast the spell to get everypony to follow her?" "I don't know, but she made a request for a pure crystal, I know that. The problem was that the crystals from Mareitania fell far short of the quality she needed, so the Shades were dispatched to acquire one from Equestria with exacting specifications." "You have got to be kidding me," Fleur grumbled. "They managed to do that, and we had no idea at all?" "Equis was probably still being unified from the Royal and Night Guard at that time," Sonny pointed out, breaking the silence she'd maintained throughout all of this so far. "It wouldn't surprise me they missed that, and a lot of other things at the time. Especially since we had no idea Mareitania was becoming a threat as well." "Right, right, of course." Fleur slumped down and pushed her fringe up with a hoof, holding it there for several seconds before letting it fall with a sigh as company. "What happened after that then?" "Not much really. With your pegasi still in the country, and only those within High Rock under her control, not a lot could happen without you finding out about it. They probably laid the groundwork of the military growth they needed to attack you with. Nopony really even saw Faust that much either, and I spent as much time in Stalliongrad as I could, working on the tanks and other things because I felt so out of place in High Rock, and used to get the worst headaches." "So the Council convinced you to start working on the tanks and other things?" "They did, but I was far from happy about it. After I was done designing Mareitania's rail network, I had very little involvement in it. That's when all the other work started, such as designing and building the various machines that would streamline the production of war materials. Other than that, I have no idea what else was really happening. Not until the pegasi were removed from New Pegasopolis, and the city destroyed." "What about the story that you were under threat from the griffons?" Sonny asked. "That was the story spread to the populace about why so much military development was going on, but by the time it mattered, Faust had already started to spread her magic outside of High Rock. Nopony really questioned it after that. Just as they didn't really question it when the pegasi left, or when it was revealed that they were going to be attacking Equestria. If the Lady wished it, they were happy to comply." Fleur steepled her hooves as a thought came to her, "How did they destroy New Pegasopolis? Bombs tend to have a limited effect on clouds unless you enchant them to not go through clouds, or can time the explosions." "They used the Adepts, like they did against the original Pegasopolis. Sort of anyway. We tried to use the tanks, even though I told them that the city was well out of their range. As you said, they were rather ineffective. The griffons, however, weren't recruited until after the first Equestrian raid on the shipyards by Brayside. I couldn't tell you how they got involved though." "We're getting ahead of ourselves here," said Fleur. "The plans were laid to build up Mareitania's military, and Faust started spreading her influence outside of High Rock using an enchanted crystal from Equestria. Otherwise, nothing much happened for a while, yes?" "Mmhmm," Honeydew hummed with a nod. "Time was an issue though, and it was getting closer to the time they'd have to remove the pegasi before they started noticing things." "Ironic then that Griffon Intelligence spotted far more going on than the pegasi ever did," Sonny pointed out. "Too true," Fleur agreed. "I don't think it's too hard to imagine that the military build-up began, followed not too long after by the removal of the pegasi." Honeydew nodded at Fleur, "Yes, but Faust first had to learn about you, Twilight, and everything else. For that she needed a pony from Ponyville to question, and Pegasopolis had four of them for her to choose from." -0-0-0- Honeydew watched nervously as General Snowbright marched into High Rock, a metal crate with holes drilled into its sides carried behind him. She couldn't see what was in it, but the frightened whimpering coming from within told her it was most likely a pony, and definitely a female. "What's going on?" she asked Daybreak who was standing nearby, watching what was happening with a fierce intensity. "Who is that?" "That is the pegasus our Lady requested to question about Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony. Whatever else she knows about Equestria would be useful too." "You've abducted her?" Honeydew quickly bit her tongue before she said anything she shouldn't. One of her observations of the ponies under Faust's control was that they spoke quite freely about the Lady and her plans, so long as they believed you were on the same side. Her work ethic had ponies believing Honeydew was happy to work for the Lady, but truthfully it was only to distract herself from the reality of the situation, even if it actively made that situation worse. "She will be unharmed," Daybreak assured Honeydew. "It's unfortunate that she had to be brought here in such a way, but we had to bring her here without the other pegasi noticing." "How could they possibly not notice one of their own is missing?" Honeydew asked, seeing that as a major flaw in the plan. "You know what those Equestrians are like," she added, trying to voice a positive thing in a negative way, as the Equestrian pegasi tended to look out for each other in this country that had proven less than welcoming to them. "They'll be too busy to worry about it soon enough." Honeydew swallowed back her reply, as it sounded like they intended to attack the pegasi, which was a terrible idea on so many levels. Instead she allowed herself to be distracted by the crate being open, and its contents dragged out by a unicorn. It was indeed a pegasus mare, a dingy purple in colour with a very light sea-green mane and tail. She wore a large pink bow in her mane, suggesting the mare was relatively young. As soon as she was out of the crate, the mare tried to take flight to escape her captors. The exit had already been shut, so it was unlikely she'd get far, but she tried none the less. She'd barely made it two meters off the ground when the magic of the unicorns around her grabbed her, pulling her back down and slamming her against the ground hard enough to stun her. "Pluck her wings," Snowbright commanded, only to be immediately countermanded by Daybreak. "Only pluck enough to stop her flying. This pegasus has done nothing to deserve such treatment, and you know how our Lady feels about such things." "Fine," Snowbright grumbled, nodding to some of his subordinates who started plucking feathers from the pegasus. Honeydew lowered her ears and looked away as the pegasus screamed and cried, begging for mercy from the horribly detached ponies watching her. A couple of others looked away, but that was it. Slowly the screams relented, and Honeydew dared to look again, finding the pegasus was weeping silently into the ground, overcome by the pain. She was surrounded by her own discarded feathers that had drawn tiny trails of red onto the floor as they landed, and her wings were covered in tiny dribbles of blood that stemmed from the violently removed feathers. "Get up," Snowbright ordered the pegasus, who didn't so much as move a muscle to obey him. "I said, get up." Snowbright slammed a hoof onto the stone floor next to the pegasus's face, shocking her into jumping to her hooves with a shriek. "Now follow me, and somepony, clean up this mess." Honeydew almost cried in sympathy as the weeping mare followed after Snowbright on legs that shook with each step as she followed him to wherever he was taking her, her wings dragging on the floor. "You can't tell me that was necessary," she said to Daybreak. "Faust requested that the pegasus was unbound when brought to her. I'm not pleased about what just happened, but we have to stop her escaping or attacking. Hopefully that should be the worst the poor thing has to endure." Honeydew doubted it, but again she felt unable to say so. Trying to take her mind off it, she focussed on other things. "Why exactly was my presence requested here?" "We have a project for you. Follow me up to the council chambers and I'll tell you all about it." Honeydew nodded and let Daybreak lead the way. Unfortunately that involved going the same way as Snowbright had taken the pegasus. Honeydew was sickened to see the occasional smudge of red as might be left by a feather brushing blood onto the ground. Further along was a larger collection of smudges that hinted that the pegasus had collapsed. Anger grew in Honeydew, making itself heard above the usual background terror that had dwelled in her since her meeting with Faust. This pegasus had done nothing but help Mareitania, giving her time and comfortable life up to endure the country continued to have suitable weather as the native pegasi left for Equestria. Such a selfless act, punished by being abducted and brought here at the whim of a rather polite tyrant, her wings stripped of feathers, and probably about to suffer worse, despite what Daybreak had said. Honeydew wished she could do something to help her, but had no idea where to even begin. Before she'd had a chance to work it out, they arrived at the council chambers, formally known as the throne room, with the shattered throne still sitting as a symbol of what they had defeated to get here. Too bad Faust had made a mockery of that. "What's this about Daybreak?" Daybreak waved Honeydew over to the table the Council used, and rolled out a map. "I know this isn't your area of expertise, but-" "Area of expertise? Since when has that stopped you before? I'm probably one of the best architects in Mareitania now because of the things you've had me build." "Right, yes, and that'll come in handy for this. We need you to design an irrigation system." Honeydew blinked at Daybreak, waiting for more information. "An irrigation system for what?" she asked when that information wasn't forthcoming. "For Mareitania." "For Mareitania? I'm afraid I don't understand." "Basically, we need you to design an irrigation system for the entire country, capable of performing the same function as pegasus made weather, thus, freeing us from the need to employ Equestrian pegasi." "That's... that's impossible! The sheer scale of such a thing would be absurd! Where are you even getting the water for such a thing if it never rains? You need pegasi for that." "From the Mareissippi, which is fed by the mountains in the north." "That's not going to be fit for pony consumption!" "Then design something that'll make it fit for consumption." "That's not a solution, but fine, assuming I could even do that, do you really expect me to be able to get water to every inch of land in the country? Including the forests and everywhere?" Daybreak levelled a hoof, "There may be some 'acceptable' losses in the process." Honeydew paused, her brain failing to comprehend how stupid this was. "Why are you even asking me to do this? What are you planning to do to the pegasi?" "Nothing really. Faust feels that it would be better if the pegasi were allowed to return home to Equestria. This irrigation system would allow them to do so." "But it would take years to design and implement something like this, and that's if it's even possible in the first place. How long do I have?" "Before the pegasi leave? About a week." "WHAT?! You can't be serious!" Daybreak waved his hooves towards Honeydew to get her to calm down, "It's alright, Faust said she'd take over the weather. To be honest, what you're designing is a back-up system, rather than something we need urgently. You'll get the time you need to build it." Honeydew felt her heart sink. Of course Faust wanted it, and what Faust wanted, she got, logic and reason be damned. "Okay, I'll see what I can come up with." "Attagirl. You get your head down for a couple of weeks, and we'll have a look at what you can come up with." Honeydew nodded morosely, unable to hide it this time. Thankfully Daybreak didn't notice, or didn't care. Perhaps he thought she was thinking about the task, when really her thoughts had drifted to a far darker place. Whatever it was, he didn't stop her as she left and made her way back down, stopping at the place where the pegasus had fallen. A gross curiosity built in her, joining her anger and her desire to help the poor mare, and she found herself wandering towards Faust's chambers, following the faint trail of blood. Two guards stood outside the door to where Faust was hosting her new guest. Honeydew doubted they would let her into Faust's room, not that she wanted to do such a thing anyway, so she ducked into the next room along, which so happened to be the chambers of the former Duke, where he'd killed himself in the last weeks of the civil war. The room was still trashed after Trixie had her breakdown, although the crystals that had embedded everything were long gone, leaving scarred walls, splintered floorboards, and broken furniture, along with a faintly musty smell that had come with not being used. Nopony had even touched the room until Faust came along, when they'd drilled a couple of spy holes to keep an eye on her. It was one of these that Honeydew made use of now, placing her eye to it and listening to the occupants of the next room, of which there was three. "Flitter, please," Faust said from her padded dais. "I have no desire to hurt you, but if you won't tell me what I need to know, you leave me little choice." "I won't betray the princesses!" Flitter near screamed as she struggled in the grip of Snowbright, her cheeks shining with tears, and her chin dripping with blood. There was a slight whistle to her speech as well, which probably shared an origin with the blood if Honeydew were any judge. "You're devotion to them is admirable Flitter, but misplaced. They are false rulers sitting on a throne of lies, built by a pony who betrayed you all. You gain nothing by protecting them." "I-I-I don't care!" "Pity. Snowbright, remove another one." Honeydew looked away quickly as Snowbright jammed the end of a pliers into Flitter's mouth, but looking away wasn't enough to save her from the screech of agony that Flitter made as a tooth was wrenched out of her jaw. "I'll ask you again Flitter, tell me about Twilight Sparkle." Flitter didn't answer, instead crying and shaking until Snowbright almost dropped her. "For goodness sake. Snowbright?" "Wait!" Flitter screamed as Snowbright brought the pliers back to her mouth. Faust's raised an eyebrow at Flitter, and waited a moment, ready to order Snowbright to continue if Flitter said nothing. "Sh- she lives in Ponyville." "I'm aware of that. I want to know where in Ponyville." "In a big crystal castle in a crystal tree, you can't miss it." "A crystal castle in a crystal tree you say? Was it built that way?" "I-I guess? It was made when Twilight and her friends defeated Tirek." "Made? As in built as a reward?" "I don't know! There was a big rainbow and it just appeared out of the ground! I think it had something to with the Tree of Harmony." "The Tree of Harmony?" Faust murmured. "Does that mean Twilight is connected to it? Her friends as well?" "I- Yes, I, um..." "Tell me about her friends." "Her friends? But they're just ordinary ponies!" "Hardly, not if they're connected to the Tree of Harmony. Snowbright, coerce her some more." Honeydew ran as Flitter started screaming again, and didn't stop until she couldn't hear it any more. -0-0-0- "I'm such a coward." "I can't say I blame you for running," Fleur said soothingly. "But I could have done something to help her, and I was so scared I did nothing! I... I'm just a stupid coward." Honeydew looked at the floor and shuddered a sigh. "How is Flitter now? After being rescued?" "Physically, fine. With Twilight's healing device she's recovered fully, including her teeth." "Oh goo-" "Mentally, she's a mess. She's still in counselling, suffers frequent nightmares, and tends to act violently to anypony that puts so much as a hoof near her mouth. Really she's about as well as you expect a victim of High Rock's tender mercies to be." Fleur laid her scarred leg on the desk in front of her. Honeydew stared at the leg for a few seconds, then dropped her gaze. "Right." "It's also interesting to know that the unicorn hunter in Snowbright isn't entirely dead, but that's unimportant now, although it's tempting to arrange an accident for him and his teeth. And balls. And all of him really." Fleur inhaled and exhaled slowly, "Okay, so I'm guessing that was about a week before the pegasi were forced to leave, and a few days more before we arrived?" "That's right. I guess you kind of know the story from there." "Yes, but I would like to know what happened right after we departed in such a hurry." "Hold on," said Sonny. "Did you ever complete those designs for a country spanning irrigation system?" "No. I worked on it some more, but with Faust's existence discovered by you, nopony seemed to care any more, so I stopped. Not long after that Bon Bon and her team found me and... killed me, so to speak." "That's a shame," Sonny sighed. "I imagine those designs would have sold well in dry countries." Sonny shrugged as Fleur eyed her, "What? I've never stopped being a griffon just because I work for ponies. You can take the griffon out of Griffonstone, but you can-" Sonny stopped and grunted as the other two openly stared at her. "Just get on with whatever you're doing," she said, waving a claw at the others. -0-0-0- Honeydew jumped into wakefulness as a scream echoed around High Rock, then gasped as the ever-present pressure that settled in her head every time she came to High Rock suddenly disappeared, the relief washing over her like a cold shower. Coherent thoughts escaped her for a moment, but she scrambled out of bed, catching her hooves in the sheets and falling to the floor. She clambered to her hooves and ran for the door, slamming it open and hurrying towards the source of the scream, which she knew had to have come from where Faust was. Others were hurrying there as she did, and a crowd was gathered around Faust's chambers. Honeydew carefully pushed through them, taking care of the guards in case they decided to stop her. None did, too preoccupied with everything else to care what she did. She stumbled into the room, and froze as she saw Faust. She cried in agony, tears running down her cheeks as blood dribbled from the severed stump of her horn. Ponies were trying to help her, but she thrashed her hooves at them, her strength sending the ponies flying. "W-what happened?" Honeydew asked, only to be ignored. She was about to ask again when she saw Daybreak slumped against the wall, his head clutched in his hooves. "Daybreak!" "Nggh..." Daybreak hissed as Honeydew pulled him up, keeping one hoof pressed against his forehead under his horn, his head feeling like it wanted to explode. He fluttered his right eye open, looking at the pony that was trying to help him. "Honeydew? What happened? Wait, where's Twilight?" "Twilight? Twilight's not here." Honeydew followed Daybreak's eyes to the window Twilight and her friends had escaped through. "Wait, you mean Twilight did this?" It was as much as she could do to not sound pleased. "She... did, yes, and she did something to me." Daybreak rubbed his head and gently removed his hoof, then paused as he remembered something, his eyes going wide. "She tortured the pegasus." "What? Twilight? Twilight wouldn't do something like that!" No, not Twilight. Faust tortured the pegasus. She said she wouldn't..." Daybreak blinked a few times as his thoughts gathered back together. "She lied! She lied to me!" "Daybreak, I really wouldn't-" Daybreak started to get up, until Honeydew shoved him back down. "Think about what you're doing! Do you really want to confront her about this now?" "But she lied to me! She told us she couldn't lie!" "And she didn't, not entirely. I'm guessing she told you she wouldn't harm the pegasus?" "That's right." "Then she wasn't lying. She never touched the pegasus herself." "But... who?" "Snowbright. Snowbright's the one that did it." "That mealy-mouthed, son of a bitch! I'm going to-" "Do nothing! Stop for a moment and think clearly!" "I am thinking clearly! I feel like I'm thinking clearly for the first time in... months..." Daybreak blinked at nothing, then turned his head towards Faust, who had finally calmed enough to let ponies help her. He was surprised to feel nothing but betrayed by her, while he knew that he would have forgotten his own problems to help her not ten minutes earlier. "What has Twilight done to me?" "What do you mean?" "I... she did something to me, and now I... I feel like I can see what's really happening." Daybreak pushed himself up onto his hooves, and staggered over towards Faust, who eyed him angrily through her pain. "Are you alright?" "Alright? Do I look alright you fool? She cut off my horn!" "And she escaped with the pegasus. The pegasus you said you weren't going to torture! You lied to me!" Behind him, Honeydew facehoofed hard enough to make it echo. "How could you lie to me?" "Twilight Sparkle attacked me, and that's your concern?" Daybreak was about to reply when a sharp kick to his hind quarters made him look back to see Honeydew shaking her head at him. Picking up her meaning he turned back to Faust and smiled falsely. "Apologies my Lady, I must have bumped my head harder than I thought. Excuse me." Daybreak wasn't expecting to be dismissed, nor did he wait to be as he turned and pushed Honeydew towards the exit, hoping to get some answers once they were far enough away. He led them to his private chambers and shoved her inside roughly, locking the door behind him. "You know something. Tell me." "Tell you what? That having that pegasus tortured was the worst thing she's done? Do you even realise what's been going on for the last five months?" "I don't understand what you mean." "You let Faust take control of you and the Council! She's leading you into a war with Equestria, and you think one tortured pegasus is the biggest problem here?" "But Equestria... Equestria..." Daybreak closed his mouth, the reasons for attacking Equestria as he understood them, turning to dust. They were attacking Equestria because Faust wanted them to. There were no other reasons. "I don't understand. How could she do this?" "I don't know, but ever since you freed her this entire place has been acting crazy, bending over backwards to fulfil her every whim, and she's taken control of everything to force us into a war with Equestria. And you all let it happen!" "But not you?" "Not that it mattered," Honeydew replied bitterly. "You all forced me into designing and building more tanks because Faust wished it, and there was nothing I could do to stop it because everypony's come down with- with- Faust fever!" Honeydew panted angrily for a moment before speaking again. "If you're only seeing this now, then I guess what Twilight did was free you from this insanity." "But she's the Lady! She wouldn't make us do all this! You're lying. You have to be." "You know I'm not." "But- but- Oh who am I kidding." Daybreak idly rubbed his horn, a vicious itch having spread through it. "We have to stop this." "We can't," Honeydew sighed. "As soon as everypony here works out you're against Faust, you'll be ostracized and kicked off the council, and you'll be powerless to do anything." "But I have to do something!" "You can't. There's no stopping this now Daybreak. The only thing we can do is go along with it and hope things don't end too badly. You can try and stop it if you want, but leave me out of it." Honeydew unlocked the door and opened it, stopping in the entrance. "I know you can't do nothing, so could you at least be careful?" "I'll try." Honeydew nodded. "Take care Daybreak," she said, pulling the door shut after her. -0-0-0- "That was the last time I really spoke to him. I wished him the best, but if he did something stupid, I didn't want to be associated with it." "I guess he didn't have much success in stopping the war then," said Fleur. "He tried a few things, but he soon learnt that Faust and her puppet rulers tended to plough through any opposition to her plans. Honeydew shrugged at Fleur, "I guess he just gave up in the end." "Or the spell wore off and he ended up back under Faust's control. I suppose it doesn't matter either way." Fleur scribbled down some last notes, then placed her pen down. "I'm not sure any of this really helps us, but I feel better for knowing it." "So what's going to happen to me now?" Honeydew asked, her voice trembling a little. "Not much if I'm honest. As you're aware, we're currently being invaded by Mareitania, so if you want to remain a secret, Honeydew has to stay effectively dead. I doubt you want to find out what would happen to you if the Mareitanians win and find you in Equestria. Our own counter-intelligence efforts haven't exactly proven great either, so as Bluebelle you'll stay. As for practical uses for you, we don't really have one." "You don't want me to help develop your steam tanks?" "You can't help develop them, because we never started to develop them. All our efforts went into developing a counter to Mareitania's tanks, rather than building our own. I guess you might be useful elsewhere though, but that decision isn't mine to make. We'll keep you here in the castle until Princess Luna returns, and she can decide whether to put you to work somewhere." "So you want me to find somewhere for her?" Sonny asked. "Please. If you could also arrange for somepony to touch up her disguise, I'd appreciate it. Then you can have a few, well deserved days off. I'd do it myself but I have important things to do." "No problem boss. Come on Bluebelle." Fleur smiled at Honeydew as she hesitantly followed after the griffon, then canted her head back and groaned loudly as soon as the door shut behind them. "That told me nothing useful!" She flicked a hoof under the papers she'd been writing on, scattering them across her desk. "Celia! I need caffeine! Celia!"

The end of an era

38. A peaceful distraction

"Nothing in four days. No movement, no construction... nothing." Luna tossed their latest scouting reports away with a flick of her magic. "One might almost suspect them of not knowing what to do." "And that would be a gross assumption on our part," said Shining Armour. "I'm equally willing to suspect them of having a plan that lulls us into a false sense of security. At the very least I'd suspect them of having a plan." "Yes, yes," Luna drawled. "I imagine their vaunted Lady is rather disappointed with their progress, and blah-dy blah-dy blah. If they appeared to be preparing to travel through the north, fine, but they don't even appear to be doing that. They're just sitting on their hooves around the tunnel to Ponyville." "Nopony's seen anything of the griffons either," said Stormguard. "I mean, even less than usual. I don't want to assume anything, but perhaps they've abandoned the Mareitanians?" "Now that would be assuming things," Luna said, dismissing that notion straight off the bat. "It's been mentioned that the Bloodfeathers don't renege on a contract." "So all we can do is sit and wait for the Mareitanians next move," Shining sighed. "That sounds like a terrible idea. At the very least the peace rally can hopefully be undisturbed by enemy actions." "Are they still refusing a number of our forces for protection?" "'Fraid so. The organisers feel that having soldiers there as protection would promote the wrong image to the attendees." Luna laughed scornfully, "Basically you are saying they don't want soldiers to be seen as protectors. They want us to be seen as warmongers fighting an unjust war." "Not at all, as I think even they're aware that it's us under attack, not the other way around. All they want is a peaceful end to the war." "Yes, well, I believe I've said enough on that already." Luna shrugged at the two generals, "If they wish to be left to their folly, then far be it from me to argue." -0-0-0- Static exploded from Rainbow's wings, heading in no particular direction. She wobbled through the air back to the ground, fumbling the landing and tripping over her hooves to land face first in the dry ground of the San Palomino desert, her wingtips gently smoking. "Ow." "That was worse than last time Rainbow," Cloud Chaser said cheerfully, having watched the proceedings with glee, along with Lightning Dust, Thunderlane, Sky Stinger, and Vapor Trail. "Maybe you should try again, and do the exact same thing." "Why the fuck would I do the exact same thing?" Rainbow asked, her words muffled by her mouth's proximity to the ground. "Why indeed?" Cloud asked back, a cheeky grin on her face that Rainbow couldn't see until she finally pulled herself back up. "Har har Cloud. I do believe it's time for you to have a go." "Nah, I'm good. I was thinking we should take a break, and I don't just mean from this." "We can't take a break from being soldiers," Lightning said carefully, wondering where Cloud was going. "I didn't mean running from the army or anything. I just meant that since we haven't had no contact with the enemy in four days, and that nothing is happening, perhaps we could take a night off and go to that peace rally by Appleloosa?" "Are you even serious?" Sky Stinger said to Cloud. "A peace rally? Really? Why the hell would we want to go to that?" "Because there's a concert there, headlined by Countess Coloratura, Songbird Serenade, and Sapphire Shores. Who wants to miss that?" "I'm guessing the answer is 'not you?'" "Hell no! Not when it's free! Who'd want to miss them for free?" "Again, I suspect the answer is 'not you.' I also suspect you haven't realised that going there means going AWOL, and that we'll never get permission from Spitfire if we ask?" "I've thought of those things, yes, and we're not on roster for patrolling tonight, so we're not missing anything if we go." Cloud turned to address the rest of her squad mates, "Come on guys, who's with me?" Lightning delicately cleared her throat, "As much as I'm unhappy about agreeing with him, Sky Stinger is right-" "Thank you!" "-And going to this concert will count as going AWOL at a time when we could be attacked at any moment. I'm not sure we can do it Cloud." "But you want to," Cloud insisted, a coy grin on her face. "Of course I do! I love Sapphire Shores, and the other two aren't so bad either, but we can't risk it." "Aww come on Lightning," Rainbow said to their leader, "lighten up. We can go for a couple of hours, then head back. We'll be gone for three, maybe four hours, tops. Seeing as how we'd be doing nothing at the time, we won't be missing anything except maybe some sleep." "And if the rest of our Squadron grasses on us?" Lightning said back, "What then?" "Then we take our punishment in the knowledge that we saw three of the top singers in Equestria, totally free. By that point, I'd say we've already won." Lightning closed her eyes and sighed, "I don't know. Thunderlane, Vapor, you're both being quiet. What do you think?" "I'd love to go," Vapor said quickly. "Come on Sky, it's just one night. What's the worst that could happen?" "I get the feeling you don't actually want me to answer that." Sky pursed his lips as Vapor gave him puppy eyes, silently begging him to give in. "Please stop that. You know I consider puppy eyes cheating." He started to sweat as the puppy eyes intensified, and he looked away at Thunderlane. "What do you think of this?" "He used to have the biggest crush on Songbird Serenade," Cloud answered for Thunderlane before he could so much as open his mouth. "At least until he got a piece of this ass. I'd say he's in." Behind Cloud, Thunderlane nodded sheepishly. Sky Stinger swallowed hard as the three other mares made three more sets of puppy eyes to join Vapor's. "There should be a law against this. You know you could easily go without me. I won't tell on you or anything." "Or you could come with us?" Cloud suggested. "This isn't going to end until I give in, is it?" All four mares shook their head simultaneously. Behind them Thunderlane grinned helplessly. "Fiiiiine." "Woo!" Cloud cheered as Vapor leapt onto Sky to hug him viciously. "Party time!" "What about the rest of the squadron though?" asked Thunderlane. "They'll probably be suspicious." "Nah, they're used to us disappearing for hours at a time," said Rainbow. "They'll probably think we're off doing this again, or something. No offense to them, but I don't trust all of them to keep quiet about it if we ask them to come. Especially Fast Clip." "Sadly true," Lightning agreed, reaching into her pocket to pull out a watch. "Okay, so concert starts at... nine?" She looked at Cloud for confirmation, getting a nod in return. "Yeah, nine, so if we split up and meet here at eight, we should be there in time for the opening act. We stay for a couple of hours, then head back for midnight at the very latest." Rainbow rubbed her hooves together, "Sounds like a plan." "Sounds like a terrible idea if you ask me," Sky grumbled. -0-0-0- "Psst! What's the password?" Rainbow looked around, trying to find the pony that had spoke. "We didn't make a password. Why the hell would we even need one?" "...Oh, yeah." "Cloud, get the fuck out here and stop messing around." "Okay, sorry." Cloud fluttered down to the rock Rainbow was sat on, Thunderlane close behind her. "I kinda thought that since we're being all secretive and stuff that we'd have a password." "For what? And I'm pretty sure you have to arrange that kind of thing before you start." Thunderlane chuckled under his breath, "She's been like this since we discussed it earlier. I don't think she quite grasps the concept." "That might have been because I was too busy grasping other thi-" "Okay," Rainbow interrupted. "No sex talk, please, I've just eaten." "You're just jealous," Cloud said teasingly. "Of the things you two get up to? Each to their own, but there's not a lot of things you two get up to that I'm jealous of. I'm in the camp where every hole is not, in fact, a goal." "We like to express our love in many exciting and exotic ways." "Like walking funny the next day, I know. So very romantic. Now seriously, knock it off before I puke." "Prude." Rainbow rolled her eyes and ignored the others, leaving them to whisper what she hoped were sweet nothings into each others' ears until the other three arrived. "About time." "I know," Lightning said apologetically. "I had Soarin talking my ear off about something, and I couldn't get away very easily. Since we're all here though, how about we get moving?" Rainbow nodded, "Sounds good." She took off, leading them into the easterly direction that she believed Appleloosa lay in, enjoying being able to fly somewhere without an expressly military purpose. "I feel naked without my flight suit," Sky said after a few minutes. "Uh, Sky, you are naked without it," Lightning pointed out. "Yeah, but now I really feel it." "Feels good to me," said Rainbow. "It's nice to feel the wind on my body for once. No, that was not an invitation to fart in my face," she added as a Thunderlane started to overtake her. "Aww," Thunderlane sighed, making Cloud giggle. "Seriously you guys, there's something really wrong with you. Anyway, lets get moving." -0-0-0- Things were starting to kick off at the concert as the six pegasi arrived. The grounds in front of the stage built near the refugee camp, were flooded with thousands and thousands of ponies. Keeping low, the six of them flew in and inserted themselves into the crowd, landing on a small rise that allowed them to see the stage. "I guess it hasn't started yet," Vapor said, observing that the stage was empty. "I hope Songbird goes on first." "Have you seen the banners some of these ponies are waving?" said Lightning. "Make peace, not war. End the fighting. No more death." "My personal favourite," said Thunderlane, "is 'end the matriarchal establishment forcing our ponies to fight for them.' It's almost enough to make you forget that we actually volunteered to join the Wonderbolts." "Even though the Wonderbolts weren't really given a choice about whether they wanted to fight or not?" said Rainbow. "Not that I'm complaining, because I knew what I was getting into, but, y'know." "Peace rally," Lightning whispered harshly. "Ixnay on the Wonderbolt-ay. We're just normal ponies here to see a free concert with some of the biggest names in Equestria. That's it." "Oh thank goodness, I was worried you were here to be party poopers." "Pinkie?" Rainbow turned to where the voice came from to see the pink party pony and her team standing within touching distance. "How long have you been here?" "The entire time. You landed right next to us." "You could have said something!" "And I would've, but as I said, I was worried you were here on Luna's orders to ruin the party, or something." "How'd you get here anyway? Appleloosa's miles from the base camp." "We hired a pegasus coach from Las Pegasus. A bit pricey, but seeing those three on stage in one night is worth every bit!" "Just to be clear," said Limestone, "I was against this idea from the start." "And yet you're still here," Lightning pointed out. Limestone sighed and nodded, "Don't remind me. I don't even like this kind of music." "What music are you in to then?" Rainbow asked, only to be surprised at the answer. "Classical." "Really?" Rainbow bit her tongue as Limestone glared at her. "So you're not into rock then?" "Nah, that's Marble's thing. And stop typecasting me you jackass." "It helps me express the rage I feel every day," Marble said as she eyed the crowd nervously. "I honestly can't tell if you guys are fucking with me or not." Rainbow cleared her throat and was about to try and dig herself out of the mess she'd made, when the lights on the stage shifted to highlight three figures that were walking up the section that extended into the crowd. "Hello everypony!" Coloratura said into the microphone held in her hoof, her voice cutting clearly across the crowd. "We'd like to thank you all for coming tonight, to support our efforts to end this war." "Fighting isn't the answer," Songbird said as Coloratura finished. "I know that it's important to protect our homes, but our homes aren't being protected, as you all know. It's only a matter of time before all of Equestria faces the same heartache as all of you." "Which is why we want to end the fighting!" Sapphire Shores said next. "What's the point of fighting if we aren't even achieving anything? Instead we should embrace the true Equestrian values of forgiveness and understanding, and make peace with the Mareitanians." Coloratura smiled and nodded at her counterparts. "I know that if we put our voices together we can and will be heard! The princesses can't ignore us if enough of us demand an end to the fighting! Together, we can end this! But now..." Coloratura smiled at the crowd as music started, "Now... it's time for the spectacle, time for the show, the lights are bright and the colours glow..." The small military component of the crowd stared blankly at the stage while the thousands around them roared their appreciation. "Do they even know what it is we're fighting for?" said Azure. "Faust isn't here to push us around and call us names. She's here to destroy everything that makes us, well... us!" "You can't blame ponies for not wanting to fight," said Pinkie. "Is that what you think? Give me a real challenge Pinkie." Azure raised her head and screwed her face up at the crowd, "All you ponies here suck, like, super hard." Satisfied at the response from the crowd, of which there was none, Azure turned back to Pinkie. "Boom. Nailed it." "That's not what I meant Azure!" "Forget about it," Rainbow said to the both of them. "We're here to see a free concert with three of the biggest names in music, not get caught up in an... an..." "Ideological discussion over whether these ponies are right or wrong in wishing for peace with the ponies attacking us," Maud said as Rainbow failed to think of what to say. "Exactly! What Maud said. Enjoy yourselves, and don't worry about it." "And I will," Azure said firmly. "Just as soon as Sapphire Shores comes on stage." -0-0-0- "I gotta dance!" "You gotta dance?" "Yes, I gotta dance!" "So, you want to go and dance?" "Pinkie, if you don't come and dance with me, I will hit you with the nearest pony I can find, which so happens to be Marble." Pinkie smiled at the others as Azure started to drag her away. "It appears as though I have to go and dance. Laters!" Rainbow nodded and sucked on the straw in her drink, wishing she had something stronger than lemonade. So far the evening had been pleasant, if not as thrilling as she'd hoped, but that might have been more her own fault than anypony else's as she felt more inclined to relax than anything else. Lightning, Sky, and Vapor were chilling nearby, along with the remainder of the Hard Corps, while her own wingmates had sought somewhere more secluded to do 'coupley things' as Cloud had put it. More than likely they were having sex in some bushes somewhere. "This is bullshit." And Rainbow's mood turned a little downward as Limestone spoke. "What makes you say that? Not a fan of Sapphire Shores?" "Pfft, no, but that's not what I'm talking about. How many of these ponies here really care about making peace with the Mareitanians? How many have just come here to see the three biggest names in pop for completely free, and aren't refugees at all?" "You mean like us?" "Yes, but that suggests everypony was a willing participant in coming here. Come on Rainbow, you must see what's missing here." Rainbow scanned her eyes across what part of the crowds she could see from her spot lounging on the ground. She sipped on her drink again, then shrugged at Limestone. "I don't see anything wrong." "Where are the crystal ponies?" said Limestone. "A significant portion of the refugee population is missing, and why is that? I'd say it's because they know what's going on concerning the war, and fighting those attacking us after having their home torn away from them. They don't want to fuck around with shit like this. They want their home back. I'd also like to point out that you couldn't fit a quarter of the refugees into this place, so why hold a concert for them here?" "I... don't know." "To buy sympathy for ending the war. You get three of the biggest names in music to put on a concert, have lots of ponies come here, and have them see all the refugees so they think 'oh those poor ponies, we should stop fighting so they can all go home.'" "That depends on if Faust would even let them go home," said Lyra. "Exactly! The refugees know the score. They've been forced out of their homes by an aggressive invading force, and a lot of them have seen the Mareitanians in action. They know they can't be reasoned with. Whoever organised this is just using the refugees as anti-war propaganda, which is why this entire thing is bullshit." "Are you just psychologically incapable of enjoying anything?" Top Spin groaned at Limestone. "Seriously, can't you just enjoy the music and try to not ruin it for everypony else?" "Excuse me for disliking the dishonesty of it all." "There's also the chance that you're plain wrong." "Yes," Limestone sighed, holding back her instinctive angry response. "That too." Sky Stinger stood and stretched languidly, "Okay, as fascinating as all that is, I gotta take a whizz. Back in a minute." "Wait!" Top Spin shouted before he could take off. "I need to go too." "Aww, why?" "Because I need to go?" "But that means I have to walk there," Sky whined, stopping only when Lightning pointedly raised an eyebrow at him. "Fine, anypony else need to go?" Wordlessly, Marble stood, followed by Lyra. "Alright then, but I'm not holding any hooves." "And they say chivalry is dead," Lightning joked as the four ponies wound their way into the crowd, earning herself an irritated huff from Vapor that only made her and Rainbow laugh harder. Rainbow lay back, spreading her wings and closing her eyes to the night sky above, listening to the sound of the crowd as they cheered and sang along. She didn't want to think too deeply on it, but the sound was relaxing, and far different to the sounds of battle she was becoming used to. It had been a while since she'd heard ponies just having fun. She let her mind drift off, finding the situation surprisingly restful, and it wasn't until Vapor mentioned the others having been gone a while that she brought her attention back to the here and now. "Maybe there's a queue at the toilets," Lightning said to Vapor. "Or maybe they went to get snacks. It's really not worth getting worried about." "But it's been almost twenty minutes now. Sky never waits that long for anything!" "Then go look for him," Limestone said to the pale mare. "At least stop whining about it." Rainbow was about to suggest the same when something made her stop, although she couldn't put her hoof on what. A change of tone, or a subtle shift of the atmosphere, something made her stop and adopt the feeling that something really was wrong. She'd barely made it to her hooves when the screams started, caused by the hundreds of griffons dropping from the night sky and landing in a ring around the concert goers. Most she recognised as Bloodfeathers, but there were others in matching, gold trimmed armour that she'd never seen before. A male griffon swooped over the crowd at speed, flying towards the stage where Sapphire Shores stood frozen, her mouth hanging open with the shock of what was happening. He landed heavily in front of her, grabbing her around the neck and throwing her to the floor and pinning her down. The microphone rolled out of her grip, and he picked it up, cawing quietly into it before speaking. "Hello little ponies! I'm Commander Theron of the Bloodfeather mercenaries, and I'm so glad you could join us here tonight for this... this... what is this?" he asked the pony beneath him. "This is a peace rally," Sapphire spat back at him. "A peace rally?" The griffon laughed for a moment, then turned serious. "Yeah, no. I can safely deliver the message to you from Faust herself that there shall be peace only when Equestria has fallen beneath her rule. I mean the peace rally is a touching gesture, sure, but you are seriously barking up the wrong tree." The griffon whistled shrilly, and waved at something offstage. A moment later a dozen griffons walked on stage, a pony each under their control. Amongst those ponies were Sky Stinger, Marble, Top Spin, and Lyra. Rainbow tensed, ready to attack as the griffons pinned them down in the same way that the commander was pinning down Sapphire Shores. She knew there was nothing they could do though, even if they'd had their weapons. "No," Vapor whimpered as Sky struggled under the grip of the larger griffon, his curses inaudible at that distance. "No, no..." "Maud, go find Pinkie and Azure," Limestone ordered, her eyes not leaving the stage, or more specifically Marble. "Now." Maud nodded once, and headed towards the stage. Commander Theron turned his gaze back to his captive audience as two more griffons dragged Coloratura and Songbird Serenade onto the stage to join the others. "Right then, now we're all ready, let's play a little game. Somewhere here, fully aware of what's happening, is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. There are fifteen ponies on this stage, and for each minute that passes without her surrendering herself to us, one of these ponies will die, completely at random. Should the fifteen minutes pass without her surrendering, and all these ponies die, we will open fire on the crowd until you are all dead. Clock is ticking Princess. Clock is ticking..." "No!" Vapor squeaked, trying to not be loud, while at the same time trying to be hear over the now frantic mass of ponies. "We have to do something!" "Like what?" Lightning asked, an angry edge to her voice that she directed at Vapor. "What do you think we could possibly do?" "I don't know! Something! Anything! We can't let them kill Sky, or the others!" "If Cadence really is here, she needs to surrender," said Rainbow. "Otherwise we're all fucked." "Is she even here though?" Limestone asked as there had been no mention of Princess Cadence being anywhere near the rally. "Even if she is, can we really risk hoping she'll surrender herself?" "You know what, you're right," Lightning said sarcastically. "All, three, five, eight of us, should take on the hundreds of griffons here. That should end well." "That's my sister up there you bitch!" Limestone screamed in Lightning's face, curling a hoof to punch the pegasus. Maud returning with Pinkie and Azure was the only thing that stopped her from taking the swing. "What are we going to do?" Pinkie asked, her eyes frantic. "They've got Marble, Lyra, and Top Spin!" "And Sky Stinger, we know," Rainbow said to her pink friend. "We're trying to think of a pl-" "One!" Theron announced over the speakers. Without looking he pointed a claw at the row of captives behind him, stopping at a stallion that cried for help as Theron singled him out. The griffon holding him pulled his head up by his mane, and sliced a knife across his throat, holding the stallion up as he choked on his own blood. "Fourteen more to go Cadenza!" Theron said as the griffon released the stallion, letting him flop lifelessly to the stage, the sound of the other captives crying out in terror drowning out the thud his corpse made. "We have to get a message back to camp!" Limestone shouted as the crowd panicked. "They'll just catch us or shoot us down," Lightning said back. "Even if they don't, there's no way any of us could get to the camp and back with reinforcements in fourteen minutes." "So we're just going to sit here and let this happen? Fuck that!" Limestone started walking to the stage, determined to save Marble, when the world flipped around her and she ended up on her back, pinned down by Maud. "Get off me!" Maud shook her head, "I don't want to lose any sisters today. I really don't want to lose two." "But- But Marble!" Maud's expression didn't change, but a single tear escaped her right eye, rolling down her cheek until it fell to the ground next to Limestone's head. "I know." "You can't be serious, Maud," Pinkie whispered. "That's our sister, and our friends." "Two!" More screams erupted as a mare was singled out, her throat cut, and her twitching body dropped to the floor as she desperately fought for a breath she couldn't take. "These lives are on your hooves Cadenza!" "Maud, please!" Pinkie begged. Maud held firm, even as Limestone fought to escape her grip. "There's no sense in all of us getting killed trying to save them. We can't do it. Rainbow, please stop Pinkie if she tries to go." Rainbow nodded, her mouth too dry to answer. She wanted to save those on the stage as much as the rest of them, but she knew there wasn't anything they could really do, so if she had to stop Pinkie to save her life, she would happily do it. She placed herself between Pinkie and the stage, unable to look her in the face as she stood there, waiting for the next minute to pass. "Three!" Another mare was picked out, her cerise eyes going wide was the weapon that was going to kill her was held in front of her eyes. The griffon placed it point first against her neck, slowly and gently applying pressure until it pierced her skin, the mares cries being the loudest yet as the griffon pushed the blade further and further in, until she too lost her life. "Where are you Princess? Don't you think it's rather selfish to let all these ponies die just to spare your own immortal life? No? I guess we'll find out in the next twelve minutes." A group of pegasi shot up from the crowd, no longer able to stay where they were as the horrific events on stage continued to unfold. Their flight was short lived though as several griffons intercepted them, cutting them down mercilessly. "Oh dear, oh dear," the Commander tutted. "Trying to escape? What a silly thing to think was possible. I think there should be a thirty second penalty for that, which means we're now onto number four." Theron's pointed claw swept around the captives until it ended up on the pony in his own grasp. "Whoops, guess it's your turn." "No! Please no!" Sapphire begged. "Too bad really, I did like some of your songs." Theron drew his dagger and lifted Sapphire's head up, ignoring her desperate pleas as he dragged the knife across her exposed neck. He held her for a moment, then dropped the convulsing mare, cleaning the blade on her outfit and sheathing it as she pawed at her throat. "That'll put a crimp in her singing career," Theron joked sadistically. "Come on Cadenza! You're wasting lives here! I'll be upset if I have to kill Songbird and Coloratura too!" Lightning caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, and quickly grabbed hold of Vapor as the mare darted towards the stage. "No Vapor!" "Let go of me! I have to save Sky! I have to!" "You can't! You'll just get yourself killed!" "I have to try!" Lightning wrestled Vapor to the ground, "I'm sorry Vapor, I really am, but I can't let you get killed as well." Lightning's heart ached as Vapor sobbed and pleaded with her to let her go. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." "And we're onto five," the Commander announced, his talon sweeping across the remaining captives until he stopped on Top Spin. "Your turn." Rainbow tackled Pinkie as Crystal grabbed hold of Azure, neither of them wasting the time it would take to slow the two down if they got started. Both of them apologised profusely to the ponies they had grabbed, but neither of them let go, even after Top Spin's body hit the ground. "Now that one died like a champ," Theron said with something approaching pride. "Didn't beg or anything. Just closed her eyes and accepted her fate. Still, it was totally unnecessary, just as the rest will be if you don't surrender, Princess. Just saying." None of them dared to say anything as the next minute passed, ending in the death of a stallion that begged his marefriend to look away as the griffon holding him cut his throat open. "Noble heart that one," Theron chuckled. "I must say, you ponies are really surprising me. I'm curious to see what the next one will do." Pinkie collapsed to the ground, dragging Rainbow down with her as her chest heaved with sobs. "Why is this happening? Why?" Rainbow had no answer for her. "Seven! Halfway there now Cadenza!" Theron extended his talon and swept it across the depleting line of captives, ending on Sky Stinger. "Your turn to go big boy." "Nooo!" Vapor screamed, thrashing against Lightning. "Nooo! Sky!" Lightning tried to hold her back, but an unexpected shock of static stunned her into letting go, and the white mare rocketed away, a massive build-up of lightning forming around her as the griffon holding Sky pulled him up and started to draw her weapon across his neck, his blood spilling down his chest. Vapor quickly neared the stage, and realised that at her speed she was going to overshoot her target, so she slowed herself, flapping hard to cancel her momentum. It wasn't even something she intended, but as she did, the tips of her wings brushed each other, and a massive bolt of lightning shot between her and the griffon holding Sky. It only lasted for the barest second, but the effects were still visible after as the blasted body of the griffon was blown into the rear of the stage, smashing into the background where it became wedged in the wood and hung there, smoking and lifeless. "Woah," Rainbow said in the silence that followed, her jaw regaining enough of its tension to utter the single syllable that went pretty much unheard as the thunder still echoed around the area. There was a flash on the stage as Lyra leaned her head back to fire a single blast of magic at the griffon holding her, his surprise at what had happened making him let go of Lyra enough to let her bend her head back. She removed the griffon's head in a spray of gore and viscera, and quickly did the same to the griffon holding Marble. "Go!" Limestone shouted as Lyra started to tackle the griffons holding the other captives. "Now's our chance! Get to the stage!" Rainbow didn't waste time finding out if Lightning concurred with the order, and sped through the air towards Vapor who hadn't moved since she threw a bolt of lightning. She tackled Vapor out of the air towards the stage as Lyra and Marble fought the griffons, with Lyra doing the vast majority of the fighting with her magic. Lightning flew in, her right rear leg outstretched in a flying kick that cracked the skull of a griffon that was moving to attack the pair. Moments later rocks and blasts of magic flew out of the crowd as the rest of the Hard Corps caught up, the dry rocky landscape of Appleloosa providing them plenty of ammunition to chase the griffons off, and to buy the time to gather the other captives behind them. "Still think peace is going to work?" Limestone spat at the two remaining singers. She looked away from them when she saw Vapor crawling over to the body of Sky. She shook him, her cries and pleas for him to not be dead becoming more and more desperate with each passing second until a slow clapping over the speakers pulled Limestone's attention to the one griffon still on the stage, Commander Theron. "Well, well, well... look at all of you mighty heroes. Too bad you forgot your courage until the pegasus died, so I can only give you a B for that." "Fuck you," Limestone swore at the griffon. "So eloquent, but that's what I should expect from rock throwing barbarians." "Have we got you so beaten you can only pick on unarmed civilians now?" Rainbow shouted at the Commander. "Ah, the much spoken of Rainbow Dash. Such a pleasure. I think you'll find that I'm very much here with a purpose actually. I'm not here to terrorize these little ponies for the fun of it, although it was kinda fun if I'm honest." "You'll never get your claws on the princess!" Theron's eyes twinkled, "I know, and do you know how I know? She's not even here. I've been fucking with you this entire time." "What? Th- Then why do all this?" Theron looked up at the sky and grinned, "I had to get your attention somehow." Rainbow wondered what he meant when the shrill calls of griffons started to be heard. She'd spent enough time fighting the griffons to know that particular one meant 'incoming.' "Finally." Before Rainbow could question him further, the Commander took off, along with the rest of the griffons, freeing the ponies who started to flee in blind panic, leaving those on the stage alone. "Marble!" All of the Pie sisters clustered together in a group hug, relieved that the youngest of them had escaped death. For a brief moment there was elation, but that was soon forgotten about as they remembered they were surrounded by the bodies of the griffons victims, two of their fellow soldiers included. Vapor sobbed brokenly as she held onto Sky's body, rocking back and forth as she willed him to come back to life. Nearby Azure sat next to Top Spin, her hooves over her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. Rainbow took one took at both of them and fell to her rear, the shock of everything that had happened dragging her down. Lightning joined Vapor, holding her as she wept. A moment later Rainbow joined them as Pinkie went to hug Azure, both of them crying. Behind them, Limestone pulled Lyra into a bone crushing hug, repeating again and again how thankful she was to Lyra for saving Marble. "This was supposed to be a peace rally, for peace..." All of them turned towards the voice, finding Coloratura and Songbird standing next to the body of Sapphire Shores, tears choking their words. "How could this have happened?" "Do you really want to know?" Limestone growled at them, stomping past the other shell-shocked survivors towards the two singers. "There is no peace with Mareitania. Whoever got you here to do all this sold you a massive lie! Or got royally screwed over themselves. We either fight them, or we lose." Limestone turned her back on the two stars, her eyes wandering over the few other ponies that hadn't fled, like the marefriend of the one stallion, who wailed over the body of her beloved. "Coming here was a stupid idea." "What now?" Pinkie asked. "Where did all the griffons go?" "Fighting ours I think," Rainbow said to her. "The griffon calls for incoming were going around, so I guess that means our guys have got here." "Oh." Pinkie stared blankly for several seconds. "So what are we supposed to do now?" "We should probably get out of here. The other survivors too, before the griffons come back." As if to emphasise her point, there was a griffon call from above, and a short clash of steel. "Come on Vapor, we need to get out of here." "I'm not leaving him," Vapor stated quietly yet firmly. "But it's not safe here," Lightning said patiently. "I know it hurts, but staying here and getting yourself killed won't help anything." "I don't care. I only joined because I wanted to be with Sky, but now he's dead! The only reason I had to be here is gone, so you- I-" Vapor's breath shuddered with emotion, "Just leave me alone." "Please Vapor, I can't lose two wingmates today, I can't." Lightning begged Vapor, but the pale mare steadfastly refused to budge, resorting to giving nothing more than an almost imperceptible shake of the head every time Lightning pleaded with her. "Please!" "Let her be," Rainbow said soothingly, pulling Lightning into a hug, the mare shaking in her hold. "She'll come around." "And if she doesn't?" Rainbow dropped her gaze, unable to answer. "Where's your security and stuff?" Azure asked the two songstresses. "I guess they're... gone," Songbird sniffled. "I guess you're stuck with us then. We'll get you out of here, don't you worry. Limestone, permission to get these civilians moving somewhere safe?" "Permission granted, although I'm surprised you even asked." Limestone gave one long, lingering look at the body of Top Spin, "We can't afford to bring them with us right now." "You want us to leave them?" Pinkie gasped. "No I don't want to, but our priority right now is keeping us and these civvies alive." Limestone patted Pinkie on the back, "We'll get them back later, I promise." "Okay then." Pinkie looked up as five figures flew towards the stage, and her heart leapt into her mouth as she initially thought they were griffons. She soon realised that they were Wonderbolts though, and she cringed as they flew silently towards Rainbow, Lightning, and Vapor, two of them loaded with bags. Spitfire took one look at Sky Stinger and Vapor, then looked back at Lightning, whose eyes were wide even as she stood stiffly to attention. "Effective immediately, you are relieved of command of B squadron," Spitfire said harshly. "Understood ma'am." "Suit up and meet up with the rest of your squadron asap, because there are a lot of griffons out there. Sergeant Limestone, can you take care of these civilians?" Limestone snapped a salute off at Spitfire, "Yes Captain!" "Good." Spitfire gave Lightning and Rainbow one last glare, then took off with Soarin and Fleetfoot, leaving the other two Wonderbolts to drop the bags they were carrying. "I think this one's yours Rainbow," Cloud said, kicking a bag towards Rainbow. "I guess we won't be... needing this one," she added sadly, placing Sky's equipment next to his body as Thunderlane gave Lightning her stuff, and dropped Vapor's next to her. "I'm so glad you guys are alright," Rainbow gushed, pulling Cloud and Thunderlane into a hug. "Where were you?" "As soon as we saw the griffons arrive, we took off to warn base camp, but they already knew, and ran into them halfway here." "They already knew?" Lightning said as she pulled on her flight suit. "How?" "Equis caught wind of it an hour before the attack, but it's actually worse than you know," Cloud sighed. "There's another company of griffon mercenaries fighting with the Bloodfeathers, called the Golden claws, and these guys are serious professionals that make the Bloodfeathers look like amateurs apparently. We're in for quite a fight." "Shit." Lightning pulled her suit on and zipped it up, and she was about to start strapping her weapons on when she saw Vapor start putting her own gear on. "Vapor? What are you doing?" "I've just lost the best thing in my life. I'm sure as hell not going to lose anything else!" Vapor looked at Lightning with watery eyes, "I've got your back." "And I've got yours," Lightning said in return, truly appreciating what Vapor was doing. She strapped her weapons on and placed her helmet on her head. "Come on guys, let's go hook up with Fast Clip, and kick some griffon ass." -0-0-0- Pinkie said nothing as Rainbow flew off with her squad mates. She silently wished the five of them luck, and turned back to her own squad mates to hear the plan off Limestone. "Alright, so we can't head to the refugee camp because I imagine the griffons are all over that place too," said Limestone. "I think our best bet is to head to Appleloosa and hole up in one of the buildings until the griffons are taken care of." "Wouldn't it be better to hole up here?" asked Lyra. She gestured around the now empty grounds, "There's no griffons here." "No, but there might be later, and we can't risk that. No, we'll head into town and try and find somewhere safe." Feeling guilty about it, Limestone emptied the bag containing Sky Stinger's gear, stacking it neatly beside him, then passed the other three empty bags out to her sisters. "What about me?" Azure asked as they started to fill the bags with whatever rocks and pebbles they could find. "You'll have to use what you can find for now," Limestone said with a hint of an apology in her voice. "Mostly though, I want you to take care of the civvies. We'll make sure the way is clear, then you bring them along." Getting an affirmative nod from Azure, Limestone gestured for the rest of her team to follow her. She dropped off the stage and made for the western exit of the concert grounds, in the direction that the town lay in. Stepping outside of the boundary, she gasped in amazement as her vision was no longer obscured by the lights on the stage. In the light of the moon, hundreds, if not thousands of figures darted about the sky, clashing violently in a vicious dogfight. The battle stretched from over the town, to out over the refugee camp to the south. Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea to head to the town, not that staying put seemed safe either. "What should we do now?" Marble asked Limestone, seeing that she was now questioning whether to change the plan. "There's a train station in Appleloosa, isn't there Pinkie?" Limestone asked her most colourful sibling. "Yeah, there is." "Then that's where reinforcements will probably arrive from if they're coming. When they do we can get these civilians out of here, and maybe ourselves. Until then, we'll hold up in the train station. Sound like a plan?" "Yes," said Maud. "We should go before the griffons don't have enough to occupy them." Limestone waved to Azure to start bringing the civilian ponies, then started running towards the town to stay ahead of them. It was a needless rush though, as they were totally ignored by everything in the sky, even as they reached the town. "The train station's in the north part of town," Pinkie said, noticing a small hesitation in Limestone as they reached the outskirts. "Okay." Limestone nodded, but didn't make a move. She could hear a lot of ponies shouting, or at least she hoped it was ponies, and quietly wondered what was going on, as she was certain that most of them would want to stay in the safety of their homes. "Stay here. I want to go see what's going on. Lyra, come with me." Not waiting for anypony to argue with her, not that she thought they would, Limestone trotted forwards, the mint green form of Lyra right behind her. They reached the gap between two buildings, and gawped at the hundreds of ponies there. She concluded that they could only be ponies that had escaped the concert. She saw them being directed by a brown stallion in a vest and stetson, a shining star on his chest. "Lyra, go get the others, including Azure and the civvies. I'm going to go talk to the Sheriff over there and find out what's going on." Lyra ran off and Limestone trotted out into the mass of ponies, pushing through them to the Sheriff. "Excuse me!" she shouted at him, only to be ignored. "Excuse me!" She frowned as she was ignored again. "Hey!" she shouted, smacking the Sheriff on the chest with the back of her hoof. "What? Can't you see I'm busy?" "Sergeant Limestone, Equestrian army." "And I'm just meant to believe that am I?" "For your benefit, I suggest you do." Limestone gestured back at the mass of semi-panicked ponies, "What are you intending to do with all these ponies?" "I'm jus' tryin' to keep them calm for now." "Keep them calm? Really? After what they've just seen? When there's an entire battle taking place above them? Or did you miss that since it's not raining bodies right now?" "There ain't enough room to protect them all missy, and you better watch that tone of yours before I have you arrested!" "Yeah, what I did isn't illegal. Anyway, you need to get these ponies out of here! The train line goes to Dodge City doesn't it?" "Dodge City and Ponyville, yeah." "Good, although I wouldn't recommend Ponyville just in case the bridge is out. Get your deputies, or ponies you trust, or whatever, and start guiding these ponies along the train tracks to Dodge City. Although, you might want to make sure that they don't walk on the tracks themselves, as there might be some trains coming through at some point." "Uh-huh, and what about the refugees? I doubt the griffons are going to let them go." "Just... worry about the ponies you can right now," said Limestone. "You might want to take the townsponies as well. Can you do that?" The Sheriff stuck a hoof under his stetson and scratched his mane, "I reckon so. Probably a better idea than anything I can think of right now. Alright Sergeant, we'll get these ponies moving. What are you goin' t' do?" "Me and my team are going to hold up somewhere in town and wait for reinforcements. Hopefully then we can get these griffons out of here, and you can bring your ponies home. Now get moving; time's wasting!" Limestone started to head back to her team, pausing only when she spotted a satchel hanging off a nail just inside the door to the jailhouse. She tipped its contents out and ran off with the bag, tossing it to Azure once she was close enough. "Listen up," Limestone said to the ponies they'd escorted from the concert. "They're going to start moving ponies from the town to Dodge City on hoof along the train line. You're going to go with them." "But-" Songbird started, only to get cut off by Limestone. "No but's. There's a battle going on, and we have other concerns. The Sheriff and his ponies will take care of you." Or so Limestone hoped at least. She had the feeling that if something happened to the ponies in the Sheriff's care, it'd somehow be her fault because she suggested moving them. "Are we going with them?" Crystal asked as the group of ponies shuffled off to join the others. "No," Limestone answered, not missing the slouch that formed in Crystal's posture as she said so. "We're going to do as we said before, and hole up at the station, or maybe the town hall." Having said that, there wasn't really anything to do but wait as the town slowly emptied. Curiosity slowly drew them to the town hall, where they took shelter after the body of a griffon plummeted to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that lingered in the moonlight for some time. "I wish we could help the pegasi," Pinkie said after a while. "I just wish we weren't here," Limestone muttered, making a point of sitting right next to Marble. Maud perked an ear up as the others all muttered their various laments, the sound of beating wings catching her attention over the sound of the battle above. The deeper sound of the wingbeats suggested larger wings, so more likely griffons. "Someone's coming. I think they're griffons." "Shit!" Limestone swore. "Inside, now!" All seven of them dove inside, slamming the doors shut behind them and moving to the windows to peek out. Scant moments later a dozen griffons landed, all but one of them in the gold trimmed armour of the Golden Claw mercenaries. The one that wasn't was easily recognisable as Commander Theron. "See? The town's empty now," Theron said, waving a claw at the empty buildings. "Now why did you drag me away from the battle." A large griffon wearing armour even more resplendent than that of the other griffons stepped forwards, and slashed a claw across Theron's face, making him cry out in pain. "You might be trying to save face with your employers by hiring us as well, but I am not working at your standards. You said we'd be fighting military targets, and what do we do on our first mission with you? Oh that's right, we killed civilians!" Theron wiped a claw across his face, wiping the blood away. "Do you have any idea how many of us these ponies have killed? Thousands!" "You attacked them in a war! You don't get to complain if you lose! It's embarrassing enough that you've had to come to us in the first place, although I'm starting to wish you hadn't. I don't know what game you're playing here boy, but the price had better be worth it for all this." "Oh it is, trust me." "I'll trust you when you tell me what it is." "Griffinstone. I help Faust win her war, she gives me Griffonstone in return." "Griffonstone..." The other griffon grunted, turning away from Theron and walking away for a moment before turning back to him. "And what exactly are you planning to do with that? Hoping to win your father's approval by giving him and the Empire back Griffonstone?" "Fuck my father! His days are well and truly numbered. This is about me getting what I deserve." "You deserve nothing you stupid boy! If you were counting on your uncle to attempt a coup, you'll be waiting a long time. He's is in prison, charged with treason." "It's all going according to plan then," Theron said smugly. "You can't think we didn't know exactly how my father would react. He got to be emperor by sheer dint of being born, not by being intelligent, or unpredictable." The gold adorned griffon snorted harshly, "Just like you were then." "I'm having to work for everything I get!" Theron shouted. "I just wanted to go have a few adventures while I was young and unburdened with ruling anything, and I certainly didn't deserve to be disowned for that!" "You humiliated your father! The Emperor! You were expecting him to be fine with that? You just said you knew him!" "I never expected him to make my sister the heir! My father always favoured me, while Calissa was always weak!" "Clearly you don't know your sister either then, because while she might not have your stature, she is far from weak. I'll help you win this war, boy, but should you attempt anything against your father you will find us on opposite sides. Consider that my only warning! You've had your distraction, so I'm giving the order to fall back before we end up with more innocent blood on our claws. I suggest you follow suit." "Consider me warned then," Theron said quietly as the other griffons flew away, leaving Theron on his own. "I guess I can't count on your support then, you old fool." Limestone raised her head to follow the griffon as he flew away. "Did you get all that Pinkie?" "I sure did!" Pinkie folded the paper she'd wrote down the details of the conversation on, along with a few squiggles and a picture of a angry face, and hid it in her mane. "Good job we came to the one place with plenty of paper." "Yeah," Limestone said. "Equis is going to have fun with that one." -0-0-0- Rainbow had found something worse than griffons. Griffons with shields. The Golden Claws all favoured a small shield on their left leg, and a spear or short sword on their right. They also fought with an experience and efficiency far different to the screaming mass of glory hound hooligans the Bloodfeathers tended to be. These griffons were seasoned veterans, and it showed. Too bad they didn't have any way of blocking lightning. A miniature storm rumbled around Rainbow as she zoomed through the battle, Lightning, Vapor, and her wingmates flying alongside her. Vapor had described what she'd done to create a lightning bolt, as best as she could remember considering what was happening, and they could only conclude that having your wingtips touch was the secret they needed to making it work. And made it work they had, although there were some issues as to how aiming the lightning worked. Vapor had no idea how she did it, and wasn't even sure she hit the griffon she was aiming for, or had been aiming for the lead griffon instead. They'd had a few hits, and thankfully no friendly fire accidents, but the rest hit nothing, save for one unfortunate apple tree that was rendered into a smouldering wreck by the lightning strike. Of course it was only a drop in ocean, or so it felt. They still outnumbered the griffons, but the advantage was lost against the Golden Claws. Even the hardy thestrals were stumped by them, and the Equestrians casualties were mounting. They weren't losing yet, but they were far from winning. All five of them slowed and leant back, bringing their wings together around their fronts until they touched, and lightning arced out in front of them, flashing brightly in the night, and rumbling loud enough to hurt their ears. Only Thunderlane hit anything, killing a griffon hen instantly. Lightning threw her legs up in aggravation, "How the hell are you supposed to aim this?" "Maybe you're thinking too much about it," said Rainbow. "Maybe you just gotta think 'hit that one,' and then let it happen." "Oh sure, sure, I bet it's exactly that easy." "Incoming!" Cloud shouted over the sound of Lightning and Rainbow bickering. Half a dozen griffons flew at them, and the five Wonderbolts readied themselves. They quickly banked up as the griffons got close, using their superior agility to avoid the griffons weapons, and flipped around to try and attack them. The griffons had already turned back to face them without changing their direction, and hoofblade clashed against shield, with only Rainbow's enchanted blades successfully breaking through the shield, impaling the griffon holding it. She was about to help her wingmates when Spitfire and her squadron flew in, clashing with the griffons. One of them swung round, his blade stretched out, stabbing Misty Fly in the chest as she stabbed him, and they both went down together. "What the fuck are you doing?!" Rainbow screamed as she watched Misty falling. "We had them!" "Protecting you!" Spitfire shouted back. "Thanks to your lightning you've made yourself valuable assets, so we can't let you die!" The night sky flashed again as Lightning flung her namesake at a griffon, smashing them out of the sky. "So you do have to not think about it." "Where's the rest of your Squadron?" Spitfire asked Rainbow, risking not moving to talk. "No idea ma'am. We couldn't find them in the battle." "For fuck sake! We need to get out of here before we all get killed! Rainbow, get back to base camp and tell Luna what's happening here, and that we're falling ba- Wait, what's that?" Griffon calls sounded in the night, recognisable as the call to fall back. Almost as one the griffons disengaged, fleeing the battle. "They're going? Why are they going?" Spitfire asked. "Have reinforcements arrived?" "I don't think so," said Soarin. "I think they're just going." "Thank fuck for that," Spitfire breathed. She flew down, seeking Misty Fly, but it was clear that even if being stabbed hadn't killed her, the crash would have. "For fuck sake." Spitfire pulled her helmet off and flopped into a sitting position next to Misty. "We can't keep on doing this." Rainbow swallowed as she looked around the area she could see. Bodies dotted the land, mostly pegasi, although there were a fair few griffons as well. She removed her helmet and dropped it, sitting hard as the adrenaline left her, making her feel horribly weak as tears worked their way out of her eyes. "Vapor wait!" Lightning shouted as her surviving wingmate darted back towards the stage. "Fuck sake... Captain, permission to go with her?" "Oh, so we're asking permission for things now are we? How novel." The four members of B squadron shifted guiltily as Spitfire and the other Wonderbolts glared at them. "I'm sorry ma'am," Lightning said. "It won't happen again." "You're damn right it won't!" Spitfire said threateningly. "Get out there and find the rest of your squadron, then find the rest of the Wonderbolts for a headcount. If we've lost as many as I think, we'll have to change the squadrons again." Spitfire shook her head ruefully, "Once you're together, secure the town and the refugees until further orders." "Yes ma'am." "And don't forget Fast Clip is in charge now." "He should be," said Lightning not arguing the point. -0-0-0- Luna stared blankly at the pony before her in the uniform of an agent of Equis. "Run that by me again." "The tanks are moving through the north, along with an army of ten thousand Mareitanians. The rest of the Mareitanians are heading here. Nearly fifteen thousand of them." "There's no way we can hold against that many," Shining Armour said to Luna. "Even if our fliers weren't all in Appleloosa." "I know," Luna said quietly. After the last battle they have barely twelve thousand soldiers to field, and full third of them had flown to fight the griffons when the news of their attack arrived "It seems Faust has finally remembered her advantage." "What are your orders?" Luna looked out across the river, imagining fifteen thousand ponies storming across it. It wasn't a comforting vision. "Luna, what are your orders?" "We can't hold against that many. We need to fall back to Appleloosa to regroup. Transport what munitions you can, destroy the rest, and get the cannons ready to move." "What about Las Pegasus?" Luna frowned, unsure of what to say. Or rather, how to say it. "Send a messenger to the Mayor of Las Pegasus informing him of what is happening, along with my apologies. Advise him that things should be fine if nopony resists the occupation. Other than that, there is little we can do for them now." "And what of the Mareitanians going through the north?" Luna shut her eyes and shook her head, "I don't know. I really don't know."

The end of an era

39. a change of plan

They had expected some ponies to come and assist, but they certainly hadn't expected all the ponies to come. All they could do was stare and watch as Princess Luna marched in at the head of a massive column of ponies. At least not until Limestone shook it off and stopped right in front of Luna, blocking her way. "You've brought the entire army here? What about Las Pegasus? What about places near it? Did you warn them you were leaving?" Luna raised an eyebrow at the obstinate little pony in front of her. "It was not a decision made lightly, I assure you, but when fifteen thousand Mareitanians are coming to attack you, and you lack the ability to stop them, there is little else to do." "But what about our parents?" "Your parents?" "Yeah! Did they get a warning?" Luna wasn't sure what to say next, and was saved as Shining Armour took over the conversation. "We passed by her parents' rock farm on the way here Princess, and we did give them a warning." Shining gave Limestone and her sisters a weak and apologetic smile, "I'm afraid they refused to leave, and insisted that providence will see them to safety. I'm sorry Sergeant, but we told them that as long as they do nothing to impede the Mareitanians, they should be safe." Limestone sighed and closed her eyes. She wasn't surprised by her parents reaction, and doubted anything short of the farm dropping into a sink hole would ever make them leave. "Understood. Thank you for trying." "I am sorry Sergeant," Luna emphasised. "There'll be many more such occurrences before this is over, and I wish I could prevent them all, but I cannot. From what we've seen though, Faust doesn't wish to harm innocents, so they should be quite safe, along with those in Las Pegasus." Limestone nodded and stepped aside, letting the Princess continue while she went to her sisters, pulling them into a group hug. Luna carried on her path, and swallowed hard as she headed over towards a field of bodies. The pegasi that had fallen in the battle had been lined up next to each other, covering far too large an area. A significant number of other pegasi walked amongst the dead, mourning the dead and comforting each other. Captains Spitfire and Greywhisker were among them, as well as Windy Rush of the Exiles. "How many lost?" Luna asked General Stormguard, who had trotted over to her as she approached. "Near eight hundred Princess. Those Golden Claws were a force to be reckoned with, and I doubt any future engagements with them will end too differently. It's safe to say we've lost our air superiority." "And in the space of a day, we've lost the two advantages we had," Luna sighed. "Our defensive position, and now our ability to strike from the air. Where are the griffons now?" "Heading north we believe, likely to protect the tank convoy travelling to Manehattan." "So we are no longer able to stop them." Luna breathed out harshly through her nose. Things had totally come apart now, and she couldn't see many ways in which to stop the Mareitanians. They could possibly try to cut the Mareitanians off at Ghastly Gorge, but they could go south to circumvent the Equestrians defences, or head north to Ponyville, which they might do anyway. They had no feasible way to stop the Mareitanians in the north, and... Luna simply didn't know what to do. "Shining Armour, Stormguard, gather your captains and bring them to the town hall. We need to discuss strategy, and I'd like to have some more opinions, rather than just our own." "Yes ma'am," Shining replied as Stormguard saluted. "With your permission, I'd like to bring Sergeant Limestone as well. I'm told she has some new intelligence on the griffons we'd all like to hear." "By all means then, bring her." -0-0-0- There wasn't much chatter in the town hall as the requested ponies were gathered. The ponies making up Equestria's air forces had lost much, and didn't feel like talking, and the rest of them knew enough of the truth to draw the one conclusion they didn't want. In a matter of mere hours, they had gone from holding the Mareitanians off, to losing ground rapidly. If they didn't find a way to stop it, the war was effectively lost. That was the atmosphere Luna walked into, and she made no effort to correct it, as it was very much the truth. They were losing now, and that was unlikely to change. "Thank you all for coming," Luna said to the room at large, grabbing their attention. "I'm sure I don't need to explain to you what has happened, or why you're here. Faust has us severely on the back hoof, and we need a way to turn this around. First though, Sergeant Limestone, I'm told you have something important for us." Limestone stood and moved to Luna, placing the paper Pinkie had wrote the details of the conversation they'd overhead on. "It's all there Princess. What we heard getting discussed between Commander Theron of the Bloodfeathers, and the leader of the Golden Claws." Luna thanked Limestone and picked up the paper, reading through it quickly. "Commander Theron? But we were told that the Emperor's son was killed. Seems news of his death was greatly exaggerated." Luna grunted in irritation and read a little further. "Griffonstone? That was agreed price for fighting for Faust? What could he possibly hope to achieve by possessing there of all places?" "We don't know, but it involves his uncle, who's been arrested for treason, or something." Limestone shrugged, "I don't know enough of what's going on in Griffonia to say much more." "Theron is the disowned son of the Emperor. If he's plotting something with his uncle..." Luna folded the paper back up, "Stormguard, I need you to get this to Canterlot immediately, and into the hooves of Equis. I know it is not our immediate concern, but Griffon Intelligence will need to know of all this. The last thing we need is the Emperor getting replaced with somepony willing to attack Equestria, even if we should survive the war with Mareitania." "I'll have one of our fastest fliers deliver it immediately." "Thank you." Luna paused to draw in a deep breath, then released it in one big explosive sigh. "I don't even know where to begin. You've all seen what's happening, how Faust has hired a further, and more effective force of griffons. How she's put us into retreat from our most defensive position through the threat of totally outnumbering us. How she currently moves on our east coast through the north. I hate to say it, but this war can no longer be fought on our terms. If we lose the east coast, our defence becomes almost impossible to sustain, and if we lose Canterlot we've lost the war. I had hoped we could keep the fear of losses as a deterrent to Faust, but instead she has placed that fear in us. Frankly, I'm open to suggestions." "We should relocate our training facilities to Canterlot," Shining suggested. "It won't be as effective as a true garrison, but it should put Faust off from attacking Canterlot, while keeping our more recent recruits safer." "Is it even worth recruiting ponies at this point?" said Spitfire. "Begging your pardon, but throwing a load of newbies into the war isn't going to help us do anything." Luna nodded, "I agree actually. All recruitment shall be suspended for now. For all we know, we could be faced with the loss of all of the east coast in a matter of weeks, so more recruits would be pointless." "And relocating our current recruits?" Shining questioned. "I feel it would be for the best, in the event we're forced to hold onto our most secure location at least." "Also approved." Luna growled under her breath. None of these two plans so far suggested a bold attitude to turning their losses around, if that was even possible. "Anything else to suggest? Mayhaps a device to assist us in running around with our tails between our legs?" "Mistress?" Greywhisker said unsurely. Luna waved him off. "Ignore me. I suppose it is foolish to think that perhaps this war might be won by us. The entire point was to slow Faust down until Twilight Sparkle could find a solution to defeat Faust herself." Luna grimaced as several ponies gasped. "Yes, we have deceived you into thinking this war could be won through strength of arms alone, but evidently it cannot. Buying time and defeating Faust directly was always the key, so that is what we shall have to continue doing." Luna stood patiently as the ponies in the room rapidly whispered to each other. Thankfully her generals weren't partaking in it, nor was Captain Greywhisker. Captain Spitfire sat quietly with a sad yet thoughtful expression on her face, and Sergeant Limestone, the lowest ranking pony in the room, was looking at all the others, seemingly annoyed at their surprise. Luna could only assume that Pinkie had explained the situation to her. "Do you all have nothing else to say at all?" "If we continue to fight back, we'll be throwing lives away as we practically burn our country in front of the Mareitanians. There's no shame in defeat, or surrender." Luna raised an eyebrow at the stallion who spoke. He wore the uniform of a Mage Corps unicorn, and had attained the stripes of a captain, but beyond that Luna knew nothing of him, other than he was apparently a coward. "Perhaps I should explain this fully. Faust despises my sister and I, and would see us imprisoned horribly for the rest of time, along with the other princesses, of which one is only a child. That's only a personal issue though, as the main problem is that she wishes to subjugate the rest of the world. If she only wished to conquer Equestria, so be it, but are we really going to be the ponies that let the world burn to save our own skins?" "But you said yourself that we can't win!" "We can win, and Equestria will survive, but only if we can buy enough time for Princess Twilight to find what we need to defeat Faust." "And what might that be?" another captain asked, an earth pony mare of the Earth Corps. "She knows that far better than I," Luna lied, suspecting that Twilight had no more of an idea than anypony else seeing as they were yet to find Starswirl's retreat. "Another month, or maybe even less, and she shall have what we need." "Well we can't keep fighting for that time," said the same earth pony captain. "They outnumber us near three to one, and we have no easily defensive places save Canterlot. I say we hole up there and invite those dang Mareitanians to try and get us out." "Oh please," said the captain in the Mage Corps. "They'll place us under siege and starve us out. That's not going to get us anywhere." "I thought the idea was to buy time?" the mare said back. "A couple of months long siege sounds perfect to me. The less ponies we lose before then, the more we have to defend Canterlot with, making it even harder for the enemy to take." "Until we're all starving!" "There are large underground caves in the Canterhorn mountain," said Shining. "We could store months worth of food for the entire city. If we sabotage everything useful to Faust and hold up in Canterlot, we could keep Faust occupied for some time." "And throw the rest of Equestria to the timberwolves?" Greywhisker argued. "What kind of plan is that?" "We'll need the time to secure the kind of supplies needed to survive a months long siege," Stormguard said to Luna. "I do believe this is our best chance of prolonging the war with the least losses though. When Princess Twilight finds the weapon we need, we'll have won." "Perhaps we should put it to a vote," said Luna, who wasn't sure herself. The idea sounded attractive, but that didn't mean it was the best idea, as it did mean sacrificing the rest of Equestria. And yet, they faced losing Equestria anyway, so at least those ponies living along the east coast would be spared the ravages of war. "All in favour of defending Canterlot, raise your hooves." More than half the ponies in the room raised their hooves. "Those wishing to continue fighting?" A few raised their hooves, including Greywhisker, stirring a modicum of annoyance in Luna, although she couldn't say why. Two had abstained from voting, Spitfire and Limestone, meaning the Canterlot plan had won. "Very well, we shall have to begin preparations for a siege. Shining Armour, I shall put it to you to begin securing food and munitions to store within Canterlot. Stormguard, move the trainees to Canterlot post-haste, and start laying plans for a prolonged defence of the city. The rest of you are dismissed. Go inform your units of the plan, and prepare for direction from myself or my generals." "I think you're making a mistake," Limestone said as the others began to file out, although they stopped as the grey pony spoke. "Going to Canterlot like this, we'll all be trapped like rats." "And what would you have us do?" "I don't know, but not this." "Helpful," Luna deadpanned. "Thank you for that stunning insight Sergeant. Return to your unit and inform them of our new plan, then await orders." "But what about the refugees? And the Appleloosans?" "I said return to your unit and await further orders." Limestone grit her teeth. Objectively she knew that there were a lot more than the refugees and Appleloosans getting screwed over in this plan, but it seemed to her that it was more about keeping the princesses and the Canterlot ponies safe. If she was honest with herself, she was fuming about it. "Yes ma'am," she said anyway. -0-0-0- "I can't believe this!" Limestone growled. "We're all just going to go and hide in Canterlot? That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard!" "Sounds okay to me," said Pinkie. "If we have a big ole Palominan stand off where nopony gets hurt until Twilight gets back, then that has to be a good plan. Doesn't it?" "No Pinkie, it doesn't. We'll be trapped there, and when Faust comes it'll be like- like... like we're all sat there as easy targets," Limestone finished lamely. "I can't believe they're just abandoning everywhere else," Lyra said quietly. "We all fought to protect these places, and now we're giving up on them." "Exactly!" Limestone blurted. "But we'd lose them anyway," Pinkie whined, getting a nod of agreement from Marble. "Only we'd have a lot of ponies getting killed failing to protect them." "Really Pinkie? Is that your concern? You do realise that the reason we all signed up, to save your friends, is totally impossible?" "It won't be once Twilight gets back." Limestone snarled and reared up, stomping her two front hoofs onto the ground, kicking up small puffs of dirt. "You're just as bad as Luna! We can't seriously be putting all our faith in one pony to win this for us? What if she fails?" "She won't," Pinkie replied firmly, jumping to her hooves to defend her friend. It seemed to make little difference to Limestone as she walked up to Pinkie and pressed their faces together to growl at her. "What if she does?" Azure pushed between them, shoving them apart. "Guys, will you chill out? If Princess Luna thinks it's a good plan, then it's a good plan. If we can keep on getting Pegasi out to strike the Mareitanians, then we can whittle them down to the point that they couldn't possibly conquer Canterlot." "The Crystal Heart is there too," Maud pointed out. Azure pointed a hoof at Maud, "That's right! That makes Canterlot even easier to defend! If we can hold on long enough for Princess Twilight to get back and kick Faust's butt, then it'll all have been worth it. Top Spin's death won't have been for nothing." "You're basing that on if we succeed," Limestone said to Azure. "If Princess Twilight fails, we all fail, and Top Spin's, and so many others' deaths will have been for nothing." "Somepony's coming," Marble said quietly as a pony none of them recognised walked up to them, a heavy bag on his back. "Here's your gear you left behind," he said to the now seven ponies of the Hard Corps. "I also have your deployment orders. You're to head to Fillydelphia with a number of our forces to assist in sabotaging any industrial centres that Faust might want to acquire. You're moving out in an hour, so you might want to get yourself ready." Limestone nodded at the pony, and pulled her combat suit out of the bag as he left. "Oh yes, this will be ever so useful in those fights we're desperately trying to avoid." Pinkie frowned at Limestone, "I don't get it. What are you so upset about? This plan's great! Why are you so against it?" "Because it means we're giving up," Limestone answered in a calmer, more reasonable tone of voice. "We can't really win, so we're giving up in the hopes that your buddy Twilight can ass-pull a magic solution to this whole thing, and win the war in one move, and I find that to be a really stupid idea." -0-0-0- "I wish there was something we could do for her," Rainbow said to Lightning as the two sat watching Vapor. She was laying down at the foot of Sky's covered body, her cheeks wet with a near constant stream of tears, and the corners or her mouth pulled back in a rictus of anguish. "She's not the only one," Lightning said back miserably. "We lost hundreds in that fight." "Yeah..." Rainbow sighed and looked up. The sky was mostly empty now, save for a few patrols. It was hard to imagine what the fight with the griffons would look like in the daylight. It had looked bad enough at night, where the griffons had the advantage of being able to see in the dark. "Look alive you two." Rainbow brought her attention back down, finding that Spitfire was walking up to them. Rainbow would have saluted, but her hoof felt too heavy to even make the effort. Spitfire had lost a few of her friends and teammates last night, and Rainbow couldn't begin to guess at how she kept going. "How is she doing?" Spitfire asked, nudging her head towards Vapor. "I don't think you need us to tell you it isn't great," Rainbow answered. "All she does is sit there and cry. If you want to know if she's good to keep fighting, you'll have to ask her yourself." "Not my biggest priority. As I'm sure you're well aware, we lost Fast Clip last night, along with seven other Wonderbolts, bringing us down to three squadrons. Considering what's happening, I doubt we'll be getting any replacements any time soon. This also means I'm putting you back in charge of B squadron, Lightning." Spitfire jabbed a hoof against Lightning's chest, "Screw up and go AWOL again, and I'll nail your hooves to the ground so I don't have to see you in my airspace ever again, you got that?" Lightning swallowed nervously and nodded, "Yes ma'am." "Good. Now let's talk about your newly acquired skills." Spitfire cleared her throat in preparation to speak bluntly, "How the fuck did you figure that one out?" "It's the contrails we use for shows," said Rainbow. "You do that, then hold it on your wings, and direct it. It was Vapor that figured out how to do that last bit though." "Huh." Spitfire shrugged, "Can you teach it to the rest of us?" "Sure, I guess." "Good. Soarin and Spitfire should be gathering the rest of the Wonderbolts, and you'll have an hour to teach us how to do it before we move out to Manehattan." "Manehattan? Why're we going there?" "It's our new strategy. It's been decided that we can't hold off the Mareitanians like this, so we're basically retreating fully to Canterlot to trap ourselves in a months long siege, to buy the time Princess Twilight needs. Before we do that though, we need to destroy anything of use to Faust." "But that means we're abandoning millions of ponies!" Spitfire nodded at Rainbow, "In the short term yes, but it's been decided that if we keep fighting like we are, we'll lose, and the Mareitanians will capture those territories anyway, while also making it easier to capture Canterlot. It also means those ponies won't be attacked, and won't be made homeless. The only other place we're keeping is Cloudsdale, which is to be moved over to Canterlot. The Air Corps will be taking care of that." "I guess that means the Night Guard and Exiles are with us?" Lightning asked. "The Night Guard are. The Exiles will join our ground units in Fillydelphia, while there'll be no fliers in Baltimare. I did request the Exiles come with us, but with Faust moving on Manehattan, speed is of the essence." "What about the refugees? And the prisoners we took the other day?" Spitfire shrugged, "I honestly don't know. This... plan... has some major oversights, but you know as well as anypony that we're going to get destroyed if we try to fight Faust and her army head on. They outnumber us, have plenty of experience at fighting, and-" "And we should all go to Manehattan and stop them there!" Rainbow shouted. "There's, what, ten thousand ponies up there? We outnumber them!" Spitfire shook her head and snorted a laugh. "Reckless as always. Even if we won that battle, with the heavy losses that would incur we wouldn't stand a chance against the rest of the Mareitanian army. We need to face them from a position of strength, and Canterlot is the only place providing that. I'm not exactly happy about this either, Rainbow, but I sure as hell can't think of a better plan." "I can't believe this," Rainbow grumbled. "A week ago we were fucking winning this!" "No we weren't," said Spitfire. "Winning this would be pushing them back, and there was no chance of us doing that. Especially now." "Ugh." Rainbow glanced across at Lightning to see what she thought, but she was staring at Vapor as she walked towards them. She was no longer crying, but the hollow look in her eyes seemed so much worse. "Reporting for duty," Vapor said, crisply saluting Spitfire, who had the decency to not comment on how Vapor was creeping her out a little. "Good! That's... that's good. I'm sorry about Sky Stinger, and you don't have to push yourself if you're not up to it." "Begging your pardon ma'am, but being in the Wonderbolts was Sky's dream, and I hate to think how disappointed he'd be if I quit now. I also think you need every pony you can get." Spitfire didn't reply immediately, instead taking a moment to observe the trembling in Vapor's legs. "Alright, but I'll reiterate that you don't need to push yourself if you don't think you can handle it." "I can handle it ma'am." All of Vapor was shaking now, and Spitfire was ready to refuse her, but it was true that they needed every pony available, and Vapor was a pony who had managed to come this far with a courage that often failed her. Perhaps there was more to her than met the eye. "Alright. Rainbow, find your wingmates and all of you get ready for an intensive training session, and a long flight north." -0-0-0- Shining remained stoic as the ponies around him jumped at the boom of nearby thunder that had somehow come from a clear sky. He knew it was the Wonderbolts learning how to throw lightning, and wasn't too concerned otherwise. His worries lay elsewhere. Gathering the necessary supplies was easy enough in theory, as was storing them, but what of the civilian population of Canterlot? Was nopony going to consider that they'd just been put in the firing line? Then there was the refugees, and who was going to see to their needs? And what of the prisoners of war? It seemed to Shining that they were likely to wind up back in the hooves of the Mareitanians, bolstering their forces. At the same time though, he agreed with the plan, if only because there didn't seem to any better. If Canterlot could be kept secure they could keep Faust and the Mareitanians occupied for quite some time. It was a fairly sizeable if though, as who knew what Faust could cook up to defeat them. Her current plan had them on the run in a matter of hours. At the very least he could be thankful about being back with Cadence and Flurry. It had been weeks, if not months, since he'd seen either of them, and he felt he was owed some quality time. "General Armour?" Shining blinked his daydream away, and looked up as Luna stood before him. "Sorry Princess, I was lost in my thoughts. Can I help you?" "Have the units heading to sabotage our infrastructure have been deployed, and the rest of our forces made ready to move to Canterlot?" "The Wonderbolts are making some last minute preparations, but they should be away shortly. Why? Is there something you wish to add to their orders?" "Not at all. I've decided to take General Stormguard's place in preparing Canterlot's defence, while he oversees the relocation of Cloudsdale towards Canterlot. I'm leaving you in charge of moving our troops, if that's not too much bother?" "I need to head back to Canterlot anyway. I've sent out some requests for a large stockpile of food to be gathered, so I won't be able to do much more until I return to Canterlot anyway. I do have some questions for you before you go though." Luna gestured with a hoof, "Proceed." "What's going to happen to the refugees and the p.o.w's? Are we warning anywhere about us retreating to Canterlot? And will we be warning the cities of the impending occupation they face?" Luna sighed deeply, having been asked some things she hoped would be forgotten. "I honestly don't know the answer to the first two, and yes I intend to have our demolition teams warn the mayor of each city, but there's little more we can do to help them." "So we're just abandoning the refugees, and letting Faust reclaim her captured soldiers. Wow." "If there were room in Canterlot, I'd shelter the refugees there, but there isn't. Not to be too blunt about it, but with barely a push, Equestria is on the verge of falling, and we have not the strength to push back. The refugees are simply the biggest victim of that." Shining nodded, accepting that perhaps his sister might have been onto something when she decided that alicornhood wasn't a qualification to rule. "So that's it then. We hide in Canterlot and pray for the best outcome, leaving the rest of Equestria hung out to dry." Luna wilted under the accusation in Shining's voice. "It is as much as we can do against a threat of the magnitude Faust and her army presents. Perhaps it was foolish to think we could ever hope to have held them off to begin with." "At least we tried though." "Indeed. All our hopes lie with Twilight now." "And if she fails? Or Faust defeats us?" "Then we can only hope the rest of the world puts up a better fight than the rest of us." Shining nodded and ran a hoof back over his head. He could see there was no point in pushing Luna over this, as she seemed determined that they'd practically lost, whereas what they'd really done is give up. Perhaps rightly so. "Once Cloudsdale is relocated, I'll need the Air Corps to provide protection for the supply convoys we'll have moving to Canterlot. I imagine the griffons will be all over those once they hear about them." "I'll pass the message on," said Luna. "See you soon Shining Armour." "Of course, Princess." -0-0-0- Celestia laid a hoof on Cadence's back as her fellow princess cried, much as she had since finding out that her peace rally had been attacked by griffons and turned into a warzone. Flurry was there too, trying her best to help in that uniquely unhelpful way of children everywhere. Cadence had settled for hugging Flurry like a teddy bear. "This was supposed to be a peace rally Celestia, a peace rally! How could they do that?" "I don't know," Celestia replied, simply and earnestly. "So many dead..." Celestia nodded vaguely. Anypony dying there was a terrible event, but she knew the focus would end up on Sapphire Shores as the news got out. Very unfair really, but that seemed to be how the press worked. Celestia couldn't argue that Sapphire Shores had meant a lot to so many through her music, but her death shouldn't overpower the deaths of all the other ponies that had died there. "Did I do something wrong?" The question caught Celestia off-guard, and it took her a moment to muster a "what?" in reply. "Did I do something wrong?" Cadence repeated with emphasis. "All I wanted was to get the idea that fighting wasn't the best thing we could do, but all that happened was that we got attacked by griffons, and used to launch an even bigger invasion of Equestria!" Cadence tried to wipe her eyes on her leg, and accidentally wiped her nose on the back of Flurry's head, not impressing the foal. "You did nothing wrong Cadence," Celestia said soothingly. "And I really hope that this doesn't lead you to giving up your pursuit of peace, in this conflict or others." "But what's the point when this sort of thing happens? Why try and make peace with an enemy that has no interest in it?" "Because peace is a goal worth aspiring to," said Celestia. She smiled at Cadence, but it drifted off her face as Cadence started sobbing again. "Am I interrupting?" Celestia jumped at the sound of her sister's voice, and whipped her head around to find the navy blue alicorn standing in the doorway of Cadence's room, the door having been opened quietly enough to be missed over the sound of Cadence crying. "Luna? What are you doing here?" Luna entered and closed the door behind her. "Looking for you actually. I have bad news, although I'm sure you know much of it already." Luna stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, then sat next to the bed to speak to both Celestia and Cadence. "I'm pulling all our forces back to Canterlot." "You are? Why?" "Because we can't stop Faust's new advances. Her forces are simply too numerous for us to effectively engage. Even if our forces took out two of her ponies for every one of ours, the Mareitanians would still have us beaten. Instead we hope to fortify Canterlot in the hopes that we can hold them off long enough for Twilight to return." "You're bringing the war here?" Cadence shrieked. "And sparing our forces a hopeless fight, and much of Equestria along with it. Forgive me if I cannot either win this war, or take it elsewhere." "But what about the rest of Equestria? Are you just going to let Faust have it all?" "We're sabotaging anything of use to her, but otherwise yes. Having to occupy several cities will distract much of her forces, giving us a better chance of holding out here. We're collecting as much food as we can to last a months long siege, and... yes, that's our plan as of now. If ponies don't resist the occupation of their cities, Faust is unlikely to do much to harm them." "B-but what about the refugees? What about my people?" Luna looked away, her face ridden with guilt. "I'm sorry Cadence. If I could bring them here to protect them, I would, but there simply isn't enough room." "So you're just leaving them?" Luna nodded once, unable to look Cadence in the eye, which might have been a mistake as a second later a blast of pale blue magic smacked into her chest and threw her through the door, without making the effort of opening it first. She slid across the hallway, stopping when she hit the wall opposite. She rolled onto her belly, dazed at having been thrown backwards through a rather solid object, and equally stunned that it had been Cadence that had thrown her. She also seriously regretted removing her armour upon arriving at Canterlot. She was about to experiment with standing, when a vision of pink, incandescent rage stomped through the now shattered door, and Luna quickly shifted from attempting to stand, to running for her immortal life as bolts of magic sizzled through the air towards her. A maid was standing in the hall ahead, staring wide-eyed at what was happening. Luna shoved her against a wall and placed a shield over her to protect her from Cadence's terrible aim as she kept on running. "Cadence! Stop!" Celestia shouted, but was ignored as her niece lost herself to a wave of anger. She looked to her left at Flurry as the young alicorn kept pace with her on her wings, and briefly wondered for a moment how intelligent Flurry really was, being quicker on the uptake than the average 9 month old. She also said a quick apology to the maid as she passed, releasing her from Luna's shield. Luna's hooves skidded on the marble floor as she tried to turn a corner, and she quickly corrected herself with a teleport as she slid past the way she wanted to go. She hoped to make it to the throne room, where the presence of guards and others might make Cadence consider stopping. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of distance between them and the throne room, and Luna's wings were telling her that getting thrown around through doors like she had been was ill conducive to flight. Hopefully a lengthy chase would tire Cadence out instead as she blasted everything except Luna with her magic. Thankfully Celestia wasn't too far behind to put out the fires, although not even she could easily fix the chunks blown out of the floors and walls. "Open the doors!" Luna shouted at the guards outside the throne room as she sprinted towards it. They quickly jumped into action and pulled the doors open, then jumped aside as a spray of magical beams came from Cadence. Luna was already past them though, and ran into the aggravatingly empty throne room. "Shit," Luna swore, sliding to a stop and turning back to face Cadence as she flew into the throne room. A shield popped up around her just in time to block another round of magical attacks that were much more accurate now she was no longer moving. "Cadence! Stop this!" "You've killed my people!" Cadence screamed, punctuating each word with an ever stronger blast of magic. "What? No I haven't!" "How are they going to survive without us helping them?" "I pretty sure that if they can survive Sombra's reign, they can survive having to forage for food! If anything, I'm sparing them from having to suffer through more fighting and loss!" Cadence spun and bucked Luna's shield as hard as she could, surprising the mare inside as the shield cracked. Another buck cracked it further, and a third destroyed it completely. Cadence then threw herself at Luna, bowling her over and pinning her down as her horn blazed with the power to deliver a deadly strike. "Why aren't you fighting back?" Cadence asked Luna, as the alicorn stared apprehensively up at her, silently awaiting the next strike. "I would never harm a mother in front of their child," Luna said softly. "Nor do I actually wish to fight you Cadence. Believe me though, this would be going differently otherwise." Cadence took her eyes off Luna, and looked back at Celestia, seeing Flurry hiding behind Celestia's mane, what little could be seen of her face awash with fear. The magic on her horn died as the fight was sucked out of her, and she released Luna to sag into a sitting position, her front legs barely keeping her high enough to stop her hitting her chin on the floor. Luna got up and flexed her neck, her body already setting to work repairing the not unsubstantial damage Cadence had done to it. Luna was tempted to ask Cadence where she learnt to fight as such, but knew the mare was in no mood to field such questions. Instead she walked over to Celestia, and the foal hidden behind her mane, giving her a gentle smile. "I'm sorry you had to see that little one," she said to Flurry. The little alicorn still seemed unsure, but slowly drifted over to Cadence who grabbed hold of her and cried into her mane, giving Luna the opportunity to grimace and lower herself to the floor as something went pop in her back. "I think you don't realise something Cadence," Luna said after a minute. "Choosing to make Canterlot our last stand isn't something I chose lightly. Put simply, we do not have the strength to fight the Mareitanians on even terms. They could wipe out our forces, conquer Equestria, and destroy so much doing so, all in a matter of weeks. By that time we wouldn't have the strength to defend Canterlot, whereas right now we could hold the city for quite some time. Or so I hope. Time enough for Twilight to succeed, provided she is not distracted by further catastrophes." "I thought you intended to make the Mareitanians pay for every inch of Equestria they took," Cadence said to Luna. "Were those not your words?" "Yes, and foolishly so. Put simply, however we choose to fight now, Equestria has fallen. We cannot hope to hold the Mareitanians back, let alone remove them from our lands. There's little point in destroying our army trying and failing to do so." "So we just sit here and wait?" Luna nodded, "We do, but that's not to say we won't put up a fight. With the right strategy, Canterlot will prove difficult for them to capture." "Unless they starve us out," said Celestia. "What shall we do in such a situation?" "We surrender, because by then it should be very clear that Twilight isn't coming back." Celestia closed her eyes and sighed, "This is a terrible idea Luna." "It's the least terrible idea we have." Luna quirked the corner of her mouth up in a tiny smile, "Perhaps now would be a good time to pull Solaris out of retirement as a central heater?" Celestia sighed at the idea. She'd sworn to never take her weapon back up, but in a situation so dire as this one, who was she to deny them any advantage? A great many ponies had taken up arms to defend Equestria, so why should she be any different? "Perhaps it is," Celestia said softly. "You can't be serious?" said Cadence, surprised that Celestia was willing to do such a thing. "I am. We need to buy Twilight the time she needs, and I would be remiss if I didn't do my part." Celestia sighed again and turned to leave, Luna following her out. A moment later Cadence followed as well, her curiosity overriding her objections. Celestia led them into the bowels of Canterlot Castle, to a place just above the dungeons. She stopped at a blank wall and studied it for a moment until she found the brick she wanted and pulled at it with her magic. The wall swung open, revealing a dark hallway beyond that the four alicorns entered into. Barely a dozen meters into the hallway the temperature started to rise, but never seemed to rise above a certain point, even as they wound their way ever further along the winding path that lay between them and their destination, getting ever closer to the destination Celestia sought. A final turn brought them into a small circular chamber, in the middle of which was a coil of pipes that occasionally leaked steam. A cylinder of shields lay around the pipes, powered by concentric rings of spell work that reached the outside of the chamber. Celestia lit her horn and dispelled the shields, the temperature jumping a couple of degrees with each one removed, until all but Celestia was sweating as she stood before the coil of pipes. She lit her horn, lifting a mass of fire and white hot metal out of the coil. Luna grinned at the sight, but Celestia was remarkably, yet unsurprisingly sombre as the line of heat drifted towards her in her own magic. She touched a hoof to it, and the flames died, along with the heat, leaving an ornate golden spear behind, its wavy blade sat above an ornate sun similar to Celestia's cutie mark, appearing to shimmer with a heat that wasn't there. "Hello Solaris," Celestia said to the spear, her voice quiet like she were attending a funeral. "Equestria needs you once more." -0-0-0- "I would not think you so out of practice," Luna said as Celestia waved Solaris like a foal pretending their stick was a sword. She slapped Solaris away as he swung closer, her borrowed sword ringing from the collision. "It's been over a millennia, Luna," Celestia retorted, a hard edge in her voice. "Forgive me if I've grown a little rusty." "The same way that you've grown out of your armour? Nay, I think not. Too much cake and complacency has ruined you." Celestia ignited Solaris and cut through Luna's sword, sending its end tumbling away. Luna sighed softly and discarded the part she still held, picking up another near identical sword from a pile nearby. "You're letting your anger at having to wield your weapon again get the best of you." "You have no idea what this weapon means to me!" "Plenty, seeing as how your Royal Guard still use golden spears in its honour." Luna stepped aside and parried a well advertised strike. "You see reminders of Solaris every day, so why act like you were desperate to forget it?" "Because it was another way with which to remember you! Of the times we stood side by side against terrible odds, yet won the day by fighting together. I never wanted to forget Solaris, because that was tantamount to forgetting all that we fought for." Luna didn't move as Celestia swung Solaris towards her, stopping with his point barely grazing her throat, a waft of heat tickling her chin. "Sometimes, I feel you are too hung up on the past Celestia. I know and understand why you put him aside, but I doubt you could ever forget one of the weapons that forged Equestria into what it is today." "That's all you have to say about that?" Luna batted Solaris away. "Don't misunderstand sister, I'm flattered, but your need of constant reminders of the past is baffling, especially when you let the biggest reminder of all fall to ruin in the Everfree forest." Celestia snorted harshly, "Perhaps your memory of that night is different to mine, but I have no wish to remember your banishment." "And yet you cannot forget it because you cling so needily to the past." Luna frowned as the tip of Solaris clattered to the ground. "My memories were all I had of you Luna! My memories, and the image of a mare imprinted into the moon. Excuse me if I wanted things to remind me of our time together, even if some of that time was spent doing things I despise!" Luna growled in irritation as half of another ruined sword clattered to the ground. "You need to watch yourself with that weapon Celestia. Even now I have no idea why you tied your emotions to it." "No, it wasn't my best idea," Celestia sighed. "It was supposed to be a lesson in not letting your emotions dictate your actions, but all I ever did was hide my feelings behind a mask while setting fire to everything." "I did used to look at what Solaris was doing to know what you were really thinking," Luna tittered. "You may as well have had a parrot on your shoulder squawking your every thought." "You were always far harder to read," Celestia murmured. "Yes, well, perhaps a little less of burying my emotions away might have done me good," Luna said quickly, sensing where that line of thought was going. "Perhaps we should take a break from this. I do still have to survey Canterlot's defences." Celestia shrugged at Luna, "There's three ways into Canterlot. By road, by train, and by air. Two of those share the same route practically. All you need to do is stop them getting through the front gate, and Canterlot remains largely secure." "Easier said than done, but don't think I hadn't surveyed Canterlot's defensiveness before now. I'm just wondering more about where to put the cannons." "And Cloudsdale being here as well? How does that help?" "You'll see," Luna said cryptically. "You'll see. In the meantime, I'm going to go survey the defences, and make ready for the future, may it be so long and prosperous." -0-0-0- "Luna!" Luna stopped on her way out of the castle at the sound of her name being shouted, and turned to find a small yellow filly running towards her. "Ah, greetings filly!" Luna smiled as the filly jogged to a stop in front of her, but her smile soon shifted to amazement as she saw the large yellow wings at the filly's sides. "Goodness filly, your wings are recovered!" "I know right? Just finished my last treatment today, apart from physio to strengthen them, and actually learning to fly, but yeah! Wings!" "I'm very happy for you filly." The filly nodded sadly, "I wish I could say that for everypony. I was about to go tell Fleur, but I doubt she'll care much. She's always too busy." "Ah." Luna winced guiltily, "I'm afraid that might be more my fault than hers since I did place her in charge. Apologies." "Nah, I get it. She was the best pony for the job." Luna wasn't going to correct the filly by saying Fleur was the best pony for the job out of those still living after the bomb. She was pretty good yes, but... Luna had no idea where she was going with this. "What're you doing anyway? Shouldn't you be off fighting?" "Uh, things here required my attention," Luna lied, although she didn't feel particularly convincing. "I was about to get back to it, so if you'll excu-" "Luna!" Luna sighed as a different pony shouted her name this time, although she knew it was Fleur that had done it. "Yes Fleur?" "I just got word from- Oh, hey Filly." "Hey Fleur..." "Anyway, I just got word from..." Fleur trailed off as Luna raised an eyebrow at her. "What? Do I have something on my face?" "Notice anything about the filly?" "About Swift?" Fleur screwed her face up as she scrutinised the filly, then unscrewed it as she remembered something. "Wasn't today your last day of treatment?" "Oh hooray!" the filly cheered mockingly. "She remembered!" The filly's expression went flat as Fleur blushed with embarrassment. "Seriously, she knows what ponies are doing halfway around the world, but can barely remember a thing about the ponies she lives with." "I know Swift, and I'm sorry, but we have a bit of a situation going on. Luna, I just spoke to Bon Bon, and she said that another four thousand soldiers have just been dispatched from Puddingarde, and are probably on their way to, well, here." Luna cursed under her breath, but tried to hide the way her heart had sank a little lower. "I suppose that even with Bon Bon's team sabotaging them it was only a matter of time. Blast it." Luna tried to think of something, but couldn't. As far as she knew, not even Equis was aware of the new plan, so there wasn't much else to say without giving it away in full public. "Keep an eye on them as best you can." "Of course Luna. Is there anything you need of me right now?" Luna almost said no, but caught herself as she knew something nice needed to happen for the two ponies by her, before the really bad stuff happened. "There is something actually. In lieu of recent news, I feel it only appropriate that you take a couple of hours off and go celebrate the good news with the filly." "I- What?" "You heard me." "Yes, but I-" Fleur almost said that she didn't have time for that, and was immensely relieved she'd stopped herself. That didn't make it less true of course, but saying it in front of the filly was almost as bad as rejecting her. "Consider it an order," Luna added, seeing the doubt Fleur was experiencing. "As you wish Princess." "Good. Now I really must away. Have fun you two." Her minor mission accomplished, Luna spread her wings and took flight, leaving Fleur alone with the filly. "The overlook cafe?" Fleur suggested. "You read my mind." -0-0-0- "I can't wait to see you up in that sky," Fleur said as she gazed up at the sky, her hooves supporting a well fed belly. "It's going to be amazing." "And you're telling me this? For fuck sake Fleur, I've been waiting for this my entire life! I thought I'd never be able to fly, but here we are." The filly picked up her spoon and stuck it in her mouth, slowly sucking the ice cream off it as she thought. "I seriously owe Twilight big time for this." "I don't think she's looking to collect. You know her, always happy to help." "Not sure you can convincingly say happy, but she'd always willing to help at least. I wonder how she is? And Trixie." "They're in Saddle Arabia, heading for the Circen Desert," Fleur told her. "Celestia received a letter from her the other day." "And now you tell me! For fuck sake Fleur!" "It may have slipped my mind a little," Fleur said sheepishly. "I have far too much stuff to remember these days. Far too much." "Fine, although I would have enjoyed finding out what they were doing first hoof, if you know what I mean. I mean Saddle Arabia. Wow. I've only ever heard of that place thanks to that doctor from there. Amy, or whatever her name was." "Amal." "Right, her. I should probably learn it since she's doing my physio and stuff." "That might help." Fleur bit her lip, "I guess you haven't heard about the attack on Saddle Arabia by someone called the Storm King?" The filly sighed bitterly, "Something else I should have heard of from you?" "Actually it was in the papers, so no, not really. What the papers don't know is that Twilight might have gotten a little involved." "Hah! I bet she kicked ass!" Fleur wilted a little, unsure of whether to say which side of events Twilight had been on. In the end she decided to say nothing. She was about to try and change the subject when the ponies around her caught her attention as they ran to the edge of the overlook. "What's going on?" the filly asked, having noticed it herself. "No idea, but it's probably something I should know about. Come on!" Fleur squeezed herself through the throng of ponies, trying to get to the front. Frightened and panicked whispers spread through the crowd, and she tried to pick up on as much as she could, but only made out a few snippets that made little sense to her. Eventually they reached the edge, and Fleur let the filly jump up onto her back so they could both see. They looked south, where everypony else was looking, towards Ponyville. A grey mass surrounded the south of the town, slowly filtering into it. Fleur gasped as she worked out what she was looking at. The Mareitanians had reached Ponyville. Ponyville was under attack.

The end of an era

40. Where's my support?

"Tavi! Tavi! Wake up!" "I choose to not respond to 'Tavi' Vinyl," Octavia mumbled sleepily through the music book over her face. "You know that." Octavia jumped as a field of purple magic tore the book off her face, "Vinyl! What has gotten into you?" "The fricking Mareitanians are here!" "What?" Octavia jumped up and ran to the window, peering outside. She couldn't see anything. "Where?" "Coming up from the south." "The south? Does that mean the defences north of Las Pegasus have been overrun?" "How the heck would I know? You know I don't understand you when you start talking all military." Vinyl stood still for a moment, looking around the room before returning her gaze to Octavia. "That said, any military know-how on getting out of this would be, y'know, great." "Uh... um..." Octavia bit her lip, unsure of what to say as she'd never been on this end of an invasion, apart from the one time at Puddingarde, which was significantly different seeing as how they had a fortress, and Twilight. The fact that Ponyville was being invaded was already enough to throw her out, as it meant something in Equestria's defence had gone very wrong. "Equestrian forces should be coming soon to repel the invaders," Octavia said after several seconds of 'umming' and 'ahhing.' "I don't think we really want to get caught in the battle, so we should get somewhere safe." "Like where?" "Like anywhere not in Ponyville." "Sounds good," Vinyl said with a nod. "What about Summer?" "She's still at the hospital. Damn it! We'll have to go get her. Come on!" "Are you insane?" Vinyl yelled, holding the door shut with her magic before Octavia could so much as lay a hoof on it. "Going out there's probably the worst idea you could think of! Seriously." Octavia rounded on Vinyl, walking up to her until they were face to face. "Vinyl Scratch, I am going out there, and I am going to get Summer. You can stay here if you want, but there is no way you're stopping me." Vinyl let the magic on her horn fade, "You know you're kind of hot when you're being all authorative." "Vinyl!" "To Ponyville hospital! Away!" "Celestia save me..." Octavia opened the door and left their shared house, giving her cello Sebastian a lingering look before leaving and letting Vinyl shut the door behind them. She had the strangest feeling she wouldn't be seeing or playing him again for a while. Just the thought of that was enough to start triggering her talent separation anxiety. She put it to the back of her mind and peeked around the corner of the house, looking south towards the invading forces of the Mareitanians. They didn't seem to be rushing into the town thankfully, leaving them with a clear path to Ponyville hospital, which was nearly on the opposite of town from their house. At least she'd hoped it would be a clear path. As was typical of Ponyville, news of the Mareitanians arrival was spreading fast, and ponies were taking what opportunity they could to mill around in uncertainty while they could, leaving the roads rather busy. Octavia and Vinyl raced through it all, dodging and weaving through it to reach the hospital as fast as they could. The hospital wasn't much better though, as ponies panicked in the much more confined space. Some of the wounded from the battles that had taken place recently had ended up here as other hospitals were made increasingly overcrowded, and there were some ponies rapidly disposing of anything that might tie those ponies to the military, which Octavia thought that was a little silly since stab wounds were pretty telling, but rational thought was hard to come by as fear set in. Octavia ran up to the reception desk, slamming to a halt with her hooves on the desk. "Where's Summer?" she asked tersely as the nurse behind it tried to maintain an air of serenity, when it was clear she wanted to bolt. "Summer? She's over in recovery," the receptionist replied quickly, knowing full well who Octavia was, and why she was looking for Summer at this moment. "She's trying t-" she started to say, but Octavia was already gone, leaving Vinyl to grin apologetically before running after her friend. The recovery ward was as busy as the rest of the hospital, where ponies were sent after operations. It was also where the Sparkle healing devices found the most use as ponies were healed up and released. Today was different, as most of the occupants were wounded soldiers who had no interest in being caught by the Mareitanians in bed. Nopony knew what the Mareitanians did with prisoners, and they were in no mood to find out. "Summer!" Octavia shouted over the mass of ponies, trying to locate the blue pegasus. She spotted her at the far end of the room, fussing over a soldier that was struggling to get out of bed. "You can't do this!" Summer whined at the mare in bed as Octavia squeezed her way over to her. "You're too badly hurt!" "Their forces will be here soon, and I'm not going to say hello to them sitting down. If they're going to kill me, they're going to get a fight out of me first!" Summer pushed the unicorn back down, and was shocked when a grey hoof joined hers. "Octavia?" Octavia pointed at the stitched up gash going down the mare's side, "If you tear those stitches, the only thing you'll be fighting is for your life as you start to bleed out. Listen to the nurse." "But-" "No buts." Octavia sighed and eased her stance. "I understand that you're worried about the Mareitanians, but I very much doubt they'll kill you in your bed." "And how would you know?" "Because we taught them better than that," Octavia replied evenly, keeping the guilt out of her voice even though she doubted the mare would even know what she was talking about. "Believe me, they won't hurt you." "And how do you know that?" "Because I do," Octavia replied, wishing the conversation to end, which she made happen by pulling Summer away from the mare. "What are you doing Octavia? I have work to do!" "Is anypony in danger of dying?" "What? No-" "Then it can wait. Summer, the Mareitanians are here in Ponyville, and I very much doubt that either of us are going to be treated very nicely if we're caught. We need to get out of here." "But my patients need me!" Summer insisted. As far as she was concerned the Mareitanians were less of a danger to them than to the rest of the Ponyvillians, simple because of their past actions to aid Mareitania. Her bigger priority was to help these ponies, although she doubted Octavia would care. "These are going to be the last patients you'll ever help if you get caught! We need to get out of here Summer." Octavia looked Summer in the eyes, finally making the pegasus stop. "I really don't want to find out what Faust would have in store for us if she gets her hooves on us." "You really think it'd be that bad?" Octavia nodded, "I do." Summer bit her lip, glancing back and forth between Octavia and the patients in the room, fighting with herself over the decision. Slowly she was coming to the conclusion that Octavia might be right, and that the cost of staying might be too high by far for the both of them. "Alright, but we'll need to find Nightglider first. I'm not leaving her to get captured." "Absolutely," Octavia said with relief. "She's bound to be flying though, so you'll have to go find her yourself." Octavia glanced back over her shoulder at Vinyl, then gestured at Summer. "Come on, we better get moving. Octavia accepted no arguments over who was leading the way out of the hospital, as she politely barged her way out of the recovery room, with aims to barge her way out of the hospital. She'd barely made it halfway when a wail of despair brought her to a stop, her ears swivelling towards the source of the noise. She followed it to Nurse Redheart as the white mare tried to reason with a balled up pegasus in the corner of a hallway as she cried her eyes out. "What's going on?" Octavia asked, recognising the pegasus as Flitter, who she supposed had a genuine reason to be acting like this over the Mareitanians invading Ponyville. "She won't move!" Redheart said in answer, her frustrations boiling over. "I can't touch her either, because she hates being touched, and I don't know what to do!" "Allow me," Vinyl said, swaggering up to Flitter's side, flexing her neck. "Vinyl, I really don't think-" Octavia began to say, but gave up as Vinyl picked Flitter up in her magic and shook her until Flitter gave Vinyl her full attention. "Flitter, we are getting the hell out of Ponyville. If you want to come with us, just nod." Vinyl grinned as Flitter started to nod after taking a moment to recover from the shaking. "Sweet, good choice. Let's go Tavi!" Octavia opened her mouth, then shut it and shrugged, unwilling to argue with results. She took the lead again, and had barely made it two steps when Redheart grabbed onto her. "Take me with you!" "Uh, really?" "Yes really! I don't want to be caught by the Mareitanians, not when I'm bound to be recognised by some of them. Celestia knows I had enough unwanted attention off those brutes when we were on the same side, let alone opposite sides!" "Alright then," said Octavia, not arguing. "Can you lead us out of the back though? I don't want to create a panic here if ponies see you leaving." "Of course, follow me." -0-0-0- As they stepped out into the open, being careful to stay in the shade offered by the hospital, Octavia had to remark that it was quiet. Rather than aggressively taking over Ponyville, the Mareitanians seemed to be segueing into it with no resistance at all. Even now there were no pegasi swooping through the air to drive the invaders off, or the dull boom of shields being struck, or anything to indicate that somepony objected to the Mareitanians being there. "Are we sure it's even the Mareitanians?" Redheart asked as Octavia made her observations known. She pulled her nurse's cap off and threw it away, hoping it would make her slightly less recognisable. "What if it's ponies from our side again?" "They're definitely Mareitanians," Octavia said as she peered around the edge of the hospital towards the town centre. "Their uniforms are all grey, while only some of our air forces wear grey." "Oh. Damn." "Damn indeed." Octavia's breath caught in her chest, and for a moment her hooves trembled, unnoticed thankfully by all but herself. She took a deep breath, and centred herself until it passed. It didn't, and eventually she gave up. "Summer, you need to go find Nightglider." "Um, okay, she's probably at Sugar Cube Corner with Sugar Belle at this time of day." "But that's in the town centre," Vinyl pointed out. "The Mareitanians are probably all over that." "I don't care, I have to get her!" Summer spread her wings and took off before any of then could stop her, darting towards the town centre. "Summer!" Octavia shouted after the pegasus, but she didn't stop or slow down. "Shit! She'll get caught if she goes there." Octavia stomped her hooves in frustration, then turned to the ponies with her. Vinyl was watching the Mareitanians, Redheart was comforting Flitter, and Flitter was... incapacitated, to put it mildly. Vinyl squinted into the distance, then raised her shades to place them over her horn. "Hey Tavi, who's that big white chick with the Mareitanians?" she asked as Octavia had her back to her. "What!?" Octavia quickly spun to see what Vinyl saw, peeking around the edge of the building, although what she saw was no comfort. Faust was walking into town, her head held high as she paced sedately between two rows of her soldiers. "Oh this is not good." "Not good? Who is that?" "That's Faust, Vinyl." Octavia winced at the squeal of fear that name brought out of Flitter. "As you can imagine, her being here can only be bad news." "But why here?" Vinyl asked. "Ponyville's got nothing she'd want, surely?" She followed Octavia's hoof as it pointed up at Twilight's crystalline castle in the north west of the town. "Oh... yeah, I suppose that might be something she'd want. Possibly." "That doesn't help us though," said Redheart. "We need to get out of here! Maybe we should head for Canterlot." "Not without Summer," Octavia said firmly. She paused as she realised that sounded like she was involving all of them in that. "I mean, I'm not going anywhere without her. The rest of you should probably get out of here while you still can." Vinyl grinned at Octavia, "Not without you, buddy." "Summer's my friend too," said Redheart. "I won't leave her to the Mareitanians." "You're leaving everypony else you know behind in the hospital," Vinyl pointed out. "Only because the Mareitanians don't know them! They know us, and they definitely know Summer and Octavia. It wouldn't surprise me if Faust wants them specifically." "You won't... want that to happen," Flitter whimpered between heavy breaths. "We should go get her." "You as well?" Redheart asked Flitter, getting a small nod from the pegasus. "I guess we're all in then." "Actually, it'd be easier if I went on my own..." "Shut up Tavi, we're coming with you, like it or not." "Apparently I better like it then." Octavia ran around the corner of the hospital, running for the cover of the nearest houses, cursing that Ponyville had to be so spread out. The wide open spaces around the outskirts of the town weren't exactly the best for hiding, and would prove to be deadly if they had to make a break for it. Closer to the middle of town was better though, although it was safe to think otherwise with the large number of Mareitanians occupying it. Octavia kept to the back streets as best she could, but was given a small advantage in that she knew her way around, while the Mareitanians didn't. It was also an advantage that most of the towns ponies were standing around trying to see what was happening. That kept the soldiers distracted enough from spotting ponies in the back streets. "Ponies of Ponyville." Octavia froze as those words filled her ears, like they were being projected directly to them, rather than mess around with silly things like distance and physics. "I am Faust, leader of Mareitania. I have come before you today to hear you rejoice that you have been liberated from the false rulers of this land." "Agh, why is my horn so itchy?" Vinyl complained, rubbing her horn viciously with a hoof. Beside her, Flitter's wings were shaking, although it wasn't hard to surmise that might be due to her hearing Faust's voice again, rather than anything else. Her eyes being squeezed tightly shut lent credence to that idea. "She must be trying to project her magic through her voice," Octavia theorised. "She must be trying to control us." "Let's hope those crystal implants are as good as advertised then," said Redheart. "No more will you be required to bow and scrape to the princesses that have done nothing to deserve your adoration. Instead I invite you to live in a world of true Harmony." "This is bullshit," Vinyl muttered. "Of course, I do realise that I have been painted as the villain in all this, and that you will no doubt be displeased about this at first. In that case I offer you a deal. Accept the occupation of your town without resisting, and your lives may continue in relative normality. Resist, and you will find things far less to your liking. Now, where is your leader, so that I may speak with her?" Octavia ushered the ponies with her on as Mayor Mare walked out in front of Faust, nervously adjusting her glasses. "I-I'm the chosen representative of Ponyville. I speak for the ponies here." "Very well. Do you wholly surrender the entirety of Ponyville to me?" "T-that's not my decision to make. Only the princesses could authorise the total surrender of territory to a hostile force." Faust nodded at the Mayor, a sad smile on her face. "I'm sorry to hear that. Could I not convince you to reconsider?" "I'm sorry, but that's not something I can really do." Faust sighed, like what she was hearing wearied her with its inconvenience. "In that case we shall have to claim this 'territory' by conquest then. We shall do our best to make this process as painless as possible." Faust took a step back and gestured to her ponies, "Proceed." The soldiers all dropped their weapons into a more aggressive stance, forcing the Ponyvillians to back off nervously as a pony Octavia didn't recognise raised a bullhorn to his mouth. "Return to your homes and you shall not be harmed. You have five minutes to comply. After that time you will be forcibly detained and kept secure until such a time we deem you safe for release. Again, you have five minutes to return home, I suggest you do so." The pony lowered the bullhorn, shrugged, then raised it again. "Thank you, and have a nice day." The crowd quickly dispersed as ponies sought to fulfil his order, not one of them wanting to test if what he'd said was true. Octavia was forced to wait a minute until she could see where Summer might be, spotting the pegasus along with four others standing outside Sugar Cube Corner. "All of you stay here," Octavia said to the ponies with her. "I'm going to grab Summer, Nightglider, and her friends, then we'll make a break for Canterlot. Of course, feel free to stop being stubborn and get going without me." "Not a chance," said Vinyl. "Last time I left you alone for too long you helped overthrow a country." "Oh how I wish I hadn't," Octavia muttered. "Back in a tick." Using the confusion as cover, Octavia galloped for Sugar Cube Corner as fast as she dared, then skirted around its edges until she could dive in through the front door. There weren't many ponies in there now, most having chosen to wait out what came next in their own homes, making it a lot easier to find Summer and the rest of them. "Summer, what are you doing? We need to get moving!" "But you heard the pony Octavia. If we're caught out there we'll be detained until they think we're not a danger. Who knows how long that could be?" Octavia sighed at Summer. "Really?" she said flatly. "The idea of getting out of here was to not get caught at all. If we're quick, we can all be out of here before that five minutes is up. Do the rest of you want to get out of here?" "You bet I do," said Nightglider. "We've spent enough time being controlled by crazy ponies to not want to do it again." Behind her, Double Diamond, Party Favour, and Sugar Belle nodded. "I think the ayes have it," said Octavia. "We better get moving." The town centre was mostly empty by the time they left, with only soldiers remaining as they prepared to spread out into the town. Octavia led them back to where Vinyl and the others were waiting, finding them in exactly the same place she'd left them. "Let's go," Octavia curtly said to them, not wasting breath. She started running north, taking note that plenty of the soldiers had spread out into town, forcing them to be cautious in their movements, not that nine ponies moving at speed weren't very noticeable. They stuck to the gaps between buildings as best they could, but as the minutes passed, it became clear they weren't going to make it out before the five minutes were up. Octavia skidded to a halt as they were about to run out into the clear as they reached the outskirts of town. They'd just missed Faust walking past with a small group of soldiers, walking serenely through the town like she were on a vacation enjoying the sights. That changed when Octavia involuntarily yelped upon seeing her, but scrambled back before being spotted. "Who's there?" Faust asked, gesturing with a hoof to her guards. Octavia quickly ushered everypony back as the soldiers got closer, hiding them around the corner in the hopes they wouldn't go too far from Faust. There was just the small issue of Flitter, who burst into tears as the soldiers came closer, threatening to give them away. Not wanting to speak, Octavia tried to put her hoof over Flitter's mouth, but was surprised as Flitter squeaked and smacked her hoof away, only adding to the noise. Octavia glanced back, waving for her companions to squeeze in closer to the buildings. Flitter didn't move, not even when coaxed by Redheart. Octavia could see that she'd jammed up, too consumed by her own terror to actively avoid that which she feared. Octavia bit her lip for a second, then grabbed onto Flitter, wrapping a leg around her mouth and dragging her into cover using her superior strength. Flitter fought every second that Octavia held onto her, and bit down hard on Octavia's leg, forcing her to scream silently from the pain, her mouth open even though no sound came out. "There's nothing here. Come on, let's get back to the Lady." A collective sigh went up from most of the group as the soldiers stopped searching, and Octavia waited a few seconds before kicking Flitter off her and clutched her leg to her chest, fighting to stay silent from the pain as blood dribbled from the bite. Flitter sat with her eyes squeezed shut, tears running down her cheeks, but she was at least silent. "Somepony go see where Faust is," Octavia hissed as Redheart checked the wound. "On it," said Vinyl, keeping low as she crept back towards the road. She returned soon after, her stance less cautious. "She's heading west, towards the castle." "Then it's now or never." Octavia shooed Redheart away and stood, keeping her now injured leg tucked up against her chest. She wanted to curse at Flitter, but knew well enough it would only serve to make things worse. Instead she stood in front of Flitter, waiting for the pegasus to look at her. "Are you still with us?" "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to d-" "Not what I'm after. Are you still with us?" Octavia smiled as Flitter nodded shakily. "Good, let's get out of here." Octavia took the lead again, poking her head out between the two buildings they were hiding behind, then moving back to the road. Faust had indeed moved on, but that would mean nothing as the soldiers spread through the town. The five minutes they were given had probably passed, leaving them a very narrow window in which to escape. Octavia limped as fast as she could, the others all keeping pace with her as she led the way to the north east, all too slowly moving through the outskirts to the open hills before where they could hopefully move unnoticed by Faust and her soldiers. The last few houses passed by and they ran into the open grassland, putting on a burst of speed as they got away, for all of a minute before six griffons landed hard in front of them, blocking their path and forcing them to stop. "And where exactly do you all think you're going?" one of the griffons said, stepping forwards from the others. "Nowhere, apparently," Octavia grumbled back. She knew there was no chance of fighting the griffons off, and didn't even try to suggest doing so against opponents that had weapons, and could easily beat them for speed if they tried to run. "There's a clever pony," the griffon said condescendingly, giving Octavia a nasty grin. "Now you all come quietly, and no one will get hurt. I'm sure Lady Faust will be very interested in finding out you were trying to escape." Octavia sighed hard, annoyed at having their escape ruined just as they on the cusp of victory. Now they were to be taken to the one pony they had desperately sought to avoid. Octavia could only wish that she felt more surprised as the griffons forced them to start walking towards Twilight's castle. -0-0-0- "Found some little runaways for you my Lady." Octavia cocked her head a little as Faust ignored the griffon, choosing instead to continue glaring up at towering edifice of the crystalline castle before her as it resolutely refused to open up to her. "My Lady?" Faust sighed and turned to face the griffon speaking. "Commander Theron, I thought you were escorting our forces through the north? It appears to me that is not what is happening." "My griffons, and the Golden Claws, are doing as you asked. I thought I'd come to tell you in person that they are almost to Manehattan." Faust nodded slowly, "Good, good. Of course, now that you're here in person, perhaps you can explain to me your actions at the peace rally? I don't recall asking you to kill any ponies that so happened to be there." "You wanted a distraction to pull the fliers away from their defences. I gave you one." "You killed innocent ponies," Faust said harshly. "I didn't realise I had to make it clear to you that such a thing shouldn't happen." "I had to make it convincing, my Lady. If they didn't believe us to be a genuine threat to the ponies there, they might not have sent all of their pegasi to stop us." "Because the three thousand griffons there weren't enough of a distraction. No," Faust said as Theron opened his beak to defend himself further. "I don't wish to hear it. In future I will make my instructions far more concise to you concerning not ending innocent lives for no reason! Return to your forces, and get out of my sight!" "At once, my Lady," Theron replied, but there was an undeniable edge to his voice suggesting that not all was well in the relationship between Faust and the griffons. "That griffon is becoming more of a liability than I ever thought possible," Faust muttered as Theron flew away, turning her attention to the nine ponies held captive there. "I know you," she said, her eyes landing on Octavia. "And you," she added, moving onto Summer. She also glanced briefly at Flitter as she trembled and stared at the ground, but showed no interest beyond a roll of her eyes. "You're two of the ponies that helped overthrow the Duke. You're two of the ponies that was there when Twilight Sparkle cut off my horn." Octavia resolutely stared up at Faust, making the alicorn wait for an answer. She was rather pleased at the frustration visibly building on Faust's face. "Speak!" "What would you like me to say?" "Are you, or are you not two of the ponies that helped overthrow the Duke, and are you not Twilight Sparkle's friends?" "We are." "Good." Faust turned and gestured at the castle, "Perhaps then you could tell me why this castle refuses me entry?" "Because it doesn't want to let you in most likely," Octavia answered slowly. "This is a construct of the Tree of Harmony," Faust growled. "It should answer to me!" "Clearly the tree doesn't agree. Twilight likely sealed the castle up upon her departure, and is probably the only pony that can open it. You'll have to wait for her to return." Faust turned an unpleasant smile onto Octavia, "So you know that she's gone. That means you likely know where. Tell me, now." Octavia cursed inwardly, but otherwise maintained her disinterested appearance. "I'm afraid I don't actually know where she is now. All I know is that it's not anywhere in Equestria." Faust squinted at Octavia, then relaxed a little. "You are being honest about that at least. But I get the feeling you know where she's heading. Tell me, or all your companions here shall suffer for your defiance." Octavia knew she was stuck the moment Faust said that. There was no way she could let these ponies suffer, but she knew that telling Faust wasn't something she should do. All she could hope to do was lie, and hope Faust bought it. "She was heading north, to the frozen lands beyond the Crystal Emp-" "You're lying." "You didn't even let me finish!" "I don't need to." Faust nodded at Summer, "Break one of her wings." "Wait!" Octavia shouted before any of the soldiers so much as moved a muscle. "Starswirl the Bearded's secret retreat! That's what they're looking for! I can't tell you where it is because I don't know! Nopony does!" "Then how does Twilight Sparkle hope to find it?" "She thinks there's some kind of portal to it, but she doesn't know where. If she can find that, she can find the retreat. That's all I know, I swear!" Octavia flattened her ears and looked away under the intense weight of Faust's gaze, and couldn't help gasping with relief as it was taken off her. "Very well, I believe you. You must care deeply for the pegasus to betray Twilight Sparkle's trust for her." "You know what she suffered in Mareitania. She's suffered enough." "Indeed," Faust muttered darkly. "Soldiers, take the rest of these ponies away. I wish to converse with Octavia and Summer alone." The three of them waited as the soldiers left with the other ponies, leaving Octavia and Summer alone with Faust. Both of them wondered what she could possibly want with them, and both of them shared a nervous look with each other. "Do you really think you know what suffering is?" Faust said once they were alone. "I've endured over a dozen lifetimes of suffering, had a child I desired taken from me, and was then forced to bear the diseased offspring of a creature like Sombra. Your understanding of suffering doesn't even compare." "So Summer's life as a plaything for ponies doesn't even figure in your view of things?" Octavia snorted at Faust, "Some ponies might think their god lacks sympathy to hear such things from you." "And some would cut your tongue out for your blasphemy," Faust returned. "I'm not saying that Summer hasn't suffered, for which she has my sympathy, but lets say my view of it is... different to yours." "And yet now you spread suffering around with a shovel, where I should think you would avoid afflicting it on others." "It is only temporary, and wholly unnecessary. You can thank your beloved princesses for forcing me into the position where I am forced to invade your country." "You despise Luna, and wish to inflict a worse fate on her than you suffered yourself. I don't even know what you intend for the other princesses. We both know what you want at the end of the day, Faust, so why pretend that what you're doing is righteous? Why pretend that we're wrong to stop you doing that?" "Because you stand in the way of something better. All of you cling onto your rulers, and your familiar institutions, afraid that the world you know will be torn out from under you. What if I told you I could replace it with something better? A world that is as it should be?" Octavia could feel the belief Faust had in herself as she spoke. If there was anything worse than a pony with a god complex, it was one with the power to make her vision a reality. "Better than the centuries of peace and prosperity that we enjoyed before you came along? I doubt that. This is all about revenge on Platinum for what she did to you. Nothing more." "And why can it not be both?" Octavia didn't have an answer she could give. Not because it couldn't be both, but because she very much doubted that Faust's plans had any real benefit for anypony but herself. Summer didn't seem to have anything she wanted to say either, leaving them both in the position that Faust probably thought they agreed with her. "I want to show you something," Faust said after a few moments. She bowed her head, magic building up on her horn until it flashed, blinding them for a second. When they could see again, they saw they'd teleported to a cave that glittered with light from a large crystal tree. "Behold the Tree of Harmon- Wait..." Both of them turned to look at the tree as Faust marched up to it, and continued to watch as she viciously rubbed a hoof over the moon symbol on its crystalline trunk, followed by the sun. Faust was becoming increasingly frustrated as neither symbol moved. She tried to pry the star shaped Element from the middle, but again she was denied. "Is something wrong?" Octavia asked politely, hiding how pleased she felt about Faust's reaction to what she saw. "I don't understand..." Faust said quietly. "Why would the Tree do this? This is not how I made it!" "You made it to support harmony, yes? Perhaps it knows what harmony is better than you do?" Octavia jumped back as Faust spun around and fired her magic, scoring a line in the ground in front of Octavia's hooves. She then turned back to the tree and fired her magic again, but was frustrated as the Elements glowed, forming a rainbow coloured shield around the Tree, protecting it from Faust's fury. "You dare defy me? I created you! I tell you what you are! ME!" Octavia shrugged at Summer, twisting a hoof in a circular motion next to her head, indicating that Faust was not only a few apples short of a bushel, but also an apple tree short of filling it. She stopped as Faust started to laugh. "I suppose every child is allowed their rebellion, just as every child knows they still answer to their parent. You might have stopped me destroying you, but you wouldn't dare make a move to stop me." "She's talking to a tree," Summer pointed out in a whisper. "It is a magic tree to be fair." Octavia smiled politely as Faust turned her back on the tree. "So what is it you wished to show us?" she asked Faust. "What I wanted to show you doesn't matter. What you've seen is more than enough. The Tree of Harmony, the great hope of the ponies of Equestria, can, and will, do nothing to stop me. It knows I'm right." "Or it's biding its time," said Summer. "Hah, let it. There's nothing it can do to me." Octavia couldn't even begin to guess what was going on. Was Faust trying to prove a point by dragging them here? If she was she wasn't making that point very clear. "I don't mean to be rude Faust, but was there a purpose to us coming here? We already know the Tree was here. Twilight showed us once." "I want you to know that it's hopeless to oppose me, and that you all yourselves a disservice by attempting to do so. I don't know what Twilight Sparkle hopes to find at my beloved's retreat, but I can assure it won't help." "And why is that?" "Because why would Starswirl create something capable of destroying the pony he loved? Believe me when I say he wouldn't. The hope you're clinging to is wasted, and you would be far better off accepting the fact that there's nothing that can be done to stop me. Not Twilight Sparkle, not your princesses, and not the Tree." "All tyrants fall at some point," said Summer. "Not all tyrants are me." Octavia couldn't save herself from cracking a smile at Faust's expense. "So you don't actually deny being a tyrant?" "A tyrant is just a position of rule," Faust said dismissively. "I could declare myself a princess if I so wish, but why waste the effort when all titles shall be irrelevant one day." -0-0-0- Faust had returned them to Ponyville, and left them in the care of her soldiers, having said her piece to them. During that time, nothing had changed. There was no way that the invasion of Ponyville had gone unnoticed, so all they could assume was that nopony was coming to save them. There were plus sides though. Ponyville wasn't getting destroyed, which was always a bonus, and nopony was dying which was again, also a bonus. All they had to put up with was the fact that Ponyville was being rapidly turned into a prison camp as tall wire fences were quickly erected to contain those ponies that had failed to make it back to their homes in time. Among those was a small, cream coloured pegasus filly that had gotten separated from her parents at some point. Octavia vaguely recognised her as being called Zipporwhill, but beyond that she knew nothing of the filly, other than there was no conceivable way she was a danger to the soldiers. Vinyl had taken it upon herself to keep Zipporwhill entertained, leaving Octavia to stare forlornly out at the village, making her amongst the first to notice a trio of ponies of varying sizes being led towards the enclosure, one big and red, another elderly and green, and the third small and yellow. "Why are they bringing the Apple's here?" Redheart asked, having seen what Octavia had. "Is this something to do with Applejack?" "I guess so," Octavia replied, spotting Sugar Belle rush towards the entrance as Big Mac approached, grabbing hold of him as soon as he was inside the enclosure. "It's not just the Apple's though," she added, nodding towards where Sweetie Belle was being escorted towards them along with her parents. "Are those the families of the bearers?" "They are." Octavia looked over towards Flitter, who was watching the proceedings with wary yet tearful eyes, her posture barely keeping her off the ground. "How much did you tell Faust?" Flitter looked away, and sank even lower. "Did you learn anything useful from Faust at least?" Redheart asked a few minutes later as Scootaloo was escorted to the enclosure with her two aunts. "Only that being your own sounding board for over a thousand years is a really terrible idea. Not only is she convinced she's right, but she's supremely confident that she can't fail. The worrying part is that I don't know how true that part is." "You said Princess Twilight's looking for a way to stop her." "She is, but that doesn't mean she'll succeed." "She will," Redheart said confidently. "I have faith in her." "I'm afraid faith doesn't make her able to find something that doesn't exist. I don't want to say we should start preparing for a life under Faust's rule, but that might be the reality we're facing." Octavia winced at her own words, ashamed that she was preparing herself for Twilight failing. When did her faith in Twilight fall so low? Or did Faust's words actually get to her. "She didn't let us down in Mareitania, and she won't let us down now." Octavia wanted to question just how much Redheart had seen of Twilight during the civil war in Mareitania, but her words turned to dust in her mouth. She just didn't have the energy to expend on being so negative right then, especially when Redheart wasn't entirely wrong. Twilight had seen them through that war, and she could see them through this one. Of course that still left them with the big question of where the Equestrian army was, and why they weren't doing anything to stop the Mareitanians. "I don't know," Octavia sighed. "I think for now we should prepare ourselves for a long stay in captivity." -0-0-0- Fleur pounded through Canterlot Castle, driven by a red hot rage that demanded she punch Luna in her stupid fat mouth. How the hell was Ponyville being occupied, and why the hell was nothing being done about it? Then there was the fact that the majority of Equestria's forces were pulling back to Canterlot with the goal of fortifying it. What had happened in the last twenty four hours to cause this sudden shift in tactics, and why didn't she know about it until just now? Fleur slammed her hooves against the throne room doors, trying and failing to push them open before the guards could. She then fumed impatiently as the guards ponderously swung the doors open, and galloped up to the thrones where only Celestia was sat. "Where's Luna?" "I'm not sure right now," Celestia said patiently. "Is there something I could help you with instead?" "Only if you know why Ponyville's been occupied by Mareitanians? And why we're just letting it happen?" "After the attack on the peace rally, Luna felt a drastic shift in our tactics was necessary. Basically, we can't face Faust's army on three different fronts and hope to even slow her down significantly. We needed a new plan that hopefully spared us the catastrophic loss of life and destruction the previous plan would cause." "So... what? The new plan is to fortify Canterlot?" "Luna feels that locking Faust in a stalemate here in Canterlot would keep Faust occupied far longer than throwing ourselves at her forces, trying and failing to hold onto territory we couldn't hope to hold." Celestia smiled morosely at Fleur, "I'm afraid I agree with that assessment." "So we're just leaving everything else to be taken by Faust?" "That is correct." "That's insane!" "I know how it sounds, but we are only here to buy time for Twilight, remember? It's how long we can keep Faust occupied that matters here, not how we do it." "But- But... what am I supposed to do in a siege? How am I supposed to help you if I can't even see outside of Canterlot?" "That is for you to decide Fleur. I wish I could give you more to go on, but I'm afraid I have nothing to give. I'm sorry." Fleur stood still for a moment, trying to work things out. She still wanted to punch Luna in the face, but she could at least understand what Luna was aiming to do. They'd already lost the intelligence war against the Mareitanians, more or less, and had just lost the war for the skies, so it only stood to reason that they lose everything else as well. "Twilight better get her fat plot moving if she's going to pull us out of this fire," Fleur grumbled. "Excuse me?" "Uh..." Fleur grinned apologetically, "Sorry, that was... sorry. I need to go make some preparations." Fleur offered Celestia a quick curtsey, then turned and ran from the throne room to her office. Celia was already there, waiting with a worried expression on her face. "Fleur! Have you heard?" "I've heard plenty. Have we managed to make contact with the griffons?" Celia blinked at the question, having not been expecting one like it, but she recovered quickly. "Not yet, but we're still trying. Without Ambassador Deetra, it's not as easy as it used to be." "I know, that's why we need a new plan. Go find me Sonny and Derreck, and bring them here. I have a job for the both of them that they're rather well qualified for." "Of course." Fleur sat down as Celia left, and pulled open the drawer where she kept the speaker stones she used to stay in contact with Bon Bon and her team. She picked it up and placed it on the desk in front of her, trying to think of what to do. Fleur suspected there was only two ways this would end now. Either Twilight would return with that magical maguffin they needed to end this, or Equestria would fall. The problem was that Fleur thought Luna was being woefully optimistic if she thought they could hold the Mareitanians off for long. The Bulwark had been built to hold the Mareitanians back for as long as possible, but had barely lasted two days before the Mareitanians had made it through, and that was without the surprise attack on the Crystal Empire. Faust could probably crack Canterlot open in a fortnight at most, and a few days at the least. There was no proper plan for what to do if Equestria lost, because nopony dared to countenance such a possibility. Fleur didn't know what to do either, but she knew that between Saddle Arabia's problems, and those in the Griffon Empire, the world was less ready than it needed to be. Mustangia was likely to fall with Equestria, meaning the only countries in contact with Equestria, and without any interfering issues were Zebrica and Minos, neither of which was really ideal to put any hopes in. Zebrica had no official military other than what warriors were needed at any time, and the minotaurs of Minos were deeply isolationist. "This is impossible. I don't even know what I'm trying to do right now." There was a knock at the door, and Fleur said to enter, sighing wearily as the two griffons, Sonny and Derreck, entered her office. "You wanted to see us?" "I do." Fleur searched her desk until she found the piece of paper containing the conversation between Commander Theron and the Golden Claws' leader in Appleloosa. "I need you to get this into the claws of Griffon Intelligence." "Really? How does doing that help us?" "It might not, but with Equestria in such dire straits, forging a bit of good will with Griffonia might help considerably in the future. Get this to them, and tell them all we know about Commander Theron, Griffonstone, and what they could possibly be planning." "Alright, and after we do that?" "Stay in the Eyrie, if they'll let you, or return to Griffonstone if you can't. I hate to say it, but Luna's new plan has effectively crippled our ability to operate outside of Canterlot, and there's not exactly a lot to learn about this place. You'll be better off staying out of it." "Oh." Sonny looked over to Derreck, who slowly shrugged back. "As you wish ma'am. We'll be ready when you need us." Fleur smiled appreciatively at the two griffons, "Glad to hear it. Sonny, Derreck, it's been a pleasure." "You too ma'am," Derreck said back. "Good luck." Fleur held her smile until the griffons were gone, then let it drop with a sigh. She swept the stone back into the drawer and groaned as her thoughts went nowhere. "I'm going to have to think about this a little longer."

The end of an era

41. Abandonment issues

Manehattan was none the wiser as to what was going to happen to it. A few ponies had been made aware, certainly, and Captain Greywhisker was in the process of briefing the Mayor, but other than that it was life as normal. Truth was that they were only minutes away from a reminder that life was far from normal, and likely wouldn't be for a long time. Rainbow wasn't sure which part of doing this that pissed her off more. That it had come to this, having to sabotage anything useful that Faust could use against them, or that the ponies of Manehattan had no idea about any of it. So long as the papers and milk turned up the next morning, who really cared? She pushed the thought away as being unfair. They were being left to the mercy of the Mareitanians, all in the name of some misplaced greater good, and they would soon be aware of their predicament. The first warning would be a press announcement. The second would be the destruction of various production facilities around the city, and the third would probably be a vanguard of griffons. The problem was that any of those events could happen before the others. "How's it going Rainbow?" Lightning asked, a slight, sullen edge to her words. Considering what happened over the last twenty-four hours, it wasn't hard to imagine why. "I'll be done in five," Rainbow replied, connecting a wire up to a bundle of other wires. Their squadron, or all nine surviving members of it, had been given the dubious honour of destroying the factory that produced their armour. Considering it had just been rebuilt after the bombing that occurred during Celestia's visit, it felt cruel to destroy it like this. "Okay. Our scouts report that the Mareitanians are only twenty miles out, so we'll have an hour before the main bulk of their forces get here." "You're about to say there might be griffons, aren't you?" "Eehhh..." Lightning levelled a hoof, "There's a distinct possibility that there might be griffons, yes. We're aiming to at least be on the way out of here before they arrive, so five minutes is all you have." "I'll be done in four." "Aim for three." "Got it." Rainbow started working as fast as she dared. In other circumstances she'd insist on doing it all in ten seconds flat, but there was something about working with high explosives that encouraged her towards caution. The other members of her squadron were working similarly quick, racing around the open spaces the factory offered to complete their task. The factory had been evacuated before they began, so at the very least they didn't have to worry about anypony getting hurt in the blast. Rainbow stepped back a few steps to inspect her work, and nodded with half baked satisfaction that it all seemed to be in order. It also came as no surprise to her that she was the first to finish, so to speed things up she sought out the pony most behind to help. Much to her everlasting lack of surprise it was Vapor who was the most behind, although she couldn't really blame the mare, even if she was endangering their task. "Hey," Rainbow said gently, flying over to Vapor. "You want some help?" Vapor hurriedly rubbed some tears away, "Sorry, what was that? I-um, might have been a bit distracted." "I asked if you want some help." "Oh." Vapor stared at the bundle of wires in front of her and sighed at the mess she'd made of them. "Yes please." Rainbow eased Vapor aside and took a moment to stare in confusion at the mess Vapor had made, then started to untangle it and do it correctly. She wanted to joke about how much of a mess it was, but knew well enough to keep her mouth shut around Vapor right now. "Aren't you going to ask me if I'm alright?" "Uh..." Rainbow turned to look Vapor in her watery eyes. "No offense, but I don't need a degree in psychology to tell that you're far from alright." "It won't stop hurting. I loved him Rainbow, and now he's just... gone." Vapor sniffed and rubbed her eyes again, only to choke into more tears. "I never got to tell him how I felt." Rainbow wanted to say it was pretty obvious, but Sky was denser than a diamond to not pick up on it. Instead she hummed a little affirmative, most of her thoughts going towards sorting the explosives out. "Why would those griffons do that? It was supposed to be peaceful! Instead they killed all those ponies, and they killed my Sky!" "I know." "Well I'm going to kill as many of them as I can." "Sounds like a pla-" Rainbow stopped as she figured out what Vapor had just said, really not expecting to hear such a thing from her. "What? You don't mean all griffons do you? Just the ones attacking us, right?" "Are you telling me you don't hate griffons?" Vapor asked, shocked at Rainbow for not sharing her opinion. "After they've killed so many of us?" "That's not fair Vapor. There's a lot more griffons that haven't done a thing to hurt us, compared to the amount that have. I'm not saying the griffons are a pleasant bunch, but I don't hate all of them. I'm even friends with a griffon in Griffonstone, although she can be a bit of a jerk at times." "But-" "No buts Vapor. The Mareitanians are ponies, but do you find yourself hating all ponies because of them?" "No, of course not!" "There you go then." "Doesn't mean I don't hate all the Mareitanians though!" Rainbow grunted a sigh at Vapor's reasoning. She understood where Vapor was coming from easily enough, but only a small portion of griffons were attacking them, and the Mareitanians were being controlled by Faust, so it was hard to tell how much you could blame them for their actions. Hating all griffons for the actions of a few though, that was just... well, not silly, but it certainly wasn't reasonable. "Look, I'm sorry you lost Sky, I really am, but hating the griffons isn't going to make you feel better, and neither is killing them. If you want to hate somepony, hate Faust. She's the reason all of this is happening." Vapor went quiet, and for a moment Rainbow thought she'd gotten through to her. Her hopes were dashes though as Vapor stomped her hooves angrily. "I thought you would've understood Rainbow." "And I do, I really do. Seriously, fuck the Bloodfeathers, and fuck the Golden Claws, but I'm not going to start hating all the griffons because of them! Just as I'm not going to start hating the princesses because Faust is an alicorn like them. See where I'm coming from here?" "So... wait, you'd happily kill all those griffons that fight for Faust?" "Yeah, in a heartbeat, but not because I hate griffons. I just want them to stop killing my friends." "Oh." Vapor sat down and wrapped a leg around herself, "I'm sorry Rainbow, I didn't mean to yell at you." "Don't worry about it. I know what you're coming from, I do, but you can't let yourself get eaten up by hating things and being angry all the time. You'll just end up hurting yourself, and getting yourself killed, and there are quite a few of us that don't want that to happen. You're not alone Vapor, remember that." "I... I will." Rainbow grinned at Vapor, but lost it as Vapor stared off into the distance, tears growing in her eyes again. She supposed one little talk was hardly enough to make the pain of losing Sky go away. Still, she could be at least a little happy that Vapor had listened to her, and given up her thoughts of taking her pain out on all griffons. The next few minutes passed in silence, giving Rainbow the time she needed to sort out Vapor's portion of the demolition. She could feel Lightning watching her impatiently though, as they were running quite significantly over the five minute time limit she'd given them. It didn't help that the rest of the squadron was waiting either. "You know, you could've helped instead of standing there," Rainbow pointed out to them as she finished up. "It's a one pony job to do what you did," Lightning said back. "Still, you're done, so let's blow this popsicle stand and get out of here." "What about the other squadrons?" Rainbow asked. "Them and the Night Guard should be finishing up soon, then we can all get out of here." Lightning gestured for them all to follow her outside, but stopped just as the sound griffon calls reached her ears. "That was the plan anyway," Lightning groaned. An explosion echoed around the city, followed by another, and another, the sound bouncing around the skyscrapers for several seconds before dissipating. At the very least some of their targets had been destroyed. "Thunderlane, get that plunger set up, then let's blow this place and go help the others." "It's already set up," Thunderlane said, sounding a little insulted that Lightning thought that he hadn't already done it. "All you need to do is push it." "Oh, uh, good work. All of you spread out to check the radius is clear of ponies." Rainbow complied, quickly flying around the area to check nopony was close enough to get caught in the blast. Nopony was, so she shouted that it was clear, along with the others, then backed off herself. That's when it felt like the air kicked her, and she found herself getting smacked backwards by the force of the detonation. By the time she'd recovered, the area was full of dust and smoke, and the building was very much destroyed, just as planned, meaning it was time to get out of there. The rest were already gathering by the time she got there, and with an order from Lightning they started making their way back to regroup with the rest of their forces in the park at the city centre. They stayed low, weaving through the streets rather than flying above them where they could be more easily spotted by the griffons. There were plenty of other ponies out in the streets, having heard the explosions, with several more having gone off since their flight began, and it also meant they were able to hear the calls of the griffons. It was easy to tell they were frightened, and they had good reason to be, especially if they could see what was happening in the park. Hundreds of ponies clashed with an even larger number of griffons in the skies over the park, and already bodies of both were dotted around on the grass below. Lightning showed no hesitation in joining the dogfight, drawing her blades and diving right in to try and find the rest of the Wonderbolts. They failed, as the Wonderbolts weren't even there. Rainbow was about to suggest they get out of the fight when the roar of thunder tore through the air. The rest of the Wonderbolts had arrived, and were putting their newly acquired skills to the test by conjuring lightning and throwing it at the griffons. In the target rich environment they had, most of them succeeded. All of them put the distraction to use, attacking what griffons they could before the surprise wore off. Moments later the griffons made the call to retreat, and the park emptied of griffons, leaving the temporarily victorious Equestrians to discuss what next. Rainbow made sure to get a spot near captains Spitfire and Greywhisker so she could hear the plan. "That would've gone a lot differently if all the griffons had shown up," Spitfire said to Greywhisker. "That's just it, a lot of them flew south towards Fillydelphia. I think they've worked out what we're doing, and gone to try and stop it down there, and in Baltimare." Spitfire cursed quietly, "I guess that means it's up to us to go stop them? Heh, stopping them from stopping us destroying our own stuff. That's a special kind of fubar right there." "Isn't it just?" Greywhisker snickered. "Have all your targets been destroyed?" "Yeah, eventually. Yours?" Greywhisker nodded, "They have indeed, and I've briefed the mayor on the situation. Suffice to say, he was not impressed with any of this, but there's little we can do about it now. Since we're done here, we should probably get moving. I don't know about you, but I have no wish to see the Mareitanians arriving." Spitfire shrugged at Greywhisker, "I wouldn't mind giving the Mareitanians a few licks before we go." She shrugged again, "Here's hoping they're at least reasonable about how they take the city. Sooo... first one to Fillydelphia gets to kill all the griffons?" "You're on," Greywhisker replied with a grin." -0-0-0- "How the hell are we supposed to destroy that?" Limestone said, staring up at the imposing towers of the Fillydelphia steelworks. "Couldn't we have been given the munitions factory instead? All you'd have to do is throw a match into that place." "I'm sure some distance would be required," said Maud. "Yes, I realise that, thank you." Limestone huffed and took a moment to look around the hundred or so other ponies that had been sent with them to the steelworks. A mix of earth ponies and unicorns, both Mage Corps and not, as well as an escort of those insane pegasus Exiles that fought without armour. How they were meant to work together to destroy this place was a mystery to her, but she supposed it wasn't her place to argue, as much as she wanted to. "So we collapse the towers onto the buildings?" she said, again to Maud as she was the only other pony next to her. "That's it?" "Once we cut through the framework of the towers, yes." As she spoke, a dozen ponies were busy cutting through the steel supports of the towers with torches, sending tiny rivulets of steel running down to the ground. "How do you make the steel to build the steel things that produce the steel?" Limestone asked a moment later. "Isn't that kinda, well, silly?" "You can make steel without all of this." "I know that." "Oh." "It just seems me like it'd take a really long time to build if you're having to make each piece to build it by hoof." Limestone shrugged, "A lot longer than it's going to take to destroy it." "Not if those griffons stop us," Maud said, turning her head up to watch the sky as a large number of griffons turned up from the north. The Exiles jumped to engage them, and the fighting soon filled the skies. "And here I was thinking this'd be a milk run," Limestone grumbled as she and Maud sought cover nearer the towers where their sisters and squadmates were. "Get yourself ready for a fight ladies." "But what if I don't wanna?" Azure whined, pouting at Limestone. "I really hope you're kidding." "Of course I am!" Azure pulled a rock out of her bag and hefted it in her hoof, "We owe them for Top Spin." Limestone nodded, and prepared herself to protect the ponies cutting through the tower supports, and those setting up the modest amount of dynamite required to finish the job. She didn't have to wait long as griffons began to swoop down towards them, and she wound her hoof back, letting fly a rock as the ponies around them opened fire with crossbow and magic. Her aim was true as the stone met a griffon between the eyes, dropping it out of the sky, along with a dozen others. The remaining griffons pulled up and scattered, giving them a moment's reprieve. "There's even more griffons coming from the north," Lyra shouted, heralding the arrival of yet more griffons that dived down towards the towers. Limestone prepared to attack again, but the griffons stopped, instead firing the crossbows they held in their claws. Limestone swore loudly and dived to the side, tackling Marble into cover, unnecessarily so, but she was still feeling protective of her youngest sister. Several other ponies weren't so lucky. Shields popped up around the base of the tower, stopping the griffons from shooting those within. Unfortunately this meant that those behind the shields couldn't attack either, and there was nothing they could do to deter the griffons from closing into mêlee range, except hope the shields held. Heat started to build under the shield from the torches, and all of them were soon showing It with sweat as the griffons taunted them from outside. Limestone was close to asking the shield be dropped so they could attack, which would only be a pretence for escaping the increasingly unbearable temperature. The griffons soon had other concerns as more pegasi joined the fight, chasing them off and giving the ponies on the ground a chance to lower the shields, although they kept ready just in case. Work proceeded apace after that, and it quickly became time to blow the towers, the griffons having failed to stop them. Limestone quickly ran some checks on the explosives, not that she was any more of an expert than the ponies setting them up. As far as she could tell, they would destroy the remaining structure on one side of the tower, leaving it, and the other tower, to fall onto the large building between them. Satisfied, or at least having found nothing to complain about, Limestone followed the ponies with her as they unwound a cable and ran it over to a spot reasonably far away from the detonation. Pinkie was already there, setting up a plunger to detonate it all, and was already connecting the wire from the other tower as they arrived. "All good Pinkie?" Limestone asked as her pink sister worked feverishly. "I think so, yes? Maybe? Possibly. Perhaps not." Pinkie pointed towards the towers, and more specifically the griffons flying down towards them. "I think they might be trying to sabotage the saboteurs. Devious really..." "For shit sake!" Limestone turned and started running back to the towers. It was clear they were going to have to protect the towers now, which would leave them uncomfortably close to them when they should be blowing up, but that was better than the griffons stopping them. "Shout when you're ready Pinkie!" "Will do!" Limestone scooped at stone up and threw it as hard as she could at the back of a griffon's head, cracking her skull open in a spray of blood. The other griffons turned to face them, and a few more fell before they decided to flee, although some took pot-shots back at the ponies before doing so. Limestone quickly inspected the explosives, and fumed at the sight of some of the wires having been cut. She quickly stripped the ends in her teeth and twisted them back together, hoping the simple jury-rig would work. Griffons buzzed around the towers, only seeming to increase in number as the pegasi decreased. They could only hope that their winged allies weren't all dead, but either way it was clear that they'd lost the fight. A few were still fighting, but as more griffons turned their attention to the ground forces, it was clear their efforts made little difference. "It's ready!" Pinkie shouted, barely able to be heard over the sound of the griffons as they celebrated their victory over the pegasi. At the very least they'd allowed the ground forces to complete their mission before fleeing, or worse, whatever had happened to them. "Move!" Limestone shouted, leading the rush back to the relative safety of distance as the griffons started to make an attack on Pinkie's position, her shout having alerted them that they were close to losing their prize. A barrage of magic and arrows held them off, giving Pinkie the time she needed to push the plunger down once everypony was safely away from the towers. The detonations weren't very big, but they were enough to take out the final support of the towers, sending the massive edifices teetering over to fall onto the rest of the steelworks, doing more than enough damage to render it totally inoperable. The force of the impacts was enough to knock most of the ponies still running off their hooves, and the world went dark as a wave of dust rolled over them. Limestone coughed the dust out of her lungs and wiped the dirt out of her eyes. She stood, her ribs aching from the impact of getting thrown to the ground, and tried to regain her bearings through the brown fog around her. She could hear plenty of other ponies, but couldn't see many of them, and there was no sight at all of Pinkie and her sisters. "Everypony get up, we need to move!" Limestone put her words into action, running around and dragging as many ponies to their hooves as she could. The dust was starting to drift away on a gentle breeze, clearing the area enough to let them see the griffons landing around them. Limestone turned around, trying to find a way out, but failed. They were completely surrounded, with no way out, as was Pinkie's group, who surrendered without a fight, dropping their weapons. With considerable reluctance, Limestone did the same." "Shit." -0-0-0- They'd been able to see the griffons all the way to Fillydelphia, but hadn't been able to catch them up. They still hadn't caught them up as they reached the city and the griffons split up to re-join their forces already there, aiming to stop the Equestrians from sabotaging what they sought to acquire. It was already too late though, as the massive cloud of dust coming from the steelworks to the south could attest to. There was also a large amount of smoke coming from elsewhere in the city, and a few other places. The griffons had failed to prevent anything. "That's a relief," said Spitfire. "Hopefully things went smoothly in Baltimare, so we can get out of here." "Where are the rest of our forces?" Greywhisker asked in response to what Spitfire had said. He pointed towards the train station as they flew over the city, "The troop transport is still there. Why is it still there? More importantly, why are there griffons crawling all over it?" "Wasn't your friend Pinkie and her team here?" Lightning asked Rainbow out of the side of her mouth. She got a stiff nod in return. "Captain, if the griffons have control of the city here, should we consider that our forces have been captured?" "Or wiped out," said Greywhisker. "I don't think it's worth risking ourselves to find out. We should head for Canterlot." "What?" Rainbow cried. "No! We can't just leave them if they've been taken captive!" "I hate to say it Dash," Spitfire said, fully aware of why Rainbow would object to leaving them, "but we don't have the numbers to conduct a full rescue operation. We don't really have the numbers to do anything. I'm sorry." "But- But- But Pinkie's one of the Elements of Harmony! Surely that means she's a priority, or something? That means we have to rescue her!" "If the Elements of Harmony were such a priority," Greywhisker said, far less sympathetically than Spitfire, "the princesses would never have let them, or you, fight on the front lines. They've been captured, so they're probably safer there anyway." Rainbow gawped open-mouthed at the thestral captain, "Are you kidding me? You saw what those griffons did in Appleloosa! Why the hell would they worry about not killing our ponies if they have no problem with killing civilians?" "Rainbow does have a point Captain," Lightning said, backing Rainbow up. "That doesn't change the fact that we don't have the numbers to stage a rescue," Greywhisker reminded them. "There's no point in us getting ourselves killed in a failed rescue attempt." Soarin and Fleetfoot flew up, one on each side of Spitfire. "Come on Cap," said Soarin, "we never left anypony behind in Mareitania." "We were the superior force in Mareitania," Spitfire reminding him. "We never really needed to leave anypony behind." "Then we go stealthy," said Fleetfoot. "Sneak in and break them out at night. The griffons won't even know what happened." Greywhisker rolled his eyes, "If you continue with this action, you will do it without us." Another of the Night Guard flew to the front to join the conversation, giving Spitfire a quick wink. "Come on Captain," Shadow said with a hint of pleading in her voice. "We're the masters of hunting at night. We'll be able to do it easily." "No, I forbid it, and if you go ahead with this, I will have you all court-martialled." "Better start warming up your seat in the courtroom then, because I'm totally up for saving those ponies down there." Greywhisker narrowed his eyes at Shadow, but stopped as a large number of the other thestrals joined her. "You ponies from Mareitania have been nothing but trouble. It's a pity you're some of the best warriors in the Night Guard as well." With a huff he turned back to Spitfire, "Refuse this idiot notion so we can all get back to Canterlot." Spitfire looked back and forth between Greywhisker, and those wanting to mount a rescue, wondering why the decision had landed on her to make. She knew that Greywhisker was right, and that there was no point in risking it all for the ponies captured here. She also knew deep down, that leaving them wasn't the right thing to do. "We're going in." Greywhisker stared aghast at Spitfire, "Have you all gone mad? Do you even realise how much you're risking here?" "Altius volantis, Greywhisker," Spitfire replied with a grin. "If we can get the train running, and make a path between where our ponies are captured and the station, we could have them out of here in no time. Are you with us?" "I guess I have to be," Greywhisker grumbled. "I assure you I will be having words about this with Luna when, or rather if we make it back." -0-0-0- Turns out the grass in the hoofball stadium was edible. That came as a great relief as the hunger pangs started to set in. Pinkie rolled over on the grass, a few strands of the short grass between her teeth as she tried to work out how to get out of the situation they were in. It was clear to her now that the pegasi had abandoned them. That was a rather cheap move, but perhaps they'd known something those without wings hadn't, like, for example, the true number of the griffons. If the griffons had outnumbered them when the griffons already had them beaten anyway, perhaps running away was a prudent decision, and Pinkie wouldn't blame them for making it. On the other hoof, they'd completely wussed out at the prospect of another fight, and had left those on the ground to desperately complete their mission and accept the consequences. Again, Pinkie couldn't really blame them, as she didn't really want to fight any more either. The war couldn't be going more wrong right now if they tried, so perhaps it was for the best they were captured and kept out of it all. A prison camp had to be a lot safer than a battlefield after all. Who knows, it could even act as a nice little vacation from everything. Pinkie smiled a little and shrugged to herself. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Faust would even let her see her friends if she asked nicely enough. Sure the world would be in trouble, and dangerously short on smiles, but she'd be safe with her friends again, which is all she ever wanted really. Twilight could fix it though, and then everything could go back to the way it was, more or less. Pinkie lost her smile. Twilight had never gone back to the way she was after her time in Mareitania. Perhaps you could never really go back. Yes things would be peaceful again, but the memories would always be there to remind you of what you had lost to get to that point. The things you'd seen, the ponies you'd lost... Top Spin had never been the most vocal of ponies, and Pinkie had to admit she knew less about Top Spin than she liked. What had her dreams and ambitions been before she... yeah. Did she dream of becoming a tennis champion? Or of starting a family with a hunky stallion? Was she content to live a quiet life? Pinkie didn't know, and now she never would because Top Spin was gone. Tension gripped Pinkie's chest, and she tried to stifle her tears, but there was no helping it as a sob escaped her. Top Spin was dead, and Pinkie didn't know whether she had anypony to cry for her and the amazing future she'd had stolen away from her, or any of the ponies that had lost their lives in this terrible war. Maybe not all of them had ponies to cry for them, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she did. Somepony had to think of them if nopony else was. "Pinkie? Are you crying?" Pinkie quickly wiped her eyes as Azure sat up, her purple eyes shining in what little light they had to see by. "S-sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I was just thinking about Top Spin." "I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking about her too." "You were?" "Yeah. I just can't help thinking about what we could've done different, y'know? I should never have suggested going to that stupid concert in the first place." Pinkie jumped up and grabbed Azure in a hug as tears started running down her cheeks, holding her tightly as Azure shuddered, trying to hold back her sobs. "You can't blame yourself Azure." "But it's my fault we were there! It's my fault she's dead! If I'd just kept my stupid mouth shut we could've stayed somewhere safe instead!" "If you want to blame yourself for that, you can blame all of us. We all wanted to go-" "Not me," Limestone grumbled. "-Except Limestone," Pinkie continued smoothly. "The only ones to blame are the griffons for attacking there, and bad luck that our friends got caught up in their plan." "But I almost got your sister killed! And Lyra!" "I know, but never for a moment would I have blamed you. I like you too much for that." Pinkie smiled at Azure, seeing her self-loathing lessen a little. She still seemed unsure though, and Pinkie ended up extra confused when Azure leaned forwards and kissed her. "Woah-woah-woah!" Pinkie leant back and held Azure at arms length. "What are you doing Azure?" Azure's eyes darted around the rest of her team, "Is that not what we were going for there?" Pinkie shook her head slowly and firmly. "Oh, my bad. Totally my bad. I may have misread the situation slightly." "You owe me twenty bits," Marble whispered to Limestone as the two ponies stared at each other, one shocked, and the other a little disappointed by what had happened. "I owe everypony twenty bits. I was the only pony that bet for it." "Everypony?" Lyra questioned. "Yeah, that was a hundred bits if I'd won." There was a short pause as Limestone sighed. "I think I'll donate Top Spin's to a tennis charity or something. She deserves that much off me." Azure raised an eyebrow at the ponies around her. "You put bets on us kissing? I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be disgusted by that, or disappointed that only Limestone bet in my favour." "Actually we all agreed the kissing might happen," said Limestone. "We were actually betting on whether Pinkie would reciprocate it or not. Truthfully I only sided with you because the odds were so good." "Really? Pinkie, help me out here." "Aw let them have their fun." Pinkie nudged Azure on the side, making the purple pony smile crookedly. "I feel like such an idiot now." "Aww,' Pinkie cooed, "it's alright, I'm not angry at you or anything. I'm actually kind of flattered." Azure opened her mouth to speak, but the words were lost to a roar of thunder that followed the streak of lightning that knocked a griffon out of the sky. Then a lot more followed. -0-0-0- Rainbow wiped the blood off her blades and sheathed them, along with the ponies around her at the train station. So far they'd managed to take out the griffons guarding the train with nothing having gone wrong, which could only be a good sign. Above them the thestrals patrolled the sky, hidden in the darkness. "Doesn't look like they've tampered with the train," Fleetfoot after checking it for a couple of minutes. "Not that I'd really know if they had. I guess all we can do now is light the fire, get the train ready, and hope it actually works." "Hopefully without breaking it," Spitfire said before turning to Lightning, "A squadron is going to stay here and hold the station," she added to Lightning. "You, C squadron, and the thestrals go release the captives." "Yes ma'am." "And for the love of Celestia, make sure High Rise stays with you. I know he's not Sky Stinger, but I can't let him fly solo." Lightning glanced over at High Rise, the white stallion staring resolutely at the floor. First he'd lost most of his squadron over Stalliongrad, and then Fire Streak had died, and now he'd lost both of his wingmates in B squadron. Lightning could understand why he refused to look at anypony after that. "I'll keep an eye on him ma'am." "I'll hold you to that." "Does anypony have a match?" Fleetfoot asked, scrabbling with the shutter to the train's firebox. She opened it, and backed off as the heat inside blasted her in the face. "Nevermind, that's still way hot. Soarin, find the shovel and get some coal in there." "Why am I the shovel pony?" Fleetfoot rolled her eyes, "Spitfire, make him an offer he can't refuse." Spitfire whispered something in Soarin's ear, his wings raising a little bit. "All the way in?" he asked, getting a nod from Spitfire. "Hot damn! Out the way ponies, I have coal to shovel!" "Let's go ponies," Lightning said quickly, knowing that somepony was bound to make a comment if she didn't distract them. They joined the thestrals in the sky and sought out Greywhisker in the hopes that he could provide them a decent overview of what to expect. When they found him, eventually, his dark coat and armour hiding him well in the cloudy, moonless night sky, he was hovering with his legs crossed in obvious disdain. "They don't even know we're here," he tutted. "Their patrols are flying low, are too sporadic, and well, they clearly aren't expecting any trouble of any sort. Typical griffon overconfidence." "And the prisoners?" "They're holding them in the stadium under moderate guard. Nothing we can't handle, and it's near the train station too, so there won't be a lengthy run out of here while under attack by griffons. Even better, we've located their captured weapons, and I've dispatched ponies to bring them to the stadium so our ponies can put up a fight during their escape." "Easy as pie then." "You could say that. Personally, I'm concerned that we haven't located all the griffons yet. If they're expecting us and planning something, this'll be a massacre." "Then perhaps we should do this quick. Should we distract them and draw the griffons off while you bust our ponies out?" "Can you see well enough in the dark to do that? The griffons can probably see you better than you can see them." Rainbow flew up, joining in with the discussion. "What if we led them into a trap? We draw a load of them off towards an ambush by some of your thestrals, then you take out the rest at the stadium out and we all get out of here?" Greywhisker rubbed his chin with a hoof, humming as he thought. "There's easily a hundred griffons guarding the stadium, so drawing some off might be good. The trouble is you'll probably attract griffons from elsewhere around the city." "Then we'll lead them on a merry little chase," Rainbow said with a grin. "Maybe give them a few thousand volts worth of reasons to not mess with the Wonderbolts." Greywhisker thought some more, then shrugged. "An acceptable plan I suppose, although it's your call Squadron leader Dust." "Let's do it!" Lightning said confidently. "Where will the ambush be?" "Fly past the tallest building," Greywhisker told her. "They'll be ready for you." Lightning and Rainbow saluted, then flew off to explain the plan to the rest of the Wonderbolts, who seemed just as pleased about it as they were. All of them were keen to get a little payback against the griffons for the last couple of days. "We'll attack from above and blast them with lightning," Lightning explained. "Hopefully that'll convince most of them to chase after us. Just remember to aim for the stands where the griffons are, and not the field where our ponies are. Any questions?" There were none, so they set their plan into action, flying up high above the stadium, then diving as one. They could just about make out their targets in the stands as well as in the sky, and they let the static build up on their wings as they flew ever closer, reaching the point of no return where they either had to break off or go through with it. Rainbow shot first, flaring her wings then bringing them together as she went into freefall for a few seconds, her bolt of lightning blasting a griffon out of the sky. The rest of the Wonderbolts fired a moment later, their own bolts of lightning striking down into the stands, and each one striking targets that were immobile and much easier to hit than usual. All of them pulled up out of their dives and hovered there for a moment as the thunder died out. Not sure what else to do, Rainbow waved her hooves at the griffons and shouted, "Come and get us bird-brains!" The enraged calls of griffons followed the Wonderbolts up as they raced back into the sky. For extra emphasis, Rainbow built up another lightning bolt and flipped around so she was effectively falling upwards as she fired the lightning bolt back down at the griffons that were chasing after them. Other calls from griffons sounded from around the city, joining those that were chasing the Wonderbolts, and they began to wonder if they'd made a mistake as more and more griffons started chasing after them, undeterred by the intermittent bolts of lightning that were fired back at them. The massive form of a skyscraper loomed out of the darkness, and the Wonderbolts raced around it, splitting up to fly around both sides, and encouraging the griffons to do the same. Nothing happened at first, but then the griffons started crying out in pain and dismay as a large number of dark shapes pushed up from the side of the building out of their sight, and started cutting into the griffon flight. The Wonderbolts stopped and turned back, joining the short ambush, mercilessly picking apart the hundred strong flight of griffons that fell apart in seconds, either trying to fight an enemy they couldn't see, or fleeing, only to get struck down before they could get anywhere. Rainbow flipped up, then flapped her wings hard to push herself downwards onto the back of a griffon that was trying to get out of there, her blades piercing the thin armour that lay between the wings of the griffon. She pushed off with her hooves and freed her blades, letting the hen flop lifelessly to the ground far below, and sought out another target, only to find that the thestrals had already finished the job. "Sweet!" Rainbow exclaimed. "Guess we showed them!" "We're not done yet though," said Lightning, turning back towards the stadium. "Come on!" -0-0-0- All the members of the Hard Corps, as well as every pony in the stadium, cautiously removed their hooves from their ears as the thunder died. The sounds of the griffons replaced it for a moment as a large number of them took off after the ambushing Wonderbolts, then it all went quiet. "Luna damn it," Pinkie muttered. "They just couldn't leave us be, could they?" "What are you talking about Pinkie?" Limestone asked as her pink sister muttered to herself loud enough to be heard by the others. "Nothing!" "Uh-huh..." Limestone frowned up at the sky, putting Pinkie out of her mind. "Well? Now what? You can't tell me they just did that for fun?" "I don't think so," Maud said, pointing a hoof over at the stands. "Look." Dark shapes flitted up over the stands, viciously cutting down the remaining griffons guarding the prisoners. In less than half a minute the griffons had fallen to a swarm of dark shapes that were recognisable to the ponies there as the Night Guard, doing what they did best in the dark. "Listen up!" one of the thestrals shouted as more of them broke the lock on the gates to let them out. "We're getting you out of here. Your weapons are in a cart outside, so grab them and start heading to the train station. Try to be as quick as you can." "Hah, weapons," Limestone said bitterly as ponies started streaming towards the exit. "We should be so lucky. I bet they forgot to bring our rocks." "And here I am with mine stuck to my head," Lyra joked. "If only we weren't so horribly outnumbered, I might have used it," she added. "Not anymore," said Maud, leading the way as they ran out of the stadium. As predicted their bags of rocks had been neglected, so they just ran straight for the station, relying on Lyra, Crystal, and everypony else to protect them. Not that the griffons were being given much of a chance to attack them. Weapons rang in the air above the fleeing ponies as the Night Guard clashed with the griffons, using their natural element of darkness to a far greater effect than the griffons could. To a thestral, the bright, shiny armour some of the griffons wore practically glowed in the dark. They may as well have painted targets on themselves. The griffons still had numbers though, and were starting to gather together enough to mount an effective resistance, only to have it quickly blown apart as the Wonderbolts re-joined the fight, followed by a large number of yet more thestrals. Most of this was missed by the ponies running below, as the battle above was hidden in the dark. The occasional falling body was the only real proof that it was happening at all. Their concern was getting to the station and out of there anyway. They'd been given a chance, and they weren't going to waste it. "I know there's a griffon invasion going on, but they could still have lit the street lights," Crystal complained as she tripped over a kerb, catching herself before she fell over. "Where are all the ponies that live here anyway?" "Hiding hopefully," said Azure. "Kinda reminds me of when the gangs in Manehattan used to get into fights. Everypony else just stays the hell away." "Used to?" Limestone said to Azure. "What do you mean used to?" "Eh, they made peace years ago. Apparently they worked out that they were kinda being idiots, and stopped it all. Now the gangs barely exist any more." "Let's move it ponies!" a male voice shouted from above, coming from a male Wonderbolt that was perched on the roof of the station. "Get straight on the train, no fucking around! If the train drivers happen to be here as well, that'd be great because we don't really know how this thing works!" "Yeesh, some rescue this will be if they can't even get the train working," Limestone grumbled as they kept running, heading for one of the carriages as the Wonderbolts kept the area clear. They jumped aboard, and tried to find somewhere they could see from as the carriages filled up with ponies. A couple of minutes later, once everypony was aboard, the train lurched into motion. Pinkie forced her way to the front, trying to see what was happening, and to see whether the Wonderbolts and thestrals were coming. If Rainbow got herself killed for a rescue Pinkie didn't really want, then it really, really wasn't worth it. -0-0-0- "They're falling back! The griffons are falling back!" Rainbow sighed with relief at the shout from one of the thestrals. If the griffons were giving up to let them escape with the prisoners, then this could be soundly called a win. A win they needed too after the way things had been going. She looped around to start following the train as all the other fliers did the same, save those thestrals that flew higher to serve as over watch against any attacks the griffons might be planning. The remainder of her squadron gathered together, having thankfully not lost another during the short-lived fight, although Lightning was flying awkwardly. Rainbow was about to ask what was wrong when Lightning's wings failed her and she dropped. Rainbow raced down, grabbing hold of Lightning before she came even close to hitting the ground, and pulled her back up. "Are you alright Lightning?" Lightning removed her left hoof from a spot between her right shoulder and her wing, uncovering a deep cut that was dripping blood down her side. "I don't think it's too bad. Fucking hurts though." "Uh, alright, um... we need to get to the train. Help me out here guys!" Thunderlane flew under the two ponies, letting Rainbow lower Lightning onto his back as Cloud flew on to the rear of the train, pulling the door open to allow Thunderlane to land inside and slide Lightning off. Rainbow quickly pulled Lightning's flightsuit down to uncover the wound, and pressed her hooves down on it to staunch the bleeding. "Medic! We need a medic!" "You're way overreacting Dash," Lightning said as a pony rushed forwards to start treating her. "I'm not going to die from this." "Fuck you Lightning. I think we've lost enough ponies lately to not take any fucking risks." Lightning snorted a laugh and laid her head back, "Alright, I know, I know." She sighed, then winced in pain as the medic worked. "I don't know about you guys, but I could really use a break after today. Canterlot better have somewhere you can get a decent cocktail, or something." -0-0-0- Lurin kept his rage to himself, but betrayed it through a rattle in his golden armour as he tried his best to not smack Theron in his stupid face. The fool had taken the 'initiative' to send more griffons down to Baltimare, only to find the ponies had already completed their missions and left, while leaving Fillydelphia under-defended and unprepared for when the Wonderbolts and Night Guard attacked. They'd lost over a hundred griffons, while the Equestrians lost three thestrals and a Wonderbolt, and made off with around six hundred captives. It was a poor trade. "I'm seriously reconsidering our contract, boy. What foolishness led you to stretch your forces, my forces, so thin? Do you wish to impress Faust that much?" "The pegasi were all reported to have left the area, and we have a mission to secure vital assets for Faust. What was I supposed to do?" The Commander of the Golden Claws raised an eyebrow at Theron, "Do you really think Faust brought a massive invasion force because she expected you to try and secure three entire cities with three thousand griffons? I rather think she was expecting resistance from Equestrian forces!" "But there wasn't any!" Lurin rolled his eyes, "I realise that, just as I realise they were here to destroy some of what Faust wanted, and beat you to it all along the east coast. You decided to go running off to capture those so called objectives. You and no one else." "The mission parameters changed." "Because you decided they did! Have you put even the slightest bit of thought of why the Equestrians would sabotage themselves like that?" "Because they knew they couldn't stop us." Lurin waited a beat, "And..?" "And what? What you mean 'and?' They've realised they can't beat us and the Mareitanians." "It means they've changed their tactics. If my scouts are right, the Equestrians are all falling back to Canterlot, to fortify the city." Theron laughed snidely, "Sounds like they're running scared to me." "Not to me. They realise they can't win in a pitched against the Mareitanians, so they've decided to secure Canterlot and make it hard to capture. If they were so convinced they're going to lose, why not surrender?" "Oh please Lurin, it's only a matter of time until Faust cracks that place open." "I know that, and I suspect the Equestrians know that too. They must be banking on something turning the tide of this war, but what?"

The end of an era

42. All coming together

The balcony outside the throne room of Canterlot castle provided an excellent view of the comings and goings of the city. It was one Luna made use of as the prolonged defence of the city was set up in front of her. The sight of the entire military force of Equestria was an impressive sight, right up until you realised your opponent could field twice the number of ponies, and then some. "You have a look on your face," Celestia said as she gracefully walked onto the balcony to stand next to Luna. "I'm not sure I care for it. You're second guessing your plan," she stated. "How could I not?" Luna replied weakly. "We've given up most of our country to spare it from the ravages of a war that would have seen us easily defeated, and now we're here, hoping to survive long enough that Twilight might find what we need to defeat Faust." Celestia sighed and nodded, "I suspect you feel that we should never have tried to fight back in the first place?" "No, I would never roll over and submit to any who would seek to conquer Equestria." "Then what? What is it you're thinking Luna?" Luna held her stance for a few seconds, then sighed deeply, finally turning to look at her sister. "I honestly don't know. We've never been attacked by an enemy so strong, or while we were so weak. Faust was given the perfect weapon in Mareitania, while we've had to build up our strength from near nothing, only to find our best efforts were never going to be enough." "Ah, I see, you're miffed because you're losing." Luna exploded at Celestia. "What?! You really have it in you to joke in such a way when were are facing the destruction of everything we built? Have you lost your mind sister?" "Not at all, but I know you. You like to win, but you're fighting an army that yours cannot beat, led by a pony you cannot destroy." Celestia smiled at Luna, "I remember the battle of Trottingham fields, where your forces were outnumbered three to one. You snuck out in the night and infiltrated the griffons camp, then challenged their leaders to a duel they were honour bound to accept." Luna smiled faintly at the memory, "They gave up fighting me one by one after I defeated half of them, then the last two fled." "You came back covered in blood, half of which was your own." "I had to abide by the rules of their duels if they were going to agree to it," said Luna. "No magic, no weapons, no armour. Just my hooves against their claws, and I still won." "And broke their force's capabilities with most of their leadership gone." Celestia lost her smile, then gazed out over the city. "Unfortunately that won't work against Faust." "No... it won't." Luna shook her head, trying dislodge her doubts over their plans. "How is Cadence?" "No better I'm afraid. Between her guilt, her desire for the fighting to end, and her budding hatred of the ones who could do what they did, she's rather confused and upset. She also feels like she's failed her ponies after they were left to survive on their own." "It'd only be worse if ponies had been forced out of the cities elsewhere as well. Hopefully the Mareitanians will leave the running of a city to those more capable of doing so. A major food shortage would be a disaster if the Mareitanians let, or even make it happen." "We really have lost Equestria, haven't we?" Celestia said sadly. "It is nothing we haven't faced before with Discord, or Tirek," Luna reminded Celestia. "We overcame those foes, and we shall overcome this one." "I'm sure Twilight would have something to say if she could hear that." Celestia sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly, "Still, nothing was ever achieved by quitters. Perhaps you should tell me your plans for defending the city?" "We're fortifying each level of the city," Luna explained. "If we can hold them back at the main gates, all the better, but failing that we're creating fall-back positions, and then fortifying positions into the next level of the city should we lose the level below. We then destroy the bridges between the levels and invite the Mareitanians to do their best to attack with nothing to stand on." "I see. What about the griffons?" "All our fliers will be here, as well as the Mage Corps, and us. Hopefully they shan't be too big of a problem, especially if we can convince Cadence to shield the city with the Crystal Heart." "That didn't stop Faust in the Crystal Empire," Celestia said slowly, like she'd suspected Luna had forgotten. "No, but it should provide an extra distraction. With the cannons covering the main entrance from up the mountain, we should be able to hold them back quite well." "You hope." "I hope, yes. Unfortunately, I suspect this may have been made more difficult by none of our forces returning from Manehattan and Fillydelphia." Luna winced as Celestia gasped at her. "Why didn't you say anything?" "Because I'm hoping that they might yet still return. It seems unlikely that none would return from either city, so I'm giving them some time." "But Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are with those groups! And you're doing nothing to make sure they get back?" "What could I possibly do? Yes I will send ponies out to ascertain what happened to them, but if they are dead or captured there's very little I can do. Not without risking yet more of our ponies on a rescue mission." Celestia grimaced at the heartlessness Luna was showing, but didn't say anything because Luna might have had a point. They couldn't risk ponies trying to save ponies because in the end they might end up with no ponies at all. She shook her head and was about to walk away when a trail of smoke in the distance caught her eye as it wound its way up along the train tracks. "Is that them?" "One can only hope so," said Luna. "I shall organise some of your Royal Guard and greet them at the station. Perhaps then I can learn why they're so late." -0-0-0- "Come on! Come on! Come on!" Rainbow raged as the train rolled to a slow stop in Canterlot station. She kicked the doors open the moment the train stopped, and leapt out with an aim to get Lightning to the hospital as soon as possible. The line of spears pointed at the train soon had her backing off though. "What's going on? Are we in trouble?" "Not at all Rainbow Dash," Luna said, stepping forward and waving a hoof at the guards to have them lower their weapons. "Merely a precaution due to you being long overdue." "Oh. That's good, because we have wounded that need seeing to, like, right now." "Of course. Guards, assist with moving the wounded to the hospital." Luna stepped aside as the Royal Guards rushed to help the wounded get moved off the train. "Rainbow, since I can't see Captains Greywhisker or Spitfire, perhaps you could assist me in explaining your lateness, or why you are returning with the forces from Fillydelphia." "Right..." Rainbow looked longingly after Lightning as the mare was stretchered off the train, giving Rainbow a weak grin as she passed. "Well, we made it to Manehattan and did what we were supposed to, but the griffons turned up. We fought them off and destroyed our targets, but a lot more of them were heading south to stop our ponies in Fillydelphia." "By the time we reached Fillydelphia the city was swarming with griffons, and the Exiles had gone, leaving the rest of our soldiers to get captured, although they did blow up their targets too. We then decided to hide and wait until nightfall to try and rescue them. Which, y'know, we did. And then we came back here." Luna stood still as she took in Rainbow's hastily given description of what had happened. The Exiles had left the ground forces in Fillydelphia to the griffons, which seemed odd to her. "I assume the Exiles were significantly outnumbered by the griffons?" "I guess so, yeah. Why are you asking me though? Shouldn't they have told you themselves?" "The Exiles haven't returned to Canterlot, or Cloudsdale," Luna added, gesturing with her eyes up towards the floating city nearby. "I had assumed they were with you." "We haven't seen anything of them," Rainbow said back. "We thought they must've come back here. So if they aren't here, or in Fillydelphia, where are they?" Luna held her answer back from Rainbow. She suspected that the Exiles had abandoned the fight, and didn't blame them. They'd just earned their freedom, and had less of a vested interest in defending Equestria than the natives did. Now that Equestria was losing, the Exiles had likely chosen to preserve their freedom and their lives elsewhere. "I'm sure they'll turn up," Luna said, hiding her disappointment behind a smile. "Where are the rest of the Wonderbolts, and my Night Guard?" "There wasn't enough room on the train, so they had to fly here," said Rainbow. "They had to take a break though, after being on their wings that long. They'll probably turn up in a couple of hours." "I see. Well, thank you Rainbow Dash. You may go with your friend now if you wish." Rainbow gave Luna a quick and sloppy salute, "Yes ma'am, thank you ma'am." She was halfway through spreading her wings and flying off when she heard Pinkie shout for her to wait. She turned back to see her friend squeezing her way through the ponies around to get to her. "Hey Pinkie." "Hey Rainbow. Uh... thanks for, y'know, saving us." Rainbow hesitated, confused by Pinkie's rather subdued behaviour. She thought Pinkie would've been ecstatic about being rescued, but the pink pony was acting like she'd just been told her seriously ill pet hamster had died in the night. "Have I missed something? You don't seem very happy about being rescued." "No!" Pinkie gestured frantically at Rainbow, suddenly realising that she might have offended her friend. "I am! I am happy! It's just... I'm tired of fighting Rainbow, of seeing good ponies getting hurt and killed. For a moment I kinda thought I was free of all that. I don't want to do this any more Dashie, I'm not a soldier." Rainbow nodded, the words 'I told you so' ready to leap off her tongue. Too bad they'd be leaping off her tongue at the wrong pony. "You're not mad are you?" "What?" Rainbow blurted, the question catching her off guard as it hadn't even occurred to her to be angry. "Of course not! I could've told you that from the beginning. You're happy, and smiley, and... not a killer." Rainbow smiled crookedly at Pinkie, "Not like me, or Twilight." Pinkie dashed forward and tightly grabbed Rainbow around the neck in a hug. "You aren't killers either Rainbow! You're soldiers! Totally different thing!" "Is it a totally different thing if you're good at it though?" "It's very a different thing unless you enjoy it, which I really hope you don't." Rainbow rapidly shook her head, "Of course not. I hate having to do all that." "There you go then, like I said, not a killer." "Thanks Pinkie." Rainbow leaned into the hug for a moment, then pulled out of it. "I need to go Pinkie. Lightning got hurt, and I need to get to the hospital to make sure she's okay." "Oh!" Pinkie released Rainbow and shooed her off. "Don't waste time standing here then. Go on!" "You're the best Pinkie. I imagine we'll being seeing quite a bit of each other now we're all here in Canterlot." "You betcha!" Pinkie sighed, feeling a little betrayed by her own cheerfulness. "Guess it's too bad about why we're here though." "Yeah." Rainbow stared at nothing for a moment, then shook it off. "Come on guys," she said to her wingmates, and Vapor. "See ya later Pinkie." "See ya Rainbow." Pinkie waved after the pegasi as they raced off into the sky, then turned back to her teammates. "Sooo... what now?" "Heck if I know," Limestone grumbled. -0-0-0- Lightning Dust was pale and shivering as she lay on the hospital bed, a clean dressing already over the wound by the time her friends arrived. "What are you all doing here? Shouldn't you be doing something?" "Luna knows where we are if she needs us," Rainbow said dismissively. "Making sure you're alright is the most important thing to us right now." Lightning chuckled weakly, "That's nice, but I'm going to be fine. Look, I know we're all shook up after... after we lost Sky, but I'm fine, really. I just lost a bit more blood than I thought is all." Cloud Chaser rolled her eyes at Lightning, "You say that like it isn't a serious issue. Generally speaking, losing blood equals bad." "Yeah, I know. I'm just waiting for one of those healing thingies to get freed up, then I'm good to go. I'm sure Spitfire will be wanting you before then though." "Pfft, let her. We have bigger issues right now-" "I said I'll be fine!" "Not you," Rainbow huffed. "The Exiles haven't come back to Canterlot or Cloudsdale. Luna didn't say it, but I'm pretty sure this means they've abandoned us. I hate to say it, but without them the griffons really, really outnumber us." "You have no proof of that," Thunderlane said to Rainbow. "They could've got caught up by some griffons or something, and had to fly away to escape them." "For the last ten hours?" "Uh..." Thunderlane looked up and bobbed his head side to side as he thought, "Okay, that does make what I said less plausible. But do you really think they'd abandon us?" "Sure," said Lightning. "If I was in their position, I'd want to get away from the Mareitanians too." "I guess," Thunderlane drawled. "What does this mean for us though? Other than we're now totally fucked in a fight against the griffons that is." "I have no idea," Rainbow sighed. "Maybe we should just wish them luck, and hope they get away." "Maybe we should do the same?" Cloud said quietly, only to cringe as they all looked at her. "I'm not being serious! It's just... we're kinda screwed now. It feels like we're fighting just for the sake of it when we already know that we're going to lose." "We just need to hold on to Canterlot until Twilight gets back with something that can beat Faust," said Rainbow. "Once that happens, everything'll be fine." "You keep saying that, but Princess Twilight isn't back, and everything isn't fine! I hate to be the one to say this, but maybe she won't come back at all, and even if she does, who says she'll be able to beat Faust? We're pinning all our hopes, and our survival, on a pretty slim hope here Rainbow. Maybe the Exiles have the right idea, getting out while they can." Rainbow stared at Cloud, but the mare wouldn't meet her eyes, or the eyes of any of them. Vapor stayed quiet, and Thunderlane just sighed as Lightning watched from the side. None of them were arguing against her. "Are you seriously telling me you think she's right?" "I don't," said Lightning. "Sure things look bad, but we need to stick together if we're going to make it through this." "Wonderbolts never give up," Vapor said in agreement. "No, they just die instead," Cloud said bitterly. She immediately realised what she'd said, and held her hooves to her mouth as she looked wide-eyed at Vapor. "I didn't mean it like that! I didn't!" Maybe you should just go," Rainbow said to Cloud. "But-" "Go." Cloud looked like she was about to refuse, but eventually hung her head and wandered out. Rainbow looked at Thunderlane and gestured with her head in the direction Cloud had gone. "Go talk to her, yeah?" "Sure." Rainbow smiled after the stallion, then sagged into the seat next to Lightning. "Well this is just great." "She'll come around," Lightning said encouragingly. "I hope so. If she goes, Thunderlane will probably go with her, and then we'll be in trouble." Rainbow rested her head on a hoof, then sighed as she heard a sniffle. "You okay Vapor?" "I-" Vapor squeaked before her voice broke. Rainbow sighed again, as there was no better way in existence that summed up exactly how she felt. -0-0-0- "As if we didn't have enough troubles before!" Luna groaned as she paced around the war room, Celestia sat nearby, along with Fleur, General Stormguard, and a few others. "Without the Exiles, our air forces will be utterly overwhelmed by the griffons." "Perhaps if you took to the air to assist them Luna?" Celestia said. "You're presence would do much to help against the griffons." "We shall have to do something to level the field, if only a little. Gah!" Luna stopped and turned one hundred and eighty degrees, then continued pacing. "What is our enemy up to now Fleur?" "They've moved into Manhattan, while the griffons occupy Fillydelphia and Baltimare. They seem to be leaving Hollow Shades alone for now though, although the fact that there's nothing useful there might be the reason for that. Ponyville seems to be becoming a prisoner of war camp, except with no military prisoners, and yeah, that's all I have right now." "So they're making no moves towards Canterlot?" "None that we can see at the moment." "Good! Good. Any news from Shining Armour concerning our supply situation?" General Stormguard nodded slowly, "Yes, but it's not entirely good news. At the moment he's managed to secure two months of food, but only if we ration it. Due to the loss of land in the war, and time of year, we can't take more than what is needed by ponies to survive the winter. He hopes to find enough to cover three months, but past that we have nothing." "If we manage to last that long it'll be a miracle," Luna muttered. Louder she said, "Very well. We shall have to make do with what we can get, even if times do get hard for us. Hopefully we can have this resolved before then." "I do wish Twilight hadn't lost her speaker stone," Celestia said. "It would be easier to plan this if we had a timescale from her." "Alternatively, we could also find out that she could take months longer than we thought," Fleur interjected. "This strategy would be pointless in that case." "That seems unlikely," Luna argued. "She should be well into the Circen desert by now, and should soon have the final pieces she needs to forge a portal to Starswirl's retreat." "Even then, it would still take time to find what we need," said Celestia. "Our failure to defend Equestria has only compounded the issue." Luna ceased her pacing as she bridled at Celestia's words. "Beg pardon if our best efforts don't live up to your standards dear sister. I'm sure our fallen would appreciate knowing their Princess considers what they died for a 'failure,' especially considering that you've spent the entire war hiding here in the safety of Canterlot." Celestia patiently held her gaze against Luna's, "Apologies. What would you call it?" "Anything that doesn't involve the word failure." Luna huffed at Celestia, then resumed pacing. "You are right though. The attack on the Crystal Empire shattered a plan that was already failing after two days. We were supposed to hold them for weeks at the Bulwark, not mere days." "If we hadn't assumed they were finding new mining locations we could have avoided that," said Fleur. "Perhaps. The way between the Crystal Empire and Mareitania wasn't considered when it should have been, although perhaps a suggestion from some of my Night Guard from Caverndown might have been helpful in reminding us of it." "Who would have thought that keeping the Duke on his throne was holding all this back?" Fleur sighed. "It's almost too stupid to be true." "Almost as stupid as the thing Platinum did to build Equestria is also the thing that's tearing it down," Celestia agreed. There was a short knock at the door, and with a prompt from Luna it was opened to let in both Captains Spitfire and Greywhisker. "Sorry we're late," Spitfire said, saluting her superiors, while Greywhisker bowed to Luna. "We suspected that the Exiles had abandoned the war, and decided to investigate." "Find anything useful?" asked Luna. "They've gone south, beyond the Badlands as far as we can tell. I thought there was little more than desert out there, so Celestia knows where they intend to go." "No I don't," Celestia muttered. "At any rate, they've gone," Spitfire concluded. "As suspected," said Luna. "Thank you for your efforts Captain, you may go rest if you wish." "There's more. While we were flying close to the Badlands, we saw a large concentration of changelings. They appeared to be constructing defences." "Oh?" Luna raised her eyebrows, genuinely surprised. "Queen Chrysalis has never done such a thing before. Does she feel threatened by Faust perhaps?" "Defences aren't her usual method," Celestia said, sounding concerned. "I would consider her more likely to hide than fight." "Is Faust even aware of the changelings?" Fleur enquired. "I was under the impression her imprisonment predated them." "Twilight's letter did say that Faust worried the changelings, but to the degree that it would cause such a radical change in their behaviour?" Celestia shook her head, "What kind of defences were they building Captain?" "They'd filled in the canyon entrance to the Badlands, and were constructing a staggered defence quite a long way back. We couldn't investigate much further because something was making it hard to fly there." Celestia tapped a hoof to her chin, "Intriguing." "If you're about to suggest an alliance between us and the changelings," Luna said quickly, "I suggest you keep it to yourself. Chrysalis would probably do as much damage as Faust would. Assuming her changelings could even turn the tide, it still wouldn't be worth it." "I doubt Chrysalis would be doing what she was if she didn't know we were losing." Celestia shrugged, "I have no real desire to ally with the changelings, just as she likely has no wish to ally with us. As you said Luna, they'd be more trouble than it's worth, and the price for Chrysalis' allegiance far too high." "Speaking of allies," said Luna. "Have we heard anything off King Garland of Mustangia? It seems like we have not heard off our erstwhile allies for some time, despite their forces aiding us here." Celestia pulled a face, "I imagine that he knows Mustangia will share the same fate as Equestria if we lose. I also imagine it possible that Mustangia would surrender before Faust would have a chance to invade." "So he voices his regret in allying with us by being silent." Luna laughed bitterly, "I'm sure there are better things he could be doing." "The fate of Mustangia isn't something we can worry about since their fate is somewhat tied to ours." Celestia stood and lowered her head in a small bow to the others in the room. "Since we have no strategy to discuss right now I will excuse myself. I have something important I wish to discuss with somebody." The rest of the room save Luna, bowed in return as Celestia left. It was a minute after she left that something occurred to Fleur. "What did she mean by somebody?" -0-0-0- "I'm not sure this is the best idea," Cadence worried as she followed after Celestia. "He's always been rather touchy on the subject of his mother." "And that's unfortunate, but there are things I wish to know that he could give me the answers to." Cadence slowed as they came up to a rather nondescript doorway in a seldom used part of the castle. "Just try to be gentle then, please?" "Of course I'll be gentle Cadence. Good grief, I only wish to ask him some questions, not interrogate him." "Right, sorry, I'm just- Sorry." Celestia turned to her niece and gave the pink alicorn a smile, shifting it to the smaller alicorn on her back. "You don't need to apologise, just as you don't need to worry about what I'm going to do. You can return to your room once I've found him if you wish." Cadence shook her head, "No, I need to start being part of things, instead of taking a back seat while others do everything for me. I'll stay." Cadence pushed her magic into the lock of the door and twisted it, unlocking and opening the door into a living room that was in far better condition than the hallway outside it would suggest. A opening in one side led into a small kitchenette, through which a blue pony trotted. "Ah! Your Highnessesses!" Honeydew exclaimed at seeing who had entered. "I wasn't expecting you, or anypony really. Is there something you need?" "Don't worry Honeydew, we're here to see our other guest," Celestia said gently. "Could you come out please Thorax?" There was a flash, and a small potted plant was wreathed in green flame for a second before transforming into the black, chitinous form of a changeling, with the slight distinction that his wings were glittery compared to a normal changelings'. "Hi," the changeling said nervously, in the kind of voice you expected from a pony, rather than a shapeshifting bug thing. "Hello Thorax," Celestia said pleasantly. "I trust everything is going fine between you and Honeydew?" "Marvellously!" Honeydew gushed excitedly. "I don't know why anypony could be afraid of these delightful creatures when they have such utility!" Celestia leaned back a little, her mind going places at the word 'utility.' "Uh..." Honeydew cleared her throat, going red with embarrassment. "Sorry, that was your question Thorax." Thorax smiled at Honeydew, then turned it on Celestia. "Things are fine. It's nice to have company again." "Good, I'm glad." Celestia cleared her throat awkwardly as Flurry flew up and dived into Thorax's legs, hugging the changeling as he hugged her back. "I know this isn't your favourite subject, but I need to talk to you about your mother." "Oh. Okay. Is she doing something wrong?" "Not as far as we can tell. I was wondering if there were any plans put in place if the Badlands were ever invaded?" "Not really." "Oh? Not at all?" Thorax shook his head and shrugged, "Who'd want to attack there?" "A fair point, but there must be some way of defending the hive, surely?" "There is the no magic zone. Anything using magic to attack us is going to have a hard time when Chrysalis' throne takes that magic away. Then there's the hive, which changes almost constantly. Only a changeling can navigate it." "Chrysalis' throne can negate magic?" Celestia asked before the conversation moved on past the point. "All magic?" "I think so? Ponies can't fly or use magic in a pretty big area around the hive." "I was aware of the no magic zone, but I hadn't realised its source was a creation of Chrysalis'. Does it negate all kinds of magic?" "Maybe? I don't know. Pony magic certainly, and maybe others, but I've never seen anyone there to find out. I know it doesn't stop changeling magic though." "Hmm, interesting. So that's the only defences it has?" "Yes. Well, that and Chrysalis' tatzlwurms." Cadence gawped at Thorax, "Those are hers?" "They are. Why? Have you seen one?" "Twilight and I did have a bit of a run in with one once. Honestly, it was rather scary." "They're dangerous too. They can eat a pony in one bite. Anything trying to attack the hive is going to have to be either good, or lucky to get past the tatzlwurms without being able to fly." "And yet Chrysalis is concerned enough to build defences," Celestia said to herself. "You might think she knows something we don't." "The Queen's building defences?" Thorax cocked his head at Celestia. "Really? Why would she do that? Is this to do with those Mareitanians?" Celestia nodded, but she knew it was more to do with Faust than the Mareitanians. Thorax had made it pretty clear that any invading army would have a pretty terrible time of it, so that negated the need for defences, and yet they were being built to stop ponies on hoof, which Faust wasn't, unless Chrysalis' throne could negate her magic too. Chrysalis really wanted to keep the Mareitanians out, or did she? What if she was stopping the refugees from going south instead? Celestia suddenly really hoped the Exiles had the sense to realise they couldn't fly through the Badlands, and didn't get captured. At the very least Thorax had satisfied her suspicions about Chrysalis' actions for now. "Thank you for your time Thorax." "Oh, uh, you're welcome." The three alicorns quickly made their farewells and left, stopping outside the door once it was relocked. Cadence was the first to speak. "You're plotting something aren't you. You want to talk to Chrysalis." "I know this isn't what we need or want, but right now, fighting a common enemy could be thing we need to finally end this conflict we have with the changelings. This could be our chance to truly make peace with them." Cadence sighed at the suggestion. "As much as I don't want to agree with her, Luna is probably right that this is far more trouble than it's worth. Don't do this Celestia." Celestia held her stance for a while, but eventually relented. "Very well. Heavens knows it's probably far too little, far too late at this point, but if both you and Luna feel so strongly about it, I'll let it go." "Thank you Celestia. The last thing we need are more problems piled onto the ones we have already. I'm already dreading how this will go without Chrysalis' trickery to contend with." "Does that mean you don't think that holding Canterlot for a while will work?" "Celestia, she tore through my shield, which was empowered by the Crystal Heart, like it was paper. Right now the Heart is only operating at a fraction of its power. How long do you really think that'll last against her?" -0-0-0- Fleur sagged behind her desk and pushed her mane back, holding it there until she'd had a decent chance to sigh explosively. Once she had she laid her head on the desk and kept it there until she was disturbed by the presence of Celia and caffeine. "Thanks." "You're welcome. I figured your meeting wouldn't go well." "And what could possibly make you think that?" "I've reviewed Luna's new strategy, for fun mostly, and while I don't have any tactical objections to it, Canterlot just isn't a fortress, and sticking some defensive positions up doesn't make it one. It is a city, with ponies uninvolved in the war living here. She should have found somewhere else to use as her last stand." Fleur pulled herself back upright and drank deeply from her coffee. "The problem there is that Canterlot is a symbol. We lose Canterlot, we pretty much lose the war, and Faust knows that. She'd probably go for Canterlot before going after Luna. Besides, there's nowhere else in Equestria with anywhere near the defensibility of Canterlot." "No, I suppose not." "In lieu of that, I don't suppose you have any good news do you? Got anything out of Snowbright yet?" Celia shook her head, the pout on her lips showing her frustration. "Nothing. Either he's really good at this, or he really doesn't know anything. I'm not sure I want to believe that though." "I wouldn't," said Fleur. "I refuse to believe he's done all of this just for the challenge of defeating us. Mind control or not, he must have some greater stake in all this, and must be at least a little aware of Faust's intentions." "Actually, I have a different theory." Fleur spread her hooves and gestured at Celia, "I'm all ears." "Don't you find it odd that as soon as Snowbright gets captured, the war takes a turn for the worse? Without Snowbright, Faust suddenly realises that she significantly outnumbers us to the point that she can overwhelm us on three different fronts? Why wasn't it like that before? Why didn't Snowbright do the exact same thing?" "So... what? Are you suggesting that Snowbright was stopping the Mareitanians from overrunning us in a matter of days?" Celia shrugged, "I know it sounds stupid, but it doesn't sound like something that would happen unless it was being done on purpose. The Mareitanians have the numbers, so why wasn't he using them?" "I'm sure he had his reasons. So far Celia you've only given me an observation and some speculation. Where's the theory part of this?" "What if he was intentionally trying to sabotage Faust's war by holding his forces back?" Fleur snorted with mirth, "I had a feeling you'd say that. Unfortunately, the only pony that knows is Snowbright, and he doesn't seem to want to be saying anything. Chances are he'd only say he wanted to make it a fair fight, which would make his victory sweeter for him." "Even though he would still outnumber us to the point he could beat us through attrition?" Fleur nodded, "Yup. I hate to say it Celia, but I don't find your theory very convincing. The only reason I could see him doing that was if he was buying time for something as well, but he seems far too firmly under Faust's hoof to want to undermine her." "I suppose. Maybe you should go talk to him again. Seeing you might make him talkative." Fleur was about to say she didn't want to, even though she had no reason not to beyond a wonderful desire to buck him squarely between his back legs. "Alright then." Fleur stood sharply, "Let's go do that." -0-0-0- The atmosphere in the castle wasn't pleasant as Fleur trotted through it, coffee cup held firmly at the ready. News was spreading quickly about all that had happened, and a fog of nervousness had fallen over everything. The war was coming to Canterlot, and everypony knew it. It was almost a relief to get to the dungeons after that, and Fleur felt the urge to sigh happily as she and Celia trotted through the grey stone passages. They headed straight towards Snowbright's cell, but Fleur was waylaid as a purple face pressed against the bars in the door of her cell and spoke to her. "Hey, can I talk to you? Please?" Fleur rolled her eyes, and gestured for Celia to continue while Fleur went to go see what this pony wanted. "Can I help you Miss Glimmer?" Starlight Glimmer looked up at Fleur through what had once been a straight cut fringe, but was now rather overgrown after her time imprisoned down here. "You're torturing him, aren't you?" Fleur rolled her eyes and turned to leave, "Nice talking to you Miss Glimmer." "Wait! That's not what I wanted to talk about. I've heard rumours that you're losing the war, and that Canterlot will be under attack soon." Fleur waited a moment, then raised an eyebrow at Starlight. "And?" "And? And you can't keep me here while Canterlot's being invaded!" "Why not?" "Wh- What do you mean why not? I don't want to end up in the hooves of the Mareitanians any more than you do! If you let me go, I'll help you get the information you want out of that Snowbright character. What do you say?" Fleur looked up at the ceiling and laughed tiredly, "Wow." "Why are you laughing?" "Starlight Glimmer, while you might think we've forgotten about you down here while the war's been going on, let me assure you we haven't. You're a dangerous criminal responsible for the brainwashing of an entire town of ponies, the theft of their cutie marks, attempted murder, and attempted regicide, which is funny when you think about it because the princesses are immortal. Anyway, when they put you down here, it was for a good reason." "I was helping those ponies!" "So you say, but you're offering to help with somepony that can't be helped." "But I can help you with him! I know how brainwashing works, and-" Starlight winced at her own words, "-and that sounded better in my head. My point is that I can help you with him." "Or you could kill us all and escape, thinking we'll be too busy with the war to come after you." "I wouldn't do that!" Starlight insisted, her voice as desperate as her expression. Fleur could actually feel the honesty in Starlight's words, but that didn't seem like a good enough reason to give in to what she wanted. "I'm sorry Starlight, but only the princesses could pardon you now, and I doubt they'll be doing that no matter what you offer. Besides, if things go to plan, the Mareitanians will never come near you." "Please! I'm begging you!" "I'm sorry Starlight." Fleur walked away, ignoring the quiet sobs and pleas coming from Starlight, and wondering why she'd finally said this to her today, when before she'd only ever been silent. Celia gave Fleur a small smile as she entered Snowbright's cell, the stallion in question stood reared up with his hooves pressed against the wall as he shivered and sweated. An older stallion stood behind him, a lazy grin on his grey face as he used his magic to correct Snowbright's stance. "Isn't that your dad?" "It is," Celia confirmed with a faint blush. "I needed to contract outside of Equis to do this since our numbers are low, and my dad was an agent of Smile too. He's the one that taught me to do this." The stallion bowed to Fleur, "Pleasure to meet you Director. I especially enjoy the way you managed to move from centre spreads in magazines to being the head of Equestrian Intelligence. Not many could pull that off without serious bribery." "Best part is I didn't even want the job," Fleur muttered back. "So, do you have a lot of practice at this?" "Enough. I used to train ponies in Smile how to both perform, and resist, this kind of activity. I could have them singing sweet Celestia over the rooftops in less than a day, so you can imagine how impressed I am with young Snowbright here." "The ponies I knew would have gouged my eyes out by now to try and get me to talk," Snowbright said, still facing the wall. "He does say the loveliest motivational speeches." "Uh-huh." Fleur traced her eyes over the muscles in Snowbright's back, taking in every little detail. It was quite a pleasant view. "So, Snowbright, since Faust's not here to stop you, fancy telling us why you only ever attacked us with smaller groups? Or why it took so long to get around to attacking us at all? You could've beaten us easily in the time it took us to build an army." "Up yours Fleur." "Not today darling. Now, I asked you a question." Snowbright giggled disconcertingly, "You can ask Faust herself when she gets here. I know she's coming. How could she not be? You can't stop her." "I'm pretty sure you're going to need sleep before then Snowbright." Fleur leaned in close to whisper in Snowbright's ear, "How about you just tell me before I go Mareitanian on your testicles?" "It's a test! Everything's a test eventually." "Go on..." "I know you know that I know you know about Faust wanting to conquer the world. It's not going to be easy though. Ponies need to be made ready for war, both physically and mentally. Equestria wasn't ready on either of those things. Now you are." "So you're saying that this has all been to prepare our ponies for war?" "The right mindset is important. You were too peaceful before, and had to be introduced to conflict, otherwise Faust's greater war would break you all." Fleur closed her eyes and nodded slowly, "Snowbright, stop making shit up. If you're going to lie to me, at least try to be convincing." "Aww, I thought I was doing well too." "What if I told you Mareitania is dying?" Snowbright tried to turn to look at Fleur, but Celia's father quickly forced him to keep staring at the wall using his magic. "I'd say you're lying." "Faust hasn't been back there for the better part of a month, and hasn't performed her weather duties in as long. Your benevolent leader is letting Mareitania rot under constant cloud cover worse than the Duke ever made. She doesn't care about you or Mareitania at all." "Shut up." "Eventually your ponies will starve, and Mareitania will fall again through simple negligence from a pony you all fawn over as a god. Doesn't sound like a god worth following to me." "I said shut up!" "Why do you insist on protecting Faust when she doesn't care about you at all? Just tell me what I want to know, and you can finally rest, which is more than Faust would offer you." "I don't know! None of us do!" "Not good enough!" "She wants Celestia! She wants Equestria intact, and she wants Celestia!" Fleur raised an eyebrow at that, "Why?" "I don't know. What happened to the rest of the alicorns was irrelevant so long as she got Celestia. There were plans to imprison them, especially Luna, but Faust wants Celestia and Equestria more. If she got those two things the rest could wait." "You're aware that Celestia is her daughter?" "Yes!" "Then why does she want Celestia?" "I don't know! I really don't know! I was cautious with invading Equestria because I had specific instructions that as few ponies be killed as possible, even if it cost our ponies more. Equestria had to be kept mostly intact! And it was all to do with Celestia!" "And not just for her further conquests?" Fleur stepped back as Snowbright sagged to the ground, and stopped Celia's father as the unicorn moved to force Snowbright back into his position. "This really isn't just about using Equestria, is it? There's more to this, and it relates to Celestia." "That's what I just said!" Snowbright cried, his composure crumbling. "Answer me this then. Does Faust want Celestia, or does she want her daughter?" "Aren't those the same thing?" "Depends on how you look at it. Does she want Princess Celestia, the centuries long ruler of Equestria? Or her daughter, lovingly conceived and cruelly stolen from her? One is a goal of conquest, the other a mother seeking her lost child. Which is it?" "How could I possibly know that? It was bad enough that her personal agenda was interfering with the rest of our plans, but she never said why it was beyond wanting Equestria intact, Luna imprisoned forever, and Celestia in her possession." "And yet you obeyed her wishes anyway." "Of course." Snowbright squinted up at Fleur, "Why wouldn't I?" "Right, forget I said that. Instead, tell me what you know of Faust's plans beyond Equestria." "I've already told you that. She wants to unite the world under her rule and create perfect harmony. Seeing as how you Equestrians are into that, I have no idea why you're all fighting against it so hard." "Because we think you're wrong about what Faust wants, but I suppose that's not your fault but hers." "Or yours." Fleur rolled her eyes at the comment, "Don't test me Snowbright. Seeing as how she has specifically mentioned something to both Twilight and Celestia called 'the plan,' and you know nothing about it, it really makes me think she's not telling you everything." "You want me to keep working on him?" Celia's father asked. "No thank you," Fleur said after a few moment's consideration. "He doesn't know anything we don't any more. Let him rest, and thank you for your services Mister..?" "Tone Turn." "Right, thank you Mr Tone Turn. We'll let you know if we need you again." Fleur smiled at the stallion as he left, then exited the cell with Celia as Snowbright crawled into his bed. She stopped outside and looked left, where she could see the sad eyes of Starlight watching her. "Do you think he was telling the truth?" Celia asked. "Yes, I do actually. Celestia couldn't bring Faust around to her way of thinking, so it wouldn't surprise me if Faust tried to bring Celestia around to hers." "And if she succeeds?" Fleur considered the possibilities, and didn't like them. Faust was dangerous enough on her own, but with Celestia on her side, and no Luna, Twilight, or even Cadence to oppose her, she'd be unstoppable. "Let's hope it never comes to that."

The end of an era

43. Final details

Sparks of static buzzed around Rainbow's wings as she and the rest of the Wonderbolts bore down on a flight of griffons that was harassing one of the convoys bring food supplies into Canterlot. It also happened to be one of the last ones coming in. Rather than face a barrage of lightning, the griffons turned tail and fled, leaving the convoy alone to start the winding trail up the mountain to the city. Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief and let the energy dissipate from around her, leaving her wings tingling for a while. Slowly they drifted back up to around the level of the city where they could keep an eye out for any further threats. The last couple of days had been quiet, even despite the fact that Faust's forces had spread all down the east coast, claiming the cities there as her own. It was only a matter of time before she turned her army towards Canterlot. Until then, all they had to deal with was the griffons harassing the supply convoys carrying the food that would see them through a months long siege. "Pegasi incoming," Lightning said, pulling Rainbow's attention back to the present. "Looks like Air Corps, four squardrons." "Aren't they supposed to be protect... ing..." Thunderlane started to ask, then realising the answer to his own question. "Shit." "Let's go meet them," Lightning said, pulling away from the mountain to intercept the incoming pegasi, many of which appeared bloodied and haggard. "What happened? Why aren't you with your convoy?" "There is no convoy, not anymore," the stallion in front answered, who wore the stripes of a squadron leader. "Griffons ambushed us around Rumbling Rock Ridge and destroyed the entire thing with fire bombs. We tried to put up a fight, but it pretty clear we weren't going to save it, so we pulled out." "Right." Lightning cursed quietly to herself. "Head to Canterlot and report to General Armour. He'll give you your orders." "Yes ma'am." The stallion saluted Lightning and flew down towards Canterlot. It wasn't hard to see the rather hopeless and despondent looks the pegasi wore as they passed by. "This is getting ridiculous," Lightning said once they were gone. "Those griffons are everywhere." "Everywhere except Canterlot and Cloudsdale," said Thunderlane. "I know nopony wants to hear it, but we're pretty much surrounded now." "That was the plan," said Rainbow, "so yeah. Hopefully that little project Spitfire's cooking up in the weather factory can really help with holding the Mareitanians off." "Did she even mention what it was?" Cloud Chaser asked. "No, but if Spitfire's behind it, it ought to be good." "Here's hoping. Anyway... speaking of Cloudsdale, are any of you going to visit your families there, before this all kicks off?" "Heck no," Rainbow answered quickly. "I haven't even told them I'm a Wonderbolt, let alone a soldier! And they'll totally freak when they see this!" Rainbow traced a hoof over her helmet where her scar would be. "Besides, I have plenty of other stuff to worry about." "Such as?" "Such as Ponyville! Come on Cloud, you have family there, and Flitter. Thunderlane's family is there too! Doesn't it bother you that the place is practically a prison camp now?" "Of course it does, but there's nothing we can do, so there's no point in winding myself up and agonising over it." Cloud sighed heavily, "As much as I want to. But that's why I'm saying this! Don't you think you should go see your families while you still can?" "Why do you even care so much?" Lightning said suspiciously. "The other day you were talking about running away from the war. Now you want us to go see our families before we get trapped here?" "Because you have that chance, and maybe you should take it," said Thunderlane, an angry edge to his voice that wasn't there before. "I'd give anything to see my family now, and here you are refusing to see yours." "My family's in Stratusburg," Vapor said weakly. "I can't see them either. Not that I think I could, not without seeing Sky's family as well. I don't think I could explain to them why... why Sky's gone..." Rainbow chewed her bottom lip, "Uh... call me ignorant if you have to, but where is Stratusburg?" "It's a district on the outskirts of Baltimare," Vapor told her. "It's kind of like its own town, but at the edge of a city. It's a bit of a mix of ground and sky buildings." "Oh. Guess that explains why you can't... yeah." Rainbow withheld a sigh, thinking it might not be appreciated. The fact was that she didn't want to go visit her parents. Not because she hated them or anything, but because she just... didn't really like them. The support they showed surpassed normal levels for parents, and went flying off into creepy-town levels. Still, maybe the others had a point, and that she should see them while she could. "I'm not sure my parents will appreciate me turning up," Lightning said while Rainbow was thinking. "We didn't exactly part on good terms after I got kicked from the Academy." And suddenly her overly affectionate parents seemed like such a stupid thing to worry over. Rainbow knew that there were ponies that had it worse than her, and Lightning was apparently one of them. "I'm sure they'll be happy to see you now you've turned yourself around," Rainbow said to Lightning. "You're so not the pony you were back then." "I guess? I don't know. Maybe it would be better to just leave it." "I think it's pretty obvious that you don't actually want to do that." Rainbow smiled at Lightning, "I'll tell you what. If you can stomach coming with me to see my parents, I'll come with you as you visit yours." "You sure? I don't want to intrude on anything." "Believe me, if there's something that could make this visit worse for me, it isn't going to be you." -0-0-0- Night fell, and with it the thestrals of the Night Guard emerged, taking over the patrolling of Canterlot, giving the Wonderbolts a break, and two of them the time to fly up to Cloudsdale. Through a unanimous decision, they headed to Rainbow's family home first, Rainbow wanting to get the visit over and done with, and Lightning fine with that because she could put visiting her parents off quite happily. Cloudsdale seemed quiet compared to usual. It wasn't even that late, so there should have still been plenty of ponies out and about, but whether it was due to the circumstances as to why they were floating over Canterlot, or otherwise, the city was still. The few ponies that were out flying did so quickly and quietly, like they were trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves. The district where Rainbow's parents lived was equally quiet, but the lights shining through the windows was enough to tell the two Wonderbolts that Rainbow's parents were home. Rainbow headed towards the front door, then pulled up to fly a few laps around the house. "Okay, I need a minute to build up to this." "Soooo..." Lightning said after the third lap, drawing out the word as long as possible, "what should I expect? I'm guessing something bad since we're just flying laps here." "Not bad as such. Just expect them freaking out over me being a Wonderbolt, over me being a soldier, and especially over this." Rainbow pointed at the scar hidden behind her helmet. "I'm still freaking out over this at times." "Okay, but shouldn't they already know you're a Wonderbolt though, and a soldier? That would probably be in the papers. The Wonderbolts being a prominent part at the start of the war certainly was." "My parents don't read the papers." Rainbow rolled a hoof as she explained. "Something about a biased media peddling false news to an unwitting public," she said with a roll of her eyes. "My parents are kinda... liberal." "Okay, but surely they know ponies that do read the paper, and one of them would be like, 'hey, congratulations on your daughter becoming a Wonderbolt!' Seems like something somepony would mention." Rainbow shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not. Honestly, I moved to Ponyville to escape them, and don't really know what they get up to at the best of times. They might know all about it, but I'd say not." Lightning froze as a thought occurred to her, "Do they know there's a war on if they never read the paper?" "I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't." Rainbow pulled out of their final lap and flew to the door. She raised a hoof to knock, holding it a inch from the door until Lightning sighed and knocked for her. "What are you doing? I wasn't ready!" "Yeah, but we don't have all night." Rainbow froze on the spot as the door opened. A mare coloured like herself, with the same magenta eyes stood behind it, the only real difference between them being Rainbow's lack of freckles, and the other mare's short orange mane and tail. The mare stiffened at the sight of the two uniformed Wonderbolts. "Can I help you?" "Huh? Oh, right." Rainbow unclipped her muzzleguard and pushed her goggles up to show her face, complete with nervous smile. "Hi mom." "Rainbow? Rainbow!" Omigosh-omigosh-omigosh! It's you!" "Sure is! Heh heh..." "Bow! Rainbow's here!" "She is! I thought that knocking sounded too awesome for the average pony!" Rainbow face-hoofed as her dad ran to the door, the shirt he wore with his daughter's cutie mark on in full view. The blue coat and bright rainbow mane and tail was usually enough to confirm them being related, but that wasn't enough for him. "There's my champ!" "Hi dad, nice to see you still have that shirt..." Beside her, Lightning pointedly cleared her throat, her own goggles and muzzleguard having been removed. "Oh right. Lightning, this is my dad Bow Hothoof, and my mom Windy Whistles. Mum and dad, this is Lightning Dust, my Squadron Leader." "Squadron leader?" Windy asked. "What squadron? Is this to do with why you're dressed like that?" "It does, yes. Can we come in? There's some stuff I want to talk about." "Sure," Windy said, sounding unsure. She stepped back to let the two Wonderbolts in, then shut the door behind them. "Are you thirsty honey? Would you like something to d-" Windy stopped and gawped at Rainbow's uniform, noticing the Wonderbolts patch on her side. "That's a Wonderbolt patch. Dashie, are you a Wonderbolt?" "Uh, yeah, yes I am-ack!" Rainbow squeaked as her parents crashed into her sides, crushing her between them in a hug. "Can't breath!" "You did it champ!" Bow cheered. "You became a Wonderbolt! Just like you always said you would!" "We knew you could do it Dashie!" Windy added. "Still can't breath!" Lightning smirked at Rainbow, then turned her attention to the room she was in. It was of some concern to her that the few surfaces in the place that weren't covered in princess memorabilia, instead had some kind of picture of Rainbow on it, either as a foal or a bit older. There seemed to be none particularly recent either, and she suspected she knew why. Her parents had been supportive in their way, but Windy Whistles and Bow Hothoof took it to levels she hadn't known existed. "Get off of me!" Rainbow shouted, finally pushing her parents off and gasping for much needed air. "Really you guys, calm down." "But we're just so happy for you," said Windy. "You're finally living your dream!" "And you're not the slightest bit curious about why I'm wearing an armoured combat suit?" "I just assumed the Wonderbolts had changed their uniform." "To include hoof blades?" Rainbow gave her mother an even look. "Really?" "Are you trying to tell us you're fighting in the war?" Bow said slowly, and very carefully. "You volunteered?" "The Wonderbolts are a military unit," Rainbow explained. "The moment I joined them I pledged myself to protecting Equestria. Not that I wouldn't anyway, but y'know." Rainbow sat and pulled her helmet off, showing her parents the full extent of the scar on her face. "What the hell is that?!" Windy screamed, rushing over to Rainbow and grabbing her head in her hooves to inspect the scar closely. "That's my first war scar," Rainbow said with obviously fake cheer. "Aren't you going to celebrate it?" "I- What? No! Dashie, your face..." "I know, it's hideous." "It is not hideous," Bow said quickly as Rainbow's face turned downwards. "A classic over the eye scar like that, it's actually pretty cool." Bow stepped up to Rainbow and pulled her into a hug gentler than before, "You're still our perfect, beautiful Dashie, and we couldn't be prouder of you for defending Equestria. Right Windy?" "Absolutely," Windy agreed, joining the hug. "You could lose a leg and a wing and you'd still be our beautiful little Dashie. Although, you should probably try to not let that happen, 'kay?" "Okay." Rainbow sank into the hug this time, surprising herself with not just enjoying it, but by how much she needed it and hadn't known. "Thanks guys." After a minute Rainbow pushed them off again, and finally saw the way Lightning was looking at her with a mix of smirk, actual happiness, and possibly a little envy. "Right, yes, uh... did I introduce Lightning Dust, my Squadron Leader?" Bow nodded at his daughter, "You did yes, and I'm sure you're the best flier in her squadron." "Oh absolutely!" Lightning said before Rainbow could correct her fathers assumptions, grabbing his wing in her own and shaking it vigorously. "She might just be the best Wonderbolt ever!" "She might?" Bow squeaked. "She might, yes. You two should be so proud for raising such an amazing flier, and pony. She's a credit to you, the Wonderbolts, and the entirety of Equestria!" "We are proud!" Bow squeaked even louder, tears in his eyes. "We always knew our Dashie was destined for greatness." "If anything you were aiming too low with mere greatness." "We were?" "Okay, that's enough," Rainbow said, smacking Lightning on the side. "If I was really that great I'd be the squadron leader, not you, even though I've been a Wonderbolt longer than you." "Yeah well, you're still a great flier." "Seriously Lightning, stop." "So you always knew Rainbow was destined for greatness?" "Grahh!" Rainbow groaned as Lightning continued egging her parents on. "Of course we did!" Bow near shouted, before gasping excitedly. "We should show you her trophy room! Come on, follow me!" -0-0-0- Lightning left the trophy room slowly, letting the glaring lights and angelic singing that Bow had installed to the doorway fade into the background as she walked away with Rainbow right behind her. "They kept your first diaper. Your first, very likely used diaper." "Yep," Rainbow sighed. "You can't blame the parents of an only child for being a little bit proud." "And I thought Vapor had it bad." "We do have that in common, yes." "Funny thing is though, you have a lot of trophies from competitions I competed in. Yet I really don't remember seeing you back then, or your overly excitable parents. Guess I was only really interested in my own successes back then." "Really?" Rainbow looked sideways at Lightning, "Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Soarin was at some of those. Cloud Chaser too. You seriously don't remember?" "Not really. Wait, Spitfire and the others were there?" "Yeah." "So they're like the same age as us, but became Wonderbolts way before us? Wow. Either we're not as good as we think we are, or they're way better than we ever were." Rainbow levelled a hoof, "Eh." She walked a few steps then remembered something. "By the way, if you tell anypony about what you've seen here today, I will... do something. I'm not sure what, but it won't be pleasant for either of us." "My lips are sealed." "Good." Rainbow sighed and hung her head as they re-entered the living room, "Guess now it's time for the serious talk, once my folks are done polishing my trophies..." "Don't worry Dashie, we're here," Windy sang as both she and Bow trotted into the room. "Do you want something to eat? Drink? Anything? I mean, we got these rationing book things today, but we still have plenty of stuff in if you want something to eat?" "No thanks mum. I do need to talk to you though. I don't know if you've thought about why Cloudsdale's been moved towards Canterlot, but I kinda feel like I need to tell you that the war's not going great." "Not going great?" Bow said to his daughter. "How can it not be going great with you on our side?" "I'm just one pony dad!" Rainbow sighed and smoothed her mane down. "The fact is that Cloudsdale and Canterlot is all that's left now. The rest of Equestria has been lost, or surrendered. One or the other. The point is, the fighting's going to be here now, and I want you guys to be safe." "You want us to be safe?" Windy gasped. "What about you?" "I'll be fine. That said, if something does happen to me..." Rainbow shook the thought away. "Look, when the fighting starts I just want you to stay away from it, either here, or by taking shelter with the ponies from Canterlot in the mountain." "Dashie..." "Don't Dashie me dad! I know what's at stake here, and I know the cost of me messing up is pretty high, but I have to do this, I have to keep fighting until Twilight gets back and we can end this." "Then all we can do is ask you to stay safe and come back to us," Windy said, tears in her eyes. "We love you Rainbow. Don't forget that." Rainbow sighed, then smiled at her parents, "I won't." "And we'll totally be rooting for you to kick the bad guys' asses," Bow added, punching the air with a hoof. Rainbow rolled her eyes and pulled her parents into a hug, "Seriously, you guys better stay safe. Anyway, we need to go because we're going to go visit Lightning's parents as well, and time's pressing on." Rainbow released her parents and grinned at them, "Can't hog all the time to myself, right?" Both Rainbow and Lightning put their helmets on as Bow and Windy opened the door, standing by it anxiously as the two Wonderbolts left. Both parties lingered a moment before Rainbow raced back, giving her parents one final embrace. "Bye guys." "See you later Dashie," Bow said as Windy fought back tears. Rather than wait for her parents to shut the door, which she knew they wouldn't do until she was out of sight, she flew on after Lightning Dust. "That wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I guess they're just scared." "Like any parent would be in their situation. That room was still kinda weird though. Like an occult shrine dedicated to you." "Ugh, don't remind me. It's kinda why I stopped talking to them. I don't need every little thing celebrated, or cheered, or... whatever! I could have a screaming argument with them, and they'd end up saying that I was the best at arguing or something stupid." Rainbow tried to put it out of her mind, but some of the images kept creeping back in. "Bleh. Anyway, what about your parents?" "You'll see." "Cryptic huh? Fine, I can wait." -0-0-0- Lightning Dust's family home was far from what Rainbow had imagined. She'd had this vision of a huge house with servants to care for Lightning's rather cold and uptight parents. Instead it was normal. Really normal. Maybe a little smaller than her own parents' place, but otherwise unremarkable. The fence needed a coat of paint, but that was it. "Looks nice," Rainbow commented, sensing Lightning's reticence through her silence. "Yeah, it is," Lightning responded flatly. Rainbow looked at Lightning for a moment, then sighed. "Okay, I think that before we go any further you better explain yourself. You're acting like you hate your parents." "I don't hate my parents." "Then... what? Do they hate you?" "I don't know." "You don't know? How could you possibly not know? Lightning, you're really going to have to explain yourself here." "Urgh, fine." Lightning drifted downwards until her hooves took her weight on the clouds of what pegasi would call their equivalent of a street, and sat, staring at her childhood home. "I love my parents Dash. Don't think that I don't. I wasn't very nice to them though." "I sense a story coming." Lightning barked a laugh, "I'll try to keep it short. We weren't very well off when I was young. My mum and dad both worked jobs just to get us by, and I was often left alone, or with relatives, or whatever. Not that I'm complaining, if that's what you're thinking. My point is that my parents worked their flanks off to give us a decent life." "The thing is though, I could see it for what it was, and I was determined that I would never live like that, busting my chops on some menial job at the weather factory, or whatever, my whole life, just to pay the mortgage on a small place. I wanted more than that. I wanted to be a Wonderbolt, and have everything I ever wanted." "I think I can see where this is going." Lightning nodded, "My parents gave me every opportunity to help me achieve my goal, often going out of their way, and even skipping sleeping some days just to make sure I made it to my training, and competitions, and whatever. And I did well, and with that I grew arrogant, and I started to resent them, thinking they'd held me back by being so... poor." "They put up with it though, and when I got accepted into the Academy they couldn't have been prouder. Their little Lightning was finally having her work pay off, and her dreams come true... and I blew it, all because of my attitude." Lightning snorted a laugh as Rainbow coughed awkwardly. "And because I was shown up by some rainbow maned fly-mare," she said with a grin. "Rightfully so." "If it helps, I didn't intend for you to get kicked out," Rainbow said in a meek voice. "I know, although I didn't think that at the time. Within a week of getting to the Academy I was kicked out, and I had no choice but to come back here. I raged at my parents about you, and how unfair it was, and how it was everyponies fault but my own, including them. I told them that they were never there for me, that they should've raised me better, that they shouldn't have been so poor. Worst of all, I think they believed me." "Ouch." "Yeah. I never really found out what they thought though, because I stole all the money in the house and left, determined that they weren't going to drag me down again. I blew that money on a crappy flat, just so I could have a roof over my head and food in my belly while I spent that time being angry over everything, when the problem was really me." Rainbow laid a wing across Lightning's back, "You sorted yourself out now, and now you're ten times the mare you were back then." Lightning turned her head away and huffed, "That doesn't take back what I said to them, or how I treated them. It certainly doesn't give back the bits I stole off them. I was awful to them, and all they ever did was their best for me." "So basically you're drowning in guilt?" Lightning nodded morosely. "Understandable," Rainbow said, "but I really don't think hiding from them for the rest of your life is the answer you think it is." "I'm afraid they'll hate me. Part of me insists that's stupid, but a lot of me says they should. I want to talk to my parents again Rainbow, but I keep telling myself they hate me, and that it might be easier to not see them and never know whether they really do or not." Rainbow held her wing a little tighter around Lightning. "Yeah, my issues with my parents are actually pretty lame. Really though Lightning, by refusing to see them you're just hurting yourself, and them. If they gave everything for you so you'd have a good life, I'm pretty sure they can give you forgiveness as well. Especially once they see the pony you are now." "I don't know Dash..." "On the other hoof, I could always go in there and tell them you're dead so you never have to see them again." Lightning jumped up, knocking Rainbow away. "Don't you even dare!" "Then get in there." "But I'm scared Rainbow." "Then it's time to give you some really shitty guilt. There are a lot of ponies around Equestria right now that'll never have loved ones come home. You have the chance to do that, so do it for them if you can't do it for yourself. You almost died the other day, so I think seeing your parents before you do actually happen to die would be nice for them." "You're right, that was some seriously shitty guilt." "Sorry," Rainbow said, lowering her head a little. "If I'd thought of the second bit before the first bit, I wouldn't have said the first bit at all." "You're not wrong though. If anything does happen to me they won't know that I'm sorry, and that I never meant it. I mean, I did mean it at the time, but I don't mean it now, y'know?" "Okay, but you might want to phrase it better for them." Rainbow pointed a wing at the two ponies stood in the doorway of Lightning's childhood home. "I think they might have heard us." "Lightning Dust?" the mare of the two said, stepping gingerly towards the two Wonderbolts. "Is that really you?" "Uh, h-hi mom," Lightning said shakily to the amber coated and blue maned mare. "It's me," she added, pulling her helmet off to show her face, a face that slowly contorted into tears as the dam she maintained broke with little effort. "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I was stupid, and arrogant, and I shouldn't have said what I did! I'm so sorry!" "Shh, baby girl," the mare said, wrapping her legs around Lightning as the white coated and teal maned stallion that Rainbow could only assume was Lightning's father quickly trotted up to them. "It's okay. It's o-kay, we're just so glad to know you're alright." "I'm sorry," Lightning cried, sobbing into her parents embrace to the point that Rainbow felt tears of her own welling up. "Told you they wouldn't hate you." "Hate you?" the stallion said in surprise. "Oh honey, we could never hate you." "But I was so horrible to you, and I stole all that money, and- and-" Lightning choked, no longer able to get the words out as her throat closed up. "Money can be replaced. You can't. We didn't know where you were, and we were so worried about you. We were terrified you were going to do something stupid-" "What?" Lightning pushed herself up out of the hug. "You thought I was going to kill myself?" "No! No, of course not, but we were very much in panic mode after you vanished." "Then why didn't you try to find me?" "Because we knew you didn't want to be found," said the mare. "We wanted to find you, but we both knew you needed to do whatever it was you were doing. There was no point trying to bring you to a place you didn't want to be, and you're a grown mare now, who can make her own decisions." Lightning snorted a laugh, "I really don't deserve you guys. I can pay back the money by the way." "The money was yours anyway," said the stallion. "We'd saved it up so you could sort yourself out once you became a Wonderbolt. That might not have happened, but the money was still yours." Lightning sighed and leaned her head against her father, "I really, really don't deserve you guys." Rainbow sat to the side, carefully minding her own business as the three ponies cried it out in the middle of the street. It wasn't until they broke the hug up that she decided to carefully clear her throat to remind them she was still there. Oh, right." Lightning rubbed her eyes clear. "Rainbow, this is my dad Downdraft, and my mum Fairy Lights. Mum, dad, this is Rainbow Dash." "Rainbow Dash?" Downdraft said suspiciously. "Isn't that the name of the pony that got you kicked out of the Academy?" "I didn't mean for that to happen," Rainbow said quickly, moving around to place Lightning between herself and Lightning's parents. "Mum, dad, stop. I'm the one that got me kicked out of the Academy. Me and my shitty attitude. Don't blame Rainbow for something she didn't do. She's forgiven me, and we're friends now." "Totally! She's even my superior officer now!" "Surperior officer?" Fairy Lights looked down at Lightning's uniform, like she'd only just noticed it. "That's a Wonderbolt patch. You're a Wonderbolt?" "I'm a Wonderbolt," Lightning confirmed with a nervous chuckle. "I was given a chance to volunteer when the war started, and now I'm Squadron Leader Dust." Downdraft turned his gaze back and forward between the two Wonderbolts, "I think we should go inside so you can tell us what's happened since you left." -0-0-0- Rainbow excluded herself from the conversation as Lightning told her parents all about what she'd done since that fateful night where she left them. It wasn't a conversation she felt she needed to be part of. Instead she looked around Lightning's former home, looking at the pictures that had the decency to not be wholly focused on Lightning. All in all, the house was nice and cosy, and the work Lightning's parents had put into making it a home seemed to have paid off. In many ways it reminded her of- "Shit!" Rainbow cursed, grabbing her head in her hooves as she realised something. "Excuse me?" Fairy Lights said curtly. "Fluttershy's parents! I hadn't even thought about going to see them! They must be so worried about Fluttershy. Rrgh, stupid, stupid idiot!" "We can go see them after if you want?" Lightning offered as Rainbow continued cursing herself. "We have time." "Do we though? We're kinda burning time just doing this." "Are you going to be able to let this go until you go and see them?" Rainbow groaned, knowing that Lightning was right about that. "If you don't mind Lightning?" "Nah, it's cool. I think Fluttershy's parents deserve to know what's going on with their daughter. Although I'm guessing they do know already, but, y'know, they might want to hear it off you." "Hear what off me? That Equestria's losing the war and it might be a heck of a long time until they can see Fluttershy again? If ever? I'm not sure I really want to tell them that." "Then don't." "And lie to them instead? No chance." Rainbow waved a hoof a Lightning to stop her making suggestions. "You spend time with your parents, and I'll think about this." "If you say so." Rainbow turned her back on the three ponies as she tried to think of the best thing to do. There didn't seem to be a nice neutral solution where she could be honest with them without making the situation sound hopeless, and they deserved better than to have her lie to them. "Maybe I could go rescue Fluttershy. That'd probably be easier." "I'm sure not going to see them would be the easiest solution," said Lightning. "Huh? Oh, did I say that out loud?" "Kinda, yeah." Rainbow rubbed her eyes with a hoof, finally noticing how tired she was. Not going to see them and going to bed instead was a tempting idea, but she knew that she couldn't do that. Not yet. Instead she briefly turned an ear towards Lightning and her parents. "Are you sure you won't leave and come back here?" Fairy Lights asked, her words desperate yet hopeful sounding. "We've just got you back. We don't want to lose you again." "Sorry mom, but I can't. If Equestria is going to survive, we need everypony to do their part, no matter how scary it is." "We're so proud of you honey," said Downdraft, squeezing his daughters shoulder. "For defending Equestria, and for reaching your dream of becoming a Wonderbolt." "Thanks. I-um... I'm sorry about everything I did to you. It shouldn't have taken me this long to realise everything that you'd done for me." "It's alright," Fairy Lights said earnestly. "You're our daughter, and we will always love you no matter what." Lightning nodded, sighing. "I really wish I could stay, but if we're going to see Fluttershy's parents, and get some shuteye, we need to get moving. I promise I'll come see you again as soon as I can." "We'd like that very much," said Fairy Lights. Lightning stood and gently smacked Rainbow on the flank, "Come on Rainbow, we need to get moving." Rainbow nodded, dragging herself to her hooves and stretching out her stiffness. She was about to head to the door when Fairy Lights came up to her. "I want to thank you Rainbow Dash." "Me? What did I do?" "You got our daughter back to us, and for just being a friend to her, and giving her an example of the amazing pony she could be." "Oh, she told you about that huh?" Rainbow blushed and rubbed the back of her head. "You're welcome, I guess-ah!" Rainbow squeaked as Fairy Lights embraced her, and had to fight certain instincts telling her this was an ambush, and that she should fight back. "Thank you." Rainbow smiled uneasily and waited to be let go, glaring at Lightning who was already at the door. She grinned at Rainbow as she walked past, Rainbow's cheeks blazing with embarrassment, then followed Rainbow out into the night. "I promise I'll come back to visit as soon as I can." "You'd better," Downdraft laughed. "Frankly, two years is a bit long between visits." "Bye mum, bye dad," Lightning said as she took off, waving to them as they returned the farewells. She rolled level and flew up to where Rainbow was keeping ahead of her, and sighed happily. "Feeling better now?" "You have no idea. I should've done this ages ago." "Told you they wouldn't hate you." "Yeah alright, smartass. Save it for a pony that wasn't terrified of being rejected by the parents she took for granted before hurting them." "Alright, I get it, parents are scary. Except Fluttershy's parents, which are the least intimida-" Rainbow's words were lost as a rumble of thunder echoed around the city, coming from the weather factory. "Sheesh. I don't know what Spitfire's cooking up in there, but I get the feeling we should all be completely terrified." "Is this one of those 'good job she's on our side' situations?" "Probably. At the very least we should hope that there's no risk of friendly fire." "No such thing," said Lightning. "Anyway, back to the point. What were you saying about Fluttershy's parents?" "That it's pretty obvious where Fluttershy gets her... Fluttershy-ness, from." "Okay, cool," Lightning said with a firm nod, then shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't actually know Fluttershy, remember?" "Believe me, it's all in her name." -0-0-0- The weather factory produced a few more rumbles of thunder by the time they had made it to their destination. The house was mostly in darkness, save for a faint glow coming from one of the windows. Rainbow was going to assume that Fluttershy's parents had gone to bed, and that she shouldn't disturb them, when a shadow shaped like a pony passed over the curtains. "Here goes," Rainbow muttered, knocking on the door. She removed her helmet as she waited, although it wasn't long until the door was opened by a mare that looked a lot like Fluttershy, save for the darker, nearer red mane done up in curls. "Hi Mrs Shy." Mrs Shy adjusted the glasses on her nose, "Rainbow Dash? Oh my goodness, it's so good to see you! Dearest, Rainbow Dash is here!" A stallion trotted into view, pale green with a wispy white mane. "My word Rainbow Dash, come in, please, both of you." Rainbow smiled at the two ponies and entered the house, "Mr and Mrs Shy, I want you to meet Lightning Dust, my squadron leader." "Of course, it's nice to meet you Lightning Dust," Mr Shy said, shaking Lightning's hoof. "Any friend of Rainbow Dash's is welcome here." "Uh, thanks, that's... thanks." "How about you all take a seat while I make some tea?" Mrs Shy said. Rainbow would've refused, but she knew that refusing would bother Mrs Shy more than making the tea ever would. "You should say hello to Zephyr as well. He's been terribly down since... well..." Mrs Shy swallowed her emotions back. "I'm sure seeing you would cheer him up." Rainbow's stomach turned at the suggestion, but didn't say anything about it. She could shrug off Zephyr's shameless and unwanted flirting in this situation. She also supposed that it wasn't unreasonable for Zephyr to be here for once. She found the turquoise form of Zephyr laid out on the couch as she entered the living room, staring forlornly up at the source of light in the room. Two candles were burning on either side of a picture of Fluttershy, a picture from much better times. "Hey Zephyr." "Hmm?" Zephyr blinked up at Rainbow, as if he'd only just noticed she was even in the room. "Oh, hey Rainbows." Rainbow had expected more, but that was it. No flirting, no assuming Rainbow's love for him, or anything. Just a hello that made Rainbow suspicious. "I guess you miss Fluttershy too then." "Yeah." "I do too." Zephyr pulled his gaze from the picture, finally focussing it fully on Rainbow. "Is that why you're here? Decided you need a squeeze from the Breeze to make your woes go away?" "No Zephyr," Rainbow said flatly. "I'm here-" "Too bad for you then. I hate to say it Rainbow, but I'm just not sure I'm in the mood for your rampant flirtations. Normally the Breeze would be all yours, but my heart's just too broken right now. I mean I'm flattered, don't get me wrong, but you can't give me the kind of healin' I need." "Never mind," Rainbow muttered, satisfied in a way that Zephyr wasn't too far gone. She took a seat and looked at the picture of Fluttershy, appreciating Fluttershy's smile in it. Fluttershy had a beautiful smile, when she dared to show it. "I miss her so much. I miss all my friends." "You'll see them again," Lightning said to Rainbow. "Yeah, but when?" Lightning didn't answer, and continued not to as Mr and Mrs Shy returned with a tray of tea and biscuits, and took a minute to pour everypony a cup. Rainbow took hers in her hooves, sipping the beverage as the silence grew longer and thicker. "So, Rainbow Dash," Mr Shy said after a while. "What brings you to our doorstep at so late an hour?" "I just felt like I should. It's been months since Fluttershy was... taken, and I really should've been to see you sooner." "We understand that you've been busy Rainbow," said Mrs Shy. "I know things haven't worked out well with the war, but we knew you'd be working hard to get our Fluttershy back." Rainbow winced guiltily, "That's not what's happened though. Now we're just struggling to keep the Mareitanians at bay. I hate to say it, but Fluttershy won't be back for a while yet." "Oh," both of them said sadly. "I'm sorry." "It's not your fault Rainbow," Mrs Shy said as Rainbow felt her chest tightening. "We know you trying your best, but you can't blame yourself for what happened to Fluttershy." "I should've been faster on the day she was taken. I- I-" Rainbow sighed, "I should've been there when she needed me." "You've always been there when she's needed you. You were the greatest thing to ever happen to our Fluttershy, and you really shouldn't be blaming yourself for something you had no control over." Mrs Shy smiled at Rainbow, "Fluttershy wouldn't blame you either." That did it for Rainbow. All the hurt she'd been suppressing after Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Spike had been kidnapped spilled out in a wave of tears, and she was embarrassed at poorly she could stop it. She'd come here to offer comfort to the Shy's, but instead it was them comforting her as they hugged her from both sides. "It's alright Rainbow Dash," Mr Shy cooed as another rumble of thunder came from the weather factory, loud enough to hear through the walls. "Let it all out." "I- I- I- Hrrk! I miss her so much! I miss all of them so much!" Still ashamed as she was at bawling like a foal, she did feel better, and it helped considerably that Lightning's eyes were the only ones still dry, and even then they were a little misty. They remained as they were for a while, releasing the occasional sob that refused to remain silent. Rainbow had to say she didn't mind though, as what was going on was extremely cathartic. She wished they could've remained that way, but a crack of thunder that shook the house hard enough to knock the picture of Fluttershy off the mantelpiece grabbed their attention. Thankfully the quick reflexes of Lightning had her catching the picture before it landed. "Good heavens!" Mr Shy exclaimed, hurrying over to the window to look through it at the weather factory. "What are they doing over there? It sounds like they're overloading the lightning capacitors." "I know we're on break Rainbow, but I really think we ought to check this out." "Yeah, no kidding." Rainbow smiled helplessly at the Shy's, "Sorry, but I guess I need to get going. Thanks for... all that." "You're welcome Rainbow," Mrs Shy said. "You know you're almost like a second daughter to us, and that you're always welcome here." Mrs Shy flinched as the house shook again. "That said, maybe you should get moving while we still have a house for you to come back to." "Right." Rainbow stuffed her helmet back on her head and ran for the door, Lightning right behind her. "Bye Mr and Mrs Shy! Bye Zephyr!" "Bye Rainbow! Take care of yourself." The air had a hint of ozone to it as they flew up high enough to see the weather factory. Random flashes were coming from inside it, and the entire building seemed to be glowing with an ominous blue aura. Deciding unanimously that a blue glow to a building was probably a bad thing, they both raced to the factory on the other side of the city. "So..." Lightning said after a minute of flying. "What's the deal with you and the Shy's?" "Where d'you think I went to get away from my parents? I spent a lot of time there." "Okay, what about Zephyr?" Rainbow shuddered at the name. "He thinks I'm denying my feelings for him. He thinks wrong." "I see. If that's so, why call them Mr and Mrs Shy all the time?" "Honestly, because I have no idea what their names are, and now I'm too embarrassed to ask. I'm talking over ten years of not knowing now. It's not a question you ask after that long." Lightning chuckled at Rainbow, "That's just sad." "Tell me about it." They reached the weather factory, and dove in through the nearest open entrance, ignoring the looks they got from the other pegasi around. The entire building seemed to glow with an inner light, and their wings tingled with static as they followed the signs to lightning production. They burst into the room, quickly stopping as they saw the storm of energy raging between two massive pylons that hung from the ceiling at diagonals. At first glance it seemed like it had gone wildly out of control, but if you looked at little longer you could see the energy was being funnelled downwards towards a tiny glass orb that was storing the energy, then being replaced with another as the last was taken away. "Lightning Dust! Rainbow Dash! What are you doing here?" Both ponies winced at the sound of their commanding officer's voice, and turned towards Spitfire as she flew towards them. "And why are you in uniform?" "Just being prepared in case something happens," Lightning said smoothly, snapping into a crisp salute. Spitfire narrowed her eyes in suspicion, "...Alright, that's a good answer. It doesn't tell me what you're doing in Cloudsdale though." "We were... visiting family, Captain." "So you were going AWOL then? Again?" "In our defence, you weren't there to provide permission, and in your absence I'm technically superior or equal in rank to the other Wonderbolts." Spitfire held Lightning's gaze until the other mare started to sweat, then shrugged. "You're not wrong, but if I don't say you can leave Canterlot, don't leave Canterlot. Since you're actually more prepared for problems than the rest of us right now, I'll let it slide. This time, and this time only." "Yes ma'am." "Great! Now what are you doing here?" "Beg pardon ma'am," said Rainbow, "but this place is creating thunder loud enough to shake the city. And the weather factory is kind of glowing, but the first issue is the biggest." Rainbow glanced around the apparatus in the room, "What are you doing here, if you don't mind me asking?" "Something that'll help hold back the Mareitanians, while simultaneously sparing Canterlot from wanton destruction. I had the idea after you showed us how to throw lightning. You know how you store lightning in a bottle?" "Yeah, of course." "Right, well factory produced lightning is fairly weak, and is mostly for show. The stuff we make ourselves is the real deal, and then I got thinking, could we store that as well?" Spitfire grinned at Rainbow and Lightning, "The answer is yes. Follow me." Spitfire led them up through a gap into a room above the last. Inside it were two large glass tubes that looked like wind tunnels, and mostly were, but studded with copper contacts that gathered the lightning that arced off the wings of Soarin and Fleetfoot as they flew against the wind pushing through the tubes, keeping them stationary. "Quicker and easier to produce than bombs, and yet it does little damage to buildings. And guess what? The Mareitanians wear metal armour. Want to know what happens when a pony in metal armour gets hit by lightning?" "They end up dead?" Rainbow hazarded. "Maybe, but it isn't pretty if they live either. It definitely takes them out of the fight at any rate." Spitfire picked a glass orb up off a bench nearby, and held the grapefruit sized object up for them to see. Inside a buzzing mass of lightning fought to escape the glass, like it hated being in there. "What do you think?" Rainbow reached out and touched the orb, marvelling as the lightning connected with the glass where she was touching it, following her hoof as she moved it. Spitfire wanted to know what she thought? She thought the Mareitanians would literally have no idea what had hit them.

The end of an era

44. She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes

"They're coming!" Those two words held such meaning, even without the added explanation that it was the Mareitanians that were coming. That part was fairly explanatory, and didn't require the sarcasm from Fleur, but still got it anyway. "Oh gosh, for a moment I thought you meant the ice-cream pony was coming. I could only assume that was why you were so excited." "Ma'am?" Fleur waved a hoof in the vague direction of the pegasus scout, "Ignore me. How far away are they?" "The Mareitanians? Or the ice-cream pony?" Fleur sighed harshly, "Alright, I deserve that. The Mareitanians, please." "They're coming by train, so it'll only be a matter of hours. How long it'll take them to get up the mountain now we've destroyed the railway I couldn't say." "Right, okay, thank you." Fleur turned to her left, towards where Luna was standing not five meters away, looking miffed at why the report had been given to Fleur rather than herself when she was standing right there. "Did you get all that?" "Yes, thank you Fleur," Luna said stiffly. "I don't suppose we know if they're all coming from the east coast, or if Faust is with them? Or indeed if they are bringing a packed lunch just in case this takes longer than they expect?" Fleur looked back to the scout who shrugged. "There's been no sightings of Faust, and the griffons are making it difficult to gather any solid information of what the Mareitanians are bringing with them. There has been movement in Ponyville though, so it seems likely that forces from there are being mustered to join the rest attacking here." "Very good," said Luna. "Well, not good as such. Pretty terrible really. Why aren't they taking the time to secure the east coast? Surely Faust would not be so arrogant to assume that she doesn't need more than the barest amount of time and ponies to do so?" "Who knows what the hell she thinks?" Fleur said to Luna. "She's not wrong if that is what she's thinking though. We have nothing other than what's here in Canterlot to pose a threat to her." "I'd rather hoped we'd have a little more time before they turned their full attention on us." Luna sighed and began to pace, "I guess there's nothing for it then, the Mareitanians are coming. General Armour, General Stormguard, prepare our ponies for battle." Both Generals hurried away, leaving Fleur and Luna alone, save for a few other ponies still in the room. "It shall be interesting to see how our defences fare against their onslaught," Luna said quietly. "If we can take their tanks out of the picture, the minefield and the cannons should make approaching Canterlot a tricky ordeal. If the Hard Corps are ready with their part of the plan, it should be even trickier. The biggest threat to us until they reach the city is the griffons." "Not if our fliers are up to the task. We shall have to see. In the meantime I shall go prepare myself and my sister for battle, and order the citizens of the city to make for the shelter of the caves." Luna started to leave, then paused in the doorway. "Let us pray that the city they come out to is still in Equestrian hooves." -0-0-0- "That's a lot of Mareitanians," Rainbow murmured to nopony in particular. From the vantage point Cloudsdale provided, she and the rest of Equestria's flying forces could see for miles around. A large force of over ten thousand that already outmatched the Equestrians in numbers had come from the east coast, and another ten thousand were marching up from Ponyville, Appleloosa, and Dodge City. It was a lot of soldiers, and yet it wasn't all of them. "We only need to focus on the griffons," Lightning said to Rainbow. "Those same griffons that outnumber us three to one?" Rainbow nodded with false confidence, "Sure, no problem." "We're supposed to be getting some extra support, but I don't think even Spitfire's been told what it is. Better be good to be worth keeping it that secret." "I hope so, because I am not liking these odds so far. In fact, I think they're terrible, and I like having long odds to beat. Makes winning that much sweeter." "Yeah..." Lightning shrugged at Rainbow, then turned away from the edge of the cloud and back to the large open area where the Wonderbolts, Air Corps, and Night Guard were preparing themselves. There wasn't even a thousand of them. "It's going to be pretty sweet for us then." "Lightning Dust! Rainbow Dash!" Both of them looked up as Fleetfoot flew towards them, shouting their names. She did not appear to be very happy, so both of them saluted her just to be safe. "Is there something wrong ma'am?" Lightning asked as Fleetfoot landed in front of them. "You could say that." Fleetfoot turned so she was facing directly at Rainbow, "Have you seen your wingmates?" "No, not since last night. Why? Are they dressed funny?" "That's not what I mean." Rainbow furrowed her brow as she tried to work out what Fleetfoot meant, and a few seconds later she understood. "Do you mean they're not here?" "I don't know! Are they? You're their wing's leader, so you should know where they are." Rainbow's mouth flapped uselessly. She wanted to say that they had to be there somewhere, and that they'd turn up sooner or later, but deep down she knew that Cloud Chaser had run away, and had probably talked Thunderlane into going with her. "Cloud Chaser was having doubts about fighting, but I'd asked Thunderlane to talk to her. I guess it had the exact opposite effect that I thought it would." Rainbow stood to attention, raising her chin slightly higher than normal. "I accept full responsibility for their actions." "Do you really think we give a flying fuck about punishing you right now? We've just gone down two more fliers, and- and-" Fleetfoot growled and kicked the cloud floor, destroying part of it. "I can't believe this. Rainbow, you'll have to team up with Lightning and Vapor for now, and High Rise will join us in A squadron as a replacement for Misty Fly." "Yes ma'am." Fleetfoot flew away without saying another word, leaving Rainbow to sink down onto the cloud and use it to smother a shout as Lightning patted her on the back. "I can't believe they'd just abandon us like this! I can't believe they'd abandon me..." "After what Cloud was like the other night, I can," said Lightning. She sighed heavily and sat down beside Rainbow, "Without Cloud, Thunderlane, and now High Rise, there's six of us. Six. B squadron is looking pretty piss poor these days." "Why aren't you more bothered?" "Is that going to bring them back?" "No." "Then I'm just going to wish them luck and not think about it. Honestly, they're probably being smarter than us right now." Rainbow sighed and nodded, "I hate how right you sound about that." -0-0-0- There were multiple facets to Maud's wetness. Mostly it was because she was getting dripped on by water filtering down from the river. The other reason was because the interior of the Canterhorn mountain was breathtaking. Dozens of different kinds of crystals sparkled around her, illuminated by the light from her helmet that seemed to be amplified by the rich yet strangely uniform seams of diamonds, rubies, and other precious gems. It was probably the most beautiful place a pony like her could find. And they wanted her to destroy part of it. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she worked. "Come on Maud, it's only a little bit of the Mountain," Pinkie said soothingly as she chipped away at the rock of the mountain with a pickaxe. "It's a very nice part of the mountain." "It's also the best place for this," Limestone reminded her eldest sister. "I'm not happy about this either, just so you know." "We're destroying a piece of art millions of years in the making. I think I'm allowed to be upset." Limestone grunted and glanced across at Marble, who at least had the decency to not get overemotional about this like Maud was. Azure didn't seem to give a fuck in the slightest, which was as refreshing as it was completely unsurprising. Crystal Moon was complaining about the conditions, which were pretty uncomfortable to be fair, but at least she wasn't complaining about the destruction, once she'd pocketed a few of the more valuable gems anyway. "Guys! The Mareitanians are here! The Mareitanians are here!" Limestone sighed as Lyra ran down the narrow tunnel as fast as she dared, her voice echoing loudly off the rocks. "So I'm guessing we're out of time?" "Not yet, but you'll have to work double time if you want to get it done." "Urgh... Pinkie, Azure, get started on setting up the explosives. Maud, Marble, Crystal, get digging. Lyra, keep us posted." "Yes ma'am." Limestone resumed digging, hollowing out around the four pillars of rock they'd left. Time was becoming an issue, and yet she found herself smiling, even though they could all die today. They were mining together as a family of sorts, which is as much as she'd ever asked for. Even Pinkie was humming happily as she worked. They'd hit rock bottom, which is where Pie's worked best. -0-0-0- Luna pulled the last strap tight, then stepped back to admire her work as the room they were in shone with a golden light, reflected off the armour her sister now wore. "As magnificent as the day it were forged." "I assure you it took considerably more than a day to forge," Celestia replied dryly to Luna's comment. "A dozen master smiths working over a dozen weeks, and blah-dy blah-dy blah, all to create this ostentatious nightmare." "At least the Mareitanians will know who to aim for," Luna joked. "Yes, well, perhaps I had best advise nopony to stand too close to me then." Celestia picked up her helmet and placed it on her head, pulling her mane up through the slot on top so her mane flowed back and along her side so it didn't obscure her vision. "I would also have trimmed my mane and tail down, if I knew but how." "Will it not cut?" "Oh it cuts alright, but then it starts bleeding rainbows, and it gets everywhere." Luna leant her head to the side, eyeing Celestia suspiciously. "I suspect you are pulling my leg. I don't start bleeding a night sky when I trim my hair." "Then truly you are blessed." "Celestia..." "Yes it cuts," Celestia huffed, "and it doesn't bleed rainbows, but what it does do is look terrible. My mane is happy where it is." Luna shrugged at Celestia, "Okay, I wasn't saying you should or shouldn't cut it. In fact, you're the one that brought it up." Luna shrugged again and started placing her armour on herself when Celestia's golden magic took over. Luna let it happen, only saying anything when Celestia got it wrong. "Like a warrior princess," Celestia said once she was done. "I had hoped we would never have to do this again." "What is hope but another word for desire." Luna smiled sadly at her sister, "I too desire for this to be over, if only for the sake of our ponies. My own desires are more complex." "Not really. You want to crush Faust and the Mareitanians in their entirety for daring to attack our nation." "It doesn't sound so complex when you say it like that!" Luna snorted at her sister as she composed herself, "Still, as basely as you put it, you're not wrong. Faust will pay for this, one way or another." "One thing at a time Luna. First we need to hold Canterlot." Celestia lit her horn, summoning Solaris to her, the air around the spear shimmering with heat as it matched itself to her mood. "Nam gloriam Equestria," Celestia said, her voice firm with resolve. "Nam gloriam Equestria," Luna said back. "Let's go kick an ass." "It's some ass Luna." "So it is. Apologies." -0-0-0- Ponies were streaming through the city towards the freshly made entrance to the mines in the mountain as Luna led the way onto the balcony outside the throne room. It seemed the news of the Mareitanians arrival had finally spread around, although anypony could look over the edge of the city in the right place and see them coming. Fleur was also there, watching everything with a distant look in her eyes, like she was watching a film of these events, rather than being part of them. "What news is there Fleur?" Luna asked, startling the mare out of her reverie. "Not much. The Mareitanians still have some forces coming from Dodge City that haven't made it yet, but that hardly matters. They've set up camp at the base of the mountain, and will probably start looking to probe our defences soon." Fleur looked over at Celestia, seeing the golden armour she wore for the first time. "Woah." "Yes, not quite my usual attire, I know." "No, but your ability to look good in anything is really shining through here." Fleur coughed awkwardly, "No pun intended." "Thank you Fleu-ah!" Celestia ducked her head as a loud pop sounded in the distance. "What was that?" "It would see the Mareitanians have discovered one of our mines," Luna said casually, like she were discussing the weather. "Hopefully that'll keep them occupied for a while as they try to find the others." "We've yet to locate the griffons," Fleur said as Luna smiled to herself. "They'll probably be planning something, so we should be ready for them." "They'll likely be planning to attack Cloudsdale, to keep our air forces from aiding us down here. They can't be too far away." Luna wasn't concerned about the griffons right then. For all the damage the Mareitanians and griffons could do, they weren't the real threat here. Faust was probably down there somewhere, and she had the honour of being the real danger here, as well as being a bit of a wildcard since there was no way of telling how involved in this she would make herself. "So we're just going to wait for them to turn up?" "We've made our move," Luna said to Fleur as the mare watched her with confusion. "What happens next is up to Faust and the Mareitanians." "So we are really just going to sit here and let this happen." Fleur nodded to herself, "Sounds like a plan." "I'm not sure if you remember, but that was actually the plan." "Couldn't we be bombing them or something?" "They can see us coming and prepare adequately for such a thing. We'd only be wasting our now limited munitions. Much better they come here where we can truly hurt them." "And how long until that happens?" Luna looked up at the sky, seeing a large collection of dots in the distance, slowly coming closer. They weren't flying very high, and didn't even reach above the level of Canterlot. Luna suspected they were making it appear as though they were heading for Canterlot, only to pull up and attack Cloudsdale from below. Only an idiot would really fall for such a trick. Unless they actually attacked Canterlot, but that seemed unlikely. Either way they'd find out in ten minutes. "Sister, I leave the defence of Canterlot in yours and Cadence's hooves." Luna gave Celestia a small but cheeky smile, "Try not to lose before I get back." "I shall certainly endeavour to not disappoint you Luna," Celestia said with her own smile, holding it until Luna was gone. Then she lost it with a sigh. "I very much doubt it'll work like that though." "Why not?" asked Fleur. "The sun hasn't moved for an hour. I suspect that means Faust is keeping it still until the city is taken, and we are defeated." "Oh. That's bad." "Yes it is Fleur, yes it is." -0-0-0- The cloud bounced beneath Luna as she landed. Before her was the entirety of Equestria's pegasi forces, now severely depleted without the Exiles. That said, there seemed to be even fewer of them than before, which was something she asked Stormguard about once she located the general. "We've had two Wonderbolts desert, and there's been a couple dozen desertions in the Air Corps as well. The only branch of our forces with no desertions so far is your Night Guard." "I wish I was surprised, but I'm not. I suspect we'd have more if Canterlot wasn't so tightly guarded. It matters not right now. We have griffons coming from the south west, and they'll be here in five minutes, so we best be ready to face them." "We're ready," Stormguard said, brimming with confidence. "We can attack when you're ready." "Very good, although I'd rather the griffons think us unprepared for their arrival. They seek to ambush from below, then we shall ambush them from above. Get our forces into the air above the city ready to ambush. I shall distract the griffons in the meantime." "At once Princess." Luna stood back as Stormguard signalled for their forces to take off and head up. There seemed to be little else for her to do until the griffons arrived, so she took the opportunity to watch the Mareitanians over the edge of the clouds as they started to cautiously head up the mountain, keeping an eye out for mines. Apparently Faust intended to waste no time today. The griffons were rapidly nearing though, so she backed away from the edge and stood still as wave after wave of griffon soared up into view, flying in a formation that would've worked for them to spread out in an ambushing manoeuvre had there been more than one pony there to ambush. The griffons kept spreading out, making themselves ever more of a target for anypony that might happen attack through the cloud cover from above. Luna smiled as a group of griffons flew down towards her as the remainder spread out to search for the absent pegasi. They landed a reasonable distance away, and seemed to take a moment to decide what to do, so Luna took the initiative. "Welcome to Cloudsdale," she said, keeping her tone cheerful. "Truly a lovely city isn't it?" "It can stay that way if you surrender it to us." Luna frowned at the griffon that had spoke. "You must be Commander Theron. Your father must be so relieved to know you're alive." Luna looked to the other griffon beside him as Theron growled, "And Commander Lurin. A pleasure to face an honourable griffon like you." Lurin plumped up his feathers with pride, "You know of me?" "A decorated soldier in the Imperial forces, who then went on to join the Golden Claws once your mandatory service was complete. You are quite the soldier to be leading them now. Too bad you're fighting for a madmare like Faust." Lurin's feathers deflated at the insult, "Had you offered a price, our allegiance might have been much different." "We had not the money to spare," Luna said bluntly. "Building an army is an expensive business, and we hadn't considered mercenaries at the time. Anyway, enough talk. As you can tell I didn't come dressed for negotiations." "And what do you hope to do on your own against all of us?" Theron sneered as Luna limbered up. "On my own?" Luna cocked her head curiously, "Who said I was on my own? Now!" Luna's shout echoed around the sky, and was answered in kind by the roar of thunder as over a dozen bolts of lightning reached out of the sky to smite a dozen griffons. Hundreds of pegasi poured down out of the clouds, catching the griffons out, unprepared as they were from an attack from above. Lurin immediately took to the sky as the ambush happened, leaving Theron to scramble after him as Luna fired a beam of magic at him, only catching the end of his tail. Luna grinned as another dozen bolts of lightning struck down even more griffons, and summoned her glaives to her. It'd been a while since she'd fought griffons in such a way, and she was keen to see if she still had it. A half dozen griffons later, she suspected she still did. -0-0-0- Rainbow's wings smoked from the second bolt of lightning, and she could feel the strain as she tried to muster the energy for the third in such a small amount of time. She knew she risked injuring herself, but when you were flying into battle against a few thousand griffons, you needed every advantage. By the time she mustered the third bolt she was almost within reach of the griffons, and fired the bolt point blank, smacking the griffon in front of her away like it was a ragdoll. The shockwave buffeted her, and she rolled away as she corrected her flight. She glanced back to see if her wingmates were with her, then very quickly remembered they'd run away, and she was meant to be following Lightning's lead. "Shit." Rainbow pulled up, keeping her blades ready as she tried find where Lightning and Vapor had got to. Her gaze drifted towards Luna as she raced through the sky, blasting griffons with her magic, and cutting them down with ease with her blades. Wherever she went, griffons fell from the sky. "Guess that's our secret advantage." Her gut told her to roll left as a griffon came screaming towards her, two hatchets in her claws. Rainbow felt a blade nick the tip of her left wing, and she put on a burst of speed to get away. The griffon followed, her single minded focus on Rainbow stopping her from seeing Lightning diving down from above. "Thanks!" Rainbow shouted as Lightning kicked the griffon off her blades. "I kinda forgot I was supposed to be following you." "I figured," Lightning replied dryly as Rainbow drifted into position on her right, opposite Vapor. "You just had to get that third strike off." "You meant you didn't?" "I'm pretty sure some of my feathers caught fire trying," said Lightning. The fact that some of her feathers were singed supported that. "I decided to stop trying after that." "Hah! Guess that means I'm more awesome than you!" "Vapor got four off." Rainbow blinked at Vapor, "For real? My wings felt like they wanted to explode on the third." Vapor merely shrugged at Rainbow. "Okay, sure. What's the plan boss?" "I think 'kill as many griffons as possible' covers it. Otherwise we have to hope Luna can thin them out enough for us to scare them off." "That seems unlikely." "Yeah, I know. Still, we have a job to do, so let's go do it." Rainbow nodded as Lightning took them back into fray, which didn't seem as hopeless as she thought it would. Luna was cutting swathes into the griffons, and the thestrals were following her lead, spurred on as they were by the presence of their princess. The griffons still outnumbered them, but the numerical difference was slowly shrinking. Of course that seemed a lot less noticeable as they dived into the battle. Rainbow's blades struck something as she flew, and she could only hope it was a griffon as the only proof she had of anything was the blood on her blades that the wind was blowing off due to the enchantments on it. Rainbow brought her blades closer to make sure she didn't hit a friendly. Pizzelle and her wing flew up beside them, completing B squadron, cut in half as it was, and joined them as they struck. Rainbow deflected a spear with her left blade, thrusting her right forwards into the chest of her target. Claws scrabbled against her armour for a second, then the griffon was gone. So was Sightseer, one of Pizzelle's wingmates. Rainbow hadn't even seen it happen, but she could hear Pizzelle's cry as he fell away. "Damn it!" Lightning cursed. She led them up and out of the immediate fray, hoping for a moment for the five remaining members of B squadron to recover. They were denied it as a group of griffons followed them, their shields held ready to charge the pegasi. Pizzelle fled, her other wingmate Roller following her as she tried to get away. A trio of griffons split off from the main body, and seconds later the two pegasi fell to the ground, Roller dead, and Pizzelle screaming as the griffons had only hacked off half a wing that was still attached by sinews. Rainbow pulled out of formation the instant she heard the scream, and raced after Pizzelle as the mare tried to fly on her ruined wing, only stopping screaming to suck in another breath for more screaming. Thankfully her efforts did slow Pizzelle enough for Rainbow to catch her without pushing her herself to an extreme like a sonic rainboom, and Rainbow swung around to grab Pizzelle around the chest from behind, accidentally bringing a blade into contact with Pizzelle's half severed wing, finishing the job. "Shit! Sorry!" Rainbow shouted over the wind as she flapped her wings hard to reverse their rapid descent. Gradually she shifted their velocity to something more manageable, and set on a path that would lead them towards Canterlot Castle, where she could hopefully get help for Pizzelle. "Rainbow! Look out!" Rainbow looked up and to the left at the shout from Lightning, and could do nothing but stare at horror at the griffons coming right for her. She could either drop Pizzelle and live while letting her fall to her death, or keep hold of Pizzelle and let both of them die. Objectively she knew the right answer, but there was no way she could live with herself if she let Pizzelle die like that, even if it meant her own death. Rainbow closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, and was quite surprised when she heard the shriek of steel shattering, and no pain at all. When she dared look, the broken stub of the griffons sword was held an inch from her body by a tiny shimmering shield of rainbow magic. Both her and the griffon stared at it in shock, then each other. The griffons eyes then went wide in pain, and it's mouth contorted in a silent scream as Lightning caught up to it. "Rainbow! Are you okay?!" "Uh..." Rainbow looked back down at her side, seeing nothing there to show what had just happened. No shield, no wound, nothing, she was completely fine. "I'm... fine. Totally fine." "How?" Rainbow shrugged, genuinely not knowing. What she did know was that Pizzelle was heavy, and that she needed help. She resumed her flight towards Canterlot, escorted by Lightning and Vapor, and was relieved to be able to drop the now unconscious Pizzelle outside the castle near some guards. "Help her!" she shouted, and waited a moment for that help to come before taking off back towards Cloudsdale. The battle was still far from over. -0-0-0- Celestia sighed with relief as she watched Rainbow head off back towards Cloudsdale. She'd genuinely thought that griffon had gotten Rainbow, and had to fight back a shriek until it became clear that Rainbow wasn't falling from the sky, and was in fact fine. She had no idea how though. "They're coming," Fleur said, breaking Celestia out of her thoughts. "Tanks first to absorb the mines." "Very well, let us see how far they get. Is the countermeasure ready?" "Uh... what countermeasure?" Celestia resisted rolling her eyes, and turned back into the castle. On a table next the dais where her and her sister's thrones sat, was a small wooden chest. Celestia flicked it open, revealing three vials of the roiling liquid known as dragonsfire. She picked one up and inspected it. "Only three huh? That's too bad. Are you going to be dropping those yourself?" "I suppose I shall have to." Celestia returned the vial to the chest and closed it, picking the entire thing up in her magic. "I suspect there's little more for you to do other than to get to safety Fleur. Go be with Swift Wings." "I will head to safety once I deem it necessary Princess." Fleur smiled crookedly at Celestia, "Canterlot hasn't fallen yet." "Let us pray that it never does." Celestia nodded at Fleur, then went back out to the balcony, taking flight out over her beloved city. There were still some ponies heading for the safety of the mines, but the city was otherwise rather empty compared to usual. It was a uncomfortable sight, it being one of the few things Celestia had never seen before. She didn't wish to see it again. She also didn't like seeing the city so fortified. Defensive emplacements had been set up through the lowest level of the city, ending at the bridge up to the next level that was rigged to collapse should the Mareitanians push them back that far. The fact that they'd planned for that eventuality was depressing in itself. Similarly the wall separating the city from what lay beyond it was heavily fortified with sandbags and those dreadful cannons Luna had concocted. The colourful gatehouse looked massively out of place surrounded by military hardware, let alone that it had been closed for the first time since the changeling invasion. It had been kept open considerably longer before that. It was also where Shining Armour happened to be. "Princess," Shining said in greeting as Celestia landed next to him. "If those happen to be orbs of liquid dragonfire, I suggest you put them somewhere they won't melt through our defences." "They shall be used soon enough I imagine. How far are the Mareitanians from reaching us?" "At the speed they're creeping along at, they're going to be a while. I guess they're counting on their griffons to win Cloudsdale in the meantime." "I do believe Luna has already accounted for that." Celestia placed the chest on the ground out of harms way, and took the binoculars Shining offered to her. "They're not far from our trap," she observed. "No, but they'd had to have planned for that kind of thing. Frankly, our tactics are a little too predictable at times." "Any sign of Faust?" Shining shook his head, "Not yet, but I imagine she isn't far away. Only she could drive the Mareitanians into such a reckless attack." "It would seem as though she is determined to end this today," Celestia agreed. "Unfortunate." "Maybe she thinks we're planning something, and wants to end this before we can do whatever she thinks we have planned. Her attack reeks of desperation." "Her attack reeks of overconfidence." Celestia lowered her binoculars as the Mareitanians passed over their trap. "Overconfidence is a terrible thing really." -0-0-0- Bits of rock dropped onto the helmets of the Hard Corps as the tanks rumbled over the ground directly above them. None of them dared move out of a fear that it could collapse at any moment as that was what it was designed to do, partially. "We're too late," Azure whispered, only just being heard over the racket coming from above. "Not yet we're not," said Pinkie, hurriedly finishing off setting up the explosives they needed to complete the trap. "Get the rest of the team out of here while I finish up." "We're standing right here Pinkie," said Maud. "Oh yeah! Okay, you guys get out of here, Azure sets up the detonator while I finish up here, then we all go back to Canterlot as muddy heroes." Pinkie shooed them off with a hoof, "Go on, get moving!" "I'm pretty sure I'm in charge," Limestone pointed out in a grumble. "Guys, we need to blow this now!" Lyra shouted down the tunnel. "You heard the minty unicorn," Pinkie said to Limestone. "Get outta here!" Azure ran over to Pinkie, her expression frantic with worry. "I'm not leaving you here on your own Pinkie!" "Sure you are." "What? How can you say that?" "Reasons." Pinkie grabbed Azure's collar and pulled her into a kiss that the other mare happily reciprocated after a second. "But I thought you didn't like me like that?" Azure said with a pant as soon as they broke apart. "I never said I didn't, you just caught me by surprise, and while I was upset." "Sorry." Pinkie shrugged, "Eh, it's fine. Anyway, the world as we know it might be about to end, so maybe it won't hurt to go into that knowing somepony loves me. Now seriously, get out of here." "But I have even less of a reason to leave you now!" Pinkie smiled at Azure, "You're cute when you're concerned, but you need to set up the detonator, or this will all have been reeeeally pointless. Don't worry, I'll catch up to you." Azure started to leave, then darted back towards Pinkie, kissing her again. "Just wanted to be sure I didn't imagine the last one." Azure grabbed a spool of wire and ran off up the tunnel after the others, the sound of Limestone saying they owed her a lot of bits coming down after her. Pinkie smacked her lips thoughtfully, "Kissing mares is weird. Trust the one pony I really like to be a mare. Hardly seems fair. Hopefully it's something I can bear, especially when it comes to doing stuff down... there. Teehee! Rhyming is fun... and I'm talking to myself. Again." Pinkie worked quickly, pushing in all the things that needed things pushed into them, which seemed to be all of it for some reason, then grabbed her gear consisting of one incredibly bemused Pinkie, tinkled pink by what had happened with Azure, and ran up after the others. "It's ready! Blow it!" "But you're not clear!" Azure shouted back. "I said blow it!" A grey hoof belonging to Marble pressed down on the plunger before Azure could stop her, and the ground shook violently as the explosives detonated, knocking Pinkie off her hooves. The tunnel above her cracked, caving in from the direction of the explosion, raining large chunks of rock down towards Pinkie. "Aaah!" Pinkie curled up, waiting for the cave in, then waited some more, and some more. She peeked an eye open, seeing the tunnel above her had cracked, but not fallen, and shimmered with a faint rainbow like sheen. "Huh." "Marble! Are you insane?!" Azure screamed. "You could've killed her!" "I know my sister better than you." "What is that supposed to mean?" Pinkie stood, relief drowning out the horror she felt from nearly getting crushed. Despite what Marble might think, Pinkie knew getting crushed by giant rocks would hurt a whole bunch, and not even she could bounce back from that. She took a few cautious steps forward, her legs feeling like jelly, and yelped, jumping round on the spot as the tunnel collapsed where she'd just been standing. "Okay, that's... weird," she said, getting a little freaked out. The feeling grew as those same rocks started to move of their own accord, retreating back down the tunnel. "Okay, that's weirder. Rocks don't normally move on their own." "They're not now," Crystal said to Pinkie. "Somepony out there us using some really powerful magic to do this. Somepony like Faust. I vote we get out of here." "Vote carried," Limestone said as rocks at the far end of the tunnel started to glow with heat and flow together into a solid mass. "Let's get the fuck out of here." -0-0-0- Celestia gripped the binoculars tightly in her magic, threatening to crush them as Faust landed on the roadway up the mountain, pulled the dead and wounded out of the collapsed section of road, and started to repair the damage. Adding insult to injury, she was using the same magic Celestia used to try and seal the entrance down to Faust's cell back in High Rock keep. Within minutes the Mareitanians were able to resume their march up the mountain. "Please tell me the drawbridge over the river has been made secure," Celestia said to Shining Armour, referring to the river that rushed past several yards in front of the gatehouse, one of several parts of a larger river that passed through the city. "The drawbridge is secure, and all of the bridges have been made to collapse, although I don't think this one will make much difference." "And what makes you say that?" "Those tanks won't fit through the gatehouse anyway, and the streets are too narrow, so they don't have to worry about getting those in here. It's the infantry that's the main problem here, and getting them across won't be too big of a problem if Faust is here." Celestia nodded unenthusiastically, "Of course. How long until they're in range of our cannons?" "Not long. They have orders to fire as soon as the tanks are in range." "Ignore the tanks." "Princess?" "You know they can take the cannon fire. They're nothing more than a distraction. Fire on their infantry instead, and I shall deal with the tanks." "As... you wish." Celestia stood quietly after that, waiting for the Mareitanians to draw nearer. It seemed Faust was pushing everything into this attack, especially if she was willing to halt the cycle of day and night for it. She knew it was too late, but she should've put more into advancing their efforts against the Mareitanians, and begged the other nations for help. Especially Griffonia. The Emperor could have had Mareitania if he so wished after all this. "Enemy in range," Shining said after a few minutes. "Open fire." The cannons shook the wall as they fired, great plumes of smoke concealing the rapid departure of their payloads towards the Mareitanians at speeds the naked eye couldn't follow. The only way to tell they had landed was by the earth that was thrown into the air, the clang of tank armour being struck, and the shouts of ponies. Celestia felt sick. "Reload! Fire!" The cannons roared again, and again the Mareitanians felt their fury. The tanks sped up, hoping to close the gap between the cannons range and their own, and Celestia knew the time had come to take down some of them. She opened the chest and pulled out the three vials of liquid dragonfire, then took flight to deliver them to their targets. Celestia sped towards the tanks with all due haste, a shield protecting her from the sporadic fire the Mareitanians could muster towards her. She threw the vials, then veered away to loop back, seeing as she did that none of the tanks were aflame, and that the vials were floating in a haze of blue magic conjured by Faust, who hovered menacingly above the tanks. Celestia fired wildly towards the vials, hoping to break them, but Faust jerked them out of harms way. She had no idea what Faust planned to do with them, and no desire to find out as she summoned Solaris, the spear appearing as a line of fire as she dived towards Faust, who caught the weapon on a shield without flinching. "I grow tired of these games Celestia." Faust flexed her magic, and with unerring accuracy, launched the vials of dragonfire at speed towards the gate house, towards Shining Armour. Celestia screamed hoarsely, teleporting towards the gatehouse before the vials landed, slamming bodily into Shining Armour and knocking him off the wall. An unbearable heat bloomed up behind them as Celestia grabbed Shining and twisted so she landed on the ground first, smacking hard against the ground and rolling until she stopped with Shining rolling away in a different direction, not unhurt, but definitely alive. Sadly the same could be said of the other ponies on the wall as the heat from the dragonfire cooked ponies alive just from proximity. Even a couple dozen meters away, Celestia could feel the heat from it. Ponies screamed, jumping from the wall to escape the fire as it melted through the gatehouse, turning the drawbridge into ash and slag that dripped away onto the ground. The nearest cannons succumbed to the heat, their wooden frames catching fire, and the tubes warping from the heat until the gunpowder ignited, finishing them, and a large portion of the wall off. By the time the explosions ended, and the smoke cleared, the gatehouse was no more. "What have I done?" Celestia gasped, shock filling her as she saw the massive hole her actions had left in Canterlot's defence. Burnt and blistered ponies crawled away from the wreckage of the wall, and through the gap she could see Faust advancing with her forces. "Shields up! Shields up!" Shining shouted, forming a shield over the gap. The unicorns of the Mage Corps added their strength to it, and after a moment Celestia did too, even as she marvelled at Shining for recovering so quickly. "You!" he shouted at a random pony, "Get to Princess Cadence, and get her to get the Crystal Heart working now! The rest of you, prepare to repel invaders!" -0-0-0- The battle for Cloudsdale was quickly turning south for the invaders. Even with the ambush, and Luna fighting with them, the griffons were simply too numerous. Luna was finding herself more and more outnumbered, and her body ached from fighting. Bodies littered the city, and it was quickly becoming time to give in and retreat, exactly as planned. "Retreat! Retreat to Canterlot!" All the pegasi and thestrals turned towards Canterlot, disengaging as fast as they could to flee the losing battle, leaving Luna behind. The griffons gave chase, but were deterred by the unicorn and weapons fire that came up from Canterlot to cover the fliers retreat. Luna drifted down to the clouds, landing as she dismissed her weapons. The griffons circled her nervously, until the two commanders of both forces flew down to meet her again. "Hello again gentlegriffs." "You will surrender this city, and the battle immediately," Theron screeched, "or the city and its inhabitants will be used against you until you do." "Are you threatening to harm civilians Commander Theron?" Luna tittered, noting the disgust Lurin displayed for Theron as the younger griffon spoke. "How uncouth." "If it ends this battle now, yes." "I see, I see." Luna smirked at Theron, "And what if I told you the city is completely empty, because we're not foolish enough to give you an entire city's worth of ponies to use as leverage. I also very much doubt Faust would condone such an action." Theron spluttered at Luna, earning himself a smack off Lurin, "I think you've said enough, boy." He offered Luna a cautious smile as he ruffled his feathers, "My apologies Princess. Believe me it was not my intention to cause harm to innocents, here and in Appleloosa. As for Cloudsdale, do you surrender the city to us?" "Of course I do, but there's one thing I need to do first." Luna pulled a remote detonator out of her armour, and pressed the button on the top. A split second later the weather factory rumbled with a series of explosions, and the city lurched as a fierce gale tore out of the funnel on the side, propelling the cloud city away from Canterlot. "It should stop after thirty miles or so. Farewell." Luna teleported away below the city, and flew the rest of the way back to Canterlot, a fleeting smile on her lips that lasted up until she could see what was happening at the entrance to the city. "Oh Celestia, what have you done?" Luna quickly flew for the carnage by the gatehouse, aiming for the golden armour of her sister as she put her focus on aiding the shield along with all the others. It took one look at the molten remains of the gatehouse to see something had gone disastrously wrong. "What happened?" "Faust caught the dragonsfire, and used it against us. She was more than ready for me when I tried to use it." "Curses! She couldn't have asked for a better entrance to the city! What of the cannons?" "Seven destroyed, one damaged but functional, four undamaged," Shining said to Luna, his brow covered in sweat from the pounding the Mareitanians were giving the shield. "We've also lost the explosives on the bridge. I've got somepony running to Cadence to get her to raise a shield over the city." "Then that's the best we can do for now." Luna glared through the gap, seeing Faust standing calmly amongst her forces, aggravatingly assured of her own victory. Even more aggravatingly was that she might be right. "I don't know what we were thinking, holding onto this place for months. A day seems like a stretch right now." "We'll hold," Celestia told her. There was a change in the texture of the air, and a bright flash emanated from the highest point of the castle, forming into a blue shield that descended to protect all parts of the city, ending just outside the shield they'd made to cover the gatehouse. Celestia ceased casting, as did the others, letting their magic fade away, while the Mareitanians maintained their bombardment on the new shield. "We have to." "General Armour, we have griffons inside the shield!" "Of course we do," Shining groaned. "I'm afraid that is outside my jurisdiction Princess," he said to Luna. "I'm going to go make sure Cadence is protected until they're taken care of." "We'll have them dealt with in no time." -0-0-0- Lucky Do didn't ask for much in his life. A nice little cottage somewhere, with a pleasant view and maybe a dog for company would do for him. He certainly didn't want to be put in one of Canterlot's many towers, trying to shoot down fast moving griffons while trying to not hit friendly fliers. He certainly didn't want to be there when the griffons took notice of him. He desperately reloaded his crossbow with his magic, firing it again and again as a large male griffon hurtled towards him, dodging every shot he took. A frantic cry left his mouth, along with a prayer that got answered by a rainbow haired and blue uniformed angel that swept over the back of the griffon, performed a little twist in mid-air and struck out with her blade before flying on, leaving the griffon to crash face first into the tower somewhere below Lucky Do's hooves. "Thank you!" Lucky Do shouted after the pony that had saved him. "Now you're just showing off," Lightning said to Rainbow as they zoomed between the towers of upper Canterlot. "Face it Lightning, we've already lost, so we might as well go for style points now." "Style points? Are you kidding me? I don't know what that griffon did to you, but it must have involved brain damage, or maybe some kind of drugs. We should be probably be putting more effort into not dying, rather than trying to look good." "Eh, why not both?" "Ugh... you agree with me don't you Vapor?" "I like to think Sky would agree with her, so I will too." Lightning wanted to say that siding with the choices a dead pony would supposedly make was not a healthy attitude towards life, but that wound was probably too raw to poke it yet. All she could really do was try to keep up with Rainbow as the mare tried to kill griffons with razor edged aerobatics. "I'm going to be killed by style points. I've never been so betrayed." "Relax, there's only a couple hundred of them." Rainbow sought out her next target, finding it, along with a large number of others, aiming for the highest point of the castle. It didn't take a genius to work out that they were going for the source of the shield. "Come on!" "I'm in fucking charge here Rainbow!" "And?" "And come on!" The griffons were acting much faster than usual. Probably out of desperation as the remainder of Equestria's fliers closed in on them. They smashed a window and poured into the castle, clashing with the few defenders Cadence had around her. Rainbow followed them in, trying to kill as many as she could before they got to Cadence, who cried in terror even as she maintained the shield over the city. A flash signalled the arrival of Luna and Celestia, who placed a shield and themselves between the griffons and Cadence. Celestia swung her spear, the weapon glowing with white hot fury, and the griffon it impaled fell to the floor, his flesh turning to ash around the wound, and continuing to do so for several seconds. The crystal ponies guarding Cadence rallied with the arrival of Celestia and Luna, and between them, the princesses, and those fliers that had followed the griffons in, the griffons were swiftly overtaken. Bodies littered the ground in the observatory, all centred around the pink form of Cadence, who cowered beneath her shield with her eyes tightly shut. "Do you think that was all of them?" Rainbow asked, sheathing her blades so she could land, then thinking better of it as she saw how much blood there was on the floor. "Probably," said Lightning. "Guess that means we're safe for now." "Cool." Rainbow flew over to Celestia, who was trying to coax Cadence into opening her eyes. "Princess, I'd just like to say you're kind of a badass." Celestia scowled half-heartedly at Rainbow, "Thank you for that generous input, Rainbow Dash." "You're welcome." Rainbow hovered in place for several seconds, not sure what to do with herself. The feeling grew as Shining Armour charged into the room, froze as he saw the carnage, then ran over to Cadence. "I have no idea what we're supposed to be doing now," she admitted. "We should probably find Spitfire," said Lightning. "Wherever she is." "Right here, Lightning." Lightning followed the voice to its source, finding Spitfire slumped against the wall near where the griffons broke in. A pony was treating a wound on her belly, but it was pretty clear that she wasn't getting up in a hurry. The rest of the Wonderbolts were there too. There was fifteen of them altogether. Lightning saluted the Captain, getting a bemused smile back from Spitfire. "What are we supposed to do now ma'am?" "All we can do is wait now," Spitfire replied, taking a moment to suck her breath in through her clenched teeth. "I have no idea how long the princess will be able to maintain that shield, but if it does fall, those griffons are going to be all over the city. Don't engage them unless you have to. Let the ponies on the towers take care of them, and only engage if the griffons get too close." Spitfire coughed, and smacked her head back against the wall as the motion hurt her stomach. "Ugh, son of a bitch. Soarin, I'm done here; you have command." "What about General Stormguard?" Rainbow asked. "He fell back in Cloudsdale," Fleetfoot told her. "We're now technically in charge of the Air Corps as well." "And Greywhisker?" "He's outside somewhere, but with the loss of General Stormguard we gain command of the Air Corps." Fleetfoot went quiet as Soarin kissed Spitfire and whispered to her. Spitfire kissed him back, then leant back to let the medic work. "Alright guys," Soarin said, walking over to them. "Spitfire's orders still stand. Gather the Air Corps in the courtyard outside so we can brief them, then all we have to do is wait. Move-" "Aaah!" Cadence cried suddenly, making all the ponies in the room jump. She collapsed to her stomach and pressed her hooves to her head as she panted rapidly. Celestia ran back to Cadence's side, "What? What is it?" "She's trying to break through! She- She- I can't hold this Celestia! I- Annngh!" "Come on Sweetie," Shining said, trying his best to support his wife. "You can do this." "I can't! I couldn't hold her back at the Empire, and I can't do it here! We... we need to surrender before they kill us all..." "Not yet," Luna said firmly. "If we can fall back to the middle level and blow the bridge, her forces will be forced into a bottleneck, and we'll be able to hold a while longer." "But what's the point?!" Cadence screamed. "Are you really willing to let every pony here die just to keep Faust away from you?" Luna looked around the room, seeing a lot of the ponies there were now watching her. "No," she said after a few seconds. "But I'm not willing to give up so easily either. We'll fall back, destroy the bridge, and stymie their invasion for now. If they can make it past there, we will consider surrendering. Is that acceptable?" "They'll make it past," Cadence growled, "but fine, I accept. Shiny, I could use your help." "Alright." Shiny cast his magic on the Crystal Heart, letting his magic interweave with that of Cadence's, strengthening her shield and easing her burden if the way her expression slackened was any indication. "We'll hold it as long as we can, but until then you'll have to manage without me." Luna nodded once at Shining, "Understood. Everypony get moving. You all know what you need to do. Celestia, come with me." "But-" Celestia started to say, her eyes lingering on Cadence. "But nothing Celestia, Shining will get Cadence to safety once the shield falls, and we will have plenty else to do." -0-0-0- The source of Cadence's pain became pretty obvious as Celestia and Luna returned to the city entrance. Faust was there, her horn ablaze as she cast a beam directly at the shield that threatened to burn through it. Luna didn't need to be creating the shield to know that it was rapidly failing. The Heart fed on love, and in its current state, Canterlot wasn't exactly brimming with such emotions, and neither was Cadence herself. Luna wasn't sure whether she should be scared for Cadence, or of her. Ponies were fighting to get the remaining functional cannons down from the wall, taking care to stay away from the gatehouse as it still shimmered with heat. Luna quickly added her efforts to get the cannons down, and instructed the crews in charge of them to get them set up at the entrance to Canterlot's middle level. As that went on, ponies crowded the defensive positions through the lower level, armed with their newest weapon and ready to put up a fight. Unicorns occupied the tallest buildings to discourage the griffons, but with their air forces so weak, it seemed doubtful that the griffons wouldn't be a problem. "I hope you are ready sister," Luna said to Celestia as they stood side by side, watching Faust as she tore her way through the shield. "This is likely to be quite the battle." "If it spares our ponies, I will gladly be their shield." Luna rolled her eyes, "You're being dramatic." "Oh, excuse me," Celestia said back sarcastically. "I meant, bring them on! I'm really not standing here to make up for my massive mistake from earlier, which resulted in Faust getting just what she needed to break through our gates." "You know she hardly needed the dragonsfire to do that." "Those gates were enchanted steel Luna! We'd have trouble even bending them with magic, let alone cutting through them!" Luna was quiet for a moment, then smirked humourlessly. "Was the gatehouse itself enchanted?" "I beg your pardon?" "Was the gatehouse magically toughened? I suspect the strength of gates would've mattered little if their housing was vulnerable." Luna smirked again as Celestia failed to answer her, "Perhaps we had best prepare Canterlot better for the next time this happens." "The next time this happens, we're going to weigh our options a little more sensibly first, and not rush headlong into the first plan we come up with." "Oh, well, sorry if the biggest mistake here was listening to me," Luna said with a pout. "Perhaps we'd all be better off if we listened to Cadence. Oh wait no, she agreed with me as well. At first at least. Heavens forfend that this plan would've worked perfectly if not for dear mother over there!" Luna pointed a hoof at Faust, "How are we supposed to compete with that?" "We aren't, and we shouldn't have tried to." "Isn't that the truth," Luna sighed. "Still, here we are in this situation with little choice but to try and hold them off." A loud, resonant boom came from the shield as cracks started to run up it. Faust intensified her magic, breaking through the shield and letting her magic travel past it in a narrow beam that went between Celestia and Luna, narrowly missing both of them, and impacting against a building, blasting a large chunk out of it. She then tore the gap wider until the shield could no longer support itself, and collapsed. "I'm glad you're here with me Celestia." Celestia opened her mouth to reply, but stopped when she saw the smile Luna was giving her, and instead smiled in return. She looked back at the sound of rushing water, seeing Faust pull a large amount of water from the river and direct it to the gatehouse, cooling it enough to allow her ponies to pass safely. "Here we go," Luna said, summoning her weapons as the heavily armoured figures of Mareitanian juggernauts charged through the steam. "Open fire!" A collection of glass orbs flew up over the defences towards the juggernauts. The tinkle of glass as they impacted was overcome by the roar of thunder as the lightning within was unleashed. The lightning grounded on the nearest thing it could find, which was the metal armour of the juggernauts in this case, chaining between the imposing metallic figures. Luna's jaw dropped at the same time as the juggernauts hit the floor. Some had survived, and were attempting to crawl away, but the majority were very much dead, and smoking a little. As a bonus, there was practically no damage to the city. Luna pulled her mouth shut with a click, as her sister continued to stare wide eyed at the bodies of the juggernauts. "I now wish we had made more of these." "And sometimes your capacity for destruction astounds me." "Actually, these are all Captain Spitfire's idea. I wasn't sure they would even work." They weren't given too much time to think about it as a cry sounded from the other side of the gatehouse, and a large number of nervous yet determined Mareitanians started to race through the gap. Both princess started firing their magic into the mass of soldiers, aided by their ponies, trying to push them back to the gatehouse where they could try and hold them back. Their attacks did nothing except highlight the shield protecting the Mareitanians, the lightning from the orbs crawling over it until it could ground itself in one of the buildings. As soon as the Mareitanians were in mêlee range, the shield dropped. Celestia blasted the nearest soldier to her, sending him flying backwards, buying herself a moment to attack. Solaris sang through the air, striking pony after pony, killing each one with a single fiery strike, but it was too little as the Mareitanians advanced like a flood. Within seconds both she and Luna were forced back to the first line of defences. Fire poured down from the nearest buildings onto the Mareitanians, who responded in kind with their Adepts, who shot their magic back rather than form a shield. Luna could only guess that they'd been ordered not to, to drive the attack forwards rather than take a defensive stance and form a stalemate. More of the lightning orbs were thrown by the Equestrians, and this time weren't interfered with by a shield, the thunderous booms blocking the screams of the Mareitanians. The pressure eased for a moment, allowing Celestia to find a firmer footing. She thrust her spear forwards, then turned it sideways to block a blow, the soldier's weapon deforming from the heat of her weapon. Beside her, Luna crossed her blades and swept the out in a arc that cut deeply into those Mareitanians in front of her. The moment soon ended though, and another volley of lightning orbs could only deter the Mareitanians for so long as they fell back into their usual tactic of shielding themselves. Celestia pressed the tip of her weapon against the shield, cutting through it enough that she could channel her magic through the spear and behind it. The section of the shield in front of her collapsed as the intense heat she channelled burned the casters, as much as it sickened her to do it. "Incoming!" All of them looked up at the shout, seeing the trails of smoke racing through the sky as the tanks beyond the river fired on the Equestrian positions. Shields were put up to defend against the explosives, but their aim was too poor to know where they would land with any certainty. Some landed beyond the shields, killing ponies further back that weren't even directly involved in the fighting yet, while other landed on buildings, sending deadly debris falling into the streets below. Celestia looked to her sister, getting a nod from her. She held her position as Luna called for their ponies to fall back to the next line of defences, where a space could be made for fresh soldiers to attack the Mareitanians. Celestia threw up a shield, then retreated herself, buying enough time to make herself ready as the shield fell. A barrage of magic, arrows, and lightning bombs fell on the Mareitanians as they tried to close the gap, and their hastily made shield wasn't enough to stop the magic of two alicorns on top of a large number of other unicorns, besides what else was throw at them. The Equestrians maintained the pressure until more fire from the tanks forced them to change tactic. The Mareitanians were also starting to spread out, while the Equestrians were occupying the main street through the city section that led to the bridge to the next level of the city. It was only a matter of time until they were being attacked on all sides. "Those cannons better be in position," Luna said over the racket of the battle. She winced at the tanks' fire impacted with their shield. "We shan't hold against an onslaught like this for long." -0-0-0- "I don't get it," Rainbow said, gesturing to the empty sky above them. "Where the fuck are the griffons? Why are we here defending against something that isn't even attacking us?" "But they could be," said Lightning. "You know that the moment we turn our backs they'll be here." "No, I don't know that, but what I do know is that our forces are taking a pounding down there." Rainbow pointed at the battle taking place in the lower city. "We should be helping them since the griffons aren't here." Lightning looked towards the battle, and chewed her bottom lip anxiously. "You know we can't just disobey orders Dash." "That's why we go to Soarin and convince him that the orders we want him to give us are the right orders. Come on Lightning, you know I'm right!" Lightning turned her gaze back towards the sky, which was still empty, save for clouds that could be hiding the griffons. "I don't know Dash, this is the kind of thing that gets us in trouble. As soon as we go to help, the griffons could be right here." "Oh for crying out loud! I'm only talking about making a bombing run. If the griffons turn up, we can totally go back and fight them in seconds." "Alright! Alright... let's give it a shot. I do have to admit that I'm curious what those lightning orb, bomb, thingies, can do to those tanks." "Woo! Now we're talking!" Rainbow raced ahead, leaving Lightning and Vapor to catch up as she sought out Soarin. She found him in the courtyard, along with a sort of pink pony that she didn't expect to see there. "Uh, Pinkie, why are you covered in dirt?" "We were digging a trap out under the Mareitanians, although that silly ole meany Faust fixed it in seconds. That was a waste of a day..." "Not entirely," Azure purred, kissing Pinkie on the cheek. Rainbow blinked at the pair of them, "Uh, what was that? Did she just kiss you?" "Huh? Oh right! Okay Rainbow Dash, since the rest of our friends are either in prison or far away, you get to be the first to find out that me and Azure are together now." "Together... as in marefriends?" Rainbow screwed her face up a little as Pinkie nodded, "Pinkie, I honestly had no idea you were gay." Pinkie giggle-snorted at Rainbow, "Me either, and I'm still totally into stallions and stuff, and so is Azure, so maybe we're just gay with each other? I don't know, but I like the way it makes me feel tingly inside." Pinkie lost her smile as Rainbow continued to stare blankly at her. "Aren't you going to say anything? Maybe congratulations, or good on you, you crazy pair of lovebirds? Anything?" Rainbow rubbed a hoof between her eyes, "This is so not a conversation I thought I'd be having right now, not when I was coming to convince Soarin to let us attack the Mareitanians. Besides, me and the others had you pegged to be the second most likely out of us to meet a stallion and have kids." "Oh? Who's first?" "Applejack." "Really? All she ever really does is work. How is she supposed to meet somepony? Wow I sound mean saying that." "Fluttershy was third." "But she's even less outgoing than Applejack! How is she third?" "Because Rarity doesn't really want kids, and neither do I. Pretty sure Twilight isn't looking either thanks to her hang-ups over her immortality." "Uh! But I'm the most outgoing-est pony there is! How am I second?" "Because Applejack is all about the family thing, so it made sense. There's also the thing about you now being with a mare that probably puts you behind Fluttershy, but still way ahead of me." "Why is this even a topic of conversation?" Azure asked the both of them, halting their discussion. "Aren't you, like, happy for us?" "I suppose, yeah. I hope you're happy together-" Rainbow glanced back towards the battle, "- for however long that might be." Pinkie huffed at Rainbow, "Thank you for that rather disingenuous sounding approval of our relationship." "Ugh, I'm sorry, and I am happy that you found somepony you like, but I'm also really confused by it at the same time, because you've never even hinted towards liking mares that way." Azure smiled cheekily at Rainbow, "Why? You try to find out yourself?" "I'm not gay!" "Seriously? Then why the blatantly gay hair colours?" "It's natural! Not dyed, natural!" "Oh, my bad, I just kinda thought that-" "Yeah, you and half of Equestria," Rainbow grumbled, before she reined her anger back in. "Sorry, but I kinda have a bit of a thing about this. Before you think it, I don't hate lesbians, I know not to call you filly-foolers, and I am happy for you both, but right now I'm also confused, and there's a battle going on just over there that I really need to get myself involved in, so if you two crazy love birds will excuse me, I have stuff to do." "That's fair," Azure said as Rainbow turned away. "I get the feeling that we're going to have to talk about this with her again," she said to Pinkie. "Actually, I think the battle over there might be a priority. Maybe we should leave her to it." Rainbow walked up to Soarin and saluted, "Sir, permission to-" "Permission granted." "Huh?" Soarin nudged his head towards Lightning and Vapor, "They already discussed it while you were arguing with the happy couple over there." He pouted at the two earth ponies, "Wish I had time to sit around and whisper sweet nothings into Spitfire's ear during a battle." "You literally do that all the time," said Fleetfoot. "Not true. I'm usually doing other stuff at the same time and multitasking like a pro. Anyway, permission granted, just give us time to gather the other Wonderbolts and the Air Corp for a proper strike." "Uh..." "Grab an L-bomb and get yourself ready." "L-bomb?" "Lightning bomb," Fleetfoot explained. "Very different to the L-bomb those two lovers just dropped on you." "Right." Rainbow saluted and walked away, muttering to herself. "Of all the things I expected today, being really confused was not one of then." "Problem?" Lightning asked as Rainbow came and sat next to them. "Pinkie and Azure are together now." "Okay, good for them." "That's all you have to say about it?" "Since I don't really know either of them that well, yeah. Really don't think it's something worth worrying about right now." "Yeah, you're right." Rainbow sat and waited as the rest of the fliers assembled, doing the exact opposite of not worrying about it, but right now, if it made Pinkie happy, then maybe things would work out fine. "Okay," Soarin shouted once the fliers were all assembled, "you all get one L-bomb each, then it's blades after. The princesses need our help, so lets not disappoint them." Rainbow was the first to fly over and grab one of the bombs, juggling it in her hooves as her flight suit stopped her gripping it properly. Pegasi might be more resistant to lightning than the average pony, but there were limits to what they could survive. "Careful, these things are slippy." As soon as they all had their own orb, they all took off, with the Wonderbolts taking the lead. "Wanna find out what these will do to tanks?" Rainbow asked her wingmates. "If cannon fire barely scratches them, probably nothing," Lightning said flatly. "Mmhmm, but what about the ponies inside them? It'll make things easier if some of the tanks aren't firing." Lightning shrugged, neither arguing or conceding the point. Frankly the three of them knew that curiosity was going to make them do it, so when they flew over the Mareitanians in the city they kept hold of their bombs, and flew out over the wall towards the three nearest tanks by the river. The three of them aimed their throws without slowing down, and felt the boom as they whipped past their targets and circled back around. As predicted the visible damage was practically nothing, but they weren't firing, and one of the tanks was pushing against the side of another, its operator having slumped against the driving levers. After several seconds it reached the edge of the river and fell in, the angle it fell at, and the weight of the water rolling it along until it went right over the waterfall. "Dude, that was awesome!" "I get the feeling that we should have invented those months ago," said Lightning. "Whatever," she shrugged, drawing her blades, "Let's buy our ponies some time to get out." -0-0-0- Luna could have cheered as the pegasi flew over, dropping their lightning bombs. She did cheer as they came back and started to attack, but kept it short as there was plenty to do. They weren't holding the Mareitanians here, so they only had one course of action left. "Retreat! Retreat back to the second level!" Luna stood her ground as her forces broke and fled for the bridge to the second level. It wasn't exactly a wide bridge, so time would be needed to make sure everypony got across. Luna and her sister, along with the pegasi, would buy them that time. Thankfully the Mareitanians had the sense to get to cover after the pegasi had bombed them, and their continued attacks were keeping them there. It did come to Luna to wonder why the pegasi were able to attack like this, but there wasn't a griffon to be seen. Perhaps the battle in Cloudsdale had damaged their numbers to the point they had withdrawn. Luna staggered as an arrow struck her shoulder, ricocheting off the edge off of her armour into the exposed flesh between two plates. She cursed her lack of focus, and pulled it out, casting it to the floor. The Mareitanians were beginning to realise they were about to lose their prize, and were risking the pegasi and princesses to reach the bridge. Luna swung a blade at the first to try and run past her, removing two of his legs. Celestia threw herself in front of two others, using her height to rear up and smash her armoured hooves into their faces. They then ducked as a squadron of pegasi swept in from behind the Mareitanians, and Luna found herself having to blink their blood out of her eyes. A distraction she didn't need as an Adept blasted Celestia. Celestia cried out in pain as the magic burned into the exposed area on her side where the armour was absent to allow free movement of the wings. If Celestia hadn't had her wings spread, the wing would've borne the brunt of the attack instead. Even so, she staggered and barely kept herself upright. Luna threw one of her glaives at the Adept and ran over to Celestia, catching her and leaning against her as she tried to stay on her hooves. "Damn it Celestia! It's times like this that I wish your generous flank wasn't such a big target!" She grit her teeth as the Mareitanians began to close in on them, "Can you run?" "I- I-" Celestia gave up on speaking, and nodded instead. "Good, make for the bridge!" Luna ran with her sister, keeping an eye on both her and what was behind them. The cannons seemed to be ready to fire, so Luna ushered Celestia over the bridge with the last of their forces, then turned back to fire a powerful, yet totally unaimed beam of magic to deter their pursuers for a moment. She then ran over the bridge, destroying it as she ran, leaping to safety as it collapsed into the river. "Fire the cannons!" The cannons boomed, and a shield boomed with them as the cannonballs struck a shield that appeared in a flash between the cannons and the Mareitanians. The Equestrians readied themselves as Faust calmly walked up to the broken bridge and stopped. She then raised her head, her horn shining as she finally allowed the sun to sink to the horizon. A moment later she raised the moon. Her point made, Faust turned and walked away, the Mareitanians following after her. Luna fell to her rear and gasped for a breath she didn't know she'd been denying herself. "It seems we've been granted a reprieve. I never thought I'd be grateful for the day we received mercy off Faust." Luna sighed, then twitched her ears at the lack of a reply off her sister, then jumped back to her hooves as she remembered Celestia was injured. "Is it bad?" Celestia asked breathlessly as Luna tore her armour away. She didn't want to look herself, but it felt bad. "The good news is you're not bleeding rainbows. The bad news is you are bleeding blood. Quite a lot of it." Luna cupped her magic over the wound, trying to keep it in Celestia's body. "My diagnosis is that you're an alicorn, so you'll be fine. Cease being such a baby." "Do you even know the last time I bled?" "Was it shaving your moustache this morning?" "Mousta- Luna! Hundreds of our ponies have just died to buy us a day's worth of time. A day! You should not be making jokes!" "I know, and I'm sorry." Luna looked around as the wounded were seen to on a platform barely meters away from enemy territory. So much had been lost just to buy them a day, but for what? It occurred to her that she didn't really know why they were still fighting. It got them nothing. Celestia laid her head down, fighting back tears, and not just from the pain. So many lives lost, all for one purpose that was going unfulfilled. They were supposed to be buying time for Twilight, and were failing to, but that didn't override the one problem they had with that plan. Where exactly was Twilight?

The end of an era

45. There's sand in my everything

Trixie tipped up her canteen, emptying it over herself. She then closed it, let it refill, and did it again, and was about to go for a third time when the fuschia magic of Twilight snatched the canteen away. "Hey!" "What have I told you about running up my water bill?" "But it's sooooo hot! There's sand in places there shouldn't be sand, and I feel like I'm dying out here! Why can't we travel at night?" "Because the night is only like six hours long out here, and we need to travel for more than six hours a day." Twilight thrust the canteen back towards Trixie, "Just suck it up." "You mean the water, or..?" "Besides," Mayfly chirped happily as she buzzed around on her newly recovered wings, "it's really not that bad." "You would say that, wouldn't you?" Trixie grumbled at Mayfly. "It reminds me of home, only with less rocks, and changelings, and insects, and tatzlwurms, and other things that try to kill you on an hourly basis, and... with considerably more endless plains of sand." "So... not at all then." "It's mostly just the temperature, yes." "How you doing Moondancer?" Sunset asked, not minding the temperature as much as the others herself. "Remind me again why I came on this stupid adventure." "Because of some innate sense of responsibility towards the world, where you could help save it instead of leaving it to other ponies?" Moondancer pushed her glasses up her nose, "Yeah, the me that thought that was an idiot." Trixie snickered at Moondancer, "Unlike the actual you that got turned on over the thought of getting credit for finding Starswirl's secret retreat. I know which version of Moondancer I find more believable." "I find myself struggling to disagree with that," Moondancer said. "Sans the getting turned on though." "Alright, why am I here then?" Daring do asked, her shirt wrapped around her head to keep the sun off, and her helmet placed over it. "I don't remember agreeing to come here at all." "Maybe because we saved your ass back in Saddle Arabia?" Trixie said to the pegasus. "Or because we got you out of being deported back to Equestria while it's at war? Or because we got you out of prison, where you would've been stuck for a long time after the attack on the city? Maybe we thought an archaeologist might be useful where we're-" "Ahahahaha!" Moondancer laughed suddenly, making the rest of the group look at her funny. "What?" Daring Do and Trixie asked simultaneously. "Are you serious? Daring Do is to archaeology what a... wrecking ball is to architecture! You use zero scientific procedure, and destroy more than you discover! How much ancient knowledge, and how many long lost temples have been destroyed by you just to get some silly trinket?" "I'm saving lives by doing that!" "Yes, so you're a hero, but that doesn't make you an archaeologist in the slightest." Daring Do flapped her mouth as she tried to think of a way to defend herself. "A lot of the stuff I've destroyed you wouldn't want to discover! I'm talking about really dangerous stuff here." "Still doesn't make you an archaeologist." "Oh come on! You guys are with me, right?" Daring asked, looking to the others. "Come on Sunset, you're cool, you know I'm right." "Actually, I've not read a lot of your stories, but what I have does kind of make it sound like Moondancer may have a point. Besides, aren't you more like an author?" "As a secondary profession!" Daring stopped as she looked at every individual in the group, "So none of you really think I'm an archaeologist? I wouldn't be able to do half the things I do if I wasn't one!" Twilight cleared her throat politely, "You are quite knowledgeable about historical subjects, but you do have a tendency to destroy things, which isn't exactly what a true archaeologist is about, even if you are saving the world by doing it. I'm sorry Daring, but Moondancer does have a point." "Well great! I save the world a couple dozen times, and all the thanks I get is you lot calling me a phoney. Thank you so very much. Time well spent." "You'll just have to prove yourself when we reach our destination," Sunset said to Daring. "An ancient city should present plenty of opportunities for you to show us the archaeologist you really are." "Yes! And I will, assuming we ever find it in this hellacious sand pit." Daring let her wings droop, their tips tracing lines in the sand as she walked. "How anything even managed to live here long enough to build a city is beyond me." "According to Starswirl's writings it wasn't always like this," Sunset told her. "It used to be lush and green once." "Not any more," Trixie said back. "At the very least, I do find it refreshing that nothing is actively trying to kill us for once." Twilight groaned loudly at Trixie, "Just go and jinx it why don't you? Anyway, I'm pretty sure this desert's been trying to kill us since we got here." "And that's why we've got to be smarter than it." "And how do we do that, Trixie?" "By only travelling at night, when the desert is sleeping." "For fuck sake Trixie..." "I see something!" All of the started peering around at the shout from Mayfly, but none of them could see what she did from the ground, as pointed out by Trixie when she said she couldn't see anything. "It's something sticking out of the sand. This way!" All of them followed after Mayfly as she flew ahead towards whatever it was she saw. They crested a sand dune, finding a single pillar jutting out of the sand below them. As they got closer they could see half of a pillar next to it, just peeking out of the sand. "Wow," Trixie said sarcastically, "good job guys, we found it. Go on Daring, archaeologicify it." Daring ran a hoof over the vertical ridges running down the pillar, "It seems reminiscent of the early Saddle Arabian architecture from around one thousand b.e, but considerably older. Thing is though, and this could be from exposure over time, but this pillar appears to have been carved by magic, rather than by tools like the Saddle Arabians would've used. Also, judging by the lack of nearby buildings, or any further masonry, I guess this might've been used to demark a boundary, or since there's two, a gateway into something." Daring smirked at the others, "Good enough for ya?" "There's more further along," said Mayfly. "Then they might have lined a road. I suggest we follow the pillars." "Sounds like a plan," Twilight agreed. -0-0-0- As Twilight could work it out, it was roughly a mile between pairs of pillars, and it wasn't until they'd past the tenth set that things started to get interesting. The sand had been growing less prolific, and the wind that blew it about weaker and weaker, enough so to not bury everything, including the stone road they now walked upon. "I think this is even fucking hotter than the sand," Trixie complained. The ruined outlines of buildings were more easily seen now, and as they came closer to their destination, the buildings became less ruined all the time, save for sections having crumbled down, although Daring had a different theory. "I think there was a battle here, or a fight, or something." She pointed at several holes in an otherwise solid stone wall, "That sort of damage is more like something magic would do." "A war over resources perhaps?" Twilight said after Daring shared her idea. "Whoever lived here getting desperate as the desert crept in, fighting over food and water?" "That sounds more like a free-for-all," said Trixie. "Even if there were sides in that kind of battle, those sides would still fall apart after a while." "I think ponies lived here," Sunset said, poking her head out of a building she'd wandered into. "Come have a look at this." The building she led them into appeared to be a bathhouse, if the large, square, pool-like sections were any indicator. Sunset led them past the empty pools to a wall covered with a badly damaged mosaic. Although damaged, it wasn't too hard to make out the pony-like creatures it depicted, as they played and frolicked happily. Some obviously had wings, and some horns, and all of them had a stature more akin to Saddle Arabian ponies, but the damage was too severe to pick up anything more than that. "This is amazing!" Twilight squealed. "This suggests that not only did the ponies of Saddle Arabia come from here, but they once had unicorns and pegasi in their ancestry!" "Then why don't they now?" Moondancer said to Twilight, tempering her joy. "Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves in assuming these are early Saddle Arabians we're looking at." "Right, of course. Perhaps we should head deeper into the city and see if there are any images more intact than these." "And also if there's a mirror somewhere," Trixie reminded them. "We'll probably find both those things close together," said Sunset. "I would like to know more about this place though." "I'm afraid this is all pretty new to me," said Daring. "Which means learning about it like a proper archaeologist," she added meaningfully, "not destroying it." As they expected, the city was more intact the further they travelled into it, although there was still plenty evidence suggesting that fighting had broke out, although it wasn't until they found an entire building that had been melted into an obsidian-like substance that they realised the ponies that lived here had access to considerable magic, beyond what most ponies could do today. "This entire places feels wrong," Mayfly whispered nervously. "It's not that it's empty, but it feels... dead. More than dead. Completely lifeless, like a void. The entire desert was the same, but it feels worse here." "I know what you mean," Twilight said. "There's no birds, or insects, or anything alive at all. The magic here feels strange too. I can feel something powerful up ahead, but here and in the desert there's nothing. There's always magic to some degree everywhere, but not here, like it was destroyed, or taken away." "So it's a spooky dead city," Trixie scoffed dismissively. "Frankly, I think we've dealt with worse things. Let's just find that mirror and get out of here." Moondancer frowned at Trixie, "Do you really not care about any of this?" "I'm not saying I don't care, or that it isn't interesting, but it's been here for thousands of years, and will continue to be here for thousands more. Right now we have bigger priorities than something you can all study later." Twilight sighed, knowing that Trixie was right, and that academic discoveries took a serious back seat to saving the world. "She has a point. Let's head to the centre and start searching for what's left of the mirror, if there's anything left to find." It hurt Twilight to not be able to investigate the city's history, especially as the destruction became worse in the centre, but for a very different reason. A massive circular design sat in the centre, and the buildings appeared to have been destroyed to make room for it, and in a hurry too as the rubble from the half destroyed buildings had been piled up everywhere, rather than removed with the rest of the buildings. More significant was the circle itself. The entire thing thrummed with power, and appeared as new as the day it was made. It was intricately designed with images and runes, and as Twilight started to try and read through them, she kept finding familiar symbols for binding. This wasn't just a design. It was a design with a purpose. It killed her to not be able to study it. "It's going to be hard to detect the mirror through the magic this thing is putting out," Twilight said to the others, dragging herself away. "Assuming it's still here of course. We should split up and search everything we can while we still have a few hours of daylight." Moondancer glanced nervously around the destroyed city, "Are you sure splitting up is a good idea? Maybe we should go in pairs?" Twilight tried to hide her sigh, but felt she made it too obvious that she was trying to hide it. "Alright, you and Sunset can stick together, I'll go with Daring, and Trixie, you're with Mayfly. Meet back here in two hours." -0-0-0- "I keep getting the feeling something bad is going to happen," Daring said as she and Twilight searched through one of the buildings near the city centre. "Nothing more specific than that to say?" "What do you want from me? We should definitely expect a lion attack? Something that specific?" "That seems rather unlikely." Twilight poked at a wooden door, the wood collapsing into fragments around her hoof. It might've been thousands of years since the building was used, but to her it still felt like an invasion of privacy. This had been somepony's home once. "In my experience, you should never discount anything happening, ever." "Auhizotl's dead, so you never have to expect an attack off his cats again. Although you might, since they were suspiciously absent when we killed him." "Still can't believe Trixie killed him," Daring grumbled. She picked up a pot, dropping it as the part she was holding broke away from the rest. "That doesn't count! That was an accident!" "I don't think anypony is going to penalise you for breaking a pot by accident," Twilight tittered. "Just try not to destroy the city." "I am not that bad!" Twilight giggled and smirked at Daring, "Perhaps we should stay away from any temples." "Ugh, first you destroy my career, and now you're making fun of me. Some friends you are." Daring walked into the next room, sighing when she found nothing. "I think we're going to have to think bigger than searching through these ponies homes." "Yeah, I know. There was a nice temple-y looking building a bit further on." "Oh har har, very funny." "I'm being serious actually." "Uh-huh. Aren't you afraid I might destroy it?" "Not really. If you made a point of destroying things like that I might be worried, but generally speaking, it's rare that you intentionally set out to destroy anything, so I think we'll be fine." Daring said nothing, instead letting Twilight lead the way to the temple, keeping up as the alicorn trotted up the few steps to the entrance. A bit of sand had built up around the pillars lining the entrance, but that seemed the to be the only detractor from what was an otherwise totally intact building. "These buildings must've been built magically to last like this." "That wouldn't surprise me since there was unicorns living here," Twilight replied, stopping as she passed through the entrance. The temple opened out into a large room, with columns of pillars supporting the still intact room. There were no decorations or images inside, but there was an unusual colour scheme to the chamber where the left side of the room was dark and shadowed, and the right side light and airy, meeting and blending in the middle. All of it was accentuated by an altar at the far end of the chamber, decorated by three decorative, bowl shaped braziers that contained three different flames, although it wasn't fire they were holding. Twilight cautiously walked towards the altar, mostly because Daring was acting like she expected a booby trap at any moment, but also because she had no idea if what she was looking at was dangerous in the slightest. She headed towards the middle brazier, watching the orb of magic that floated above its surface burn with wispy flames that changed between blue and purple, although all the colours of the rainbow could be seen flickering in its light. "What is that?" Daring asked as Twilight stared deeply into the fire. "It's magic," Twilight replied simply. "Okay, that's nice, but what is it?" "Magic, like I said. Raw magic." Twilight reached with her magic, intermingling it with that of the orb, and taking hold of a piece of the flame. She gently teased it out of the brazier and held it close to her, feeling the tiny pulse it gave out. It sputtered, then burst into a ray of light much like the aurora that the Crystal Empire could create with the Crystal Heart, before getting drawn back into the brazier. "Maybe you should not mess with things like that," Daring suggested calmly, picking herself up and dusting herself off after diving for cover. "Sorry," Twilight said, finally pulling herself away from the flame. "This really is amazing though, to think these have been burning here for thousands of years." "I'm pretty sure burning implies a need for fuel." Daring glanced between the three braziers, "These just... are. What are the other two flames?" Twilight went right towards the light side of the room, towards the brazier that held a shimmering orb of yellow light. She knew it was light magic, and her horn told her it was, but something about the way it was kept here told her the inhabitants of the city had regarded it as something more. The same went for the dark, sputtering flame at the other end of the altar that burned with blacks, greens, and purples, although it seemed less tumultuous and painful to the eye than the dark magic Twilight knew and recognised. "I'm guessing this is supposed to symbolise some kind of balance between light and dark?" Daring said hopefully as Twilight continued inspecting the three flames. "I don't really know since I can't really do magic. It all tends to be a bit beyond me." "It seems to be," Twilight said unsurely. There was still something about this that suggested something different. "And I'm guessing that's supposed to be harmony in the middle?" Twilight quickly shook her head, "No, harmony is the balance between order and chaos, not light and dark. I'm not sure this represents a balance at all, but rather three different aspects of something. This might be a bit of a stretch, but this entire civilisation might have based themselves upon magic." "Even the non-unicorns? Life must've been a bitch for them living here." "Perhaps, but I still feel like I'm missing something." Twilight looked around the chamber, seeing the entrances to two antechambers leading off it. "Maybe there's some clues in these other rooms." "And maybe a mirror?" "Uh, right, yes." Twilight grinned sheepishly at Daring, knowing that she'd been sucked into the mystery of the place. "You should definitely look for a mirror as well while you find out whatever else you can." She pointed towards the doorway on the dark side of the temple, "You go that way." "And why am I going that way?" "Because dark magic has a tendency to mess with magic users, and I'd rather not take the risk. I'll be over here." Twilight pointed towards the light side antechamber, then started walking towards it as Daring grumbled and headed to its counterpart. The large antechamber was mostly intact, and pleasantly light as large windows let in the sun from outside that shone against the white marble. There was even furniture in the room, although it wasn't in a very good state. Most curiously was the small holes in the floor, three of them in a row, and big enough to hold two ponies at a squeeze. There were decorations on the wall, but none seemed to give an hint as to the nature of the room. For all she could tell, it was a room for bathing in, but since there were actual bathhouses in the city, why have one here in the temple? "Huh, neat. Birthing pools." "What?" Twilight looked at Daring Do as the pegasus inspected the three holes. "These are birthing pools?" "Yeah. Was it not obvious?" "Not to me! How do you know what they are?" "I've seen similar, although they weren't thousands of years old. In fact, these are the only ones I know of older than a hundred years at most. Whoever these ponies were, they were way ahead of us in some ways." "Birthing pools," Twilight said, ignoring Daring. "Birthing pools and beds... meaning this must have been some kind of maternity unit. Huh..." Twilight returned her attention to Daring, "What was in the other chamber?" "Judging by the stone slabs and the holes in the walls, I'm pretty sure it was a morgue." "A morgue?" Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin, a line of thought starting to form. A morgue could be firmly associated with death, which could loosely be connected with dark magic she supposed, but the maternity chamber was harder to associate with light magic... unless the ponies here thought of it as something else. "Life and death." "Excuse me?" "They didn't view it as light and dark magic, but the magic of life and death. The morgue is fairly obvious to figure out, but here, what could be a greater expression of life than birth? They must have worshipped, or embraced at least, the cycle of life and death! Ooh, this is so fascinating! Why in Equestria did Starswirl keep this discovery to himself?" Twilight asked rhetorically as she walked back out to the main chamber. "There's just one small problem with this theory." Daring rolled her eyes, "And what might that be?" "Dark magic is more than just death, and light magic is more than just life, so why treat them that way?" "Just a pegasus, Princess, so I have no idea. Maybe we should get on with finding that mirror, and leave the mysteries to another time." "I guess so." Twilight kicked a hoof at the floor, "Typical, we find the discovery of a lifetime, and have to ignore it as we search for another." -0-0-0- Trixie had made a beeline for the largest building in the city, not far from the circle, suspecting it to be a palace, and therefore a site containing at least a moderate amount of riches. She also made sure it was a beeline, and not a direct route, because Mayfly was with her, and Trixie had to be Trixie. "What are you expecting to find in the palace?" Mayfly asked, flying just back from Trixie as she trotted swiftly. "The mirror, obviously. What else could I possibly be looking for?" "You should stop trying to lie to an empath. I can tell you're looking for more than the mirror. This one suspects you might be trying to find valuables." "The mirror is valuable." "I haven't stopped being an empath in the last ten seconds, Trixie." "Wha-at?" Trixie whined. "It's valuable!" "Doesn't mean it's all you're looking for." "Alright! I'm going to attempt to multitask in the finding of things, okay? I also happen to think that the palace would be a good place for Starswirl to use as his camp, on account of how intact it is." "I cannot fault your logic there at least." Mayfly soared past Trixie, flying up the stairs to the palace as the unicorn clambered up them. "It does seem to be the most hospitable place to live while here. Could use some cocoons to really make it homely though." "That's disgusting," Trixie said absently, taking in the sight of the palace. Like many of the other buildings here, it featured pillars in abundance, although that was less interesting to Trixie than the large number of blast marks and molten patches that covered them. The massive doors had been torn off their hinges and cast aside as well, making it clear that the palace hadn't escaped the fighting that had seemed to engulfed the rest of the city. "Why is everything so well preserved here?" Mayfly asked, stomping a hoof on the massive doors. "These should be rotten at least." "You need water for things to rot," Trixie answered, "and there's not a lot of water in a desert." "In that case, if nothing rots here, where are all the bodies of the ponies killed in the fighting? Ponies had to have died, otherwise what's the point of fighting if they didn't? Their skeletons should still be here at least." "That... is a very good point." Trixie turned to look back at the city, catching sight of Twilight and Daring Do as they headed towards one of the larger buildings in the city. From her vantage point she could see a lot of the destruction caused by the fighting, so there had to have been some bodies somewhere. "Wait a minute, I'm getting sucked into this. Let's just look for the mirror, and get on with things." Trixie continued on her path into the palace, taking in the damage on the walls, but paying no mind to it, or to the large patch of floor that had been obviously melted at some during the battle. The rest of the room was too good to ignore in favour of the damage. Golden chandeliers hung from the roof where they hadn't fallen, gilt furnishings lined the edges of the room they were in, and at the far end, raised above it all, was a large throne made of the same white marble as the rest of the palace. The cushion was non-existent after so long, but Trixie hopped up into it anyway. "Nice," she said with a nod, surveying the room. "Very nice. These ponies clearly knew how to treat their royalty." A golden bowl was resting on the right arm of the chair, and Trixie tipped it towards her, finding that whatever it had held had long since mouldered away to nothing. Then it occurred to her that it hadn't moved for millennia, and she was the first pony to touch it in as long. She felt oddly ashamed of that, and put it back where it was, then slinked back out of the throne. "Okay, back to business." Trixie breathed deeply, and set to searching the palace, totally losing Mayfly in the first ten minutes of doing so as the changeling seemed to be in a world of her own as she meandered about. It disappointed Trixie that there didn't seem to be much to the palace. There were plenty of rooms, but many of them were empty of all but destroyed furniture, and none of that really had any value to Trixie. Whoever had stormed the palace had made a point of destroying as much as they could, except for the throne apparently. Trixie was more than ready to give up, when a shout from Mayfly caught her attention. "What's up?" Trixie asked Mayfly, having followed the shouts to their source. "Could you open this door?" Mayfly asked sheepishly, pointing at the heavy stone door behind her. "I can't do it." Something about the room smelled of treasure to Trixie, so she readily agreed to open it, although there was a small issue as to how. Force seemed to yield little in the way of results, and there didn't seem to be a lock she could find for her to manipulate. All the door had was a purple crystal set in its middle, that refused to acknowledge her attempts at using magic on it. Trixie was beginning to get frustrated that all Twilight had taught her was getting defeated by a door, and so she resorted back to what she had taught herself. Her horn bubbled with the queasy looking miasma of dark magic, and she grabbed hold of the door, only for the crystal to absorb her magic and turn black. There was a grinding sound, and a moment later the door ponderously swung open. "That's odd, and a little bit worrying," Trixie said, the magic on her horn dying down. She shrugged and dismissed her concerns as belonging to somepony with less treasure to find. Trixie strode into the darkened room beyond, her magic lighting the room up to reveal a treasure trove of, well, treasure. Gold and jewels glinted off every surface in the room, leaving both unicorn and changeling staring open mouthed at the display. "Mayfly, I think we're gonna be rich." "While I only have a passing acquaintance with the concept of wealth, I think you may be right." Trixie walked to the nearest shelf, finding it to be totally intact, and as good as the day it was made since it was made of solid stone, which was handy because there was a lot of stuff on it. She picked up a diamond, inspected it, then crammed it into her bags, along with a few others, and a small statuette of a dragon with tiny rubies for its eyes. She moved on and picked up two tubes of brittle black cloth. It took her a moment to work out they were a pair of black, thigh high socks. "Seriously? I mean... seriously?" Trixie tossed the socks away, and was about to pick up a few more bits of treasure when a large golden statue at the far end of the room caught her eye. It appeared to be an alicorn, but not one that Trixie recognised. "That's weird," Trixie murmured as she slowly moved closer, taking in the details of the statue. It was standing on its rear legs, its Celestia sized wings spread out to the sides of its body, which was shorter and more compact than Celestia was. A long leonine tail snaked out behind it, a lengthy tuft of hair on the very end of it. Cloven hooves adorned the ends of its legs, and the legs had a tuft of hair on the back above the hooves. Most significantly, to Trixie at least, was the horn that sat in the middle of its forehead. It was curved. "No freaking way..." Trixie pulled the statue out, turning it around to inspect it from every angle. "What kind of alicorn is this?" she asked out loud. "A common kind, for here at least," Mayfly answered her. "Come see this." Trixie gave one last lingering look at the statue, then headed to where Mayfly was. The changeling was standing in front of a tattered but still whole tapestry, depicting a large number of creatures like the statue. Every single one of them had a horn and wings, along with the cloven hooves. They were also all pale in colour, with only small variances compared to the colours of Equestrian ponies, except for their manes and hooves, which were just as colourful. At the highest point of the tapestry was an alicorn larger than the others, her long green mane covered in flowers. From the way the other alicorns gathered around her with what could only be reverence, Trixie concluded that she had to be the head honcho of the alicorns. "An entire nation of alicorns." Trixie tried to think of the implications, but couldn't. Instead she shrugged it off as fascinating, but ultimately useless. "I wonder what happened to them?" "I guess most of them vanished," Mayfly said. "What do you mean most of them?" "There's something else in here." Mayfly gestured with a hoof, leading Trixie deeper into the room, and stopped in front of something scattered across the floor. Trixie stared at it for a moment, then grinned as she had a terrible, terrible idea. "This is going to be so much fun." -0-0-0- "So," Moondancer said. "So," Sunset said back. "I don't suppose you have anything of interest to say about all this?" Sunset shook her head, "Not really." Moondancer tapped a hoof on the edge of the massive sheet of black, weather worn glass in front of her, watching the ripples of sand as they were blown across it. "Whatever lived here sounds terrifying. The kind of power needed to create something like this is- is... astounding!" "You got that right. Still, this is good. Starswirl mentioned staying near a sea of obsidian, so I'm guessing that this is it, even though it isn't really obsidian. We must be near his campsite now." "Any idea what we should be looking for?" "In the lee of several buildings, near the sea of obsidian," Sunset quoted. "I'd say calling this a sea is hyperbole, but it's the closest equivalent we have. All we need to do now is find a space between several buildings." "Okay, so that gap over there looks promising." Moondancer pointed to a gap between two buildings. "If we use this spot as a point of reference to search from, we'll find his campsite in no time." Sunset cracked a grin at Moondancer, "That's oddly optimistic for you." "Sorry, I meant we're bound to find it eventually." "Nah, I preferred the optimism." Sunset smirked as Moondancer huffed at her, then started walking towards the gap between the buildings. As soon as she made it through she knew this had to be the spot as three buildings formed a small courtyard with plenty of shade during the day. Unfortunately there was a small issue with sand from the desert blowing in as the edges of the courtyard was piled up with sand that blew around in an eddy that constantly shifted the sand around. "Ah, shit." "I wouldn't say it's as bad as you think." Moondancer pulled at the edge of something beneath the sand with her magic, dislodging the sand to uncover a tattered sheet of white canvas. "This looks like a tent to me-ah!" Moondancer screamed and jumped away as something screeched beneath the fabric, but it sounded like no animal either of them could name. Both of them jumped further back as something black started to eat through the tent, chewing a large hole through it until something went bang and golden light exploded out of the sand with a sound like the singing of angels. The two forces clashed, creating a shockwave that knocked the two ponies over. By the time they made it back to their hooves, there was no sign of the two magics, save for a scorch mark on the stone of the courtyard. "What was that?" Moondancer asked, keeping her distance as she adjusted her glasses. "That... that was a direct conflict between light and dark magic. And Starswirl kept that in his tent," Sunset added with a disbelieving shake of her head. "I can't believe he was experimenting with dark magic. I hope that didn't damage the mirror if it was in there." "Something tells me we should get the immortal to poke around this," Moondancer suggested. "I certainly don't want to." "I agree. These clearly aren't forces we want to be messing with if they can do that. Let's head back to that circle thing and see if Twilight's around." It wasn't too far to get back to the circle at the centre of the city, and life was made easier when they found Twilight there, using her magic to blow the sand off the circle, uncovering it. Daring was nearby, watching the alicorn with suspicion. "What are you doing Twilight?" Sunset asked as they joined her on the circle. She was surprised to find it was cool to the touch. "We didn't find the mirror, and time was getting on, so I thought we should come back here and have a look at this while we waited for you. I can't believe how amazing this place is Sunset! Look here." Twilight led them across the circle, pointing at a large number of figures carved into its surface. "They're alicorns! All of them! But they're different from alicorns like me though." Sunset studied the images, trying to work out what Twilight meant, and it was fairly obvious really, considering they had strange tails, tufts of hair on their legs, and curved horns... "Wait, curved horns? They used dark magic?" "And light. From what I found in the temple over there, they revered the cycle of life and death, and what we call light and dark magic, they considered life and death magic! Or so I think." Twilight smiled happily, "Isn't this all so fascinating?" "What are these?" Moondancer asked as she peered at the images on the circle. She pointed at some cloud-like beings, their wispy, ethereal nature not well portrayed by the stone images. "They look like ghosts." "I thought so too, but then I saw these." Twilight led them towards one of the outer rings of the circle. "There's none of those things here, but there are plenty of the alicorns, and they seem to be using both life and death magic, which suggests a lack of taboo on the death magic. Anyway, if we move in a couple of rings... here. Have a look." Moondancer twisted her head, trying to make sense of the image. It appeared to be a fusion of an alicorn and one of the cloud creatures, but she couldn't decide if it was meant to depict the alicorn dying and it's spirit coming free, or the alicorn directly turning into it. "I don't know either," Twilight said as Moondancer asked about it. "I'd say they turned into them though, because if you look here, the ghost creatures are fighting with the alicorns, which has to mean that it wasn't something that was meant to happen. The only question then is if that change was something they did to themselves, or something that was forced on them?" "So these ghost... things fought the alicorns?" asked Sunset. "Is that why the city is so damaged?" Twilight shrugged at the question, "I guess so, but that doesn't explain how they had time to create this thing if they were at war. I suspect this might've been created by the survivors as a warning." "Does that mean the survivors just stayed here and died then? I've never heard of alicorns like this before." "I don't kn-eep!" Twilight crouched as a booming, gravelly voice echoed around the buildings, sounding like it'd been inhaling the smoke from the fires of Tartarus for a thousand years. "You... dare disturb our rest?!" "Oh shit," Twilight cursed quietly. She cursed again as a skeletal form walked into view from the direction of the palace. Cold blue fire burned in its chest, and poured from its eye sockets. Its extended wings crackled with flames that acted like feathers, and its horn burned with that same cold fire. "You will pay for your trespass!" All four of them backed away as the skeleton stepped onto the circle, its bony hooves echoing on the stone. Twilight spread her wings protectively as she kept the others behind her. "It was not our intention to disturb anypony. Please, return to your rest, or I will attack." "All will pay the price for coming here, and the price is death!" Twilight lashed out with her magic, catching the skeleton on its leg. Rather than remove the leg, or even make the creature stumble, its leg stretched out, pulling the bones apart, and then refused to go back to where it was. Instead it spun about like a skipping rope held vertically, the bones within clattering as it bumped against the other front leg. Twilight cocked her head sideways in confusion, "What the..?" "Oh come on! Stupid animation errors." Trixie trotted into view and over to the skeleton, catching the leg in her hooves and returning it to its proper place, her horn glowing the entire time. It didn't take a genius to work out what was going on. "Trixie!" Trixie held up a hoof, "Hold that thought Twilight. Mayfly, can you say something? I don't think I'm syncing the mouth movements to your words." There was a shimmer in the air next to the skeleton, and Mayfly faded into view. "Okay then, this is a terrible idea made worse by you standing there." Trixie hung her head, "I know." She turned around and smiled at the four ponies she'd been trying to scare, "'Sup bitches? I found a totally awesome skeleton, and a whole bunch of treasure. You guys find anything?" Twilight sighed at the blue unicorn, "That's somepony's remains Trixie, show some respect." "Aww, Bonesy doesn't mind, do ya Bonesy?" Trixie nudged the skeleton, then whined as it said nothing. "Maaayflyyyy..." Mayfly rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically, "No Trixie, not one b- You know what? I'm done with this silly façade now. I'm not playing along any more." Trixie pouted at the rest of them, "You're all no fun. Anyway, more on topic, all the ponies that lived here were alicorns, but different to us. Pretty cool huh? I also think they used dark magic for stuff, which is also pretty neat. I'm guessing that's why their horns are curved." "There's no discolouration, and the twists are still visible," Twilight pointed out as she observed the horn on the skeleton. "That suggests to me that it's natural, although, I have once heard dark magic be referred to as alicorn magic by my zebra friend Zecora. I didn't know why she called it that at the time, but maybe legends exist of this place in Zebrica, and these alicorns were the original practitioners of what we call dark magic, hence alicorn magic. Interesting. Where did you find that skeleton?" "In a sealed room that was locked by a gem that I unlocked with dark magic," said Trixie. "Also, does that mean I've done alicorn magic?" Twilight nodded at Trixie, "Cool. Still destructively bad, but also cool. So the magic twists its users to look more like its original users?" "I suppose so," Twilight admitted, not really knowing. "I'm still wondering about something very important." "What's that?" Trixie asked. "How you found an alicorn skeleton." "It was sealed in a room. I don't think many ponies could survive that for long." Twilight raised an eyebrow at Trixie, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She gestured to herself when it didn't seem to be dropping in a hurry. "Oh shit! Alicorns are immortal! Twilight, how do I have an alicorn skeleton?" "I think we can only conclude that these alicorns aren't immortal," Twilight said. "But if that's the case, why haven't we found more remains? Why is this the only one?" Twilight looked down at the circle they were stood on and sighed, "I really wish we had the time to figure this out. It's going to bug me for ages now. Did any of you find the mirror?" "We did find Starswirl's camp," Sunset said, still eyeing up Trixie. "He was experimenting with light and dark magic there, and there was a bit of an explosion when we disturbed the tent. After that we thought it was best to get you Twilight, since not dying permanently is probably a bonus in case of more explosions." "Good thinking, and good work." Twilight picked up her bags and hoisted them over her back, and gave one last lingering look at the circle, a faint whine of disappointment escaping her throat as she pulled herself away to follow after Sunset. She only made it ten steps when the clattering of bones made her sigh. "Put the skeleton down Trixie." "But-" "Now." "Ugh, fine." -0-0-0- Twilight gently sifted through the sand as she searched the courtyard for the mirror. Sunset was sat nearby, flipping through a brittle, dried up journal that Twilight had found in the remains of the tent. "Oh hey, this is interesting." Sunset cleared her throat, "I know not why my beloved never made mention of this place as she must surely have known of a race of alicorns. Was she disgusted by their dalliances with dark magic, or was there more to her silence? One could assume ignorance on her part, but this civilisation is ancient, having perished long before the founding of even the old kingdom. There could be no way she was unaware of it." "I'd rather assume Faust was ignorant of it myself," Twilight said as Sunset fell silent. "I'm also sceptical of this place having died out over four thousand years ago." "He said before the establishment of the old kingdom, rather than the ponies themselves. That's probably less than four thousand years." Twilight shook her head, "Not really. The old kingdom is currently believed to have existed over two thousand years before the Exodus, and its been one and a half thousand years since that, making a total of three and a half thousand years at least. This place couldn't possibly be older than that." "Why not?" "Because- Because I don't want it to be," Twilight grumbled. The idea of this civilisation being as advanced as current civilisation four thousand years ago didn't sit right with her. "Does he at least say anything about what happened to the ponies here?" "Not that I can find. He says they vanished, and says he found no remains, which means he must still think them to be immortal like yourself and the princesses. To think Trixie discovered more about that by accident than Starswirl did with months of research." "Sometimes all you need to be is a lucky idiot." Twilight returned the gesture as Trixie stuck her tongue out at her from across the courtyard. "Any mention of the cloud creatures?" "I'm not sure. He refers to something he calls 'shadow beasts' quite often, but I have no way of telling if he means the cloud creatures, or something else. Honestly, his penmanship is terrible, which doesn't help." Sunset closed the journal with a slap, and tucked it into her bags, "As fun as this is, we're actually meant to be looking for a mirror, so maybe we should get on with that." "Easier said than done." Twilight wiped the sweat from her brow with a hoof, "I've been through this courtyard twice, and I haven't found even a hint of a mirror being here." "Okay, but I really think we need to get on with it." Twilight peered suspiciously at Sunset, "Why are you so concerned with finding the mirror all of a sudden?" "I've always been concerned, thank you very much, but right now I'm thinking of it a lot as the sun hasn't moved for almost two hours. Something tells me we should be concerned about that." "What?" Twilight looked up at the sun, although she quickly regretted it. "Ah! Damn it!" Twilight blinked the dots out of her vision, "Why didn't you say anything Sunset?" "Because last time something like this happened you told me to not worry about it. I figured you'd only say the same again." "I said that we can't do anything about it. Not to not worry about it." "Uh-huh, right, well the sun's not moved for a while, so maybe we should get on with finding that mirror?" "Actually, we've found it," Mayfly reported, flying over to them. "Although Moondancer wishes to convey that you might not like what we found." Twilight's heart sank, "Oh, okay. Lead on Mayfly." Mayfly waited for them to grab their stuff, then led them out of the courtyard and around the corner of a building that faced directly out to the desert. Moondancer was waiting there, with an expression that Twilight couldn't decipher. It seemed to be a mix between happiness, and being afraid of getting scolded by teacher. "Where is it?" Moondancer pointed to a crumbled alcove, where the sun shone directly down on in. In the alcove was a mirror, whole and undamaged, and seeing as how it wasn't reflecting what it was pointing at, but was instead a dull grey reflection of somewhere else entirely, Twilight could only assume it was fully operational, and had been since Starswirl left it there. "Motherfucker!" Twilight swore, surprised at herself for how angry she was getting for finding an undamaged key to their salvation. "So all the rest of the shit we did to get here was completely fucking pointless?" Twilight sat and covered her face with her hooves, only to end up screaming into them. Sunset patted Twilight on the back, mirroring Trixie who did the same. "There, there, Twilight, I know it's a little annoying, but this is exactly what we need right now." "I know, but-" Twilight tore the sack of mirror shards out of her bags and waved them in front of Sunset "-all the crap we went through just to get these bits has been for nothing!" Twilight threw the sack at the wall, splitting it and spraying bits of glass everywhere. "Urrgh!" Trixie sniggered at Twilight's tantrum, "Quit spitting your bit and pull yourself together. Seeing as you had no idea if you could really fix a mirror if we had to, maybe we should count ourselves lucky this is here." Twilight breathed in deeply, released it in one, then tried again. "Okay, you're right. We have a mirror, which is the important part. Now we can move on with our mission." Twilight stood and walked calmly over to the mirror, holding a hoof out to touch its surface, only to have it pass through. Nervous about what was going to happen, Twilight took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and bravely stepped forwards.

The end of an era

46. Not as you imagined it

Twilight gasped from the shock of cold air hitting her when she emerged from the portal. She'd been expecting some fantastical, psychedelic display like the portal to the human world, but it hadn't been much different from walking through a door, which left her unprepared for the chill on the other side. As she thought about it though, it was more the contrast from the sun blasted desert that made it feel colder. In reality it wasn't that bad. She'd emerged into a stone built, semi circle shaped room, coming out from one of the many mirrors that lined the curved portion of the room. The dozen other mirrors were either deactivated or cracked, as the one they came through seemed to be the only one working. It also had to be the reason why the room was half full of sand, the wind having blown plenty through the mirror over the centuries. "Ah!" Twilight turned around at the exclamation to find Sunset shivering on the spot. She grinned at the unicorn, "Bit of a shock, isn't it?" "You can say that again." Sunset blinked at the sight of all the sand, then followed on to look at the rest of the mirrors. "Huh. Guess it's a good job that mirror was working then, because trying to create a mirror out of all those fragments would never have worked without a mirror to connect it to." "I know." Twilight pouted at Sunset, "Still annoying though." "Aah-ah-ah! Damn that's cold!" "And there's Trixie." "I never thought I'd say this so soon, or ever, but I miss the desert." Twilight snorted with mirth, then lit her horn to drag Trixie out of the way as Moondancer came through, followed by Mayfly and Daring Do. All of them gasped at the change in temperature, and all of them looked at the sand as though it had offended them. Trixie turned on the spot, taking in the chamber, "So this is it then, Starswirl's secret retreat." "I suspect there's a little more to it than this," said Moondancer. "Obviously. Still, we're here, soooo... now what?" "That is an excellent question," Twilight muttered. "I guess we should just look around and see what we find." Twilight led by example, walking up the singular exit to the chamber. The sand grew less and less as they went, and it was only a short path until they exited into a much larger room containing a rather large library built into two layers. Golden orbs emitting a soft light lit the place with a warm glow, and Twilight, along with Moondancer, lost control of her jaw as they stared at shelf after shelf of ancient knowledge in Starswirl's private library. The others managed to be at least a little impressed. Mostly. "I wonder how many trees died for this place?" Trixie asked out loud. "I mean, between the shelves and the books..." "Don't ruin this for me Trixie!" Twilight gasped breathlessly. "Not in front of the books." Sunset smiled at Twilight's behaviour, then approached the nearest shelf. She picked a book at random and read the cover, "Mistmane's treatise on mass preservation. I'm pretty sure you can pick that up in any library though." She opened the cover, and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What is it?" Twilight asked as Sunset continued to stare at the inside cover of the book. "To my good friend Starswirl," Sunset read out loud, "I figured I'd get you a first edition for your library since you're a stickler for them, signed... Mistmane? She's supposed to be a legend, but here she is giving friendly messages to Starswirl the Bearded. I figured somepony else was just using Mistmane as a pen name." "It seems not." Twilight let her gaze wander off around where they were, and up the walkways above them. The entire place felt like a library built into a cathedral, with grand pillars, arches, and the massive space required to fit all this within. To the right of them she could see another hallway leading off somewhere, while the left was open like where they were now, except lit up with a cold blue light. Twilight shrugged and started heading left, hoping for the light to be a window that could show them where they were. Frankly she was more than a little interested in where Starswirl had managed to hide this place. The library ended and opened out into a big, round open space that had a large armillary sphere hanging from the ceiling, constantly turning as it depicted the dance of the sun and the moon around the world. Work benches covered with stacks of paper and discarded experiments bordered the sides of the room, while at the end was a big, concave window held together with solid lattice of iron-work. This was the source of the cold blue light, and quickly caught Twilight's attention. She ran over to the window and pushed her face up against it, trying to figure out where they were. There wasn't much to see as a blizzard was blowing outside, but she could just about make out nearby mountains. Judging by the way she was looking down at their bottoms, she could only conclude that they were inside another mountain. "This is the frozen north," Moondancer stated flatly. "We're actually in the frozen north. We were going the wrong way the entire time!" "I think it's unlikely we would've found this place by searching around the frozen north," Sunset said smoothly before Twilight could snap a reply back at Moondancer. "This really is the frozen north though. Why would Starswirl build his retreat here?" "To observe the windigoes," a male voice replied. "Of course, that became redundant after they were destroyed in the events concerning the Exodus." All of them turned from the window, searching for the source of the voice, but seeing nothing. Twilight was about to demand the speaker show themselves, when a mote of blue light zipped through the air towards them. It stopped, then started moving in a pattern, leaving a trail of light behind it that started to form the shape of a stallion. The mote ceased being visible as it moved faster, adding more and more detail to the stallion. It was literally like he was being sketched out of thin air. It wasn't until the beard was added that they suddenly knew what they were looking at. "Starswirl?" Twilight gasped. "Starswirl the Bearded?" "No," the stallion replied primly, "not quite." Twilight swore she could hear a melancholic note to his words then. "I don't know who you are, nor do I particularly care; you need to leave the way you came this instant." "But- but-" Twilight spluttered, "but we need your help!" "I said I don't care. Leave the way you came, and take some of that damn sand with you. The changeling too." Trixie snorted a laugh as the others dithered at the illusion's stern words, "And what if we refuse? What are you going to do about it?" "I am in possession of deadly weapons and spells I shall have no choice but to use if you refuse to leave. This is your only chan-" "Perfect! That's exactly the kind of thing we're looking for, so if you want to show us your deadly weapons and spells, that would be great." This time it was the illusionary Starswirl's turn to be taken aback. "I beg your pardon? You wish to have my arsenal used upon you?" "Yep." "...Oh darn. I never thought that would happen. Uh..." "You don't actually have anything, do you?" Trixie smiled as the illusion sighed and shook his head, "That's a shame for all of us then, now if you don't mind, we have a lot of stuff to do." "But you can't! This is the Master's private library! Not just anypony can go poking around in here to their heart's content!" Trixie started taking exaggerated steps back towards the library, "Just you watch me." "Trixie, wait." Twilight smiled apologetically at the illusion, "I'm sorry to impose ourselves upon you, but the world is in danger, and the knowledge you have here could help us. I'm not sure who you really are, but-" "I am the curator of this library, and it is my duty to keep it clean and organised for the Master, as well as to act as a helper when he requires me to be so." "So, we can call you Curator then?" "The Master called me Starsy." Twilight went blank for a moment, as she tried to put the cute nickname together with the image of Starswirl she kept in her head. "Yeah... I'm not doing that. Look, Curator, I know we're intruding, but we are on an important mission to protect not just Equestria, but the world from a serious threat. You know Starswirl wouldn't refuse to help in such a situation." "No, but I do know that he and the other Pillars would never let such a threat exist before their passing, so I think you must be lying to me." "The Pillars?" Sunset asked. "What are those?" "What are- How could you possibly not know who the Pillars are? We are a team of the greatest heroes Equestria has to offer, champions of the tenets of Harmony. You cannot possibly be ignorant of them as well?" Sunset cocked her head to the side, "You just said we." "No I didn't." "Yes you did. 'We are a team of the greatest heroes Equestria has to offer.' You're the real Starswirl, you have to be." "No I am not. What I am is a construct built from Starswirl's very being. I just get confused sometimes." Twilight jumped on the opening the Curator gave her, "You have Starswirl's memories? Does that mean you know what happened to him?" The Curator sighed sadly, "I'm afraid not. I haven't seen the Master, or any of the other Pillars, for seven hundred and sixty eight years, four months, twenty three days, and fifteen hours. I can only say that they have likely passed away in that time." "Where were they going when you last saw them?" "One of their fellows that assisted the Pillars by the name of Stygian had gone rogue. They departed to put a stop to his nefarious schemes, and never returned." Twilight cursed, a line of thought she had coming to an abrupt stop with the news that not even Starswirl's own curator knew where he was. She had no idea who these Pillars were, but they might have come in useful against Faust. Although... "Who were the Pillars?" "Starswirl was one, and their leader. He represented the Element of Sorcery. The others were Flash Magnusson, representing Courage, Somnambula representing Hope, Mage Meadowbrook representing Healing, Mistmane representing Beauty, and Rockhoof representing Strength. There was also Stygian, but he represents only betrayal if the Master's last words to me are to be believed." "Are those supposed to be the Elements of Harmony?" said Sunset. "That's not exactly how I remember them." "And how would you remember them?" the Curator asked, raising his muzzle to look down on Sunset, which wasn't hard because he was already taller than her. "Magic, Laughter, Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, and Generosity. And whatever I am, but I'm kind of an outlier." Sunset nudged her head towards Twilight, "The alicorn here is the Element of Magic." "Those do at least align with the Pillars as I know them," the Curator said haughtily. "I'm not aware of any other alicorns though. Does Celestia no longer rule alone?" "No, Luna's returned," Twilight told him, "and then there's Cadence and me who ascended, and Flurry Heart who was recently born an alicorn." Twilight shrugged at the Curator as his mouth hung open. "We have no idea how either. Anyway, the point is that there's a few of us, including one which we need your help with." "I suppose this is the threat to the world you were speaking of?" The Curator rolled his eyes, "Let's hear it. I suspect that the actual Starswirl would've at least listened to your problem." "Faust," Twilight said, dropping the name like a stone into a still pond. The reaction from the Curator was enough to warrant the comparison as his composure broke into a mess of confusion. "Excuse me? How could Faust be a danger to the world? She's been missing for centuries, and my attempts to locate her have never even found a hint of her whereabouts! You best explain yourself quickly, young lady." Twilight did so, starting at the point where she found Faust, and explaining how she came to be imprisoned. She trailed off halfway through the story as the Curator started act strangely, staring at the floor and at least appearing to cry. It was then she worked out that he may have inherited more than Starswirl's memories. He may have had Starswirl's feelings too, including his love for Faust. "All that time spent faithfully serving Platinum... and she could do that to me? Imprison the most loving and caring pony I had ever met? She's fortunate to be beyond my retribution for this act. My poor Faust..." His outburst ended, and Twilight cautiously continued her tail, but stopped again as the Curator's anguish grew with her describing of what Faust wanted, and what she was doing. "That sounds nothing like my Faust. She would never harm others, let alone start a war for the express purpose of wiping out everything Platinum built. You have to be lying to me! You have to!" "It's more than wiping out Platinum's memory," Twilight said, "she wants to enact something called 'the plan.'" Twilight recoiled as the Curator started to laugh. "What? Why is that funny?" "The plan? The plan is a long distant dream at this point. There's no way she could make it happen." "And what exactly is the plan?" The Curator ceased his laughter, then started to try and explain, but never made it past the first syllable before stopping. "It's complicated," he said after a few false starts. "The simplest way to explain the plan is to say that it's the natural order, like how the animal kingdom works with plants feeding prey, feeding larger beasts, and so on." Trixie pulled a face at what the curator said, "So everypony would just be dumb animals?" "More or less. The point was that it was meant to be the blueprint of a world living in perpetual harmony. There was no hatred, anger, or anything that sapient creatures like us might feel. There was life, death, survival, and procreation, leading to new life adapted to the changing demands of the world. It was supposed to be a perfect vision of a world in balance." "But that didn't happen," said Sunset. "Why?" "Discord," the Curator said simply, "although he was known only as Chaos back then. He changed the plan early in its conception, just as life was budding on our world. He changed many of the creatures of this world to what they are now. Ponies, and so many others, exist only because of his meddling, although ponies were his favoured creation." "But he told me he only changed ponies colours!" Twilight shouted, surprising herself. "He lied to me?" "I'd say he only neglected to tell you the entire truth, although I'm more surprised to learn that you've spoken with him. Last I checked he was a rather fetching statue in the grounds of Canterlot Castle." "He's free now, and we're sort of friends." Twilight shrugged at the Curator, "The point is that he not a danger to anypony now, and can be quite helpful when it suits him. I wish he was feeling more helpful about Faust." "He wouldn't dare," the Curator said with a chuckle. "Why not?" "Because of what Faust is. I know she models herself as the pinnacle of Harmony, but that isn't the truth, not entirely. Where Discord is the spirit of Chaos, Faust is the spirit of Order. He and Faust are natural enemies, or so they think. Even after Faust realised that they could create harmony by working together, they were still massively at odds, which is why the Golden Tree failed. Faust tried to create it from the singular standpoint of order, but order alone is not harmony. She introduced chaos to the Tree of Harmony, striking a true balance, which is why it succeeded." Twilight's brow creased in thought, wondering where 'the plan' really stood in the harmony stakes. "And that's why Faust champions harmony? Because she knows order alone doesn't work?" The Curator nodded, "To create true harmony though, she and Discord would need to work together, although I doubt that would ever happen. The simple fact is that Faust hates Discord for destroying the plan and forcing her to adapt to the demands of the new world he made, and Discord despises her, because no matter what he did he could never overcome Faust. No matter what he tried, order was always there to beat him. I rather suspect that was why he did what he did a thousand years ago. Without Faust to counter him, he was able to do as he wished for the first time ever. It may have gone to his head a little." "You talk about Faust and Discord like they're gods," Moondancer said with a hint of disgust. "They don't seem like gods to me." "They're not gods, not in the traditional sense, but they're more like primal forces made manifest. They helped shape this world, but after Chaos changed the design, Order grew desperate. That's when she created the physical form you know now, so she could interact directly with the world to try and contain Chaos' changes. She modelled herself after the ponies of this world, since they had access to flight and magic, which she needed to use to enact her will." Starsy smirked to himself, "She never could see the irony of basing herself on the ideal version of something Discord created." "So she limited herself?" "Very much so, and so did Chaos when it became Discord, although he used a very different body, one more suited to his nature. There was one major flaw with creating physical avatars for themselves though. They developed personality. With the bodies they became people, and capable of everything people can do." "They learnt to hate each other," said Sunset. "Yes, yet also no. Faust hated Discord for breaking the plan, and always would, but she quickly came to love his creations, even with their inherently chaotic natures. Then on the other hoof, Discord became frustrated with Faust for always trying to control everything, and for the most part succeeding. He also became jealous as Faust gained the world's love for seeming to help them, while he became a monster to everyone for changing what they were familiar with, when he was only trying to bring change to the world, as was his nature. Change we should all be thankful for, as we wouldn't be here without him." "Wow," Twilight said, shocked at what she was hearing. The entire revelation about Discord's true nature was enough, but to learn that you owed your very existence to him was something else. It made you wonder who the bad guy was in this story, because it really didn't sound like Discord was. As for 'the plan,' it sounded terrible. An entire world trapped in perpetual stagnation, relying on chance mutations to increase survivability. "How would Faust enact the plan now?" Moondancer asked, her own thoughts similar to Twilight's, except without the familiarity that made Twilight look at Discord in a new light. The Curator shrugged, "She can't, plain and simple. The nearest she could hope to get would be to destroy civilisation and return us all to the stone age. Even then, she couldn't possibly hope to stop us being intelligent and sociable creatures. Minotaurs won't stop existing, or griffons, nor any of the creatures of this world that Discord had a claw in creating." "Destroy civilisation, and stop anypony being a threat to her..." Twilight murmured. "That couldn't possibly be her plan, could it?" "Does it matter?" Trixie said to Twilight. "She's still mad as a box of frogs, and we need to stop her." Trixie gave the Curator her most charming smile, "I don't suppose you happen to know of a way to stop, and-or destroy her?" "Destroy her? Even if that were possible, what in the world makes you think I would want to do such a thing?" "You mean you agree with what she's doing?" "Of course not!" the Curator snapped back. "Then help us so we can stop her." "But- but-" "Please and thank you." Twilight smacked Trixie on the side, and pushed her away. "I'm sorry to ask you to do this. I know you love her, but Faust has become dangerous, and she needs to be stopped before she does irreparable damage to the world. The war she's planning against the world would result in the deaths of millions on its own, let alone what she planned to do after. Please, we need your help." "You know he can't actually stop us if he refuses," Trixie pointed out. "Not helping!" "Actually I am, but whatever." The Curator stammered, his face etched with indecision and anguish. You could see his desire to protect Equestria was fighting with his love for Faust, and it seemed his love was winning as he shook his head more and more. "No, I can't. She- We're- I can't do it, I can't hurt the pony I love. Leave this place, and never come back!" Upon his last words, the Curator reverted back to a mote of light and raced away into the upper levels of the library. "Shit," Twilight swore. "Nice going, asshole," she said to Trixie. "Me? What did I do?" "Asking him for a way to destroy the pony he loves? Yeah, that's going to go over well." "Pfft, whatever. It's not like he can stop us, or that we actually need his help." "No, but this would go a lot faster with his help, not to mention that he has Starswirl's mind! You know, that genius sorcerer of old? Sounds useful doesn't it?" Twilight growled as Trixie huffed at her, "I'm going to go find him and convince him to help us." She didn't even make it three steps before Sunset stopped her. "You aren't going to do anything," Sunset said, pushing Twilight back with a hoof. "I think this requires a more delicate touch than yours, so I'll go talk to him and see if I can get him to see things our way." "Alright then," Twilight said with a shrug, not arguing the point. "What's the matter with you," she asked Mayfly a moment later, once Sunset was gone. "I get the feeling he doesn't like me because I'm a changeling." "Maybe you should try calling him daddy?" Trixie jokingly suggested. Twilight groaned at Trixie, "Again with the not helping." "Oh you are just no fun today." -0-0-0- Sunset teleported up to the higher level of the library, having given up on finding the stairs after a few minutes. Even though she was searching for the Curator, her eyes skimmed over the shelves she was passing. There were books here she'd never even known existed, and that was just in one small section of the library. The sheer knowledge this place had to contain was astounding. Sunset refused to let herself get distracted though, and kept searching, finding herself coming to a central section of the library with a cosy nook for reading in. A soft blue glow emanated from the enclosed space, but she couldn't find the Curator. She could only assume he was there somewhere. "I'm sorry about all of this," Sunset said, searching around the nook as she spoke. "We invade your library, then ask you to do something you don't want to. You're right to be angry at us." "I thought I told you to leave." Sunset followed the voice, and finally found the small mote of light nestled between two books on one of the higher shelves. She smiled apologetically at him, "I wish we could, but it's not that simple." "It never is," the Curator sighed. "I suppose you've come to make a sad attempt at getting me to side with you?" "Not at all," Sunset lied, as that was exactly what she was hoping to do. "You told us what Faust is, but you never told us how you see her. I don't want to know about the force that helped to shape the world, but rather the pony she was." Sunset smiled nervously as the Curator floated down off his shelf towards her. Again he started the process of forming a body, growing more solid as he stood before her, a faint frown marring his features. "You really want to know about her?" "Please? I can see she means a lot to you, so if we can find a way to end this without anypony getting hurt then all the better. But to do that, we need to know about her." The Curator said nothing for a while, then sighed out through his nose. "You have no idea what this is like for me, and I don't just mean this situation you've thrust me into. Logically I know I'm just a magical construct, but in my heart I'm Starswirl. It hurts to think that Faust loves me, but not... me." "I'm sure she would love you just as equally as she loved the... uh..." "Real me?" The Curator released a bitter laugh, "See? That there is entirely my problem. I'm just a shadow of the real Starswirl, cursed to forever roam this blasted library." "I hate to say it, but you do seem to be rather... alive, for a construct." "Another case of Starswirl acting without thinking. He wished me to be more creative in my work, but only the living are gifted with talents like creativity. Are you aware of the Gift of Life?" "It's magic Faust gave to youuu... Starswirl, whatever. You used it to create the changelings." The Curator winced, "And wasn't that yet another mistake. Seeing one of my own misbegotten creations here before me is a reminder I didn't want. Anyway, as I was about to say, Starswirl used the Gift of Life upon me, granting me thought, creativity, and feelings." He pouted at the wall, "I can honestly say I wish he hadn't." "I can imagine." Sunset took a moment to climb onto one of the plush seats in the nook, her rear sinking into the first real comfort she'd found since leaving Saddle Arabia. "Speaking of changelings though, why did you create them? And the windigoes, and all of those things?" "To manage the negativity in this world. Of all the greatest and worst things Discord gave to this world, the ability to harness magic was chief among them. Thoughts became actions, feelings became power, and divides became... deadly. Faust and Discord learned to hate, but they were not the creators of the concept." "You mean ponies came to hate each other?" "The three tribes were different, and the fear of the other is strong. Faust sought to create unity between the three tribes with the Golden tree, but when that failed the divides between ponies grew wider than ever, leading to wars between ponies that you couldn't believe the destructive scale of. It wasn't until they realised that no one tribe could win that a truce was called, leading to the rather chilly situation that preceded the Exodus. Negative energy was rife, and threatened to push ponies over the edge into another war if not managed." "So Faust tried to find a way to fix that." "Not at all," the Curator said, surprising Sunset. "She didn't know what to do, having put the death of the tree, and the wars that followed down to the chaos of Discord, not realising he had nothing to do with starting the conflicts. Not intentionally anyway. Actually, it was a much younger and more foolish me that sought Faust out, to beg her help in taming the negativity driving ponies apart." "So it's true then, you did create the windigoes." "We did," the Curator said sullenly. "Our first, but not last failure. The principal was simple, create something that could remove the negativity from the world, making it harmless, which we did. Unfortunately we kept the windigoes in a rather bestial state, and all they knew was hunger. They were ravenous, and proved to be more of a danger than a benefit, so were banished to the frozen north and kept there by Faust's power. It's somewhat ironic that in the end it was the windigoes that brought ponies together." "And friendship." Starsy nodded slowly, "Indeed. Something so simple, yet a common bond was all it took. Too bad we didn't know that yet, so we continued our search for a solution, although the task fell on me as Faust had to keep the windigoes contained. She gave me the Gift of Life, and off I went to find a solution." "I'm guessing the changelings came next." The Curator nodded and rubbed a hoof against his forehead, sighing. "They were supposed to feed on negativity and spread love, nothing more. They certainly weren't supposed to feed on love." "Primus blames you, you know." "You've spoken with her?" Sunset nodded, "Sort of. It was a puddle of goo containing her memories, or something? I don't know, but she told us you left the changelings broken and unfinished." "She's not wrong. I had not yet finished shaping them when I learnt of Faust's disappearance, and I abandoned them for years while I searched for her, during which the Exodus occurred. By the time I had returned to the changelings they had already become what they are, and there was nothing I could do to help them. I've always regretted that." Sunset sat quietly while the Curator appeared to become lost in thought. She thought of Mayfly, and what she could've been if Starswirl had finished his work. Spreading love felt like much more noble a goal than feeding on it. At this point Sunset wasn't entirely convinced that Mayfly really needed to do that. Still, that was one thought out of many, and Sunset had questions aplenty. "What about the Sirens?" The Curator winced again, "You're aware of them?" "I've been on the world you banished them too for a while, and had a bit of a run-in with them." "But that world was supposed to make them harmless!" "And it did, until I introduced Equestrian magic to that world by accident by taking one of the Elements of Harmony there. We did stop them though, and they really are harmless now." "Oh good. If those three made their way back to Equestria, there'd be no end to the havoc they could cause. I should never have given those three the gems." "I guess they worked on the same principal as the others? Feed on negativity?" "Yes, but there was an unforeseen complication with the magic I gave them. The more negativity they consumed, the more powerful they became, and so they started spreading more and more negativity, and feeding more and more. If the Pillars and I hadn't stopped them, who knows what would've happened? Clearly I gave those gems to the wrong sirens." "You could say that, although is it possible that feeding on all that negative energy changed them?" The Curator hummed thoughtfully, "I suppose. I hadn't considered the effect that feeding on such energy might have upon them. It is possible that it changed them, made them cruel and uncaring." He shrugged disarmingly, "Yet another reason it was a failure I suppose. Good job they weren't very quick to work it out." "Meaning?" "Meaning that I gifted them the gems centuries before I was forced to banish them. They'd rather forgotten about the enigmatic unicorn that had granted them their gifts by that time." "What about the crystal ponies then? Apparently you had a hoof in their creation too." "Actually they existed before I came across them. Remarkable ponies every one of them. Their innate magic could be harnessed to spread love across the land with the right tools, rendering the negative energy null and void, although the three tribes were starting on the first steps of unity by that point, meaning there was less anyway, but if I'm anything, I am cautious." "You wanted to be sure there would be no going backwards." The Curator nodded, "There would always be ponies that hate each other somewhere, but with the tribes working together it was negligible. That didn't mean it wasn't impossible that things could go wrong again, so I wanted a little insurance against that possibility, just in case. I was also going to be smarter about it this time, and leave the Gift of Life well out of it, as it had only caused trouble in my hooves. I designed the Crystal Empire, and created the Crystal Heart, then approached the crystal ponies with an offer of giving them a safe place to live from the frozen north in exchange for a small favour." "I thought they'd always lived in the frozen north?" "Yes, but it wasn't always frozen. I'm afraid that the windigoes had a rather unfortunate effect on the icy north, making it expand as Faust's absence allowed their influence to spread. The events of Hearths-warming may have eradicated the windigoes, but the frozen north never recovered, and the crystal ponies suffered for it. The Crystal Empire benefitted everypony in that regard." "Wow," Sunset said, and meant it, although not in a way that was very flattering to anypony. To her it felt like the world was little more than a playground to the mad gods and sorcerers that inhabited it. "Indeed," the Curator said, totally unaware of Sunsets thoughts. "It was my greatest work, although nopony save you and a few others know about it." Sunset nodded, not disagreeing that the Crystal Empire was a masterful piece of work, even if it was the end result of near constant meddling, but there was something she still hadn't heard off the Curator. "You still haven't told me about Faust." The Curator opened his mouth, then paused for a second for a single laugh to escape. "No, I suppose I haven't. I'm not sure what to say that isn't already cliched at this point anyway." "Even if they are cliched, I still want to hear it." The Curator quietly considered it for a moment, then smiled faintly. "She was kind, often to a fault. She refused the notion of taking a life, and even spared the windigoes destruction, even though they were barely self aware. That wasn't to say she was weak though, and would beat you to within an inch of your life if you deserved it, but she would spare that life all the same. She's half the reason Tartarus exists, because she needed somewhere to put the more dangerous beings of this world, having been unwilling to destroy them." "Then there was her wisdom. I learnt so much about our world from her that I could never have discovered elsewhere. More than that though, was her ability to see all ends of things. Strength is nothing without the wisdom to apply it properly." "And she was loving too?" Sunset said, egging him on. "She was. Even though she gave her love to everything, she still had more than enough left for me." The Curator chuckled, "She was organised too. Boy could she organise. I'm not saying she was perfect, as she was often quick to anger, and lacked a sense of humour at times, but her flaws only made her more... like a pony." Sunset hummed and nodded, but again found herself thinking rather negatively of what she was hearing. Being kind and loving were certainly admirable traits in a pony, but they weren't necessarily traits of the Spirit of Order. Sometimes love was chaotic, and sometimes order was cold hard logic. She knew she was being unfair though, as she was also basing her thoughts on what she knew Faust was doing right now. She was probably a lot different before her lengthy captivity. "She sounds like a wonderful pony." "She is. Or at least she was." The Curator sighed sadly, "I know you want to convince me to help your cause, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to harm the pony I love, not after she's suffered so much." "I know," said Sunset, who bit her lip as she prepared to lay down what was hopefully a trump card. Twilight hadn't brought it up, perhaps with a reason, but Sunset felt the Curator had a right to know. "If you won't help us to help Equestria, then perhaps you might help us to protect your daughter?" "My daughter? I don't have a daughter." "Yes, you do. Faust was with foal when she was imprisoned, and according to her, you're the father." "I-I am? Who? Who's my daughter?" Sunset breathed in, knowing she was about to drop a bomb on what the Curator, and also Starswirl, thought he knew. "Celestia. Celestia is your daughter." "Celestia? But Celestia was Platinum's daughter!" "Adopted daughter, stolen from Faust to raise as her own. That's why she wanted Faust, to get her child to raise as the ruler of a unified nation of ponies. Celestia was never Platinum's." The Curator was silent as he stared straight forwards, his eyes unblinking and glassy. Sunset gave him the time to process the information, but grew concerned as the Curator continued to stare blankly. She was a little shocked when he spoke at last. "I had no idea. The entire time I was around Celestia, and I had no idea. But what about Luna?" "Luna... wasn't yours. She was Sombra's." The Curator leapt to his hooves, "She was the child of that fiend? How? How is that possible?" Sunset swallowed nervously before the Curator's sudden rage, "He forced himself upon Faust early in her captivity, likely after Celestia's birth. Luna is the result of that. Platinum took Luna as well as a mercy to Faust." "Faust did not want her?" "Faust despises Luna with a passion." "But she was just a child, she's blameless." "I know." Sunset got up and moved to sit next to the Curator, "Look, Curat- no, Starsy, I know this is hard for you, but Faust isn't the pony you knew. She seeks to end Equestria, and she wishes to harm your daughter, her own child. I can't even begin to imagine what she plans to do to Luna. Please Starsy," Sunset begged, "help us to stop her." "How much hurt must it take to turn you against your own child?" Starsy asked, not expecting an answer. "I didn't even know Faust had the capacity to hate a child, let alone turn against one she wanted. And poor Luna... how will she take this news?" "She knows, and seems remarkably not bothered by it if Twilight is to be believed. After the way Platinum treated her, she was rather relieved to find that Platinum wasn't her actual mother." "I can believe that," said Starsy. "Platinum always did treat Luna as an inconvenience. I couldn't have been prouder of Celestia when she declared Luna would rule by her side. She knew they were sisters, she knew they should rule together." Starsy sighed and nodded, "If Faust can do this to her own children, then clearly the mare I loved is no more. I'll help you, but I'm only helping you my way. Faust has suffered enough, and I shan't be responsible for having her suffer more." -0-0-0- "So that's Faust?" Daring Do asked as she intently studied the statue of the alicorn they'd found in the observation area. The statue was standing in the reared up position familiar to them, leaving Twilight wondering if there existed an image of Faust where she wasn't doing that. "That is indeed Faust," Twilight confirmed as she scowled up at the figure. "I would say that doesn't quite do her justice though." "And you say she's as big as Celestia, if not bigger?" "That's right." Daring Do nodded once, "Okay, good luck with that as I am out." "Excuse me?" "Fighting deadly beings with phenomenal powers is princess business, not mine. Good luck, have fun, see you when it's over." "Just like a pegasus to be chicken," said Trixie, standing on her hind legs to flap her front ones. "Buk-buk-bucawk!" "Okay, I'm no chicken, but I'm not exactly equipped to fight alicorns either-" "Hence why we're here," Trixie reminded Daring. "And do any of us look like a princess except Twilight? No, we don't, and yet here we are, so quit being such a chicken." "Will you all shush?" Moondancer hissed at them, her nose not rising from the book she was reading. "I'm pretty sure reading things is only going to antagonise the Curator if he catches you," Twilight said to Moondancer. "Maybe, maybe not, but if he's going to make us leave, I want to read as much as I can. Of course that'd be a lot easier without you talking all the time!" "Actually you'll have plenty of time," Sunset said, sauntering out of the library towards them. "Starsy's agreed to help us." Twilight beamed at Sunset, "He has! Wait, he has? How did you convince him?" "I talked to him, and may have told him that Celestia was his daughter." "Sunset! I wasn't telling him that in case it freaked him out!" "And I thought he had a right to know. Since it got him to help us, clearly I was right. End of argument." Twilight rolled her eyes but nodded, aware that there really wasn't any point of arguing over it. "Okay, so where's the Cura-" "His name is Starsy." "Oh come on! I can't call him that!" "Too bad, because his name is Starsy." "Fine," Twilight groaned. "Where's Starsy now?" "Is he finding us a sweet weapon we can use?" Trixie asked excitedly. "Absolutely not," Starsy said as she floated into the area they were standing in. "Even if there was such a weapon that existed to permanently destroy an alicorn such as Twilight, the chances of it working against Faust are slim." Starsy changed into his pony form, and pressed a hoof against Trixie's chest, although she felt nothing as it passed through her. "I'm also informing you now that we won't be destroying Faust, even if the opportunity arises." "So... what then? Are we going to try and imprison her again?" "No, we won't be imprisoning her either. Faust has suffered enough, and we will not be killing her, or putting her back in a cage!" Trixie raised an eyebrow at Starsy, "Okay, so how do you intend that we stop Faust? Give her hugs until she feels better?" "If that were truly an option I'd say yes." Starsy scowled at Trixie, then turned to the rest of them, "I'm not sure how we're going to stop Faust without killing or re-imprisoning her, but not treating her like such is the one condition of me helping you." Twilight stared coolly at Starsy. As far as she was concerned there was probably no way they could stop Faust without hurting her, killing her, or containing her. If there was then she'd happily acquiesce to it, but until then she intended to research actual methods of stopping Faust. Unfortunately that meant lying, which wasn't her strong point, but in this case it only took a few words to make it believable. "Alright, if we can find a way to stop her that you find acceptable, that's what we'll do." Twilight felt dirty for lying to her childhood hero, even if he was only a knockoff, but needs must. "Thank you," Starsy said, appearing to have bought the lie. "I shall get to work immediately if you want to get settled in, although I would appreciate your aid as soon as you are able." Twilight smiled at Starsy, and held it as he reverted to his smaller form and zipped away. She continued to hold it when she felt both Sunset's and Mayfly's eyes on her. "What?" "Why did you lie to him?" Sunset asked. "I saw the way Mayfly winced when you did," she explained without being asked. "Look, if we can find a way to stop Faust that, ugh, Starsy is comfortable with, then I'm all for it. The problem is that we don't have months to research a way to do that, so if he doesn't find anything we might have to find a different way to stop her that's quicker, even if we imprison her until we do have a proper solution. I'm just being practical Sunset." "So you're going to be researching ways to fight her?" "As a back-up plan, yes." Sunset held her gaze, then sighed and nodded. "I don't like it, but you're right. Fine, find ways to fight her, and I'll try and keep Starsy from working out what you're doing. I'm telling you now though, if he does think of something, that's the plan we're using. He's not wrong that Faust has suffered more than enough, and doesn't need to suffer more." "I know, and I do agree, but I can't- we can't, place Faust's wellbeing over that of the world. Equestria could well be running out of time, and we might not even have weeks, let alone months to find what we need." Twilight sat and grunted, "If only we had a way to contact Celestia, to ask how much time we had." "That shouldn't be a problem," the voice of Starsy said again, making Twilight shriek, and not just from the shock. She was suddenly very aware that the Curator might have heard everything she just said. "The portal mirrors, although deactivated, should for the most part be operational. There's one that goes straight to the Castle of the Two Sisters in the Everfree forest." Twilight carefully worked her jaw to utter the single syllable that occupied her thoughts. "What?" "I said that there's one that goes to the-" "I know what you said!" Twilight felt anger bubbling up inside her, tempered with frustration. They'd travelled halfway across the world to find a way to this place when there'd been a way from Equestria under their very noses the entire time. It was enough to make her want to scream, and judging by the looks on at least Trixie's and Moondancer's faces, she wasn't alone. The small light that was Starsy floated into view, "I don't see what I could possibly done to have upset you." "You- Nothing, just... nothing. Take us to the portal please." Starsy bobbed in the air and zoomed off, leaving a blue trail for them to follow. A couple short minutes of internal swearing later they found him fussing about the piles of sand in the portal chamber. "I really wish Starswirl had given me the ability to move more than books. Look at all this sand! It's everywhere!" "Starsy, the portal?" Sunset said to the fretting hologram. "Hmm? Oh yes." He pointed to the middle mirror in the crescent, onlt half of which was left above the sand, "It's there, behind all this awful stuff. I'm afraid you'll have to dig... your... huh." Starsy went quiet as a purple glow surrounded most of the sand in the room and threw it out of the Circen desert portal. "That'll do it," he murmured as he started to inspect the previously buried mirror. "Where do all these go?" Daring asked as she looked at the other mirrors. "Oh, various places. The Dragonlands, Griffonia, Zebrica, Equestria, obviously, the Circen desert unfortunately, and a few others I forgotten as I don't exactly need to use them since I can't leave this place. The broken ones here mean their counterpart is broken, as is the case with the Badlands, Tenochtitlan basin, Mareitania, and Saddle Arabia portals as you can see. The others should still be operable though, with a spark of magic at least." Above each mirror, nestled in the frame was a large gem that Twilight figured had to act as a power source. Even more proof that their original plan would never have worked since without that power source, and a connecting mirror, all they would've made was a dud. The mirror in the Everfree forest was just the icing on a very frustrated cake. "If you would charge the gem, the portal will open." Twilight obeyed, and started feeding magic into the gem which started to glow brighter with the more magic she put into it. It seemed a little flawed that if these mirrors stopped working Starswirl would've trapped himself out of this place, but considering how long the Circen desert mirror had been working, they had to be quite robust. When the gem reached its maximum charge it flashed and started emitting faint wisps of magic that fed down into the other gems. Nothing else happened for a moment, then the mirror lost its reflection, instead appearing to look like liquid mercury before solidifying to show an image of what was opposite the connected mirror. It showed a rather dark stone passage. "There we go. So long as that gem remains active you should be able to return to Equestria at your leisure. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must return to my work." Twilight glared at the mirror like it had offended her, then stepped through to the stone passage beyond it. It felt strange to say it, but she somehow knew she was back in Equestria. It just felt right. "So this is the Castle of the Two Sisters huh?" Sunset said as she passed through the mirror, which Twilight had to note as being entire unremarkable. No wonder Celestia had never suspected its true purpose. "Guess I can knock coming here off the bucket list." "That's all you have to say about it?" Sunset shrugged at Twilight, "It's cold and creepy, and I don't really want to be here. I wouldn't mind seeing the throne room though. Y'know, since we're here." She smiled hopefully as the others piled out of the mirror behind her. "Nice place," Trixie said as she observed the decor. "Hey, I don't suppose we could see the throne room where Celestia banished Nightmare Moon while we're here?" she added, inadvertently mirroring some of what Sunset had said. "Oh my goodness, fine. It'll only take a minute anyway." Twilight swiftly led them up to the throne room, not bothering to give the tour that the others might have wanted, even as they walked on the mouldering carpets of the throne room. In a strange way it was a relief to see it unchanged, with its ragged tapestries, and missing bits of room, and the twin thrones in the rear. "Alright," Trixie said, nodding approvingly, "not bad. Trixie could throw one hell of a Nightmare night party in here. The right lighting, a few illusions to scare some ponies, it'd be great!" Sunset looked up at the two thrones, and the hole in the wall above them. "So this is where it all happened, where Luna became Nightmare Moon... and broke Celestia's heart. No wonder she abandoned this place after that." Moondancer adjusted her glasses, then turned to Twilight, "Is there a library here? I've heard there was." Twilight laughed and pointed through a doorway, "Third door on the left. Watch out for the booby traps," she added as Moondancer started trotting. "You are joking, right?" "I wish I was. The young Celestia and Luna had funny ideas about fun when they lived here." "Come on," Daring said, gesturing for Moondancer to follow her. "Booby traps happen to be a specialty of mine." "Poor Luna," Sunset said once Daring and Moondancer was gone. "All she wanted was to be loved." "All she ended up being was feared," Twilight said back to Sunset, making the amber mare frown. "I get the feeling you're comparing yourself to her." "Tough upbringing, overbearing authority figures, a desire to prove ourselves, and a foolish fall to darkness..." Sunset laughed once, but it was far from happy. "No, nothing relatable there. We even both got magic rainbows to smack the evil out of us." "What about the realisation that you were wrong, and the redemption you've both given yourselves? I hope those are at least good comparisons?" "I guess." Sunset smiled at Twilight, "Thanks." "You're welcome... eh?" Twilight perked her ears at a distant sounding pop. Seconds later another one followed it. "What in Equestria?" "You may want to see this," Mayfly said as she buzzed around up near the ceiling, looking through one of the holes. Twilight flew up and joined her, and gasped as she saw Canterlot surrounded by smoke from the various flashes taking place in the city. "What is it?" Sunset asked. "Canterlot's under attack," Twilight said weakly. "How though? They couldn't possibly have reached Canterlot already, could they?" Twilight shook it off, "I'm going to go find Celestia and Luna. You guys stay here!" "Twilight, wait!" Sunset shouted as Twilight flew up through the hole in the roof. "Damn it Twilight!" Trixie pulled a face as she trotted over to Sunset, "So, the fuck we supposed to do now?" Sunset shook her head and frowned as she watched Twilight shrink into the distance. "We wait. It's the only thing we can do." "Great, so Caterlot's under attack, and I'm stuck here as an observer." Trixie kicked a piece of fallen masonry, and threw herself into Luna's throne. "Just my luck."

The end of an era

47. Whatever happens

"You need to face it! Your plan has failed!" Luna nodded as Cadence glared balefully at her. She didn't argue the point because she had nothing to argue with. Cadence couldn't have been more right if she tried. "And you," Cadence move her gaze onto Celestia, "you finally decide to fight, and you only make things worse!" Celestia sighed, not meeting Cadence's eyes, "I know." "And yet I still get the feeling the fighting will go on when we should be sparing lives and surrendering." "Faust has us cornered," said Luna. "She has no reason to accept our surrender, even if it were unconditional." "Then offer her a totally unconditional surrender. It's not hard! We probably have until sunrise until she attacks again, so we even have time to work out a few simple requests that she might grant us. She has no reason to fight if we won't." "Faust isn't going to grant us anything," Luna growled. "All she wants to give us is an eternity of suffering." "And the cost of avoiding a few extra days of that is every soldier under your command? Do their lives mean that little to you?" "Of course they do!" "Then work with me here! Maybe if we can get Faust around the negotiating table we can work something out with her? Maybe offer her a trade if it stops her doing what you're so afraid she's going to do to you?" "Except we have nothing to negotiate with, and nothing to trade! Faust wants Equestria, Celestia, and myself, and she is on the verge of getting those three things anyway! Why would she negotiate herself out of getting what she wants now?" Cadence hesitated for the first time, seeing Luna's point. "Maybe we can trade that General Snowbright then?" "When she can get him back anyway? Besides, he was pretty much holding the invasion back, so I see no reason why she'd want him over any of us." Cadence sighed and made a face, "So we have nothing then, and no choice but to fight and lose, or surrender and spare lives." "Cadence is right," Celestia said softly. "We have nothing to gain now by fighting on." Luna nodded slowly, looking around the throne room with the distinct feeling this would be the last time she'd see it, and the ponies in it, for quite some time. "What if she doesn't accept our surrender?" Nopony answered. "Might I give a third option," one of the room's other occupants said. "Your ideas are always welcome Fleur," Luna said to the white unicorn. Fleur smiled tightly as she took a few steps forwards. "Perhaps you should flee? Get out of Canterlot, and indeed Equestria, and go where Faust cannot find you. Maybe you could even find Twilight and help her with finding a way to stop Faust. I, or General Armour, can handle the surrender if you wish?" "I am not leaving my Shining here!" Cadence half shrieked. "Where he goes, I go." "Cadence no," Shining said to Cadence's words. "You need to protect Flurry. I'm all for this plan if I know you and Flurry are safely away from here." "No! I won't leave here without you, and that's final!" "Then Shining goes with you, and I'll handle the surrender," said Fleur. "Then Faust can run herself ragged looking for you, meaning she'll be too distracted to do much else." "Or she holds you all hostage until we give ourselves up," Luna said to Fleur. "We have no idea what she'll do to make us give ourselves up either. If anything, that could end up worse than fighting on here today." Luna smiled at Fleur, "Tis a fine idea, but we cannot account for what Faust might do." "So surrender is still our best option," said Cadence. "Haven't you got anything more to say about this Celestia?" "I've already said that I agree with you Cadence. I have little more to say on the matter, save that I don't think that Faust will accept our surrender." "Why not?" "Because she wants to defeat us, to see us beaten. To see Platinum's work undone. Us surrendering denies her that." "That's ridiculous." Celestia shrugged, "This reasons behind entire war have always been ridiculous, but I truly believe that Faust will refuse our surrender, or will give us a condition that we cannot hope to meet, forcing us to continue fighting." "So you're saying that if we were to all lay down our arms, she'd slaughter each and every one of us?" "Uh... no, I suppose not." Celestia rubbed the side of her head, "Forgive me, I'm not thinking straight. However, if we were to try and discuss it with her, I do feel as though I would be right." Luna sighed a laugh, and picked up her helmet, holding in her hooves as she inspected it. "So we're in agreement that the least terrible idea we have is to surrender. Marvellous. Fleur?" "Yes Luna?" "Equis is disbanded. Go to the filly and enjoy what time you have with her, as I imagine you'll be detained by the Mareitanians as soon as they take the city. Shining, spend time with Flurry and Cadence, as I imagine your situation will be similar. Then we shall wait until the Mareitanians are ready to attack again, only to surrender and face our fates." "You can't be serious," Fleur said flatly. "You're just cutting me out of all of this?" "I shall not tell you to leave, but I do recommend that you spend time with the filly. If you wish for something else to do, contact our team in Mareitania to tell them the news, and to give them my apologies." "But-" "Thank you for everything Fleur, but you are dismissed." Fleur grit her teeth, ready to rebuke Luna, but she could see there was no point. "Yes ma'am," she said, saluting. "I'd say give them hell, but that's the complete opposite of what we're doing. Farewell princesses, it's been an honour." Luna returned the salute as Fleur left. "Likewise," she said quietly. "Shining, inform our forces of our plan, and let them spend some time together before we surrender, then spend what time you can with your wife and child." "Of course Luna. Thank you." Luna waited until the others had all gone, and it was just herself and her sister. "So it has come to this sister. Instead of losing slowly to buy time, we've actually lost, for nothing." "There is still a chance Twilight will come through in the future. While she is still free, there is hope." "Perhaps. I imagine it would be foolish of me to doubt Twilight." Luna looked towards the rear of the throne room, towards the balcony beyond. "Would you like to watch the sun rise? It may the last chance we have to do so together for quite some time." Celestia smiled sadly at her sister as she rose to her hooves, "I'd be delighted to, sister." -0-0-0- "This is fucking bullshit!" Rainbow swore as the orders were passed down in their direction. "We're really just going to give up?" "What is there left to fight for?" Lightning said back. "A mile square worth of Canterlot? Really doesn't seem worth it." Rainbow bared her teeth, then turned to the balcony where she could see Celestia and Luna sat side by side, leaning on each other. Rainbow wanted to fly up there and kick them, and it took quite a bit of willpower not to. "There has to be something we can do! I'm not giving up!" "What could we possibly do, Rainbow?" Lightning counted around the Wonderbolts with her hooves, "There's like eleven of us left, and three of those are injured. What are eight ponies going to do to stop the Mareitanians?" "I don't know, but something! Something like... blowing up their explosives stockpile? No, that's probably inside somewhere. Maybe we could go after Faust?" "That's suicidal," Lightning deadpanned. "Why does giving up bother you so much? I thought you didn't even know why we were still fighting the other day?" "That was different!" "How? How is that possibly different?" "Because it was!" Rainbow sat and folded her legs over her chest, then let them slide down to the ground with a sigh as she hung her head. "Everypony's given up and lost hope, and that bothers me. What if this is just more of Faust's mind magic to try and get us to give up?" Lightning laughed at Rainbow's idea, "It's hardly necessary when giving up is probably the best idea we could have right now. Besides, those implant thingies would stop that from happening. Vapor, tell Rainbow she's being crazy." "Me? Why should I have to tell her? I don't want to surrender." "Then the only option you have is to disobey orders, and try to find some way to stop us from surrendering." Lightning laid back and crossed her legs behind her head, "Good luck with that working out for you." "So you're not going to help?" "Are you even serious? How could you even possibly think that this is a good idea? Seriously Rainbow, stop being an idiot, please? Some of us want to live past today since we now have that option." Rainbow sighed explosively. She knew she couldn't talk ponies into helping her, and had no idea of what to do anyway. Perhaps she should just accept this, and get used to life under Faust's rule. Or not, as every instinct she had was screaming at her to do something. Perhaps she needed the perspective of a pony fine with the fighting ending. "I'm going to go find Pinkie," she said, taking off rapidly. She found Pinkie nearby, sitting with her team at the edge of the castle grounds. All of them were sat with their uniforms around their waist, watching the horizon as daylight crept closer. Pinkie was also holding hooves with Azure, and Rainbow still found that weird. "Hey guys." "Hmm? Rainbow!" Pinkie leapt up and grabbed Rainbow in a hug, "Have you heard the good news? The fighting's going to end soon!" "I'm not sure I'd call it good news," Rainbow said slowly. "You know Faust's going to want to capture us because of the Elements of Harmony thingummy. I don't know about you, but prison doesn't exactly sound good to me." Pinkie released Rainbow, but kept her hooves on the pegasus' shoulders. "But the war will be over, and we won't be a threat to Faust. Maybe she'll release the others!" "I doubt it Pinkie. With Twilight still out there, we could still be a threat to... her..." Rainbow grinned suddenly, "That's it! We need to find Twilight! That way we can still try and stop Faust!" "Uh..." "Why didn't I think of it sooner?" "Rainbow..." "Come on Pinkie, we need to get out of the city while we still can! I'll get Lightning and Vapor, and you get your sisters and that ready, and then we can-" "Rainbow!" Rainbow blinked as Pinkie shouted her name in her face, "Uh, what?" Pinkie smiled sympathetically, "I'm not going anywhere. I want to stay here and surrender, and try to get my life back. I'm done fighting, Rainbow. I'm done seeing ponies die, and I'm done trying for no reason because that Faust is too tough to beat." Pinkie shrugged, "I'm done." "But-" "But nothing Rainbow. I'm not going to stop you if you want to go find Twilight, and if you find a way to stop Faust then great, but I won't be coming with you." "Oh come on Pinkie!" "I'm sorry Rainbow." Rainbow sighed, but nodded. She understood Pinkie's reasons, and in some ways she respected them, and her conviction if she was willing to go against a friend. "Alright, I get it, you're tired of fighting. That doesn't mean I'm giving up though." "I'm not asking you to." "I'm going to find Twilight, and we're going to fix everything." Pinkie smiled sadly at Rainbow, "I think you know there's a lot of stuff that can't be fixed now, and never will be." Rainbow smiled sadly, knowing that what Pinkie said was far too true. "Good luck Pinkie, and I guess I'll see you around." "You too Rainbow," Pinkie said in return, hugging her friend again before going back to her team and sitting with her head resting against Azure's. Rainbow watched for a moment, feeling strangely alone for the first time since Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Spike were kidnapped. She shook the feeling off, then headed back to her wingmates to make plans. -0-0-0- Flurry looked perfect as she slept in her crib, although to Shining the foal looked perfect doing everything. It was simply her misfortune to be born into an imperfect world. He wanted to pick her up and hold her, to tell her everything would be fine, even if he had to push the lie through his teeth, but she was asleep, and far be it from him to wake her. "What have we done?" Shining turned from his daughter at the four words spoken by his wife, and sat next to her on the couch, wrapping a leg around her back to kiss her on the cheek. "What do you mean?" "We've ruined everything." "We've ruined nothing. I'm afraid the only pony we have to point a hoof of blame at is Princess Platinum, and she died hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. We're just the ones paying for her crimes." "But we shouldn't be. How could we have revered a pony like Platinum, who was cruel enough to steal foals from their mothers?" Cadence swallowed, tears spilling from her cheeks, "What if Faust takes Flurry from us?" "I don't think she'd be cruel enough to do to us what Platinum did to her." "How can you be sure? Surely you've noticed how much Flurry must've looked like Celestia at that age? What if- What if Faust... what if she takes our Flurry and raises her to be a monster?" Shining shushed Cadence as she sobbed. "I really don't think that'd happen." "How can you be sure?" "Because I am." Shining held Cadence a little tighter, the unspoken fact that with their fates now in Faust's hooves, Flurry might well be safer with Faust. "Our Flurry could never be a monster." "This is all wrong..." "Can't argue with that. Look, even if Faust spares us, life won't ever be the same. At the very least we can hope that Faust agrees to let us restore the Crystal Heart to the Empire, so our ponies have a place to live again, and where we can have a chance to raise Flurry in peace." "But what if she ends up using the Crystal Heart against everypony? That had to be why she wanted the Empire in the first place, you know that." "We already lack the capacity to stop her, so perhaps it is best to just go with her wishes if it lets us stay together." Cadence sighed softly, "That sounds like a terrible idea." -0-0-0- "Something tells me I won't be learning to fly any time soon." Fleur found herself smiling at the filly and her priorities. "I wouldn't say that," she said, barely making herself heard over the nervous chatter of the thousands of other ponies hiding in the crystal mines beneath Canterlot. "Knowing you, you'd probably try and teach yourself to fly first." "Sure, I'll just throw myself off the side of the city shall I? That sounds like a good idea." "I mean you're a pegasus, so the instinct must be in that thick skull of yours somewhere." "My skull is not that thick!" "Actually it is. Pegasi have thicker skulls to help them survive any unexpected impacts." "...Oh." The filly folded her legs with a huff as Fleur shifted against the hard wall she was leaning against. "Alright then, if it's instinct, why are there flight schools?" "Heck if I know. I have a pointy poker, not flippy-flappers." "And a poor grasp of scientific terminology." Fleur chuckled, "That too." Fleur lost her smile as the filly's expression turned serious, "What are you thinking?" "Do you think Twilight can still do it? Do you think she can still stop Faust?" "I don't know. I think with three other ponies helping her it might be a bit tricky to get to Faust when she's protected by an army." "Then do you think we should be helping her then? Y'know, setting things up so she has an easier time when she's ready?" Fleur screwed her face up in confusion, "And how exactly do you propose we do that?" "I don't know. Maybe there's something your ponies in Mareitania could do, like break Twilight's friends out of prison or something?" Fleur considered the idea, but she couldn't really say that breaking those ponies out was remotely possible. On the other hoof though, those ponies could be of use to Twilight, so perhaps there was something that could be done to help them. "You might be onto something. I'll- Shit! I left the stone in the castle! Wait here while I go get it." The filly shook her head, "Nah." "Nah?" "Nah. You know that ain't going to happen." Fleur held the filly's gaze for a moment, then rolled her eyes and gestured for the filly to follow her. A stern look at the guards had them stepping aside to let the two mares through, and from the entrance to the shelter it was only a few hundred yards to the castle, although it may as well have been a few miles, because the Royal Guard refused to let them in. "Princesses orders," a guard explained as Fleur demanded to know why. "Nopony is allowed into the castle, save the princesses themselves. We also have explicit orders from Princess Luna to not let you in. Something about you needing to spend time with the filly, whoever that is, now that Equis is disbanded." "Yo," the filly said to the guard, who missed her point. "But this is important! I need to get to my office to get my speaker stone, so I can contact our team in Maretania!" "I'm sorry ma'am, but I can't do that. Please return to the shelter for your safety." "They're literally on the balcony above me! Luna! Tell this asshole to let me in! Luna!" Fleur waited a beat, hoping to hear a reply from Luna, but there was nothing. "For fuck sake." "As I said, please return to the shelter for your safety." "Eat a dick," Fleur sniffed, turning away from the guard. "You can share it with Luna." "So now what?" the filly asked Fleur as they slowly walked away from the castle. "Now we go to the house and get one of the spare stones." "That house where we live on the middle tier, that could be under attack at any moment?" Fleur nodded once, "Yeah, that house." The filly nodded sagely, "I see no way in how this could be a terrible idea." -0-0-0- Fleur rummaged through her dressing table, knowing that she'd hidden one of the spare speaker stones in there, and brandished it triumphantly once she'd found it tangled in a loose piece of taffeta. She also found the necklace of her cutie mark that she'd gotten from Mareitania, created by the pony that had tortured her and scarred her for life. She'd neglected to wear it for a while because of the uniform she wore for work, but since Equis was no more, there was no reason to not doll herself up a little. Five minutes, and a modest application of jewellery and make-up later, she left the house she shared with Fancy Pants and the filly, turned back to get the stone, then left again while feeling like a bit of an idiot. The feeling was forgotten as she found the filly with her ear pressed to a drain cover in the middle of the street. "What are you doing?" Fleur asked, wishing she could muster the energy to sound more put out by what the filly was doing. Frankly she wasn't surprised enough by the filly's actions to get into it though. "I can hea- Seriously?" "Seriously what?" "You took so long because you were slutting yourself up?" "I do not look slutty!" "Any mare wearing that much eye shadow is clearly looking for one thing. Maybe two if she's feeling adventurous." The filly returned her ear to the drain cover as Fleur checked her reflection in the nearest mirror. "I do not look slutty," she reiterated. "Whatever. I can hear voices coming from below us." "What?" Forgetting her make-up, Fleur lowered her ear to the drain, and had to hide her gasp as she too heard voices from below having a pointless discussion. "Frankly, I'm rather suspicious of how clean it is down here." "So you'd rather be trudging through knee deep shit would you?" "Oh, fuck no. I'm just saying is all. It's enough to make you think these Equestrians are too posh to poop." "Poop? What are you? Six? Do you also giggle at fart noises and push mares over in the park because you secretly like them?" "Shut up y' asshole." "Both of you shut up! This is supposed to be stealthy!" "Sorry Sir." Fleur lifted her ear from the drain, and blinked blankly at the filly for a moment before turning tail and running back to the castle as fast as she could, the filly right behind her. Celestia and Luna were still on the balcony where she last saw them as the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon. "They're coming through the sewers!" Fleur shouted up at the two princesses. "They're going to attack through the sewers!" Both princesses teleported down in a flash of magic, shocked Fleur into jumping back at least a meter. "Explain yourself," Luna said quickly. "I went home to get a speaker stone, since some pain in the ass princess forbid me from entering the castle, and the filly could hear ponies talking below her. It's the Mareitanians Luna! They're going to attack us through the sewers!" "I was under the impression that Canterlot's sewage was dealt with using magic." "Not always," said Celestia. "It used to run off into the river using underground tunnels, but that was obviously bad for the river, so we created a system using magic to deal with it all. The old tunnels were all sealed up, save for the sections that allowed workers to maintain the city structure. Oh dear." "What?" "They must be getting teleported to where the river passes under the city, because the city platforms aren't connected. But that could only mean somepony told them about it." "Uh," Fleur held up a hoof and waved to get their attention, "I think we're about to be under attack, so maybe you should worry about that instead?" "I do believe it's too late for that," Luna said as explosions went off on the midsection of the city. Celestia gasped with horror, "But we were supposed to be surrendering!" "I know! We need to get down there and help our ponies get out of there. Fleur, go find Shining Armour and tell him what's happened. Guards, let her in the castle." "Finally." "Come on Celestia!" Luna ran into a take off, swiftly soaring out over the city with a birds eye view of what was happening below. Ponies were crawling up out of the drain covers around the city, and like the fools they were, the princesses had let their guard down with their intention to surrender. The Equestrian forces were unprepared to deal with the attack, and were dealing with it in the matter they were trained to. They were fighting back. Luna fired a blast of magic down at the entrance of a drain near the main street through the city, only to have it caught at the last moment by some observational Adepts who shielded the exit. Luna dove towards them, her glaives materialising beside her, and cut down one of the Adepts, weakening the shield enough to batter through it. She stabbed down at the pony trying to climb out of the drain, sending his body tumbling back along with the ponies below him. Luna ignored a blast of magic to her side as she located the drain cover and slammed it back down into it's place. She then fused it into its surround, preventing anypony from moving it, although she only did half a job as a less ignorable pony charged into her and sent her flying. Luna rolled with the attack, kicking upwards at the pony, and stabbing down with a glaive as she rolled back onto her hooves. Rather than fight the ponies now aiming to take her out, she fled to the safety of the skies, and sought out her sister, finding her to the north as she attempted what Luna had done, but in a different way. Several meters around the drain hole glowed with heat. It would be a while until anypony would dare set hoof on it again. "They're going for the cannons," Celestia informed Luna as they met in the air. "They're going to slaughter our ponies there!" "Not if I can help it," Luna said as reinforcements from the upper city started to pour down into the middle layer to back them up. "Keep the way to the upper city clear, and I'll get our ponies out of there." Luna could see Faust watching from the lower city as she flew towards the cannons, which were already being attacked from the rear by the Mareitanians. She wasn't participating, thankfully, but Luna knew well enough that she was waiting to bridge the gap once the cannons were taken care of. Luna decided to deal with the immediate problem instead, and crashed into the fight between the Mareitanians and those defending the cannons, making herself the focus of their attacks as she tried to cut a path through them for her forces. A task that was made easier with Celestia's arrival. "Move! Fall back to the castle!" Luna shouted, relentlessly cutting down the Mareitanians as the cannoneers and the soldiers guarding them ran through the gap she'd made, and towards the safety of friendly forces. Faust must also have heard her shout though, and a shield appeared to bridge the gap where the bridge had previously been. Luna placed a shield of her own over the entrance to the middle layer of the city, holding back the soldiers running up the magical ramp long enough to get everypony away, then ran herself, dropping the shield and firing a blast at the stockpile of gunpowder around the cannons. The explosion set off another after another that tore through the ponies running up the shield, and the shield itself. Luna could hear the screams of ponies as they fell. More importantly, the blast had sent the cannons flying off the edge of the city, denying them to the enemy. Faust recovered quickly, and a new bridge was quickly made for the Mareitanian soldiers to cross, faster than the Equestrians could retreat as they were forced to defend themselves from the Mareitanians already there as they made their retreat. Luna placed herself in the rear as Celestia tried to get their ponies to safety, picking off the oncoming Mareitanians as they ran towards her. She changed to her blades as they got closer, and blood spilled as she held the Mareitanians back. "Luna!" Celestia cried as she saw her sister make a stand to save their ponies. Solaris glowed incandescently beside her as she hurried ponies across the bridge, and she had to fight herself to make sure they were safe, rather than go help Luna. "Come on, move!" Luna tasted copper as a sword clashed off her helmet, not cutting through it, but hitting hard enough to daze her at a time when focus was paramount. She fired wildly with her magic, scattering the ponies attacking her with sheer force, and buying her a few valuable seconds to retreat. The Equestrians were making their way over the bridge as fast as they could, but there were still far too many left to consider retreating herself, so with a grunt of determination she steeled herself for another round. The Mareitanians did not disappoint, and she soon found herself back in a fierce mêlee as they fought for the honour of bringing her down, as whoever did so would likely please Faust greatly. Exhaustion was starting to creep into Luna, so it was a considerable relief when a blast of golden magic caught two of her assailants by surprise, followed by more that lessened her burden further. She started to fall back, keeping her guard up as the Mareitanians kept coming, although the ranged support from Celestia made it easier. It was still a huge relief as her rear hooves ventured up the incline of the bridge. Luna turned and bolted as the Mareitanians surged towards the bridge, placing a shield over the end that they crashed up against. "Blow the bridge!" she yelled as Celestia lent her magic to the barrier. "There's nothing happening!" a pony shouted back, his hooves pumping a detonator up and down in the frantic hope that the bridge would explode at any moment. Luna swore loudly. With the Mareitanians on the bridge there was no chance of getting a spell off without dropping the shield, and without the ponies on the bridge absorbing the impact of the spell, as gruesome as that would end up being. If she had the chance to charge up a spell she could do something, but again, the shield prevented her. "We were going to surrender," Celestia whispered. "This wasn't meant to happen." "And yet it happened, and we got sucked right back into fighting." Luna sighed as the shield started to crack, the Mareitanians starting to break through it. "Perhaps if we-" Luna's suggestion never got to be heard as a bolt of fuschia from the blue impacted onto the bridge, shattering it utterly with a sound not dissimilar to an explosion, catching everypony by surprise, and again as its caster landed hard on the paving right behind the two princesses, her wings flared, and her magic ready. "What happened?" Twilight asked, a slight edge to her voice. "Twilight!" Celestia began to say with obvious relief. "You have no idea-" "You were supposed to hold Equestria until I got back. The war's been going on for little more than a month, and this is what I come back to? Canterlot being invaded! What. Happened?" "We lost," Luna said simply. "Mareitania's forces are too numerous, experienced, and well trained, and as soon as Faust took the reins after we captured Snowbright, we were done for. Since you're back though..." "No I don't have a way to defeat Faust. Not yet anyway." Twilight sighed at the carnage she could see through the rest of the city, and the Mareitanians not too far away. "We need to talk." -0-0-0- "What do you mean there's nothing?" "I mean exactly that, Luna, there's nothing. It's a freaking library in an outpost built to observe the windigoes in the frozen north. There are no weapons, stupidly powerful spells, or anything that can help us to defeat Faust right at this moment." Luna threw her hooves up in the air, "Great! So this really has all been for naught!" "What were you expecting?" Twilight snapped back at Luna. "The perfect weapon against Faust to just be sat around waiting for us? Are you serious?" "That would've been ideal, yes!" "Well it didn't happen, so instead we're researching a way to defeat her as we speak. Since we only found the place today, that might take a while." "Today?" Celestia said in surprise. "How did you get back so quick if you only found it today?" "There's a portal mirror in the ruins of your old castle, but it wasn't working until we activated it from the other end. Frankly we were lucky enough to find a working portal in the Circen desert, because our plan of making a new portal wouldn't have worked." Twilight shrugged at Celestia, "Or you might have come out of four different portals in chunks. I haven't decided yet." Celestia slowly lowered her head to a hoof, "There was a portal here the entire time?" "Mmhmm." Celestia sighed. "This is kinda beside the point though," Twilight continued. "Equestria's pretty much fucked at this point, so clearly waiting for us to find a way to stop Faust isn't going to work." "We were about to surrender," Cadence said, Flurry held between her legs. "We should've done so ages ago." "Yes, alright!" Luna snarled. "I was wrong to believe we could hold them off! Forgive me for not rolling over and showing my belly at the first sign of danger!" "That's not what I mean, and you know it! Have I blamed you once for fighting against their surprise attack just now?" "...No?" "Exactly." Luna sighed and nodded, "Forgive me Cadence. Fighting is all I really know how to do in these situations. It's not often that it doesn't work." "Then perhaps we need a new plan. Since we have no way to stop Faust, we need to surrender and try to foster good will with Faust. Perhaps if we can become friends with her, she might consider banishing you rather than something worse." "Even I find that woefully optimistic," said Twilight. "Besides, it's worse than you think. I know what Faust's 'plan' is now, and it's not great. The plan was the original blueprint for our world, until Discord changed it. Basically sapience was never meant to happen, and neither was the existence of most of the creatures of this world. Ponies would've been dumb animals, and prey for anything fast enough to catch us, or hungry enough to try." "Then there's no way she could hope to make this plan of hers work," said Luna. "At most we're looking at the complete and total destruction of-" "All civilisation," Twilight finished. "We'd basically be worse than living in the stone age, except we'll also be prey for any griffon, dragon, or whatever, that takes its fancy of us. As you can imagine, there's no room for nigh immortal alicorns in this picture, so I have no idea what she plans for us." "You can exclude Celestia from that," said Fleur from behind them, having quietly entered the room. "Faust wants Celestia something fierce." "Fleur!" Twilight ran over and grabbed her friend in a hug, then spotted the filly and dragged her in. "Oh my gosh, you're wings have grown back!" "You're damn right they have, although those flying lessons are going to have to wait a bit, y'know, until after Equestria isn't under attack." "Right, well, um..." "I can wait a lil bit." "I don't think a little bit is going to cut it." Twilight grinned weakly, then turned back to Fleur, "What was that about Celestia?" "According to Snowbright, he was to try and keep Equestria mostly intact because of something to do with Celestia. Faust wants Celestia, although what she intends to do with Celestia is a mystery to us." "I'd rather not find out," Celestia said with a shudder. "Okay," Twilight said slowly, unsure of what to make of that piece of news. "What's with the uniform?" she asked instead. "It's from work," Fleur replied. "I'm the Director of Equis, after the previous were killed by a bomb. Since Equis doesn't really exist anymore," Fleur glared at Luna, "I'm just here as a loose end." "I feel like I've missed a lot." Twilight shook her head to clear it, "Anyway, we need to think of a plan. We're going to find a way to defeat Faust, since she might have the power to make the plan a reality. She's like the opposite to Discord," she added as a quick explanation. "The Spirit of Order, or something along those lines." "Good grief," Luna muttered. "Is that why we cannot contend with her power?" "It's also why we've not seen Discord through this, as he can't really defeat her either. I think he decided to stay away in case he became a liability. Now stop distracting me when I'm trying to think of a plan." "What plan could we possibly think of that doesn't end up with all of you imprisoned?" asked Shining Armour. "That's the last thing we need to happen." "No kidding. I think the best thing to do is-" Twilight pricked her ears at the sound of shouting. "Do you hear that?" she asked, only to be thrown to the ground a second later as the entire castle shook. She made it back to her hooves just as the large stained-glass window above the two thrones exploded, letting in a blinding ray of bright, white light. It also let in Faust. None of them had the time to react as Faust fired a spell directly at Celestia, who didn't even have a chance to scream. She was simply gone, leaving her armour to scatter across the floor. There was no mark, or ash, or residue of any kind. It was as if she simply... wasn't, anymore. Luna howled with rage as Cadence placed a shield over herself and Flurry. Twilight jumped in front of Fleur and the filly, leaving Luna alone to attack as she fired a beam of magic at Faust, the larger alicorn deflecting it easily back at Luna, who dove to the side to evade it. "Do you have any idea how long I've waited to have you all together again?" Faust said as Luna skidded back to her hooves. "I knew that if I came after you all individually I'd never get you all. I defeat one of you, the rest would go onto hiding, so I've been patient. And how my patience has been rewarded." Faust directed a glare at Twilight, "Good to see you back in Equestria." "Good to be back," Twilight replied as her horn started the process of a spell to escape. Luna had other ideas though, and drew her blades to charge at Faust once again. Twilight wanted to tell her to stop, or kick Faust's ass, but the distraction was rather useful. "I'll kill you!" Luna cried through her rage at losing her sister. She swung her blades low, going for Faust's legs while her horn was kept high to attack while Faust was distracted. Faust reared up to escape the blades, but denied Luna the chance to use her magic by teleporting to the side and bucking Luna hard, right towards Twilight, interrupting her spell casting as she leapt out of Luna's path. Twilight fired her magic at Faust, keeping her occupied as Luna fought to regain her footing to attack again. Trying a different tactic, Luna joined in Twilight's attack, hoping to blind Faust with a dazzling array of attacks so she could get in close. Luna kept firing as she ran in, and teleported behind Faust to attack her, keeping her blades in front of her to perform a rapid strike that would at least severely harm Faust's ability to stand if nothing else. Faust however, had other ideas. The buck came at Luna faster than she could hope to avoid, and all she had were her blades to try and block the attack. She never expected Faust's hooves to dent her glaives, let alone shatter them like they did. A shockwave of magic sent both alicorns flying away as the magic within Apollo and Artemis was released, their fragments flying everywhere and leaving a trail of patches of frost as they landed. The frost melted rapidly as the residual magic faded, leaving nothing but shards of ordinary metal behind. Twilight stared dumbfounded at what had happened. She'd felt the magic Faust had been feeding into the strike, using far more than just her strength to strike at Luna. She'd never suspected an attack of even that magnitude could hope to shatter enchanted weapons like Luna's glaives. Now she knew entirely how wrong she was. "No," Luna whispered as she stared at the patch of melting frost and broken metal that was all that remained of Artemis and Apollo, the two weapons she'd had for centuries, broken in seconds by Faust. It was like losing a limb. "No!" "Luna! Don't!" Twilight cried. Luna ignored the warning and attacked again, her horn blazing with magic that she never got to use as Faust fired her own magic, shattering Luna's front right leg. Luna fell with a cry, sliding across the smooth marble floor until she was in front of Faust. She tried to attack again, but Faust kicked her head aside, sending the blast towards the roof. Twilight attacked again, but her spells were batted aside with a wing that at least had the decency to smoulder a little from the attack. It wasn't enough to distract Faust from grabbing Luna's head in an iron grip and twisting, breaking her neck with a crack that echoed around the throne room. "No less than you deserve," Faust said quietly as Cadence screamed loud enough to be heard over the cries of Flurry. Shining reinforced the shield over them as Faust dropped Luna's broken body and turned her attention to the remaining princesses. "You won't get away with this," Twilight growled as Faust took a few steps towards her and Cadence. For a moment she thought that her words had actually meant something as Faust stopped, but saw that the large alicorn's sight was locked onto the screaming form of Flurry Heart. She took a few more false steps, then just stared as Cadence pulled Flurry tighter into her grip. "You won't take her from us!" Cadence shouted at Faust, holding tightly onto the still crying foal. "I won't," Faust said weakly, staring a few seconds more before she seemed to come back to herself. Her expression turned hard, and she glared at the two princesses. "I don't want to deny you what Platinum denied me. Fly out of here right now, and never return. This is the only chance you're getting, so don't waste it." "Go," Shining said at Cadence, seeing this as the only real hope he had of getting them to safety. "I won't go without you Shining!" "Yes you will. Go." "But-" "Go!" Cadence took to the air with a cry, wrapping her legs tightly around Flurry to stop the foal from fighting to get to her father. She swiftly exited through the broken window Faust had come in through, and was joined a moment later by Twilight, although she stopped at the sight of Equestria's soldiers being forced to surrender, their weapons and armour getting forcibly stripped from them. "We need to go Cadence, now!" Twilight said urgently, spurring the pink alicorn into remembering to fly. "I doubt we'll get another chance like this." "But what about-" "Cadence, I love how concerned you are, but we need to go, because I'm about to piss Faust off a lot." Cadence was about to ask what Twilight meant, but had her query answered by Twilight's horn as it glowed, then flashed, summoning the dead body of Luna to her. Flurry immediately started to scream, and Cadence was too close to doing the same herself to stop her. "Hopefully we can get far enough away before Faust realises." "Why are you bringing her body with us?" "Because we're going to need her." "But she's dead!" "Only at the mo- Wait, did they not tell you how we're immortal?" "What?" Twilight rolled her eyes as she set their course for the Everfree forest, "Nevermind, you can find out when Luna wakes up." "...What?" "Twilight!" Twilight looked towards the shout, spotting three pegasi flying towards her, decked out in combat gear. She grinned as she noticed the rainbow coloured tail of one of them. "Rainbow Dash!" Rainbow darted in, planning to catch Twilight in a hug, but the sight of Luna's body quickly stopped her. "Whoa, what? Luna's dead?" "Only at the moment," said Twilight. "The fact is that we need to get out of here, so if you want to come with, that'd be great." "But what about-" Rainbow threw her legs up, "What the fuck is going on Twilight?" "Luna's dead, Celestia is... gone, and Equestria..." Twilight shook her head. "Our forces are surrendering, so unless you want to join them, we need to get out of here, especially before Faust works out that I've stolen Luna's body." "But Pinkie's down there. We have to go get her!" "Rainbow, we don't have time right now. If we go back we're done for." Twilight tried to smile kindly at Rainbow, but her heart wasn't really in it. "I promise we'll get her back, and the rest of our friends, okay?" Rainbow nodded feebly, "Okay." "Good. Now seriously, let's get the hell out of here." -0-0-0- Fleur looked Faust in the eye, keeping her attention even as Luna's body vanished in a flash of purple. She wanted to smile and call Twilight a clever girl, but kept it all hidden. "The princesses are gone now," Faust said, moving her sight to Shining Armour. "I do believe that puts the two of you as the highest ranking members of the Equestrian military. Since your army is currently in the process of surrendering, I won't be so crass as to actually ask for your surrender, but I will ask that you accept it has happened." "It would seem you've given us little choice," Shining said back, "so yes, we surrender." "Excellent." Faust started to turn away from them, so Fleur quickly tried to get her attention back by asking a question. "How'd you do it?" "Do what?" "Launch that sneak attack? We were going to surrender, but then you attacked us from below, forcing us to fight on, so I want to know how you knew about that?" Faust hummed thoughtfully, "And here I thought the Director of Equestrian Intelligence would be more aware of what was going on inside her own jurisdiction. Apparently not. Oh well, you can ask my new major-domo when you see him, because he can tell you all about his betrayal." Fleur rolled her eyes and laughed, "It's Blueblood, isn't it?" "Oh? So you're aware of his actions?" "Not at all, but he's the one pony left with a higher governmental position than us, and yet it's not him that you're asking for our surrender, meaning you mustn't have been sure we didn't know he was a traitor. He's also the one pony I haven't seen lately that I should be keeping an eye on. I suppose it wouldn't be beyond him to know about the old sewers." "He also sabotaged the explosives on the bridge to this level of the city, not that it really helped. Still, well done for working it out so quickly." Faust looked up and smiled as her soldiers ran into the throne room, "A shame you couldn't be convinced to help us." "I'm sure it is." Fleur grunted as a soldier grabbed her and roughly pulled her uniform off, declaring her clean. "Still, both of you have information I require." Faust gestured at another pony walking into the room. She was a very light brown, with long, curly, blue-grey tresses, and a rose tucked behind her ear. "Meet Black Rose, the head of the Shades." Fleur nodded stiffly at the newcomer, "I guess you're the pony I should thank for making my life such a pain?" "And you're the pony I should thank for making my life so interesting. You were so much more... competent than your predecessors. I actually had to try at times." "Silence, both of you." Faust looked sternly at both of them, then apologetically at Fleur. "I assure you we'll be a lot more accommodating than the last time you found yourself in this position, but rest assured, Black Rose is very patient, and will get out of both of you everything I need to know. Right now though Black Rose, I could use your assistance." Faust released Fleur from her gaze, and turned back to the thrones. She sneered at the one on the left, and with a single spell obliterated it into fragments. She then sat on Celestia's throne, "Soldiers, take those two away," she said, still failing to notice the lack of Luna's remains. "Wait, what about-" Fleur started to say, but stopped as a quick search told her somepony was missing. Wherever the filly was, she was long gone from there. "Nevermind," Fleur amended quickly, letting the soldiers lead her on without a fuss. They led both herself and Shining down to the dungeons, where they were led into different cells, and had an inhibitor placed on their horns before getting locked in. A minute later there was a small chuckle, and Snowbright's face appeared in the window. "Well, we'll, well, look-ee what we have here." "I already know Faust has some stringent rules about the treatment of prisoners, so unless you're about to disobey her, you can stop with the macho intimidation act." Snowbright lost some of his smile, "You're lucky I won't be the one asking you questions. Besides, think about what we did to Flitter before you get too comfortable thinking this will be a pleasant stay." Snowbright gave Fleur a wink, and left her alone to fight back her fear. She'd rather forgotten about Flitter, and what had happened to her. Still, she had one last job to do, then they were free to do whatever they wa-" "I hope you know this is justice." Fleur sighed through her nose, "I won't deny that there's some irony in this, Starlight Glimmer, but I'm really not in the mood to call it justice." Fleur reached back, searching through the strands of her tail for something. "That doesn't change anything. You could've let me out, but now we all get to be stuck in here together." Fleur grunted as she found what she was looking for, and yanked at the tool for removing inhibitors she kept in her tail, pulling a few hairs out with it. She then popped her inhibitor off, and begun the process of retrieving the speaker stone, which was hidden somewhere much more sensitive. "What are you doing?" Shining asked, wondering what all the squeaks coming from Fleur's cell were about. Fleur held the speaker stone up for him to see, then quickly retracted it as she reconsidered letting him see it. "I'm kindling a little hope for Twilight. Hopefully Bon Bon is up for an interesting mission." -0-0-0- "What happened?" Sunset asked as Twilight came into land at the castle, accompanied by three pegasi, one other princess, a foal, and a dead body. "Whoa." "We lost," Twilight said, not wanting to make it any more complicated than that. "What do you mean we lost?" Sunset asked back, feeling as though the answer needed to be a heck of a lot more complicated. "I mean we lost. Canterlot has been conquered, Celestia is gone, and Equestria has fallen. We're all that's left now." "What do you mean Celestia's gone? Do you mean she's dead?" "No, I think I'd know if she was dead. Besides, it wouldn't be a problem if she was. Faust did something to her, and now I have no idea where she is." "I see." Sunset's eyes widened as Rainbow removed her helmet, but said nothing as she knew that this was the pony version, and was technically a pony she'd never really met, let alone knew with any depth. The one pony she did know was Cadence, and that wasn't too happy a story. Fortunately for her, Cadence seemed too torn up to want to go into it right now. Trixie walked up and poked Luna's body, "There's something you don't see every day." "Don't do that!" Rainbow shouted, swatting Trixie's hoof away with a wing. "Oh relax, she'll be up and laughing about it in a few hours." Trixie rolled her eyes and ignored Rainbow as the mare growled, turning to Twilight instead. "So what now?" "Now? Now it's all up to us. With Equestria gone, we're the only ones capable of finding a way to stop Faust before the rest of the world follows." Trixie nodded thoughtfully, "Okay, so you're saying it's up to a plucky team of misfits to find a way to defeat country of fanatical ponies?" Trixie grinned at Twilight, "That sounds familiar. I like our odds." "I don't, which is why we'll be doing this sensibly-" "Hah! Right, yeah, because we're so very good at that. Be honest Twilight, we have no idea what we're doing, but we're going to try anyway." As much as she wanted to disagree, Twilight knew she'd only be lying to herself. "We'll think of something. Right now we need to get out of here, and get Luna's body somewhere warm for when she wakes up. Then we can think of a plan."

The end of an era

Epilogue - We happy few

Luna snorted, then coughed as her nostrils filled with sand. Just what she needed on her sixteenth, or was it seventeenth resurrection? She didn't know any more, although she did know that she really needed to stop dying. It was bad for her health. She opened her eyes, then squeezed them shut again as a bright light assaulted her senses. Instead she lay there, eyes shut, trying to not breathe in sand as she quietly baked in an overwhelming heat. It really wasn't the wake up she was expecting, so didn't complain. "I thought it'd be better for you if I kept your body warm." Luna took a moment to reply to Twilight, spending it trying to get her mouth moist enough to speak without croaking too much. "That didn't mean you had to put me in the oven." "Heh, not quite. Welcome to the Circen desert, Luna, home of ancient, and long absent alicorns." Luna stiffly raised a hoof over her eyes, then opened them a crack. It was still painfully bright, but she quickly became adjusted to it enough to see she was facing out towards the desert. She couldn't see Twilight, so raised her head until she could, her neck cracking with the movement reminding her of her last moments. "I suppose I should also let you know you're an idiot, attacking Faust like that." Luna finally found Twilight sat behind her in the shade, hunched over with her back leaning against a wall that had been worn smooth by the wind and sand. She struggled backwards on leaden limbs until she was in the shade as well. "I agree. If I had known Celestia wasn't dead, I might have acted differently, but my anger got the best of me." "She wasn't in the Astral realm?" "No sign of her. Whatever Faust inflicted on my sister, it was not death." "I guess we'll find out eventually then. I'm sorry about your blades." Luna slowly sighed through her nose, and nodded. "I never thought such was possible. It shouldn't have been possible. I suppose that is further proof of how out of our depth we were." Twilight prodded Luna and held out a hoof to help her into a sitting position. "We always knew we were out of our depth." "And yet we escaped." "No we didn't. She freaked out when she saw Flurry, then let us go." "Oh? I suppose Flurry does look rather similar to how Celestia did at that age, so I can imagine Faust was rather reminded of her. Still, I'm surprised she let you go, and allowed her to take my remains with you." "Oh, I suspect that wasn't quite her plan." Luna chuckled at that, but the laughter soon died. Celestia was gone, her weapons were destroyed, and Equestria was firmly under the control of Faust. That was nothing much to laugh about really. "How long was I out?" "About half a day." "Sounds about right." Luna forced herself to stand, her stiff body protesting at the treatment it had received, and was continuing to receive. There was far too much to be done to waste time sitting around feeling sorry for herself. Her dry mouth at least requested some water, which she begrudgingly admitted wouldn't hurt. "I imagine you're wondering what we're supposed to be doing now?" Twilight asked, rising to her own hooves as Luna tried to stretch the stiffness away. "It has crossed my mind. Also, I'd like to thank you for bringing me here. This is the least unpleasant return to life I've ever had. Keeping the body warm, I'll have to remember that." "Good. You can tell Cadence when you explain to her the entire immortality thing I thought you'd told her. Maybe she'll drag you back out here when she murders you." Luna winced, "I do imagine she's not best pleased with me." "There's an understatement. I'd also like to give you a kicking for traumatising my niece after you died horribly in front of her." "I'm afraid you shall all have to form an orderly queue then, because I'm not sure there's enough of me for you all to kick at once." "Then I'll have to do it for them." Twilight kicked Luna's legs out, sending the blue alicorn tumbling into the sand. Before Luna could so much as try to stand back up, Twilight was stood over her, jabbing a hoof down on her chest, "I can't even begin to describe how angry I am Luna. We were supposed to have months to work this out, but instead I come back to find Equestria had fallen after as little as a month. You were supposed to keep it safe!" "What was I supposed to do, Twilight? We did everything we could to keep Mareitania from being ready to attack! We burned their ships, destroyed their factories, and sabotaged whatever we could! But they came and attacked us all the same. Our best defence fell in two days, and after that it was only a matter of time. You can be angry at me all you want Twilight, perhaps rightfully so, but I'm not solely responsible for this." "And who else could you possibly blame?" "You, Celestia, Trixie, Fleur, Octavia, Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot, Daybreak, Snowbright, Ivory, Hayfield, Sour Mash, the Viscount, the Duke, Platinum, and most importantly, Faust! There are plenty of others I could name if you wish me to keep going?" "Are you even being serious? You're blaming me? And my friends? We were there by yours and Celestia's orders, remember, so don't you dare say that we're to blame for this!" "The army you created is the only reason Faust got as far as she did in so little time. Your Adepts are without compare, your decision to leave Honeydew with them was, frankly, terrible, and their weapons and armour significantly superior to what we could make. Their intelligence agency put ours to shame, and their battlefield medics are some of the best in the world because they don't shy from danger to save ponies." Twilight punched Luna across the face. It was only a short, quick smack that barely made the larger princess flinch, but it helped Twilight immeasurably. "It still wasn't my choice to be there, and yes I may have given them the best tools to fight with, but I was in no position to tell them what to do with those tools afterwards, so you can fuck right off with blaming me." Twilight stepped off of Luna, allowing her to stand again and roll her neck to work the kinks out. "I only wish to express that while I should receive my share of the blame, there are plenty of others that should accept their shares as well." "I don't care, Luna. I don't care because as much as I hate to say it, Trixie was right. Here we are with a small group of ponies having to fight against impossible odds to liberate a country again. The thing is, if it wasn't for the large amount of ponies I love and care about in that country that risk getting hurt, I can't say I really feel like it. I don't want to be in this position again, where so many depend on us! If you'd held onto Equestria, all I'd have to do is research a way to stop Faust, create it, use it, and boom! We're all done! Then I could think about my promise to Batal to get his ponies back, worry about the Storm King a bit, try to work out what happened to all the alicorns that lived here, and that's all I would have to do!" "Do you feel better now?" Luna asked after a moment. Twilight narrowed her eyes at Luna, "Say anything like that again, and I will throw sand in your fucking eyes." "Oh, well I'm sorry to hurt your feelings, but I've watched the country I built and defended crumble away around me in a month after a millennia of prosperity, My beloved sister is missing, I've died again, and the one pony I need to help us get through this has yelled at me and punched me in the face! So you know what? I've had a pretty shit day too!" The two alicorns glared at each other for several seconds, right up until Twilight snickered gently, and kicked sand over Luna's hooves. "Pretend that went in your eyes." "Come on Twilight, we have a duty-" "Oh don't even go there. I still don't see why becoming an alicorn automatically makes you responsible for the millions of ponies living in Equestria. It literally doesn't make sense to me." "We do it because we can." "Okay, the next sand I throw will actually go in your eyes if you don't stop. I'm doing this, but I'm not doing it for you, Celestia, Cadence, and especially not myself. I've been filled in on what's happened by Rainbow, and frankly I'm disappointed by what's gone on in my absence. The reason I'm stopping Faust is for the ponies, and the country that I'm going to save will also be for the ponies." "What do you mean?" "I mean, no more princesses. Clearly we're too incompetent to rule, so we shouldn't, simple as. The decisions that have been made to get us to this point have been made by ponies that have nopony to disagree with them save each other, and nopony to stop them, and it's stupid. The new Equestria would be ruled by ponies, for ponies, and us? We'll be made redundant. Permanently." Luna was shocked. She knew Twilight was disillusioned with their rule, but to hear this was near blasphemy to her ears. "You can't be serious!" "Oh I am-" "Then who are you to decide this but another princess? The rule of a princess to end the rule of princesses? How is that not hypocrisy? What if the ponies wish for the rule of alicorns? What then? Are we to deny them because that is what you wish?" Twilight tried to argue, but found she couldn't as Luna was right. Princesses had ruled Equestria for almost as long as it had existed, and had few complaints about it over the centuries. There was bound to be resistance to the end of alicorns ruling, and especially since it was a princess asking for it. Perhaps there was another way. "Fine, then we'll let the ponies decide. We save Equestria, then in the near future we can hold a referendum on whether or not princesses should rule Equestria, and let the ponies of Equestria decide." "I could just do this without you," Luna said coldly. "You're welcome to try, but you'll probably be doing it alone. Besides, this is what I'm talking about! You're deciding that there shouldn't be a referendum, and the only ones with a voice capable of stopping you are other princesses! This has to stop!" Luna sighed, seeing that she'd backed herself into a corner with that one. She knew she needed Twilight's help to do this, and had little choice but to give in. What she thought Twilight was going to do if she refused was an amusing thought, since that was pretty much letting Faust do what she wanted, but this wasn't the time to point it out. "Very well, once we have freed Equestria we shall hold a vote on whether to allow the reign of alicorns to continue. Assuming we even get that far." "Well, yes, alright," Twilight said, some of the wind being taken out of her sails. "Point made." "Should I assume that there is a plan at this point?" "Not as such," Twilight admitted quietly, "but we have one of the world's top minds on it. You should come meet him." -0-0-0- Luna paced in a circle around Starsy as he paced around her in the small confines of the portal chamber, studying and eyeing each other up with an intensity that neared contempt. "So this isn't the actual Starswirl?" Luna said after a few moments. "How disappointing." "Enjoy your sabbatical on the moon dear Luna?" Starsy said back. "I imagine the views must be... breathtaking, from up there." "They got boring after a few days," Luna replied, her face suddenly developing a grin. "Even if you aren't the genuine article, it's still good to see you, you old goat." "Likewise, Princess, although I must say I'm a little disappointed that you managed to lose Equestria." "Seeing as how you know exactly what we're up against, can you honestly tell me you're surprised?" Starsy shrugged at the question, "Hmm, perhaps not, but that is precisely why I was sought out, was it not?" Starsy raised his nose into the air, "Clearly Equestria cannot survive without my brilliance." "Uh-huh. That said, do you have any ideas on how to solve this mess?" "Not a one," Starsy said shamelessly. "Not even outside the conditions I laid down." "Conditions?" Luna asked. "What conditions." "Basically he will only help us if we agree to stopping Faust in as kind a way as possible," Twilight explained. "He doesn't want us to make Faust suffer anything like another lengthy imprisonment." Luna wanted to roll her eyes, and it was a fight to keep them pointing forwards. "I see. And what if there is no such other way but to imprison her?" Luna waited for an answer, a frown growing on her face the longer she went without one. "Uh-huh. Helpful." "There is a way to do this, I know it" Starsy insisted. "We just need to find it first. Perhaps with your 'help' we can find it even faster. Follow me." Starsy led them out of the portal chamber, and towards the observation area. The library was interesting to see, but Luna ignored it in favour of the voices up ahead, talking in hushed tones. There were quite a few ponies there, and she was about to say a hello when a high pitched scream filled the air. The kind of high pitched scream that had previously shattered the Crystal Heart. "And a fine hello to you Flurry Heart," Luna muttered instead. "It's alright little one," she said louder, "I'm fine, I'm totally fine. There's nothing to worry about." "I think there's plenty to worry about!" Cadence shouted as she tried to stop Flurry from flying away in terror, grabbing the foal in her legs. "How in Celestia's name are you not dead?" "Go on," Twilight said in a tone rich with sarcasm, "tell her that thing you should have told her ages ago." Luna grimaced, then tried to turn it into a smile for Cadence as she continued to fight with Flurry. "Alicorns are immortal is the simple answer. We can be killed, but we return to life shortly after, totally unwounded." Cadence blinked, glancing away for a moment as Rainbow Dash tried to get Twilight's attention. "I think you're going to have to explain it a bit better than that. Are you like a zombie now? And Flurry, will you please stop screaming? Please?" Luna hid her sigh and nodded at Cadence. "I thought you might want more of an answer than that. Very well, I shall try to explain it as best I can." Twilight couldn't contain the smug smile she had over Luna having to explain this to Cadence, even though she was sure Cadence wouldn't appreciate how the story ended. Celestia had said there might be issues with Cadence having to watch the ones she loved died, and it was perhaps a massive mercy to her that Flurry was born an alicorn. All the same, it made Twilight want to smirk, and she let it sit in plain view on her face until Rainbow came and tapped her on the side. "Twilight, can we talk?" "Uh, sure. What about?" Rainbow led Twilight away where others couldn't hear them, then sat and played with her hooves as she tried to work out how to say what she wanted. "I'm sorry," she blurted after several long seconds. "Uh, okay. What for?" "For... for not being there for you after you came back from Mareitania." "Ah." Twilight nodded, starting to understand the situation. "Is this to do with you all thinking I was some kind of monster for doing what I had to? And for pretty much ostracising me after that? After the things you've had to do to defend Equestria, do you suddenly realise how easy it is to end up with unwanted blood on your hooves? And do you feel ashamed for how accepting you came to be of it all?" Rainbow winced more and more as Twilight went on, "I get the feeling you were expecting this." "Expecting, and ready for it." Twilight gestured with a hoof towards Rainbow, "Come on then, let's hear it," she said with barely veiled irritation. "How do you live with it?" Twilight froze as Rainbow looked up at her with tears in her eyes. She couldn't help but watch as those tears took the path of least resistance down the hairless scar on Rainbow's cheek. "The fact that you had to go through dealing with what you'd done, while we were treating you like... like a murderer. I am so sorry Twilight, for treating you that way, and- and-" Twilight's demeanor crumbled with Rainbow's as the pegasus burst into tears that Twilight knew weren't all for her. She pulled Rainbow into a tight hug, keeping her within her legs as the pegasus bawled into her shoulder, saying nothing until Rainbow was good and ready. "I'm so sorry!" "Shh, Rainbow, it's alright." "No it's not! We were so horrible to you! And when you needed us most, we- we-" "I know," Twilight sighed, "and I'm not going to say it didn't hurt, or that I wasn't angry about it. The thing is, I know that if our places were swapped I'd probably have been exactly the same. I never really blamed you for not understanding, and I'm sorry that you've been put into a position where now you do. Nopony should have to experience the things we have." "Ain't that the truth," Rainbow said as she tried rub her tears away. "How did you cope with it all?" Twilight smiled in the direction Trixie was sitting, although she couldn't see her. "It helped to have ponies around me that understood. I had Trixie, Fleur, and the others, and you have me, Lightning, and Vapor if you need them. You guys might have... not been as supportive as I would've liked, to put it mildly, but I wasn't totally alone with it." "So you can forgive me then." "Of course I can. That doesn't mean I do of course." Twilight smirked sideways as Rainbow's mouth dropped open, "Gotcha. Of course I forgive you Rainbow, because that's what friends do." "Thanks Twilight. Speaking of friends though, where did you find Daring Do and a changeling? I mean, can we really trust Mayfly?" "To answer those in order, in Saddle Arabia, the Badlands, and yes we can. She was cast out by Chrysalis, and... there's kind of a whole story to it. I'll tell you some other time, when we don't have a whole 'save the world' thing going on. Or, y'know, later, if we're not busy." "Cool. You can also tell me how the hell Trixie killed Auhizotl while you're at it." This time it was Twilight's turn to wince, "Daring told you didn't she?" "Yeah she did. Daring Do's never going to be the same without Auhizotl! And how is she supposed to explain why he was never seen again, huh?" "Okay, he was about to eat my heart, so excuse me if that wasn't a major concern at the time." "That's no excuse!" Rainbow bit her lip at the way Twilight started looking at her, "I mean, it could be?" "He was about to kill Trixie as well, so excuse her too if she decided to kill him first." "Is Caballeron still alive at least?" "Yeah, we never saw him, so he's fine. Besides, it's not like we actually set out to kill anyone. That situation forced Trixie into using dark magic again, and freaked her the fuck out. Not something we really wanted to happen." "Okay... okay, good. Maybe Daring can write around Auhizotl never being seen again." Twilight rolled her eyes and started to walk away, "I can't believe this is your primary concern right now." "It's not my primary concern, but it is a concern." "And what are the others? Besides Equestria having fallen, that is." "Our friends." Twilight stopped cold at the utterance of those two words. She knew she shouldn't really be surprised at hearing them, but with everything else that had been going on, she might have forced them towards the back of her mind. "We were going to get them back after we won the war... but we lost. We can't just leave them there, Twilight." "I know, but I don't have any idea how to get them out right now." "Oh, okay." Rainbow's disappointment was obvious. "I'm not disagreeing with you Rainbow," Twilight said quickly. "I want them back too, but we can't just waltz into High Rock and take them. Give me a bit of time to think about it while we find a way to stop Faust, and I promise I'll find a way to get them out." "Can't you and Trixie do the two magic thing you told us about, to get us into the castle?" "In theory, but that's just one small facet of the problem." Twilight smiled at Rainbow, "I promise you I'll think of a way to get them back, but we need to be ready, okay?" Rainbow nodded, confident that Twilight would find a way. "Okay, but if you take too long I'm going to start working out my own way to get them out. You know that won't end well." "And now I have a time limit. Marvellous." Twilight smiled sardonically at Rainbow, then gestured with her head for Rainbow to follow her back out to the observation area. Luna and Cadence were back, with Flurry giving Luna suspicious squints, which was at least better than screaming, and far superior than the hollow look in Cadence's eyes. Twilight looked around the room, at the ponies within it. Trixie, Sunset, Moondancer, Mayfly, Daring Do, Rainbow, Lightning, Vapor, Cadence, Luna, Starsy, and herself, against the most powerful being in the world, save perhaps Discord. Twilight would've included Flurry as well, but she suspected her contributions would be somewhat limited by her being less than a year old. She wanted to say Faust didn't stand a chance, but that would be blatantly stupid considering she'd made Celestia vanish, and killed Luna in less than a minute. Still, they had to try. "Come on guys, let's get to work. The sooner we find a way to stop Faust, the better." "We're reading books again, aren't we?" Trixie said with a groan. "Seriously, why are all our solutions in books? Hasn't anypony had an original idea for the last one thousand years?" "Shut up and get reading, Trixie." -0-0-0- Faust breathed deeply, enjoying the crisp, clear, mountain air that Canterlot enjoyed now that the fires had been put out. Of course there was the small issue of rebuilding what had been destroyed, but apart from the bridges there was no rush. It would all be made pointless in the end anyway. Until such a time though, there was plenty to be done. The surrendered Equestrian forces had to be dealt with, and gaining the support of the rest of Equestria as she continued her goal of eradicating all that had been made wrong with the world. All would know peace eventually, but not yet. "Are you listening, your Ladyship?" Faust blinked a few times as she returned to the here and now, and moved her gaze to the griffon before her. "Apologies Commander, but my mind was wandering. What was it you just said?" Theron gave a little caw of irritation, and repeated what he'd just said to the alicorn sat in the golden throne of Celestia. "I said that with five thousand of your soldiers, Griffonstone should fall into line without a fuss. Those griffons won't put up much of a fight unless you pay them to." "Are you so certain they won't fight back? I have learnt much of the obstinacy of Griffons over the last few weeks." Theron bristled at the thinly veiled, if not blatant insult, "If I were so confident, I would not be requesting five thousand of your soldiers to help me. Faced with such numbers, they will not put up a fight." "Very well, but if the griffons do resist, I will be plucking a feather for every one of the soldiers you cost me. Do not waste their lives on your business, Commander Theron." "Understood." Theron bowed deeply and left, leaving Faust with the three ponies currently attending her, Snowbright, Black Rose, and her newest acquisition, Prince Blueblood, although she refused to call him Prince. "What of the Director and the General?" Faust asked Black Rose. "Have they revealed anything of use yet?" "They haven't said a word as yet. Even with Snowbright's suggested methods that he learnt of first hoof during his time here, they remain silent. Perhaps if you were to let us use more persuasive methods?" Faust thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No, I will not condone torture just yet. Honestly I'm not convinced they truly know anything of worth to require such extreme methods." "Surely the whereabouts of Equis' assets would be of great use to us?" Black Rose said, almost pleadingly. "We can't afford the kind of surprises they could have in store for us if left unchecked." Faust pursed her lips, wanting to say those surprises would be as gnats biting an elephant, but she couldn't undermine her ponies like that. "If they haven't spoken in a week, we can consider other methods, but I have confidence that Snowbright's method will bear fruit." Black Rose bowed stiffly, "As you wish. I shall go check on their progress." Faust nodded at Black Rose, and the mare left, leaving Blueblood and Snowbright to deal with. "Any thought's Blueblood?" she said, catching him by surprise as he watched Black Rose leave, or more specifically, her flank. Blueblood quickly composed himself, and gave Faust a winning smile. "I'm afraid progress might be slow. Trying to convince the ponies of Equestria that you're here to help them is a little tricky after conquering their country, and even more so after centuries of... indoctrination by the princesses." "You don't sound convinced by your own words Blueblood." "Apologies, my Lady, but it'll be an uphill battle to convince ponies you are here to help them, let alone to convince them to aid you. You are rather viewed as a-uh, tyrant, by most." "Watch that honest tongue before you trip over it Blueblood," Faust warned. "I know well enough what I might be seen as, but if you can see the truth of my cause, others can too. Your efforts to convince Celestia's soldiers to surrender was proof enough that you can do it." "I'm afraid that was rather easy in comparison, but I shan't give up until everypony has seen your cause is just. If you'll excuse me, my Lady?" "Of course, Blueblood." Snowbright followed Blueblood with his eyes as the unicorn left. "You can't trust a weasel like him," he said once Blueblood was gone. "Anypony willing to betray their country is willing to betray anything." "Perhaps, but for now his loyalty is mine. As for you Snowbright, I forgive you for letting your tongue slip whilst in captivity. What I don't forgive you for is your feeble capture. How did it happen?" "The Equestrians were relying on brutality to cover the shortfall in their numbers. It didn't serve them very well for long since we now sit in a free Equestria." "Even so, I am still disappointed in you. Perhaps if you were to prove your loyalty I will return you to your position, and allow you to aid that fool Theron in capturing Griffonstone." Snowbright bowed deeply to hide his embarrassed scowl, "I am at your service." "There are a number of ponies in Equestria whom I know for certain that Blueblood's word will never sway. Ponies like your former allies during the civil war, and others. For now they are being kept in a camp in Ponyville, but their numbers are too many to trust a mere camp with keeping them in order. I'm considering expanding the operation to cover the entire village, rather than waste time and resources building shelters for them all, but some extra security would be good. Do you have any ideas?" "You mean you seek a way to control these ponies?" "Mostly I seek to keep them contained and out of the way, but in a manner suitably equine." "I see." Snowbright broke into a grin, "I may have met just the pony you're looking for. She's currently in the dungeons for various crimes, but mostly she stole ponies marks to remove their special talents, and brain washed them into obeying her. Or at least something along those lines. I may have lost interest when she started going into her philosophy behind it all." Faust hummed thoughtfully, "Intriguing. And you believe that she can be used to eliminate these ponies as threats? Are you sure she can be controlled herself?" "I believe so. All you have to do is put the fear of the Lady into her, and she'll fall into line." "Yes... she sounds like she might be just what I'm looking for. Bring her to me, Snowbright, so I might decide for myself." Like the others, Snowbright bowed and left, only this time Faust was able to be left alone for a brief moment. A moment she could use to calm the aching of her heart. She knew what she was doing was right, but the path to it was fraught with pain and bloodshed. It would be worth it in the end, but the journey was enough to keep her questioning it. Faust tried to put it out of her mind as there was a great number of other things to think about, such as why she had let the two princesses escape? She had finally got them all together, drawn Twilight out of hiding, and had successfully retrieved Celestia and defeated Luna, so why had seeing that foal made her hesitate? Was it simply because she looked like Celestia that it had cut so deep into her? Whatever the reason, she was foolish enough to let the alicorns escape, and with Luna's body no less. The cursed mare was bound to be up and walking again by now. They would all have to pay for that. "My, you have been a naughty filly, haven't you?" Faust leapt out of her throne with a shout as the words were whispered into her ear, followed by a chuckle that she easily recognised, even after so long. She turned on the spot, frantically searching the throne room as she tried to find him. "Show yourself, Chaos!" "Actually, Order, I go by the name Discord now. So much more playful sounding than boring old Chaos." Faust stopped turning as Discord's voice seemed to come from everywhere, yet also nowhere. "If you expect me to call you that, you shall do me the courtesy of calling me by my name." "Ah yes, Faust. A tasteless play on first, what with your obsession with being the first alicorn. Hardly something to be proud of since there are only six of you in the first place. And yes, I counted Luna's little doppelganger that you accidentally created, and I'm actually disgusted by what you did to her, which is saying something as I have some very broad tastes, as you know." "Do not mention that creature around me!" "Nightmare." "Stop!" "Nightmare." "I said stop!" "Nightmare." "Aargh! Cease your childish antics and come out here and face me you coward!" "So you can try and blast me into oblivion once more?" Discord chuckled again, "No thank you. I also think the ponies of Equestria would appreciate keeping their city in one piece on the side of the mountain." "It shall go one day, as shall all of them!" "Ah yes, the plan. Honestly Faust, what are you thinking?" Discord sang. "You know the plan is impossible now. I made sure of it, even though it benefitted you more in the end than it did me, since you made sure I was a monster to them all. Thanks for that by the way." "You are a monster!" "And perhaps if you'd slung less names like that around, I might've been more willing to work with you on your little Harmony project, but alas, you created yourself as a giant bitch. So sad." Faust glared up at the stained glass window depicting Discord, feeling it mocking her. At the very least it gave her something to direct her words at. "I will find you Discord, once I am done making this world perfect, and I will end you once and for all!" "Oh you, you always knew how to make me feel special. Too bad that'll never happen, because a: I can't be destroyed, as you well know, b: this world will never be perfect, and c: you messed with the friends of Twilight Sparkle, and made an enemy of her. Twilight Sparkle, the pony that defeated me with ease in the space of an afternoon. I suppose my arrogance helped, but the point still stands." Faust flared her nostrils at the mention of Twilight's name, but kept her anger back while Discord was still feeling talkative. Who knew what he might let slip? "And what's your stake in all this?" The was a faint growl in the air, "You hurt Fluttershy... and it galls me that I can't do anything about it. We both know that as soon as I get involved, whatever plans Twilight Sparkle has concocted will likely unravel. I never understood how you could always beat me, temporarily at least, so I will be staying far away from what any of that merry troupe is doing." "So you came here to taunt me? Is that it?" "Oh pshah, like you expected anything less from me, but I've also come to say I'm sorry for what happened to you, and had I known, even I would've let you go. After spending a millennium as a rather handsome statue, I know it isn't much fun being trapped like that." Faust bared her teeth up at the window, "I don't want your sympathy!" "And yet you have it all the same, although it is somewhat diminished by your imminent attempt to unravel the world, just so you can feel safe at night knowing nopony can ever hurt you again. A foolish dream of yours as civilisation can't help but exist now, but that's your problem to deal with." "I have my ways." "Brainwashing the entire world? Hah! Good luck with that. You don't even realise it yet, but the seeds of your downfall have already been planted in that regard." "You say that with such confidence while you're hiding, trickster, but I shall prevail." "They did it as a mere precaution too," Discord continued. "That's probably the best part, seeing your plans undone by a precaution." "What are you talking about?" "Oh nothing, nothing. By the way, I'm rather amused by what you're trying to do to Celestia. I'm not saying she deserves it, but I find it funny all the same. Goodbye Faust, we shan't be seeing each other again." "I promise you we will, and it shall be the last time we ever meet!" "Such promises, especially when the end of your plans have already begun. Ta-ta!" "Discord!" Faust waited a beat for him to say something, but a chilly emptiness is all she could feel around her. "Discord?" He was truly gone, leaving nothing but a worm of worry of gnaw on her gut. It was nothing new to see him acting with such brazen confidence, but to hear him so proudly say that he was going to do nothing to stop her was... unsettling, and very unlike him. "My Lady!" Faust had to stop herself from shrieking as the doors to the throne room slammed open to let Black Rose and Snowbright gallop in. She wheeled on them, and had to stop herself from snarling at them for their intrusion on her moment of vulnerability. "What is it?" Black Rose stopped and swallowed nervously, "Fleur de Lis and Shining Armour have escaped." "What? How?" "I'm not sure. All we found were the bodies of the prison guards, and these." Black Rose held up her hoof, which was holding two unicorn inhibitors, and a small picture of a smiley face. "I think they must've had help to get the keys, as losing these wouldn't have been enough to open the cell doors. It gets worse too." "Oh? How could it possibly get worse?" Black Rose flinched at the harshness in Faust's voice, "The Crystal Heart is missing. We can only assume they've taken it with them." Faust stared blankly at the head of the Shades as Discord's parting words rattled around her head. The end of her plans had already begun. No, she wouldn't allow it. "They can't have gotten far, and the city is locked down. General, I want every soldier you have spare searching for them now! I want them found!" "At once!" Faust breathed deeply and rapidly as the two ponies ran off. It couldn't end like this, not before she had even really started. She wouldn't allow it. -0-0-0- "Oh boy. Now I really wish I could fly." "Too risky. You'd be spotted," said Fleur. "I think that's better than this!" The filly pointed at the barrel bobbing in the water that she was expected to climb into. "This is insane, despite what she says!" "Oh come on, it'll be fine. It might even be fun!" said the unicorn the filly was referring to. The filly glared at the white unicorn with the purple streaks in her mane and tail, "Y'know what? I can really see the family resemblance. Twilight was insane too! Twilight junior, I mean. Why the fuck do you have the same name?" Shining Armour grunted at the filly, "Could you not talk about my mother and sister that way?" "Theoretically..." Shining rolled his eyes, then smiled at his mother, and the dark blue stallion next to her. "Thanks for helping us get out of here mum, dad. We owe you." "Except it's not just you that's getting out of here," said Twilight. "Nightlight and I are coming with you." "What? You can't do that, it's too-" "Dangerous?" said Nightlight. "Have you forgotten what happened here a couple of days ago already?" "I was wondering why there was seven barrels," the filly whispered to Fleur. "We'll be safer out of Canterlot," Nightlight finished. "There's loads of places to hide in Manehattan." "And you are not denying me the one chance I have to go over the Canterlot falls, young colt," Twilight Velvet scolded, wagging her hoof at Shining. "Health and safety laws be damned today." "Yes mum." Shining smiled helplessly at Fleur, "Are you ready to go?" Fleur grimaced at the barrels, "This is the singular worst idea I think I've ever seen. Or at least the worst this week, but, whatever, let's get out of here." Fleur accepted Shining's proffered hoof into her barrel as the filly, Twilight Velvet, and Nightlight got into theirs, and took the Crystal Heart in her hooves as Shining passed it to her. He then helped their two other guests into their barrels, Bluebelle, also known as Honeydew, and a rather gangly crystal pony called Crystal Hoof, although he was better known to some of them there as the changeling Thorax. "Keep your heads down, legs tucked, and try not to throw up! Most importantly though, have fun!" Twilight said with manic cheer. "Ooh, I've never felt so alive!" "Does anypony have any nails?" Shining joked as he climbed into his barrel and pushed them all away from the small jetty. "Bon voyage!" Twilight said, pulling the lid of her barrel down tight as they moved out into the current, and towards the waterfall over the edge of the city. "I can't believe ponies do this for fun," Fleur muttered as her breath was taken away by a scream as she plummeted over the edge, away from Canterlot, and away from Faust. One day she might admit it was worth it.

The end of an era

Sequel

The next story, A new order, can be found here.

Ballad of Autumn Dreams

pre

About a week after she had received the letter, Rainbow Dash woke up after a particularly bad night. She had tossed and turned all night, dealing with nightmares that were far worse than usual. Though she couldn't remember any details, one had something to do with her doing so badly at the tryout that the Wonderbolts had revoked her rights as a pegasus and she had woken up just before her wings were removed. Still shaking slightly, she followed Applejack out of the house, her friend trying to make light conversation but being met with only curt answers or nothing at all. Her mood did not improve at all as the two ponies went about their various tasks of the day. If anything, it grew worse and seemed to be infectious as it wasn't too long before Applejack was in a rather sour mood as well. Several times throughout the morning, the earth pony had had to snap at her friend for making mistakes that were either dangerous or shouldn't have been made at all. They had even come close to getting into a shouting match more than once as time dragged on. All in all, Rainbow Dash was quite glad as she was left with just one more task for the day, putting together the rainclouds that would cover the farm and water the crops. For one thing, it meant she was almost finished and could go practice some more. For another, it meant that she no longer had to be around Applejack any longer. The pegasus began to pull clouds together to form a solid grey mass in the sky, grumbling to herself as she did so. She was so caught up in her irritation and anger that she didn't notice that the clouds, which should have been a light grey shade, were rapidly growing quite dark. It wasn't until there was an ominous rumble of thunder and the rain began to pour down that she realized she'd forgotten one of the most important rules of the weather team. Never put together something like a storm while angry. Just like any other form of art, a pegasus put a bit of themselves into the weather they created. Normally, this simply served to make their work look incredible and have more life to it than the kind of weather that would form over, say, the Everfree Forest. Of course, this also meant that negative emotions such as anger or jealousy could have a profound effect on whatever the pegasus put together, as Dash was seeing with her storm which was rapidly growing out of control. Lightning crackled from cloud to cloud, though even as Rainbow Dash fled to the ground to avoid being struck, she knew it would only be a matter of time before it would make it's way down. As the gusts of wind howled and the downpour grew even stronger, Applejack made her way out of the barn, holding her hat on with one hoof as she stared up at the clouds with wide eyes. "R-rainbow, what's... what's goin' on here? Ah know Ah asked fer a storm, but this is just too much! If this keeps up, we're gonna lose the crops and maybe even some of the apple trees." "Applejack, I'm so sorry! I... I didn't mean for it to turn out like this." Rainbow Dash shouted over the storm, her eyes wide and fearful. "Save yer apologies fer now, sugarcube, we've got bigger problems. Can't ya'll break it up or... stop it or somethin'?" Applejack said as Big Macintosh and Caramel appeared, having dropped whatever they were doing to see what was going on. "No, it's too big now. I can't control something this size. I... I suppose I might be able to try something to slow it down or break it apart, but I don't know. With that lightning..." "Well, you can't just stand around doin' nothing. None of us can. Come on, Big Macintosh, Caramel, we need to get tarps out over the crops, secure the barn and house, ya'll know what ta do. Rainbow, do somethin' about that storm if you can. If not... let's just hope you can anyways. Move it ponies!" Applejack said, steeling herself up as she took command in the face of this disaster. Her brother and Caramel did as she said, though the smaller pony was visibly trembling. Together with Applejack, the three earth ponies began to pull large tarps out of the barn, hauling them toward the fields to try and cover up the crops from some of the worst of the storm. Unfortunately, as soon as the tarps were unfolded, that plan began to fall apart. The wind was just too strong and, though they kept their grips on the fabric, it was still flapping wildly in the wind. As they were fighting with that, Rainbow Dash had taken to the air again, trying to take calming breaths even as she dodged around the clouds to avoid any lightning. Against something like this, one pegasus alone didn't stand a chance, but she didn't have time to go get any others or the storm she'd put together would wind up tearing Sweet Apple Acres apart. Still, there had to be something she could do, and she began to try everything she could think of to break apart the clouds. Despite her best efforts though, for every cloud she kicked away or got separated from the main thunderhead, more continued to get sucked into the mass and the storm grew and grew. Gritting her teeth as yet another of her attempts failed, Dash flicked her mane out of her eyes and flew right back into the clouds again. She couldn't just give up, not while those three ponies below were counting on her. She had to stop this monster she'd created. Down below, things were going a bit better for the earth ponies. They had finally managed to get half of the tarp down, Caramel tying the ropes to stakes which were driven into the ground. Applejack and Big Macintosh each had one of the other corners and were struggling to hold them down so that he could come around and finish those off as well, starting with Applejack's. The wind was terrible though and it was taking all the strength they had just to hold on and keep the tarp from flapping loose again. After yet another failed attempt at putting a stop to the storm, Dash headed back down toward the ground to let the other three know that she needed help with this. Before she could say anything though, there was a loud snap as one of the ropes holding down the tarp broke under the strain. Caught by the wind, the entire tarp began to shift and blow around, the severed rope now whipping viciously through the air. Before anypony could do anything except stare on in horror, the rope blew straight toward Big Macintosh, slamming into the stallion's side with a crack loud enough to be heard over the storm. The red pony was thrown off his hooves by the force of the blow, landing in the mud where he lay, completely still. "Oh Celestia, Big Macintosh!" Applejack called out, racing over to her brother. She looked over the fallen pony for a moment before turning back to the other stallion there. "He's hurt bad. Gonna need somepony's help fast... Caramel, run and go get Nurse Redheart!" Caramel didn't move at all, didn't even act as if he had heard her. He was simply staring at the scene unfolding around him with wide, terrified eyes, apparently completely oblivious to the deadly rope still lashing through the air around him. The pony seemed to be completely paralyzed with fear. "Caramel, get down!" Came a voice from above, followed by a speeding blue blur that knocked the yellow pony to the ground just in time to avoid the rope as it whizzed past at head height. The shock seemed to be enough to break whatever trance had fallen over the stallion as he blinked and quickly got back up onto his feet, backing out of reach of the severed rope. Looking from Big Macintosh on the ground and Applejack beside him to Rainbow Dash where she was picking herself up from the mud and seemed to falter once more. "I... I..." He tried to say before Applejack cut him off. "There ain't no time, Caramel! Ya'll need ta get ta Ponyville and get Nurse Redheart!" "After you've done that, gather up as many pegasi as you can." Rainbow Dash added on hurriedly. "I need all the help I can get." The colt still looked absolutely terrified, but he nodded and bolted off toward the town. After he left, Applejack took another look down at her brother before getting back up. After a quick look around, she found a cloth that would at least keep some of the rain off of him and laid it over the red stallion. "Ah'm sorry, Big Mac, but Ah've still got a job ta do. Ah'm sure ya understand..." She said, hesitant to leave his side while he's injured but still turning away toward the runaway tarp. "Rainbow! Ah know Ah asked you ta take care of that storm, but Ah can't do this all by mah lonesome." "R-right! Just tell me what you need me to do!" The pegasus gave a nod in reply. With that, the two set about trying to get the tarp back under control and staked down. It was hard going, far harder than it had been with three ponies working on it. The driving rain and howling winds didn't make things any easier on the two of them. Somehow though, they finally managed to get the first tarp pinned down and, despite a brief, anxious moment where it looked as if the ropes might snap, they held. Applejack gave a little sigh of relief, though she didn't have time to rejoice just yet. There were still two other fields to cover and this was just a temporary measure. If something wasn't done about that storm... Her thoughts are distracted by the arrival of Nurse Redheart, followed shortly thereafter by Caramel and a flock of pegasi ponies along with some of the stronger ponies from town. As the nurse pony immediately rushed to Big Mac's side, looking him over before calling over two ponies to help her lift him up onto a stretcher and haul him back toward Ponyville, the others began to divide up into groups. Applejack led one group of the land-bound ponies, leading them toward one of the remaining fields while Caramel led the second. Rainbow Dash took command of the fliers, putting in action a plan to cut the storm into several bits all at once, breaking it up faster than it could grow back. Slowly, the tide had turned. Thanks to the efforts of all the ponies, the last two fields were covered over and the storm was worked down to a size where it would blow itself out before too much longer. Apart from some minor cuts and bruises, and a lot of discomfort from the storm and the mud, nopony else was injured and, soon enough, they had all huddled inside of the barn for shelter rather than brave the walk back into town. The pegasus ponies really knew what they were doing. While they were unable to disperse the clouds entirely, the storm blew itself out in a little under an hour. The ponies that had helped during the emergency trickled out the barn, heading for their homes, but Applejack made sure to personally thank each and every one of them. "Hey, it's not a problem. What hurts Sweet Apple Acres, hurts all of us. Giving help during a time of need is the least we can do." One of the ponies replied to her thanks, giving her a little smile before leaving. Soon, the last of the helpers had left, leaving just Applejack, Caramel, and Rainbow Dash in the barn, each dreading what they might see once they step outside. Before that happened though, Applejack knew there were things she needed to speak to the other two about now that the townsponies had left. Before she had a chance to say anything though, Caramel stepped up. "Applejack, I... I'm sorry. I let you down, all of you. And, I know we're going to need to have a talk, but I can't right now. I have to know... if he's alright." As she looked at the yellow pony, still trembling somewhat with his wide, teary eyes, Applejack's heart melted for him and she gave a little nod. With no need to be told twice, the stallion shot out of the barn toward Ponyville. That left just the pegasus in there with her. Although all of the adrenaline had left her body a while ago, Rainbow Dash still seemed to be stuck in a fight or flight mentality. As she stood there nervously, her wings rustled and shifted continuously as she hoofed at the ground. This was far worse than any mistake she had ever made before. She had never lost control of a storm like this and today it may have cost her friend dearly, possibly even more so than just the damage to the farm. As her friend turned to look at her, Dash knew that it was all over. Their newly strengthening friendship, the good times here at the farm, it was all gone. Next to this, the incident with the raincloud a few weeks ago looked like nothing. At that moment, the one thing that Rainbow Dash knew for certain was that she had messed up bad and that she couldn't stand to hear the anger and hate that she knew would be in her former friend's voice. The guest room at the house wasn't far enough to run. Her own cloud house wasn't either. She would just keep flying and flying and flying until she crossed the very borders of Equestria, maybe not even stopping then. The barn doors were still wide open, she could see the clearing skies through them. Unable to face her friend, Dash bolted. Or she would have, had something not grabbed hold of her tail and pulled her crashing back to the ground. Turning her head to look behind her, she saw that Applejack had caught her tail in her teeth and was currently holding onto it. Once certain that the pegasus was grounded for now, the orange pony spat out the sopping tail before giving her friend a little look. "Ah ain't lettin' you fly off this time Rainbow Dash. We've already done that once, and Ah'm afraid ya'll won't let me catch up this time. Now, Ah jus' want ta know... what happened, Rainbow?" Looking into her friend's green eyes, it was like a floodgate burst inside of Rainbow Dash. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't keep the tears from gathering in her own eyes and soon she found herself sobbing uncontrollably, tearing her eyes away from Applejack's. "I... I don't know. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I... was just so mad... at you, at myself, at the whole world. And... I lost control. The storm just fed off my feelings and... and it kept getting bigger and bigger. It was a stupid mistake and... now I've messed up everything. Big Mac's in the hospital, the farm's probably in shambles, and there's no way you can't hate me for this. Ugh, and now this is the second time you've seen me fall apart like this... I'm so pathetic..." Silence met these words as Dash tried to pull herself together with no success. The sudden feeling of a pair of legs wrapping around her neck caused her to tense up for a moment before she realized that Applejack had pulled her into a tight hug. "Rainbow Dash, Ah don't hate you. Ah won't say ya'll didn't make a mistake, but Ah forgive you. That's what friends do..." The earth pony said softly as she held her friend. Held in the embrace, the pegasus was hesitant at first, unused to displays of emotion around her friends. Before too long though, she was leaning gently against Applejack, sobbing softly as she let out emotions she had been keeping bottled up for quite some time, afraid to let anypony else see them for fear that they might lose respect for her if they saw. Applejack gave little comforting nuzzles to her friend as she held her. Finally, Rainbow Dash's tears began to dry up and her sobs ceased. Applejack released the pegasus and took a step back. Now that her friend seemed to have calmed down a bit, it was time to talk. "Ah want ya'll ta know, Ah'm not angry at you, sugarcube. Ah'm worried. Ah ain't never seen you like this before. What's wrong, Rainbow? Does this have somethin' ta do with that tryout you've got comin' up?" She said softly. Rainbow hesitated for a moment before giving a little nod, turning away. "Y-yeah... I... I'm so nervous, AJ. No matter how much I practice, I'm scared it's not enough. What if I mess up, or they don't like me? It... this has always been my dream... What if I'm just not good enough..." "Rainbow, ya'll ain't got nothin' ta worry about. Ah've seen yer tricks and they're amazing. Ya'll jus' need ta have a bit more confidence in yerself. Besides, if Ah recall, you saved those ponies once before, right? That's gotta count fer somethin'. When you get out there and perform for them, the Wonderbolts're gonna love it." "You... you really think so?" Dash said, though she still seemed afraid to truly get her hopes up. "Course Ah do, sugarcube. Yer the best young flier in Equestria, right? Got the award and everything. And, even if somethin' does go wrong and you don't make it in, well, ya'll jus' keep on tryin' until you do. Put that stubbornness of yours ta good use." Applejack said, cracking a little smile. "Jus' remember, Rainbow, we're all here for you, Twi, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and me, no matter what." "Yeah, you're right. I... I can't let this get to me. I'm Rainbow Dash, the one and only. Fastest flier in Equestria." The pegasus said, a small grin appearing that, though shaky, was still more like her normal self. "And I am going to join the Wonderbolts! Thanks, AJ. I'm just going to keep practicing even harder." Applejack gave her friend a wide smile upon seeing her cheering up again. Though, at the mention of practicing, she raised an eyebrow at Dash, quickly putting a hoof down over her tail as the pegasus looked ready to run off. Finding herself caught yet again, Dash turned back to the orange pony with a little look. "What is with you ponies and grabbing my tail?" "Gets yer attention, don't it?" Applejack said with a little chuckle before turning serious once more. "Now, that's somethin' else Ah wanted ta talk with you about. Not the tail thing, but yer practicin'. Ah know ya'll want ta do the best you can, but Ah'm worried yer pushin' yerself too hard." "Pushing myself too hard? No way! I have to do this, Applejack. No matter how good a flier I may be, there's always room for improvement and my show needs to be absolutely perfect for the tryout. Besides, I... I can handle it. No problem." She said, though her mask of confidence seemed to be slipping a bit. "Yer a terrible liar, ya know that?" Applejack said, shaking her head slowly. "Ah can see it jus' by lookin' at you, Rainbow. Yer hurtin' yerself by doin' this. Ya'll were getttin' better, workin' faster and gettin' up on time with no problem and now look at you. This ain't healthy sugarcube." Rainbow Dash seemed to wince a bit at this but looked up at her friend and retorted. "You're the last one who should lecture me on this kind of thing, Applejack. Overworking yourself, why does that sound so familiar..." "Heh, maybe ya'll have a point with that. Ah learned mah lesson from that though, and Ah sure ain't gonna do somethin' like that again. Well, probably not. Still, Ah know what that's like and Ah don't want ta see ya'll do that ta yerself." "Ugh, I told you, I can handle it! I used to practice like this all the time. Okay, not quite as much as this, but still, my point stands." "Rainbow, stop bein' such a stubborn little filly and listen ta me! If ya'll keep up like this, you won't be doin' any flyin' at all cause you'll be in the hospital. What're yer chances of joinin' the Wonderbolts if you can't even show up ta yer own tryout?" Dash cast about for a reply for a moment before giving a little sigh. "You're right, again. These past few days have been terrible. It's just like when I first started working with you. If I don't practice though, then how will I ever be good enough?" "Confidence, sugarcube, remember?" Applejack said, giving her friend a gentle nudge as it looked like she was falling back into her gloom. "Think positive and make good use of yer time ta practice, just take breaks too." At the touch, Rainbow looked up to her friend again and nodded. "Alright. I'll try to keep positive. And I'll make sure I don't push myself too hard." Applejack gave her friend a warm smile and a nod. With that, the two fell into silence once more. Finally, Rainbow Dash spoke up again. "Hey, AJ, can I ask a favor of you?" "Sure thing, Rainbow. What c'n I do fer you?" "Well... normally self-confidence comes naturally to me. Heh, it's not hard to be confident when you're as awesome as I am. With this though... I haven't felt like this since the Best Young Fliers Competition. Would you mind helping me out when I practice?" The pegasus asked, quickly continuing as she spotted the look in her friend's eyes. "Or even just hanging out together while I'm on break. I mean, I know you're not able to be up there to help me practice flying but... having a friend like you around will help a lot. You're really good at helping me keep confident about myself, Applejack. And... I may be fine now, but what about tomorrow? Or the next day?" Applejack just listened to Rainbow's words before giving her a wide smile. "Course Ah will, Rainbow! Ah mean, when Ah can get away from the farm, Ah'd be more than happy ta help you. If ya'll want me watchin' yer practice, then Ah can do that too. Heh, we already kinda do that anyways, when the others are at work and all." "Heh, yeah, I suppose we do. Thanks, AJ." "Don't mention it, sugarcube. Now, Ah suppose we'd best be headin' straight fer Ponyville." "Hm? Why's that?" Dash asked, her eyes going wide as she remembered what had happened not too long before. "Oh no, Big Mac... I can't believe I nearly forgot. I'm so sorry Applejack, I didn't mean to keep you here!" At the mention of her brother's name, Applejack gave the slightest of winces, a chink appearing in the armor of strength she'd been displaying though she shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it, Rainbow. This was important too, and Ah'm glad Ah took the time. Still... we should probably hurry." "Y-yeah, we should. Um... why don't I fly you to the hospital. It'll be faster than running." "Ya'll can do that?" Applejack said, blinking at her friend as the pegasus nodded. "Well... alright then. Come on, let's get goin'." With that, the two ponies left the barn, shutting the doors behind them. As Rainbow Dash looked around the farm, seeing the damage the storm had left in its wake, she winced a bit. After the talk with Applejack, she'd nearly forgotten that this was all her fault and seeing it all first hoof made her want to break down again. However, she remembered that wince from her friend and realized that she needed to stay strong for now, for her depending on what they found at the hospital. Turning back to face her friend, Dash's wings spread out as she flew up from the ground. After a quick circle around, she lowered down to grab hold of the earth pony, wrapping her forelegs around her middle. Straining herself just a bit to gain altitude, she began to fly off toward Ponyville as fast as she could. For Applejack, that trip was one of the most frightening experiences of her life and she knew right as her hooves left the ground that that was where they should be, not hanging free up in the air like this. Still, she did her best to hold still and let Dash carry her, trying not to think too hard about what might await them. Then again, thoughts of what would happen if her friend's grip slipped didn't help much either. Soon, though not nearly soon enough for the orange pony still holding on for dear life, the hospital came into view and Rainbow began to head toward the ground. Thankfully, this wasn't one of her rather common crash landings and the two managed to land on their hooves with no problems. "Th-thanks." Applejack said, somewhat shakily as she turned to her friend. "One thing though, sugarcube. Remind me ta never do that again." Despite the situation, Rainbow Dash chuckled softly at that. It died off fairly soon though as the two entered into the hospital. Nurse Redheart emerged from a side hallway shortly after they entered, looking up as she spotted them. Applejack wasted no time in walking up to her. "H-how is he?" She asked anxiously. "Well... there was some minor internal injury and a few bruised ribs." The nurse pony said before a little smile appeared on her face. "But he's going to be just fine. If it were anypony else, it would have been far worse. Your brother's quite a tough pony though. He's not going to be in any condition to work on the farm for a while though." Hearing this, a relieved smile crossed Applejack and she gave a quick nod. "Ah see. Thank Celestia and Luna both. And you too, Nurse Redheart. Kin Ah see him?" "Of course. He regained consciousness an hour ago and Mr. Caramel has been in there talking with him. It's the second room on the right." "Thank ya kindly, Nurse Redheart." Applejack said, dipping her head to the nurse pony before heading in the direction she'd indicated. After getting confirmation that she could go too, Rainbow Dash followed her, still feeling quite nervous about just how Big Macintosh might react to her. As they reached the door, Applejack turned to her friend. "Would... would ya'll mind waitin' out here fer just a moment, Rainbow? Ah'd like ta talk with mah brother in private fer a moment." "Of course not. Go right ahead, AJ. Just let me know when you're finished." The pegasus replied. The orange pony nodded before opening the door and stepping inside. Caramel looked up at her from where he sat next to the bed. Without needing to say a word, he into her eyes before standing up and leaving the room. Now alone with her brother, Applejack walked over to the bed where the red stallion was propped up and looking at her. "Hey there, Big Mac..." "Hey, Little Jack." "Heh, Ah thought Ah outgrew that name a while ago. Ah might not be as big as you, but Ah ain't little no more." Applejack said with a soft chuckle. "Hmm, that's true. You're always going ta be my little sister though, like it or not." "Ah suppose so. How're you feelin'?" Big Macintosh gave a little sigh before answering. "Ah've felt better. It still hurts a bit, but it's not too bad. Ah'm more upset about not being able to help out. Miss Redheart said that Ah might not be able to make Applebuck season this year. Hopefully Ah'll be better before then though. Hate ta leave you alone for that again." "Don't worry about that. Ah'm sure... sure you'll be just fine by then. Besides, Ah've got plenty of help with Caramel and Rainbow Dash there ta help out. Just don't push yerself too hard until yer sure yer better." "Heh, Ah know, Ah know. How's Rainbow Dash doing? She doesn't blame herself for all this, does she? Ah've been getting enough of that from Caramel. Poor pony's dead certain that it's his fault Ah got hit. Everything from not tying the ropes well enough to just being bad luck. Ah've tried to tell him otherwise, but Ah'm not sure he's listened." "Yeah, Rainbow's pretty upset about what happened. She was in a pretty bad state back at the farm, that's why..." Applejack began before falling silent. Big Macintosh seemed to understand what was troubling her as he immediately spoke up. "Don't you even think it, Applejack. Ah know full well that you just did what you had to, what our pappy would have done in your place. Ah understand completely, so you don't need to beat yourself up either." "Yeah, Ah... Ah suppose..." Applejack responded, though she didn't sound entirely convinced. Still, she did her best not to let that show at all as she stood beside her brother. For a second, she thought of hugging the injured pony but decided against it, giving him a gentle nuzzle instead. "Ah'm glad yer alright, big brother. When Ah saw you lyin' there on the ground, Ah was so worried..." The red pony gave a soft nuzzle back but said nothing. The two stayed there in silence for a moment, both feeling relieved that they even could just be there together. Finally, Applejack glanced toward the door and pulled back from the bed a bit. "Well, Rainbow wanted ta come see how ya'll were doin' and Ah told her Ah'd let her know when she could come in. Guess Ah'd better go tell her then." With a nod from Big Macintosh, she headed over to the door and pushed it open. Looking out, she saw that Rainbow Dash was still standing right outside, looking exceedingly nervous. Upon spotting her friend looking out at her, the pegasus straightened up and looked right at her. "How is he? Is everything alright?" "He's doin' just fine. Ya'll can come in now, if you want." "Alright, thanks." Rainbow said, nodding before walking toward the doorway. "Do you want me ta step out or anything? Ah don't mind." Applejack said as the pegasus passed her. "No, it's alright. He's your brother after all. I'm not going to ask you to leave the room. Besides, I'd... kinda prefer if you stuck around." "Of course, Rainbow." Applejack said, nodding and closing the door again before following her friend back into the room. Rainbow Dash walked in but stopped a good ways away from the bed, looking nervously at the pony laying in it. As she took in the bandages and wrappings around Big Macintosh, pain filled her eyes and she fidgeted around for a moment, not quite meeting his eyes. Finally, she spoke up in a shaky voice. "I'm sorry, Big Macintosh, about all this. I messed up bad and now you're hurt because of it. I... apologies just don't seem like enough for this, but they're all I've got..." She said, looking quite distraught, though she held herself together better than she had back in the barn. "You don't need to apologize, Rainbow Dash. Ah know you didn't mean for any of this to happen. As far as Ah'm concerned, this was all just a big accident and nopony holds the blame for it. These things happen. The important thing is that you move on." The pegasus nodded slowly at his words. She looked away for a moment with a shake of her head as she felt her eyes threatening to water up again, trying to play it off so that nopony would see. Once she was sure that she was keeping calm, she began to speak again. "I'm glad you're not... that you seem to be doing well." "Eeyup." Came the reply, eliciting a slight chuckle from the rainbow maned pegasus. With that, the three ponies stood around for a bit, making idle chat occasionally but spending the bulk of the time in silence. Finally, after a good while of this, Applejack gave a little sigh and glanced out of a window. "Well, Ah reckon we'd better go on back ta the farm and see how things are up there. Ah'll probably be back later tonight. Ya'll be sure ta get some rest, alright?" "Alright. You take care of yourself, little sister." The red pony responded with a nod as Applejack began to leave the room. "Hey, Rainbow... make sure she doesn't work herself too hard." Dash gave a light chuckle at this but nodded. "Sure thing, Big Mac. Take care!" The pegasus followed after her friend and the two began to make their way back toward Sweet Apple Acres. They traveled on hoof this time, the earth pony having learned her lesson about flying with the trip into town. As they walked though, Applejack seemed to stumble a bit at one point and, when Rainbow turned to see if she was alright, she noticed that her friend was shaking slightly. "Woah, AJ... what's wrong?" She asked, looking concerned. "It... it's nothin'. Ah jus' tripped is all." Came the response, though it wasn't very convincing. Still, Dash just gave a bit of a shrug and let it pass, though she decided to keep watch and make sure her friend was doing alright. Before too long, they had made it back to the farm and got right to work. The first thing to do was to remove the tarps and see how the crops had fared. It took a bit of effort with only the two of them, and the fact that Applejack didn't seem to be entirely there didn't help much either. A few times, Rainbow had to repeat herself several times before the earth pony responded. Despite all this, they eventually managed to finish up. Thankfully, it looked like most of the plants managed to endure the weather without much damage. After the last tarp was removed, folded, and set aside, it appeared that they had lost about five percent of the total crops. In addition, a quick flight around the orchard showed Dash that about six or seven trees had been felled by the strong winds. With the minor property damage added in, it really wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Still, a lot of extra work was going to be needed to fix up these problems. Throughout it all, as Rainbow Dash helped her friend inspect the farm and start doing light cleanup work, she noticed that something was definitely troubling the earth pony. Applejack had made a few minor mistakes that were still uncharacteristic of her and she didn't seem to be paying much attention to her surroundings. After finishing up as it began to grow dark, the two fixed themselves a light dinner as Granny Smith still hadn't returned from her trip with Applebloom to go see Big Macintosh. Once they had finished eating and cleaned up, Applejack said a quick good night to her friend and began to head off toward her room. Rainbow Dash wasn't going to let her just walk off though. "Hey, AJ, hold up for a moment." The pegasus said, heading over to join her friend as the earth pony turned back to face her. "We need to talk. What's bothering you so much?" "Ah already told you, Rainbow, Ah'm fine. Nothin's botherin' me." "Don't give me that. You know that's not true just as well as I do that that's not true. Even I could see that you've been out of it all night. What's wrong?" "Ah said nothin's wrong! Ah'm jus' tired is all. Now, if you'll excuse me..." Applejack said, turning to begin walking again only to find that Rainbow had flown over her head and was now blocking her path. "Applejack, you've been telling me to open up and not bottle these things up, so now it's your turn. Trust me, I'm here for you." The orange pony hesitated for a moment at these words, trembling ever so slightly. When she spoke up again, a lot of the confidence and strength in her voice had faded. "Ah... Ah can't do this anymore, Rainbow. Ah'm so tired now... always havin' ta be the strong one fer everypony else. Here at the farm, with mah friends, even fer the ponies of Ponyville..." She said shakily, glancing over to a trophy that stood on a little stand nearby. "Most dependable pony. Sometimes, that feels more like a curse than a blessing... Ah've always got ta be the one ta hold strong when other ponies can't. It's been that way since Ah was left in charge of the farm the day mah parents... passed on. But Ah... Ah..." Applejack clenched her teeth and looked down at the floor, her hat hiding her face from view. To Rainbow's surprise, she spotted what looked like tears leaking out from behind the hat's brim, even as her friend continued to speak. "Ah was in that barn fer over an hour, Rainbow. When mah only brother was in the hospital who knows how hurt? He may have been dead fer all Ah knew! Ah should have been the very first pony there ta see him, stayin' right by his side the whole time. But... Ah stayed here ta take care of the farm instead. Ah left him in the mud so Ah could see to the crops..." She continued on, now starting to shake with obvious sobs. Rainbow Dash took advantage of a pause to get in a word edgewise, looking a bit nervous again as she tried to console her friend. "Well... he didn't blame you for that did he? You just did what you had to do at the time. I'm sure he could understand that." "No, he didn't. He... he said the same thing you did, Rainbow. And Ah know Ah did what Ah was supposed ta, kept mah cool and took care of things first. But... Ah can't keep this up. Ah get scared or upset or hurt just like everypony else, but Ah can't show it cause they need me ta be the rock they can lean against fer support. Nopony asked me ta do this, but it's just the way things are and... and... when Ah'm fallin', when Ah need support, who can Ah turn to? Ah'm there fer others, but when it's all too much, what am Ah supposed ta do with nopony there fer me?" "You're wrong about that, Applejack. There is somepony there for you." Rainbow said, giving her friend a little smile and gently putting a hoof to her shoulder. "I... I didn't know you felt like this, AJ, or I would have told you this before. I may not be able to be strong all the time, but I can and will be when it counts. There's no way I would leave a friend hanging." Applejack didn't respond for a second, and when she did it wasn't with words. For the second time that day, the two ponies found themselves in an embrace, although it was reversed this time, with the earth pony sobbing as the pegasus comforted her. Several minutes passed before she began to pull herself together again, sniffing softly as she let go of her friend and raised a hoof to wipe at her eyes. "Th-thank you, Rainbow Dash. Ah really needed ta... ta do this. Ta let somepony know." "Hey, that's what friends are for, right? To be there and to look out for each other, in good times and bad." "That they are, sugarcube, that they are... um, some of what Ah said might sound kinda harsh, but I don't really blame nopony else for this. It ain't like anypony's asked me ta do this, it's just the way Ah am. Still, it really gets ta you, pushin' aside yer emotions so you can be strong fer others..." "I'm here for you, AJ. If you need somepony to talk to, or just to be there for you, then I can do that." "Thank you..." Applejack said, giving a faint smile. Seeing that smile was enough to bring one to Dash as well and the two friends hugged briefly again. With that, the orange pony gave a little yawn and shook her head a bit. "Well, Ah suppose Ah should be headin' ta bed now. It's gettin' late and we've got a long day ahead of us." "Yeah, that might be a good idea." Rainbow said, giving a yawn herself before looking to her friend. "So... you sure you're alright now?" "Yeah, Ah'm feelin' a lot better now. Honest." "Alright then. Have a good night, Applejack." "You too, sugarcube. See ya'll in the mornin'." With that, the two ponies headed to their respective rooms, sleep coming easily for the both of them. ____________________________________________________________ "Phew, that weren't so bad." Applejack said, shaking her head and flinging water everywhere as she stepped away from the water barrel. "Yer turn now, Sugarcube." "Heh, I knew I should have given you something harder." Rainbow Dash said with a little chuckle before giving it some thought. "Hmm... how about Dare." "Well gee Rainbow, they might as well call it Dare or Dare when yer playin'." The earth pony said, rolling her eyes. "Hey, it's the logical choice. I mean, I can handle any dare I'm given with no problem. Why wouldn't I pick it?" "Ah fine then. Give me a moment ta think of somethin'. Ah thought this was supposed ta be fer you ta take a break though..." It was a few days after the storm up at the farm and the two ponies were sitting together in one of Ponyville's parks, taking a moment of rest after another of Dash's practice sessions. True to her word, Applejack had been showing up to these sessions to watch her friend fly about through her tricks again and again and to provide support for the pegasus. And, for her part of the bargain, Rainbow had been taking these little breaks to cool down and relax. Without their usual competitions to occupy them, the two friends had taken to chatting during these breaks or sitting there in silence, simply relaxing in each other's company. One day though, when their other friends had been able to join them, Twilight Sparkle had suggested that they play a game to occupy them, voting on Truth or Dare. While that idea went over well enough, until Pinkie Pie had somehow managed to bring every other pony in Ponyville into the game, it had really struck a chord with Applejack and Rainbow Dash. A somewhat competitive game that required little to no strenuous physical activity fit perfectly with what they were looking for. From that point on, the game became a fairly regular fallback for whenever they got too bored. "Ah think Ah've got somethin'." Applejack said suddenly with a little grin. "Ah dare you... ta pick Truth next time." "What? That's not fair... You can't do that!" "Heh, Ah don't see why not. The rules say that if you choose Truth, then you have ta answer a question truthfully and if you pick Dare, then ya'll have ta do what Ah say. And Ah say you're gonna pick Truth next time." "That... that... no, that just doesn't seem right. I think you're cheating." Rainbow Dash said, frowning at this turn of events. "Well, do you want ta go get Twilight and see what she says? Ah'm sure she'll know all about this, or have a book that does." The pegasus had to ponder this for a moment, deciding if it was worth getting the studious unicorn involved. "You know what, I think I'll pass on that. Fine, we'll do it you're way then. That makes it your turn again though." "Why, so it does. Ta be fair, Ah'll pick Truth this time. How's that?" "Sure, that works. Let's see... Ah, I've got it. What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?" "Ah geez, Rainbow... ya'll gonna pull that one out on me? Yer just gettin' revenge fer that dare, aren't you... and Ah've got ta answer honestly..." The earth pony said, muttering to herself for a moment before giving a little sigh. "Well, gettin' beaten by that braggart Trixie and the whole poison joke thing come ta mind, but Ah suppose they're not the most embarrassing things. Alright, here goes... "When Ah was still just a little filly, just after Ah'd gotten mah Cutie Mark, Ah was dead certain there was a monster livin' in our apple orchard. When Ah looked out mah window at night, Ah thought Ah saw it movin' about between the trees. It got ta the point where Ah was almost too afraid ta go out and buck the apples down even in the daytime. Well, one day Ah said enough was enough. Ah couldn't be in charge of the farm if Ah was too afraid ta go outside, so Ah decided Ah'd do somethin' about this monster. "One night, when Ah saw it movin' around out there again, Ah got up out of bed, grabbed a rope, and headed out ta confront whatever was out there. Put mahself tagether a nice lasso first, though Ah had no idea what Ah was doin' at the time, but soon enough Ah found mahself in the middle of the orchard. Now, it was real dark cause of the clouds coverin' the moon, so Ah couldn't see things too clearly. Still, Ah was sure Ah saw somethin' movin' nearby, so Ah took mah lasso and... well, do ya'll remember what happened when you tried ta use one back at the Iron Pony competition? Like Ah said, Ah had no idea what Ah was doin' then. "Course, it was just mah luck that at that very moment, the clouds over the moon passed by, givin' enough light to see by. Even from where Ah was tied up, Ah could see that the 'monster' was really just a colt from back in town who'd been sneakin' onto the farm. Better still, it was somepony who... well, maybe Ah had a bit of a crush on him, you know? Anyways, once he'd finished laughin' his tail off, he finally helped me down, though Ah was so embarrassed Ah ran right back to mah room. The story spread like wildfire and Ah didn't live that down fer a good while. There's still some ponies that bring it up occasionally... "And that's that. Whew, guess Ah got a bit carried away there." Applejack said with a faint flush, taking a breath before looking at her friend. "Heh, Ah half expected you ta be dyin' of laughter at this point." "Well, it wasn't really all that embarrassing, actually..." Rainbow Dash said with a little shrug. "I was kinda hoping for something a bit more." "Hey, it was pretty embarrassin' at the time. Anyways, that's mah turn down, now it's yours. Heh, and Ah'm gonna make sure ta get you back fer that one." "I'd like to see you try. You can't ask the same question the pony before you did, it's in the rules." Dash said with a little smirk, having planned for just this occurrence. "What? That... actually, Ah do remember somethin' like that." The orange pony responded, frowning for a moment before getting an idea. "It's a good thing Ah've got somethin' else in mind. So, go ahead, take yer pick." "Ugh, you know what I'm going to pick, since you made me." Rainbow said, rolling her eyes. "Truth." "Gotta follow the rules, sugarcube. Now, what was the first competition you ever lost and how'd it happen?" "Is that all? Hah, that's no trouble at all. There aren't very many of those to begin with, and certainly none that are all that bad." The pegasus replied with a confident grin. As she thought on it though, her face suddenly fell as the memory of the first loss came back to her. "Oh... I'd nearly forgotten about that. Um, can I pass on this one? I know, I'll just do another three dares or so, how's that?" Applejack chuckled at seeing her friend trying to dodge the question and shook her head. "No can do, Rainbow. You said truth and Ah asked you yer question. Now, you've got ta answer, and truthfully." "Fine..." Dash said sullenly, giving a little sigh before going into her story. "Back at flight school, my friend Gilda came up to me one day and decided to make a bit of a bet with me. She was certain that she could get a date before I could. Well, there were only like, what, two or three other griffins there? Of course I said yes. Besides, there was somepony I'd already been wanting to ask out for a while. The only problem now was how I was going to do it. "I decided to try for a secret admirer thing, leave him a little note or two before going up and actually asking. Had it all planned out so that nothing could go wrong. I wrote the note and was going to hand it to another friend of mine who would then pass it on to the next pony and so on until it finally came to him. Unfortunately, the teacher caught me trying to pass it on. She took the note and then... decided to read it aloud in front of the class..." By this point in her story, a blush had begun to appear on Rainbow Dash's face and she looked down a bit before continuing. "Like a complete foal, I had, you know, put his name on it and everything, so it was pretty obvious what was going on. By the end of it, everypony was laughing at me. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't even think of asking anypony else out, which meant that Gilda won the bet pretty easily." Applejack was chuckling softly as the story was finished up, earning herself a glare from the pegasus. Still, after a moment she gave her friend a curious look. "So... what happened with him? The colt that note was for?" The earth pony asked. "Well... have you ever seen any of the stuff I've written?" "Hmm... no actually." "Yeah, there's a good reason for that." Rainbow Dash said and left it at that. "Oh..." Applejack said before fading into silence for a moment. "Well... should we start up another round or go grab some lunch?" "I think lunch." Dash said with a slow nod. "Yeah, definitely." "Sounds good ta me." With that, the two ponies stood up and began to head back toward the farm, passing several other ponies out enjoying the beautiful day. As they walked along, Applejack spoke up again. "Are you still sure you're not bored doin' this every day? Ah didn't think sittin' around talkin' was really yer thing." "Of course! I mean, I would rather take the time to keep practicing, but you're right about needing to take breaks. Besides, I do enjoy these times." Rainbow replied with a grin. The best thing was, it was entirely true. Since they had started, she had begun to look forward to the breaks with Applejack, even when they just sat around and said nothing. Simply being in the presence of her friend seemed to have a calming effect on her, comforting her and helping to drain away all the tension and nervousness she'd been feeling, leaving a warm happiness in it's place. The Wonderbolts tryout was growing ever nearer, only a few days left until she would be giving her all in front of her life long heroes, yet she wasn't nearly as worried about that. Her practices had been going great, especially since Applejack had started showing up to watch them and Rainbow Dash knew that when the day came, she could look down and see her friends cheering for her and those beautiful green eyes looking up at her, and she would do her very best... "Uh... everything alright, sugarcube?" Applejack asked, giving Rainbow a puzzled look. Rainbow Dash blinked a bit as she realized that she had apparently spaced out in the middle of the street while her friend walked on. "Huh? Oh, um... yeah, I'm just fine. Sorry, guess I got caught up in a daydream or something." She gave a little chuckle and hurried to catch up to her friend, though at the back of her mind, she wondered why, if everything was alright, she felt a blush upon her face... ************** "Well, that sure was a mighty fine lunch." Applejack said with a grin as she lay out in the shadow cast by one of her apple trees. "How come ya'll never told me you could cook so well?" "Aw, come on AJ. It was just a sandwich, that's not cooking." Rainbow Dash replied from the branch she was relaxing on, though she gave a rather pleased smirk at the compliment. "Besides, with nopony else to fix up meals for me, I've had to learn a bit." "Huh, Ah never thought of that... Ah reckon mah point still stands though, sandwich or not. It was good and that's what matters." After the two ponies had made it to the farmhouse, they found that Granny Smith was once again out visiting Big Macintosh, leaving the two of them on their own for lunch. Rainbow had offered to put something together, since they were planning on a light meal anyways, and she'd fixed up a couple of sandwiches for the both of them. Now, finished with their meals, the two were out relaxing in the orchard. "Ah wonder what the others are up to. Seems like we don't get ta see them nearly as much now." Applejack mused, looking up at her friend in the tree. "Yeah. I feel kinda bad about that, like I've deserted them or something. Which I know isn't true at all. If they needed me, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Still..." "Ah know just what you mean, sugarcube. Things keep gettin' in the way though. There's the work here at the farm, then yer practice sessions, plus the fact that everypony else is busy with their own jobs. Guess this just ain't a good time fer us ta get together." "I'd say we should go into town now and see if anypony's available, but that's not going to work. Pinkie's been working on that huge party she's been planning, Rarity's got a deadline to meet, Twi's... actually, I have no idea what Twilight's doing. Haven't seen her around much lately." Dash said, frowning a bit at this. "Hm... that's true. Wonder what she's been up to..." "No idea. Probably locked herself in her lab for some study or other she's working on." The pegasus rolled her eyes a bit at this before giving a sigh and continuing. "Even Fluttershy's too busy taking care of that sick rabbit of hers to hang out." Applejack nodded with a little frown. "Well, at least we've got each other, right?" "Yeah, that's good at least." Once more they lapsed into silence, two friends simply enjoying a warm summer's day in the outdoors. After a few minutes of this though, Applejack gave a sigh and shook her head. "Ah can't do this, Rainbow. Ah feel Ah should be... doin' somethin' productive. Not just sittin' around here." "Relaxing can be productive sometimes. I mean, sometimes you just need to sit back and wind down, right?" "Ah suppose..." Applejack said before glancing up at her friend with a little smirk. "Ah didn't take you fer the type ta just sit around doin' nothing though, Rainbow. Ain't you the one always tryin' ta rush about and do things?" "Well... yeah, I guess you're right. This is different though!" Rainbow said, intending on leaving it at that until the look Applejack gave her persuaded her to explain. "I mean... we're not doing nothing, right? We're hanging out. I can always make an exception for hanging out with my best pal, right?" "Heh, Ah reckon yer right about that." Applejack said with a chuckle, though she started to get up anyways. "But Ah can't just sit around right now. Ya'll want ta help?" "Sure, sounds good to me." The pegasus replied, jumping from the branch with a little flap to slow her fall as she landed. "What do you need me to do?" "Ah know it's a bit early, but Ah was thinkin' of startin' ta set up the baskets under the trees. Just do a bit now and we won't have ta do that much again later." "Alright. Lead the way then." As the earth pony led the way to the barn, she couldn't help but smile a bit at the difference in her friend now than from how she was before the bet. This time last year, she would bet a fair deal of bits that Dash wouldn't even think about giving up time she could be spending relaxing to help out. At least, not with something like this that wasn't absolutely vital. While this did mean that Applejack was now in quite a bit of danger of losing the bet, she didn't really care. This change and the time they'd spent together more than made up for that. Soon enough, they had reached their destination and, as Dash helped her pull out stacks of baskets, she started to explain what they were going to do. It was fairly simple, just set a couple of baskets under each tree so that they could catch falling apples, and it wasn't long at all before they were going about this work. About half an hour passed and Applejack was on her way back to grab a few more baskets when she spotted Rainbow Dash and Spike standing around by the barn and talking. The pegasus looked either puzzled, intrigued, or both while the little dragon just look worn out. "What's goin' on, you two?" She called out curiously, walking toward them. "Oh, there you are Applejack. I'm glad you showed up." Spike said, turning toward her as she approached. "I was just explaining to Rainbow Dash, but Twilight wanted to see all of you at the Library. She said it's really important." "Twilight? Ah'll be there just as soon as Ah clean up here. What does she want ta see us for?" "Um... she wouldn't tell me. Said it had to wait until you all arrived." Spike said, though something about the way he was fidgeting seemed off to the earth pony. She shrugged it off and turned to Rainbow. "Ya'll go on ahead, Ah'll finish puttin' these away and meet you there." "Alright. See you there then!" The pegasus said with a nod before turning to Spike. "Here, hop on. It'll be much faster that way." "Sorry, no can do Rainbow. I still need to go tell Fluttershy." The baby dragon replied, giving a slight sigh. "Oh... well, then I guess I'll see you there too." Dash responded with a little shrug before taking off toward Ponyville. As she flew, Rainbow Dash began to ponder why Twilight would call them together like this. Maybe it had to something to do with why she'd been missing for the past couple of days. Or, maybe it was an Elements of Harmony thing. Oh no, what if Nightmare Moon had returned! Starting to fear the worst, she sped up even more. "Hiya Dashie!" Came an excited voice from right ahead of her, accompanied by a waving pink pony. "Ack, Pinkie Pie, watch out!" The pegasus called back, trying to stop herself without hitting her friend. Unfortunately, she was going far too fast to just stop and had to veer off to the side, crashing into a handy pile of barrels. Pinkie Pie quickly hopped over to where she'd crashed, peering at the rainbow maned pony amid the barrels. Rainbow gave a little groan and sat up, more shocked than injured. "Oh no... are you okay there, Rainbow Dash? I knew my tail was twitching, but I didn't think you were practicing your tricks or I would have warned you." "I'm fine!" Dash said, shaking her head a bit before putting a hoof to it. "Takes more than that to keep me down. Though... do you have a twin sister you haven't told any of us about?" "No, silly. At least, I don't think so... ooh, what if I do and nopony told me about her? We could be the best of friends! Oh, unless she's my evil twin... Why do you ask though?" "Oh, no reason." Rainbow said, blinking a few times until she could only see one pink pony. "So, what did you want Pinkie? Cause I'm kinda in a hurry here to get to the library." "Um... I don't know. I guess I forgot." Pinkie Pie said with a little giggle. "Oh, thanks for reminding me though! I was so surprised at seeing you again that I nearly forgot I'm supposed to be at the library too. I wonder why though... What if Twilight's throwing us a surprise party! That would be so great!" "Somehow, I don't think that's what's going on here, Pinkie." Dash said with a slight chuckle, getting back to her hooves. "Well, if we're both supposed to be there, then let's go ahead and get started. Don't want to be late or anything." With that, she took to flight again, going a bit slower this time though so that her earth pony friend could keep up. Though, she couldn't help but suspect that wasn't necessary. Her pink friend had an odd habit of somehow managing to keep up no matter how fast she went. It didn't take long before they had arrived at the large tree that served as both library and as a house for their friend Twilight Sparkle. Two other ponies were already standing there, the unicorn Rarity giving a little toss of her well groomed mane as she turned to watch their approach, and the pegasus Fluttershy, who seemed to be looking quite nervous about all this. "Oh there you two are. We have been waiting forever for you to arrive." Rarity said with a disapproving look. "Um... it's only been a few minutes since we arrived from the spa, Rarity." Fluttershy said softly, looking down as the unicorn's attention was turned to her. "I mean... I guess that is a while..." Seeing this reaction, the white pony gave a little sigh and smiled to her friend. "You are right, Fluttershy. Still, there is such a thing as punctuality. It isn't proper to keep a lady waiting after all. "For that matter though, Rainbow Dash, where is our dear friend Applejack? I would have thought she was with you. After all, the two of you have been nigh on inseparable these last few weeks." Rarity said, turning toward the cyan pegasus. "She's still back at the farm putting away some things before heading here." Rainbow answered before blinking and turning back to look at Fluttershy. "Wait, what are you doing here Fluttershy? Spike said he was headed to your cabin to let you know." "Oh, um... I was with Rarity at the spa and... well, he didn't seem to notice me. I guess that's understandable, I'm not too noticeable..." The shy pony responded, her voice fading out as she talked. "Do not ever say that about yourself, dear. It is not your fault that he seems to get... distracted quite easily when I am around. With all the time he spends looking at me, it is no surprise that he would miss somepony else in the room." Rarity said, shaking her head a bit before giving her friend a little smile. "I see... well, I guess we'll just have to wait for Spike and AJ to show up then." Dash said with a little shrug. While they waited, the four friends began to talk about why Twilight would call them all together like this. It turned out that none of the other three knew anything more than Rainbow Dash and their theories grew wilder as time passed, thanks largely to Pinkie Pie's contributions. Before too much longer, Applejack came into view, running full speed toward them, slowing down to a trot as she drew close. "Sorry Ah'm late ya'll." She said, coming to a stop beside Rainbow Dash before greeting each of her friends with a nod. "Hey Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity. So... anypony here know what's goin' on?" "We were just discussing that when you showed up. Oh, I do hope that Spike does not take too long to get here. I am just filled with curiosity now as to why our mutual friend Twilight Sparkle would call us here so suddenly. That isn't like her at all." Rarity said. Luckily, they didn't have long to wait. Soon, the little dragon walked toward them, grumbling softly to himself. As he stopped in front of the library, he shot a little glare toward Fluttershy, who let out a soft 'meep!' and looked down at the ground. Seeing this, Rarity gave him an angry look of her own. "Spike, that is not how you treat a lady! It is not her fault you did not pay attention." "Yeah, y-you're right, Rarity." Spike said, already looking a bit sorry for his actions as he turned toward the cowering pegasus. "Sorry Fluttershy. I've just... I've been kind of worried about this. Twilight won't tell me what's going on and that's got me all on edge." "It... It's alright Spike." Fluttershy said, looking up a bit again. "Well, in that case I'll go ahead inside and let Twi know you're all here." The dragon said, opening the door and heading on into the library. While they waited for him to return, Rarity turned to face the farmer pony with a little smile. "So, Applejack, how are things going at the farm? It seems like we haven't really had a chance to catch up for some time." "Heh, Ah guess we haven't, huh. Things're goin' great actually, now that we've cleaned up from after that storm. It's kinda odd, but even though Ah've got another pony helpin' out around there, Ah seem ta be busier than ever since Rainbow Dash here started workin' with me." Applejack said, glancing over to the cyan pegasus with a little grin. "Not that Ah mind at all. These last few months have been real nice." Rainbow Dash gave a little chuckle and grinned back. "Oh yeah, they certainly have been. Working at Sweet Apple Acres has been a lot more fun than I would have thought." Rarity blinked a bit at their answers, glancing from one pony to the other as a little smile began to form. Applejack and Dash tilted their heads a bit at this, giving her a curious look. "What are ya'll smilin' at?" The orange pony asked. "Oh, nothing." Rarity replied, the smile still present. "I was just thinking that you two seem to be getting along quite nicely. It is always nice to see a pair of good friends growing closer. I just hope you won't forget about the rest of us in the meantime." Before either of them had a chance to ask her what she meant by this, a bright purple flash from through the window caught all of their attention. Accompanying the flash was a loud thumping sound, causing the door and windows to rattle. All five of the ponies looked to each other in varying degrees of surprise. The only one who didn't seem too fazed by any of it was Pinkie Pie. "Ooh, that's it! I remember what I was going to ask you Rainbow, but it looks like Twilight might beat you to it." The pink pony said excitedly. At that point, the door suddenly burst open, a rather wide eyed Spike stepping out, quickly slamming it behind him. Each of the ponies tried to say something all at once, but it was Rarity who managed to beat out the other voices. "Spike! What in Equestria just happened in there? One second everything is quiet and then there was a flash and a dreadful noise." "Er... it's nothing to worry about. Twilight's just... having some trouble with her research." Came the dragon's response, though once again something seemed wrong with it. "Um, Twi's let me know what's going on. She's been working on some new magic and... well, she needs something for her studies. She said she's really sorry, but she can't go with you to help you get it." "Ah see... what does she want us ta go get?" Applejack asked. "Well, um..." Spike hesitated for a moment, looking exceptionally nervous. "You see, there's this flower that is absolutely vital to the spell but nopony around here supplies it. You're going to have to go get it... from the Everfree Forest..." It was clear why he had been hesitant to say that as there was an immediate outburst from the gathered ponies at this news. Throughout it all, a rather meek voice had been trying to catch Spike's attention with no luck. It took her actually walking up to Spike before the others realized that Fluttershy was trying to say something and fell silent to let her speak. "Um, Spike... is Twilight alright? I mean, not that I don't like talking with you but... I had thought she would be here to talk with us. Has something happened?" Spike gulped a bit at this before replying. "No, nothing's really happened. She just... this is a really tricky spell and she has to be there to monitor it at all times or else it could go wrong and that would be very bad. If she could, she would be out here talking with you all. "So... is this alright with all of you? I know Twi wouldn't ask something like this of you unless it was really important." "Of course, Spike. If Twilight needs help, then Ah'm gonna do what Ah can ta help out. Even if it does mean goin' into that... unnatural place." Applejack said, suppressing a shudder as she thought about the forest. "I'm in too! There's no way I'd say no to something like this." Rainbow Dash said, immediately following Applejacks' speech. "Ooh, this sounds like it will be fun! Besides, the Everfree Forest isn't so scary anymore. I mean, sure there's all kinds of nasty monsters in there. Manticores, Ursas, Cockatrices... all kinds of things that just love to munch on ponies, but--" Pinkie Pie said brightly, though a group glare cut off her words. "I mean... I'll go with you." "Please, Pinkie Pie. It is hard enough to say this without thinking of all the horrible things we might run into." Rarity said with a little shiver. "Still, I can't walk out on our friend, so I will do this." Everypony's attention turned to Fluttershy who backed away from the attention, looking away. "Um... well, I mean... it's so dark and scary in there..." Applejack stepped closer to her, giving a kind smile. "It ain't a problem, sugarcube. If ya'll don't want ta go, then you don't have to. We won't think less of you for it." "N-no, I'll go." Fluttershy said, taking a deep breath and giving a little nod. "I won't let my friends go in there on their own. What if you run into something that I could have helped with? I... I can't let that happen." "Well, that's settled then. We're all going to go." Dash said, looking to her friends who each nodded with a little smile. "In that case, how about we go ahead and get started then?" "Now hold on just one moment, Rainbow Dash, before you go running headfirst into this." Rarity said sternly, turning toward Spike. "Do you know what this flower looks like? Maybe a picture or something for us, hm?" "Huh? Oh, right!" Spike said, digging around for a moment before producing a sheet of paper with a brightly colored flower on it. "Here, this is what you're looking for. It shouldn't be hard to find, but it only grows in the deeper parts of the forest." Nopony looked all that excited at this news, but Rarity nodded and grasped the paper with her magic, horn glowing softly as she levitated it over to her. "Well... thank you for your help, Spike. Do take care of Twilight for us, won't you?" She said, looking to the baby dragon who quickly nodded. "Very good then. I suppose we had better get started now so we don't keep our friend waiting for us." "Good luck, everypony!" Spike called after them, waving as the five ponies began to make their way toward the Everfree Forest. A few short minutes later, the party had reached the edge of the forest, pausing there for a moment. In varying degrees of fear, they stood there and looked through the trees, into the darkness that seemed far darker than it should have been considering the time of day. Even Pinkie Pie seemed strangely subdued as she was faced with the prospect of entering into this spooky place, though it was Fluttershy who seemed to be the worst off. The yellow pegasus was cowering behind Rainbow Dash, wings locked firmly to her sides. While the others only had a vague knowledge of the sorts of beasts lived in the Everfree Forest, she alone knew exactly what they might run into in there and that knowledge was not comforting at all. "Well... Ah suppose this is it. Anypony that wants ta back out, now's yer last chance. Once we're inside, there ain't no goin' back." Applejack said. Nopony moved at all, each determined to go through with this to help their friend out despite the dangers. The orange pony gave a little nod at that and began to lead the way into the forest. As they began to walk along the path through the trees, avoiding any patches of poison joke along the way, a flower they knew all too well, Fluttershy timidly sped up for a moment to catch up with Applejack. "Um... Applejack, I was just thinking and, if you don't mind, maybe we could go see Zecora first? I mean, it could save us a lot of time if she has some of the flower we're looking for on hoof. Or... even if she just knows where some is." "Hmm... you know, that's a mighty fine idea sugarcube." Applejack said, nodding slowly. "At the very least, it couldn't hurt ta go check, right? Everypony in favor of that idea?" The other ponies all voiced their agreement and the timid pegasus gave a little smile at having her idea accepted. With that, they took a slight detour to head toward their zebra friend's house. After their initial mistrust of the striped equine, the ponies of Ponyville had begun to value her expertise on herbal remedies and natural cures. Even Applejack had swallowed her pride a few times to go ask for help with a few troubles at the farm, whether with the trees or with somepony there. Though Zecora still lived way out here in the Everfree Forest, she had been accepted as a citizen of Ponyville. Unfortunately, it didn't look like they would have her help with this task though. As the five ponies approached her house, they could see an odd, rather spooky looking mask hanging on her door. Thankfully, the zebra had also thought to include a note beside it, written in Equestrian for those who couldn't understand the mask's meaning. To those who here have come to find, the solution for a pressing bind. Or those who come as friendly guest, seeking only a place to rest. I regret to say I made a choice, to leave and seek another's voice. To my own land I must roam, for an occasion known as going home. And now to those who read this rhyme, I shall return in one month's time. Zecora Applejack finished reading the note before turning to the others with a puzzled look. "Now what the hey does all that mumbo jumbo mean?" "It means, dear Applejack, that our zebra friend has left to return to her own homeland. It looks like we shall be on our own for this journey. Alas, I had been hoping it would be this simple..." Rarity responded with a little sigh. "So... I suppose we should keep going then, since we're going to have to find this thing all on our own." Rainbow Dash said glumly, to which the others all agreed. All except for Pinkie Pie, who had procured a notepad from somewhere and was hastily jotting something down in it. They all gave her an odd look, though it was Rainbow who spoke up again. "Um... Pinkie Pie? What are you doing?" "Oh, I'm just writing this all down. I mean, if Zecora's gone away on a trip, then that means she's got to come back at some point, right? I want to make sure there's a super amazing party waiting for her when she gets here!" At this response, the four other ponies blinked for a moment before starting to chuckle a bit and then laughing outright, soon joined in by Pinkie herself. Something about worrying about such a thing in a situation like this tickled them to no end. The simple mirth of the moment helped to ease away a lot of the tension that had been building on their trip, leaving the ponies in a much better mood as they continued on their way, still with the occasional chuckle. However, as the time passed, with still absolutely no sign of the flower, that mood began to fade. Though she hadn't mentioned it to anypony else, Applejack was beginning to feel rather lost. Everything looked the same in the forest, so it was hard to tell for sure, but she couldn't shake the feeling that they were going in circles. Not much later, she frowned as they came across a cliff face that felt oddly familiar. "Well shoot, Ah guess it ain't this way neither. And Ah was sure we were nearly there..." She said, shaking her head as she walked to the edge of the cliff, followed by everypony else. As they looked out over the edge, that feeling of familiarity seemed to grow stronger, along with a faint fear. While the orange pony pondered this along with where they should go now, a soft cracking noise suddenly jogged her memory. This was the ledge that had collapsed while they were hunting down the Elements of Harmony, where they had very nearly lost Twilight Sparkle. "Oh hayseed... Everypony, get back! The cliff's about ta fall!" She called out, taking a quick hop back from the edge. At the warning, her friends all acted immediately, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy taking to the air while Rarity jumped back as well. Pinkie Pie didn't seem to have noticed though and was still intently looking down below. "Hey, I think I see--" The pink pony began before letting out a cry as the ground crumbled beneath her, sending her into a free fall toward the river far below. Suddenly her fall was halted as somepony caught her. At the last second, Applejack had managed to lunge forward and grab the poofy pink tail and was currently digging her hooves into the ground to keep from being pulled over as well. With a bit of effort and help from everypony, they soon had their friend back up and on solid ground again. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you, Applejack!" Pinkie said, turning to give a huge hug to her savior. "If you hadn't caught me, then I'd have to go to the hospital at the very least. And you can't put together parties from inside the hospital. Although... hey, maybe then I could have thrown a get-better-soon party for your brother! Ooh, and all the other ponies there too!" Although Pinkie Pie seemed to have gotten over the potentially fatal experience rather quickly, Applejack wasn't so lucky. As she listened to Pinkie talk, she could still feel her heart racing, though she put on a little smile. "Ah'm just glad yer alright, Pinkie Pie. Ah thought we'd nearly lost ya'll there fer a moment..." Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash had been glaring a bit without realizing it as she watched Pinkie Pie and Applejack. After a couple of moments, she blinked, catching herself in the act and shaking her head a bit, wondering what in Equestria had come over her. Pinkie Pie was only hugging her friend, something she did quite often really, so why was it making her feel this way? Almost as if she were jealous... The pegasus was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the others trying to get her attention until Applejack called out her name for the third time, causing her to blink suddenly and look up. "Huh? Oh, sorry about that. What's up?" She asked. "Heh, Ah was startin' ta think ya'll might have up and left the buildin', Rainbow." Applejack said, giving a slight chuckle. "Anyways, Pinkie Pie said she thinks she saw what we're lookin' for down below. Do you mind goin' down with Fluttershy ta check it out? Ah think it's best if we all stick in groups." "Oh, yeah that makes sense." Dash said, having just been wondering why she couldn't just go on her own. "We'll head on down and be back before you know it." With that, she and Fluttershy flew down the cliff, gliding down toward the ground below. As promised, it wasn't long before they flew right back up again. Dash was carrying something brightly colored in her mouth, though as soon as she landed again, she spat it out at Applejack's feet with a little grimace. "Ugh, that thing tastes terrible... Is this what we're looking for? Cause if so, I vote somepony else gets to carry it back. Blech..." She said, starting to rub a hoof across her tongue to try and rid it of the foul taste. "Hmm... Ah can't say fer sure. Rarity? Ya'll got that picture, is this what we're after?" Applejack said, turning to the white unicorn. "Why, I do believe it is! Let me see... yes, it is an exact match. Well done you two." Rarity said, giving a smile to the pegasi who both looked mildly proud on their achievement. "And have no fear about the taste, Rainbow Dash. I might not be as powerful as Twilight Sparkle, but I think I can handle holding onto the flower until we get back to Ponyville." With that, she turned to face the colorful plant, a faint glow forming around her horn. Nothing at all seemed to happen though. Despite the fact that Rarity was indeed using her magic, as evidenced by the look of concentration she was now giving and the light coming off of her horn, the flower just sat there. Finally, after a short while of this, she released the magic with a soft gasp, glowering at the flower. "I... I don't understand. Telekinesis is one of the first tricks a unicorn learns, it should not be this difficult." The unicorn said with a frown, turning her gaze on one of the rocks littering the ground and soon lifting it up with her magic. "Hmm, it is still working. So... something about this flower seems to be stopping my magic." "Wait, is that even possible?" Rainbow Dash asked, looking incredulously at the inconspicuous flower. Rarity gave a little nod as she replied. "It is quite rare, but still possible. I have heard of a few gems and materials that have such a property, but never of a plant such as this. I cannot help but wonder what our friend is planning on doing with this flower. Surely it can't be much help as a spell component if it blocks out magic." "Ah don't know, but Ah reckon she's got somethin' in mind fer it, or she wouldn't have asked us out here." Applejack said, looking down at the flower. "Though, without yer magic, Rarity, somepony's gonna have ta carry this thing." "I call not me." Dash spoke up almost immediately, shaking her head quickly. Nopony else looked ready to volunteer for a while until a meek voice spoke up. "Um, if... if nopony else wants to, then I can take it. Sometimes I have to bring worms or medicine to some of the animals, so bad tastes don't bother me so much anymore." Hearing her words, everypony flashed her a grateful smile, though Rainbow Dash couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Still, Fluttershy had volunteered and she didn't seem to fazed as she picked up the flower delicately with her teeth. "Thanks, sugarcube. Let's head on back quick as possible then, so we can deliver this ta Twilight and you won't have ta carry it any longer than necessary." Applejack said. That said, the five ponies began to make their way back along the path they had followed to get there, moving as fast as they dared to go while still remaining quiet so as not to attract the attention of anything that lived in the Forest. The two pegasi remained grounded for the entire trip back, thanks to a combination of low hanging branches and fatigue. At least, that's what Dash assumed about Fluttershy, knowing it to be true for herself. Finally, after a good while of walking, light began to break through the trees up ahead and the ponies emerged into the warmth of Celestia's sun, though it had sunk considerably during their trip. Still, nopony could quite help but crack a smile as they left the gloom of the forest behind them. "Oh, it does feel good to finally be free of that dreadful place. I hope I never find myself going into the Everfree Forest again." Rarity said, glancing back at the treeline and shaking her head. "Yeah, I know just what you mean, Rarity. After being cooped up by the trees for so long, all this space feels great!" Rainbow Dash said, stretching her wings for a moment before hopping into the air. Rather than taking off as she expected, she found herself fluttering frantically to keep aloft. After a short few seconds of hanging in the air, she fell to the ground with a soft thump. "Rainbow! Ya'll alright?" Applejack said, rushing over to her and followed by the others. "What happened?" Rainbow Dash picked herself up from the ground and shook her head a bit before giving a soft chuckle. "Oh wow, must be more tired than I thought... Yeah, I'm fine. I guess I just overworked my wings today and they need some rest." A collective sigh of relief came from her friends and the orange pony chuckled along with Dash as she replied. "Heh, well how about ya'll don't scare us like that again? It ain't healthy ta get all worried twice in one day." "Hey, it's not like I chose to let that happen. Still, I think I'll stick to walking for now." Applejack nodded at that, though as her eyes fell upon Fluttershy, who was still holding onto the flower, she realized they should probably get moving again. Though the kind pegasus wasn't saying anything, her eyes had begun to water a bit from the terrible taste. "Well, if yer alright, then we should keep goin'. Ain't much farther now." Applejack said, turning an leading the way back into Ponyville. As she said, it wasn't much farther to the Ponyville Library and soon enough the five friends were standing in front of the tree. Raising a hoof, Applejack knocked loudly on the door. When there was no reply for a while, she made to push open the door and just head inside when Rarity stopped her. "Applejack, you can not just barge in there like this." The unicorn said disapprovingly. "It's a public library, Rarity. Should still be open this time of day. Besides, Ah think we count as a bit more than just the public, bein' Twi's friends and all." Came the orange pony's response. "Well, that is true, but it is also her home. Certain respects must be paid in these circumstances. Allow me." Rarity said, stepping up to the door and giving a light knock of her own. "Twilight Sparkle, we have returned with the item you asked us to go and get. May we come inside?" For a few moments more, there was no reply. Finally, the door opened to reveal Spike standing there, looking incredibly glad to see them. "You found it?" He asked immediately, looking quite relieved as Rarity nodded. "Oh thank goodness... I don't think Twilight can hold it back for much longer. Um, do you mind if I go ahead and take it in to give to her?" "Oh... well, I... I suppose so. After all, that is why we brought it here in the first place." Rarity said, a little startled by the dragon's response. "May we come in and see our friend though? Or is she still busy?" "Er... I can ask, but I think she's still pretty caught up with things at the moment." Spike said, somewhat nervously even as he carefully took the offered flower from Fluttershy. "I'll be back in just a second." With that, the dragon headed off, closing the door behind him. Rarity blinked a bit before turning toward the others. "Well, that was fairly strange, was it not? Is it just me, or did Spike seem fairly... panicked?" She said, looking puzzled. "Ah'll say. Somethin' seems off about this whole thing. Ah've been feelin' it since he first came ta the farm ta get Rainbow and me. Ah wonder what's goin' on here..." Applejack responded. "Um... I don't know... I think we should trust Twilight on this." Fluttershy said softly. "I mean... we're her friends. Why would she try to hide something from us?" "Yeah, I agree with Fluttershy on this one. Twi's given us no reason not to trust that she knows what she's doing." Rainbow Dash said with a nod. "Ah suppose that's true... still, Ah can't shake this feeling..." Applejack said, turning to Pinkie Pie. "Yer bein' mighty quiet, Pinkie Pie. What do you think?" "Hm?" The pink pony said, blinking and turning to face Applejack. "Oh! Well, I think you might be right. I've had this weird twitchy-witchy feeling all day and it's been getting stronger since I got to the library. Don't know what it means, but I think it has something to do with Twilight." "Well, perhaps we should put this up to a vote, hm? See who all believes we should question Twilight about this or just leave it alone." Rarity said, her words accompanied by nods and agreement from most of the other ponies. "Woah, hold on just one second." Rainbow Dash said suddenly. "Are we seriously going to do this? Plot behind our friend's back? I don't know about you ponies, but that seems wrong to me." Silence greeted these words as everypony there thought about what the pegasus had just said. Finally, it was broken by a little sigh from Applejack. "Ya'll have a point there, Rainbow Dash. This ain't right at all. Twilight's our friend, and we should trust her more than this. She'll let us know what's goin' on when she's good and ready, right?" The other ponies gave their agreement and before much longer, the door was once again opened by Spike. "Um... Twilight says she's very sorry, but she can't really have any visitors at the moment. She needs to have her full concentration on the magic right now. However, if anypony is interested, Twi can join you for lunch tomorrow." The dragon said, sounding as if he was simply relaying somepony else's message. "Oh, I see..." Rarity said with a little sigh before giving the little dragon a small smile. "Well, that sounds wonderful to me at least. I shall be there tomorrow. Please offer dear Twilight Sparkle my fondest wishes that her research go well." "Of course, Rarity." Spike replied with a nod. "Sorry about all this. It must seem kinda rude to you, but all I can really say is that Twilight's been under a lot of pressure with this whole thing. I hope she'll finish up tonight and get some good rest by tomorrow. Thanks, all of you, for getting that plant. That should be just what she needs." "It's quite alright Spike. I quite understand Twilight's quest for knowledge and how it can consume her at times. Still, I do worry about her sometimes, as I'm sure we all do." Rarity said, turning to face the other ponies who nodded in agreement. "I'll be sure to let her know." Twilight's assistant said with a little smile. "Well, I should probably go help her out and make sure everything's going alright. Hope you have a good rest of the day, everypony. Thanks again." With that, the baby dragon gave a little wave before closing the door again. Rarity turned back to the other four ponies with a soft sigh. "Well, now that this has been taken care of, I suppose I had better get back to the boutique and keep working on that order. Will you girls be able to meet up for lunch tomorrow?" She said. "I should probably be going back to check up on the injured animals. I left Angel Bunny in charge but... well, his bedside manner is kind of... um, not good. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and he is getting better." Fluttershy said. "Er... I mean, I'll be there tomorrow..." "Oh, I'll definitely be there! Though, that means I'm going to have to put my party plans on hold, but that's okay. Friends come first right? Besides, it's kind of like a party when we all get together, just without the cake or balloons or streamers or games. Hmm... I know, I'll bring a cake along. Then it will be a party!" Pinkie Pie said bouncing around excitedly. "Ah can't think of a reason why Ah wouldn't be able ta show up. Ah'll be there." Applejack said with a nod. "Heh, guess I have to go too in that case. Can't practice without somepony there to watch, right?" Rainbow Dash said, chuckling softly. "Nah, I'd have been there anyways. It'll be nice to see Twi again, and maybe find out what's been going on." "Then it's settled! We'll all meet up for lunch tomorrow." Rarity said brightly. "Well, as I said, I must be off. Have a good day, girls. Until tomorrow." As the unicorn headed off, the others all said their goodbyes and did likewise, each pony headed off in different directions, save for Applejack and Rainbow Dash who were both going back to the farm. The sun was setting before too much longer as they walked along and talked. "Well, Ah reckon that was more than enough excitement fer one day." The earth pony said with a chuckle, shaking her head. "Yeah, I think you're right about that. Still, it was good to be able to see everypony else again, even if it meant taking a trip into the Everfree Forest." Dash replied. "Indeed it was, sugarcube. Ah'll have ta remember ta try and make more time ta spend with them." "Definitely." Rainbow said with a nod. As they walked along the path, the pegasus decided to give her wings another go. Flaring them out, she gave an experimental flap, but found that they still didn't seem ready to support her weight. Applejack noticed this and gave her a look tinged with concern. "Everything alright, Rainbow?" "Yeah, I... I think so." She responded, frowning lightly. "It's just weird that this is happening. I mean, I've gotten really tired before, to the point where I could barely fly, but this feels... different? I dunno, maybe I'm just imagining things." "Ya'll have been goin' at it pretty hard. Maybe you just need time ta rest up?" "That's probably it. In fact, I think I might just hit the cloud when we get back. Been a long, long day AJ..." "Heh, that it has, Rainbow." Before long, they had reached the farm and, after saying their goodnights, each pony retired to their own bedroom. Rainbow smiled happily as she flopped out upon the cloud she'd been using for a bed, resting on the fluffy material. For a few seconds at least. Without warning, the pegasus found herself sinking through the cloud to land on the floor with a thump. Blinking in confusion, she sat up again, looking around herself. "Huh... that's odd." She mused to herself, shaking her head a bit before hopping up and trying again. It didn't work out the second time, or the third, and as she found herself once again lying out on the floor, Rainbow was starting to feel quite annoyed. "Come on now. Stop doing this to me and just let me get some sleep!" She said, glaring at the cloud. Despite her words though, the cloud still didn't seem capable of supporting her own weight. Grumbling softly to herself, she stood up once more and hopped up onto the earth pony bed in the room. It was just as uncomfortable as she remembered, but she was feeling too tired by this point to really care. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, she finally drifted off to sleep. ____________________________________________________________

Ballad of Autumn Dreams

Summer Part 2

"A-Applejack!" Came Rainbow Dash's voice early the next morning, soon followed by the pegasus herself rushing down the hall. The orange pony blinked and looked up from her light breakfast as her friend rushed in. "Hm? What's all the fuss about, sugarcube?" Dash looked as if she had rushed out immediately after waking up as her mane was even messier than usual and the feathers of her wings were in disarray. The thing that really caught Applejack's attention though was the panicked look she was wearing. "Rainbow Dash? What's wrong?" The earth pony said, starting to sound worried. "It... it's my wings. I don't know what's going on, but they're not working." Rainbow answered, glancing back as she frantically flapped the limbs but to no effect. "Nothing like this has ever happened before and I don't know what to do. What if I can't fly anymore?" "Woah, calm down there." Applejack said, backing away a bit to avoid getting hit by her friend's wings. "Just tell me what's goin' on. Ya'll were tryin' ta fly in the house? Maybe there just ain't enough room in here or somethin'." "I told you! My wings. Don't. Work. Remember how they were feeling weird after we got out of the forest? Well, it's like that only even worse. Now I can barely get a few inches off the ground before getting tired and having to land again. I knew they'd be a bit sore from having to sleep on that bed again, but still, this shouldn't be happening." Applejack was feeling rather overwhelmed by all this. This was a pegasus problem, not something she had ever had to deal with before, and she didn't know what to do or say. Still, she had to try and help out as best she could, for her friend. For Rainbow Dash. "Um... maybe ya'll overworked them after all. Do you think nurse Redheart might know somethin' that will help? And I thought you didn't like ta sleep on that bed, what happened ta the cloud? Maybe ya'll just slept wrong or somethin'... the important thing is just ta not panic, Rainbow." "Well... yeah, I suppose it might be best to let her take a look." Rainbow said, trying to take her friend's advice and calm down a bit. "And I would have slept on the cloud like usual, but I couldn't. Every time I tried, I'd fall through it." "That's mighty strange... might be good ta ask Twilight about it too then. Whether somethin' is wrong with yer wings or not, ya'll should be able ta stand on clouds, right?" "Y-yeah..." Rainbow Dash said, panic giving way to a look of dejection as she slumped down beside her friend. Applejack leaned down to give her a soft nuzzle and a kind smile. "Cheer up, sugarcube. Ah'm sure you'll be just fine. Now come on, let's get you some breakfast and then go to see nurse Redheart. Though, yer fine ta go by yerself if you'd prefer." "You can come along if you want to, AJ. I think I'd kinda like that actually." As if on cue, Granny Smith came into the room with a fresh plate of food for the pegasus, placing it on the table with a kindly smile before heading back. Though she was still feeling rather down, the wonderful smell soon reminded Rainbow that she was indeed hungry and she soon began to eat alongside her friend. Once they had both finished, the two ponies began to make their way back into Ponyville proper. As they walked, Applejack did her best to try to keep her friend's mood up, and it did seem to be working a bit. Rainbow Dash didn't seem quite as miserable as she had over breakfast, though she still looked rather down. The pegasus' frown grew deeper as the hospital came into view and they stepped inside. Even this early in the morning, nurse Redheart was sitting at the front desk, looking over some papers when the two walked through the door. Hearing them approach, she looked up with a small smile. "Oh, welcome back Applejack, and you too Rainbow Dash. I'm sorry to say, but Mr. Big Macintosh is probably asleep at this moment. I'm afraid it's still too early to be allowing visitors." The nurse pony said. "That's alright, nurse Redheart. Ah was actually here fer a different reason. Or rather, mah friend here was." Applejack said, giving Rainbow a gentle nudge. "Hm? Oh, right... um, I seem to be having some... troubles with my wings." Dash said with a little sigh. "I was kind of hoping you'd be able to take a look and see if there's something wrong or anything." "Of course. Would you mind following me then?" Redheart said, stepping out from behind the desk and leading the way to an empty room. "Now, what sort of troubles do you mean? How long have they been going on?" Rainbow Dash hesitated for a moment before following the nurse pony, giving a little glance to her friend that prompted the earth pony to follow along as well. At the questions, she thought for a moment before speaking up. "Well... I can't seem to fly anymore. Whenever I try, my wings start to feel really strained and I have to land again almost immediately. That's if I'm even able to get off the ground. This started happening after my friends and returned from the, um... Everfree Forest..." Dash said, almost whispering the name and giving a little wince at nurse Redheart's reaction. "The Everfree Forest? Good heavens, what were you ponies doing in there in the first place? Although, I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. By friends I take it you are talking about Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and the two of you? You ponies seem to have a knack for getting into trouble." Rainbow Dash chuckled faintly at that before wincing again as the nurse pony stretched out her left wing to get a good look over it. "Well... Twilight wasn't with us then. She had asked us to go get this flower thing for some spell or other she was working on and couldn't come along." Applejack, who until that point had been silently standing nearby, stepped forward a bit. "You know, Rainbow... Ah don't know if this is important or anything, but ya'll looked like you were havin' problems inside the forest too. On the way back, after you had found that flower, I mean." "Oh yeah, that's true... I just thought that was fatigue or something. Though, I've been through worse before and had no problems..." The pegasus said thoughtfully. "Hmm... well, Rainbow Dash, I must say that I'm rather interested in this flower that Twilight sent you to find. I'll have to ask her about it at some point... in any case though, I can't seem to find anything wrong with you. Both of your wings are in almost perfect condition and, as far as I can tell, you appear to be in great health. There's no reason I can see as to why you would be having your troubles." Nurse Redheart said, shaking her head slowly. "Oh, I see..." Rainbow responded, torn between relief that she wasn't injured and worry about what else could be causing this. "Thanks for taking a look, nurse Redheart." "You are quite welcome. I'm sorry I'm not able to be much of a help though... perhaps your friend Twilight Sparkle might know something? She is probably the most learned pony in all of Ponyville, so maybe she's heard of something like this before." "It's not a problem. And we were going to try asking her next." Dash said with a nod. "Well, I wish you good luck then." With that, the three ponies headed back into the lobby, Applejack and Rainbow Dash walking back out of the hospital. Turning to her friend and seeing the look on her face, Applejack put a hoof gently on her shoulder. "Come on, Rainbow... Twilight's bound ta know somethin'. She'll be able ta tell you what's happenin', Ah'm sure of it." "I hope you're right, Applejack..." The pegasus said with a soft sigh as they began to make their way toward their friend's treehouse. Arriving at their destination, Applejack stepped up to the door and gave it a hard knock. As the day before, there was no response and she soon gave another one. "Twi? It's Applejack and Rainbow Dash." The orange pony called out. "Ah know it's early, but we need yer help with somethin'!" A few moments passed before the door finally opened to reveal a bleary eyed Spike. "Hm? Applejack? What's going on?" He asked, rubbing his eyes for a moment before suddenly blinking. "Oh no, it's happening isn't it..." "Wait, what's happening?" Rainbow Dash cut in, stepping into the dragon's view. Spike looked around fearfully for a moment before responding. "Zombies! Twilight keeps saying it will never happen, but I know they're real!" The two ponies blinked and stared at him for a moment before Applejack shook her head with a little sigh. "There ain't no zombies, Spike. We've got a different kinda problem here. Do you mind goin' ta get Twilight? Rainbow Dash and I need ta ask her somethin'." "Oh, phew..." Spike said, looking relieved. "Sure! Why don't you two step inside for a moment while I go get her?" Applejack looked over to her friend for a moment before nodding and stepping through the door. "Thank you kindly, Spike." "Yeah, thanks..." Rainbow said, following her friend inside. "Don't mention it. Twilight should be here in just a second!" The baby dragon said before heading off to find the unicorn. True to his word, the two ponies didn't have long at all to wait before their purple friend arrived, a small cup of some steaming liquid floating beside her. Unlike her assistant, Twilight Sparkle looked quite bright-eyed, even this early in the morning, and she gave them both a bright smile as she drew nearer. "Good morning, Applejack, Rainbow Dash. It's good to see you again." She said cheerfully. "Um... yeah, good mornin', Twi..." Applejack said, her eyes locked on something that seemed off about their friend. It was Rainbow Dash that actually pointed it out though. "Is that... the flower we went to find yesterday?" The pegasus asked, staring at the brightly colored plant currently resting in their friend's mane. "Hm? Oh, um, yes it is. Thank you so much for going to get it. It turned out to be exactly what I needed for my research." Twilight said with a smile. "But... yer still able ta use yer magic..." Applejack now spoke up, glancing from the unicorn's glowing horn to the floating cup with a confused look. "Rarity said it was blockin' magic from workin' around it. And with it that close ta yer horn..." "Oh, she noticed? Yes this plant does block out magic, which is what I was hoping for. Still, even though it's a bit harder, I've found I can still use my magic a bit, even while wearing it." "Then why would you wear it at all? Ah'm afraid Ah don't understand..." Twilight began to look rather nervous at this question, though she spoke up anyways. "Um... that's... well... that's kind of what I need to talk with all of you about today over lunch. Do... do you mind if I postpone the question until then? I don't think I'm quite ready yet..." "Nah, of course not! Ah didn't mean ta make you uncomfortable or anything... anyways, Rainbow had somethin' she wanted ta ask you about." Applejack said, prompting her friend. "Oh, that's right! Um... something's been really weird since we got back from the forest yesterday. My wings don't seem to be working anymore, or at least not well. I can't keep myself up off of the ground for very long at all without getting really tired. Nurse Redheart said that she can't find anything wrong, so we thought we should ask you." The pegasus said. "Really? Hmm..." Twilight said, looking curious as she thought for a moment. "Tell me, Rainbow Dash... have you tried to put together any clouds since then? Or... anything like that?" Rainbow blinked at this, wondering what it had to do with anything. "Well... no, I haven't. Well, there is the cloud bed I've been sleeping on. Last night, I kept falling through it for some reason." "Is that so... incredible, I've heard theories, but I didn't think about something like this... well, I think I might know what's going on. One last question though, did you come into contact with this flower yesterday? For an extended period of time?" "Yeah... I was the one who brought it up to the others. One of the nastiest things I've ever tasted too." Dash said, giving a little grimace at the memory of the taste. "But what does that have to do with what's going on?" Twilight gave a little sigh at Rainbow's answer and nodded. "Just as I thought... you already know that this flower negates magic, right? Well, some ponies are starting to think that unicorns aren't the only ponies with magic. They say that a pegasus pony's ability to fly and work with clouds and weather is also due to magic, as well as earth ponies' skill at working the ground. When you carried this flower in your mouth, it must have started to weaken your magic, and therefore your flying as well. Thankfully, this should only be temporary, though I'm sorry it happened to you. If I'd known..." "That... that little flower is what's causing all of this? Keep it away from me!" Dash said, backing away a bit from the plant in Twilight's mane. "How long will I be like this?" "Well, yeah, but you should be fine. So long as you don't bite it or anything." Twilight said with a soft chuckle, though she frowned a bit at the question. "I don't really know. I'd say probably a week at the very most, depending on how long you held it." At these words, both Applejack and Rainbow Dash blinked before looking to each other and uttering the same word. "Fluttershy!" Twilight looked at her friends in confusion at this reaction. "I... don't think I understand. Did something happen to Fluttershy?" "Well, I only held the flower for a short while. Like I said, it tastes really nasty, so I didn't want to keep it any longer. Fluttershy agreed to carry it the rest of the way back." Rainbow Dash said, looking worried for their friend. "If it's done this to me, I can't imagine how much it's affected her." "Oh dear, you're right! Come on, let's go see her immediately!" Twilight said, her eyes widening. With that, she placed her cup down and, along with Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the three ponies began to rush toward their friend's cottage, hoping that nothing had happened to the timid pegasus. ************** "Hey, Fluttershy! Are you home?" Rainbow Dash called out, knocking on the door to their friend's cottage. With no answer forthcoming, she was starting to grow rather worried. The three of them had rushed here as quickly as possible, her and Applejack having to slow down a bit so they wouldn't leave Twilight behind, but it was obvious that something was not quite right as they had approached. For one thing, the scores of birds and small animals that usually inhabited the area around the cottage weren't there which is probably what led to the next oddity, the complete lack of sound in the area. Normally, there was always birdsong filling the air near Fluttershy's home, but now it was completely silent. "Please, if you're in there, open up." The cyan pegasus said, giving another knock. This time, the door opened and Dash gave a little sigh of relief, a small smile crossing her face. "Thank goodness. We were starting to get a bit worried. There's something we need to talk... about... Fluttershy..." Rainbow said, her words trailing off as she realized that it wasn't their friend who had opened the door. Hanging onto the door was the white rabbit who seemed to live with Fluttershy, Angel Bunny Dash thought she remembered their friend calling him. Normally, the rabbit seemed to have an extreme dislike for everypony else, even the pegasus who took care of him, but today he simply looked worried. Looking first to the three ponies at the door, Angel tilted his head toward the inside of the house before scampering in that direction. Rainbow Dash blinked a bit at this before turning to face her friends, each of which looked about as puzzled as she felt. "Um... I guess we should follow him in then? Maybe he knows where Fluttershy is." She said, the others nodding in agreement. With that, the three ponies walked into their friend's home, glancing around. Nothing seemed particularly out of place, at least as far as they could see. The little houses and perches that filled a good portion of the cottage were still all there, though nearly all appeared to be empty. In fact, apart from Angel and themselves, and a plant or two, there didn't appear to be any other living things in the room. "That's odd... where are all the animals? And Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash said, looking around and seeing no sign of the pegasus. "That's a mighty good question..." Applejack responded, frowning lightly. "Fluttershy? Ya'll in here sugarcube?" Though there was no reply to the question, a soft thumping noise from the upper room caught their attention. It almost sounded like somepony moving around... "Hmm... I was starting to think that maybe she isn't here, but somepony definitely is. Come on, let's go check it out." Twilight said, turning and starting to climb the staircase in the room. The other two followed her, but soon found that the door leading into Fluttershy's bedroom had been locked. Standing right up next to it though, they could clearly hear a few quiet sniffs coming from within. "Fluttershy, are you in there? It's me, Twilight Sparkle. Rainbow Dash and Applejack are here too. We're all worried about you, so please open the door so we can see if you're alright." "P-please go away... I... I can't let anypony see me like this." Came a soft reply from within the room. "Besides, if... if I open the door, you will just run away like the rest of them did. They... they ran from me, all of them. After everything I've done for them! How dare they--" Their friend's voice, which had grown louder and harsher, suddenly dropped off with a quiet whimper and the three ponies outside the door could barely hear her continue speaking. "N-no... I can't think like that. They'll just run away forever if I do..." "Please open up. We're your friends, we won't run away no matter what. Something might be wrong and I need to talk to you about it. Please, Fluttershy?" Twilight said, growing more worried after their friend's outburst. Silence greeted her for a few seconds before the door finally cracked open. Almost dreading what they were about to see, the three ponies peeked through the gap. When they caught sight of their shy friend, they each gave a soft gasp. Fluttershy looked completely normal, though even with her face averted it was obvious that she had been crying recently. "Oh, Fluttershy. Thank goodness, I was getting so worried." Twilight Sparkle said in a relieved tone, though she still looked fairly concerned. "What happened though? Why did you lock yourself in your room?" Fluttershy looked away from them shyly, scuffing a hoof against the ground as she spoke. "I... I don't really know, Twilight. After we left your house, I was feeling so tired that I just wanted to come home and get some sleep. But... I couldn't do that. The animals still needed my help. And Angel Bunny was being... uncooperative and... I... I don't know what happened. I was so frustrated... I think I may have closed a cabinet a bit harder than I meant too... "And... and then they were running everywhere. Trying to get away. I... I tried to calm them down, but it was like they couldn't understand me anymore. They were all so scared and... it was all my fault... The worst thing though was... was..." She broke off here with a little sniff, turning her watery eyes toward the three of them. "Do you remember what happened that night at... at the Gala? I was so scared that it was going to happen again and... I didn't want to lose any of my friends here, so I locked myself up in my room. So I couldn't hurt them, or anypony... But now you know what happened and you made me open the door, so now you three are going to hate me too..." Twilight Sparkle blinked, caught by surprise by the verbal barrage from their normally quiet friend. Still, it was obvious that Fluttershy was in serious pain and she couldn't just leave the pegasus like this. "Fluttershy... none of us are going to hate you, no matter what happens. You will always be our friend, and we will always care about you." Twilight said softly, taking a step toward the pegasus only to have her back away a bit in response. "I'm sure this is all just a misunderstanding or something. They'll all be back in time." Fluttershy shook her head at this though, looking down. "N-no, I don't think they will... you didn't see how scared they were, Twilight. Scared of me... just like they would be with anypony else. Er, no offense..." "None taken. I know you have a special way with animals after all. Wait..." Twilight said, frowning as a thought occurred to her. "You said that they couldn't understand you and... and that they seemed afraid? Oh no... I-I'm so sorry, Fluttershy. This is all my fault. First Rainbow Dash, now you..." "Oh no, Twilight. This isn't your fault at all, it's all mine. After all, you weren't here then, so you couldn't have had anything to do with it." Fluttershy said, shaking her head again. "No, it's that flower. The one you carried? It... it cancels out magic and with you carrying it around for so long, you probably got a giant dose of it. Rainbow Dash is unable to fly or walk on clouds at the moment and you... but..." The unicorn began to look puzzled, trying to sort all this out. "But that's not caused by anything magical, it's your special talent... I think I need to do some research into this..." "Now hold on just a minute." Applejack said suddenly, stepping up and looking to Twilight. "Ya'll are sayin' that that flower there caused all this? Made Fluttershy lose her touch with critters? That thing's dangerous, Twi! Ya'll need ta get rid of it before it hurts somepony else!" "I... I know, Applejack. I didn't realize it would cause this much trouble, and I'm so sorry for sending you all to get it unprepared. But I can't get rid of it, that would be far worse..." Came Twilight's response. "What? Confound it Twi, why can't you..." The earth pony began before trailing off at her friend's beseeching look with a little sigh. "Ah know, you'll tell us at lunch... It better be a good reason though, after what that thing's done ta poor Fluttershy..." Twilight nodded slowly before turning back to Fluttershy. "I'm really sorry, Fluttershy... I didn't think something like this was even possible, and if I'd known... I would have made sure to warn you all about it ahead of time. It... it should wear off in the next few days though." The yellow pegasus' lip trembled for a moment as she turned away. "E-even if it does wear off, that doesn't change the fact that they all hate me now... Besides, what if... what if it is just magic? What if I'm forcing them to like me... that would be even worse..." Seeing their friend again on the verge of tears, the other three ponies were at a loss for what to say. At about that moment, Rainbow Dash felt a hard kick to one of her hind legs. "Ow! Would you cut that out?" She said, turning to glare at the little rabbit who had been prodding and nudging her since the door had been opened. "What do you want?" Now that he finally had her attention, the rabbit began to pantomime something, waving his arms about frantically. Rainbow just stared at him though, having no idea what he was trying to say. Seeing that he wasn't getting through to the pegasus, Angel put a paw to his face before deciding to do things his way. With a quick hop, he grabbed onto the rainbow colored tail, using it to help him get onto the pony's back. From there, he took up a spot right on top of Dash's head, much to her annoyance. "Hey, what do you think you're doing? Get down from there you--" The pegasus began but was cut off by Fluttershy of all ponies. "A-angel Bunny? What... what are you doing here? I thought you ran away with the rest of them..." The rabbit answered with a quick shake of his head, causing his caretaker to give a soft gasp. "So... you've been down there all by yourself? What did you do for dinner, or... or breakfast?" A disinterested shrug was all she got in return, though her eyes widened at this. "Y-you didn't? Oh dear, that won't do at all... I think I have a carrot around here somewhere..." Angel gave a little bunny sigh and shook his head slowly. Twilight Sparkle, though, was looking from the rabbit to Fluttershy with a little smile. Finally, she stepped forward and gently tapped the pegasus to get her attention. "Fluttershy... you were worried about it all being magic and, in a way, I suppose it is. But, it's a different kind of magic than you were worried about, one that no power I know of can ever take away. The magic of friendship... If you were truly forcing the animals to love you, then wouldn't Angel Bunny have run away too? But he stayed, because he cares about you... The others may have run off for now, because they were scared, but they will be back. You just need to give them time and they'll return." The yellow pony blinked and quickly turned to face Twilight. "Do... do you really think so?" "I do." The unicorn replied with a little smile, to which Fluttershy gave a soft smile in return. "Hey, I don't mean to interrupt or anything..." Rainbow Dash spoke up, shooting a little glare up toward the top of her head. "But would you mind telling your rabbit buddy here to get off my head?" "Hm? Oh, I'm sorry Rainbow Dash." The timid pegasus said, blinking as she noticed that Angel was still upon his perch. "Um... do you mind getting down from their, Angel Bunny? Please? I don't think Rainbow Dash wants you to use her head as a seat any more..." The rabbit rolled his eyes a bit, but did as he was asked, hopping down from the cyan pony's head and making his way over to Fluttershy. With a little smile, the pegasus leaned down to give him a gentle nuzzle which he returned, reassuring her that there were no hard feelings about this. The other three ponies looked on, glad that their friend seemed to be feeling better now. Finally, Twilight spoke up again. "I should probably be getting back to the library before too much longer... are you going to be alright, Fluttershy?" "I... I think so, Twilight." The yellow pony said with a nod. "Thank you..." "You don't need to thank me, Fluttershy. It's my fault you got into this mess in the first place, after all. I'm just glad you're feeling better. Oh, um... you probably aren't going to be able to fly for the next few days either. That's what happened with Rainbow Dash at least..." "That's alright. I'm not much of a flier anyways. I can make do on the ground." "Alright. Take care of yourself, okay?" Twilight said. "See you later on for lunch?" "Sure, I'll be there." Fluttershy replied, smiling to her friend. With a smile back, Twilight turned to face the other two ponies in the room. "Sorry again about all of this, you two. If I had known any of this would happen... I should look into things more before sending my friends off to get something..." "It's fine, sugarcube." Applejack said, shaking her head with a little smile. "Yeah, no worries Twilight. So long as I'm able to fly again by the tryouts, I'll be just fine." Rainbow Dash said. The unicorn gave each of them another little smile before nodding and starting to make her way back down the stairs, waving goodbye to them both. With that, Applejack turned to Fluttershy. "Welll, Ah should probably be gettin' back ta the farm. There ain't nopony there ta take care of the chores at the moment, so I'll need ta get a head start on that if I want ta make lunch today." "Oh, okay. Don't work yourself too hard, alright? Um, I mean... I wouldn't want anything to happen to you, right?" Fluttershy said, her voice fading down toward the end. Applejack just chuckled though and nodded. "Sure thing. Ah'll make sure ta pace mahself. Ya'll take care." Rainbow Dash looked between her two friends for a moment before making a decision. "Hey, AJ... do you mind if I stay here for a bit? I mean, if Fluttershy doesn't mind of course. I figure she could use a friend around after all this, right?" "Hm? Oh, no problem sugarcube. There ain't all that much ta do, so Ah can handle it." The earth pony said with a nod. "See the two of you at lunch then, or before if you decide ta come back Rainbow. Til then, take care." "Heh, sure. See you then, AJ!" Dash said with a grin, waving to her friend as she headed down the stairs and back toward the farm. Fluttershy smiled softly and nodded as Applejack left. With that, just two pegasi left in the room, and Angel Bunny, she turned to face Rainbow Dash. "Th-thanks, Rainbow Dash. I probably could use a friend right about now." She said softly. "Then why didn't you say anything? I'm sure both Twi and Applejack wouldn't mind taking some time off to stay here with you." Rainbow said, blinking a bit. "Oh, well... I didn't want to inconvenience them..." "Fluttershy... if you want something, you should just ask. It's not like anypony's going to get mad at you just for asking. The worst thing that would happen is that they say no and that's it." "I-I know, it's just... I'd rather everypony else be happy, you know? I don't mind too much..." "Yeah, I understand. Still, you should spend some time taking care of yourself. Do things you want to do, rather than just what everypony else does." Fluttershy gave a little nod at that but said nothing. The two ponies fell into a rather awkward silence, one not sure what to say to fill it and the other too meek to speak up. Finally, Angel Bunny gave the yellow pegasus a little thump to prompt her to say something. "Um... you and Applejack seem to be getting along pretty well." Fluttershy said softly. "Hm? Oh, yeah! I tell you, for the first few days I wasn't sure this would work out, but it's been great!" Rainbow Dash said, giving a huge smile. "Never thought we'd hit it off so well, but it turns out we've got quite a bit in common. Hanging out with AJ's been some of the most fun I've ever had." "Oh, that's good to hear..." Fluttershy said with a nod, smiling back to Rainbow for a few seconds before speaking again. "So... have you asked her yet?" Dash blinked and tilted her head a bit in confusion. "Huh? Asked her what?" Now it was Fluttershy's turn to look confused, though her eyes widened after a moment. "Oh dear! I-I just assumed... I thought you two... eep!" The yellow pegasus cowered down a bit and clamped her mouth shut before she could say anything else. Rainbow Dash watched her in growing confusion, trying to understand what her friend was saying. "What did you assume? Come on, now I have to know!" Dash said with a light laugh. Fluttershy just shook her head though and refused to say anything, eliciting another roll of the eyes from her rabbit friend. Rainbow Dash looked at her friend suspiciously, curiosity eating away at her. "So... after all that, you're not going to tell me anything?" Rainbow asked when it was clear that no reply was coming. "Ugh, couldn't you give me a hint or something then? I'm dying to know now." That seemed to spark something in the timid pegasus. Though she still refused to meet Rainbow Dash's eyes, Fluttershy mumbled something in reply. As close as they were though, it was too quiet for Dash to hear. "What was that Fluttershy? I didn't catch it." "I... I said..." Fluttershy said before again mumbling too quietly for the other pony. Rainbow Dash gave a little sigh and shook her head before looking directly at her friend. "You're going to have to speak louder than that if you want me to be able to hear you. It's just like cheering, you have to speak up." By this point, the yellow pony was practically radiating nervousness. A faint blush tinted her face pink as her eyes roamed from Rainbow Dash, around the room, to the door, and then back to her friend. Finally, she took a deep breath, steeling herself. "I thought you and Applejack were... were... eep!" Rather than finish what she was saying, Fluttershy looked away and tore out of the bedroom, quite a bit faster than anypony had ever seen her run before. Dash was left alone in the room, blinking as she tried to process what had just happened. She turned to look at the door her friend had just run through, a mixture of confusion and incredulity on her face. "What just happened here?" She asked after a few seconds, shaking her head slowly. "Geez, what got into her? Ugh, and I still don't know what she was going to say!" After waiting for a short while to see if Fluttershy was going to come back once she realized that this was her own house, Rainbow gave a little sigh and began to head on down the stairs, deciding to head back to the farm for now. She could help out with the chores, and maybe Applejack would have some clue as to what Fluttershy had been talking about. ************** "And then she just ran off without another word. I tell you AJ, it wasn't like Fluttershy at... well, actually it was just like her to do that, but still!" Rainbow Dash finished saying, having told Applejack of the odd event at Fluttershy's house. The earth pony had been hard at work putting more baskets under the apple trees when Rainbow had arrived and the cyan pony had decided to help out as she talked. Now though, Applejack placed down the basket she was carrying before turning to face her friend. "Huh, that is mighty strange... What was she tryin' ta say again?" Applejack asked. "She kept going on about how she'd thought you and I were... something, but she never finished it. That's when she just shot off out the door." Dash said before blinking and tilting her head a bit at her friend. "You okay there, AJ?" The orange pony's eyes had widened at this news and she was just staring at Rainbow Dash as her mind went over what she had just heard. Fluttershy seemed to think there was something between her and Rainbow Dash but... that idea was almost laughable. Neither of them looked at other mares like that, after all. As the earth pony thought though, she remembered that Rarity had seemed to notice something back when they met up in front of Twilight's treehouse. Was it possible that their friends could see something they couldn't? At about that point, Applejack realized that her friend had asked her something and she blinked before looking up. "What's that? Oh, yeah Ah'm just fine. Ah don't know what she could have been talkin' about, sugarcube." "Hmm... did you know that you make a really weird face when you're lying?" Dash said, glancing over at her friend suspiciously. "What? Ah do not!" "Huh, I guess you really didn't know that..." Applejack sputtered for a bit at this before shooting a glare toward her friend that was just for show. "Ya'll gonna keep foolin' around, Rainbow, or are you gonna help me with these baskets? Harvest's comin' up before too long and it ain't much longer after that before Applebuck season." "Yeah, yeah, I'm helping." The pegasus said with a little grin, grabbing another basket and taking it to the appropriate tree. They didn't get a chance to talk much after that, the work forcing them to spread out amongst the orchard. Before too much longer though, Rainbow Dash grabbed the last stack of baskets from in front of the barn, dragging them off to place down. Once those were finished and she headed back to the barn, Applejack was waiting for her with a wide smile. "Well, looks like that's all of them. Thanks fer the help Rainbow. Woulda taken about twice as long without you." The farmer pony said. "Heh, no problem AJ. Looks like we finished up just in time to make it to lunch too." "That we did. Now come on, let's get goin' so we're not late." Applejack said, turning to head toward Ponyville with Rainbow by her side. As the two of them approached the cafe where they were going to be meeting up with their friends, three other ponies were already there waiting for them. Pinkie Pie bounded out with a huge smile to greet them while Rarity was a bit more graceful, nodding her head lightly as they approached. Fluttershy stood a short ways back, taking care not to make eye contact though her face flushed a bit as she spotted Rainbow Dash. In fact, the only one of their friends who didn't seem to be there was... "Where's Twilight?" Dash asked, looking around and noticing a distinct lack of the purple unicorn. "She hasn't arrived yet." Rarity responded, taking a look around as well. "Oh dear, I do so hope she shows up before too much longer. I am dreadfully curious as to what's been going on." "Yeah, me too! I never got a chance to ask her my question and, even though I'm sure I already know the answer, I want to make sure." Pinkie Pie said, though her face fell just a bit. "I hope she's doing alright though. I haven't seen her all day..." "Twi's doin' just fine, Pinkie. Rainbow and Ah saw her this mornin'. Oh yeah, and so did Fluttershy." Applejack said, turning to the timid pony. "Oh, um... yes, she did seem to be doing pretty well." Fluttershy said shyly, looking down. "Well, that is certainly good to hear. I suppose there is not much more we can do right now besides wait for Twilight Sparkle to arrive." Rarity said, the other ponies nodding along with her statement. Luckily, they didn't have long at all to wait. Only a minute or so after the white unicorn finished talking, Twilight Sparkle came into view, running toward the cafe. As she noticed her friends watching her, she slowed down and gave them all a smile as she walked up. "Hey everypony. Sorry I'm late... I was helping Spike clean up a bit and lost track of time." The purple pony said. "Don't worry about it, Twilight. It's not really late, and besides, we got here right before you." Rainbow Dash said with a soft chuckle. Applejack glanced at the unicorn with a little frown before speaking up. "Ah see ya'll are still wearin' that flower... Ah hope you know what yer doin', Twilight..." At Applejack's words, Rarity had looked over to Twilight and noticed the flower resting in her mane for the first time, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, my! Twilight, darling, you look splendid. It compliments your mane perfectly! In fact..." The white unicorn's voice faded out as she began to lose herself in thoughts of the perfect outfit she could put together to match with the flower. "Hmm, maybe something like... oh no, that would look dreadful. Perhaps though..." "Er, Rarity? Ah don't think this is the best time fer that." Applejack said, startling the unicorn from her reverie. "Hm, what? Oh, you are quite right Applejack. I'm afraid I can not truly help when inspiration strikes, and that flower... I did not notice back in the forest, but it truly is gorgeous." Twilight had been watching this exchange with mild amusement, though as she spoke, a trace of nervousness showed itself. "Well... this flower is a pretty big part of what I wanted to talk to you all about. Especially after... after recent events concerning it. Before we get started on that though, how about we grab a table and order lunch? I don't know about all of you, but I'm feeling pretty hungry right now." The other ponies nodded and voiced their agreement before the group headed into the cafe, picking out a table that would be large enough to seat the six of them comfortably. After placing their orders they chatted lightly about the events of the past few days, catching up with each other now that there wasn't quite as much tension as the last time they had met up. Before too long, their food arrived and Applejack turned her attention to Twilight. "Well, now we're all here and together, ya'll mind explainin' what's been goin' on, Twilight? Ah'm mighty curious as ta why yer keepin' that flower despite how dangerous ya'll know it is." The earth pony said. The purple unicorn bit her lip for a moment at the question before giving a nod. "Alright. I still don't know if I'm ready for this, but I did promise to tell you... Here goes then." Twilight paused for a second to take a deep breath before continuing. "Do you remember that party a couple of months ago, when I... I kind of lost control over my magic?" Applejack nodded along with her friends, thinking back to that night. ************** Pinkie Pie had thrown a party in the Library where Twilight lived, though she couldn't remember just what it had been for. Knowing Pinkie, there didn't really need to be a reason. The festivities were in full swing when the purple unicorn had suddenly staggered off, complaining about a terrible headache. Before anypony could help get her someplace to rest though, objects began to lift up and fling themselves across the room, surrounded by the tell-tale glow of a unicorn's magic. The glow began to surround Twilight as well and she too lifted up into the air, turning to face her friends as the magic built up around her, keeping the other five ponies away. Thinking back on what had happened reminded Applejack of just how terrified she had felt that night as she looked into Twilight's glowing eyes. For the first time since she hadmet the purple mare, she felt afraid of her friend. Afraid that the unicorn would actually wind up hurting them all... If it hadn't been for the timely arrival of Princess Celestia, who knew what might have happened to them. Placing herself between Twilight and her friends, the princess had born the brunt of the magical storm surrounding her pupil, keeping it from harming anypony else. After only a few minutes, the energies had died down as Twilight sank back to the floor. After seeing to Twilight, who had fallen into a deep sleep, the princess had comforted the frightened ponies, reassuring them that their friend was going to be alright but needed to be taken to the palace to recover. With that, the alicorn had teleported both herself and Twilight away and it was several days before the purple mare had returned to Ponyville. ************** Applejack gave a little shiver at the memory but nodded to her friend. The fact that Twilight had brought up that night didn't bode well at all and, from the way the other ponies around the table were looking, she wasn't the only one feeling worried. "Well... it happened to me again a few weeks after I got back from Canterlot. I had just finished tidying up the library when books started to fly off the shelves again. About a minute later, I woke up again, laying on the ground with the library in shambles. It's happened three more times since that one, each of which was longer than the last. The worst thing is that there doesn't seem to be any pattern to when they happen now. I'd be going about my daily business and then suddenly I'd lose control. Luckily, it's never happened out in public or with anypony else around, but still... what if it does? I don't want to hurt anypony... "That's when I started looking into this. Pouring myself into the research to try and find out why this is happening. Unfortunately, none of the books I read through had anything to say on the matter. In fact, I couldn't find anything at all until just recently when I found something about that flower. That book, supernaturals, mentioned that there was a plant that grows in the Everfree Forest that could nullify magic. I didn't know if it would work, but at least it was worth a shot." "The rest, I guess you kind of know. I asked for all of you to meet up at the library so that I could see if you would help me. At the worst possible time though... it happened again, right then. That's why I wasn't able to talk with you myself, or go with you. I couldn't risk hurting any of you. Thankfully, this flower does seem to have done the trick. It's too early to know if it's going to stop the episodes completely, but it has definitely weakened my magic considerably, so hopefully that will help even if I do lose control again. "I just... I hadn't thought about how it would affect other ponies who came into contact with it. And for that... I'm truly sorry, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy..." Twilight said, looking sadly to the two pegasi. "And to all of you, for putting you into such danger without warning you." As Twilight finished up, the other ponies simply sat there in silence for a few moments, processing what they'd just heard. Pinkie Pie was the first one to react, turning to face Twilight with an eerily serious look for the party pony. "Twilight Sparkle, I just have one question to ask you." She said, her tone of voice causing the unicorn to wince a bit and expect the worst. "Have you or have you not messed up a major spell recently?" The question caught the purple mare completely by surprise and she blinked a bit before responding. "N-no, not really. If anything, my magic has been working too well. Besides, I haven't attempted any major spells lately and what I have done has all worked out perfectly." "Oh..." Pinkie responded, a frown crossing her face. "Drat, foiled again... I was sure that was what had happened. Guess I can cross that from the list then. That only leaves a few more options though..." With that, the pink pony turned her gaze toward Rainbow Dash, the look on her face implying that the two of them needed to have a talk once this was all over. The pegasus simply looked back in confusion, though not nearly as much as Twilight Sparkle seemed to be feeling. "Wait... that's it? You... you don't have any problems or questions about any of what I told you?" She said. "Of course not, silly! You've got the pretty flower now, right? You said that will make it all better, so I believe you. After all, if anypony would know about this kind of thing, it would definitely be Twilight Sparkle! Besides, you're doing okay and everypony else is doing okay, so it's all okay, right?" The pink pony said brightly before looking thoughtful. "Ooh, you know what this really calls for?" "Let me guess... a party?" Twilight asked flatly. Pinkie Pie's eyes went wide at that as she stared at her friend. "Woah, you can read minds now too? That little flower is amazing! I want it, can I have it? Please Twilight? Pleeeease?" While the hyper pony was making pleading eyes at Twilight, Applejack spoke up. "Uh, sugarcube, do ya'll really think this is a good time fer a party? Ah mean... this doesn't seem like somethin' you'd want ta attract attention to." "Well, duh." Pinkie said, rolling her eyes a bit as she turned to face Applejack. "Every time is a good time for a party!" "No, Pinkie, I think Applejack is right. What if this doesn't work? What if it happens again while I'm at the party? With all those other ponies around... somepony's bound to get hurt. I think it's better if I play it safe for now, until I know it works." Twilight said, shaking her head sadly. "Aww... okay then Twilight, if you're sure. I'll just have to give you a rain check on that party then." As a lull occurred in the conversation after this, it was Rarity's turn to speak up. "Unlike Pinkie Pie here, I'm afraid I do have a question about this, Twilight. Two, in fact. The first involves that flower of yours. You said that it has effects on other ponies... what did you mean by that?" "Oh... well, like I said, this plant nullifies magic. For a unicorn, that would cause the weakening or loss of their magic for a short time. Pegasi on the other hoof, lose the ability to fly and to manipulate clouds and weather. At least, that's what I had thought, after hearing from Rainbow Dash..." Twilight gave a little sigh as her eyes fell on Fluttershy and she continued. "Fluttershy though... while she lost her flight as well, it also seems to have taken away her ability to communicate with animals." Rarity's eyes widened at this and she too turned to face the timid pegasi. "Fluttershy, darling, is this true?" She asked, answered by a little nod from the yellow pony. "But... that's part of your talent, isn't it? Your cutie mark, the thing you can do better than anypony else... why would it affect that?" "I don't know. Honestly, it doesn't make any sense to me either." Twilght responded, shaking her head. "It just shows that I need to do a lot more research into this, especially now that it has affected two of my best friends..." "I see... Well, I suppose that helps to lead into my next question then. Did you try to send a letter to Princess Celestia? I'm sure that she would be more than willing to help out her prized student, after all." "N-no, I didn't..." Twilight said, looking away. "The princess and I... we don't talk much anymore. I still send her my friendship reports but... since that night, something seems different about our relationship. When I was in Canterlot, it was like she was deliberately avoiding me. I don't know what's wrong, but she doesn't seem to be as open as she used to be... Maybe she's upset that... that I lost control like that. Or she thinks that I'm not worthy of being her pupil anymore. If that is the case, then I have to try and take care of this on my own." "Twilight... I know that you and Princess Celestia are close, and it is odd that she would try to avoid you..." Rarity said, leaning over and placing a hoof gently on the purple unicorn's shoulder. "And I can understand just where you are coming from but... maybe you should ask for her help anyways. Whatever is happening could be exceptionally dangerous to you or maybe even to somepony else." "I... you're right, Rarity. The risks are just too great. Still... I don't think I can do that. Not yet..." Twilight said with a little sigh. "If this doesn't work though, if it happens again... I'll write to her. I promise that." "Well, you just be sure to do what you think is right. That's all anypony can ever ask of you." Rarity said, giving a little smile to her friend. Twilight returned the smile before turning back to her friends. "Well... does anypony else have a question they'd like to ask?" Rarity and Fluttershy shook their heads in response. Pinkie Pie took a moment to think about it before doing likewise. "Well, it is a lot to take in. Still, like Pinkie Pie said, I trust that you know what you're doing. If you say that it's alright now, then that's good enough for me." Rainbow Dash said with a little smirk. At that, Twilight turned to Applejack to see what the farmer pony had to say. "How about you, Applejack?" The earth pony was silent for a moment before she gave a little sigh. "Ah'm not sure Twilight. Ah can kinda understand why you need ta keep that flower around, but knowin' that yer just carryin' around somethin' that dangerous... Ah'd be lyin' if Ah said that didn't worry me a bit. Still, Ah suppose it's better than the alternative. And you've given me no reason not ta trust yer judgement, so Ah'll trust you on this one too." Twilight's smiled at this as she nodded, prompting a smile from the orange pony as well. "Thank you, all of you. I didn't really know how you'd react to this and... I guess it was kind of silly of me to worry so much. I should have known better than to think this would tear us all apart." She gave a smile to each of her friends, the other five ponies returning it. With that, the topic turned to lighter topics as they finished off their lunch. By the time when they had to go their separate ways again, everypony was in great spirits, joking and laughing amongst themselves as they bid their friends farewell. Rainbow Dash and Applejack began to make their way back to the farm, talking over what they had just heard. "You know, Ah never would've thought it was somethin' like this. Though, Ah guess this does clear up a lot of questions about what's been goin' on..." Applejack said, musing on this for a moment before noticing that Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be paying attention. "Somethin' wrong, sugarcube?" "No, no... at least, I don't think so." Dash said, shaking her head a bit as she turned back to walk with her friend. "It's just... I could have sworn I saw Pinkie Pie watching us. When I looked again though, there was nopony there." "Huh, that's strange." Applejack said, looking back for a moment as well before giving a little shrug. "Well, Ah can't see nopony there. Maybe yer just imagining things, Rainbow?" "Hmm... yeah, you're probably right." The pegasus said before tilting her head a bit at the odd way her friend was looking up at her. "Hey, AJ, what's up? You're looking at me all weird..." The earth pony chuckled softly before pointing a hoof toward Rainbow. "Ah guess yer too caught up in yer own thoughts ta notice, but take a look Rainbow. Notice somethin' different?" It took Rainbow Dash a few seconds to realize what her friend was going on about. She was having to look down at Applejack, which meant... "Oh my gosh! My wings... I'm flying again!" She said excitedly, looking back to see that she was indeed flying. "This is great! I didn't think it would wear off so fast, but this is so awesome!" "Heh, it sure is sugarcube.." Applejack said, laughing as she watched the excited pegasus fly around above, pulling little loops and spins as she reveled in the return of her flight. "Though, Ah guess that means you'll be wantin' ta go practice some more now, huh." "Oh yeah! I mean, if you don't need me to keep helping at the farm." "Nah, we're pretty much finished fer the day. Besides, only a few more days left til the tryouts. Ah suppose Ah can let ya'll take a bit of a break ta get ready fer that." "Yes! Thanks AJ!" The pegasus said happily as she flew back in to pace her friend's walking. "Heh, don't mention it, sugarcube." ________________________________________ With her flight back in proper shape again, and thanks to Applejack's lenient work schedule, Rainbow Dash began to practice harder than ever over the next few days. With the tryouts coming closer and closer, she wanted to be sure that she would do her very best. Still, at her friend's insistence, they continued to have little breaks throughout the day to keep the pegasus from wearing herself out too much. Finally, after a long time of anticipation and preparation, the big day came. Despite having had quite a hard time getting to sleep the night before, Dash woke up feeling well rested, physically ready to meet the day, and so nervous she was almost feeling sick. "C-come on, Rainbow... you can do this. You've had plenty of practice and know exactly what you're going to be doing. Now, you just have to do it in front of all of Ponyville and your childhood heroes, who are going to be judging you on how well you do." She said into the mirror before shaking her head. "No, no, no! I can't think like that. Just gotta... gotta go out there and do my best! Yeah..." A knock on the door snapped her out of these thoughts and she headed over to open it, looking down to see Applejack's little sister. "Oh, hey Applebloom. What's up?" "Mah sister told me ta come up and get you, Rainbow Dash. She's fixin' up a big breakfast and says it's almost ready." The little filly said, looking up to Rainbow. "Is that so? Well, l'd better not keep everypony waiting then, huh." Dash said with a little grin, doing her best to push down the feelings threatening to overwhelm her and leave her a trembling wreck. "Come on, let's get going then." With that, the two ponies began to head down the hall toward the stairs that would lead them down to the dining area. As they walked, it was obvious from the way she kept glancing over at Rainbow Dash that the little filly had something to say. Still it took a few moments before she actually spoke up. "Um, miss Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo says that yer gonna be real famous after today. Is that true?" "Heh, of course it is. I'm probably the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria, and definitely the most awesome. After the Wonderbolts see me perform, they won't think twice before offering me a spot on the team." She said with a grin, partially for Applebloom and partially because she needed to hear it said out loud. "And no need to be so formal, kid. You can just call me Rainbow Dash, or Dash, or whatever really." "Well, mi-- ah mean, Rainbow Dash, when yer all famous... are ya'll gonna have ta leave Ponyville?" Applebloom asked. At the question, Rainbow Dash nearly froze up on the spot, having never thought of that side of things before. She didn't have an answer for the filly as she didn't have one for herself. In all honesty, that probably was what would happen, but could she actually do that? Leave Ponyville behind, along with all of her friends? Leave Applejack? "I... I don't know. I guess I'll probably have to, since the team is located in Cloudsdale. I'm sure I'd have to move out there once I get in." The pegasus responded after a moment. "Oh..." Applebloom said, looking kind of sad at this news as they descended the stairs. Applejack was waiting for them near the bottom, wearing a wide smile as she greeted the two ponies. "Hey little sister. Thanks fer wakin' up sleepyhead here in time fer breakfast." "Hey, you know perfectly well that I need to be well rested for today." Dash retorted, though she cracked a small smile. "Woah, simmer down there. Ah was just playin' with you, Rainbow." The earth pony said with a light chuckle before noticing the look on her sister's face. "Hey there sugarcube, what's got you lookin' so glum?" "It's nothin'..." Applebloom said, though that obviously wasn't true. Applejack seemed to have picked up on this as she raised an eyebrow at the filly before speaking again. "Nothin', eh? Well, Ah think Ah might just have some news ta help cheer you up. Guess who's comin' home from the hospital today?" This did the trick as Applebloom's eyes widened and an excited smile appeared on her face. "Big Macintosh? He's all better now?" "Heh, he sure is. Nurse Redheart let us know that he's doin' well enough ta come home finally, though he won't be up ta much work fer a while yet." "Yay! Big Mac's comin' home! Big Mac's comin' home!" Applebloom said happily, the gloom from before completely replaced by joy as she bounced away through the house. Rainbow Dash and Applejack chuckled softly as they watched her before the pegasus turned her attention to her friend. "So, your brother's getting released? That's great news, AJ! I'm so glad to hear he's doing better." "Heh, Ah know just what you mean, Rainbow." The earth pony said with a wide smile, though it faded a bit as she continued. "Though... Ah got some bad news fer you. You see, with Big Macintosh comin' home today... well, Ah kinda need ta be here ta help out and make sure he gets settled back in and all..." Rainbow Dash puzzled over this for a moment before getting what this meant and frowning a bit. "Oh... so, you're not going to be able to make the tryouts?" "Ah'm afraid not, sugarcube." Applejack said, shaking her head. "Ah wish Ah could, Ah really do, but..." "It's fine, AJ. I understand." Dash said, giving her a little smile. "He's family, and family comes first. You take good care of Big Mac today, alright?" Hearing this, Applejack gave a weak smile back and nodded. "Will do, Rainbow. Thanks fer bein' so understandin'..." "No problem." In reality though, it was a big problem. Rainbow Dash had been counting on having all of her friends there to provide support for her, but now she was going to be missing her closest friend. The nervousness she'd been feeling earlier, which had never quite left, returned in full force and, though she continued to try and hide it, Applejack knew her well enough to notice. "How ya'll holdin' up, Rainbow Dash?" She asked in a concerned tone. "Think yer gonna be alright fer the tryout?" "Hm? Y-yeah, of course. I'm going to be just fine, AJ. Just fine." "Well, if you say so. Come on, Ah fixed ya'll up a nice, hearty breakfast. Yer gonna need all the strength and energy you can get." With that, the orange pony began to lead the way toward the table where, true to her word, a nice breakfast had been set out for the pegasus. Though the last thing Dash felt like doing at that moment was eating, she did her best anyways, knowing that she needed to have a good breakfast before this. The rest of the ponies who lived at Sweet Apple Acres were also having seated around the table, all talking excitedly about Big Macintosh's return. Rainbow didn't join in as, though she was quite happy to know that the Applejack's sister was recovering well, she had too many worries of her own to feel the same joy the rest of them felt. Finally, after finishing up her food and sitting around with the rest of them, Rainbow Dash stood up to make her leave. "Well... I guess I should probably be heading down there now. Thanks for breakfast, AJ. Ya'll say hey to Big Macintosh for me." Applejack chuckled softly as her friend slipped in a bit of the farmer drawl and nodded. "Sure thing. Good luck to ya, Rainbow Dash." "Yeah, good luck Dash!" Applebloom said, beaming over at her. Even Granny Smith spoke up, giving the pegasus a rather creaky smile. "You get them, dearie. Show them what you can do." "Heh, thanks everypony. I'll do my best!" Dash said with a little grin, her confidence boosted a little by this. With that, she gave one last grin to her friend, which Applejack returned, before turning and heading out of the house and taking flight toward Ponyville. Her destination wasn't in the town itself though. The day before, a pegasus work crew had flown in straight from Cloudsdale to begin putting together the stadium the tryout would be held in. They'd even added in a set of solid bleachers for the large number of earth ponies and unicorns that lived in Ponyville who might want to come by and watch. As the stadium came into view and she landed to walk inside, it was all Dash could do to keep herself from shaking and to take the next step forward. It all came down to this, one last performance. If she pulled this one off, she would finally have achieved her lifelong goal of joining the Wonderbolts. The weight of this hit her hard, doing nothing to help ease the nervousness that was continuing to build. A white coated, sunglasses wearing pegasus was standing watch in front of the entrance, since the stadium was supposed to be closed at the moment. As Rainbow approached though, he gave her a respectful nod, letting her through. Once inside, another pegasus, this one beige with short blue hair, flew over to greet her with a wide smile. "Hey, great to see you Rainbow Dash! The name's Star Spotter. I'm overseeing preparations here for the tryout today. There's still some time before the Wonderbolts are scheduled to arrive, so if you'd please follow me, I'll show you to the waiting room." The pegasus said. Dash nodded and followed after him, soon being led into a rather decently sized room containing a few cushions and a sofa in case she wanted to lie down for a moment. After leading her inside, Star Spotter turned to face her again before he left. "Well, here we are. If you need anything at all, don't hesitate to ask. Any of the workers here will know how to find me, so just ask them and we'll make sure to take care of whatever you need." "Alright. Th-thanks." Dash said, nodding again to the pegasus before taking a seat on one of the cushions after he left. Now began the worst part of any competition, the waiting. The anxiety and stress from before was nothing compared to actually being here and having to wait for the moment when she would be performing in front of all of those ponies. Having nothing to do but sit there and wait didn't help to take her mind off things at all. As time passed, way too slowly for her tastes, other ponies began to drop by. Members of the weather team, come to wish her good luck or to see how she's doing, ponies she knew from around the town. Scootaloo came by for a while, her visit actually helping to cheer Dash up a bit. Something about the filly's dead certainty that her hero could do anything seemed infectious, leaving Rainbow Dash feeling a bit more confident than she had been before the visit. The stadium was already starting to fill up, Rainbow Dash could hear the noise of the crowd even from in her room, when her friends came by in a group. Pinkie Pie was the first one into the room, bouncing in with a wide smile on her face as usual. "Hey there, Dashie!" She said brightly, hopping over to the pegasus as the others began to file in. "Are you excited about this, because I sure am! This is superly-duperly great! You're going to finally get to join the Wonderbolts and everypony will see you as you fly out there and do your little twirls and loops and whoosh right up into the air, zooming around." The pink pony waved her forelegs around as she spoke, making sound effects as she played out Rainbow Dash's routine, the sight of which caused the pegasus to give a little laugh. "Heh, yeah Pinkie, I'm excited. Though, I still have to go out there and actually do well enough for them. We can't be sure I'm a Wonderbolt just yet." "Ah, details-schmetails." Pinkie said, waving that matter away. Twilight Sparkle stepped forward at this point, giving her friend a little smile. "So, how are you feeling, Rainbow Dash? Are you ready for this?" "Heh, ready as I'll ever be. I'm Rainbow Dash, I can do this with no problem at all." She answered, again wearing a mask of confidence that she wasn't actually feeling. "You'll see. I'll do so great, they'll add me onto the team right here and now." Twilight gave a soft laugh at that and nodded. "Well, we'll certainly be rooting for you, Rainbow. I'm sure you'll do great." "That's right, we'll all be cheering for you, darling. We have the utmost faith in your abilities." Rarity said with a dainty smile. "Um... I've even been practicing my cheers a bit. Do you... do you want to hear one?" Fluttershy asked, shyly. "Sure, I'd love to." Dash said with a grin, turning to her pegasus friend. "Okay. But... you, um, you might want to cover your ears first. It's kind of loud." The yellow pony said before taking a breath. "Yay!" Rainbow had to admit that it was an improvement from her previous attempts, though a light breeze would still drown it out. Pinkie Pie on the other hand, turned to Fluttershy and shook her head. "Aw, that's not how you do it, Fluttershy. Here, let me show you." With that, the pink pony took a huge breath only to find Twilight quickly putting a hoof over her mouth. "No! Not again Pinkie! Remember what happened last time?" The unicorn said, her eyes wide. She only removed her hoof once Pinkie had nodded, the pink pony letting out the breath she'd taken in before giving her friend a little frown. "Aww, you're no fun Twilight. Besides, the Cutie Mark Crusaders' treehouse looks much better now that they've rebuilt it." Twilight gave a little sigh at that as Rainbow Dash laughed at her friend's antics. Though it was far from gone, being around these four ponies was making her feel far less nervous and more at ease. Unfortunately though, it couldn't last forever and, after several minutes of talking and joking around with each other, it was time for them to head on up to the stands, Dash's show starting shortly. Alone again, Rainbow began to pace back and forth in the room, waiting for the call for her to head on out as she tried to mentally psych herself into doing this. She knew she was good enough and she just had to show everypony else, show the Wonderbolts. It was all a matter of practice and skill and she had more than enough of both. Finally, a glimmer of hope broke through and she began to grin to herself as she stretched out her wings and legs, certain that she would be able to succeed. At last, the call was given and she flew out into the open stadium, met by cheers from the audience. Looking around, she saw a sea of almost entirely familiar faces. It looked like the entirety of Ponyville had shown up for this, or close to it at least. In addition, there were a few pegasi she remembered from Flight School. And there they were, seated in a special stand where they would get the best view, the Wonderbolts. Though they were all in full uniform, Dash knew enough to be able to tell each member of the team apart from the others. The current captain of the team gave her a little smile and a nod, signalling the start of the tryouts. With that, Dash went into action, soaring high up into the air as she began her routine. She was going to go all out for this, using ever trick in her book and even a few she made up specifically for this event. Once she had gone high enough, she turned around to look back down at the ground and the crowd below. The cyan pegasus hesitated for just a second before adopting a determined look and diving down to build up speed. At the last possible second, or so it seemed to the viewers, she pulled out of the dive, going right into her Super Speed Strut, a trick where she continued moving at flying speed while looking as if she were merely walking. From there, she curved immediately into the slalom section of the stadium, refusing to allow herself to reduce in speed even the slightest bit as she hurtled through the cloud pillars. Still, she managed to make it all the way through without even the slightest bump into an obstacle, curving back up to begin the actual trick portion of the show. That was where things began to go wrong. It started simply enough, she wound up coming out of a trick too fast and overshot her turn just a bit, winding up a few feet away from where she should have been. Like any good stunt flier, she was able to make it seem deliberate, but she knew full well that other fliers like the Wonderbolts would know she'd messed up. That one simple mistake began to unravel the confidence she had built up, paving the way for more. As the nervousness began to make itself known once more, she started to make other small mistakes in her tricks. None of them were large enough to be noticed by most ponies, save for those that make their living pulling the same kinds of stunts. Rainbow Dash wasn't even able to pull off the Buccaneer Blaze like she'd been planning due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was rapidly turning into a disaster and her having to constantly check to see how the Wonderbolts seemed to be taking it wasn't helping much either. The show went on though, Rainbow Dash doing her best to try and salvage what she could of her routine. By this point, she knew that there was one thing she had left that could turn this into a success. The thing that she was known for as being the only pony to ever pull off in the history of Equestria. The Sonic Rainboom. Dash had known this might come up, but she had been hoping it wouldn't. She had only pulled off the trick twice, and never when she was actually trying to. Both times had been accidents and, no matter how hard she tried in practice, she hadn't been able to do it again. Still, after yet another trick went wrong, nearly sending her crashing into the audience, who clapped and cheered, thinking this was all part of some death-defying stunt, she knew she had no choice. As the time came for her big finale, Rainbow rocketed up into the sky, gaining altitude rapidly. Finally, as high up as she felt comfortable going, she looked back down at the stadium far below her. This was it. This was the moment of truth and... she couldn't do it. Dash hung there in the air for a few seconds, biting her lip as she looked over the crowd. If she tried this, she'd just crash and fall and they would all be there to watch her failure. But on the other hoof, she had no choice now but to try. While she debated this with herself, the pegasus let her eyes roam over the crowd, still able to pick out faces she knew. After a few moments, they settled on all of her friends sitting there and cheering her on. One. Two. Three. Four. Five? Dash blinked to make sure she wasn't seeing things, but no, she was there. Seated amongst her friends was a familiar orange pony, smiling up at her. Applejack. At that moment, as she saw those eyes locked on her, watching nothing but her, something clicked. A confident smirk spread across Dash's face as she looked down at her best friend. She could do this. That was all she needed and Rainbow Dash began her dive. Down she flew, faster and faster, until a cone of air began to form around her. The cone threatened to stop her dive. To send her shooting back up as she had been so many times during practice, but she pushed on anyways. She could do this, and she would do it. For the Wonderbolts. For herself. For Applejack. As Dash drew closer and closer to the ground, the cone continued to grow tighter around her until, finally, it exploded. A ring of rainbow colored light burst out from around Rainbow Dash as she shot forward, easily going twice as fast as she had been before, if not more so. Taking a glance back, she could see that her tail and mane had blended together into a solid rainbow streaking out behind her. With a wide grin on her face, she pulled out of the dive, shooting back up into the air to form a huge arc over the stadium, a beautiful rainbow siting there in the air for everypony to see. Finally, she approached the ground again, working to slow herself down before coming to a skidding land in the center of the stadium. After the Rainboom, the entire crowd had fallen silent as it watched her. Now, as she stood there, breathing heavily and watching the ponies in the stands, noise came flooding back. Cheers and applause rained down from all directions as the audience applauded the pony who had once again done the impossible. Throughout it all though, Rainbow Dash's eyes had fallen onto one pony and one pony alone, the orange earth pony seated with her friends, shouting and stamping her hooves like everypony else. With that, Dash took her bow before being led back into the waiting room. ************** Dash paced back and forth in the waiting room for what felt like ages, restlessly awaiting something to happen now. She knew she should probably be taking it easy, laying down and resting up after all that she'd just done, but the adrenaline was still coursing through her and she couldn't just stay still. With the absence of anypony else there to talk with, she was left with only her thoughts to keep her company. Over and over again in her head, she looked back upon the performance she'd just pulled off and tried to imagine what the Wonderbolts might be thinking. She'd made mistakes, that much was certain, but were they enough to cancel out the successful tricks? Had she done well enough to make it? Sooner or later though, the pegasus' thoughts kept returning to her finale. She'd actually done it again, her third Sonic Rainboom. Yet she still didn't know how. No, that wasn't true... she knew exactly how she'd managed to pull it off. But that answer simply raised more questions. There was one thing Dash was certain of though, she needed to talk with Applejack. Finally, her pacing was interrupted by a knock on the door. For a brief moment, Rainbow Dash hoped that it was somepony coming to tell her how she'd done, though that wasn't likely at all. It took time for the members of the Wonderbolts to analyze a tryout and there was no way they'd finished up that fast, or probably would today for that matter. She was far from disappointed once she opened the door however as standing there were her friends, all beaming excitedly to see her. "Hey guys, what took ya so long?" Dash said with a grin upon seeing the five ponies there. "We came as fast as we could, but the crowds were so thick it took forever to get here." Twilight said, stepping into the room as the pegasus stood back to let her friends in. "That was amazing though, Rainbow Dash. I had thought your Best Young Flier's performance was great, but this was easily the most spectacular show I have ever seen!" "I know! You were super-duper-specially awesome today, Dashie! When you did that thing with the flip and the shoom and whoo, well even I was speechless!" Pinkie said, pantomiming some complex trick with a huge smile. "Oh, I'm going to have to throw the bestest party ever after this!" After the pink pony had walked in, it was Rarity's turn to enter and face Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow Dash, I won't even pretend to say that I understand the whole trick flying thing, but what I saw out there today... that was true art. Maybe a bit more... physical than most, but still a thing of extraordinary beauty nonetheless." "Oh wow, a Sonic Rainboom! I.. I still can't believe it. I mean, not that I didn't think you could do it, but still... this is so incredibly wonderful!" Fluttershy said with a smile to her pegasus friend, still a bit more excited than her usual timid self. "Were... were you able to hear my cheering?" "Heh, I sure was, Fluttershy." Dash said with a grin as she looked at all of her friends. "Thanks, all of you. It means a lot to me that you all came out here to support me in this." Her friends all smiled brightly at this, all save one. Applejack, who had entered in a few seconds after Fluttershy, gave an almost imperceptible wince at these words. Catching this, Rainbow Dash turned to face the earth pony with a little grin. "Hey there, AJ. Glad to hear you made it! How's Big Macintosh doing?" "He's just fine, and still as stubborn as always. He refused ta let me do anythin' ta help and kept sayin' Ah should be here rather than at home. Though, Ah have ta say that Ah'm mighty glad Ah took his advice. Ah only caught the end, but that were plum amazin' sugarcube!" If Dash had been feeling happy before, it was nothing to how she felt now. The cyan pony's face practically glowed as she grinned widely to her friend following the compliment. With that, the six ponies spent the next several minutes talking cheerily amongst themselves, going over the incredible stunts they had seen that day and how they thought Rainbow Dash was going to do. Twilight Sparkle and the others seemed to have very high hopes for her, though the pegasus wasn't so confident. Still, four of her friends seemed to be having a good time, though Applejack still looked a bit troubled over something. Though the others didn't seem to notice, Rainbow was able to tell. "Oh goodness, look at the time! I must be off if I want to get anything done today." Rarity said after looking up at the room's clock. "Congratulations again, Rainbow Dash. I do so hope that you make the team." "Ooh, that reminds me! If I'm going to throw a party, I need to get baking right away! Sorry to just greet and run Dashie. I'll be sure that your party is extra-special fun to make up for it!" Pinkie Pie said, waving to Rainbow before following behind Rarity. "Thanks again for coming out here. And no worries, Pinkie Pie." Dash said with a chuckle. "Guess I'll see the two of you tonight at the party then." "I should probably be headed out as well, Rainbow. I promised Fluttershy I'd help her try and find some of the animals that ran off." Twilight said, the yellow pegasus giving a little nod as well. "Ah, okay then. You two have fun then. Or... I dunno, maybe you'll have fun?" Rainbow said with a light laugh and a shrug. "Take care, Twi, Fluttershy." The two mares nodded and made their way out the door, closing it behind them. Rainbow Dash just stood there stiffly for a moment, looking at the door before glancing over to Applejack, who had stayed behind. "They're all gone now, right?" The pegasus asked. "Let me check." Her friend responded, opening the door and peeking both ways before returning with a nod. "Yep." At that, Dash promptly flopped over onto a cushion with a sigh of relief. At some point during their talking, the adrenaline had worn off, leaving the pegasus feeling the full effects of the crazy stunts she had pulled. Not one to show weakness, even in front of her friends, Rainbow had managed to keep herself upright the entire time. "Phew, thank goodness. I mean, not that I don't want to spend time with them or want my friends gone or anything. I just don't think I could have lasted much longer." After a few seconds, she managed to pull herself up into a sitting position. Turning to face the orange pony, she gave her a little look. "What's on your mind, AJ? You've had this look on your face since you arrived. Is everything alright with your brother?" "Hm? Oh... nah, everything's just fine, like Ah said. It's just..." The earth pony fell off for a moment with a little sigh. "Rainbow, Ah'm sorry. Ah should have been here the whole time. All that talk about supportin' you and then Ah'm not there when ya'll really need me..." "Is that all? Come on, Applejack, you're smarter than that. Big Macintosh needed you there, or you thought he did at least. That's what matters. You weren't here because you were helping out your family, and nopony can fault you for that." "Ah... Ah suppose yer right, Rainbow. Ah did what Ah had ta do, like always..." Applejack said with a little sigh. "Besides... you were here when it really counted." Dash said, smiling as she faced her friend. "I wasn't going to do it. The Sonic Rainboom, I mean. I got way too nervous up there, thinking about how I'd never managed to pull it off when I wanted to. When I looked down and saw you watching me though... I knew then that I could do it. It was like nothing I've ever felt before. I just knew that, so long as you were there, I could do anything... and then I did." The orange pony looked over to her friend, a small smile of her own appearing. "Ya'll really mean that, Rainbow?" "Heh, of course I do. That's why I was kinda hoping to get a chance to talk with you, so I could say thanks. Thanks to you, I might actually have a chance of making the team now." "Nah. Ah wasn't here ta watch it, but it sounds like you did mighty fine anyways. That Rainboom was just icin' on the cake, right?" "Are you kidding me? I made so many mistakes, it's a wonder they didn't just cancel it right then and there." Dash said with a slight chuckle, shaking her head. "If you say so, sugarcube. Ah still think ya'll must have done great and that yer just sufferin' from a lack of confidence in yerself." Applejack replied with a grin. "Heh, you're probably right about that. Guess we won't know for certain for a couple of days though." With that, the pegasus tried to stretch out for a moment before laying down on her side with a little groan. "Ugh, I hate this bit after a huge thing like today. I'm exhausted, sore all over, and I won't even know if I made it until I get their answer... this stinks." Applejack walked over to stand beside her friend, wearing a little smirk. "You know, Ah'm surprised at you, Rainbow. Lettin' yerself be seen by somepony else like this... what happened ta the whole 'Ah'm Rainbow Dash and Ah can do anythin'!' bit?" "You would have seen through that in a second, AJ." Dash said with a chuckle. "We've hung out together far too much for me to try to pull that one on you." "Heh, Ah reckon you might be right about that." The earth pony said, chuckling softly as well. "Though... do ya'll think it's a good idea ta let yer closest competition see you like this? Ah mean, Ah already know Ah'm the better athlete, but ya'll could at least try ta pretend." "What? You're talking to the Iron Pony here. I could still beat you in a race, right here, right now." "Is that so? Well then, 'Iron Pony', how about we test that? Right here. Right now." Applejack said with a grin. "You're on! First one to get from the stadium to the farm wins. We'll start right outside the stadium." "Sounds good ta me. Get ready ta lose again, Rainbow." Applejack said with another grin, making her way to the door. By the time she reached it though, there was a faint thump from behind, followed by her friend's voice. "Um... AJ? Could I get some help back here?" "What do you need..." The orange pony began, turning around and falling silent. Rainbow Dash was flopped out across the cushion. From the looks of things, she'd tried to get up, only to fall over again. As she saw this, Applejack couldn't help but crack a smile, chuckling softly as she walked over to help her friend up. "Yeah, that's it. Keep laughing..." Dash said with a little glare. "I swear, if I could move my legs right now..." That just caused the earth pony to give a light laugh though, shaking her head a bit. At this, Rainbow couldn't keep herself from laughing either, using her friend for support as she rose unsteadily to her hooves. "Heh, ya'll alright, sugarcube?" "Yeah... like I said though, my legs are really sore and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be flying for at least an hour or two." "Guess that means our race is off, right?" "Are you kidding? Of course it's still on! You're just going to have to carry me to the farm so I can win." With another laugh from the both of them, the two ponies began to slowly make their way out of the room and back toward the farm, Dash leaning against Applejack for support as they walked. ************** Applejack pushed open the door to Rainbow's room and carefully led the pegasus inside and over to the cloud bed, Dash gratefully sinking down onto the plush material. While the walk, or flight, up to the stadium hadn't been bad at all, it was quite a different matter when one pony could barely walk and the other had to support the both of them. Still, it hadn't been all that bad and they had made it back to the farm with little problem. "Whew, it feels so good to get off my hooves... I think I could just lie here forever." Dash said with a grin as she stretched out on the cloud. Applejack chuckled softly at this, watching her friend for a second before turning to head back out. "Heh... well, if ya'll need anything, just ask and Ah'd be happy ta get it for you." As she opened the door though, a sound from behind made her turn back to look. Rainbow Dash had sat up a bit and was looking at her with an almost sheepish look. "Hey, AJ... um, would you mind maybe staying in here for a bit? To keep me company." The pegasus said. "Heh, course not, sugarcube. Ah'd be happy ta do so." Applejack said with a smile, shutting the door and making her way back over to her friend, a little smirk appearing. "Though ya'll ain't afraid of bein' alone, are you?" "No, of course I'm not. I live alone for one thing, remember? Before I moved in here at least. I just don't... er, want to be alone at the moment..." Dash said, frowning a bit as she realized this probably didn't help her case. "Ah suppose Ah can understand that. Though... is there somethin' buggin' you, sugarcube?" "No, there's nothing. I mean, I don't think so at least. It's like I said back at the stadium though. I just feel better, more confident when I know you're here, by my side." Applejack nodded slowly and looked over to her friend. "Rainbow... you know that we're gonna have ta part ways at some point, right? Ah mean, after this season's over and our bet ends, yer probably gonna go back ta yer cloud home, right? Ah ain't always gonna be right here beside you." "You could be though." The pegasus said, causing both of them to blink in surprise. "W-what was that?" "I... I said that you could be." Dash answered softly, a faint blush starting to appear. "I mean... I could resign from my spot on the weather team and come work here next season too." "Yer gonna be a Wonderbolt and a farmer?" The earth pony said, raising an eyebrow at that. "Well... I could try, you know? It might take a bit of work, but nothing I can't handle." "Do ya'll really believe that, Rainbow?" "Yes! Or... I don't know. But what I do know is that I don't want this to end." Rainbow said, looking over to her friend. "I can't go back to the way it was. Maybe living alone was enough for me once, but not anymore. Living here has been great, but even more so has been being able to see you everyday. I could deal with living alone again if I could just have that too." "Ah don't... what are ya'll tryin' ta say?" Applejack asked, blinking a bit as she listened to her friend. "You want ta keep on livin' here or somethin'?" "I... um... ugh, I'm not sure why I'm saying all this." "Don't worry about it none, just say what yer thinkin' sugarcube. There ain't nothin' wrong with speakin' yer mind when yer troubled like this." Rainbow Dash felt a hoof on her shoulder and she looked up again to her friend. As she looked into the earth pony's eyes, it was just like back at the stadium, that same surge of feelings came rushing up to her. Confidence filled her once more, along with the knowledge that she could tell this pony anything. Her greatest dreams, her deepest secrets, all of it. Still, that didn't help much if she herself didn't know what she was trying to say. "Consarnit Rainbow, this ain't like you. If there's somethin' ya'll feel you need ta say, then just say it." "I don't know what I'm trying to say, that's the problem AJ. I just... I want to be here because that's where you are. I want to be able to wake up in the morning, open that door and see you there before we go out and work the farm or hang out or... or just be together. What we do doesn't even matter anymore, just so long as it's you and me..." Dash said before looking down at the cloud with a little frown. "And I don't understand it. I haven't felt anything like this with my other friends. I mean, I enjoy hanging out with them as well, but compared to the time we've spent together, even when it was just sitting around doing nothing but relaxing, it just doesn't compare. The happiness I feel with them seems like almost nothing when compared to what you bring me, just by being there. With you around, I know that I can do absolutely anything, no matter how tough it might be..." Applejack listened to her friend speak, watching the confused look Dash was wearing. When the pegasus had finished, she paused for a moment before taking a step forward so she was standing closer to Rainbow. "Is all that true, Rainbow? Is that really how you feel?" "I... I think..." Rainbow Dash began before shaking her head a bit. "No, I know that it is. I think I've suspected for a while, but I knew for sure today. That's how I feel, but I just don't get why. I can't think of why I'd be feeling like this. It doesn't make sense..." "Maybe... maybe now's not the time fer thinkin' then." Applejack said with a soft smile. "Maybe it's time fer actions ta show you the way." With that, the orange pony gently wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow Dash in a tender hug, simply holding close to her. Though they had hugged before, this time felt different, as if it were something more than just a friendly gesture. Rainbow blinked for a moment at the sudden move on Applejack's part before she began to smile a bit too and returned the hug. "Ah know just how you feel, sugarcube. Since ya'll came ta work on the farm, Ah've been feelin' happier than Ah have in a good while. Sure, there've been some ups and downs since then, but Ah've enjoyed the time we've spent together. If ya'll want me ta stay by yer side, Rainbow, then Ah'd be more than happy to. Fer as long as Ah can, and as long as you'll have me." "That's all I could ever ask, AJ." Dash said with a smile, giving the earth pony a gentle nuzzle. The two ponies sat there for a few moments, locked in the embrace. Both wearing little smiles, they stared into each others eyes, seeing the identical emotions reflected within. Slowly, they began to move a little closer, their faces growing closer and closer together. Suddenly, the door to the room burst open, startling Rainbow Dash enough to cause her to fall off of the cloud, dragging Applejack with her. The two landed in a tangled heap on the ground, both looking up toward the door. Applebloom was standing there, wearing a rather puzzled expression. "A-Applebloom! Ya'll ain't supposed ta just barge into somepony else's room." Applejack said, blushing a bit as she hastily got up to her hooves. "Sorry... Ah just wanted ta come see Rainbow Dash and ask her somethin' and Granny told me you were in here too, so Ah figured she weren't sleepin' or nothin' and Ah could just go right on in..." The filly replied. "Heh, no worries kid." Rainbow Dash said, her own face about as flushed as Applejack's. "So... what'd you want to see me about?" "Well, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are back at the tree house and we were wonderin' if you'd mind comin' over ta tell us how the show went. We all had ta go ta school and couldn't see it..." Dash thought about it for a moment before glancing over to Applejack. For a moment, it had seemed like the two were about to share something special before they were interrupted. She didn't want to just leave her friend like this if Applejack wanted her to stay. However, the orange pony gave a little sigh before chuckling softly and nodding. With that, Rainbow turned back to face the filly with a little grin. "You know what? Sure, I don't mind going over it again. You go on ahead and let the others know, I'll catch up in a second." Applebloom grinned widely at this and gave a happy little hop. "You will? Alright! Ah'll head over there right now!" With that, the filly turned and happily began to make her way back to the other Crusaders, closing the door behind her. Rainbow chuckled softly before turning back to face Applejack again. With the memory of what they had nearly done though, they both looked up at each other for a moment before glancing away, blushing. "Um... AJ..." Dash said finally, at the same time as her friend. "Rainbow..." Applejack said before falling silent to let the pegasus speak. "About, well, all of this... I just don't know. It seems so sudden and... I guess I've got a lot to think about. I mean, this isn't the way I am. I don't like other mares, not like this. But..." The pegasus hesitated here, casting about for the right words. "There's something... special about you. It's completely different, and I guess I just need some time to process what's happening." Applejack nodded slowly as she listened to her friend's words. "Ah understand, Rainbow Dash. This... somethin' about this just feels right. But what if it's too early ta tell? Ah don't rightly know what's happenin' and Ah think yer right about that. Ah think we need more time ta think on all of this. This is a mighty big change, after all..." "Yeah. Though... maybe we should give it a chance. Take things nice and slow to see if maybe it could actually work out. If it does, then that's great and if not... then we'll still be friends, right?" "Course we will. Ain't nothin' gonna ever change that. Still... Ah think ya'll might be on ta somethin' there. The best way ta find out if somethin' will work is ta try it out. Though, what did ya'll have in mind?" "Well, um... maybe we could hang out tomorrow or something? I mean, differently than we normally do. I mean, we could, er, go to a nice restaurant or watch the sunset? Or..." Dash trailed off as she tried to think of what they could do. Applejack leaned over to give her a soft little nuzzle and a smile, eliciting another faint blush from the cyan pony. "Don't worry too hard about it, Rainbow. Ah'm sure we'll find somethin' ta do tomorrow." "Yeah..." Dash replied with a little smile in return. With that, the two ponies stood there in a rather awkward silence for a short while until Applejack finally spoke up again. "So, er... what happens now? Where do we go from here?" "Well, I guess I'd better head on over to the tree house then, before Applebloom comes back wondering what's taking so long." Dash said after a few moments. "Alright then. Um... do you mind if Ah come along?" "Of course not. I'd be happy to have you there as well." Applejack gave her a little smile and the two headed out of the room and began to make their way toward the tree house that served as the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse. Rainbow Dash was still feeling a bit sore and still had to lean on Applejack for support, causing the both of them to blush a bit at the contact. As they walked though, Dash thought on something for a moment before speaking up about it. "So, Applejack... what do you think we should do about our friends. I mean, if we do go through with this and... and it works out... how do you think they'll take it?" "Ah'm not sure... Ah can't imagine they'd have any real problem with it, right? They're our friend's, after all. Still... maybe we should keep quiet until we know fer certain..." "Yeah, I think you're right. We might have to tell them eventually though." "Then we'll tell them, together." Applejack said with a little smile which Dash returned. With that, the two continued on their way toward the tree house, each pony lost in their own thoughts about what the future might hold for the two of them. ________________________________________ Rainbow Dash stared at her reflection in her bedroom's mirror, occasionally running a hoof through her mane to try and get it to cooperate, though she wasn't having much luck with that. Today was the day that she and Applejack were going to go out on their little date of sorts and, from the moment she'd woken up, the pegasus had been feeling rather nervous. At the moment, she was busy trying to make sure she looked her best before heading out to meet Applejack. After all, that was what ponies did before something like this, right? She swore she had heard that somewhere at least. Finally, with a little sigh as her mane continued to remain in its usual state, she shook her head a bit and began to walk toward the door. Maybe she was going about this wrong? After all, she and Applejack had already become great friends just by being themselves, so why should this be any different. Dash made her way out of the room and down the stairs, spotting Applejack waiting for her at the bottom. The two ponies smiled and greeted each other good morning before heading to the table where breakfast was waiting for them. As they'd agreed the day before, neither of them said anything about their plans for the day while in earshot of anypony else. While they were both certain that their friends would take it fairly well, Applejack had been a bit uncertain as to how her family would take it. After the quick breakfast, the two made their way outside, standing around near the barn for a few moments. Finally, Applejack turned to face Rainbow Dash with a little smile. "So, got anything special planned fer today, sugarcube?" The earthpony asked. "Um... well, I was thinking we could start by maybe taking a walk around Ponyville. Maybe head to one of the parks or something like that. Then maybe go grab some lunch at someplace nice." "That sounds good ta me." With that, the two ponies trotted side by side as they headed toward the town. It was still a bit too early for there to be much of a crowd out in the streets, but they did pass by a few ponies as they wandered through Ponyville. In general though, there didn't seem to be too much of interest going on in town that morning. That didn't seem to matter to either of them though. Simply by each other's presence, both ponies were finding the walk quite enjoyable as they chatted lightly and joked around together. The two of them had planned to find a nice and quiet spot with which to test the waters between them, someplace where they wouldn't be likely to run into too many other ponies. With that thought in mind, the two mares made their way toward a rather familiar spot in one of Ponyville's parks, a little bench set amongst a small grove of trees. They had often come here to rest up after Rainbow's practice sessions, though now it was the semi-privacy rather than the shade it provided that they were looking for. As they both sat down, Rainbow Dash hesitated for a moment before unfolding a wing and placing it gently over Applejack. The earth pony blinked a bit at the sudden contact before giving her friend a little smile scooting over a bit closer to her. "So, we're here now... Ah guess that makes this our first date, huh." Applejack said after a moment. "Yeah, I guess it is. That's kind of an odd thought." Dash said with a slight chuckle. Applejack gave a little nod in reply, but said nothing. A rather awkward silence settled over them as neither pony quite knew what to say at the moment. Finally, Rainbow spoke up again, simply to try and fill the silence with something. "So, um... the weather team sure did a good job today. It's wonderful out here." "They sure did. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect weather ta get ready fer Fall." This time it was Rainbow's turn to nod as the silence fell over them again. After a moment, the orange pony gave a little sigh before turning to look at her friend. "Rainbow?" "Yeah, AJ?" "What the hay happened ta us? Ah mean, on the way here, everything was just fine, but now listen ta us! That's if we're sayin' anything at all." "Well... I don't know. What are you supposed to say at something like this? I can't even ask how your day's been or anything, because I was there for it." "Ah guess ya'll got a point there, sugarcube." Applejack said with a little chuckle before giving the pegasus a curious look. "Though... ya'll ain't never been on a date before, Rainbow?" Dash blushed slightly at this as she answered. "Well... you remember that story I told you about that note? Yeah... how many dates do you think the 'creepy, stalker filly' went on?" Seeing her friend's eyes widen at this, she decided to amend it a bit. "Okay, maybe that's not exactly what they said about me. Still..." "Oh... Ah'm sorry, Ah didn't mean ta bring up anythin' hurtful or nothin'..." "Nah, it's fine." Dash said, waving it away with a shake of her head. "The names didn't hurt me too bad then and even less so now. We were all just kids then, after all. After that though... I guess I never really took the time to go looking. Kinda wish I had now though... Er, so I'd have experience and... um... so, now that I've opened up, what about you?" Applejack smirked a bit at her friend's attempts at changing the subject, but decided to go along with it anyways. "Well, Ah guess Ah've been on a couple. Nothin' recent though. Only one Ah can really remember was durin' mah stay in Manehattan. This little colt asked me out and, though Ah didn't much like him, mah aunt and uncle made me go. Said somethin' bout it not bein' proper ta refuse a gentlecolt's company til you've at least given him a chance. Hmm... thinkin' back on it though, Ah guess Ah was kinda harsh on him that day, really. It weren't his fault, after all. He didn't know Ah didn't want ta be there. Never got a chance ta apologize neither..." "Oh? What happened on the date?" "Well... we went ta some fancy restaurant fer dinner. The food was terrible, and Ah'm afraid his company weren't much better. He was too... stuck up, Ah suppose. We were just too different. Rarity's personality might have been a better match fer his, but mine... wasn't." Rainbow Dash nodded a bit as the earth pony finished up her story. "So, what about us then? Do you think our personalities could match?" "Heh, we've been friends fer a good while, haven't we Rainbow? Not ta mention the time we've spent together lately." Applejack said with a chuckle, giving the other pony a wide grin. "In all that time, I ain't once felt like givin' ya'll a good buck." Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that before speaking. "Oh? What about at the Running of the Leaves last year? You seemed pretty upset over that." Applejack sat there for a moment before laughing and giving a nod. "Alright, Ah might have wanted ta give you a little one then. Still, Ah'd say our friendship speaks fer itself." Dash smiled happily along with her friend at that. Now that they were actually talking, and with the warmth and comfort of her friend close to her side, she was rather enjoying herself now. The two were too wrapped up in each other's company and their conversation to notice the approach of another pony though. "Aha! I thought I heard you two. Hey Applejack, hey Rainbow Dash." Twilight Sparkle said, smiling brightly as she walked toward the bench occupied by her two friends. Her eyes fell upon the wing still stretched out across Applejack's back and she blinked for a moment. "What's going on?" Hearing their friend's voice, both ponies jumped a bit and looked up to face her, a faint blush appearing on them both. The last thing they had expected was for one of their friends to come by, yet there was the purple unicorn, looking a bit puzzled by their reaction. "Oh, um... hey Twilight." Dash said with a nervous chuckle, blinking a bit as she glanced over at her wing. "Er... well, it was getting really sunny and I was trying to give Applejack some shade." Applejack wisely kept her mouth shut, simply nodding along and letting Rainbow talk. Twilight however, raised an eyebrow at that, looking up to the trees above, their leaves providing quite a bit of shelter from the sun. "I see..." The unicorn said after a moment before shaking her head a bit. "So anyways, what are you two up to? Aren't you usually working up at the farm around now, Applejack?" "Well... yeah, but we decided ta come on up here ta enjoy the scenery since it's such a beautiful day. Er, sunny though. Definitely sunny." "Yep! It's such a nice day for a trip to the park." Rainbow agreed with a nod. "What brings you here though, Twilight?" "Oh, I like to take walks around town this time of day." The purple mare said with a smile. "After the Running of the Leaves, I thought it would be a good idea to try and exercise a bit more. Maybe I'll even place a bit better this year, though it doesn't really matter what place I come in. When I was walking by though, I thought I heard your voices and decided to come and say hi." "Oh well uhh..." Applejack stuttered, her eyes shifting back and forth, "Well, hi then!" Twilight stood there for a moment in silence as if she expected a further response from her friends. Once it was clear that none was coming, she tilted her head a bit, giving the two of them an odd look. "Um... is everything alright? You two seem to be a bit... nervous, almost." "What? N-no, we're just fine, Twi." Applejack said hastily. "Ya'll just startled us is all. We weren't expectin' ta see anypony else out here now." "We?" Twilight asked, looking from one friend to the other. "Ah... Ah mean, me and Rainbow. Er, Rainbow and I. Ah mean... the pegasus beside me here and mahself." The earth pony replied, growing more flustered with every word. "Yeah, what AJ said. We were both, um, here when you showed up suddenly, so it startled both of us." Rainbow Dash said with a little nod. "We." "Okay..." Twilight said, dragging the word out a bit as she looked at the both of them again. "Well, it's been great talking with you two again but, um... I should probably be back on my way. Got a lot of work ahead of me if I want to be in good shape by the Running of the Leaves." With that, the unicorn backed away for a moment before turning and walking away. The two ponies on the bench said their goodbyes as their friend left before Applejack gave a little sigh of relief. "Whew... well, that could've gone a lot worse..." "Yeah, I didn't think we'd see anypony here today, especially not one of our friends." Rainbow Dash said with a nod, turning to look to her friend. "Do you think she... noticed anything?" Applejack thought on that for a moment before shaking her head. "Nah, Ah reckon not. She'd have said somethin' in that case, right?" "I guess you're right about that. She did seem kinda suspicious though..." Dash said, relaxing a bit now that they were alone together again. This time it was Applejack who made the move, scooting over closer to the pegasus so the two were lightly touching. At this, Dash smiled at her and leaned over to give her a little nuzzle, causing a faint blush to appear on both ponies. Still, though they fell into silence once again with neither pony knowing what to say, a good deal of the awkwardness from before seemed to have left along with Twilight, allowing the two friends to simply enjoy each other's presence. "So... do you want to see about maybe getting something to eat?" Rainbow Dash said after a while, finally breaking the silence. "Hmm, Ah reckon Ah might be a bit peckish." Applejack replied with a little nod. "Sure, that sounds good ta me." "Great!" Dash said, getting down off the bench. "Come on, I know a pretty good place." "Heh, sure thing, sugarcube. Right behind you." The orange pony said with a grin, hopping off as well before following her friend back into the town proper. ************** All things considered, lunch had gone fairly well for the two ponies. Rainbow Dash had led her friend to one of the nicer restaurants in Ponyville, though it still wasn't overly fancy. The food was amazing though, and the two had talked a bit more as they ate. When it came time to pay for the meal though, a bit of an argument had broken out. Rainbow Dash had tried to pay for the entire thing, but Applejack refused to let her. It was only resolved when they realized they were attracting quite a bit of attention from the other diners and Applejack had deferred to the pegasus. Once lunch was finished with, they had decided to take another little walk around the town, mainly so that Dash could try to come up with something else for them to do to pass the time. "Ah still say ya'll should'a let me pay fer mah own food at least..." Applejack said, turning to glance at the pegasus walking beside her. "Aw come on, AJ, I couldn't do that. I picked out where we were going to eat, right? It wouldn't be fair to ask you to pay just because I thought we should go someplace a bit nice." Dash said. "Besides, either you or somepony else in your family has been cooking for me for the past few months. The least I can do is to treat you to lunch, especially since we're... you know." The earth pony thought on that for a short moment before giving a little sigh. "Ah suppose yer right, Rainbow. And it's not that Ah ain't grateful ta you or nothin', cause Ah really am. It's just... Ah dunno. It don't feel right havin' somepony else payin' fer me. Ah guess Ah might have ta get used ta that, huh?" "Heh, you might." Rainbow answered with a little grin. "Though if it really bothers you, it doesn't have to happen again. I just thought it'd be kinda a nice thing to do, even if it's only this once." Applejack chuckled softly before giving a little smile to her friend. "Well, thanks Rainbow. It may not seem like it, but Ah really do appreciate it." "Hey, no problem AJ." Dash said brightly, returning the smile. As the two ponies continued on their way, the town bell tower began to chime the hour, letting them know that it was only one o'clock. This didn't mean too much to Dash, besides the fact that there was still a ways to go before the sun began to set. Applejack however, blinked a bit as she heard the bells, her eyes going wide. "Oh, hayseeds!" She said suddenly, causing Rainbow to turn to look at her. "What is it, AJ?" "Ah can't believe Ah forgot!" The earth pony said. "Ah... Ah promised Fluttershy Ah'd help her gather up the animals and help take care of them today..." "You did? Oh..." "Ah'm so sorry, Rainbow. Ah told her Ah'd help a couple days ago, before Ah knew anything about us doin' this, and then Ah forgot last night... But... Ah could always let her know Ah'm busy today. Ah'm sure she wouldn't mind postponin' it until some other time." "No... it's fine, AJ." Rainbow said, putting on a little smile. "Fluttershy's counting on your help, after all. Don't worry about it, I understand." "Yer sure ya'll don't mind?" Applejack asked hesitantly. "Nah, of course not. You're Ponyville's most dependable pony and I'm not about to make you lose that title. Besides, I wasn't really sure what we were going to do for the next few hours anyways." "Well, if yer sure... Like Ah said, Ah'm real sorry about all this, Rainbow... um, see you back at the farm then?" "And like I said, it's fine. That's cool with me, see you back at the farm." Dash said, giving her friend another little smile and a wave as the earth pony turned and began to make her way toward Fluttershy's cottage. As soon as Applejack was out of sight, Rainbow Dash gave a great sigh and looked away, her wings drooping as she slowly walked along the road. "Cheer up, Rainbow Dash." The pegasus said, talking quietly to herself. "It's not like the date was going anywhere anyways. I mean, walking through town, sitting on a bench and talking... these were the best I could come up with? Ugh... "Besides... there wasn't much I could say or do, really. She made a promise and I could never ask her to break one of those. What is it Pinkie Pie always says? Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend--" "Forever!" Came a voice from a box laying nearby. Dash jumped as a shockingly pink pony burst from the box, glaring at her. "P-pinkie Pie! How long have you been in there?" Rainbow asked, blinking a bit at her friend before narrowing her eyes. "Have you been spying on me?" "Hm?" Pinkie Pie said, blinking a bit as well before giving her a huge smile as she stepped out of the box. "Oh, hey there Dashie! Of course I haven't been spying. That'd be silly. I've got too many cakes and goodies to bake to just sit around! Besides, how could somepony fit in that little box, let alone sit in it all day." "But... you just..." Dash said before shaking her head clear and giving a little sigh. "Sorry Pinkie Pie, but I don't really want to talk with anypony right now. I kinda want to be alone at the moment..." "Aww, what's got you so down, Dashie?" The pink pony asked as she bounced over to her friend, giving the pegasus a little frown. "I... I thought today was going to be, well, special or something. But... I don't know..." "Every day is special, Dashie. They've all got something that makes them unique and fun! In fact, I know just what will turn that frown of yours upside down." Pinkie said with a grin, taking a deep breath. Before she could actually get started though, she suddenly found a hoof pressed to her mouth as Rainbow shook her head. "N-no! I mean... thanks, Pinkie Pie, but I don't think a song is going to help out." "Oh..." Pinkie said once Dash had removed her hoof. "Well, cheer up anyways. Things are never as bad as you imagine them to be. There's always a good side to everything, you just have to find it. Or sometimes it finds you. Oh, and occasionally somepony else finds it for you and then shows it to you. Like this one time I was feeling pretty down and I came across a puppet show and it made everything all better. Ooh, I should put on a puppet show for you!" Rainbow Dash couldn't help but chuckle softly at her friend's antics, giving the pink pony a little smile before shaking her head. "Thanks again, but I'll pass on that one too, Pinkie Pie. Besides, I don't want to keep you away from your baking if you've got so much to do." "Ah, I almost forgot about that! You're right, those cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and delicious treats aren't going to bake themselves!" Pinkie replied before looking thoughtful. "Well, except for that one batch of chocolate crunchies, but the Cakes still don't believe me about that one. Anyways, I need to get back and take the cookies out of the oven before they burn again. I hope you feel better Dashie! See you later alligator." With that, Pinkie Pie waved to her friend before hopping off and around a corner. After a moment, Dash peered curiously around the corner, only to find that the pink pony had managed to vanish completely. Not surprised at all by this, she glanced over to the clock tower again and gave a little sigh, resuming her walk. After a short while of meandering aimlessly through the town, Dash finally decided that maybe she should just go ahead back to the farm and wait for Applejack to return. There must be something there for her to do in the meantime as well, which was better than simply waiting around. With that thought, she turned and began to make the trip back to the place she'd been calling home for the last few months. Unfortunately, upon her arrival, it turned out that there wasn't much at all that the pegasus could do to help out. Though the few chores that were available ate up some time, before too long, she was left with nothing to do save for taking up a spot in one of the apple trees, left alone with her thoughts. Looking up at the sky, Dash gave a little sigh as she watched the sun starting its slow trek down to the horizon. The shadows were already growing quite long when the sound of hooffalls began to come nearer. Dash was so caught up in her thoughts about the day and where she felt she'd gone wrong to notice until a knocking on the tree caught her attention. Glancing down, the pegasus spotted her friend standing at the foot of the tree, looking up at her. "Oh, um... hey AJ." Rainbow said, hopping off the branch and fluttering down to land beside the earth pony. "Hey Rainbow..." Applejack answered, looking at the pegasus for a moment before glancing away. "How'd things go helping out Fluttershy?" "Pretty good. Managed ta get all the critters rounded up and accounted fer." "Ah, that's good." "Yeah..." The two ponies fell into a rather awkward silence, neither quite meeting the other's eyes. Several moments went by like this before somepony finally broke the silence. "I'm sorry about today." They both said at the same time before blinking a bit at each other. After a second, Applejack spoke up again. "Ah'm real sorry, Rainbow. Ah know Ah had promised Fluttershy Ah'd help but... that weren't no excuse. Ah shouldn't have just ditched you like that, especially not today. Fluttershy wouldn't have minded if Ah told her Ah needed ta postpone it until tomorrow or... Ah could have done somethin' better than Ah did and Ah'm sorry fer it..." "It's fine, AJ. You made a promise to Fluttershy and I'm not going to ask you to break that. Besides, it's not your fault at all. You didn't know we were going to try having a date today. If I'd planned this for a few days later rather than today... none of this would have happened. Maybe I could have come up with something good for us to do as well then..." Dash said with a little frown. "Ugh, I must have taken you on the worst date you've ever had..." "So... ya'll didn't enjoy the time we did spend together today, sugarcube?" Applejack asked, tilting her head a bit. "Well... yeah, I did. Lunch was really good and I enjoyed our talk at the park, once we started actually talking, but I know you must have been so bored. I mean, what pony takes their date to the park just to sit around and talk..." Applejack chuckled softly and gave her friend a little smile. "Dash, not once durin' our date was Ah bored. Sure, it weren't no race or competition, but that don't mean Ah didn't enjoy it. Besides, Ah've already told ya'll about mah worst date ever and this one's not even close ta that bad." "You really mean that?" Rainbow asked, a small smile forming at her friend's words. "Course Ah do, sugarcube. And, you know... the day ain't over just yet..." "No, it's not is it... There was one last thing I was hoping we could do, but I was starting to get kinda worried we'd miss it." Dash said, pausing for a moment before meeting Applejack's eyes. "Applejack, would... would you like to sit out here and watch the sun set with me?" "Ah'd love to, Rainbow Dash." Applejack replied with a nod, smiling over to the pegasus. Rainbow Dash smiled back before turning to look over to the sun's position. "Oh, we should probably get going now then, if we want to find a good spot before it's too late." "Hmm... Ah reckon that hill over yonder might make fer a good spot." Applejack said, nodding over to a hill overlooking the orchard. "Heh, that's where I was thinking of." Dash said with a chuckle. With that, the two ponies began to make their way toward the spot in question, sticking fairly close together as they walked side by side. Before long, they had made it to the top of the hill, getting a good view of the entire apple orchard from here as well as the sun as it gradually approached the horizon. After a few short moments of standing there beneath one of the trees, looking first at each other and then out at the view, Applejack made her way over to a nice spot beside the tree and settled down so she could look out across the landscape. Rainbow Dash joined her, taking a seat beside her friend as she too looked out at the horizon. Already, the slowly fading light from the sun had given everything an orange tint, forming almost a preview of what was to come in the coming months as the leaves turned. Before long, the orange was joined by shades of red and pink as it grew darker, Celestia's sun slowly sinking down. "Wow, it's... incredible..." Rainbow said softly, captivated by the beautiful scene before them. "Yeah, it really is somethin' huh..." Applejack replied with a little smile as she too watched the setting sun. "You know... Ah never really get a chance ta see this. Ah'm always too busy workin' or doin' somethin' ta take the time ta really appreciate the sunset." "I know what you mean. Even though it happens every night, I guess it's kinda hard sometimes to just sit down and enjoy the view." The orange pony nodded a bit at her friend's words, turning to glance over at her pegasus friend with a little smile, receiving one in turn. A chill wind blew across the hill, heralding that the Autumn would be there soon. With less and less light from the sun coming down to warm the land, it was actually starting to grow a bit chilly. With a slight shiver, Applejack instinctively huddled up to the pony beside her for warmth. It wasn't until she noticed Rainbow Dash looking over at her that the earth pony realized that they were actually close enough to be touching lightly. "Oh, er..." The orange pony began to stammer, her face reddening a bit. Dash gave a little smile before unfolding a wing and draping it gently over her friend. "Here you go. Heh, guess it is getting a bit cold, huh." "Well... maybe a bit. Ah just wasn't prepared fer it." Applejack replied, smiling a little before leaning over to give Rainbow a gentle nuzzle. "Thanks, sugarcube..." The two ponies sat together like that, smiling softly to one another as the last few rays of light played across them. As she looked into Rainbow Dash's eyes, an odd feeling began to build up in Applejack's chest, almost warm despite the coolness of the air. A faint blush began to rise up on her face, mirrored on the pegasus opposite her as they both began to slowly lean in toward each other. As the sun's final rays faded away, their lips met in a tender, delicate embrace. Yet, there was still a passion to it, carried through from both ponies. They held there together for a moment that seemed simultaneously like an eternity and not quite long enough before pulling apart again. "Dash..." Applejack said softly as the kiss was broken, her face a mere few inches from Rainbow's. "Ah still don't know what ta think about all this. About today and... and everything. But, Ah do know... Ah know that this is where Ah want ta be... right here, by yer side..." "I can't explain it, AJ, but somehow... this seems right to me. Like this is what is meant to be. Who... who I'm meant to be with..." "Ah think... Ah think Ah know just what you mean. That this... is how it's supposed ta be." With that, the two ponies again lapsed into silence as they came together in a kiss once more under the pale light of the moon. ________________________________________

Wolf of Oblivion

pre

(One hour after meeting with Celestia, Everfree Forest, Farkas P.O.V) As much as I enjoy the admiration of the local townsfolk, I felt like I could use some time to myself and just explore for a while. I found a path that lead to a forest near Fluttershy's cottage and decided to follow it. The forest was dark and it kind of reminded me of a Nordic crypt, but it was definitely more lively. "I can see why the locals avoid this place." I said as I looked around with my Skyforge Steel Greatsword clenched tightly in my hands. I heard something growl at me from the darkness. "Show yourself!" I shouted. Then out of the bushes, a giant creature that had the body of a lion, bat wings, and a scorpion stinger attempting to thrust it's stinger into my body. I side stepped the tail. However the creature took a swipe at me with its paw and knocked my sword from my hands and knocked me on my ass. The creature was now pinning me to finish me off. I closed my eyes and waited for my death to come, but when it didn't, I opened my eyes and say a mare with purple fur, broken horn, and a scar on her face wearing a form fitting suit of armor. "You okay?" the mare asked. I nodded. "Good. You're lucky I showed up, otherwise you'd be manticore food." She said extending a hand to help me up. "Name's Tempest Shadow." She said as I went to pick up my sword. "I'm Farkas. I'm part of the Companions." I said sheathing my sword. "Nice to meet ya." Tempest replied. "You heading to Ponyville?" I asked. "Yes actually. I'm done moving from place to place. I'm just looking for somewhere I belong." Tempest replied. "Well you can follow me, and maybe if you want, you could join the Companions." I said placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'll think about it." She said as we began our walk back to Twilight's Castle. (Later that night, Helena POV) It was a pretty eventful day. Today Gideon introduced me to his class as his teaching assistant. It was a joy to see Gideon teaching children about his homeworld. "He'd make a wonderful father." I thought to myself as he taught his class while I took notes on the lesson so the class could pick up where it left off. Today after class Gideon and I spent some time together, before Rainbow Dash came in and told us about a party for some newcomers from Skyrim. "Well, this will probably be interesting," Gideon said. "Knowing that Pinkie Pie is behind it, this party will be exciting without a doubt." I said with a giggle. The two of us made our way to the party room of the castle, bumping into one or two Companions as they were getting set up in their rooms as we went. "Whoops. Excuse me." I said as we passed. The Companions were pretty easy going, much to my surprise. "You're fine." They said as they picked up any their belongings from the floor. "Well, with no one getting hurt, we all get along." Gideon said. "Too true friend." An Argonian man said as he walked past. We ended up downstairs with the party in full swing. The foyer of the castle was packed with people dancing, drinking, playing games, and just enjoying time with their families. "You were not here for my party, but near the end of that I did a song presentation. I'll probably do the same for this party, to give the Companions a little of a personal welcome." Gideon said. "That would be fantastic!" I said as we made our way to a table. Off to the side I saw Twilight talking to another mare. She was a unicorn, but her horn was broken and she had a scar on her face. I shuddered slightly from the memory of the Storm King's invasion attempt. "You okay, Helena? You look like you just saw a ghost." Gideon said in concern. "You see that mare over there with Twilight?" I asked. "Gideon nodded. "That's Tempest Shadow, she was the Storm King's second in command, until she turned coat after Akatosh wreaked havoc on the Storm King's forces." I explained. "So slight PTSD?" He asked. "Yeah, but she helped us win a lot sooner. So she's recognized as a hero." I said as Twilight and Tempest came over to our table. "Hey guys. You having fun?" Twilight asked. "So far, so good. And you're Tempest? I'm Gideon and I teach at Twilight's school." Gideon said in introduction. "Nice to meet you." She said shaking his hand. "I'm Helena and I'm Gideon's teaching assistant." I said. As the party was kind of winding down, Gideon had an idea for dedicating a song for the occasion. "What song are you going to do?" I asked. "It's about a legendary bear in a fictional depiction of the country of Scotland, a country in my world." He explained. "I just hope I can have a quick chat with Discord to help a certain part of the song fit." He added. "Did someone say my name?" A familiar, mischievous voice said."Yes, I did. When I get up on stage, make one of my legs look like a peg leg. It'll help a bit of the song involving the bear in the song gobbling up a leg." Gideon explained to the disembodied voice. "Oh what fun!" Discord said as he appeared out of nowhere. Gideon stood up and went up to the stage, his left leg seemed to transform into a pegleg when he got there. He then began singing a song about wanting to slaughter a legendary bear that "ate" his leg. The music magic got many ponies and the Companions singing along after a little bit. After finishing the song, he returned to where we were seated, his leg no worse for wear. "As gruesome as the song probably seemed, what did you think of the presentation?" He asked me. "I liked it." I said. "Talk about a song of praise." Tempest said rolling her eyes. "Oh come on Tempest, the Companions do stuff like this all the time. It's just to make them feel more at home." Twilight said. The leading members of the Companions were coming over to our table to thank Gideon for the song and Tempest for saving Farkas. "So you're the one who saved Icebrain eh? Impressive." Aela said giving Tempest a firm pat on the shoulder. "It was nothing. I just reacted to the situation." She said. "That's not the way Farkas tells it." Vilkas replied with a grin. "Okay so I went out of my way to help him, but what was I supposed to do, just leave him for dead?" Tempest asked somewhat offended. "I didn't mean any offense miss, I was just saying you were selling yourself short." Vilkas replied. "Anyway, I told them about my idea to let you join the Companions, they said yes, but you'd have to pass a test to prove your worth." Farkas said. "Thanks, what do I need to do?" Tempest asked. "It's simple, we want you to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Ysgramor and pay your respects to the man who created the group." Vilkas said. "That can wait for when we return to Skyrim, for now, consider yourself as an initiate." Aela said. "Welcome to the Companions, Shield-Sister." Farkas said with a smile. (Next day, Gideon POV) "-and that Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I quoted from Abraham's Gettysburg address after the Battle of Gettysburg. "Any thoughts or questions on what Lincoln said in honor of the troops that died? And that includes you, Vilkas." I said, not giving the Companion any mercy as well. "I was just thinking about when the Civil War in Skyrim was ending, and High King Balgruuf said that the manipulation of both the Empire and our own people was wrong and it led to the deaths of many true sons and daughters of Skyrim." Vilkas said sadly remembering the long and brutal conflict. "That is a good point. No matter the reasons, any Civil War ends up a sad waste of life. However, in a very paradoxical way, it's also a test that pretty much every nation has to go through at least once. Every Civil war has its variations. Think of the Revolutionary war. To the colonists, it was a war for freedom, but to Britain-" I said, but Sandbar finished my words. "It was just the lowly, uncivilized peasants having a temper tantrum and committing high treason to the King." Sandbar said. "Exactly. Speaking about the Skyrim Civil War, the Empire thought it was a religious and racist uprising of Nords, while the Nords were thinking of Freedom. In both cases, lives were senselessly lost." I said. "War isn't about who's right and who's wrong, it's about who's left." Ocellus said. "It was a saying mother taught us because she and her sisters fought for the right to rule changelings, and she literally had to kill her own family just to have a crown, a symbol that can be easily stolen by a lowly peasant, and she is left with only guilt over her actions." Ocellus explained. The story tugged at my heartstrings. "You have my sympathies. No one, not even the worst being in existence, deserves to lose family. Even if the losing is by taking." I said, a tear leaking from my eye, and I sniffed a bit in sorrow. "Thank you Mr. White." Ocellus said wiping her tears away. After that emotional moment, I dismissed the class. I sat at my desk as the class filed out, a few tears still leaking from my eyes. "I hope Queen Chrysalis' sisters found their way to Sovngarde." Vilkas said as he rose from his seat and walked over to my desk. "As do I." I replied. "Hearing that Chrysalis had guilt over killing her own family, it just reminds me of someone who went through a pain no one should never endure." I continued. "Who was it?" Helena asked as she placed a hand on my shoulder. "In my world, most religions considered him the very Son of God himself. In their teachings, he had to endure every physical and emotional pain in order for us all to be absolved from the first sin, but the most agonizing pain he endured as he was being nailed to a post can only be described by a select few words. Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?" I said, before I then translated. "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" There were tears cascading down Helena's face. "What was his name?" She asked choking back her sobs. "His birth name was Yeshua ben Yosef, but to my world, he is known as Jesus Christ." I replied. "I think this man is a worthy man to join with the honored dead in Sovngarde. He kind of reminds me of Kodlak Whitemane, the previous Harbinger, before Kai." Vilkas said remembering the great man. "Too true. Too true." I agreed. The three of us soon left the room in silent respect for the honored fallen.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 9: Simulation Retransmission

(Newly Discovered Crypt in Skyrim, Ocellus POV) Today was extremely exciting! We're finally on a school field trip to Skyrim! Fabjorn always told us stories about the beautiful landscapes, and how adventurers would always come from far and wide and told stories of their exploits, and the night sky came alive with the Celestial Lights. We got permission from Archmage Keplan, of the College of Winterhold to visit as long as we don't interrupt any research, or cause any sort of trouble. Headmare Twilight said that there would be no problems, so now here we are on the outside of the tomb going over some safety rules. Deputy Headmaster, Tolfdir was our guide today, as Master J'zargo was busy with another matter. "So with that out of the way, let's head inside." Tolfdir said ushering us into the tomb. "One of the first things you'll notice is that the dead that used to inhabit this crypt have been cremated so that we don't have any accidents." He explained as we walked down the steps from the entrance. "You mean the Draugr right?" Gallus asked. "Yes, exactly. Now please keep close to me and your Headmare." The old wizard replied. About an hour in, I kept feeling this urge of curiosity. I ignored it for a while now, but now I was so lost in my thoughts that Meldah, Fabjorn, Yona, Althorn, and Al'rhune lagged behind the rest to help me. "Hey Ocellus?" Meldah asked. "Yes?" I said as I snapped out of my trance. "You seem distracted. What's on your mind?" Althorn asked. "I feel something calling to me from somewhere in the tomb." I said as I began to walk forward and to the left. "Uh Ocellus, the group's that way." Al'rhune said pointing to the other side of the room. "I just can't stand this voice in my head!" I shouted surprising everybody. "I'm sorry." I said looking at my friends. "It's okay, Yona help you." Yona said encouragingly. "Hidden Switch." a voice said in my mind. I felt the wall for any irregularities in the stonework. I felt a slight divot in one of the stones on the wall and pushed the stone in, this caused a doorway to open, but the crypt ceiling started to shake. "Everybody in!" Meldah yelled and we all ran into the opening as the ceiling collapsed. (Meanwhile with the rest of the group, 3rd P.O.V) Twilight and the rest of the students followed Tolfdir as he explained many interesting things about the tomb. Twilight looked behind the group and saw that a few students were missing. "Twi? Are you okay?" Applejack asked. "No, I'm not. I have a feeling that some of the students are in danger!" she whispered. "I could go look for 'em." Applejack offered. "No! You could get lost with no hope of catching up with us!" Twilight exclaimed quietly. "The best thing we can do is keep going forward, these crypts are hard to navigate sometimes." Tolfdir said quietly. We were in a large antechamber letting the students rest a bit. "So after our break we should.... What was that?" Fluttershy asked. "That might've been a cave in somewhere in the tomb, these things happen. It was probably further down." Tolfdir said. "I hope they're alright." She said as they started to walk again. (Back Ocellus and Co. 3rd P.O.V) After the group survived the room collapse, they noticed that the room seemed less like a tomb, and more like a "civilized" cavern. A fair section of the "hall" they were in depicted what seemed to be Nords worshiping certain figures that were holding an orb of some kind. After that, the Nordic style of stone work seemed to vanish into a very straight, smooth, and oddly natural looking stonework. Ocellus was the first to stand up and looked around. She eventually looked towards the smooth stonework and took a few steps forward. "Is it just me, or does this not look like Nordic architecture?" Althorn asked. "I can tell you that this not Nord architecture, what this is I have no idea." Fabjorn replied. "There's only one way out now, forward." Ocellus said as she cast a light spell. The spell caught the light of some odd looking fibrous crystals scattered around the immediate area of the spell. "Collect the crystals." An odd voice seemed to reverberate from deeper within the "cavern". Yona walked up to a section of crystals and pulled a crystal that was jutting out from the wall. "What do you think you're doing?!" Fabjorn asked in shock. "You not hear the voice, we collect crystals." Yona said. "Maybe we should collect the crystals as we go." Al'rhune suggested. "Good idea." Ocellus said as they continued on their journey towards something that would change their lives forever. After a while of walking, climbing, and careful down cliff jumping, the group arrived in a large antechamber of some kind. In the center of the giant room was a very small and open obelisk. "Place the crystals in the obelisk." The voice instructed. The others handed Ocellus their crystals and she gently placed them inside of the obelisk. Upon receiving the shards, the opening closed and a gentle hum reverberated throughout the room. The obelisk began to glow and the voice spoke in a louder volume. "Simulation Retransmission. Activation initiated." The glow exploded, seeming to make magical sparkles float around the room. "Greetings, Students of Friendship." The voice said. An awkward silence permeated the room for a bit. "Who, or what are you?" Fabjorn asked in awe. "I am Designation Observe Simulation. An Artificial Intelligence meant to observe the passing of time and the simulation of one of many possibilities." Observe said. "What do you want with us?" Ocellus asked. "It isn't me who wants anything with you, Changeling of the Bloodline." Observe said. A small section of the floor near the obelisk opened, revealing a pedestal with an oddly crafted bronze orb on it. "The Apple of this World was calling to you. It must have sensed you and decided you are worthy of wielding it." Observe said. "M-me? Why me?" She asked. "What's this Bloodline you spoke about earlier?" Meldah asked. "Whether by accident or by one of the simulations, many sentient species have ancient blood that allow the best use of the Apples and other Pieces." Observe explained. "This ancient blood are from ancestors that shared relations with the Isu race, or as some in other simulations call them, the Precursor race." Observe added. "I don't know what to say." Ocellus said. "If words escape you, actions can speak louder. You may take the Apple, and use it at your discretion. Keep the world safe, or conquer it. Use it to aid Friendship, or hinder it. It is your choice. No one can tell you otherwise. All they can do is advise." Observe told her. "Thank you." Ocellus said as she gently picked up the relic. "Is there a way out of here?" Fabjorn asked. "That there is, but before I reveal that, I have a request to make of you." Observe said. The pedestal lowered itself back into the ground and came back out with a similar orb that Ocellus was holding. When it stopped, the orb then glowed and levitated off the pedestal. A series of bronze colored magic seemed to seep out of it, forming the body of a Lamia. 'Her' snake tail was a beautiful shade of dark blue like her hair with white and brown spots, her torso was clothed in what seemed to be an obsidian version of Glass armor. The oddest part about her was her eyes. While one of them was reptilian and was bright blue, the other was just glowing a bronze color. "What? Does my appearance frighten you?" The Lamia asked in a concerned voice. "No, it's just we haven't seen a lamia in centuries!" Ocellus said with her mouth agape. "Oh, I figured this form would be best. I can change it if it bothers you." She said, her bronze eye glowing a bit brighter. "No,you don't have to! I think you look fine. Right guys?" Althorn said. Everyone else nodded in agreement. "Okay. Now, as for my request I want in return for helping you leave-" The Lamia said, but Al'rhune interrupted her. "You want to leave with us don't you?" the Khajiit asked, seeing where this was going. "I'm that obvious, aren't I?" The Lamia asked. "It's not that Sara, I mean you give Ocellus this relic, and we just leave you when we've been your first social interaction in centuries? No we understand that you want to leave this boring place." Al'rhune said walking up to Sara. "Is Sara my name?" She asked, earning a nod in response. "I love it! Thank you!" Sara exclaimed happily hugging the Khajiit in a nearly bone crushing embrace with her tail and arms. "Sara! You're crushing him!" Meldah shouted, gaining the lamia's attention. "Oh Gods! I'm so sorry!" Sara exclaimed as she released a hyperventilating Al'rhune from her grasp. After he got his breath back, Sara cleared her throat awkwardly. "Um, just follow me. I can get us out of here and just outside the tomb just before your teachers and other friends exit the tomb." She said as she slithered to a unique runic circle, with the group following. "Just stand in the circle and we'll be out before you know it." Sara said. They did as she instructed, and a bright bronze light rose from the center of the circle. Within the blink of an eye, they were standing outside the tomb...right in the center of a bandit ambush. "What the!" One of the bandits, an Imperial, said before pulling out her sword and making an attempt to strike Sara. What the bandit didn't expect was the sword to be blocked by two obsidian daggers and then getting knocked over by a giant snake tail. "Guys! Take cover!" Sara yelled before taking on the Imperial bandit and a nearby orc bandit with her daggers and tail. "We have to help her!" Meldah said as she now prepared a lightning spell in her hands. "I'll heal you." Althorn said preparing his healing spell. "Any boosting Illusion spells?" Fabjorn asked. "Unfortunately not." Al'rhune said. "Ocellus, try using that relic you got." Yona suggested. "But how!? I don't know how-" Ocellus tried to say, but was interrupted by a Nord bandit with a steel war hammer. "I'll squash you like the bug that you are!" He shouted as he swung the hammer down towards her. In reflex, she flinched and raised the relic up. When she did so, the relic glowed a bronze color and seemingly transformed into a bronze shotel sword. When the hammer hit the sword, it was stopped with hardly any effort. "H-how?" Ocellus asked, but soon the Nord's battle cry snapped her out of her thoughts. Ocellus soon blocked another blow and she managed to catch the warhammer on the inside curve of her weapon and pull it out of his hands, and before he could react, he found the blade through his abdomen. Ocellus was only trying to disarm him, but now she had just killed him. Knowing this the young changeling dropped her weapon and began to weep. A Breton bandit mage made an attempt to cast an ice spike at her while she was distracted, but Althorn jumped between her and the projectile with a ward active. The mage made an to charge a second spike, but Fabjorn clubbed him from behind with his staff. The mage quickly turned around and knocked the staff down towards the ground, but Fabjorn took advantage of that by kicking the guy's face. He then ducked under the staff, dodging a punch from the mage, and kicked the Breton's shin, throwing his second punch towards Fabjorn to miss as he cringed. Fabjorn then twisted the staff under the mage's legs, causing him to trip and fall, and the young Nord then swung the staff up and then down into the Breton's face, killing him instantly. Nearby, Sara finished off the Imperial and Orc bandits and quickly pulled out her bow and headshot a far off Bandit Archer of the Bosmer variety. With the archer's death, the ambush was cleared. Sara turned to the students and saw Ocellus in her distressed state and slithered over to her and comfortingly wrapped her in a hug with her arms and tail. "Shh, shh. It's okay. You're okay." She said in comfort to the Changeling. "I only wanted to disarm him, not kill him!" Ocellus said in distraught. "I know, but he would've taken you and your other female classmates prisoner and murder the boys." Sara said. "You did the right thing, just remember you acted in self-defense." Meldah said consolingly. "Thanks guys, really. Lord Molag may be the Lord of Domination, but he's mellowed out quite a bit, and has taught us to never kill for pleasure, it's an unfulfilling way of life." Ocellus explained. "I'd say he was wise to tell you this because he's done that for millenia, and realized how empty it's made him." Althorn said. (Sara, P.O.V) Seeing the students care for the distraught Ocellus made me smile. When I was created by the Isu, I was just given a purpose and left alone, until these youngsters came along and invited me into their lives, they gave me a new name; an identity, something that my makers never did. "I hope that I can find a new purpose with them, I'd like to leave this place for good. This place was no home to me, but a prison." I thought to myself as the world around me started to turn gray and time slowed to almost a complete stop, the only other person unaffected was Ocellus. Then there was a purple glow surrounding a figure garbed in fancy robes and was most decidedly an Altmer. "Young Changeling, you've now set yourself upon a path that could lead to imminent disaster." The figure said. "What do you mean? Who are you?" Ocellus asked frantically. "Calm down young one, I'm just warning you because the object you now hold has the power to bring peace to the world, or become the catalyst of its destruction. As for who I am, my name's Anor and I am a monk of the Psijic Order." the now named, Anor said. "I can protect her if I need to, besides my original purpose was to guard the relic from thieves." I said gaining the monk's attention. "Huh, this is unexpected." Anor said as he looked at me. "It seems that since you're tied to the relic, you're able to ignore the effects of my spell. Fascinating. Anyway, just know that the Psijic Order is watching over you, good luck young one." Anor said as he disappeared and the effects of his time spell now ended. "Whoa, what happened?" Althorn asked. "A monk from the Psijic Order appeared and spoke to us." I replied. Althorn, Meldah, Al'rhune, and Fabjorn all had concerned expressions on their faces. "The Psijics?! What did the monk say?" Meldah asked in a panicked tone. "Yona confused. What is Psijic Order?" Yona asked. "The Psijic Order is a group of mages who basically tend to safeguarding, or looking out for any magical anomalies that could prove to be disasters for the world." Meldah explained. "What did the monk say?" Athorn asked. "He said that I need to be cautious with the relic as it could either bring peace to the world, of be the object that causes its destruction." Ocellus said. "Well you're not alone in this, you've got us, the teachers, the other students, and Sara to help you." Al'rhune said placing a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks guys I really appreciate it. Now let's see if Headmare Twilight and the others made it out...." Ocellus was cut off by the sound of somebody screaming. "Thank goodness you're all okay!" A lavender mare said as she ran towards our group and clearly ignored me. "I was so worried! What happened? Tell me everything! Who's that?" She asked, finally noticing me. "Sorry we strayed Headmare Twilight. I was I guess you could say entranced by something in the crypt, but it turns out that the Nords weren't the only ones who buried something here. We found another section of the crypt that was made by a civilization called the Isu. Also, that's Sara, she's the guardian of the relic we found. Then when we left the chamber, we were attacked by a group of bandits, and we had to defend ourselves." Ocellus reported. "While I am fascinated by what you discovered, and happy that you're all okay, I still have to give you all detention for not staying with the group, and I'll have to confiscate the relic." Twilight said sadly as she activated her magic to take the relic from Ocellus. As this was happening, the old man with the group seemed to be ogling me, and it was making me uncomfortable. "Excuse me sir, your staring is making me uncomfortable." I said getting his attention. "Oh I'm terribly sorry miss, I just couldn't help but notice that you practically radiate magicka." The man explained. "Oh where are my manners, I'm Tolfdir, the Deputy Headmaster of the College of Winterhold." Tolfdir said extending a hand. "My name is Sara, and to explain the magicka thing, I technically exist outside the simulation you call reality, so your mind simply is taking what you know, and establishing that as the reality concerning me." I said as I shook his hand. As I shook his hand, I noticed that Twilight was trying to take the relic from Ocellus. "Miss Twilight, taking the relic from her will be a futile effort. Even if you managed that, it would return to her possession, no matter what." I said to her as she struggled. "We'll see about that!" Twilight said as she strained herself. With I sigh, I nocked an arrow and fired it past her horn, letting the arrow's feathers touch her horn, scaring her and tickling her horn, stopping her magic in that brief instant. "What in tarnation did ya do that for?!" An orange mare asked in shock. "I'm only doing my duty as the guardian of the relic...and to keep her from breaking her mind." I replied. "Break her mind?" A yellow pegasus mare asked. "The relic also technically exists outside of the simulation you call reality. The day she overcomes the relic's safeguards is the day she she ends up having to live the rest of her eternal days in a padded cell." I explain, making sure to put emphasis the mental consequences to Twilight. "Oh geez, just like the 'Lesson Zero' incident." The orange mare said with a shudder. "I'm not sure what you mean, but okay." I accepted. "I'll tell ya later. So Sara, was it, do you have anywhere to live, or work?" Applejack asked. "To live, no. Work, well, aside from my job as guardian, no." I answered. "If you want you could come with us to Ponyville, we could always use a substitute teacher for our school. If you're interested, you could work there." Twilight offered. I felt a smile grow on my face and I embraced Twilight tightly in my arms and tail. "Headmare Twilight, Sara's a..." Meldah began, but she was too late. "Hugger." she deadpanned. "I can see that." Twilight said as she began to lose her breath. "Oops, sorry. I'm just so thankful for this." I said placing a hand behind my head. "Right so, now it's time to go home. All of us." Twilight said with a smile. We soon found ourselves on a ship in the harbor near the Hold of Windhelm, bound for Equestria. My new life was going to be eventful indeed.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 10: Plaguing Problems

(In an unknown section of the Badlands, Third POV) The dry, desolate land was peaceful, save for a few tumbleweed and the occasional sand devil and taztel worm. Such peace was disturbed by a bright flash of light that left a small crater and an oddly burned and scarred person holding a gnarly looking blade. The bright flash caught the attention of a handful of Peryite's Afflicted that lived in the area. "Inform Lord Peryite, we have an outsider in our lands!" One of the Afflicted shouted. Another Afflicted ran of to Peryite's temple in the center of the settlement. Peryite was lounging in a bath of glowing green slime. "My Lord!" The Afflicted man said gaining the Daedric Dragon's attention. "What is it?" Peryite said groggily as he woke up from his slumber. "There's an outsider in the settlement, he just appeared in a flash of light with a strange weapon and he looks severely burned." He said kneeling as Peryite rose from his bath. He was about to speak when he heard the sound of screaming, and metal meeting flesh. "I'll deal with this." Peryite said grimly. As he saw the outsider was preoccupied Peryite took this opportunity to subdue the man. Using his toxic breath on the outsider's weapon causing it to melt. "You have some nerve to attack my worshipers, give me a good reason to not destroy you where you stand." Peryite said with a growl. "Not us!...Pain!...GRAHH!!!" The outsider shouted in a gravelly voice and made to punch Peryite, which he simply side stepped. Peryite could only watch as the man fell to the ground convulsing in pain. "I may be the Lord of Pestilence, but this hurts just to watch. I'll give you my shield, Spellbreaker to protect you on your voyage to Kynareth, but before i give you my shield let me sever you from the creature that binds you to it's will." Peryite said as the outsider began to glow a bright green. The screams of pain the outsider was uttering started quieting down until the man no longer glowed and was unconscious again. However, instead of a pained and angry expression on his face, it was now of some comfort and calm. "When he awakens, give him this." Peryite said to an Afflicted as he conjured up Spellbreaker and placing it in her hands. She nodded as her Lord returned to his temple to rest. (Roughly 3 days later, Asha POV) It's been three days since the Outsider appeared in the settlement, and now he's beginning to awaken from his slumber. "Urgh, I..." *cough, cough* "W-water." The Outsider said in a gravelly voice. I handed him a goblet of water. "Here, drink up." I said, as he drank up the water furiously. "Th-thank you. The Sc-scorched plague did quite a number on me." He said, handing back the goblet. "You're welcome. I'm Asha." I said extending a hand. "I've forgotten my name in the year or so of my time with the plague, but regardless, it's nice to meet you." He said, shaking my hand. "So, you one of those late Vault Dwellers, or one of the Responders?" He asked. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. If it helps, I am a Red Guard, and this place is called the Badlands, Lord Peryite found it would be wise to keep us safely hidden away in a place that fools would dare to enter." I said. The outsider's face showed confusion. "How did I get from West Virginia to Southern Utah?" He asked himself out loud. "Have the Scorched Beasts started taking the Plague to other parts of the country!? Shit!" He sat up quickly, but winced in pain. "Easy. The monsters that controlled you won't be a problem since it was only you that appeared. Lord Peryite instructed me to give you this." I said as I presented Spellbreaker to him. "This shield will protect you on your journey to Lady Kynareth in the Everfree Forest." I said. "W-what are you...you know what, Fuck it, I'll just play along. I've had to deal with plenty from those Mothman conspiracy theorist cult wackjobs before the Plague and the bombs, so this should be nothing." He said taking the shield. "Any supplies that you are willing to part with...also, where's my machete?" He asked. "Lord Peryite destroyed your weapon to prevent you from harming more of us. I own the general store here so, help yourself...within reason, of course." I replied with a smile. (Everfree Forest, One Week Later, Scorched POV) Well, I finally apparently have no room for doubt. Whatever happened, I'm no longer in West Virginia, or on Earth, for that matter. Somehow, I was transported to some magical land that, while whimsical looking, is just as dangerous as any other land. I mean, I had to put down some giant worm thing roughly only an hour out of the Badland Settlement. Thank Peryite for Asha and her letting me take some equipment, like that rough iron sword. Not the best weapon I've had to work with, but not the worst either. Things only got worse when I entered the Everfree Forest that Asha was kind enough to mark on my map. As soon as I entered the forest, I ended up getting hounded by several wooden wolf things and radscorpion tailed lion things for the while that I have been there. At the current moment, I was stuck in a tree, surrounded my more of those wooden wolves. "This is just FREAKING great!" I exclaim loudly. Then there was a blur of motion from a new figure that was beating the hell out of the wolves. Once the wolves were defeated, I saw my savior, it was a zebra, a zebra that was standing on her hind legs, she had hands, and perhaps a sizable pair of jugs. "Are you alright?" The zebra asked in an African accent. "As fine as I can be, considering that I'm practically a walking tumor...growth...scar...whatever the Scorched Plague could be considered!" I shouted at the top of my burnt lungs. "Calm yourself my friend, I'll take you somewhere to rest your head." The zebra said. I climbed down the tree and began to follow her. A few minutes later, we arrived at a dwelling that seemed to mix of a mangrove tree with a cottage. "Welcome to my home. My housemate will be along shortly." She said. "You act as if I know who that is and that you know who I'm looking for." I answered, sheathing my sword and strapping the shield I was given onto my back. "You are diseased, and only my housemate, Kynareth can help you. My name is Zecora by the way." Zecora said with a smile. "It's nice to meet you, but the...hivemind portion of the Scorched Plague pretty much erased my name and most of my identity from me." I explained with a strained smile. "It's alright, once you're cured you'll have your whole life ahead of you. Ah here she comes now, and trust me she knows exactly what to do." Zecora said as a light breeze came through the cottage/tree. "Zecora, I'm home." A voice said. Said voice belonged to a beautiful woman who had elfen ears, fair skin and medium length light brown hair. She also wore a simple white gown that billowed in the wind. "Ah Kynareth, it is most lucky for you to arrive, for this poor soul wishes to thrive." Zecora said pointing to me. Kynareth took one look at me and immediately rushed over, her beautiful emerald eyes now right in front of me. "Oh you poor child. What monstrosity has done this to you?" She asked like a mother to her injured child. "Child? I'm 32 years old, last I checked." I said to her. "I'm well over a couple million years old." Kynareth replied. "How's that possible?! You don't look a day over 20!" I exclaimed in surprise. "Simple, I'm the goddess of Nature, and let's see here, hmm..." She muttered at the last bit. "Okay, don't know what to believe anymore...and to answer your earlier question, these things called Scorched Beasts spread the disease, showing what you now see. And I'm lucky I haven't ended up like the others, petrified and burnt out so much that bumping into them cause them to collapse into a pile of charcoal and ultracite." I said as she kept examining me. "Ah! I know what to do!" She said as she finished her examination. "Wow, you work fast." I complimented. "Thanks, curing diseases is a specialty of mine. Anyway, you need to go to the local apothecary in Ponyville and purchase four pinches of fire salts, a Daedra heart, some wheat, and blisterwort. Here's all the money you'll need." She said, handing me a sack of gold coins. "Huh, proper currency. A lot better than bottle caps." I commented, examining the inside of the sack. "Now, which way is this Punnyville and is there a way to not get attacked by the local wildlife, you being a goddess of Nature and all?" I asked, securing the gold on my belt. "Oh follow me." Kynareth said. I followed her to the door. "See that path?" She asked. I nod in response. "That path leads to Ponyville, the path is enchanted by yours truly and a very good friend of mine, even if he is a Daedric Prince now." She said, muttering the last part under breath. "Thank you." I said, starting down the path. The walk to this Ponyville (seriously, how the inhabitants don't see the pun is beyond me...but considering I've only seen a handful of people, I don't have much to judge with.)....anyway, the walk lasted only about ten minutes. Leaving the forest and entering the town, I could see that there were more horse-like bipeds, as well as a few humanoid people, and even a couple cat and lizard bipeds. "Ponyville, my burnt asscheeks." I muttered to myself over the melting-pot of a town as I walked further in. (Ponyville, Sara POV) I was just slithering through town just enjoying my day. Gallus was just enjoying his day with his friends, but soon I saw him running as if he saw a Draugr Deathlord rampaging through town. "Gallus, what's the matter?" I asked him. "There's a draugr in the town! It needs to die!" He said frantically. "Now, now calm down! I'm sure it's nothing to be afraid of." I said reassuringly. Suddenly, a loud male scream was heard, followed by the sound of metal, arrows, and magic hitting their respective defences. "Goodness! What's going on here?!" I shouted breaking up a fight between several ponies and a seemingly mutilated man (not mutilated by the ponies, as far as I could tell). "Gallus was yelling about a Draugr and we found it. We were just taking care of it." One of the ponies explained, keeping her rolling pin bludgeon ready to strike at the man. "Stop!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Did you guys forget that Draugr have glowing white eyes, look more like skin and bones, and speak in the Dragon's tongue?!" I asked as I slithered to the man's defense. My question soon got the crowd to look down in shame. "And you." I said pointing at Gallus. "You know better than to spread rumors about strangers." I said with a frown on my face. "I'm sorry! I forgot, I was just scared, his appearance just looked so similar to a draugr." He explained as he began to tear up. "Whoa, hold up!" The man said, as he shakily stood up. "Don't be too hard on him and them. Mistakes were made about me that I can understand. If anyone back home saw me like this, it's shoot on site. No 'ands, ifs, or buts' about it. Can't risk an unknown disease to spread, which probably won't spread now, thanks to Peryite. I can forgive you on those grounds." The man explained, giving a few nods in forgiveness to the mob and to Gallus. "Alright, go back to whatever it was you were doing." I said to the crowd who were now dispersing. "Gallus head on home." I said to the griffon, who nodded in acceptance. The man strapped the shield he was holding to his back. "Thanks for back there. I personally had to hold myself back to keep myself from killing out of self-defence, and with how much more peaceful this place is, I didn't want to taint it any more than it probably already is or was." He said. "Heh, Equestria is still very peaceful. Now I see you have some supplies from the local apothecary. Getting a cure from Kynareth are we?" I asked. "You know Kynareth?" He asked. "Yeah I gave some of my venom for her to experiment with." I said flashing him my fangs. "The way you say that, she could probably do the same with my ultracite growths." He said with a chuckle, followed by a racking cough, sending him to his knees. "Okay, let's get you to Kynareth." I said picking him up. "Heh, reverse damsel in distress. Who would've thought?" He joked as I carried him. I giggled at him. "I know right." I said after my giggle fit. A quick trip through the Everfree and we were at Zecora's hut. I set the man down and knocked on the door. "Oh Sara, back with more venom to donate?" Kynareth asked as she answered the door. "Oh what happened to him?" Kynareth asked. "Oh he was mistaken for a Draugr and he was scuffed up by the locals, but now I believe that you're making a cure for him." I said. "Yes, but first I need to harvest those crystals from him." Kynareth said as I placed him on to the bed nearby. "After what Sara said about her venom, I thought you would have an interest in my ultracite growths. Take as much or a little as you'd like." He said chuckle-coughing again. "Try not to strain yourself." Kynareth replied. "If that advice was followed to the letter, nothing would get done." The man said with another chuckle-cough. Kynareth quickly whipped up a pleasant smelling concoction and poured it into a bottle after she got as much ultracite as she wanted. "Drink every drop of this, and you'll be as right as rain." The goddess said with a smile. The man nodded and drank it up. After a few seconds, he hunched over, seemingly in pain. "Bucket!" He yelled. Sara came to his side with a bucket and handed it to the man. "Try to swallow it. I know it seems like an ill-advised idea, but this just means the cure is working." The lamia said reassuringly. "I don't think that's what wants to come out." He responded before barfing up a black bile with some specks of ultracite in it. After taking a deep breath or two, he turned to Kynareth. "Thank you. I feel a lot better and I think your potion also cleared out my lungs from all the coal dust I accumulated in my time working as a miner before I became a Responder." The man told her. "I'm just helping somebody who needed me. Now before you go, I think you need a name. How about Scorch, Wayne Scorch?" Kynareth said with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Wayne Scorch, huh? I like it. Very fitting. Now, I hope you don't mind taking a student in healing or whatever. Since I'm sure I can't return to Appalachia after whatever the Hell happened, I might as well help however and whoever I can. Healing people is within my knowledge and if a sickness or injury is out of my league, I can send them to you or Peryite." Wayne said. "I'd love to take you on as my disciple, but I don't recommend you send people to Peryite, since he does create disease for his own amusement, or to possibly control the laws of nature." Kynareth said with a gentle smile. "But I can't fault you for thinking the way you did, because he took pity on you, but he was mainly looking out for his Afflicted." Kynareth explained. "Oh! Look at the time I need to head home, I've got some tests to grade see you guys later!" Sara said as she quickly slithered out of Zecora's hut. "I definitely can't fault you for disliking him, but he did have a part, admittedly small part, in saving my life and mind. Out of ten people that I wouldn't be able to cure, he at least should be owed one." Wayne argued. "I understand. I'll allow it just this once, but only people who are beyond even my skill to heal." Kynareth said holding up a finger. "Very well, a 'Disciple with a hint of Demon,' at your service." He bowed and before standing at attention. Kynareth giggled. "Alright, let's get you a place to sleep, you'll start training in Alchemy with me in the morning." She said smiling. (One week later, Wayne's P.O.V) After a short crash course in the healing arts, I ended up meeting a Kirin that had a very fast acting cancer that spread too fast for Kynareth's healing magics and potions to work effectively on. "Where are we going?" The young Kirin boy asked. "To a place where there are others like you. Those who can't be cured by normal or divine means, but still desire to live." I explained just as we came to the top of a dune near Peryite's land. "Welcome to the Haven." I said, extending my arm towards the village and Peryite's temple. "Well, well look who's back." A familiar Red Guard woman said with her hands on her hips. "Nice to see you too Asha. Were you waiting for me?" Wayne joked. "Haha, no, I wasn't I didn't even think you'd return here after Kynareth cured you, so who's this little cutie?" Asha asked. "Uh, I need an adult." The kirin said. "We are adults." Wayne said, with a little chuckle. He turned to the Red Guard. "His name is Star Gazer and he needs a little help from Peryite to keep a cancer from killing him." He told her. "I see, if my Lord can't heal him, he's more than welcome to live here." Asha said as she began to lead us towards Peryite's cathedral. "That's all I ask for him. As for me, an audience after he helps Star will be enough...and I hope you don't mind that I called the place The Haven." I said. "Not at all, after all that's what this place is to the diseased and unwanted." Asha replied. As we continued to walk into the cathedral, Star Gazer had a small coughing fit. "We have to hurry!" I said picking the young boy up in my arms. "Lord Peryite is up these stairs!" Asha replied. When we crested the stairs, I saw Peryite lying in the sun, basking in its warm light. "Peryite! I need your help!" I shouted rousing the emerald colored dragon from his slumber. "Who dares to... Oh it's you, well this is unexpected." He said with a surprised expression on his face. "Anyway, I see the boy is on the verge of departing this world, and I assume you want me to save him?" He asked, to which I nodded. "Very well, just gently set him into the pool over there, the water may look unsanitary, but it actually can cure any disease I myself did not create." Peryite said as he pointed a claw to the emerald colored water in a giant fountain. I carefully picked up the boy and placed him into the water. "How long will it take?" I asked in concern. "It should take a few moments, just let the water do its job." Peryite said placing a claw on my shoulder. "So, I see Kynareth has helped you, and I can smell her scent on you, are you studying the healing arts with her?" He asked. "That I am. If there is someone I can't heal, I bring the patient to her. If she can't, I bring the patient to you. Consider the agreement of that as thanks for helping save my life." I told him with a nod of my head in respect. "I accept, by the way, our little guest seems to be doing just fine. Asha go get the lad some dry clothes please." Peryite said seeing Star Gazer climbing out of the fountain completely healthy. As she went to gather the clothes, Star ran up to Peryite and hugged his reptilian neck. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..." The young kirin repeated while crying in gratitude. "It's nothing young one." Peryite said with a chuckle as he just accepted the hug. "I'll make sure my family and friends know how good you are." The kirin said. Asha then arrived with the dry clothing and Star changed (behind a stone pillar in the room). "He is right you know, you could've just let him suffer, but instead you allowed him to live a better life." I said. "I'm not heartless. He's a child, someone who hasn't had a chance to accomplish anything worthwhile. He deserves to live a long full life." Peryite replied as Star Gazer emerged from behind the pillar wearing his new set of clothes. A simple brown tunic, pants and sandals. "Thanks. Now I gotta get him home." I said as I walked over to Star Gazer. "I'll either be back later with another person or two, or they'll be here being escorted by someone I'll trust to bring them. Let's get the show on the road, Star." I said, ushering the kirin out of the cathedral. As we left, I turned towards Peryite and gave a respectful nod. (Roughly one hour train ride and a half hour hike later) We arrived at the Village and we were greeted by a handful of Kirins, Star Gazer's mother at the head of the group. Star wasted no time in running to his mother and embracing her in a hug. "Thank you so much!" Star's mother said with a smile and tears of joy streaming down her face. "I'm not really the one you should be thanking." I replied. "If it wasn't for you, my baby boy would be suffering. Sure this Peryite fellow provided the cure, but you brought my son to him, so you are the one I should be thanking." Star's mother said. "Alright, but no parties or payments. Just a place to sleep for the night and maybe a simple meal or two will be enough." I said. (3rd person POV, Elsewhere) It had taken her a few weeks, but she had managed to snare another knight and made another Black Prior. When she (the Prior) had asked for her orders, Apollyon thought for a moment. "I need you to go to this world." She said as she displayed an earth-like planet with her magic. "There is a warrior there that harnesses immense power, and I think he needs a challenge." Apollyon said. "Very well," the Prior said. Apollyon then opened a sickly yellow portal and the Prior stepped through. "This war will be glorious." Apollyon said as she went back to creating her army of Black Priors. (Odessen, Eternal Alliance Base, Inkaizo's P.O.V) It has been five years since I took over the Eternal Empire. I finally defeated Valkorian/Vitiate once and for all. With the help of my friends and my wife Vette. I was just relaxing in my meditation chamber ruminating on a disturbance I felt in the Force when one of the acolytes came to me looking like she just lost a fight to a wild Nexu. "Commander! There's something out there! I tried to fight it, but it caught me by surprise!" She wailed in sadness. "It's not your fault." I replied as I stood up and began to walk towards the elevator that led to the base entrance. As I passed Lana Beniko, one of my companions, she nodded and went to tend to the injured acolyte. I was now witnessing some a battle of the strange trespasser and some troopers, and the troopers were torn to shreds. I took my lightsaber from my belt, ignited it and threw it at the intruder. The intruder ducked just as it got close to her, causing the blade to shred up part of her hood and slice a trooper in half. The intruder then moved to the side, allowing my lightsaber to come back to me. "Close, but not close enough," the intruder said with a murderous voice, a yellow glow in her eyes. "If you came here to cause trouble, then you certainly have." I replied as I settled into a dueling stance. "I have, and I must say that girl who escaped is a poor excuse for a warrior." The intruder commented, while settling in a defensive stance. "She is only a student, I'm a veteran." I said as we began to pace around each other trying to get the advantage over the other. I took initiative and thrusted my blade forward only to have it batted away by her shield. She tried to counter with an overhead chop, but I blocked it. I tried to swipe her legs with my blade, but she jumped over it and suplexed me into the ground. I was about to get up, when I saw Vette at the other end of the courtyard with her trusty blasters aimed at my opponent. She fired two shots one hit my opponent in the back staggering her the other grazed her sword arm. I took this chance and chopped the intruder's legs off. "Give up. You've lost." I said pointing my blade in her face. "A true warrior never gives up." She replied. "So be it." I said plunging my blade through her heart, ending her life. "Prep the fleet, we have a war to win." I said before taking a small datapad from the corpse of the intruder.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 11: Destinies Collide

(Helena POV, Las Pegasus) It's a good thing it's Summer Break. Now Gideon and I can finally spend some proper time together. I had asked if we could visit Kayla in Las Pegasus, and luckily he agreed with me. As we arrived at the Ragged Flagon, our hotel, we were greeted by Brynjolf. "Ah, Helena, long time no see." the Nord said with a smile and a firm handshake. "No kidding." I replied. Brynjolf then turned his attention to Gideon. "So, you're the one who helped us out with that pegasus being late on his loan. It's nice to finally meet you in person." Brynjolf said shaking Gideon's hand. "Likewise. How's business...Both sides?" Gideon asked, whispering the last bit. "It's been good. The offer still stands lad, if you got the stones for it." Brynjolf said. "Thieving isn't my style." Gideon said politely. "However, I'm not against helping settle certain debts and such." He added. "I understand. Now I believe a private suite for two is what you're looking for your stay." The Nord said holding a platinum key in his hand. "Thanks Bryn. Is She around?" I asked. "Yeah. She should be at the UNO table." Brynjolf replied. "Ok. We'll be back down after we drop off our stuff in our room." I said as Gideon and I walked to the elevator. "Which She are you talking about?" Gideon asked. "Kayla or Nocturnal?" He questioned. "Nocturnal. I already know Kayla is here since she owns the whole building. She may trust Brynjolf to be the spokesman, but she's essentially the woman behind the curtain." I explained. "Are you afraid of her?" Gideon asked. "No. It's just odd for her to be up and about having fun like a mortal woman, she usually just broods in her study." I replied. "She might have her reasons, of which, I have no clue what they are. We'll just have to ask her if and when we see her." Gideon commented. "Okay." I said as the elevator doors opened on our floor. "Room 303." I read on the key. "Right here." Gideon said as he unlocked the door. The room was exquisite! There was a king-sized bed with silk sheets, one way windows, a full ensuite, mini fridge, and other amenities. "I'd hate to know what kind of expenses you had to pay to get this." Gideon said in amazement. "Relax, when I wrote to Kayla and told her that Summer Break was coming up, she offered to pay for our entire vacation here." I said putting my underwear in a chest of drawers. "Wow. She really is a true friend." Gideon said still amazed. "Like I said we loved each other like sisters." I retorted. "I meant no offence. Anyway, I hope you don't mind I had brought my weapons." He said nervously. "I don't mind at all, do you have a dagger or something?" I asked. "I do, but why do you ask?" He answered, drawing a rough looking Dwarven dagger to show. "Self-defense. There are a lot of ill-intentioned men and women here, I mean it's not the City of Sin for nothing." I replied taking the dagger and placing the sheath on my right thigh. "Best to have it and not need it, rather than need it and not have it." Gideon said, pulling out his dao sword and strapping it to his side. "Exactly. Now let's go play cards and have some fun." I said as I lightly brushed my flank against Gideon. "Were you flirting?" He asked. "Kinda." I said with a wink. "You crazy mare." He replied. I giggled. (Casino Floor, Nocturnal P.O.V) It was fun playing UNO with my three friends; Jack, Show-tune, and Jonathan; again. We spent time catching up, and cracking some jokes before settling in to play. "So Nightshade, after this round, you wanna do doubles?" Jack asked. "Sure." I replied as I played my blue 8. "Uno." Jonathan said as he played a blue Reverse. "Thanks, Show-tune do you have a +2?" I asked playing my blue +2. "I do, how's red for you Jack?" Jack said as he played his red +2, increasing the draw amount to four cards. "I like red, but green is better. What do you think Jonathan?" Jack said smugly increasing the draw from four to six. "Damn it, I'm sorry Nightshade, but I like yellow. Uno out." Jonathan said as he played his card, a yellow +2, increasing the count from six to eight. "G.g boys." I replied as I drew the eight cards. "Okay doubles time." Jack said as he started shuffling the deck. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a familiar pegasus mare. "What's Helena doing here?" I thought to myself as I now looked at my hand of cards. "Oh wow." I said in amazement. "Well let's play." Jack said. (Gideon's P.O.V) We moved through the tables until we got to the Uno table. There were four individuals at the table, divided into two teams. A Nord was teamed up with an Imperial woman in a black cloak, while a Dark Elf was teamed up with a Unicorn. I couldn't easily tell how the game was going, but it seemed to be getting intense, if the sweating Dark Elf and the wide eyed Unicorn was anything to go by. "I don't want to play this, but I don't have a choice." the Dark Elf muttered as he played a green seven and swapped hands with the woman in the cloak. "Thanks, but this looks terrible, so you can have it back." The woman said playing a blue 7. "Damn it!" The elf exclaimed as he swapped hands with the woman again. "That was a good move that Nocturnal pulled off." I commented quietly to Helena. "How do you see her?! I only see an Imperial woman!" She whispered. "I don't know, but I think I can see through disguises somehow." I whispered back. "Oh hello!" The Nord said gaining the attention of the other players. "You talking to us?" I asked, pointing towards Helena and myself. "Yes. Come on pull up some chairs and join us." The Dark Elf said. I grabbed some empty chairs from a nearby table and we set ourselves between the two teams. "So which team's winning?"Helena asked. "We are." The Nord said pointing to himself and his female partner. "It's almost like 'Lady Luck' is on your side." I half-joked, directing the serious half at Nocturnal. "It's also about skill." Jack said defending his partner. "I wasn't meaning to offend. I was trying to joke and I sometimes use the wrong tone." I said, a little white lie tacked onto the end. "None taken. I'm Jack, the unicorn is Show-tune, the Elf is Jonathan, and this lovely lady here is Nightshade." Jack said pointing to each of the players. "Nice to meet you all. I'm Gideon and this is my marefriend, Helena." I said, pointed to each of us respectively. "Pleased to meet you." Nightshade said smiling at Helena and I. "Same here. You may continue playing. We didn't mean to interrupt you four." Helena said. "It's no problem. We were just about to..." Nightshade began, but was cut off by an explosion and the sound of something flying past. "What's going on here?!" Kayla demanded as she stumbled down the stairs from the explosions outside. "We're being attacked! By what we have no idea!" Brynjolf shouted. "Everyone to the shelters now!" He shouted. Everyone else started to head towards the emergency shelter below the building. Nightshade as she was walking past me, handed me something. I looked down and saw a deck of cards in my hand. "Huh? What good would these do?" I asked myself as I pocketed the deck and summoned my armor. "Either way, I'm gonna see what's going on and hopefully the guards are taking care of getting people to safety." I said, drawing my dao sword and rushed outside. (Outside the Ragged Flagon, 3rd P.O.V) It was chaos outside, the guards were engaged with evacing civilians and fighting off humanoid creatures, and robots with blasters. The guards had magic, and other weapons, but they were clearly outmatched by the invaders. Gideon leaped towards one of the humanoids and decapitated him. "Who's next?" He asked. The others soon turned their blasters at him. "Hold your fire." A voice said. Emerging from behind the organic and synthetic troops was a man with black hair, red skin that had natural points on his face, piercing red eyes, and he wore robes that had armor, a long black cloak draped behind him. He also had a utility belt with what looked like lightsaber hilt. "Commander, we were just about to.." The trooper began, but the strange man raised a hand to silence him. "I know, but I want to settle this myself. Return to the landing zone and await further instructions." The man said. "Yes sir!" The trooper said as he snapped to attention and walked off. "Impressive, the datapad didn't lie. You are very skilled with a blade, but I know you haven't faced a Sith before." The man said crossing his arms. "What's this all about?!" Gideon demanded. "You attack this city, endanger its citizens, and even got a Daedric Prince to seemingly worry! What for!?" He yelled. "I'm repaying the transgression you gave me at my base. You sent one of your agents to destroy me, so now I'm here to teach you a lesson." The man said uncrossing his arms and reached for his lightsaber. The classic snap-hiss of a lightsaber blade activating rang out in the air. A red blade hummed in the silent streets. "Come, meet your fate." The man said. In response, Gideon rushed forward with a heavy downward slash. "Fēngkuáng jiùshì lìliàng!" The attack was blocked by the red blade. "Haha! I haven't been this entertained for a while! Not since I took on the Eternal Empire!" The man said. "Nǐ yǐ bài yǐ!" Gideon shouted in response, kicking the man back before backing up himself. The man threw his weapon at Gideon, but Gideon ducked under it. The man leaped towards Gideon as his weapon returned to him he was positioned to impale Gideon through his face. Gideon dodged to the side and, while leaving a slight afterimage, lightly swung at the man, who turned around to see Gideon's blade in his face. "Wú nǎi tiāndì!" He yelled at the man as the blade barely cut his cheek. The man thrusted his hand forward and sent Gideon flying into a wall. The sudden impact caused Gideon to drop his dao. "Surrender, while you still can." The man said. Gideon soon caught his breath and stood up. His pocket began to glow, causing him to pull out the deck, which was the thing that was truly glowing. "I hate to break it to you, but from what I've seen from the movies, you Sith aren't known for being merciful, so I'll pass." Gideon stated before the deck vanished and he took on a thoughtful stance, a card hand fanned out in one of his hands. "Very well." The man said leaping forward with his lightsaber pointed towards Gideon. Gideon flexed his left hand and a volley of cards flew at his opponent. Caught off guard by the odd attack, the Sith smashed into the wall facefirst. The Sith growled and soon tried to cleave Gideon in half. Gideon simply jumped back and summoned a giant blank card behind himself. "Look closely." He said, turning around, and vanished with roughly twenty new cards appearing in his place. The cards had various odd symbols on them, and one of them had Gideon on it in 2D form. The cards then laid down on the ground and mixed themselves up, before flipping upwards and began to spin around the man with their backs to him. "ENOUGH!" The man screamed so loud every window around them shattered and shredded the cards. The cards, outside of Gideon's card, revealed their symbols and the man was suddenly thrown around for a few seconds as shock, fire, and frost explosions hit him from the symbols. The man was starting to stumble and then he finally fell to the ground unconscious. "I guess he didn't know how to play the game." Gideon said as he walked over to the uncious man. He grabbed the lightsaber, found the datapad in the man's robes, and then pulled out a card which then sucked the man up and showed him in 2D form. "Let's see what you're hiding." He said as he began to walk back inside the hotel. (Meanwhile, in Canterlot, 3rd P.O.V) Luna and Kai were in the castle's medical wing. Luna has finally gone into labor and was now screaming in agony. "Just two more pushes your majesty." The doctor said calmly. "I'm going to kill you!" Luna shouted in her Royal Canterlot Voice. Kai flinched at his wife's statement. "I know it hurts, but she's almost here." He said encouragingly. Luna screamed as she pushed her daughter further towards the outside world. "One more push, I can see her head." The doctor said as he began to cradle the baby's head in his hands. Luna screamed once more, but then the sound of her newborn daughter crying took over. "There we go." The doctor said as he held the newborn princess in his arms. The nurses took some blood, cut the umbilical cord, cleaned her up, then wrapped her in a midnight blue blanket. "Congratulations Your Majesties, she's completely healthy." The doctor said as he gently placed the newborn princess in her mother's arms. "Nearly twelve hours of labor lead to this." Kai said as he gazed in wonder at his daughter. "I know, but it was worth it." Luna said with a tired smile. The newborn princess began to open her eyes. They were the same color as Luna's, but they were reptilian with a vertical pupil. She also has pale skin, feathered wings as white as snow, and black hair that sparkled like the endless cosmos. Luna lifted her gown to reveal her right nipple which the baby immediately started to suckle. "She needs a name." Luna said with a smile. "I was thinking Winter, Winter Moon." Kai said as he gently stroked his daughter's hair. "Princess Winter Moon has a nice ring to it." Luna said as she looked down as her daughter who was now finished with her meal. Luna gently patted her back and she burped. "What do you think about the name Winter Moon hmm?" Luna asked earning a giggle from her daughter. "I think she likes it." Luna said with a giggle. "Winter Moon it is then." Kai said as he signed his daughter's birth certificate. Outside the room, Celestia, Sheogorath, Twilight, Spike, their friends/significant others, Cadence, Shining Armor, Flurry, the Aedra, and the Daerda, except Nocturnal, and their loved ones all showed up for the momentous occasion. Soon Kai came out of the room with a smile. "It's a girl." He said quietly. "Ha! Told ya AJ!" Rainbow whispered. "Let's leave them to rest." Shining said knowing that Cadence and Flurry needed their rest the day Flurry was born. All of them nodded and headed downstairs to celebrate. (Las Pegasus, Inkaizo P.O.V) I groaned as I awoke from unconsciousness. "So, how was your nap?" A familiar voice asked. "No thanks to you, yes." I replied as I massaged my temples. "Fair enough. I should also point out how horribly you were just played," Gideon said as he got into view, while holding the Datapad I had on me. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "You were used. Pretty much all of the information on this pad is a lie. Did you even try to get past the backdoor firewall?" He said. "Personally, I was having my droid decrypt it, it was halfway through when we arrived." I replied. It was true, whoever made the firewall made even Tee-seven nearly have a meltdown, I had to make him stop before he exploded. "Well, I'm not sure where your droid was going with his decryption, but the password was simply 'War.'" He said with a sigh and a head shake. "As for what was behind the firewall, well, watch." Gideon turned the datapad towards me and a video played. After I witnessed the video, I now understood what happened, and it was very familiar, and it enraged me. I tapped into the Force and like before, the windows shattered, and my restraints were broken. I stood up and screamed. "How could I have been so stupid?! I was deceived by Vitiate, and later the incarnation of Valkorion! What will it take for this madness to end?!" I shouted angrily. I collapsed to my knees and softly began to sob. "Life never is fair, but what is fair, is what we do with the hand that we're dealt." Gideon said, offering me a hand. "Don't let your past define your future. You may have made a mistake, but you can learn from it." He added. I took his hand. "How can you forgive someone who just attacked your home so easily? I may have been deceived, but I would think that trusting the man who tried to kill you would be slower." I replied as I stood up. "Simple, Apollyon is the real enemy. She orchestrated the attack on you, just so you would come here and start a war this world would probably lose." He retorted. "Fair enough. I'll have my troops repair any damages." I replied as I turned to leave. "I need to collect my thoughts. I'll be be back later." I said as I walked out of the room. "Don't go too far." Gideon called out, holding out my lightsaber. "You'll probably want this back." I merely extended my hand and I felt my lightsaber return to my hand. "Thanks. I won't be far I'm just a call away." I said as I tossed a holocommunicator to Gideon. "Alrighty then. While you're doing your thinking, I'm gonna do some blade practice." He pulled a strange set of hook-bladed swords out of somewhere and took a set of stairs up. (Nocturnal's Study, Nocturnal P.O.V) I couldn't believe it! There was an alien, an alien encounter on this planet! "I knew we weren't alone in the universe!" I giggled as I skipped around the room like a happy schoolgirl. However, to my underlings it looked disturbing, so I decided to reel it in. "Sorry. It's just, I never would've thought that something like this would ever happen." I said. "Yes. well my Lady, we have more pressing concerns, like are we going to tell the others about this, or keep this under the table." Kayla said. "It would be better to keep this incident isolated for right now. I'm sure Kai has more pressing matters to attend to." I said thinking back to the last time I visited Canterlot. "Luna should've given birth to her child by now, so let's give them some time to have fun." I said sitting down on my couch. "Do you have anything to say Helena?" I asked the mare. "Do you think we could talk, alone?" She asked looking to the others. I nodded and waved my Nightingales to leave the room. Once they left, Helena sat closer to me. "What was it you wanted to talk about?" I asked. "I know that you're interested in Gideon." She said. "Is that a problem?" I asked. "I don't see anything wrong with it, I mean polygamy is legal in Equestria, but we'll have to talk to Gideon about what he wants to do with this." She replied. I nodded. "So you wanna play cards?" I asked. "Only if you don't cheat." She replied with a smirk. "I don't cheat,I'm just 'lucky'." I replied as I conjured up a deck of cards. (Canterlot Castle, Luna P.O.V) After bringing my beautiful newborn daughter into this world, the two of us fell asleep in a loving embrace. I let out a quiet yawn as I woke up and gazed down at Winter as she continued to sleep against my chest. I heard the door open then close. I looked up to see Kai with a smile on his face as he walked over to my bed. "Sleep well?" He asked quietly. "Yes I did." I replied. "I see Winny, is still sleeping." Kai said lightly caressing her mane. I nodded. "She'll wake up when she wants to. What time is it anyway?" I said. "It's about quarter after five in the morning." He said. "Can you hold her while I go lower the moon?" I asked. Kai nodded as I passed Winter to his arms. Winter started to open her eyes and she began to babble and lightly flap her wings with a smile on her face. "Aw." The many voices of our extended family and friends chorused at the admittedly adorable scene. I blushed a little as I walked towards my balcony and ignited my horn to lower the moon. Celestia took this as her cue to raise the sun, and ignited her horn. As the sun rose, Winter was introduced to her enormous family. "You're blessed to have such a large family my little princess." I said as Kai handed Winter to Celestia, her smile unwavering. (Inkaizo's Cruiser, 3rd P.O.V) As Inkaizo boarded his command ship, Wrath of Eternity, he was greeted by his wives Vette, Lana, and Jaesa. "You seem distressed love, is there anything we can do to help?" Jaesa asked with a concerned look on her face. Inkaizo met his wife's gaze with a slight glare. "We were deceived." He stated with a slight growl. "By whom?" Lana asked. "That warrior that attacked Odessen." He replied. "So what are we gonna do about it?" Vette asked placing her hands on her hips. "We are going to destroy this 'Apollyon' alongside with the denizens of this planet, or die trying." Inkaizo said as he tightly gripped his lightsaber hilt. "Now if you three are up for it, I need to relieve some pent up tension after the battle I had with a man named Gideon." Inkaizo said flirtatiously. Each of the women all smiled as they followed their lover back to their shared quarters for some fun. (Mature Content ahead, skip ahead if you don't want read it.) (Wrath of Eternity Commander's Quarters, Inkaizo P.O.V) My wives and I finally made it back to our shared quarters and closed the doors. Jaesa was the first to initiate a passionate makeout session with Lana. Vette and I began to makeout as well as begin to disrobe each other, Lana and Jaesa did the same. When I was in just my undergarments, Lana and Jaesa joined Vette on their knees as she took off my underwear, my erection nearly hitting her in the face. "Look at this ladies, I think our man likes what he sees." Vette said as she began to lick my member from base to tip. "I think so too." Lana said taking my member into her mouth. "Jaesa, come up here." I said lightly caressing her chin. Jaesa rose to feet and we began to makeout as Vette snuck beneath her to eat her out. Jaesa gave a squeal of surprise to see Vette underneath her vigorously lapping at her womanhood. "Enough of this." I gently said as I withdrew my member from Lana's mouth. "Jaesa, get on your hands and knees." I commanded. Jaesa did as she was ordered. I gave her no warning as I plunged into her depths making her squeal in delight. My thrusts were hard and deliberate. I was making her orgasm over and over. I reached my limit and released my seed inside her. With Jaesa lying on her side with a satisfied smile on her face. "Who's next?" I asked with a slight growl. (Later) I was panting with my wives beside me with satisfied smiles on their faces and slightly bloated abdomens. "I can only think of the future that starts from the events of today." I said to myself as I drifted off to sleep. mens due to the vigorous love making we committed only moments ago. "A new age begins with the next generation of Force Users." I said as I finally drifted off to sleep, thinking of the challenges ahead.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 12: Revelations and Meetings

(Gideon POV, Ragged Flagon Casino) After I finished some of my hook sword exercises, I decided to explore the Casino portion of the Ragged Flagon. There were various things that were commonly found in casinos, like roulette wheels, slot machines, poker tables, etc. Unlike most casinos, however, there were a number of tables that were dedicated to some less gambling oriented games and activities, like the Uno table that Nocturnal was playing at when Helena and I arrived. As I approached the Uno table, I saw Nocturnal approaching from one of the other tables. "Oh. You've returned." Nocturnal said with a smile on her face. "That I have. How have things been? Have things calmed down, relatively speaking?" I asked her. "Yes things have calmed down, but there's an issue I need to talk with you about." She said her smiling face was now replaced with one of seriousness. "What kind of issue?" I asked, concern showing on my face. "It's no surprise that you are seeing Helena as a possible romantic partner." Nocturnal stated. I nodded in reply. "While Helena and I were talking, it only confirmed my suspicions, I've fallen in love with you Gideon. I can understand if you don't return my feelings, but always know I will love you." Nocturnal said as tears began to stream down her flawless face. Seeing her sadness, I immediately moved over to her and gave her a hug. "Don't feel down. If I'm remembering correctly, Equestria has a type of polygamy type marriage system that is allowed. Not really encouraged, but neither discouraged. I personally wouldn't mind giving it a try." I told her, gently rubbing her back as I hugged her. "Thank you. I promise to be loyal to you and only you my love." Nocturnal said pecking me on my cheek. "By extension, that means I'm loyal to Helena." She said before planting her soft lips on mine. We kissed for a good minute or two before we separated our lips. "Would our new relationship require you to move to Ponyville as well? I ask because I think me and you having a long distance relationship won't work very well." I said. "I can do whatever I wish. Kayla already runs this place, I can summon my Nightingales to our home if I need to. So I'll leave with you and Helena today if you wish to do so." Nocturnal said as we stared into each others eyes lovingly. "That sounds like a good idea." I answered with a smile. "Let me go get my essentials, you know toothbrush, clothes, etcetera. If I leave anything it'll most likely be my makeup kit, I can always buy one in Ponyville." Nocturnal said as she walked towards her room. Helena sauntered up to me with a smile on her face. "So, I take it she's coming home with us?" She asked. "Yep. And I did read a little bit about Equestria's herd polygamy stuff, and I'm just gonna say, there's not going to be any alpha mare stuff. In this relationship, you'll both be equal." I say. "That's fine. I mean Nocturnal told me that even though she's viewed as a goddess, she really craves to be equal to any other mortal woman." Helena said as Nocturnal reappeared with her own luggage. "I sent our belongings home already, and I can just teleport us there too to save money and time." She said with an eager smile on her face. "Let's go home." I simply said. With a snap of Nocturnal's fingers, we were standing in the living room of our house. (Friendship School, the next day, Twilight P.O.V) Summer Break was certainly eventful. Luna had her daughter, Greagithir proposed to me, and Gideon has finally returned from his vacation in Las Pegasus. The sound of knocking took me from my thoughts on my wedding planning. "Come in." I say as my eyes drift back down to my list of themes for my wedding. "Hey Twilight, how was your vacation?" The familiar voice of Gideon asked as he entered my office. "Oh, Gideon,it's you. I had a great vacation, thanks for asking." I replied as I placed my list face-down on my desk. "Have you read the news recently?" He asked. "Unfortunately, I haven't. I've been extremely busy planning my wedding later this year." I replied. "Why?" I asked. In response, he pulled out a newspaper and places it on the desk. "And this is from the local newspaper here in Ponyville." Looking at the headline, it read: 'Ponyville Professor Fends Off Alien Attack in Las Pegasus.' The accompanying picture showed Gideon using what looked like giant playing cards to fight an alien that seemed to be armed with some sort of beam sword. I slowly looked up from the newspaper and felt an ear to ear smile growing on my face. "Tell. Me. Everything!" I squealed gleefully. "What was it like to fight him? Is he still alive? What's his species? Why was he here?" I asked rapidly. "In order: It was like fighting a raging bull that knows how to fight with strategy as well as with rage; yes he is; he is Sith; and he was here because Apollyon fed him some false information about me after she sent one of her followers to his homeworld to attack them." He said with a slight scowl at nothing in particular. "Oh, I'm sorry about that." I said as my ears folded down. "I nearly forgot about her, I mean she hasn't really been active here as far as we know." I replied. "So what else happened?" I asked hoping to change topics. "Got a new weapon, a second romantic partner that Helena approves of, and I've gotten better at reading the fabled 'Poker Face' that most people in Las Pegasus are good at pulling off." He said. "That's great! Who's the lucky lady?" I asked. "Coincidently, it is Lady Luck herself, Nocturnal." He said with a smirk. "What?!" I shrieked. "You got Nocturnal to fall for you? Do you know what that means for you and Helena?" I asked. "Not really, other than you shouldn't make too big of a deal about it. She's an immortal being that hasn't had someone that would treat her like a normal person. So, to make sure that stays that way for as long as possible, her welcome party will be more private. Important people only...YOU GOT THAT PINKS!!!" He bellowed the last part. Out of nowhere Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared. "Okie Dokie!" She replied before disappearing as quickly as she appeared. I shook my head with a giggle. "Well, if you, Helena, and Nocturnal have intimate relations, and you all climax simultaneously, you and Helena will be granted immortality because you and whoever else is involved in this, have done the impossible, you pleasured a goddess to the point she climaxed, which isn't easy by the way because mortals have finite stamina, while she could literally go all night long without tiring." I explained. Gideon looked like he had seen a ghost. "How do you know that?" He asked. "Simple, because Mara told me that when I was in Canterlot to celebrate the birth of Princess Winter Moon." I replied. "Luna gave birth? Huh, I'm gone for only a week and a half and already I miss a momentous occasion. PINKS, MAKE SURE THE GODS, GODDESSES, PRINCES, AND PRINCESSES ARE INVITED!!!" He bellowed once again. "I SENT THEIR INVITATIONS ALREADY!" Pinkie shouted. "If that's all, I won't keep you from planning for the Fall semester." I said with a smile. "Understood. I'll see you a bit later tonight." He turned to leave. When he reached the door, my fiance, Greagithir, walked in with a smile on his face. "Hey." He said as he pecked me on the lips. "We goin' to the party, or staying at home to plan the wedding?" He asked. "Of course we're going! The wedding can wait, besides Pinkie already helped us with our cake, Rarity's making our attire, all we have to do is decide on a theme." I said with a smile. "Good. Besides, we deserve a break every now and then." Greagithir said as he lightly squeezed my rear. "Ooh, you naughty boy." I whispered into his ear. "KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS! YOU'RE AT WORK!" Gideon shout from down the hall. (Gideon's House, hours later, Gideon P.O.V) After walking from the School to my place and getting inside, I sat down on the couch and pulled out my class list and thought of how and what to teach for this semester/year. As I was looking over that and thinking, Helena walked into the room and sat next to me. "Is that the class curriculum for the semester?" She asked. "Yep. I decided to branch a small bit into some of the ancient and semi-modern technologies of Earth, as well as the histories related to them." I told her. "Before I give an example, have ponies worked with Bronze before?" I asked. Helena nodded. "In relation to Earth, we're near the Industrial Revolution, we just managed to kind of stagnate because of the lack of warfare." She replied. "Good, then with the help of the local blacksmith, I can do a day where I show and let them try Bronze casting...it'll be slightly different, since magic can be used to work with it while here in Equestria, but what can I do." I said, shrugging slightly. "You could talk about 'lost wax' casting, or gravity casting." Nocturnal said as she entered the room. "I can, but the only ones I trust to be able to possibly do those methods right are Althorn, Olgarth, Meldah, and Fabjorn. The rest will have to have work with casting sand and extra supervision." I said. "You could do that, but you also could allow the students who do know what they're doing to help instruct the others along with you and the smiths." Nocturnal added. I stood up and gave both her and Helena a peck on the cheek. "You both have offered very crazy ideas...so crazy, they might just work." I said with a devious grin. "Now, let's see about getting ready for your party, Lady Luck." I added. Nocturnal suddenly blushed. "Is this a Pinkie Pie Party?" she asked. "I made sure to reduce the number of guests from 'Ponyville' down to 'important people and the New Nirn Pantheon'...that last one actually sounds catchy." I commented. Both women chuckled. "I wonder who will show up." Helena said. "I'm not really counting, but I'm thinking all the Aedra, Daedra, and Alicorns, along with their significant others, the Thieves Guild, the Nightingales, the Element Bearers, the respectful nobility, you, me...and let's not forget the Guest of Honor herself." I listed off. "Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Inkaizo was invited as well." I added. "This is Pinkie we're talking about, so expect the unexpected." Helena replies walking over to Nocturnal and dragging her off to the bathroom. "Dear gods, I'm really lucky...not that surprising, but yeah." I said to myself while chuckling as they went to do their girl stuff. (Wrath of Eternity, Med-Bay(Terminus-class Star Destroyer), Jaesa POV) Lana, Vette, and I were all so happy because our loving husband managed to get us all pregnant at the same time. "I hope I have a son." Lana said as she lightly rubbed her seemingly normal stomach. "I don't care what mine is, I just hope they'll be healthy." Vette said. "I'm hoping for a daughter, I mean a son would be nice, but I'd like someone other than you two to relate to." I said. "No offense." I quickly added. "None taken." Lana and Vette replied. Soon the sound of our husband running down the hall could be heard. "I heard that you three were in the med-bay, is everything alright?" He asked worriedly. "It's fine hon. In fact, we have something to tell you." Vette said gently caressing Inkaizo's face. "What is it?" He asked. "Reach out with the Force love." Lana said. Inkaizo simply closed his eyes and I could feel his presence wash over me. He opened his eyes and a smile started to appear on his face. "I'm going to be a father." He said as tears began to well up in his eyes. The four of us all joined in a loving group hug. As we were making our way to the bridge to announce this to the fleet, a starfighter pilot came running at top speed. "My Lord!" He shouted. "What is it soldier?" He asked as the pilot stopped in front of us and saluted. "Sir, we have a visitor from the planet below, how she got up here I have no idea, but she wants to see you." He said nearly hyperventilating. "Calm down, head for the barracks for some rest. I'll deal with this." Inkaizo said with a slight frown on his face. When we made it to the hangar, there was a female pink humanoid/equine hybrid standing in the middle of two doctors/medics, and medical droids. "What in the name of the Force is going on in here?" Inkaizo asked in shock. "Sir it appears that this woman seems to defy all the laws of physics!" One of the doctors said as she placed her scanner on her hip. "No matter, she has a message for me, and she will not leave until it's delivered." He said. "As you wish sir." the doctor replied as she backed away. Directing his attention to the 'visitor', we made our way over to her and I could smell all kinds of confections and baked goods and it made my stomach growl. "Sounds like somebody's hungry." The visitor said with a bubbly, cheerful voice. I nodded. "Great because you guys are invited to the party I'm hosting!" She said with a smile. Lana, Vette, and I all looked at Inkaizo with our pouty faces. "Alright we'll go, just please don't ever do that again." He said while clutching his chest. The three of us all high fived and boarded a shuttle to take down to the planet's surface, Inkaizo soon joined us along with the visitor and soon we departed the Star Destroyer. (Outskirts of Ponyville, Inkaizo P.O.V) I read the invitation that the pink woman, Pinkie Pie, made for my wives and myself to attend some sort of party. Curiously included on the invitation was a message from Gideon, the man who bested me in combat a week and half ago. The message was: "If you're confused about how a pink pony managed to infiltrate a ship that's in orbit, don't question it, otherwise you'll go insane.". Taking the man's advice I simply rolled with the punches and accepted Pinkie Pie's ability to defy reality. "So, am I correct in assuming this party is for something like welcoming a new resident, or a slightly rocky First Contact with an alien species, or maybe because that's just a thing you do for fun?" I asked. Pinke nodded her head with a smile. "Yup!" She said cheerfully. "Interesting." I replied as I began to land the shuttle in a large clearing near the town known as Ponyville. "Now this is a welcome change from that city I made the mistake of assaulting a week ago." I said as we disembarked from the shuttle. "Yup! Welcome to Ponyville!" Pinkie exclaimed happily. I chuckled as we walked towards the town. When we reached a castle that looked like it was made from a massive formation of kyber crystals in the shape of a tree, my eyes widened in wonder. "I've seen many things in my travels, but this is unlike anything I've ever seen." I said in awe of the magnificent structure. All three of my wives giggled at my expense. I merely rolled my eyes as we entered, there was a decently sized crowd gathered inside. I looked over to the right, and I saw Gideon sitting with another female that had wings on her back, and who I assumed to be another lover of his. My wives and I made our way over to their table. "Excuse me, are these seats taken?" I asked. Gideon looked up as our eyes met. "Here for a rematch?" He asked with a smirk. I chuckled. "No, I'm here to kick back and relax. Also these three lovely ladies are my wives. This is Jaesa, Vette, and Lana." I said as I pointed to each of my wives who nodded their heads in respect. "Wow." The female pony said. "It's nice to meet you all. I'm Gideon, a local teacher of Earth History. The pegasus here is Helena, my marefriend and teaching assistant, and this lovely lady is Nocturnal, my girlfriend and the Daedric Prince of Darkness, Stealth, Theft, and Luck." He said. "Prince? How does that work when she's a woman?" Jaesa asked. "Daedric Prince is her species as well as title, as technically, she is genderless, but chooses to look, sound...probably act, female. Does that sound accurate?" Gideon explained, asking the question to Nocturnal. Nocturnal nodded. "Yes, but it's just easier to classify all of us as Princes because Daedric Princess sounds like a damsel in distress, not somebody who can basically make your life a living hell. Let's take Molag Bal for one, he once raped a virgin to create the very first vampire, now tell me, if he ever took the form of a woman, and pretty much just changed the pitch of his voice just to help with his disguise, would you call him a princess?" Nocturnal explained while pointing to a being that looked like a demonic creature from Sith folklore. (Twilight's Castle, Nocturnal P.O.V) I was having a great time at my party. The Sith, Inkaizo, and his wives, Jaesa, Lana, and Vette told us stories of their travels all over the galaxy. Celestia, Sheogorath, Blueblood, Serana, Kai, Luna, and a small object swaddled in a blanket in Luna's arms. Luna caught sight of us and she she gently glided through the air with her 'package' in her arms. "It's nice to see you Nocturnal." Luna said as she gently landed. "Luna, is that..." I started to ask when a small yawn interrupted me. The other women at the table fawned over the sound. "This is my daughter, Winter Galactica Moon." Luna said as she gently placed her daughter in my arms. "She looks more human than equine." I said in observation. "Indeed, she is half Daedra after all." Luna said. "Oh that explains it." I said with a smile as Winter's tiny hand grabbed at my dress. "Children are always beautiful and precious." Gideon said, slightly rubbing her head. Winter cooed at Gideon's touch. "Would you like to hold her Gideon?" Luna asked. He nodded and readied his arms. I gently passed Winter to Gideon. Winter was adorable and I felt my heart melt at the sight. "He'd make a terrific father." I thought to myself. As he held her, I saw Gideon had a look of reverence. He raised his unoccupied right hand and held his thumb out towards her. I then noticed that there was a slight trickle of blood on his thumb, he then rubbed it on her forehead, leaving a line of blood that started to glow as he said something in the Daedric tongue. "On my blood and my life, do I vow to protect you until the very end of time itself, defying Death if I should." He said, causing the blood on the baby's forehead and his thumb to glow before his thumb healed instantly and the blood on the baby flaked away, leaving a red lotus flower symbol on her forehead. Gideon then shook his head, as if he suddenly developed a headache. "What did I just say...and do?" He asked in confusion. "You just made yourself her godfather, by swearing a Daedric Blood Vow, which hasn't been done in over three thousand years." A voice said from behind Luna. I looked up and saw Malacath with a look of wonder on his face. "What's a Daedric Blood Vow? And what's with the open mouth of wonder on your face?" Gideon asked the Daedric Prince. "To put it simply it's what you would call a blood oath, you break it, you die. Also the last time a vow like this was made, it was when the first of my Orcs promised that any and all Orcs after them would obey the Code of Malacath." Malacath replied. "That serious? Huh...what did I say exactly, as I performed the ritual?" Gideon inquired. "You said and I quote: "On my blood and my life, do I vow to protect you until the very end of time itself, defying death if I should."." Malacath recited. Gideon's eyes widened. "Holy Sugar-Honey-Iced-Tea!" He exclaimed to himself. Winter, sensing her godfather's distress began to cry, I quickly took her into my arms and handed her back to Luna."It's fine. Kai and I were looking for an alternative guardian for Winter should anything happen to Kai and myself. I mean no offense to my sister, but I'm certain Winter would prefer to grow up outside of politics." Luna said as she received her daughter from my arms. Luna began to calm Winter down from Gideon's outburst. Kai came running over with bag filled with what looked to be spare diapers, sanitation wipes, milk bottles, toys, etcetera. "What happened? Is she alright?" He asked frantically. "It's fine. Gideon just swore a Blood Vow to protect Winter, and his realization startled her." Malacath said. "Oh, thank goodness." Kai said with a sigh. "So the party is nearly over, you gonna sing Gideon?" Kai asked. "Yeah, I have one in mind. I'll head up to the front now." He said, standing up. "I had no idea Gideon could sing." I said in amazement. "Yeah he can, I just wonder what he'll sing this time." Helena said as Gideon took the stage. (Gideon P.O.V) As I walked onto stage, I approached a piano that was set up beforehand. Just as I was about to move to set myself on the piano bench, I suddenly stopped, against my will. "What the...?" I thought to myself as I turned around and took a few breathing exercises against my will. "What's going on?" I thought. I then started to sing in Italian...and how I knew that, I had no clue. Aissera, Nannine, me ne sagliette, tu saje addo'? (Tu saje addo'?) Addò' 'stu core 'ngrato cchiù' dispietto, farme nun po'! (Farme nun po'!) Addo' lo fuoco coce, ma si fuie, te lassa sta! (Te lassa sta!) E nun te corre appriesso, nun te struie, sulo a guarda'! (Sulo a guarda'!) Jammo, jammo, 'ncoppa jammo ja', jammo, jammo, 'ncoppa jammo ja'. Funiculí - funiculá, funiculí - funiculá, 'ncoppa jammo ja', funiculí - funiculá. Neh jammo: da la terra a la montagna, no passo nc'e... No passo nc'e... Se vede Francia, Pròceta, la Spagna... e io veco a te! E io veco a te... Tiráte co li ffune, ditto 'nfatto, 'ncielo se va... 'Ncielo se va... Se va comm'a lo viento e, a ll'intrasatto, gue saglie sá'... Gue saglie sá'... Jammo, jammo, 'ncoppa jammo ja'... Jammo, jammo, 'ncoppa jammo ja'... Funiculí - funiculá, funiculí - funiculá... 'Ncoppa jammo ja', funiculí - funiculá... Se n' 'e' sagliuta, oi' ne', se n' 'e' sagliuta, la capa già! (La capa già!) E' gghiuta, po' e' turnata, po' e' venuta, sta sempe cca'!(Sta sempe cca'!) La capa vota, vota, attuorno, attuorno, attuorno a te! (Attuorno a te!) Sto core canta sempe nu taluorno, sposammo, oi' ne'!(Sposammo, oi' ne'!) Jammo, jammo, 'ncoppa jammo ja', jammo, jammo, 'ncoppa jammo ja'. Funiculí - funiculá, funiculí - funiculá, 'ncoppa jammo ja', funiculí - funiculá (Yesterday evening, O Nannina, I climbed up, Do you know where? (Do you know where?) To where an ungrateful heart can no longer vex me! (no longer vex me) Where a fire is burning, but if you flee It lets you be. (It lets you be) It doesn't chase you, doesn't melt you, with just one glance! (one glance) Let's go, let's go, let's go to the top (Repeats twice) Funicular up, funicular down, funicular up, funicular down! Let's go to the top, Funicular up, funicular down. (Repeats once) My head is spinning, O Nannina, It's gone up there already! (Up there already) It went there, spun 'round, and then returned It's always here! (It's always here) My head is spinning, spinning, Encircling you! (Encircling you) This heart of mine is always singing the same refrain "Marry me, O nannina"! (Marry me) (Repeat chorus twice) After I finished singing, I felt control come back to me. With that control back I instantly summoned a purple orb and used it to summon Discord onto stage. The Draconequis was in the middle of kissing his lover, Fluttershy, when he was summoned. "Discordia, la mente mi ha riempito di perche stavo cantando in italiano?" (Discord, mind filling me in why I was just singing in Italian?) I asked him, getting his and Fluttershy's attention. "Um, Gideon, you're still speaking Italian." Fluttershy said softly. Discord merely shrugged. "I have no idea, but maybe someone put Poison Joke in your drink, I admit I picked the song, but I swear that I didn't have any Poison Joke on me because Fluttershy would become Flutterguy." Discord said putting his hands up defensively. I took a deep breath to try to calm myself. "Tratterò più tardi con il burlone italiano. Per ora, tieni premuto per qualche secondo, per favore?" (I'll deal with the Italian prankster later. For now, hold still for a few seconds please?) "Why?" He asked. In response, I uppercut his face with a strong punch, causing his head to pop off in a bloodless manner. I caught the head and handed it to Fluttershy. "Ecco perche." (That's why.) Over at my table Inkaizo was laughing so hard he fell onto the floor. I walked back over to see that Nocturnal had a pair of gloves on and she was holding some blue flowers in her left hand. "Looking for these?" She asked nonchalantly. I shook my head and chuckled. "Quindi eri tu? Subdolo. Molto subdolo." (So it was you? Sneaky. Very sneaky.) I said to her. I gave her a kiss and a pat on the back. "I know, but you love me for it. I've heard from Helena that Italian is a language of romance, and I have to say, she wasn't exaggerating." Nocturnal said with a smile. "Don't worry, we have the herbs to reverse the effects." She continued and pecked me on the lips. Her lips were soft, gentle and I could feel the emotion behind her actions, it was without a doubt pure, honest to God love. "Bene, penso che dopo il bagno a base di erbe, un bagno di gruppo e l'orario della camera da letto per te, io e Helena siamo in ordine. Non sei d'accordo?" (Well, I think after my herbal soaking, a group bath and bedroom time for you, me, and Helena are in order. Don't you agree?) I said, teasing her leg through her dress. "I'd love that very much." Nocturnal whispered. The party continued to go for next half an hour, and soon Nocturnal, Helena, and I were walking home. When we reached our house, I set of for the bathroom to soak in an herbal bath to have my voice return to normal while my two lovely ladies had some time to themselves. (Gideon's House, Helena POV) While Gideon was busy ridding himself of the Poison Joke's effects, Nocturnal and I slowly stripped each other of our clothes. "You're beautiful, my dear Helena." Nocturnal said as she lovingly caressed my chin and pecked me on the lips. "Not as beautiful as you." I replied as I grabbed her luscious asscheeks. "My, my, you're a naughty one aren't you?" She asked with a flirtatious smile. "You make me naughty." I replied as I brought her in for a long, deep kiss. I felt her tongue meet my own in a loving embrace. To our slight dismay, Gideon came out of the bathroom. "Having fun without me?" He asked. "We'll have more now that you're here." Nocturnal replied as she and I sauntered up to him. "I kind of knew I was lucky, but I never knew that I was going to be this lucky." He said as he stared at our naked bodies. "You like what you see?" I asked. "I do." He replied. "Come our bath awaits." He said as he lead us back to the bathroom. Upon entering the bathtub, I could see that Gideon was very well endowed. "My goodness! This is probably the biggest dick I've ever seen!" I said in wonder. "Just looking at it arouses me." Nocturnal said as she climbed onto Gideon's lap, grinding herself on his manhood. "Just can't wait for the bed, eh?" He asked. "You know it!" Nocturnal replied eagerly. "The faster we clean each other, the sooner we get to experience that beast." I said as I began to lather my mane. (3rd P.O.V) With their shared bath finished, Nocturnal, Helena, and Gideon were all eager to vigorously make love. Helena descended to her knees and lightly began to lick the tip of Gideon's semi-erect penis. Gideon meanwhile, was occupied in an oral wrestling match with Nocturnal's tongue. Gideon moaned into Nocturnal's mouth as he felt his marefriend's mouth around his dick. Soon Nocturnal and Gideon separated, leaving a line of saliva connecting their mouths together. "Let's move this to the bed, I need some attention from you." Nocturnal said. Gideon patted Helena's head to get her attention. Helena allowed her lover's member to leave her mouth. Gideon nodded his head towards the bed. Helena understood and rose to her feet, following Nocturnal and Gideon to the bed. Gideon lied down on the bed while Nocturnal straddled his head, lowering her sex to his face, while she and Helena both took turns sucking Gideon's cock. Helena was rubbing her own lower lips vigorously as Nocturnal was being pleasured by Gideon's tongue. Gideon had to admit, Nocturnal's juices tasted sweet and zesty, as he flicked his tongue against her clitoris, she cried out in pleasure. "I think that's enough! I need you inside me!" Nocturnal exclaimed. "Then get on your hands and knees, I'm betting you like it doggystyle." Gideon said with a slight growl. Nocturnal did as her lover requested, Helena did the same even though she didn't have to. Gideon pressed the tip of his member against Nocturnal's entrance. "It's my first time, be gentle." The Daedra said as she looked at Gideon, who nodded and pushed his hips forward. It took all of his self-control to not cum as he entered the warm, wet, and tight confines of Nocturnal's pussy. Nocturnal moaned in a combination of pleasure and pain. Soon the pain faded and soon Gideon was thrusting into Nocturnal repeatedly making her moan in pleasure each time he hilted inside her. Gideon soon pulled out and repeated the same procedure with Helena. "Now that the initial portion of this is over, Helena, climb on to her while I fuck you both." Gideon ordered. The pegasus did as she was told and was now lying atop Nocturnal pressing their breasts together and making out while Gideon plowed them. After what seemed like hours, all three of them were close to their limits. "I'm gonna cum, where should I...." Gideon started. "Inside! Cum inside us! Claim us as yours now, and forever!" Both women chorused as they were finally pushed over the edge. Gideon groaned as he let his load loose into Nocturnal who squirted her own ejaculate in response. Gideon soon pulled out of Nocturnal and thrusted his cock into Helena, shooting the rest of his load inside her, making her cum as well. Gideon's cock soon to soften as he pulled out of Helena and collapsed onto the bed exhausted. The two women soon separated and found themselves on both sides of their lover, basking in the afterglow of their lovemaking. (Nocturnal POV) "Wow! That was just...Wow!" Gideon said. "You're telling me!" I replied. "You guys up for round two?" Helena asked. "Not tonight. I'm exhausted." I said as I cuddled Gideon's left side, while Helena occupied his right. "I never thought you would get tired, after what Twilight told me, but I'm not complaining. You can rest as much as you need." Gideon said, ending with a yawn and closing his eyes and starting to lightly snore. "Little did you know that you two were my first. Be proud that you have done what was thought to be impossible, and became immortal as a result." I replied in a whisper, my eyes began to close. Helena followed shortly after, and soon I was enveloped by the two people I would love for all eternity. The next morning was wondrous as I slowly opened my eyes to see Gideon and Helena still sleeping peacefully. I could see that Gideon was smiling in his sleep. "I wonder what you're dreaming of." I thought to myself as I quietly got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. As I started my shower, I couldn't help but feel a little lonely because my lovers weren't here to make this more interesting, but I quickly got over it. After my shower, I got dressed and saw that Helena and Gideon were starting to wake up. "Good morning." I said with a smile. "'Morning." Gideon said. "What time is it?" Helena asked as she stretched. "It's about nine in the morning." I replied. "Damn, we really went at it last night." Gideon said. "Just think of what it'll be like when we decide to make a family." Helena said as she swayed her hips as she went into the bathroom. (Gideon POV) "Well, I'd have to say, what we did went against what I tried to work with, but so worth it." I said to Nocturnal as she handed me a robe. Nocturnal giggled. "I appreciate that you wanted to save it for the wedding night, but of course our instincts decided otherwise." Nocturnal said as she kissed me on the lips. "Thank you. I just hope you and Helena can accept marriage as soon as possible so I don't feel regret for anything." I added. Helena had just finished her shower and was clad in a towel wrapped around her body. "You already know our answers, Gid, we'd go to the ends of the universe to be with you." Helena said as she began to preen her wings. "You need any help?" Nocturnal asked. Helena nodded. As she went to help them, I went into the bathroom to get myself cleaned up. I smiled at the thought of seeing both Nocturnal and Helena holding two children in their arms with smiles on their faces. "That is a future worth fighting for." I said to myself as I stepped out of the shower to dress myself for the day.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 13: A Small Taste of War

(Friendship School Gideon's Class 3rd P.O.V) School was back in session and all of the students were eager to see what their favorite teacher was going to teach them today. "So what do ya think we're gonna do?" Smolder asked. "Don't know, I hope it's fun." Olgarth said with a shrug. Soon Gideon came in with a smile on his face, along with Helena holding a stack of papers in her arms. "Good Morning Class." He said as Helena set the papers on his desk and he sat on the front of his desk. "Good morning Brother White." They chorused. "Today, we're going to talk about what you did on break, and later, you can write a report on that. A little unorthodox, but I'm personally curious on what you all did on break." Gideon said as Helena passed out the papers to each student. What they didn't know was that on the sheet below the paper for their reports was a field trip form for the next few weeks. Although there were some groans at writing about what they did over break, they still complied. "So Smolder, what interesting things did you do over break?" Gideon asked. After the class spoke about their breaks, class ended. "Now your reports are due at the end of this week." Gideon said. Althorn looked at his report and saw that there was another sheet attached. "Brother White, why is there a field trip form included with our reports?" The Dunmer boy asked. "Astute as always Althorn." Helena replied with a smile. "Yes. The field trip form is for a very special project for this semester. We're going to visit the local metal foundry to cast some bronze ingots that you'll be forging at the local blacksmith. What you forge with that ingot or ingots are up to you." Gideon said with a smile. The whole class erupted in cheers. Olgarth's eyes lit up with excitement. "Yes!" The Orc shouted with a laugh following his exclamation. "Good, Class dismissed." Gideon said, allowing the class to leave. As soon as they left, Gideon and Helena shared a brief peck. "This is going to be so fun!" She said with her tail swinging in excitement. "I think you already know what I'm making, but you aren't allowed to say anything to Nocturnal. Got it?" Gideon said. Helena nodded. "So are you going out with the boys tonight?" She asked. "Yeah, If you ladies need me, you'll know where to find me." Gideon replied. (Later that night, Twilight's Castle, Spike POV) "Hey Twi, Greagithir and I are gonna head out with Gideon and the guys." The adolescent dragon said. "Fine, just make sure not to do anything stupid please." Twilight said placing her book down and sipping her wine. "No promises!" Gideon shouted from the hallway. "See you later my beloved star." Greagithir said, giving Twilight a kiss on the lips, making her giggle. "Have fun." She said. "I will." He replied. "How's about a song for the road?" Sanguine asked. "Sure." Spike said. "I got one, my pa would sing this once in awhile." Big Mac said. "The Road goes ever on and on, Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can." He began in his baritone voice. The rest of us all smiled and joined. "Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. Roads go ever ever on, Over rock and under tree, By caves where never sun has shone, By streams that never find the sea; Over snow by winter sown, And through the merry flowers of June, Over grass and over stone, And under mountains in the moon. Roads go ever ever on Under cloud and under star, Yet feet that wandering have gone Turn at last to home afar. Eyes that fire and sword have seen And horror in the halls of stone Look at last on meadows green And trees and hills they long have known. The Road goes ever on and on Out from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, Let others follow it who can! Let them a journey new begin, But I at last with weary feet Will turn towards the lighted inn, My evening-rest and sleep to meet." We sang as we entered Sanguine's tavern. "Now that is a great song for travelling." Kai said. "Eeyup! I miss my ma and pa." Big Mac said as a few tears came to his eyes. "I could look for them if you want. I'm sure they're proud of the man you have become." Kai said patting the red stallion on the back. "Thanks." He said wiping his eyes. "It's what I do." He replied. "So boys let's get to our favorite game, Ogres and Oubliettes!" Discord shouted as the entire tavern changed to a field with a tower on a hill. "Aye, thanks." Gideon said in a thick Scottish and drunk accent, his original outfit changing to a Scottish outfit with demolition gear, armor, and a claymore strapped to his back. "Oh dear, first he sings in Italian, now if he's drinking, he becomes Scottish, what's next?" Discord says in disbelief. "Don't be givvin me ny mrre of that attitute, you bubbling halfpaint." Gideon babbled, pointing a grenade launcher at him. "Hey point that thing someplace else!" Discord said pushing the explosive launcher away. "You're ass is grass, ya punk, feckin heathen!" Gideon said as he began to take a swig of his 'Scrumpy.' The rest of us were laughing and having a few drinks ourselves. "So our objective tonight is to capture that tower and rescue the captive blacksmith." I said pointing to the tower on the hill. "I'm guessing there's gonna be somethin' stoppin' us." Sheogorath said as he readied his magic staff. "Yeah, we have to face the guardian, a demon called a Lagbro." I explained. "You mean the demon made of ice and shadow?" Kai asked. "Yup." I replied. "Well is there a bridge?" Discord asked after getting Gideon to settle down. "There is, but it's on the way out of the tower." I said looking at the map. "We ain't doin' nothin' by sittin' here discussin' it, let's do it!" Gideon said heading off with the rest of us following. (Gideon POV, short moment or two later) "Oh, they're gonna have to glue you back together...IN HELL!!!" I somewhat drunkenly shouted at some dismembered Craigs, orc-like beings that are more ugly than real orcs. "Okay so there's a riddle we need to answer to open up the door!" Spike shouted as he looked at the door. "The password is Faelan." Spike said. The doors opened and Kai found the stairs and ran up to retrieve the captive blacksmith. As Kai ran up the stairs, an enormous hoard of crags showed up, some strangely had bombs attached to them. "FIIIIREEEEEEEEE!" I shouted, pulling out an assortment of weapons and going crazy on the hoard. I primarily aimed at the Democrags, as their explosive deaths would take out many other crags. Once the hoard was pretty much gone, Kai came down the stairs with somebody who looked like a High Elf with fair skin, long black hair, and golden eyes. "I thought the blacksmith was a woman." Spike whispered to Sanguine. Sanguine simply shrugged. "Roll with it." He simply said. "Thank you for the rescue. I have no idea how I ended up here, but we need to get out of here before..." The strange man began, but the Lagbro suddenly appeared. "Run to the bridge!" Spike shouted. As we made out way over the bridge, I placed sticky bombs on the bridge. "You shall not pass!" Spike shouted as he slammed his staff down. I triggered the explosives causing the bridge to fall out from under the demon causing it to fall into the abyss below. The demon tried to pull Spike down with it, but the "Blacksmith" ran over and helped Spike up. "Thanks." he said. The stranger nodded in acknowledgement as the game ended. The tavern returned to normal and the tall elf-like being had been shrunk to the size of a three year old. "Either I'm actually drunk now, or the 'Blacksmith' is both real, and younger than he looked earlier." I said, slightly slurring my speech. "I'm somewhat shocked myself, but I guess Father Ilúvatar, wants me to go through life one day at a time." The boy said. "My name is Mairon." The now-named Mairon, said holding his hand out. "Mairon, that name, I know that name, it was Sauron's old name." I said as I looked at the boy who looked down in shame. "I made mistakes, but now I can redeem myself." Mairon said defensively. "Now come on the lad's been through a lot, let's give him a chance." Discord said as he got between us. "Fine." I said as I kneeled down to Mairon. "I'm sorry I judged you." I said before giving him a hug. "You're forgiven. As a token of my appreciation, I give you this knowledge." Mairon said as he placed a hand on my forehead. A great flash of light enveloped the room as Mairon was now about 3'0" tall. "Wow, now I know what else to make their rings out of." I said in amazement. "So you can live with my family in Canterlot, I'm sure there's room for you." Kai said. Mairon accepted the offer and the rest of our group soon went to our respective homes, however, Spike went to Rarity's house for the night. I fumbled with the keys to my house. Upon entering, the house was quiet. I looked on the couch and saw Nocturnal passed out on it with a bit of drool coming from her mouth. I shook my head with a smile and picked her up bridal style and carried her to our bedroom where Helena was sleeping. I laid Nocturnal down next to Helena and settled down to sleep myself. (Dreamscape, Luna P.O.V) I was patrolling the dreamscape and so far things were quiet. No nightmares to be seen, or so I thought until I heard Winter's cries. "Hold on Winter, Mommy's coming!" I said as I found her dream and saw a small town. There are also creatures surrounding Winter. I felt my brow lower in anger. "Stay away from her foul heathens!" I shouted in the Canterlot Voice as I blasted them with a beam of my magic. I scooped Winter up and took to the skies trying to calm Winter down. Suddenly, a large gargoyle-like creature suddenly appeared from a strange looking portal and struck me out of the sky with its tail. I tucked Winter into my body as I fell from the sky. It was clear that my wings were broken, so now we were stranded on the ground. I was terrified that nobody was coming to save us. "Leave her alone you bastard!" The unmistakable voice of Vaermina shouted. The creature turns toward her. I was happy that one of my Daedric sisters came to help me. However, Vaermina too wasn't strong enough to defeat the creature. "Damn you!" She growled. The gargoyle made to move forward and attack us, but suddenly stopped and looked at its tail and we all saw another creature holding it back, a strange bear wearing a cape and it's coloration was brighter than the other creatures that were attacking. Suddenly, more bright creatures appeared and started fighting against the darker creatures and some even started swarming the gargoyle. "Hey! Over here!" We heard a young voice calling from a nearby alleyway, a young boy with long blond hair, white button up shirt, and jeans. We hurried over to him and a large orange orb with some spikes appeared and we were suddenly teleported to what looked like a plaza next to a large fountain. "Thanks for the help." Vaermina said to the young man. Winter had finally calmed down. "Don't make too much of a big deal about it. I was just doing what I was trying to do for a while now, that being protecting this little one's dreams, as well as the dreams of her Godfather." The young man said, slightly flipping his hair out of his eyes. "How do you know Gideon?" I asked as Winter played with a lock of my hair. "Long story short, a wizard named Merlin gave me the task to safeguard his dreams to keep him in a decent mental state, most of the time. As for why I'm also protecting her dreams, well..." He hesitated with a slightly hard to determine grin. "Basically, I ended up finding out that because of some blood oath or whatever, their dreams are connected, giving me a bit more on my plate to work with." He finished. "I see." I replied. "What's your name?" I asked. "My name is Joshua. By the way, how did you get into this dream projection without a portal? I designed it to prevent unwanted visitors, unless they were Dream Eaters or individuals with a portal, as it takes an awful amount of power just to enter without one." Joshua said. "I'm the Queen of the Night in my homeland. It's my duty to watch over my subjects, family, friends, etc." I replied. "I do something similar, but I usually cause nightmares, not stop them, but in this case, I had to help my family." Vaermina said as she tickled Winter's tummy making her laugh. "Good to know. Now, as good as this introduction has been, I think one or both of you need to check on Winter's physical condition." Joshua said as the dreamscape began to fade away. (Canterlot Castle, Luna and Kai's Bedroom, Kai P.O.V) I currently was crossing blades with an assassin that had managed to sneak into the castle. Gideon managed to surprise the intruder earlier, but was kicked in the face, by the time he got to the room I already had my sword drawn. "Stay away from her you bastard!" I growled angrily. "My mistress calls for her blood!" The assassin said gleefully. Gidon got up from the ground and bum rushed the demented killer, knocking him out of the window. Gideon managed to follow without too much injury to himself. As he continued fighting him, I stood there as Luna came out of the room holding Winter trying to calm her, but Mairon came out of his guest room and he started to sing in a language that was very enchanting. I listened intently and I knew it was Quenya, a dialect of Elvish. Winter soon calmed down and returned to a peaceful slumber. "You have some explaining to do." Luna said with a yawn as we returned to bed. (Canterlot Streets, Gideon P.O.V) After knocking the assassin out of the castle, he and I began fighting so intensely that I can't properly describe it. The only detail I could easily remember was that a lot of storefronts were broken open by my spells, or the assassin's forehead and the guards on duty could only try to keep up with the carnage and keep civilians from getting caught in the crossfire. The fight ended with the assassin missing a leg and arm and was being prepared for transport to a hospital. "I'll not be healed by you fools!" The assassin said as the pulled out a dagger and stabbed himself in the heart and twisted it. He collapsed on the ground lifeless with a demented smile etched on his face. "Apollyon must be getting bolder." I said quietly as I walked back to the castle to tell the others that the assassin has been taken care of. As I walked back, I thought about my future here. It was about 4'oclock in the morning, so I saw no harm in spending the morning in the castle until breakfast was over. The local jeweler, a unicorn mare, came running up to me and she said she had something special for me for protecting the city from that crazed madman. The jeweler led me to her store room where she inspects the jewels she had mined, cuts them, and polished them. I saw a huge lump of diamond that was as clear as a cleaned window and as blue as the ocean. "I mined this beauty the other day, and I wanted to have at least one for an engagement ring, but for your courage, you deserve two." She said . "Thanks. I needed to find somebody who had some rare jewels for the engagement rings I'm going to make for my special ladies." I replied. "Perfect! Here's a chart with the different cuts we can do. Oh, where are my manners, I'm Rose Cut." Rose Cut said extending a hand. "Nice to meet you. I'll take the Princess cut for my jewels." I said. "Great choice. I'll make sure you get the perfect results." Rose said as she used her magic to draw a grid all around the large hunk of diamond and soon the grid disappeared as two perfectly identical blue diamonds were in their final shape and were now being polished by hand. Once that was done they were placed in a velvet box. "Who ever these ladies are, they really lucked out by having a man like you." Rose said with a smile. "Funny you say that, since one of them is Lady Luck herself." I told her. "Is she now? Well I know you'll make her and the other gal happy." Rose said. "Well, I'll make sure you are on the invitation list, since you contributed to me getting the proposal ready." I said as we walked back to the storefront. "Thanks, go get 'em tiger." She said. I chuckled as I walked back toward the castle for breakfast. (One week later, Gideon's class Helena P.O.V) The students were surprised to see Nocturnal here at the school as a guest chaperone for this field trip. I was happy to include her in this because we did discuss that the best way to conclude if we wanted children, was to be around them. So far she loves being around children, and soon Gideon came into the room with another person. He looked like a High Elf, but he had black hair and fair skin. "Class I'd like to introduce you to the latest addition to our class, Mairon." Gideon said as Mairon waved shyly. "It's nice to meet you." Meldah said with a smile. "Welcome to the greatest class in the school bro." Fabjorn said grasping Mairon's forearm in a pleasant manner. "Thanks." Mairon said as a smile made its way onto his face. "So now everybody has their permission slip right?" I asked. "Yes, Ms. Quickfeather." the class choruses as they held up their permission slips to be collected. "Good, now off we go!" I said as Gideon led us out of the school and towards the foundry to cast our ingots. (Ponyville Foundry 3rd P.O.V) Upon entering the building, we were hit by the immense heat of the foundry. Olgarth inhaled deeply through his nose. "I love the smell of molten metal in the morning." the Orc said with a smile. "Now class the smelters here are going to help you pour your ingots of bronze. Do as they tell you, and next we'll head to the forge to make these metal bars into art." Gideon said over the commotion of the machinery. The students all nodded and split off into groups. The smelters were very helpful and the students all had perfect ingots and all of them went to the forge. Gideon snuck off to the back to forge his rings. He had asked the head blacksmith if he had any mithril and he led him to his personal forge. "Help yourself." He said. Gideon worked hard and thanks to the knowledge that Mairon gave him Gideon was now placing the jewels he had received into the bezels and gently set the stones in place and he marveled at his work. Placing the rings in his pocket, he saw that his class all made cups, rings, necklaces, and some even made some unique armor pieces or daggers. They were all happy with what they made, and as they went back to the school, Gideon, Helena, and Nocturnal all headed to the front of the classroom. "Class I have something very special to share with you." Gideon started. "Helena, Nocturnal, the two of you have made me happier than I can ever hope to remember. I thought that I would end up alone here with nobody to love. I'm happy to say that I was proven wrong. What I'm trying to ask you both is: Will you marry me?" Gideon asked showing off the two rings he had made. Both Nocturnal and Hlena had tears streaming down their faces. "What do you think our answers are?" Helena asked as they took the rings and placed them on their ring fingers. Gideon then stood up and hugged them both as the class applauded and congratulated them. "We love you." Nocturnal and Helena whispered in Gideon's ears. (Meanwhile, Terra, Apollyon's Fortress. 3rd P.O.V) "Apollyon, I find it hard that you would need me, especially since you tried to have me killed," Neighsay said with a visible scowl on his face. "It is very simple, you are a warmonger, to an extent. You can use your charismatic skills to get select nations and groups recruited to our cause...after all, succeed at this, and I'm sure you can force your way back into power, but higher than what you were. It shouldn't be enough to rule over the education system, but ruling Equestria should be your thing." She tempted him, offering him what looked like a very well forged crown. "Kill that pesky human Gideon, and you got yourself a deal." Neighsay said as he took the crown and shook Apollyon's hand.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 14: Troubling Signs

(Gideon's House, Nocturnal POV) Last night, Gideon had proposed to Helena and I in front of his entire class, and by extension the entire school knew about it. Rarity offered to make dresses for Helena and I later on that night before heading home, where we ate a nice romantic dinner, took a shared bath, then went to bed in a loving snuggle fest. All pleasant things aside, I've been receiving troubling reports from Kayla about some bandits hitting armed convoys heading for the Dragon Lands. Gideon came downstairs to see me sitting alone on the couch. "Something wrong?" He asked leaning down and kissing my cheek. "Just that some bandits are making some bold moves on convoys enroute to Dragon Lands outpost. They killed the troops, and stole all of the armor and weapons, then burned the bodies. Usually bandits attack trade caravans, or lonely travelers, not armed military convoys. I think that something, or someone is helping them out." I said with a slight frown. "Do the Thieves or the Nightingales have any intel, outside of what happened?" He asked. I shook my head. "No, Kayla thought that there might be a traitor amongst them, but quickly abandoned that line of thought when nobody knew anything about this, but she thinks that this Apollyon character you described to Helena, who later told Kayla about her, thinks that she's behind this." I replied. Gideon suddenly became quiet. "So Apollyon has been busy I see." He said darkly. "Hun, please you're scaring me. What do you think she's doing?" I asked worriedly. "At best, she's encouraging and enabling bandits to harass us so that we are weaker because of a lack of weapons and armor. At worst, she is using those weapons and armor to be repurposed for her cause against peace in general. But until we know for sure if she is behind these attacks on military convoys, those are just speculation." He paused briefly before sitting down next to me. "Is there any way to send one of your best to watch the next convoy heading that way and observe who's leading the attacks...and maybe steal some sort of evidence?" He asked genuinely. "I could send Vex, she's always been great at sneaking." I replied. "Give me a sec." I said as I closed my eyes and focused. "Kayla, can you hear me?" I asked. "I hear you my Lady. How can I help?" Kayla replied. "I need you to send Vex on a mission to collect evidence on these bandit raids. Gideon thinks they may be connected to Apollyon." I said. "As you say my Lady. Anything else interesting happen while you've been with Gideon?" Kayla asked. "Well, Gideon, Helena, and I have 'laid' together, and yesterday he proposed! When you finish your investigation, pull some gold out to help fund the wedding, also I want all of you there to help provide extra muscle for security." I said with a slight blush on my cheeks. "Ha! Finally got laid did ya? Now you're gettin hitched? What's next? You're having his kid?" Kayla said with a smile. "I might, but all joking aside I need you to do this. You're not just my champion, you're my friend and I'd like you to be there." I said with a smile. "Don't worry, we'll be there. When have we ever let you down?" Kayla said. "Good, and to answer your question, never." I replied. "See you later my Lady. I'll report my findings as soon as possible." Kayla said. "See you later, my blessings be with you." I said as I severed the mental connection. I opened my eyes to see Gideon still sitting next to me with a blush on his face, but my question was already answered because I could feel Helena pressing her soft, voluptuous breasts on my upper back. "Good morning." She said in a sultry tone. Gideon chuckled. "Don't tease her too much, Helena honey. She was, after all, in the middle of a 'call.' Speaking of which, how did it go, Nocturnal honey?" Gideon asked. "It went well, I also asked for Kayla to pull some money from the Guild to help pay for the wedding and help give some extra muscle for security." I replied. "Helena? Just so you're aware, I can plague you with naughty images while you're at work for teasing me, or I could 'call' you and all you'll be hearing is my voice as I masturbate to the thought of us making love vigorously." I said with a mischievous grin on my face as she blushed. "Alright, play nice you two." Gideon said, giving both of us a kiss. "Now, what do we have on the agenda today, aside from class?" He asked. "Well we need to settle on a theme for the wedding. Pinkie is on food for the wedding, and later on we need to get measured for our dresses, and your suit." I replied as I pointed at Helena and I. "Can we have Mara herself perform the ceremony? Nothing against Cadence or other officials." Gideon asked. "I have no problem with that." I said. "Now you two have work to do, and I need to compose a list of possible themes for the wedding." I said as I stood up from the couch, leading my two lovers to the door, giving them loving kisses before they left for work. (Armed Convoy Enroute to Dragon Lands Outpost, One week later, Vex P.O.V) "I can't believe that I'm being paid to do this." I thought to myself as I marched along with the soldiers transporting spare weapons, armor, rations, medical supplies, and most interestingly, prosthetic limbs. "Probably for any poor amputees." I thought as I spied a beautiful Ebony/Dragonscale prosthetic arm with gold accents. "Pity I can't just take it." I thought with a smile. "Hold here!" I heard the Commander shout as he dismounted the wagon. "Set up camp for the night. We'll leave at first light." He said. "Yes sir/Commander!" The soldiers shouted. Soon we had all of our tents pitched, grub was being served and watchmen were posted around the perimeter. I conversed with some of the troops, but it was just keep up the disguise. After a while I was just starting to nod off to sleep, when it happened. "We've got bandits! Defend the cargo!" The Commander shouted. We fought hard, but the Bandit Chief leading this particular group was brave and extremely skilled. He smashed through the shields of the auxiliary troops, severed the casting limbs of our spellswords, and weaved through volleys of arrows like they were nothing. He was currently focused on the Commander, so I was going to sneak up on him and cut is head off. Strangely enough, the chief had no armor, except a helmet, but the axe he had was enormous and the way he was using it, it was clear that the Commander was going to die. I jumped onto the chief's back and stabbed him, but he just yelled in pain, grabbed me by my hair and threw to the ground. He raised his axe to chop off my head, but the Commander shoved him with his shield knocking his aim away from my neck, but it still cut off the lower half of my right arm. I screamed in agony, luckily one of the healers ran over to me and used Flames to stopped the bleeding and was rejuvenating me. I looked at the stump where my elbow connected to the rest of my arm and began to weep. The Commander managed to kill the hulking chief by taking my dagger from his back and stabbed him in his heart. "Valhala, finally...thank you." The raider gasped his last breath. The Commander merely nodded in respect. He turned to the rest of us."We're leaving! Now!" He shouted. In total we lost about sixteen soldiers out of the thirty-five we started with. The Commander sat next to me on the wagon. "I know you're from the Thieves' Guild, Vex. I won't say anything to my higher ups, but why did you help?" He asked. "Because Lady Nocturnal willed it, also there's a rumor that someone's been helping the bandits rob you." I replied. He nodded in understanding. "Well you're gonna need a new arm, the doctor at the outpost will fix ya up." He said with a smile. "Thanks." I replied sadly. The next morning we made it to the outpost, I was rushed off to the medical wing to get my prosthetic arm. "Hello, cousin." I heard from above me. "Hello Maxime." I replied. "I see you need my help, what happened?" Maxime asked as she began to inspect my stump. "I was asked by Nocturnal to confirm some suspicions she's had about these raids, we got ambushed by some bandits, the bitch was the chief, he was an absolute monster of a man, if he wasn't a bandit, I think you'd try and land him as yours. Anyway, the bastard tried to chop my head off, the Commander shoved him and the axe chopped my arm instead." I said. Maxime shook her head. "Oh you poor thing. Well don't you worry, I've got just the thing for you." She said in a sing-song voice as she brought a cart of mechanical arms over to me. "Take your pick." She said with a smile. "I want that one." I said as I pointed to the Ebony/Dragon scale arm with gold accents. Maxime giggled. "I figured you'd pick our most expensive model." She said. "Let's do this." I said as Maxi injected me with the anesthetic and I passed out. Hours passed when I was starting to wake up with Maxi tightening something on my new arm. "Ah good you're awake." She said as she continued to tinker with my arm. When she finished I started to stretch myself awake. "This is great! Your brain has accepted the prosthetic as a part of you!" She squealed with joy. "So what happens now?" I asked. "Well, now I have to do a quick physical exam on you and tell you some of the improvements I personally made for you." Maxi said as she picked up her clipboard. I nodded in understanding. "First off, can you move all of the fingers in your prosthetic?" She asked. I looked at my new arm and surprisingly I could move each one of the digits just as easily as my old one. "I'll say that's a yes." She said as she wrote on her clipboard. "Any itching sensation near the attachment site?" She asked. "No." I said. "Alright, now we have one more test, the reflex test." Maxi said as she picked up a wrench and held it in her hands. "Think fast!" She yelled as she threw the wrench at me. I reacted instantly and caught it. "Excellent timing." She noted. "Now what can this baby do with your improvements?" I asked with a smile. "Well I've added a hidden blade under the forearm near the wrist, a grappling hook sits on top, and most impressive is that you can detach and reattach this baby anytime you want." Maxi said with a smile. "I don't think you need me to help you figure out how to activate each of these features Vexxy, you're a smart girl." She said. I flicked my wrist upwards and a black blade sprung out, I flexed my wrist down and the blade retracted. "I Think I got the gist of it. Thanks cuz, my offer to join up still stands ya know." I said as I turned to leave. "Thanks, but my place is here. Be safe out there cousin." Maxi said as she walked over and hugged me. "Okay. I love ya too cuz." I said as we broke the hug and we went our separate ways. I snuck off from the base carrying the helmet of the raider I procured from the armory. It looked like a pair of skulls stacked on top of each other, but I could tell that there was some sort of magic on it because when I stabbed the raider, it would've killed any other man. "Well I'll have a story for the guys back home, and I better be paid double for this bullshit." I thought to myself as I rode towards Las Pegasus. (Later, Gideon's House, Gideon POV) "Honey!" I called out to Nocturnal from my private office/craft room while examining the Raider Helmet that Vex returned with. "How much was Vex originally getting paid for her mission?" I asked. "The usual 100,000. Why?" Nocturnal asked as she sauntered into the room to find Vex standing next to my desk with her new prosthetic arm. "Loss of my right arm." She said. "Ah, well in that case-" I interrupted. "See if you can triple that, seeing as she faced off against a Raider Viking and survived...mostly...and because I can tell this helmet has a very unique and dangerous enchantment that I'm sure Blueblood and Serana would love to study." I stated. "Very well, Vex your pay is tripled, head to the guest room for the night." Nocturnal said. "M'kay, but if you guys end up fucking tonight, please use a sound proofing spell." Vex said making Nocturnal blush. "We'll keep that in mind Vex, thank you." I said with a slight cough. Vex then left the room and I turned to Nocturnal. "Sorry for hijacking the reward statement or whatever. I hope I don't put the guild in debt for that." I apologized."It's fine, she's earned it, now how about I send this off to Blueblood and we have some fun." Nocturnal said seductively. "How can anyone say no to that? Oh, see if Helena is available for said fun." I said, a wolfish grin on my face. We kissed passionately. After we separated, we asked Helena if she wanted to join in, and she simply groped Nocturnal's rear and kissed her. "I'll take that as a yes." I said as we headed to our bedroom, heeding Vex's instructions and made sweet, vigorous love. (Ponyville Town Hall, 3rd P.O.V) People from all over the world came to see the wedding of Gideon, Nocturnal, and Helena. Even Inkaizo had a group of his troops present to record and broadcast the wedding on the Holonet for the whole galaxy to see. Mara was excited because she had heard of Gideon's exploits and how he managed to woo two ladies. Gideon stood in his finely tailored suit awaiting his two lovely brides. As soon as the bridal march began, he saw Helena's father holding both women's arms as he walked them down the aisle. The bridal march came to an end and Helena's father took his place beside his wife. "Please be seated." Mara requested. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to join this man and these women in the bonds of matrimony." The goddess stated, her voice echoing in the silence. "It was love and fate that guided these three to stand here today as in these troubling times, we find ourselves yearning for love, but only in body, not spirit." Mara said with a serious tone. "Yet, in the midst of all of this turmoil pure love has blossomed and we all will share in their joy as we celebrate this trio in their trials ahead." The congregation applauded at Mara's sermon. "Would the ringbearer please step forward." Mara requested and Mairon walked up to the altar carrying a pillow that held three beautiful wedding bands. "With these enchanted rings, may you three be bonded by trust, love, and honor. Does the groom and/or the brides have anything more to say?" Mara asked. Gideon cleared his throat before he found his voice. "I just have to say that when I arrived here, I never expected to find love. If anything, I had hoped for a fairly peaceful life with a violent death at the hands of a demoness. However, if that does happen now, I'll die with a smile on my face, as I found what I didn't have that time. That being love. Helena, Nocturnal, I am happy to have met and fallen in love with you, and I am extremely thankful you both feel the same." Gideon said as tears came to his eyes. "When I first met you Gideon, I thought that you would only see me as a face to be forgotten as many others have, or a nice piece of eye candy. I can't describe what it meant to me for you to give me a chance at being your significant other. Thank you for wanting to share your life with me, and I promise to cherish every moment we spend together." Helena said as her own eyes stung with tears. "To be honest, I never thought I'd be able to find love just because I was immortal, or perhaps more importantly because I'm a Daedra. However, two people saw more than that, and I can say that I am not ashamed to say that I feel more alive than have in countless millennia. Gideon, Helena I promise to be faithful to our family until the end of all things." Nocturnal said with a small sniffle. "Do you Gideon take Helena to be your lawfully wedded wife to love, and cherish now and forever?" Mara asked. "I do." He answered. "Do you take Nocturnal to be your lawfully wedded wife to love and cherish now and forever?" She asked. "I do." He answered. "Do you Nocturnal and Helena take Gideon as your lawfully wedded husband to love, honor, and cherish now and forever?" Mara asked turning to the beautiful brides. "We do, now and forever." They said lovingly. "Then by the power and authority vested in me I pronounce this trio husband and wives, you may now kiss your brides." Mara said with a smile. Gideon brought both of them into a hug and passionately kissed them both. The whole building erupted into cheers for the trio. Mairon soon stood at the altar and began to sing as they walked down the aisle. Et Earello Endorenna utúlien Sinome Maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-Metta Ilya maltava úmirilya, lá ilyë i ranyar jar vanwë; i linyenwa i tulca na úquela, i nurë talmar uar rahtainë ringwenen. Yúlallor nárë eccoituva, morniello Cala tuiuva; envinyanta nauva i macil i terhátina ne, i úrië ara Aran nauva. The song was beautiful. Those who understood the elvish dialect Mairon sung in all bowed their heads as the trio passed them. Shining Armor of course cried like he always did at weddings. The reception was now in full swing as people were drinking, eating, and dancing. The band was jamming to the vibe of the crowd. Soon, Celestia called for the kiss toast. The trio happily obliged. Once that was done Gideon stood up from the table and headed over to the stage to sing. The song depicted a person who didn't believe in love until he actually fell in love and became a believer. After the song finished, he picked up Helena and place her on his back and picked Nocturnal up in his arms and walked to the carriage just outside the Town Hall. "Don't mind us. Just gonna get packed up for our honeymoon. Enjoy the rest of the party. It is there to be enjoyed, after all." He said before leaving. (Gideon's House 3rd P.O.V) (Mature Content Ahead) Nocturnal used her magic to open the door as Gideon carried her and Helena to their bedroom. Vex had already went back to Las Pegasus to get some rest from her mission. Upon reaching the bedroom Helena had gotten off of Gideon's back and Nocturnal was placed on the ground and was now sandwiching him between them. "We knew this was coming, so we decided to make things a tad easier for us." Nocturnal said in a sultry whisper as she guided Gideon's hand down her body and stopping at her nethers. "You're not wearing any underwear are you?" He asked with a wolfish grin. "Nope." Helena said with a smile. "Well now I feel overdressed. You two mind helping me?" He asked. Helena took off his tux, and started to unbutton his shirt, while Nocturnal undid his belt and unbuttoned his pants. Helena slowly descended to her knees while pulling Gideon's pants down. Both Nocturnal and Helena pulled Gideon's underwear down freeing his erection from its cloth prison. "Hello. We missed you." Helena said as she kissed Gideon's dick. Soon enough Helena began bobbing her head up and down Gideon's shaft while Nocturnal sucked his balls. Gideon groaned in pleasure from the stimulation. He placed his hand on Helena's head and forced his meat down her throat. Both women were rubbing themselves as they orally pleasured their newly wedded husband. Gideon pulled himself out of Helena's mouth and motioned for them to climb on to the bed. They did so while having their backs to him, showing off their perfectly round hips. "Both look delightful, but who should go first?" Gideon asked as he gently prodded his wives with his dick. "Hmm, we'll start with you." He said as he thrust his hips into Helena's pussy. Helena moaned in pleasure at the feeling of her man's meat filling her. "Fuck me good stud!" She growled. "My pleasure!"Gideon growled as he thrust in and out while he fingered Nocturnal. Both women kissed and moaned into each others' mouths as Gideon pounded Helena from behind. Gideon began to feel a familiar pressure at the base of his cock and he thrust one last time, hilting inside of Helena sending her into full on orgasm as her wings flared out as she screamed in ecstasy and pleasure. "My turn. I want you to look at me as we fuck! I want you stare into my eyes as you give me our child." Nocturnal demanded. "As my lady wishes." Gideon said as he lined himself up with her entrance. "Give it to me." She growled. Gideon didn't say a word as he entered her. Gideon pulled Nocturnal into a passionate kiss as he fucked her. They moaned in each other's mouths, their tongues wrapping around one another. Separating with a trail of saliva Gideon soon started sucking on her right nipple making her groan in pleasure. Soon Gideon hilted inside of Nocturnal locking lips with her and looking into her eyes as they both climaxed. Once he had pulled out he pulled his wives up to him to cuddle. "I love you, both of you." He said as he drifted off to sleep with his sexy brides lying on top of him.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 15: The Siege of Mount Aris

(Gideon's House, then Mt. Aris, Gideon P.O.V) After that blessed night, me and my two wives packed up what clothing and other amenities we needed for our Honeymoon at Mount Aris, Capital of the Hippogriff kingdom began. Since the roads would be dangerous, no thanks in part to Apollyon, Nocturnal brought us there via teleportation. Upon arrival, Queen Novo greeted us personally. "Welcome Gideon, to Mount Aris!" The Hippogriff queen said with a smile. "The pleasure is all mine, your highness. Introductions, Novo, these are Nocturnal and Helena, my wives, and Hons, I don't think I need to state who this is." I introduced. "Oh we know who Queen Novo is. It's nice to see you again." Helena said as she hugged Novo. "It's nice to see you too." Novo said returning the hug. "I never thought that Lady Luck herself would ever settle down, I'm guessing Gideon's quite a stud." Novo said as Nocturnal blushed. "He is." She replied. Novo giggled. "I apologize if I've made you uncomfortable Nocturnal. I just couldn't resist teasing you a bit." Novo said apologetically. "It's fine. Care to show us where we'll be resting our heads?" Nocturnal asked. "Of course. Right this way." Novo said as she turned on her heel and walked towards the palace. As we walked the halls of the palace, Novo was pretty interested in what I taught at Twilight's school. I would answer some basic questions, but I could tell she wanted to talk more once we dropped off our stuff. We arrived at the provided suite and Novo then led us to the dining hall and we all sat down to eat the midday meal. "Queen Novo, I can't help but feel that you have more questions to ask." I stated to the queen as I ate the provided clam chowder. "Yes. So you said that at one point during the year 1812, the building known as the White House was destroyed. My question is what was the significance of the house?" Novo asked. "The White House is where the President lives, and the British invaders wanted to reclaim America, but were unsuccessful, but they wanted to leave a clear message to us 'Yanks' by burning it down. Luckily the First Lady at the time managed to save President Washington's portrait from the blaze." I replied. Novo looked shocked. "That's terrible! I remember the Storm King tried to do something similar to the portrait of my late husband." She said as she pointed to the painting behind her. "I'm sorry. Destroying artwork or familial reminders like that should be a crime." I said. "True. So Silverstream told me about this conflict known as the Civil War, were the civilians so displeased with the government they tried to rebel and were defeated?" She asked. "The Civil War was a conflict that defined the United States because it was one of the most brutal conflicts ever fought on American soil. The United States has a two-party political system called the Democratic Party which wanted to keep slavery, and the Republican Party which wanted to abolish it. The Democrats were so upset that all of the Southern states formed the Confederacy while the Northern states became known as the Union. The South had better military schools, but the North had more money, more men, and more resources, so the North won the war. Shortly after that President Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address, abolished slavery, but was sadly assassinated by a man named John Wilkes Booth during the play Our American Cousin." I said. Novo looked like she was going to throw up. "Were they really so afraid of progress that they just killed the man who said that slavery is morally wrong and needs to stop?!" She yelled in anger of the treasonous deed. "It is unfortunate, but yes a lot of people were like that, some still are, but as the world becomes more secular, those old beliefs are being forgotten." I said. "Good. I'm sorry if I darkened the mood, but I was just curious about what my niece is learning." Novo said. "And that is alright. If anything, I would have been surprised if you hadn't asked." I responded. "Any further questions?" I added. "Just one. Was Napoleon Bonaparte actually short in stature, or is that just an insulting joke?" Novo asked. "Napoleon was actually 5'7", which at that time was the average male height. So it's more of a joke, but he was short tempered because he had insomnia which didn't really help when commanding his troops, especially invading Russia in the winter." I replied. "I see. Thank you indulging my curiosity. I'll leave you three to frolic on the beach." Novo replied as she left to go to her throne room. "You heard the lady, let's head for the beach!" Helena squeaked in excitement. "You must have been wanting to do some beach for quite some time, huh, Helena?" I asked, with a smile. "You know it mister!' Helena exclaimed as she hoisted Nocturnal into her arms and flew off to our room. "Hey, Wait for Me!" I shouted as I got up and tried to keep up. (Mount Aris Beach, 3rd P.O.V) After the trio changed into their swimwear, they made their way to the beach. Many young male and female hippogriffs saw the beauty of Helena and Nocturnal wearing their bikinis. Helena had a turquoise two piece that matched her eyes and complimented her curves. Nocturnal had a navy blue one piece that hugged her body nicely. Gideon was wearing a set of purple swimming shorts. Many of the hippogriffs that noticed their wedding bands all groaned in disappointment and went about their business. "Seems we attract all manner of attention." Nocturnal said as she playfully winked at a young female hippogriff who fainted. "Yeah. I don't know whether that's a good thing, or not." Gideon said as he felt a couple of hippogriffs of both genders checking him out. "Relax hun." Helena said as she pecked her husband's cheek. "You're right, but if any of those boys give you two trouble, then they better prepare to face punishment." Gideon said cracking his knuckles. "So, what's first? Swimming, Sand Castles, or Sun Bathing?" He asked his lovely wives. "We're gonna swim first." Nocturnal said as she walked towards the sea. "Ok hold up." Gideon said as he placed down their adjustable chairs and towels. After that the trio were enjoying the water. Nocturnal thought she could be a sneaky minx by undoing Helena's top, forcing her to press herself against Gideon. "Give her top back babe." Gideon said rolling his eyes. "Fine." Nocturnal said as she handed Helena's top back to her. "I'm gonna sunbathe, you do what you want." Helena said. "Hey how about we lather you up with lotion so you don't burn." Gideon said. "Right, thanks." Helena said as she laid down on her towel on the chair. Nocturnal put lotion on Helena's back while Gideon did her legs. "Have fun." She said placing her sunglasses on her face. (A few hours later...) After their little expedition to the beach, Gideon, Helena, and Nocturnal were relaxing in the hot tub on their room's balcony. "This was so much fun!" Nocturnal said as she shifted her nude form closer to Helena's equally nude body. "I can agree." Gideon said, scooting his nude self closer to them as well. "I think we should have some drinks, then get some sleep. "Helena said as she got out of the hot tub to fetch some wine. "That sounds good." Gideon said smiling as his pegasus wife covered herself and walked into the bedroom. Helena had a healthy tan all over her body which made her much more appealing. Soon she returned with a bottle of wine and three wine glasses. They drank until the bottle was empty and the two women stumbled to the bed. Gideon was close behind them until there was a knock at their door. Thinking quickly, Gideon grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist and opened the door. "Oh, Queen Novo. To what do I owe this pleasure?" He asked. "I was just looking to give you and your wives these." She said holding out three necklaces. "These are fragments of my pearl that has the ability to allow any surface dweller to breathe underwater." She said handing the necklaces to Gideon. "Consider these as my wedding gift to you since I couldn't make it to the wedding." Novo said with a smile. "Thanks." He said with a smile. "You're welcome, good night." She said as she walked back to her own room for the night. (The Next Morning, Quen Novo's P.O.V) I felt the warmth of the sun on my body as I began to open my eyes to start my day. "Mom! You didn't tell me we had visitors!" The familiar voice of my bubbly daughter, Princess Skystar exclaimed. "It slipped my mind dear." I replied as I rose from my bed. "It's okay. I just didn't think Silverstream's teacher would be here." My daughter said as she fiddled with her hair. I chuckled at her. "It's alright dear, you'll have plenty of time to introduce yourself to him." I said as I ruffled her hair. "Mom!" She mock complained. I smiled as I went over to my bathroom to bathe and change into my clothes for the day. After my bath, I walked with my daughter to the dining room and we found that Gideon, Helena, and Nocturnal were all eating breakfast. "Mind if we join you?" I asked. "Not at all." Gideon replied. "Oh, Gideon this is my daughter, Skystar. I'm sure Silverstream has mentioned her while she was in your class." I said as I pointed to my daughter. "That she has. They are cousins, right? To be honest, they way Silverstream talks about her, they seem more like personality clones." He said, chuckling a bit. "Well, Skystar spent time with her cousin when I was still in mourning over my husband's passing." I replied. "I am glad that she had somebody to be around in those troubling times." Helena said. "Indeed. Ever since then, I've been trying to get back on the dating scene, but with all of my responsibilities, I thought I wouldn't have time for a lover." I replied. "Well I know that Talos is searching for a wife." Nocturnal offered. "Really?" I asked, my interest piqued. "Yes. Last I heard, he was headed this way in his travels." She stated with a smile. "I must meet this man." I replied with a smile. (Later that day, Mt. Aris Beach 3rd P.O.V) The honeymooning trio walked on the beach towards the sea. They wanted to see Seaquestria and see the sights. "You think Terramar will be there?" Helena asked. "I have no doubts about that." Gideon said. "Alrighty, are we ready?" He asked. His wives nodded and they all clasped the pearls on their necklaces and in a flash of light, all three became merpeople of one kind or another. "Helena pretty much looked the same, except she didn't have her wings, she also had a cream colored tailfin and seashell bra. Nocturnal had a dark blue tailfin and a seashells bra. Gideon looked kind of like Aquaman, only he had a tailfin and webbed hands. "This is so weird." Gideon said, as he examined himself in the shallow water. "It's not so bad once ya get used to it." Skystar said when she surfaced from the water. "How long were you there before you said anything?" Nocturnal asked. "I was in Seaquestria the whole time, I saw a flash of light, and I went to see what it was." She said raising her hands defensively. "At least you weren't creeping on us...no offence meant if you took offence." Gideon said. "None taken. The sea is a scary place if you're not careful." Skystar said as she turned away from the trio. "You guys ready for the tour?" She asked. The group nodded. "Ok, let's go!" She said as she dived into the water. They followed her until Skystar stopped all of a sudden. "What is it?" Gideon asked. "I see a ship, and it's not from Summerset." She said. Gideon squinted and saw a wooden dragon on the bow of the ship. "Oh no. It's a Viking ship." He said. (Ocean surface) The Viking ship closed in on the beach where many hippogriff guards were now ushering civilians into shelters for their safety. The ship made landfall and the Vikings on boards all sprang into action. The battle was fierce as the hippogriff guardsmen took to the skies and threw their spears at the invaders. What they weren't expecting was that there was a group of warriors appearing out of nowhere. These warriors headed straight into the palace. "The Queen is in peril! Fall back to the palace!" A commander shouted. Some of the Vikings followed their flying enemies, while others went into the city to plunder. Gideon, Skystar, Helena, and Nocturnal all surfaced from the water. "Go get some reinforcements. We're gonna need them." Gideon ordered. Skystar nodded and dived back down into the water. "Who were those warriors with those curved blades?" Helena asked. "Those were Samurai. The elite warriors of Japan." Gideon replied. "Let's go!" Nocturnal said as she swam for the beach and transformed into her human form. "Wait for us!" Helena said as she and Gideon followed after her. Just as they caught up and transformed, a burning barrel landed between the three and exploded. The explosion forced Gideon face first into the sand and launched Helena and Nocturnal back into the sea, where a few knight ships with nets, catapults, and other explosives were waiting. Gideon pulled his head out of the sand and he saw his two wives being hoisted onto one of the ships via net. "Nocturnal! Helena!" He shouted as he ran to the water. Over the hills, a lone figure stared at the carnage below. He scowled and inhaled deeply. "Wuld Nah Kest!" He shouted and he continued to run until he saw a Viking raider trying to take advantage of a hippogriff woman. "Fus Ro Dah!" He shouted and the raider was blasted backwards so forcefully, the moment he hit a wall, his head exploded upon impact. The woman could only stare in awe as she observed the newcomer walking towards a group of Vikings trying to break down the door of a grocery store. The man was silent as he brandished his blade and cut down a berserker, then decapitated a Valkyrie, and finally a second raider attempted to rush the man, but he merely sidestepped his attacker and impaled him. The store owner looked at his savior and his jaw dropped in shock. "It's Talos!" He yelled in joy. (Gideon P.O.V) Having lost the magic pearl, I could only watch as my wives were captured by knights, placed in cuffs and forced to watch the siege. With nothing I could do, I turned to the city and began to make my way to the palace, fighting Vikings and Samurai on the way. Just as I got close to a grocery store, a raider literally flew past me and his head exploded when it impacted a wall. I looked over and saw Talos, of all people taking out some Vikings attempting to break into said grocery store. "It's Talos!" The shop owner shouted out. "Hey, Talos! Watch where you launch your enemies." I called out to him, getting his attention. "Sorry." He said with a frown on his face. "We have more hostiles in the palace. Let's clear them out." He said as he cleaned off his blade. With a nod, I led the way to the palace, fighting Vikings and Samurai, and helping out guards when needed to get what reinforcements we could to help us at the palace. "Where's Princess Skystar?!" One of the guards asked after helping him. "She's in Seaquestria getting reinforcements." I answered. Some explosions were heard from the harbor. "It'll probably be a while for them to come, though." I added. "We have no time to wait. Your ruler is in danger." Talos said as he began walking forward towards the throne room. Upon reaching the throne room there were a bunch of corpses lying all over the floor. I looked up to see Novo fending off a kensei, but he broke her guard by knocking her sword out of her hands. "Sanshutsu." He said simply. Novo begrudgingly sank to her knees. Talos wasted no time hatching a plan he must've concocted on the way over here. "Feim Zii Gron." He whispered and he disappeared from sight. The kensei was about to finish Novo of when he suddenly felt a blade pierce his chest. "It's unwise to kill an unarmed combatant." He said as he pulled his blade from the kensei's chest. Talos helped Novo to her feet. "Where's my daughter?" She asked worriedly. "She's getting reinforcements." I replied. Novo nodded, but realised something else. "Where are your wives?" She asked. "Captured by knights." I replied with a growl. "We'll get them back. Let's regroup with our reinforcements on the beach." General Seaspray said. "I agree. Let's move." Talos said as he handed Novo a spare sword. The group went to the palace gate and upon them opening, charged through the Viking and Samurai hordes and towards the harbor and beach area. When they reached the beach, they found seaponies and hippogriffs attacking the knight ships and a handful or so of hippogriffs fighting knights on the beach area. Skystar was among those on the beach, barely holding back a Lawbringer's halberd with her trident and buckler. "I'll help her." Novo said as she took off to help Skystar. Talos nudged me with his elbow. "Is one of your wives Nocturnal?" He asked. "Yeah. Why?" I asked. "I can see her and another woman in a cage bound and gagged." He replied, pointing somewhere. I followed his finger and saw both of my wives stripped of most of their clothing and bound and gagged as he had said. Seeing them like that was both slightly arousing, but I was mostly filled with rage. "Back me up. We're freeing them." I growled out. Talos simply nodded and followed behind. (Nocturnal P.O.V) This was utterly humiliating! Helena and I were both stolen from our husband by these bastard knights. It's a good thing I could still use my magic to keep them from raping us. They only just gagged us because when one of the knights tried to take our pearls we bit their hands. Our captors were currently distracted and I was trying to pick the lock on our cuffs with my magic. When I saw Gideon and Talos in front of our cage I was so elated. "I thought I lost you two." Gideon said as he got the cage open and removed our gags. I lunged forward and kissed him. "Looks like we can add bondage to our bedroom repertoire." I said with a smirk. "Finish the fight, bedroom later." He replied as I unlocked the bindings on Helena and I. "Fair enough." I replied. Now where's that bitch who tried to grope me?" I asked as I summoned Luck's Hand. After a long and arduous fight, the Siege of Mt. Aris ended in victory, but it was not without losses. In total we lost about twenty hippogriff guardsmen, and we would of course remember their courageous sacrifices. We met back up with Novo as she waved for us to join her. "As a symbol of my gratitude, I want to give you one of my yachts for those bastards ruining your honeymoon." She said showing us a selection of five yachts. "You don't have to do that." Gideon said. "I know, but I insist." Novo replied. "Let's take that one." Helena said as she pointed to a yacht that had a dark purple hull and silver accents. "I shall have it sent to Ponyville. In the meantime, you three need to get home and report this attack." Novo said. "Thanks. You should come and visit the school sometime, we'd be glad to have you over." Gideon said with a smile. "I'll take that under consideration." Novo replied. I tried to use my magic to teleport us home, but nothing was working. "Um..." I said with a sheepish smile. "Looks like we'll have to take the long way home." Gideon said facepalming. (Terra, Apollyon's Fortress, 3rd P.O.V) "So, your plan involves weakening Equestria's 'allies' and recruiting their 'enemies,' am I correct?" Neighsay asked. "Correct." Apollyon said confidently. "Already some of the natural magic has been drained to fuel the spell to bridge the gap between our worlds." She explained. "Care to tell me how and who is draining magic?" Neighsay asked, a suspicious look on his face. "Our ally's identity is to remain a secret. When the time is right they'll reveal themselves to you." Apollyon said cryptically. "Very well. I suppose we let them lick their wounds before striking again." Neighsay proposed. Apollyon merely nodded. "I'll prepare the next attack group. This one will be going with you to Ponyville, while I take the other to the Dragon Lands." She said as she looked through her magic mirror.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 16: Tramp of Doom

(Canterlot Castle, Celestia P.O.V) The attack on Mt. Aris was very troubling to hear about. I felt sorry for Gideon, Helena, and Nocturnal because of this attack it basically ruined their honeymoon. However, what's even more troubling are the smaller attacks on trade routes and military supply depots. We've been able to withstand them, but Mairon has told me about his past life when he was a Dark Lord himself. He told me that this was a tactic that often whittled down an enemy's resolve because it would force them to keep sending reinforcements to their deaths because his own forces were numerically superior. "Aunty, there's a disturbance in the flow of magic. It's been getting weaker as these attacks have been occurring." Blueblood said urgently. "How have you come to this conclusion nephew?" I asked. "Many of the mages from the Arcane University have reported that even their master level spells are about as effective as a novice level spell." He replied. I was about to reply, but Luna came into the throne room with a devastated look on her face. "Tia, Winter can't fly!" She shouted in anguish. I remembered when we saw Winter have her first hover in the air, then it progressed into small bursts of prolonged flight, but now hearing that she can't even lift herself off of the ground confirmed what I didn't want to be true: magic was being drained from the world. "Apollyon must have an agent here in Equestria actively draining magic to allow her forces to appear here. The questions I have are: who is her agent, and why are they doing this?" I said standing up from my throne. "Send a message to Twilight. Tell her to expect a massive assault on the town, and that we're sending her some of Equestria's finest." I said as I flared my wings. Blueblood nodded and left the room with Serana, who stood near the door. "I can only hope it will be enough to repel her, if not who will help us?" I asked myself as I helped Luna to calm the wailing Winter. (Changeling Kingdom Gideon P.O.V) My wives and I arrived in the Changeling Kingdom in the nick of time, as I was just getting ready to get cranky and dehydrated. "Thank all the Gods, Elder Gods, and Titans in existence." I said as we just barely entered a settlement on the edge of the border between said kingdom and the Badlands. Both changelings and the non-changelings there noticed when we entered town, and a changeling/Serif pair came to our aid. "Greetings Outsiders. What brings you to these parts?" The serif female asked. "We just survived a siege at Mount Aris, and unfortunately, our usual mode of travel has somehow stopped working and we were severely unprepared for the trek here." I said as I laid on the ground, face up. "Care to help us out?" Nocturnal asked. "You're the 'sister' of Lord Molag! We would be fools to not assist you!" The Changeling exclaimed as he hoisted me on to his shoulder. "You lead and we'll follow." Helena said. "Right this way her Majesty will want to speak to you." The Serif said as we walked into the town. After getting some clean water to drink, and food to eat, we soon found ourselves in the presence of Queen Chrysalis and her husband, Molag Bal. "Nocturnal, what an unexpected surprise." Molag said. "I wish it was under better circumstances." Nocturnal said. "You're referring to the string of attacks, and the subsequent drain on magic?" Chrysalis asked. "Drain on magic? Is that why you couldn't teleport us back to Equestria?" I asked Nocturnal. She nodded slowly. "Has anyone established where the drain is originating from?" I asked. "No. We have no idea where the drain is coming from, it feels like the drain is coming from everywhere at once." Molag said in irritation. "Gosh dang it! Apollyon is going from a minor annoyance into a major pain in the neck..... No pun intended, Lord Molag." I said, apologising at the end. "Understandable, for now you three need rest, for your journey has been long and not yet done." Molag said. "If you need to relieve any stress, our maids will gladly relieve you." Chrysalis said in a sultry voice causing Helena and Nocturnal to glare angrily. "Nobody, but us is allowed to touch him!" Helena growled. "My, my, quite possessive aren't you?" Chrysalis asked teasingly. "Chryssy, don't tease her, she means it." Nocturnal said. "Alright fine." Chrysalis groaned. "Once you've rested, we'll send a company of troops to escort you to Ponyville." Molag said picking Chrysalis up bridal style, making her giggle. We left the pair to fornicate, while we retired for the night. (The Next Day 3rd P.O.V) Gideon, Nocturnal, and Helena woke up for their journey home. Pharanx was in charge of the platoon responsible for getting them home safely. About three hours later Gideon had an idea to help lighten the mood. "Anybody feel like singing?" Gideon asked. Pharanx rolled his eyes as some of the troops either nodded or spoke in confirmation. Gideon cleared his throat and began to sing. Across the savage skies,and through the fissures in the fields The rumble of the engines and the trundle of the wheels, Through Hell and horror trudge, and yet our spirits never yield Will they sing of these forsaken pawns of war? Hoist the flags, hold the lines, lessons ever lost to time, Now we sing for you, departed pawns of war. Unexpectedly, Pharanx joined in the song, doing a solo. My Bonnie lays afar, upon a lonely Eiderdown, while I dream of rats and tar within my burrow in the ground. Infernal gaping scar of boiling mud and thundering sound. They won't sing of this forsaken pawn of war. Hoist the flags, hold the lines, lessons ever lost to time, Now we sing for you, departed pawns of war. Death on the dunes, we feed the deserts. Blood of the Empires on the sand. Hoist the flags, hold the lines, lessons ever lost to time, Now we sing for you, departed pawns of war. The song was bitter, but that's what war was. Many people were going to die, and a vast majority of them will only be nameless pawns of war. Many of the troops in the platoon wondered what inspired Gideon to come up with the lyrics of this song. "To give some context of the basis of the song's lyrics, there were two times on my world that the entire world was at war. The first World War was the inspiration of this song. The 'burrows in the ground' is a reference to the horrible conditions that the troops on all sides had to go through with trench warfare at the time." Gideon explained. "I kinda knew that humans from your world were violent, but I never imagined that your whole world would end up like that." Pharanx said. "Ocellus must've mentioned my class to you in her letters, didn't she?" Gideon asked. "She did. I admire that the United States has its share of conflicts, but the people managed to pull together and improve the nation." Pharanx replied. "It is admirable. Now, just to clarify the whole World War thing, most of the fighting was confined to 3 continents and smaller sections of two others...in that war specifically." Gideon added. "Why call it a 'world war' when it was restricted to three continents?" Helena asked. "It was called a 'world war' because it was a war of political alliances. And at the time, Britain was still considered an empire, and then there was the Austrian Empire. The Austrian Empire's next ruler, Franz Ferdinand, his wife and their unborn child were murdered on the way to Franz's coronation. It turns out that Serbia and Bosnia wanted to unify into a single country, but when the Austrian citizens demanded the assassins be handed over to face justice. The Germans declared war shortly after and swaths of France, Belgium, and the entire continent of Africa became war torn battlefields with casualties numbering over one million on the Western Front alone." Gideon said making the entire platoon halt in shock. "So you're telling me, that because one monarch was murdered the whole world went into a bloody grudge match?" One soldier asked in anger. "Pretty much."Gideon replied. "Still the response of the Germans was appropriate, they were denied the right to enforce justice on the killers of their leader. I'd do the same thing if anyone harmed our beloved queen." Pharanx said. "Admirable dedication. Now, how much farther until we reach Ponyville?" Gideon asked. "About two more hours." Pharanx replied. Gideon groaned in response. (School of Friendship, Cozy Glow P.O.V) Things were going exactly as I had planned. Soon I would become the Empress of Equestria! "All of my hard work and research has brought me this far. Now all I have to do is make sure Princess Twilight and her friends are out of the way." I said with a smile. "I hope Apollyon comes through on her promise. I've worked too hard to have my chance to rule taken away from me!" I seethed as I slammed my fists on my desk. "Good thing I made my lair under the school otherwise I would've been discovered a long time ago." I thought to myself as I began to think of a way to capture Princess Twilight and her friends from all of this. "I should've known!" I heard from behind me. "Oh, Counselor Starlight! What a pleasant surprise." I said with a nervous smile. "You do know Apollyon is playing you right? You're just a pawn in her game. She knows that despite your age, you're a threat to her, but there's one thing she has that you don't." Starlight said. "What is it, magic, well then she's out of luck." I said pointing to the massive amount of collected magic. "It's killer instinct, she'll kill you because you can outsmart her, and your childish innocence can win over a crowd, whereas Apollyon needs to prove her points through violence. Stop now, confess your crimes, and I can try to vouch for you." She said kneeling down to me. "I don't need your help!" I shouted as I slapped her hand away. "Also for a woman who is supposed to be giving advice, here's a piece you need to use: watch where you step." I said as I triggered a trap that pulled her into the sphere. I was smiling in victory, but soon it was replaced with confusion as I felt the building rumble. "What is going on up there?" I asked as I ran out of the room. Upon reaching the surface I saw Apollyon's army attacking Ponyville. "What have I done?" I asked with tears welling up in my eyes. (Ocellus P.O.V) My friends and I needed to get our weapons to help out. I knew that since I've been training with my Isu blades, I could help fight off the invaders. Upon reaching our dorm, I heard a catapult launch its projectile. "Get down!" Fabjorn yelled as he tackled me to the ground to avoid being smashed by a huge rock that smashed through the wall. I saw my Isu blades and I mentally commanded them to me. "I got 'em. Let's move!" I said as I stood up. "Kids come on!" Sara said as she constricted a Peacekeeper to death. Fabjorn and I ran out of the room with Sara following behind us taking down any enemies that squeaked past us in the cramped hallways of the dorms. "You two go on, I got this." Sara said with a confident smile. We both nodded as we ran towards the main hall. Upon reaching the main hall there were bodies of corrupted Vikings, Knights, and Samurais lying on the floor, while our friends stood victorious. "Glad you guys could make it." Meldah said. "We saw Neighsay head that way, let's follow him." Sandbar said as he cleaned his sword. We quietly followed Neighsay under the school and we saw a massive sphere of magical energy, and Counselor Starlight was inside of it, while Cozy Glow was in front of it. "So this is Apollyon's agent, a child?" He asked clearly disgusted. "Too bad that your contributions will never be lauded." He said. Althorn fired an arrow and it grazed Neighsay's shoulder. "Leave her alone." He said as he nocked another arrow and aimed it at Neighsay. "Ah good, now the pesky meddlers can join the little traitor in death." He said with a flat expression. "What are you talking about? Why are you talking about Cozy like that?" Althorn asked in confusion. "You didn't know? She was never your friend. She's the reason why all the magic was disappearing." He said with a smile. "Cozy, is this true?" Althorn asked. "It's true, but I'm trying to free Starlight to right the wrong I've committed! Please, believe me!" Cozy screamed in sadness. Althorn fell to his knees, he and Cozy were pretty close before this. "Al, please. I really need your help." Cozy begged. "Enough talking! I can't have you mucking this up for me!" Neighsay said as he charged towards us with a sword. "We'll buy you some time!" I shouted as I tossed Cozy the Apple of Eden. She nodded and turned back to Starlight. Cozy threw the relic into the sphere and it exploded, but we all felt the surge of all of our magic returning. (Meanwhile, in the Dragon Lands, 3rd P.O.V) It was utter chaos. Corpses of dragons, Vikings, Knights, Samurai, and Priors littered the mountainous terrain of the Dragon Lands. Apollyon stood on a cliff overlooking the carnage. "Things are going just as I planned." She said confidently. "When Neighsay gets rid of that brat, Cozy Glow all the magic in this world will be..." She started by suddenly a massive wave of multicolored energy rushed through the land. "...gone." She finished flatly. Suddenly the dragons were fighting back with more vigor now that they could take to the skies once more and breathe their precious fire. "Damn it! That little bitch switched sides! Why didn't Neighsay just kill her?!" Apollyon roared in rage. Ember spotted Apollyon and rushed towards her. "Leave my domain bitch!" Ember shouted. Apollyon unsheathed her sword and it clashed with the Dragon Scepter. Apollyon then kicked Ember to the ground and made an attempt to stab her in the heart. Just as the blade was coming down, Gaan, a light purple dragon took the blow. "I'm sorry my lady." Gaan said as he closed his eyes. Apollyon merely flung the lifeless dragon off of her blade, but Ember was now airborne and released a torrent of blue flame causing Apollyon to roll out of the way. Noticing that the dragons were managing to retake their home Apollyon knew that to stay would be madness. "All Forces, fall back now! We're leaving!" Apollyon began to calmly walk away, deftly slicing the throat of a dragon that tried to attack her as she was leaving. All of the forces that were on Apollyon's side began to fall back as that was happening. Ember was angry, but relieved that the battle was finally over. She was angry because of the loss of many lives, but happy that many more would live and write this into the annals of history. "Gather the dead for cremation." She commanded to the many surviving dragons. "Slen Tiid Vo!" Paarthunaax shouted to a nearby group of fallen dragons and soon they were beginning to stir from their temporary slumber, but the two dragons felled by Apollyon would never awaken like their brethren. Ember placed the two fallen dragons on a separate pyre. A gust of wind blew the ashes across the land. (Ponyville, Ocellus P.O.V) With Starlight freed and our natural magic restored, Neighsay had a manic grin on his face. "Big mistake!" He said as he blasted a bolt of magic at me. I dodged to the right and shifted my Isu blade into an estoc. I managed to stab him in his sword arm, but he kicked me in the stomach. Fabjorn stood in front of me with his staff, which blocked a couple of swings, but it was soon broken and Neighsay was about to cut him in half. Suddenly as a blinding flash of light appeared, I shielded my eyes and saw Brother White with his wives standing behind him. "Hey jackass, leave the kids alone." He said. "These 'kids' are a blight against Ponykind, and will be treated as such." Neighsay responded, switching his attention from Fabjorn to him. "Y'know I hate people like you Neighsay. You're a self-absorbed, overly-pampered brat that can't adapt to a society in a constant state of self improvement." Helena said as she helped Fabjorn up. "Surrender while you can. The battle's over." Gideon said calmly. Neighsay was enraged and he lunged forward and stabbed Gideon, who didn't even flinch as Neighsay stared dumbfounded at the still standing man. "How?" Neighsay said in confusion. "Nocturnal, honey, care to give this ignorant idiot that stuck me the 'how-to' of genuine immortality?" Gideon asked. "Gladly. You see Neighsay when a Daedra and a mortal love each other very much, they head to the bedroom for some fun, and when the two lovers climax simultaneously, the mortal becomes immortal for the seemingly impossible task of satisfying the immortal Daedra." Nocturnal said in a patronizing tone. My friends and I all began laughing. "So, to put it a bit more bluntly, you done f'd up." Gideon said as Helena and Nocturnal approached Neighsay. "It's hopeless, you're finished, you haven't got a prayer. 'Cause I'm Mr. Oogie Boogie and you ain't goin' nowhere." Gideon said in a sing-song tone.

Wolf of Oblivion

Chapter 17: Clash of Titans

(Canterlot Castle, Gideon P.O.V) "-And that's the sum of events that we've experienced within the past few days leading up to today's first ever world war council." I said to the gathered world and military leaders as we were gathered in the castle's dining room as an improvised meeting room. "Pity that such a joyous occasion was spoiled by war." The Kensei named Ayu said with a frown. "No man should live without challenge, after all it's what drives us Vikings to love our women until the day we die and go to Valhalla." The Raider said placing one of his massive hands on my shoulder. "I thank you both for your kindness, but instead of focusing on me, for now, we need to focus on the proverbial elephant in the room. Apollyon." I said, earning murmurs of agreement. "I say we go after her and kick her ass!" Ember said pounding her fist on the table. "What if she has an army lying in wait for us?" Warden asked. "I agree with the Warden." Luna said as she levitated a teddy bear for Winter to play with while she hovered above. "What's your suggestion?" Ember asked calmly. "We divide our forces in half. One half engages from the front, the other infiltrates the fortress." Luna suggested. While we weren't paying attention to Winter, she suddenly fell into Kai's lap with what looked like ashe on her face. Then she started to glow. "Was that a dragon's ashes?" I asked. "It seems so, and she's absorbed the soul from that." Kai said as the glow subsided. Winter for her part babbled with a smile, then it happened: she said one word in the dragon language. "Fus!" Winter squeaked adorably. A small burst hit Kai. "I don't believe it her first word! I wish it was either "ma", or "da", but this is still amazing!" Luna said as she nuzzled Winter happily. "Huh...What does Fus-" A slightly larger burst of energy came from my mouth, hitting Ayu, making her stumble. "-Mean..." I finish with slight hesitation and awe. "'Fus' in the dragon's tongue means "force". It's the first word of power in the shout 'Unrelenting Force' the other words are 'Ro', meaning "balance" and 'Dah' meaning "push". So the shout literally translates as "force, balance, push"." Kai explained. "Who knew dragons were so intelligent." Raider said. I then turned to Malacath. "Umm...could my blood bond/oath be part of how I was able to do that?" I asked him. "It is actually. Since Winter has the Dragon's Blood flowing through her thanks to Kai, she is technically a Dragonborn." Malacath replied. "Intriguing...could I be able to expand my own skill with it, or would it depend on her 'progress' with it?" I asked, both to Kai and Malacath. "We honestly don't know. For now I wouldn't really worry about it, until she's about ten I'll send her to the Greybeards for training." Kai said. "Fair enough. Anyway, back on taking on Apollyon, who will form up the infiltration team?" I asked Luna. "I was thinking that the Changelings, Serifs, Shinobi, and Peacekeepers could sneak in and you could join them and take on Apollyon while the rest of us deal with her remaining forces." Luna replied. "I like the idea. Anyone who doesn't like it, share your thoughts now or forever hold your piece." I said to the gathered people. Nobody spoke. "So it's settled, we leave tomorrow at dawn." Celestia said. "Meeting dismissed." Celestia continued as she flared her wings. We all stood up to leave when Helena and Nocturnal stopped me in the hallway. "What's up?" I asked. "Gideon, we're both pregnant." Helena said with a smile. I was at a loss for words, instead I just kissed them. (Next morning, Gideon's House, 3rd P.O.V) The sun rose gracing two women and their loving husband lying in bed clearly they enjoyed a night of passion before the upcoming battle. Gideon awoke to the sight of the peaceful faces of Helena and Nocturnal and smiled. He took a shower and suited up in his armor. He looked over to his wives and kissed them on their cheeks. "I love you both." He whispered as he walked out the door. As he walked, he saw various people gathering to go to war. Many of them were saying goodbye to their families. After a while of walking, I saw Kai and a few of the other Daedric Princes, and I went towards them. "Are we ready?" He asked. "We were waiting for everyone to finish saying their goodbyes, but other than that we're ready." Kai said. I looked over to see Big Mac and Bright Mac walking up to us. "If there's one thing I've learned about war it's the fact that war never changes." Kai said as he looked at the crowd standing in front of the portal that Cozy Glow, and the Mages Guild constructed overnight and it was clear they were exhausted. "Everyone, this is the final push against the warmonger Apollyon! This is the day we face war itself on its front door, let's give it our all, show no mercy for you shall receive none!" Kai shouted earning spirited roars and warcries from the crowd. "Spoken like a true king." Gideon said with a smile as the army walked through the portal. Inkaizo volunteered to stay behind and guard the portal just in case Apollyon tried to escape or she sent a counter offensive while we're away. (Apollyon's Fortress, Gideon P.O.V) I never thought that I would come to this place, or return to this world ever again. We were at Blackstone Fortress, Apollyon's fortress. I had known that this place would be difficult to get to, but getting in without being spotted, that was going to be somewhat easier since we had arrived in the late afternoon, heading into the evening hours. The infiltration team was instructed to get some sleep so we could have all of our energy to sneak in and open the gates to allow the rest of our army in and wreak havoc on her remaining forces. That's what we plan to do anyway. However, we were also prepared to do some improvisation for when, not if, the plan went sideways somewhere. After a satisfying nap, the infiltration team was wide awake and ready for the mission to begin. I lead them down the cliff and carefully onto the roofs of the nearest tower. I managed to open the window and then we split up for our respective objectives. It didn't take very long for Apollyon's forces to realize that there were intruders, but that was of little importance now as I heard the roar of my comrades storming in. I continued to run up the tower, until there was a terrace near the tallest tower. On the terrace was Apollyon. "So you finally arrived." She said in a level tone. "I must say I'm surprised that you managed to sneak in. You really are a Wolf in Sheep's clothing." She complimented turning to face me. "However, we both know that there's room for only one Warlord, may the best warrior win." She concluded as she drew her sword and sent a purple/black orb towards the sky. The orb then detonated and deposited a miasma of black/purple mist that seemed to drive everyone mad with bloodlust, causing them to fight each other. Man, woman, knight, Daedra, Aedra, Dragon, no one was exempt from it's effects...except Apollyon and I. "So much for an honorable challenge." I said as I drew my own blade. "I just made it so nobody can interfere with us, besides I want this war to end with one of the two of us falling to the other's blade." Apollyon replied as she settled into a guarding stance. "I would have thought you would have wanted the war to go on for eternity." I said, mimicking her stance. "Enough talk now we fight!" Apollyon yelled as she charged towards me with her blade held above her head in an overhead slash. I raised my dao and blocked and redirected the blow and retaliated by giving a flurry of slashes. She managed to block a few of them, but the ones that landed, didn't hit in a critical area like the bends of her arms. She retaliated by hitting me in the head with the pommel of her sword and kicking me away. I charged forward and slid under a horizontal swing and thrusted my dao into her chest plate, it barely made a dent, but it was enough to push her back towards the wall overlooking the battle below. Apollyon growled in frustration at the fact that she was being pressured by an opponent. She regained her composure and began to swing her massive blade in a diagonal slash then transitioned into a thrust. I blocked the slash, but the thrust knocked my blade out of my hands and it was now embedded in the floor. "You've lost." She said as she raised her blade to deliver an overhead chop. "Not quite." I said as I discreetly pulled out Luck's Hand and sent a few explosive cards at her knocking her off balance. "Weren't expecting that were you?" I asked with a smirk. "Lucky surprise. It won't happen again." She said. "Lady Luck is one of my wives, so it will happen again." I spat back as I fanned out some cards and analyzed her and made sure I was ready for whatever attack she would try to pull off. "Luck is an excuse for a lack of skill." She spat. "Say what you want, but the odds aren't in your favor this time." I retorted as I sent a few razor cards to distract her while I retrieved my dao. "I'm getting real tired of this!" Apollyon growled. I turned around to see Apollyon charging at me poised for a thrust, I stood up and charged at her and we both impaled each other, only I noticed that my stab hit just below her diaphragm causing her to let go of her sword which almost hit my liver. I also let go of my blade to examine where I was hit, causing Apollyon to fall down and start breathing in a labored manner. "Luck is more than just an excuse for a lack of skill. If you had better luck, you would have struck my liver." I said as I pulled her blade out of me and I stood over her nearly dead form. "Well done, M-mars, Lord of War. Finish me off." Apollyon said. "Off with your head." I stated as I raised Apollyon's sword above my head and the next thing I know her helmeted head is separated from her body. I then rested with the blade holding me up...until I noticed that the sound of conflict had ceased. I turned around and noticed that the miasma was flowing up the tower until it suddenly reached the top and enveloped me, causing me to black out for a few seconds. When I came to, I noticed that my armor and weapons had changed from it's Chinese look to a semi-Greek look. I looked it over, noting the bluish and glassy like metal that made it up. As I was doing so, I felt as though I was stronger, or was on an adrenaline high. I looked at Apollyon's sword, but it had changed to a blue crystal/steel sword that had a winged guard, and the blade had runes down the center and the point tapered off into a katana-like point. As I was admiring my new gear, I failed to hear the sound of armored footsteps coming towards me. When I turned around I saw Warden standing there a look of shock in his eyes. He looked at my new look and the decapitated corpse of Apollyon. "You did it. You did it! You killed Apollyon!" He said quietly at first, but grew more enthusiastic as the realization struck him. "Everyone, Gideon has vanquished Apollyon, the war is over!" Warden yelled to the army below, which they all cheered even Apollyon's former soldiers did as well. I raised my hand and the crowd fell silent. "Gideon is dead, I am Mars, the Lord of War and Peace." I said with authority. "Apollyon gave me my new name as a sign of respect to her better. She may have been a cruel, sadistic, horror of a woman, but she was a warrior through and through. I say we pay her one last gesture of respect and give her a warrior's funeral." I said. The crowd seemed confused, but Raider spoke up from within the crowd. "He's right. This shows that we're more honorable than her, but she was a worthy adversary, and deserves the proper burial rites." He said looking to the others for any challenges. When nobody spoke against him, they all started to gather the fallen and place them on pyres. I stitched Apollyon's head back on after I removed her armor, washed her body, and cleaned her armor, then I placed her on her own pyre. As Apollyon's pyre burned, we all were silent. I thought of how Helena and Nocturnal were going to react when I came home. Despite my change to Mars, I would remain as Gideon for them, as well as my goddaughter. Nothing would ever change that. (Ponyville, Gideon/Mars' House, Helena P.O.V) I awoke to the feeling of Nocturnal's calm breathing, but I noticed that Gideon wasn't here. "He must've left already. I hope he's okay." I thought to myself as I yawned and headed for the bathroom. While I was in the shower, I heard Nocturnal enter the bathroom with a sleepy groan. "Good morning." She groaned out. "Morning." I replied. "Has he left already?" She asked. "Yes." I replied. "Don't worry, he'll teach that bitch a lesson." Nocturnal said as she opened the shower curtain and joined me. "I can't help it. I just want him home to hold us." I said with a pout. "I want that too, but for now, we just have to deal with being by ourselves for a bit." Nocturnal said. I nodded. "What do you want to do today?" I asked. "Don't know, what do you want to do?" She asked. "I'd like to visit Winter, I heard that Princess Cadence was bringing Flurry Heart, and I thought it would be adorable to see those two playing together." I said with a smile. "Honey, that's the best idea I've heard in a week." Nocturnal said with a giggle. I giggle in response. "Perfect." I said as I leaned down to kiss her. She caught on to my thoughts and our lips met in a gentle kiss. After our shower, we put on some clothes and Nocturnal teleported us to Canterlot. (Canterlot Castle, 3rd P.O.V) It was quiet in the castle today. The only noise that could be heard was the sound of Winter's laughter as she and Flurry played in the garden with Luna, Celestia, Cadence, Blueblood, Serana, and the castle staff watching the fillies. Nocturnal and Helena appeared behind the royals. "Hello." Helena said, managing to startle the crowd. "Sorry! Nocturnal and I just got here, and it seems you guys were watching quite the show." Helena said pointing towards the two fillies who were now flying around and tossing a teddy bear with their magic. "Aw." the crowd said at the adorable sight. While Flurry two years old, she and her new cousin Winter got along extraordinarily well. "Yes indeed. Cadence figured that with the current situation, it seems we need some time to look at the adorable sequence of events of children at play." Luna said as Winter caught the teddy bear and descended to the ground. Flurry waddled over to Winter and they both snuggled the bear. Soon everyone's stomach growled. "Time for lunch." Celestia said. Luna and Cadence collected their daughters and followed the crowd. In the dining room, it was filled with calm conversations and laughter. Serana looked over at Helena and Nocturnal. "So what's new with you two?" The Vampire asked. "Well Noc, and I are both pregnant." Helena said with a smile. "No kidding, I am too." Serana said. "When are you due?" Nocturnal asked. "About two months, Celestia is due in six, and I'm guessing you two are about eight months away." Serana said. "Lucky guess, but you are correct about Helly and I. Wait Celestia's pregnant? When did this happen?" Nocturnal asked looking to Celestia who blushed. "Shortly after Winter was born." Celestia said with a smile. "It's actually pretty funny to see Uncle Sheo look like he's gonna have a nervous breakdown, when he's usually the one who causes them." Blueblood said with a chuckle. "I'm sure he's just stressed about messing up, like you." Serana said to her husband. "Hey! That's a low blow!" Blueblood said with a pout. "I'm just teasing." Serana said with a gentle peck. "You two are precious." Celestia said with a smile.The rest of the day passed pretty quickly, between conversing about baby names and genders, to the prospects of the future. As night began to fall, everyone was starting to head home, but Nocturnal and Helena decided to stay in the castle for the night. After a filling dinner and pleasant dessert, Nocturnal headed for the balcony to get some fresh air before bed. Her mind wandered to the romantic/tragedy Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespear that Gideon mentioned in one of his classes. (Nocturnal P.O.V) "O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet." I quoted wistfully. "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself." I continued to quote, until a voice startles me. "I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo." I turn to the owner of the voice and see an armored man standing before me. His armor glimmered in the light of the moonlit sky. It looked like a Spartan's armor only it was made of crystals. The figure removed his helmet and I saw my husband's face. Tears of joy began to stream down my face. He approached me to dry my tears, but as soon as he got close, I wrapped my arms around him tightly. "I missed you." I said lovingly. "As did I, my Lady of Luck." He said as he hugged back. "Where did you get this armor from?" I asked when we separated. "I got this when I defeated Apollyon. She also gave me my new name." He said. "What did she call you?" I asked. "Mars, she called me Mars, Lord of War." He replied. "So she gave it to you as a sign of respect?" I asked. He nodded. "In return, I gave her a warrior's burial." He said with a small smile. "That's good." I replied with a smile. "Come to bed my love." I said as we held hands. "Lead the way." He replied. I lead him to the room that Helena and I were staying in. "Helly's probably asleep by now, so let's quietly settle down for the night." I said as I quietly opened the door. Upon entering the room, we saw the adorable sight of Helena curled up with a body pillow in her grasp. "Come now, let's join her." I said as I made Gideon's armor disappear and he was now in silk pajamas, just like Helena and I. I settled down next to Helena, but left room for Gideon to settle in between us. He smiled and slipped into place causing Helena to press his head into her soft breasts. She started to stir from her slumber. "Noc, is that...." Her words died in her throat as tears began to stream down her face. "Honey, I'm home." Gideon said as he captured her lips in a gentle loving kiss before all of us drifted off to sleep.

Wolf of Oblivion

Epilogue: Some Things Never Change

(12 Years later, Mars/Gideon's House, Gideon P.O.V) Things have been great since Nocturnal and Helena gave birth. Helena gave me a son, whom we named Hercules, or Herc for short. Nocturnal gave me a daughter we named Mystique. Herc was a pegasus just like his mother, but he has my skill at combat and the strength of his namesake. Mystique has her mother's beauty and skill at magic. Winter was a blooming flower herself, she's grown up so much from when I first saw her as a wee baby. Mairon's come a long way as well. Kai's been a little more protective of his little girl when Mairon's around probably because he's aware of his crush on Winter. Today though, was the beginning of our Summer vacation to the coastal area of the Myre. "Come on Daddy, we're gonna be late!" Mystique whined. "Calm down sweet pea, our ship's not going anywhere." I said with a chuckle. "Yeah Myst, lighten up. We got all day to goof around." Hercules said as he held his own and Mystiques bags in his arms. "Fine." Mystique said exasperatedly. As Mystique left, Helena and Nocturnal came in wearing their swimsuits. "You ready yet? We're waiting on you." Nocturnal asked. "I'm all packed up and ready to go." I said as I hoisted my bag over my shoulder. We walked downstairs to the living room. "You guys ready?" Nocturnal asked. "Yeah!" we exclaimed. "Alrighty." She said as she snapped her fingers and before we knew it, we were on our yacht. "Make ready to cast off!" I yelled and the crew moved to their stations and soon we were underway to the Myre. (Canterlot Castle, Winter P.O.V) I felt great today! Mom, Dad, Aunty Tia, Uncle Sheo, Cousins Polaris, Serana and Blueblood, Second Cousin Camilla, and my best friend (want to be boyfriend) Mairon said that they had something special planned for my birthday tonight. My mind was racing with what the surprise could be. "Maybe Mairon's finally going to ask me to be his girl, or maybe I'll be given a pet! The possibilities are endless!" I thought to myself as I placed my backpack near my bed. Soon I heard a knock on my door. I went to open it and all I saw was a letter on the floor. "Dear Princess Winter Galactica Moon, If you're reading this, then it's your thirteenth birthday. Congratulations dear daughter. Your father and I are so proud of you. To find your birthday surprise, I need you to follow my instructions exactly. First head down the hall to my study, collect the photo hidden in my desk. When you've collected the photo, head to your Aunt Tia's study and you'll find the key to the dining room, after that, unlock the door and you'll find your surprise. Good luck my beloved star, Sincerely your loving mother, Queen Luna." I folded the letter up and placed it in my blazer pocket. I quickly headed to mom's study and found the photo of the day I was born in one of her drawers. I smiled at the little bundle I used to be so long ago. With the photo in my possession I headed to Aunt Tia's study and found her spare dining room key, then I made my way down to the dining room. The door was indeed locked and probably enchanted so I couldn't cheat. I unlocked the door and saw the room was completely dark I cautiously walked inside. Once I was in the room the door closed behind me and the whole room was illuminated by lightsabers. I looked to the front and saw my old master, Inkaizo. "Step forward Apprentice." He said. I did as he asked and sunk to my knees. "Winter Moon, by my right as Grand Master of the Eternal Order, by the will of the Force you are hereby granted the rank of Knight of the Eternal Order." He said as he cut my learner's braid from my hair. "All that's left is for you to construct your lightsaber. Remember, let the Force guide you." He said as he stepped away from a large assortment of parts and crystals. I closed my eyes and allowed the Force to flow through me and soon I saw a lightsaber hilt, my lightsaber hilt floating in the air. I pulled my hilt towards me, caught it and ignited it. A blade of blue light greeted me and the room. "Congratulations my apprentice." Master Inkaizo said with a smile. "Thank you master." I said as I hugged him. The lights suddenly came on and the entire room was filled with my family and friends. "Surprise!" They all yelled. Tears were streaming down my face. "Thank you. All of you." I said with a smile. Mairon soon came up to me with a cheerful glint in his eye, and asked me to follow him. "So how do you like your birthday so far my mellon?" He asked. I nodded. "Well I've got a big surprise for you. Winter you and I have been friends for a long time, but I'd like to be more." He said. Mairon: No more talk of darkness, Forget these wide-eyed fears; I'm here, nothing can harm you, My words will warm and calm you. Let me be your freedom, Let daylight dry your tears; I'm here, with you, beside you, To guard you and to guide you. Winter: Say you love me every waking moment, Turn my head with talk of summertime. Say you need me with you now and always; Promise me that all you say is true, That's all I ask of you. Mairon: Let me be your shelter, Let me be your light; You're safe, no one will find you, Your fears are far behind you. Winter: All I want is freedom, A world with no more night; And you, always beside me, To hold me and to hide me. Mairon: Then say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime; Let me lead you from your solitude. Say you need me with you, here beside you, Anywhere you go, let me go too, Winter, that's all I ask of you Winter: Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime; Say the word and I will follow you. Together: Share each day with me, Each night, each morning. Winter: Say you love me... Mairon: You know I do. Together: Love me, that's all I ask of you.. I saw him present a small velvet box to me. "This is for you meleth nîn." He said with a smile. I took the box and saw a mithril necklace. I took the necklace and placed it around my neck, then I kissed Mairon. "I love you." I said once we separated. "I love you too, my angel." He said as we hugged each other tightly. We made our way back to the party, where everybody was cheering for us. I saw dad come over to us. "Take good care of her boy, or you'll regret breaking her heart." He threatened. "Yes sir." Mairon quickly said. "Daddy, leave him alone! You know he'd rather die than break my heart." I said rolling my eyes. I looked to the crowd and smiled. "So who wants cake?" I asked. Everyone cheered and now the party was in full swing. Suddenly the sky began to darken for no reason. "What's happening?" I asked. "It's not even seven 'oclock yet!" I said as I looked at the clock. I turned my attention to the window and saw a giant golden rune off intersecting circles appear in the sky, causing swirling clouds and what seemed like harsh winds. Then suddenly strange soldiers with swords, great swords, and war hammers began appearing out of nowhere. "Some things never change I suppose." I heard dad say as more soldiers kept appearing in the room.

The Big Apple

pre

It was Ember. "Hello?" I asked "Oh my god I am so sorry!" "About what?" "They didn't tell you?" "Who didn't tell me what?" She stopped "Brace yourself Thunder but... Your parents they're.." "Dead I know." I said coldly "I am so sorry! I just found out on the news. I can only imagine the pain you must be feeling." I had said nothing in return. "Look, I was able to take a few days off of work, I'm coming down to Ponyville to help you see this through." "Listen Ember, I just want to be as far away as possible. Right now, I'm leaving later today." She sounded confused "Aren't you going to say goodbye?" "I already did, at the station when I," I paused when I realized how much of an idiot I sounded like, "Identified them." "Thunder! I can't believe that! How could you even say that?" I became extremely short and angry at her, "Look! They're my parents and how I deal with them being dead is my business! Nopony else's! Just because my parents are dead doesn't mean you have to step into their shoes!" She was shocked to hear that, "Fine! Asshole! Have fun finding a place here in Manehattan!" and she hung up. I didn't notice. I continued to yell at my phone thinking she was still on, "You know what? I don't even care anymore! I never wanted to stay with you anyway you stupid bitch!" I tossed my phone at the wall, it didn't break which surprised me but I was too angry to care about it. "FUCK!" I sat down and just thought about my, 'What does she know? She's never had anything bad happen to her. Even if there was something, I always helped her out. She has everything handed to her a silver spoon! How could she even talk to me like that? As if I'm still a stupid young filly. I'm not a child.' "Fuck this!" I grabbed my bag and went downstairs and was about to leave when I noticed the news was still on. They were updating the story on my parents. I stayed and listened to see if they knew more. A different anchormare was on than the one from before, she said in a clear and loud voice, "Following the story from earlier, two ponies were shot and killed outside of the restaurant Typony's. Police believed it to be an armed petty theft but new evidence found on the scene will allow further development on who may have done it." They played a recorded clip of the Chief of Police saying, "We found the bullet cases and with advances in forensic magic we'll be able to trace the bullet back to the gun and hopefully the owner of the gun. Then we'll finally have an answer to this audacious tragedy committed here earlier." It cut back to the anchormare who continued on with a different story, I lost interest and went outside. If there was any day to leave this was it, the sky was a dark gray, the air cool and still and little to no activity on the streets. As I made my way to the station I looked one last time at my small town, passing by the school's playground where a couple of fillies were playing and laughing, no care in the world. They saw me and waved smiling the biggest grins I've seen. I ignored them and kept making my way towards the station. As I climbed the steps I noticed there was only one other pony waiting to leave, I couldn't make out who it was, they had their face covered and was wearing an overcoat. "Must be from out of town." I thought. I went to the ticket booth and nopony was there. "Hello?" No answer. "Is anypony around?" I asked, I felt really dumb talking to nothing. Then I noticed a bell that was on the outside of the booth. I gave it a ding. Still nothing. I turned around and began to leave but I heard a voice yell "Hold on!" "Did you need a ticket?" I turned around and approached the window again, "That'll be forty bits." I nodded my head and after searching my bag for my money I gave the old colt the bits and he handed me a ticket for the train. "Thanks, and come again." I gave him a fake smile and turned around to face the tracks. I checked out my ticket and it was going to be here at four. I had an hour to kill, I sat down on the bench next to the other pony who was there before me and decided to close my eyes and think about what I was going to do. I needed a plan of attack, as soon as I got there I would have to go to different clubs and show them who I was. Strike a deal with them so I could play frequently. If I was going to do this I would need to be head-strong. Do or die at this point. As I continued to psych myself out, I felt vibrations and soon heard the chugs of the train. As it stopped I gathered my bag and stood by the line waiting for the conductor to let everypony on. The pony that was sitting, gathered up their stuff and stood by the line still maintaining the distance between us. The train made a screeching halt as it came to a full stop and the conductor came out and yelled "Allpony aboard who's coming aboard!" then retreated back to the front of the train. I grabbed my bag and climbed into the second car out of the five that were there. It was empty except for the other pony from the bench. I took a seat with my back to the wall and climbed my way towards the window and waited for us to start moving. "Ticket?" I looked to my right and there was the conductor, I stared at him not knowing what he said, he grew impatient pretty quick, "Sir, if you don't have a ticket then I can't let you on this train." "Oh, I have that hold on." I dug through my bag and handed him the ticket which he clicked angrily and handed it back to me and went to the other pony and did the same thing. It was the final call and nopony else had boarded, which was fine, I didn't need somepony to make idle conversation with the whole way there. Just my thoughts and the sights on the way there would suffice. The pitter-patter of rain could be heard and drops accumulated on the windows. At first it was light and became heavier making it sound like loud thuds. I chuckled for whatever reason. The conductor yelled out one more time for final call, even though it was more than obvious nopony else was leaving here. There was a sudden shift that made me move forward as the train started to move. "So it begins.."

The Big Apple

Arrival

It was strange leaving, I've rarely been away from Ponyville even to visit family. It was going to be different being somewhere else, especially comparing the sizes of Ponyville to Manehattan, I've only seen pictures but it looked huge. All the streets looked the same and it all seemed to go on for an eternity. I'd get use to it, I was always quick on change and adapting to it. This should be no different. I continued thinking about the city the whole trip there, what it would be like, who I'd meet, sold out shows, insane after-parties, ponies having a good time all the while listening to great music. My music. * * * I woke up and the train had been stopped for a while, I rubbed my eyes to help bring back light into my vision. The conductor was yelling at me to get up and out. "Wake up you bum!" Bum? I paid for my ticket though. "We're here, now get out! We have other ponies who need your seat." I looked past him and there was a few ponies looking at me impatiently. "Sorry." I grabbed my bag and left the train with a few insults thrown my way. I couldn't have been sitting there all day could I? I shrugged it off and studied my environment. It was a huge station with a lot of ponies scurrying to whichever platform they needed to be at. Speaking of needing to be places, I left the station and stood outside it's doors. It was early evening and things were happening everywhere, the streets were filled with cars, buildings playing loud music "It's go time." and I headed off to where the majority of life was taking place, I could only assume it was where I could get some thing going on. The sooner I was playing the better. As I was making my way to wherever music was playing I let my ears be my guide, I listened for any word of a club or a bar where I might be able to get noticed. I imagine if anything I should find somepony who's been playing and already has it in with a few places and would be looking for somepony to open up. My plans weren't much but they were something and that's all I needed to get started. I walked down what seemed like endless sidewalks and my hooves were starting to hurt, I'd normally start flying but my bag would only make it more difficult than it should. I searched for what seemed like hours for something but there was nothing I could find, looking at my phone it was five in the morning. I was still ready to go do something but nothing would be open. So I had to wait for time to slowly die. I searched for something to do but not knowing anything around here or anypony made it difficult to be able to do something about it. Grrr... Fuck, I didn't realize it but I hadn't eaten since.. My parents.. Ungh. Sadness started to rear it's depressing face my way but I couldn't let that shake my resolve. I was able to shrug it off and focus on what I needed to do. Which was kill time and the best way to do that right now was eat. I remember seeing a nice little diner on the way down here that said it was open all day and night. Convenient. As I made my way towards it a lone pony made his way towards me he looked kinda shady but who doesn't at five in the morning? I decided to let go of my silly prejudice and continue my way past him. As we made our way past each other he bumped into me and held out his hooves "Sorry bro." "It's fine, just be careful." I turned away and kept walking, I looked back for whatever reason and he was long gone. "Weird, what a strange pony." A few minutes later I had arrived at the diner, Mitch's diner. I made my way inside to see very few patrons. In fact besides the waitress and the cook, it was just me and some guy who was sitting by himself reading a book who looked up for a brief second to look at me and then dive right back into his novel. "Hello!" Is what the waitress said to me I returned her greeting with a smile "Will it just be yourself?" I nodded my head and she continued, "Okay right this way." she walked me to the opposite side of the diner and put down my menu so that I would be facing the avid reader. "Can I start you off with something? Coffee? Water? Juice?" I blankly said "Water's fine." and she left me alone to gaze at their dishes. Everything looked good from the benedicts to the pancakes. Just as soon as she left she had came back with a small glass of water. "Have you decided on what you'd like to order?" she looked at me expectantly. "Uh, yeah I'll have the hashbrowns with the blueberry muffin if that's okay." "It sure is, would you like anything else to drink besides the water?" "No, thank you." "All righty then." I handed her my menu which she thanked me for and walked off yelling at the cook my order with a scream that could've woken the dead. I looked at my drink and from what I could tell it didn't look like water but more or less it looked like the cook took a piss in the glass and tossed a few ice cubes in it and called it sqauare. Tearing myself from my questionable drink, I stared outside the window in far distance to see the sun being brought up slowly over the tall buildings that were all centered around each other in a big group. It was as if a postcard was being made. "Here you are sir. Enjoy your meal." I looked to my left to see the waitress with my order. "Thanks." she laid the plate in front of me with my hashbrowns that looked as if it was bleeding grease and swimming it's own fluids and my muffin that looked fresh enough to still be called food. She walked away leaving me to my meal and I just stared at it, this wasn't going to be good at all but my stomach made it apparent that I was on low with another growl that made the guy reading his book look up. I gave a look of disgust before eating what little I could before deciding I was done. Which only consisted of a two bites of the hashbrowns and just picking off pieces when it came to the muffin. Hardly satisfying but it'd get me through today. The waitress came around and took my plates "I'll be right back with the check." I checked my bag to look for my bitbag and wasn't able to find it, I searched one more time and I still couldn't find it. I thought of where it could be when something crossed my mind. That one pony on the street acted kind of weird towards me when he bumped into me, as if I was going to kill him or something. But when I turned around he was already gone. Was I robbed? I searched one more time and I couldn't find it. How was I going to pay for this? She came up to me again with my check and said "Have a good morning sir." and then she made her behind the kitchen. I couldn't pay for this, and I didn't want to do dishes. I had to go now before she noticed something was up, how she would do that, not too sure but I wasn't sticking around to find out. I grabbed my bag and left my seat and made the door my target, as I was leaving she came around and yelled out to me. I took off galloping full speed out of the door. "Come back here you cheap bastard!" I looked behind me and sure enough she was chasing after me, her expression full of unforgiving rage. I took the corner and broke her line of sight, when I noticed an alley half-way up the block on the opposite side of the street, surely there must have been something in it that I could hide behind. I raced to my means of possible escape when I could still hear her yelling for me "You're going to pay you rotten scumbag!" Reaching my last hope of salvation, there was little I could find, the only thing that was there was a pile full of garbage bags which were deeper inside. "There you are you son of a bitch!" Without any hesitation I tossed myself into the slimy bags and buried myself in them, leaving a hole for which I could peek through and see her searching for me. She looked past the alley and ventured slow further, my heart was pounding as she drew closer to my location. "She's going to find me." she was standing right in front of me but not looking at me, although I felt it was only a matter of time before she picked up a bag and I would be reveal "I'm screwed!" The me that she was standing there was probably five seconds but it felt like five hours, "Shoot, I lost him" she turned around head hung low and began walking away from me. Relief exuded itself from in the form of a sigh, I left my disgusting sanctuary and proceeded to shake off whatever it was that was in my mane and tail. Rotted food, and other things flew from my body and I couldn't help but feel slightly dumb for choosing the garbage as a hiding spot. When I was content that I had picked out whatever wasn't mine off of my body, I picked up my bag and continued down the alley wondering what other surprises would happen the rest of this day.

Spring and Spanner

pre

"I'm kinda hungry, though, can I have a snack?" she asked, and Spanner nodded. She trotted out to the kitchen, thinking about what she wanted. She was in the mood for a banana, so she trotted up to the fruit bowl on the counter. There was a little of everything in it; two apples, two banana, a bunch of grapes, a pear, etc. She heard Spanner open the fridge as she grabbed the bananas, and pulled them apart. There was something crawling on her!! She screamed and dropped the bananas, and brushed at her hoof. A spider fell off, and scurried back to the bananas! She looked at Spanner, surprised and a little afraid. Spiders were so gross! "What happened?" Spanner asked, by her side in an instant. "There was a spider on the banana!" she yelled, and Spanner picked the bananas up. The spider crawled slowly around the banana, and a shiver ran through Spring. Spanner gently set the bananas down on the counter, and the spider stopped moving. "That's a Nephila, Spring. Or gold weaver, as some ponies call them. They're harmless, but they tend to spend a lot of time on bananas. A lot of insects make their homes on or near fruit and vegetables, so usually it's a good idea to inspect your food before you eat it" Spanner said. "Do you want a closer look? I promise it won't hurt you." "No way! They're so gross and weird looking!" Spring said, keeping her eyes on the spider. It hadn't moved since her dad set the bananas on the counter, but she wasn't taking any chances. "Are they? I happen to find gold weavers to be quite pretty. Beauty comes in many different forms, Spring. For example, you're very cute, while gold weavers have an array of golden-yellow spots all along their abdomen that creates a rather dazzling effect" Spanner explained. Spring blushed at the off-hoof compliment, and looked at the spider again. She guessed it was kinda cool looking. "It can't hurt me?" "That's right" Spanner said. "Gold weavers are harmless to ponies. They might bite if they're afraid, but their venom is harmless to ponies, and usually they'll run away if threatened." Spring scoffed. "Why would a spider be afraid? They're the scary ones." "Spring, you're hundreds of times bigger than it. A spider like the gold weaver has much to be afraid of." "What about other spiders?" Spanner seemed to think about it for a moment. "There are a lot of spider species out there that aren't afraid of ponies. In fact, there are many species that are very aggressive and dangerous, so if you don't know any better, then it's probably a good idea to keep your distance." So she was right to be afraid of the gold weaver! Except, if it isn't harmless, then...should she have been so afraid? She guessed that if she saw a bug she didn't recognize, then it was OK to be afraid of it, but maybe she'd be OK if she didn't go near it. "How do you know so much, dad?" Spanner just smiled. "Every day's a school day, even at my age. Since you don't want the spider around, I'll take it outside." Spanner picked up a towel and covered his hoof with it, and gently coaxed the spider onto his hoof. He pushed the backdoor open, and slowly tipped his hoof until the spider scurried off and into the grass, quickly disappearing from sight. "Many ponies are deeply terrified by bugs like spiders, centipedes, and bees, and will kill them without hesitation, but usually it's not necessary. Insects, like everything, are just looking for shelter and food most of the time. If I know an insect won't be a nuisance or a threat, then usually I leave them be and eventually they go on their way. Flying insects are what drive me insane." Spring frowned, thinking. She hadn't wanted to kill the spider, but mostly because she hadn't wanted to touch it at all, especially since it had crawled on her! She just didn't want it around, but the spider probably hadn't understood what was happening. It had just been sitting on the bananas, and when Spring had suddenly picked the bananas up it had probably been scared and started running. "I don't hate spiders" Spring said. "I just don't want them near me. Is that OK?" Spanner laughed. "Yes, that's OK, dear heart. It's OK to not like something you still respect, but you'll understand that more when you're older" he said. "Now, still want a snack, or do you want to play a game together?" "I still want a snack, but I think I'll have something else. Uhm, I also want to write a letter to Morning." "Alright, pick what you want and then I'll let you write to your friend." Spring quickly grabbed an apple and cantered to her room, keeping the door open. She set it on her desk and pulled out a quill and parchment, and got to writing. Later in the day it was getting near dinner time, and Spring couldn't wait. She was so hungry! The apple she'd eaten earlier had kept her sated for most of the afternoon, but now that dinner was nearing food was all she could think of. She'd spent most of the afternoon just reading, though she thought that maybe her appetite had gotten so worked up over that game of catch she'd played with Spanner. Her clock said it was just about 7:00pm, so she figured that dinner was almost done. She set down her book and trotted out in the hall, a faint sound of boiling water now audible. She entered the kitchen and Spanner was standing upright by the stove, pasta spoon in his hoof, looking to the side. "Is it almost done?" Spring asked. He didn't respond. Spring turned her head to the side and trotted up to Spanner. He was rooted in place, eyes wide, staring at...a pot? Spring looked at the pot, afraid there was some huge spider on it like earlier, but there was nothing there. "Dad?" she asked, and still there was no response, and he was beginning to scare her. With a quivering lip she again said "...dad?" and poked him, and he flinched. His eyes snapped to hers and after a brief second her dad's expression warmed, and he smiled. "Springy! Sorry, I was just thinking about something. Come to check on dinner? It should be just about done" he said, and stirred the pot. Spring was confused and a little scared, but she was more hungry than anything. Over the past six weeks something like this had happened once or twice, but Spanner had always snapped out of it when she called his name before. She figured it was just some adult stuff, but it did make her a little nervous. A few minutes later dinner was done, and despite herself Spring grinned. Spanner had made spaghetti, which Spring had long ago determined was one of her favorites, from living at Small Steps. It was always hot and moist, and Spanner always sprinkled on just the right amount of parmesan cheese. Spring was a little picky about sauce, though; sometimes she wanted it, sometimes she didn't. Tonight she went without it, but every bite was sure to be a delight. Her dad set the table, and they each took a seat across from each other. She had thought about asking him if he was alright, but he was acting like his usual self still, so she let it slide. There was something on Spring's mind that she did want to ask, though. "Dad? Why did you adopt me?" Spanner paused just as he was about to take a bite of his spaghetti. "I wondered if you might ask me this question. I suppose you're wondering why I picked you over all the other foals there at the orphanage?" Spring nodded. "I told you that first day that you weren't afraid, or shy. Each time I saw you, you looked right at me and smiled. Some of the other foals looked at me, some even waved, but... I think a lot of ponies are wary of me. I talk to very few in town, and I have few friends." No friends? Spring found that very sad. "When I fostered you for that weekend, I wasn't sure if I was up to being a dad. I didn't know if you'd get along with me, or if I'd get along with you. I was lonely, but I couldn't connect with any of the adults I knew, so I started going to the orphanage. You see, some ponies have trouble accepting other ponies for what they are, and try to convince them to be something they're not, and I find it so tiring. When that Friday came around, and we played all day, and I showed you my coin collection on the subsequent Saturday, I knew. You've never wanted me to be anything but what I already am, and that's so much more important than you realize. It's why I made that promise to you then. You are such a bright and cheery young filly, Spring Blossom. Don't ever let anything change that." Spring felt like she was about to cry, but she managed to keep her tears at bay. She hopped down off her chair and gave her dad a hug, which he returned. "I'm glad you adopted me." "I'm glad, too, Spring. More than you realize. I'm so very happy I have you in my life." There was something else Spring felt she should say, but she found that she couldn't. It was three simple words, but she couldn't manage to get them out, and as the moment passed she began to think it would be awkward if she said them, so instead she decided to hold onto her dad just a little while longer. And that was OK, too.

Spring and Spanner

8 - The Ghost

Chapter Eight The Ghost There was just thirty minutes left in the day, and Spring Blossom couldn't wait to go home. She sat on the floor next to Patchouli Rest, but found she couldn't focus on the project they were supposed to be working on together. "Come on, Spring! You can't even remember the main character's name?" Patchouli asked. "I remember! I just can't remember what she did or why she did any of it" Spring said. "Alright, look, the main character's name was Ishmare, and she was helping the captain of the boat she was on catch a whale" Patchouli explained. "So the book was about catching whales?" Spring asked. "No! The book was about how obsessed the captain pony was, and how she died because she couldn't let the whale go. It's supposed to be like...symbolic, or something." "So it was about catching whales." Patchouli facehoofed, which made Spring giggle. She was starting to remember the book a little better, and was remembering why she hadn't liked it so much: it was weird. It was long, and written weirdly, and plus Spring didn't like that the zebra character in the book was dumb and couldn't speak Equestrian. Spring felt that was mean because she knew from reading Morning Glisten's letters that zebras lived in Equestria and could speak Equestrian just fine. "I didn't like the book. I'm gonna write down how mean it was that the zebra couldn't speak Equestrian" Spring said, and scribbled that on her part of the book report. It was a dumb book about a pony who died because they were greedy and mean, that's all there was to it in Spring's mind. Before she knew it the final bell rang and Spring scrambled to put all of her things away in her desk. She was careful to keep everything organized the way she liked, and quickly got in line to leave the classroom. As all the colts and fillies got out into the hall the foals from the orphanage separated into their own line near the caretaker. Patchouli waved to Spring, who waved back. A few minutes later everypony was outside, and Spring couldn't wait to rush home. It was Friday and she didn't have any homework, so she was free to spend the weekend with her dad. The weather in spring was so pretty, and Spring loved it. She couldn't wait to get home and water her flowers, and was hoping that there was a letter from Morning waiting for her. She ran through the town, a few adults she recognized waving at her as she sped by. Very shortly she was outside her home and rushed up to the mailbox. There was a single envelope inside, and she carried it in. "Dad, I'm home!" Spring called, but there was no response. She looked over the envelope she'd pulled out from the mailbox and discovered it was from Morning. She rushed into her room, door already open, and hopped up onto her bed. She was just about to open it up when she was hit with a sudden urge. She quickly cantered out of her room and down the hall to the bathroom. The door was open, so she knew there was nopony inside. She rushed in and locked the door. As she did her business she heard the backdoor open, and was excited to tell Spanner all about her day. She heard a knock on the front door a few moments later, and wondered who it could be. She heard the door open, and Spanner say something to the pony who had knocked. Spring carefully washed her hooves in the sink and was about to go back out when she heard her dad talking to somepony, but he was talking really loud. She eased up to the door and gently cracked it open, peeking out through the gap. She saw Spanner standing in front of a stallion she didn't recognize, the two of them standing in the living room. Trouble was, she couldn't understand what they were saying. "Die kuhnheit..." Spanner said. "Sie haben nerven hierher zu kommen." The stallion Spanner was talking to was big, taller than Spanner by a few inches, and more muscular. His coat was gray, his mane and tail black. He had a cutie mark of a spear jutting out from behind a shield, and he looked mean. "Ihre hilfe wird zu hause benotigt" the other stallion said. "Dass sie ein solches leben Ihrer pflicht gegenuber dem Vaterland vorziehen wurden ist traurig." "Ich bin jetzt viel glucklicher als jemals zuvor zu hause" Spanner said, and Spring scrunched up her face. What were they saying, and who was this stallion?! The mysterious stallion scoffed. "Du lebst alleine und arbeitest einen schrecklichen job. Komm nach hause, zuruck ins Vaterland. Wir brauchen deine hilfe, Spanner Wrench." Spanner took a step towards the stallion. "Nein. Ich werde nie zuruckkehren. Du und alle anderen konnen in der Holle brennen." The stallion nodded. "Ich verstehen. Ich habe etwas fur dich. Vielleicht wird dich das interessieren" he said, and reached into a saddlebag on his left side that Spring hadn't noticed. He took out a large tin disc with an opening on it, and Spring recognized it as a film reel. He was giving her dad a movie? Maybe it was a gift, and he was friends with her dad! Suddenly Spanner smacked the film reel out of the stallion's hooves, and it clattered across the carpet, part of it breaking open and the film reel spilling out across the carpet. Spring gasped, unable to believe what she'd just seen. She'd never seen her dad hit another pony, or do anything violent at all. "Get. Out. Now." Spanner said, and the stallion trotted towards the front door. Spring held her breath and scooted back from the bathroom door, and listened as the stallion calmly left. She stayed in the bathroom, though, and peeked back out at her dad. He looked down at the film on the floor, and looked angry. Really angry, and Spring didn't know why. She was afraid, too. She'd never seen her dad like this before. Spanner just stood there for a few moments, breathing really hard, staring at the film. After several minutes he took a deep breath and blew it out, and looked calmer. He picked the reel back up, rolled the film back into the can, and carried it to his bedroom. Spring watched him calmly trot outside, and she gently pushed the door open. She slowly trotted out of the bathroom, and quickly locked the front door before she trotted to the kitchen. She looked out through one of the windows and saw her dad go into the shed. She watched as he brought out a ponyquin kind of thing, with a large burlap sack in the shape of a pony filled with straw and mounted on a stand. He set it up in the backyard, went back into the shed, and came back out holding a wood baton. Spanner stood in front of the ponyquin for a few moments before he started hitting it. Spring gasped, and put a hoof up to her mouth. What is happening... she wondered, and watched in horror as her father wailed on the straw pony. There was a sharp crack each time the baton hit the wood insides of the straw pony, audible even in the house. She watched, shaking, as Spanner relentlessly beat the straw pony. He hit it, and hit it, and hit it, and hit it, and hit it, and just wouldn't stop. Soon he started grunting each time he swung the baton, and the straw pony swayed on each hit. With tears in her eyes and butterflies in her stomach Spring got down and trotted to her room. She looked at Morning's letter, sitting on her desk, but decided not to read it. She crawled on to her bed and looked at the door, afraid and alone and confused. The rest of the day had been uncomfortable for Spring. She hadn't said anything about the stallion or the straw pony beating, and Spanner hadn't said anything about it to her either. Quite the opposite, he had spent the day being his usual self around her. Spring hadn't really wanted to play with him, so she spent most of the day in her room, reading. Only coming out to get a snack, eat dinner, and use the bathroom. The day was at its end, and Spring still had no idea what had happened or if she should ask Spanner about it. She had brushed her teeth and gone to bed almost an hour ago, and still hadn't managed to fall asleep. She was just so confused. She had never seen that stallion before, never heard that language before, and then her dad got angry and violent. None of it had been directed at her, but it was still alarming and scary. She still hadn't even read Morning's letter to her. She looked over at it on her desk, bathed in the glow of Luna's moon, and got out of bed. She flicked on the lamp on her desk, opened the envelope, and pulled the letter out. Dear Spring Blossom, I hope you are doing well! Me, Mom, Mama, and Ma are all doing real good. I finaly got my cutie mark, I was so happy! If you want I can send you a photo of it, if you wanna see it. School is goin good, i got an A- in my equestrian language class, and a B+ in all the other ones. I was worried that Mom would realy get on me about my grades, but she said she doesnt want to preshure me too hard. I heard Ma say that it was weerd that Mom wasn't being 'noorotic', but she wont tell me what that means, so i gues i'll ask miss Cheerily. My friends Pound and Pumpkin are doing good, too. I hope you are having fun with your new dad. I miss you Spring. Love, Mo Glow. Spring smiled, happy for her friend. She put the letter down and looked at her door, and opened it up. She snuck over to the door of her dad's room, and gently pushed it open. There was a flickering light in his room, and Spring pushed the door open further. Her dad was sitting on the floor, his back to the door, and the window in his room was covered by a big white tarp. The projector was set up, a film reel mounted in it. The movie was strange, and in black-and-white. There were ponies in dark uniforms marching together, a pony making a speech, and random footage of a bunch of craters in a field. The movie went back to the pony giving the speech, and she heard him say "Vor funf Jahren wurden wir bedroht. Heute sind wir wieder bedroht! Diesmal von innen! Stell dich gegen die Verrater!!" The film then showed a rope being tied around a pony's neck, but it wasn't a normal pony. Their coat was a dark color and they had holes in their legs, and then the film showed a humongous crowd of ponies all clapping and cheering and saluting. "Wir lassen uns nicht von ihnen kontrollieren! Wir werden nicht zulassen, dass sie uns manipulieren! Das Vaterland halt, das Vaterland SCHÜTZT." A picture of a flag with an eagle on it came up, perched upon a bar and its wings spread, and then the movie ended. Spring watched her dad continue to just sit on the floor, staring at the blank screen. After a few minutes he got up, switched off the projector, and took the film off of it. He looked at it, set it down on his dresser, and started to disassemble the projector. Spring crept back from the door and went back into her room. She looked at the letter Morning had sent her and frowned. It was too late to write a reply, but she knew she had to ask somepony for help. She wanted to ask Spanner if he was OK, but she was still a little afraid of him. She knew he'd never hurt her, but it was still scary the way he'd acted. She'd just have to wait until tomorrow, and go ask Miss Ginger for help. Otherwise she'd have to wait until Monday when she went back to school to ask one of the teachers. Spring switched off her lamp, crawled back into bed, and closed her eyes. It took a long time to find her, but eventually sleep came, her dreams filled with images of Spanner in a dark uniform, beating ponies.

Spring and Spanner

9 - Shadows of Hate

Act III Ich verspreche Chapter Nine Shadows of Hate Saturday came, and Spring Blossom awoke, groggy. She rubbed her head, still feeling tired. She got out of bed, and just as she was about to make her bed she heard a thud, and the sound of Spanner trotting out the backdoor. She pushed her door open, and headed into the kitchen. She heard the shed door open, and she looked out the window into the backyard. She watched as Spanner dragged out a big metal drum, and tossed it onto the lawn. He went back into the shed, and came out carrying some firewood. He up righted the drum, tossed the firewood in, and went back into the shed. When he came back out, he was carrying a red metal can, which he sat down on the lawn. Spring watched him pick up the film reel that the mystery pony had given him and toss it into the drum, and he picked the metal can up again. He pulled off a lid, and tipped the can over. A thick stream of fluid came pouring out into the drum. He poured and poured until the can was empty, and then he threw the can in. He lit a match, and tossed it into the drum. Spring gasped as a massive WOOOSH of fire erupted from inside the metal drum, and Spanner Wrench stood in front of it, staring into the flames. She dropped down and trotted uneasily away. There was something very weird going on, and Spring badly wanted to know what it was. She knew now that her dad didn't like that pony that had come to visit, and now that he was burning the film reel he'd been given, she also guessed he didn't like the pony who'd given the speech in the video. But why? She poked her head into her dad's room, wondering if she could find something that would answer her questions. Nothing was really out of place in her dad's room, though his bed was unmade. The white screen was still over the window, though the projector had been put back away in its box, tucked partially under the bed. Spring got down low, and looked under the bed. There was a safe built into the floor, which she knew about already, and nothing else. Spanner had said that only more coins and silver bars were in the safe, and she didn't have the key anyway. Spring stood up and frowned. The stallion that had come to visit had a cutie mark of a spear sticking out from behind a shield, and the movie her dad had been watching had ponies in uniform marching together. Was her dad a soldier? That couldn't be it, she figured, since he had a normal job in town, but maybe he used to be a soldier? Spring felt like she had a few of the pieces, but the puzzle itself didn't make sense. Her dad, the mystery visitor, and the pony giving the speech in the video all spoke that same language, and if Spanner had been a soldier before, then was the visitor his leader? Had her dad fought in a war? Deciding that only one pony could help her she decided to go back to the orphanage. She trotted back out into the hall, quickly checked that her dad was still standing by the fire, and headed for the front door. Only Miss Ginger could answer her questions. Miss Ginger wasn't at the orphanage. According to the pony at the front desk, Ginger had gone into town to run errands. The pony at the front desk offered to take a message for Ginger, or go find one of the other caretakers, but Spring decided she couldn't wait. She thought about running into town and tracking Ginger down, but decided instead to go home. It just didn't make any sense to her, and she felt like crying. She hoped that things would go back to normal, but she didn't really know if she could do anything to make that so. She trotted into the house, feeling down and dejected. "Dad....?" she called, and there was no response. She checked each of the rooms, and there was no sign of Spanner. She looked out the kitchen window and Spanner wasn't out back, either. The fire had gone out, the drum completely blackened. She slowly trotted outside and noticed the straw pony on the ground, its wooden skeleton cracked and smashed in several places, and fresh tears welled up. The baton that her dad had been using to beat the straw pony was on the ground next to it, the wood chipped and scratched in many places. Spring lied down on the grass and began to cry softly. She lied there like that for a long time, the stress of it all too much to bear. She was alone, with nopony to help her, and she felt lost. There had been days like this for her before, many years ago. When she lost her birth father, when Morning had been adopted, when she'd been feeling sad and afraid of living in the orphanage forever. Eventually, however, she'd learned to handle it all. When Spanner had adopted her, she'd been the happiest she'd ever been in her life. She loved Spanner, he was such a nice and caring pony, Spring knew it. She wouldn't want anypony else in the world to be her dad, no matter what happened, so she had to help Spanner. Sniffling and getting to her hooves Spring trotted back into the house and into her room. If Miss Ginger wasn't around to help her, then she'd just have to help herself! She wasn't sure how she was going to do it just yet, but she knew she was going to do something. She looked around her room, trying to find something that would give her an idea. She looked at her books, but they wouldn't be very useful. Prancey Drew was all about solving puzzles or mysteries about lost treasures. The Hardy Bucks books were all about camping and doing stuff that only colts would want to do, and Spring wasn't sure why she even had any of them. They probably all belonged to Patchouli anyway. She pulled open one of her desk drawers and began pawing through the newspapers she'd saved that had pictures of Morning Glisten on the front page. She'd never actually read the articles in them, so maybe there was something there that could help. She pulled out the newspaper from when Morning had just been adopted by the three Princesses, and it said the story was on page three, so Spring turned to it. *** 'Homo Princesses adopt helpless filly' 'We here at the Virtuous Equestrian Society newspaper company are very sad to announce that the many rumors surrounding sightings of Sunset Shimmer, the captain of the Twilit Guard, being spotted in the village of Hollow Shades apparently have merit. From the halls of Small Steps Home for Orphaned Ponies the degenerate Princesses have taken custody of a young filly.' 'As one would expect, too, Miss Shimmer and her 'partners' aren't very good at being parents, either, as just today when they brought the young filly home she was quickly lost. When she was eventually found by a local reporter, instead of thanking him, Princess Twilight verbally berated and insulted him. Very poor conduct for the princess of friendship, but given her lifestyle changes of late it's hardly a surprise.' *** Spring frowned. She didn't recognize some of the words, but it was clear that this article was being mean to Morning's mothers, so Spring set it aside. The second newspaper was from the Princess Summit that Morning had attended, and actually had an interview with Morning in it. She turned to the article and began to read. *** 'Exciting tales from the Equestrian Princess Summit, including interview with Princess Morning Glisten!' 'Our correspondent in the Crystal Empire has finished his story on the Princess Summit held this year in the Crystal Empire, and we're excited to bring the story to you! Here at the Equestrian Herald we have a great deal of respect for the Princesses and their work to extinguish bigotry in our country, and our correspondent, Pewter Inkwell, was all too happy to conduct an interview with the Princesses' adopted daughter, Morning Glisten!' 'Inkwell: Let's start with today. What did you think of being part of the Princess Summit?' 'Morning Glisten: It was strange. There were a lot of ponies there, and uhm, I kept expecting them to ask me to do something.' 'Inkwell: Was it a little scary having all those eyes on you?' 'Morning Glisten: A little... but I told Flurry that I would look out for her, so I had to be brave.' *** Brave. She had to be brave. She was brave, Spring Blossom knew that. Morning Glisten was a brave filly, so Spring would have to be as well! She put the newspapers back in her desk and looked out her window. She took a moment to water her flowers before she closed her windows and got on her bed and began to think about what she'd do. She still wanted to ask an adult like Miss Ginger for help, but if she couldn't then she still had to be brave to help her dad. Spring set her chin down on her pillow and closed her eyes. It had been a tough day, and she needed a moment to rest after it all. She kept trying to think of ways to help Spanner, but found herself slipping away, and before she knew it she'd drifted off to sleep.

Spring and Spanner

10 - Sorrow

Chapter Ten Sorrow Spanner Wrench was in a dark place. For years he had run from the truth of his past, had buried it, had ignored it. But when it had reared its ugly head again unexpectedly he had been unable to confront it. 'The audacity... You have some nerve coming here.' In the days since Stalwart Shield's visit he'd found himself spiraling further and further down into a demented prison of rage and scorn. He'd smashed the training dummy into pieces, he'd scorched the film that Stalwart had given him until not a single ash of it had remained, and yet still he was slipping away. Spring hadn't said much to him all weekend, and when he'd come home from his walk in the woods the day before yesterday she'd already been asleep. She knew something. Spanner didn't know what, but he couldn't help but feel that Spring Blossom had learned the truth. That she had seen the way he'd been acting, and it had scared her. It scared him more, because it was a reminder of what he could lose. In the years since he had left home Spanner Wrench had silently contended with the demons that had followed him to his new life in Equestria, but bringing Spring into his life had changed him. He was opening up more, smiling more, looking forward to each day more and more. And in just five minutes, Stalwart Shield had taken all that away from him. Except that wasn't true. Spanner knew it wasn't true. Spring was still here, he still had his life with her, but it had reminded Spanner that he couldn't escape. He wasn't hiding from his old country, but he had gone years believing that it had very much forgotten him. 'I have something for you. Here. Maybe this will make you care.' And then there had been the film. For years, Spanner had avoided all news from his homeland. After he'd left, he hadn't cared what happened. Whether it crashed and burned or prospered, he didn't give a damn. Now, his old friend was forcing him to care. After he'd watched the film he'd been given Spanner had tracked down a few newspapers that covered foreign news, and had learned what was happening in the fatherland. An enemy masquerading as a neighbor was lurking in the shadows. An enemy that could be a friend and a coworker and a spouse and a foalsitter. An enemy that looked as equine as him and Spring, but beneath the surface was something far sinister. It was all lies, he told himself. He knew it. He knew what the leadership back home was like, and whatever they were saying, whatever they were drumming up to get their citizens to believe, it was all damned lies. False or not, as far as Spanner was concerned there was no choice to make. The fatherland could burn in Tartarus for all he cared. Spring Blossom was all that mattered to him now, and he would be damned if he left her behind to fight some fool war against an enemy that could so effortlessly manipulate him, twist him, before draining him dry. It was Monday, and Spanner Wrench had elected not to go into work. He knew there was no chance he'd be able to focus on his work today. Instead he found himself deep in the woods behind his home, trotting aimlessly, lost in thought. He would never go back. He swore it to himself. His life in Hollow Shades was everything he had ever wanted, he had just never known it until he had it. If Stalwart Shield thought he get Spanner to leave it all behind by appealing to some arbitrary sense of honor or duty he was sorely mistaken. Spanner stopped and sat down by a tree, and looked it over. There was a group of rocks nearby, and Spanner trotted over, intrigued. It dawned on him that they were the rocks that Spring had hidden among that first day he had fostered her, almost two months ago. He smiled sadly, looking at the patch of grass in the middle of the rocks. He lied down amid the rocks and his thoughts drifted to Spring. 'HOLY COW! You came flying out of the sky!' He had learned a lot from Spring. A lot about himself, mostly, in ways that Spring would never know or understand. She completed him, and he hoped that she understood what she meant to him. The news in the fatherland seemed to think the threat was real, and that it would soon threaten Equestria and the rest of the world. It was hogwash. Just the usual trumped-up scaremongering they used to rile everypony up. 'I don't know if you'll end up adopting me, but...I hope you will!' He expected that Spring felt that he had changed her life more than she had changed his. In her eyes, life was perfect. She got to go to the same school, with all her friends, and live in the one town she'd known all her life. But now, things were changing, and that was what pissed off Spanner the most. A filly Spring's age didn't need to know what her dad had been through, she didn't need to know that bad things were happening in another country. 'The Fatherland endures! The Fatherland PROTECTS!!' Spanner sighed, curled up in the grass, and closed his eyes. Spring was his priority. He would shield her, protect her, from everything. That included the truth about his past. It was just the way it had to be, to keep her safe. Spring Blossom was glad that it was lunchtime. It wasn't just that she was hungry, even though she was, but also that she badly wanted to talk to Patchouli Rest. He was ten, and once Morning Glisten had been adopted he'd basically become her best friend in Hollow Shades. She knew that he could help her. Spring quickly collected her lunch, a salad with grated cheese, and headed for one of the empty tables near the corner of the cafeteria. Usually she liked sit with a crowd and just talk with ponies, but she wanted to be alone with Patchouli for this. She sat at the empty table and a few moments later Patchouli joined her. "You don't look so good, Spring. Do you need to go to the nurse's office?" he asked. "No. I didn't sleep very well last night. Something weird is going on with dad" she said. "Like what?" "This weird stallion came to visit us on Friday, but he spoke this weird language that I didn't understand. Him and dad talked for a while, and the stallion tried to give my dad a movie, but he smacked it out of his hooves! He kept it, though, and I saw him watching it that night. The film was weird, and there was a pony giving a speech that spoke that same language. Ever since then dad's been acting real scary..." Spring said. "Scary? Is he...hurting you?" Patchouli asked. "No! He's never hurt me at all, but there was this wooden pony he was hitting real hard, and then he burned the movie, and then... I don't know what's happening, Patchouli" Spring said, and put her chin on the table. "I think that visitor was a bad pony, and he made dad angry. I wish I knew what they'd said." "Have you talked to one of our teachers about it? Or Miss Ginger?" he asked. "No. I wanted to ask Miss Ginger on Saturday, but she wasn't at Small Steps when I went" Spring explained. "And then yesterday I didn't feel like going outside. I told dad I haven't been feeling well. I thought about writing to Morning, but that'll take too long. My dad needs help right now!" "I wanna help, Spring, but...what can we do?" Patchouli asked. "What if you just talked to him? Maybe it's just a misunderstanding." Spring didn't think that's what was happening. Her dad had known the visitor well enough to let him inside the house, but clearly didn't like him very much. "I guess you're right, I should just talk to him. I have to be brave, I know that, but will it really be that easy?" "Um... Maybe?" Patchouli asked. "Miss Ginger always says that if we have a problem with somepony, then we should just talk it out with them. I know you don't have a problem with your dad, but if he has a problem then maybe if you talk to him about it he'll realize a way to deal with it, or something." Spring nodded, and started eating her salad. It was worth a shot, at least. Maybe once she got home she'd talk to Spanner and tell him what Patchouli had told her, or tell him that maybe he could ask one of the ponies he worked with for help. Spring hadn't met any of the ponies he worked with, but dad had told her that one of his coworkers had two colts around her age. Spring thought it'd be nice to meet them, but first she had to help Spanner. She'd just have to get through the rest of the day. The rest of the day had passed slowly. Really slowly. She tried to pay attention to her lessons, but kept getting distracted by thinking about how she was gonna talk to Spanner. Eventually the school day ended and Spring trotted home, the butterflies in her stomach fluttering again. She pushed open the door to her house and stepped in. "...Dad?" she called, and there was no response. She closed the door behind her and trotted into the house proper. "Dad?" "In the kitchen, Springy." Spring trotted back into the kitchen and found her dad sitting at the table, drinking something out of a coffee cup and looking at some pictures. Spring climbed into the chair across from him, unsure of where to start. "What are those pictures of, dad?" "Some old friends. Did you have a good day at school, Spring?" he asked, and Spring nodded. She was going to ask him the question that had been on her mind all weekend, but... She had to be brave! Her dad needed her help, she couldn't afford to hold back. "Uhm, dad... Who was that stallion who came by on Friday?" Spanner paused just as he was about to take another sip of his drink, and set the cup down. He looked down at the photos in his hoof and set them aside. He didn't seem surprised that Spring had seen him, but rather he looked...sad. "A stallion I once knew. There was once a time when I would've done anything he asked. Now?" Spanner said, and took another sip of his drink. "Now he's a relic, reliving something that ended years ago." Spring didn't understand. "I don't get it... Dad, why did you...hit that wooden pony?" Spanner looked at her weirdly, like he was afraid. He put a hoof to his head, and put down the photos. He pushed his drink away, his eyes on the table. After a few minutes, he began to speak. "Five years ago..."

Spring and Spanner

11 - The Rainbow at the End

Chapter Eleven The Rainbow at the End "I was a mercenary, a soldier, in another country, far across the sea. My home country went to war with a united tribe of zebras, and mercenaries like me were hired all across the fatherland to fight. For three long years. It was a war of conquest, for resources. Gold. Silver. Diamonds. We all believed in it. We wanted it. It was going to be a simple war, and life would be easy forever. Instead, it dragged on" Spanner said. "The zebras, they fought in two different ways. On the one hoof, they would fight from the shadows. They would strike at patrols, or shipments, and then quickly slink away. On the other hoof, they would meet us in open battle, on wide fields where hundreds of our side and theirs would clash in frantic, confusing battles. We were better equipped, better trained, better organized, but the zebras were tenacious." He showed Spring a few of the photos. He was in most of them, posing together with other ponies. All stallions. His uniform was just like the one she'd seen in the film: darkly colored, a helmet with a spike on it on his head. "The zebras had foreign help, too. We never found out from who. In several battles, they would use catapults, given to them by their ally. They would light bombs and fling them across the horizon at us." He showed her a photo of a wide field, marked with dozens of craters. "Did you win?" she asked. "No. We didn't lose, but we didn't win. One day, after three long years of fighting, the war just...ended. Our leaders ordered us to lay down our swords, and the zebras put theirs down as well. It was all for nothing, and we realized it had only ended because our country was about to collapse. Money quickly became worthless, and food was hard to find. Our leaders had spent all the country's money on the war, with the hope that if we won the resources we were going to steal would pay it all off." "So...your leaders were bad ponies? They wanted to steal the zebras' stuff?" Spring asked, and Spanner nodded. "When I went home from the battlefields, my home town had become one. A civil war was brewing. Ponies were starving, ponies couldn't find jobs, it was chaos. Police ponies tried to keep the peace, but it quickly got out of control. Ponies would attack the police, and then the police would attack back. Our leaders shifted the blame, claiming our country had been betrayed by its own citizens. Harsher and harsher laws were handed down, and the civil war exploded. That's when I left." "You came to Equestria?" Spring asked, and Spanner nodded. "For the past five years I've tried to put it behind me. I did, and then my old commander came to visit. Stalwart Shield. He asked me to go back, to help my old country. The newspapers that talk about other countries claim my homeland is under siege by ponies hiding in the shadows. Changelings. It isn't true. If our leaders lied to us about why we lost the war, then they're lying now. I know it" Spanner said. Spring wasn't sure what to say, but she still had a few more questions. "The film, I saw you watching it. You hit that wood pony, and then you burned the movie. Why?" Spanner nodded, looking ashamed. "When Stalwart left, I was just so angry, Springy. I couldn't stop. I hit the training dummy because I needed some way to burn off all that anger. It was better than just bottling it all up, but if you saw it, then... I'm sorry. I told myself I would protect you from this. From my past. You shouldn't know about this, you should enjoy your life. What I went through... No child should know about it. What you've been through is also something no child should go through, but I knew the good I could do in adopting you. I did it to change a life for the better, as opposed to the other way I used to change lives. As for the film, I burned it because I'm never going back. No matter who asks, this is my home now, and I won't leave it or you for anything." "...You promise?" Spring asked. Spanner nodded. "I'm sure you were afraid of me." She wanted to tell her dad that she hadn't, but she also didn't want to lie. "I'm not afraid anymore. I just..." she trailed off, unsure of what to say. Five years ago, her dad had left his home to come to Equestria, to get away from bad ponies who lied and wanted to take things from zebras. "You're not a bad pony, I know that. Bad ponies don't do good things." "Sometimes good ponies do bad things, though" Spanner countered, and Spring frowned. "Only when bad ponies lie to them!" she said, and Spanner smiled. "Only when bad ponies lie to them. Still, one's actions are one's own, but you'll learn more about that when you're older." Five years ago, Spring's original dad died in the accident, and her mother had died giving birth to her. Sad things had happened to her, too, but she was happy now. Even at the orphanage, she had been happy, she had just wanted to be adopted really badly. If sad things had happened to her and she was happy now, then she knew that her dad could be happy again too. despite what he did and what happened to him. "What if... What if they make you go back? What if that stallion comes back, and says you have to go back?" Spring asked, and Spanner lifted his head up, keeping his eyes firmly on Spring's. "I won't let them." Spring looked down and nodded, but she didn't like the way that sounded. Spanner stood and trotted over to her. He leaned down and hugged her, and Spring hugged him back. "I'm sorry, Spring, I... I didn't mean to scare you. You've made me so much happier, brought so much joy to my life, I never want to lose you. I won't ever lose you, I promise you that" her dad said, his voice sounding like he was about to cry. Spring just hugged him tighter. "I never want to lose you either, dad. I..." she paused and mustered the courage to finally say what she had wanted to for so long. "I love you, dad." "I love you too, Springy. Daddy loves you..." They sat like that for a while, the two of them just hugging. Spring felt so bad for her dad, and she knew that she'd have to be there for him. To help make him happy again. She reminded herself to make sure that she write a letter to Morning Glisten, and maybe ask her if she could ask her mothers for help. After a time her dad released her and he wiped his face. "Could you come with me to the backyard, Spring? There's something I need to do." She nodded and got out of her chair, and followed her dad to the back door. The two of them stepped outside into the afternoon sun, and he trotted into the shed. He came back out carrying a shovel, and trotted over towards the woods. He stopped by a small stone near the edge of the forest, and stuck the shovel into the ground. Twenty minutes later Spanner had stopped digging, a big pile of dirt next to him, and he crouched down next to the hole. Spring watched him set the shovel down and he gestured for her to come over, and she approached the hole. There was a chest inside the hole, the lid had the symbol of the eagle on it, and it was made out of a beautiful red wood. Her dad opened the lid, and Spring looked inside. Inside she saw the uniform she'd seen her dad wearing in the pictures, a tunic of gray wool lined with red. It had brass buttons and a bunch of medals on it. On the right side of the chest were a bunch of things, like a compass and a few cans. Her dad stepped aside and let Spring continue to look. "This is all your old army stuff?" she asked, and he nodded. "These are things I held onto, even when I left home for Equestria. Things I should've left behind. Things I never wanted to see again, but couldn't let go of. This will be the last time, though" Spanner said. "What's in the cans?" "Dirt. Weird, I know, but each new place I went to I took a few hooffuls of dirt and put them in an empty food can. At the time I thought it'd be nice to one day, when the war was over, think back on what I accomplished and all the places I'd been to. Once I left, though, I realized I wanted to forget it all" Spanner said. Spring looked for a bit before she backed away from the chest. She hadn't even realized Spanner had trotted away until she heard him come back over, carrying a red can. He reached into the chest and pulled out a stick with two metal orbs, one on each end. Spring thought they looked like little green pineapples. "I won't burn this" he said. He put the stick aside and poured the fluid in the can into the chest. He only poured about half of it out before he set the can aside and pulled out a match. "The only way to move on is to let it all go. Ready?" Spring nodded, excited and nervous. Morning had told her that meant she was 'nervouscited.' She said it was a Pinkie thing, whatever that meant. Spanner tossed the match into the chest and it erupted into a massive ball of fire, and he sat down on the lawn next to her, close enough for their bodies to be touching. "What happened to your sword?" Spring asked, and Spanner nodded. "Tossed it, long before I left home. I never wanted to see it again" he said. "Did you ever...use it?" she asked, afraid of the answer. Spanner fixed her with a look. One that looked as though she had caught him doing something he shouldn't have been. "Yes." Spring looked down, a little afraid. "What about the photos?" Spanner looked down at the pile of them, and seemed to think about it for a moment. "They were all good ponies, just misguided, like I once was. They were friends, brothers... Some of them I saved. Some of them saved me." He picked the photos up and tossed them into the fire, and he lied down on the grass. Spring lied down next to him and together they watched the flames lick at the air. "I'll never forget their faces." An hour later the fire had burned out, leaving the chest nothing but smoldering ashes. Her dad poured out a can of water into the hole to put out the last of the embers, and then he tossed the stick with the metal balls on it back into the hole. He buried the ashes and the stick with it, and put the shovel away. "There's a bookstore in town, and it's started to carry films. Let's say we go over there and try to find something to watch on the projector together?" Spanner said. Spring grinned and nodded, and she rushed back into the house. She waited by the door for Spanner to catch up, and they went back outside. Spring knew that it wasn't over yet. Not really. But she hoped that her dad felt better now. She knew she had been right when she'd first seen him; he was a good pony, and she wouldn't give him up for anything in the world. She knew he felt the same way, too.

Spring and Spanner

12 - The Lonely Road of Yesterday

Chapter Twelve The Lonely Road of Yesterday The following day Spanner again took off from work, and Spring asked him if she could stay home from school. It had been an easy request to grant, though of course he'd make sure to get any schoolwork she'd need from her teacher. After a quick breakfast Spanner took Spring out into the village, and to a nearby park. Being close enough to a forest meant the ponies of Hollow Shades weren't particularly keen on nature themes, but there was a modest park with beautiful cherry blossom trees in it. Gifts from another country, Spanner had learned. In better circumstances, the park would be a great place for the two of them to play together. As it was, Spanner just wanted to spend some time with his daughter. He led her over to a picnic table and the two of them sat down together. She'd been pretty quiet since yesterday, but her smile had returned. "When I left home, I never thought any of this would happen to me. When I left, I wanted to be happy. I thought, if I moved to another place, it'd be easier. In some ways it was" Spanner said with a smile. "It was easy to forget about home. I avoided foreign news, nopony from the old country lived here, and I was as far away from the old country as I could be. What wasn't easy to forget, however, was what I went through." "Was it hard to leave?" Spanner nodded. "At first, I thought about where I'd go, and what it'd be like to leave behind the only home I'd ever known. Leaving behind the ponies I knew was the hardest part, I thought. Then I realized actually leaving would be much harder. The country was in such chaos, no boats or airships were allowed to come in or leave. Our leaders were looking for those who had served in the war, to force them to fight in the civil war and keep the peace. I snuck away from home without saying goodbye to anypony. I fell in with a group of ponies fleeing to the country side, and after nine days we arrived in a small village, near another country. I crossed the border that same night, but the police there caught me pretty quick." "The ponies there didn't send you back?" "It was a nation of Griffons, actually, and they knew what it was like. The police there let me go the next day, and a few days later I found a Griffon merchant navy ship that was leaving for Equestria. They wanted to know why a deserter was still carrying his uniforms and souvenirs, but I couldn't speak Equestrian, and only one of them barely spoke my language. I couldn't pay them, so they worked me pretty hard on the trip over, and that was enough to keep them from asking questions. I was so happy to leave that I was glad to do whatever jobs they wanted me to." Spring scrunched up her face. "You couldn't speak Equestrian?" Spanner shook his head. "The languages are similar, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to keep track of contractions. And synonyms. I struggled with words like 'the' and 'this', because the sound doesn't exist in my native language. Imagine going your whole life without making that 'thhh' sound. It's harder than you might think." Spring wasn't sure what to say about that, but as she thought about it she thought it'd be kinda weird if she couldn't say 'the', 'this', 'there', and so on. "But you can speak Equestrian great now." "I can speak Equestrian well now, yes" Spanner said. "After a month the ship arrived in Equestria, and I lived in the port town for about a year before I decided to move farther inland. I drifted until I found Hollow Shades, and after a few years, I had settled in...and nothing had changed. I was miserable. That's when I went to Small Steps, and you changed my life." Spring smiled, and Spanner smiled back. She was so happy to hear that she had helped her dad, even if he hadn't been her dad when she first met him. "When I saw you, I knew you were a good pony, Spanner! Patchouli said you looked mean, but I just knew if I did my best I could make you smile. I really like making ponies smile!" "I know you do, my little flower, and I love that about you." She beamed at the compliment, but there was another question still on her mind that had been bothering her for a while. "Dad...? Was that stallion who came to see you a bad pony?" "Stalwart Shield? ...No. He's not a bad pony. There are bad ponies out there, Springy, and sometimes it can be hard to tell who's good or bad, but you seem to have a good eye for figuring out who's which" Spanner said. "But it's like I said, he's just a relic, stuck in the past. He's doing what he thinks is right, doing the only thing he's good at." "I thought if you had let him in, then he must be good. But then he tried to give you that film, and..." Spring trailed off, not wanting to bring it up again. Thankfully, Spanner understood what she was getting at. "Again, I'm sorry that you saw that. I'm sorry for everything you've been through the past few days, Springy, but I promise you that everything will be alright. It's going to be a while, I won't lie to you, but I promise that we will be happy. Life will soon go back to the way it should be: fun, happy, and peaceful." Spring nodded. "OK. I understand." They were quiet for a few moments before Spanner spoke. "C'mon, let's go find something fun to do. I just...felt like I needed to come out here, and talk with you. I know it was a very stressful and scary weekend, but I just wanted to make sure you understood what happened, and to make sure you still... Still trust me." "I do, dad!" she said. "I still trust you, and I'm not scared anymore! You're not a scary pony, you just had bad things done to you by bad ponies, but that wasn't your fault. I guess I'd be kinda upset if bad ponies lied to me and made me do bad things for them." Spanner smiled. "Yes, I imagine you would be. But, you're a forgiving type, Spring, and that is a virtue itself." He stood up and Spring did so as well, and waited for Spanner to join her. Together they headed back towards Hollow Shades, a gentle breeze blowing some leaves by them as they went. "Springy?" Spring looked up at her dad. "What is it?" Suddenly he hugged her. A tender, gentle hug, that Spring eagerly returned. "Thank you, Spring. For everything." Spring wasn't sure what she did that he would thank her for. She did what anypony would do for somepony who needed help. But she'd never turn down an opportunity to hug her dad, so she just nuzzled into him. "You're welcome, daddy." Later, at home, Spanner had made some lunch for the two of them and Spring went to her room. She was looking to read some books, but first she had to tend to her flowers. They were starting to wilt a little bit, so she made sure to pour a little extra water into the planter for them. She set aside her watering pot and climbed onto the chair in front of her desk. She looked at the bit that Spanner had given her, all those weeks ago, nestled upright in a small wooden stand, and smiled. She pulled out her quill and parchment, and began to write. Dear Morning Glisten, How are you? Every thing is going good heer back at hollow shades. A wierd pony came by on friday to see dad, and over the weekend dad told me he used to be a soldier in another contry! He showed me all his old army stuff, and then he burned it all. He said that his leaders were bad ponies, and they did a bunch of bad stuff that messed every thing up in dad's old contry. Wen he found out he left for Equestria, and has lived here ever since. I felt real bad for what hapened to dad, but I told him that I trust him, and he thanked me. I dont really know why, but I am glad every thing is okay now. I gues he was realy mad about his leaders lying to everypony and making them do bad things. I hope every thing is going good in Ponyville. I hope I get to see you one day, and I hope every thing is okay with your Mom, Mama, and Ma. I am happy that you got your cutie mark, and I want you to mail me a pictur of it! Your friend, Spring Blossom. She dated the letter, sealed it up in an envelope, and set it aside for her dad to address it. She hopped down, trotted over to her bookshelf, and picked out a short history book. She still liked to read story books, but as she learned more and more in school and from Spanner she was starting to read non-fiction more and more. She crawled onto her bed, facing the door, and opened the book up. The warm sun streamed into the open window of her bedroom, the distant singing of birds serene and calming. Just as she was about to start reading Spring looked up at her open door. She could hear Spanner in the kitchen, washing dishes, and there was one more thing she had to do before she started reading. "Dad!" she called out, and the faucet in the kitchen was shut off. A moment later Spanner trotted into the threshold of the open door, and he looked at Spring with a concerned smile. "What is it, Springy?" "I love you, dad." Spanner's concern vanished and his smile, now warm and gentle, widened. He trotted into Spring's room proper, leaned down, and kissed her on the forehead. She giggled, and Spanner put a hoof on her shoulder. "I love you too, Springy." He left her alone again and she turned her attention back to her book, a permanent smile on her face. She started to read, but she took a moment to think about what Spanner had told her earlier in the park. He had explained a lot to her since yesterday, and she had learned a lot, but there was one thing that she knew was true. Not only because her dad had told her so, but because she believed it herself. Everything would be alright.

Spring and Spanner

Epilogue

"Happy tenth birthday, Springy!" Spring Blossom blew out the candles of her cake, and Spanner Wrench quickly and carefully set about cutting it for her. It was the prettiest cake she had ever seen, with the rim of the cake's crown decorated to look like a wreath and a big flower pattern on the top of it. Her dad gave her a slice and she dug in. "MMMMM! It's so good!" She said after she had swallowed. Spanner sat down next to her at the kitchen table and helped himself, albeit to a much smaller piece. He took a bite and nodded. "Very good, indeed. We'll go over to the bakery sometime and thank the mare who made this for you, alright?" he asked, and Spring nodded. A lot had changed in four months, the biggest of which was Spring getting her cutie mark and hitting her tenth birthday. Her mark was a beautiful white flower with a cluster of gold at the center, and although she had asked her dad what it was, he had held off on telling her until today. "I have a gift for you, of course. Can you wait here while I go get it?" he asked, and Spring nodded. He went to his room and soon came back holding a tall, thin box. She pulled the wrapping off and found the box had no bottom, so she just pulled it up. Inside was a glass vase holding a flower. White, with a gold center. She looked up at Spanner, and he smiled at her. "It, and your cutie mark, is an edelweiss. It means 'noble white', and symbolizes purity and perseverance" Spanner said. "While there's no doubt it's there to symbolize your skill as a florist, It's also a sign of your kind-hearted nature and big heart, Springy. It tells others that you're a kind and trusting pony." He sat down on the floor next to her, eye-level with her, and hugged her. She smiled and hugged him back. She promised herself she would keep it alive as long as possible. She had learned more about flower tending, and was learning more every day, and her flowers were living longer and longer. It and the bit that he had given her were such precious gifts, and she would treasure both forever. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Spring broke the hug. "Patchouli Rest is here" she said, and hopped off of her chair. She was about to rush to the front door when she looked back at Spanner and smiled. "Thank you, dad. For everything. I love you." Spanner smiled. "You're welcome, Springy. I love you, too." He watched her scurry to the front door, smiling the whole time. Spring opened the front door and Spanner saw Spring's friend standing outside. Spanner had been concerned it'd take some convincing, but Ginger had readily agreed to let Patchouli come by for Spring's tenth birthday. It had been a little over six months since he'd adopted her, and Spanner was confident that things were getting back to the way they should be. Spring Blossom was happy as could be, as was he. Ginger Snap had been right; it wasn't always so easy. Sometimes, someone could be doing their best, only for something completely out of their control to happen. But, Spanner Wrench had learned, so long as that someone had loved ones around them that they could count on, then they could get through anything at all. That help could come from all different types. Even someone as unassuming as a bright and cheery young filly. Especially if that someone was a young filly, in Spanner's opinion. He smiled at Spring and her friend, and soon enough the house was filled with the vibrant sounds of fun and laughter. It was the sound of joy, a sound that Spanner Wrench had never thought he'd hear in his house. I love that sound he thought.

GBOYHVerse: Magic Duel

pre

Trixie paced back and forth in her room. "What can I do? I need to do something. I have to! I'm not going to be humiliated again...I can't be humiliated again," she stated to herself. She then gave a desperate look. "Well...there is one option..." She walked over to a deck drawer and produced a piece of paper and a quill. She wrote down an address from memory. After a few moments of thinking hard, the showmare sat for a second, looking at it. Sally blinked, looking up at Trixie. "Admittedly...Trixie didn't always have the best intentions, Sally," said the azure mare to her pet. "This is the location of something called the Alicorn Amulet. Trixie heard of it in Las Pegasus once and may have...intended to get it to gain unholy power and repair her reputation by crushing everypony who stood in her way. But all her attempts to get a job seemed to crash and burn...and admittedly, the idea of doing something like that reminded her too much of Checker. It felt like taking out Trixie's frustrations on others was what she'd do. Either way...Trixie just never tried to get it even after she discovered where it was. And using it on Checker made no sense, considering she wasn't somepony physical force would truly defeat." She looked at the paper. "If Trixie had the Amulet, she'd be even stronger than Twilight and could defeat her. It's far away, but Trixie can teleport now, she could make it there and use the Alicorn Amulet's power to teleport back in time for the duel...Trixie has the bits for it now..." Sally whimpered, looking at her master with what appeared to be concern. Trixie looked thoughtfully at the address for a few moments...then floated it up and burned it to ash with a small little flame spell. "...But that'd be cheating...both herself and Twilight...I've still got my pride. I'm not going to bruise it by taking the easy way out..." she admitted with a somewhat prideful smirk. "...Even if this is very much going to stink worse than your musk..." she finished, ears pinning back and giving a gulp... "GAH! What am I going to do?!" Twilight asked, searching more and more frantically through books and friendship reports. Spike picked one up and blinked. "Uh, what about this one? 'Being a good friend means being able to keep a secret, but you should never be afraid to share your feelings with a good friend?'" Twilight shook her head. "I thought about that one, but this isn't about secrets, it's about not hurting Trixie! And it feels like no matter what I do, that's exactly what I'll do! If I tell her, it'll hurt her too!" Spike sighed. "I suppose...still seems like we're missing something..." Twilight got a somewhat unhinged look. "I know! Maybe I should find a way to cancel it altogether! Maybe I can set off a freak snow storm of something! Then nopony-" "Twilight stop!" Spike called, jumping up on the frazzled unicorn's back and throwing yet another bucket of water in her face. "Where do you keep getting buckets of water?!" "Not important. What is important is you're starting to sound like the Smartypants Incident all over again," the little dragon pointed out. Twilight's eyes widened and she shook her head to clear it.. "Y-yeah...I guess I was...T-Thanks Spike." "I know you can't help feeling nervous right now, but if you suggest something like that again, I'm sending a letter to the Princess and I don't care what she's doing, okay?" Spike stated with a serious expression. Twilight gulped and nodded. "Crystal." "Hoo!" The two looked over to a certain owl, who pointed to an almost empty hour glass. Twilight pinned her ears. "Oh no...we're out of time..." It was time. The stage was set. Twilight stared out from behind the stage, her mane a disheveled mess. She gasped, eyes falling on the large number of ponies in attendance. There were even more than she expected. "This isn't good, this is not good!" she exclaimed. Thankfully, the Smartypants Incident and Spike's warning was still fresh in her memory. "Spike's right, I can't do anything crazy, I can't...but...I don't know what to do!" Not to far away, Trixie peaked out at the same audience a gulped. "So many ponies...so many..." she muttered, shuddering in fear as she saw all the eyes that would soon be upon her. She gasped as her gaze fell on a certain someone. "T-There she is..." Princess Celestia herself stood in her balcony seat, with a couple of what looked like giant ponies next to her. The unicorn knew they had to be Saddle Arabian delegates. "They're here...they're here and they're going to watch me fail...I'm is going to be a laughingstock again!" Nearby, Spike blinked, watching Twilight and Trixie. "Wait...they're both nervous wrecks?" he asked. "I'm every bit as surprised as you are..." Spike blinked, looking to Stage Hoof. "Really?" "Yes, Trixie's been worried sick all day after overhearing some ponies saying Twilight would demolish her without even trying," the stallion replied. "She was just...a tad too prideful to admit it... Spike promptly faceclawed. "And Twilight was too afraid of hurting Trixie's ego to tell." Stage Hoof raised an eyebrow. "So they're both terrified of the same exact thing and didn't tell one another for the exact same reasons?" Spike gave an annoyed sigh, watching as the two unicorns now curled into fetal positions, Twilight stroking her tail . "Yep...should've expected this, stuff like this always happens to us..." "So...should we probably do something?" "Probably...looks like the sidekicks will have to save the day..." Spike replied dryly, giving some thought. He looked over to the crowd, his eyes falling on an orange mare chatting excitedly with a rainbow maned pegasus in particular. "Come on, let's get some back up to get it through their thick heads." Spike walked over to the stands, Stage Hoof with him. "Ah, Applejack," Stage Hoof said with a smile. "That's a good idea, who better to help them see the truth than the most honest pony we know?" Spike blinked. "Uh...yeah! That's exactly why we're going to her...not because she and Rainbow were closest and we've only got like fifteen minutes left..." "This is gonna be awesome! It's about time Trix gets to show us what she's really got!" Rainbow exclaimed, giving a smirk. "Yeah, haven't really seen her cut loose since we did that charity play! Should be a real hoot!" Applejack replied. "Ah just hope this show doesn't take as long as some of our contests though." "Ha! No way are they going to outlast us!" Spike blinked as he approached the mares. "Uh...girls...are you excited about this?" "You bet!" Applejack replied, giving a smirk. "What ain't tah like about a little friendly competition?" "So you...don't think Trixie's going to get flattened by Twilight?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Uh...no." "Well...everypony else thinks so...including Twilight and Trixie...And they kinda need your help..." Twilight slowly got up and gulped. "Well...it's almost time..." "Twilight?" The mare gave a jump. "A-Applejack?" she asked, looking at the stern but concerned expression on the mare's face. "Twili, yah really have been worryin' yerself sick, haven't yah?" asked the farm pony with a frown. "Uh...no, whatever would I have to be worried about?" Twilight asked, giving a nervous smile. "How about worryin' yer gonna humiliate yer friend?" Twilight's eyes shrunk to pinpricks. "What?! Me? Worried about that? Whatever gave you that idea?" "Rainbow Dash! Release Trixie!" Twilight blinked, watching Rainbow Dash fly Trixie over and put her down. "Trix, relax! Twilight's freaking out too!" "Trixie's just as worried about it as you are," Applejack stated. Trixie and Twilight both blinked. "Wait...what?!" Applejack gave a sigh. "Yah are BOTH worried about the same thin' and bein' too dang stubborn and prideful tah realize it!" This got her a couple looks from her friends, with Twilight raising an eyebrow. "...Alright, Ah guess Ah'm in no position tah call somepony else stubborn and prideful, but point is: yah've spent the day on pins and needles over the same thin' and could've saved yourselves a lot of trouble if yah'd just talked it out." Trixie and Twilight blinked, looking at one another. "T-Trixie...you're worried that...well..." Trixie sighed. "...Well...Trixie may have been a little nervous that..." Applejack facehoofed. "No wonder the little guy needed our help..." she muttered. "Your both worried about hurting each others' feelings, now just talk about it!" Rainbow Dash said in her typical bluntness. Applejack gave her a glare. Rainbow glared back. "What? One of us was going to have to say it, did you want to be it?" "...Point..." "What's the point of being the brash one if I can't do put it to good use?" Trixie sighed. "...Yes, it isn't easy for Trixie...it isn't easy for me to admit but...I am afraid, Twilight. I heard some towns ponies talking about it and...I...I just can't bare the idea of being a laughingstock again after the Ursa...I was so scared...But...well, I'm..." "You're you..." Twilight replied, giving a sympathetic smile. "And that's why I was so scared of telling you. I was terrified of humiliating you. I knew it'd hurt your pride if I did...and after all Checker put you through, I didn't want to be the one to hurt you...I'm sorry..." Trixie gave a small, but somewhat hurt smile. "I-It's quite alright...okay, not exactly alright...it does hurt...quite a bit..." Twilight hugged her. "I'm so sorry...I didn't want to hurt you..." Trixie returned the hug. "...At least you cared if you hurt me...that's more like a sister than Checkmate ever was...And it is good to know we were both worried about the same thing...sort of..." "And I guess just telling you would have been more practical than faking being sick to try and get out of it..." Trixie blinked. "Wait...you faked being sick?" Twilight gave a nervous look. "Y-Yeah...I got the idea from Fluttershy..." she admitted, getting Rainbow Dash to facehoof. "Are you mad?" Trixie gave a relieved sigh. "No, Trixie is actually quite relieved at that, assuming it means you don't know instant healing spells..." "No, I don't. The closest thing I know is some of Zecora's potions, and even then she's a lot better than I am at it..." Trixie couldn't help giving a laugh. "So let Trixie get this straight: Trixie spent the day training while you spent the day trying to figure out a way to pull out of the same competition Trixie was training for and both of us did so for the same reason?" Twilight gave a chuckle of her own. "It is kind of silly when you think about it..." "Yah see, this is why it's important we be honest with each other!" Applejack pointed out, getting the two unicorns to blush. "Yeah, and besides, I don't get why you're worried about it," Rainbow Dash stated. Trixie and Twilight both blinked. "Uh...why shouldn't we have been?" Twilight asked. "Yes, Twilight is the Element of Magic and the strongest Unicorn in Equestria, why should Trixie not be worried?" Trixie asked, pinning her ears at having to admit it. The fact she wasn't the only one who believed she was going to be demolished certainly hadn't helped matters. "Because we've been waiting all day to finally see you cut loose, Trix!" Rainbow Dash said, giving smirk. Trixie blinked. "Wait...you don't think Trixie is going to get trounced? Because Trixie does..." "That's cause yah are thinkin' about it as power versus power, not about Twilight versus Trixie," Applejack pointed out, giving a small smile. "Look at meh and Rainbow for instance. Rainbow's the fastest Pegasus in Equestria, but does that stop meh and her from havin' a good competition with each other?" Twilight blinked. "...No...actually...if anything, you two are the most competitive ponies I've ever met...sometimes too much so." Rainbow Dash rubbed her head. "Yeah...we can get kinda carried away sometimes..." Applejack nodded with a blush. "But that's the point: we're still tied in kinda everythin'..." Rainbow chuckled. "Yeah, we need a tiebreaker sometime...but I haven't smoked Applejack in everything! And do you see me just wiping the floor in every flying contest I ever compete in? Heck, I was worried about Rarity beating me in the best young fliers competition!" Trixie blinked. "Wait...how is that physically possible?" "Long story. But the point is, being the fastest Pegasus around doesn't mean I'm going to win all the time...just a large percentage of it," she stated with a proud smirk. Twilight chuckled. "That's more like our Rainbow Dash...So...you're saying me and Trixie have been going about this all wrong?" Applejack nodded. "Yeah, like Ah said: yer lookin' at it like power's all that matters. By that logic Rainbow Dash shoulda beat meh hooves down in everythin', but that don't happen. And why is that, Twili? Yer the brainac." Twilight blinked, giving it thought. "Because your strengths aren't the same...because you've got Rainbow beat in sheer strength and endurance even if she's faster than you..." Rainbow nodded. "Exactly! And I love a good competition! Even if I'm the fastest pegasus alive. It'd be BORNING if that meant the Best Young Fliers Competition was a cake walk!" Twilight nodded slowly. "But...I'm the strongest unicorn at MAGIC and this is a MAGIC duel." "Yeah, but are you as good at the kinda magic Trix is good at?" asked Rainbow Dash. Twilight and Trixie both blinked. "...No...Trixie's got a big experience edge on me and it's specifically her special talent...I've just picked up a few spells from her I don't need to use as often as she does." "See?" Twilight face hoofed when something occurred to her. "UGH! I can't believe I did that! One of the first things Princess Celestia taught me was my talent being magic did not mean I was the best at everything! And not listening to gossip is a lesson that the Crusaders learned!" "And Trixie can't believe she allowed herself to be beaten down by other's underestimating her! It was once Trixie's FORTE to shut up neighsayers!" Trixie admitted. "...Trixie now feels extremely foalish..." Twilight gave a chuckle. "Me too..." She then frowned, pinning her ears. "Trixie...I...I'm so sorry...I should never have underestimated you..." Trixie hugged her friend. "It's alright, Twilight, Trixie underestimated herself just as much...At least you felt that way to protect Trixie instead of hurt her..." Twilight returned the hug. "Doesn't mean it was right and I can't feel bad about it..." "...If there's one thing that you six have taught Trixie, it's that friends forgive each other...you forgave Trixie for humiliating your friends...and for occasionally being egotistical...and the multiple messes she made trying to get a job...and that time she got really carried away going pranking with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie..." Rainbow Dash gave a sheepish smile. "...I probably should've kept a closer eye on you..." "...You've forgiven enough of Trixie's mistakes, Twilight...It's only right that I forgive you this time...besides, you didn't believe anything about Trixie she didn't believe about herself..." "Sugarcubes, we're only equines, no pony expects us tah be perfect," Applejack stated, giving a smile. "Oh, so like the whole thing with Pinkie's cake?" Twilight asked with a look of realization, giving a smile and a nod. "Everypony made the same mistake, so how can we blame anypony?" "Let Trixie think...oh! Twilight told Trixie about that one! Yes, Trixie can live with that," Trixie said, giving a smile of her own. "Everypony messed up so nopony did." Applejack facehoofed. "No! Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity ALL got punished by the Cakes for that, remember?!" Rainbow Dash gave a nervous smile and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah...they weren't too happy about that..." "Mah point is Princess Celestia wouldn't be expectin' us tah have lessons tah give her if she expected us tah be perfect. What's important is we actually learn the lesson from our mistakes!" Trixie blushed. "Oh yes...that makes a tad more sense...Trixie is glad she was not present for that adventure..." Twilight bowed her head. "And I know I'll have Spike write a proper friendship report about this when all is said and done..." Trixie nodded, then gave a confused look. "But wait...how did you two know we both felt the same way?" "Spike and Stage Hoof told us, said you were both freaking out," Rainbow Dash stated. Spike and Stage Hoof stood nearby nervously. "Um...sorry, Trixie...it's just you two were both freaking out over the same thing, and you needed help, but I didn't know what else to do and I'm sorry...And I'm sorry I agreed with you that you were weaker than Twilight when it turns out you weren't...Please don't hate me! I'm so-" Trixie promptly hugged him. "Thanks for helping Trixie..." Stage Hoof gave a blush. "Y-You're welcome." Twilight hugged Spike. "Thank you for helping me and Trixie, Spike..." "Well, what am I supposed to do when you're in trouble?" asked Spike, giving a smile. "Spike really shoulda taught us all not tah underestimate the under diamond dog," Applejack said, with a smile. "Considerin' the whole 'helped Celestia save Canterlot from mutant Cockatrices' and 'blew up King Sombra' things..." Spike blinked, then gave an embarrassed look. "Yeah...I probably shouldn't have been one to underestimate someone..." "Didn't Trixie help with the cockatrice thing?" Rainbow Dash asked. Trixie gave a blink and blushed. "Well...she did blind several with fireworks, but she didn't do anything that special...She didn't even meet Celestia...Spike was the one who rode on Celestia wielding a trident...And you six were busy dealing with Queen Chrysalis...again..." Twilight smiled. "Doesn't mean you didn't help, or that we were any less wrong to underestimate you." Trixie gave a smile and hugged her friend. "Trixie underestimated herself just as much." "Um...sorry if I'm interrupting something." Everypony looked over to see Mayor Mare staring at them. "But it's time for the show." Trixie let go of Stage Hoof and stepped back. "Well...shall we give this a try Twilight?" Twilight gave it a thoughtful look. "...If you're up to it Trixie, then so am I..." Trixie nodded, her horn glowed and she teleported her stage attire to herself, giving a theatrical spin as she did so. "The Magnificent Trixie is ready when you are!" Twilight smiled, glad to see Trixie's characteristic grin back on her face. Applejack smiled. "We'll be watching from the stands! Good luck you two!" she said, she and Rainbow Dash trotting off. "I wish you luck, Trixie," Stage Hoof said, giving a hug to the azure unicorn. "Knock 'em dead Twilight!" Spike called as the two trotted off to join the others in the stands. Rarity and Fluttershy nervously found their seats next to Applejack and Spike. "Um...is everything okay?" Fluttershy asked, looking to Spike. The little dragon gave a nod. "Yeah...it turns out we may have been worried for nothing." Rarity blinked. "Wait...what?" Applejack looked over. "Turns out they were both worried sick over nothin', just sit back and enjoy the show." "But...wait...what did we miss?!" Rarity asked, blinking in confusion. "Apparently the plot being resolved!" Pinkie chimed in, hopping up and joining her friends. "Aww. I was hardly in this!" Everypony just stared for a moment before turning their attention to the stage as the spotlights turned on. "Hello ladies and gentlecolts!" announced Mayor Mare, stepping on stage. She seemed to quickly check to make sure the Princess was still in her seat and hadn't vanished due to an ancient evil returning...again. She panicked slightly when she saw an empty balcony seat...until her aid pointed to the Princess herself seated safely in an entirely different one. The mayor gave a sigh of relief. "And welcome to the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun each and every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of Harmony in all of Equestria, Princess Celestia! And her honored guests, the delegates from Saddle Arabia!" Celestia seemed to zone out slightly as her lengthy title was recited, but quickly shook it off and smiled in return. "Thank you, Mayor Mare! We are looking forwards to a wonderful evening!" The Arabian horses nodded with a smile. "For your entertainment, it is my honor to introduce Miss Twilight Sparkle and..." The Earth Pony looked at a small note card. "The Magnificent Trixie presenting an exhibition magic duel!" Twilight trotted up to the front of the stage while Trixie dramatically teleported out. Both gave a bow to the Princess of the Day, though Trixie seemed much giddier about it than the purple unicorn. "I'm performing in front of Princess Celestia..." she practically giggled to herself now that her nerves weren't shot. The two looked to the crowd, noting some looking at Trixie with looks ranging from worry to anticipation. The unicorns simply walked to the middle and hugged one another before going to opposite sides of the stage. Trixie and Twilight took a fighting stance as Mayor Mare stepped back and watched them both get ready. "Begin!" Trixie quickly fired what looked like a firework spell from her horn. The Bearer of Magic sidestepped quickly, allowing it to explode on the stage next to her...releasing a green gas instead of the normal pyrotechnic explosion. Twilight blinked, sniffing lightly and gagging. "Ugh! Peeyew! A stink bomb spell?!" she exclaimed, coughing and putting a hoof over her nose tightly. The showmare chuckled. "Just a little joke, Twilight, this is a friendly duel, after all," she said, but her smirk made Twilight feel uneasy. "You shouldn't be surprised, considering Trixie has been pranking with Rainbow and Pinkie." Celestia's student's horn glowed and she produced a wind spell, blowing the putrid smoke back at Trixie. The azure unicorn coughed on the awful smell and struggled to keep her footing against the wind. Her horn glowed and scarves manifested and pinned themselves to the stage, wrapping around her hooves and keeping her grounded while another wrapped around her snout to block the stench. Twilight's spell faded and the purple unicorn gave a groan. "Ugh, it stuck to me a little bit..." she muttered, sticking out her tongue in disgust. "What was your plan, Trixie? You're too smart to waste your first move on a prank..." she said under her breath. "Unless you want me to think that...or are trying to make me have nostalgic flashbacks to Spike stink bombing Blueblood?" While Twilight over thought Trixie's strategy, the showmare unwrapped the scarves and cast another spell, surrounding herself in a swirl of rose petals to remove the smell. She then focused back at Twilight. "Alright, now it's time to be serious." Trixie concentrated magic into her horn and commanded her magically generated scarves to wrap around Twilight. The Bearer of Magic blasted a hole through the ones coming from the front, only for her opponent to sneak two others from behind and wrap Twilight up. Trixie teleported back out of harms way as Twilight blew the scarves away and freed herself. Twilight quickly fired a beam of magic from her horn, hitting Trixie and causing her to float into the air like gravity had been reversed. The showmare flailed for a moment, then smirked and manifested a bunch of pies in front of her, bucking each of them. Twilight jumped, dodging two before a third hit her in the face, allowing two more to hit her, knocking her on her flank. Celestia's student blasted the pies off her and fired another magic beam at Trixie. However, the azure unicorn magically manifested a table behind her and bucked off it, dodging the beam and letting it fly harmlessly into the sky. Trixie took advantage of her positioning and hit Twilight with a magic beam, trapping her in a magician's box, her head and hind hoofs sticking out of it. Trixie smirked and fired a pink beam from her horn that made Twilight laugh uncontrollably as it tickled her. The lavender unicorn teleported out of the box and shot Trixie with a beam, causing her to give a scream as the gravity spell was finally reversed and she fell to the stage with an grunt. Trixie groaned as she got back to her hooves, just before Twilight shot a beam onto the stage, causing vines to sprout out and wrap around the showmare, tying her up. Trixie struggled to escape the vines until they entirely covered her...and then teleported out of the vines and appeared behind her rival, trying to blast her with a magic beam, but was dodged in turn by Twilight's teleportation. The two spent a couple moments teleporting and trying to get a spell on the other until Twilight stopped so not to waste mana...but Trixie teleported once more and finally got a spell on her from above, manifesting another magician's scarf around her which she pulled with telekinesis as she landed, spinning Twilight around like a top. The bookworm unicorn staggered dizzily, struggling to get her footing back. She shook it off and fired a beam at Trixie, wrapping her in a straight jacket and chains. Trixie tried to teleport out and blinked. "Huh?" "Anti-teleportation enchantment," Twilight stated, giving a smirk. However, Trixie gave one a proud smirk. One spell later, the chains unlocked and fell off as she slipped out of the straight jacket. Twilight facehoofed. "And stage magic includes escape tricks..." "Also, you probably shouldn't explain your spells out loud. But if you're going to turn up the heat, then so is Trixie!" Trixie announced, concentrating. Trixie teleported and when she reappeared, Twilight was surrounded by a circle of copies of the showmare. The Bearer of Magic blinked, looking from Trixie to Trixie. She then gasped when she noticed something. "Why aren't any of you breathing?!" There was no difference in any of the Trixies, their chests didn't seem to move with her inhaling and exhaling. "A magician never reveals her tricks!" the Trixies all announced. They all began firing magic beams at Twilight. The unicorn had to dodge and duck under the spells being flung at her. Twilight gave a thoughtful look...then smirked in realization. "Ha! None of you are breathing! That means the real Trixie must not be in the circl-" The Trixie directly in front of her in the circle fired a beam, hitting her head on and giving her a mild shock, making her mane stand on end and slightly singeing her (though naturally not nearly enough to actually hurt her). The showmare gave a confident smile, teleporting again as her copies vanished, reappearing with a fresh batch. In the crowd, Helena Midsummer gave a proud smile. "Sometimes a few little theatre tricks can make the magic work that much better." Twilight shook off the ash on her coat and had to dodge more beams, unsure of which Trixie was real and which ones weren't. She looked around frantically, trying to figure out which showmare might be the real one, ending up once more blindsided by a spell that caused her mane and tail to frizz up like a sheep's, covering her eyes and blinding her. "She really has been practicing..." she muttered The audience seemed to give a gasp of surprise that Trixie had managed to actually get the upperhoof. Except Rarity who screamed in horror at Twilight's mane. The purple pony magically fixed her mane and tail in time to duck under another beam. Once more, Trixie teleported and scrambled herself with the copies. Twilight responded by magically generating a prism above her and firing a beam into it. The magic reflected off the inside and split, hitting all of the trickster magician's illusions, as well as the real one, trapping her in a block of ice. The frozen unicorn's eyes batted back and forth for a moment before she concentrated and set off several fireworks to blast her way out of the ice. She shook herself off and then had to jump out of the way of another freezing spell. Trixie panted a bit, noticing Twilight was panting as well. However, the Element of Magic seemed to be a good bit less tired than herself, much to her annoyance. Twilight fired another spell her way and the azure unicorn countered with a beam of her own. The two collided and Trixie found herself being swiftly overpowered, leaving her with no choice but to teleport out of the way. Trixie landed nearby and cursed to herself for trying to match Celestia's student for power. "Looks like Trixie will have to pull out all the stops..." she muttered and concentrated, causing an illusion of a dark cave to form around the stage, hiding her from Twilight's sight. Twilight looked around closely at the cave illusion. "She has to be here somewhere..." she muttered...before a bolt of lightning came out of nowhere and forced her to dodge. She had to dodge a few more bolts, then blinked. "I...I can't see any holes in the illusion? But how is she seeing me if the illusion has no openings?" The crowd watched as lightning clouds Trixie created rained lightning down into the illusion, the showmare somewhere inside with nose twitching and following the scent of a certain stink bomb still stuck to her rival's fur. Zecora watched with a smile of her own from the stands, seated next to Helena. "Your granddaughter took my training to heart, but I only improved upon that with which she did start." Helena smiled. "Thank you, Zecora. Now let's see if she can win this." Meanwhile, Twilight dove and dodged another bolt, but was shocked by yet another. She grunted and shook it off, feeling tingly but not injured. She teleported but found Trixie had covered the entire stage with her illusion. "Her weather control is a lot better too..." she muttered, having to form a quick shield to block the lightning, but still couldn't figure out where her rival was. Trixie seemed to realize she'd stopped moving and made the clouds converge, pumping more of the lightning into the shield from all directions. "I'm a sitting duck here...I can't hit what I can't see either and generating the lightning and the illusion won't take as much mana once the clouds and base illusion are made...at this rate I'm going to run out of mana defending myself before she runs out of energy to attack..." Twilight muttered. "That must be Trixie's plan, my power won't do me any good if I can't hit her with it...I need to get rid of this spell." Twilight focused and sent out a massive surge of pink energy around her, dispelling the illusion and the clouds with the shockwave. Twilight panted as she looked at Trixie, the azure unicorn clearly being worn down as well. "That was really impressive Trixie...you actually made me use my failsafe spell..." Trixie panted, but gave a proud smirk. "You're quite welcome Twilight, Trixie had been working on that spell with Zecora for awhile..." The crowd watched with baited breath as the two unicorns circled one another in preparation for their next move. "Trixie believes we're both getting tired," Trixie replied, seeming to be preparing herself for something. Twilight nodded. "Yeah..." "Looking forward to a nap?" the showmare asked. Twilight chuckled, giving a nod. "Yeah...you bet..." She was feeling tired. Trixie's horn glowed...but she locked eyes with Twilight as the unicorn prepared for whatever spell the trickster magician was charging up. "That does sound wonderful, doesn't it? Laying down and taking a nice nap?" she asked, her voice taking a slight echoing quality and the magic in her horn began to swirl. "Yeah...it does..." Trixie's eyes became swirling black and white circles. "Are you listening to the sound of my voice, Twilight?" "Yeah...I...I hear you Trixie..." Celestia's student said, feeling drowsy as her eyes matched Trixie's. "You're getting tired, aren't you?" "Kind of..." Twilight's eyes beginning to droop. "Your body is getting heavy?" "Yeah...very..." Twilight muttered, her body sagging. "You're getting sleepy?" Twilight gave a wide yawn. "Yeah...I am..." "You want to lay down and take a rest?" "...Kinda..." Twilight said, slipping down to a sitting position and struggling to keep her eyes open. "Lay down and rest, Twilight. You've done well. Nopony will be disappointed in you. You've got nothing more to prove tonight. Just go to sleep..." "Yeah...maybe..." she muttered, laying down slowly and giving a yawn. "Yes, that's right," the azure mare said, her voice calm and soothing as she spoke. "Just enjoy a good rest, Twilight. You deserve it." "Yeah...we've worked hard...we've done a good job...we've had a good duel...we entertained the crowd...we entertained the Princess..." Twilight muttered, eyes closing. Then shot open a little. "Wait! The Princess!" "Yes, she's watching, but you know she's proud of you, you don't need to-" Celestia's personal student shot entirely awake. "I'm sorry princess! I didn't mean to fall asleep in class!" she exclaimed, looking around frantically. Celestia blushed a little. "Um...it's fine Twilight...carry on..." Twilight blinked in confusion and blushed a little before looking to Trixie. "You...You almost hypnotized me?" she asked, giving a look of surprise. Trixie chuckled. "Well, the smarter somepony is the easier they are to hypnotize. And you're as smart as they come." Twilight smiled. "I'm just impressed you managed to actually get it to work. Stage hypnosis spells normally don't work in combat since they need the target to be at least not be opposed to what you're trying to make them do." "Trixie knows, it only worked because we were already exhausted," Trixie stated, trying to power up her horn again, but the magic sputtered out. The showmare panted and tried again with the same result. Twilight frowned. "And that's why you did it then...you're out of mana." "Trixie believes so. Her storm spell took a lot of mana to set up after all. You? Tell the truth." Twilight powered up her horn, which while it was fainter than normal, still glowed steadily. "Yeah..." Trixie nodded solemnly. "...Then finish it." Twilight blinked. "What?" "End this duel. Now. Trixie is NOT going to give up. So you need to be the one to finish this." "Trixie..." Trixie gave a serious look. "Trixie is not a quitter! The only way this is ending is if you end it! If Trixie loses, she wants it to be in a blaze of glory! Not in a whimper!" Twilight cringed, then shot Trixie with a beam. The showmare shut her eyes...then blinked when she felt nothing, opening her eyes to find she was in her old Great and Powerful Trixie outfit. "Twilight?" "The point of this is to finally break free from your past, right? Then it's only fitting we lay the Great and Powerful Trixie to rest once and for all, right?" Trixie gave a chuckle. "...Trixie can't argue that it's a nice touch, she wishes she'd thought of it...Fire away, Twilight. Trixie is ready!" Celestia's student slowly gathered mana into her horn, causing it to glow bright white, shining like a star, an audible vibration was heard by the ponies. Trixie closed her eyes as she was blasted full force by the beam, causing the crowd to gasp in shock as it completely engulfed the pony, turning night into day from the light of the spell. Trixie slowly opened her eyes when she didn't feel anything. She saw the beam burning away her outfit, tearing it to shreds, obliterating it into nothing...revealing the outfit Rarity had crafted for her beneath it. When the smoke cleared, there wasn't a scratch on the azure unicorn, simply some ashes over her true garb. Trixie blinked. Twilight gave a tired smile. "There...I gave the Great and Powerful Trixie her finale with a bang, it's time for the Magnificent Trixie to take her bow and close this show." Trixie chuckled and shared a hug with Twilight. "Touche, Twilight Sparkle. Touche..." Celestia gave a small chuckle. "Well done, my student..." she whispered. Trixie staggered, but managed to keep her footing and turned to the stunned crowd alongside the likewise exhausted Twilight, giving a bow. After a few moments of stunned silence, the audience broke out in applause. "Great job, Magnificent Trixie!" cheered Snips and Snails, clapping their hooves. "Way to go Trixie!" called Derpy, sitting with a stunned Carrot Top and the Doctor...and strangely surrounded by muffins, some of which were gigantic. Applejack and the others, including Stage Hoof and Spike, rushed the stage and hugged their friends. "See?! We knew yah had it in yah!" Applejack cheered, giving Trixie a hug. Rarity and Fluttershy looked down. " Trixie. I'm so very sorry for underestimating you," the fashionista said with a frown. Fluttershy nodded. "I'm sorry too, considering how often it happens to me, I don't think it was right of me...I'm sorry...Please don't hate me..." Trixie smiled and hugged the two. "It's fine...Trixie has already had this conversation tonight, long story short: Trixie forgives you because that's what friends do..." "Sorry ya didn't win Trix," Rainbow consoled. "I was rootin' for ya." Trixie blinked. "R-Really?" Rainbow nodded. "Yeah. I really wanted to see ya cut loose for once! You didn't disappoint though. Just stinks you didn't win!" "My, the Element of Loyalty picking sides," Trixie teased. "Hey, I cheered for Twilight the first time...sort of. And besides, I thought you needed support more than Twilight, she already knows how awesome we think she is," Rainbow said, earning a smirk from Twilight. Trixie gave a smile and nod. "Thank you, Rainbow...but Trixie is just happy she did better than most, including herself, expected." Rainbow smirked. "Still proving the neighsayers wrong, huh?" Trixie shared a laugh at the irony of the statement. "Oh you know it." The show mare then accepted a hug from Stage Hoof. "Good job, Trixie." "Thank you, Stage Hoof. And thank you for supporting Trixie as well..." Celestia spoke a word to the delegates before flying down to the stage. "Well done Twilight Sparkle, and Trixie Midsummer." Trixie looked faint as the others stepped back to give the unicorns their moment in the spotlight.. "Y-You know my name?" "Of course, I remember the names of all my students at my School for Gifted Unicorns," the Princess announced, seeming to have positioned herself just so that the entire audience heard her, and reacted with multiple gasps of shock. "And you continue to be a diligent student learning the magic of friendship," Celestia continued, giving a genuine smile. "I'm very proud of you my little pony." Trixie giggled giddily. "Princess Celestia is proud of me...oh! Yes, thank you so much your majesty! That means so much coming from you!" Celestia smiled. "I can imagine," she said, looking over to the townsponies. She smiled to the showmare. "Did you two learn anything today?" The unicorns smiled. "Yes, we did Princess. We learned you shouldn't assume you know what a friend is feeling or assume they won't understand what you are, sometimes they might understand more than you could have imagined," Trixie recited. "And also I learned you should probably think long and hard about big decisions before making them. Jumping to conclusions, especially when it comes to friends, can cause more harm than good." Celestia smiled. "Well said, my little ponies...And Twilight?" "Yes?" "I think you and Trixie should get to taking that nap now." Twilight blushed, but then had to try and fail to stifle a yawn. "Yeah, you're right...Right Trixie?" Twilight looked over to see the exhausted unicorn had passed out. She gave a smile. "...Get a good rest, Trixie. You deserve it." A couple days later, Twilight heard a knock on the door to the library. She concentrated and tried to open the door, but gave a grunt, rubbing her horn. "Ow..." "Twilight!" called Spike running in rather worriedly. "Don't overwork yourself, let me get it." However, as the baby dragon went to open it, the door opened, revealing Trixie using her mouth somewhat clumsily to turn the knob. "Hello, Trixie, still recovering from the duel?" Twilight asked. "Blech! Yes, Trixie cannot remember the last time she was this low on mana!" the azure mare admitted with a disgusted look at the taste of door knob. "Trixie does not know how Earth Ponies get through life without telekinesis!" Twilight chuckled. "They probably wonder how we get through it without their connection to nature." Spike grumped. "And you could have just let me get it..." he muttered. "...Valid points..." Trixie admitted, rubbing her sore horn. "Hornache?" "Like you wouldn't believe..." the azure mare groaned, rubbing her horn. "I have one too, and considering my mana reserves are bigger, it's no wonder you have one," she said, trotting over to the kitchen but being stopped by Spike. The little dragon brought back an ice back and put it on Trixie's horn. "Thank you, Spike," Trixie replied, giving the baby dragon a smile. "You're welcome, have to be Twilight's hooves while she's recovering." Twilight gave the little dragon a hug. She then gave Trixie a thoughtful look. "Hehe, it's kinda funny when you think about it." Trixie blinked. "What?" "The Ursa Minor didn't drain me this much, so I guess in a way, you did finally beat it." Trixie blinked then gave a laugh. "Hehe, Trixie supposes you're right..." she said, then looked out the window to Ponyville. "And it seems she finally beat it in another way...Trixie finally feels like the Ursa Incident and the Great and Powerful Trixie are truly behind her...and that is worth any amount of horn aches and mana depletion." Twilight gave a smile in return. "And helping my 'sister' do that is worth it to me." The two hugged. "Thank you, Twilight." Spike gave a smile. "I'm glad everything worked out...you did really well. That big spell at the end was really cool!" Trixie gave a smile. "Thank you Spike. Trixie believes that was the biggest spell she's ever performed...She's quite proud of it." "And...sorry for not really thinking things through when it came to to everything..." Spike admitted. Trixie smiled. "It's alright, Spike, it all worked out for the best and Trixie now finally has the Ursa behind her. Thank you for coming up with it." Spike nodded. "You're welcome, Trixie." "How about we go get something from Sugarcube Corner to celebrate?" asked Twilight, giving a smile. "That would be lovely, let's go, Trixie shall lead the way!" Trixie exclaimed in her normal over the top energetic manner, turning to the door...and just looking at it for a moment before Spike politely opened it. "Maybe I should lead the way?" The two weakened unicorns blushed and looked at one another with awkward smiles. "That's probably a better idea..." The two unicorns followed the baby dragon, supporting each other when their tired bodies stumbled. Trixie couldn't believe how much her life had changed in the last year. And with the Ursa incident finally behind her, she truly felt her life had begun anew. Goodbye the Great and Powerful Trixie, the Magnificent Trixie is here to stay. "...Trixie bets she can eat more ice cream than you Twilight," Trixie said, giving smirk. Twilight blinked...then gave a smile when she saw a playfulness in Trixie's smirk where smugness used to dwell. "Alright Trixie, you're on." The End

Equestria on the Brink

pre

"Well, this would be a perfect time to utilize the Flanking Procedure," Twilight explained matter-of-factly. "And what might that'n be?" "Bee!" cried Pinkie, who distractedly swatted at the air before realizing that there were no insects in sight. "Basically," continued Twilight, "if you charge at the enemy head-on, they'll be able to see you coming and they'll be ready to kill you." "Oh dear," muttered Fluttershy. "There's no need to worry," Twilight assured, "because the Flanking Plan is foolproof! We split up and each attack them from a different side! It'll be perfect with these tall buildings; if we jump from high windows and get the trolls from the sides, they'll never see us coming! And since we'll be going from different sides, they'll have to split up to fight us. Even if we can't take them on all at once, we'll be able to chip away at them if they're divided." "But won't we be divided, too?" "Don't you worry, Fluttershy. We...um...well... You see, that's a teensy little flaw in the plan. But hey, it says so in the book, so it's got to work." "Okay..." answered a hesitant Fluttershy. "Two of us will go on each side of the street and look for a tall building to jump from. Fluttershy, you go with Pinkie Pie. Applejack, you come with me. Let's go." The ponies split up into their groups and entered buildings across from each other on the street. They didn't bid each other farewell, as they expected to see each other again within the hour. They were wrong.

Equestria on the Brink

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 As Applejack followed Twilight up the stairs of the building, she began to feel a sense of panic. This ain't like me, she thought. A pony like me shouldn't be gettin' a-scared like this. Twilight looked back at her companion. "Is something wrong, Applejack?" "Ah, nothin' much, Twilight. I'm just a little nervous, that's all. I ain't never been in a battle before." "Don't worry, Applejack. My book back at the Ponyville library explains perfect combat procedure. We're guaranteed to win!" reassured a confident Twilight. "But Twilight, the stakes are mighty high right now. Ah know we've been through a lot together, but ain't nothin' ever been like this. If something goes wrong that we might'a not seen, we could be in big trouble." Twilight glanced pensively downward, trying to remember a paragraph from the tome accounting for alternate outcomes. "I don't think there was anything about something going wrong, at least as far as I can remember. That must mean that there's no way anything can go wrong! Just trust me on this one." "Alright, Twilight. Ah'm going to follow you because you're mah best friend and all, but I still have the heebie jeebies in mah stomach. Something just ain't right about ponies fightin', that's all." "Of course there isn't. This should have never happened, and I can't believe nopony saw this coming. Once this is all over, I'm sure the Princess will have some pegasi scout the other islands around Equestria to make sure there are no other groups that might come in hurting ponies." "But how'll she know that all the land's accounted for? What if we miss some spots? What if there are a whole lot of islands out there, Twilight, and they just keep a-comin'?" Before Twilight could respond, she reached the top of the stairwell. Using her unicorn magic, she opened the door to reveal an empty rooftop. Smoke filled her nostils; she looked around for the source and soon realized that a plethora of the nearby building were on fire. She and Applejack spent a moment in silence, gazing at the chaos around them. The buildings were being ignited by some projectile thrown by the trolls. Not only were they slaughtering the ponies in the streets, but they were razing the city as well. "Oh Celestia!" Twilight exclaimed. "This is horrible! They're destroying the whole city!" "And they won't stop neither. They'll keep on rolling through Equestria until the whole continent is on fire." "Then it's all the more important that we rescue the Princess. I really don't think we can stop this. We're just losing time now. These buildings are being burned way too quickly. The rate of incendiary spread compounded by the fleeing panic of the population would be so much more significant than whatever we can do to stop it and the rate at which we'd be slowing them down would be less than the rate of their advance and the amount of Equestria that gets destroyed during the time we spend here against the time we could've been over there would be-" "Alright Twilight, I see what you mean now. This here force is too powerful for 5 little ponies to stop. I'm sorry I didn't see that before, Twilight." "Don't worry about it, Applejack. You were only trying to help." "Ah know. Ah just hope that ah didn't put any more ponies in danger by wantin' to stay here rather than go right away to get the Princess." "There's no time to worry about that now, Applejack. We can still rescue the Princess in time if we hurry." "In time for what? There won't be nothin' left of Equestria by the time we get back." "We've got to at least try. If we give up now..." Applejack nodded, understanding the importance of their mission. She and Twilight looked down into the street below, now flooded with a seemingly endless horde of trolls. "Jumpin' into there would be suicide. There's no way that'll be of use to anypony." Twilight assessed the situation and concluded that her friend was right. Jumping into a sea of trolls wouldn't slow down the destruction of the city, and it wouldn't save enough ponies to be worth the time spent. They had to save Celestia, and they had to act fast. "Come on Applejack, let's take the stairs back down. We've got to find the others before they get lost in the hordes." Fluttershy opened her eyes, but the scene wasn't any less grim. The buildings around her were still burning, the ponies on the streets were shrieking, trolls were overrunning the city, and she was alone on a rooftop in the middle of the night. The rooftop was illuminated only by the fire of adjacent buildings. Well, she wasn't completely alone. Pinkie Pie sat beside her, absentmindedly scratching her head. After several minutes of trembling in fear, she finally mustered the courage to gently say to her companion, "Um, Pinkie? Pinkie Pie?" Pinkie Pie continued to scratch her head and stare off into the distance, as if she didn't realize that Fluttershy was there at all. "Pinkie Pie? I, um, I think that Twilight wanted us to help her. You know, go down there?" Fluttershy tepidly pointed to the madness below. Pinkie Pie finally looked up. "Oh?" she replied in a disinterested tone. "We really need to go, Pinkie Pie. We've been out here for 15 minutes, and the others are probably waiting for us by now." Pinkie Pie stood up and blinked at Fluttershy without saying a word. "Are you okay? You, um, don't really seem yourself." "Who, me? What are you talking about? I'm doing just fine," expressed Pinkie with a nervous laugh. Fluttershy was deeply concerned about her friend, but she had bigger worries on her mind. She walked over to the ledge, afraid to look down. Pinkie Pie eventually was next to her, but Fluttershy couldn't tell how much time was passing. She was beginning to shake visibly from sheer trepidation. This was all so surreal. Pinkie finally looked at her and said, "Oh, I think Twilight wanted us to go down there and surprise them." Fluttershy closed her eyes. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm actually up here!! How is this happening to m- Her thought was interrupted - she felt something hit her back and she lost balance, slipping over the edge and beginning to plummet towards the sidewalk below. "PINKIE! HELP ME!" she cried as she descended ever more rapidly. "Silly Fluttershy, I'm the one who pushed you off! There wasn't anypony else up there, Fluttershy." Pinkie Pie didn't seem bothered by the fact that she was plummeting towards the pavement. "HELP!" "Shh, you're going to spoil the surprise!" Fluttershy vehemently flapped her wings, stabilizing her fall and levitating safely before hitting the ground. Pinkie Pie, however, continued descending, hitting a troll square on the head and knocking him to the ground. She landed on his back and proudly exclaimed, "Hi-ya! Take that, Mr. Trolly!" Pinkie immediately found herself surrounded by a mass of trolls, each of whom looked like they were intent on eating her. "Oh, you guys want to eat me? Take this!" Pinkie jumped towards one of them with two hooves in the air, knocking him backwards and out of the circle of trolls closing in on her. Fluttershy helplessly floated overhead, too afraid to join her friend in the fighting. Pinkie jumped up to kick another troll, but this time she was grabbed mid-air. One of the larger trolls extended his huge claws and swiped her out of the air, preventing her from hitting her target. The troll grunted loudly, slobbering beads of drool from his hideous face. "Pinkie!" blurted Fluttershy, who overcame her fear at the sight of her friend in danger. She dove towards the troll, pushing him back a step and knocking him off-balance. However, the troll was much larger than Fluttershy and was unfazed by the impact. He tightened his grip on the pink pony with one claw and simultaneously swatted at the yellow one with the other. He struck her directly on the face, rendering her unconscious. The pegasus's wings stopped moving, causing her to fall right into the claws of another troll. The trolls turned to their commander. "Boss, what do you want done with these?" A massive, green monster extended his hand. "Give them to me. We'll ship them back to the homeland. I'm sure there'll be some use for them there." Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were then loaded into cold, wooden wagons. Those wagons were headed straight for Fortch-An.

Equestria on the Brink

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Applejack looked defeated. After returning to the street to meet up with Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, the trolls had led a push, forcing her and Twilight to retreat several blocks. With troll reinforcements endlessly swarming the city, it now was impossible to break through their line. "It's been nearly an hour, Twilight," said Applejack grimly. "We're not going to find them in this brouhaha." Twilight sighed. "I guess you're right, Applejack. We'll go back to the chariot and hope we'll meet up with them there." "That's our only option. If they haven't gone back to the chariot, it'll be impossible to find them. This here city's just too big for us to search, especially in this darkness." "Ironically, the fires actually help us out a bit. As much as I hate to say it, the burning buildings actually make it a little easier to see." Twilight and Applejack cantered to the building atop which the chariot was parked, and they were thoroughly relieved to see that this section of the city hadn't yet been overtaken. They entered the building without problem. Several ponies were scurrying throughout the lobby. Applejack looked at them and felt sorry for these poor ponies. She'd have to leave them behind, and inevitably they would soon become victims of the troll hordes. She regretted leaving them behind, but there was no way they could take all of these Fillydephian ponies with them. Saving the Princess is more important, she reasoned to herself. Once we bring her back to Equestria, we'll be able to free this here city. Twilight summoned the elevator and the two ponies entered, ascending to the rooftop. They held their breath while waiting for the door to open. When it finally did, they found - nopony. None of their friends were waiting for them. For a moment, the two ponies stood in silence. Either their friends had already been killed by the trolls, or they were still in the madness below, clinging to an impossible notion of survival. Twilight slowly walked towards the chariot; to her surprise, a note lay in the seat: Dear friends, I really hope that you won't be mad at me for this, but I have to do it. The pegasi of Fillydelphia have assessed the situation and realize that victory here is impossible, so they've decided to go see if they might have a chance to fend off the trolls at Los Pegasus. Since we were going to be going there anyways, I figured that I would go ahead so I could be there to help the pegagi mount their defense. Again, I'm really sorry if this seems disloyal to you, but I want you all to know that I would never leave my friends. I'm going to help defend Los Pegasus due to my duty to Equestria, but don't think I've forgotten my duty to the Princess or to you. I'll meet up with you guys as soon as you reach Los Pegasus, and hopefully the city will be secured by the time you get there. I'll be in the central courtyard every day at noon, so don't worry about finding me if you want to take your time defending Fillydelphia. I look forward to meeting up with you guys soon so we can go to the troll homeland and kick some troll butt! Your loyal friend, Rainbow Dash Twilight showed the letter to Applejack and then placed it back on the chariot. "Well, at least we know that Rainbow's safe." "That's sure a whole lot better than not knowin' nothin' at all, I suppose. But what about Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie?" "There's no way we'll find them in a city this big, Applejack. We'll just have to wait here until they come back." "And if they don't?" "Well... We'll just have to hope they do." Rainbow Dash graced through the sky with a legion of 58 other pegasi, all of whom were on their way to Los Pegasus. Rainbow Dash turned to the pegasus next to her and asked, "Hey, do you really think that we couldn't have saved Fillydelphia?" The pony to her right looked over at Rainbow Dash. "Are you serious, kid? There was no way we could've saved that city. Did you even look at how many trolls there were?" Rainbow still wasn't satisfied. She felt like she had made the right decision, but she still didn't like leaving her friends behind. "Heh, I probably could've taken half of them out myself!" The pegasus next to her chuckled. "Ha, you're pretty funny, kid. We'll see what you've got once we arrive in Los Pegasus." Rainbow swallowed hard. She was determined to make a good impression, and saving a whole city from trolls would definitely help her resume for making the Wonderbolts. But it would be hard to back up her lofty claim. Her mouth was getting her into trouble yet again. After less than an hour of flying, the legion of pegasi finally saw a light in the distance. But this wasn't the light they had been hoping for - alas, it was fire. Rainbow Dash looked ahead and saw the whole city on fire; this had to be the work of the trolls. The same fire-bombs they had used on Fillydelphia now lit the Los Pegasus sky. "Darn it!" cried a pegasus from the front of the pack. "They got here first!" The pegasi convened in mid-air to discuss their next course of action. "Do we still go?" "Will it be safe" "Should we turn back?" Rainbow Dash was astonished by her fellow pegasi: "I can't believe you guys! I'm so disappointed in all of you. We're supposed to be pegasi, the best of the best. We're Equestria's best fighters, and you expect us to GIVE UP? Who are you!? I thought I was surrounded by Equestria's finest. Equestria's most courageous! Equestria's most talented! Which ones out of you chose to come here? How many of you were forced here against your will?" Rainbow looked around and was greeted by silence. "That's what I thought! We came here tonight because we believe we can make a difference. We believe we can help Equestria. We believe that we can save our comrades! If we don't go down there and at least try, who's going to help? Those ponies are down there getting eaten alive by trolls, and there isn't anypony who's going to stop them. Not anypony but us. Do you want to be held personally accountable for every single pony who dies down there!?" Rainbow looked one frightened pegasi in the eye, and then returned to surveying the crowd. "I come from a small town outside of Canterlot. It's called Ponyville, and it's where all of my very best friends live. I had to go on a mission to Canterlot, and when I came back, I found that my town was taken over. One of my very best friends was stuck there, and I probably won't ever see her again. Nearly everypony I've ever known and loved was in that town, and now..." Rainbow looked up at the sky, raising a hoof to her cheek as if to wipe away a tear. "And now, they're all gone. They're gone to me, and my life will never be the same without them. But there-" she said, pointing downward towards Los Pegasus, "there is a massive city, filled with hundreds of thousands of scared ponies. I'm just one - just one, and look at what the trolls have done to me. If there could've been a legion of brave, courageous, strong, super-cool, fantastic pegasi to come save Ponyville when it needed it most, I...I...I would've done anything for that. I would've done anything for somepony brave and strong to come and liberate my home. My friend Rarity..." Rainbow finally broke down, unable to hide her tears any longer. The other pegasi looked at each other, exchanging glances of both guilt and shock. None of them knew who this pony was, but she was sure making an impression. They each thought about their own hometowns and what they would've given for some extra help in Fillydelphia. Anything to let their families still be alive.... But now it was up to them. They were the reinforcing legion, the ones who could save the world. They had the power to make a difference in somepony's life, and they had a chance to save someponies from the awful fate that they had endured. Emboldened with a spirit of courage, the pegasi descended upon the occupied city. But courage wouldn't change the fact that Los Pegasus was the principal troll port city. Courage wouldn't stop the endless ships of trolls headed straight for Los Pegasus harbor.

Equestria on the Brink

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 The legion of pegasi descended upon Los Pegasus. With Rainbow Dash at its helm, the legion fiercely collided into the rear of the troll army's ranks, taking down an entire platoon in one fell swoop. "Onwards!" cried an enthusiastic Rainbow Dash. "This city is ours for the taking!" A jubilant cheer erupted throughout the swarm of pegasi. They were eager to take back the city. The troll army soon realized the pegasi presence and turned around in unison to fend off this invading force. A taller troll in the middle of their ranks bellowed an unintelligible noise, and the entire army began launching firebombs at the pegasi. The first orb hit a pegasus from behind, surprising her and knocking her to the ground. Rainbow Dash and her fleet watched as the pegasus fell onto the hard dirt, screaming and writhing in pain. Several nearby pegasi walked over and began flapping their wings to put out the fire, but their efforts were in vain. The burning pegasus repeatedly rolled across the soil, violently calling out for help...but there was nothing anypony could do. More firebombs fell upon the fleet. Pegasus after pegasus fell, squirming helplessly as they waited for inevitable death. "We've got to pull back!" called out an older, gray pegasus. "Our ranks are being destroyed!" "We won't last another five minutes in this madness!" screamed another. Rainbow Dash was clearly disappointed in the broken morale of her comrades. "No! We've got to fight on! Los Pegasus needs us!!" "This is suicide! If we stay here, there won't be anyone left to save Los Pegasus! We need to fall back and regroup!" Rainbow Dash defiantly barked back, "I'm going in there, and I'm saving the city!" She darted over the sea of trolls, skillfully maneuvering around the firebombs that now filled the air, and swiftly entered the city gate. Eight others followed her in, courageously storming the occupied city. "That fool!" exclaimed the gray pegasus. "She's going to get them all killed. Everyone, fall back!" The remaining pegasi gathered around, dodging the firebombs as best they could. The gray pegasus led them away from the city gate and back into forest. The trolls feigned pursuit, but they knew they could not keep up and turned their full attention to hunting down the nine ponies that had entered the city. The trolls still had a sizable garrison in the city, but most of them had left to assault Fillydelphia. Rainbow Dash was relieved to see that there were patches of pavement still visible - in Fillydephia, the trolls had fully covered the streets. She called out to the few pegasi who had followed her, and together they began their offensive against the trolls. "All ponies, begin fire!" called Dash. One by one they descended into the streets, forcefully knocking down startled trolls. Rainbow Dash quickly jumped back into the air, ready to hit another. The other eight pegasi formed a line behind her, and they proceeded to knock down all trolls that had been on the street. "What should we do with them, Captain?" Captain...I like the sound of that. Rainbow Dash thought for a second, unsure of how to follow up the initial strike. "Um...let's round them up and drive them out of the city. We can't have them here within the city if anypony is going to be safe." Her companions nodded, and they began lifting the fallen trolls in groups of two, with three needed for one of the larger ones. They transported the heavy beasts to the forest south of the city, piling them around the sullen trees. "Good work, everypony!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash. Now let's go beat the rest of those monsters and save the whole city!" "Yeah!" replied her enthusiastic squad. The ponies swiftly returned to Los Pegasus. They charged at a swarm of trolls convening in the courtyard; apparently, an alarm had sounded and all trolls were gathering to search for the invading pegasi. "Capture them all!" bellowed a troll from the center of the city square, pointing his torch at the incoming pegasi. Rainbow Dash knocked the torch out of his arm and another pegasus immediately followed up by striking him on the head. The squad had caught the trolls by surprise, and many of the hideous creatures were now flailing on the ground. "Let's bring this batch out of the city before they get up!" suggested an orange pegasis. The squad lifted several trolls and began flying back to the forest. Rainbow Dash sped over the Los Pegasus rooftops, growing ever confident in her chances to save the city, when - BAM! - a searing pain seized her back, lurching her into a nearby building. Her hooves lost control of the troll, and the other pegasis collapsed under its weight, tumbling dozens of stories and landing with a loud thud on the street below. Rainbow Dash began to fly to help her comrade, but her wings burned with such a pain that she couldn't move - and she too began falling towards the street far below. Her eyes slowly began to close, but she caught a fleeting glimpse of bright light out of the corner of her eye; the other pegasi were being hit by the troll fireballs as well, and they were falling one by one. She had led them all to their dooms. Two days had passed, but Twilight and Applejack still hadn't seen any sign of Pinkie Pie or Fluttershy. "Ah'm starvin', Twilight. We can't hold out here much longer 'an this," sighed a defeated Applejack. "Do you think they're..." Twilight couldn't finish her thought, horrified at the notion of what could have become of her friends. She stared down at the empty street, waiting for any sign of motion. Every blur became a glimmer of hope, but each time she was let down when it turned out to be only a passing troll. After the battle ended, Fillydelphia had become nearly deserted. Trolls still wandered up and down the streets, but Twilight hadn't seen any other creatures. Most importantly, she hadn't seen any trace of Pinkie Pie or Fluttershy. "It's a-been two full days, Twilight. We gots to rescue the Princess." Twilight turned her gaze from the street, sullenly looking back at the chariot. "I suppose you're right, Applejack. Let's go save the Princess." The two ponies entered the chariot, and Twilight slowly lifted it over Fillydelphia with her unicorn magic. As they flew away, they watched Fillydelphia get smaller and smaller, eventually passing over the horizon. As the city disappeared from view, so did their hope. Equestria could only hope that the two remaining ponies would not abandon it as they had abandoned their friends.

Equestria on the Brink

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 It wasn't long before a light was visible over the horizon. The chariot soared onward through the black-blue sky, continuing its northward journey towards the city ahead. "That thar'll be Los Pegasus," announced Applejack. Twilight studied the horizon. There was indeed a light in the distance, but it wasn't the familiar hue of office buildings and apartments that she remembered from the images in her books about Los Pegasus. No, this was a light that was becoming all-too familiar: the flaming wake left by the troll horde. Its path of destruction was evident by the large conflagration that now engulfed the region. The ponies couldn't bring themselves to words as they witnessed yet another catastrophic defeat at the hands of the slobbering green invaders. Looking on from above, Applejack saw trees falling left and right to clear a path for the mindless monsters. What would be the next Equestrian city to fall? Twilight surveyed the sky, hoping against all hope to see her friend flying amongst a legion of the brave. But there were no pegasi in sight. There were no ponies visible below, either, and Twilight wondered if everypony had already been consumed by the horde. "The probability of survival for Rainbow Dash is rather high," she said, trying to reassure herself more than anything else. "She can fly, and she's always come through before, so we've got to trust that she'll come through for us this time. She said she'd meet us at noon, and we'd be letting her down as friends if we didn't show up for her." Applejack hesitated before replying, casting a melancholic gaze at the base of the chariot. "I'd sure like to think that, Twilight, but...we've a'got to take a darn good look around us." Twilight once more scanned the surrounding chaos. The night was illuminated by the flames of the burning city and nearby forest, flames which were lofting large billows of smoke into the clouds. The once-bustling city was now deserted, save for but a few troll patrols. The bulk of the troll forces were headed south, en route to what was presumably their next siege. Their next assault. Their next slaughter of innocents. A carnage that couldn't be stopped... Twilight snapped out of her defeatist train of thought. "No, we have to hope! We have to trust in our friend. Just the two of us would be unlikely to succeed when invading the troll homeland, but having a pegasus on our side would give us an edge. We need Rainbow Dash!" Applejack sighed dejectedly. "Ah sure hope she's out there, Twi, but it sure ain't looking too good. Besides, how would we go about findin' out when it's noontime? This chariot ain't got no clock." Twilight looked around for inspiration. She recalled reading that Los Pegasus had a great clock tower that shone like a beacon over the city. "If we can find the clock tower, we'll know what time it is! And then we'll know when to go to the courtyard to meet up with Rainbow Dash." She flew the chariot around the decimated city, carefully flying highly enough not to be spotted by the odd troll patrol. After circling several times, they saw a sight that confirmed their worst fears; like much of the rest of the city, the clock tower had been hit by a barrage of troll firebombs and now lay toppled in the middle of a street. "I knew this wasn't no good," quipped Applejack. "They done knocked down our houses, they done knocked down our spirits, and now they've even gone and knocked down our clocks!" Twilight saw that her friend was right. Everything in the city had been destroyed by the trolls, and her hope of ever seeing Rainbow Dash again was becoming dimmer by the second. But she wasn't ready to give in just yet. The unicorn flew the chariot in closer to the clock, abandoning the caution with which she had previously circled the wreckage of the city's skyline. She landed the chariot right on the remains of the clock tower, desperately hoping that it could somehow still function despite the crash. "Why, I'll be..." expressed a surprised Applejack beside her. Sure enough, the great hands of the clock were still moving, despite having crashed to the ground with the building. Twilight was grateful to see the hands still functioning, but it wasn't anywhere close to noon. It was still early evening, so they had nearly a day to wait before meeting up with Rainbow Dash. At least, she thought it was early evening. It could've been 7:44 AM, with the sun being gone and all, but Twilight Sparkle still had a decent grasp on time. It hadn't been that long since her whole world had been shattered. "Well, looks like ya were right, partner. By some miracle, this here gadget's still going strong! Why'nt we get rested up while waiting for noon to come around?" "Yeah, that's not a bad idea," replied Twilight as she directed the chariot to a small hiding place beneath some nearby rubble. The two ponies drifted to sleep, hoping that the next day would have brighter news in store for them. Twilight Sparkle and Applejack awoke the next morning after a much-needed night of sleep. Neither one had a pleasant night, and the trolls seemed to torment them even in the realm of dreams. But dreams were all they were - despite being jolted awake in terror by gruesome images of their friends being eaten by dripping monsters, they awoke to find that the trolls had not found them during the night. After re-acquainting herself with the surroundings, Twilight once again flew the chariot towards the collapsed clock tower. 10:12, read the monolithic hands. It was still weird to see the sky pitch-black in the morning. Twilight noticed that it was even darker than it had been when they had gone to bed, since many of the fires had burnt out. Nonetheless, the flames still engulfed large swathes of the city and exuded an eerie glow throughout the empty streets. "Let's go to the courtyard and wait for Rainbow Dash. I'm sure she'll turn up soon." The unicorn spoke confidently, as if her trust in her friend would foretell her arrival. The two ponies flew to Los Pegasus's central courtyard and waited. "It's still early," said Applejack in an attempt to keep up her friend's spirits. "She'll a'be here when she said she'd a'be." Twilight and Applejack paced restlessly through the courtyard. 11:00. No sign of Rainbow Dash. 11:30. "Well, she flew off to help that legion of pegasi, so I'm sure they went somewhere else once Los Pegasus fell," calculated Twilight Sparkle. "She's probably already broken away from the group and is on her way to meet us here now." 12:00. Applejack pondered why there weren't any bodies lying around Los Pegasus. The streets were relatively clean, save for splotches of blood and green goo here and there. There weren't any dead ponies in sight. Maybe Rainbow Dash hadn't come here after all. Maybe she went to help out at a battle far off, and she really was coming back now? Twilight was usually pretty insightful, and if she thought that there was a chance, then it was worth waiting a little longer. 1:00. A loud clack sounded off in the distance, and Twilight instantly hopped into the chariot to get a closer look. But it was just a building that had succumbed to the pressures of other buildings pushing it down - a whole city block had been done in by the trolls, and it was just now giving way under the stress of the combined steel. Twilight scoured the rubble for any sign that maybe Rainbow Dash had been inside, that maybe she'd bumped into it to cause it to fall - but there were no pegasi to be found. 2:00. The courtyard remained empty, lacking any sounds save the breathing of the two waiting ponies. 3:00. Applejack ventured into the wreckage of a nearby grocery store and brought back some food and supplies. "Thought you might need a bit of a pick-me-up," she said with a smile as she handed her findings to Twilight. But the unicorn just slouched even more, feeling as dejected as ever. "I don't think she's coming," she finally admitted. "This was all a waste of time." "Now don't you go sayin' that, partner," replied Applejack in an attempt to lift her friend's mood. "We gave it everything we had, and we didn't let out friend down. We were here for her all the way, and you done right by me. All we can say is that we tried." "Yeah, I guess," sighed the purple unicorn. 3:34. A troll patrol finally wandered into the courtyard, shocked to find two ponies slouched beside a chariot. They bellowed some sort of war cry to call the others and then began to charge. Wielding their clubs high above their heads, they sprinted at the two unassuming ponies. But their loud steps shook the ground as they ran, alerting their would-be prey to their presence. Twilight murmured as she got up. "I think it's time we get out of here." "Those beasts'll pay fer what they've done to our friends!" Applejack screamed in a fit of frustration as she entered the chariot. Twilight activated her magic and lifted the vehicle off the ground, having plenty of time to evade the troll pursuers. It was now time for their northward journey towards the troll base, a suicidal thrust into the heart of all that had destroyed her people. The vicious savages who had taken her friends from her had surely come from a well-defended homeland, and centuries of uninterrupted fortification would make it as impregnable as any fortress she'd ever read about. Things could only get worse.

Outside the Reaching Sky

pre

"Right, stop there for a second, Russet!" Applejack's shout carried easily over the ringing noise. The looming technogolem halted in place, carefully keeping the talons of its feet retracted so as not to damage the deck. "Heh, you look surprised, Twi. Guess you ain't seen one a' the Mark Tens before?" The orange mare walked over to where Twilight stood, relieving the Commander of the need to shout to be heard. "No, I don't go by Rarity's headquarters very often. The last one of these I saw was a Mark Two." Twilight looked up at the looming figure of the technogolem, now standing perfectly still. "Goodness, I knew Rarity had been building them bigger, but I hadn't realized quite how... imposing they had gotten. It looks like she's eliminated the wooden components, as well." The last technogolem Twilight had seen had had large parts of its body made out of wood or fiber, and had had control cables and motive components dangling from several places. This one, besides being more than twice the size, was all metal as far as she could see, covered by smoothly curving armored plates with almost no gaps. Even the legs looked considerably sturdier. Rarity must hate making these, Twilight thought, studying the smooth, nonreflective metal that covered the golem, which completely and conspicuously lacked any of the ornamentation Rarity loved to build into her domestic robots. Applejack nodded. "Yep. She's gotten all the breakable bits behind the armor, too. Don't rightly know all the specifics, but I guess making the frame all-metal means she could get 'em bigger, and put some bigger guns on 'em." She looked the looming figure over, green eyes shining in pride. "Couple a' these things, and half of the critters we run in to will just take off runnin'. Even the big ones've mostly learned not to mess with these; 'bout the only thing that can hurt 'em is a great big hydra, a dragon, or a crystal colossus." The Warden commander paused. "Well, that or a gemfly swarm; nearly lost one last year when a bunch of bugs got in under the armor and started eating its brain. Had to shut off the poor thing's shields and hit it with flamethrowers, and Rarity had to just about rebuild 'er when we got 'er home. They're expensive, though, we've only got twelve of 'em, and they're all coming along on this trip." Applejack's expression turned a little sour. "Since the Falcons up and quit on us, we needed something with heavy guns, and the Mark Tens are pretty much all we've got that'll fit what we need. Ordered two more of 'em from Rarity as it was, and Twelve here had some problems with her crystal matrix or some-such." Applejack walked up to the silent technogolem and gave it a solid thump with her hoof. The machine didn't budge at all. "Barely made it onboard before cutoff. We just finished running checks on 'er, and now we're putting her with her sisters. Heh, if you ain't seen one of these before, you oughta see her in combat stance." She turned to address the stallion standing next to the looming technogolem and raised her voice more than was probably warranted. "Russet! Put Twelve in combat stance!" "Yes, Ma'am, Com... lieutenant!" The golem's earth pony handler barely kept himself from addressing Applejack as 'Commander.' He frowned in momentary concentration. The technogolem shifted stance immediately with a sudden, fluid grace, adjusting its footing with a quick boom boom boom of heavy, metallic impacts, and the cannon-arms lifted and pointed aggressively while the talon-arms spread out, ready to grab and rend. A sharp stink of ozone reached Twilight's nose, almost making her sneeze, and the blue-white lightning of a disruption field wreathed the monster's metal claws. There was a subtle tension to the technogolem's pose, making the thing feel almost alive. Twilight felt a sudden spike of adrenaline, which was amplified by Applejack's reaction. "Woah, woah woah!" Applejack yelled. "Shut those power claws down, Russet! Shut 'em down!" "Yes, lieutenant!" The earth pony stallion frowned again, and the diffuse lightning abruptly faded away. "Sorry, ma'am! Twelve shouldn't have done that, I only told it to shift position." The stallion's voice was abashed, and Twilight could see a hint of a flush under his light brown coat. Applejack snorted. "Better take 'er back to the test bay, then. Move it, trooper!" The Warden nodded wordlessly, focusing his attention on the technogolem, which shifted back to a more docile pose. Its fluid grace seemed to have vanished, and it turned a bit clumsily to make its way back through the door it had entered by. The golem's Warden controller followed it closely, watching its feet and legs with an intent expression on his face as he made sure it cleared the door without hitting anything. Applejack shook her head as she turned back to Twilight, and the unicorn belatedly noticed that her friend had donned a foreleg band in the time since she'd left the bridge. It was bright gold, the color of the command branch, and adorned with the symbol indicating a senior lieutenant. Rainbow Dash had told Twilight that both Warden commanders would both be temporarily stepping down from their ranks during this mission, but it hadn't really, completely registered with Twilight at the time. The Wardens all knew both Applejack and Rainbow Dash on sight, of course, but it was still a significant gesture from the two Warden leaders to let Twilight be the only pony aboard with the rank of Commander. Some of their own ponies outranked them at the moment, including both Silver Stars and Night Breeze. "Tarnation," Applejack said, adjusting her hat. "Sorry 'bout that. Russet probably just got excited and Twelve picked up on it. He's usually a lot more level-headed than that or he wouldn't be a golem controller." The orange-coated mare blinked, evidently remembering something. "Aw, shucks. That was my fault, Twi, I'm sorry. You're one a' Russet's personal heroes, of course he got excited. I never should've had him put Twelve in a combat stance." That made sense. The technogolems weren't intelligent, but they did respond to their handlers' emotions. It took a particular kind of mind to handle a golem; their artificial intelligence needed a very specific kind of partial guidance. A handler couldn't give it too much direction, because that could confuse it, but too little guidance and a technogolem could become extremely dangerous and unpredictable. They also needed to have solid control over their emotions; feeding a technogolem the wrong emotion at the wrong time could be disastrous, as they'd nearly seen. It was flattering to Twilight to know that somepony with the kind of calm, even temper that was needed in a golem handler looked up to her that much. Applejack shook her head, clearly a bit disgusted with herself. "Well, I'll let 'im run those tests anyway. It'll be good for him." She looked back up again, grinning at her commander and friend. "Anyway, what can I do for ya?" Twilight smiled, telling the orange mare with her expression that there was no harm done. "Nothing really, I'm just going around, getting used to the ship. It's so big!" Applejack laughed. "Yep, sure is! Whooee, it was a job rounding up all the supplies we were gonna need, let me tell you!" "I imagine!" Twilight sobered. "Oh, there's something else I should probably let you know about. We had a few very serious casualties during the Gate jump, including one of the Warden ponies on the bridge. Amber Mist." The grin fell away from Applejack's face. "Yeah, heard about that. Doctors in the medbay called and told me, I think they told Rainbow, too. Cryin' shame, she was a darn good officer, a darn good Warden, and a darn good pony. Had a little herd back home, no foals, though." Twilight sighed, wincing. "Well, that's good, I suppose. Maybe. Uh... you know she's not dead, right?" "Yeah, but it don't look good, 'least that's what Doc Rosethorn sounded like. Trust me, I've heard doctors tryin' not to tell me how bad a shape one of my Wardens was in." Applejack mirrored her friend's sigh. "It happens. Not the first good Warden whose brain's gotten fried. Dangerous job, but somepony's gotta do it. Rainbow Dash was right about that, way back in the day." The orange mare looked off into space, green eyes thoughtful. "Lessee... Amber was your chief gunner, right? Who's that leave you with..." Twilight was about to answer when Applejack did it for her. "Wingblade, right? Pegasus filly, off of Lightning? Gray coat, real dark blue eyes?" Twilight nodded, impressed. Applejack had an amazing ability to remember her Wardens by name and personality, even without the benefit of an interface implant. The former farmpony had never wanted one, saying she'd always found the idea freaky, but she had a remarkable memory for ponies nonetheless. She claimed it came from dealing with her huge family. "That's correct. She impressed me, actually; she handled the neural stress astoundingly well, and she was extremely quick to act." Applejack snorted a laugh. "Yep, that's Wingblade. She's a pretty dang cool customer under stress, and she doesn't fall apart afterward the way some of 'em do. Keep an eye on her, though; cool or not, she's awful aggressive, and her instructors say she's creepy in the net." " 'Creepy in the net?' What exactly does that mean?" The earth pony shrugged. "Don't rightly know. I can't get into the net myself, a'course, but everypony who's ever been in the same net as her says she's creepy. Ask Rainbow Dash, she's one of the ones that said that. 'Part from that, she's really good at her job. One of the best, actually, that's why we put her in a ship right out of Warden training." Applejack blinked slowly, thinking. "Aw, shucks, you got Stars on the bridge to ride herd on her, don't you? Don't you worry none, Stars'll keep her from getting too aggressive. Talk about a cool customer. Level-headed as a table, and rock-solid besides." "Yes, that's the impression I've gotten. It's how she seemed from the report on the Interloper, too; she was slow to return fire after she was attacked, but decisive once she did so. I was glad that you and Rainbow Dash assigned her as captain." Applejack snorted again. "Shoot, I don't think Rainbow would've let me assign anypony else, even if I'd wanted to. You should've heard her crowin' about how great Stars was. She went and scared the tar out of the poor mare anyway during debriefing, a'course, but she'd've put up a heck of a fight if I'd wanted to give Dauntless's command to any other pony." Twilight nodded, surveying the purposeful chaos still going on in the cargo hold. "Well, it looks like you still have quite a bit to do here. Is there anything I could do to help?" "Nah." Applejack gave the Warden logistics officers a quick but thorough examination, watching their movements and behavior. "I think we got things under control here. Be done with this stuff in a couple of hours, then we'll probably start reorganizing the other holds. Thanks, though." "You don't want my help reorganizing?" Twilight asked, a hopeful tone in her voice. It was looking like she wasn't going to have much to do on an everyday basis as Commander, and she rather wanted to have something to do. Her organizational skills were nearly peerless, doubly so with the assistance of her holodaemon and various programs that she'd written for fun. Applejack chuckled. "Well, if you're offerin'... I'll send you the manifest." "Great!" Twilight grinned. "That'll give me something to work on in my spare time, besides the theoretical sorcery work I brought along from the Bureau and the doctoral studies from the Thirk Academy." "Tarnation," Applejack said, shaking her head ruefully. "And I thought I liked stayin' busy. I'll be glad for the help, but don't do too much, or you'll put me out of a job!" Twilight giggled. "Oh, I wouldn't want to do that! I'll see you at dinner, right?" "Plannin' on it. Oh, and Twi?" Applejack stepped closer to give her friend a hug that was warmly returned. "Darn good to see you again. Been way too long." "I think it has been for all of us," Twilight said quietly. Twilight quickly finished up her tour, and spent most of the rest of the shift coordinating with the various science specialists she'd brought along. The system they were in might be lifeless and largely uninteresting, but it was an absolute gold mine of scientific data. The opportunity to study an entirely different star and its attendant planets, along with the various moons, asteroids, comets, and dust clouds was incredibly valuable. They were only scheduled to stay for a day or so in this system, doing surveys and checking over the Dauntless's systems while the drives recharged and they ran post-jump tests, but Twilight and her specialists intended to make the most of it. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she almost missed dinner. The unicorn had to rush to make it after her holodaemon pinged her with a reminder, and she was the last of her friends to show up. The unicorn worried a bit about how hurried she'd look, concerned that she wasn't showing the dignity that a Commander should, but then, the most well-known Commander prior to Twilight had been Rainbow Dash, and the unicorn couldn't imagine Rainbow worrying about maintaining a dignified mien when she was in a hurry. As long as she looked purposeful, she'd probably be fine. Twilight's friends were already talking and laughing with each other when she arrived. "Oh, welcome, darling!" Rarity exclaimed, "We were starting to worry that you'd forgotten! Here, I saved you a seat." Twilight sat in the proffered seat, between Rarity and Rainbow Dash, noting as she did so that Rainbow and Fluttershy were sitting on opposite sides of the table. Still, they weren't glaring or sniping at each other, which was something. The Commander fell into the comfortable rhythm of banter with her friends, the pattern as familiar as ever despite the fact that it had been close to twenty years since the six of them had all been in the same room at the same time. The relaxed joking reminded Twilight of another dinner, more than eight decades in the past. Duran had still been alive, and still in good enough health to travel. The seven of them had all gone out to a nice restaurant in Canterlot, celebrating the successful trials of Equestria's first powered aircraft. It had been a hilariously slow, lumbering thing by their current standards, but it had been remarkably impressive at the time. They'd all been joking and teasing each other, just like this, and had just been delivered their food. The waiter who'd delivered it had seemed a bit nervous, and his uniform had fit poorly. Twilight had been a tad suspicious; several of them had been harassed by reporters in the past, and something about the young unicorn stallion had been drawing the lavender unicorn's attention. He'd cleared his throat nervously, and then whipped out a notepad and asked in a hurried voice, "Rainbow Dash, Duran Thirk, how would you respond to the allegations that the two of you have been carrying on an intimate relationship in secret?" Dead silence had fallen around the table, a stillness that had quickly spread to the rest of the restaurant's dining room. Those rumors had been rife in the year before. It had been a predictable matter; the human and the pegasus spent a lot of time together, and it was clear from even the most cursory observation of the two of them that they were extremely close. They weren't physically intimate and never had been, to the best of Twilight's knowledge, but she'd been able to understand why other ponies might have thought that. Still, the others at the table had glanced at each other uneasily; this was the first time anyone had asked either Rainbow or Duran about it in public. The glance between the pegasus and the human hadn't been uneasy, though. Twilight had been looking at them, and she'd seen the sudden spark of devilish humor that passed between the two. Oh, that poor colt, she'd thought, fighting to keep a smile off of her face. Duran had smothered the humor on his face almost immediately, so fast it made Twilight wonder for a moment if she'd seen it at all, and spoke in an absolutely serious voice. "Well, Dash? Tell the truth. Do you secretly long for me to make mad, passionate, pogo-stick love to you?" He'd turned as he'd said it, moving his left leg and the stump of his right out from under the table. Twilight had choked, and heard Rarity do the same next to her. She often found the human's amputee jokes in poor taste, and this was no exception, though the dry delivery had been rather funny. Rarity had lifted her glass to her lips, sipping to hide the smile she was trying to suppress. Rainbow had never been good at deadpan delivery. Instead, she'd taken the opposite approach and bugged her eyes out dramatically. "Oh, dude! How did you discover my secret?!" She'd pressed a forehoof to her forehead in an imitation of Rarity's more... theatrical moments. "How can I ever live with the shame of whoa!" The pegasus had leaned back in her chair, pretending like she was about to swoon, and had evidently forgotten that she habitually turned her chair sideways to make room for her wings. She flailed her legs and wings, trying to catch her balance, but failed utterly. In a flash of cyan and rainbow, she'd pitched over backward, emitting a choked-off yell and landing on the floor with a thump. Rarity had choked again, except this time she'd been sipping her drink, resulting in a spray of beverage blasting out of the elegant unicorn's nose. Duran had leaned forward inquisitively to make sure Rainbow was alright, and she'd bounced up immediately with a goofy grin on her face. "Wow, careful with suggestions like that, dude. You blew me out of my seat!" "I have been known to have that effect," Duran had observed with utter calm, pausing to sip from his drink. This had elicited a new splutter from Rarity, who was coughing and choking, trying to get her breath back. "Ooo, Rarity looks upset!" Pinkie Pie had observed gleefully. The pink pony had let out a loud, fake, shocked gasp, "I think you've got a rival!" Rarity had tried to choke out a denial, but she hadn't cleared her throat and nose of the drink she'd snorted out and could do nothing but splutter and cough. Twilight had decided at that point to get in on the fun. "She does look jealous," the unicorn had observed, peering at her white-coated friend. "But jealous of whom?" That had made poor Rarity start laughing anew. "Indeed," Duran said coolly, "it seems that it is I who has a rival here. I suppose I'd better," he paused for just a beat, "hop to it." Twilight had groaned. Oh, Celestia, not the pogo-stick puns. Rainbow, on the other hand, had burst out laughing, the loud, slightly squeaky laugh that meant she was really busting a gut. It had taken her a few moments to catch her breath enough to gasp out, "Oh, yeah, dude, you'd better be on the bounce!" That had set off a punning contest between Rainbow, Duran, and Pinkie, while Twilight groaned and Rarity laughed helplessly, tears streaming from her eyes. On the other side of the table, Applejack had pulled her hat down over her eyes and concentrated on her food, determinedly ignoring the goofiness across from her, and Fluttershy had been seemingly trying to merge with the tabletop, blushing furiously and hoping nopony was looking. They all had been, of course. Everypony in the restaurant was looking over at their table, most chuckling at the impromptu comedy show. The poor reporter who'd set the whole thing off had been watching with a stunned expression on his face, like he'd just been hit in the side of the head with a board. He'd made occasional movements to write on his notepad, but aborted it each time. He'd clearly had no idea what to say. Twilight shook herself, pulling herself out of the memory with an effort. That had been happening to her more and more over the years, those flashes of vivid memory that absorbed her attention for a time. She'd checked to make sure nothing was physically wrong with her, but nothing was, as far as she could tell. She privately suspected that she just had so many memories now that they sometimes crowded her thoughts. The unicorn had also been thinking about her long-gone human friend quite a lot lately; likely because they were finally fulfilling the dream he'd had for them, voyaging beyond their own solar system into the wider universe. She felt a small, not-quite-sad smile quirking the corners of her lips, and she turned her attention back to her friends, joining in the joking and the banter. If any of them had similar flashes of memory, they didn't show it much, though at times each of them would pause and look a little distant, for just a moment, before resuming their conversations.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Surprise

The Dauntless was scheduled to leave the system the next day, a little bit after the start of the first shift. Twilight was loath to leave; they'd recorded an enormous amount of information, and there hadn't been time to analyze even a fraction of it. There were so many things that still needed to be studied, and so much they hadn't had time to look at! The local star was giving off some odd arcane emissions that hadn't propagated along the gap between this star and Celestia's sun, there were odd radio frequency noises that were probably due to tidal stresses acting on crystalline formations coming from one of the moons of the outer gas giant, and one of the rocky planets near the star was actually volcanically active, even though this system was so old that it should have cooled to a rocky ball long ago. Those things all merited extra study, and who knew what else they might find if they spent just one more day here? But they couldn't. Time was precious. None of those phenomena, interesting as they were, would give them any insight into whoever had sent the Interloper. All of it had been pored over by the ship's comm officer, Chatterbox, and the stallion had been certain that nothing they'd picked up had been sent by an artificial source. Fluttershy's linguists and Twilight's scientists had agreed; this was all natural, and there was no intelligent activity in this system. The Dauntless's mission was to seek out intelligent life; therefore, with none here to find, the ship no longer needed to be here. The anomalies in this system, however fascinating, would have to be studied by a follow-up mission, probably one specifically equipped for astronomical and astrophysical research. Regretfully, Twilight slid all the data that had been recorded into the archive, tagged it for delivery to the BoT when they returned, and disconnected from the net, stretching muscles gone sore from prolonged immobility. She'd gotten up rather early, and had been on the bridge and working since well before the nominal start of first shift. An icon glowed on the panel in front of her seat; Doctor Rosethorn wanted to talk to her. The Commander had already gotten Rosethorn's tentative report on the possible causes of the injuries done to her crew. It seemed that the long Gate jump had created some kind of feedback in the brains of ponies who were connected to a datanet during the jump. Rosethorn didn't speculate on why or how, and Twilight honestly had no idea what could cause that kind of thing. It would require extensive study on a refitted Gate drive ship, and would probably take years. In the meantime, Rosethorn suggested in the strongest possible terms for nopony to be connected to the datanet the next time Dauntless made a jump. Twilight was more than a little surprised that it was evidently the jump itself that had caused the problem, rather than the sensors which she'd suspected were the culprits. It did make sense, though; how could an Engineering shipmare be injured by sensor feedback when she wasn't even receiving a feed from the sensors, while the actual sensor operator hadn't even dropped out of connection? Twilight pinged the terminal for a connection to the medical bay, and was only kept waiting for a moment. One of the benefits of being a Commander, she was learning, was that others were quick to listen when she was speaking. Doctor Rosethorn's face appeared on the screen, her red eyes serious against her green coat. "Ah, Commander. Good, I was hoping to hear from you." Twilight cleared her throat. "Yes, indeed, we have a matter to discuss. First, though, I'd like to thank you on your work; you may have saved other ponies who might have had similar problems." Rosethorn nodded. "Of course, Commander. Only doing my job." "And speaking of your job..." Twilight brought up a status report on the two serious casualties, projecting it on an illusory screen above her panel right next to the one the doctor's face was looking out of. "It looks like Amber Mist and Cogsteeth are stable, is that correct?" The Commander felt a knot of tension curling in her gut. This was a hard call to make, and it had been gnawing away at her since she'd left the medical bay yesterday. She had a responsibility to her crew... but she also had a responsibility to her mission, and by extension ponykind as a whole. The doctor winced. "I'm not sure 'stable' is quite the proper word. They're still badly damaged, and we are keeping them in stasis at the moment." The Dauntless had twenty stasis pods, devices derived from some of the chronomancy spells originally developed by the unicorn mage, Starswirl the Bearded. The spell engineered into the units froze time inside the pod, keeping the contents from aging. They were extremely power-hungry, but as long as power was maintained, the occupants could remain in stasis indefinitely. "I'm not at all happy about leaving them there; leave somepony in stasis too long, and they can be a bit out of step with the world around them once they come out. Their herds and foals have aged, but they haven't..." Rosethorn trailed off at Twilight's raised eyebrow. "Yes, I'm familiar with the condition." The unicorn observed dryly. Her lip quirked up in a smile, her tension momentarily forgotten, and her young-looking face not reflecting the fact that the mind behind it had seen a full century and more roll by. She'd seen her other acquaintances age and die, while she and her five friends just continued, seemingly untouched by the passing years. "It can be wrenching, but I'm not thinking of leaving them in stasis for years. This voyage is only supposed to last a month or so, after all, and at the end of it we'll have them home and passed over to the specialists. In your professional opinion, do you think they'll be ill-served by spending that much time in stasis?" Rosethorn sighed, shaking her head reluctantly. "No. None of the studies have shown any kind of detrimental effects to the stasis procedure... as I suspect you know, Commander." Twilight did know. She'd supervised several of those tests herself, when the stasis pods had been in development. They'd been quite thorough. The Commander nodded calmly. "In that case, unless you have some reason that Amber Mist and Cogsteeth absolutely need to be taken back to the homeworld immediately, I am inclined to proceed with the mission. Are there any such reasons?" Twilight didn't particularly like being so firm with Rosethorn; she respected the other mare's judgement and compassion, and she was a decent pony. But a Commander had to be decisive, and this mission was important. Rosethorn's mouth twisted unhappily, but she shook her head again. "No, ma'am. Apart from the fact that they're filling two of our twenty stasis pods, which we might need in a serious situation, there is no such reason." Twilight nodded. "All right, Doctor Rosethorn. Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't feel like we can afford the extra time to make a detour back to the home world right now; I want to make at least three more jumps before we return, assuming we don't find anything." Rosethorn nodded, still clearly unhappy, but willing to accept Twilight's decision on the matter. "Very well, Commander. I would like to see them returned home at the earliest possible opportunity, however." "As soon as we can," Twilight reassured the doctor, before cutting the connection. The Commander was genuinely concerned about her crewponies, but this genuinely was important. That didn't change the fact that the decision left a sour taste in her mouth. Maybe if the next two jumps proved fruitless, (as she suspected they would, she wasn't anticipating getting that lucky) then they'd make a quick stopover in the home system to get her fallen crewmares the help they needed. Twilight brought up the mission profile. She'd been studying it last night on a smartscroll in her cabin, but going over their next stop one more time before they started the jump process wouldn't hurt. The first jump had been short, aimed at the nearest star, just to make sure nothing went wrong. While they crew had been affected by the jump, the ship had been completely undamaged, its systems still running at full efficiency. Actually a little over what had been designated full efficiency; Monkeywrench had had time to go over the ship's systems in operational mode over the last day, and she'd found a couple of places where they could be tweaked to give slightly better performance, so the Dauntless was currently running slightly more efficiently than when she'd left the shipyard. The next jump was more ambitious. They'd be jumping to one of the more remote stars that had been remotely explored by Equestrian telescopes; this one was about thirty light-years away. Twenty-eight point four six, if she remembered the exact distance correctly. Still, the peering telescopes had gotten a fairly accurate survey, and as long as they didn't try to emerge inside a planet they should be fine. Leaving a star system required the ship to be outside the star's interference sphere, but entering one didn't have the same concern. Even so, the plan was to jump to a point well outside the sphere's perimeter and above the system ecliptic, just in case. Twilight ran through the final bits of her checklist. The Dauntless was well outside of the solar interference sphere, the engines were fully pre-charged and ready, the power cores were at optimum levels, and there were no indications of mechanical or arcane faults anywhere in the system. Twilight looked up from her illusory display, and the screen winked out the moment her eyes left it, sensing that she no longer needed it. "All right, everypony. Let's run through the final jump preparations, and we can be on our way." Communicating things like this verbally felt so much more clumsy and slow than a quick thoughtpulse, but she'd modified the procedures in light of the danger Gate jumps posed to datalinked ponies. Better to take a little longer to prepare than to risk having somepony still connected and risk damage when they jumped. The really tricky part was going to be the jump itself; without a direct connection, Night Breeze had to leave the calculations and the process of the jump to the ship's daemons, so the process was going to be much slower. The pegasus mare was also concerned about possible errors; she'd corrected several while initiating the previous jump, so she was going to have to double-check the datadaemons' output before final initiation, which would be cumbersome. She and Twilight had spent several hours off-shift going over the navigational datadaemons' parameters and focus, and they both thought they had the problems ironed out, but Night Breeze was still going to check prior to jump. Better to be certain with something like this. They had to be very precise with their instructions; datadaemons tended to... wander when not supervised. The bridge crew leapt into action, albeit rather quietly and calmly. Virtual screens appeared, several in front of each pony so they could look quickly from one to another, and a quiet murmur of voices filled the bridge as each crewmare spoke to the others, relaying status reports and informing the others of things like information transfers. It didn't actually take too terribly long, but it felt to Twilight like forever after the quick responsiveness of thoughtspace inside the bridge net. Twilight monitored the preparations from her command station, keeping a half-dozen virtual screens haloing her head and watching the information flick back and forth. Night Breeze's preparations were particularly absorbing; the black-coated mare clearly had an unbelievably keen grasp of Gate travel equations and arcane theory. Finally, they were ready for final initiation, the drives primed and the datadaemons prepared with all the guidelines they would need. Twilight opened a shipwide channel, her voice carried by the aetheric links to every comm unit and speaker on board. "All right, everypony. We're preparing for the jump, so all ponies should disconnect from immersion and not reconnect until I tell you it's safe." She sent a command to the comm net, making sure that the message was flagged for anypony who was in full link. The Commander waited several long breaths before turning to Night Breeze, nodding, and calmly ordering, "Begin the jump." "Aye-aye, Commander." The sable-coated pegasus turned back to her panel, manipulating the systems with her hooves and with occasional commands from her neural implant. Regular interface, sending commands without being fully linked to the datanet, should be safe. At least, Twilight hoped so. If they couldn't even send arcane commands to the ship without being brain-fried, then they could be in serious trouble. Twilight shivered as she felt the energy building around her. It feels so much colder outside of the datalink. No surprise, really; the only reason it could be felt at all inside the net was that it wasn't a purely physical feeling, and the nonphysical part bled through even under full immersion. Now, without immersion removing her physical senses, it felt much stronger, like icy needles had pushed through her flesh and were draining the warmth from her heart. She shivered, and saw the rest of the bridge crew do the same. "Goddess, I hate this feeling," Silver Stars muttered quietly. "You and me both, Captain," Wingblade replied, in a similar undertone. The gray-coated pegasus's feathers were fluffed out awkwardly, making the slim mare look rather overweight. Everypony's coat was ruffled, bristling in an attempt to retain body heat that wasn't actually being lost. "You aren't actually cold," Twilight said, a lecturing tone creeping into her voice despite her best efforts. "It's a psychosomatic reaction to magical oversaturation..." She cut herself off when the ship seemed to suddenly lurch sideways, the false feeling of cold intensifying to the point where she felt like it would stop her heart. Twilight twitched in her seat, trying to compensate for the sudden moment of vertigo, and saw the rest of the bridge crew twitch similarly. Ah, so that's what a Gate transition feels like. Interesting. Her brain felt fine, and a quick glance around the bridge showed everypony in good shape. Night Breeze looked completely fine, and she'd been the one Twilight was most worried about. "Ah, that wasn't so bad that time, was it?" Twilight asked with a grin. "It looks like everypony's..." "Uh, Commander? I think I may have something." Oculus interrupted. Twilight's mouth snapped shut, and she quickly pulled up a mirror of the sensor feeds. It was distorted, still hashed with interference, and the Commander couldn't make any sense of it; it just looked like noise. "I'm not seeing anything here, Oculus," Twilight said, frowning. "It looks like the sensors may not have recovered from the jump yet." "Ma'am, this looks... familiar. Hey, Chatterbox, turn on the ECCM, will you?" The stallion at the communications station nodded, activating the systems the Wardens had installed a few weeks before departure. They'd been designed to sort through the kind of hostile jamming the Interloper had been putting out, and Twilight had no idea why Oculus would be asking for... "Celestia's horn!" Oculus swore shrilly, terror in her voice, "Get the shields up! Get 'em up now!" The bridge engineer rushed frantically to get the shields raised, not even waiting for confirmation of the order, and Twilight's jaw dropped at what was on Oculus's screen. The Dauntless had emerged in the middle of a fleet... an armada of starships. More maneuvering objects than Twilight could count at a glance surrounded them. Even if most of those signals were decoys like the Interloper had employed, there were still scores of ships. The jamming they had been putting out had been so intense that it had left the Dauntless completely blind until the countermeasures had been brought online. How did they know we were coming?! Twilight thought, in a moment of stunned horror. The Commander blessed Oculus's quick response as the first salvo slammed into Dauntless. The shields hadn't fully solidified, but they'd come up enough to blunt the force of the missile strike, and the ship's tough outer armor absorbed the rest. Several surface installations were damaged or destroyed, but the Dauntless wasn't seriously damaged, and the shields slammed up to full power before more strikes could slip through. It would be damaged before long, though. There were way too many ships out there for Dauntless to just sit and take their fire. They couldn't run; it would take over an hour for the arcane charge in the Gate drive to dissipate, and trying to jump before then would make the drive detonate. They had to fight, and the only way they'd be able to do that effectively was to connect to the datalink. She had to try it now, they had zero time. Not even enough time to suit up; they'd have to fight in normal uniform, which could be bad if they had a hull breach. Twilight took a deep breath, trying to ignore the terror racing through her and the feeling of her heart slamming in her chest. "Okay. I'm going to link up; you watch me, and if I look okay, sound the alert and link up yourselves." Of all the bridge crew, the Commander was least likely to take serious injury from the jump feedback. Providing, of course, that the damage wasn't cumulative, or worse yet, exponential. But she didn't have another option; there were more salvos coming in, and Wingblade was going to be badly overloaded trying to shoot them down manually. The grey-coated pegasus was already frantically directing her point-defense systems without the direct link, her forehooves and wingtips flashing across the displays she called up from her panel, trying with growing desperation to shoot down as many incoming missiles as she could. There weren't that many right now, but with the number of ships out there the amount of inbound ordnance was going to increase dramatically in a very short time. Twilight cursed the fact that they hadn't assigned another assistant weapons officer yet, but it was far too late to change that now. The Commander saw a similar series of evaluations chase themselves across Silver Stars' face. The Captain arrived at the same conclusion Twilight did, and nodded somberly. "Aye-aye, Commander. We'll watch you. Good luck." Twilight could hear sincere respect in the other mare's voice. The lavender unicorn braced herself and cast the spell to send her mind into the bridge datanet. The world slowed down, information flooded her brain, and Twilight felt a palpable rush of relief despite the desperate situation. The datanet was completely clear and normal, with no trace of the sickening disorientation or painful feedback caused by the jump. Twilight instantly went to work. The rest of the crew would follow her into immersion shortly, but their reactions would be molasses compared to hers at the moment and she had a fair bit of subjective time before the others would be available to help. The first thing she started to analyze was Oculus's sensor display. Twilight blanched at what she saw; there were, not hundreds, but thousands of maneuvering signals crawling in swarms across the readout, and terror gripped the unicorn. Dauntless was powerful, enormously more powerful than the Warden cutters who had first seen action, but she was nowhere near powerful enough to handle all of this. Missiles were streaking everywhere, beams were stabbing out, ships were exploding... Wait, why were ships exploding? She checked the vectors, and the vast majority of the shoals of missiles flashing around her weren't headed for the Dauntless; they were being exchanged by the ships around her. This wasn't an ambush; Dauntless had jumped into the middle of a battle! It was such an enormously unlikely circumstance that it actually made Twilight pause for a fraction of a thought to take it in. She set the analysis datadaemons to go over several aspects of the sensor returns. There was an enormous amount to do, tasks that would normally be tackled by two or three of the bridge crew, but Twilight needed to know now, and only a fraction of a second had passed since she dropped into the net. The expert programs pored over the information, and the situation started to clarify. First, there weren't thousands of ships; most of those signatures were decoys. There were about eight hundred, split into two distinct groups. It was still a vast number, but not quite as overwhelming as her first impressions had suggested. Second, the smaller group, about two hundred ships, sported the same emissions signature, the same spectrograph of light reflecting from their hulls, and similar performance characteristics to the Interloper that had intruded on Equestrian space. Those were likely enemies, especially since several of them had already altered their vectors in response to Dauntless's arrival. The other six hundred were completely and utterly different, in design, in performance, and in emissions, different enough that Twilight suspected they were from yet another spacefaring species. Tension coiled around Twilight, "looking" like a grey mist in thoughtspace, one of those annoying virtual manifestations of emotion that persisted no matter how much the base architecture of the data systems were changed. In spite of their enormous numerical advantage, the strangers were losing, and badly. The Interloper ships were arranged in tight, disciplined squadrons that moved as one, synchronizing both their fire and their defenses, while the stranger ships seemed to act mostly independently. They swarmed together in attacks, but there was little effort to synchronize fire, and they seemed largely unable to fend off the Interlopers' unified salvos. The stranger ships were also smaller, with slightly slower acceleration rates than the Interloper squadrons. The only thing that was saving them was the fact that they seemed to be absolutely packed with antimissile firepower, meaning that each ship took numerous missiles to kill. Twilight watched an Interloper squadron finally fall, and was able to divine more or less what was going on. The lost squadron had been swarmed under by five times its number in stranger vessels that had closed to direct-fire range, blasting the Interloper ships with powerful beam weapons that swiftly overwhelmed the larger ships' defenses. The Interlopers held a tremendous advantage at long range, with their synchronized fire, superior jamming, and higher speed, but the strangers were trying to use their numbers to box the Interlopers in from several sides and get in close. It wasn't working. For every Interloper ship that fell, a dozen stranger vessels died. Twilight watched another attempted envelopment fail drastically, three squadrons coming to the aid of the squadron that had been the target and blasting the concentration of stranger vessels, forcing them back. The Interlopers might be outnumbered three to one, but from the loss rate Twilight saw, she suspected that the original ratio had been much, much higher. Twilight abruptly realized that she wasn't alone in the net. A querying thoughtpulse came from somepony on another deck, somepony who had been connected before Twilight had. :Took you long enough. We took some damage. Debris strike?: It was Rainbow Dash, which was no real surprise. If somepony needed to put themselves at risk, the cyan pegasus was nearly always the first to volunteer. Twilight wondered if Rosethorn had asked for a volunteer to test whether the feedback persisted after the jump or whether Rainbow had decided to test it on her own. :We're under attack: Twilight replied. She felt surprise and shock echo back at her, a red-and-yellow tang. :Seriously? Why the heck haven't you sounded the alert?!: :Silver Stars will do it, as soon as she sees I'm fine. I've only been linked for four or five seconds.: Twilight sent a pulse of reassurance that Rainbow would probably realize was false. :Had to be sure the feedback didn't linger.: :It didn't. I've been linked since right after jump. Why the heck haven't you just sent the alert yourself, doofus?: That... hadn't occurred to Twilight; she'd been so focused on sorting out the information. She sent a wordless thought through the net to that effect linked to the data she'd already sorted, showing Rainbow what she was dealing with. :Shoot. We're in trouble. I'll set the alert and get outta your hair.: Twilight felt tension coiled around Rainbow's reply, but she was grateful for the response. It was nice dealing with somepony who knew how to react in situations like this. She felt the alert racing through the network, and the rest of the bridge crew linked in so fast that Twilight suspected they'd been just about to do it anyway. :Yes!: Twilight heard the exultant thought from Wingblade, tinged with a cold focus. :Try and get past me now.: Now that the pegasus was linked, she could direct her antimissile defenses with far greater efficiency, and Twilight could sense that the weapons officer still had plenty of focus to spare for the offensive weapons. :Focus on these for return fire: Twilight told the aggressive pegasus, highlighting the Interloper squadrons. :The others may not be hostile.: :Confirmed, Commander. May I return fire if fired upon?: The clarity of the thought made Twilight pause for an instant. Oh. Goodness. I can see why Applejack said she was creepy in the network; I have trouble forming thoughts that complete. She shook the surprise off quickly. :Hold fire on others. Wait for release.: :Yes, Commander.: The thought grumbled a bit, but there was no sense of rebellion. Even as they passed that sequence of messages, the first salvo roared out from Dauntless's launchers, more fire than an entire Interloper squadron targeted on not the nearest enemy squadron, but one of the ones further away. Twilight saw Wingblade's intentions immediately. :Captain,: she pulsed to Silver Stars, :These squadrons almost in beam range: She highlighted the closest Interloper squadrons, which she realized were trying to fall back from the Dauntless's sudden arrival, clawing frantically for distance while spitting missiles at the looming cruiser. :They are. Helmsmare, vector change.: A series of instructions flowed from the captain to the helmsmare and the navigator, and the cruiser surged toward the retreating squadrons. Twilight let Silver Stars direct the ship while she focused on the armada surrounding them. The strangers, the species she hadn't seen before, had lobbed a few missiles their way, but it had been a desultory effort while they continued to focus on the Interloper squadrons. The Interlopers, on the other hoof, were clearly in the process of rearranging their entire order of battle; the squadrons nearest the Dauntless had shifted all of their fire to the Equestrian exploratory ship, and several more squadrons were breaking off from engaging the strangers and moving to support those trying to pressure Dauntless. These ships, though they resembled the Interloper in composition and performance, were much larger than the ship the Warden cutters had driven away. They were clearly more powerful as well, launching larger, faster missiles and boasting more robust defenses. They were still pygmies beside the colossal bulk of the Dauntless, but there were enough of them that the cruiser was in serious danger, especially since they clearly knew what they were doing. Their more effective electronic warfare wasn't as effective as it could have been, after the Wardens' installation of their countermeasures. The sophisticated sensors and sorting daemons, patterned after designs and concepts found in the Library Core, let the exploration cruiser see with a clarity that the Warden cutters had lacked. Oculus was able to quickly pinpoint the hostile ships and feed their coordinates to Wingblade, and after a few moments the aetheric sensors recovered from the confusion of the jump, and with their aid the sensor officer was even able to make a solid effort at separating out the decoy platforms from the real ships. Three of the Interloper ships in the squadron Wingblade had targeted with her first salvo were struck by her missiles in spite of their earnest efforts to shoot the Equestrian ordnance down, and two of them were destroyed when the powerful warheads blew straight through their defenses. The third was clearly crippled, its acceleration dropping drastically as it turned to flee, bleeding air from brutal rents in its armored hull. The crippled ship's remaining squadron-mates shifted formation in an effort to cover their wounded companion's withdrawal. Dauntless's second salvo, facing the reduced defensive fire of only five ships instead of eight, scored even more heavily. Four of the remaining five ships were smashed by the cruiser's missiles, and they died in white-hot boils of energy. The squadron of eight powerful battleships had been reduced in seconds to one fighting ship and one cripple, and the operational vessel tucked itself in front of its brutalized squadron mate, its launchers shutting down in a clear gesture of surrender as it sought to shepherd its wounded companion out of danger. The Interloper formation shifted even more radically after the annihilation of the first squadron, leaving less than a quarter of their number to fight their original opponents while every other squadron altered course to engage the Dauntless, and their missiles came in so thickly that Wingblade had to divert her focus from offensive fire to defensive for a moment as a huge, concentrated volley roared in on the heels of a spate of less coordinated fire. Nearly a thousand enemy missiles screamed toward the Equestrian cruiser, dodging and weaving in an attempt to foil the Warden counterfire. Wingblade wasn't able to destroy the massive salvo, but she poured point-defense fire into it with a grim determination, fighting to whittle it down to a survivable level. Despite her efforts, nearly three hundred Interloper missiles made it past the cruiser's active defenses to slam into her shields. They detonated in a ripple, too numerous to have been completely synchronized. That many warheads would have destroyed several Warden cutters outright. Fortunately, Dauntless was built on an entirely different scale from the cutters, and had a titanic amount of energy to put into her defensive barriers. The shields flickered, local overloads dancing at several points where the apocalyptic energy threatened to eat them away completely, the engineers struggling frantically to shunt the overloads to different parts of the system and distribute the massive blow the cruiser was taking. The shields held, not failing at any point, though several spots were dangerously weakened. The armor was undamaged, and more importantly, they didn't lose any of Wingblade's point-defense installations. It was no time to relax. More hostile ships were closing in. The next salvo would be even larger. Twilight could swear she heard an actual snarl over the network as the weapons officer redirected her attention, no longer forced to focus exclusively on swatting missiles, and saw that two hostile squadrons had been overtaken and were now in range of the cruiser's aetherbeams. The Interloper ships were firing their own lightspeed weapons frantically, almost certainly aware that they were within the Equestrian behemoth's reach, but the Dauntless's superior acceleration meant that the Interlopers couldn't hit back at this range. Unlike the cutters, the power plants didn't strain to provide enough energy for the aetherbeams to fire. Also unlike the cutters, who mounted two of the powerful energy weapons in a spinal configuration, Dauntless had turrets studded across her lateral line, containing a total of a hundred and ten of the weapons. Targeting brackets blossomed around the sixteen Interloper vessels, carefully measuring location, speed, and distance, and sixteen of the beams fired, spitting the gunner's desperate rage at the Interloper warships in unstoppable spikes of arcane power. Every single one hit. The countermeasures and improved aetheric sensors had allowed Wingblade to determine the sixteen ships' positions with pinpoint accuracy, and the aetherbeams did exactly what they were designed to do. The converging pulse of energy tore a hole in the fabric of reality, arcane energy pouring forth and supersaturating the material around it. The hole lasted only a fraction of an instant, but it dumped more than enough energy into its target's hull to blow the ship apart in a massive blast of arcane power. All sixteen of the Interloper ships simply vanished, replaced for an instant by ravening balls of scintillating light. Scores of missiles were still streaking out from the Dauntless, seeking out Interloper vessels, smashing ship after ship with hammers of light and blotting another squadron away, and then another, but the Interlopers had synchronized their fire again and Twilight quailed as she saw another massive salvo come roaring in. Dauntless, however, was not the Interlopers' only problem. The refocusing of their fire had drastically reduced the pressure against the strangers, and the disorganized but still large force had rallied. Only about a quarter of the Interloper fleet was maintaining fire on their original foes, and it wasn't enough. The strangers swarmed forward, clumping together to try to maximize their missile defenses while they bored in toward the ships still attacking them. They quickly overwhelmed one Interloper squadron, and then another. They'd been spitting the occasional missile at Dauntless, but that desultory fire had stopped almost the moment the Interlopers had shifted formation to concentrate on the Equestrian cruiser. Now they tore into the Interloper ships left to deal with them, and the tide of the battle was quickly turning. The Interlopers saw it, too. As one, their formation shifted once again, and they started accelerating outward, headed away from the battle, clearly disengaging. :They're retreating.: Twilight pulsed to Silver Stars, receiving a flash of confirmation in return. :Wingblade,: the captain sent to the weapons officer, :Cease engagement. Can you hit those missiles with ours?: The Interlopers might be withdrawing and they'd stopped spitting fresh missiles, but that massive final salvo of theirs was still incoming. :I can try.: Targeting icons blossomed anew, these trying to center on the tiny, fast contacts speeding toward them. :Every one I hit now is one less for the defenses.: The cruiser's big antiship launchers started cycling as fast as they could, spitting out individual missiles instead of coordinated barrages. The missiles weren't designed for this, but, well, a hostile missile was basically a tiny, super-fast ship, and it was worth a try. Twilight threw herself into Oculus's part of the net, lending her own trained mind to the sensor operator's, trying to help further refine the data she was sending to Wingblade and thus improve the gunner's chances. Linked this closely, she felt the gunner's icy focus, and the sparkle of fear the pegasus was keeping tightly contained. Wingblade didn't bother with thanks, though Twilight could feel a trickle of gratitude from the overwhelmed gunner. Against all Twilight's expectations, the missiles actually scored hits. Only a few, true, but the massive bursts of energy put out by the antiship missiles tended to kill more than one of the incoming warheads. The salvo had been whittled down more than Twilight had expected when it reached Dauntless's defenses. Without missing a beat, Wingblade hurled herself into the point defense network, feverishly guiding the antimissile fire, and even spared a corner of her mind to designate targets for the aetherbeams. Those didn't need to induce a cascade, simply punching a hole through a missile was enough to destroy it, so Wingblade didn't bother with the extra effort of giving the heavy beams distance information and instead simply targeted and fired as fast as she possibly could. The pilot chipped in too, throwing the massive cruiser into an even more frantic evasion pattern, trying to force the missiles to chase her. The gray pegasus did amazing work. The original salvo had been even larger than the first, and Wingblade had manage to destroy or decoy even more of them than she had the first time. Unfortunately, there were still hundreds of warheads left intact to slam into the cruiser. The shields had come back to full power, and the engineers fed extra power to them as they strove to guard the ship. Warheads detonated against the shields in a glaring, white-hot inferno, blasting the barriers with so much energy that the huge ship disappeared behind the rippling blasts. The shields flickered, the engineers again fighting to dump energy around the grid, trying to balance out the strain. Twilight felt a shield relay elsewhere burst, the energy proving too much for the system to contain and too much for the surge protectors to absorb, and the relay detonated in a glare of energy. Fortunately, the relays were placed in reinforced areas of the ship, away from crew, just in case exactly this kind of thing from killing anypony. Internal shields and bulkheads contained the blast, preventing it from ripping out more systems, but the loss left a tiny weak point in the shield around the cruiser. One warhead found that point. Only one, out of hundreds. It slipped through the weakened shield, the arcane barrier not strong enough to trigger a detonation. The missile flashed in against the ship's nose and detonated, a searing fireball ripping at the phenomenally tough armor, finding what must have been a flaw in the hull and tearing open a breach. The armor should have held against that much energy, but it didn't. More bulkheads slammed down, the ship's redundant structure saving her from catastrophic damage, but some of the internal atmosphere bled out into the void. Twilight's heart lurched as she realized that the escaping atmosphere had taken three unsuited crewmares out into the cruel vacuum with it. She had to act fast. Faster than she ever had in her life. Twilight linked herself to the sensor net, finding where the three ponies were spinning helplessly out into the void. She focused herself on them, part of her thoughts staying linked with the sensors while another part started weaving together threads of magic. In the silent bridge, amidst the rigidly still figures of the crew, Twilight's horn began glowing more brightly, far more brightly than the interface spell called for. She fought to keep both parts of her mind in harmony, both parts focused on what they needed to do as she tracked the flailing ponies and built her spells. In a triple, simultaneous flash, three spheres of violet light appeared on the bridge with a quiet pop, dumping the three engineers, two earth ponies and a pegasus, on the floor of the bridge, where they gasped and coughed, dragging the air that was suddenly surrounding them into their starving lungs. Twilight's mind lurched. It was a terrible, terrible idea to cast spells while in the datanet. The shock dragged at her, ripping her mind back and forth in a hideous resonance. She fought, trying to maintain the link, but was unable to and the spell holding her in the network shattered. Twilight slumped to the floor, clutching her head in her forehooves, trying to deal with the phantom sensation of her head flying apart and scattering her brain across the bridge. Dear Celestia, I hope it's a phantom sensation! Twilight thought in a moment of gut-clenching panic. Fortunately, that proved to be the case. Twilight pushed herself upright, her head pounding, and glanced at the three crewmares. They all looked okay, but vacuum exposure could be dangerous. She pinged Medical through her panel, wincing as the act sent a burning flash of agony through her horn and head, and rasped out, "First aid to the bridge. Three ponies, explosive vacuum exposure." She closed the channel immediately; there was no need to linger and chat. Twilight grimaced, forcing her mind to settle down. She ran herself through meditation exercises designed to counteract arcane shock, feeling her brain slowly coming back together and falling under her control once more. She didn't have time to finish, and gritted her teeth while she brought up her link spell again. There was a screech of pain in her mind, and she was back in the network. Information flowed into her; the Interlopers were running, and Silver Stars was letting them. The enemy fleet was maintaining their disciplined formation as they withdrew, keeping the stranger vessels who were hounding them out of beam range. Their fleet had suffered heavy losses, but their discipline seemed little the worse for it. :Commander,: came Silver Stars' thought, touched with concern, :Are you all right?: :Functional. Marginal.: Twilight was having trouble composing a coherent thoughtstream. Wingblade didn't have that problem. :You have got some serious guts, boss. Wow, spellcasting in the link and then linking up again after a drop. Gutsy.: The pegasus's thought was tinged with golden admiration. :Thanks. Status.: Silver Stars was giving directives to the navigator and pilot, and flashed for Wingblade to fill the Commander in. The Interloper fleet had retreated beyond weapons range with tremendous speed, partially because Silver Stars had taken them away from the Interlopers at full acceleration the instant the aliens sought to break contact. The gunner composed and sent a report swiftly, showing Twilight the relative movements of the two alien fleets and Dauntless, illustrating the alien ships that had been lost, and outlining Dauntless's damage, which was bad but not crippling. They could even still fight if they had to, though they'd used up nearly a third of their missiles and had a gaping hole in the armor on the nose. The damage to the shield network could probably be fixed from spares, but the hole in the armor would be a shipyard job. Twilight sighed mentally. Her ship, the beautiful ship she'd helped do design, had a hole in it. At least they were out of weapons range, and thus out of danger, at least for now. :Okay. Stand down from alert status.: Without waiting for confirmation, the Commander dropped out of the link, wincing and closing her eyes in pain. She started running through the meditation exercises again, calming her thoughts so her brain could settle down while the bridge crew stirred around her. The three engineers were still coughing on the floor, though their gasps sounded far less panicked than they had right after being teleported. Wingblade went immediately to check on the three crewmares, while the others stayed at their stations, with Oculus monitoring the chase and Chatterbox carefully picking out and recording any radio signals he could, and a couple of stray communications laser flashes that touched the Dauntless. The medics arrived, gathered up the ponies Twilight had rescued, and guided them out; all three were able to walk. The Commander felt a flash of pride; nopony else could have saved those three. "Ma'am." Silver Stars' voice interrupted Twilight's meditations. She blinked, focusing her attention outward again. She was feeling much better, but didn't want to try spellcasting for a while, and she devoutly hoped she wouldn't have to. Twilight looked up, meeting the captain's eyes, and the other mare continued, "The Interlopers just disappeared, like the one we ran into did. And that other bunch is headed back toward us." Twilight glanced over at her screen, which appeared obediently and showed what the sensors saw; the remaining strangers mobbing up together again and heading back toward them. She sighed, rubbing her aching head. That tight formation might mean they didn't want to fight, or it might be an attempt to concentrate their firepower. "Don't fire," she said, remembering after a momentary struggle that the strangers had stopped firing on them when the Interlopers had started concentrating on the Equestrian cruiser, "Let's see what they do." The disorganized mob of starships moved across the screen in a blob, and Twilight found herself shaking her head. Were these soldiers, or were they some kind of civilians in armed ships? The Interloper squadrons would have pasted them if the ponies hadn't appeared, and Twilight hoped they realized that. "Oh, Celestia, please, let us talk to you," the Commander heard Chatterbox whisper, his voice thick with hope. The strangers braked to a relative stop just outside of what they'd shown their own missile range to be, which was actually well inside Dauntless's engagement envelope. They sat there, spreading out a bit to give themselves more maneuvering room, and did nothing. They were waiting. Her heart in her throat, Twilight turned to Chatterbox. "Send the first-contact package." The stallion nodded, tension in his face, and turned to his panel. Twilight knew what the package was, an unencoded, analog signal, starting with pulses of radio representing simple numbers one through ten, and then pulsing out the first few primes. After that, it was sound, also in analog, the basic phonemes of the Equestrian language, followed by a phrase that Twilight knew the aliens wouldn't understand, but that she and Fluttershy thought was important to include. "We are peaceful, we mean you no harm." The package went out, flying to the alien ships on wings of invisible light, and the bridge crew waited tensely. "I'm getting a reply," Chatterbox said suddenly. His voice was excited, hopeful. "It... it's just noise." "Play it," Twilight ordered, and a screech resounded through the bridge speakers that made everypony wince. "Any idea what that is?" Chatterbox hesitated. "I... it might be an audio-visual signal? We don't know their coding, it would just be noise to us..." Fluttershy's voice suddenly cut in on the bridge. "Twilight! Twilight! They're trying to talk!" The corner of the Commander's mouth quirked at the joy and excitement in her friend's voice. She knew Fluttershy had been listening, the procedures she'd drafted for the mission had called for first-contact procedures to be automatically relayed to the diplomatic team. "Yes, they are, but we don't know what they're saying." "They're trying, though!" Twilight nodded. It was a positive sign. "Maybe... maybe a face-to-face meeting? If we could see each other, talk to each other, oh, I know we could be friends!" A face-to-face meeting... well, it was possible. Twilight turned to Oculus. "Is there a rocky planet in this system that we could land on?" The unicorn nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Hold on..." She brought up a screen and peered at it for a moment, manipulating the readout. "Um... There's one about the same distance from the star that the homeworld is. The temperature should be survivable, but there's no life and an inert atmosphere. We'd have to wear breathers at least if we landed there." Twilight felt a thrill. That was perfect, better than she'd expected, and she turned to Chatterbox. "Chatterbox, can you whip up a visual suggestion that we meet there?" The stallion nodded. "I sure can. Give me just a minute or two." He turned to his station, and several screens lit up. Chatterbox's horn glowed as he quickly manipulated images, building a quick, simple cartoon. "Okay, ready. Permission to use the illusion projectors?" "Granted." The projectors had been part of the Dauntless's design from day one, arcane machines that were able to project illusory images of colossal size, dozens of kilometers across. They were useless in combat; the illusions glowed, but they were too dim and too ephemeral to hide the ship or to create decoys, but this kind of situation was exactly what they were made for. The projectors activated, projecting a vast, glowing arrow that pointed at the world Oculus had found. That morphed into a graphic of the planet, which then zoomed in to show a cartoon Dauntless and a crude image of one of the aliens' ships sitting in orbit. A Kestrel-class shuttle left the Equestrian cruiser, and a simple airplane-shape did likewise from the alien ship. The image zoomed in further, following the two shuttles down to the surface, where they both landed, next to one another. The ramp of the Kestrel descended, and a cartoon pony stepped out. The image rotated, clearly intending to represent the view from the aliens' shuttle, and the pony walked closer to the camera, raised a forehoof in greeting, and faded out. "Oh, I like it!" Fluttershy exclaimed. "Let's hope they do, too." Twilight said. The alien ships sat there, motionless, not transmitting, for a long time. Twilight chewed her lip. "Play it again," she ordered, and the projectors lit anew, letting the cartoon run once more. This time, at the end of the cartoon, the ship at the center of the alien formation flashed its running lights once. Every ship in the formation followed suit, their running lights flashing without coordination, looking like a swarm of old-style flash cameras. Twilight tensed, wondering if that meant "yes" or "no," and the lead ship turned, accelerating insystem, headed for the barren world the cartoon had suggested. Twilight's breath left her in a heavy sigh. They'd accepted. She thought. "Follow them, but keep us at a distance until we arrive in orbit," she ordered. Silver Stars nodded, turning to address the crew, and Twilight closed her eyes. Well, here we go. Elsewhere, later. The chief of staff scurried into the Admiral's office, the door whispering open ahead of her. "Courier report for you, sir, marked urgent." "Ah, indeed?" The Admiral's chair swung around, and his desk screen lit at a tap of his finger. The chief of staff fought not to step back, a habit she'd been struggling with ever since she'd joined the Enforcement branch. So many of the other Council races were larger than hers. Even sitting, the Admiral could look over her head, and his shoulders were three times as broad as hers. She remained in place, though, at rigid attention, showing no sign of discomfort. "So I see. Care to summarize for me?" The chief of staff saluted. "Sir, Admiral Hurzz reports an unsuccessful engagement against Tazaft forces. He was engaged by a third party, and suffered heavy losses in exchange for about half the Tazaft force before he was driven off." The Admiral sighed. "Blast. I'd hoped to take out more of their fleet with that trap. It's going to take forever to force them to back down at this rate, and both sides just keep losing people." He paused, frowning. "What third party? Has one of the Council races gone completely mad and decided to throw in with the Tazaft independently?" There were rumors that the Admiral had close ties with one or two of the probationary members of the Council, who would not be pleased with something like that. At all. His reaction certainly hinted that those rumors might have substance. "No, sir." The chief of staff shook her head, imitating the Admiral's species' body language. She'd always been a gifted mimic, and had studied both of the Council's founding races extensively back when she was an adolescent. She'd been utterly fascinated by the beings who had decided to cooperate to build an interstellar government. Still was, really. What she'd learned in her adolescent fascination proved to be a useful skill now, helping her interact with the somewhat temperamental Admiral. "Admiral Hurzz reports that a single, enormous ship appeared in between his fleet and the Tazaft forces after he sprung the trap. It was chiefly responsible for disrupting his squadrons and allowing the Tazaft to inflict serious losses, and he says that it just absorbed a huge number of missiles without noticeable damage. His report sounds troubled." "Good heavens, I can imagine why." The admiral's eyes widened in surprise. "Does he have any idea whose it was?" "Yes, sir." The chief of staff pulled out her datawand, instructing the admiral's terminal to highlight the relevant part of the report. "The ship's signature looked Equestrian." "Equestrian?!" the admiral exclaimed in shock, his voice harsh. "Yes, sir." The infiltrator service had been delivering reports to Fifth Fleet HQ on the recently-encountered civilization on an almost daily basis, and the Fifth Enforcement Fleet had a pretty solid idea of what their ships looked like. It was very odd, getting information directly from the infiltrator service; they almost never worked directly with the enforcement branch. The chief of staff found it slightly worrisome; they had an unpleasant reputation, and having them showing up at the Fleet's base left a nasty taste under her tongue. The admiral's jaw clenched, a subtle indicator of tension among his species. Subtle, but not rare; the mannerism was one that three Council races shared. He read the final portion of the report quickly, his eyes flicking across the screen, and let out a heavy breath at the end. "We knew they were sending a ship out, but I didn't expect to see it this soon, or for it to be this formidable. And I... expected it to be more traceable than this. This changes things." The admiral's expression hardened. "Well, I shall have to commend Admiral Hurzz on his initiative; he's set some decent bait, and done it subtly. Hopefully not too subtly." The admiral's fingers tapped his screen, quickly issuing a set of orders to the ship's computer. "I'm dispatching reinforcements to make up his losses, plus Third Task Group as reinforcements. Hopefully, he manages to pull it off." He turned to look directly at the chief of staff. "If he doesn't, though, I intend to activate Plan Eighteen. As of this moment, the Tazaft are no longer our primary concern." The chief of staff felt a chill in her chest. "S-sir? Eighteen? Are you sure about that?" Shock almost made her slip into the trilling tones of her native tongue, a serious faux pas aboard an Enforcement ship, were every crewbeing was expected to converse in one of the Senior Council members' languages for clarity. Perhaps it was a little unfair; the chief of staff would have had to learn an alien language, while the Admiral was conversing in his native tongue, but perhaps the species who had cooperated to found the Baltornic Council could be excused for making their languages the interstellar lingua fraca. She settled her tongue, and continued, "Sir, this... it could be a misunderstanding. An accident. The Council is still debating..." Regardless of what the debate settled on, the chief of staff doubted, seriously, that they would go this far. "I'm aware of that, and I'm aware of the controversy over the Equestrian issue," the admiral interrupted, coldly. "I am also aware that I am the commanding officer of this region, and that I am responsible for directing the efforts of Fifth Fleet. Send couriers to recall the other elements of the fleet; if Hurzz fails, I want to be ready to move on Plan Eighteen immediately." "I... I..." the chief stammered blankly for a moment, then her voice firmed as she made a decision. "Yes, sir. I'll send the couriers right away." "See that you do." The admiral nodded. The chief of staff saluted, holding the pose until the admiral returned it, then turned smartly to leave. She hurried down the corridor, headed to her office to send the messages the admiral wanted... and one more. She had to send a courier back to Baltor, even though she might be court-martialed for it. She had to.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Planetfall and Strife

Dauntless loped along toward the rocky world where they planned to meet with the strangers, holding her acceleration down so as not to leave the aliens behind and maintaining a safe degree of separation, on the order of a little over a million kilometers, just to be on the safe side. Pretty much everypony agreed that it would be best to let the aliens grow more comfortable with the presence of the Equestrian ship, and vice versa, before either side dipped into firing range. That, however, was almost the only thing everypony agreed on. At their current speed, it would take a little under two hours to reach their destination, and it was starting to look like the expedition's leaders would waste all of that time arguing. "Look," Rainbow Dash said, irritation coloring her voice. She was starting to get louder again. "I'm not saying we'll start shooting, 'cause we won't unless there's a good reason. I'm just saying you should have my Wardens along, just in case they decide to. It's the whole freaking reason we're here!" "Yes, I know that's what you're saying, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy responded with elaborate patience that showed her own emotions as clearly as Rainbow's rising volume. The rainbow-maned Warden visibly ground her teeth at the other pegasus's tone. "What I'm saying is that I'd rather not have seventy ponies surrounding me who are all on a hair trigger and might decide that dropping a writing quill means 'blow them all away!' I want to keep the initial party small and try not to threaten our new friends, which means I don't need dozens of hulking armored thugs with tanks and golems all pointing huge guns at them!" Rainbow growled. "Yeah, and I'm saying I'd rather have enough force nearby to keep you all safe!" Fluttershy started to reply, but Rarity cut her off. "That is enough, both of you!" The unicorn's voice cracked like a whip across the table, drawing sharp looks from both pegasi. She glared from one to the other, blue eyes flashing. "Shouting at one another is accomplishing precisely nothing, darlings. We've been here for twenty minutes now and you two have taken up all of it. I am sorry, but our time is not unlimited, so I'd like to propose a motion; that the two of you don't talk directly to one another for the duration of this meeting. Perhaps then we could actually get somewhere. All in favor?" Twilight raised a hoof immediately at the question, feeling a surge of gratitude toward the other unicorn. She knew that, as the expedition leader, she really should have cut her two friends off before now, but she'd just been so hoping that they might be able to work out some of their animosity. It wasn't working at all, instead they seemed to be just getting angrier and more frustrated with one another. Applejack raised her hoof with a sigh, drawing a fulminating glare from her fellow Warden which the orange mare resolutely ignored. Pinkie tentatively raised a hoof as well. Fluttershy sighed and raised her own hoof, and finally Rainbow rolled her eyes, huffed, and did the same. "Fine. Whatever. You guys talk, but I'm not gonna shut up; I really do want to send the whole ground force down with us." Fluttershy started to respond, but Rarity poked her sharply in the side and shook her head. The unicorn turned to face Rainbow. "Darling, I can understand your concern, I really can, but honestly, seventy soldiers in battle armor, twelve technogolems, and ten light tanks sounds like a bit much for a diplomatic meeting, don't you think?" Applejack answered before Rainbow could. "It does seem a mite overkill, 'specially since y'all are only gonna send down, what, ten diplomats?" Rainbow aimed another glare at the orange mare. "And four technicians," Fluttershy replied. "We'll need them to manage our translating equipment." "This group of aliens hasn't been hostile since they realized we were fighting the same enemy," Twilight added, quietly. She'd been trying to stay out of the center of the discussion, mostly because, as Commander, she knew her words would carry authority. She'd been planning on letting them all hash it out and choosing her course based on their advice, but she was starting to re-evaluate that path. "It's possible that guards won't be necessary at all." "Yeah, it's possible," Rainbow shot back, "It's also possible that they're not picking a fight 'cause they know we're stronger than them. If they see a few of us on the ground, they might decide to try and grab us to see if they can get some of our tech! Look, after the way that fight went, we look strong, and they're acting nice. I want us to keep looking strong so they stay nice." "Rainbow, dear, I understand where you're coming from," Rarity said in a conciliatory tone, "but I think there's more involved here than just strength, and in this case I'm inclined to agree with Fluttershy. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and I think we'd be better off being sweet in our first meeting than being harsh." The cyan cyberpegasus ground her teeth in frustration, eyes narrowing. She spoke slowly, emphasizing her words. "Look. This is a huge risk you're talking about taking. Listen to me, here, 'cause I know about taking risks, and taking risks when you don't have to is stupid. I've learned that the hard way; you take risks with ponies' lives, and sooner or later you wind up getting them killed." Twilight was watching her friend's face closely as she spoke, and she saw the flash of guilt and grief the pegasus tried to conceal. "Please, you guys, listen to somepony who's learned that lesson so you don't have to learn it the same way." Twilight bit her lip, and interjected herself into the discussion again. "Rainbow, we're not ignoring your advice. It just may be that this is less of a risk than you're thinking; these creatures know we've helped them, they have to, and they responded positively to our first-contact attempt. I agree with Fluttershy that we have a little good faith to build on, and showing a little trust now may pay off in the long run." "Look, sugarcube," Applejack said, interrupting her fellow Warden, "Let's try a compromise here. Fluttershy, you're sending fourteen ponies?" The yellow pegasus nodded. "Howsabout we send down fourteen Wardens. That's one for each. Plus one golem to keep 'em company in case these critters feel like gettin' frisky. It's a decent bit of firepower, but not so many that y'all'll feel surrounded. How's that sound?" Fluttershy fidgeted. "Oh, it still seems like so many, though, especially since they're so big with their armor on. And those golems... they don't give the right impression at all, with the guns and claws, they look so mean..." Rarity spoke up again, interrupting Fluttershy. "Your armor squads are five, right? How about two squads. That's ten Wardens, and no golem. I'm concerned about having one in a potentially tense situation like this could become." Rainbow eyed the white unicorn angrily. "Are you suggesting my golem handlers can't take the stress?" Rarity shook her head. "No, darling, not at all. But I know better than anypony how finicky those things can be at times, and I think having a technogolem in a possibly hair-trigger situation could possibly be one of those unnecessary risks you were just talking about." The pegasus stared for another few seconds before she dropped her gaze in acquiescence. "Fine. Ten troopers, plus me. If there's only ten, then I'm going armored. And we have the golems ready for hot-drop, and all the other troopers armored up aboard ship." Applejack nodded. "That sounds fair to me." Fluttershy fidgeted again, a reluctant expression on her face. "Oh, I don't know... do we really need armored soldiers here? We've gotten off to such a good start with these people, I'd hate for them to think we don't trust them..." "They did fire on us at the beginning of the battle," Twilight said. "They stopped later, but they were firing at us for a bit. I don't think it would be a bad idea to have a small escort, just in case." "If you do wind up needin' 'em, you're gonna need 'em right away," Applejack added. "We'll keep the rest on alert, but havin' a small group that don't have to come all the way down from the ship and can cover you if things go all pear-shaped ain't a bad notion." Fluttershy sighed. "Oh, all right. But they'd better behave!" She shot a hard look at Rainbow Dash. The other pegasus gave a crisp nod. "You won't even know we're there." Applejack nodded too. "Our troops'll stay out of your way, sugarcube." She pushed back from the table. "I'll go get the shuttles prepped. Have your ponies send their gizmos down to the port hangar, okay, Fluttershy?" "Wait... shuttles?" Fluttershy interjected, before Applejack could get out of her chair. "As in more than one? I thought we were only sending one." Applejack chuckled. "Can only fit so much in a Kestrel, darlin', and battle armor takes up a lot of space. Ten troopers in armor, fourteen a' your ponies plus all their equipment and the six of us won't all fit in one, not by a long shot. That equipment of yours is gonna fill one shuttle by itself and then some." "But our invitation only showed one shuttle!" The pegasus protested, ignoring Rainbow's eye-roll. "It's important to establish that we're honest; we don't want to say we were sending one shuttle and then send two!" The orange-coated mare chuckled again. "Now don't get your knickers in a twist, Fluttershy. Two shuttles ain't exactly a squadron; we're not exactly gonna be crowdin' 'em down there with a whole empty planet to walk on." "I'm reasonably certain it will be all right, dear," Rarity said, patting Fluttershy's shoulder. "Honestly, if they decide to take offense at us sending two shuttles instead of one, then they're likely to take offense at nearly anything we do anyway. We can work past it, you and I." Fluttershy looked unhappy, but she nodded, albeit reluctantly. Twilight hid a smile, delighted that they'd managed to work out a compromise that both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were okay with. It gave her a sense of hope, both for her mission and for her friends. Now it was Pinkie's turn to speak up. She'd perked up considerably since the tension between Rainbow and Fluttershy had abated somewhat. "Oh, Twilight! Twilight, Twilight! You've got to let me come along too! Oo! Oo! This is exactly the kind of thing that I'm here for!" The pink-coated earth pony was getting more and more excited as she spoke, bouncing in place on her chair. "I've got some stories and they're so neat, but this is the biggest big story ever! We're making friends from space! Oh, please please please let me bring some party favors!" She was almost vibrating in place by now. "I know they'll have to be small, we can't have a great big party yet and I don't have all the things I need anyway because Applejack wouldn't let me bring the stuff I wanted..." "You wanted to bring six tons of streamers, Pinkie Pie." Applejack's voice was level and unamused. "Six. Tons. Darn tootin' I wouldn't let you bring that much stuff." "Aw, Applejack, you're no fun." "Yep. Rainbow says the same, often enough. But I still ain't bringing six tons of streamers on a spaceship. Rather have six tons of food, or ammo, or a spare missile." The orange earth pony gave her pink friend a hard look. "More like a dozen spare missiles considerin' all the other stuff you wanted to bring. No party stuff. Space is gonna be tight as it is." Pinke Pie pouted briefly before turning her attention back to Twilight. "But even if I don't have my party stuff, I've still got me and cambot here!" She waved a hoof at the floating lenseye, beaming happily. "Even if he can't give me Rocket Number Nine, he can still record this, and we need to record it!" Twilight blinked. She'd never heard anypony but Pinkie refer to a lenseye as 'cambot', and she had no idea what Rocket Number Nine was supposed to be, but that only set her back for a moment. "Of course, Pinkie. This is an historic moment, and it needs to be documented. Besides," the Commander flashed a grin, "I'm pretty sure all the rest of us are going, so it wouldn't be fair to leave you out!" Pinkie hopped out of her chair and started bouncing happily around the table, her ever-patient lenseye trailing calmly in her wake. With the logjam between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy broken up and the issue of personnel arranged, the rest of the meeting turned toward preparations for the contact mission. Twilight had helped conjure several of the holodaemons and less flexible datadaemons that the diplomatic team would be using, and both Fluttershy and Rarity wanted her advice about configuring and instructing them, while Rainbow and Applejack conferred about which squad they would take. Despite the ponies deliberately holding down their acceleration, Dauntless arrived at the rendezvous location well before the alien fleet. Twilight made the snap decision to go ahead and send the contact expedition to the surface; they could get their equipment set up and ready while they waited, and Fluttershy thought it would look good for the Equestrian delegation to be willing to wait for their new friends to arrive. Twilight just thought it would be more efficient to get the translator systems set up instead of sitting in orbit twiddling their hooves. In light of Fluttershy's dislike of the Wardens, and the assumption that her team likely shared her views, Applejack had elected to load all of the soldiers and most of the diplomatic gear on one shuttle, and the six Elements, the diplomats, and the rest of the gear on the other. Thus, Twilight found herself riding packed in with her friends and the experts, with the rest of the shuttle's cargo space occupied by the various sundries they hadn't been able to fit aboard the other Kestrel with the battle armor squad. It wasn't terribly comfortable; they'd had to pack the seats in close together, and Twilight was rubbing one shoulder against Applejack and the other against a linguistics expert named Jabber Wocky as they descended. Rainbow Dash, enclosed in her customized suit of pegasus battle armor, rode in a clamp in the cargo area, next to the equipment. Pegasus armor was different from the earth pony armor that Twilight had seen upon boarding. The earth pony suits were massive, plated in heavy, dense armor. They'd been designed to draw on their wearers' innate magic, enhancing the strength of the battle suits to tremendous levels and allowing them to carry huge amounts of armor and extremely heavy weapons. Earth pony suits were walking tanks, able to be armed with an assortment of weapons only a step down from the cannons of the Scorpion light tanks and able to resist a similar level of firepower, while still moving almost as quickly and easily as an unarmored pony. The pegasus suits projected a different image entirely. Like the unicorn suits, they lacked the enormous, crushing strength of the earth pony suits and were more lightly armed and armored, but they used a direct interface with the wearer instead of the feedback system employed on the earth pony suits. Instead of moving in response to the wearer, they effectively became part of the wearer, the pony inside moving the suit's legs as though they were her own. An experienced pegasus or unicorn armored trooper could move her suit with almost frightening grace. Both pegasus and unicorn suits incorporated arcane shield systems to boost their protection, though the pegasus suits' shields couldn't be strengthened by the pony inside. Their power cells didn't last nearly as long as a unicorn or earth pony suit's, either. The reason the pegasus suits needed those shields was that they couldn't be completely enclosed. Twilight could see Rainbow's wings folded against her armored sides, the cyan feathers encased in the reflective shimmer of her armor's shields and the leading edges guarded by armature-like field projectors that both generated the shield enclosing her wings and created a blade of disruptive force in front of them. While the pegasus armor wasn't as robust or well-armed as the earth pony suits, and lacked the endurance of unicorn armor, it compensated by amplifying the greatest advantage of its wearer; her ability to fly. Pegasus armor was fully flight-capable, and incorporated a series of linear thrust generators that an experienced user could employ to perform maneuvers that were flatly impossible for an unsuited pegasus. They could fly in space, perform higher-G maneuvers that would kill an unarmored pony, and even fly faster than they could naturally, and the disrupter fields on the suit's wings provided a deadly close-in weapon. Wearing her armor, Rainbow Dash could actually outpace the Kestrel she currently rode in if she chose to. In an assault landing, she and the other armored pegasi would be doing exactly that, diving in to secure a landing zone for their more numerous unicorn and earth pony brethren. Rainbow's personal suit was modified slightly over standard-issue pegasus armor. There were openings in its forehooves that would allow the pegasus to extend her cybernetic claws and additional power packs that made the suit heavier, which was only possible because of Rainbow's enhanced strength. She'd been freakishly strong for a pegasus even before her implants; now she was substantially stronger than even most earth ponies, and her armor had been modified to take that into account. The suit also had an extra gun on its back, mounted on an independent turret. A resident datadaemon that the cyberpegasus generally kept in her interface implant aided her in targeting, enabling the Warden commander to fire at two targets simultaneously. The thing had been conjured specifically for her decades ago, and like Twilight's holodaemon, it had molded itself to Rainbow's thoughts, giving her tremendous benefits when she was wearing her armor. Rainbow currently had her helmet open, the upper part of the armor's metal head lifted up and back to lay against the pegasus's armored neck, leaving her face free and allowing her to breathe the more pleasant air of the shuttle interior. Rainbow's expression was one of concentration, and she had three screens projected in front of her, her armor systems doing what Twilight liked to do and generating an illusory holoscreen for her to view. Twilight could see a sensor projection from Dauntless on one of the Warden's screens, showing her that the strangers were approaching orbit. They wouldn't have to wait long. Fluttershy and Rarity were speaking to two of their linguists and their senior technician, the conversation sounding a bit bizarre to Twilight's ears. Fluttershy had learned a surprising number of languages during her career as a diplomat, and the linguists were clearly comfortable in multiple tongues as well. The three multilingual ponies shifted languages repeatedly as they spoke, sometimes in mid-sentence. Rarity and the tech were clearly annoyed by this; the roboticist only knew a couple of different languages, and couldn't shift as quickly as the others, but she compensated by speaking "tech" nearly as well as Twilight did. She and Fluttershy were going over potential setups for their data gear, discussing how best to adapt it to different phonemic structures and brainstorming about how much assistance they could expect the aliens to provide in translating their language. "All right everypony," the pilot's voice came over the cabin speakers, "we'll be landing in about two minutes. You'd better suit up." The conversation about the translating systems broke up, and everypony picked up the breath masks that they'd brought onboard. A further survey of the planetary environment as the Dauntless approached had showed that the surface temperature was a little on the low side of comfortable and wouldn't require any special suits. There wasn't any kind of corrosive gas or skin-absorbed toxins in the air either, though the planet's atmosphere wasn't breathable. The ponies would be fine with simple breath masks that covered their mouths, noses, and eyes, with a small tank worn strapped to the foreleg that supplied breathable air. Everypony had donned the air tanks before climbing into their seats, but they'd all left the masks off, since they weren't terribly comfortable to wear. Now they each hooked the strap of their mask over the backs of their heads, each making sure to press the mask against their face so the adhesive gel on the rim could form a seal against their skin. Twilight was quite proud of that gel, actually; it didn't stick to the hair of a pony's coat and didn't leave residue behind when pulled off, but it did push through the hair to form an airtight seal against a pony's skin. It needed regular cleaning, sure, but it was otherwise fairly low-maintenance and non-failure-prone. Rainbow watched the rest of the shuttle's passengers closely, not dismissing the screens she was looking at or doing anything to secure her own air supply. When everypony had gotten their masks secured, the pegasus shut down her screens and lifted an armored foreleg to point at one of the diplomats. "You." The diplomat blinked, her ears swiveling back and her eyes getting big with uncertain fear at being the center of the Warden Commander's attention. "Um. Me?" "Yeah, you." Rainbow lowered her foreleg. "You didn't secure your mask after you put it on. Check it. Your mask is your life out there." "Oh." The unlucky unicorn lifted her forehoof and pressed her mask more firmly against her face, then pushed at the rim to make sure it didn't come off. "Sorry, I'm not used to these." "You'd better get used to it," Rainbow told her, ignoring the apology. "If you'd gone out there with a loose mask, you probably wouldn't have noticed anything until you passed out, 'cause I bet if you don't check your seal you wouldn't be checking your gauges either. Would've had all your breathing air leak out and then just boom, you start gasping and drop. How do you think it would've looked to those aliens to have somepony go unconscious while they're trying to talk to her?" The pegasus glared, her rosy eyes flashing as the diplomat cringed. "Worse, how do you think it would've looked to me or my Wardens? One of the ponies we're supposed to keep safe just drops. We wouldn't even know at first if you were unconscious or dead. My first thought would be that they got you somehow. That would be awesome, huh, starting another war because you didn't bother to take a second to secure your freaking mask." "That's enough, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy interrupted acerbically. "She just made a mistake, there's no reason to blast her for it." Rainbow transferred her glare to the yellow pegasus. "It was a stupid mistake that could've caused major problems. Heck yeah there's a reason to blast her for it. There's a reason to blast you for it, too, since she's one of yours and you didn't notice it." "That's enough, Rainbow," Twilight interjected, trying to head off another fight. "You've made your point, now back off." Rainbow snorted derisively and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Whatever. I just didn't want you guys blaming me when one of your talky-ponies passed out and my troops reacted to it." Rainbow's ears folded back, and the helmet faceplate resting on her neck slid smoothly forward, locking into place with the non-retractable rest of the helmet that enclosed the pegasus's chin and jaw and forming a smooth, uninterrupted armored surface that covered the mare's entire face. Amusingly, the top of the helmet was painted in stripes that matched Rainbow's polychromatic mane. "But whatever," she continued, her voice now coming through the armor's external speakers, "I mean, if you actually want to start a fight, I'm totally game. You should have let me bring the rest of my troops if you wanted that, though..." "Rainbow!" Twilight snapped, "I said that is enough! You pointed out a mistake, the mistake was corrected. Now drop it." Rainbow Dash paused for a long second, before grumbling "Yes, Commander," and falling silent. Twilight shook her head as the shuttle's nose lifted in its final landing approach. Rainbow was not used to not being the pony in charge, and it was clearly proving difficult for her to adapt. The unicorn sympathized, but at the same time she couldn't afford to have the Warden disrupting things on a regular basis. Twilight made a quick note with her holodaemon; she would seek Rainbow out next time they were both off-shift and have a conversation about the chain of command. Rainbow understood the concept of command, and perhaps if Twilight talked to her about it she could help her friend adapt. The Kestrel settled smoothly to the ground, the pilot setting the shuttle down so gently that Twilight didn't even feel a bump. The floor swayed slightly as the Kestrel's landing legs adjusted to keep the shuttle level before locking down, and the rear hatch opened with a soft hiss. Rainbow started to disembark first, but paused on the ramp. The armored pegasus turned and gestured for Twilight to precede her, saying, "After you, Commander." Twilight nodded, swallowed hard, and stepped past her friend. Her heart thudded with excitement in her chest and her breath came quickly, and she gingerly set foot on the dust of the alien world, the first pony ever to step on a planet outside her home system. The dust was dry, and fine, and Twilight was curiously disappointed to find that it was a dull, boring grey-brown color. It felt sort of halfway between dirt and sand, not quite like anything she'd ever stepped on before. Twilight walked a short distance away from the shuttle, noting the curious way her hooves slid in the lifeless dust, and gazed out at the horizon. They'd picked a relatively flat spot to set down on, and the land around them was a mass of low, rounded hills. The unicorn also noticed as she walked that she felt curiously light on her feet; the gravity here was a bit lower than the homeworld's, something that felt different from what she'd expected. She'd been out to the moon, and to some of the outsystem planets, but this place's gravity wasn't so light that she felt like she was in danger of floating away if she jumped. She turned around, grinning goofily with the sheer exhilaration of walking on a truly alien world. The other ponies were already debarking, Rainbow hovering several meters off the ground and watching as the second shuttle came in to land, the others spreading out around the landed Kestrel. Pinkie was watching Twilight, grinning widely at the expression on the unicorn's face, and Twilight was sheepishly aware that the pink pony was almost certainly recording. Several of the diplomats were bouncing on their hooves, marveling at the feel of the light gravity. From their antics, Twilight suspected that they'd never been offplanet before; Rainbow's harsh reprimand suddenly didn't seem so unnecessary. She wondered if Fluttershy had sent them to hostile-environment training. Surely she had. Twilight decided to find out. She walked up to one of the diplomats, a rather plain-looking earth pony stallion with a dark blue coat. "Excuse me, but is this your first time on another world?" He looked up with a happy smile and nodded. "Yes, ma'am. We've all been through the training, but there wasn't any time for us to go on any offworld expeditions." Twilight nodded absently. Good, it was just a momentary lapse instead of poor preparation. She relaxed a bit, and chided herself for thinking that her friend would have been any less prepared than she herself was. She glanced over at the other shuttle, settling on its landing legs and opening its ramp. Several dozen Warden recon and weapons drones lifted away from the shuttle, starting to spread out before they vanished behind the rippling distortion of mirage fields, as had probably already happened with the first shuttle. The Wardens exited from the ramp, and to Twilight's surprise from both side doors as well, sweeping the horizon quickly. The three pegasi on board (an unusually large number, from what Twilight knew; most Warden armored squads only had one, if they had an aerial component at all) flew up to stand on the tops of the shuttles, heads moving restlessly as they looked all around. Twilight could feel tiny threads of arcane energy flicking between the Wardens, and tuned herself into their communications via the shuttle's relays. "...on't see any activity, Boss." "Looks clear." "Right." Rainbow's voice cut across the Warden's reports. "Okay, you," the pegasus sent a datapulse that contained the ID's of the three unicorns in the squad, "help the geeks unload their gear. The rest of you continue survey and tac analysis. Fluttershy thinks everything'll be candy and roses, but we've gotta be ready in case she's wrong." Affirmation pulses pinged back to the pegasus in response. The four earth ponies moved out from the shuttles in a square, watching the terrain around them while the unicorns ducked back into the shuttle. The power-armored unicorns re-emerged, carrying large pallets of equipment suspended in the soft glow of telekinetic fields. The loads would have been too much for an ordinary unicorn to handle, but where pegasus armor incorporated flight assistance systems, unicorn armor instead carried arcane amplifier matrices. The three mares carried two large, heavy pallets each, and it wasn't a substantial load for any of them. The Wardens set the equipment pallets on the ground and turned to retrieve more, while Fluttershy's technicians busied themselves unpacking the gear. Twilight wasn't sure what most of it was for; there were screens, data-hubs, cameras, and all manner of input devices ranging from optical to arcane to physical keyboards, but she couldn't really see how it all fit together. From the way the techs were shifting things around, most of it was probably modular, designed so it could be arranged in different ways to accomplish different things. She was watching the unicorn Wardens carry out the next load when a completely unexpected voice spoke up right next to her ear. "Hey, Twi, check the feed from the ship." Twilight started so hard she nearly levitated in place, spinning around to face the blank visage of Rainbow's helmet. The pegasus had managed to come up behind her in total silence, which was an incredible feat to manage in power armor. The smooth, blank face of the helmet made Twilight jump again, her heart hammering in her chest. Rainbow didn't even snicker. "Check the feed from the ship," she repeated, in a quiet, urgent tone. Twilight blinked, then a chill gripped her chest. Rainbow would have at least chuckled at startling her friend unless something was wrong, and from that tone in her voice it had to be serious. She quickly linked in to the shuttle's net, pulling up a feed from Dauntless and projecting it onto a screen in front of her. Her belly lurched. The alien fleet had taken up orbit near the Equestrian cruiser, and that meant Dauntless had a great view of the shuttles launching, headed for the planetary surface. Not just one or two... but over a hundred. Twilight fought to hold in a gasp at the sight of the swarm of icons descending on them. "We've gotta go, Twi," Rainbow said urgently. "They're trying a grab, just like I warned you they would. We need to get out of here, now." "Let's not jump to conclusions, Rainbow," Twilight replied in a similarly urgent tone, trying to hide her concern. "We have a little time to make a decision while they're descending. Check with your Wardens on the ship, make sure they're ready to go if they're needed." The unicorn turned and raised her voice. "Fluttershy? Could I speak to you for a moment?" "Twilight," Rainbow said, not moving, " they're ready, but if they have to drop against an enemy who's already here, it could get really bloody. We need to leave, and we need to do it now." "Let's take a moment to assess," Twilight responded as Fluttershy trotted over. "If need be, we can have everypony run and take off before they land. We could leave the gear behind if we had to." "Yes, Twilight? What did you need?" Fluttershy shot a quick glance at Rainbow, but didn't say anything. Rainbow Dash, for her part, backed up a pace, and Twilight could sense communications over the Warden net. "Fluttershy, we may have a problem. Take a look at this." Twilight moved her illusionary screen so the other pegasus could look at it. Fluttershy peered at the screen for a moment before what she was looking at registered, and she blinked in surprise. "Oh. Oh my. That's quite a delegation!" "I don't think it's a delegation at all." Rainbow interjected flatly. "It looks like an assault force to me." Fluttershy gave the other pegasus a withering glare. "You would think that." She turned back to Twilight and her voice softened again. "Look, they weren't acting unified, so it would make sense that there would be multiple delegations involved. I wasn't expecting this many, but it's not that much of a surprise." "You nearly flipped out because we were sending two shuttles instead of one, and now there's a freaking hundred of the things coming at us and you're fine with it?" Rainbow sounded aghast. "I'm a little surprised, but not too worried." Fluttershy's soft voice sounded surprisingly calm. "There's not more than one shuttle coming from each ship, is there?" Twilight ran a quick backtrace on the sensor feed, and was surprised to discover that Fluttershy was correct. "No, it appears that the ships that launched shuttles only launched one each. It looks like the ones launching are in the middle of the alien fleet, too; there aren't any launching from the edges." The yellow pegasus nodded. "Yes, that makes sense. They're not as unified as we are; I expect that these are group leaders or figures important to particular subgroups. That there are this many is going to be challenging, but it's hardly unexpected." The armored pegasus shook her head. "You're ignoring that there's a hundred shuttles coming down at us. They could have whole regiments on the way down. That's way more than I was expecting to have to deal with, and there's no way I can keep you all safe from that many." She turned to face Twilight. "Twilight, please, take Fluttershy, Rarity, A.J. and Pinkie and head back up. If you still want to try to meet them, I'll stay here with my troops to try and guard the geeks while they talk, but I want you guys out of danger." Fluttershy's eyes flashed and she bristled a bit, probably because Rainbow was referring to her specialists as 'geeks'. "What, and leave you as the pony in charge?" Rainbow's head drew back. "What? No! I mean, I'd be in charge of the Wardens, but I already am, sort of. I just..." "...Wanted to be the only one in charge so you could start shooting again. I remember that dragon. And what you did with his head." Rainbow darted forward, getting right in Fluttershy's face, her wings spread threateningly with disruption fields crackling in front of them. "I don't care what the dragons said," she snarled, her voice thick with anger, "He was not there for any kind of talk, or anything like that. I had to do what I did. The townsponies backed me up on that." "Maybe because seeing what you did frightened them. Intimidated them. Like you're trying to do to me right now." The other pegasus's voice was calm. "I did not..." "Stop! Both of you!" Twilight interrupted, using the same tone Rarity had used in the conference room. The two pegasi paused. "Fluttershy, how confident are you that they're not hostile?" Fluttershy shrugged. "I can't be positive, of course, but they've seemed reasonable, and like I said, the large number of shuttles isn't surprising considering how we've seen them act." Twilight nodded. "Rainbow, we are going to wait to see what they do." She held up a hoof to forestall the objection she knew was coming. "I'm not ignoring you, and I am taking your advice into account, but this is my decision and it's final. No more argument." Rainbow was silent for a pair of heartbeats. "Twilight... I'm gonna ask you to reconsider. They're gonna outnumber us by a stupid amount once they land. These guys were shooting at us at first. I don't want all five of you down here where you could get hurt if they decide to do it again. If they trap us, I'll get us out... but I don't know for sure that none of you will get hurt in the process." "We're staying here, Rainbow." The armored pegasus went silent again for an uncomfortably long time before nodding curtly and turning away. She flew up to the top of one of the shuttles, settling there and clearly directing her ponies. Twilight turned back to Fluttershy. "I hope you're right, Fluttershy. I want these aliens to be peaceful too, but..." Fluttershy was looking at Rainbow Dash, perched on top of the shuttle. "Twilight... keep an eye on her. She's worried and angry, and when she gets like that... it can be bad." "Angry? At me?" Twilight frowned. "I know she's not pleased that I'm not following her advice, but I didn't think she was angry at me..." Fluttershy's voice was soft. "She's not angry with you. She's just angry. She's always angry. I'm not sure if it started before Duran died or not, but it's always there, and has been for a very long time." She shook herself. "I need to talk to my ponies. How long do I have?" Twilight blinked. She hadn't noticed Rainbow being angrier than usual... (well, except for blowing up at Fluttershy, but that wasn't out of the ordinary when the two of them were in close proximity) but if Fluttershy wasn't exaggerating, then it had been going on so long that she'd probably be seeing it as normal. She glanced at her screen, pulling up the vectors to get an ETA. "You've still got about twenty minutes; they're not coming in particularly fast." Fluttershy nodded and trotted back to her specialists, and Twilight turned to gaze thoughtfully at Rainbow Dash. The minutes ticked by quickly as the diplomats hustled to assemble and organize their gear, and the Wardens stood around the shuttles, waiting. Finally, the alien landers appeared in the sky, a rash of dark spots against the bluish sky. They grew rapidly, finally settling in a huge wave that sent dust billowing out. Twilight was glad for the breather she wore; she'd have been coughing and choking on the dust otherwise. She noticed as the ships began to settle that traffic on the Warden network had picked up considerably. Curious, she used her command access to tie herself into the Warden tactical link. Twilight blinked, realizing that she was actually sporting a tag in the overlay, and felt a chill when she realized what it was. Twilight Sparkle was tagged Disable/Capture. So was Rarity. A Capture tag hung on Fluttershy. "...sure you want to do this, boss?" The Warden sergeant who led the squad was asking. "I really don't," Rainbow's strained voice replied. "But if it's the only way to keep 'em safe..." "Unknowns grounded," one of the pegasi observed. The mare was tied into the recon drones' feed. "Ramps opening." "I guess now's when we find out." Rainbow said. There was silence for a moment, and Twilight wondered if she was misinterpreting those tactical tags. She dearly hoped so. Then Rainbow spat a curse. "They're armed. All of 'em. Dammit to ice. Okay troops, we're gonna get everypony out of here whether they want to go or not. Hold off until they get to this range," a line appeared in the overlay, "then execute the objective. Maximum force, maximum speed, go for surprise and shock, then grab and go. Big D'll nail their shuttles from orbit with the PD lasers if they try to follow, but 'till then we can't risk a shot that close. Let's see if we can make them back off while we evac, 'cause there's way too many of 'em to fight straight-up." Twilight's tag updated, indicating she was the primary target. Twilight finally found her voice. "Cancel that order!" She used her command override to cancel the tags on herself and the other ponies, and to erase the line Rainbow had marked. She also cut Rainbow's transmitter out of the squad network, to keep her from subverting Twilight further. "Do not fire!" The unicorn spun to face the armored pegasus, who was still perched atop one of the shuttles. "Rainbow Dash, you are relieved of duty! You two," she pinged two of the pegasi perched on the shuttle with their commander, "take her into custody and take her back to the Dauntless aboard the second shuttle. She's confined to quarters once you get back on the ship." Twilight had read up on command procedures and military discipline for months before embarking on this voyage, but she'd never dreamed she'd need to apply it this way! She was fighting chills and trembling with adrenaline at the idea that Rainbow had been planning to... disable her. "Maximum force"... why did Rainbow want to hurt her friends?! The two pegasi that Twilight had told to arrest Rainbow looked at each other, and Twilight felt another chill. The rainbow-maned mare was a hero to the Wardens, all of them, but especially the pegasi. She was the model of a fierce pegasus warrior that many of the Warden aerial soldiers sought to emulate. It was more than likely that those two mares were fiercely, personally loyal to their commander... and the probability that they'd obey Twilight's orders over Rainbow's was scarily low. Rainbow jumped off of the shuttle, gliding down to land in front of Twilight, and the Warden pegasi followed, forming a line behind their commander. The cyan pegasus pinged Twilight's link with a private comm request, and when the unicorn accepted, the Warden's voice was soft. "Twilight, don't do this. Let me get you out of here. Let me..." "Stop! I'm not interested in letting you do anything more, lieutenant." Tears were pricking at Twilight's eyes at her friend's sudden, shocking betrayal, and the feeling made her voice harsh. "Get on that shuttle, now. Do not speak another word. You two! Do as I told you!" Rainbow didn't move. Her helmet stared blankly at Twilight, and the unicorn wondered what emotion it was concealing behind its smooth visage. Pain? Embarrassment at being caught? Pleading for understanding? ...Rage? Twilight was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that Rainbow was standing very close to her. Very close. The unicorn wasn't accustomed to thinking of her friend this way... but she was probably the deadliest pony in Equestria, possibly even including the Princesses. Rainbow Dash had spent close to a century fighting off the most dangerous creatures Equestria's borders saw, and in that time she had become an absolutely deadly killer. The combination of her augmented strength and her natural lightning speed was beyond formidable, as was the ruthless attitude that drove it. When she went into a fight, she did so with the intention of ending it, permanently. The news reports on the creatures Rainbow had killed suddenly scrolled through Twilight's brain, and it was a sobering list. Topping it was the incident Fluttershy had referred to minutes ago, when Rainbow was alleged to have killed a mature adult dragon, singlehoofedly, only a few years ago. There was a lot of speculation about that, including many theories that it hadn't actually happened, or that it had been different from what the Warden press release had claimed. Rainbow herself hadn't talked about it at all, which honestly lent evidence to the "it never happened" theory, but on reflection, Twilight could believe it, regardless of whether it was true or not. The Warden Commander was probably capable of it. Twilight was also aware, keenly aware, of the armor the pegasus wore. Not just the guns, which at the moment weren't pointed at her, but the arcane dampers, the counterspells woven into its structure, the magical sinks built into its design... if Rainbow decided to go for her, Twilight wasn't sure she'd be able to stop the pegasus. Not before Rainbow could get to grips with her, at least, and if that happened then it would all be over. Rainbow was still for what seemed like forever. Finally, after several frozen moments where the diplomatic team and the other Elements stared in mute, uncomprehending shock, the pegasus's armored head drooped. She turned, silently, closing down the channel she'd spoken to Twilight on without speaking further, and started walking slowly to the shuttle. The Wardens were utterly still. None of them moved, except for several uneasy glances at each other. When Rainbow was halfway to the shuttle, the squad leader's voice came over the network. "You heard the Commander." The sergeant's words were spoken softly, her voice unusually deep for a mare. "You two, escort Comm... Lieutenant Dash back to the ship. Move it." The pegasi traded another uneasy look. "M- Sergeant, are you sure about that?" One of them asked. "I absolutely am. Go. Now." The sergeant's voice was controlled, but she was clearly not happy about this state of affairs. Reluctantly, the two armored pegasi turned and followed their former leader into the shuttle. The ramp closed, and the Kestrel silently lifted off, turning to point its nose skyward. Twilight sighed in relief, though she still felt spikes of guilt and disbelief at what had happened. "Thank you, sergeant." The Warden sergeant, who Twilight realized was one of the armored earth ponies and whose ID tag read Wintergreen, opened a private channel to her. "Don't you dare thank me for that, Ma'm. That mare is like family to me, and I hated doing that. Commander Dash was wrong, but that doesn't mean you needed to destroy everything she's built." "What are you talking about?" Twilight frowned at the armored mare, puzzled. Wintergreen lifted a foreleg, pointing, and Twilight turned to see what she was indicating. The Warden sergeant was pointing straight at a wide-eyed, shocked-looking Pinkie Pie. Or more precisely, at the lenseye hovering over her shoulder. "When that recording gets home, the Wardens are done, ma'am. The press will rip us apart, and the ponies who have always hated us," the sergeant didn't mention Fluttershy, but Twilight knew she had to be thinking about her, "will finally have the justification they've been looking for to disband us completely. So don't you dare thank me for doing my job when you've just destroyed the organization I've given my entire life to." Twilight gritted her teeth. "So I should have just stood by and let her destroy this contact operation, and hurt me and Rarity?" "You could have handled it with more discretion..." Sergeant Wintergreen's voice on their private channel was interrupted. "Hurt you, ma'am?" The question came from one of the unicorn troopers, and Twilight realized she'd been speaking out loud rather than sending her words via the link, which meant that everypony on the field had been hearing every word she'd spoken. "That was never an objective. The Comman... the Lieutenant would have skinned us if we'd hurt anypony." Twilight turned to face the Warden who'd spoken, knowing she should be paying attention to the approaching aliens but needing to restore order in her own ponies first. "Was I or was I not tagged 'disable,' trooper?" "You were, ma'am," The soldier's voice was confused. "Ma'am... disable isn't neutralize. We were just supposed to hit you with endust to keep you from fighting while we got you on the shuttles and evacced." The unicorn glanced at her sergeant before continuing in a rush. "Ma'am... endust doesn't hurt at all. I've been hit by it myself, accidentally. You just feel sort of numb for an hour or so." "Cut the chatter, trooper," Wintergreen growled. "What's done is done. Focus on your quadrant." The Wardens didn't outwardly move, but Twilight could detect their sensor activity focusing on the aliens again. Still, what the unicorn trooper had said had given her pause. Endust, also called null-dust or BANC and properly referred to as Biological Arcane Nullification Compound, was a substance that inhibited magic in living things. It had originally been developed as a medication for mental hospitals, to keep mentally unstable unicorns from hurting themselves or other ponies, and had later been adapted for use against a wide range of magical threats. Most Warden armor was equipped with airburst endust dispensers, and it had proven to be a huge boon on the Crystal Desert frontier. Twilight blinked, uncertain of how to respond. When she'd seen that 'disable' tag on herself, she'd thought Rainbow had intended to hurt her, but endust was genuinely harmless. It prevented spellcasting for between thirty and seventy-five minutes, depending on the dose and the target, and reduced a unicorn's magical ability for about another two hours, but beyond that it had no lingering effect. Had she misinterpreted? She shook herself. Regardless of whether Rainbow had intended to hurt her or not, she had drastically overstepped her authority. Twilight would deal with that later. She stepped up past the group, muttering, "I'll explain later," shoved her pain and turmoil into the back of her mind, and caught her first glimpse of the aliens.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Contact and Outcomes

The creatures coming toward them over the dusty plain weren't quite what Twilight had expected. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd expected, but it wasn't this. The aliens were bipedal, a tiny bit taller than a pony, with wide, heavy torsos and long arms. They wore enclosing suits that looked partially armored, and only a few were helmetless. On the ones without helmets, Twilight could see tufts of long spines or quills arranged in clusters on their heads, curving back and laying against their heads in odd patterns. Their eyes were deeply recessed, and their faces behind the breathing masks they wore looked flat and vertical, without any hint of a nose or snout. Their suits were fairly uniform, patterned black and brown, with insignia on their shoulders that Twilight presumed indicated rank and duty much like the bands of cloth each pony wore on his or her foreleg. The long arms ended in four-fingered hands that looked surprisingly apelike. To the unicorn's surprise, they were actually advancing in a fairly ordered group, with nearly uniform spacing, and though their gait was odd and slightly rolling due to their relatively short legs they were coming very close to marching, though it didn't look like they were making any attempt to formally do so. It was quite a contrast to the disordered mob that their fleet had formed. They were all armed, to a degree that was almost silly. Most of them had two long weapons slung over their shoulders, and a host of sidearms and knives depending from various locations on their suits. It was almost comical, honestly, they looked like some of the cartoon caricatures of the Wardens that showed up in certain net publications. (Minus the blood-dripping leer, of course) The alien in the lead was dressed a little differently. Her armored suit had golden stripes going down the front of both sleeves, a large sun insignia glittered on the center of her chest, and she was wearing a wide-brimmed hat with rows of what looked like feathers running down the sides, sporting the same golden sun logo in the center of the hat. She was also even better armed than the others, and her weapons were more ornate. Twilight spared a quick glance at Rarity, who was staring at the lead alien with shining eyes. She caught Twilight's look and whispered, "I want that hat!" Twilight giggled, in spite of her own tension. "Maybe we can negotiate an exchange." The creatures rumbled up to the pony delegation, stopping about six meters away. The alien leader stepped closer, drew itself up tall and lifted its chin, and jabbered out something in a language Twilight had never heard before. Excitement and a strange sense of disappointment chased through the unicorn. Not that there was anything disappointing about peaceful contact, but that these aliens spoke a language that was, well, alien. Duran and the N.A.I.S., two different alien groups from two entirely different universes had spoken perfect Equestrian, but this creature from her own reality didn't? Bizarre. Still, that didn't make this moment any less special. Twilight drew a deep breath. "In the name of Equestria, the Diarchy, and the Unified World Nation, I greet you in peace, as friends. It's good to meet you!" She'd planned that greeting in detail, and was pleased that she got it out without stumbling. She beamed at the creature, who blinked at her slowly. One of the creature's arms lifted, and its hand went slowly to one of the weapons belts festooning its body. Twilight heard a motion behind her, and as the creature carefully drew a blade from its sheath one of the armored earth pony Wardens stepped smoothly and quickly between Twilight and the alien, her footfalls thumping heavily in the dust despite her graceful movement and the cannon on her back pointing directly at the creature. The Warden mare loomed enormously in her armor, and she didn't say a word as she stood between the alien and her commander. There was an uneasy susurration of noise from the alien group. "Wait!" Fluttershy cried, "Don't shoot!" "I'm not planning to." Twilight recognized the calm voice coming from the armored mare as that of the squad's sergeant, Wintergreen. "But I'm concerned about the fact that she's drawing a knife, and I want to be in a position to stop an attack on my unarmored commander." Fluttershy stared at the alien, clearly thinking hard. After a brief pause at Wintergreen's sudden intercession, the creature very slowly pulled the knife the rest of the way out, holding it loosely by the blade in its long fingers. It took a single step forward, held the knife out in front of it, and stood still, waiting. The yellow pegasus glanced around. "A knife!" she blurted abruptly. "Does anypony have a knife? Or anything that looks like a knife?" There was a click of activating speakers from one of the power-armored unicorns. "Uh... I've got a pair of them." Fluttershy stared at the soldier for a moment. "Why in the world do you... never mind, i-it's a good thing. Give one of them to Twilight." The unicorn glanced at Applejack, the senior Warden still available, and the orange mare nodded. "Go ahead, Dusty Roads. I won't even fuss at ya for havin' nonstandard gear on your armor." "Uh, thanks for that, ma'am." The trooper's voice was hesitant. A blue-green glow enfolded a boxy protrusion on the unicorn's shoulder, and a long, handleless blade slid out. It was slim, and looked wickedly sharp. The blade slid slowly through the air toward Twilight. Twilight almost balked. That color aura was creepily close to what a Changeling would have produced. They'd had major problems with the shapeshifting bug-ponies a few decades ago, and had even caught a few shapeshifters who'd managed to sneak into high positions in the Equestrian government. Others had even been found in the Zebra government, when the Zebras had been approached in the early efforts at unification. There'd been serious concerns about what the creatures had intended, especially since most had fled and escaped after being discovered. Two had been captured, but oddly enough both had suicided in captivity, employing some strange method that destroyed their bodies and left nothing to examine. The Commander shook her head. The tension was playing tricks on her mind; that aura was bluer than Changeling magic. The Wardens screened extensively for shapeshifters, anyway; there was no way one of the creatures would have made it onto this mission. "I'm not a Changeling," the armored unicorn's voice murmured. She sounded a little different; there was a quiet, tight anger in it. "I was born this way. I don't know why my magic's this color." Perhaps it wasn't just the tension getting to Twilight after all. An old, quiet pain lurked in the Warden's words. Twilight blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." "No one does." The armored unicorn shook her head, and her voice went back to the way it had sounded before. "Uh, sorry. I, uh, it gets awkward." "I imagine." Twilight gave the Warden a kind smile. "I appreciate you letting me use your knife. I'll replace it if we wind up losing it." She reached out with her magic, her telekinetic field gently pushing the other unicorn's aside to enfold the slender blade. The unicorn Warden nodded once. "No need, ma'am. I've, uh, got spares." She stepped back. Fluttershy stepped close to Twilight, biting her lip. "Okay, Twilight, you need to approach the creature and offer the knife to her. When she reaches out to take it, you should take the knife she's offering, but don't try to take it if it looks like she wants to hold on to it." Twilight glanced askance at the yellow pegasus. "Are you sure about that?" Fluttershy flashed her a smile. "No. But it feels right." The unicorn snorted. "Okay. Here goes." She stepped forward. "Sergeant, stay behind me, but stay close, please." She didn't need the Warden's protection; Twilight could throw up a shield spell faster than some ponies could blink, but having the armored mare nearby might dissuade the aliens from trying anything... rash. "Yes, ma'am." Twilight could feel the heavy thumps of the armored suit's footfalls through the thin dust against her hooves. "I'll be right behind you." The front rank of the aliens actually fell back a bit as Twilight approached, though their gazes were fixed on the fearsome figure of the armored earth pony following her. Some of them reached for weapons, but at a harsh command from the alien leader their hands fell back to their sides. The alien leader didn't budge, holding her head high and keeping the knife held out. Twilight felt a stirring of hope that this contact might actually go as well as Fluttershy was expecting. The unicorn had held the knife close to her side as she walked, and when she stopped close to the alien leader she hovered the blade out and sent it very slowly gliding toward the creature. The aliens stirred, voices rising in conversation, and the leader turned her head to bark another order. Gingerly, slowly, the ornately-dressed alien reached out a hand, pausing just before it reached the purple glow that surrounded the blade. A few of the quills on her head twitched in an odd motion. The alien paused, its hand centimeters from the knife Twilight was holding out for it. It extended its other hand, its knife still held by the blade, gripped so loosely that it was barely holding it at all. Guessing at its motives, Twilight simultaneously pulled her telekinesis away from the back of the knife she was offering (it had a blunt area at the back, though it had clearly been designed to be wielded telekinetically and had no handle) and enveloped the blade of the alien's weapon in a purple glow. The alien actually flinched a bit at this, though she steeled herself and took of the back of the Warden's knife between her finger and thumb. She released her grip on her own knife at the same moment, jerking her arm back and leaving the blade suspended in midair. Twilight released the Warden's blade and brought the alien's gliding back toward her, and the alien leader followed the motion of the floating knife intently. Twilight carefully tucked the alien's gift into her gold rank band, making sure not to slice it by accident, and the alien gingerly slid the Warden blade into its empty scabbard, taking care to seat the razor-sharp, hiltless knife so it wouldn't fall out. There was an almost palpable relaxation from the line of aliens, several of them sharing glances though the leader didn't move. Fluttershy came trotting up next to Twilight. "You handled that very well," the pegasus observed, admiration in her voice. "Thank you," Twilight smiled at her friend, then turned back to the alien. "Excuse me. We have machines," she gestured widely to the small mountain of gear Fluttershy's team had brought down, "that might help us," she motioned to herself and then to the alien, "talk to one another." She mimed something coming from her mouth, hoping the alien would interpret the gesture as speech rather than vomit or some other emission. Twilight didn't bother speaking slowly; she knew perfectly well that the creature couldn't understand her. She hoped her gestures and tone carried her meaning sufficiently. The alien made an odd motion with its shoulders, the quills on its head rustling under its ornate headgear, and turned to face its compatriots. It jabbered something, and a small knot of aliens quickly emerged. The one in the center looked different; it was shorter and slimmer than the others by a small amount, its arms were a bit longer, and it had a subtly different attitude that Twilight couldn't put her hoof on. It was surrounded by other aliens, who seemed to have a protective attitude toward it. The new arrival spoke briefly to the alien leader, receiving a similarly brief response, and stepped forward. It (He? She? Was the smaller one male, female, or a different race?) looked at Fluttershy and spoke slowly, pointing first to herself, then to her eyes, then to the equipment. "Oh, yes, of course you can look at it! Here, come along!" Fluttershy made a gentle ushering gesture with her foreleg, stepping toward the translating gear. Rarity stepped up next to the translating systems as well, eager to help out. The smaller alien followed immediately, its escorts moving along with it and prompting two of the Wardens, an earth pony and a unicorn, to step up next to Fluttershy, shadowing her in a similar manner and keeping a watchful eye on the aliens. Twilight waited in front of the alien leader, giving it an uneasy grin to which it didn't respond. She hadn't seen much expression from under the creature's transparent facemask, and she wondered if it was simply stoic or if its species didn't have a mobile face like ponies did. It simply stood, waiting patiently and silently as it watched the other alien poking around with Fluttershy's team's equipment while the ponies activated and demonstrated various aspects of it. She remained where she was while the smaller alien dashed off with its escort, returning with armfuls of gear of their own. It started taking things apart, stringing wires everywhere and linking them back together to place near the Equestrian systems. Rarity watched with interest, occasionally stepping forward to hold something or rewire something with the waldo-arms around her neck, since it seemed extremely skittish about her telekinesis. The unicorn mare's delicate touch was perfect for working with the small components, and its hesitancy quickly dropped away in the face of Rarity's helpful assistance. While it worked, Fluttershy and her senior tech came back to Twilight with a report. "This may take a little while, Twilight." Fluttershy told her in her soft voice. "I don't think our equipment will interface directly with theirs, no matter what we do, and they don't seem to have the kind of specialized adaptive translator systems we brought. Their engineer," she nodded her head to indicate the alien, still furiously rewiring and disassembling components, referring occasionally to what was clearly some form of datapad while his escort stood watchfully, "looks like he or she is trying to build everything from scratch." "How are you going to set this up?" Twilight asked. "Combination optic and radio system, ma'am, since direct connection won't work." Fluttershy's technician, a unicorn stallion with a bright orange coat, spoke up. "We've already set up our interface, they're just trying to match it." The stallion brought up a screen in front of himself, swiveling it around to let Twilight look at it. "This is the basic architecture we're using." Twilight examined the system diagram carefully, analyzing the system that the technician was proposing. "Hm... it looks good. Which daemons are you using?" "These, ma'am." The symbols indicating eight of the powerful, flexible, more self-directing holodaemons and thirty-three supporting datadaemons flashed on the screen, along with the components the virtual entities would reside in. Datadaemons were ubiquitous; the entities were responsible for running most of the more complex bits of spellware in the Equestrian technical base, but thirty-three was a lot. This system was designed for maximum function and flexibility, and even then there was a lot more physical equipment than it looked like it needed. "It looks okay. You've got a little too much hardware for the spellware you're running, you could probably remove these," she highlighted the redundant systems, "but having them attached won't hurt your performance." The stallion shrugged, giving her a grin. "I like to build a little redundancy into my systems, ma'am. Just in case." Twilight laughed. She could understand that. "Okay, then. Go see if you can help the alien, if your systems are all set up." "I was hoping you'd ask that, ma'am. They use electronics, and I minored in that at the Academy. I'll see if I can squeeze in next to Miss Rarity." The stallion dismissed his screen and trotted happily off to assist the laboring alien. Twilight turned back to the leader, who was looking at the spot the engineer's screen had vanished from with wide eyes. The creature blinked, returning to its stolid waiting. It took over an hour for the alien engineer and Fluttershy's technicians to finish their work, and Twilight stood in front of the alien leader all the while. It wasn't a total waste of time; she spent the time mentally reviewing several theoretical sorcery problems she'd been chewing on for a while, and even came up with a couple of ideas she really wanted to test. Finally, the technician came trotting back up. Twilight glanced up; the sun had moved closer to the horizon, and this world had short days. They had a few hours of daytime left, but not many. Fortunately, the alien seemed utterly unbothered by the fact that it had stood still for all that time, only moving to turn and trade the occasional word with the others behind it. "We've got a basic setup working, ma'am." The engineer beamed happily. "It's rough, but it works, and it's adaptive so it'll work better the longer we talk. Mostly our gear; their stuff's... not as good." The Commander sensed a diplomatic understatement in that last sentence. "Outstanding!" Twilight grinned. "Are there any limitations I need to know about?" "Not on your end; activate the translator and speak, and it will do its best." The tech snorted. "Their end is a little more primitive; their technician is going to have to transcribe their leader's words in order for it to translate." Twilight nodded. "Okay, so it's ready to go?" At the tech's nod, she turned back to the alien leader with a smile. "Greetings! I am Twilight Sparkle, representative of the Princesses Celestia and Luna, and commander of the starship Dauntless." The spines on the alien's head stirred. It spoke, the smaller being behind it tapping furiously at a pad it held. "I am Seelith Eklsee, Warrior Commander of the Salinoth nation of the Tazaft. I greet you." The voice emerging from the translator was belated, in addition to being flat and uninflected, but Twilight could get used to that. "We thank you for your help." Twilight grinned. "We were happy to lend it! The beings on those ships attacked our home system, so we're glad to defend someone else from them." The spines rattled. Clearly, they carried at least some of Seelith's emotional expression. "They attack you? Truly?" Twilight cocked her head to the side. "Well, yes. Two of our ships confronted an invader in our home system, and they opened fire without responding. Why? Didn't they attack you?" Seelith made a sinuous gesture with one hand. "We find them here. Attack them. Were more than we thought." The unicorn blinked. "But they started it, right? Attacked your home system first, like they did ours?" Seelith turned to speak to her technician, and Twilight took the opportunity to speak to hers. Carefully not activating the translator, she asked, "Not very articulate, is she?" The stallion shook his head, examining a screenful of scrolling data. "Actually, she's very articulate. The translator doesn't know most of the words she's using yet, so it drops them or simplifies. I'm using this pause to try to update the database again, she should be better-spoken after that." "They have not attacked our home system yet. They probably will soon." Selith spread her hands out. "We try to destroy their ships, but Warriors out of practice." "Hold on, ma'am," the technician interrupted. "There was an important word in there that didn't get translated, let me try that again." The translator spoke again. "We seek to destroy their ships, but the warrior caste is out of practice." Twilight blinked. "Warrior caste? Your people have a social class of warriors?" She wanted to make sure the translator had gotten that right. Quills rustled. "Yes. Three castes, leader, warrior," she turned to indicate the technician typing, who paused and waved. "Worker." This was interesting. "Oh, he's a worker?" Seelith spoke again. There was a long pause while the technician tapped at his pad. "The brilliant and handsome creature typing out this message, which is entirely faithful to my words and contains no additions? Yes, it is a worker." Twilight stifled a snicker. At least it seemed they had a sense of humor, or at least the little one did, and the translator had been surprisingly eloquent for that sentence. Still, something stood out. "It?" There was a long pause, and Seelith turned to speak to the technician. She turned back. "Did you ask a question?" The unicorn flushed a little. "Oh, the translator called your worker an 'it'. I was just wondering if it meant male or female." There was another pause, and another consultation. "Your pardon, much of what you said did not translate. What were you asking?" "Change the subject, Twilight," Fluttershy whispered. "We don't want to frustrate them." Twilight cleared her throat. "Well, Siluth Uhlsie," she knew she'd mangled the alien's name, but it was the best she could do and she hoped the being wouldn't take offense, "we've helped each other. Would you be interested in an alliance, so we could help one another further?" The unicorn knew she was moving a little fast, asking for an alliance already, but she felt justified in light of the alien's (she had called herself Tazaft?) polite behavior and clear gratitude. There was another long pause. "Perhaps," the alien finally said. "I cannot speak for the leaders, or the Tazaft people, but the warriors would be interested in coordinating with you in fighting the Baltornic Council." "The Baltornic Council?" Twilight asked, "Those are the people you were fighting?" She felt another thrill; being able to put a name to the faceless ships felt like an odd relief. "Yes." Quills rustled, in a pattern Twilight was starting to associate with a nod. "They angered the leaders, and the warriors were called up to show the Council that we were angry." A pause. "I have a question. You asked about the warrior caste; do you not have warriors? Is the large metal one not your protector?" Twilight blinked, unsure of how to answer, but Fluttershy stepped in. "We have guardians, but we don't fight wars, so we don't really call them 'warriors.'" Eklsee made an odd head gesure. "I think this may be another translating problem. Warriors do not only fight wars." Twilight cocked her head. Since Fluttershy had presented the Wardens as their example, she decided to run with it. "Our guardians, such as the mare behind me," she tilted her head to indicate the armored Warden sergeant, "guard our borders and keep our people safe from threats. What do yours do?" "The warriors fight when fighting is to be done," Eklsee stated, and Twilight could tell the translation was getting better. "That has not happened in a very long time, though. When no fighting is needed, we take the risks." Twilight blinked. "I'm not sure I understand." "Risks. When risky things need to be done, it is a warrior who does it. Dangerous jobs in many factories, risk. Keeping peace, risk. Exploring, risk. Things like that. If there is physical danger involved above a low level, we do it. Things that involve little risk, workers do. It is our task to keep leaders and workers safe." Eklsee pointed to herself with one finger. "I was master of those who put out fires and rescue those in danger in Ekrsa City before it became necessary to fight. I hope I can finish this fight soon to go back to that." That brought them to something Twilight really wanted to know about. "This fight you're in, with the, what was it, Baltornic Council? How did it start? Is it going well?" Spines rattled. "Start? The Council made our leaders angry, like I said. They wished to show them our anger, so they called the warrior caste to fight. We were to blow up ships, destroy the Council's things, get to Baltor to burn their meeting place if we could. That would be a powerful gesture." The Tazaft made an odd rattling noise with her tongue, accompanying an exhalation. "It is not going well. There have been no wars since before we left our homeworld, Kheles. The warriors have never had to fight in space. It is very different from fighting on the ground, or at sea, or even in the air with planes. The way we are fighting is not working well, and the Council is very good at fighting, it seems. I may never put out fires again." Twilight exchanged a frown with Fluttershy. Their new allies had started their fight? That was... unsettling. Eklsee was speaking again. "Your ship is very powerful, and your arrival saved many of my warriors. If you had not appeared, we would all have died. We owe you a great debt, and we recognize that you may be a powerful ally. Would you be willing to fight beside us? You have said you wanted an alliance; if you fight with us, then the leaders will hear of it and know that you are friends to the Tazaft people and all our nations. It would please me greatly to call you friend." Twilight bit her lip, sharing another glance with Fluttershy. "Do you mind if I speak to my friends before I answer that question, Uhlsie?" She again tried her hardest to pronounce the alien's name, but was aware that she'd mangled it. There was a trill and a sort of glottal sound in the name that Twilight's mouth and tongue simply couldn't shape. "Of course, Ttlaaht Shkukaaal." Ouch, if Twilight had mangled Eklsee's name as badly as the alien hand mangled hers, then the being was behaving with commendable restraint. "I will wait here happily to hear your decision." "Thank you." Twilight shut down the translator and turned around. Fluttershy did likewise, ensuring that the aliens wouldn't be able to read their lips, assuming the creatures were capable of doing so. "Fluttershy? What are your thoughts? I mean, this is exactly what we came here for, to find friends and allies." "Yes," Fluttershy said uncomfortably, "I was hoping they'd want to be friends, rather than just wanting to beat up the people we both dislike together." She sighed. "Well, I suppose we'll have to take what we can get. They might be able to tell us more about this 'Baltornic Council,' too, which would probably help. She mentioned 'Baltor'... I wonder what that is, a world, a species, a city?" The pegasus smiled sadly. "I'm still hoping that we'll find a way to talk to them, too, but after today that seems a lot less likely." Twilight nodded. "More or less my thoughts. It would be nice to know we had friends out here." Fluttershy nodded, pleased with the idea much like Twilight was. The two trotted back to their friends, and put the question to them as well. Applejack was strongly in favor. "Seems like a good notion to me. They've probably got bases 'n such around here, and they may know somethin' about these Council fellers and where we could find 'em." Rarity nodded. "I have to concur with Applejack; coordinating with these... creatures would be helpful. Even just knowing we aren't alone is enough reason to accept their offer of friendship, I think." Pinkie nodded, too. "I think it'd be great for the ponies back home, too," she added in an unusually sober tone. "There were a lot of ponies that were scared before we left, griffons and zebras too. Knowing we've got friends out here would be a great, big, huge, enormous help, I think, even if they're not all that tough." Twilight drew a deep breath. "Okay, then. I'm going to accept her offer." She cocked her head. "Her offer? His offer? Do we know if she's male or female? I don't want to offend them." "I think neither," Rarity's senior tech spoke up behind her. "There's no gender case in their language, as far as I can tell. I've been trying to find the terms for male and female on their side of the translator link, but I'm coming up with nothing." The linguists, who had been working on the translator system alongside the tech, nodded in support. The Commander blinked in surprise. "A monogendered species?" "Hermaphrodites, we think." The stallion glanced at a display that was following him around. "We've found words for mating and birth, so I'm pretty sure they do both, but nothing on different sexes." An interesting fact, but irrelevant. Twilight filed it away in her memory, and trotted back to Eklsee. She reactivated the translator system with a quick thought. "We would be delighted to call you friends and allies, and we would be glad to help you in your struggle and to accept your help in ours." In spite of what the tech had said, Twilight couldn't think of the Tazaft as an 'it', the label seemed too disrespectful. She decided to think of the alien as female instead, to help her identify with the strange creature. Quills rustled, and Eklsee's shoulders moved subtly. "Excellent." The translator was flat, but Twilight could hear animation in the alien's voice. "That is splendid news. We will give you coordinates of our bases and what we know of the Council, in exchange for the same information from you. Is that satisfactory?" "Yes, very much so." Twilight was thrilled by the alien's response. "Excellent," Eklsee said again, "If you would give us information on where you think you will be, we could seek you out for help if we need it, and in exchange we could offer our help to you if you should need it. Is this also satisfactory?" "Extremely." Twilight glanced at Fluttershy, who looked a little troubled. The pegasus leaned in and whispered in her ear, "She's being awfully generous. Ask her if she's actually got the authority to make these promises." That was a good point. "Pardon me, Uhlsie, but how are you able to offer terms this generous?" The alien made a sinuous movement of her hands. "I am the fleet leader. I led this attack, as is my responsibility, but all warrior caste ships and bases are under my command, not just these." Twilight blinked. "So this isn't all your ships?" The creature's quills stirred in a circular motion, something she hadn't seen before. "No, this was supposed to be enough for the fleet we saw. We meant to outnumber the eighty ships we saw by ten-to-one, but there were three times as many as we thought. As you saw when you arrived, it was going poorly." They brought eight hundred ships? "How many ships do you have?" "Six thousand when this fight started. We have lost a third of them by now. We are building more, but it takes time." A chill gripped Twilight's belly. "And how many does the Council have?" There was a pause before the alien answered. "We do not know. More than we have. Maybe many more." There was another pause, and Twilight shared a tense look with Fluttershy. "Your ships are very powerful, though, they may be enough to tip the scales. How many do you have?" "Just the one." Twilight hated saying that. Eklsee stared at her for a silent moment, and then shivered, her quills rattling. "It is more than we had yesterday. Your ship is powerful; we could use it to break the enemy's organization, and then we could do great damage, as we did today. Are you building more?" "Six more ships, a bit smaller than the one you've seen," Twilight confirmed. "They should be ready in a month or so." The Warden destroyer-class ships would actually be substantially more powerful combatants than Dauntless was; they were pure combat designs, without all the extra systems for exploration that the cruiser was fitted with. Finding crew for all of them, though, was going to be very difficult. The quills rattled in what Twilight was starting to think of as a nod. "It will be a help. We will give you information about where our bases are; come find us if you need us, and tell us where you are going so we can find you if you are needed." Twilight glanced aside at Fluttershy, and received a nod and a soft smile from the diplomat. "It's a deal." "Excellent." Eklsee turned and barked something at the ranks of Tazaft warriors behind her, and they let out a unified, hideous screech that laid Twilight's ears back and made her eyes water. She flinched a bit, but they didn't move; perhaps this was their version of a cheer. The unicorn glanced back and saw everypony wincing to various degrees, with the obvious exception of the Wardens whose helmets had sound dampers. "We are pleased to greet our new allies. May we have many successes and end our fight swiftly." Eklsee made a flourishing motion with both hands, and Twilight answered it with a gracious nod, hoping the Tazaft wouldn't be upset that she wasn't trying to imitate her mannerism. "Before we depart, might I ask you something?" "Of course! I would be happy to answer!" A nod of the quills. "Your technology... it is very powerful, very capable. I have seen this. I admit that I am very curious about the weapons your guardians carry. If I demonstrate mine, will you do the same?" "Certainly!" It was a minor thing, and an easy request to grant. Besides, the Wardens loved to shoot, and she was certain they'd appreciate the chance to do so. Eklsee gave another quill-nod, and unlimbered one of the long weapons on her back. She cradled it in her arms, looking down the barrel, carefully pointing the weapon away from both groups. There was a strange, high-pitched chirp and a loud crack, and a smallish boulder shattered from the impact of the weapon. Twilight nodded, not terribly impressed. She could honestly have done almost that much by picking up a rock and using an explosive acceleration spell; the Warden cannon should come as a bit of a shock. She turned around to address the Warden sergeant. "Would you mind demonstrating your weapon, please, Sergeant?" "Ma'am, that... may not be a good idea." The unicorn quirked a brow. "Why not? That's an accelerator gun, isn't it?" She peered more closely at the cannon mounted on the mare's battle armor. "Oh, wait, no it's not..." She hadn't gotten a good look before, but there was a lot of unfamiliar equipment attached to that gun. "No, Commander. It's a celestian cannon." "A what?" That term wasn't familiar, and Twilight thought she knew all the Warden gear pretty well. "A mark two levincannon. We've been calling 'em celestians, since they shoot a piece of the sun." Twilight reared her head back in shock. The basic levincannon was one of the earlier Warden weapons, a gun that accelerated a solid projectile to supersonic speeds and wrapped it in a destructive magic field. The mark two, on the other hoof, combined that concept with fusion theory from the Library Core and plasma manipulation technosorcery, wrapping a more powerful destructive field around a packet of fusing hydrogen plasma and firing it as a bolt downrange. It was a phenomenally powerful weapon, and Twilight was unaware that it had been so scaled down. "You stuck one of those on your battle armor?" That sounded a little crazy; the full-size mark two levincannon could often cause fatal flash burns as much as ten meters away from the bolt. Of course, those weapons were also so large they required custom vehicles to carry them, and would never fit on a battle suit. Perhaps the downsized version was less... indiscriminate. Wintergreen didn't move, but Twilight had the sense that she was looking abashed. "Yes, ma'am. Lieutenant Dash wasn't sure what we'd be facing, so she wanted one of us with a gun that combined hard-target kill capability with a large soft-kill radius and had me carry this beast. This unit's brand-new, just out of prototype phase; we were only able to shrink them down this small recently." "How were you planning to keep from frying us if you decided to fire it?" "We're not total idiots, ma'am. It's got a heat shield generator to cut down on collateral damage. I just had to make sure I was in front." Which was exactly what the big earth pony had been persistently doing, Twilight realized. Placing herself where she could step in front of everypony and thus shield them from her weapon's side effects. Well, that answered the question of whether the downsized version was less dangerous. "Well, there's the solution, then. I'll modify and augment the heat shield spell to contain the thermal bloom." "You can do that, ma'am?" My, it must have been a long time since I last worked with the Wardens. Twilight quirked a smile. "Yes, sergeant, I can do that easily." She turned back to Eklsee, activating the translator again. "We will demonstrate, but you shouldn't look when we fire. When you hear me shout, you should all look away, understand?" Spines rattled. "It is that powerful?" Twilight nodded firmly. "Yes, it is." "Interesting." The alien turned and gave what were probably brief orders to her people. "We are ready." Twilight nodded. "All right, sergeant. Are you ready?" "Yes, ma'am. Just tell me when." Twilight focused her thoughts, her horn glowing as she interfaced with the solid-state spells built into the armor's weapon capacitors. She could have modified the generators themselves; it was a very, very tricky thing to do, but well within her skills. There was no need to do that, though, so she instead spun out an extension composed of her own power, tightening and extending the cone that contained the weapon's vicious thermal pulse and setting it up to mesh with the cannon's own field. She glanced back at her ponies. "Shield your eyes, everypony." Most of them turned away, though the Wardens with their reactive visors didn't bother. Twilight brought up a virtual panel, modifying it into a copy of the Wardens' eye protection. "All right, sergeant," she called out, loudly enough for the Tazaft to hear and was satisfied to see them turning away, "fire!" The screen across Twilight's face went nearly black as it blocked the searing light of the plasma bolt that spat from the weapon on Wintergreen's back. She felt the radiant heat of the shot smash into the spell matrix she held, and felt it reflected forward, harmlessly, missing both the Tazaft and the Equestrians. The bolt moved at a significant fraction of lightspeed, looking more like a hideously intense laser pulse than a packet of plasma and drawing a ruler-straight line between the Warden sergeant and a large boulder she'd selected as her target. The disrupting spell struck first, crumbling the boulder to powder faster than could be seen before the plasma bolt smashed into it. Much of the rock evaporated, spraying outward and recondensing on the fused glass that now surrounded it. The thunder of the shot echoed off the distant hills and mountains, and a shockwave of warm air smashed into Twilight's face, though the heat-shield spell robbed it of some of its force and much of its temperature. There was total silence and stillness from the Tazaft group in the wake of the shot. The technician who had been transcribing Eklsee's words for translation stared dumbly at the expanse of rippled glass where the boulder used to be, the pad it used to translate dangling loosely in its hands. Eklsee stared from the Warden to the impact site and back again, her quills lying still and close to her head. The Tazaft leader finally spoke, her voice cracking oddly. There was nothing from the translator, and she finally turned to prod the technician, who shrank back behind the warrior leader and tapped at the pad in quick, jerky motions. "I am suddenly very glad I have tried so hard to be polite while talking to you." Twilight shook her head, not even having to look at Fluttershy for the response to that . "We wouldn't have attacked you for being rude. We only would have fought in self-defense." She very, very carefully did not mention that Rainbow had been planning a pre-emptive attack, something she'd been trying very hard not to think about yet. The thought sent another spike of pain into her chest; she needed, badly, to speak to the multicolored pegasus when she returned to the Dauntless. It would be the first thing she did. A few of Eklsee's spines twitched. "They really started their fight with you? You did not start it?" Twilight shook her head. "We don't start fights." The Tazaft leader was very still. "They will destroy you." Twilight blinked. "What?" "They have to. They start a fight like this, against people as powerful as you who do not like to fight? You have but one ship, but it was enough to rout one of their fleets. Your weapons," the alien gestured to the fused dust of the crater, "are like nothing I have ever seen. So powerful, so small, and so controlled, to do all that without even giving me a burn while I stood only paces away. Your computers, your tools," Eklsee gestured in the air with both hands, clearly referring to one of the illusory screens, "are made of air, and you use them with a thought. Your ship is huge, yet it dances like a mote of dust in the air and is incredibly hard to hit. If they do not destroy you, if they give you time to build and find your feet, you will burn them to ashes and strike their names from the roll of history. They were mad to start a fight with you." A chill gripped Twilight, strong enough to make her shiver. She glanced at the other members of the landing party and saw quiet horror on their faces, especially Fluttershy's. The yellow mare cleared her throat, pushing her dismay aside. "We would never go that far. Never. We didn't want this fight, and we want to end it as soon as possible. All we really want is to talk to them!" Eklsee's quills stirred in a slight nod. "I understand. It baffles me that they have not spoken to you, but perhaps they think they do not need to. Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck; you will need it. We have already pledged to give you what information we have, and if you need our aid you have but to seek us out." The alien paused. "I must ask... your home. Is it safe? If they wish to destroy you, that is where they will strike." Applejack decided to answer that question before Twilight could. "Our home's as safe as we could make it. Don't you worry none." The homeworld's defenses were indeed powerful. The Princesses alone were a formidable deterrent, each boasting as much arcane power as an entire civilization of unicorns. Since the Interloper's attack, their already considerable might had been boosted by a series of thaumatechnological mechanisms that had been built specifically for the Sisters, systems they could energize and control to project a vast, planetary shield. Other installations could be activated with other defensive functions, and the whole system was tied together in a vast network that could potentially harness the full power of Equestrian civilization, unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi all contributing to the defense of their homeworld. Dauntless would never have left home undefended. Even if the Council struck their home, Twilight and her crew should have time to find someone they could talk to. Eklsee nodded again. "Very well. Unless there is something more to discuss, I would like to return to my ship. My crew will send you the information we have promised you." The alien paused. "You may keep my blade, as a gesture of trust." "Thank you," Twilight replied. "You may keep mine as well. Consider it a gift, between friends." The Tazaft patted the handleless knife. "This will be a treasure of my family in the future. It will sit in a place of honor in my family's home, and in the years to come children will point at it and say my name and yours, wishing they could have been here today. Thank you, and may courage attend you when you walk among dangers." "And you, Uhlsie." Twilight was genuinely touched by the Tazaft's words. The creature flared her quills out, and then turned to walk back to her shuttle. The other Tazaft stayed in place until Eklsee passed through their ranks, then turned as one and followed. Twilight called for another shuttle to drop from the Dauntless to help retrieve their equipment and personnel, and waited impatiently while the Wardens and the diplomat team (who were looking a bit downcast that they'd had so little to do beyond run the translators) packed up their gear. Twilight tapped her hoof impatiently the entire ride back up. She needed to talk to Rainbow, badly, and the flight seemed like it took forever. It did give her time to talk to her friends about the situation, though. "Rainbow wouldn't a' hurt y'all," Applejack put forward, tentatively, as they flew up through the thinning air. "She's just been a mite... antsy lately." "She tried to sabotage our chance at peaceful contact!" Fluttershy retorted indignantly. "She could have cost us friends... would have cost us friends!" The pegasus shook her head. "I've been worried about her, but this is too much. Twilight, I hope you leave her under arrest until we get back." "That will depend on what happens when I talk to her," Twilight said, quietly. "I haven't decided what to do yet." Fluttershy's teal eyes flashed. "I don't want her on any more landing parties with my diplomatic team. She's too dangerous, and too reckless. I don't want her or her Wardens anywhere near another contact." "Now be fair, Fluttershy," Applejack said soothingly. "You ain't sayin' I did anything, are you? I'm just as much a Warden as Dash." "You're one of the sane Wardens. You don't start fights, don't go out intending to hurt some innocent creature..." The orange mare interrupted her. "The critters that get hurt by us ain't innocent, and I'll back Rainbow to the hilt most days, even if she was wrong today." Applejack's conciliatory manner hardened. "I've heard all the stuff you go out and say about us, and most of it flat ain't true. We only start fights when ponies are in trouble. Or buffalo, or griffons, since we've been helpin' 'em out since Unification. Rainbow Dash may've been outta line, but don't go generalizin', the rest of us didn't do nothin' wrong." "Didn't you?" Fluttershy's voice had gone dangerously quiet. "You mean those two pegasi arrested Rainbow Dash when Twilight told them to? You mean the rest of the squad didn't go along with what she planned?" Applejack's jaw set stubbornly. "Careful now, Fluttershy. I ain't lookin' for a fight..." "Stop." Twilight's voice cut across her friends'. She'd had enough. "Fluttershy, this has nothing to do with the Wardens as a whole. This was Rainbow Dash's mistake, and it was a mistake. It could have been bad, but I caught it and fixed it, and despite what she did I'm sure she had the best intentions. I will speak to her when I return to the ship and decide what I am going to do then. Until that happens, please do not antagonize the Wardens; they were trying to keep us all safe the best way they knew how, and I'll point out that they were entirely reasonable once they saw that the Tazaft meant us no harm." Fluttershy looked mulish. "I still don't want them on any more contact missions." "We'll talk about that when it happens. Until then, stop demonizing them. They all think you hate them." The pegasus blinked. "What? I don't hate them! I think they're wrong, and I want them to change, but I don't hate them!" Rarity spoke up quietly. "Constantly and loudly insisting you think they want to kill everything that breathes gives a rather convincing impression that you hate them, darling. Not to mention some of the things you've said about Rainbow Dash on the newslines." The muscles in Applejack's jaw bunched. "Some a' those things hurt her, Fluttershy. She don't show it... but it did. You might oughta think about using some a' them diplomatic skills with us sometime." Fluttershy blinked rapidly. "But... but I... I never meant to hurt anyone! I just get so frustrated at her for not listening..." The shuttle finally docked, and Twilight left Fluttershy with Rarity and Applejack, hoping they could talk the pegasus into lightening her stance toward the Wardens a bit. As they were walking out of the hangar, Twilight waved Pinkie over. The bubbly pink mare was much less bubbly than normal; having her friends fight always upset Pinkie, and she'd been quiet the whole way up. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet since Twilight sent Rainbow back to the ship, actually. "Pinkie," Twilight started to say, but the earth pony interrupted her. "You want me to get rid of that stuff I recorded, where you and Rainbow Dash had that fight." Twilight sighed. "Yes. I do. Honestly, I can't see any good coming of that, and as much as I hate to delete information..." "I'll do it." The unicorn blinked. "You will?" "Yeah." Pinkie looked downcast. "I mean, I can't see that video making anypony smile, except some really nasty ones and I'm okay with them not smiling. I can cut that part out, no problem." She looked up, tears in her blue eyes. "I don't know how to fix this. A party won't work, getting everypony to laugh won't work, singing, dancing, jokes, games, I can't think of anything that will make all my friends smile again." "Oh, Pinkie." Twilight hugged her friend, pulling her close. "We'll find something that works." "I hope so," Pinkie whispered back, hugging the lavender unicorn as hard as she could. The door to Rainbow's cabin was just like all the others in the ship. Quiet, gray metal that didn't gleam and didn't shine. Twilight had toyed with the idea of painting the inside of the ship a more cheerful color, but she hadn't gotten around to it before launch. She wondered what she should have picked? Blue, maybe? A quiet green? Twilight shook her head. She was stalling. Taking a deep breath, she signaled the door, only to find to her surprise that it wasn't locked. Steeling herself, she stepped up and let the door whisk itself aside, allowing her entry. Rainbow's room was almost shockingly empty. That was the first thing to register in Twilight's mind. The walls were completely bare, the desk was almost empty, there were no dress clothes of any sort in the closet, only a few spare rank-bands. Apart from a cybernetics maintenance kit and a manipudrone at the foot of the bed and a single picture frame that Twilight couldn't see the contents of from the door, the room was empty except for the pegasus sitting on the floor, staring fixedly at the opposite wall. Rainbow glanced back at the sound of the door opening, and gave Twilight a smile so rigid and unnatural it almost qualified as a rictus. "Hey, Twi. Guess it's that time, huh? Gonna blow me out the airlock?" "Of course not." Twilight's voice came out harsher than she meant it to, so she softened it for her question. "Why, Rainbow?" The pegasus snorted a strangled laugh. "Well, duh. You're the Commander. I was trying to go behind your back and do stuff you wouldn't have wanted to do. I betrayed you, and I betrayed the Princesses. That's either exile or execution, and the nice thing about a spaceship is that they're pretty much the same thing." Rainbow's smile slipped, just for a moment, and Twilight could see the pain in her eyes, artificial though they were. "I'm... I'm sorry, Twilight. I was way, way out of line. Way out." Twilight swallowed hard, trying to clear her throat. Even the thought of watching her friend hurled out into pitiless vacuum to gasp out her final breaths was painful. Whatever she decided, whatever happened, that was not an option and never would be. She thought Rainbow had meant it as a joke, but if so it wasn't funny. "That's not what I asked, Rainbow Dash. Why? Why were you acting that way?" Another strangled laugh, this one so harsh it almost sounded like the pegasus was choking. "Maybe Fluttershy and the press-ponies are right. Maybe my augments are making me crazy. Crazy as he was." She tossed her chin at the framed picture. Twilight stepped further into the room so she could see, and felt a moment of surprise. The frame had an old, old picture, yellowed with age and fragile-looking. It showed the two of them, along with the human they'd rescued, smiling and laughing at the camera. I wondered where that picture had gone. "Rainbow, what do you mean?" Twilight asked softly. She was confused; Rainbow had never called their friend "crazy" in anything but joking terms before. "He was certainly eccentric, even before he started falling apart the way he did, but he wasn't crazy." "Yeah," Rainbow choked, "he was. Found out when I was visiting him, those last couple of weeks." She swallowed hard, lowing her gaze to the floor and letting her forelock hide her eyes. Twilight remembered. Duran had been taken to the hospital, the last few weeks of his life. The gradual deterioration of his health had suddenly accelerated, and he'd no longer been able to take care of himself. Everypony had known what was coming, and they'd been trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Twilight had visited as often as she could, as had her friends, but Rainbow had stayed. She'd even slept at the hospital, making sure he was never left alone. It had been hard, brutally hard, on the rainbow-maned pegasus. Maybe harder than Twilight had known. "He wasn't himself," Twilight told her friend. She knew he'd been delirious off and on, and assumed that he'd said something to hurt Rainbow's feelings. "You know that. His mind was falling apart at the same time his body was." She wondered with some puzzlement why the pegasus had brought this up. "I know. It's not..." Rainbow paused. "I don't want to talk about it." Twilight felt a sudden rush of anger. "You'd better talk about it," she snapped, "Especially if it has something to do with what you did out there!" She growled in frustration. "Rainbow, you nearly did exactly what Fluttershy's been accusing your Wardens of doing, starting another war. If you don't talk to me, tell me what you were thinking... I don't know what I'll have to do." "I get you. And yeah, you deserve some explanations. It's just..." Rainbow paused, taking a deep breath. "I've spent so long not talking about this. Not saying a word, trying not to even think about it." She ground her teeth. "I was so mad at him." Twilight was puzzled. "Mad? At Duran?" Rainbow nodded. "For what?" "For making me a liar. For..." She trailed off, gritting her teeth. Whatever this was, she clearly didn't want to talk about it. Well, not talking about it wasn't an option, especially after a statement like that. "How did he make you a liar, Rainbow?" The pegasus snarled suddenly. "When I told you he was safe to bring back! When I said he wouldn't hurt anypony!" She smashed a forehoof into the floor, putting a dent in the deck plating. Her voice rose to a shout. "He made me a liar and I can't even hate him for it! Because I cared too damned much about him to let it get out!" She sagged in place, looking suddenly exhausted. "I cared too much to hate him." Rainbow's voice fell almost to a whisper. "Crazy or not, he was my friend. And he was dying, I couldn't get mad at him then." Twilight frowned. She felt a bit confused and upset, and had no idea what in the world Rainbow could be talking about. It had to be bad if she was cursing; she'd picked that habit up from Duran and had never quite shaken it. "Rainbow, what are you talking about?" Rainbow looked up, miserably. "I was his friend, too, Rainbow! Besides the fact that, as your commander, I need to know what's bothering you, if it was something about Duran, I have a right to know! Next to you I was his best friend!" "Yeah," Rainbow whispered, "you were. That was the problem." She heaved a deep breath and let it out slowly. "He was killing ponies, Twilight. Nine that I know of for sure, maybe a lot more that I'm not sure of." "What?" Twilight blinked. That was hard to believe, but Rainbow clearly believed it, so it was hard to doubt. "How? Why?" "How was those robots of his. He was building stuff that he could link with inside of two months. Network hubs, super long-ranged repeaters... some of the stuff he built we still can't build, he was trying to show you how everything worked, started from the basic stuff and tried to teach you and the other smart ponies, but he just ran out of time. With the stuff he had, he could reach halfway around the world without leaving his workshop." Rainbow shook her head sadly. "Why... why was us, Twilight. You and me." The unicorn frowned. "I don't understand." "You know that he looked up to us, right? You and me. He would've done anything for either of us." Twilight nodded. "You more than me, I think. You were always closer to him." The pegasus shook her head again. "Yeah, I might have been closer, but there wasn't any further he could go. I'm serious, Twilight, he would have done anything for you, or for me. Absolutely anything. That was the problem." Rainbow rubbed her face, surreptitiously dashing tears from her eyes. "I think something was wrong in his head. Something made him think that anypony who might be trying to hurt our feelings was trying to hurt us. Those were the ponies he killed." Rainbow sniffed, and Twilight stayed quiet, letting her friend speak. "Remember Red Letter?" Twilight fought back a creeping, chilling dread. The unicorn's brow furrowed as she tried to remember, but drew a complete blank. "I'm sorry, the name isn't ringing a bell." "Pegasus reporter? About... shoot, eighty-six years ago, I guess." Twilight didn't remember at all, but that was no surprise after that long. She accessed the ship's database and ran a quick search. "Oh... here she is. Wrote some rather ugly things about you, when you were just starting the Wardens, I see. Killed in an accident?" Twilight felt a chill in her belly, reading those words and realizing what they could mean. Rainbow nodded. "That's her. It wasn't an accident. Duran decided she was trying to hurt me, so he went after her. Watched her for a couple of weeks, then planted a fake letter from one of her sources saying they had something urgent and asking her to meet them right away. It was in the middle of a storm, but he'd written it like a life-or-death thing, so she flew out to meet 'em. One of his robots followed her, then grabbed her in the middle of the storm and dragged her under a lake. Held her there until she drowned, then took off and flew back. Wasn't a mark on her, looked like an accident. Everypony thought she'd just done something dumb, gone flying in the storm and crashed in a lake." Twilight shuddered. That was a hideously cold-blooded way to kill someone... but it fit frighteningly well with Duran's personality. The human had spent what was probably more than a decade living alone in the wilds, and for him to patiently stalk someone and then lure them out and go after them in an ambush like that... it really did fit with mentions of the way he'd hunted that she remembered from his journal on Hell's Reach. She felt a sudden pang of sick sympathy for the long-dead reporter; it took a long time for a pegasus to drown or suffocate. They had tremendous lung capacity. "Celestia's name." Twilight whispered. It was getting harder and harder to deny what the Warden commander was saying. Rainbow wasn't done. With the dam of silence cracked, words poured forth. "She wasn't the only one. Remember Blueblood?" Twilight felt almost sick as she nodded. The arrogant noble unicorn stallion had blocked her efforts to build a university to study the new technology she'd been developing... until he'd died in an accident. Another accident. Rainbow closed her eyes. "He was another one. Duran knew how important that school project was to you, and he knew that Blueblood was deliberately getting in the way and gloating at you about it. So one night, his robots went in with some kind of decay-things. Weakened his house's supports." "And they collapsed," Twilight finished. This one she did remember. It had been a major thing at the time, a wealthy noble's home suddenly collapsing, killing him and several other ponies. There had been an investigation, but all that had turned up was poor maintenance leading to a weakening of the supports. The unicorn shook her head, bewildered pain rising in her chest. "How did you find out about this?" Rainbow sighed. "A journal. He had it with him in the hospital, and I looked at it a few times when I was bored waiting for him to wake up. There wasn't anything real clear, but there was a bunch of stuff that made me wonder. I asked him at one point, and he told me. Didn't even bother to talk around it, just flat-out told me about some of the ponies he'd killed. It was like he thought I'd thank him for it." The pegasus closed her eyes, shivering all over. "I didn't believe him at first. Thought he was messing with me. He did that, y'know, had a weird sense of humor sometimes. When I figured out he was serious, I was... oh, Celestia, I was mad. I was mad, I was hurt, I was scared... I wanted to blow up at him, to shout at him, but... I mean, I didn't want that to be the last thing I ever said to him. You remember what it was like, the doctors'd all told me that any minute, he could be... gone. And I was mad, but at the same time I couldn't forget all the stuff he did for me. For all of us, yeah, but especially for me. He was such a huge help setting up the Wardens, made all that gear for me when I was just starting out and never asked for anything in exchange. Not once. Gave me advice, gave me gear, gave me money when I needed it, and whenever I had a problem he'd sit and listen for as long as I wanted to talk. So I started to yell, but I cut it off." Rainbow coughed, swiping more tears from her eyes. "And then, later, right when I decided to talk to him about it and was winding myself up to have an argument about it... You ever see someone die, Twilight?" The unicorn shook her head numbly. She'd had friends die over the years, all of them had, but she hadn't been present when it happened. Rainbow swallowed hard. "I've seen it a bunch. Sometimes it's really messy, sometimes it's quiet, but it's always horrible. I was telling myself, when he wakes up next time, I'll talk to him about it, and sitting there waiting, getting all mad 'cause I was working myself up thinking about what I was gonna say, and he made a couple of little gasps, then he just breathed out and didn't breathe in again. Like this long, slow sigh that sorta rattled right at the end. At first, I didn't believe it, then... would you believe I was mad?" The pegasus let out a strangled laugh that sounded like it was half sob. "How messed up is that? He'd just died, and I was mad at him for it! Then it started to hurt." A few tears rolled down Rainbow's face, and this time she didn't stop them. "Oh, it hurt," she whispered, "It hurt that he was gone, it hurt that he did all this stuff and it was my fault, it hurt that I was mad at him and didn't get a chance to work it out, and it hurt knowing how you guys would feel if I told you." She sniffed, looking off to the side. "So I didn't tell you. I didn't tell anyone. I took the journal, and all the others, and I got rid of 'em. That was all I needed to do; he was really slick about it. Nopony would have ever suspected. Heck, I wouldn't have if I hadn't seen it written down." "You should have told us, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said quietly, trying to hold back tears of her own. She wished she'd known. How could she not have known? "You should have reported it, told the Guards or some other authority..." "Why?" Rainbow interrupted, looking back at Twilight. "What would be the point? What good would that have done? He was... he was dead, you couldn't exile him, or put him in prison to figure out what was wrong with him, and it wasn't like he was going to hurt anypony else. It wouldn't have brought those ponies back. All it would've done would be to make ponies hate him, and make it harder for you to get all that stuff built that made everypony's life better." She sniffed, hard. "So I kept it secret. Never even mentioned it, not even to A.J." Rainbow chuckled, bitterly. "Y'know, it's kinda surprising how good it feels, not being the only pony who knows anymore." Twilight blinked, shaking her head, feeling the same pain constricting her chest that she was sure was in Rainbow's. It was hard to take in, hard to reconcile with her mental image of her deceased friend. Rainbow interrupted her thoughts. "Thing is, today, I think I understand where he was coming from. Maybe. Almost." Rainbow took a deep breath. "I think, in some messed-up way, he was worried about losing us. Worried that we'd get hurt. I mean, I saw all those aliens coming off the shuttles, and every one of 'em was armed. I knew there was no way that I could keep them away from you guys with just me and one squad, no matter how hard we hit 'em. And you guys were just ignoring me, acting like there wasn't anything dangerous going on. I was so scared I was gonna lose you guys. Maybe that's how he felt." She sniffed. "You guys, you, Pinkie, A.J., Fluttershy, Rarity... with this not-aging thing you're the only friends I don't have to lose. The only ones I can care about that won't get old and die. So I panicked. I told the troopers to grab you and run, while I held them off with the rest of the troops. I figured I'd probably kick it, but you guys would be okay." "So you made a mistake." Twilight summarized quietly. She wrapped her feelings up, the feelings of shock and pain, and bundled them away. She had something to do, something important. This mission needed Rainbow Dash, just like it needed all of them. Her feelings, her pain, could wait for later. Rainbow's chin lifted defiantly. "A mistake? I don't think it's a mistake to try and keep my friends safe!" "So you think the right thing to do would have been to open fire and risk us getting caught in the crossfire?" "I...!" The pegasus sagged again, her mechanical limbs emitting a quiet whine as she drooped. "I don't know. Maybe I was right, maybe I wasn't. But in the end you and Fluttershy were right. Whether I was right or not, I did it wrong." She looked up, pure agony in her face. Her voice cracked when she spoke. "And I may have lost you guys anyway because of it." Twilight rubbed her head, thinking. How to handle this? "You didn't lose us, Rainbow. We're upset with you, yes, but we're still your friends. I wish you'd talked to us about this." Having this conversation sometime in the past eight decades would probably have been better, Twilight mused in irritation. That anger Rainbow had been carrying had festered and affected her judgment; Fluttershy was partially right, and the Warden leader had developed a pronounced tendency to lash out when she saw a threat. "Rainbow, I have to ask this, and please answer honestly. Is Fluttershy right? Do you enjoy killing things?" If that was the case, Twilight couldn't afford to put her back in command. If not... Rainbow's mouth twisted. "No. I'm good at it, yeah, but I don't really like it. Fluttershy mentioned that dragon a couple of years ago, I still have nightmares about that sometimes." "I'd... actually started to think that was just a rumor." "What? Me killing that dragon?" Twilight nodded. "Well, it would be an impressive feat, and you never mention it. I'd assumed..." "That I'd brag?" Rainbow interrupted. At Twilight's nod, the pegasus looked away. "No. I'm not gonna brag about that. I don't even like thinking about it, 'cause it makes me a little sick. Yeah, I killed him one-on-one, without my guns or armor..." "What?" Twilight gasped. That was the most extreme version of the story, the one that pretty much only the Wardens ever told. Nopony else believed it. The unicorn groped for words, finally coming up with, "...How?!" Rainbow didn't look up. She lifted a foreleg with a whine of actuators, and the long metal talons slid free, glinting wickedly in the light. Energy crackled around them, the disruption field tearing apart the molecules of the air and filling the room with an ozone stink. "With these. It was all I had. These and my speed. The nearest Warden unit was half an hour away, and that dragon would have wrecked Orangeseed and killed everypony there by the time they arrived. It was just me." She swallowed hard. "It took a long time. I shredded his wings first, that was easy. Those big membranes of theirs are tough, but once you get a blade in 'em they tear like paper that's full of blood. Then I started going after the tendons on his legs." The pegasus's voice was hollow, empty, and her words were horrifically matter-of-fact. "It took three or four passes each to cut 'em. Dragons are big. Dodging his fire was hard, too, but he never tagged me with it. He was mad at first, talking up a storm about all the stuff he was gonna do to me when he caught me, about how my rep was all hot air... he changed his tune after I cut both his hamstrings. He couldn't fly, couldn't run anymore, and he hadn't even touched me. I think he started to realize he was losing at that point, and he started begging me to let him go." Rainbow gritted her teeth. "I couldn't let him go. I couldn't. You know how dragons are, how they hold grudges. He would've gone home, healed up, and been back in a few years. He'd've hit some other town, killed ponies because he'd know it would hurt me, except this time he'd make sure I was nowhere nearby. So I didn't listen. He got more and more scared when I crippled his front legs, and he was screaming by the time I latched onto his neck." Twilight felt sick. "Goddess, Rainbow..." The pegasus didn't even pause. "I grabbed onto his spines and just started sawing. You know how thick the scales on the back of a dragon's neck are? I didn't until then. They're crazy. Even with the disrupter fields it took me a long time, especially with the way he was thrashing, trying to get me off. He was screaming the whole time, screaming and babbling, even," she hiccupped, "even calling for his mom. I nearly let him go then. I didn't want to..." She paused for a second, and Twilight saw a tear fall to the floor. "I finally made it through the scales and the muscles. Cut his spine, and he finally stopped moving. I got off him, went around so I could see. He wasn't breathing, but he wasn't dead yet, his eyes were still moving. I told him," she hiccupped again, "told him I was sorry. It was stupid, I mean, I just killed him, and I was telling him I was sorry. What the heck is wrong with me." She cleared her throat, shaking her head. "Then, once he was dead, I hacked his head off. Took it to one of the big nesting grounds, threw it on the ground, and asked them who wanted to be next." "That's hideous, Rainbow Dash." Twilight had to fight back her gorge. Somehow, the pegasus's tone and the faraway look in her eyes made the story even harder to listen to. "Worked, though. They'd been pushing us for a while at that point, harassing Warden patrols, showing up to bully towns when we weren't nearby and then ducking back across the border when we showed up. At least that stopped. All they did was send an ambassador to whine at us, and Fluttershy had been trying to get them to do that for years." "There were better ways to do that!" "Were there?" Rainbow's gaze lifted, and anger glinted in her rose-colored eyes, the same shade that her real eyes had been. The hideous scar marring her face gave her glare a barbaric, dangerous look. "Then how come no one was using them, huh? I'd told Fluttershy about what was going on. She kept saying she'd talk to the dragons and they'd back off, but they kept not doing it. I kept warning, and they kept getting nastier and nastier and no one was doing anything. The only one that ever listens to me is A.J., and you guys never listen to her either! So yeah, I do my own thing, and yeah, I do nasty stuff that disgusts you. But it works, and no one else will do it!" There, finally, was the crux of the problem. Rainbow felt ignored, felt like her advice was being cast aside and marginalized. She'd gotten used to acting almost in a vacuum, because she felt like she had to. "We weren't ignoring you down there, Rainbow." Twilight shifted to look the pegasus in the eyes. "We were paying very close attention to what you said. I admit, perhaps I should have sent some of our friends back to the ship, but I thought that it would upset them to be cut out. Besides, we trust you to keep us safe, and I'm certain that if things had gone badly you would have found a way to get us out, no matter what." Rainbow perked up a tiny bit, her ears lifting from where they'd laid flat against her neck since Twilight had entered. "Really? You mean that? You're not just messing with me?" "Of course I mean it, Rainbow. I take all of my friends' advice seriously. All of you are smart ponies, good at what you do." Rainbow snorted. "Some of us are smarter than others," she said, a dry, self-deprecating tone in her voice. "Stop that," Twilight said firmly. "You're all bright. It's just that, this time, Fluttershy was correct, and you weren't. Nopony can be right all the time, Rainbow." The pegasus sighed, grimacing. "All right. Okay. I'll admit it. She was right and I was wrong." Twilight smiled. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash. I tell you what, I will promise not to ignore your advice," easy enough since she hadn't been ignoring it in the first place, "if you'll do something for me." "What's that?" Rainbow asked suspiciously. "I want you to promise me," Twilight stared Rainbow in the face, her eyes steely, "never to go behind my back like that again. Ever. You may give advice. You may command your ponies as you see fit, so long as you do not counteract my orders. For as long as this mission lasts, I am the commander. Is that clear?" Rainbow nodded firmly. "Crystal, Commander. I promise not to do that again." "Excellent. One more thing." Rainbow cocked her head, waiting. "I want you to apologize to Fluttershy." "For what?" Rainbow asked indignantly. "It was you I went against, not her! She doesn't have anything to do with this!" "Exactly," Twilight responded levelly. "You ignored her. You brushed her advice aside, exactly as you felt we were doing to you. If you want us to change the way we treat you, then I want you to apologize to her for it." Small steps. Twilight didn't expect this to heal the rift between the two pegasi, not on its own. But it was a step. Rainbow sighed heavily. "Fine. Okay, you've got a point; I'll apologize to her." "Good." Twilight nodded decisively. "In that case, you're no longer under arrest, and you're reinstated to your position." Twilight pinged the ship's network, removing the arrest order and reactivating Rainbow's clearance and rank. She'd get Fluttershy to apologize for some of the things she'd said about the Wardens at the same time as the cyan pegasus made her apology. "On a more personal note, Rainbow," the unicorn continued in a softer voice, "thank you for sharing all those things with me. It's good to know you still trust me." "It's funny," Rainbow said with a small smile of her own, "I... actually feel a lot better after saying all that. So I should be thanking you." "Glad to help, Rainbow Dash."

Outside the Reaching Sky

Excursions

Twilight left Rainbow Dash in her quarters, pinging a message to Rarity about what she'd arranged and asking the other unicorn to get Fluttershy to cooperate. She included the fact that the Warden felt ignored and marginalized, mentioned that she'd mostly worked it out, and sent a summary of the apology she wanted Fluttershy to offer in response to Rainbow's. She received a quick reply from Rarity, telling her that the white-coated unicorn would take care of her end and, satisfied that things with her two pegasus friends were well in hoof, threw herself into her immediate business. They'd gotten a flood of information from the Tazaft fleet, and even better, they'd gotten the aliens' electronic data coding methods down on the planet, so they could actually read it. Eklsee had provided as complete a map of the border the Tazaft shared with the Baltornic Council as she could assemble, complete with data on fleet movements and major staging areas. They'd also been given basic data on Council electronic communications, codes, and best of all, languages. They would actually be able to talk to the Council next time they encountered them, or at least take a shot at talking to them. She looked at samples of the languages provided; there were at least five species represented there, given the massively different phonetic structures involved, and none of them sounded even a bit like Modern Equestrian. That was a bit of a disappointment; Twilight had hoped that she might find representatives of Duran's people during their voyages, but that was looking less and less likely. Other interesting facts stood out; the Council used electronic tech like the Tazaft did, rather than arcane tech like Equestria used, and they used a different kind of drive. The Tazaft used a system very like the Library Core's K-F drive, making instantaneous jumps of limited distance with long charging periods in between, but the Council instead used some kind of wormhole system. It didn't have to be charged like the Tazaft drive, or Equestria's Tethinar-derived Gate drive, but it actually had a speed rather than being instantaneous. The Tazaft dossier told Twilight vastly more about their erstwhile enemies than ponykind had been able to assemble on its own, but it only raised more questions. This was clearly a multispecies government, and the Tazaft records showed that their initial contact had been peaceful. Why had that changed in Equestria's case? There had been numerous nonviolent contacts between the Council and the Tazaft before the latter had started a fight, but there had been none with the ponies, only missile fire. It was baffling, frustrating, and disheartening. Why was their behavior so inconsistent? Did the Council just hate them that much? Why? Twilight called her friends together once more in the meeting room, planning to present them with her findings. She'd made sure to route the information to the various experts aboard the Dauntless before doing so, hoping that it would prove useful. The atmosphere in the meeting room was far more relaxed than the last time they'd all gathered. The tension between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, though still present, was greatly reduced, and the others all seemed happier about it. "Well," Twilight began without preamble, "I'm sure you all know that we got a great deal of interesting data from our new friends." She nodded thanks to the yellow pegasus. "Thank you, Fluttershy, for helping make that work." Fluttershy ducked her head modestly. "Oh, I didn't do much. It was mostly you that time; I just gave you a few nudges." "They were good nudges, though, and I think it made everything go much smoother than it might have otherwise. So thank you." Fluttershy smiled again, accepting the thanks. She looked around the table in a quick glance, her manner a bit shy like she'd been in her youth. The others all smiled or nodded, acknowledging her contribution. Even Rainbow Dash gave her a sober nod, a fact that seemed to set the quieter pegasus aback. Twilight cleared her throat, reclaiming her friends' attention. "What we need to decide is where we go from here. This," she brought up a projection of Baltornic space, assembled from the Tazaft data, "is the area we know they consider theirs. These," red dots appeared on several star systems, "are fleet bases. And these," arrows drew themselves from system to system, "are the fleet movements our allies are aware of. Suggestions?" "Is this all of their territory?" Rarity asked, examining the map closely. Twilight shook her head. "Almost certainly not. This is just the part the Tazaft are aware of, and there are only two heavily developed systems in this grouping." Two of the stars glowed gold, at the far edge of the mapped space. "These two. Given that, if the languages they're known to employ are any indication, there should be at least five species on the council, that suggests that there are a bare minimum of three more heavily developed worlds out there somewhere, assuming that these two are homeworlds rather than mature colonies, which they may very well be." Fluttershy nodded. "This may just be frontier space, then, assuming they even think in those terms." She sighed. "It's hard to figure out how they think when we can't get any firsthoof experience." "I know." Twilight had already experienced that problem herself, trying to figure out the bizarrely contradictory behavior the Council had already exhibited. "Does anypony have suggestions about how to contact them that might not result in an immediate battle?" Rainbow Dash coughed. "I may have some ideas." Her voice was a little tentative, like she half-expected to be expelled from the meeting. "Let's hear them, then." Fluttershy's voice was calm, her manner interested. The others nodded, and Rainbow drew herself up, a bit of her normal confidence creeping back in. "Well, the thing is, if this is a frontier we probably don't want to show up at the major bases." The indicators for the Council fleet stations and depots flashed in response to Rainbow's commands to the network. "Those are their homes, and they'll want to defend 'em. I would, at least." "Yep," Applejack put in, "Besides, they may have heavy-duty defenses and stuff that we don't want to get close to. Our frontier bases sure do, and they've got some pretty strict rules about comin' and goin', and who can do it." "Exactly." Rainbow nodded. "We really want to stay away from here," the two gold dots that represented the developed systems flashed, "because if they've got a lot of squishies there they're gonna be even more defensive." "Squishies?" Fluttershy asked, arching an eyebrow. Applejack cut in before Rainbow could respond. "Normal folks. Not fighters." She glared at her fellow commander. "It ain't a term we encourage." The cyan pegasus's grin was a little abashed. "Oops, sorry. Slipped. So anyway," she raised her voice a hair, clearly hoping everyone would forget what she'd said, "I think the best idea would be trying to run into one of their patrols. Meet 'em somewhere like here," several systems along the illustrated Council patrol routes flashed, "someplace with no development. If there's nothing to defend, and they haven't gone looking for us ready for a fight, we might run into someone who won't be hostile. It'll depend on the local commander." "That's not a bad thought, actually." Rarity's voice was contemplative as she looked at the systems Rainbow had marked. "Oh, um, another thing," Fluttershy added, "if the Council and the Tazaft are fighting, shouldn't we pick someplace away from the Tazaft? They might be less jumpy then." Rainbow nodded. "Good point. So what do you guys think, here maybe?" She highlighted a system on a Council patrol route far away from the Tazaft border. "I mean, this place is marked as having life, so even if we don't run into any Council ships it might still give us someone to talk to." "That sounds good to me," Fluttershy remarked. The other three nodded. "So you're all in agreement, then?" Twilight asked. "I think so, darling," Rarity said thoughtfully. "It sounds like a good plan." Twilight smiled. "Right. Then let's get to it!" The unicorn kept to herself how delighted she was that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were working together. They weren't completely out of feud-mode yet, but they were heading that direction. It made her happy. They sent the information about where they planned to go to Eklsee before the Tazaft fleet began accelerating, and received an acknowledgement in response. The aliens still didn't think it was a terribly good idea, especially since their destination was several jumps from the nearest Tazaft base and would thus be out of range for quick reinforcement. The aliens asked them to check in with one of their outposts in a few days, just to be sure their new allies were still alive. Twilight agreed, thanking the alien leader for her thoughtfulness. The run outsystem didn't take long; the star was small, and its interference radius correspondingly reduced. They reached the edge of the sphere without further incident, powered up the Gate drive and disconnected everypony from the link, and jumped out. The system they found themselves in looked quite a bit like home. The star sitting in the center was a yellow dwarf just like Celestia's sun, though a tiny bit larger and brighter. There were gas giants on the outer edge of the system, and a survey found several rocky worlds closer to the star. One of them had the spectrographic indicators for liquid water and atmospheric oxygen, and was almost certainly the life-bearing world the Tazaft charts had indicated resided here. Dauntless made a careful circuit of the system, taking more than a day cruising slowly around the perimeter and keeping her acceleration and velocity relatively low, searching for any signs of a Council patrol they could contact. There was no sign of any such activity, however, the system proving completely devoid of radio activity apart from that generated by natural processes, and the few thermal traces they found proving only to be slightly warmer-than-normal asteroids that had passed close to the star and hadn't yet shed the heat they'd accumulated to the void. After long consideration and consultation with Captain Silver Stars, Twilight Sparkle decided to move into the system to investigate the life-bearing world. They proceeded carefully and slowly, their sensors sweeping the system as they moved further inward, but still they saw no sign of other ships. That wasn't terribly surprising; from what the Tazaft dossier had reported, Council ships swept through on patrol on about a weekly basis. The Tazaft scouts had seen a patrol here when they'd surveyed the system, but that was by no means a guarantee that they were here constantly. Still, it was a chance to investigate. Though there was no signal traffic, there was still a chance that there was something on the world ahead. Twilight privately hoped for some kind of civilian outpost: a mine, a research station, something along those lines that would give them a chance to speak to Council noncombatants. Even something like an automated refueling depot, storage center, or agricultural station would tell them something about the society they found themselves at odds with, though Twilight rather suspected that any such installations would be constructed up in space rather than on a planetary surface. Nothing showed itself during their careful approach, and they found no traces of the Council on the world once they reached it. "No traces of the Council," though, did not mean "nothing at all." "This is fascinating." Twilight magnified the projection over the meeting table, examining the small, neat village. "Not to mention unexpected!" "And pointless!" Rainbow exclaimed in exasperation. "Look, the guys we're looking for have spaceships and FTL. These guys live in freaking huts with grass roofs. They aren't going to know anything, and trying to figure out how to talk to them is a total waste of time! We should head out, check the next-best location." "We don't know that they know nothing, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy retorted. "If they live on a world whose system the Council patrols, they may have been contacted. We can't be sure until we try talking to them." "If these Council guys had talked to them, wouldn't they have better stuff than stone tools? I mean, there's not even any metal down there, is there?" "No refined metal," Twilight corrected, and Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Right, 'cause iron ore is so useful when you're chipping freaking flint. Fine, no actual metal that anyone could use for anything, just red rocks that have metal in them. Seriously, they're not going to know anything, we should head out." "We don't know that for sure," Fluttershy said again. "Even if they don't, though, it could be good practice. Talking to people like this, who don't have any kind of technology that could help to communicate, would be the most difficult thing we could do." The yellow mare smiled gently. "Besides, I'd like the chance to meet new people. I'll take a small team down; most of my ponies are busy looking over the information we got from Eklsee." Fluttershy did a surprisingly good job of pronouncing the Tazaft fleet leader's name, something that Twilight just absolutely could not manage. "Studying that could give us a better chance at talking to them once we meet them, and we might as well just orbit here for a few days while they do it." Rainbow looked at Twilight, and the unicorn shrugged. "She's got a point. We may have gone ahead a little faster than we should have, and it shouldn't hurt us to take a few days to study the information we have. She might as well try contacting the creatures who live down there, on the off-chance they might know something." Rainbow sighed, resignedly. "Yes, Commander. I'll put a team together." "No." Fluttershy interjected flatly. "We won't be taking any of your ponies along." The other pegasus frowned. "Fluttershy, I get that you don't like my crew, but we're here to keep you and your ponies safe. Look, I understand that you might be worried about me being there. If you don't want me there, I'll stay up here," Rainbow was clearly not happy at the prospect, but she swallowed it and kept going, "but you should have at least some guards." "No," Fluttershy said again. "I don't want any Wardens along this time. These aren't dangerous aliens; they're simple creatures, they won't be dangerous. If things go badly, we can just run for the shuttle and lift off." Applejack shook her head. "Darlin', I'd think twice about that plan if I was you. Those folks got spears, at least; they ain't harmless, and if they decide to take offense to something you say I don't know for sure you could get away." Fluttershy pointed to one of the aliens in the village. The creatures were vaguely reptilian, with brilliant, colorful scales and patchy clothing that was dyed in similar brilliant colors. "We've watched them from up here, Applejack. We know how fast they can run, and we can run faster. We also know that they don't have anything like a bow; once we get out of reach, we're safe. Honestly, we'll be fine." Twilight rubbed her eyes. Fluttershy had a point; they'd clocked the aliens' running speed, and it was significantly slower than the average pony, and they hadn't seen any missile weapons. "Fluttershy has a point, girls. If her ponies run, there's a good chance that those creatures won't catch them, and she is generally good at not making strangers mad." Rainbow Dash and Applejack leveled frowns at Twilight so identical that she had to stifle a snicker. "Sugarcube, the chance may be low... but it could be nothin' with an armored Warden or two along for the ride." Fluttershy shook her head adamantly. "No. We saw before that a Warden can potentially hamper my work, and I don't want them there." "That was me, Fluttershy, not the other Wardens," Rainbow said quietly. "If I hadn't been there, there wouldn't have been a problem. I admit it, I screwed up. Please don't let that make you do something dumb." Fluttershy's eyes flashed. "I am not doing anything dumb. I am making a considered, reasoned decision. Just because it doesn't agree with yours doesn't make it dumb." "That's not what I..." Rainbow started, but Twilight cut her off. "Rainbow, Fluttershy's presented her reasoning, and it seems sound to me. I'm going to authorize it." She looked at Fluttershy. "As long as you make sure that your entire team can keep up if you have to run, and you leave any heavy equipment on the shuttle where it won't slow you down." Fluttershy nodded. The cyan pegasus stared at her blankly, then sagged in defeat. "I... yes, Commander. I won't send any Wardens along." Applejack looked troubled, but she nodded with a sigh. The two Wardens shared a glance that Twilight couldn't interpret. "Oo, can I go along?" Pinkie Pie bounced up from her seat. "I already got to record one bunch of aliens, and now I could record another! Oh, this is gonna be so much fun!" Twilight raised an eyebrow. "You're sure you can keep up, Pinkie?" "Abso-super-duper-lutely! I can run zoomy-fast when I need to, don't you worry your purple mane about it!" The unicorn nodded. "Okay, you can go along. But I want both of you to be careful." Fluttershy nodded. "We'll be careful, Twilight, don't worry. I've even been able to go into griffon settlements without making them angry; I'll be able to handle this." "All right. I'm going to go back to studying the Tazaft data, but I'll be on the bridge when you land." The group broke up, heading in their various directions, though Rainbow pulled Rarity aside for a moment to talk to her. The pegasus looked troubled, as did Applejack, but Twilight was confident she'd made the right call. Twilight decided to do her work on the bridge, since she doubted it would take Fluttershy long to load her lander. Sure enough, she was in the middle of reviewing Tazaft projections on Council capabilities and FTL speed not quite an hour later when Fluttershy pinged the bridge with a request to launch. Rainbow trotted in moments later, along with Rarity, who was looking a little tense. Twilight brought up a feed from the shuttle's pilot on the bridge's projectors, giving them a nice big view of what was going on. The shuttle eased down to low speed in the lower atmosphere, gradually moving up on the village they'd chosen to contact, taking its time so as not to scare the aliens. The natives spotted the shuttle as it came in, just as Fluttershy had intended. The entire village abandoned their tasks, leaving pottery half-made, food half-cooked, cloth half-woven as they gathered at the edge of their settlement to stare in awe at the shuttle easing down before them. The pilot set the vehicle down gently at the edge of the large clearing that surrounded the alien town. She'd carefully avoided anything that looked like it could be cultivated, taken care to avoid damaging anything that could potentially be someone's property, and made sure to give the contact team room to open a lead if they had to run. The ramp eased down, and Fluttershy and her small party walked out, approaching the clustered aliens slowly and carefully. The aliens' reaction wasn't hostile in the slightest. One of them, the tallest and least brightly colored, let out a loud whoop, and the creatures lifted long arms to the sky, beginning a song that was beautiful to hear. They chanted and danced in place as Fluttershy stepped out in front of her ponies. "See, Rainbow?" Twilight said gently, "Fluttershy has it under control." "Hmph." Was the pegasus's only reply. She was quiet while they watched the creature who had set off the singing and dancing approach the ponies with an air of reverence. The reptilian spoke in quiet, gentle tones that Fluttershy replied to in kind, though neither understood the other. Fluttershy's translation systems went to work on the alien's speech, but they would need a much bigger sample before they gave any kind of results. "I don't like this," Rainbow said suddenly. Twilight frowned. "Don't like what?" "That." Rainbow brought up a pointer on the screen, indicating where the aliens, still engaged in their oddly hypnotic dance, had started to move closer to the ponies onplanet, spreading out to look at them from all sides. "It's all right, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said, trying to reassure her friend. "Look, they're peaceful. Fluttershy knows what she's doing. Just relax." "I still think we shoulda had Wardens along," Rainbow grumbled. On the main screen, the feed from the landing party zoomed in a bit to show the details of the brightly colored, scaled aliens singing joyfully, stretching their arms to the sky as they danced. Fluttershy and her aide were still trading soft words with what now appeared to be the tribal leader, giving their translator systems as big a sample as possible. "You know why Fluttershy refused that, Rainbow." Twilight chided. "Yeah. I know, I was outta line, but it's still stupid to have no guards at all." Rainbow glanced at the screen again. "And something about this is giving me the creeps. I don't like how they're moving around Fluttershy's group." "I can't imagine why that would bother you, darling, they seem like lovely people." Rarity spoke up, shooting a sidelong look at the pegasus. "Though I do have to thank you for actually following orders this time." Rainbow hung her head again. "I get it, Rarity. I'm not used to not being the one in charge, so I over..." On the screen, one of the reptilian aliens leaned down to embrace one of the first contact team. Rainbow's eyes widened. "That's not good. That's not good! Get 'em out of there, Twilight!" "What? Why?" Twilight looked at the screen in puzzlement, just in time to see the alien draw a long claw across the throat of the unicorn mare it embraced. Blood fountained from her neck as she stumbled to her knees, and the song of the rest of the tribe reached a new crescendo. There was stunned, unbelieving silence on the bridge and among the rest of the diplomatic team. Rainbow barely even paused. She whirled on Twilight. "Twi, can we teleport down?" Twilight blinked, as a chorus of screams erupted among the diplomats and the bridge crew looked at each other, wondering what in the world to do. "Uh... no, I don't have the range..." Rainbow snarled a curse and whirled toward the exit. "Rarity, I'm going, don't try to stop me!" Without another word, the pegasus galloped out into the corridor. Rarity finally managed to make her voice work, and croaked out, "The Wardens have full clearance." A nearby communications officer nodded, turning to speak quietly to her console. Twilight rushed to follow Rainbow, but the Warden Commander was unbelievably quick. By the time the unicorn made it out into the corridor, she saw the lift doors closing. Rainbow had been fast in her youth, but with her cybernetic enhancements she bordered on the supernatural. Twilight made a snap decision, and with a quick focusing of her thoughts teleported into the lift next to Rainbow, who barely batted an eye at the lavender unicorn's appearance. "Hey, Twi, if we can't teleport down, can you teleport me to the shuttle bay?" Twilight blinked in surprise. "Well, yes, I think I could..." "Do it. Seconds count." Twilight was taken aback by the curt tone of the order, especially since she was the one who was supposed to be giving the orders on this mission. Still, speed mattered. She focused again, drawing on her knowledge of the Dauntless's internal layout, and in another flash of power transported the two of them to the main shuttle bay. Several Wardens staggered in, carrying their equipment, not having had the time to put it on yet. "Wintergreen," Rainbow snapped, "Which shuttle?" "That one Comman- Lieutenant," the enormous, pale green earth pony mare leading the group responded, pointing to one of the shuttles. Twilight recognized the name and voice of the mare who'd been leading the escort squad on the last world they'd landed on. Looking at her now, it was clear that the armor wasn't the only thing that had been making her look that big. "Right. Everyone onboard, now." Rainbow paused, and Twilight felt the ghostly sensation of arcane communications as the multicolored mare interfaced with the data net. "We're ready for launch, let's go people!" "But what about the rest..." one of the unicorn Wardens started to say, but she was interrupted by the shuttle bay's speakers activating. "They've just killed another, Rainbow," Rarity's strained voice said, "please, please hurry." "Dammit. We wait for the rest of the squad, and ponies die." Rainbow said, grimly. "Move it!" The Wardens hustled into the shuttle, lugging their equipment. Rainbow turned to Twilight. "Are you coming along? It might be a bad idea..." Twilight shook her head. "No, I'm coming." "Fine. No time to argue, come on." Rainbow hurried up the ramp, Twilight close behind. The pegasus banged on the door to the pilot compartment. "Everypony's aboard. Go!" She then hustled over to help her troopers don their gear as the boarding ramp hissed closed and the shuttle started to move. None of them had their powered armor; the heavy battle suits took time to power up and don, and evidently none of them wanted to take that extra time. Instead, they had weapon harnesses, many of which needed to be straightened out before being put on. "Dammit," Rainbow muttered again, making Twilight wish once more that she hadn't picked up that particular habit from Duran. "Why didn't I have a squad standing by in armor for a combat drop? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should've been ready." "It isn't your fault, Rainbow, you couldn't have predicted..." Twilight said soothingly, but the cyberpegasus cut her off. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is. I dropped the ball, now there's dead ponies and there might be more because I wasn't ready." Rainbow tightened the strap on Wintergreen's weapon harness. "You good, Wintergreen?" "Sure am, boss." The mare took the grip of her weapon in her teeth, moving it carefully to test its fit. "Good to go." Twilight had brought up a feed from the ground team, and closed her eyes in agony. Another pony had just been murdered. The locals were surrounding them now, preventing them from escaping. Fluttershy and Velvet Glove were desperately trying to talk to the aliens, trying to find out why they were doing what they were doing, but there were only four ponies left alive and they weren't making any progress. "Dammit!" Rainbow swore again. "We're not gonna get there in time! Desperate measures time." She pulled open a wall locker, retrieving a breathing mask that fit over the head and ears, attached to a small air tank. Quickly, the Warden Commander slipped the mask onto her head. Wintergreen moved up to block Rainbow's path. "Boss. You're not thinking of doing what I'm thinking you're thinking, are you?" Rainbow glared at the big earth pony mare, her wings flaring aggressively. "Get outta my way, Wintergreen. Right now." "What are you doing, Rainbow?" Twilight asked. The shuttle was clear of the Dauntless, and starting its descent, but nowhere near landing. "She's gonna do a free drop." Wintergreen explained, not looking away from Rainbow's eyes. "Which is stupid for a bunch of reasons, including the one that she's unarmed." Rainbow's eyes narrowed behind the clear visor, and she raised a forehoof, wicked metal talon-blades sliding free of the cybernetic limb. "I am never unarmed, sergeant. Now move, or I will move you. My friends need me." "A free drop? Without armor?" Twilight gasped. "But that's..." "It's borderline suicidal." Wintergreen interrupted. "Commander Dash is the only one who's ever even tried it..." Rainbow interrupted. "I've done it. Twice. I can do reentry faster than the shuttle can." "Can you do it and be in any shape to help at the end of it?" Wintergreen didn't back down. Instead, she pressed forward, glaring into Rainbow's eyes and ignoring the savage glint in the pegasus's rosy irises. Twilight considered it one of the most courageous things she'd ever seen; Rainbow was in a killing mood, and Twilight didn't think she'd have had the courage to stand in the pegasus's way right now, friend or not, let alone try to stare her down. "I've been there both times you've tried this, boss. You got messed up bad. Both times." Rainbow ground her teeth. "I'll either be in shape to help, or when I hit I'll distract 'em for a few seconds so you can fly in to the rescue. Now get. Out. Of. My. Way. You've got five seconds." The rainbow-haired mare's voice was so flat and cold it gave Twilight chills. Wintergreen glared for another frozen moment before finally stepping aside, shaking her head. "Your funeral, boss. Hope this thing has a broom onboard so I can sweep up the bits." Rainbow flashed a savage grin. "Maybe one of the maintenance bots has a wet-vac. You and the team be ready to go in hard, just in case I go in a little too hard." The earth pony nodded soberly. "Good luck, boss." Rainbow hit the airlock control, and was in and gone before Twilight could formulate a protest of her own. The lavender unicorn turned to Wintergreen in horror, as the Kestrel started to shudder in the first wisps of the upper atmosphere. "T-tell me she didn't just do that. Tell me one of my best friends didn't just jump out of a shuttle. Outside the atmosphere." The Warden shook her head. "'Fraid I can't tell you that, ma'am. Commander. Since that's what she did." She looked morose. "Celestia, I hope she does better this time." "What happened the other times?!" Twilight asked incredulously. "When were the other times? I never got a report on this!" "It's 'cause the Commanders decided it was a really bad idea." Wintergreen observed, glaring at the orange-coated pegasus Warden that was staring at the closed door, the only pegasus in the squad who had made it to the shuttle in time. "Which means you're not following her, Blaze." The other Warden glanced at the big mare guiltily, then went back to securing her weapon. Wintergreen turned back to Twilight. "She crashed both times. Hard. Couldn't slow down fast enough." She heaved a sigh. "Broke all six limbs and all of her ribs the first time. And yeah, that includes the metal ones and the bone reinforcements since she already had 'em by then. Plus skull fractures and a bunch of other stuff. Miracle she didn't die. She would have if we hadn't had a med team right there, 'cause I was sure something was gonna go wrong. Took her almost six months to recover; there was organ damage, and her muscles were just shredded on top of the broken stuff." Twilight gasped in horror, and Wintergreen smiled thinly. "And then she goes and does it again two freaking months after she gets out of the hospital. Second time was almost as bad; all four legs, one wing, and only half her ribs, plus more skull fractures, like those matter to Commander Dash." The green mare shook her head again. "She swears she figured it out, but Applejack stopped the tests after the second time, told Dash never to do it again, and told me to just pick her up and slam her against the wall until the wall broke if she tried since that'd probably hurt her less." The green mare paused. "Aw, dang, Gramma's gonna be mad at me. There's not even a dent in the wall." The last bit, said with gloomy certainty, made Twilight blink, even in context with the other shocks Wintergreen had just piled on her. It took the unicorn a moment to realize that this was probably another of Applejack's descendants; she'd been the only one of the Bearers to have foals, and she had dozens and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren by now. Probably great-great grandchildren, too, Twilight hadn't been to her family gatherings in a while. "So, you're..." Twilight tried to think of a way to put it delicately, trying to distract herself from the fact that they might land to find Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie dead and Rainbow Dash nothing but a red crater. Wintergreen interrupted her. "Commander Applejack's my grandam, if that's what you're trying not to ask. And yeah, I know I don't look much like her or grandad," Applejack's stallion, an earth pony named Ivory, had been rather small and slender for a stallion even in his youth, and Applejack, though solidly built, wasn't terribly large either. Wintergreen, by contrast, was huge for a mare. She'd be big for a stallion. "I kinda take after great-uncle Mac, or so I've heard." She did, at that. Unless Twilight's memory was slipping (it wasn't, she'd tested that) Wintergreen was actually bigger than Applejack's brother had been. She had a trace of the Apple clan's distinctive accent, too, just barely enough to notice when one knew to look for it. Twilight shook her head, focusing back on the situation. Her horn glowed as she connected to the shuttle's communications system, bringing up an illusory screen with the feed from the landing party. Wintergreen sidled up to look over her shoulder. (Actually over her head) Twilight spared a glance for the huge mare. "You... may not want to watch this." Wintergreen snorted quietly. "Commander, I may be a sergeant on this run, but back home I'm a major with twenty years in the Wardens. I've seen ponies die before." She sighed. "We try our best to make sure it doesn't happen, but we don't always succeed." Twilight started to respond, but she was interrupted by a babble of voices coming from the screen as the audio feed connected. Fluttershy and her assistant were still trying desperately to communicate with the aliens but were clearly getting nowhere, Pinkie was looking around desperately, shaking, and the other member of the team that still survived was crying, huddling behind the yellow pegasus. Fluttershy had one of the aliens pinned in her deadly glare, but she could only look one direction at a time. Other aliens were closing from the sides, still singing and dancing almost ecstatically. Three ponies lay dead, two with their throats neatly slit, the third sporting wounds on her face and shoulders as well. She'd tried to fight, but had been overwhelmed. "How long will it take Rainbow to get there?" Twilight asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer. "Anywhere from about thirty seconds from now onward." Wintergreen replied, levelly. "The longer it takes her, the better the chances she won't just splat." Twilight's heart stuttered in her chest at the thought. She brought up the shuttle's ETA on the screen: four and a half minutes. Twilight and Wintergreen watched the screen grimly as the Kestrel bucked and shuddered, smashing its way through the atmosphere. Thirty seconds passed. No sign of Rainbow. Thirty-five. Next to Twilight, Wintergreen relaxed almost imperceptibly. Four seconds after that, a line of rainbow-colored light streaked down out of the sky and smashed into the ground, and a massive dust cloud blotted out the view for a moment. The alien song stopped abruptly. Wintergreen tensed again. "Auntie, oh Celestia, no..." she whispered to herself, her voice agonized. The dust cloud settled, revealing Rainbow standing crouched between the first contact team and the bulk of the alien tribe. She was breathing hard, but didn't appear to be injured. The knot in Twilight's stomach relaxed, and Wintergreen let out the breath she'd been holding. "Oh, thank heavens..." Rainbow angled her head to speak over her shoulder without taking her gaze from the aliens. "Stay close to me," she instructed in an undertone, before turning back to face the aliens squarely, and growled, "Mine!" The aliens erupted in a chorus of ululations, stamping their feet. Fluttershy stepped close to Rainbow, and Twilight could barely hear her voice over the feed from the lenseye. "Rainbow, where did you come from? I thought you were still on the Dauntless! Are you hurt? That landing was hard..." "I'll be fine," Rainbow replied. "I flew out of the shuttle on the way down. They'll be here in a minute, just stay close until they land." One of the aliens stomped forward, and Rainbow stamped a forehoof, glaring at him. "Mine!" She growled again, loudly. "They can't understand you, Rainbow Dash..." Fluttershy said, quietly. "They'll learn." The cyan pegasus snarled. The alien gesticulated wildly, howling something, but Rainbow held her ground, staring the creature straight in the eyes. The alien let out a screech and rushed her, but Rainbow was ready. She reared up and hopped to the side in an oddly unsteady motion. One cybernetic forelimb batted the alien's arm aside, its extended claws swiping harmlessly at the air and twisting the alien to one side, and Rainbow turned the motion into a grapple, seizing the creature around the neck from the side as it stumbled off balance. Her other forelimb extended out to the side, the long talons sliding free and crackling with discharge as the disruption field generators activated. Rainbow slammed her talons home in the alien's chest, the impact of the strike crushing the creature's ribcage and driving her talons deep into its body, and gave a quick twist of her forehoof to dig the wound wider. A crisp twist of her shoulders threw the now-lifeless body back at the line of aliens. It rolled limply as it hit the ground. Rainbow's talons snapped back into their housing, and she dropped back to all fours. "Mine!" she growled again. The entire fight had taken maybe a second and a half. Beside Twilight, Wintergreen drew a sudden breath. "She's hurt." The big mare turned to the orange-coated pegasus she'd rebuked before. "Blaze, we're low enough. Go. Now." Her voice was strained. The other Warden gave a curt nod, ducking out the airlock quick as a blink, as though unencumbered by the bulk of the weapon she carried. "She's hurt?" Twilight asked, "I didn't see that thing even touch her! Are you sure?" "I'm sure," Wintergreen replied with certainty. "Not the fight, the landing. Her leg's hurt; right hindleg, looks like, maybe both hindlegs. She probably took the impact with her back legs so she'd have the front ones free to fight." The earth pony shook her head. "She's trying to hide it, but it's there if you know what to look for. Her left wing isn't moving right, either." Twilight chewed her lip. She could see that the aliens were getting ready for another rush, and if more of them attacked, then Rainbow might not be able to hold all of them off if she was already injured. The creatures made a fake-rush, either nerving themselves up or trying to draw Rainbow out of position, but she didn't fall for it. They fell back, and then two of them charged. Rainbow set herself, getting ready to receive the attack, but she didn't have to. A brilliant bolt of arcane power streaked out of the sky, striking one of the aliens squarely in the torso and literally blowing its body apart in an explosion of singed blood and tissue, and the second screeched in dismay and fell back. Rainbow glanced up, and the lenseye (Pinkie's lenseye, as she suddenly realized) that Twilight was looking through had just enough field of view to pick up the orange pegasus Warden hovering over the group of ponies, weapon stock gripped in her teeth, watching the aliens closely. Rainbow nodded calmly in greeting. "Nice timing, trooper." "Thanks, Com- Lieutenant." The flying pegasus didn't relax, and the aliens fell back, clearly cowed by the bolt that had obliterated the attacking creature. "Okay, troops," Wintergreen said to the rest of the Wardens in the shuttle, "We're landing in twenty, but it looks like hostilities are abated. Be ready, but we don't need to go in shooting." The shuttle shivered as it transitioned from level to vertical flight, and the Wardens nodded. Wintergreen turned to Twilight. "Probably be best if you stayed behind us, Commander." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "It's not like I'm helpless, you know. My friends and I have been dealing with monsters and such since long before you were born, sergeant. I can handle myself." Wintergreen nodded. "Yes, ma'am, I understand that. But we're less important, and you haven't worked with the Wardens in quite a while, so I'd just rather we did the fighting so we don't trip over each other. And with us in front, if anything does go wrong, we can take the brunt." "A fair point." She hadn't worked with the Wardens in a long time. Almost forty years now, actually, they had plenty of mages of their own nowadays and didn't need to borrow her expertise. "All right, sergeant, I'll stay out of the way. But I'm not staying behind in the shuttle." Wintergreen saluted. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." The Kestrel settled to the ground, and the ramp hissed down. The Warden squad galloped out, surrounding the terrified contact team, leaving one unicorn to guard the ramp. Under the Warden ponies' watchful eyes, the remaining diplomats hustled to the ramp and up onto the shuttle, Fluttershy sparing a look at Rainbow Dash, who hadn't moved from where she'd landed. Twilight stopped to speak to the pink-haired pegasus and the earth pony who was sticking near her. "Pinkie, Fluttershy, you okay?" Pinkie was silent, wide-eyed, and Fluttershy nodded. "I'm not hurt. As to whether I'm okay..." she shook her head. "I'm... I have no idea why this happened. I thought it was going to be peaceful. I thought..." Fluttershy's aide, Velvet Glove, stepped up next to her. "I don't think any of us expected that, miss." The pegasus stallion's voice was low, pained. "That came out of nowhere. They were happy and peaceful, and then..." He trailed off. Fluttershy nodded wordlessly, and she and Pinkie followed him and the other survivor up the ramp. That had been a very close thing. Twilight followed Wintergreen over to where Rainbow stood, still glaring at the aliens, who hadn't retreated far. Struck by a thought, Twilight glanced under the Kestrel, but didn't see any bodies. That was something, at least; with the hurry the Wardens had been in, she doubted the shuttle pilot would have cared a bit if she'd had to land on one or more of the aliens. "How bad you hurt, boss?" Wintergreen was asking, barely loud enough to be heard. "Bad." Rainbow replied shortly. "Not as bad as I'd expected, but you're gonna have to carry my butt outta here, and from the way they're acting I think they'll attack when you do." "What's wrong, Rainbow Dash? Can I help?" Twilight asked. Rainbow glanced over her shoulder, meeting Twilight's eyes. She could see the pain that the pegasus was trying to bury. "Not unless you've got a cybertech kit with you." Rainbow replied. "Got a torn tendon in my left wing, and my left hindleg's jacked up. That's not so bad, but my right hindleg feels like it's half-separated. I can feel blood in the joint, and it hurts pretty bad." She bit her lip and shot a look at Wintergreen. "I'm half-afraid it'll fall off when you pick me up." "Oh, Celestia, Rainbow." Twilight exclaimed. She looked closely at the artificial limb, and this close she could see the damage. Parts of the limb had twisted and bent with the force of the cyan pegasus's landing, and several of the artificial muscle attachments had torn free entirely. There was a noticeable gap in the components around Rainbow's hip, and a looseness in the joint that was seriously frightening. Twilight could indeed see blood welling in the gap, suggesting that the interface between the mechanical limb and Rainbow's body had been badly, badly damaged. Rainbow ignored the outburst. She glanced over her shoulder. "Okay, troops, I think they're gonna rush us when Big Green here picks me up. Be ready." There was a chuckle from the Wardens. "Aw, c'mon, boss, just have the Major carry the shuttle over here!" One called. "That's enough, trooper." Wintergreen said calmly. "And I'm a sergeant on this run, just like you're not." There was a general, cheerful grumble that surprised Twilight, considering the bodies that lay around them. "Let me know when you're ready, boss." "No." Twilight interjected, drawing a surprised look from the huge green mare. "I'll carry you, Rainbow. I can lift you without putting stress on your leg. What's more, if those creatures charge us, let me handle it." Rainbow sagged slightly. "Thanks, Twilight. I was... a little worried about having Wintergreen lift me." A tiny bit of relief tinged her voice, telling Twilight how frightened she must have been, and for good reason. If the cybernetic leg did fall off, the subsequent blood loss could prove fatal in very short order. Twilight nodded. "Whenever you're ready, Rainbow Dash." "No reason to wait." Rainbow glared at the aliens again. "Okay, troopers, only fire if the enemy gets close. Let Twilight handle it otherwise. Fire Blaze, you keep watch until we're aloft, then rejoin." A murmured chorus of assent ensued, and Twilight focused her energy. A soft violet glow engulfed Rainbow Dash, and the unicorn carefully, gently lifted her friend off the ground, starting to move her slowly to the shuttle. The aliens pointed at Rainbow's levitating form hanging limply in the air, talking angrily among themselves. With a sudden howl, the aliens charged en masse. Twilight felt a rush of rage that she hadn't felt in decades, knowing that these creatures wanted to hurt her friends, to take advantage of Rainbow's injury, evidently thinking that with the pegasus out of the way there was nothing to stop them. They were wrong. A rush of power filled the unicorn. Her horn glowed white as she fed magic into it. A shockwave blasted outward, flowing smoothly around the Wardens, not even ruffling the ponies' manes with its passage. The violet light slammed into the charging aliens with the force of an onrushing train, hurling them off of their feet and flinging them backward through the air, slamming them into the row of huts behind them hard enough to crack the wooden walls. Twilight wasn't done. She tweaked the energy subtly. As it contacted the huts, it adhered, molding itself against the wood. Before the creatures could fall from where they'd smashed into the walls, shoots of green grew from the splintered wood, wrapping themselves tightly around the creatures' limbs. The creatures on the other side of the shuttle, or those who had missed the huts, skidded along the ground until they too found themselves snagged and engulfed by growing plants. Twilight felt a slight flicker of pride. A hundred and thirteen hostile aliens, immobilized simultaneously by a combination of two spells, the second being one spell cast dozens of times in the space of a heartbeat. Practice, after all, made perfect. "Damn, Twi." Rainbow shook her head in awe. "I forget sometimes just how good you are." "Thank you, Rainbow." Twilight responded calmly. "And please don't curse." Rainbow just shook her head again. "Whatever you say, Commander." Rainbow sagged in Twilight's telekinetic grip. "I'm... I'm gonna... pass out now..." The pegasus's eyes rolled back, and she went limp. Twilight was frightened for a moment, but she saw Rainbow's sides still moving as she breathed and sighed in relief. "You two," Wintergreen snapped at the pegasus still hovering over the scene and the earth pony next to her, "watch them and blow them away if they get loose. No screwing around with warning shots. You two," she pointed to the two unicorns, "check the fallen and recover the bodies. Move it!" The two unicorn Wardens darted forward, while Twilight carried Rainbow back to the shuttle and the other armed ponies watched the trapped aliens through narrow, angry eyes. "Alive!" one of the unicorns called, "I've got a live one! All our medics are still aboard ship! Can anypony do a stasis spell?!" Twilight's head whipped around and saw one of the injured ponies moving, though her movements were growing more sluggish. The Warden was standing over the wounded pegasus with a desperate grimace on her face, her horn glowing as she frantically tried to force a healing spell, but her cutie mark was a spear superimposed over an eye and healing was clearly not one of her talents. Twilight focused, closing her eyes and concentrating on not dropping Rainbow Dash as she wove the spell that would freeze time around the wounded pony's body, finally releasing the threads of power to snap shut around the dying diplomat. The Warden's head jerked up and her eyes met Twilight's. "Thanks, Commander." "That spell won't last forever! Everypony on the shuttle, let's go!" Twilight trotted back up to the shuttle, trailed by the unicorn Wardens who passed the wounded pony up first, followed by the dead ones. The Wardens didn't like to leave fallen ponies behind, and in this case Twilight was in complete agreement; she didn't want to leave those poor diplomats on an alien world. Twilight settled Rainbow's unconscious form on the deck, being very careful not to jar her damaged leg. The cyberpegasus lay limp on the floor, her breathing slow and regular, and Twilight bit her lip as she catalogued her friend's injuries. She hadn't gotten a scratch in the fight, but that landing had been another matter. Her left wing wasn't folding properly, indicating that the torn tendon had been attached to the adductor muscles, and her left leg wasn't moving right. Her left hip might be dislocated or cracked, which fit with the damage to her right leg. With that much damage to her hips and hind legs, there was a good chance her lower spine had been damaged as well... it was a miracle that she'd been able to move like she had. Though she'd probably made the damage worse by doing so. She glanced aside at the wounded diplomat, frozen in time with a hideous wound on her neck. The expression of fear and despair on her face made Twilight shudder, and she looked away again as Wintergreen and the other two Wardens on watch backed into the shuttle. "Okay, pilot, go!" The sergeant snapped, keeping her weapon trained out the door. "Commander Dash is hurt, burn atmo back to the ship!" "Confirmed, turnin' and burnin'." The pilot's calm voice came back, the shuttle lifting even as the ramp closed. A short distance away, the other shuttle was doing likewise, lifting off to return to the Dauntless. Twilight sent a dispelling pulse toward the alien village, disrupting the spell that held them, though a spiteful part of her wanted to leave the creatures trapped like that forever. The shuttle streaked back up to the Dauntless at full power, atmospheric friction making its nose and wings glow while Twilight and one of the Wardens held Rainbow Dash still against the deck, trying to keep the Kestrel's vibration from making the damage to her artificial hindleg worse. The hangar deck swarmed with activity when they arrived. Medics flooded into the Kestrel the second the hatch opened, ignoring the heat radiating from the shuttle's nose, taking the wounded diplomat out first to try to save her life before the stasis spell wore off. Others surrounded Rainbow Dash, fitting an oxygen mask to her face and attaching various biomonitors to her body. One of them grimaced, examining the damage to her right hindleg. "Celestia's horn," the unicorn stallion said softly. "This is the worst I've ever seen a cyberlimb damaged that didn't just rip it off." "Is that a danger?" Twilight asked him, with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie hovering anxiously behind her. "It absolutely is." The medic shook his head. "We're going to have to be very careful moving her." He glanced up and watched the others carry the diplomat out. "Cast! Bonesaw! Help me get her out to the carry field, we're going to have to be seriously well-balanced here!" Two other unicorns lowered their heads, and the three of them very gradually lifted the unconscious Warden in their telekinetic grip, shuffling their feet and clearly concentrating hard as they shepherded her out. Twilight followed. Every Warden in the ship was crammed into the hangar. Not just the ground troops with their red rank-bands, but blue-banded engineers, green-banded support personnel, even the gold bands of bridge crew and command-level officers. Pegasi hovered in the air or stood in the high spots, while unicorns and earth ponies crowded the main deck. They had already opened a ruler-straight channel to the exit, allowing the medics to move freely. Their expressions were stricken, mixing worry and fear in equal parts. Many had tears in their eyes, including the grim-faced Wingblade who Twilight could see perched on a nearby shuttle, her gold rank-band making her stand out. The medics placed Rainbow Dash in a carry field generated by a medical drone, hooking the monitoring gear that studded her body to the drone's input systems, and started carefully guiding the machine out. As one, in perfect unison that the Royal Guard would have grudgingly approved, the Wardens filling the hangar slammed to attention, legs straight and heads held high. Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie watched them go. They didn't follow; none of them could help, and they'd only get in the way. Twilight intended to go by the medical bay immediately, though, as soon as the bay cleared. The Wardens were stock-still and utterly silent until the medic team had left the bay. Then they spoke among themselves, voices low and hushed as they filed out, headed back to their stations. Twilight felt someone approaching, and turned to see Applejack, an angry expression in her green eyes. "Applejack," Fluttershy said, "I'm so, so sorry, you were..." The orange-coated mare ignored the pegasus's words, glaring at Twilight. "Maybe next time you'll buckin' listen to us instead a' blowing us off." Applejack's voice was a growl, and Twilight felt a sudden wrenching spike of guilt. Barely a day after she'd made that promise to Rainbow, and she'd done exactly what the pegasus had accused her of, and done it so thoughtlessly that she hadn't even been aware of it. She'd broken her promise, betrayed Rainbow just as the pegasus had betrayed her when the Tazaft had landed. She cringed inwardly, closing her eyes, knowing what a terrible mistake she'd made. Applejack's gaze flicked aside to Wintergreen. "Wintergreen. Good work out there." The huge mare ducked her head. "I didn't do much, gramma. Auntie Dash did all the hard work." She glanced guiltily back to the Kestrel. "The wall isn't even broke. Sorry." Applejack snorted. "Ain't none of us perfect. I'll let you off the hook this time, youngun, but next time there better be a hole in that wall, or I'll tan your hide." She flashed another glare at Twilight and Fluttershy, neither of them able to meet her gaze, and settled on Pinkie, giving her a much gentler look. "You okay, Pinkie Pie?" Pinkie nodded, swallowing hard. "Yeah. I'm not hurt." Her voice was small, quiet. Applejack eyed her. "Not hurt ain't the same as okay, sugarcube. You want to talk, you come find me, hear? Any time, day or night." Pinkie nodded wordlessly, and Applejack turned to leave. "Applejack." At the sound of her name, the earth pony stopped and turned back to Twilight. "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you. I ignored your input, and ponies died because of it." Twilight's mouth twisted. "And right after I promised Rainbow Dash I wouldn't do that." "You were right," Fluttershy added quietly. "You were both right, and I was wrong. I should have had some of your ponies with me." Applejack sighed. "Well, 'tain't nothin' we can do about it now. Y'all just remember goin' forward that sometimes Rainbow and I give good advice. Maybe not all the time, but don't just ignore us." "I won't." Twilight said firmly, echoed by Fluttershy. The unicorn sighed. "Look, I'm going to go down to the medical bay and see how Rainbow Dash and the survivor are doing." Fluttershy said quietly, "Her name's Summer Breeze. I'm going too." "Reckon I'll go along too." Applejack cracked a very small smile. "Can probably teach you two about waitin' around for somepony to get outta surgery." The three turned to leave, but suddenly a intraship comm window popped up in front of Twilight. Chatterbox, the ship's comm officer, looked anxiously out of it. "Commander! Sorry to bother you, I know you're busy, but this could be important!" Twilight cocked her head. "Yes? What is it?" "Well, ma'am, I was running through the information on the Council's encoding schemas, and on an impulse I ran the stuff we got from those stray comm lasers that brushed us after the battle. Most of it was too garbled to make anything out of, but I did get this!" A second window appeared, with a schematic of a solar system in it. "Okay, so they were sending a map to their ships?" "Yes, ma'am! It's got coordinates marked, this is just a tiny part of a large message. We don't have their coordinate system, unfortunately, so we can't read that. But! The star was tagged with its stellar class and luminosity! I had to dig into the message some to find it, but that's one of the few parts that aren't garbled!" "So what are you saying?" Excitement crept into the stallion's tone. "Ma'am... I think this is a rendezvous location, and with the information on the star, I was able to find it! It's one of the ones on the Tazaft charts!" He grinned. "Best of all, it's not a base or depot location! Weren't you trying to find a place where you could encounter a Council fleet?" Well, a fleet that they'd already fought wasn't exactly ideal... but it was an opportunity to see if they could communicate with the new information they'd gotten. "Cross-reference that location with Council speed projections. When will they get there?" There was a pause. "It looks like they got there a few hours ago, ma'am. We might still be able to catch them!" Twilight nodded, and opened up another window to the ship's captain. "Silver Stars, set course for the jump limit. Get the destination coordinates from Chatterbox, but don't jump until I get there. I need to check on Rainbow Dash and Summer Breeze, so it may be a while." The ice-blue unicorn nodded. "Understood, ma'am. Can I make a suggestion, ma'am?" "Go ahead." "This is near the end of the shift. Might I respectfully suggest that we spend off-shift lingering at the system edge, and have the off-shift crew run readiness checks? We could jump at the beginning of the next main shift." Twilight blinked. Oh. Right. Ponies need sleep. "I'm not sure if this is time-critical or not... but it would probably be a better idea to go into it rested. All right, we'll do it your way." "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." Silver Stars disconnected. Well, we have a destination, at least, Twilight mused as she trotted off to the medical bay, Fluttershy and Applejack close at her heels.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Recovery

One of the orderlies, a young earth pony stallion, trotted up to Twilight to give her a report when she arrived in the medical bay. "Summer Breeze was touch-and-go for a few minutes, Commander." He began without preamble. "We think we've got her pulled back from the brink; she lost a lot of blood and she was awfully close when you got her in that stasis spell, but I think she's going to make it. We don't think her brain was deprived of oxygen long enough to cause irreversible damage, but we'll find out once she wakes up. They're doing the repairs to her neck and keeping her brain oxygenated now, should be about another hour before they can be sure she's out of danger. Call it a better than ninety percent chance of survival and full recovery." Twilight nodded. She glanced aside at Fluttershy, who had her head low, her face nearly hidden behind her long pink mane. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and she was trembling. The unicorn looked back to the orderly. "I see. And Rainbow Dash?" "She's in better shape." Applejack blinked. "She is?" The orderly nodded. "Yes. She has a lot of damage, but none of it is to her vital organs or nervous system, and her blood loss is much less severe. It could have been very bad; the biotech interface on her artificial limb was severely damaged and it nearly compromised a major artery, but fortunately you managed to hold the limb together enough that it didn't tear free." The orderly stepped over to a control panel and tapped a few commands, examining a readout that popped up. "Both the interface and the limb itself are going to require major repairs, but it won't need to be replaced. Fortunately, we've got a top-notch cybertech on staff, and he'll have that leg good as new. Her other injuries, while extremely painful, are not life-threatening. She's got torn tendons on one wing and some badly stretched ones on the other, her left femur is cracked in two places, and she has numerous cracks in her pelvis, but none of them developed into full fractures." The stallion shook his head. "With the high-grade bone reinforcement she's got, to have cracks like that she must have hit like a meteor. She's also got some serious tendon and muscle damage in her left hindleg, which fits with the damage to her right. I'm not surprised she passed out; with damage like that, every time she moved it would have generated agonizing pain." "So she's gonna be okay?" Applejack asked, her voice tense. The orderly nodded again. "Yes, she'll be fine." The orange-coated mare let her breath out in a long sigh, sagging with relief. "Thank Celestia. That's durn good to hear." She looked up again. "How long is she gonna be out?" The medical pony shrugged. "We could wake her up now, if we needed to. From what we can tell, she passed out from pain, not any kind of neural trauma, and we can keep that pain under control. Like I said, she doesn't have any injuries to her brain, and her vital organs are all okay. It looks like she managed to absorb the impact with her back legs and hips, which is frankly a minor miracle. She needs to be under while they fix the more serious injuries and start the repairs on her artificial leg, but she should be up and about within the day, though she needs to rest her wings for a week or so. We've already got regenerators hooked to the damaged muscles and tendons, and once that's done we'll go in with osseous fabricators to patch the cracks in her bones. The bone reinforcement is self-repairing, though that will probably take a week or so to completely fix itself. We could probably fix it faster, but we'd need to open her leg up to do it, and the doctors prefer not to do that unless it's unavoidable. The cybertech is estimating a nine or ten hour repair job on her right leg; it's a really high-end prosthesis, but he thinks he can get it back up to full spec that quick. The dangerous part, reattaching the biotechnical interface, should only take an hour or so, though." Twilight nodded, feeling a sense of relief. "How soon can we look in on her?" The orderly glanced over his shoulder. "I'd say about two hours, ma'am, to get the regenerators finished and most of the doctors out of the way. The cybertech will still be working, and we'll have one doctor running the osseous fabricators, but there should be enough room for you to squeeze in then. We can wake her up then if you want, or leave her under until everything's done." Twilight glanced at the other occupied operating room. "And Summer Breeze?" The orderly bit his lip. "Her you'll have to wait longer for. We've got her in a neural regenerator field, and she'll probably be in there for several hours, minimum. It's not safe to go in there without protective gear, so there's no visitors until that gets done." Twilight looked briefly at Fluttershy, who was trembling hard and remaining silent. "All right," she said to the orderly, "Thank you. We'll stay here for the moment, if that's all right." "Of course, Commander." The orderly bowed his head briefly before running off to attend to something. Twilight turned to Fluttershy, not caring that Applejack was there listening. It was time for a serious discussion; no sense putting it off any longer. "You made a serious mistake, Fluttershy." "I know." The pegasus's voice was very quiet. "You were supposed to maintain separation. You were supposed to be ready to run if you had to. You promised me you'd be careful. That's why I was willing to send you down without Warden guards, in spite of Rainbow Dash and Applejack's advice." Twilight worked her jaw angrily. "You didn't do that." "They were so happy," Fluttershy whispered. "I don't understand... there was no sign that they meant us any harm. I've seen creatures that attacked invaders, I was watching for it, but they weren't acting anything like that..." "And so you let yourself get surrounded." Normally, Twilight would feel terrible about pushing her friend this way, but not right now. "You let them cut you off and keep you from running. Because of that, ponies are dead. You nearly died, and so did Pinkie Pie! You'd both be dead now if Rainbow Dash hadn't almost killed herself coming to save you!" "One Warden coulda kept this from happening." Applejack's voice was flat. "Just one. One pony in armor that those things couldn't hurt with a year of tryin' could've rushed 'em and bought you time to get out. You might still've lost the first one, but the others would still be alive, and Rainbow wouldn't be in surgery because she almost ripped herself apart again!" The last four words came out in a shockingly loud shout that made Fluttershy flinch back. "All because you ignored us! Again! You let that stupid fight with Dash make you do something stupid. Just as dumb as what she did! And you," Applejack transferred her emerald glare to Twilight. "You should never've let her do it. You're here to keep the rest of us from doin' something stupid like that. You shoulda sent at least one of us down with her, whether she wanted 'em there or not! Why the heck did we even come if you're gonna buckin' ignore everything we say?" Applejack gritted her teeth, shaking her head. "I'm so mad right now I ain't thinkin' straight. I know I said I was gonna wait with y'all, but I feel a powerful need to be elsewhere right now. I'll be back to check on Dash." The orange mare whirled on her heels and stalked out angrily, horseshoes slamming on the deck. Fluttershy sniffed hard in the silence left in Applejack's wake. "She's right," the pegasus whispered. "This is all my fault. I'm so sorry. Peppermint Drop, Eloquence, Summer Breeze... I've worked with them all for years. I've known Eloquence since she was a foal. Th-they trusted me. And Rainbow Dash..." Twilight sighed. "It's not solely your fault, Fluttershy, it's mine too. You made a serious mistake, but Applejack's right, and I should have caught it. I should have insisted you take at least one guard along." This one was going on the list. It was going on the top of the list. It was the stupidest mistake she'd made in a long time. She should never have let Fluttershy talk her into anything this reckless. They waited in the anteroom to the medical bay, quietly, neither speaking, both tense as the time ticked past. They heard the soft bell that announced shift change, but neither moved. After about an hour and a half, the outer doors whisked open, and Twilight looked up, expecting to see Applejack returning. Instead, there were three figures in the door, all of whom had paused, surprised to see somepony already there. Two of the newcomers were pegasi, both wearing gold rank-bands, and the black coat of Night Breeze provided an almost startling contrast to the light gray of Wingblade's. Bringing up the rear, and looming over both pegasi, was the enormous, light green figure of Wintergreen. Wingblade's eyes locked on Fluttershy and narrowed angrily, her ears turning back just a bit. Night Breeze blinked in surprise, but smiled instead of looking angry. "Sorry, we weren't expecting to find anyone here. Do you mind if we come in?" "I don't think we're welcome here, Night Breeze," Wingblade observed, her voice tight and angry, but controlled. She stepped into the room, still staring straight at Fluttershy. "But I don't think we should let that matter." The pilot frowned at the younger pegasus, her gold eyes worried. "Hey, 'Blade, chill it down a little." "Why?" The gunner neither glanced aside nor blinked. "We're Wardens. It's not like I'm gonna make her hate us more. I'm wondering why she's even here; we all know how she feels about the Commander." Night Breeze frowned more deeply. "One of her ponies is in here too. She's got as much right to be here as we do." Wingblade nodded. "Yeah, that's probably it. I'm not leaving, though. I'm staying right here until I get a chance to see the Commander." "I don't hate you." Fluttershy's voice was soft. "And I don't hate Rainbow Dash, either." The young pegasus's gaze sharpened. "Could've fooled me." "Then you're easily fooled." The yellow pegasus looked up, her soft teal eyes meeting Wingblade's hard gaze. "I disagree with Rainbow, yes. And Applejack pointed out to me that it made me do something very stupid today, but I don't hate her, or you." "Oh, so you just think I'm a rabid killer, then, huh? A sad, dangerous critter." Her words were aggressive, but her tone was utterly level. It was a little unsettling. "Back it down, Wingblade," Wintergreen said, softly. The pegasus's head whipped around to glare at Wintergreen, and her eyes flashed. "Excuse me? I don't think I heard you right, Sergeant. Want to say that again so I can hear you clearly?" There was a snap in the young mare's voice. The muscles in Wintergreen's jaw bunched. "No, ma'am. Ensign." Wingblade nodded curtly, and turned back to Fluttershy. "So, ma'am? Is that it? Am I a rabid beast? Do I slobber over a bowl of bloody bones? I think I saw that picture in a newspage once. One of your interviews was next to it." Her voice had gone straight back to calm. It wasn't uninflected... it sounded even, as though she were having a pleasant discussion on a completely neutral topic. Twilight fidgeted internally, trying to decide whether she should intervene or not. One the one hoof, the young Warden was being awfully confrontational toward one of her closest friends... but on the other, this might be what Fluttershy needed to be able to see past the image of the Wardens she'd built in her head. On the horn, the way the young pegasus was acting was more than a little frightening, with her expression and tone completely divorced from what she had to be feeling. Should Twilight step in to stop this? Would it possibly be damaging to discipline? Or was it worse to let her go on? Oh, she wished she was back in the lab, working with ponies she knew! "'Blade, seriously. We're just here to see the Commander, not start a fight." Night Breeze touched Wingblade's foreleg gently with her hoof, keeping her voice soft. "Let it go." "No, I'll answer her." Fluttershy interjected. She looked the angry pegasus in the eye. "I don't like those cartoons and I never have, but I do think you're wrong. I think you need to stop what you do. It's part of an argument I've had with Rainbow Dash for a very long time now. I don't think you're evil... but I do think I've gone too far with what I've said, and I'm sorry for that. I'll try to change it as soon as I get home." Something flickered in the gray pegasus's hard, dark blue eyes, and her voice when she spoke actually had some heat in it. "Really. You think we're wrong. Well, ma'am, let me ask you this: how many do you think you killed down on that planet today?" Fluttershy blinked hard. "I... maybe, if I had taken some guards, Eloquence and Peppermint might still be alive." Wingblade's gaze didn't flicker. "Yeah, that's the start. Let me tell you something else: there'd probably still be two aliens alive that are dead now, too." She snorted at Fluttershy's blink. "What, you thought we'd've killed them? Wintergreen!" The pegasus looked over her shoulder at the big earth pony. "If you'd been down there as a guard, in armor, what would you have done?" "Not let us get surrounded." The sergeant replied without hesitation. "Mission brief said that there was supposed to be a minimum separation with a guaranteed route of egress, if I remember right. I'd've made sure to hold to that." "And if one slipped by you to cut that one pony's throat?" "Tackled them, ma'am. Kicked them back and drove into the group to keep them occupied with me while the others grabbed the casualty and ran. Spears and claws would never be able to get through power armor, not even at the joints." "Really?" Wingblade glanced aside at Fluttershy to make sure she was listening. "So you wouldn't have opened fire? Why not?" Wintergreen rolled her eyes in irritation. "No, ma'am. There would be no need. There would be no possible way for them to hurt me in my armor, and the rest of the party could outrun them. Of course, I'd recommend not having me there at all; Sergeant Ironsides would be a better choice. She could just shockwave the hostiles much like Commander Sparkle did in order to hold them back without harming them, though she'd have to make sure she was between the team and the aliens." The big mare shot a glare at the gray pegasus. "Now, no offense, ensign, ma'am, but if you feel like engaging in further theatrics, would you mind leaving me out of them? I don't like being used as an anvil for you to hammer against. Ma'am." Wingblade nodded. "Noted." She turned back to Fluttershy. "Ma'am, we're not interested in killing. We don't like it, or at least most of us don't. We will do it if we have to, though, and we do it to keep everypony else safe. I'll thank you to remember that in the future." She stalked past Fluttershy, her hooves not even clicking on the floor, seating herself at the far end of the room and glaring fixedly at the wall. There was anger in the young mare's face, though it swiftly disappeared when the pegasus closed her eyes for a moment, drew a deep breath, and let it out very slowly. Fluttershy blinked hard, and swallowed. Twilight blinked too; she felt a little shell-shocked from just being next to that. Night Breeze cleared her throat softly, catching Fluttershy and Twilight's attention. "Ma'am, 'Blade just gets angry sometimes. Don't take it personally." She bit her lip, looking a little anxious. "All the same, though... you might want to remember that, Wardens or not, we're still ponies, ma'am. Ponies trying to do a job. It's hard enough already on the border, and it makes it harder when we get home and see the newslines calling us monsters and murderers." The yellow pegasus sighed, closing her eyes. "I know. I guess I've just gotten so frustrated with Rainbow Dash that I've been taking it out on all of you, too. I guess I didn't realize how mean I was getting." Her mouth twisted. "I don't like it when I get mean, and I'm sorry." Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut, lowering her head. "I just wish I'd realized it sooner. Th-then today might not have happened." She looked back up. "You're here to see Rainbow Dash?" Night Breeze nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I owe her. Commander Dash pushed me to take the tests to get into the arcane theory courses after I graduated from Warden training." She smiled in memory. "She was a little bit of a jerk about it, but after I started taking the courses and loved them, I was glad she had. I owe her a lot. It's part of why I came back to the Wardens, even after I finished all my degrees, so I'm here to let her know we're all thinking about her." Twilight chuckled, a sound echoed by Wintergreen. The big mare smiled wistfully. "Yeah, that's her. Auntie Dash can be a complete jackass sometimes, but she's been there for me whenever I needed it since I was a filly. Helped me deal with some pretty serious anger problems when I was a kid, too." Twilight blinked in surprise. "Rainbow Dash helped you deal with anger problems?" she asked incredulously. "Yes, ma'am." Wintergreen's smile turned hard for just a second. "Who better to help than somepony who knows?" She sighed. "I tried to help with hers, later, but hers are a lot worse than mine ever were. She won't talk about whatever they come from, and they run deep." They would, Twilight thought sadly, remembering the conversation she'd had with her friend in her quarters. Oh, they would. "What were you angry about?" Fluttershy asked, softly. Twilight looked at her in surprise; it was the first time she was aware of that the yellow mare had asked a question like that of any Warden. Maybe they really had gotten through to her. "What do you think?" The earth pony mare gestured to herself with a forehoof. "Look at me. When I was a filly in school, I was already bigger than any of my teachers. The other kids called me the Green Hulk. I was strong enough to make them regret calling me that, too. More than strong enough." She closed her eyes. "I was teased constantly, and it made me angry, and that made me realize how strong I was compared to the other foals, and even the teachers, and that made me into a bully. A bad one." She smiled sadly. "Auntie Dash saw me beating up some of my cousins at a family gathering and jumped in to help them. I didn't like that, so I tried to fight her and she whupped me pretty good, although she stopped the second I gave up. I hated her for it. I was ashamed about it too, ashamed about getting my butt kicked so easily by a pegasus of all ponies that was smaller than me to boot... and to make it worse, part of me felt like I'd deserved it. For beating up on a bunch of kids that never stood a chance against me. Then, she came by my room that night to apologize for hurting me and to tell me why she did it. I didn't want to listen at first, I tried to shove her out, but she didn't fight and just kept talking. Telling me how she was trying to keep my cousins from getting hurt. Telling me why she did it, 'cause she didn't like doing it. I started talking back after a while, and we talked for hours that night." The big mare looked at the door to the operating theaters. "Made an impression on me." It was odd, Twilight reflected as she listened to Wintergreen speak, that for all her huge size and deep-chested build, the big mare actually had a remarkably beautiful voice. It wasn't particularly deep, but it projected amazingly well and she had a very slight lilt to her speech that sounded almost musical. The unicorn hadn't noticed over the comm system, which tended to flatten voices out, or when she'd spoken on the shuttle with all the background noise, but it really was quite pretty. "Oh." Fluttershy's voice was still soft. "Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that with me." Wintergreen shrugged. "Any time." "I... what about her?" Fluttershy asked, darting a look at where Wingblade sat. Wintergreen shrugged again. "No idea. Breeze? You two are pretty tight, right?" The black-coated pegasus nodded. "We are. We've been best friends ever since we met aboard Lightning. She's never actually said anything, but I know she absolutely idolizes the Commander. She's never said anything about why, either. I think it may have something to do with her past, or something like that." She darted a furtive look at the other pegasus. "Don't ask her about it, though. She doesn't like to talk about her background. Don't ask me why. As far as I know, I'm her best friend, and I don't even know where she was born, or if she has any siblings, or where her parents' herd is, or anything." Twilight raised an eyebrow. That sounded like a story. Then she glanced at the younger pegasus, saw the angry tension of her jaw and body set next to her strangely calm face, and decided not to pursue it. Though she might glance at the records when she got home. There were personnel records here on the ship... but that felt a little too much like snooping. Twilight continued to wait, though Wingblade's presence felt almost uncomfortable; the pegasus mare was clearly angry, and was just as clearly keeping it under tight control, in a manner that was more than a little spooky. Night Breeze sat next to her, occasionally saying something in a quiet voice, though the younger pegasus didn't reply. Applejack returned just a few minutes before the doctors were willing to admit visitors, nodding calmly to both Twilight and Fluttershy, as though her earlier loss of temper had never happened. She nodded to Wintergreen as well, receiving a deep nod of respect in return, and sat down to wait. Finally, the orderly came back in. "You can come in now. Please try not to crowd the doctors." He paused, looking at Twilight. "Do you want me to wake her, ma'am?" "If you can do it without endangering her, yes, please." The orderly nodded crisply and motioned them through the door. Twilight led the way, followed by Applejack and Fluttershy, with the three Wardens in the rear. Night Breeze and Wintergreen didn't make any kind of fuss about it, accepting without resentment, but Wingblade was almost seething at having to follow Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash lay limp on an operating table, sterile fields glowing around her back legs and hips, with transparent readouts and body images floating above her. A mask was fitted over her nose and mouth that fogged slightly with each slow exhalation, and one doctor stood on each side of her. She had been set on her stomach so the doctors could reach both hindlegs, and they were working carefully. One, an earth pony, was directing the output of a bone fabricator with careful motions of her eyes, its brilliant silver beam directed into Rainbow's left thigh. The other, a unicorn, had a waldo set similar to Rarity's except for its miniscule size. It was perched on his nose, the wires that interfaced with it trailing back up to his horn, and the device was projecting magnifying lenses over his eyes to enable him to work more closely on her damaged right leg. Multiple arms flicked in tiny motions on the waldo device, moving components, fusing them together, even building them in place. Twilight had never seen a cybertech at work before, and found the delicate, tiny movements of his tools to be fascinating. Rainbow's eyes opened slowly as Twilight and her friends approached, the orderly clearly adjusting the anesthetic spell from another room. She blinked a few times, still slowly, before her eyes focused and a hint of awareness entered her face, displacing the foggy blankness that clouded her expression. "Huh. Well, here I am again." The pegasus's voice was slightly muffled by the mask over her muzzle. She looked up. "Hey, guys." "Hey, there, Rainbow," Applejack said before anypony else could speak. "Busted yourself up pretty good down there, sugarcube." Her eyes narrowed. "Thought we'd agreed you weren't gonna do that again." "Had to." Rainbow said without moving. "Wasn't anyone else that could've." A hint of a triumphant smile touched her lips. "Besides, I told you I'd figured it out after the last time. No Rainbow pancake today. Totally pulled that landing off." The pegasus's eyes tracked slowly across the group, and she frowned in confusion. "Fluttershy? That you? What're you doing here?" Her voice was slow, puzzled. "Hello, Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy said softly. "I just... I wanted to thank you for what you did." Rainbow fidgeted uncomfortably, but didn't shrug, clearly realizing she shouldn't move her wings. "Eh, don't worry about it. Doing what I do." "Stay still, please," the doctor running the osseous fabricator interjected. An irritated expression flickered over Rainbow's face, but she held still. The other pegasus nodded, ignoring the interruption. "I realize that. Or, at least, now I do. I also..." She drew a deep breath, "I need to apologize to you. I let our argument go to my head, and it affected my judgment. You were right; I should have brought some of your ponies down there with me. I'm sorry." Rainbow sighed. "Yeah, I've let that happen to me once or twice. The whole argument-making-you-dumb thing. It sucks to realize it, I know." She offered a smile. "Friends again? At least, until we fight again?" Fluttershy nodded. "I think I can do that." She smiled gently. "Until we fight again, like you said." The Warden commander laughed. "Yeah, I think I can too. Oh, and hey," her expression turned serious, "it hurts to lose ponies you were responsible for. Listen, if you need somepony to talk to... talk to Applejack. I suck at counseling." They all chuckled a bit at that, though Fluttershy's laugh was strained. "You need to quit hurtin' yourself like this, sugarcube," Applejack's voice was quiet, and pained. "I see you like this too dang often. Sooner or later you're gonna push yourself too far." "Listen to her, Auntie Dash." Wintergreen put in. "That drop was dumb." Rainbow's rose-shaded eyes drifted closed. "You don't get to call me that on duty, Wintergreen." "I'm off-shift right now." "Yeah, I figured. It's still a bad habit to get into with us all cooped up on this ship." Rainbow heaved another sigh. "Listen, guys, I really do appreciate you coming down to see me, but could you get them to put me out again? I freaking hate these bone-beam things. It's like this achy itch inside my leg." "Of course, Rainbow." Twilight said softly, taking charge like a commander ought to. "Before I do, though, I'm sorry, too. I should have listened to you like I promised." She glanced at the two Warden pegasi. "Do either of you want to say anything?" Wingblade shook her head, as did Night Breeze. "We're just here to show moral support, ma'am," the black-coated pegasus said. "You know, to represent the rest of the Wardens who aren't family." By 'family,' the pilot was referring to Wintergreen, Twilight knew. Rainbow Dash had long ago become a sort of unofficial aunt to Applejack's huge brood of descendants, having been more or less adopted as a sister by the orange mare. "All right then. Let's all get out of the doctors' way." The six ponies filed out of the operating theater, and Twilight caught the orderly again. "Excuse me, but can you put her back under? She doesn't like the fabricator beam." The stallion nodded sympathetically. "I can understand that. There's a lot of ponies who don't. I'll set the tranq-spell on low; she should go back under fairly quickly, in her current condition." Applejack shook her head. "You'll need to give her a little more than that. 'Parently, a pony can build up a resistance to tranq spells with enough exposure. She's the only one it's happened to, far as I know, 'cause most ponies over a hundred and ten ain't still out gettin' hurt, on account of mostly bein' dead." The orderly looked shocked, but nodded. "Yes, ma'am, I'll just increase the level until it puts her out. She'll only need to be under for another hour or so while they finish patching her bones; the cyberlimb repair shouldn't be uncomfortable." "Sounds like a plan." Applejack nodded curtly. The small group broke up, headed for the mess halls, the recreation areas, or each pony's quarters. Fluttershy chose instead to wait in the medical bay for a chance to see Summer Breeze, saying that she had a responsibility to her ponies, something that made Wintergreen nod in approval and even Wingblade look slightly less thunderous. Twilight sighed, her mind whirring as she walked to dinner, setting an alarm with her holodaemon as she did so to remind her to come back later to check on the other injured pony. She hoped tomorrow would go better than today had. It could hardly go worse, she reflected somewhat wryly. Twilight was on the bridge, preparing the Dauntless for her next jump, when she was surprised by Rainbow Dash walking casually through the door, showing no signs of the injuries and damage she'd sustained the day before. "What in the world are you doing out of the medical bay, Rainbow Dash?" She asked, aghast. A couple of the bridge crew looked shocked, too, including Wingblade and Oculus. Wingblade, in particular, gave the cyan mare an extremely concerned look before her expression smoothed back out. Rainbow gave a casual shrug, the deliberate nonchalance of the gesture ruined by how carefully she made it, her wings moving much more slowly than they normally would. "They let me out. Said I could walk around all I wanted, but that I shouldn't use my wings much for a week or so." Twilight suspected that the pegasus was presenting a rather loose interpretation of what the doctors had actually told her, but didn't especially want to argue. She also noticed, to her endless annoyance, that the cybertech had evidently neglected to fix the irritating whine that Rainbow's artificial limbs produced. She made a note in her personal file to have a chat with the biotech doctor about unfinished work. "You should be in bed, Rainbow. The kind of tissue repairs they had to do depletes your body's energy reserves." The pegasus grinned. "Really?" she exclaimed sarcastically. "Oh, so that's why I was so freaking hungry when I got out of there. I would never have guessed! I've never been hurt like that before!" She stuck out her tongue at Twilight, which didn't even raise any eyebrows from the bridge crew. Well, they were all Wardens, after all, they probably had dealt with Rainbow in her more cheerful moods before. "Chill, Twilight, I got some food and some sleep already. That cyberguy was really good, and he way overestimated how long it would take for him to finish. Probably because he'd just looked at the leg and hadn't had time to work with it yet; these are built to be easy to repair. He finished in, like, three hours instead of ten, so I've had time to rest." She paused. "I... haven't talked to Fluttershy yet, but I'm gonna. We're not really fighting anymore, or at least I hope we're not, but I think there's some things I need to apologize for. I'm kinda hoping she can do the same thing." "I think... I think that would be a good idea." Twilight couldn't keep the smile off her face. The price had been high, and she wished with all her heart that some of the things that had happened could have been avoided, but at least her friends were talking to one another again. It gave her hope for their mission. If she couldn't even get two of her best friends to talk, she'd never be able to manage it with hostile aliens, but since they had made up, at least a little, maybe they had a chance with the Council, too. "Yeah, me too. So what's up? Where are we off to?" Twilight quickly summarized the information that Chatterbox had decoded, and the plan she'd worked out the day before. When she finished, Rainbow looked troubled. "Uh, not to rain on the parade or anything, but are you, like, completely, one-hundred-percent sure this is a good idea?" "Well, it fits the criteria you set forward for contact, doesn't it?" Twilight wasn't sure she understood Rainbow's grounds for concern. "A Council fleet, at least we hope there's still one there, at a location where there's no bases or population centers we know about." Rainbow blinked. "Well, yeah, but I didn't exactly mean we should go looking for the actual group whose butts we kicked. They're probably still gonna be sore over that, and we killed a lot of their friends, depending on how big the crews of those ships are. I was thinking more a border patrol that might not already hate us." Twilight felt a pang. She'd been so focused on thinking of the Council ships as just ships that it hadn't occurred to her that they'd had crews on board. Crews that had almost certainly died to a mare when their ship was violently destroyed. "You're right, I hadn't thought about that." She sighed. "This could be the best opportunity we've found to try and open up a dialogue, though. We have some information on their languages now; we can try to apologize, or explain what happened, or something." The unicorn shook her head. "Still, we should try our hardest to stay out of weapons range." Rainbow chuckled. "Took the words right outta my mouth, Twi. I'm not gonna say don't do it... but, seriously, be careful. Like, super careful." Twilight nodded. She had no intention of discarding Rainbow's advice again. The cyan pegasus glanced around the bridge again. "So how long before we jump?" "About thirty minutes, ma'am." Silver Stars' response was instant and unthinking. She looked up almost immediately, meeting Twilight's eyes guiltily. "Er. Sorry. I mean, um, we'll be jumping in about thirty minutes, lieutenant, so you'd better clear the bridge." Rainbow flashed a grin. "The Captain's got a point, Commander. I'll get outta your hair. Probably go grab some more food; I am still freaking starving." She gave Twilight a friendly nod, turned and left the bridge... taking that irritating whining of her cyberlimbs with her. It was no surprise that she'd still be hungry; Twilight was honestly surprised that the pegasus was even awake. Tissue regenerators took a brutal toll on the body's reserves, and bone fabricators were worse. Silver Stars approached quietly after Rainbow left. "Sorry about that, Commander," she said, chagrined. "I served under Commander Dash for years, and it's hard to shake that habit and think of her as Lieutenant Dash." "No harm done." Twilight wasn't upset; the Captain had been thoroughly professional and competent during this voyage, and she was more than prepared to excuse a minor slip of the tongue. "Thank you, ma'am." Silver Stars looked a bit relieved. The next few minutes were spent finalizing the jump preparations, entering the coordinates, and making sure the communications and sensor gear was functioning at its absolute peak. Twilight wanted to be able to talk to whoever they might find, and if the comm systems decided to fail, they could potentially be in serious trouble. Everything was functioning smoothly, Dauntless was ready to jump, and Twilight had the sense that the ship was somehow eager to leap into the unknown once again. The drive engaged, Dauntless vanished from the system that held the creatures who had slain two of Twilight's crew, and the ship once more found itself elsewhere.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Enemies

On first examination, the system that was the evident destination of the Council fleet was empty. That came as no great shock; at this distance, ships would be difficult to resolve unless Oculus knew exactly where to look, and radio traffic would be faint and attenuated. On the bright side, Twilight mused, they hadn't managed to impossibly jump into the middle of another pitched battle. Out of sheer curiosity, she'd run the odds on that happening, and it had surprised even her with just how unlikely that had been. Instead of giving up, Twilight ordered Oculus and Chatterbox to make a careful survey of the system, while Dauntless lingered on the system outskirts, recharging the Gate drive and keeping her velocity and emissions low. The thorough search didn't reveal hundreds of Council ships, but it did reveal something better. A pair of radio sources in the inner system... which, upon closer examination, proved to be two ships, considerably larger than the Council warships that they'd seen, orbiting one of the inner planets. The traffic was encrypted, so Chatterbox couldn't decipher it, but it was omnidirectional radio traffic, which almost certainly meant that the two ships weren't expecting hostilities. This was perfect. It was just two ships, not enough to pose a threat to Dauntless by a long shot, sitting in the inner system where there would at least be a chance to try to talk to them, since they couldn't engage their FTL drives that far in. Council FTL, as Twilight had learned, actually had to be engaged farther from the local sun that the Equestrian Gate drive, and it couldn't be close to a big gas giant, either, something the Gate drive didn't care about. One way or another, Twilight would get a chance to speak to those two ships... and if they had to shout at them while the alien vessels were running madly for the system's edge, so much the better. It would be a chance to show that the Dauntless genuinely meant no harm when the cruiser didn't fire. They crept in slowly, still holding both their acceleration and their emissions down. Twilight didn't want to spook the Council ships before they got close enough to talk to them. Oculus watched the rest of the system like a hawk as they cruised inward, keeping a careful eye out for any sign of more Council ships, who might conceivably be doing what Dauntless was doing and holding their emissions down. None appeared. The tension on the bridge was palpable as they approached the planet, coiling around the bridge officers. Twilight spared a brief glance at Peppermint Punch, the unicorn ensign from engineering who had been assigned to finally give Wingblade an assistant gunner. The young unicorn looked like she was handling the stress well, Twilight was pleased to note, calmly cycling through weapons displays and trading terse comments with her superior. The two Council vessels were still lazily circling the little world, chatting to one another on the radio frequencies without a sign of concern. They gave no indication that they'd seen Dauntless creeping up on them, made no alterations to their orbit. Twilight drew a deep breath. She'd already contacted Fluttershy, and the pegasus was waiting tensely to hear the results of the contact attempt. At a range of several light-seconds, they were within the outer edges of missile range, even the shorter range of Council missiles. She'd wanted to be this close so the communications delay would be minimal, but even so she wouldn't have risked it if there had been more ships. She was just about to order Chatterbox to try sending a greeting, when Oculus interrupted her. "Detection!" the tan-coated mare called out, "Multiple contacts! Multiple... Celestia's mane!" The unicorn's voice squeaked at the exclamation. Twilight could understand her shock. The sensor plot showed dozens of Council ships emerging from the planet's shadow at extreme range... and more from behind one of the other planetary bodies they'd passed on the way in. Dauntless should have seen those ships; they must have been deliberately using the planet to conceal themselves. The two larger ships instantly changed course, lumbering away from Dauntless and seeking to hide themselves in the shadow the Council fleet had just emerged from, moving to the side opposite the emerging fleet so as to stay clear of any exchange of fire. The bottom dropped out of Twilight's stomach. They were reading more than two hundred Council warships directly in front of them, and exactly the same number behind, more than twice the number that had withdrawn from the battle with the Tazaft, and more than enough to kill Dauntless. This was a trap. How? How could they have known? Wait... they'd gotten the coordinates from a communication laser. One that had just happened to brush the Dauntless, and which had just happened to have these coordinates in it. I've been such a fool. She'd made so many mistakes on this voyage. So many. Twilight ground her teeth. Buck it, she wasn't going to make another one. They were going to talk to the Council, someone from the Council, whether they wanted to or not. And that meant acquiring a captive audience. Or just a captive. "Take us around the planet opposite the Council fleet," she barked, "keep it between us and them as long as you can... and get me close to those ships that baited us." "Baited us?" Fluttershy's voice came over the comm system, sounding as shocked as Twilight felt. "What do you mean? What did you just detect?" "It was a trap, Fluttershy. There are hundreds of ships here, moving to box us in. I'm going to have to disconnect; there are things I have to do." The unicorn terminated the connection before her friend could reply. "How close, Commander?" Silver Stars, at least, was still calm, or was managing a good approximation. "As close as you can. I also need you to get me a full map of their ship with a focused sensor pulse, as accurate as you can. I don't care if it gives them headaches." Silver Stars blinked in surprise at the request, but nodded and turned to issue the necessary orders. Twilight hadn't ordered full immersion yet, and wouldn't until the missiles started flying. She wanted to give her crew as long as possible before subjecting them to that stress. The unicorn brought up a comm window, paging Rainbow Dash. The pegasus answered immediately, a puzzled look on her face. "Yeah, Twi? What's up? Need me for something?" "I need somepony who can fight in close quarters." As she spoke, the preliminary alarm sounded, alerting the crew of the Dauntless to suit up in expectation of combat. The bridge crew was already yanking suits out of lockers set close to their stations and climbing into them with practiced haste. "It was a trap, but I think we can still get someone to talk to. We'll just have to kidnap them in order to do it." Rainbow's eyebrows shot up. "Kidnap them? Okay, fine, where do you need me?" Twilight's eyes narrowed. "I need someone at the top of their game, lieutenant, not somepony who was nearly crippled yesterday. Contact your best fighter and send her to the bridge." "I may have gotten hurt, but I'm most of the way fixed up, and I'm still better than anypony else in close." Rainbow's voice was flat. "Ask A.J. I'll get in my armor." "There's no time." Twilight opened a second window. "I'm paging Applejack now. If she says something different, you'd better have somepony else in mind." "She won't. I'll get in my suit, then. It'll keep me from flying, anyway, which is probably a good thing right now with my wing half-busted." Rainbow didn't close the window, and Twilight saw her yank an armored suit out of a nearby locker and start climbing into it. Reminded, Twilight opened the locker under her chair and started donning her own suit. Applejack answered while she was halfway through the process. "Twilight? Need me for somethin'?" The orange mare was already wearing her suit, and her green eyes were curious behind her helmet's faceplate. "I need an evaluation of Rainbow's abilities." Twilight kept her voice calm and even and not pausing in pulling her suit on. "I need somepony to board a hostile ship, and she insists she's the best choice, even counting her injuries. Is that correct? Is there anypony else who might be better in close quarters?" Applejack chewed on her lip, thinking. "You know, she might actually be the best we've got. She ran a qualification course right out of the hospital one time, hurt way worse than she was yesterday. She scored in the top five percent even though she'd been hurt bad and hadn't recovered from it. Those cybernetics of hers are pretty dang impressive, and her natural abilities were settin' records long before she got 'em. Honestly, if she says she's the best for it, she's probably right, even hurt." "Told ya." Rainbow interjected smugly. A glance at the screen showing her now-helmeted face told Twilight that she was in one of the lifts. "Wait, she's listening?" Applejack asked, covering her face. "Shoot, I'd never have said it that way if I'd known." She raised her voice. "Don't you let that go to your head, Rainbow Dash! You ain't all you think you are!" "Yeah, whatever. You know you meant it." Rainbow laughed. Twilight glanced at the sensor screen, which showed the Council fleet adjusting course, trying to close before Dauntless could slip behind the planet, while the second detachment suddenly increased their acceleration to what she suspected was its maximum. The two large ships who'd served as bait were accelerating harder, too, though they were far more sluggish than the two Council fleets. They were slowed further by the frantic evasion pattern they threw themselves into; they were well within Dauntless's missile range, and their pilots were random-walking in an effort to throw off the Equestrian targeting solutions, even though the exploration cruiser had yet to fire a single missile at them. Interestingly, they were within Council missile range as well, and the big ships hadn't fired a shot. Were they unarmed? "You have command, Captain," Twilight snapped, "don't fire on those two ships. Get us within a thousand miles of one of them and hold us there, as long as you can." Twilight judged that she wasn't needed on the bridge right now as a commander, but her abilities were absolutely necessary to make the boarding mission work. "How close?" Silver Stars asked, stunned. Twilight's teleportation range was incredible, far beyond any other unicorn's, but in space combat terms it was miniscule. "You heard me, Captain. Do it!" The other unicorn nodded, and Twilight turned to Oculus. "Where's that scan?!" "Just completed, ma'am." Twilight nodded as a schematic of one of the alien ships flashed onto her screen. It would probably have been unpleasant, almost stunning, actually, for the crew of that ship. A focused aetheric scan pounded its target region with arcane energy, but it could see through almost anything, and had astounding resolution. Twilight rotated the schematic on her screen, noting the silhouettes of machinery, seats, even crew. There were some strange shapes there, things that they'd have to pore over later. The unicorn picked her target and started weaving a careful, complex spell. "Rainbow Dash, get up here!" The door slid open, admitting a suited Rainbow, who flashed her friend a grin as the comm window linking them closed. "That quick enough for you, boss?" Twilight nodded. "Get over here." The pegasus raised her eyebrows, but stepped over to Twilight's commander's seat. She craned her head to the side, looking at the schematic. "What's the mission?" Before Twilight could answer, Oculus snapped, "Incoming missiles!" "Full alert!" Silver Stars turned to Twilight, as the alert tone sounded throughout the ship. "We'll get you there, ma'am." The bridge crew fell silent, still, all of them focusing their minds entirely on the systems they were responsible for guiding as they linked with the bridge network. Icons flickered with lightning speed over the displays projected in front of each of them, far too quickly for an unlinked mind to interpret. Twilight looked to Rainbow, still gently weaving together her spell in her mind. "Rainbow, we're going to teleport on board one of those ships. I'm going to be using an anchored partial teleport spell, so I won't be able to do anything; you'll have to keep me safe, and you'll also have to subdue and capture one of the aliens on board. I'm going to be jumping us into a room with what looks like eight of them, so you may have to deal with those, plus as many as come running. As soon as we have a captive, get them to me, and we'll jump right back to here. And make it fast. Understand?" The pegasus nodded crisply. "Guard you, take one captive fast as I can, got it. Can I kill the others if I need to?" Twilight bit her lip. "If you have to. I'd rather you didn't, but if it's unavoidable, then do it." Rainbow nodded again. "Understood. I'll keep you safe." The confidence and professionalism in her friend's voice was reassuring, allowing Twilight to concentrate on the spell she was weaving. It was complex and energy-intensive; she would be displacing them to the room she hoped was the alien ship's bridge, but at the same time maintaining a magical link to this spot on Dauntless's deck, and tuning the spell's energy to match the cruiser's shields so it wouldn't be blocked by the arcane barriers. She'd have to pour energy into it constantly, and the instant she lost her focus or stopped feeding the spell they would snap back. Twilight would have to "grab" their captive, too, once Rainbow had acquired it, in order to bring it back with them. The pegasus stepped up close to Twilight, pressing her side against her friend's. Twilight had carried Rainbow through a teleport before, and the Warden knew that physical contact made the trip easier. It was thoughtful of her, and it was comforting besides, even through the armored material of both ponies' suits. Twilight took a deep breath, and watched the distance to the alien ship tick downward rapidly, while missiles flashed from the Council fleet into the teeth of Dauntless's point defenses. The anti-missile systems were actually functioning at full efficiency for the first time since the mission's start, with both weapons officers able to guide them for maximum effect. They tore apart the Council salvos, swatting down huge numbers of incoming warheads, and the ones that leaked through were unable to do so in sufficient numbers to punch through the shields. For now, at least. Return fire leapt back at the hostile fleet, Wingblade firing short salvos in an attempt to conserve their dwindling store of ammunition. Finally, they were close enough. Grimacing in concentration, Twilight completed her spell, making here and there temporarily the same place. The lattice of energy the unicorn had woven stretched out, touching her destination, then smoothly slid Rainbow and Twilight into place. There was a flash of light, and a sense of disorientation, and the two ponies appeared in a spacious room. There were numerous monitors and screens, keyboards, and panels set in front of comfortable-looking seats. There were nearly a dozen creatures, of two distinctly different species; one that was small and cat-like, with forelimbs that sported two elbows, long necks, and large, wide eyes, while the other species was large, wide, and low-slung, a good bit bigger than a pony, with what looked like a chitinous or bony carapace across its shoulders and back. All of the creatures were clad in sober-colored loose clothing, festooned with pockets, close enough in cut despite the differences in body structure to be clearly intended as a uniform. The aliens on what had to be the ship's bridge froze, stunned by the arrival of the two ponies, staring at them wide-eyed. Rainbow Dash, by contrast, didn't freeze. The nearest alien was one of the big armored ones. Rainbow sprang toward it instantly, landing on its back and using her weight and speed to slam its head into its console. It flailed weakly, hunching its back and trying to duck its head under its shell, but Rainbow caught the back of its skull with her forehoof before it could do so and smashed its flat face into the console again, hard enough to break the instrument. The creature spasmed and collapsed, though its limbs moved sluggishly. The creatures exploded into motion, but the pegasus didn't give them a chance to organize. Rainbow hurled herself toward two of the catlike beings who were sitting in close proximity as the aliens tried to leap up out of their chairs. The pegasus went over the console that separated them from her, powering the two creatures back into their seats with her body. She swatted one in the side of the head, smashing it back into its seat, and the other turned, trying to claw at Rainbow with its long-fingered hands, fighting to pry her off of its compatriot, but she shrugged its efforts aside and slammed the leading edge of her suited wing into its throat. The armored material of the environment suit Rainbow wore enclosed her wings and prevented her from flying, but didn't prevent them from moving, and the pegasus was quite capable of using them as weapons. The creature gagged, sticking its tongue out while its hands flew to its neck. Its compatriot lolled senselessly, evidently knocked half-unconscious by Rainbow's blow to its head. The other creatures in the room, to Twilight's surprise, were mostly trying to get away, not charging the two ponies. The catlike beings scrambled out of their chairs and ran for the door, and the bigger, armored ones did likewise. One of the big ones lunged out of its seat and turned toward Rainbow, lumbering across the room ponderously. The pegasus quickly hooked the senseless felinoid from its chair and hurled it over the console toward Twilight, not pausing to see it land before she darted toward the big, armored alien. It adjusted its course, its arms reaching out for the semiconscious creature Rainbow had thrown, but the pegasus went low and smashed into its knees. It overbalanced, dropping on its face and hunching its shoulders, tucking its arms under its body for a moment as it slammed into the deck. Rainbow kicked it with a hindleg, but she wasn't looking at it and instead of catching it squarely her blow skidded across its armored shoulders, though even the indirect bow was strong enough to shove the creature nearly a meter across the floor to slam into a wall. Two of the bigger creatures had wedged momentarily in the door, having tried to get out at the same time, and shouts came from outside the room as they fought to get clear. The catlike creatures were piled up behind the two door-blocks, pressing their backs to the obstacle formed by the bigger aliens and staring in clear terror at the pegasus. Rainbow paused, not charging, just staring, her head low, her wings half-flared and her body tense. After a frozen moment, the two aliens in the door managed to fight clear of one another, and the rest of the aliens scattered as a newcomer came through. It was another of the big, armored creatures, but it was wearing a different uniform and had what was clearly a sidearm in its hand. Rainbow was already charging before the creature leveled its weapon. She ducked under its aim, smashing the top of her helmeted head into its arm and shoving the weapon toward the ceiling, then somehow wrapped her foreleg around its upper arm while she stood on her hind legs, trapping its limb against her neck, and twisted. There was a hideous snapping, tearing sound as the pegasus wrenched the creature's body around, violently dislocating its arm in the process. The alien screamed, a horrible high-pitched sound. The weapon flopped loosely in its hand, pointed back through the door, but the creature's limb was clearly so badly damaged that it could no longer grip the firearm properly. Another creature came through the door with a sidearm, this time one of the catlike beings. It aimed its weapon at Twilight, and the unicorn's heart almost stopped. There was no way she could shield herself or dodge, not while she was holding the spell, and Rainbow looked tangled up with the larger alien. Rainbow's lightning-sheathed talons severed the creature's arm before it could pull the trigger, a flashing motion so fast Twilight couldn't even see it. She hadn't realized those talons could even extend that quickly. In a blur, the pegasus cut off the cat-being's head, then slammed her other set of blades through the chin of the armored creature she was tangled up with, killing it instantly. The motion was so fast that it was clear she'd been deliberately holding back before. She eeled her way clear of the armored being's now-limp body, twisting around and kicking it as it fell, hurling it back into the door to block it, but it didn't look like any more were trying to enter. The remaining felinoids had darted out the door the instant it was clear. The pegasus watched the door for a moment before turning around. There were four aliens still left in the compartment, two of each species. One of the armored creatures rested motionless in its chair, unconscious or dead, its head slumped against its ruined console. The other cringed on the floor where it had skidded, watching Rainbow with its deep-set eyes, its arms tucked underneath it and its shoulders hunched up to protect its head and neck. Its breath was fast, panting. The felinoid whose throat Rainbow had struck was still clutching at its neck, slumped in its chair, but it was conscious, watching the two ponies with wide eyes without moving. Its compatriot lay limp on the floor. "Which one of these do you want, Twi?" Rainbow asked calmly. Celestia's mane, she's not even out of breath! The pegasus glanced at the unmoving large alien in the chair. "May not want that one, I might've hit it too hard. Think I broke its head." Her unworried, callous tone was a little frightening. "Let's take one of the smaller ones, Rainbow Dash. Might be easier to manage." Twilight's voice was strained with the effort of maintaining her spell. She was seriously concerned, actually; none of the beings in the room were wearing suits, and she desperately hoped that nothing in Dauntless's atmosphere was toxic to them. They would have to take that risk, though, if they were ever going to have a chance to talk to these beings. The unicorn glanced back at the two bodies by the door. "Did you have to kill the crippled one?" Rainbow grimaced. "Damn, sorry about that. Didn't really mean to. Reflex." She stepped over to the unconscious creature and scooped it up with her foreleg, throwing it over Twilight's back. The other felinoid made a strangled sound and started to scramble out of its chair, but Rainbow was there in a flash. She planted a forehoof on the creature's chest and shoved it back into its chair, snarling wordlessly at it while her wings flared in threat. The felinoid cringed in the shadow of the pegasus's wings, drawing its back limbs up and covering its face momentarily with its long forelimbs. It pointed at the creature on Twilight's back and trilled something, but stopped when Rainbow lifted her other foreleg, her talons extending from the cybernetic hoof to point directly at the creature's face. It trilled again, its breath coming fast, and pulled its arm back slowly, the fingers of its hand spread wide, showing its palm. It was shaking, its body trembling violently. "Ready to go, Twi?" Rainbow growled, not breaking eye contact with the creature she held pinned to its chair. "Just... about..." Extending the spell to the unconscious creature on her back was proving more difficult than anticipated. Rainbow folded her wings and pulled back from the felinoid, who trilled again, extending its hands palm-out in what looked like a begging motion. It pointed briefly at its companion slung over Twilight's back, then went back to the same posture, trilling in its own tongue again. Rainbow backed up, her gaze darting from the felinoid to the prone armored being, but the latter didn't seem interested in moving. The felinoid glanced over at it, murmuring something, but it just shuddered and ducked its head. The felinoid looked back to Rainbow, its gaze pleading. The pegasus kept her eyes on it, but didn't respond other than that. The creature continued speaking quietly, while Twilight finished wrapping her spell around the unconscious alien on her back. She sagged in relief as she released the spell, allowing the energy to drag her back to Dauntless, with Rainbow Dash and the unconscious alien coming along in her wake. They reappeared on the Dauntless's bridge, the crew still immersed in the network and silent at their stations. Twilight heaved a sigh; at least the ship was still okay, and she didn't see any damage on the screens, though it looked like the shields were starting to strain. She sent a weary thought-pulse through the network to Silver Stars, telling the captain to get the ship out of the system as fast as possible. She received an instant response, and the vectors on the sensor plot shifted as Dauntless surged to full power, fighting to keep the planet between herself and the nearer Council fleet as she headed straight "down" relative to the system ecliptic. The two large, lumbering ships continued on their way, though the one they'd boarded was no longer random-walking in an evasion pattern. It would have been effortless to obliterate the ship; at constant acceleration on a straight-line course, Dauntless's beam weapons would be able to hit it from essentially any distance, but Twilight was relieved to see that Wingblade was still following her orders and not engaging the two ships. It would be pointless to do so anyway; it was transparently clear at this point that the two ships were either totally unarmed or completely unwilling to fire, as Dauntless hadn't taken a single shot from either ship. Twilight watched the sensor plot intently. She didn't want to go into full immersion right now; the teleport spell had taken a lot out of her, and as it stood she doubted she could contribute much. Besides, she trusted Silver Stars to run the ship; Twilight was in overall command and responsible for setting mission goals, but Silver Stars was the captain and perfectly capable of working out how those goals could be achieved. The vector shifted, overlaid with the vectors of the Council fleets, and the nebulous spheres around each group of ships that indicated weapons range. The unicorn sighed explosively; the Council forces had clearly underestimated Dauntless's peak acceleration, and the second force wouldn't be able to close to engagement range before the Equestrian cruiser exited the system. From what she could see, the enemy commander agreed, and the first force was already thinking about breaking off the engagement. Barring terrible luck, they would be in the clear in the next ten minutes. They'd dodged a lightning bolt. This had been a cleverly-arranged, well-planned-out trap, and the only reason they were going to survive was that their enemies had simply underestimated their speed and had placed their two converging elements too far apart. Twilight let her eyes close for a moment, feeling the pulse of magic through the room and just letting her mind shut down, just for a second. The past few days had been brutal. "Hey, Twilight," Rainbow asked quietly, "what do you want to do with that?" Twilight opened her eyes, and saw that the pegasus was pointing at the felinoid alien on her back. The unicorn shook her head, marshaling her thoughts. "Here, take it," she said, turning aside so Rainbow could move the creature, "Find a spare room of some kind and lock it up for now. Once we're out of danger, I'll get Fluttershy to see if she can talk to it." Rainbow nodded, shifting their captive onto her back with a quick motion of her foreleg and wings. That extra set of limbs must be awfully nice to have, Twilight mused. "Right, I'll find a place to stash this one." She stretched one wing a bit. "Then I'll probably head back to the medbay. Think I screwed up some of their repair work." "Rainbow Dash?" Twilight said, as her friend was turning to leave. The pegasus looked back at her. "Thank you. You saved my life at least once over there." Rainbow flashed a grin. "Hey, any time, Twilight." She left without a further word. Only moments later, the fire coming from the Council fleet stopped, and the enemy ships changed their course, headed back to the planet they'd come out from behind. The other detachment altered their course as well, clearly heading to meet up with the first jaw of the trap, no longer seeking to pursue the Equestrian cruiser. The bridge crew dropped out of immersion moments later, most of them sighing heavily and many rubbing their heads to relieve the headaches that always followed prolonged network contact. Silver Stars looked over at Twilight. "Reporting successful engagement, ma'am. No damage to the ship, about twenty hostile ships destroyed before they broke off the engagement. It doesn't look like they're going to be able to catch us." "I'm down to five percent of my missile ammo, though," Wingblade put in. "We're not going to last any time at all in another fight before we're down to beams." "So you're saying that we need to go back home?" The young pegasus nodded firmly. "If you plan on getting in any more fights, yes, ma'am. I was holding way back in that one and still almost shot myself dry. We need more ammo, and we need it bad." She paused. "And later ships of this class seriously need more magazine space. If you don't mind me saying so, ma'am." Twilight nodded wearily. "I don't mind at all, and I'll definitely keep that in mind when I'm laying down the next exploration cruiser. I want to survey one more system, then we'll head back to report." She also wanted to give Fluttershy time to talk to their captive. Hopefully, that would give them at least some information on the creatures they faced, something she could report to the Princesses other than, "There's this huge, powerful interstellar organization that seems to hate us for no apparent reason." Twilight watched the sensor readout as Dauntless headed out toward the Gate limit. The two Council fleets linked up, and followed them. Evidently, the enemy force was shadowing the Equestrian ship, just in case their engines failed or something. Silver Stars approached her shortly before Jump, saying quietly, "Commander, there's something you need to be aware of." "Oh?" Twilight blinked. There didn't seem to be any concerns on the sensor readout. "It's a crew issue. Do you mind if I put up a privacy screen?" The Commander shook her head, and felt the captain link to the bridge systems. An invisible screen popped up, blocking any sound waves from reaching the other crewmares. "I had to put Wingblade on report this morning," Silver Stars said once they were separated from the rest of the bridge crew. Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Oh? For what?" "Because she was confronted by three of the diplomatic team." Twilight blinked in surprise. "They'd evidently heard about the way she'd talked to Fluttershy, and, well, they weren't happy about it." "Goodness!" Twilight looked over to where the grey-coated pegasus sat calmly monitoring her weapons displays. "Was she hurt?" Silver Stars shook her head. "No, ma'am, 'Blade wasn't hurt at all. Two of the three diplomats had to be sent to the medbay, though." The Commander frowned. "She attacked them?" Silver Stars shook her head again, sighing. "No, ma'am. They started it. They probably didn't realize what they were getting into; 'Blade's a nasty customer when she gets mad. She's normally fairly cool-headed, but she's got a mean streak a kilometer wide when her blood's up. Turns into a whole different pony." Twilight couldn't help but frown again. "Wait, they cornered her, they attacked her, and you put her on report?" "Yes, ma'am." Silver Stars paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Ma'am... she wasn't cornered. They confronted her in a corridor. She should have just turned around and left, and from what it looked like on the security recording she could have, but she gets mean and stubborn when she's really angry. Honestly, she needed to get smacked down for that, it showed some poor judgment and way too much aggression. She just refused to back down when those ponies pushed her." The Warden made a frustrated noise. "Ma'am, this isn't just about 'Blade being in a fight. It's a symptom of a bigger problem; it's not just this particular incident. The Wardens are nearly fanatical about Commander Dash. Applejack too. A lot of us know one or both of them personally, and there's a lot of loyalty in this organization. Fluttershy's ponies feel the same way; she's worked with most of them for a fair part of their lives, and they'd move heaven and earth for her. Fluttershy and Commander Dash have been fighting for years, and a lot of that has leaked onto the ponies that work with them, so there is a ton of tension. Three ponies tried to hurt 'Blade because they heard she'd been nasty to Fluttershy, and I stomped on her because I don't want to see my ponies doing the same thing. The longer we're on this ship without this being addressed, the worse it's going to get." Twilight thought furiously. She should have seen this coming, should have recognized it from the blatant hostility in the weapons officer's attitude in the medical bay, and from the tension in the other two Wardens, as well as their lack of argument. Wintergreen had never said Wingblade was wrong, just that she should be less confrontational, and even Night Breeze, who seemed much less aggressive and much more rational than either of the other two, had said the same thing. Silver Stars was right, this was a major problem, and Twilight should have recognized it sooner. Argh, I'm a terrible choice as a commander. The Princess should have picked somepony who was better with others, or more social, or something. She may not be as isolated as she had been in her youth, but Twilight still had trouble sometimes when trying to deal with other ponies' points of view. Of course, now that she had recognized the problem, she had zero ideas about what to do. She rubbed her forehead furiously, nearly hitting her horn with her hoof. "Argh. This is even more frustrating because Rainbow and Fluttershy aren't even fighting right now. They made up yesterday." Silver Stars shrugged. "That might help some, once it gets around." Once it gets around... Twilight felt a light dawn in her brain. There was a fantastic way to make sure it got around! If she could get the two of them working together on something high-profile... "Thank you for telling me this, Captain. I think I have a possible solution in mind." Silver Stars raised an eyebrow. "You do, ma'am?" "I do indeed!" The lavender unicorn beamed at her subordinate. "Did you have anything else you needed to tell me?" Silver Stars looked at her commander askance, clearly wondering what was on Twilight's mind. "No, ma'am, that was pretty much it." Shaking her head slightly, she dismissed the privacy screen, stepping back to her station. Smiling triumphantly, Twilight paged Fluttershy. The other mare answered after a few moments, with a soft, "Yes, Twilight?" Her teal eyes were worried. "Fluttershy," Twilight began without preamble, "have you heard all of what's happened?" The pegasus blinked. "No, I thought you were calling to tell me." "Oh, okay." For some reason Twilight had thought that someone had kept her friend informed. "Long story short, I was dumb, this was a trap, and the Council tried to kill us with a little over four hundred ships." Fluttershy's eyes widened in shock. "But that's not the good part!" That made the pegasus raise an eyebrow. "The good part is that Rainbow Dash and I teleported onto the bridge of one of the bait ships and kidnapped one of their crewmares!" Twilight beamed. "Or, er, crew...things," she finished, awkwardly. Fluttershy blinked slowly. "I... that... is good news." She said with transparently false enthusiasm, while looking at Twilight with an expression that suggested that the unicorn had lost her freaking mind. "I am just... so delighted to hear that! You... uh... must be very proud!" "I thought you might be happy!" Twilight exclaimed happily, completely missing the pegasus's incredulous look. "I wanted you and Rainbow Dash to work together and talk to it, try to find out why these people are acting like this." Fluttershy blinked. "You what?" "I want you and Rainbow Dash to work together," the Commander repeated, "You might find her more helpful than you're thinking, and she can be there to make sure the captive won't try to hurt you." The yellow pegasus stared blankly into the screen. Twilight smiled back. Fluttershy tried to smile encouragingly, but couldn't quite manage it. "Twilight... this... is insane. I'm so sorry, I really am, and I don't want to upset you, but that's all I can think of to describe it! You want me to talk to someone you kidnapped, and you want Rainbow Dash to help. Okay, we're trying to get along, but the problem this time isn't me, or her, it's the fact that you want her to be involved when I talk to this alien, and she's the one who kidnapped them!" Fluttershy rubbed her face with her forehoof, her long pink mane falling briefly in front of her eyes. "I don't... how am I supposed to be an ambassador to a captive?" Twilight sighed. Her friend was right, this was a little crazy... but it had to be done. "Fluttershy, we have to know something about these people. They have enormous power, and we haven't been able to find out hardly anything about them except second-hoof from the Tazaft, whose information was rather limited. Worse, they know where our homeworld is!" Twilight felt a sudden chill. Oh, Celestia's name! They know where we live, they are willing to send hundreds of ships to attack Dauntless, and now they know we have starships. Oh, no, oh no, are they going to attack our home? They wouldn't do that... would they? "Fluttershy... we have to learn at least something about them. We're in danger, our home is in danger, everypony and every zebra and every buffalo and every griffon is in danger, and we have to find a way to save them!" Desperate tears were starting to form in the unicorn's violet eyes. "I know, I know that this is a hard request. I know it's crazy. And I know you don't really want to work with Rainbow, but that's another issue; there's a lot of tension between your ponies and Rainbow's, and I need the two of you to work together to show them that it's possible. Please, Fluttershy, please, I need you to do this. For all of us." Fluttershy nodded heavily, sighing. "I'm sorry, Twilight, I know this is important. It's just... I was so hoping I'd be able to talk to someone who wanted to talk to me. Having to settle for a captive, who may not even know anything..." the pegasus shook her head, "I'll do my best. And if you want me to work with Rainbow Dash, I will, just... please, just ask her to be as nice as she can, okay? Especially if there's any reason this creature might be afraid of her. It would make it much easier if the creature wasn't frightened." Fluttershy lowered her head a bit. "I don't like scaring creatures, or seeing them scared." "I will. And Fluttershy... thank you. I appreciate it." Twilight signed off, wiping her eyes. She drew a deep breath, and pinged Rainbow Dash, glancing at the display that showed the Council fleet still following them, though the huge collection of warships was steadily losing ground. Rainbow answered almost instantly, a benefit of being directly tied into the ship's systems in a way that only unicorns and ponies with neural implants could manage. "Hey, Twilight. Got the cat-thing stashed in a supply closet; it's got a lock, and a light, but not much else. Didn't look like it was having any problems breathing, so there's that worry out of the way." She snorted. "If you're planning on keeping it longer, you might want to have the engineers rig up a lock on a normal room or something, 'cause there's no toilet in that closet. Gonna get smelly fast." "Good point; I'll see what I can arrange." Twilight winced. "And please, don't call it a cat-thing." "What do you want me to call it, then?" Rainbow asked, cocking her head. The unicorn opened her mouth to respond, and paused. They had no idea what the creature's species was called, and it didn't really look like anything they'd seen back home, so there weren't really any good labels that came to mind. "Cat-thing" was only marginally less palatable than the label that occurred to Twilight, which was "Cat-monkey." Monkey-cat? No, that sounded derogatory too. "Let's just call it an alien for now," Twilight finally said. "Have you had a chance to get to the medical bay yet?" "I'm there now," Rainbow responded cheerfully. "You interrupted the doctor yelling at me for stretching the tendon she just fixed." "I may just let it heal on its own if you're going to keep injuring it!" came an exclamation from off-screen. "Aw, c'mon, you know you like me," Rainbow replied. "Doctors always like me. I give them something to practice on." Twilight heard a frustrated, wordless noise, and Rainbow grinned. Twilight stifled a giggle. Fighting to straighten her face, she said, "Well, when you're done there, I'd like you to head back to where you left the alien." "Sure thing, Twi. Although if you want me to stand guard, I've got a ton of Warden troopers with nothing to do. I could tie a guard to each of its legs and have a dozen more ponies around it in a ring, and I'd still have bored troopers." "Actually... I want you to help Fluttershy talk to it." Rainbow blinked. "You do?" Bracing herself for an argument, Twilight nodded. "Yes, I do. You'll be able to keep Fluttershy safe if the alien gets violent, not that I'm terribly worried about that given how small it is, and..." "Woah, woah!" Rainbow exclaimed, waving a foreleg to interrupt. "Hey, you don't need to push me into it. You're the smart pony, and you're the Commander. You want me to help, I'll go help!" "Oh. Good. Thank you." Twilight deflated a little bit. Then she cocked her head. "You know, I didn't notice before, but the comm system doesn't seem to transmit that annoying noise your legs make." Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd said, and she covered her mouth with both forehooves. "Rainbow Dash, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean... I mean, your legs are perfectly functional, I don't mean to disparage... they could be taken as real most of the time...!" I'm just digging myself in deeper, why can't I stop? Rainbow bit her lip, her nose scrunching up a bit as she listened to Twilight's stammered apologies. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore... but instead of yelling angrily as Twilight had expected, she burst out laughing. "Ha ha, you mean, ha, you mean like this?" Rainbow gasped, and suddenly Twilight could hear the familiar teeth-grating whine. "Ha ha, oh man, I thought you knew! I got 'em to put noisemakers in 'em. Y'know, since they're all mechanical and stuff, I thought they oughta sound like it!" Twilight blinked. "You mean... you mean to tell me, that that noise, the one that's been driving me insane every time I talked to you for sixty years, is something you could have turned off whenever you wanted?!" Rainbow dissolved into fits of laughter again, actually falling over backward in the grip of hilarity. It took her quite a while to get herself back under control, during which time the unicorn could see her friend's legs waving helplessly in the air, and Twilight got curious glances from several of the bridge crew; Rainbow was laughing more than loudly enough to be heard quite some distance away, even with the muffling effect of the comm link. Finally, the pegasus was able to stand up, wipe her eyes, and say, "Whoo. That's funny. I had no idea it bugged you that much, but yeah, I could've turned 'em off any time you asked. I shut 'em off whenever I'm out in the field anyway; having my legs whine would make it freaking impossible to sneak up on anything, which was the other reason I made 'em give me noisemakers. Scootaloo... remember her?" Twilight nodded. The orange pegasus mare with the flight problem, who'd joined the Wardens early on, the unicorn recalled. She'd been Rainbow's aide and right-hoof mare for years. "Yeah, it drove Scoots nuts that I kept sneaking up on her by accident and scaring the hay out of her. At one point it was happening like three times a day, even with her watching out for it. She wanted me to have something that made noise whenever I was in a town, 'cause she figured having me giving older ponies heart attacks by accident probably wouldn't be good for our image. It was easier to stick noisemakers in my legs that it would have been to learn to make noise while I was moving again; I'm too used to moving around as quiet as I can." Twilight facehoofed, at herself and at Rainbow. She heaved a deep sigh. "Well, in the future, could you please leave the noisemakers off while you're visiting me, or I'm visiting you? I'd appreciate it." "Can do." Rainbow grinned, clearly fighting back another attack of the giggles. There was a gleam in her eye that made Twilight worry a bit, but she brushed it aside. "Thank you. As soon as you're done there, could you meet Fluttershy to talk to the alien?" Twilight glanced at the sensor plot briefly. "We'll be jumping out soon, but we're heading to an empty system to give you two a chance to work." "Can do," Rainbow said again with a firm nod. "Hey, I could actually be helpful. Could you send me a link to those Council language files we got?" "Oh... yes, of course." Twilight linked herself into the network for a moment, her holodaemon quickly retrieving the files she needed, and with a thought she sent a datalink to Rainbow's implant. The pegasus would be able to serve as a translating node for the ship's daemons, much like some of Fluttershy's linguists had done with the Tazaft, speeding the translation process immensely. Rainbow's eyes flicked to the side, an involuntary physical reaction that frequently occurred when a pony accessed the datanet, and she nodded. "Got it, thanks, Twi. Huh, I wonder..." Her gaze went distant for a moment. "Oh, okay, cool. This thing's language is part of the files. That'll make it easier." "Wait, what?" Twilight gave her friend an incredulous look. "How in the world do you know that?" "'Cause I just checked the stuff that its friend was saying back on their ship." Rainbow pointed at her artificial eyes. "These are tied in to my interface implant; I usually record fights so I can watch 'em later and see what I could've done better. My audio boosters are tied into it too, so I get full sound." The pegasus grimaced. "It was saying that the one we took was its friend, begging me not to hurt him." "Oh." Twilight grimaced, too. It had been a lot easier to think about the creature as a captive, rather than a person who had friends. "Well, it's a good thing we don't want to actually hurt him." "Yeah, no kidding. I never like hurting things that can talk, but I really hate it when their friends are right there." Rainbow sighed, glancing back over her shoulder. "You about done there, doc?" There was an indistinct grumble that Twilight couldn't quite make out, but she thought she heard the words, "taken for granted..." mixed in there somewhere. Rainbow turned back to the comm screen. "The doc's almost finished here, so I'll meet up with Fluttershy in a couple of minutes." "Thank you, Rainbow. We'll be jumping in a little while; make sure you're not connected when we do." "Got it, boss." The pegasus flashed a grin. "I didn't get more than a headache last time, but I'll still be careful." Twilight disconnected, pleased to note that the short conversation with her friend had raised her spirits more than she expected, and watched the gigantic mass of Council ships crawling across the system behind them like jackals, hoping Dauntless would stumble and fall. They continued to pursue Dauntless, up until the ship reached the Jump limit and vanished elsewhere.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Siege

Twilight tried to focus on exploring the empty system, finding out all the interesting little facts about it, but it was hard. This was just another empty, uninhabited system; they'd gotten fairly good information on a couple of those by now. It was valuable, and could potentially give them very useful data about the way the universe worked, but right at the moment it wasn't terribly exciting. Especially considering what was going on elsewhere in the ship, with Rainbow and Fluttershy speaking to someone from the Council for the first time. Finally, she couldn't handle the tension anymore. She had to know what was going on. Twilight left Silver Stars in charge of the ship and darted off the bridge, headed to her office which was both relatively nearby and quiet, so she could tune in to what was going on. She dropped into partial network immersion, her holodaemon seeking out the node that Rainbow was maintaining to allow the translator systems to function. It located the pegasus almost immediately; there was a fair amount of activity centered on her, and Twilight realized that Rainbow was maintaining a connection to most of Fluttershy's staff, allowing them to see and hear everything that was going on in the little closet. The two pegasi clearly hadn't been talking to the captive for long. "...course I'm not going to let her hurt you," Fluttershy said as Twilight's connection stabilized, the translator trilling in the alien's language as she spoke. The unicorn opened an illusory window, allowing her to see both ponies and the captive. Both ponies were seated on floor cushions, and there was another pile that the alien sat on, its back against the wall. Fluttershy shot what looked like an annoyed glance over her shoulder at Rainbow, though she winked where the captive couldn't see her. Rainbow maintained the tense, angry set of her body, though one corner of her mouth quirked up for a brief fraction of a second. "Honestly," Fluttershy said as she turned back to the alien, "I won't. She might growl, but she's not evil; she won't hurt you, I promise. Is there anything I can get for you? Water? I could try to find something you could eat..." "Somepony check and see if the doctor ran tests on what he could eat," a voice in the net said. "On it." Looking closely, Twilight could see a small earbud that Fluttershy was wearing, in order to communicate with her ponies. Rainbow didn't need one, of course; her interface implant did everything Fluttershy's eyepiece and earbud could do, and quite a bit more besides. "I... water would be appreciated," the alien trilled in its own tongue, translated instantly by the array of holodaemons and datadaemons being managed by Fluttershy's experts. "I'll have somepony get some for you. Warm? Cold? Hot?" "Cold, please. But not frozen." The alien shifted its position. "He's surprised. Didn't expect to be cared for?" "Possible, and it fits with his earlier behavior. A bit ominous; why wouldn't he expect to be cared for, when Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle risked so much to bring him back alive?" "A bit of kindness could go a long way here." "I'm gonna back off some," Rainbow's voice said in the net, while she stood silently glaring at the alien. "I'll stay here, so I can be scary, but I don't think I'll growl any more. Feels wrong, especially since he's so scared." "That sounds like an excellent idea, ma'am. It gives Fluttershy a chance to seem protective, without making further threats to undermine her." "Somepony bring some cold, sterile water," Fluttershy ordered. "Where's Cinnamon Swirl, by the way? I don't hear her; shouldn't she be there?" "She's in the hospital. Got into a fight; I'll fill you in later, miss." There was a pause. "Water's coming." A moment later, there was a tap at the door. Fluttershy opened it, and an engineer passed her a small flask. The yellow pegasus took the flask in her mouth, slowly approached the alien who watched her with huge eyes, and set it down in front of him. "There you are," she said softly, stepping back. "Drink up; we can bring you more if you need it." Darting a glance at Rainbow Dash, the alien reached out and picked up the flask, opening it and taking a deep drink. "Thank you," he said, licking his lips with a surprisingly dark-colored tongue. "That was grudging, but genuine, I think. Try to follow up on it, maybe?" "Is there anything else we could get you? Food? Is that cushion comfortable?" Fluttershy asked gently, maintaining her distance and staying partway between the alien and Rainbow Dash. The alien looked at her unreadably. "What do you want with me? Really? I don't know anything. There's nothing I can give you. If you aren't planning to torture me or kill me, then what do you want?" Torture? Twilight thought, aghast. Where in the world did that come from? Fluttershy shook her head. "Really, all we want is to talk. Your people have refused to do that, which is why my friend here," she indicated Rainbow with a toss of her head, "took such a risk to get you, so I could talk to you." She smiled. "Could you at least tell me your name?" "Zziir," the alien said, an odd trill to the name. "Zziir is my name." He paused. "I... did you destroy my ship?" Fluttershy shook her head again. "No. We left it alone." "What about... about the rest of the bridge crew? I don't remember much after you came over my control panel at me." Zziir looked at Rainbow Dash. "They're fine," Rainbow said. "I thumped a couple of 'em, but they're okay, I think, except maybe for that first one I hit. I had to kill a couple of the ones that came in after we did." "Ouch, I wish you hadn't said that. Might make things harder." "I figured it'd be better to be honest," Rainbow retorted. "Can you show me?" Zziir asked. "Show me that my friends are okay? Prove it to me?" "Sure," Rainbow said, without waiting for Fluttershy to respond. "Hold on, let me pull it up." Twilight felt the movement in the network as the daemon resident in Rainbow's implants fed the record to the ship's systems, projecting it onto an illusory screen that sprang to life in front of the alien. A secondary screen appeared next to the one Twilight was watching, conveying the same information; she guessed that Rainbow had set it to general access for anyone linked in. "Which one of these do you want, Twi?" Rainbow's voice asked, as the view flicked over the bridge. "May not want that one, I might've hit it too hard. Think I broke its head." Twilight watched as the scene replayed, though it was rather uncomfortable since Rainbow's eyes darted around so much, watching every part of the bridge at once. When it got to the part where Rainbow shoved the other creature back into its seat, the fact that the translator was on let her finally understand what it had said. "Zziir... please, he's my friend. Don't take him, he hasn't done...!" The creature cut itself off when the blades in Rainbow's foreleg pointed directly into its face. "Please... please don't hurt me. I won't fight. Don't hurt me." "Ready to go, Twi?" Rainbow's voice growled, not understanding the creature's words. "Just... about..." The viewpoint pulled back away from the other alien, just as Rainbow had done. "Please," it asked, "Leave Zziir. I think he's hurt. Take me instead. I'll go with you, just please, leave him here." Rainbow kept backing up, still not understanding. "Chudal," the alien murmured, turning to the prone creature on the deck, "can you do anything? They're bigger and stronger than me, but we can't let them..." it trailed off as the other creature didn't respond. Zziir's friend turned back to Rainbow. "Please, please, he's barely adult, and he's hurt. Leave him here, let our doctor help him. You can take me in exchange. I don't know what you want, but I'll go with you, just leave him here. Please." The playback closed as Rainbow and Twilight teleported back to Dauntless, the last view that of the alien stretching out a pleading hand. "That upset him," one of Fluttershy's experts observed. Zziir looked a little agitated, his ears swiveling in little motions, his body rigid. "I wish I'd had that translator on," Rainbow observed. "I'd have taken her up on it." "Him," Zziir corrected tersely. "Why?" "'Cause it would've showed that we really didn't want to hurt you." Rainbow shrugged. "Would've been easier to convince him, since I would've already showed I'd listen." "If you wanted to talk, why did you destroy the first-contact ship?" Zziir asked suddenly, leaning forward. "Why didn't you just talk to them instead of killing the people who were supposed to be on your side?" "The first-contact ship?" Fluttershy asked, in a puzzled tone. "What do you mean? What first-contact ship?" "I mean when you people fired on the diplomatic ship that tried to talk to you!" Zziir replied heatedly, "What, did you think they wouldn't tell us about that?" "I..." The two pegasi exchanged confused looks. "Rainbow Dash, could you pull up a picture of the Interloper?" "Sure." A three-dimensional illusion of the Interloper vessel, the one that had been Equestria's first contact with the Council, appeared in front of the rainbow-maned pegasus. "Is this what you mean?" Zziir peered closely at the hologram. His eyes widened. "I... what? Why are you showing me this? This is an infiltrator cruiser. What does it have to do with anything? How did you even find this?" Fluttershy and Rainbow shared a glance. "Infiltrator cruiser?" the yellow pegasus asked, "I don't know what that means. This is the first ship from your people that we saw; it opened fire on us when we tried to talk to it." "It's also the only ship we saw until we jumped into the middle of that fight between you and the Tazaft," Rainbow said grimly. "Is this what you mean by a first-contact ship? 'Cause if it is, they suck at their job." There was a pause as the alien stared. "That's probably shock," somepony speculated. "Let's wait and see what he says, don't push him." Rainbow and Fluttershy waited, silently, until Zziir spoke again. "I... why... I don't even know how else you'd know what this looks like. Even the Tazaft wouldn't know what this is." He stared at the display. "There have been all those rumors... you really haven't had a first-contact ship? No one came to you to try to talk to you?" Fluttershy shook her head. "No. We've tried to talk to your people several times, but all you've done is shot at us." "It's why my boss had me grab you," Rainbow added. "Figured if we did that, we'd at least be able to figure out why you're shooting at us." She shook her head. "Speaking of, why are you shooting at us? I mean, yeah, we've blown up a bunch of your ships by now, but we didn't start it!" "Rainbow," Fluttershy said reprovingly. "Well, we have!" The cyan pegasus responded, a slightly defensive edge in her tone. The translator was faithfully rendering their speech to the alien, who watched them closely. "We can't act like we haven't! What, you want me to lie?" She turned back to Zziir. "Look, if we've killed any of your friends, I'm really, honestly sorry. We don't want to. What we want is to find a way to stop it! We could've blown your ship up too, or the other one you were with, but we didn't." Fluttershy sighed. "Rainbow isn't very diplomatic, but that is why she and Twilight took you. I'm honestly sorry they had to do that, but we needed something. Some way to talk to your people. We want to be friends, but no one we've encountered has been willing to let us try. Please, is there any way we could stop all this? Any way we could stop fighting?" Zziir stared. "He's thinking, don't interrupt him!" "I... can almost believe it," the alien said slowly. "The infiltrator service... they're not good people. I know that. And there have been all those rumors..." "Rumors?" Fluttershy asked, cocking her head to the side. "What kind of rumors?" "That... well, that Fifth Fleet command has been getting a lot of visits from infiltrator cruisers. According to some of the other logistics personnel, anyway." He stared at the hologram still drifting in front of him. "I... believe those rumors more, now." "Fifth fleet?" Rainbow asked. "Yes, Fifth Enforcement Fleet. It's the formation responsible for this part of the Council frontier." The pegasi looked at each other again. "The ships we've encountered were all from the same force?" Rainbow asked. Zziir flicked his ears. "Yes, that was second and eighth task forces you encountered today. Fifth Fleet Command... there have been a lot of rumors that the infiltrator service has been visiting Command Headquarters a lot in the last year or so. I thought it was just a dumb rumor, but..." Fluttershy's brow furrowed, even as Rainbow's ears turned back in tension at the news. "Wait... the people who sent this ship and the people we've been fighting... they're not necessarily aligned with your government?" Fluttershy sounded troubled, which was exactly how Twilight felt. At the same time, though, she felt a sense of hope. If there was a government that didn't feel this way, could she contact them? The alien's ears flicked again, in a different motion. "No, the infiltrators... they're not nice people. No one trusts them. They're supposed to just make sure that the Council knows about threats and things like that, but... I... you really just want to talk to someone? That's all?" Fluttershy nodded heavily. "Yes. But if the people responsible for this entire area don't want to... I don't know what we could do." "Oh, good move, ma'am. Asking for his help without stating that you are." Zziir licked his lips, his long, double-jointed arms shifting nervously. "You could try going to Baltor," he suggested. "That's the seat of government. Someone would listen to you there." Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "If it's the seat of government, there's gonna be a zillion ships and defense platforms there. We barely got out of the last trap, and you're suggesting we head right into another one?" Zziir looked at her strangely. "So you want someplace lightly defended?" "That's kind of a suspicious request for us to make." "It does rather sound like we're looking for something to attack." "What we'd really like is to find someone who'd listen, and could introduce us," Fluttershy said. "Just someone to hear us out and speak on our behalf to your government." "Hey," Rainbow's voice said on the net as Fluttershy spoke, "Talky-ponies. I got an idea, but I want to run it by you guys before I say anything. What if I ask him about a base, someplace with a bunch of fixed defenses but no ships. Is that too suspicious?" "That sounds good to me, Rainbow," Twilight said before the others said anything. "Concur," said another voice. "Go for it," said a third. "Right." Rainbow cleared her throat, and spoke out loud. "Hey, I can get you not wanting to point us at someplace undefended. I'd be nervous about that, too. But, I mean, you guys have attacked us every single time we've seen you. Tell you what, is there someplace with a bunch of fixed defenses, but no big fleet? That way, we could go in and sit outside their range and not have to worry about them coming after us, but we couldn't really hurt them either." Zziir looked at her silently for a moment, and Twilight thought they'd blown it. Finally, though, he said slowly, "How far are you willing to go?" "Do you mean distance?" Fluttershy asked. The alien's ears flicked. "That was a nod," one of the ponies in the net observed. "As long as we know where we're going, distance doesn't matter," the yellow pegasus told the captive. Zziir gave her an odd look. "Well... okay then. There's a place fairly close to Baltor that has a naval supply depot; it doesn't have an on-station response force, but it's pretty heavily fortified." He fidgeted. "I've... one of my cousins," the term Zziir used actually had a shockingly precise meaning, Twilight noted, but it couldn't be translated directly. Something like Father's father's brother's daughter's adopted son, but the translator rendered it as "cousin", "is in command, and he knows me. I... could speak for you, tell them what you've told me." Fluttershy's eyes widened. "You'd do that for us?" She asked, softly. "You'd speak for us, when we abducted you?" Zziir flicked his ears again. "You were desperate. I can understand, I think, if you're telling me the truth." He looked at Fluttershy intently. "It will also show me that you are serious. If you are willing to let me speak for you in a situation where I could pass a message you wouldn't catch." Fluttershy smiled. "I hope you don't do that, but if you do, I won't be upset. We could also use the chance to get some provisions for you, so we don't have to guess at whether any of our food is edible for you." "Yes, there is that." The alien made a gesture with both hands. "Do you have a star map? I could give you the coordinates..." Twilight cut the connection as Zziir began giving directions to the base to the two pegasi. She paged the rest of her friends for a meeting; this was something they should probably discuss. Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity sat in the meeting room, making small talk and waiting for the two pegasi to arrive. Pinkie had preferred not to attend this meeting; she was still dealing with the stress brought on by her experience with Fluttershy, and didn't feel up to participating right now. Rainbow and Fluttershy had already called and said they were on their way with the information they'd gathered, but they hadn't arrived yet; they'd continued talking to the captive, trying to learn everything they could. Finally, though, the door hissed open, and Twilight finished the joke she was telling Applejack before looking up to see Fluttershy standing there, a slightly odd look on her face. "Ah, Fluttershy, there you are," Twilight said, smiling. She frowned a bit. "Isn't Rainbow with you?" Had the two pegasi started fighting again? It had seemed like they were getting along so well! "Yep," a voice said suddenly, centimeters from Twilight's ear and louder than normal conversation would be. The unicorn started so hard she almost fell off of her cushion, and spun around, heart racing, to see Rainbow standing there and grinning triumphantly. Twilight gave her a dirty glare, which only made the pegasus grin wider. "What? You told me to turn off the noisemakers when I came to talk to you." The unicorn heard a strangled snicker that might have come from Applejack, but chose to take the high road and ignore it. Acknowledging it would only encourage the polychromatic cyberpegasus, anyway. Twilight closed her eyes, shaking her head in exasperation. "Yes, I did. Thank you for doing that." "You're welcome!" Rainbow said cheerfully, before trotting over to a vacant seat and sitting down, still grinning, Fluttershy just rolled her eyes as she took a seat next to the other pegasus. Despite the momentary expression of exasperation, Twilight saw none of the tension she was used to seeing when her winged friends were together, and that made her heart lift a bit. Which was noticeable, since it was still pounding from the start Rainbow had given her. Fluttershy cleared her throat, ignoring the distraction and focusing on the business she'd come here to discuss. "Um. Well, first off, our captive's name is Zziir," she pronounced the name with an odd trill, reminiscent of the way the creature's companion had spoken, "and he was the navigator of the freighter you boarded." Fluttershy quickly summarized what Twilight had heard her talking to the alien about, and what she'd learned from him. The location of the Council's capital world of Baltor was interesting; it was much farther away than she'd thought. The space they claimed must be enormous. Rarity's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "How did you learn all this, darling? I'd expected the creature to be much more taciturn." Rainbow Dash chuckled. "He got a lot more talkative when I growled at him and Fluttershy made me back off." Fluttershy gave the other pegasus a severe look. "Well, yes, because you gave him an enemy to focus on and let me defend him and be his ally." She smiled. "Thank you for that, by the way. I don't know if it would have occurred to me to ask you to do that." "Any time. Figured it might work." Rainbow smirked. "No one would've believed you as the bad guy, anyway." The yellow pegasus cleared her throat. "He was trying to say as little as possible, but I did get him to talk to me a little bit. There are eighteen different species in the Council, including thirteen permanent members and five probationary members. Zziir's species is one of the permanent members. It seemed to me that he was really proud of that." "And what exactly is the distinction, darling?" Rarity asked. "Between permanent and probationary members, I mean?" "I'm not really sure. It actually wasn't what I was trying to talk to him about, just something he told me to try to impress me, I think. We were trying to learn more about what we might be able to do, and what we actually faced." "Which isn't good." Rainbow interrupted grimly. Fluttershy sighed. "No, it isn't. There are two major external-security organizations that the Council operates; the infiltrator service, and the Enforcement Branch." Rainbow called up an image from the archives, one of the pictures taken by the Warden cutters of the Interloper. "That ship that we first encountered sounds like an infiltrator ship, which is what Zziir identified it as. It was alone and it was sneaking around, which isn't the way the Enforcment group operates. I'm not sure exactly what the infiltrators do, and Zziir doesn't seem to like them, but it looks like they may have had some kind of interest in us." "Until we blew their ship away." Twilight filled in with a sinking heart. "Maybe." Fluttershy didn't sound as definite as Twilight had expected. "Whatever they wanted, it probably wasn't good; according to Zziir they're not very nice at all, and if they were poking around where we live they probably weren't doing it for fun. They sound really mean and nasty." Fluttershy blinked, then cleared her throat, changing track a bit. "All that we've built in the last few decades upset them, and I guess they're really angry for some reason, but they're not our problem now. The ones that attacked us, Dauntless, I mean, are all Enforcement ships; the sneaky ones found some bullies to fight us for them." Fluttershy looked upset, understandably so, Twilight thought. "The thing is... Zziir isn't sure why they're fighting us. After I talked to him for a little while, he was actually quite willing to believe that our getting involved in the fight with the Tazaft was an accident, which makes it very strange that they seem so unwilling to speak to us." "Perhaps he was just trying to tell you what he thought you wanted to hear," Rarity offered. "Under the circumstances, I can't say I'd blame him." "It's possible," Fluttershy said tentatively, "but I didn't get that feeling. I could be mistaken, but he really did seem nice once he calmed down a tiny bit. Anyway, what we're dealing with now is the Fifth Enforcement Fleet, which is also the group that's been prosecuting the Council's war with the Tazaft." "Heh," Rainbow interrupted, "you guys are gonna love this." Fluttershy shot her an annoyed look, but continued. "From what Zziir said, the Tazaft started the war because they felt the Council was taking too long to consider their application for membership. They're trying to make a statement, and force the Council to take them seriously, because they felt like they were being ignored." Twilight frowned. "Wait, so the Council takes new members?" "Yeah, they're normally really nice about it, according to Zir." Rainbow didn't pronounce the alien's name with the same trill Fluttershy put into it. "He actually thought we'd blown up the first-contact ship. It took a little talking to convince him we'd never seen one." "That is odd," Rarity observed with a frown. "Where would he have gotten that notion?" "His commanders, apparently," Fluttershy replied. "The good news is, he's willing to help us try to contact his government. The bad news... he's heard a rumor that his unit, Fifth Fleet, is planning to flatten us." Twilight felt a chill in her belly. She hadn't heard this part. "Flatten us? You mean..." "Zziir thinks there is a chance that his fleet is moving on our home world, yes," Fluttershy said quietly. "It's just a rumor, and he doesn't know how much truth there is to it, but it seems to be a very popular rumor." There were a lot of rumors in the Council fleet, evidently. "But... but this is crazy!" Rarity exclaimed. "All we've ever done is try to talk to them, and we've only returned fire when they fired on us first! Why would they be acting this way?" "We don't know." Fluttershy's voice was soft, worried. "Zziir doesn't know either. He fully expected us to kill him. Or torture him." "He really did," Rainbow said, a little bit of sadness creeping into her tone. "It was hard to act mean after the first time I growled at him. He was so scared..." "Zziir knows almost nothing about us, apart from the fact that we supposedly killed the Council first-contact team." Fluttershy bit her lip. "From what he knows, no one knows anything about us, which is very strange because the infiltrator service has been watching us very closely. There are all kinds of rumors about their ships visiting the Fifth Fleet's headquarters." Twilight wondered how closely they'd been watching, and for how long. Her thoughts were interrupted. "How large is this 'Fifth Enforcement Fleet', Fluttershy?" Rarity asked. "What kind of enemy are we potentially looking at?" "It's big." Rainbow interjected grimly. "Real big. What tried to trap us? Third and Eighth Task Groups." Twilight had done the math on that already, as Rainbow clearly had, and she felt a chill creeping into her bones at the reminder. Assuming that the slightly more than two hundred ships they'd seen in each detachment was a "task group", then the entire fleet had to be at least sixteen hundred vessels. Even the homeworld's defenses wouldn't be enough to defeat a force that powerful, though they would be able to hold it off for a while. Applejack looked sick with sudden fear. "Twilight... we gotta get home, right now! The Princesses... they hafta know about this!" Twilight shook her head. "We have something more urgent." The Warden's green eyes widened. "More than savin' our home?" Fluttershy nodded. "Yes. Rainbow and I convinced Zziir to help us contact his government. That fleet is too big for us to beat on our own, but if we can get them called off..." Applejack didn't look confident. "How sure are you that it'll work, Fluttershy?" The pegasus hung her head. "I don't know. I don't know how much time we have, so we can't afford to delay. I only hope we aren't already too late." "Do you have the location we need to head to?" Twilight asked. At Fluttershy's nod, she continued, "Okay, send it to the bridge, and I'll have Silver Stars set course immediately. It'll be a few hours before we hit the Jump limit, so perhaps we could reconvene when we get where we're going?" "That sounds good," Fluttershy said, as the five ponies rose from their seats. "Come along, darling, let's go get some lunch," Rarity suggested, receiving a nod from the yellow-coated pegasus. "Would the rest of you care to come along?" Twilight shook her head. "No, I'm going back up to the bridge. I want to be available immediately, in case I'm needed." "Me and Dash have some stuff to do, too," Applejack said, glancing at Rainbow. "Yup. Need to check on some supply stuff," Rainbow added. "Fair enough, darlings, I'll see you back home, I suppose." Rarity turned to Fluttershy. "Come along, dear, let's see if Pinkie Pie is hungry." The meeting broke up, the five ponies headed in three directions. The bridge was quiet when Twilight reached it, the officers she'd come to depend upon focusing on their jobs. The unicorn could see at a glance that the ship was still some distance away from being able to jump out. Sighing, she settled herself in her commander's seat, bringing up the information on the Council that they'd received from the Tazaft and starting to go through it again, hoping vainly that she'd find something that explained their behavior. Maybe what Fluttershy had learned from their captive would give her a clue, bring some small fact into focus... Argh, the captive! Twilight was torn on whether Fluttershy was right to put so much trust into the creature. Admittedly, they wouldn't lose much if he didn't pass along the message they wanted, and they could potentially gain quite a bit, but it worried her to have to depend on someone they'd kidnapped. And what were they going to do with him afterward? Give him back to the base he was taking them to? Hold on to him? What would they do with him if they kept him? Twilight chewed the issue of Zziir's long-term fate over as the ship cruised along, but she hadn't come up with a decent solution by the time they reached the Jump radius. The Jump warning tone sounded throughout Dauntless's vast hull, and moments later the ship vanished once again, reappearing in reality deep within Council-claimed space. Twilight stared in mild awe at the image of the Council depot on the screen. "So this is it?" "Yes," Zziir replied. Fluttershy had escorted the alien up to the bridge. "Ta Ahii Depot, one of the major supply nexuses for the Enforcement Fleet. You shouldn't see any warships; this is a collection and distribution nexus, and the Fleet doesn't typically resupply here." "Oculus?" Twilight asked, making sure that the translator systems were functioning, so Zziir could see they weren't planning anything underhoofed. "I don't see anything that looks like the warships we've seen, ma'am. Bunch of ships like the one we took him off of, though." Twilight could see that. Contact icons swarmed the screen, too many to count by eye, moving in remarkably orderly patterns around the colossal spaceborne construct of the depot. The depot itself dwarfed any artificial structure Twilight had ever seen; it was easily ten times the size of Equestria's orbital shipyard, in every dimension. The thing was humbling, especially considering that it had been built out in the middle of nowhere; Zziir had explained that it had been constructed as a collection point, and that it was close to three homeworlds and a dozen colony worlds, though this system itself wasn't heavily inhabited apart from the cluster of colonies and industrial yards that supported the depot. Zziir's ears flicked in a nod. "They're military freighters, making runs between Ta Ahii and the Fleet bases along this edge of the frontier. The next major supply convoy from Khll isn't due for another day or so, or you'd see bulk freighters, too." "Message from the depot, ma'am," Chatterbox interjected. "They're asking us to identify ourselves." "That was quick," Silver Stars observed. She sounded impressed. "They must have spotted us the second we arrived." Twilight looked to the catlike alien. "Well? How should we respond?" Zziir licked his lips. "Could you record a message from me?" Twilight nodded. Her horn glowed as she activated the bridge recorder. "Go ahead." Zziir looked a little nervous. "Ta Ahii depot, this is Zziir Delriin, attached to Fifth Enforcement Fleet, currently aboard the... what was your ship called again?" "The Dauntless," Fluttershy supplied. "Aboard the Equestrian starship Heroic," the alien continued. Okay, maybe the translators aren't a hundred percent accurate yet, Twilight thought. It's close enough, anyway. "We request permission to approach the depot, and I personally ask to speak to Commodore Iirrka, once we are in convenient communications range. Please have the defense systems online, but please do not fire." The aliens eyes darted over to Fluttershy and Twilight. "I am not certain whether this ship is hostile or not, and I prefer not to have the depot threatened." He paused. "Will you send that?" Twilight nodded. "Of course." She closed the recording, packaged the whole thing, and sent it to Chatterbox, who sent it winging out to the waiting depot. "It's been sent, though I cut it off at 'I'd prefer not to have the depot threatened.'" She smiled gently. "I didn't think they needed to hear you ask us to send it." Zziir blinked. "You're not upset?" "Not at all," Fluttershy told him. "You didn't ask them to fire at us, just to be ready. I can understand that, and having someone who's not going to fire first is all I asked for." She smiled. "Besides, if you have family over there, I can completely understand why you'd want to keep them safe." The alien blinked again. "I... thank you, for understanding." "It's the least we could do," Twilight replied. "Thank you for helping us." Dauntless crept closer, keeping their acceleration low so as not to seem like they were making an attack run. They were going only a little bit faster than the sluggish transport ships that swarmed around the huge depot, and Twilight approved of Silver Stars' decision to keep it that way. They received a terse reply partway there, telling them that the depot's commanders would be available once the Equestrian ship closed to communications range. It took quite some time; the depot was well inside the system, a good distance from the Jump limit. On one hoof, Twilight was glad for that; it gave the depot commander time to evaluate their approach and prepare himself. On the other, though, she chafed at having to take so long before returning home. The rumors Zziir had heard, and the revelation of how powerful the force they faced was, had kindled a cold fear in the unicorn's heart. Dauntless drew to a relative stop about two light-seconds from the depot. It was close enough that the communications delay would be fairly short, but far enough that they would be difficult to hit. It was honestly close enough that Silver Stars was a little worried; if the depot opened fire, they would be in range of its missiles for long enough to potentially take serious damage before they were able to claw their way back out of range. It didn't fire, though, just sat there, vast and still. The freighters had mostly moved to the other side of the station, keeping its bulk between them and the Dauntless. Twilight waved Zziir over. "We're close enough. Are you ready to talk to them?" Zziir's ears flicked an affirmative, and Twilight turned to Chatterbox. "Open up a channel, analog radio signal, please." She didn't want to take any chances of an improperly coded signal being misinterpreted. She nodded to Zziir. The alien cleared his throat. "Cousin Iirka? Are you there?" There was a pause of almost four seconds, one of the annoying things about dealing with a lightspeed lag. "I am here, Cousin Zziir." Like Zziir, the other alien used a remarkably precise one-word term that described their exact degree of relation, but the translator rendered it simply as "cousin." "This is something of a surprise. I have never even seen a ship like that; how did you come to be on it?" Zziir darted a look at Twilight, clearly having discerned that she was the pony in charge. "May I tell him?" "Please do. I won't stop you." Zziir quickly related the events that had led to him being captured by Twilight and Rainbow, including what he knew about Fifth Fleet's activities. He briefly described the short interrogation, and the requests that the ponies had made of him. He finished with, "... and now they're looking to contact the Council, but they're afraid of going anywhere with a fleet presence. Cousin... have you heard anything about this? You're fairly high up on the chain of command, I'm sure you've heard of the species that shot down our first-contact party." There was a very long pause, longer than the lag called for. Finally, the response came. "Zziir... is this anything like what happened with your aunt Maalkara?" Twilight almost held her breath. This was exactly what Zziir had cautioned them about, that he'd be able to pass a message they couldn't understand. She waited anxiously for his reply, wondering if they would have to fight their way clear. "No, Cousin, nothing like that." Zziir trilled. "I'm not under any duress, and they haven't threatened me at all. I'm not sure how much I believe, but I think they genuinely do want to speak to us; they seem desperate to do so." Twilight relaxed imperceptibly. He believed them. She'd been afraid that he'd betray them, but that didn't seem to be the case. There was another long pause. "Cousin... this seems unbelievable. No, I haven't heard a word of any species attacking a first-contact team, but the Council has supposedly been in closed session for months now, debating something. Could these creatures have something to do with that?" "I don't know. They say that their only encounter with the Council was an infiltrator cruiser that opened fire on one of their system patrols." "I've heard nothing about that, though it's likely I wouldn't. The infiltrators keep to themselves." There was a brief pause. "You there, who Zziir is speaking for. What exactly do you want? Why are you here?" Twilight cleared her throat. "We only want to talk to your people, and we want to find a way to stop what feels like a war we didn't start. If you could send a message to your government, asking them on our behalf to meet with us, that's all we ask." She glanced at the alien. "And if you could give us some supplies for, er, Zir?" Twilight just couldn't make her throat produce the right noise for the alien's name. "I know I'm mispronouncing his name, but we aren't sure we have the right supplies for him. Could you send some over?" "Why don't you send him back to us?" The voice on the other end asked. It was a fair question. She opened her mouth to speak, but Zziir beat her to the punch. "I'll volunteer to stay, Cousin. These folk have no reason to trust us, and I'd like to stay with them as a gesture of good faith. They've treated me very well, and I'm not afraid of staying here for now." Twilight frowned in surprise, but Fluttershy smiled gently. "Thank you, Zziir. I appreciate all you're doing for us." The depot's response brought them all up short. "Wait... Fifth Fleet is your station, right, Zziir? They emptied out their headquarters depot a few days back. It's likely they're engaged in something major right now... and there are rumors that the new Admiral is involved with the Interventionists." Zziir made a choking sound. "The Interventionists? That doesn't exist! Wasn't that just the excuse the Council used a few decades back to do a major reorganization on the infiltrator branch?" "What are the Interventionists?" Fluttershy asked. "They're fiction," Zziir said in an undertone. "Some faction of the Council that supposedly wanted to wipe out more primitive species because they didn't want too many members on the Senior Council. No one's that evil." "We're sending a shuttle with food supplies," the depot replied, ignoring the aside, "and we've already sent a message to the outsystem courier to head to Baltor immediately with your message. It may be several days before they put together a response, though. You may want to head back to your home system; I'm a little worried about Fifth Fleet's behavior, considering what you've told me." Fluttershy and Twilight shared a worried look. "Thank you, Commodore Iirka, we'll do that," the pegasus replied. "How worried do you think we should be?" The response was grim. "In your place... I'd be worried. Very worried. The message I sent to the courier had every 'urgent' tag I could put on it, but the Council doesn't react very quickly. Hopefully, the Interventionists won't intervene before the government does." The two ponies shared another concerned look. "Thank you," Twilight said, before closing the channel. She turned to Silver Stars. "Captain, get those supplies loaded as fast as you can, and then make full speed for the Jump limit. I want to be home as soon as possible." "Aye-aye, ma'am," Silver Stars replied crisply. Twilight could see concern lurking beneath the other mare's professional exterior. She only hoped their worry was unfounded. Dauntless arrived in her home system a matter of hours later, reappearing in the system where she'd started. "Receiving a transmission for you, ma'am." Chatterbox said, almost the instant the Jump shock cleared away from the bridge crew's minds. "What?" That couldn't be possible. Dauntless had just entered the system. It would take close to half an hour for the light from their entry to reach the homeworld, and another half-hour for any reply to reach them. Unfortunately, reality didn't seem to care whether that wasn't possible. "There's a transmission from home, ma'am. Addressed to you, origin point is direct from Princess Celestia." Twilight's brow furrowed. How could the Princess have known she was coming? She felt an ominous chill pervading her body. "Is it marked private?" "No, ma'am." The unicorn stallion's voice was worried. "It is marked urgent, though." "Put it on the main speakers." "My ever-faithful student," Celestia's voice began. The winged unicorn's voice sounded... weary. Almost exhausted. Twilight felt a spike of anxiety drive into her belly. "I can only hope you receive this in time. We are under attack, Twilight Sparkle, and the situation is dire." Attack?! "Oculus, get me a look at the homeworld, now!" Twilight snapped. Celestia's voice continued. "We don't know who they are. They appeared only a few hours ago and attacked without warning, and without mercy. Luna and I are keeping the shield raised, and all of Equestria is working to help us, but I fear that before long it will prove to be too much." "The shipyard's gone, ma'am." Oculus spoke over Celestia's message, the unicorn's voice hushed, as though she didn't want to speak. It sounded as loud as a scream against the utter stillness of the rest of the bridge crew. "There's a significant debris ring in orbit, and I'm seeing constant explosions against the planetary shields. I'm not reading any message traffic from anywhere in the system, apart from the homeworld. The cutters, the miners, the construction ships and surveyors, the science stations and habitats... all of it's gone. All I can find is debris." "No..." Twilight whispered. The Council fleet. It had to be. She felt like she'd been struck; it was too much, far too much to take in like this. Had Zziir lied? Had the Council been planning this attack all along? Had they told her to come back here, so they could wipe out Equestria completely? There were so many dead already, shattered to dust and floating in the cold of space... Celestia, of course, couldn't hear her. "They are bombarding us constantly. Even a single weapon getting through the shield will have apocalyptic results. We cannot hold, my student. There are far too many for you to fight; you must run. Take your ship, and all the ponies aboard it, and flee. Try to rebuild Equestria somewhere far from here, for this world is lost. We will delay them as long as possible, draw out our deaths to keep their attention here, and we will bleed them as much as we are able. Hopefully they will not be able to follow." Celestia's voice softened. "I have loved you like a daughter, Twilight Sparkle. Please, listen to me as you would your mother; do not attempt to relieve us. You would only die. Save yourselves. Save something. Run." "The message is looped, ma'am," Chatterbox's voice sounded like thunder in the dead silence of the bridge. "Set to constant broadcast, looks like." "I've found three formations of Council ships," Oculus said quietly. "There may be more that I can't see. Each one is more than eight hundred strong. They're staying out of powered missile range, sending their own rounds in ballistic. They're looping around, accelerating to send them in at high enough speed that the defenses can't stop them all." No, they wouldn't be able to. The defensive systems, augmented by the phenomenal telekinetic power of the Celestial Sisters, could only destroy what they could see. Missiles coming in that fast would be nearly impossible to spot in time, before they smashed into the shield with the cataclysmic force bestowed by their velocity. She wondered in a moment of blinding irrelevance how the Council fleet could carry that many missiles, but it didn't matter. Her home was dying, right in front of her, and there was nothing she could do. Nothing. Her mouth tasted like ashes. Twilight's head came up abruptly. There was nothing she could do, not alone, but the lesson, the one lesson that Celestia had taught her in a myriad of different forms, was that friendship could conquer, when one pony alone would fail. And Dauntless had friends, regardless of the Council's true position. "Charge the Gate drive, as fast as possible," Twilight snapped. "Set our destination as the Tazaft base." Silver Stars' eyes snapped around to meet her Commander's, sudden determination glowing like fire in their depths as she realized what Twilight intended. "Yes, ma'am!" the captain barked, and the bridge crew exploded into frantic action. "Chatterbox, prepare to send a transmission." Twilight didn't pause to hear the stallion's acknowledgment. She activated the bridge network, setting it to record her voice. "Dear Princess Celestia," she said, consciously imitating the letters she'd sent as a student, all those long years ago, "Today I've learned that friendship can bring a glimmer of light, even when the world seems darkest, and can give you hope when all seems lost. You're going to learn it, too." Her voice turned hard. "Don't you dare give up, Princess. I'm jumping out... but I'll be back with friends. I will be back, do you hear me? Hold on, Princess. Just hold on, keep Equestria alive long enough for us to get the reinforcements you need, and we will be back!" She ended the recording, and sent it to Chatterbox. "Send that back to the homeworld." "Yes, ma'am!" The stallion said with a grin. "Sent. That'll light a fire under their tails!" "I hope so," Twilight said grimly. "I don't know how long it will take to bring Uhlsie's fleet back with us, and I need them to hold out until then." The jubilant mood faded as the engines charged, and everypony was forced to helplessly watch the speckles of light blooming against the planetary shield as the Council bombardment continued unabated, thundering against the helpless gem of the world. Twilight felt sick to her stomach, knowing that even one of those missiles slipping past would cause untold havoc, murder huge numbers of ponies. Maybe even ponies she knew, friends she'd left at home. Or perhaps it would hit zebra lands, or kill buffalos or griffons. All those options were unacceptable, all were murder. Some of her friends had been on the shipyard, she realized, the memory of their faces stabbing like icy knives in her heart. She'd known ponies out on the orbital habitats, the science stations. All of them were almost certainly dead, and she felt a cold anger building in her heart at these monsters, these beasts who would murder so many for no reason. Finally, the engines cleared, and Dauntless jumped, bound for the distant glimmer of the star that housed the Tazaft forward base. The Tazaft recognized them immediately, and they were allowed through the patrols around the base without fuss. Tazaft ships swarmed around space near the surprisingly orderly construct of their staging base, thousands strong. Most were warships, but others were tenders, cargo ships, repair vessels... ships of a dozen different roles that were necessary to make a deep-space naval installation function. Twilight contacted the Tazaft military command the instant the transmission delay was short enough to make it practical, and was routed to Eklsee without even having to ask twice. "Thlaaht Shkarku! It is a pleasure to see you again," the alien greeted her, the spines on her head moving slowly. "It seems that the Council forces have partially withdrawn from this region of space; I was gathering my fleet for a strike on their headquarters before they could return. Perhaps you would be willing to join us?" "They haven't withdrawn," Twilight explained hastily, "They've massed to attack my homeworld. They have hundreds of ships, thousands. I need your help, Uhlsie, I need it desperately." The Tazaft was silent for a long moment. "Are they all in one force? All attacking your homeworld in one group?" Twilight blinked at the question. She shook her head slowly. "No... they're in smaller fleets, about eight hundred strong each." Eklsee's lips peeled back from her teeth, surprisingly far, baring blunt incisors flanked by an astonishing set of tusks that Twilight hadn't even suspected that the alien possessed. "Excellent. Concentrated we could never have beat them, but dispersed like that? We have a chance. We can bleed them." The Tazaft tapped keys that Twilight couldn't see, looking away from the video pickup. "Your world will require us three jumps to reach; my ships can manage two without recharging, so I will need to bring my tenders along. I will leave them in the system before yours, to make sure I have a line of retreat, should things go badly." "Uhlsie..." Twilight's stomach was churning with worry and fear, tension coiling so tightly around her body that she feared she would break, like an overwound spring. "Uhlsie, we can't withdraw. They're bombarding my home. I can't leave. I can't abandon them." Quills rattled. "And I cannot sacrifice my fleet if things are hopeless. Fear not, Thlaaht Shkarku, I do not intend to flee unless victory is impossible to attain, and I have plans. You have accurate survey charts of your home system, yes?" Twilight nodded, furrowing her brow. "Yes, I'll send them along. Why?" "From what I have seen, your ship cares not for gravity. Ours are different; they can only jump to where space is... flat. That is the best I can describe it, with this translator. Ordinarily, we jump in directly above or below a star, but that will put us far from your world, and give the enemy time to concentrate into a force we could not defeat." Twilight tilted her head, wanting to get this conversation over as quickly as possible so she could go help her world. "We'll send the charts, one moment..." "We need them with precise locations and masses of the planets and the star," Eklsee said hurriedly. "Your world has a moon, yes?" "Yes, it does." "Good. Good. We will jump to one of the flat places created by the world and the moon and the star. It is difficult to calculate, but with the kind of charts I'm sure your people could build, we can do it." The alien flashed those tusks again. "We can give you the exact time we will do so. If we do, do you think you can lure the enemy past that location at that time? If they are already close enough that we can strike them with lightspeed weapons, we could finish that group off quickly and with few losses, leaving fewer of the enemy to crush." "Yes, I believe we can do that." Twilight paused, thinking hard.. "Uhlsie, can you jump outside the orbit of the moon? I doubt we would be able to lure them that close to the planet; the defenses would destroy them if they came that far in." The alien made a noise in her throat, her fingers stirring. "You are sure of that?" "Yes, very." Coming so close would allow the Princesses to grab the ships. While they weren't quite as powerful as their movement of the moon and adjustment of the planetary rotation suggested, (both the planet and its moon were extremely magically active, and responded very easily to a sufficiently powerful touch) they were more than strong enough to crush and rend starships by the dozen, especially when their strength was boosted by the defense systems' resonator matrices. With the strength Twilight knew her teacher possessed, any detachments sent close to the world the Sisters watched over would have regretted the mistake. Briefly. They could also sweep the moon around in its orbit, though doing so would disrupt the tides badly. In fact, they'd probably already been doing it, hence why the Council fleet had broken up to attack from multiple angles. Twilight made a note to make sure to tell the Princesses to put the moon where her charts indicated it should be. Eklsee made a rumbling noise in the back of her throat. "We can do the jump you describe. It will lend additional risk to an already risky attempt, but I am willing to take that risk. Send me the charts, Shkarku, and I will give you the time we will arrive." Twilight felt an overwhelming surge of relief rush through her. She wasn't alone. The Tazaft, and their thousands of ships, would be there to help. Maybe they could do this, after all. Maybe her world could live. They still had a heck of a fight on their hooves... but she wasn't alone. She quickly assembled the information Eklsee needed, sending it to her station even as Dauntless reversed her course and began to boost back outsystem for jump. She received back a message of thanks, containing the precise timestamp, helpfully translated into the Equestrian system, that the fleet would arrive, as well as the location. "I hope we can do this, Thlaaht Shkarku," Eklsee said on the screen. "If we can defeat this fleet, perhaps it will be enough to end our war. Even if it does not, I consider it worth the price to defend my ally." "Thank you, Uhlsie." Twilight sent back. "Thank you." "I will see you on the battlefield. Go with courage." Dauntless reached the Jump limit, and the Gate drive engaged with a surge of power, flinging it once more back to its place of origin. There was no time for speeches. Twilight wanted to give one, wanted to tell the crew how important this was, but they already knew. Thoughts had flown around the network, spreading news of what they were doing to everypony aboard, and everypony knew what they faced. Everypony knew they would likely die... but they would die saving their world. Twilight was content knowing that she would fall that way, and she knew her crew felt the same. The transmission was sent the moment Dauntless re-entered the system, letting Equestria know they were coming and what their plans were. Celestia sounded exhausted when she acknowledged Twilight's message, after the long delay. She also sounded unhappy about her student's return, but Twilight heard the tiniest ghost of hope in her mentor's voice. The moon moved to where it should be, but slower than she knew the Princesses could move it. They were barely in time; Celestia was reaching the end of her endurance, and Luna must be, too. Still, that glimmer of hope in the Princess's weary voice filled Twilight with determination; she would not fail. The Council force was already turning as Dauntless charged toward them, alone against eight hundred foes. Her shields slammed into place, managed by every engineer who could be spared from other duties, and missiles spat in pitiful clusters from her launchers. :I've only got a few minutes' worth of ordnance: Wingblade's thought pulsed to the network. :Don't hold back too much. We need their attention: Twilight sent back. She could feel the tension, the determination in the net, colored brown and red and tasting of glowing embers. The missiles were effective all out of proportion with their relatively tiny numbers. The two engagements Dauntless had been in had given Oculus and Wingblade a vast amount of information on Council electronic warfare and point defense capabilities, and they'd modified their doctrine and their systems to account for it. The Council ships would shift their own systems on the fly, as would Twilight's officers, but this time Dauntless was starting out ahead of the game. The sensors told a grim story. Even as Council ships detonated in diamond-hard blinks of light, torn asunder by Equestrian missiles that slipped like thieves through even their massed point-defense, contemptuously ignoring the Council fleet's attempts to jam, Oculus was tallying the foe's numbers. Three task forces besides this one were flinging their hate at the helpless world, striving to murder those that had done nothing to them. Four sub-fleets in total, more than three thousand enemy ships. The Tazaft forces that were coming would only outnumber them four to three. Still, they were separated. If they could fall on the enemy one force at a time, defeat them in detail, they could still do this. They could. Twilight had to believe that, for the alternative was unthinkable. The first enemy salvo roared in, a concentrated deluge of death all directed at the lonely figure of the Equestrian exploratory cruiser. Twilight could feel the gunners' minds straining as they fought to direct their defenses, and she felt Night Breeze's frantic attempts to twist the ship out of the path of the oncoming ordnance. Warheads detonated against Dauntless's shields, but the mighty barrier held, at least for the moment. Twilight could feel the ozone tang of system overloads throughout the ship as parts of the shield absorbed too much energy, and the engineers fought to stabilize them. A second colossal salvo streaked in. Again the shields held, again they defended the ship from the Council's rage, but Twilight could feel them weakening. The load was immense, though, and the systems were starting to fail under the strain. There was no way the exploration cruiser could stand up to this many foes; all they could do was sting and run. Dauntless pulled out of the enemy's range, her engines straining as she fought for distance. :Excellent work, everypony: Twilight pulsed, feeling the iron tang of relief from Wingblade and Peppermint Punch as they shifted their attention from the monstrous strain of managing the point defense to focus on the launchers. :That's phase one. Phase two is ready?: :Yes: Came the thought from Monkeywrench down in Engineering. The mare was terse in the network, eschewing extraneous thoughts, saving her energy for her work. She was ready, though, Twilight could feel it. The lavender mare allowed herself a brief moment of satisfaction. Things were going well, and on schedule. The other Council forces were continuing their bombardment of the planet, evidently trusting this force to handle her lone ship. Perfect. Dauntless staggered suddenly, light and heat flaring from her engine pods in an abrupt flash, so intense it was almost an explosion. Her acceleration dropped precipitously, falling far below her maximum, dropping low enough that the pursuing ships would be able to bring her back into range within minutes. Scenting blood, the Council fleet pushed their own acceleration up to the maximum they could sustain, eager to close and kill the ship that had slain so many of their compatriots. The Council ships closed quickly. Nothing appeared. :Where are they?!: Twilight pulsed, panic suddenly clawing at her thoughts and oozing outward, mixing with the fear she suddenly felt from the rest of the crew. :That was the timestamp! Where are they?!: Monkeywrench fought to push Dauntless back to full speed, clawing to reverse the sudden slowdown she'd done to focus the enemy on the cruiser and drag them out of the Council fleet's reach. The engines protested, the chaotic energy deliberately introduced to create that light cascade preventing them from functioning smoothly. The Council ships closed like hungry wolves, scenting injured prey. They would be in range in moments. :Energy spike!: Came the thought from Oculus. Twilight felt relief surge through her at the message. :Here they come!: Tazaft ships exploded out of the void, thousands of them, heralded by violent pulses of energy that utterly blinded the Council ships. The Council fleet staggered, surprised and disoriented, their sensors overloaded, unable to see their attackers and not expecting the sudden, overwhelming assault. The Tazaft ships were already within beam range, Twilight and Silver Stars having lured the Council force perfectly into ambush position, and the swarm of ships poured around them, enveloping the blinded task force and tearing at them with shocking savagery. Beams stabbed and flashed, and Council warships came apart in a vast scintillation of energy and debris, spattering across the sky as the Council force died. :Beautiful: thought Wingblade, :Beautiful: The raw passion in the young mare's mind would have brought tears to Twilight's eyes, if she'd been wholly in her own body. "Brilliantly executed, Shkarku," Eklsee's voice spoke in radio waves through the void. To the ponies in the network, it seemed achingly slow, taking what felt like hours to convey the simple message. "That could not have gone better." :You could have been more on-time: Wingblade thought sourly over the bridge network. :It was only about half a minute: Twilight thought reprovingly, while composing her return message. "One down, three to go," her voice said, slowed to a speed that Eklsee would be able to understand. Even as she sent it, though, she was looking at the sensor returns with a chill. Two of the Council sub-fleets had linked up while she led the first to its doom. The third had already altered its course, and the slow Tazaft ships would never be able to reach it before the whole fleet merged once more. Dauntless would not be able to lure the separated force away, not with the Tazaft fleet already in the system. Panic again surged, met by the sick fear radiating from the entire bridge crew. Even Wingblade was emanating a slow, deathly terror as the situation registered. "They are no longer separated, Thlaaht Shkarku." Eklsee said, evidently noticing what the Equestrians had already seen. This closely tied to the translator, Twilight could hear the tightness in the alien's voice, the wish to deny what she saw. "We are only twice their number. I cannot engage them now, not unified as they are and without surprise. They would crush us." "But we can't leave now!" Twilight cried over the comm system, her voice crawling like a glacier while her mind and thoughts raced. "We can't! If we leave, my world dies! Every pony in Equestria will die, every griffon, every zebra... every thinking being! They will all die if we abandon them! Please, Uhlsie, please! I can't do this alone! We can't let the Council murder them! Please, help me!" Twilight felt sick as the reply to her plea came lumbering in. "Would that I could, Thlaaht Shkarku. But this fleet is two-thirds of the ships the Tazaft possess; I cannot lose them here, fruitlessly, and leave my people helpless. I am deeply, truly sorry, but I must withdraw." Twilight started composing a retort, but Eklsee wasn't done. "Come with me. With the charts you gave us, we could return in a day or so, when I have had time to gather my transport ships. We could decoy them away from your world again, you and I, lead them to the edge of the system while my transports evacuate as many of your people as possible. We cannot win here, but perhaps we can save some of your people!" Twilight understood. These weren't Eklsee's people, and their friendship wasn't close enough for the alien to seek annihilation to affirm it, but she was willing to come back, to try a different approach. Twilight couldn't leave, though. She knew something Eklsee couldn't; the Princesses would never last another day. Without the Sisters, the shield would not hold, and when the shield fell, the Council would murder her home. Just as Eklsee couldn't stay, Twilight couldn't leave. "I can't go with you," Twilight's response whispered out. She knew this was wrong, knew she should leave as Celestia had asked... but she couldn't. "I understand why you have to go, but I'm staying. The defenses won't hold for that long, unless something keeps the Council from focusing on them. We will try to decoy the fleet away from the homeworld for as long as we can; if you still feel any sense of friendship toward me or my people, please, gather your transports and try to return. Maybe I can lead them away for long enough." Eklsee's quills clattered as she replied. "Your courage humbles me, Thlaaht Shkarku. I will do what I can, but I fear that there will be nothing to return to." "I would welcome whatever you can do." Twilight was surprised that she didn't even feel bitter. Sad, yes. Hopeless, yes. But she could understand the alien's decision. "Die well, Thlaaht Shkarku. I will try to write a song for you." The Tazaft ships reversed their acceleration, headed back to their emergence point, and minutes later, Equestria's last hope vanished as suddenly as they'd come, leaving Twilight and her bridge crew feeling hollow, watching the vast Council fleet bearing down upon them. :Signal from the Princess: Chatterbox interjected. Twilight tied her thoughts into the communication system. :My faithful student, that was brilliantly done. A quarter of the Interlopers, gone. Can you do it again?: The unicorn's heart felt like a lump of lead as she responded. :No, Princess. I'm sorry, but our allies can't fight a force this large. We'd hoped to catch them while they were scattered, but....: Twilight couldn't finish the thought, couldn't bear to tell her mentor that this was the end. She no longer believed what she'd heard at the depot, no longer believed that the alien they'd taken captive had been telling the truth. If he had been, there was no way this could have happened. There was a pause. :I see. Still, you have bought us time. Now run, my student. Take your ship and go. Don't think about what is happening behind you, and do not look back: :I'm sorry, Princess. I can't. There's a chance that we can distract them long enough for our allies to come back with transports, to save at least some of you. We're going to try.: The Princess's return thought was shot with anguish, desperate. :Twilight, no! Please! Don't throw your lives away like this! Please, please, run while you can!: Twilight had never felt that kind of raw pain in her mentor's thoughts before. It was agonizing to experience. Twilight cut the connection, severing her contact with her beloved teacher. She hoped the Princess would be able to forgive her. :Are the rest of you okay with doing this?: she sent to the bridge crew through the link. The others pulsed a brief thought to Silver Stars, unanimously allowing the captain to speak for all of them. :Yes. We're Wardens. This is what we do.: There was a tinge of pride to the thought, pride mixed with sadness, a steely current of determination lying underneath it. :All right then. Let's go.: Dauntless's pitifully small number of missiles didn't even last all the way through the first pass. The Council's return fire smashed through both point defense and shields in a hurricane of flame, gouging savagely at the cruiser's armor. There were no more freak failures like the first warhead the ship had taken, but Dauntless was brutally battered nonetheless. Twilight's mind wanted to cringe away, knowing that the breaches in the ship's hull had killed several of the crew, smashed them to pieces or burned them to ash, but she couldn't afford it. Couldn't afford to feel the pain. The cruiser pulled out in front of the enemy fleet, fleeing for the edge of the system. The Council ships followed doggedly, probably hoping to kill her before she could vanish again. A pointless fear; the damage from the exchange had destroyed the Gate drive. It would take weeks in a shipyard that no longer existed to fix it. Dauntless would not be leaving the system. Again and again, she slowed, allowing her pursuers a single salvo each time, to keep them from breaking off, her crew knowing that every second that they endured the brutal battering bought their homes and loved ones a few more seconds of life. They were determined to draw it out, to make their deaths purchase as much time as they could, praying that they would last long enough for Eklsee to gather a rescue force and knowing that they wouldn't. Missiles gouged and smashed Dauntless's armored hull, opening more and more rents, blasting more and more of her crewmares into meat and ash. Twilight felt Peppermint Punch die during the third attack, her mind shrieking as it overloaded with the strain of constant linkage. Wingblade clung determinedly, absorbing the shock of the unicorn's death and fighting on alone. Twilight threw herself into the weapons' officer's link, doing what she could to keep them alive for a few more seconds. Just a few more. After the fifth attack, Twilight felt another mind join the bridge crew, edging in to replace Peppermint. :Hey, Twi.: :Rainbow Dash?: She asked the question, even though she already knew. :Yeah. Helping out where I can. Rares is down in Engineering, trying to keep the shields from collapsing completely. A.J.'s helping run damage control, Fluttershy's down in the medbay, and Pinkie's trying to record what she can. You know, so just in case someone pulls it out of the wreck, they'll know what happened: There was a pause. :Heh. Thought you guys would all outlive me. This kinda sucks: :It really does.: Then the sixth salvo was upon them, and there was no time for anything else. Rainbow threw herself into the fire control network; she wasn't as experienced as Wingblade, but she knew the basics, and she had the same enormous mental resilience that Twilight and Rarity had. Dauntless staggered outward, pulling out of her pursuers range one more time. She was a broken, air-bleeding wreck, half her crew dead, and Twilight knew that if they took further damage, they wouldn't be able to pull out of range again. The engines were failing anyway; in a few minutes their acceleration would drop, and the Council would catch her for the last time. Oculus, freed for the moment from the task of pinpointing enemy missiles, spotted something new. :More contacts: her exhausted mental voice slurred. :Directly ahead: More Council ships, Twilight saw. She no longer felt afraid, no longer felt sick, didn't even feel a chill, she just felt numb at the news. More of them, come to murder her and her home. The Council must have sent more, must have felt that Fifth Fleet wasn't enough. These must be reinforcements, just arrived, dropping out of FTL. There were more than five thousand, a massive force, dwarfing the one that pursued them and bearing down as fast as the one behind was pursuing. The contacts lit the sensor display ahead with a sea of red icons. :How many ships do they need to kill us?: She thought bitterly. Nopony replied. Twilight noted that one group, about seven hundred ships, was pushing out ahead of the main fleet, driving at accelerations that rode the edge of what she knew would burn out a Council drive. They risked losing their engines, stranding them here until extensive repairs could be done, which struck Twilight as strange. How odd, she thought, realizing that there were actually several different types of ship in the oncoming fleet, when she'd only seen one type in Council forces before. It doesn't matter, she thought privately, the knowledge of her failure settling like a lead weight in her stomach. This is it. :There's... a lot of comm traffic going back and forth from that new force: Chatterbox noted a moment later. :A lot. There's... Commander! Listen!: Twilight tied herself into the comm system again. The oncoming fleet was broadcasting a message, a broad-band analog radio signal in several different languages... including Equestrian. "This is High Admiral Turthak, commander in chief of the Baltornic Council Enforcement Division. I am here with elements of the Third and Ninth Enforcement Fleets, and components of Kruusch and Terran Planetary Defense Fleets. Fifth Enforcement Fleet is hereby directed to surrender and stand down immediately, and Admiral Peters is to be placed under arrest, pending charges including misrepresenting the orders of a superior, illegal employment of force, mutiny, treason, attempted xenocide, and multiple counts of murder. Again, Fifth Fleet is directed to stand down. All crews are to be taken into custody and returned to Baltor. Any ships that refuse to do so will be considered to be in rebellion against the Council, and will be fired upon." The translated voice was toneless, flat, but listening to some of the audio in the other languages, Twilight thought she could hear a cold rage in the alien's words. Twilight couldn't believe what she was hearing. This Council force... was here to stop the other? Why? Even if the depot commander had been telling the truth, he'd said it would take days for any reply to come. Still, she felt a cautious stir of hope, a tiny glimmer in the darkness, that perhaps all was not lost. Her thoughts were interrupted by another message, this one a tight-beam radio transmission from the sub-fleet that was maintaining such dangerous acceleration. It was in one of the Council languages, fortunately one of the ones that they had gotten from the Tazaft. Twilight activated the translator daemons, feeding them the necessary information, and allowed them into her mind. "Equestrian vessel! This is Admiral Glenmore, Terran Defense Fleet, aboard the Everest! I'm sending this message directly from my flagship; please, set your heading toward me! If you can reach us, my ships will shield you! We are friendly, repeat, we are friendly!" As she watched, two of the ships in the fleet shuddered wildly, their engines blowing out under the strain of their acceleration. She was suspicious, but what option did she have? Even if she altered their course immediately, the two fleets would close on Dauntless like the jaws of a vice. Still, she didn't quite believe it, though the word 'friendly' resonated in her heart. "Why should I believe you?" She sent back, wondering wearily what kind of response she'd receive. "You don't have any reason to." Admiral Glenmore replied. "That bastard Peters... I don't blame you for not trusting me." The oncoming force that was the source of the transmission altered their course slightly; Dauntless would fly through the center of their formation if they maintained it. "You have every right to hate us. I can only offer my promise and my word; if you fire on us, we will not reply. We are friends, even if you don't believe it. Furthermore, we will engage any of Fifth Fleet's ships that fire on you, and if you can reach us, we will surround you so they can't fire on you without firing on us, too. We're trying our damndest to get to you, but you need to alter your course to let us reach you before Fifth Fleet does!" The ships that were evidently Admiral Glenmore's command abruptly flipped, accelerating back as hard as before. If Dauntless continued to limp on in her current course, the seven hundred ships in front of her would perfectly match her speed as she reached them. Even as Twilight watched, five more of the oncoming ships shuddered and stopped accelerating, coasting into the system on inertia as their drives burned out. Friends... Twilight had told Celestia that Dauntless had friends... perhaps they had more than they'd realized? Oh, she wanted to believe it, but she wasn't sure she could afford to. Behind them, the Council pursuit force was behaving erratically. Many of the ships had ceased acceleration entirely, while others still drove toward Dauntless. Had all this, all this death, all these fights, all been... what? Some hideous crime? How could anyone do that? How could it have gone unnoticed up until now? "Cease acceleration and stand down, Fifth Fleet. This is your final warning." The voice of High Admiral Turthak came, again being broadcast in multiple languages, as though it wanted Dauntless to hear. "We have scanned this system. We know what has been done here, and we know that the Equestrians were not aggressors and never have been. Admiral Peters' crimes are horrific in scope, anathema to any civilized being, and any ship failing to comply with my orders will be treated as attempting to continue those crimes and met with overwhelming force. Do not fire on the Equestrian vessel. Under any circumstances. Disobey this order and you will die, my oath on it." Most of the pursuing ships had fallen out of formation, and only a hooffull were still following. It was still enough to kill them, though; Dauntless's defenses were essentially gone. Twilight's crew was on the ragged edge. Only Peppermint Punch had fallen out of the link, but several of the others were right on the verge. The next salvo would probably kill them anyway. Only Twilight and Rainbow were in any state to continue, and they couldn't fight the ship alone. The next pony to die in the link would probably take everyone else with her. The unicorn made a snap decision. "We'll trust you," she sent back to Admiral Glenmore. "We're dying, and we can't hurt you anyway. If you betray us, I'll never know it." Wearily, Twilight altered Dauntless's course toward the oncoming force, and ordered everypony out of the link. The world rushed back, and pain filled her head. It was several seconds before her eyes worked, and a horrible, iron smell filled her nostrils. She thought it was another side-effect of the prolonged, stressful link, until she looked around. Peppermint Punch's body lay where Rainbow had tossed it aside in order to use her station, blood and tissue leaking from her ears and nose, her mouth open with a look of agony frozen on her face. Twilight shuddered. The bridge crew collapsed around her, some still moving, some unconscious. She hoped they were unconscious, at least; they could well have died during the disconnect. Dump-shock like that could easily be fatal. Only Twilight and Rainbow remained upright and functional. She looked up at the flickering image of the main plot, as the broken, bleeding wreck of her ship staggered into the teeth of the oncoming formation. She watched... and they didn't fire. The ships moved in around her, their formation closing to surround the shattered cruiser, sheltering her from their own people. A voice whispered from the bridge speakers in an alien language. Belatedly, Twilight activated the translator, since Chatterbox was lying limp at his station. "Thank you," Admiral Glenmore's voice said softly. "I promise, I swear, you will not regret trusting me. Thank you for giving me the chance to redeem us." There was a pause. "Some of your pursuers are still coming. Let me show you that we're not all like them." Missile traces bloomed, some heading toward Dauntless and her new escort... and others headed outward, as the Council force around them opened fire on the pursuers. Council missiles streaked out, as fast as the escorting fleet could fire, and when the incoming salvo sought to end Dauntless, it was Council defenses that warded it off. The explosions that lit the void didn't blot Dauntless away, they eradicated the few ships still trying to murder her. Twilight felt a stillness fall over her, as the last of her actual enemies died. The rest of her pursuers had stopped, coasting along without adjusting their course, as the newcomer force decelerated to meet them. The vast Council fleet moved into proximity with the ships that had attacked Equestria, some docking while others stood off, their targeting systems staying threateningly active while they watched their companions. The seven hundred ships that had shielded Dauntless didn't join their cohorts. They stayed clustered around the broken cruiser, swarming like minnows around a wounded shark. The tight-beam transmission from Admiral Glenmore activated again, and Twilight heard a heavy, relieved sigh from the alien at the other end. "It's over. Fifth Fleet has been arrested, and they won't attack you again. Do you need assistance, Equestrian vessel? The Terran Defense Fleet stands ready to lend you any aid we can offer." It was too much. Twilight swallowed hard, but the emotional whiplash of the past several hours were just too much for her to handle. It started with a single sob, but it quickly built until the unicorn was weeping uncontrollably, tears pouring from her eyes. Tears of loss, mourning all the ponies and other creatures who had died, mixed with tears of utter relief. She wasn't dead. Her world wouldn't die. And finally, finally her mission had been accomplished: the Council was talking to her. Twilight wept helplessly, unable to stop. She felt somepony approaching her, felt the warm, smooth metal of Rainbow Dash's forelegs go around her as the pegasus embraced her friend, pulling the unicorn close. Twilight leaned into the hug, resting herself against her friend, feeling the comfort of her presence and letting herself draw strength from the contact. She kept crying, as on the bridge speakers, Admiral Glenmore repeated its offer of assistance.

Outside the Reaching Sky

Aftermath

It took Dauntless hours to limp back home on the remains of her drives, but Twilight refused the Council fleet's offer to tow her. In spite of what had happened, she didn't fully trust them, though she was relieved and glad that they were finally talking to her. The final casualty list was horrific. Tens of thousands of ponies and other sapient beings had perished in the destruction of the orbital facilities and space habitats, though thankfully the Princesses had managed to maintain the planetary shield at a strength sufficient to protect the inhabitants of the planet. Dauntless had suffered hideous losses; less than a quarter of the crew was active and functional, and several had been trapped, isolated by wreckage and battle damage. The Warden ground troopers had proven invaluable, their power armor giving them the strength and resilience to work through the damaged areas to rescue stranded friends. About half of the crew was still alive, though many were suffering from various degrees of trauma that had come from the extended link they'd been forced to maintain. Of the bridge crew, Chatterbox had died on disconnect, Silver Stars was in a coma, and Night Breeze had suffered some kind of neural damage. The brilliantly intelligent pegasus hadn't spoken a word since she'd awoken, and Doctor Rosethorn's prognosis was uncertain. Wingblade was all right, as were the bridge engineer and the navigator, though all were slated to be hospitalized for evaluation upon return to Equestria. Twilight hoped that Night Breeze at least could be saved; the mare was one of the smartest she could remember encountering. Such a brilliant mind deserved better. One way or another, it would likely be days before she knew anything; the neurological hospitals were going to be utterly overwhelmed by all the cases coming off of Dauntless. Twilight maintained an attitude of suspicious distrust toward the Council fleet, though she did thaw a bit when she learned that several detachments had fanned out through the system to do search and rescue. Astoundingly, they even found a few survivors; a zebra crew in a surveyor ship that had been only crippled rather than destroyed, and a cluster of ponies and one griffon, near-dead from hypoxia, who had managed to seal themselves into the only surviving compartment of one of the out-system research stations. Both groups had been brought back to Equestria as fast as the ships that found them could manage, and in the case of the second group, Council first aid proved to be literally the difference between life and death for almost half of them. She thawed a bit more when, in an effort to work through that distrust, the Council flagship contacted her shortly after Dauntless returned to her homeworld and began shuttling her crew back to Equestria for evaluation and treatment. In a message addressed to her specifically, another alien introduced itself as Shuur Delsinac, informing her that he was the Council's appointed representative and diplomat, and that he would like to meet her as soon as possible, in order to explain what had happened and to discuss possible reparations. Feeling tired and not up to dealing with the situation, she put him off, saying that she would decide later, but indicating that she and Fluttershy would be willing to meet with him at some point. She also arranged for her captive, Zziir, to be returned to the Council on an Equestrian shuttle, a gesture the representative had appreciated. Zziir had offered to remain, even after the horrific pounding Dauntless had taken, but Twilight had felt that it would be better to have him back among his own people. Eklsee's second rescue attempt manifested a little less than a day after she'd been forced to flee by the combined strength of the Fifth Enforcement Fleet. Tazaft ships, in small detachments, jumped into the system in dozens of different places, clearly intending to draw off any Council ships they could in an effort to spare Equestria. Eklsee herself was once again among them, and she was suspicious when Twilight contacted her to tell her that a tentative truce had been arranged. "It does me good to see you, Thlaaht Shkarku," the Tazaft said, at one end of the long communications delay. "I had feared the worst." Her tone hardened, and her quills bristled. "Tell me true; have you been conquered, my friend? Have our foes taken your world from you? I will shift my campaign focus towards your liberation, if you have. You need but to tell me." Twilight shook her head, as she recorded her response. "No, Uhlsie, we haven't. We're not entirely sure what's going to happen at this point; my friends and I have a meeting with a Council ambassador at some later point, to determine exactly what happened and what we're going to do about it." Eklsee's quills rustled restlessly when she replied. "Shkarku, I wish to believe you, but it is difficult with so many Council warships around your world. I wish to see for myself that you are well, and that your people are well. Is this possible?" Twilight blinked when she listened to that message, and she immediately contacted the Council flagship. High Admiral Turthak and the representative, Shuur, both answered, and Twilight wished that they'd spent the time to work out a video link. Having to communicate voice-only was strange, especially since both aliens were evidently using a translator keyed to Equestrian. "High Admiral, Representative, my Tazaft friend, Siluth Uhlsie, wants to come see for herself that Equestria is all right. I want to be able to give her my assurances that she won't be attacked by the fleet you have in-system. Are either of you able to offer those assurances?" There was a pause. "Director Sparkle, do you mean Seelith Eklsee?" Shuur asked, his voice lacking the flat tone of a translator. It made Twilight wonder if the creature had actually learned Equestrian; he'd managed to pronounce Eklsee's name properly, which was quite a feat. Perhaps he was good with languages. "The war-commander of the Tazaft Warrior Caste? That Seelith Eklsee?" "Yes. She's a friend of mine, and she promised to come back to try to evacuate any ponies that she could." Twilight's voice turned sour. "She didn't expect to find any, since your people clearly intended to exterminate everypony in Equestria." Another pause. "How in the world did you... never mind. I believe we can arrange safe passage, so long as we have the Tazaft's pledge not to fire on our ships, if you so request it. This is your space, and we intend to behave as guests in it. We will abide by your laws and your requests; we've wronged you enough already." "I concur," The flat tones of the translator the High Admiral was using stated. "I will issue the appropriate orders." Twilight sighed in relief. There was that hurdle out of the way. "Thank you, gentlefolk. I appreciate your willingness to work with me." She was also a little surprised by it; the Council commanders had been surprisingly accommodating since the arrest of Fifth Fleet. It was heartening. She hoped they were as genuine as they seemed. "Director Sparkle," Shuur interjected, "while I have you on the line, would you mind giving me an idea of when I could meet with you in person? Again, there are a great many things I think we need to go over." Twilight stifled another sigh, this one not a sigh of relief. "I don't..." she quickly linked to the terminal in her office, pulling up her schedule. It was quite full, with meetings scheduled with numerous ponies and representatives of the other species, trying to put things back together in the wake of the Council assault. Equestria's infrastructure had been utterly shattered in the battle, decades of work obliterated and thousands of skilled ponies killed. Only those industries entirely located on the homeworld had survived, and there were precious few of those. She didn't feel too much like bumping any of the reconstruction meetings to meet with the Council representative. "My schedule is very busy, Representative Shuur. I have a number of things I have to deal with, especially since the Princesses are both incapacitated." Luna and Celestia had both nearly collapsed from fatigue in the wake of the siege, and both were still recovering. A group of accomplished unicorn mages were ensuring the smooth passage of night and day, with the help of the defense systems. Twilight herself had sort of assumed a state of de facto rulership until one of the diarchs recovered. "I understand," the alien said sympathetically. "All I ask is a tentative idea of when we could meet. I want to help, Director Sparkle, and I was given to understand that you were eager to talk to me when we first spoke. Please, just let me do that; the Council itself empowered me to speak for them in an emergency session. I have the power to offer you and your people significant recompense, but I need to meet with you first." Twilight rubbed her forehead. "Very well. I have a tentative opening in two days, a little after noon, Canterlot time. Would that be sufficient?" "Entirely. I would like to bring High Admiral Turthak as well." "Fine." A thought struck her. "Could you bring Admiral Glenmore as well? I'd like to get a chance to meet... her?" "Him," Shuur corrected absently. "Certainly. I will see to it that he accompanies us." "I'll inform the admiral immediately." Turthak cut in. "Thank you, gentlefolk." Twilight cut the connection, and set her terminal to record for transmission to Eklsee. "Uhlsie, the Council leaders have promised you safe passage. I can't enforce it, but they seem sincere to me, and they did prevent their own people from destroying my ship." She quickly recounted the events leading up to the second Council force's arrival, finishing up with, "I'm not sure I trust these people yet, but they haven't betrayed us. I'll be waiting for your response, and I'd be happy to welcome you to Equestria." She ran the message through the translator and sent it flying through the void to the Tazaft flagship, turning to continue the report she was working on. The Dauntless voyage had resulted in a large number of mistakes that needed to be examined, and she intended to learn all she could from all of them. It was what a good scientist did. Her terminal pinged her, indicating it had received a reply from the Tazaft, and Twilight allowed it to open. "I share your skepticism, Shkarku," Eklsee said gloomily. "And I cannot afford to risk my fleet on the word of the Council. I do intend to come and see for myself whether your world needs to be rescued, however. I shall come alone, just my flagship, while the rest of my force waits in jump readiness. I doubt they will break their word just for me; it will gain them nothing." Eklsee's quills twitched. "I will see you when I arrive, Thlaaht Shkarku. I look forward to our reunion." Twilight blinked. That was... incredibly brave. A single Tazaft ship would stand zero chance against the armada stationed throughout the system; even a single Council ship would be able to kill her. "I will meet you when you get here, Uhlsie. I... thank you, for your courage, and for your willingness to stand with us. I will not forget." She tried to remember if that was close to what Eklsee had said to her before; she suspected that those were powerful words among the Tazaft, and she hoped that the alien realized how sincere she was being. The reply, when it finally came, was brief. "I will not forget, either, Shkarku. I will see you soon." Twilight returned to what she'd been going over, checking the records of the battle and reviewing everything that had happened prior to Dauntless's return. It was hard. She broke down crying several times, notably when reading about the last stand of Equestria's fledgeling navy; the Warden cutters had sacrificed themselves as the Council juggernaut bore down on the shipyard. They'd flung themselves suicidally at the flank of the fleet, trying desperately to decoy the vast force away for just a few moments while the evacuation ships got as many ponies as they could down to the surface, under the shield. It had worked, to an extent; the Council force had actually turned to engage the cutters, buying precious seconds for the evacuation. Twilight estimated that almost three hundred shipyard workers had been saved while the tiny Warden fleet had died in fire. They'd never known whether their sacrifice mattered or not. It took most of the day before Eklsee's ship arrived. When it did, Twilight thought it looked terribly lonely, settling into orbit amidst the swirling debris of the shipyard, with Council ships moving in squadrons through the orbital tracks as they carefully gathered up the wreckage, moving it to collection zones at the Lagrange points for later use. They didn't seem to be taking any of it, and Twilight had made sure that the planetary telescopes were watching like hawks to make sure they didn't. They were even gathering up the bodies, what few they could find; one of the things Representative Shuur wanted to discuss was what would be done with them. Twilight was planning on asking for their return, so their families could at least hold memorials for their lost kin. The Tazaft shuttle grounded at the spaceport outside of Canterlot, and Twilight was there waiting. The other five were busy with their own affairs; Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity were working on modifying the planetary defense network, just in case the Council forces changed their minds, and Pinkie Pie was working her tail off trying to cut and edit all of the recordings she'd taken, putting together the story of the Dauntless's voyage for all of Equestria to see. Fluttershy was busy talking via radio to the Council representative, working out protocols and making sure that he wouldn't be embarrassed when he met with Twilight, and that he wouldn't embarrass her. Eklsee was the first to exit the vehicle, striding out confidently, once more wearing her large, ornate hat that Twilight assumed was a badge of office. She was also wearing a breathing mask again; probably a wise precaution, since there hadn't been a chance to find out if anything in the Equestrian air might be toxic to the alien. The Tazaft commander's quills moved in a pattern Twilight had come to associate with a smile as she saw the unicorn. "Shkarku, your world is beautiful." Here in Canterlot, Twilight didn't need portable systems to run her translation daemons; the city's own network architecture was more than enough. "I've always thought so," Twilight replied, her translated voice emerging from the air next to her. She looked out across the city; it had grown quite a bit in the last eighty years. The buildings were delicate, soaring things, held together by spellware woven into their structures that made them vastly tougher than they looked. It leant Equestria's capital an ethereal appearance. She turned back to her alien friend with a smile. "Would you like a tour?" Eklsee's quills stirred, and she made a gesture with one hand. "Yes, I would. I need to see for myself that this world still belongs to you." She stepped closer, pulling a small device out of a pocket. "Shkarku... this is a signal jammer. It is preventing any Council eavesdropping devices from being able to transmit, and generating white noise that will foul any attempt to spy on us with laser microphones or long-range audio systems." Twilight could believe it; the second Eklsee had pulled the thing out it had started making a tooth-grating buzz. "You can speak to me now without any fear that they will hear you. Are your people in danger?" Twilight swallowed hard. The concern her friend was showing touched her heart, especially since if the suspicions the alien held were borne out, she had put herself into mortal danger by coming here. The unicorn smiled up at the Tazaft. "No, Uhlsie, I don't think so. I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen, but they don't seem like they want to conquer us, and they did actually fire on their own ships, when those ships tried to kill us." The Tazaft looked at her searchingly, making Twilight wonder if the alien could read her facial expressions. The reverse wasn't true; Eklsee had a rigid, mostly-immobile face, with most of her expressions clearly generated by the quills on her head and back, cues which Twilight hadn't fully deciphered yet. Finally, though, the alien gave a quill-nod. "Very well. If you need us to, we can stage a diversionary attack to pull their forces away, and I have five hundred bulk freighters with enhanced life support systems waiting one jump away. All you have to do is ask, and we will do everything we can to evacuate as many as possible." Twilight smiled. "Thank you, Uhlsie. The offer means a lot to me." She spent the remainder of the day leading the Tazaft through the streets of Canterlot, showing her the sights and introducing her to the ponies and other creatures they passed. She even called back to her office in the Bureau of Technology, getting them to send a hoverdisc so she could take the Tazaft up to the small pegasus town that managed Canterlot's weather. Eklsee seemed fascinated by the tour, exclaiming occasionally about the architecture or the scenery, more than once referring to the city as the most beautiful she'd ever seen. Canterlot's inhabitants were initially hostile to the alien, assuming that she'd come from the fleet that had assaulted the system, but that attitude quickly changed when Twilight explained what the Tazaft had actually done. When it was time for her friend to leave, Twilight escorted her back to the landing field. "Your world is lovely, Thlaaht Shkarku," Eklsee observed, "and your people as well. It does my soul good to see that you do not lie under a conqueror's blade." "Thank you, Uhlsie," Twilight replied with a smile. Eklsee's quills stirred in small, circular motions. "It is time that I departed, then." "I'm sorry, Uhlsie," Twilight said softly. "You've done so much to try to help us, but it looks like we won't be able to help you as much as I'd wanted to." Equestria's space forces were, for all intents and purposes, gone. Dauntless was all that remained, and she was a crippled hulk. Without the shipyard, it would take months, possibly years, before she was fully functional again. And with a truce with the Council likely, based on what she'd heard from Fluttershy, Twilight doubted that Equestria would be able to fight alongside the Tazaft. Eklsee made that quill-smiling gesture. "I knew that when I returned with you, Thlaaht. At the time, I sought only to preserve you that you might help later. Now, though... I think that someone who is able to speak in peace with both my people and our foes may be more valuable than a battlefield ally. The Tazaft are used to having a mediator in our conflicts, and this one has lacked that. Now it may not. I wish your people had not suffered so... but I am pleased to have gained a friend who can speak to my foes." Twilight's heart warmed. That was a kinder reaction than she had even hoped for. Despite her alien appearance and demeanor, the Tazaft was a good person. She bid her friend a fond farewell, and watched as the shuttle streaked off into the sky, before heading back to her office. She had a meeting with the Council tomorrow, and she needed to be prepared. Twilight was considerably more tense the next day, as the shuttle carrying the Council delegation descended through the atmosphere to the Canterlot spaceport. Her friends, waiting beside her, were just as tense. This was going to be the first official contact between the Unified World Nation of which Equestria was part and the Baltornic Council, and the pressure she felt to make sure that the war didn't re-start was immense. Fluttershy had invited the griffons, zebras, and buffalo to send representatives of their own, but all had declined for different reasons, so it was up to Equestria to handle it. Twilight and her friends were alone on the landing pad, but they weren't unprotected. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both armed; the former with a harness-mounted energy gun and the latter with a pair of low-profile light levinguns plugged into her forelegs. There was a full company of armored Warden troops standing by as a response force, too, complete with heavy armored support and technogolems. She didn't intend to let them ambush her the way the tribe of reptilian creatures had ambushed Fluttershy, and she didn't want to take any chances on their sincerity. Ponies had been standing by on the planetary defenses since the shield had been lowered, but they were at a high state of alert right now, and the Princesses knew that they might have to raise the shield again. The thought of making them do that chilled Twilight to the bone; the two winged unicorns had had a chance to rest and recover, but they were still badly fatigued, and she feared what might happen to them if the siege began again. The Canterlot constabulary had cleared the sky for the Council shuttle's arrival; there were no flying vehicles or pegasi visible anywhere in the sky while the vehicle came smoothly down from space, following the course it was directed on without wavering. Twilight watched it come, evaluating it carefully. The vehicle seemed a little more responsive than the Tazaft shuttles, though it clearly employed a field-based drive rather than the noisy reaction drives her allies used. It still made a lot of noise as it shoved the atmosphere out of the way, and from its maneuvers it didn't have anywhere near the kind of maneuverability or agility of an Equestrian vehicle. She filed the information away for later; she wasn't sure how it could be useful, but all information was potentially valuable and deserved to be remembered. The shuttle settled down on a pair of skids that extended from its belly, and Fluttershy stepped forward. They'd decided to let the soft-voiced pegasus speak for them; it let Twilight stand back and evaluate. It was something she'd realized would probably have worked better in their contact with the Tazaft, when going back over the records. A ramp lowered from the shuttle's side, and there was a long pause before anything emerged. The creature that stepped out was a member of a species Twilight had seen before; one of the stocky, armored creatures that had been on board the cargo ship she and Rainbow Dash had boarded. This one had a different attitude; it carried itself more smoothly, and held its head higher, further from its carapace. Probably because it wasn't frightened, Twilight mused. It was clad in soft, comfortable-looking robes, rather than the uniform she'd seen the other creatures in. The alien walked toward them across the tarmac, alone, its slightly lumbering gait unhurried and outwardly unconcerned. "I greet you, gentlebeings," the alien said in perfect Equestrian, with a slight accent. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you directly, though I do wish the circumstances had been different. I am Representative Shuur Delsinac; Shuur is my given name, Delsinac my clan name. You may call me Representative or Shuur, whichever makes you most comfortable; the clan name is not typically used as an identifier among my people." "It's very nice to meet you, Shuur," Fluttershy said with a soft smile. She introduced herself and her friends, who all had different attitudes. Rarity was looking at the fine, soft cloth of the creature's attire with a slightly critical eye, though she was smiling welcomingly. Pinkie Pie was beaming widely, though there was a hint of nervousness to the expression. The pink earth pony hadn't completely gotten over her trauma at the ambush she and Fluttershy had been through, though she was putting on a brave face and she was genuinely happy at meeting new creatures. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were watching both the alien and his vehicle closely, with a strong air of suspicion. Twilight was deliberately holding herself somewhat aloof, watching the alien with what she hoped was a cool, unimpressed look. She really hoped that's how she looked, anyway. She'd practiced this expression in the mirror, and it had looked alright, at least to her... "A pleasure to meet all of you." The Council representative said warmly. "Hey, weren't you bringing two admirals with you?" Rainbow asked suspiciously. "And how exactly is it that you speak Equestrian?" Applejack added with matching suspicion. "I did indeed bring both High Admiral Turthak and Admiral Glenmore with me, but I wanted to meet with you alone first." Hmm. Twilight thought, I wonder if he's trying to show us that he's the one in charge? "As for your language," Shuur heaved a surprisingly Equestrian-sounding sigh. "That's a long story, and it has to do with everything that's happened here. Would you mind if I called Turthak and Glenmore out here to join us?" "Oh, no, not at all," Fluttershy said gently. "I'm looking forward to meeting them." Shuur started to turn, but paused. "Ah. Before I do, there's something I need to warn you about." Twilight braced herself, and she saw Fluttershy's expression turn uncertain. "Admiral Turthak is from a species called the Kao Ur, and most people who speak a gendered language have a little difficulty dealing with them. Gender is a very private subject with them, and you must be very, very careful not to refer to the High Admiral by any gendered pronoun. The High Admiral will not react violently, or any such thing, but it would be deeply offended, and I would prefer to avoid that if possible." Fluttershy blinked. "So... what should we call... the High Admiral? Using the title every time would get awkward, wouldn't it?" Shuur made a wheezing sound that Twilight couldn't identify. "Very. Just use 'it.' I know it sounds disrespectful, but in your language that pronoun is far more palatable in the Kao Ur's eyes than 'he' or 'she' would be." Fluttershy nodded. "Oh, okay, I think we can do that." She looked around at her friends. "Right, girls?" She received nods from all five other ponies. The pegasus turned back to the diplomat, something else occurring to her. "Representative Shuur? Will the High Admiral be offended if we refer to each other as 'he' or 'she'?" Shuur made that wheezing sound again. "No, not at all. Some Kao Ur do have problems with that kind of thing, but Turthak has been working with other species for most of its life. As long as it's not directly addressed in such a matter, it won't take offense. You won't face any similar problems with me or Admiral Glenmore; both my species and his are difficult to offend by accident." He turned around, tapping at his ear and speaking a short phrase or command in what Twilight assumed was his own language. A moment later, the first figure emerged. It was large, was the first thing Twilight noticed. Quadrupedal and taller than most ponies, it was also incredibly heavyset, with a wide build and a thick body. It didn't seem to have a distinct head, instead having a small mouth set directly into what looked like its chest, while two eyes waved on short, thick stalks, and four stumpy tentacles drooped from the front of its body. It was a mottled dark brown in color, and was really shockingly ugly to look at, especially with the odd appearance of its uniform, which was clearly the same type of garment they'd seen on the Council crew of the ship they'd boarded. There was a metallic mass on its back that Twilight couldn't identify. "That's Turthak," Shuur said in an undertone, as the creature began making its way carefully toward them. "Don't let the slow movement fool you; it isn't particularly slow by nature, it just comes from a heavy-gravity world, and thus has a habit of moving carefully." The second figure made Twilight's jaw drop. Taller than a pony, slender, standing on two legs with two arms hanging down from its shoulders, the creature looked very familiar. "No way..." Rainbow whispered, noting the resemblance. It looked very much like Duran in build. It was shorter, considerably so, and its skin was a bit darker than his had been, but it... he... was clearly the same species. "And that's Admiral Glenmore," Shuur said turning back and pausing at the ponies' expressions. "I'm sorry, does he bother you?" "No," Twilight interjected, speaking over Fluttershy, "No, not at all. His species... are they called 'humans'?" "I... yes, they are. Humans, or Terrans." Shuur said slowly. "Have you encountered them before?" "Yeah," Rainbow Dash's voice was dry and quiet. "We met one. A long time ago, almost ninety years now. He was from something called the Tethinar Imperium." "The what?" Shuur sounded confused. "I've never heard of that. Ninety years, you say? Equestrian years, I assume?" Rainbow nodded wordlessly, still looking at the human approaching them. "Council scouts found you a little over a hundred years ago, but they weren't human-crewed, and as far as I know, humanity has never visited this world. I'll check, but..." "No need," Twilight whispered. "Rainbow, he wasn't from this reality," she said to her friend, quietly. "We know that. Crazy as it sounds, this species must have evolved in both places." "Three places," the pegasus corrected quietly. "The guys who made that base were human, too." "True." Twilight frowned. "I wonder why we could understand them, and not these humans?" "Can we talk about this later?" Fluttershy whispered emphatically. "Yes, of course." Twilight cleared her throat. There were more important things to discuss. Shuur was looking at them oddly. "If he bothers you, I can send Admiral Glenmore back to the fleet, but humans are a fairly prominent species in our government..." Fluttershy shook her head. "No, no, he doesn't bother us. You don't have to do that." She looked up at the two approaching aliens. "Welcome, um, gentlebeings, I think was the word?" "Thank you." Turthak's voice bubbled in its own language, translated by part of the metal equipment on its back. Its mouth didn't move when it spoke, the sounds instead emerging from either its back or side, it was difficult to tell. "I am honored," Glenmore added, also through a translator he wore. "And may I again express my deep gratitude to you for trusting me. After what happened, I'm not sure I would have done so in your place." "Speaking of what happened..." Fluttershy prompted. "Yes." Shuur's voice was sad. "I wanted the Admirals to be here, so they could contribute the Enforcement perspective." He sighed again, and Twilight wondered if the expression was natural or if it was one that the diplomat had learned along with the Equestrian language. "This is a bit of a long story. I told you that the Council found you a bit over a hundred years ago. The Infiltrator Service at the time appears to have undertaken an operation on its own authority, aided by one of the probationary members of the Council, to... well, to slow or prevent development of non-spaceflight-capable species." Fluttershy frowned. "Why would they do that?" "To preserve their own power." Shuur made a gesture with both hands that Twilight couldn't interpret. "The probationary members of the council get one vote that they all share. They vote among themselves, then the outcome of that vote is considered one vote in the Senior Council. Does that make sense?" Fluttershy and Twilight both nodded. "At a certain point, probationary members are accepted as full members, typically after consultation with the full Council. The problem with this system is, well, probationary members don't like seeing other probationary members admitted, because it dilutes their vote." Shuur's eyes closed for a moment. "Believe me, there have been major scandals over this, and endless debates over how to fix it, but no one has decided anything. Maybe they will now. Regardless, your world was the target of a long-term operation designed to effectively destroy your civilization by causing a massive, global war." Twilight blinked in shock. "What? How in the world were they going to do that?" "By increasing tensions between your nation, Equestria, and the zebra nation, hopefully causing you both to go to war," Shuur said grimly. "You were the two most advanced civilizations on your world. An annihilating conflict would cripple both of you, and hold you back considerably." He snorted. "Instead, you seem to have rocketed ahead, and the infiltrator service lost touch with its agents." "What kinda agents would these've been?" Applejack asked. "Surgically altered or rebuilt operatives, modified to resemble your people," The High Admiral answered before the representative could. "It is a disgusting practice that nearly always irreparably damages the agent. It is a mystery why the Council allows the infiltrator service to continue it." Applejack gave Twilight a significant look. "Betcha a thousand bits that those 'changelings' we caught way back when weren't changelings at all." The orange mare's voice was grim. Twilight shook her head, remembering the captured changelings who had somehow suicided and destroyed their bodies. "No bet." "Regardless," Shuur continued, shooting a look of his own at Turthak, "The gambit failed. The infiltrator service went through a reorganization around that time, and it appears they forgot about you. They rediscovered those records about a year ago, and decided to re-implement their plan, with a different probationary member assisting them this time." The Interloper, Twilight realized. The ship whose attack had galvanized the construction of Dauntless. "You encountered the ship they sent to drop off their agents," Shuur continued, confirming Twilight's suspicion, "showing them in the process that you'd advanced much faster than most species do. You should still be starting out your space program, maybe colonizing one of the more benign worlds in your own system if you were going particularly quickly. Instead," the alien gestured around him, at the soaring buildings of Canterlot. "You have managed to surpass our level. That touched off a huge debate in the Council over how to properly contact you, especially once the news about the infiltrators' prior contact with you came to light. I got involved early on, and I was given the records already gathered on your culture and language. I've been studying your people for over a year, learning your language, your mannerisms... I was supposed to be the one to lead the first-contact mission, once the Council had decided on the tone it would take, and how we would approach. Unfortunately for us, the debate and the fact that their operations had been made public knowledge sent the infiltrator service and their sponsors into a panic. They reached out to a frontier admiral in the Enforcement branch, and made sure he was transferred to this region. That was Admiral Peters." "That bastard!" Glenmore suddenly spat, his face twisting in fury. Twilight blinked at the human's vehemence, and Shuur turned to give him a quelling look. "Are you all right?" Twilight asked, recognizing the human's anger and remembering the way he'd spoken when his fleet had moved to shield her ship. "Yes, ma'am." Glenmore took a deep breath. "I apologize. I know Admiral Peters personally, and I detest him. Even more so now, after he's managed to make my entire species look bad." Shuur turned to lay a hand on Glenmore's arm. "I assure you, Admiral, the rest of the Council will not blame humanity for Admiral Peters' crime. We could scarcely throw one of the founding members out, after all. He and all his co-conspirators have been arrested, and the trial will show everyone who the guilty parties are." Interestingly, the alien continued to speak in Equestrian. "Every tree has its bad apples, sugarcube," Applejack added in a reassuring tone. "Just 'cause one went bad don't mean they all did." The admiral offered the Warden a tentative smile. "Thank you." He turned to Shuur. "And thank you, sir. I apologize, I won't make any further outbursts." "See that you don't." Turthak burbled. "Admiral Peters," Shuur sighed, turning back to the ponies. "After the infiltrator service realized the state you were in, and that you had possibly uncovered its operatives in a previous attempt, they seem to have pressured him to cover up what they had done. We aren't sure exactly how; it scarcely matters. What matters is what he did." "Which is to nearly destroy us." Twilight interrupted. Shuur's eyes lowered. "Yes. Murder on an unprecedented scale, and attempted murder on an even larger one. Nothing like this has ever happened in our history. To attempt to kill an entire sapient species... several, with your world's unique biosphere..." "Monstrous," whispered Glenmore. "Thoroughly," Shuur replied. "When the Council received the courier from Peters' chief of staff, we almost didn't believe it. But she'd included a huge amount of information, and after an initial debate, we decided we couldn't afford to ignore it, especially since it would take several days for a fleet to reach this system." "We put together a fleet as fast as we could," Turthak interjected in its deep, bubbling voice. "I grabbed every ship that was available. Ships in refit, squadrons in transit. I sent couriers to the nearest worlds, but we didn't have time to muster their full defense fleets. I took the first responders, and every ship that could be made ready, and came here as fast as I possibly could once I judged that I had a large enough force. We received the courier from Ta Ahii just before we left; it was what convinced me not to wait any longer, and to take what I had and go right away." There was a pause. "I should not have waited for the defense fleets. That was a severe mistake, and it cost me several hours. You have my abject apology for my failure, and if you wish for me to atone, I will." Fluttershy frowned. "What kind of atonement are you offering?" She asked warily. "The sacrifice of all my wealth and my position. Should you ask it of me, I will donate everything I own, resign my commission, and should you wish it, move to this world and work to rebuild what was destroyed by my failure. I have significant organizational skills developed by my work in the fleet; I could be quite useful." Fluttershy looked to Twilight, and the unicorn responded for her. "You don't have to do that, Turthak," she said quietly. She was starting to believe that maybe this really had been some huge, awful crime. It was hard to accept, hard to imagine that this could have been essentially one person's fault, but Turthak's offer broke through a wall in her heart. "I can understand not wanting to believe that this could happen." The alien's tentacles twitched in what looked like agitation. "Even now, it is difficult for me to comprehend. It is against every ethical code, every moral imperative. I should have believed it, but it was so difficult..." "It was hard for all of us to accept," Shuur interjected. He met Twilight's eyes. "The Council owes you a debt for the harm we have done, Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. I have been directed to offer you nearly anything you could ask for. The Council will aid in reconstruction of your destroyed industry, we will compensate you in resources and time for each of your slain citizens. Whatever you need. There is already a convoy on the way, carrying doctors, rescue personnel, and food that should be compatible with your biology, though since the planet itself wasn't harmed, you may not need any of it. Whatever we can do to make up for the harm we have done you, please, just ask." Twilight's eyes narrowed. "What if I ask you to stop your war against the Tazaft?" Shuur paused. "That... is a complicated request. We would not be willing to let them simply kill our citizens, or destroy our property. Indeed, we have been looking for a way to end that conflict for some time now. I..." he hesitated, then continued. "If... this may be an imposition to ask, but you actually have friendly relations with the Tazaft. If you would be willing to mediate negotiations, then we may be able to do as you ask." Twlight glanced at Fluttershy, and got a subdued but emphatic nod. She didn't even pause to think about how the pegasus had managed to combine the two. "I would be quite willing to serve as a mediator in that issue." It was, after all, exactly what she had promised Eklsee. "What else?" Shuur asked. "This is something I'd planned to ask you for anyway, later. It is hardly fair to offer it as restitution." Something else occurred to her. "May I speak to my friends in private?" Shuur nodded. "Of course." He gestured to Turthak and Glenmore, who followed him as he stepped away to give the six ponies space. "What are you thinking, darling?" Rarity asked the moment she judged that the aliens were out of earshot. Twilight bit her lip. "I'm tempted to ask for membership in the Council," she whispered. "I mean, if we had a say in their government, we might be able to change it so something like this never happens again." "I think that sounds like a very good idea," Fluttershy said firmly. "Very good. Turn this into something good, instead of just letting it end in blood and hate." "I agree," Rarity said softly. "Oh, me, too," Pinkie murmured, feelingly. "Oh, I really, really do. More friends is always a good thing." They turned to look at the two Wardens, who shared a glance. Rainbow looked back, and nodded firmly. "I'm with ya, too." The pegasus's voice was as hard as her expression. "I mean, if nothing else, we can find out exactly who did this to us. They've been kinda cagey about that." That had occurred to Twilight, too. "So it's settled, then?" Her friends all nodded and made noises of agreement. "All right." The huddle broke up, and Twilight called Representative Shuur back over to her. "You have something, then?" The alien asked. Twilight nodded. "We want to ask for membership in your Council. This happened once, and we want to be in a position to make sure it never happens again." There was a long pause, before Shuur lowered his head and let out a long sigh. "I had hoped you would ask that, but I had feared we had wounded you too badly for you to consider it." He raised his head again, looking Twilight in the eyes. "I pushed for exactly that in the Senior Council. While Turthak was gathering the fleet, I was arguing in the chamber, and I told them that we should offer this. They agreed just before we left." The alien straightened his clothing. "In the name of the Council of Baltor, the Meeting World, I hereby offer the Unified Nations full membership, with all the rights and duties entailed therein. You would be immediately given the position of full voting member; the pain we have caused you entitles you to that, at the least." Twilight nodded, smiling. "That... that sounds good," she said. "What exactly are these duties and rights?" "I can explain them to you fully," Shuur offered. "Might we step inside? The weather out here is nice, but my people prefer shade." "Of course." Twilight and her friends led the three aliens into a nearby terminal building, one that she knew firsthoof had a very comfortable lounge. The diverse group of beings kept their pace to a comfortable walk as they crossed the open field, the words they exchanged seemingly inconsequential, but tremendous in importance. They were the words that would build the future, that would lead from the blood-drenched nightmare of the previous days into a new day, one that had hope. But that's... another story. END

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

pre

Fluttershy nodded with a chipper smile. "That's right. Besides, you aren't supposed to be Lieutenant Twilight tonight, remember? You've been doing a great job when you're supposed to be Sungleam, Captain of the Guard. Would Sungleam ever let herself get stuck being worried about every little thing?" Twilight fidgeted a bit, but dared to return a small smile. "Well... no, historically Sungleam was never known for forethought. When she was given a task, she just... did it." With another encouraging nod, Fluttershy said, "Right! We all love Twilight Sparkle, but tonight is about being the best Sungleam you can be!" Then she overheard bits of Pinkamena's narration from the other side of the curtain and let out a squeak. "And start quickly, because we need to take our places right now!" As realization suddenly dawned on the mares, they quickly scrambled to their positions, just barely avoiding being caught as the curtain began to open once again. Moments earlier... As the last echoes of Celestia's mournful wail faded from everypony's ears, a spotlight shone on the center stage where Pinkamena was waiting to address the audience. "Though Eclipse was driven away by the brave Sungleam, Luna did not wake. Celestia attempted to restore Luna with the Elements of Harmony, but by refusing to use them to purge her sister of Eclipse's influence completely, she had unwittingly cut off her own connection to them. The Elements, the most powerful magic known to ponykind, were nothing but inert balls of stone to her. "For hours, Celestia waited by her sister's side for any sign that Luna would return to the waking realm. Hours became days. Days became weeks. Months passed where the Princess did not eat, and only slept when exhaustion overcame her completely. Only her nature as an alicorn whose life force was bound to the sun itself allowed her to survive her grieving fast. "In the months that followed Luna's fall, the sun never set. Eclipse still controlled the moon, and ensured that no matter where Celestia moved the sun, the moon would forever cast its shadow upon the earth. Without the sun's life-giving rays shining directly upon Equestria, the land could not afford to be deprived of any amount of light, lest it fall into a premature winter. "In the halls of government, the nobility clashed with the ministers Celestia had hired on to oversee the day-to-day tasks of governance. Under Captain Sungleam's leadership, the Royal Guard were spread thin, split between protection of the castle and the continuing search for Eclipse. Ambassadors from every nation in the world swarmed upon Canterlot to demand that Celestia return the cycle of day and night to its proper schedule. "The mourning Princess heard of their complaints, but she was paralyzed with grief and guilt. In her absence and inaction, the seeds of rumor and doubt were planted among the populace. Without celestia to quash these rumors, they grew like weeds and choked the halls of Canterlot with whispered accusations." The spotlight turned off, allowing Pinkamena to leave the stage unseen as the curtains opened once more on the scene of Luna's bedroom. The Princess of the Night lay so peacefully on the bed that she could easily be mistaken for taking a simple nap if not for how Celestia, distraught and haggard, sat in vigil beside the bed. Most of the audience were focused on the royal sisters, though a few ponies noticed that in the reflection of Luna's mirror, the wall-eyed mare who had poked her head out before the show could be seen looking out at them. She was quickly pulled out of view, however, as Celestia looked down over Princess Luna and the voices of other ponies could be heard. "Have you heard? The Princesses have both fallen prey to the same sleeping sickness." "Princess Celestia was stricken by Eclipse's curse, and her body is slowly rotting away." "The griffons are going to descend upon us while we are weak." "I don't think there is any 'Eclipse'. Luna tried to usurp the throne, and Princess Celestia struck her down for it." As the rumors faded away, the soft, lonely tone of a piano sounded out. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Sister Dear ~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "The State Vs. Thomas Light" by The Protomen) Sister dear, a shadow hangs o'er me, and the whole world is growing dim. Sister dear, I didn't know your loneliness, but now I'm lost here in my own. If I could have only known how it made you feel. Sister dear, they talk about you now, but it is not how you would want. I can only hope that you felt nothing when that monster ripped you away. Will I ever see your smile once again? Will I ever see you frown? I would take either one if you wake, dear sister just for the chance to hold you now. Celestia's mournful voice spread across the audience like a wave of despair. Though they knew that it was only a show, the weight of the Princess of the Day's loss rolled over them from the actress's singing. In the midst of Celestia's lament, however, a hint of movement from behind Luna's mirror caught their eye. In the mirror's reflection, they could see a second Luna looking through the glass at her elder sister. She placed a hoof against the glass, but could do nothing to push through its surface into the real world, or make herself noticed by Celestia. Sister dear, I'm left all alone. Perhaps that's how it's meant to be. In the mirror, Luna shook her head in denial at her sister's words, but this gesture went completely unseen and unheeded by the elder alicorn. The words they say now hurt so very badly, but far less than those I spoke. What I said opened up your heart to shadow and I would take them back, but words cannot be unsaid! Not even for a Princess! Luna: You are not alone! Celestia: All of our friends have left before us, dear sister. Luna: You are not alone! Celestia: Now I linger here on my own. Tears flowed down Celestia's face, her shoulders trembling as the Princess visibly struggled to find the will to simply hold herself together. The Luna in the mirror leaned against the glass, her voice carrying throughout the theater, but going unheard by Celestia. Instead, she only lifted her head, and then only slightly, when she heard a knock at the door. What is that sound? Who dares to intrude upon us now? Who dares to try to take me from the side of my sleeping sister? Go take thy leave! (Luna: Don't) Together: Leave me! (Don't) Leave me! (Don't) Leave me! Instead of leaving, however, there was a violet flash as Sungleam appeared inside the room. Celestia all but snarled at her Captain of the Guard, glaring at the unicorn with such fury that it seemed as though she would be reduced to ashes on the spot. "How DARE you, Sungleam? What gives you the right-" "Forgive me, your highness!" Sungleam bowed as she interrupted her Princess. The simple fact that the famously loyal Guard did so was shocking enough to stop Celestia before she could say another word. "Equestria needs you, your highness. We have just discovered that Eclipse has been rallying and manipulating other nations into moving against us. As we speak, their armies gather at our borders." There was a pause as Celestia looked down at the sleeping Luna before she glanced back up at Sungleam and asked, "Which borders?" When Sungleam hesitated to answer, Celestia asked again. "Which borders, Dame Sungleam? Which nations rally against us?" The unicorn swallowed and replied, "All of them, your highness."

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 5 - Take Back the Sun

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon While Fluttershy wailed in despair on the stage, the generally upbeat pegasus portraying Celestia's mourning with impressive passion, Carrot Top felt Spike's little claws reaching over to hug her leg for comfort. Aside from his earlier outburst, the baby dragon had been extremely well-behaved. Now, though, the farmer saw that he was sniffling sadly. When he saw that he had Carrot Top's attention, he pointed toward the mirror from which 'Princess Luna' tried in vain to get Celestia's attention. "She's w-wight there," he whispered as quietly as he could, having been chastised after his attempt to warn his mother about Eclipse's appearance. "W-Why can't the Pwincess see her...?" Carrot Top hugged the baby dragon and whispered back, "Back then, Princess Luna was stuck in the dream world. She was too weak for anypony to notice her, but don't worry... It all turned out okay, thanks to your mommy." "But... she's wight there..." Spike protested, his eyes watering as he sniffled more loudly. Carrot Top produced a tissue and gently dabbed at Spike's eyes to dry them. "Shhh, I know, but it's just a show. It's sad right now, but it gets better, I promise. Can you watch quietly for the rest of the play?" When he nodded, she placed the tissue over his nose and mouth. "Okay, now blow." Spike did so just as 'Sungleam' announced, "All of them, your highness." Carrot Top smiled, but then barely stifled a surprised yelp as she felt heat against her hoof. As Spike blew his nose, the tissue she was holding suddenly went up in a flash of green flame, which thankfully evaporated in a puff of smoke and magic before it could do more harm than startling his temporary foalsitter and distracting the ponies nearby. Those who did keep their focus on the stage, however, were treated to an even more entertaining sight as the curtains closed. Before they could shut completely, 'Princess Luna' suddenly went cross-eyed, her cheeks bulging as purple smoke started leaking out of her nostrils and the corners of her mouth. The instant that the stage was completely hidden, the scene which had ended so ominously was punctuated by a belch forceful enough to make the curtains wave. Backstage, Vinyl let out a sigh of relief as she got through another song. Meanwhile, Octavia finished explaining to her cousin why the DJ was on her keyboards instead of playing the record they'd made. "Well, dang. Looks like Ah picked the wrong time ta visit the li'l filly's room," Fiddlesticks mused, immediately before Rarity's burp rocked the backstage area. Moments later, Rarity came back to join them. The unicorn coughed the last bits of magic smoke out of her lungs while holding Carrot Top's tissue in her magic. "Will somepony... please explain... just what is going on...?" Everypony gulped, none of them wanting to incur the wrath of a pony who could quite literally spit fire when angry. Ultimately, it was Sweetie Belle and her friends who stepped forward. Simultaneously inhaling, they started rattling out explanations of what had occured, from Apple Bloom getting momentarily blinded, to the damage to Vinyl's soundtrack, to the last-second improvisations. Somehow, despite each of them saying it in a different way, resulting in a cacaphony of non-sequitors and babble to anypony trying to unpack their confession, they all chose the exact same moment to conclude, "And we're really sorry." Rarity blinked, having failed to understand any bit of it. Only that they were apologizing and giving her the biggest, wettest puppy eyes she'd seen since she cracked open a boulder full of emeralds in front of Spike. "Well. That's... That's alright, girls. Just be a little less rambunctious now, and wait for your part to come up. Pinkamena's worked so hard for this, and nopony wants to make things more difficult for her, right?" To ensure that the next scene went off well, nopony was allowed back in the dressing room aside from Rainbow Dash and Dewdrop Decimal. The unicorn librarian's horn was encased in a tight, focused glow as she magically crafted a second layer of illusion over the inky shadows that already covered the pegasus. It was going to be one of the more impressive special effects in the show, and Dewdrop wanted to get it exactly right as she surrounded Dash's form with the beak, feathers and claws of a griffon. It was very intricate work, setting up illusions for so many ponies at once, and layering two on a single pony was all the more difficult. Still, as long as everything went as planned, it would be great for the show. That was why nopony was allowed to come in until it was time for Dash to get back on stage. Nopony could disturb them and break her concentration. Nopony whispered in her ear as she worked her magic. "Done! You're good to go now, Dash," the blonde unicorn said with a smile as she stepped back. Rainbow Dash looked herself over and lifted a foreleg, which now looked like it ended in a griffon's talons. She couldn't move the appendages or grip anything with them, but as long as she was just going to be walking around, the illusion would do its job. The librarian's good mood dimmed somewhat when Dash asked in a panic, "Dewdrop, what're you thinking? I can't go out looking like this! Have you been drinking?" Dewdrop gave a little frown as she looked Rainbow Dash over. She had worked hard at the griffon guise, and try as she might to see what it was that Rainbow Dash was protesting (in rhyme, no less), it all looked right to her. "What are you talking about, Dash? You look-" Suddenly, the door opened and Derpy poked her head in. "Hiiii, Rainbow Dash! It's almost time for your..." The wall-eyed pegasus trailed off as one eye focused on Rainbow Dash, and even convinced the other to lock onto the same sight, it was that surprising. Once she realized she was actually seeing what she thought she was, Derpy let out a snort of badly-restrained laughter before erupting into a full-blown giggle fit. Even through the multiple layers of illusion magic, Rainbow Dash's face flushed with humiliation. "It's not funny! Derpy, y-you aren't even supposed to be back here! Dewdrop, fix this, you hear?" Dewdrop blinked at Dash's sudden recalcitrance and rolled her eyes. Whatever it was that was bothering her, Dewdrop couldn't see it, so she placed her hooves on Dash's shoulders and ushered her out of the room. "Relax, it looks fine," she assured the disguised pegasus. "Everypony's going to think you look great." Dash's jaw dropped as she was pushed out into the hall, where Derpy was still staring and giggling at her. "Wh-wha? Have you gone insane? Just look at what you did to my mane!" The only response she got was the door shutting in her face. Dewdrop sighed and shook her head as she took a seat so that she could recover a little from all the magic she had been asked to use thus far. "Probably just stage fright... she does have a history with griffons, so she's going to be more picky about it than other ponies." "Quite," nopony agreed. "Personally, I think she looks perfect." Iron Will gaped as he looked at the diguised pegasus that he was about to enter the upcoming scene with. "Rainbow Dash? What the hay?" "Don't ask me! Ask Dewdrop! She made me look like this, then pushed me out into the hall!" She reared up on her hind legs and spread her wings to better showcase what 'like this' meant, but the neon green with bright pink polka dots which covered her body needed no assistance in drawing attention to the problem at hoof. "I look like some sort of clown doll..." "Rainbow Dash! What the hay?!" Applejack asked as she came up behind her. "Arrrgh!" Iron Will smacked a fist against his open palm. "Alright, the librarian's gone crazy, and we don't have time to get you back to the dressing room to fix things... but we can still save this!" Unaware of what was going on backstage, Pinkamena filled in the brief lull with her narration. "Dame Sungleam's dire news pierced through the shroud of Celestia's grief, and the Princess of the Sun pushed herself to action. Together, they hurried to the embassy of Equestria's staunchest ally, the fledgeling Griffon Empire. However, what they found when they arrived shocked them both to the core." The curtains opened once more upon a new backdrop. The eclipsed sun illuminated a tower surrounded by a stone gate. Unlike the glamorous, ornate structures of marble and precious metals which were so common in Canterlot, this tower appeared to be made of heavy granite blocks, and designed in a manner which evoked the image of a craggy mountaintop. Painted on the backdrop were lines of armored griffons standing at attention, which made Iron Will's presence even more striking as the armored minotaur loomed over Celestia and Sungleam. Hefting a large axe, Iron Will bellowed, "HALT! You have no business here!" Celestia stopped short, glaring so hard at the minotaur that even the audience thought that he might burst into flame at any moment. "By what authority do you claim to bar us entry into the griffon embassy?" Standing defiantly against the Sun Princess, either out of bravery or stupidity, Iron Will thumped his fist against the breastplate of his armor. "His worship, Cardinal Minos, is entreating with the ambassador at this moment and is not to be disturbed! Not even by the Tyrant Sun!" Celestia stiffened with shock from the harsh words, but Sungleam went into action immediately. Drawing her sword with her magic so fast that it barely appeared to move before the shining blade was held in front of the minotaur's face. "Mind thy slanderous tongue, lest I remove it," she threatened, her voice lowering to a fiercely protective growl. "Lower your blade, Dame Sungleam," Celestia ordered to keep matters from escalating as the minotaur's grip tightened on his axe. Taking wing, she flew up toward a balcony jutting from the tower and hovered there as she called out, "Ambassador! Equestria has ever been a staunch friend and ally to both the minotaur people and the Griffon Empire! What, then, has brought about this sudden hostility?" Fluttershy, expecting to see Rainbow Dash step out onto the balcony in her griffon disguise, was genuinely surprised when a white sheet separated her from her friend, a bright light from the other side casting a griffon-shaped sillhouette against its surface. "I should ask the same of you, Princess Celestia," came the faux-griffon's reply. "Long have you and your sister been entrusted with the cycle of day and night. Trust that was earned, we thought, through centuries of good stewardship. Folly! Folly! Folly on all of our parts, as the sky above now proves! How long have you plotted, Celestia? Was it not enough to rule over the most prosperous nation in the world? Was it not enough to command the life-giving sun itself?" Celestia shook her head. "Nay, ambassador, this is no doing of mine! The moon was stolen--" "From your sister, who despite supposedly being one of the rulers of Equestria, has scarcely been seen since my father was a hatchling." The ambassador's voice took on a sly, mocking tone. "A griffon's eyes are sharp, your highness, and a diplomat's must be all the sharper. I have seen how your sister was kept cloistered away in her tower, only occasionally brought out as a prop. I have seen her stare up to the night sky, alone and lamenting her lot. And what a coincidence that the very day she attempted to take a larger role in ruling, she is attacked by a 'monster' seen by none save you and your pet zealot! It is clear to me that you are the one who struck down your sister, so we shall stand firm and take control of the celestial bodies from you. In that way... we will show your 'dear sister' our love." While the ambassador spoke that last sentence, Celestia gasped as she saw the sillhouette shift unnaturally, tendrils of shadow sprouting from the griffon's outline. "What are you...? No...! You! You! ECLIPSE!" The Sun Princess stared in shock, but then slid swiftly through confusion into the wrath of a furious god. Her horn became surrounded with a bright golden glow, and a beam of light shot out of it toward Eclipse's shadow. Eclipse screamed, and the stage lights dimmed slightly, making the beam shooting out of Fluttershy's false horn seem brighter by comparison. The lights then flashed brightly before plunging the stage into total darkness and silence. The audience practically held their breath, waiting to see what would come next, so when they heard Eclipse's voice coming to them from the darkness, many of them would later say that it felt as though spiders were crawling over them. "You lose again, Celestia. First your sister. Then the sky. Now your allies. Next, it will be your kingdom. But I am not merciless, Celestia. You can have it all back... through me. Let me show you my love. Give me back my Luna, and you can be together, again. Forever." As the word 'forever' echoed throughout the theater, the fading word was slowly replaced by a low, angry muttering which grew in volume as the lights slowly illuminated the stage once more. Celestia was on the ground while Sungleam stood protectively over her, holding the armored minotaur at bay with her sword. Looking around, the Princess heard the mutterings all around her turn into angered shouts. "She's attacked the ambassador!" "The ambassador is alive, but will not wake!" "This means war! Equestria has declared war against us!" Celestia weakly stood. "No... no, it was Eclipse! Eclipse possessed your ambassador, just as it did my sister! You must--" "Enough, your highness! That is not what they saw." As she struggled to defend herself against the accusations, Princess Celestia found herself interrupted by none other than Sungleam. "As Captain of the Guard, I am charged with your safety above all else, and to that end we must retreat to the palace at once." The minotaur angrily roared and bellowed, "Don't think that you can run away from your crimes, Tyrant Sun! The minotaurs stand with our griffon friends! Aurox, guide my arm!" Letting out a ferocious war cry, the minotaur swung his axe down toward Sungleam and Celestia. Before it could strike, Sungleam's horn flashed as the two ponies teleported away, leaving the axe to cleave nothing but air. Hefting his axe up, the minotaur showed the audience a fiendish smirk. The tinkling of a piano began to play, and with Eclipse's raspy voice overlayed on top of his own, he mused, "Run away, Celestia, but you cannot escape me any more than you can escape your own shadow. It is only a matter of time before you give me everything I desire." He then raised his axe high overhead, and purely in his own voice, bellowed along with a choir to represent the griffons painted onto the backdrop. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Take Back the Sun ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "Give Us the Rope" by The Protomen) Take down the Princess! Take back the sun! Take back the sky! Take back the land! Take down the Princess! Take back the sun! Accompanying the cries of the Eclipse-possessed minotaur and the griffons that he had whipped into a frenzy, a trumpet blared triumphantly, as if to signal the moment that the shadow's manipulation of the crowd fully took root. As he waving his axe over his head, the bloodlust in the choir's voices only grew. Tear down her throne! Tear off her crown! Take off her head! Take down the Princess! Take back the sun!

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 6 - The Shadow Over Equestria

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon As the lights dimmed and the curtains closed on the possessed minotaur, a slower, almost mournful strain of violin and cello accompanied Pinkamena while she once again took center stage and looked out to the audience. "Once again, Eclipse slipped from Celestia's grasp and manipulated all around it, turning former friends against her by speaking to the doubts and fears that lurked in the shadows of their hearts. And just like a shadow, Eclipse could not be captured. Whenever it was found possessing a new body, it would abandon its host, leaving behind nothing but soulless husks in its wake. All the while, it continued to spread poisonous slander against Celestia and Equestria. "And so the curtain sets on Equestria's darkest hour, but this is not the end of the story. We will be taking a brief intermission, so please take the opportunity to stretch your legs or visit the concessions stand. We will be starting again in twenty minutes." With that, the house lights brightened up the theater one more, and ponies began milling about and conversing with one another. In the far back of the theater, surrounded by large, stern-looking stallions in golden armor, a trio of alicorns sat in the balcony above the crowds. Those who looked up at the princesses could see them leaning in to talk, but a privacy spell surrounding the balcony kept their voices from carrying beyond their immediate vicinity. Taking the middle seat, Princess Luna stared in the direction of the stage. Celestia and Cadance both looked at her with concern. Reaching out with her wing, the pink alicorn placed it across Luna's shoulders. "It's quite a show, isn't it, Luna? ... What do you think?" Celestia did the same from the other side. Her face wrinkled with worry as Luna showed no outward sign of being aware of them. "Luna? Sister...? Oh, I should have known that it was too soon. I'm so sorry, we can--" Her apology trailed off as she saw Luna's lips move, forming words too softly for her to hear. "Luna?" The Princess of the Night turned and looked to the other two alicorns, suddenly becoming aware of their wing-embrace. "Oh! Yes, I would very much like to partake of the 'popped corn' for sale downstairs! May we purchase some?" She smiled to her sister and 'niece', letting out a hopeful squeak. Celestia blinked a few times, but then laughed and nodded her head. "Of course, sister. Shining Armor, would you be so kind?" Princess Cadance leaned over to get a better look at the handsome unicorn guard that Celestia was addressing. "And could you please get me a bag of jellybeans while you're down there?" Shining Armor saluted, a grin breaking through the stone-faced expression typical of the Royal Guard. "It would be my pleasure. Should I get anything for you, Princess Celestia?" Celestia sighed softly and settled back into her seat. "Thank you, Shining, but I don't need any snacks. Oh, but if you happen to make a small detour to visit the actors, be sure to tell them that they are doing a fine job." Shining's grin widened. "I'll be sure to do that, Princess," he replied gratefully. Having served Celestia closely for several years, he picked up on her unspoken suggestion, Go see your sister and give her my regards, fairly easily. With that, he cast a fond glance past Celestia to the Princess beside her and said, "I won't take long," before leaving the balcony. Cadance giggled softly into her hoof as Shining Armor left. While the Princess of the Night was being relatively lucid, she asked, "So, aunt Luna... what do you think of the show?" After a moment of thought, Luna pushed herself up from underneath the other alicorns' wings so that she could rear up and spread her own wide. "I VERY MUCH WISH TO SEE THIS THROUGH TO ITS CONCLUSION," she shouted, her voice testing the limits of the privacy spell. "I feel myself swept away by the passion of the actors! The quality of their guises! The desire to HOOF-PUNCH ECLIPSE INTO PASTE! And the music!" Setting her hooves back down, she turned to the pink alicorn and pointed at her, "Cadance, you are of this modern generation! I need you to teach me the ways of rock!" Twilight peeked out from behind the curtains and whimpered as she saw Princess Luna rearing up, screaming at the top of her lungs. She couldn't hear exactly what the Princess of the Night was saying, but she didn't feel she had to. Pulling back, Twilight fretfully danced around on the tips of her hooves, whimpering with fear as Pinkamena came back to join the others. "Oh this is bad... this is so, so, so, so bad! Princess Luna is furious!" Pinkamena tilted her head and took a peek, herself. "Are you sure? Maybe she's just enthusiastic. You know how she can be since she came back," the poet/narrator calmly assured her friend. Twilight shook her head. "I don't think so. She looked like she was screaming." Just to be sure, she peeked out again and gasped. "And now she's yelling at Princess Cadenza!" "Who's yelling at Cadance?" A stallion's voice asked, causing Twilight to freeze. Pinkamena turned to see the golden-armored unicorn coming up to join them. "Oh, you're one of the Guard accompanying the princesses?" Behind her, Twilight reflexively stood at attention and saluted. "Shi-... Major Armor! I... I'm sorry for whatever you were sent here to deal with, and I take full responsibility!" Shining Armor tilted his head and looked at Twilight with a bemused grin. He walked up to the trembling, Sungleam-colored unicorn, then nuzzled her to the shock of everypony looking, causing a few of the stagehooves to drop whatever they were carrying. Chuckling softly, Shining Armor told her, "At ease, Twiley. You don't work for me anymore, remember? I'm just here to see my little sister." "Oh... oh, of course," Twilight stammered, letting out a tense laugh. "Of course, my big brother's just here to show his support! And not to drag us all off to be banished from Equestria! ...Right?" As Shining Armor shook his head, Pinkamena said, "Well, I have to go check on everypony else, so I'll let you two chat for a bit. Just remember the curtains go up again in twenty." She took a step, but then turned back and pulled Shining Armor away from Twilight. "Actually, just one moment first." The stallion blinked in surprise, but went along with the poet as she took him a few steps away from his sister, then stopped and looked him straight in the eye. Despite himself, Shining Armor felt a chill from the piercing gaze of one of her pale blue eyes, the other momentarily hidden behind a waterfall of long, pink hair. As the one visible eye widened, fixing him with a stare so intense that it felt like it was pinning him in place, the poet quietly asked, "Twilight has spoken of you, Shining Armor..." Shining Armor tried to blink, but found that he couldn't. Shining Armor tried to swallow, but found that his throat had gone dry. Beads of nervous perspiration started forming on his forehead as a feeling of undefinable dread transfixed him like the gaze of a cockatrice. The poet's stare... that single, baleful eye seemed to grow as the rest of the world vanished. "I see how much you mean to her," Pinkamena whispered in a voice that crawled against his bones. "I know exactly how much she looks up to you. She is my friend, and I care about her very... very much." Shining Armor's lips parted slightly as he felt himself struggling to breathe. There was so little air... so little of everything but the eye. He felt like a prisoner, even if he didn't know what his crime was. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was doing whatever it took to breathe freely again, but he was powerless and insignificant beneath that gaze. Pushing what little breath he had out, he asked, "Wha... what do you want from me...?" There was a pause of seconds. Hours. Weeks. Years. Time was meaningless. All was meaningless. For a moment, Shining Armor realized that he was staring into the very face of existence's futility. There was no world, only the eye. The eye was everything that had been or ever would be. Everything else was an illusion. The pony that thought of itself as Shining Armor was nothing but-- "Pinkamena! What the hay do you think you're doing?" The eye was yanked away, and for a moment it felt as though Shining Armor was falling, tumbling through an endless void without form or substance. It took him a second to realize that no, he was still standing on all four hooves, which were themselves resting on solid matter as conventional reality seemed to re-assemble itself. It was a few seconds more before he realized that his body was shaking in a cold sweat while, just a few feet away, his sister was talking to the pink poet. "Pinkamena, what do you think you're doing to my brother?" Pinkamena blinked. "I was just going to say that since you won't be returning to Canterlot for your birthday, he and your parents should come to Ponyville to celebrate. Is that too presumptuous?" Twilight sighed, but smiled a little as she shook her head. "Really? Wow, that's really sweet of you..." Her expression turned stern again as she told her friend, "But dial down the intensity, okay? You were doing the eye thing again." Pinkamena hesitated a moment before asking, "I was?" When Twilight nodded, she turned back to Shining Armor, who reflexively flinched before she could make eye contact again. "Oh... I sincerely apologize, Shining Armor. We've had a few issues, and I allowed the stress to get the better of me." The stallion still felt the lingering effects of the existential dread that had consumed him, and Pinkamena's voice carried none of the intonations that usually accompanied an apology, but he struggled to turn his head back to her and meet her eyes again. Once he did, though, he found that while her facial expression hadn't changed in the slightest, her eyes looked softer and sadder. "Umm... a-apology accepted," he stammered, still in a state of lingering shock. "I will make sure that we can attend Twiley's birthday..." Twilight smiled and nuzzled her brother. "Thanks, Shining... And don't worry, it wears off eventually." A small twinkle lit up Pinkamena's eyes, but went unnoticed by the siblings as she turned around. "Well, I'd better check on a few things," she said, leaving them to chat a little longer while she walked over toward the musicians. "Be the wall, Vinyl... be the wall," the DJ whispered to herself, keeping anypony from getting too close to Fiddlesticks and Octavia while the earth ponies played their signature instruments to make up for the loss of the soundtrack record. The two string performers were playing into a microphone, so Vinyl had to do her best to keep out other ambient noises. She saw Pinkamena coming and felt her blood chill in her veins. Pinkamena looked straight at her, then at the music equipment and the remains of the record on the floor next to it. Vinyl gulped and prepared herself to have to explain... Pinkamena paused in front of Vinyl and whispered, "Can you handle the second half?" Vinyl blinked behind her purple-tinted glasses and nodded. Pinkamena gave a nod in return and simply whispered, "Thank you," before continuing on. As Pinkamena walked by, Vinyl lifted up her glasses and watched her go. "Huh... I was expecting the eye thing..." she mused to herself once the poet was out of sight. Farther backstage, away from the trials of the musicians, a loud argument was taking place. At its center was Dewdrop Decimal, who was surrounded by Rainbow Dash, Derpy, Iron Will and Fluttershy. At the librarian's side, her friend Spot Light was trying to shout an irate Rainbow Dash down in Dewdrop's defense while the shadow-shrouded pegasus rattled off accusations. The rest of the participants on both sides mostly just stood on the sidelines, intimidated by the heated ferocity of the arguing mares. Pinkamena couldn't make out what either of the mares were screaming as she approached, so she simply stepped in between them. Surprisingly, Spot Light and Rainbow Dash continued to shout at each other around her until she turned her head and gave each of them a Look. The Look, similar to the effect it had on Shining Armor, was consciously focused this time. As a result, each of them were shaken enough to stop their argument and notice her presence. "Now, then..." Pinkamena said once she had their attention. "What is this all about?" Spot Light looked like she was about to start up again, but Dewdrop put a hoof on her earth pony friend's shoulder and cleared her throat. "Rainbow Dash wasn't satisfied with the griffon illusion I made for her." "You sabotaged me," Rainbow retorted angrily, but she stopped when Pinkamena turned toward her again. Not with a Look, but the threat of one remained present, so she restrained herself somewhat as she concluded, "I would've been a laughingstock in front of everypony..." "It was pretty silly," Derpy giggled. Pinkamena raised an eyebrow slightly and turned to Dewdrop. "Can you show me?" The librarian sighed. "I don't know, it took a lot out of me just putting it on over the Eclipse illusion the first time. Trying to do it again could wipe me out to the point all the disguises would drop." "Just a small one," Pinkamena urged. "And not over Rainbow Dash. Just something to show me what you did." Dewdrop nodded a little and took a deep breath. As her horn lit up with a golden glow, she formed a small disc of light in the air, and began 'drawing' on it with her magic. It was simple and stylized like a cartoon, but clearly took on the image of a griffon with the same garish, spotted coloration that she had put on Rainbow Dash. Spot Light's jaw dropped open as her friend said, "See? It looks fine." The gathered ponies and minotaur stared in stunned silence, more by Dewdrop's casual assertion that the colors were normal than by the image itself. The silence was finally broken by Fluttershy snorting before breaking out into uncontrollable laughter, which Derpy soon joined in on. Dewdrop frowned slightly, furrowing her brow at the giggly pegasi. "What? What?" "Dewy... you mean you actually did do that?" Spot Light asked, taking the librarian by surprise. "What were you think--" Spot Light was cut off by Pinkamena raising a hoof. "Dewdrop... please describe this for us." Dewdrop looked slightly confused, but did as she was asked. "Well, it's a griffon. Part eagle, part lion, with a green coat, and... I mean, a brown coat, but... it's... green... with... spots...?" Her face scrunched up in confusion that grew into worry as she looked at the image she had created. "It looks fine, but... it's... supposed to be brown...? I... I don't understand..." The librarian's golden eyes clenched shut, then opened again and looked at the magical doodle in front of her. As if seeing it clearly for the first time, she gasped. "Sweet Luna... is that what I made you look like, Rainbow? I don't... I didn't mean to..." Rainbow blinked in surprise. Hearing the distress in Dewdrop's voice, her voice and expression softened. "You really didn't realize it?" When Dewdrop shook her head, Pinkamena assured her, "You've been working very hard. Sometimes our minds play tricks on us. Make us miss things that are right in front of our faces. Nopony is to blame. The important thing is that, despite anything that's gone wrong, everypony's been pulling together and thinking fast to keep the show running. If we can just get through the second half, everything will be fine. Okay?" There were some murmurs of agreement, some of apology, and a general nodding of heads as the tense mood lifted. Pinkamena said, "Alright. Fluttershy, I'll need you on the throne for the next little scene. Rainbow Dash, your next scenes aren't for a little while, so take some time to relax. I'll see you all later. Now if you'll excuse me, I just want to check in on Nocturne and the Crusaders before the curtains go back up." With that, she left the group and made her way through the back of the theater. Instead of going straight to where Nocturne and her young charges would be waiting, however, she ducked into a little side-corridor and looked around. Finding nopony there, she said, "As I was walking up the stair, I met someone who wasn't there." She waited for several seconds, but when nothing happened, she simply turned and went back on her way. Once she was gone, nopony wondered aloud, "Well... what was that about?" Several minutes later... Shining Armor returned to the balcony, a tub of popcorn and bag of jellybeans held in his magic. He offered each to the princess who had asked for them, but did so with a faraway look in his eyes as he took his place and simply stared straight ahead at the stage. Seeing her soldier's stunned look, Celestia blinked and asked, "Shining Armor...? Are you alright?" "Twiley will be holding her birthday party in Ponyville," Shining Armor replied in a somewhat distant voice. "I would like it if my parents and I could attend." Celestia furrowed her brow in concern. "Of course... I'll see to it that you have that day off, but..." Cadance opened her bag of candy with her magic while leaning over to get a better look at the stricken stallion. "Shining, are you... feeling well?" "All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well," he replied. Princess Luna, who had taken the popcorn tub into her own magic and started experimentally licking the cardboard, perked her ears up when she heard this. "Verily? I am glad to hear it! I had been wondering. Now, by any chance can you help expand on what Cadance has been telling me of this 'rock music?' She was telling me of his majesty, the King, and how despite his title, he did not in fact rule over any nations?" "No, Luna," Cadance explained patiently. "He didn't have a formal noble title of any kind, though aunt Celestia did knight him at one point. In fact, weren't there rumors of something between the two of you?" Celestia grinned, a touch of pink on her ivory white cheeks. "What can I say? He made me feel young." "Ahh, I see," Luna replied, nodding sagely. "And then, as your champion, he slew many foes in the battle between bands?" "N-no, aunt Luna, a 'battle of the bands' is when-- Oh! The show is starting again," Cadance observed as the house lights dimmed once again, and everypony who wasn't in their seats hurriedly shuffled back into place. Pinkamena once again took her place in the center of the stage, a spotlight shining down on her while the string music that had been playing slowly transitioned into an electronic sound. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Shadow Over Equestria ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "How the World Fell Under Darkness" by The Protomen) "Many months passed, though time began to lose meaning with the sun and moon both permanently affixed in the sky. With the moon's shadow eternally cast over the land, Princess Celestia dared not allow the sun to set, for fear that it would bring about a winter not seen since the days of the Windigoes. The griffons and minotaurs, driven to arm themselves by Eclipse's manipulations, cast another shadow over the borders of our nation, and Equestria was forced to ready itself for war. "Under Sungleam's command, able-bodied ponies were conscripted and armed to guard the borders. Those who could not be made ready to fight became refugees in their own country, forced to uproot from their homes and congregate far away from the regions where battle was most likely. To further bolster their numbers, Sungleam sought out the elusive fourth tribe, the thestrals who made their home in caves and mountains far apart from other ponies." Behind Pinkamena, the curtains opened to reveal Celestia sitting upon her throne while Sungleam bowed before her. Celestia's lips moved, asking a silent question of her Captain of the Guard, and the similarly silent reply left Celestia drooping her head in sorrow. "Sadly, rumor had traveled much faster than Sungleam's swiftest pegasi. The thestrals, being creatures of the night, had long revered and honored Princess Luna. Debates raged in their colonies about whether or not it was true that Princess Luna had been struck down by her own sister, or if it was the work of a spirit of shadow. In the end, unable to determine friend from foe, the thestrals agreed to remain neutral, neither helping nor directly hindering the other three tribes. "But even though it was the will of the thestrals as a whole to remain hidden away in their colonies, not all were content to sit idly by. A few, fearing that inaction would lead to their ruin as well as the rest of Equestria's, left their homes to join Celestia's forces. Some others, believing that Celestia was the villain Eclipse had made her out to be, defected to take up arms alongside the griffons. "And then there was one thestral, who answered a different call. A lone dreamer who was tasked with a mission of her own to restore the night sky. "Her name... was Nyx."

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 7 - Won't Give Up

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon As Celestia and Sungleam held their silent conversation, another pony stepped out of the shadows and approached them, though neither the princess nor the soldier gave any indication of noticing her. Those who knew her instantly recognized the purple-coated thestral as Nocturne Striker, especially given that she hadn't received the same costmetic alterations that many of the other actors had. "Is this what I am meant to see, Princess?" she asked, though there was no audible response. "I can't hear them. What are they saying?" She moved closer, flicking her ears as she came right up next to Sungleam and leaned in close. Oblivious to this, the unicorn continued speaking silently to Celestia. Still hearing nothing, she stepped back and looked upward. "I don't understand, Princess. What is it that you want me to see? What is it that you want me to do?" While she spoke, all of the lights except one which was focused on her and another focused on Celestia, began to dim. The light on celestia was aimed so as to cast a deep shadow against the backdrop, and Eclipse's form began to slither out of that shadow. Taken aback, Nocturne stepped back. "Is this... Eclipse? Emerging from your sister's shadow? I do not understand, Princess, how can such a deep darkness exist in Celestia's light? Are you guiding me to help her, or are you saying that Eclipse is a creation of your sister's? Please, help me to understand!" But no reply came to her. And as she waited for one, Eclipse's inky form slithered closer and closer to her. Nocturne braced herself, spreading her leathery wings and baring her fangs at the apparition until a gruff male voice called out, "Nyx! Nyx, answer me!" With a sound like a giant soap bubble popping, the light illuminating Eclipse cut out, and the shadowy monster vanished into the darkness. 'Nyx' folded her wings back against her sides and looked up. "I hear you, Elder. How did you find me?" The voice of the Elder replied, "I taught you everything you know of the dreaming, Nyx. Even after abandoning us, you are still merely a student. Now please, set aside these delusions--" "It is not a delusion!" Nyx snapped. "I follow Princess Luna's call!" Nyx's ears flattened against her head when the Elder's voice retorted, "A call that the most skilled dreamwalkers of our colony have never heard. Do you think that we have not scoured the dreaming for our Princess from the first moment that she was lost to us? Do you think that we love her any less than you? Do not be so egotistical, child! What you are hearing is not her voice, but your own desire to change what we all must accept... that Princess Luna was taken from us." The Elder's voice softened as Nyx sat on her haunches, then lay down on the ground. "Come back to us, Nyx. Come back to the colony. To your family. Wherever the Princess may be now, it is beyond our reach. We need you. Wake up and come home. Wake up. Wake up." "Wake up! Wake up," another voice began saying. A filly's voice that rang over that of the Elder. Nyx raised her head, and the stage lights brightened again, showing that the backdrop of Celestia's throne room had been replaced by one depicting a rural village. This also revealed that the filly speaking to her was Scootaloo, who was flanked by her two friends. All three of them were dressed in simple country dresses appropriate for the era that hid Scootaloo's tiny wings, and a bonnet concealing Sweetie Belle's horn. "This is so unbelievably lame. If they needed some earth pony fillies, they should have just come to us instead of dressing up those no-talent losers." Diamond Tiara 'whispered' to Silver Spoon as the rich fillies and their families watched the show from the front row. Being so close, it was easy enough for her to project her voice at precisely the right volume that the Crusaders could hear, knowing that the blank-flanked fillies couldn't respond without messing up the show. "Oh, I know," Silver Spoon replied with a snicker. "But then we'd have to wear those lame costumes. Seriously, they look like something Sweetie Belle's bumpkin sister would make." All four ponies on the stage flicked their tails in annoyance at the heckling from the two brats. Nocturne, who was able to hear it more clearly than the fillies, shared a look and a tiny nod with her daughter before giving her next line. "Oh, hello, children. What time is it?" Scootaloo replied, "The same time it's always been since the sun and moon stopped moving in the sky. Why are you sleeping out in the open like that, anyway, moooo..." Realizing that she was slipping up by nearly saying 'mom' in front of everypony, Scootaloo dragged the syllable out as her mind raced, quickly improvising in a bad imitation of Apple Bloom's country accent, "Maaaaaah thestral friend, whose name is Nyx?" 'Nyx' stood up and stretched her legs and wings, using one to momentarily cover her face as she gave her daughter a wink of approval for her quick thinking. "Ahh... Just sleeping under Luna's stars, little ones." "Luna's stars?" Sweetie Belle asked, her voice squeaking more than usual as a hint of stage fright crept into her performance. "B-but there ain't no stars no more, boy howdy!" Looking aghast at her unicorn friend, Apple Bloom whispered out of the corner of her mouth, "Why're ya tryin' ta sound lahk me?" "Scootaloo did! I thought we were supposed to!" Sweetie Belle whispered back. Nocturne said her next line loudly to remind the girls of where they were before they could get too far sidetracked. "The stars are there, children. Even if the sky is too bright to see them, the stars are above us just the same. In the same way, I am sure that Princess Luna can still be saved. She's calling out for help, but most ponies can't hear it." "But how do ya know fer sure?" Apple Bloom asked. "I don't know. Not in any way that I could explain," Nocturned replied as the sound of a piano and pounding drums began to play. "But it's what I believe." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Won't Give Up ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "Breaking out" by The Protomen) The princess lays down in her castle Wrapped up in silken sheets. They say that she will remain there, Forever in an endless sleep. They say she's lost in Eclipse's shadow, But I can hear her spirit weep. So I won't give up on the night. No, I won't give up! The twang of an electric guitar joined Nyx as she practically shouted her last line and took wing, hovering above the fillies as she sang. The whole world's been set against us, So we should break down in fear. Just cower down in our caves When the shadow draws near. But I cannot just do nothing While she's crying silent tears, So I won't give up on the night. I'm gonna wake her up. There's so much tension now, Like a coiled spring. I'm sure that something has to give (Fillies: Something has to give.) But when it gives, I cannot know Where all the parts will fly. Time is running out. (Time is running out.) Will I find where I need to be Before everything snaps? I hope that you all can see, girls. (Time is running out.) Before Equestria falls apart, I'll fight and pray to save her soul. Nyx set back down on the ground and hugged the three fillies with her leathery wings as the music hit a momentary lull, with only the piano accompanying her words. This town has treated me well, But now it's time to move on. There's a shadow in my dreams, And I need to see it gone. So farewell all, And take care of yourselves. Pray for Luna. Save her from this spell. One day soon, we'll all see the stars And bask in moon's pale light. No, I won't give up on the night! I won't give up on the night! I won't give up on the night! I won't give up on the night. Nyx let go of the fillies and once again took wing, swooping and fluttering around the stage just as Applejack stepped onstage, her attire fancier than that of the fillies, and a green cravat that the Ponyville residents in the audience immediately identified as being nearly identical to the sort that their own mayor was fond of wearing. As Nyx banked over her, the 'Mayor' gave a startled yelp and quickly ducked. The glare that she shot the thestral's way was so over-dramatic that there was no doubt that this was a choreographed move. Less so was when the tip of Nocturne's hoof accidentally caught on the edge of Sweetie Belle's bonnet, yanking it off the little unicorn's head. Sweetie Belle's look of shock, combined with Scootaloo stifling a yelp as she pointed at her exposed horn, drew a laugh from the audience as this made it look like her being a unicorn was some shocking secret. Then again when Nocturne hastily swooped back down and hastily shoved the bonnet back onto Sweetie Belle, only to have it fall across her face. Struggling not to lose her place, Nocturne stumbled a bit into the next verse, but managed to get her rhythm back after the first line. I'm so tired of waking up Into a half-lit twilight world. And though I don't know where to go, I know that I am being led. I'll follow Luna's voice to the end, And when all has been done and said, I won't give up on the night. Wake up... The Mayor made her way to help Sweetie Belle put her bonnet back on while ducking and weaving around Nyx whenever the thestral swooped low. Scowling up at Nyx, she joined her own voice to the song. {Mayor: We don't have time for this nonsense. We don't have time for this nonsense. We don't have time for this nonsense.} I won't give up on all The thestrals in their caverns. {We don't have time for this nonsense.} I won't give up on all The lovers under the moonlight. {We don't have time for this nonsense.} I won't give up on all The soldiers fighting. {We don't have time for this nonsense.} I won't give up on all The ponies who still believe. Nyx hovered low above the ground, ignoring the Mayor as she looked into the glass of the windows of one of the buildings painted onto the backdrop. To many ponies' surprise, the face of Luna's actress seemed to be reflected on the glass, much as she had been in the mirror in her chambers earlier. None of the other ponies on stage showed any sign of seeing this, but Nyx leaned in close as if she were singing directly to the vision of Luna. I can't just stand idly by When it's all gone so wrong. The Princess has been taken From us all for far too long. I don't care at all what you might believe. I will not rest until Luna is free. And no matter where I go from here, I will not cower in fright! I will not give up on the night! I know she's crying out for someone. Waiting for a hero. And if nopony else will stand up... <Luna: Nopony else will stand up.> If nopony else will do, Then I will gladly take that role. I've seen you dreaming of happy endings. <I have seen you dreaming.> I've seen you dreaming of Equestria's tomorrow. So believe in us who believe in you. <I've seen you dreaming.> Just give me a guiding star to pierce this shadowed light. I've seen you dreaming... <I've seen you dreaming.> {We don't have time for this nonsense.} So believe in us who believe in you. {We don't have time for this nonsense.} So believe in us who believe in you. Just give me a guiding star to pierce this shadowed light. {We don't have time for this nonsense. We don't have time for this nonsense.} Just give me a guiding star to pierce this shadowed light. <I have seen you dreaming. I have seen you dreaming. I have seen you dreaming.> {We don't have time for this nonsense!} The Mayor finally raised her voice and approached Nyx directly, reaching out to yank her away from the glass. When she did so, Princess Luna's visage vanished from sight, and the Mayor held Nyx's face close enough that they were practically nose-to-nose while the music cut out except for the drums, which thumped like a heartbeat. "I've been hearing this big talk from you ever since you wandered into this town," the Mayor said, glowering at Nyx. "If anypony is going to bring Princess Luna back, it will be Princess Celestia, not some self-aggrandizing drifter spreading tales of false hope!" Seeing their friend in trouble, the three fillies ran up to the Mayor and began pestering her. "Hey! Let Nyx go," Sweetie Belle squeaked. "Yeah, she didn't do nothin' wrong!" Apple Bloom added. "Nyx is gonna save Princess Luna," Scootaloo passionately shouted, only for all three of them to shrink back when the Mayor glared down at them. "That's enough," the Mayor said, letting go of Nyx and sighing before looking her in the eye. "Listen, Nyx, this town has real problems to deal with. The minotaurs are coming this way, and the army will not be able to intercept them in time to stop them. We took you in when you wandered into this town looking for food and shelter, so if you truly want to do some good, then give up on this fantasy of being some sort of 'chosen one' and help us evacuate." Nyx narrowed her eyes. "I'm grateful to you, Madam Mayor, but I will never give up on saving Princess Luna." The Mayor grimaced and turned around in disgust. As she started to stomp away, however, Nyx added, "But I also won't give up on you. I'll help with whatever you need for the evacuation." The Mayor stopped and looked over her shoulder, nodding to the thestral. "Thank you. We need to work quickly, though. The minotaurs will be upon us soon, if we do not hurry."

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 8 - Wake Up, Nyx

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon Backstage, Fluttershy and Iron Will sat with Twilight and Dewdrop while they all watched the scene playing out. Twilight winced whenever something went off the rails, but Fluttershy was there to reassure her as the fillies and two adults on stage covered for each other. "See? They're doing great! Trust me, ponies love it when you flub a little, as long as you can roll with it. Now, if they were freezing up, that would be bad." "Well... you are the expert," Twilight conceded, though she still did a full-body clench when Sweetie Belle's bonnet was knocked off. Turning to Dewdrop, she asked the young librarian, "And are you good to go? I mean, if you're still too tired to do the illusions, maybe you should just rest up until the big finale?" Dewdrop shook her head. "No... no, I'm fine. Watch." Her horn glowed, and as it did so, Iron Will's bulky frame became wreathed in tendrils of writhing shadow. Just as quickly and easily, she turned it off without showing any sign of fatigue. She gave the others a hopeful smile, and the looks on their faces were all she needed to tell that she had pulled it off without any complications. "So don't worry about me. How about you, Mr. Will? Ready to be the bad guy?" The minotaur flexed, growling menacingly at the ponies. "I was born ready!" Fluttershy swooned, making a show of falling back, though she flapped her wings at the last second to keep herself from hitting the floor. "Eek, the mighty barbarian is here to ravish us," she purred. "Just you, 'Princess,'" Iron Will said as he reached down to scoop her up. They started to lean in toward each other to kiss, but Twilight loudly cleared her throat and stuck a magic barrier between them. Her cheeks flushing slightly, she said, "Sorry, but we need Will for the next scene, and it won't work if you spend the next twenty minutes tongue-wrestling." Fluttershy giggled and cutely stuck her tongue out at her friend. "Spoilsport. I think it would add whole new dimensions to our characters." Twilight groaned and put a hoof to her forehead. "Yes... the idea that Princess Celestia was a nymphomaniac who did all of her arch-nemeses." "Just the hunky ones," Fluttershy insisted, causing Twilight to groan again and shake her head, though Fluttershy grinned and leaned in close. "Oh? What's this? I see a smiiillle~!" "Sh-shut up," Twilight said, suddenly struggling to suppress the little grin trying to form on her face. "If I'm banished for getting the giggles on stage, I'll make sure you go down with me!" The pegasus gave Twilight a wing-hug and a friendly nuzzle, silently taking note of how the Ranger was showing signs of progress if she was able to joke about such things instead of assuming the worst and taking it seriously. That same sense of pride in the unicorn's growing confidence, of course, tempted Fluttershy to tease, "Twilight, are you asking me to run away with you? I'm a married mare!" Twilight's temporarily whitened cheeks immediately glowed a bright red, forcing Dewdrop and Iron Will to cover their mouths to hide their mirth at the way she reflexively tried to stammer out some sort of denial, only for the words to keep dying in her throat. Finally, she managed to murmur, "You're evil..." "And I'd get away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling Rangers," Fluttershy replied with a wink. "Speaking of which, who knew Nocturne was such an actress?" Twilight turned her attention to the stage, where they were wrapping up their song. "Yeah, she's been practicing her flank off to impress Scootaloo. I even caught her singing under her breath while we were relocating that owlbear last week." Dewdrop giggled softly. "That must have been one confused owlbear." Giving Iron Will and Twilight each a nod, she added, "Well, looks like the scene's wrapping up, so get ready to break a leg, you two." On stage, the three Crusaders made their appearance again by poking their heads out from behind a cardboard tree, with Apple Bloom on the bottom and Scootaloo on top. In the middle, Sweetie Belle squeaked, "I'm really, really not sure about this..." "Come on, we aren't going to take on the whole minotaur army or anything," Scootaloo replied. "We're just going to look around and see where they are." Apple Bloom nodded. "We'll just scout 'em out. Plus, maybe we'll find somethin' out ta help Nyx in her quest!" Sweetie Belle reluctantly nodded in agreement. "Okay... but if we see something scary, we run straight home." With that, the three fillies started sneaking out from behind the tree, only to jump in fright moments later when they heard the clomping of hooves coming their way. Quick as a blink, the trio were back behind the tree and peeking out as Iron Will stomped into view. Stopping about a third of the way across the stage, the armored minotaur shaded his eyes with one hand as he looked ahead. He then turned back and bellowed to an unseen crowd. "That pony settlement is just a few miles away! Remember, they may act like innocent villagers, but they've been hiding soldiers and weapons there, plotting to sneak into our lands and butcher our cows and calves in their sleep! They are cowards and liars, the lot of them, and deserve no mercy! May Aurox bless us as we bring JUSTICE to this blighted kingdom!" When the minotaur received the sound of cheers and the clanging applause of metal weapons banging against shields, he turned toward the audience with a fiendish smirk on his face. As he did so, tendrils of shadow appeared around his bulky frame. "That's right. Eat it up like the cattle you are. Destroy and pillage! Slaughter the 'soldiers' and 'weapon smugglers' down to the last foal. Drive the Sun Princess over the precipice of despair, until she has no choice but to surrender herself to me! When sun and moon are in my thrall, I will no longer have anything to fear. The age of shadow unending will begin! The reign of Eclipse!" From their hiding spot, the three fillies gasped in shock. "Eclipse?! He's here?!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "An' with an army o' minotaurs chompin' at the bit ta wipe out everypony," Apple Bloom added. Sweetie Belle fretfully protested, "But... he's lying to them! We don't have any soldiers or weapons!" "That won't matter once the fighting starts," Scootaloo retorted. "We've got to go back and warn the town!" While they spoke, Eclipse's ear perked up as he overheard their chatter. As they focused on their conversation, the shadowy minotaur crept around to the other side of the tree so that when they turned to head back home, they ran right into his armored legs. When they tumbled to the ground and looked up at Eclipse looming over them, they whimpered and scrambled back away from him. "And where are you going, little spies?" Eclipse asked with a sneer as he reached down to snatch Scootaloo and Apple Bloom up by the scruff of their necks like a couple of kittens. "Are you afraid that I am going to hurt you? Don't fret... I love children. And since I am sure that I can find a use for at least one of you, I would be happy to show you my love. Just as I did for Princess Luna!" While Apple Bloom and Scootaloo struggled in Eclipse's grip, Sweetie Belle seemed paralyzed. She simply sat back, trembling with terror while Eclipse threatened her friends. As soon as he mentioned Princess Luna, however, the little unicorn threw back her head and screamed at the top of her lungs: "Nyyyyyyyx! HEEEEEEELP!" The very next moment, Nyx flew onto the stage from behind Eclipse, throwing herself against his armored back and startling him into dropping the two fillies in his grip. While Apple Bloom and Scootaloo dropped roughly to the floor, Sweetie Belle gasped with delight. "Nyx! How'd you find us?!" Eclipse growled and swung a backhand at Nyx, but the thestral nimbly dodged the blow and stage-kicked him in the head, sending the shadowy minotaur reeling. "I heard trouble! An army of minotaurs isn't exactly stealthy. Not to these ears, anyway. I was just about to fly back when I heard your scream." Recovering quickly from the kick, Eclipse let out an angry bellow. Her ears flattening against her head, Nyx helped the fillies get back on their hooves. "In any case, we have to get out of here! Quickly, hold onto me!" As the fillies latched onto her, Nyx took wing and began flapping hard, hovering in place while an offstage fan provided the illusion of flying at high speed. Likewise, Eclipse gave chase by running in place after them. Though this did have the effect of looking rather silly for those who weren't already fully invested in the scene, the pounding of drums rose up in the background, once again sounding like a furiously pounding heartbeat, added to the tension of the chase. It was soon joined by the whine of a synthesizer as a set-piece in the shape of a cave's mouth was pushed into view. "Nyx! What are you doing?!" Scootaloo asked as the thestral flew them into the cave. "We can't see! We could be trapped in here!" "Shhh," Nyx replied as the fan cut out and she set the fillies down. "Trust me, girls. I can't fly fast enough while carrying all three of you, but I can guide you to safety through the blackest darkness. I promise you, in Princess Luna's name, I won't let any harm come to you." "O-okay..." Sweetie Belle replied, though uncertainty remained in her voice. Apple Bloom protested, "But we can't jus' hide! Eclipse an' those minotaurs are gonna attack our town! They're gonna kill everypony, just ta make Princess Celestia sad enough that he can possess her, an' then he won't be afraid o' nothin'!" Nyx turned to look at Apple Bloom in surprise at her words. "Possess Celestia so that it won't have anything to fear? Those were Eclipse's words?" Apple Bloom nodded vigorously. "Yeah, so we've gotta warn everypony before it's too--" Nyx cut her off by placing a hoof against her mouth before she could finish, turning her attention toward the cave entrance as the minotaur 'caught up' and approached. Peering inside, Eclipse bellowed, "I know you are in there, ponies! Do you think that darkness is any barrier to me? I am Eclipse! I was born of shadow! You have done nothing but trap yourselves where I can get you any time I want. The only thing that changes is that you will not see me coming!" Apple Bloom whimpered with fright. "H-he's right! We're trapped, an' he's gonna come in after us! We should make a break for it! He can't catch all of us if we run!" Just as the little farm filly looked like she was about to bolt, Nyx cut her off by holding her back with her hoof. "Wait here... and follow my lead." As she stepped forward, the three fillies clung to each other for courage. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wake up, Nyx ~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "Keep Quiet" by The Protomen) Nyx: I hear your threats and your bluster. I see you standing out there on the threshold of this dark cave. You have stolen the night from us. You've put this kingdom in fear and loudly pounded the dread drums of war. Played everyone for fools. I've heard that you cannot be killed. I've heard that you collect the souls of all those that you've possessed. All those that you've possessed... But from where I stand, I do not see that, for I have dreamed of your coming, shadow spawn, and I know what you are. I've heard... (Filles: This shadow) Your shadow (it extends) it extends all across (all across) this kingdom. (this kingdom.) In my dreams (In her dreams) the Princess (the Princess) brought me here to this place. (brought her here.) To this place. Even so (Even so) they told me (They told her) to give up. ("Wake up, Nyx.") It may be there's no destiny! It may be there's no greater plan. But I'll follow my dreams to the end of this twisted road we're on. I'm gonna take back the Princess's soul! I'm gonna make sure she wakes to a world where you're gone! I'll make my dream a reality. Now I know what to do to make you suffer for your crimes. You will pay! I've heard... (This shadow) Your shadow (it extends) it extends all across (all across) this kingdom. (this kingdom.) In my dreams (In her dreams) the Princess (the Princess) brought me here to this place. (brought her here) To this place. (to this place.) So take me! Take me! If you even can! Eclipse growled as the thestral arrogantly taunted it, and made as if to change into the cave to get her. The fillies squeaked in fright and clenched their eyes shut as they hugged each other tighter, but the shadow-possessed minotaur's hooves skidded to a stop before it could cross over into the cave. For a moment, Eclipse's bulky borrowed body overbalanced, and in that moment, Nyx launched herself into action. Bursting out of the cave with the force of a coiled spring, she flew past Eclipse, then swiftly pulled a hairpin turn and threw all of her weight against the minotaur's back. The fillies screamed and scattered out of the way as Eclipse tumbled forward into the cave. Rather than pick itself up and mount a counter-attack, however, the minotaur roared in what sounded like agony as he began rolling on the floor and crawling toward the exit. Instead of letting him reach the outside of the cave, however, Nyx landed in front of him and held him from moving forward while the fillies watched with expressions of stunned disbelief. I see it's true! (This shadow) Your shadow (it extends) stretches far. (all across) But not here! (this kingdom.) In my dreams (In her dreams) (the Princess) the Princess brought me here to this place! (brought her here.) To this place. (To this place.) (Even so) So get up. (They told her) Face me! ("Wake up, Nyx.") See all your schemes undone by a mortal! ("Wake up, Nyx.") Eclipse snarled at the thestral and struggled to push itself up on its hands and knees. With a deep, distorted voice, it retorted against Nyx's bravado. [Eclipse: My shadow it extends all across this kingdom. You ponies cannot run from my love.] Though weakened, Eclipse continued to repeat its threat like a mantra to give itself the strength to rise. In response, Nyx twisted around to buck it back, but the minotaur's body still proved to have enough strength to catch her hoof and swing her by her hind leg to throw her deeper into the cave. Breathing heavily, Eclipse rose up onto his hooves and staggered back to the mouth of the cave. Once out of the darkness, Eclipse stretched his arms out wide and took a deep breath as he regained his strength. Turning back to point menacingly at the ponies, he threatened, "This is not over! Do not forget that I command a legion of minotaurs who will annihilate your puny village and visit horrors you have never even imagined upon you! You will barely live long enough to regret earning the anger of Ecl--" Before he could finish, there was a flash of light as Sungleam suddenly appeared behind the minotaur and stabbed him through the back with her crystal blade. With a choked roar, the shadows wreathing Eclipse's minotaur body gradually vanished, and the bovine corpse fell lifelessly to the ground. "To think that Eclipse itself would be found here. If only that were the end of it," Sungleam bitterly muttered as she sheathed her blade and shone a light from her horn into the cave. "Children, you are safe! Thank providence... My name is Sungleam, Captain of her highness Princess Celestia's Royal Guard! I came to warn your township of the imminent threat, but your families stubbornly refused to evacuate unless I swore upon my honor and mine blade that I would seek you out." "Thank providence indeed," Nyx replied as she stepped back into view, wincing as she limped on the hind leg Eclipse had swung her by. "You could not have arrived at a better time, Dame Sungleam! We must hurry and get these girls back to their families, but then you must take me to Princess Celestia!" Sungleam narrowed her eyes as the thestral made her presence known. Warily, she asked, "And who are thou, to so brazenly demand an audience with her highness?" Nyx grinned back at the white unicorn. "My name is Nyx, Dame Sungleam. And Princess Celestia will want to grant me an audience because I can save her sister. Princess Luna has shown me how to defeat Eclipse once and for all!"

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 9 - Take Back the Night

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon Sungleam's look of apprehension and shock as she stepped back from Nyx was plainly visible, even in the farthest rows of the theater. As was her anger when she immediately followed it up by magically drawing her crystal blade and pointing it at the thestral. "Thou dares to seek an audience with her highness while bandying about her sister's name so frivolously?! Does thou have no shame nor sympathy for our sovereign's mourning?" Seeing Sungleam threaten their protector, the three fillies ran up between them and began protesting on Nyx's behalf. "Don't hurt her," Scootaloo pleaded. "She's a hero!" Sungleam narrowed her eyes, but slowly drew her sword back and returned it to its sheathe. "Aye. Thou protected these fillies, and that is why I shall not meet thy skull with the flat of my blade. Thou possesses the bravery to stand 'gainst Eclipse itself..." Nyx smiled, only for Sungleam to angrily add, "... but thy words suggest that it is a courage borne of either foolishness or insanity! The Princess of the Night is lost in a sleep without end, and her highness's grief also knows no limit. I shall not torment her further with the nonsensical ravings of a madmare, so speak and explain thyself! If thou refuses, or fail to meet my satisfaction with thy answer, then I shall see these children returned safely to their families and then return to Canterlot alone." Nyx hesitated a moment. She looked fondly at the fillies, then back into Sungleam's harsh but earnest glare. "Eclipse fears Princess Celestia. For all its bluster and threats, it is driven by its terror of her. Her highness can put an end to it, or at least weaken it to the point that Eclipse can be defeated with ease." Sungleam paused for a moment, then sheathed her sword. "Thou speakest truly...? Her highness will wish to know of this. How may it be done?" Nyx stepped forward as she replied, "By doing the one thing that only Princess Celestia can." She then leaned in so that she could whisper into Sungleam's ear. The unicorn's jaw dropped open as she listened to whatever secret Nyx shared with her. When Nyx finished and stepped back, she told the thestral, "I was correct before. Thou are truly mad!" It was with that pronouncement echoing through the theater that the curtains closed on the mares. Once the curtains were closed, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle scampered off the stage to where their sisters were waiting for them. Scootaloo held back to give her mom a hug before following her friends, tugging at her costume the whole way so that she could yank it off and dump the garments onto the floor. "Finally! My wings were starting to cramp up," she complained, rapidly buzzing her little wings once they were exposed to the open air again. "Oh, come on. Ain't lahk those costumes were all that tight," Apple Bloom retorted. The next moment, she was lightly whapped by the tail of her friend's Mare-Do-Well cape as Scootaloo put it on. "Hey!" "It's a big deal for pegasi. Wearing something that keeps you from spreading your wings is like... uh..." She looked at Apple Bloom's hooves, but finding herself unable come up with an appropriate simile, she pointed to Sweetie Belle. "Like a unicorn keeping a vice clamped around their horn!" This thought elicited a frightened squeak from the little white filly, who clung tightly to her big sister. Approaching the group after giving her husband a congratulatory hug, Fluttershy pitched in, "Yes, and you should only do either with somepony you trust very, very much." Rarity and Applejack both gasped at Fluttersy's comment put their hooves over their sisters' ears, much to the little Crusaders' confusion. Fluttershy's as well, as she asked, "What?" Clearing his throat, Iron Will quickly clarified, "There was a stage magician who used to do a warm-up act for us. The guy liked his wine and insisted on using Flutters as his 'lovely assistant'. Of course, she was overqualified..." Everypony else rolled their eyes when Fluttershy cooed affectionately at the compliment "... but let's just say red wine and escape tricks are a bad combination." Fluttershy giggled and looked past the others to see Twilight frantically trying to wave her over. "Whoops, Rarity and I have to get into place! Let's go!" "Nyx and Sungleam saw the fillies to safety," Pinkamena narrated while the stagehooves behind the curtain worked quickly to set the next scene. The sound of crackling flames was accompanied by red and orange spotlights. "With Eclipse temporarily rendered bodiless, the invading minotaurs were left without a commander, and their confusion granted the ponies time to evacuate to safety. "Meanwhile, despite her misgivings about Nyx, Captain Sungleam nevertheless saw enough merit in what she suggested to accompany Nyx to Canterlot and bring her before Princess Celestia." When the curtain opened, the stage had been transformed into Princess Celestia's throne room, where a stained-glass window was painted onto the backdrop depicting Princess Luna's sleeping form. Fluttershy sat upon the throne, her gaze distant and her voice bearing a dull, detached quality as Nyx and Sungleam knelt before her. "Rise, Dame Sungleam. How fare the refugees?" Celestia asked of her knight. Sungleam lifted her head and stood as she reported, "Their village was sacked and burnt by the minotaur hordes, your highness. Their homes are lost, but we succeeded in bringing the ponies themselves to safety." Celestia nodded unethusiastically. "Good. Yes, that is very good. And who is this?" She pointed a hoof down at Nyx. "Rise, thestral. Do you come as a messenger from the colonies, or as a lone volunteer seeking to join the war effort?" "A little of both, but nearer to the latter, your highness," Nyx replied as she stood before the Princess of the Sun. "I do come as an emissary, as well as to see an end put to Eclipse. Much as I would wish to come with the blessing of my colony, though, it is a higher authority who guides me here." Sungleam gave the thestral a warning look. "Guard thy tongue, Nyx. We spoke of this 'pon the road. Thou are only to share thy information, and not overburden her highness's heart with these fancies." Celestia startled Sungleam by scoffing in derision at that notion. "And what burden could either of thee possibly place upon mine heart that would be more than a gnat's weight upon that which We already bear? If it is thy intention to preserve me from despair, Dame Sungleam, then thou art already a blundering incompetent of the highest order!" Nyx stepped back in shock at Celestia's wrathful tone, but Sungleam regarded her sovereign with calm stoicism and simply bowed her head. "It is as you say, your highness." Celestia looked down at Sungleam, and though the knight couldn't see it, the princess's expression twisted in self-loathing at her outburst before she hid it behind a mask of cold stoicism. "We trust that We are understood, then. Nyx, is it? Speak thy peace, and do so plainly or not at all." For possibly the first time, Nyx showed signs of doubt in her mission. Nevertheless, she stepped forward and looked up at Celestia. "Your highness, before the evacuation, I was led to the village whose ponies your forces just saved. While there, I was fated to encounter Eclipse, so that I could report to you its true nature. Three fillies and I were chased by the monster until we took refuge in a cavern, where it could not follow." Celestia tilted her head, Nyx's testimony having finally aroused her interest. "Speak on. What was it about this cavern which repelled the spirit?" "Absolutely nothing, your highness," Nyx replied, "except that the sun's light did not reach its interior." At that, Celestia bristled. "And what doest thou mean to imply by that? Eclipse is a spirit of darkness! It stole Our sister's moon to block Our light from the land!" Nyx quickly shook her head. "Neigh, your highness. Eclipse is a being of shadow. It stole Princess Luna's moon not to bring darkness, but to cast a shadow across all the realm so that it might move freely. A shadow cannot exist in complete darkness any more than it can in direct light. This was revealed to me before, but I did not understand it until then." "Revealed?" Celestia asked. "In what manner was this revealed to you?" Nyx took a deep breath before answering. As confident as she had been before, facing the Sun Princess gave her pause for a moment. "It came to me in dreams, your highness. In them, Eclipse always stalked near you. For a time, I did not understand why, but now I do. Eclipse needs you because it fears what you might do. It sows war and despair in your kingdom so that a shadow will grow in your heart that it can inhabit. Once it takes you as it did your sister, it will have absolute control of the celestial bodies it needs to rule forever. That is why Princess Luna charged me with delivering this information to you!" In the aftermath of Nyx's claim, the throne room fell utterly silent. Celestia's eyes widened with shock before narrowing on the thestral, her face struggling not to twist in absolute fury. "Dame Sungleam," she said softly, her voice cracking under the weight of the emotions she was trying to keep in check. "Remove this pony from Our sight, lest We do something which We fear We shall not regret." Sungleam looked between her ruler and Nyx, and then moved toward the thestral. Instead of escorting her away, however, Sungleam drew up alongside Nyx and stood to face her sovereign. "Neigh, your highness. Instead, I beg thee to hear her further." Once again, shock won out on Celestia's face at Sungleam's refusal. "What madness has overtaken you, Sungleam? For what purpose would you have Us listen to this false prophet whose words are a poisoned dagger in Our heart? Have you become so desperate that you would have me take council from mediums and hoof-readers as well?!" Sungleam shook her head, just once. "Neigh, your highness, but I have seen first-hoof how she held Eclipse at bay. How it was weakened when pushed out of the shadowed light. I have seen her bravery against our enemy, so no, I am not desperate enough to seek out the advice of charlatans. However, I am precisely desperate enough to incur the wrath of the crown if it means that your highness will hear what must be done." "AND WHAT WOULD THOU HAVE US DO, SUNGLEAM?" Celestia demanded in the Royal Canterlot Voice, which practically shook the theater with her anger. "SET THE SUN AND FORCE OUR SUBJECTS TO ENDURE THE COLD AND THE DARK IN THE HOPES THAT DOING SO WILL LEAD TO ECLIPSE'S DEMISE?!" "Neigh, your highness," Sungleam replied, raising her voice to be heard over the echoes of her sovereign. "If Eclipse were to see the sun approach the horizon, it would hide itself away and wait, knowing that you would not abide the suffering of your little ponies. It would wait for the sun to rise once more, and then we would be right back where we began. I propose that we instead make it believe that it is in a position to claim thee. Draw Eclipse out into the open, and then when it has nothing to hide behind, instead of setting the sun... snuff it out." "... Thou art mad... both of thee," Celestia said, her voice little more than a quavering whisper now. "'Tis dangerous enough to set the sun in this state, but to snuff it like a candle... such a thing has never been done. None know the sun and its power better than We, and to extinguish the sun, then to re-kindle its flame... who could believe that I even have that power?" Behind the ponies, the image of Luna seemed to pulse with a momentary glow, and her whispering voice replied, "I do..." though the ponies showed no sign of hearing it. "Princess Luna does," Nyx replied. "She believes, your highness." Celestia's anger returned again at Nyx's words, and she practically snarled, "Again thou dares to speak Our sister's will? To claim that she speaks to thee and thee alone? If thou seest her face in thy dreams, then..." She choked back a sob before snapping, "Then why has she not visited in mine, these many nights I have spent by her side?! Is she punishing me for my failures?! What grants thee such insight over those who love her most dearly?" Nyx looked up at Celestia, her ears flattening in sympathy at the sight of the princess's grief. "I... do not know, your highness." Turning to look up at the window bearing Luna's image, she explained, "I have never even seen her face or heard her voice. Not even in my dreams. There, I feel a... a 'presence'. When I was a filly, my mother would take me out of the colony to see the moon and stars at night. She would tell me of the majestic Princess of the Night who ruled over those skies, and it would never cease to fill me with awe and wonder. "In my dreams of late, I am shown many things. You. Eclipse. The village in which I resided when Dame Sungleam met me. No matter what images are shown to me, though, I always feel that same presence of majesty, and I know that she still dreams. Even if I don't know why, those dreams led me where I needed to be to face Eclipse. They led me here, to help in any and every way that I can. I believe that I serve Princess Luna... and even if I am wrong, then please, let me do as I believe she would wish by helping the one pony she loves most in this world." As Nyx turned away from the window to face Celestia, the image of Luna began to glow again. "Eclipse shan't have thee..." the whispered voice vowed. Sungleam gave Nyx a nod as she stepped forward to address the princess. "And while I cannot say that I fully believe her, your majesty... so far as what she says about Eclipse's nature seems to ring true with what we have seen with our own eyes. Thus far, war has only touched our lands lightly. Nothing has been lost which cannot be rebuilt. If we can expose Eclipse and put an end to its slanderous manipulations, we can end this war before it consumes us. Nyx offers us our best chance, if we have the will to seize it." While Sungleam spoke, a fast, pounding beat of drums and synthesizers built up in the background. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Take Back the Night ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "Light Up the Night" by The Protomen) Sungleam: Eclipse's shadow dims the sun's light like the veil of a funeral shroud. What happens when we cannot go on living and the last of our hope gives out? If we fail then all is lost but we cannot fail to try. As it is, Equestria slowly dies. Celestia: To protect Our little ponies We would gladly give up our soul. And give even more than that if We could but see Our dear sister whole! Speak your peace and walk away. Call me a coward if thou please... Hollow words cannot persuade me to follow such a plan. Celestia clenched her eyes shut and flattened her ears to shut out the other ponies, but Nyx refused to back down as she stepped forward to plead with the Sun Princess. Nyx: Princess please... Take back the night! Don't turn away from what you know to be right! I tell you Eclipse is afraid that you'll stand. Afraid that you will not fall in the end. Just trust in me. Your sister too. It comes down to you. You know it to be true. Only you can take back the night. The other stage lights dimmed, illuminating the three mares while also drawing the eyes of the audience to the stained-glass image of Luna, which seemed to pulse to the rhythm of the music. Even without her on stage, her voice rang out to join Nyx's. (Luna:) Nyx: (Eclipse hides in the shadows!) Eclipse hides in the shadow that it's created through its theft of your sister's moon. (But it's a pretender to my power.) But it's a pretender to her power who is weakened by night's dark gloom. (The deepest shadow needs a light.) The deepest shadow needs a light. It needs the sun if it's to exist. And with this knowledge we can resist. I'm aware of your doubt, but if you're willing to believe that Luna still dreams (Believe in me and take a leap of faith) believe in me and take a leap of faith. Eclipse will wither up in the dark. (If you deprive it of the light) If you deprive it of the light, then it knows no shadow can be cast. It preys on your fears and hopes to outlast. Take it back. Take back the night. Though she showed no outward sign of being able to hear her sister's voice, Celestia's hard expression softened slightly, her ears picking up a little as if Nyx's pleas were beginning to pierce through the wall around her heart that her grief and mourning had built. Sungleam took advantage of that to help press their case. Sungleam: Don't turn away from what you know to be right. I tell you Eclipse is afraid that you'll stand. Afraid that you will not fall in the end. All of our faith in you is true. It all rests on you. You can take back the night. Luna: Take back the night. Take back the night. Though still pained, Celestia felt her resolve weaken. While Nyx and Sungleam continued to sing, accompanied by Luna's voice, she looked up at the window bearing her sister's image. Nyx: Only you can take back the night! Nyx, Sungleam & Luna: Don't turn away from what you know to be right. I tell you Eclipse is afraid that you'll stand. Afraid that you will not fall in the end. All of our faith in you is true. It all rests on you. You can take back the night. Don't turn away from what you know to be right. It casts a shadow in your heart and prays that you will falter, but our faith in you is true. We will stand beside you. Because you... Because you... You can take back the night. At last, Celestia looked down, and shook her head. As painful as she might have found Nyx's claims, it was clear from the look on her face that there was only one true option to protect her little ponies. Celestia: I cannot turn from what I know to be right... Deep in this shadow of my doubts, there's a voice that speaks to me. I hear it speak in my heart. Luna's still in my heart, and for her... Yes, for her... We will take back the night.

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 10 - The Shadow Falls

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon Up in their balcony, the royal sisters leaned against one another, gently nuzzling each other's cheeks to comfort one another as each had tears welling up in their eyes. As the curtains closed on the stage below, Luna asked Celestia, "Is that truly as it was for you, sister...? I am so sorry... It was never my intention to put you through such sorrow." Smiling wistfully, which made the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes more pronounced, Celestia assured her sister, "Shush, you did nothing wrong, Luna. We are together now, and no monster will take us from each other again." Luna nodded and sniffled, lowering her head to press her muzzle against her sister's shoulder. Celestia responded by wrapping one of her downy white wings around her. After a moment of being embraced like a filly being held by a mother pegasus, Luna asked, "Captain Sungleam... did she really stand up to you? I would have expected her to swallow her blade, first." Celestia let out a soft, sad laugh. "Yes, I was as surprised as you were, though it took much more than a song to bring me back to a state where I was ready and able to truly listen to them." Looking down at the stage, she admitted, "In the moment, I treated her as though she were a traitor. I... reached a much lower point than they depicted on the stage, but Sungleam and Nyx withstood it long enough for me to hit bottom, then saw to it that I could raise myself up again. It is thanks to their efforts so long ago that we are together again today." Luna shyly ducked her muzzle under her sister's wing. "This Nyx. I... I do not remember her. She saved those fillies and stood up to Eclipse in my name. She did so thinking that I guided her, but..." Off to the side, Shining Armor continued to stare off into the distance as he softly muttered, "You will remember when time is right. The eye has seen it, and I have seen the eye. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Probably." With a concerned tone, Princess Cadenza--who had been silent to allow the royal sisters to comfort one another--asked, "Shining, are you sure that you're alright? Maybe you should lay down for a bit." "I can't," he replied. "The shadows are laughing." Turning her eyes toward Shining Armor, Luna asked, "But our own laughter shall drown it out, shall it not?" "Yes, when we all come home from the circus." Celestia rolled her eyes as she recognized Shining Armor's symptoms. "I really shouldn't have to tell Pinkamena not to break my Captain of the Guard's sanity," she muttered under her breath, but then felt Luna's cheeks grow warmer against her feathers while her muzzle turned up into a hidden smile. Leaning in to nuzzle Luna's starry mane, she thought, Then again, I suppose that as long as it wears off soon, it wouldn't hurt to have somepony who can talk to Luna on her own terms for a while... Especially with the scene to come. Backstage, Dewdrop Decimal once again took a mental inventory of the spells she would need to use. It was her job to make it look convincingly like Fluttershy had alicorn magic, and though she had pulled it off numerous times in rehearsals, the incident with Rainbow Dash's griffon disguise had shaken her confidence. Her friend Spot Light was by her side, though, providing support. The earth pony fashionista nudged her and said, "Don't worry about a thing. You just had a brain fart earlier, but you've done this before. Your special effects are going to be amazing, because I'm right here... and I will personally wring your neck if anything goes wrong with this production after all the work I put into those costumes." If the desired effect was to keep Dewdrop from getting lost inside her own head, it worked as the librarian was jolted out of her ruminating by the harsh tone and glare of her friend. The funny thing was that, even though she wasn't entirely sure that Spot Light was kidding, that just made Dewdrop snort with laughter, easing her tension. "You never change, do you?" Spot Light gave a haughty sniff and smirked at her friend. "Why should I? I'm awesome! And now your awesome friend is going to go get us some drinks. Just remember that I will throttle you if given just cause." Dewdrop grinned and waved Spot Light off. "I know, I know," she replied, musing (not for the first time) about the earth pony's seemingly tenuous grasp on the concept of what it meant to be a good friend. "But it's okay. I'll do fine," she said aloud to nopony in particular. "Of course you will, my little pony," nopony replied as a crimson hand reached down to pat her on the head. "You will give them a show they will never forget." "Time fer the big finish," Fiddlesticks mused to her fellow musicians. "Y'all ready for it?" "Buck yeah! That last song went great. Now we just need to carry it through the finale," Vinyl exclaimed enthusiastically. Despite the earlier problems with the production, things had been going well enough that the DJ was feeling confident again. "How about you, Tavs? Ready to rock?" Octavia stared flatly at Vinyl. The refined earth pony, whose every conscious movement exuded class and poise, stood up on her hind legs as she raised up her forelegs, each of which had a drumstick strapped to them. "Da. Ve vill make many ponies veep this night." Vinyl snickered. "That's the Stalliongrad cheer we know and love. Let's do this thing!" Pinkamena stood in front of the closed curtains. Despite the blinding spotlight, she looked around at the shapes of ponies in their seats and spoke to them. "With Princess Celestia's acceptance of their plan, Nyx and Sungleam set to work preparing for the battle to come. Not against the armies that marched upon Equestria's borders, but against the enemy of all creatures. They knew that if Eclipse were to gain full control over both sun and moon, it would not stop with the subjugation of the ponies. With nothing left to fear from the royal sisters, it would no longer have to resort to manipulation and trickery to seize power over the entire realm. "They would journey with the princess, taking only a small retinue of guards with them. The majority of Equestria's armies would hold the line in defense of the kingdom while Princess Celestia went out to face the minotaurs' commander. None but Celestia, Sungleam and Nyx knew the true purpose of this action, and those left behind thought that their princess had finally gone mad with grief. Rumors were whispered in the halls of Canterlot that the shadow of despair had grown so great in Celestia's heart that she now sought her own death at the hands and hooves of Equestria's enemies. "Princess Celestia, Sungleam, and Nyx were the only ponies who knew the truth. That these whispers would make their way to Eclipse, and lure the fiend to them. Once it drew near, it would not be able to resist. "There was no chance that it would resist the temptation, for these three knew what other ponies only speculated. They knew that a shadow grew in Princess Celestia's heart." With those ominous words said, Pinkamena stepped off of the stage. The curtains drew open behind her to reveal Fluttershy, Twilight and Nocturne in their guises as they stood against a backdrop of rolling hills illuminated by the eclipsed sun. Fluttershy, standing tall and proud as Celestia, lifted her wings high. "How fares thy blade, Dame Sungleam?" Using her magic, Twilight drew her sword from its scabbard and made several twirling swings of the blade, which seemed to glow under the spotlights. "Well enough, your highness. Sundrinker sips slowly upon this shadowed light, but it shall shine brightly when it is needed." Celestia nodded. "Very good. Just remember... if Eclipse were to actually claim my body and magic as it did my sister's, all would be lost." Sungleam stomped her hoof at that. "It is my duty to ensure that such a thing never comes to pass, your highness. I swear upon my very soul that your sister shall sit upon Equestria's throne long after Eclipse and the events of this day are nothing more than a nightmare evaporated by the morning's waking light." To that, Celestia gave Sungleam a tired smile. "I thank you, Sungleam..." Turning her head toward the thestral on her other side, she added, "And you as well, Nyx. Whether it be providence or fancy which set you on this path, I am still unsure. That you have brought hope to Equestria and the realms beyond, however, is no longer in question." Instead of responding, Nyx simply stood with her large ears trained on the far distance. After several seconds, Sungleam sternly told her, "Nyx! A compliment received from a princess of Equestria is best returned with gratitude!" As if woken from a daydream, Nyx shook her head. "Oh? My apologies. I heard the minotaurs' commander approaching from beyond the hill." Pointing a hoof out, she added, "See? He comes now bearing the white flag." Sungleam narrowed her eyes. "He seeks to parley? Be wary, your highness. He may serve as a host to that parasite, and be hiding behind the white flag as a ploy to bring Eclipse near you." "Perhaps, but whatever occurs, we must not be the ones to make the first strike. 'Twas my attack upon Eclipse when it wore the body of the griffon ambassador which turned our allies against us. To do so again toward a commander who flies the flag of parley would only make their cause more righteous in their eyes." "Understood, your highness," Sungleam replied, though her horn and the hilt of her sword both glowed with the aura of her magic, demonstrating that she was keeping it at the ready. Moments later, Iron Will stepped onto the stage once more, though his armor had bright red epaulets added onto the shoulders, as well as a red cape. He held a large battle axe, but did so with the blade held down and a white flag tied to the butt end. Soon, he and 'Celestia' were facing one another. When he spoke, his voice was as booming as ever, but it was obvious that he was trying to affect a tone that was less gruff and more cultured. "Princess Celestia! I didn't expect to see you until we marched on Canterlot. Certainly not without more ponies than this at your side. Have you come to surrender the sun and moon for the sake of your subjects?" Celestia looked up at the minotaur and proclaimed, "As a matter of fact, We have. But not to thee." When the minotaur tensed, she elaborated, "Please understand that We would not even know how to grant stewardship of the sun and moon to thee. What We have done is taken steps to return the spells for raising the sun and moon back to the unicorn tribe. Once We have been removed, these spells shall be spread throughout the populace." The minotaur asked, "'Removed?' You're stepping down from the throne, then?" To that, Celestia shook her head. "Neigh. Our magic... Our very life force is inextricably bound to the sun. To give Our little ponies the spells would be meaningless so long as We live. Dame Sungleam." Sungleam winced and turned her gaze down to the ground at her hooves, but she drew her crystal blade, Sundrinker. The minotaur commander reflexively tensed and began to raise his axe, but hesitated when the sword levitated in the air with its edge aimed not at him, but at Celestia herself. "Once We are gone," Celestia calmly told the minotaur, "there will no longer be any creature in all the realm that will be able to claim sole dominion over the celestial bodies. That duty will fall upon the unicorns once more, and together they will be able to overpower any would-be usurper." The commander stared for a few moments, then lowered his axe once more. "They told me you were crazy. Seems they were right... but at least this is a kind of crazy I can respect." Celestia asked, "And will this satisfy thee? We are the one who has offended thee and thy people. When We are gone, will thou extend thy hand toward my little ponies with the open palm of friendship, rather than the fist of war?" The minotaur replied, "I'll be honest with you, Princess. A few of the brass back home will complain, but mostly we just want the day and night back on schedule. What you're offering here is honorable, so as long as we work things out with the unicorns, anytaur that tries to push an invasion will see the blade of my axe up close. By Minos, Taura and Aurox, I give you my word of honor on that." Celestia gave a relieved smile at that. "We thank thee, commander." She then raised her head high and closed her eyes. "Captain Sungleam. Please do thy duty." Spot Light returned with three cups of tea balanced on a tray on her back. She wasn't sure why she had brought three, though. Aside from herself and Dewdrop, there was nopony. Ignoring her, nopony leaned down to whisper into Dewdrop's ear, "It's time." He then placed his hand upon her head once more, and this time it felt as though something had pushed through skull and began clawing at her brain. Spot Light let out a startled yelp, rearing back and spilling the hot tea on the floor as her friend's body shuddered and twisted as though under the effects of some sort of seizure. It was no mere seizure that caused her horn to flare up, though. Her eyes shone with a painfully bright golden light as she began to rise up into the air, a powerful magical surge wracking her form. Celestia took a deep breath and sighed as she watched the play down below. The aged alicorn had told her sister about how Eclipse had been defeated and exiled the first time, so Luna knew what was going to happen. To hear it spoken and to see it play out before her eyes were two very different things, however. Not that it was particularly difficult for Celestia to bear, and she had been present for those events. Despite Lt. Sparkle's fears, there had been many, many dramatizations of Eclipse's defeat over the past thousand years. Pinkamena's approach to the subject was novel, but certainly no more traumatizing than some of the interpretations that she had seen over the centuries. While she thought on the topic, however, Princess Celestia's enjoyment of the play was interrupted by a bright flash which forced her to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she was no longer in the theater. She could no longer feel Luna pressed up against her side. Instead, she gazed out upon grassy hills in the dim light of a darkened sky. Looking up, Celestia gasped at the sight of the sun... her sun blocked from view by her sister's moon. "No!" From just beneath her gaze, a raspy voice slithered into her ears. "No, no, no! Celestia belongs to me!" Tilting her head down, the Sun Princess's pupils shrank, and she let out a terrified, gasping wheeze as she saw Sundrinker, her former Captain's crystal blade, pointed at her throat. That was not what scared her, however. That dubious honor belonged to the tendrils of blackest shadow which curled around the sword's hilt, and the loathesome beast from which they emanated. Eclipse snarled up at her as it wrested Sungleam's blade from the unicorn's magical grip, and with a single twist of its tendrils, Celestia's ears were filled with the sound of Sundrinker sinking deep into pony flesh. Rainbow Dash grinned, hearing the gasps of the crowd after her trick of rising up from under a hidden floor panel so that she could grab the prop sword in her mouth and turn it on 'Sungleam'. The trick blade did its job, with the tip collapsing inward when jammed against Twilight's armor. She was pretty sure that she could hear Spike crying out particularly loudly, though, so she just hoped that the little guy wouldn't have nightmares about it. If he did, Rarity would kill her. "Aurox's horns...!" Behind her, Iron Will hefted up his axe again. "It's real!" "Sungleam! No," Nocturne shouted, throwing herself at Rainbow Dash, who jumped out of the way and used her good wing to give her some extra distance. Twilight brought a hoof up to her chest, holding it over where she had been 'stabbed'. Some rudimentary sleight-of-hoof and a small packet of thick red dye provided the illusion of bleeding as Twilight coughed and pretended to struggle to stay upright. At the same time, Fluttershy shrieked, "Eclipse, you monster! I stand right here before thee! Thou had no need to harm her!" "But I did," Rainbow Dash retorted around the hilt in her mouth with a tone of false concern. "That interfering nag was going to kill you before I could show you my love! That power of yours belongs to me, not a herd of horned rabble!" A bellow from Iron Will prompted her to juke to the right as his prop axe swung down right where she had been standing. With a hiss, she crouched low. "You would turn your blade on me, commander? Fine! I was going to offer you a reward for the services you minotaurs have done for me, but now, once Princess Celestia and I are one, your people will be shown no mercy!" "LIKE I CARE," Iron Will bellowed. "You play my people for fools, I teach you the rules! And rule one is: Lead a minotaur by the nose, expect to get the horns!" "Fine then," Rainbow Dash replied. "I'll just kill you first, then take Celestia for myself once you're out of the way!" Before she could make good on that threat, though, a golden beam of magic shot at the stage near her hooves. "NEIGH, THOU SHAN'T!" Fluttershy proclaimed. "Thou art exposed, villain! Thou hast veiled thyself behind shrouds of lies and doubt, but the time when thou couldst hide in the shadows is passed! The era of Eclipse ends now!" While the audience below were enraptured by the performance, leaning forward in their seats to see the grand finale, the spells granting privacy to Equestria's princesses prevented anypony from noticing that Celestia had begun to sob uncontrollably. The eldest princess let out a loud, guttural whine as she thrashed about in her seat, her great wings knocking aside the startled guards who attempted to keep her from harming herself. Luna, Cadenza and Shining Armor had modestly better luck once the stallion was pulled out of his Pinkamena-induced stupor to respond to the situation. By forming a magical shield around her, Shining Armor was able to at least keep Celestia from falling out of the balcony. Nothing seemed to stop the tears from flowing down her face, however, as she let out a grief-stricken wail while her eyes seemed focused on something far away. In the midst of their panic, nopony stood calmly at the balcony's entrance. A cruel smirk spread across his face as even Luna and Cadenza failed to notice him, and he leaned in to tell Celestia, "You know what you have to do..." ... Snuff it out. Princess Celestia felt as though her heart were about to split open. She could see Nyx struggling to keep Captain Sungleam from bleeding out onto the grass while the minotaurs and griffons that had been invited to meet with her on that fateful day did battle with the foul shadow alongside her small contingent of bodyguards. She tried to remind herself that it could not be happening again. These were events that had played out a thousand years prior, but it was all so vivid to her senses that to the greater part of her mind, she had been sent back in the flesh to relive that painful memory. All that she could feel was grief over her failure to sense Eclipse hiding in the shadow of her dearest retainer, and the terror of having seen it rise up from Sungleam's shadow to pierce the faithful knight's lung with her own blade. The same blade that Celestia gifted Sungleam with for her loyal service had been wielded by Eclipse against her, just as that monster had taken advantage of Celestia's failure to properly respond to her sister's growing desire for responsibility and acknowledgement. Eclipse may have been the enemy of them all, but Celestia had given it the weapons it needed to succeed. But no more. Letting out a cry of rage and grief, Celestia reached outward and upward toward the sun. At the same time, she reached inward to the core of her being where the spark at the core of that celestial body had been made one with her by the Elements of Harmony all those centuries ago. She held the sun with her magic. It surrounded her completely. When Nyx and Sungleam had come to her with the idea, had they realized how integral she and the sun were to one another? How much like a death it was for her to reach into her very soul, where the giver of light and life burned inside her, and to squeeze that ember until it sputtered and faded into oblivion? Even if they had, Celestia had been driven to the point where she did not fear death, so long as it ensured Eclipse's destruction. She began to squeeze, and the sun's light flickered in the sky above. Luna shuddered and gasped, feeling a powerful magical imbalance coming from her sister, even through Shining Armor's shield. Though her own domain was the opposite of Celestia's, the two sisters were close enough in heart and spirit to sense when something was truly wrong. "The sun! She is trying to extinguish it," she blurted out. Nearby, nopony continued to whisper to Celestia. "You want to see Luna again, don't you? You want to make Eclipse suffer and perish? Yes, you know what to do. Grasp the sun... hold it in your magic and--" Without warning, a pair of steel hoofguards slammed into nopony's face with enough force to knock him away from Celestia. "Shut! Up!" Shining Armor snapped, looking straight at him. "We are trying to watch the play!" Rubbing his jaw with a crimson hand, nopony looked up at Shining Armor in utter bafflement. "Wha... what?! How can you see me?" "I have seen the eye," Shining Armor replied. "I saw you in its reflection... I know... I... I think I know..." Shining shook his head as his brain felt like a leg that he had slept on improperly, and he was now getting the pins-and-needles sensation of blood flow returning to it. In the process, the world slowly grew more focused around him, even as the presence of the creature before him grew more indistinct. "Shining, who are you talking to?" Princess Cadenza asked frantically. "There's nopony there, and we need your help with aunt Celestia!" Luna also looked in the same direction as Shining Armor, though, and tilted her head quizzically. "Nopony, or... no pony...?" She narrowed her eyes at where nopony was sprawled upon the floor. For a moment, there was nopony to meet her gaze. But only for a moment. After that, nopony sank into the shadows and the darkness, and then there was nothing there at all. Celestia closed her eyes, and felt as though she were trapped in a vice. Merely putting a small amount of pressure on the sun was agonizing. Sister, calm yourself. Celestia's eyes opened, and she looked around. All about her was battle and death. Ponies, minotaurs and griffons alike lay wounded or worse upon the grassy hills, as Eclipse was proving to be unbeatable beneath the moon's shadow. Even so, for a moment, she could have sworn that she heard-- 'Tis but a show, sister. We can leave if you need to. Luna's voice. But not quite the shy, timid tone that she most associated with her younger sister. Besides, Luna was gone. Stolen from her by the monster that now terrorized the battlefield, and if nothing was done, it would-- Very well, then. Tia, you leave me little recourse! Despite the dire scene playing out before her, Celestia heard the sound of her sister inhaling deeply, then blowing into something. Just as Eclipse tossed a griffon spearman aside and turned its baleful gaze upon her, the alicorn's senses were overwhelmed by a loud explosion. At the same time, while Spot Light fretfully looked around and practically danced in place trying to find somepony to help, the light went out in Dewdrop's eyes. The blond-maned unicorn collapsed back to the floor, looking thoroughly exhausted and slightly singed. "Dewdrop? Dewdrop, talk to me," Spot Light said, quickly propping up her friend's head. "Say something, or Luna help me, I will strangle you!" Dewdrop coughed, which transitioned into a weak chuckle. "You've... really got to come up with some more imaginative threats," she told the fashionista before rubbing her forehead. "What happened? Felt like..." "... A crazy magic surge out of nowhere?" When a panicked look crossed Dewdrop's face, Spot Light hastily replied, "Nopony saw... not sure how we got that lucky, but you just zoned out when I came back with the tea and went nuts! I don't even know how you kept the special effects on stage going, or what you were doing with all that magic, aside from pumping out a lot of it. I don't even care if it ruins the big finale, we need--" Dewdrop blinked, her eyes widening. "The finale? We haven't done that yet? Ack! I need to--" "You need to get to a doctor," Spot Light asserted. Dewdrop shook her head. "No! No doctors, you know that! I... I'll be fine. I'm just a little frazzled. Just let me get some caffeine in my system and..." She trailed off as she looked at the tea her friend had brought, now spilled on the floor. She tilted her head when she spotted something puzzling, and asked, "Spot? Why did you bring three cups?" Meanwhile, the ponies on stage were utterly oblivious to the drama occurring out of sight. When 'Celestia' snuffed out the sun, plunging the stage into darkness, ultraviolet bulbs replaced the stage lights to illuminate the actors by making them seem to glow in the otherwise blackened stage. Even the illusion surrounding Rainbow Dash caused 'Eclipse' to appear to be glowing a deep violet color that made her visible to the audience. Eclipse writhed upon the ground, Eclipse let out an ear-piercing shriek. Despite weakening in the total darkness, it managed to find its bearings and begin shambling toward Celestia. "No! You can't... escape me, Celestia! Join me! Join... your sister! Together we'll... re-ignite the sun... and rule this world forever!" Celestia, looking similarly exhausted from the spell she had just cast, defiantly replied, "Never... Thou shall never have me, monster!" Eclipse drew closer to the princess and raised Sundrinker up. "You can't stop me...! That shadow in your heart... all that guilt... all that self-loathing... it's inviting me in. You can deny it... but part of you wants me to claim you and take away all that pain! All I need... is to open a doorway!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Shadow Falls ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "The Fall" by The Protomen) Before Eclipse could strike with the crystal blade, Nyx cried out, "Sungleam! Do it!" A beam of purple magic momentarily lit up the stage, striking Sundrinker and knocking it away from Eclipse. This action was accompanied by the peal of an electric guitar, accompanied by synthesizers and pounding drums. "Still have... a bit of fight to share with thee," Sungleam retorted with a chuckle that turned into a wracking cough. "'Tis your turn, Nyx!" "I know," the thestral replied, flapping her wings and flying toward Eclipse. Weakened as it was, the shadowy fiend was unable to do more than hiss in protest as Nyx grabbed onto it and began to rise up into the air. As Eclipse was dragged higher, thrashing and cursing against Nyx's grip, the actors below raised their heads and voices. Fly Fly "This is... pointless!" Eclipse shrieked. "I'll just... take you for my new body... then fly down and claim Celestia! "If you could, you would have already," Nyx replied. "You'll find no shadow in my heart!" Into the night, where shadows Eclipse continued to struggle. "How? How?! Do you honestly believe that your precious Luna sent you on this quest? She did not! Her soul has been digesting within me this entire time! I am all that is left of Luna!" "Maybe... but maybe not. I won't know for sure until we've gotten rid of you for good," Nyx replied, lifted higher and higher by the song that the others sang. Can never be cast. Rise up high... Eclipse snarled at the thestral. "And that... is something you will never accomplish!" Pushing against Nyx with all its strength, Eclipse was able to twist out of the thestral's grip and began tumbling back to the ground below. After shaking it off, Nyx quickly turned around and began flying down after it. Fly Fly Into the night, where shadows Can never be cast. Rise up high... Down below, Sungleam limped on three legs toward Celestia while keeping one hoof pressed against her wound. The minotaur commander joined them, and knelt down to keep the unicorn propped up. Between tired coughs, Sungleam told her sovereign, "Your highness... you have to... finish... now, while... while Nyx has Eclipse..." Celestia frowned and made a face of intense concentration, gritting her teeth as she struggled. "I... I can't," she exclaimed, dropping the royal 'we'. "When I extinguished the sun, its spark inside me died as well. Just as it was with the Elements of Harmony when I failed to save my sister with them... Without that spark, I have no means of re-igniting it!" "You mean you snuffed out the sun without a backup plan?!" the minotaur bellowed in disbelief. Reaching for his belt, he pulled out a dagger. "Even a greenhorn knows you don't go to war with only one weapon!" As the music swelled louder, Sungleam let out a tortured laugh. "A... backup weapon...? A spark...? Heh... I brought... both!" Tilting her head toward Sundrinker, she used her magic to pick up the crystal blade. "Sundrinker... has enough sunlight stored in it... for a spark," she said, punctuating it with a wracking cough that caused the blade to waver in the air. Celestia looked to her knight and smiled. "If it shines as brightly as its wielder, it will be more than enough," she told Sungleam. "But as I am now, you will need to channel its power into the very core of my being. Do you understand what that entails, Dame Sungleam...?" The unicorn gave her princess a single nod, which seemed to be all that she could offer. "You will... see your sister again. I... swear it... your highness," she managed to wheeze out before plunging Sundrinker into Celestia's chest. Celestia threw her head back when it struck her heart, and the three of them sang up to the sky. Fly Fly High above, Eclipse tumbled through a sky blacker than night, using what strength it had to guide its descent toward Celestia. Right behind it, Nyx clenched her jaw and put everything that she had into catching up to the shadow. As she gained velocity, the friction of her speeding body against the atmosphere caused colorful sparks to start forming in front of her. Into the night, where shadows Can never be cast. Rise up high... Down below, Sungleam channeled her magic into Sundrinker, which began to glow with a bright golden shine. Quickly growing bright enough that it was uncomfortable to look at directly in the darkened theater, it poured its light into Celestia, whose horn began to glow with the same intensity. And when the sun shines On the land, look up and you'll see the shadow's fall. Celestia then tilted her horn straight up toward Eclipse just as Nyx, surrounded by an aura of rainbow-colored sparks, caught up to it. A beam of sunlight shot up from Celestia's horn at the same time the prismatic energy coalesced around Nyx. Eclipse was caught in the middle when Nyx seemed to explode in a colorful burst of magic, and the thestral ended up passing by Eclipse completely as she tilted up to fly over the audience, trailing rainbow sparks behind her like a comet. At the same time, Eclipse let out an agonizing scream as it was struck by Celestia's beam, which lit up the theater and sent the shadow hurtling upward toward the backdrop's moon. When the bright beam of light finally faded, there was no sign of Eclipse, but the moon was marked with an amorphous shadow. After doing a few laps around the theater, Nyx flew back to the stage and looked up at the sky, which began to brighten again. "You did it, your highness! You re-ignited the sun and destroyed Eclipse!" "Neigh... not destroyed," Celestia replied. "The effort of restoring the sun left me too weak to destroy it utterly, but look! It is now banished to the moon's shadow." Celestia's horn glowed, and before everypony's eyes, the sun and moon began to drift away from one another. It seemed to take some considerable effort on her part, but as she separated the two celestial bodies and moved them to opposite ends of the sky, the dark blot on the moon's face faded away. "Now, Eclipse will nevermore trouble Equestria, or any nation in the realm," the princess said with a weary, but relieved sigh. "So long as the sun and moon do not meet and cast their shadow upon the land, that fiend will never be able to escape its prison. My sister and I shall see to it that the cycle of day and night resumes so that such a thing can never occur." Turning toward the minotaur commander, she asked, "I... hope that this is the end of Equestria's troubles...?" The commander looked at the dagger in his hand, then returned it to its sheathe. "My soldiers and I'll spread the word about what happened here today, princess. And how Eclipse tried to make saps out of us in the first place. Way I figure it, we owe you ponies for putting day and night back on track. It helps you've got some darn good soldiers on your side." He patted Sungleam, who was still leaning against him. As he did so, this jostled the unicorn enough that her hooves slid out from under her. Sungleam slumped lifelessly to the ground with a heavy thud. The curtains closed, and from behind them, the audience could hear Celestia cry out in a choking voice, "Sungleam? Sungleam, open your eyes!"

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 11 - Luna's Return

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon "Nngh... my ears..." Luna smiled nervously, her ears flattening as she lowered her head in contrition. "I apologize, sister, but you seemed in a dire state. I had to wake you somehow." Celestia shook her head, the images of battles from the distant past fading from her mind like a bad dream. "No, no, I believe you Luna. I don't even know what came over me. One moment I was simply watching our little ponies' play, and the next it was as if I were..." Glancing down at the shredded scraps of rubber at her hooves, she elected to change topics. "Why did you even have a balloon in the first place?" Luna smiled as she magically pulled several uninflated balloons from under her regalia. "A gift from Fluttershy 'pon our last meeting! If I ever have cause to think that I might be once more trapped in the realm of dreams, I only need to blow into one until it bursts. If I do not jolt awake from the noise, then it means that I am still in the waking world." "Well, it certainly worked. That was good thinking," Shining Armor interjected, having largely recovered his sense of lucidity. He grinned warmly toward Luna, whose cheeks flushed a deep purple from the praise before hiding them behind one of her wings. On the other side of the eldest alicorn, Princess Cadenza fretted, "I'm just concerned about you, auntie. I know you've seen plays about this story before, but this is the first time you've done so since the attack on Canterlot. Maybe that opened up old scars? We should probably leave." Princess Celestia shook her head. "No... no, that wouldn't do. How would our dear Captain's sister react if she found out I left early?" Somehow, Shining Armor's white coat somehow managed to turn a shade paler. "The words 'doom spiral' spring to mind," he replied, eliciting a sad little smile from Celestia. "And we can't have that. Don't worry, Cadance. I'll be sure to get a check-up tomorrow, but for now we'll just enjoy the rest of the play. But, Shining Armor?" "Yes, Princess?" Celestia narrowed her eyes and ordered, "I just want to be sure about something. Send your fastest messengers to the Gates of Tartaros. There are creatures there who would fight in the battlefield of the mind, and I want to be absolutely certain that they are all right where they belong." Shining Armor's eyes widened with startlement at the mention of Tartaros, where the most vicious fiends and criminals alive were imprisoned. When he realized that she was serious, he nodded and turned to one of the pegasi assigned to the small guard detail he had brought with him. "Sentry, you can get there and back faster than it would take to relay to a messenger in Canterlot. You know the route?" Flash Sentry snapped a salute. "Yes, sir. Back in a 'flash', Captain!" Once he was gone, Shining Armor brought a hoof to his forehead. "I still can't believe Twiley dated that guy," he muttered to the quiet amusement of the other ponies present. He then noticed Princess Celestia rising to her hooves. "Princess?" "Come with me, Captain Armor. The rest of you can stay here. We just need a minute to take care of one little thing." Meanwhile, Iron Will cradled Twilight Sparkle in his arms and carried her off the stage. Once the scene was over and the ranger no longer had anything to do, she had turned into a jelly-kneed pile of nerves. "I'm sorry... this is so embarassing," she muttered. "Eh, don't worry about it. You aren't the first pony I've had to carry off the stage after a big show." The mintaur laughed and shifted his grip to ruffle Twilight's mane. "You saved your breakdown for after the curtains closed, so trust me, you did everything right." Twilight laughed a little at that and lightly hoof-punched Iron Will in the shoulder. "Well... there is that, I suppose. I just..." From not too far away, Twilight heard Princess Celestia say, "Rise, my little ponies." This elicited a startled squeak from the unicorn, who immediately teleported out of Iron Will's grip. She misjudged her distance from the floor, however, and didn't have time to right herself before landing on her back. She winced and looked up, finding herself staring straight into the violet eyes of the princess herself. "Hello, Lieutenant. Allow me to help you up," she said with an amused smile. Twilight let out a small, nervous laugh as Celestia lifted her up in the golden aura of her magic, righting her and setting her back down near Dewdrop and Spot Light. "What... what brings you back here, Princess...?" She hung her head low and closed her eyes. "If... if my performance distressed you in any way..." "No, Twilight, quite the opposite. I am here to thank you," Celestia assured her, reaching out with a hoof to raise the unicorn's head. Celestia looked at her whitened coat and shining blonde mane fondly. "You know, I have seen many Sungleams over the years, but so few truly bring her spirit to life as you did tonight." Twilight looked upon Celestia's beaming, motherly face and felt her eyes watering as though she were looking into the sun itself. "I just... Waking Night... I never wanted to hurt you..." she whispered. "I know, Twilight. But trust me when I say that the role you played was one of my favorite parts of the entire production." Bringing her hoof to her chest, Celestia looked down and smiled. "The scars I bear will always be a reminder of those times, but I have never once regretted them. Do you know why?" When Twilight slowly shook her head, Celestia answered. "Because they always remind me of a pony who was the very embodiment of loyalty. A pony who loved Equestria... and its princess... to the very end, and beyond. It is because these scars exist that our realm was never ruled by Eclipse. My sister and dearest friends have returned to me. Equestria is already beginning to experience changes which could usher in a true golden age of harmony and prosperity. Because of these scars, I may yet live to see that come to pass. So thank you, Twilight. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you." Celestia tilted her head downward in gratitude, causing Twilight's mouth to hang open. "I... no, but... I..." Stepping out from behind the princess, Shining Armor teased, "A compliment received from a princess of Equestria is best returned with gratitude, remember? Or maybe it's the other way around in this case." Startled out of her stammering, Twilight's face flushed as she gave Celestia a formal bow, as she had many times under her brother's command. "It was an honor, your highness. I-I'm happy you enjoyed it." Celestia smiled warmly, then looked around. "Well then, I'm quite looking forward to seeing the finale. Take care, my little ponies." In a flash of magic, both she and Shining Armor vanished from sight. Celestia re-materialized in her seat with Shining Armor at her side shortly after the curtains had already re-opened. Down below, a single spotlight shone directly down on 'Luna' as she lay in repose on a bed of silken sheets. Resting on her chest was a replica of her music box from before. Its tinkling melody slowly played while Celestia's on-stage counterpart, along with 'Nyx', sat at her bedside. The stage Celestia trembled, clearly struggling to keep herself from sobbing. "This was to be our happy ending," Celestia said, her voice pained and halting. "You... you were to open your eyes... and you would see me. And Captain Sungleam, and Nyx here, who fought so bravely in your name... You were to see us and smile. I was never supposed to lay another sister to rest. Especially not on the same day that we lost such a treasured friend as Sungleam was..." Turning toward Nyx, Celestia snapped, "And thou! Thou strode up to me, speaking as though thou were meant to be some sort of chosen hero! Thou gave us hope, and Sungleam died for it! What doest thou have to say? What further venom doest coat thy poisonous tongue!" Nyx didn't even look at Celestia. Instead, she stared at Luna's sleeping form while the music box's tune wound down, to be replaced by the strum of a guitar. It was a brief refrain of the song she had sung back in the earth pony village, but quieter. Sadder. "I won't give up, princess," Nyx vowed. "Eclipse is gone, but things still aren't back to the way they should be. Without you, there are going to be things that think they can prey on ponies in the night. I won't let them. I won't give up on believing that you'll wake up and take the night back. Until that time comes, I'll keep it safe for your little ponies." With that, Nyx slowly turned and walked away into the darkness while the guitar faded into a dark, heavy tone of Vinyl's synthesizers. Celestia let out a pained moan before shouting, "Aye, leave! LEAVE! Thou hast brought naught but misery upon us! If ever we lay eyes upon thee again..." Rather than form the implied threat into words, Celestia slowly turned toward Luna and took a deep breath. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Luna's Return ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "Here Comes the Arm" by The Protomen) Sister dear... I would not bring you pain But there is something I must say. For your foregiveness, I... I cannot start to ask. I do not even dare to pray. Sungleam died, so sure she'd save us, Gave her life so there would be another day, But, foolish mare, that life was spent in vain... Her life was spent in vain. Celestia brought a hoof to her chest and winced in pain, the wounds still fresh. Though my heart still beats, the spark is dim. I can feel it fade in time. I know one day that it will die, And the light will die with me. I feel as though our foe Eclipse still has a hold on me, That even now it laughs at us, And there is naught that I can do. And while Celestia lamented her loss and failure, another shape once more stepped out of the darkness. Its tendrils writhing around it, Eclipse crept out of the shadows behind Celestia. A scream from the front row startled her, and it was soon echoed by other fretful voices from the audience as she turned around to see the monster returned. Instead of cringing in fear or lashing out against Eclipse, however, Celestia started to step toward it. And even now, the shadows fall upon my heart, And all our victories mean nothing. Eclipse had won right from the start. Let us put an end to the fighting. At least we won't be apart. Take me... Take me... Just let it end. There was very little distance between Celestia and Eclipse to begin with, but what little there was slowly diminished as Celestia took slow, resolute steps toward the shadow. Eclipse also reached out to her, its tendrils stretching toward the Princess of the Sun before a second, pale beam of light shot down from above to surround Eclipse, accompanied by the quiet, wistful intrusion of a piano. Eclipse recoiled back, hissing as though it had been struck. It made feral, furtive motions toward Celestia, but was unable to move beyond the pillar of moonlight that now surrounded it. Soon, the piano was joined by another voice which caused Celestia to simply stop in her tracks and slowly turn her head toward the bed where her sister lay. Though Luna continued to sleep, not moving even to breathe, it was her voice that pierced through the gloom. Luna: Sister, please, do not give in. This is not all that you have left. Remember our dear friends and the dreams we shared. We are not dead and gone. We shall return one day, And when we wake up, you'll be there To say, "Welcome home," I pray. Eclipse has no claim on us that we do not allow. My soul remains my own. When Harmony returns, you'll see The bright rainbow through the dark. You can not give up hope. You can not give up hope! All around the stage, similar pillars of light began to appear, ever so slowly, revealing that Celestia was not alone. Dim as they were, it seemed as though the princess were surrounded on all sides by shadowy silhouettes. Instead of supporting Eclipse, however, they sang out with Luna. (Chorus:) Luna: (You can not) You can not As the lights brightened around each of the silhouettes, they could be more clearly seen. Instead of shadows, they were ponies. Nyx. The earth pony mayor. The trio of fillies that Nyx had saved, though thankfully few noticed the tail end of Scootaloo's cape sticking out from the back of her peasant clothes, or how hastily she had been put back into costume. (You can not) You can not From out of the darkness, another light shone through the pitch black. This light was formed around the horn of a unicorn, however, as Celestia saw Sungleam illuminate herself and join her voice among those urging the princess on. Eclipse hissed again, slithering away to escape as Celestia began to walk toward her knight. (You can not) You can not In an instant, the lights suddenly went black, once more plunging the set into darkness. It was only a second or two before they began to illuminate the stage once more, though, to reveal that all of the ponies were gone. The only one remaining lay in the bed, but instead of Luna, it was Celestia who was sleeping there. She began to rouse as the choir pleaded one last time. (You can not) As Celestia began to sit up, the echoes of Luna's voice called out "You can not" one last time, though it faded and distorted as she woke and sat up. Celestia looked from side to side, finding herself alone before she looked straight ahead to the audience. Her voice simmering with purpose and intensity, she said: No... to see my sister, I can not give up hope. I will not fail again. With that, Celestia threw the sheets from her body, the music growing in intensity as she reared up defiantly on her hind legs, colorful lights flashing all around her while the curtains closed. When the music faded, Pinkamena stepped up in front of the curtains once again. "True to her word, Princess Celestia held on to hope. Though her sister's absence left a void that could not entirely be filled, she continued toward a brighter future for Equestria and its allies. A better world for her sister to awaken into. "In making that brighter world, the shadow slowly faded from her heart. Even as the centuries following her desperate gambit took their toll, the hope that Luna would one day regain her freedom only grew. "This spirit of hope was also carried on by Nyx, who devoted her life to guarding the ponies of Equestria against the dangers which lurked in the darkest corners of the night. In doing so, others gathered around her cause. Working together in the name of the Princess of the Night, Luna's Rangers have protected the innocent ponies of Equestria ever since. "Today, we can say that the work and sacrifice of every pony that has held onto that hope has been rewarded. On Waking Night, on the thousandth year since its banishment, Eclipse returned, only to be defeated for good. On that night, for the first time in a millennium, Princess Luna opened her eyes. "It is in honor of the royal sisters of Equestria that we dedicate this play. I would like to thank them for attending..." A wave of applause rippled through the theater as everypony turned to look up at the princesses in their balcony seat. "... I would also like to thank the Manehattan Playhouse for hosting this event, and of course my friends who joined me in making it a reality." Ponies began stomping anew once the actors began to file out from behind the curtains. Whistles and cheers filled the theater for each of them, even when Scootaloo ripped off her costume in the middle of the big bow they gave the audience in order to let her little wings flap free. They also applauded loudly when Vinyl, Octavia and Fiddlesticks were brought out and introduced as the musicians for the play. Octavia attempted to retain a dignified, graceful air, only to get yanked into a group hug with her near-identical cousin, courtesy of Vinyl Scratch, who was wearing a grin that could have lit up the Las Pegasus strip. The biggest cheer of the night, however, came at the end. Few noticed the director/narrator once she shuffled off to the side to make way for the actors, as she did so very quietly, making no attempt to draw attention to herself. That changed when Fluttershy and Nocturne took her by surprise, flapping over to either side of her and lifting her up off the ground. Her typically stoic demeanour made her startled expression all the more priceless as they flew her over Iron Will, who pointed up at the pink poet and shouted, "Let's give it up for the mare who put this all together, PINKAMENA DIANE PIE!" If Pinkamena was startled by her sudden airlift, then the sheer wave of stomping hooves and cheering whistles completely took her off guard. At no point did a smile touch her lips, but her friends could see the twinkle in her big blue eyes, and the blush on her cheeks as she gratefully bowed her head to the audience.

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Part 12 - The After Party

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon "Sweet Celestia, it's huge," Rarity exclaimed, her mouth gaping open. From his perch atop her back, Spike mirrored his mother's expression. "Hey, that's exactly what I said on my honeymoon," Fluttershy said with a giggle. When Rarity looked at her with a scandalized look on her face, she stuck her tongue out and added, "About our room, silly! Will and I scored a gorgeous suite at the Shetlandton over in Neighagra Falls. It wasn't anywhere nearly as big as this one, though." "This one" was the penthouse at the top of the Orange Hotel. Two stories of class and luxury sat atop the building like a small mansion, surrounded by spacious balconies and an outdoor swimming pool. At the moment, everypony who had been involved with producing their musical, as well as every one of their friends and families who could be present, were crowding around the entrance. All except for Applejack, who led the way inside and called out, "No need to be shy, dears! My aunt and uncle own this hotel, so feel free to make yourselves at home." Nocturne shook her head as the crowd started to make their way inside and spread out to explore the opulent common room. "I'm pretty sure this place is bigger than my house," she replied before her daughter pushed past her to race toward the pool. "Hey! Scootaloo, don't run around! And take off your cape before you--!" She brought a hoof to her face when an audible splash was the only response she got. While Sweetie Belle squealed with delight and started urging her big sister and adopted nephew to get into the water with her, Apple Bloom soaked in the sight of the fancy furnishings and paintings adorning the wall before she turned to the two other earth pony fillies who had joined her and her friends after the show. "Wow, Tangerine, it sure is swell of yer folks ta let us stay here while we're in town!" Tangerine, a light orange filly with a verdant mane, smiled softly before replying in the crisp, precise accent common among Manehattan high society. "It is no trouble, cousin. Even if it were not the 'off-season', we are very happy to have you all here. It was entirely worth it for the chance to see your play." "Yeah, but if ya needed a couple of earth ponies fillies, ya could've called on us, ya know," Babs Seed teased in her much rougher voice while playfully elbowing Apple Bloom in the barrel. "But the bit with the bonnet was pretty funny." Apple Bloom snorted with laughter at the memory. "Yeah, and ya would've been willin' an' able ta make the commute all the way ta Ponyville fer the rehearsals? Sure. Besides, if'n Scootaloo an' Sweetie Belle hadn't called dibs on account o' Rarity an' Scootaloo's mom bein' in it, Ah probably would've had ta act alongside Diamond Tiara an' Silver Spoon!" All three cousins shuddered at the thought, Babs and Tangerine thinking about their recent visit to Ponyville and their subsequent encounters with the duo in question. Babs blurted out, "Well, I gotta wash that feelin' off. Last one in the pool's a rotten apple!" Tangerine eeped and protested, "We are not supposed to run beside the pool!" It didn't stop her from trying to catch up to her cousins, though, or laughing as she leaped into the water. It wasn't long before everypony had found a place for themselves in the huge penthouse. Vinyl and Octavia were playing some light background music through the room's sound system while Fiddlesticks slowly danced along to it with her fiancee, Caramel. Conversations were held in small clusters with ponies periodically milling about, joining in or breaking off from these groups. The fillies and Spike were outside, happily splashing around in the pool. The others who were nearby all cheered along while Scootaloo and Babs, balancing themselves atop Nocturne and Applejack's backs, tried to shove each other into the water. They seemed evenly matched, but Babs eventually overextended herself. Scootaloo immediately took advantage, and as Babs splashed into the water, the triumphant pegasus reared up on her hind legs and crowed, "Woohoo! I am Scootaloo, queen of chicken-fighting! Bow before me!" She danced around on her mother's back a bit, before turning to see everypony outside of the pool facing her and kneeling. Though surprised at first, Scootaloo soon grinned and proudly posed. At least until she heard another pony ask, "Does that order extend to us as well, my queen?" Turning around to see the three princesses flying down to land on the balcony beside the pool, Scootaloo reflexively tried to bow, which sent her pitching face-first into the water herself. Luna immediately gasped and dove into the water, splashing everypony in the vicinity before rising up again with Scootaloo perched atop her head and clinging to the princess's horn. "Fear not, fair Nocturne! As your forebear Nyx would have, I return your child to you, safe and unharmed." Nocturne grinned and reached out with her wings to pull Scootaloo off of Luna's head. "Well, uh... thank you, Princess, but you didn't need to worry. Scootaloo's a good swimmer, and... um... couldn't you have just picked her up with your magic if you had to?" Luna cocked her head slightly. "Hmm... perhaps," she admitted before flapping her wings a few times in the water to create waves. "But you seemed to be enjoying yourselves so much in here, I hope you don't mind me joining you. Look! I am controlling the tides!" While the other ponies laughed and bobbed with the waves that the princess created, the elevator opened and allowed Shining Armor, along with a few other unicorn and earth pony guards, to get out. "Hey, Twiley," he said when he saw his sister. "Sorry about that. One minute, Princess Celestia says she wants to stretch her wings, the next, the three of them are giggling like schoolfillies and flying off to sur... prise... you..." His speech grew sluggish and distracted as happened to look outside to see Princess Luna laughing and splashing around in the pool, her mane wet and glistening as she threw her head about in slow motion. Droplet of water flew from her, each one seemingly infused with the light of the stars in her mane to create a galaxy of light and beauty that spun dizzyingly as it radiated out from the beautiful mare at its center. Twilight waved her hoof in front of her big brother's face as he suddenly trailed off and started staring off into space. When the only response she got out of him was a line of drool dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, she snapped, "Darn it, Pinkamena, he's having a relapse! Rainbow Dash, please tell me you brought your herbs with you! I need something to snap him out of it, stat!" The night went on, the princesses and their guards graciously welcomed into the party. As the children started to droop tiredly from the late hour, they were about to be put to bed when Fluttershy stepped up to the microphone on Vinyl's sound system, her false Celestia horn once again adorning her head. "Hey, everypony, I know things are getting late, but I've got a special present for all of you, especially the princesses." Off in the far corner of the room, where she and her friend Dewdrop had been spending most of the night, Spot Light was saying to Princess Cadenza, "... and if you liked what I did with the costumes, you should visit the Best Pony Boutique some time. You won't just get a new dress, there, either. I mean, anypony can throw some scraps of cloth together, but my special talent is accessorizing, so I can help you put together a full look to--" She stopped in mid-pitch when she heard and saw Fluttershy take the microphone. "Oh no. Is she doing what I think she's doing?" Without warning, Derpy suddenly stuck her head down in front of Spot Light's and asked, "I dunno, what do you think she's doing, Spotty?" Startled by the sudden appearance of the blond pegasus, who was hovering upside-down, Spot Light let out a startled whinny. "Derpy! Where the buck did you come from?" She then frowned and corrected, "And it's Spot Light!" Dewdrop asked, "Actually... that is a good question. Where did you come from, Derpy? I haven't seen you since the mix-up with Dash's griffon illusion." Derpy flipped right-side-up and landed beside the blond-maned unicorn. "I thought I saw Rainbow Dash walking around when she was supposed to be acting, so I followed her and..." Derpy gave a bashful grin as she admitted, "I... kinda got lost." "Oh, you're the pony who waved to us before the show started," Cadenza said with a smile, recognizing the cheerful, wall-eyed pegasus. Turning back to Spot Light, she asked, "So, what is it that you think Fluttershy is about to do, again?" The earth pony didn't need to respond, though, because Vinyl was grinning behind her DJ gear and put a record on the turntable while Fluttershy herself sent a beaming smile toward Celestia and Luna. "Here's a little something that I wrote... by which I mean Vinyl here did most of the work." "Darn straight!" "We didn't work it into the main play, but I really wanted to perform it for you, because... well... the only thing that determines whether a story is a sad one or a happy one is where you choose to end it. Vinyl, hit it! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moving On ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Based on "Beards Going Nowhere" by The Protomen) When all your hopes begin to fade into the past When your dreams vanish from your view When you reach out for the friends who've gone And there's nothing that you can lean upon The darkness seems be laughing at you And there are so many who will need you The crown is a burden few can bear And no one can say if my choices were the right ones But in the darkness of the night My sister, I hope you hear my prayer Moving on Nevermore will I waste my life suffering Our ponies need me now I will not fail them and defile your memory Sister dear, my light Will be a beacon to guide you No matter how far away your spirit may be from here My love will never fade away as years pass us by Our ponies will come together and make this realm a haven And I will see it happen With my own very eyes I will dream of the days before us when we'll walk side by side You'll see, we'll make miracles come to life So open up your lovely eyes No matter happens now No matter how long it takes I will wait for you As you follow the path back to the waking world Just follow the voices of those who sing you awake Moving on Into a future unknown, but I know That you are not alone The path is paved with the love of ponies Each one an unbreakable stone Equestria will grow strong and beautiful So that wherever you roam All the ponies who are waiting for you Their dreams will light your way home! As Fluttershy belted out the lyrics, Pinkamena walked up to her, giving the pegasus a flat stare... and then sidled up next to Fluttershy in order to sing back-up for her friend. (We'll stand strong) We'll stand strong (We'll stand true) We'll stand true However long it takes, we'll wait for you (We'll stand strong) We'll stand strong (We'll stand true) We'll stand true However long it takes, we'll wait for you (We'll stand strong) We'll stand strong (We'll stand true) We'll stand true However long it takes, we'll wait for you (We'll stand strong) We'll stand strong (We'll stand true) Baby, we'll stand true! Grabbing the microphone from its stand with her wing, Fluttershy snatched it and clenched her eyes shut as she arched her back and practically shouted into it. Luna, it's time for me to do what only a princess can do! My little ponies need food and shelter and affordable health care! And fancy coffee shops on every street corner! And I'll make it happen. And cinema, which isn't a thing yet but holy buck, when you wake up you need to see 'Space Ponies' like fifty times, and go to the conventions where I'll be dressed as Princess Hay-a competing against three hundred pound stallions in the same outfit! But it's cool. It's all in good fun. And then after that we'll eat fudge sundaes while we look out at the city skyline under the stars, and you'll say 'I'm so proud of you, sister!' 'I'm so proud of you.' Bringing it through the big finale, Fluttershy took a moment to catch her breath and opened her eyes. Somehow, as she had spent the time with her eyes closed gyrating and throwing her body around to the music, she had ended up in front of Celestia and Luna, who just stared at her blinking for a moment. Eventually, Princess Celestia grinned and told her, "Well, that was certainly... catchy. But I think it got away from you toward the end there. Just a tiny bit." Fluttershy giggled cutely as she tossed the mic back toward Vinyl, who caught it in her magic and returned it to its stand. "Yeah, it's a work in progress." Princess Luna leaned up to nuzzle her sister's cheek. "Well, it is true. I am nothing but proud of my sister for all that she has done during my absence. Though... is it true what she said about taking part in masquerades with overweight stallions?" Celestia leaned into the nuzzle and smiled serenely. "No comment." Hours later, when even the hardiest of ponies felt the need to sleep, Pinkamena finished brushing her teeth and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway of the penthouse's second story, where most of the sleeping space was. As she turned toward the room where she was going to be sleeping, she saw nopony in the shadows. Staring straight ahead, she kept her voice low to keep from waking anypony as she said, "As I was walking up the stair, I saw someone who wasn't there." Out of the darkness, nopony replied, "He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away." Pinkamena nodded and approached the shadow. As she did so, it slowly took on shape and definition. It wasn't truly there, she knew, but as it took the form of a shadowy centaur, she decided to treat it as though it were, anyway. "I saw you earlier, but you didn't know the rhyme. Why were you skulking around the theater back then?" "... Hubris, mostly," the centaur admitted. "Having devised a means of getting close to your princesses undetected, it also served as an opportunity to test its limitations by interfering with your play. The end goal was always to complete the preparations for my public return, though. Thank you for doing your part in preventing it." Pinkamena cocked her head. "Preventing it? How? All you asked me to do was invite Shining Armor... Wait. Why was it so important that I ask Twilight's family to come to her birthday party?" The centaur chuckled tiredly and sat down on his haunches. "Well, aside from being rather fond of her... I knew that in your state of agitation, you would be more likely to 'do the eye thing' as your friends call it." Pinkamena sat down. "You manipulated me... made me do that to my friend's brother." "Yes. A necessary evil, I am afraid. I know that you cannot control it consciously, but because of your gaze, for a brief time he was able to see the true shape of this world. Even if he does not know it now, he prevented something truly terrible from coming to pass." Pinkamena stared at the shadow for a while longer before asking, "If that's true, then why are you talking to me now? If I stopped you from whatever it is you were planning to do, then the 'you' that knows that rhyme shouldn't exist." The centaur shook his head. "No. No, the greater scheme still continues. Nothing can prevent that completely, but by forcing me to abandon the original plan, the events to come are now in a state of flux. In the end, it will be up to you to determine whether I am real... or just your own mind playing a trick on you." With that, the shadow faded from Pinkamena's perception. Elswhere, the centaur known as Mr. Trick stepped out of the shadows and into the room where he kept his most prized collections on display. Lining the walls were shelves upon shelves of items. To another creature, their contents would have appeared to be little more than random trinkets, but to him... well, they were still largely random trinkets. It was not for him to assign value to them, however, as each object on his shelves was of indescribable value, even if only to someone else. There were a few items in his collection which even Mr. Trick considered to be precious, though. One of them was glass bottle which glowed from within with an inner light. Mr. Trick growled furiously to himself as he approached the bottle, rubbing the spot on his face where Shining Armor had bucked him. "That insolent unicorn! I don't know how he saw through my veils, but he nearly ruined everything! If Princess Luna had fully seen me..." Mr. Trick took a deep breath and lowered his hand as the hoof-shaped bruises on his face faded to nothing. "Regardless, I will simply have to move to 'Plan B'. Celestia will give me what I need." He reached out to cradle the bottle in his hands, feeling warmth and happiness radiating from it. The smile which spread across his visage held none of those properties, however, being nothing but a sinister rictus. "And Pinkamena will be my instrument in getting it."

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock Opera

Epilogue

Lunar Eclipse: The Rock-Opera by CrowMagnon Princess Celestia drank her morning tea slowly, savoring its flavor as it helped her to stay alert, given that she had not slept at all during the previous night. Not that going a night or two without sleep was particularly strenuous for her, especially with the gradual restoration of her health and youth. Even so, she had wanted to receive the report she was expecting as soon as possible. Right around the time that she was expecting, there was a knock at the door of the royal dining hall. "Come in," she said, projecting her voice so that it could be heard on the other side of the door. Immediately after that, the large doors swung inward as Flash Sentry stepped inside and removed his helmet. Celestia carefully looked over the pegasus's face, and saw that he had a vacant, stricken expression. This wasn't at all unusual among those who were sent on errands to the Gates of Tartaros. In the dark realm beyond that place, there were creatures (and even ponies) whose twisted natures could sicken the hearts of the most resolute guardponies. Out of concern for his well-being, Celestia asked, "Do you need to sit down?" To his credit, Flash politely shook his head despite his obvious discomfort. "No, I... thank you, but no, your highness." Celestia nodded. "Alright, then please deliver your report." Flash swallowed. "I went to the Gates as instructed, Princess. Once I got there, I told Lord Hades about the attack on you, and we spent the next several hours inspecting the prisoners to ensure that all of the ones who could have carried it out were accounted for. Then... then we got to Mesmer Eyes, and..." Celestia frowned at the name. "The illusionist? He is the one behind last night?" Flash shook his head. "No! No, we made absolutely sure that he was locked up like the rest, but... the creature he was with..." Hours earlier... Flash Sentry kept his head high, despite how hard his heart was pounding in his chest. Tartaros was no place for a pony. Well, not for any sane ponies, at least. Even though he wasn't physically there, the enchantments which granted him an illusory, incorporeal form with which to inspect the prison realm didn't feel like enough. It certainly didn't prevent him from seeing and hearing things that would haunt his nightmares for a good long time. Still, he was almost finished checking off the list that Lord Hades had given him. The last one he had to find was Mesmer Eyes, a vampony unicorn who had taken part in numerous plots against Princess Celestia over the past few centuries. Waking Night had put an end to that, along with most of his brethren, at least. He finally found Mesmer seated in front of a chess table. He was a thin, almost sallow unicorn by all outward appearances. At least until Flash saw the vertical slits that he had for pupils, and the sharp fangs that he bared when he used his magic to move his rook into place. "Checkmate in four moves," he announced to his opponent. On the other side of the chessboard was a tall centaur with a lean build. Bringing a crimson-skinned hand up to his long black beard, the centaur thoughtfully stroked his facial hair. "So it would seem. You are quite a skilled opponent," he conceded. But then a sphere of magic formed in the space between the curved horns which rose up from the sides of his head. "You would have to be, to have masked the true position of your pieces for the last thirty-seven turns." Mesmer's triumphant expression turned to shock, then terror as a beam of raw, destructive magic shot out of the glowing orb and struck him straight in the eye. The vampony was thrown back and writhed on the ground, clutching where his eye had been while the illusions cast over the pieces faded away. Ignoring his opponent's pain, the centaur moved his bishop to take Mesmer's king. "And that is game." When Mesmer failed to respond in any way more meaningful than a pained whimper, the centaur rolled his eyes and began putting away the pieces. "Oh, don't lay there whining all day. Besides, it's rude to cheat in front of guests. Isn't that right?" Flash gulped as he saw the centaur turn to face him. He knew that he wasn't physically there, and that there was nothing that the prisoners of Tartaros could do to affect him in any way, but as the centaur turned a predatory grin toward his illusory projection, he felt less and less sure of his own safety. That terror only grew when the centaur spoke. "Hello there, little knight. And what brings you to Tartaros? Did Celestia send you to check up on her dear old friend, 'Mr. Trick,' or are you here on other business?" Flash felt his throat run dry. "O... other business," he croaked out before turned his attention to the maimed vampony. "Ah, what a shame. My old friends never come to visit me anymore," Tirek mused while Flash carefully studied Mesmer, swallowing his disgust over the vampony's injury to inspect every detail that he could think of. The reaction to pain, the way the burnt flesh looked, even the way his writhing body scuffed the rocky ground beneath him. Everything he needed to convince himself that it was indeed the illusionist. The very instant that he was done, Flash turned around to leave as quickly as he could. "Flash Sentry." Flash froze, and not just by stopping in place. The blood in his veins felt as though it had turned to ice when the centaur, the former Element of Honesty known as Tirek, spoke his name. "Oh, good," Tirek chuckled. "I was hoping I would get your name right. All of you would-be romantic interests get jumbled together so badly, the only reason I remembered you was repetition. Honestly, I don't even know what she sees in you." "What... who?" Flash looked back over his shoulder. "How did you know my--" Tirek hadn't made a sound, but suddenly he was standing right behind Flash. Leaning down to look the pegasus in the eye, he asked, "Tell me, Flash Sentry... how is Twilight Sparkle these days?" Rather than answer, Flash felt his body seize up. The next thing he knew, he was racing as fast as his legs and wings would take him back to Tartaros's exit. But no matter how fast he went, the sound of Tirek's laughter followed him until he was halfway back to Canterlot. Whatever her thoughts were about this, Celestia hid them behind an impenetrable mask of calm. Setting her tea down, she said, "I see... Thank you for your report. You should go rest now, you've been up all night." Flash nodded, but asked, "Thank you, but... should I tell Captain Armor about this? Or send a message to Twilight?" Celestia gently but firmly told him, "No. I will tell Shining Armor personally. Knowing him, he would want to immediately confront Tirek himself over this, but that is most likely the exact reaction that Tirek wanted to get. Even when we fought side-by-side, his talent for manipulation was his greatest strength, and I won't have my best soldier rushing off to meet him while he is emotionally compromised. Go. Rest, and I will deal with this." Flash nodded again and saluted before leaving the dining hall. Once he was gone, Celestia slumped down in her seat. Though she had regained much of her lost youth and vitality over the months since Waking Night, in that moment the weight of centuries fell upon her once more. "Tirek... what are you plotting now...?"

To Be Somepony

pre

Ever since the Crystal Kingdom reappeared almost a year earlier, and had held the past Equestria Games, it had been recognized as another providence under the loving guidance of Princess Cadence. Now its breve history had been added without haste to the curriculum. Though she found the idea of an entire kingdom made of crystal truly a magical wonder, she didn't enjoy however the added homework that came with it. Looking up at the clock, even though she knew it would be many hours before they were released, and she could return to her training at Green Field Meadows, it was a habit to look up at the clock to see how much longer of one subject they had left before a break. Fifteen minutes were left for history before lunch, and felt much longer as she struggled to keep her head up. When it came, and she took her bag out to her groups spot out in the courtyard, she laid against the tree, quickly ate her sandwich and tried to rest but noticed Sprinkle come up to her. Her white coat and blonde mane looked as if they had been freshly cleaned and made her look extra perky than usual. But as she drew closer, Ribbon noticed a look on her face less happy than usual. "Hey Ribbon." she said kindly, "Something wrong?" "No, just tired." she said then yawned. "Whats the matter, bad night of sleep?" "No, I just got a job and started yesterday, but I didn't get much time to myself afterwards." "Wow, that's so cool! Did your parents make you get it?" "Just decided to get it myself one day, then got lucky and got a job as a busgirl at Green Meadows." "You don't look so good though, are you sure your alright?" "Yeah, of course I am." What happened next Ribbon almost expected to. Sprinkle laid down opposite to her and looked in her eyes. For the many years they had know each other, ever since elementary, they had shared many secrets such as little crushes and had gone over to the others for dozens of sleep overs. Something she knew was the special between all best friends was the bond that nothing compared to, the bond that linked her and Sprinkle and what made her sense there was more on Ribbons mind. Sprinkle was also very supportive with her friend, and was as persistent as she was goofy at most times. "There's something you're not telling me." she said. "Ugh... you sound just like my parents whenever we have a sit down." "Whats the matter." "Nothing." Ribbon insisted, but only got an icy stare, "Really... nothing." "Come on, there's something bothering you, I can tell." Ribbon turned her head to look away, then sighed. "Well... it's just, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I've been kind of depressed lately too." "Why? You have a crush or something?" "No, not for a long time and nothing like that depression. But... you know, I just think that sometimes its hard to face reality." "What?" "Well, you know how we went out last week, how I went to the library?" "Yeah." "Well, I was really excited to see Princess Twilight you know, and I just think I got too excited. You see, when I went to give her a letter from Spike when we looking at dresses, I was hoping I could get to talk with her... and maybe become her friend. But when I gave her the letter, she just said "thanks" and went away. I just got really sad after that." "Well... I can see why you got sad, but it's nothing to sulk over. You can't let it bother you for so long, otherwise it turns you into this." "Yeah I know that, but its not why I feel so terrible right now. You see the night after that day, after I had gotten over it, Princess Luna visited me in a dream." "Oh wow!" Sprinkle said in a loud whisper, "What was she like." "Beautiful, and so wise and listening. But she told me that my emotions had been festering inside me for so long, and that I might turn evil if I let that continue." "You evil, impossible." "I know, but then we began talking some more and then... something came up." "What?" Ribbon readjusted herself on the ground, then looked into her friends eyes. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "Wh... What? You know I want to be a baker someday, what with all the treats you and I used to make." "I know, but are you sure you're really happy with being that for the rest of your life?" "Why wouldn't I. Its what I love and what makes me feel special." Sprinkle took a pause and thought, then looked back at Ribbon. "Is this because you don't have your cutie mark? Look, don't sweat it. It'll come in time." "I'm just... so confused right now. And I keep blaming myself for being so... me." Sprinkle didn't day anything. "I don't know. I'm just tired right now and want to go home. But then I have to go back to work and continue training and its all just a big hassle." "Come on. I know you can do it." Sprinkle said and rubbed her head against Ribbons, "You can pull through, you're awesome like that." "I hope so." Ribbon sighed. The classroom was empty except for Ribbon and the teacher. She stood in front of his desk waiting as he looked through the piles of homework turned in that day and made everything on his desk organized. "I need to be going soon." Ribbon said, "I have to go to my work." "Work? Interesting." "Yes. I came home tired last night, which is why I fell asleep for a bit, if that's what this is about." "No no, it's just that the other day I was gifted with a surprise visit from Miss Cherilee, and we had quite the chat." "Oh!?" "She said the two of you spoke and had an interesting conversation." "I suppose." "Tell me Ribbon, have you given any thought to taking the entrance exam to the Canterlot college." "Well... a little. But I don't think I'm really cut out for it." "A similar answer to what Cherilee told me. But we both thought on it, and after a while agreed on the fact that we both consider you different from most students we've seen in the past. What I'm saying here is that we believe that you should deeply consider going to the college and taking its entrance exam. We both believe you have great potential and would benefit greatly from attending there." "I don't know, it just seems like a lot of money right now. Neither my parents could afford it probably." "I see, well hopefully something will come up." Ribbon left the schoolhouse and made it to Green Field Meadows, where in the small staff room in the back she hung her bag, took out her neatly folded uniform and got ready to clock in to continue training. She braided her mane and made sure there were no wrinkles in the vest, then punched her card in the clocking machine a few minutes before her shift started. Her trainer then came in and they went through a quick run down of the restaurants organization; where the tables were and how they were numbered and how to balance her time with washing and picking up dishes. They left and Ribbon went out to the kitchen and grabbed her tray that strapped on like a saddle. It was busy when she began, and stayed that way all throughout her hours including her break. By the time the clock in the kitchen read seven thirty, her legs were sore from going up and down the stairs to the second floor multiple times and her stomach ached with hunger again. She punched her card again and left the building. When she made it home and went through the front door, she found her parents sitting in the living room and reading quietly to themselves. "How was work darling?" her mother asked. "Fine." "Your dinners in the kitchen if your hungry." On the counter again she saw a plate with still freshly cooked food waiting for her. "Why don't you eat out here." her father said, "I think we need to talk a little." "Here we go." Very rarely did Ribbon and her parents talk, but only when they forewarned her like saying they needed to talk did she know she was in for it. She took her plate and sat at the table and ate, then her father began when she was almost finished. "You've been acting a little more quiet than usual. Is everything alright?" "Yeah." "It took me and your mother by surprise when you showed up with that paper from your work. You've never really done anything like that without asking us first. What gives?" Ribbon shrugged. "There must be some reason as to why your acting like this." "I'm fine." she insisted. "Is everything alright at school?" her mother asked, "Are any of the other students giving you a hard time?" "No." "Are your grades slipping and you're having a hard time keeping them up?" her father asked. "No." "Alright, that's good, just checking. Because the other day when you came home after school you looked a little depressed. Did your friends say anything or made fun of you while you were out with them?" "No." "Why are you always so quiet with us?" her mother asked, "Every time we ask you anything you just say yes or no. We want to hear whats really going on in your head. Somethings bothering you." "It's nothing." "What is?" "it's nothing." Ribbon insisted again. "Is it this job of yours; is it too much for you right now?" "No." "Then why'd you get it?" "I just felt like I should get a job, start earning money." "Well you don't have to worry about it. Your chores are enough and you wont be moving out for a while." "I know. I just felt like I should get a job." "Why?" her father asked, "Is it the college? Were you thinking of going?" "Maybe. But its too expensive." "Well its not that expensive." "Five thousand?" "You don't pay it all at one time, little by little as you attend." "And you're okay with that?" "All we want is whats best for you. You'd be an excellent student; you get good grades, you never talk back and you're always on top of your homework and projects. Is that why you got a job, so you could start saving to go?" "I guess." "Well we're more than happy to help." her mother said lovingly, "Me and your father are both very proud of you, you know that. Seeing you grow up all by yourself without our help just makes us so happy." "And if your worried about the fee for the college, don't worry about it. If you want to go, we can pay for it." "But if I were to go I'd be living in Canterlot for like two years." "I think that be good for you." her father said in a way that almost hurt her, "I'm pretty sure you'd be more happy surrounded by culture than being stuck here." "But... all my friends are here." "Well I'm sure you could come down and visit sometimes. Its a school, not a prison." "Why don't you just give it some more thought." her mother suggested, "Tell us when you want to." "Okay." Ribbon got up, washed her dish and went up to her room where she fell chest first into her bed and looked out her window. After few minutes of rest she got out of her uniform, did what little homework she had for the night then fell right back into bed. A record playing soft opera helped her relax as piano played and a soft but very firm mares voice sung in a language Ribbon didn't know. "Looks like I'm going to college. Great." She looked over at the book which had been untouched since its hard covered leather had touch the desk. Its title was written along its spine in gold letters. She wished with all her heart that the library from her dream existed, that somewhere there was someplace she could let her mind be free without the worries of life, to be able to let go and fall of the edge with no regrets. She reached for the book and pulled it onto her bed. "One page, from the prologue." She opened the front cover and saw the title written again on the first page with the writers very own signature below it, followed by the table of contents on the next four pages. Fifty seven chapters made the book, each with a different name rather than a number. She opened it to the prologue title The Beginning, and found it humorously well named. "When kingdoms fall, lives taken, and the very fabric that binds our brittle minds unravels into the abyss which we call the truth, it is then that our true characters are shown to the world in all there naked horror and we are left to pick ourselves from the ashes that we call humility and learn from the terrible experience that we may better ourselves. When we see the world that we once called home crumble before our eyes and are left to live in a state of existence that is unknown to us, it is then that we see how spoiled we are and we begin to question how we may rebuild our lives to prevent such disaster from cursing our world again. The sins of the past will forever haunt and agonize us with there creeping tentacles that cling to us and draw us into an oblivion that we have no hope of ever escaping, but it is when we fight back the pull, when we clench our teeth and fight back with all our possessions gone, our fear surrounding us and our sloth emotions overpowering us, it is then that heroes are born to guide us. In the time of prosperity, one must watch for the shadows at night to spoil the parties where drunkards lash their tongues back and forth in vulgarity, to taint the food they gorge to fatten themselves and to poison the wine that drips from there lips. For when all the crops are harvested, when the last river damned and the last mountain scaled, society dooms itself to an miserable apocalypse that few survive and are destined to relive again when having witnessed those who gorged and drunk themselves from a far off in there trash bins, nibbling away at the scraps. One does not stop to question how or why this tragedy occurs, or how its choking vines are first seeded in the very fertile ground the grapes of wine are planted and how they can be cut down and burned, never to kill again. No, those who suffered in the slums of society and watched as the high fell, leaving a golden stairway to the banquet of thieves only sat and watched with greed, waiting in the dark for their very own moment at an ignorant damnation. But those who sheltered their pups, who fed them and kept them warm during the bitter nights, in whose hearts the very essence of purity was first sparked but never became a living fire only stayed in the shadows and watched like those who sat with empty stomachs, waiting for the scraps to fall from the masters table. This is how the kingdom of Lauroc fell to the darkness that seeped its way from the Void, down the mountain and into the very streams that first quenched the thirst of a small village that cultivated the earth and stone and grew into a town which bared the storms of war and drought, which rose from the ashes stronger and with a greater fire, but in whose wealth fell victim to the darkness's grip and now lies into its own tub of waste, corruption, lust, greed, gluttony and sin. One forest holds many trees, and across the entire world there are many forests where though one tree falls five grow in its place. Across the world there are plains of tall grass, mountains with icy faces, glaciers of barren snow and ice, volcanoes with sparkling jewels deep within there hot stone, rivers and oceans of vast size, and skies with narry a spot to ruin their blue perfection. And in from this world are many worlds, each with there own plains and mountains and rivers and oceans, and all these worlds come together to create the world of worlds so that life may continue to grow into a creature of beauty and purity. These worlds of worlds of worlds combine with more worlds of worlds, creating an infinitely greater creature which knows not death and only continues to grow. But there can be no life without death, which in turn brought forth the Void, which destroys worlds of worlds, which dries the seas and burns the forests and crumbles the mountains. It grows from the shadows of worlds, and balances the never ending growth of worlds with the never ending destruction of worlds. It only takes one curious fool to try and tamper with the Void, to offset the balance and ruin that which took generations to build. And now the Void spills into the world with no end in sight. Those who see the coming flood flee to the tops of mountains, but in vain as the Void then comes from the sky as rain and soaks their rags. They seek a hero who has seen the Void spilled many times before, who knows the path it will take to drown the world, and knows the sacrifice..." Ribbon had almost no idea what she had just read, whether or not she had read what was the greatest piece of literature she was to childishly stupid to understand or had just read a page that vomited words at her and dripped down her body. She reread the entire page, its word making little more sense to her and making her continue onto the next page as her music continued to play behind her. An hour she spent reading a section of the book that was only fifteen pages long with the same type of grammar and diction on each page, and though she knew she was a slow reader, it was the fastest hour that had ever gone by in her life. She set the book back down on her desk, uncertain if the next time she got the craving for its words would be scared off by its complexity, set her alarm and got under her blanket. The words she read still washed back and forth in her mind like waves as she fell to sleep.

To Be Somepony

Chapter 6

The exceeding joy of it being the last five minutes of school on a Friday was coupled with the regretful disappointment of going to her final day of training at the Green Field Meadows. The past two days served no better to Ribbon than the two before, and still affected her in school and home. The day before however the manager had visited her in the staff room during her break to inform her of her excellent output and that her training only served as a hell week, meaning she was given a rough schedule to push her to her limits and that it would be easier if she decided to stay on. He also told her that on her final day she would receive her first paycheck. The bell rang and all including the teacher left the schoolhouse swiftly and eagerly. Outside as she began walking up the road, Ribbon felt Sprinkle brush up against her side. "How you feelin?" she asked. "Okay I guess." Ribbon sighed, "Really looking forward to the weekend though. No homework, no work, and I get to sleep in tomorrow." "That's good." Sprinkle had been more attentive to her friends appearance the past few days after their short talk during break, and was more subtle and earful than her usual manner. "So me and the girls were going out tomorrow if you want to join." "I don't know, I can't think straight right now. But maybe. When?" "Noon at my place if you decide to. But if you're too tired that's fine." "Thank you." Sprinkle lifted her friends chin up with her muzzle. "Good luck." The two parted and Ribbon soon reached the restaurant, where she dawned her uniform and made herself appear presentable. But she couldn't do anything about the dark lines underneath her eyes, neither did she care how she looked at that point. Punching her card then walking out to the kitchen, she took a deep breath then relaxed her muscles and exhaled to some relief. "Here we go." Rumor around the kitchen was that it was going to be and easy day for a Friday, which brought more relief. But there was still plenty for Ribbon to do such as wiping down most of the tables and sweeping outside. As she swept however she caught herself leaning forward slightly to close her eyes for a moment, but then remembered what she was obligated to do. As the sun began to set and the sky turned into a rainbow of warm colors, Ribbon looked up at the clock in the kitchen as saw there were still two hours before she could grab her check and leave. Her hooves were halfway in the sink washing the same dish that had a small chip underneath it for what seemed like the hundredth time. She rinsed then placed it on the rack the chef's used for their meals, dried her hooves then strapped on her tray to go gather more used dishes. She made her route through the top and bottom floors then went outside and saw a pair of ponies with empty plates on their table. One had a glimmering white coat with purple mane and tail and was wearing a bonnet. The other she noticed was the same she saw feeding the ducks a week ago and had nearly walked into at the library. "You would not believe how busy it has been at my boutique lately." the white mare said to the other as Ribbon went up to their table, "What with Sweetiebelle and her friends and all the customers I've been having I hardly have enough time to work on my new line of cloths. I say... sometimes its just delightful to get away from it all and just spend time with my friends. Wouldn't you agree Fluttershy?" "It is relaxing." the other said. Ribbon came to their table. "May I take those for you?" she asked. "Oh why certain... MY GOODNESS!" the white mare said, "Darling your eyes, have you slept at all in the past week?" "Oh I'm fine thank you. Just been pulling a lot of work lately." "Well I can see that, just look at your mane. When was the last time you went to a spa?" "Um... never I guess." "WHAT?! NEVER? But darling your coat and mane would look so lovely if you were to just take a long soak, or maybe even a steam to help you relax. You look so tense." "Call me a workaholic." Ribbon laughed, "Are you by any chance Rarity by the way? The owner of the dress shop by the meadow?" "The very one." she answered, "And this here is my dear friend Fluttershy." "Hello." she said in her soft voice, "You look familiar. Have we met?" "Last week at the library. I almost hit the door and you were very apologetic about it." "Oh my, you remember. I'm so sorry I almost hit you." "It's okay." "Now about your mane deary," Rarity went on, "you should really get that bathed and groom. It would look so well if you were to trim it and add some lacing." "I most of the time let it loose. I think it looks fine being natural really." "Me too." Fluttershy said, "I don't do much to my mane either." "Well I suppose the natural look does work for you. But I must say you would look so divine in one of the dresses I recently made. You must stop by sometime and model it so I can gather some inspiration." "Oh... I get stage fright real easily." "But of course darling, anything so long as your comfortable. Why don't you come by tomorrow sometime while I'm working." "I suppose I could get around to it. But may I ask if I could bring a friend? She asked earlier if I could hang out, and I'd hate to leave her." "Anything, just come by so you can try on the dress. I know you'd look perfect in it." "Thank you." Ribbon took their plates. "What your name by the way darling?" "Ribbon." "Hmmm... interesting. Didn't Spikey mention a Ribbon the other day?" "I think Rainbow Dash heard it from him." Fluttershy said, "And she said that you started crying for some reason." "Everything alright deary?" "Fine." Ribbon quickly said, "That must have been someone else. But I should be going now." "Lovely meeting you." "Have a nice day." The two ponies soon left, and Ribbon's shift ended a while after. She was in the staff room when the manager came in a gave her a letter with her check in it, then asked her if she'd be staying to which she answered yes. Leaving with her pay and schedule for next week, she made her way home where dinner waited for her like usual. Her parents didn't bother her with a conversation and allowed her to peacefully walk up to her room where she hung her bag, took off her uniform and undid her braid. Looking in the mirror that hung on the inside of her closet door, she saw that Rarity's speculation weren't at all exaggerated. The rings under her eyes made them look as if all hope had been drained from her, and hair from her mane stuck out from split ends. "A soak in a tub would be nice. But then again a swim in the lake would be cheaper and wouldn't be much different anyway. Maybe on Sunday if you aren't busy, which you won't." She look at her desk and saw the book with a string sticking out from the pages as a maker, but decided not to read and placed on a record instead and went and sat on top of her windowsill. The moon had now become full and was like a white eye that watched over the earth. "I wonder why Rarity was so generous today. Most wouldn't be so giving and welcoming, but she insisted anyway. Hopefully she doesn't make too big of a fuss tomorrow, and hopefully Sprinkle and the others will want to go... well just Sprinkle anyway. She's been acting weird lately, like what I said to her really scared her and now she probably thinks I'm a mental case. I'm probably am anyway." She leaned against the side with her cheek rubbed up against the wood and her eyes lazily half closed. "I bet those mental asylums have nice rooms for the crazies. It'd be nice to just lay down in a padded room and do nothing. But I'll never break down, I know I won't." She looked up at the moon. "What would it take to bring that thing down? It'd make a good story or movie where the hero somehow stops it. Add some sad and dramatic music and it'd be amazing. But how would you build the story up to such an amazing climax? Maybe foreshadow its falling somehow symbolically, with a dark mood to help increase the tension. Then once it happens the audience just feels their guts being squeezed by the amazingness. That's a good feeling." Out in the distance the clock tower rang, followed by the whistle of a departing train. "Looks like I'll be on that train someday soon, if I pass the exam. It can't be that hard, just the same stuff we've been going over." For a while numerous thoughts and question went through her head as her music played then stopped at eight thirty. She went to bed when it did. To her amazing disbelieve, Ribbon found herself in the same library she had dreamed of the night before in all its grand splendor and dignity. The garden was still in the middle and the sun was still setting over the ocean horizon. But as she began meandering through the labyrinths of book shelves, she began to realize something was different from last time. She felt more aware of her surroundings, and as if her body was under her complete control. As she stopped and began to look around, a familiar sense of reality began to make itself familiar to her. She turned the corner into a large sitting area with the lengthy couches and saw Princess Luna relaxing in the middle of one reading a book. Ribbon at first didn't believe what she saw and anxiously made her way up to her. "I assure you child this is no trick." Luna said, "It is as when we meet before." "What are you doing here?" "Really, after all the heart ache you've suffered, this is how you present yourself. I expected you to be more rejoicing and pleased by my visit." "Well I am, really... I'm really am glad you're here. I just don't know why." "Why don't you join me. This is quite the library." Luna patted the couched and Ribbon sat across from her, both of them laid out to fully enjoy the couch's generous length. "Since our last meeting I have watched over you in my spare time, and I must say you've changed in such a short period." "I wouldn't say changed." "Oh but you have. Though it may seem insignificant you your eyes, the actions you took are impressive for a pony your age." "Like what?" "Such as taking on responsibility for your future, and opening up to a dear friend on a matter that though you find unworthy of mentioning helped you through your struggle." "I don't know, it just felt like the right thing to do to start working, and I knew I wouldn't be able to hold back with Sprinkle for much longer. I wouldn't say I've changed much." "If thou sayest so." "So did you come here to just check on me?" "Partially. But I can tell your mind is still flustered and you desire some release." "I desire some sleep too." "I see." Luna cooed, "Go ahead and rest. I will still be here when you wake." "You mean to dream while in a dream? That... doesn't seem possible." "Rest." Luna said, then gently lowered Ribbon's head to the cushion. She closed her eyes and immediately went to sleep. When she woke again, she found herself still on the couch and Luna was still reading her book. "Well I don't see what good that'll do." she said. "Think of it as a more powerful sleep, where your mind completely leaves the body. When you dreamed the dreamless sleep, your body that now lays in your bed became almost inactive, dead if you prefer." "That's... interesting." "Now," Luna said, then her horn glowed and the book went flying off into the library back to its empty spot on a shelf, "Shall we speak?" "I guess, but about what?" "Anything I suppose. You seem fully certain in your capabilities, perhaps we shall talk about our daily lives. Pass the time as you say" "Yeah." Coming up with a topic they could discuss however proved difficult, since Ribbon couldn't think of anything related to the princess that she shared. "Umm..." she started, "So how's Canterlot?" "Well. I believe you'd enjoy yourself there someday." "Yeah, yeah. Good, good. Uh... have you seen the new college yet?" "Unfortunately no. My duties preoccupy me during the night, so I rest during the day and cannot afford to see it." "Ah, I see. I was thinking of going there." "Really. You must be an accomplished student then." "I guess. My teachers and parent think I should go, saying I'd do well." "You should heed their opinions, mine as well. My sister has spoken of its air, and you seem well suited for it." "Hmm." Ribbon leaned her head against the back of the couch. "You are unsure of going however?" "A little. I'd be leaving a lot behind and would be all alone." "It is nothing to fear prior to. If it worries you, we may speak of something else." "What was that book you were reading?" "One of my favored romances called Amid the Flowers. Do you read romances?" "I don't read much at all really. I think I'd write a book before I read one. I did however pick up one from Spike that's pretty interesting. Over the Mountains and through the Void, by William ColtField." "Really." Luna closed her eyes and her horn glowed again, then the book gracefully came flying and landed on the couch right between them. It opened itself to the first page of the prologue and she read the first page. "How interesting." she remarked, "Quite the unusual hook for a novel. Do you enjoy this book?" "I've only read the prologue, but it does seem different from most stories and I do like the way he presented the story's beginning." "You'll have to tell me more of it's contents if we meet again." "Will we?" Ribbon said, wishing they would. "Perhaps. Hopefully in person rather than in a imagined world." "I think I'd settle for an imagined world. You don't have to worry about leaving and you can shape the world into anything you want." "Care to give me a demonstration?" "Wh... what?" "This your world after all, created from your mind. Go ahead and turn it into something else, something beautiful and exciting." "I'll... try." she said, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine something that would impress Luna. She peaked to see if things around the library were beginning to change, but they weren't. "No peaking." Luna giggled, "It distracts your mind." Ribbon placed her head on the cushion to get more comfortable, as if she were to fall asleep again and thought. She thought of what made her happy, what she would dream of during class, where she wanted to go to escape and be free. Grass seemed like a good start so she imagined a great plain of tall green grass rustling in the wind, with a hill and a great tree on top of it. She felt a breeze against her coat and opened her eyes. The grand library had become a vast field of grass that bathed in the sun, while she and Luna sat underneath a great tree with smooth bark and leafs so thick they completely blocked the sun and gave them delightful shade in the cool breeze. Ribbon was speechless as she saw how real everything looked and felt, how the grass and fields had been nothing but shelves of books a moment earlier. She stood up and went to the edge of the trees shade and looked out in awe, then back at Luna who watched her from the base of the tree. "This... this is amazing." Ribbon said. Luna smiled and got up to join her. "Your imagination is powerful." she said, "The realism reflects how powerful your mind is." "I like to imagine far off places, places that don't exist except in books. But to be able to actually go there..." "Would you like to show me?" It pleased Ribbon immensely to hear those words, and she closed her eyes and thought of another place she dreamed of seeing made real. When she opened her eyes, they were in a grand hallway with a ceiling far above them with great columns holding it up with flags and garlands decorating them. The floor was a polished granite with long velvet carpet running through the middle and up to a throne that sat on top of an altar. The shear size of the room made the two of them seem as ants. "Monumental." Luna said, "What else?" Again Ribbon closed her eyes and then the hallway turned into a great tower with them at the top. Its white marble reflected the sun of the desert off its hull, with a view that allowed the two to watched the wind carry the sand over the dunes for miles. "A beacon of hope in a world of disparity." "Something like that." Ribbon said, then closed her eyes again. Great joy overcame her as the world changed into every place she could imagine, from being on top of mountains to being in cities underneath the sea. She felt as if the power to do anything was at her mercy, and an evil grin began to emerge on her face as the places she created became less and less majestic and more and more vehement. Small bridges over streams turned into great bridges over lakes of lava, and plains of grass turned into barren wastelands where meteors fell from the black sky. The intensity brought out the grin on her face as Ribbon imagined great battles waging across the fearsome landscapes she created. "Interesting." Luna said as the two stood on top of black tower over looking a bottomless abyss. "What?" Ribbon asked. "Do you recall my saying that dreams are gateways to the inner chambers of our minds?" Ribbon looked at her as she tried to remember, then her eyes widened when she did. She looked out to the scene of gray clouds looming over the black sky, then down at the abyss were black mist rose up from. A sadness came over her heart and she walked away closing her eyes and then opening them again to create the library. She got up back and laid down on the couch. "I don"t know why I have thoughts like this." she said as Luna went up to her, "Who thinks of places of misery, were no life grows?" "Someone who knows however what true beauty is and suffers looking for it." Luna said looking down at her. "You call that beauty?" "What I saw was passion. You took time to create what you love so that it was perfect in your eyes and your eyes only." "Too bad I'm the only one who can see beauty in a black world of oblivion. Am I insane?" "Do you think you are?" "...maybe. Maybe that's what my cutie mark will be, something to do with insanity." "I think you put yourself through too much blame without seeing your true potential. We have very little influence in matters such as this; they happen for a reason and it is up to us to determine what to with them." "Sometimes I even scare myself with what I think, and that can't be normal." Luna sat on her hind legs and rest her chin next to Ribbons. "Don't let your emotions control you. Stop holding back and let yourself blossom so that other may see how beautiful you really are." "Can we go to one more place?" "Of course child." Ribbon closed her eyes, and the entire library and the world around them turned dark as the sun vanished. The ground turned into a gray sand and the sky turned black with more gray clouds. Large jagged rocks appeared from the ground in different locations, vast and far apart from each other. Luna looked out and saw nothing, as if the world Ribbon created were dead. "What is this place?" she asked. "Some place where I can be alone, where I don't have to worry about becoming anything. No obligations or responsibilities, and where I can let myself go insane without worrying anybody." Luna stood up and walked around, leaving hooveprints in the sand while Ribbon continued to lay down. The desolation and emptiness brought back many horrible memories into Luna's mind. She went back and sat next to her. Ribbon looked up and saw her eyes swell with tears. "Such a thing to create." she said as a tear went down her cheek, "To purposely seclude yourself from the wonders of your life." "Luna... no." "Forgive me, I disgrace myself by crying in your presence." "What, no. Don't.... don't cry." Ribbon got up and sat in front of her as she struggled to wipe away the ever flowing tears. She hesitated, then rubbed her head against Luna chest to comfort her. Pressing her ear, she heard Luna's heart as it beat melodiously. "Don't cry." Ribbon whispered.

To Be Somepony

Chapter 7

"So the others bailed on you huh." Ribbon said as she and Sprinkle sat around the table at Sprinkle's house. "Yeah, it's a bummer. But I'm cool with it, I didn't feel like going out this morning anyway. At least you're over here; now I won't be completely bored." Both had a cup of tea sitting on small tray in front of them as they sat out in the backyard patio with a view of the fields and mountains. Inside the kitchen a small batch of biscuits were cooking for them to snack on. Looking through the window and into the kitchen, Ribbon saw the timer on top the stove read five more minutes before they'd be ready. "So how was work yesterday?" "Exhausting, but totally worth it in the end. I earned two hundred bits for those first five days." "Dang! You must have worked a lot." "I did, and I've decided to stay on for a while now. I'll get less hours and pay, but it's better that way anyway." "Probably. You looked terrible by the end of school. Did you sleep at all last night? You look better." "Mmhmm. In fact, Princess Luna visited me again. She said she wanted to check on me, then we just talked." "I'm really jealous, I have to say. Being able to meet royalty must be awesome. What'd you two talk about?" "Not much really. A little bit about books and the college." "That's nice. I hope I get to meet her someday." They sipped at there tea and munched on the fresh biscuits when the timer went off, then talked some more outside while enjoying each others company. It had been a long time since the two hadn't done anything than just sit around and talk. Normally they'd plan going out or doing fun activities in advance when they hung out, but rarely did they stop to talk and relax. "You know I can't tell if I've ever been to Green Field Meadows before." Sprinkle said, "Is it nice there?" "Yeah, it has a nice interior and pretty good food. You should come by sometime while I'm working. Employee discount and stuff." "Nice." "You know that reminds me. You know the owner of the boutique?" "Rarity, right." "Well she was there yesterday and actually asked me to stop by today around noon." "Wow, look at you moving up." Ribbon smiled. "It was strange, but she said I'd look good in a dress she made and wanted me to model it for her. I was wondering if you wanted to come without your friends, but it looks it'll just be you and me if you decide." "Sounds nice actually. Gives us something to do." Inside the clock above the stove read eleven forty three. The two had spent a little over half an hour outside talking and drinking. They cleaned their mess and packed away the rest of the biscuits. "Mom, we're going out!" Sprinkle yelled up the stairs, "We'll be back later!" "Have fun, be careful!" her mother replied. The two left the house and made their way through the town to the boutique. It took a while to reach due to Sprinkle living on the edge of the town and the shop being far south near the library. But when they walked through the front door and were greeted with remarkable dresses and gowns, and the look of happy faces made the trip seem worth it. Neither of the two thought what to do next, thinking that simply walking upstairs to Rarity's workshop would be rude. So the two pondered through the racks along with the rest in the shop. To Ribbon's disappointment Spike wasn't helping work the floor, hoping he'd be around. "You thinking of getting anything?" Sprinkle asked as she felt a red dress. "Nah. Maybe someday though." From the stairs walked down Rarity wearing purple glasses with a measuring tape hanging from her neck. "Ribbon darling!" she said when she noticed her sitting on the same rounded off cushion as last time, "I'm so glad you came. Did you bring your friend with you?" "Yes. This is Sprinkle." Ribbon said and then pointed to her friend. "Fabulous to meet you. I must day... your mane and coat are quite elegant, almost as elegant as mine." "Thank you." she blushed. "Now come. You must try on the dress I have for you as soon as possible. Genius can not wait in the world of fashion." The two followed Rarity up the stairs and into her workshop, which also seemed to act as her bedroom as well with a large bed and dresser off to the side. Mannequins of ponies sat near tall shelves of fabrics and boxes filled with string and decorative buttons. Scattered throughout the room were many scissors and needles with string still in their eyes. Dozens of strips of fabric already cut into and left to hang were also scattered as if they exploded and landed everywhere in the room. "Pardon the mess." Rarity said, "You two relax while I clean up." Over on her bed, Fluttershy sat with a white cat that slept on top one of the multiple pillows. "Hello Ribbon." she said then smiled sweetly. "Hello. What are you doing here?" "Well I didn't have anything to do around the cottage today, so I thought I'd come and watch." "I'm glad you did; Rarity seems just a bit eccentric for me." "She means well." "Now lets see." Rarity said, "Ribbon could stand over here and we'll being." Ribbon walked over to Rarity and stood on front of a full scale mirror. Rarity's horn glowed light blue and a dress on top of a mannequin came over and floated next to Ribbon. Its beige silk skirt was lined with dark brown trimmings and connected to a corset that began to hug itself over her body. The corset was a similar brown with a flower design made of black lace all around it. She felt it squeeze at her stomach and made her hold her breath as she tried to make it fit. "Almost done darling." Rarity said. The strings wove together and Ribbon let herself exhale, but found it hard to breath still. She looked in the mirror and admired how well it blended with her coat and mane. "Hmmm." "What? I think it looks good." Ribbon said, "You were right when you said it worked for me." "It does... but it's missing something. Stay there while I think and look around." Sprinkle took Rarity's place and they both looked in the mirror. "You should totally buy it." she whispered in her ear. "It's nice. But when will I ever need it?" "When you get married?" "As if." Ribbon snorted. "Oh come on, look at yourself. You look good enough for the Gala." "NO!" Rarity and Fluttershy then yelled. Ribbon and Sprinkle glanced at each other, both wondering how the two over heard. "Is it... not that good?" Ribbon asked. "Oh... is not bad." Rarity said, "Just... not all it's dolled up to be." "We had a horrible time." Fluttershy said bluntly. "But it's the biggest get together throughout the entire year." "Don't let us discourage you." Rarity said as she went back to the mirror, "If you get the opportunity, go. We went, but it didn't turn out as we expected it to." "Did something bad happen?" "Uh... no. Nothing happened. We all just got bored and decided to leave early." "I don't really und..." "Oh hush now! Your dress needs to be perfect. Let see here." Her horn glowed again and more black fabric with a similar flower design draped itself over the skirt, along with see through sleeves for the corset as both were stitched while Ribbon held still. Along with the sleeves came frills that then were sewn onto the collar of the corset, tickling her chin. "Just a few more stitches." Rarity said, "And one more thing." Ribbon felt her mane float and weave itself into a tight bun. "There now darling, what do you think?" "It's awesome!" Sprinkle said for Ribbon, "I mean, amazing." "Isn't it. Why I must say just looking at her gives me so many ideas for a Fall line. And you must come by again to model them." "What!? No. I don't think I can model anything else." Ribbon said. "But you simply look marvelous. At least one photo shoot to help spread the look." "Maybe when its fall but not right now. I've got too much to do right now anyway." She began to carefully take off the dress, but also made it clear she wasn't comfortable. "I still have to keep my grades, balance time at my job, plus I'm going to have to start studying more if I'm going to go to college." "College?" Fluttershy, "Ponyville doesn't have a college." "Canterlot does." Sprinkle said. "Sounds like dream come true for Twilight." Rarity joked as she placed the dress on a mannequin, "I say, she always has her head in her books. And now she's so busy she hardly leaves the library." "I bet." Ribbon muttered, still holding mixed opinions against Twilight Sparkle. "But you're going deary?" "Hopefully." she answered undoing her bun, "But there are still a lot of pros and cons." "If I were you I'd simply must go. Living in Canterlot would be a dream." Rarity seemed dazzled by the thought, and began to ramble on. "Why, to own a shop there would be such a privilege. Not to mention just how beautiful the city is, and the class and sophistication." "It does sound nice." "Meh." Sprinkle said went by the bed. "Oh but to have your name known by everyone in Canterlot. That is my dream." Rarity said, catching Ribbons attention, "To be the bell of the ball at every castle party, to be a somepony in the the greatest place in all of Equestria. Just think of how great it would be to meet with the most renown artists and aristocrats, to be in the box seat at every race and derby. Why it's enough to make a lady faint from simply thinking about it." It all sounded good to Ribbon. "Is that why you opened this shop?" she asked. "My boutique? Of course not. I opened it because it was my destiny to make everything in Equestria shimmer with utter perfection. To design and create masterpieces worn by all." Sprinkle looked over at Fluttershy with a look of doubt at Rarity's fantasy, but she only got a warming smile in return. "Why Ribbon," Rarity continued passionately, "If you do go there, you must send me letters and invite me sometime. Why, if the college were to have a dance or banquet, I could design the decor and everything. We'd make it just most exquisite college ever!" "If I get in, I'll send you a letter the moment I get my dorm." "Marvelous. Now will you and your friend be staying for lunch? I could have you try on a few more dresses." Ribbon looked over at Sprinkle, who shrugged in return. "I guess so." "Excellent. I'll just go close up shop early and get something ready" Rarity left the room. "She's very passionate about what she does." Fluttershy said, "You did look amazing though Ribbon; if you do end going to the gala, that dress would be the perfect choice." "What did you wear?" Ribbon asked. "Another dress Rarity made. She made one for herself and all five of her closest friends that went too, including me." "She's very generous." "Close friends huh." Sprinkle said, "Who?" "Wells there's me, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie who everyone know. There's Applejack from Sweet Apple Acres, then there's Twilight Sparkle. She was the one who got the tickets from Princess Celestia." "Have you ever met her before?" "Oh yes, she's very lovely." "Ribbons met Princess Luna." Sprinkle said. "Sh!" Ribbon hushed her. "Oh you have? In person?" "N... no. In a dream once before." "Didn't you meet her just las..." Ribbon shot her a glare. Fluttershy noticed and could see Ribbon was holding back the second encounter and the reasons both had occurred. "Is something the matter?" she asked with worried eyes. "No, I just... don't want to brag about it is all. It was just a regular visit, one she does all the time. It was no big deal." "Oh, okay." Fluttershy however could tell Ribbon was lying, with her eyes having averted contact with her own and the fact that her timidness was all too familiar to her. Rarity soon came back up with a tray of small sandwiches, a pot of tea and cups, and a few chairs a small table all floating and following behind her. A velvet table cloth gracefully flew and covered the table as the pot poured tea into every cup and a sandwich found itself on four small plates. Everything had been done and arranged in the middle of the room without a single hoof being lifted. Ribbon was amazed by Rarity's magic. The four then proceeded to gathering around and getting every last pleasantry and introduction out of the way so there'd be no questions as where one lived and what they did for fun. After half an hour of idle chat, most of the sandwiches eaten and tea drunk, they began to share stories of their personal lives. Ribbon and Sprinkle were amazed by some of the endeavors Rarity and Fluttershy experienced together, and laughed at the matter of not being able to top even the mellowest of their stories. "So exactly how many animals live in your cottage?" Sprinkle asked Fluttershy. "Oh I try not to keep count. I welcome all creatures into my home and love them all equally. I just love animals and wouldn't mind anything living with me." "You're very kind." Fluttershy smiled again. "So you two have been to the Gala, meaning you've been to Canterlot. What's it like there; the castle and such." "It's marvelous." Rarity said, "The most beautiful place you'll ever see if you go. And the castle makes it all worth wild in the end after site seeing the entire city." "How many times have you been there?" "Quite a few I must say. Let's see there was the Gala, that time we hosted the Hearth's Warming Eve play, that Discord affair along with the Crystal Kingdom incident, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor's wedding." "That's more than I'll ever get." Sprinkle chuckled. "Oh! And Twilight's coronation. That was the most special." "Definitely." Fluttershy added. The mentioning of the coronation sent a mixture of different emotions into Ribbons stomach as she try to put on a pleasing face. "Have either of you meet Twilight yet?" Rarity asked. Sprinkle turned her head towards Ribbon. "Yeah, once." she said, almost wishing she hadn't. "Isn't she just the most gifted pony ever. To think she's an alicorn now, and a princess too!" "We're both extremely glad she's our friend." Fluttershy said, "We've been through so much with her. She's been so busy lately however we don't much time to see her anymore." "That's... too bad. She hasn't changed too much at all, has she?" "Of course not." Rarity said, "Why she's just as she was before she got her wings." "She must be pretty frickin special then." To all four of the ponies surprise, there was a knock on the window followed by the sound of a pair of wings beating in the air. Fluttershy went over to open the window, then Rainbow Dash came wizzing in and landed on the ground. "Are you guy's doing anything?" she asked, "I'm bored out of my mind." "Don't you have your books to read?" Rarity said as she took another sip of tea. "I just finished my last one." "What about the tricks you've been practicing for the Wonderbolts?" Fluttershy asked. "Nah, not in the mood. Having lunch? Awesome." She went over and grabbed one of the sandwiches then noticed Sprinkle. "How's it goin. Name's Rainbow Dash." "I'm Sprinkle." she replied, "This is Ribbon." Ribbon glanced at the rainbow maned mare then back down at her plate. Rainbow took a moment to recognize her as she ate and Fluttershy sat down, but instead of pointing her out, decided to wait against her better judgement. "Well since you're here." Rarity continued, "We were talking about Canterlot and our experiences." "Oh yeah! Had some crazy times there." Rainbow said then nudged Sprinkle, "You should totally check that place out if you get the chance. By the way, what are you two doing here anyway." "Rainbow Dash been nice." Fluttershy said. "I meant nothing of it. But when do you let others up into your room besides us." "When I find someone who looks absolutely marvelous in one of my dresses." Rarity said, "Ribbon here was just modeling for us a while ago and was simply to die for." "Is that right?" Rainbow asked, more accusingly than casually. "Yeah." Ribbon said, knowing what she was doing. "Why don't you put it on for us again. I'd like to see it." "I don't know." "Oh please do!" Rarity said, "You looked so divine, plus I still need some more inspiration." "Why not." Sprinkle said. "You did look good you know." Fluttershy added. "Alright fine." RIbbon said, then gave a quick glare at Rainbow. She and Rarity went back over to the shelves where the mannequin wearing her dress still stood. Rainbow Dash stayed close by in the air, slowly aggravating Ribbon with her presence. Inside her mind, she knew the two of them were going at a battle psychologically. Never did she try to make enemies purposely like a child in fillygraden, but she refused to let herself submit to Rainbow Dash's tenacious fluttering, which gradually made her angrier as she began asking her questions. "So how have you been Ribbon?" she asked chummingly. "Fine, thank you." "That's good. How's that book Spike gave you?" "You two have met?" Rarity asked as she made small adjustments to the frills on the collar. "We have, a while ago at the library. So how's that book?" "It's fine." Ribbon said. "Are you enjoying it so far? Spike sure liked that book." "I've only read a few pages so far." "Oh. Well I hope you get to it." Rainbow said, her tone getting more accusative, "You seemed kind of depressed the other day I was hoping a good book would cheer you up." "Is there something wrong deary?" Rarity asked. "No, I'm fine. Rainbow Dash must be confused with another Ribbon." "So that's who she meant!" Fluttershy suddenly said, then lowered her head when the others looked at her. Rainbow took the opportunity to hit the matter on the head. "It was who I meant." she said, "Why were you crying the other day in the library after you met Twilight?" "That wasn't me!" Ribbon said. "Darling you're getting upset." Rarity said, "Is there something your not telling us?" "No!" "Why are you so upset then?" Fluttershy asked. "I'm not upset!" "Uh... guys?" Sprinkle said trying to avert their attention, but Rainbow Dash was well ahead of her. "Admit it. It was you and nobody else." "Why! Why do you care!" "AHA!" "Ribbon if somethings bothering you, you can tell us." Rarity said. "Uggghhhh! Fine!" Ribbon said and backed away from everybody. It took everyone by surprise, even Rainbow Dash who caused her out burst, and she soon felt terrible, rude, ungrateful and guilty all at the same time. "I'm... sorry." she said, "I shouldn't have done that. Okay look, the reason I cried was simply because when I went to the library I had a letter from Spike to give to her and I was all excited to meet her and possibly be her friend. I see now I was just getting my hopes up. When I gave it to her, all she said was thanks and walked away and it really hurt my feelings. I know it sounds childish, and I don't meet to talk rude on your friend alright? I just... I just felt awful when it happened... like I was a nobody in her eyes." All three were amazed by what she said, except Sprinkle who looked guilty from not being able to help her best friend. Ribbon looked from one face to another, her head filling with embarrassment as she waited for anypony to say something. Then she noticed Rarity's eyes filling with tears, then saw her burst hysterically. "OH RIBBON!" she said then through her hooves around her neck, "I know exactly how you feel! You were so excited to meet your idol and the ruined opportunity crushed your spirits!" "Uh... something like that, yeah." Ribbon said, unsure of what to do. "Oh... forgive me." Rarity said that let her go. A tissue floated by her and wiped her tears as she continued. "I have felt the same way once before, when I met Hoity Toity the famous designer. There was a mishap with some dresses I made and he was absolutely repulsed by them. I was a wreck for so long it felt like ages." "Yeah, something like that." Ribbon repeated. Rainbow went up to her. "I've felt the same way too." she admitted, "You see I want to join the Wonderbolts, and one time when I was training I was so nervous of preforming in front of them I almost blew it." "I guess you could put it that way. I suppose what I felt was like that." "But there's still something bothering you." Fluttershy said, still sitting at the table. The others looked at her except Ribbon, who looked down shamefully. "It's why Princess Luna has visited you two times already." "What!?" Rarity and Rainbow Dash both said. Ribbon said nothing and continued to look down. "You should talk about it with us." Fluttershy continued, "I can tell you've already told Sprinkle most of what's on your mind." "How do you know?" Ribbon asked. "You a pretty bad liar, I'm sorry to say." Ribbon sighed. "I can I get out of this dress first?" "Of course." Rarity said, wiping away the last of her tears. When the dress came off Ribbon walked to the window that was still open to breath in fresh air and clear her mind. Rainbow Dash and Rarity kept somewhat close to her while Fluttershy and Sprinkle stayed at the table. "Can you four promise not to tell anyone else this?" Ribbon first asked. They all nodded their heads. Ribbon sighed again and began. "The day after what happened at the library, I started doing a lot of thinking about my life. It's what I do when I'm upset. I'm sure you three have already noticed I don't have cutie mark yet." "Oh that?" Rarity said, "I thought nothing of it when I first met you." "Same here." Rainbow said. Fluttershy said nothing but nodded kindfully. "Well that night," Ribbon continued, "that was the first night I met Princess Luna. She told me that my emotions had been torturing me after being pent up for so long. I told her what had happened also, and then I asked her what it took to be somepony in the world. You see, kind of what Rarity was saying earlier about living in Canterlot, before you came in Rainbow Dash, I too want to be somebody important, but on a much bigger scale. I... want to be remembered in history. I mean look at Twilight! I can definitely tell you she's going to be remembered for a long time. But what can I do? Nothing! I don't even know what I'm good at and yet here ranting on about becoming part of history!" She took a second to calm down. "Do you need anything darling?" Rarity asked. "No... no thank you. I'm sorry I have to bother you all with this. I mean I just met you three practically today anyway, so why do you care?" "Keep going." Fluttershy insisted. "Yeah, go ahead." Rainbow Dash said, amazed and sympathetic with Ribbon. "A few days later it was kind of decided I was going to the college in Canterlot." she continued. "Well not really but I guess it's almost certain at this point. But anyway, I stayed on with my job and thought going to the college would help me get my cutie mark. Easy right? Nothing to it anymore. Well, then Luna came and visited me again, and showed me all of this amazing stuff and made me feel like I could do anything, until I woke up after making her cry. She must hate me now." "You made her cry?" "Yeah. I made a princess cry. I mean... who does that!? She's so much older than me and yet I made her cry! What kind of pony am I!?" Ribbons anger began to engulf her again. "I'M A TERRIBLE PONY THAT'S WHO! I'm always quiet in the class room and hate everybody who gets on my nerves, I get upset at the littlest things that bother me and brood on them like a little whiny, bratty kid, I can't even speak to my parents who have loved and supported me with all their hearts and now I think I can break even with their love by getting a job! And here I am telling all of you things that don't even concern you thinking it'll all be alright later when really I'm just lying to myself! I have to the most stupid, inconsiderate, spoiled and confused pony in the entire... FRICKIN... WORLD! I mean... DAMN IT!" She stomped her hooves so hard the floor shook slightly. Pain then seared in her limbs, and regret and sorrow filled her mind as she began to whimper and cry. "Sometimes I wish I could just die. Die and let it all be for nothing. Let everything go. Why does life have to be so difficult and confusing. Why don't I just kill myself and leave you all alone." Her legs quivered and fell to the floor sobbing, leaving the other four with broken hearts. Sprinkle went over to her, laid right beside and placed her cheek right against Ribbons as she cried. The other three looked at each other with saddened and concerned faces. "Everything's going to be alright." Sprinkle said, "You'll be alright." The next morning Ribbon sat on her bed doing nothing after breakfast. Her book wasn't opened and her records weren't playing. All she did was think on what she had said the day before constantly in her head, and debated whether or not it was good or bad she had done so. Her father came up and into her room. "This just came in the mail." he said and handed her a letter. "Thank you." She opened it when he left and opened the unfolded the piece of paper. Dear Ribbon, It was very brave of you to open yourself up like that. Princess Luna was very wise to visit and oversee you, for I can tell that in your mind the thoughts trouble you and push you to your very edge. One time I decided to let it all go, but ended up hurting my friends feelings in the processes. Instead of taking their advice in the beginning I let myself go astray and became something that was horrible, which I belief was what Princess Luna feared from the beginning for you. You must be very special indeed to be able to hold yourself so well and speak so passionately about your feelings. It is something everypony should learn from you. If you ever feel like it's too much to handle, please visit my house and express yourself as beautifully as you did before. I'm no psychiatrist, but I am a great listener, and would be more that happy to help lighten your burden. Love, Fluttershy. P.S. You should become a writer.

Flash Sentry Chronicles: Jakhowls Rising

pre

"I...would like that," Sirius replied, "I have seen how trustworthy you ponies are, so I would very much like to meet with this Princess Celestia. I would have to put it to a vote about officially joining your kingdom as citizens, but I'm sure the rest of my tribe will see the benefit of it." Several jakhowls nodded, while others frowned and looked away, "For now, you will be honored guests in Aurarora. I'll arrange some housing for you to stay in while you're here. In the meantime, feel free to look around and experience jakhowl life." He focused on Springer and the pups, "I'm sure you're all eager to learn more about your heritage." The three smiled as Sirius called the meeting to an end, the jakhowls leaving until only Sirius, Mirage and the newcomers were left. Sirius turned to his daughter. "Show them around. I'm sure they would like to get to know the you that isn't trying to kill them." Mirage blushed at this and nodded, the group heading out of the tree and once again looking out at the village. "Well..." Mirage glanced away while holding one of her arms, "What would you like to see first?" They all shared a glance and shrugged. "We'll leave that to you," Twilight told her. They all nodded and Mirage sighed before walking down the roots, her guests following her. "I...I just wanna say I'm sorry. I know I didn't take your arrival to kindly." "We understand," Springer nodded, "You were just trying to protect your home. I might have done the same thing if Ponyville had been sealed away for centuries." Mirage bit her lip at that, only for the group to pass by a rather poorly constructed house, which a jakhowl was trying to keep from falling over. Twilight used her magic and the tilting structure straightened up, the jakhowl gasping at this before turning to her in fear. The princess frowned at this, making sure the house was stable before letting it go. "Don't take this the wrong way, but your houses are a little..." "Terrible?" Mirage asked, the ponies slightly nodding, "We know. Building isn't really the jakhowl's strong suit. Also doesn't help that our only source of wood is the Tree of Ancients. We have to wait for its branches to grow before we can repair or rebuild anything." "Shouldn't be an issue anymore," Spike chimed in, "There's a whole forest of wood just outside that you can use." "And maybe some ponies could come and help build them," Mira added, "You saw how good they are at building stuff. Maybe they can teach you." Mirage glanced away at this as they got to the village, Ace and Mira now instantly drawn to the training field where many young jakhowls were working on their fighting skills. Spike and the ponies could tell how interested they were, Flash speaking up, "Tell you what, why don't we fly around and see what this place has to offer from above?" They all spread their wings, "You all have fun with your guided tour." They shot off before the jakhowls could say anything, Mirage frowning. "Impatient ponies, aren't they?" "You have no idea," Springer chuckled as they headed down the path and arrived at the training field, spotting several older jakhowls teaching the classes. One group was practicing simple paw to paw combat, the youngsters all in a line and mirroring the teacher's punch and kicks. Another group was practicing with Steel Paw, slashing at straw dummies and rocks. Another group was doing target practice with their Aura Blasts, launching them at large rocks that had been painted with targets. One blast hit a rock and exploded, but the rock didn't seem even remotely damaged. Then there was a group practicing with Bone Breakers, which Ace and Mira noticed. "Awesome," Ace smirked as he formed a Bone Breaker and ran up, the group surprised by his sudden arrival, but seeing him getting into his normal stance made the teacher flinch and rush over to correct him. "Maybe you should take some lessons," Mirage told Springer. The older jakhowl frowned at her and simply walked over to watch the martial arts training while Mirage turned to see Mira staring at the Bone Breaker class longingly. "You can join if you want." Mira shook her head at this, "I can't." She formed an Aura Blast and tried to reshape it, only for it to puff out of existence. "For some reason, I can't do it. Springer's tried to teach me, but it just doesn't work." "Ah," Mirage replied, "So you can't use it either. That's alright." Mira glanced back up at her, "Don't worry, I can't use that move either. A lot of Jakhowls can't." Mira's eyes fully went wide at this, "The only move all jakhowls can use is the Aura Blast. For every other move, it depends on the jakhowl's family line." "R-r-really?" Mira asked, "Springer never told me that." "From what I saw in his memories, he doesn't know. His tribe probably all had the same abilities. But that's alright. There are lots of attacks that you could possibly learn, ones that Ace and Springer can't use." "Like what?" She asked, Mirage then pointing to another group of jakhowls. Mira turned and saw one of the jakhowls form an Aura Blast that then began to reshape into a star, which they threw at a wooden target. It struck and exploded, knocking the target down. They repeated this process, only this time, a jakhowl threw the target into the air. The star was sent flying and it quickly curved toward the target, acting like a heat seeking missile that struck the target and exploded. Another jakhowl suddenly coated his hands and feet with aura before rushing forward, karate chopping one rock and smashing it in half before spinning around to kick another rock, shattering it to pieces. Then, one leapt into the air as their tail glowed with aura. She spun around and struck another rock with it, breaking it apart. "Wow..." Mira whispered, "That's amazing!" Mirage nodded. "Just because you can't use one ability doesn't mean you're weaker than those that can. If I'm correct, the move I saw you use aside from Aura Blast is Steel Paw, correct?" "Yeah," Mira nodded "I also used Velocity Strike. Or a weaker version of it." Mirage nodded again, "I saw that. But I don't think it was that move." Mira blinked at her at this, "You're way too young to use Velocity Strike...and if I'm honest, I'm not sure many here could. When I saw that move in Springer's memories...I can see why he probably doesn't want you using it. But, there are other abilities that require large amounts of speed to use. For instance..." She crossed her arms as she glowed, the light flying off of her and taking shape besides her. Eventually, another Mirage appeared beside the first and Mira couldn't tell the difference between them. "Wow," she whispered at seeing the two jakhowls standing side by side and moving differently to show they weren't a speed illusion like Flash could do. "What do you call that move?" "It doesn't have a name," Mirage moved over to a rock and picked it up before throwing it at her copy. The fake caught it and tossed it to Mira, who caught it as the fake vanished. "We don't actually give most of our abilities names. The Aura Blast and Aura-Scaping are the only ones. But I gotta admit, the names you called them are interesting." "So it doesn't have a name?" Mira asked, the older jakhowl nodding. "Well...why not call them Aura Mirages? That's what they are, aren't they? Mirages made of aura. Plus, you can say they're named after you." Mirage let out a laugh at this, only to pat the young jakhowl's side. "I suppose so. Come, let's see if you can learn this move." And as the two walked away, Mirage had to admit that despite having just met this young jakhowl, she liked her. Up in the branches of the tree, Razor was watching as Springer and his friends seemed to be settling in. He growled at the sight, "Those idiots! Letting those outsiders pull them in so we'll lower our guard and they can betray us." He created a Steel Paw and used it to pick at his teeth, "I've gotta find a way to make them realize these ponies are nothing but trouble." As he said that, a small green jakhowl climbed up the side of the tree using his claws. "Snivel." "Boss," the jakhowl pulled himself up onto the branch next to him. "What are we gonna do? We need to stop those ponies before they pull something, just like you said they would." "I know that," Razor hissed, "But the rest of these idiots seem to think we can trust them." "Right," Snivel nodded, "Sure, that Aura-Scape showed a lot of good things, but you're the jakhowl of prophecy. They should listen to you." Razor slowly nodded back, only to feel himself more stuck than ever. He glared at the training ground, watching Springer spar while Ace continued to practice his Bone Breaker training and Mirage started teaching Mira something. Then he watched the ponies and their dragon friend as they continued to explore the area. "I've got to prove they're dangerous...but how?" The ponies and dragon soon landed, all now walking through the farmlands, where multiple jakhowls were working on their crops. There were tons of vegetables being grown: Carrots, peas, potatoes, avocados and cabbages all growing quite plentifully in the soil. "Wow..." Spike checked the leaves of a cabbage, "This looks amazing. My friend Applejack would probably be jealous of how well this turned out." "Thank you," a light green jakhowl female bowed, "We work hard to make sure these crops grow well, but it is the soil that is truly to thank. It is excellently fertile." "Yes," Twilight touched the ground and used her earth pony magic to sense it. The ground instantly responded, making her gasp, "It really is amazing. Not a single contaminant to be found. Considering the state of the land outside, this place being so lush is even more amazing." The jakhowl nodded, "My great great grandmother was a farmer in those days, and her stories of the land back then spoke of the mountain being surrounded by lush terrain. However, it appears that the time we spent here has caused that land to lose its fertility." "Time can do a lot of damage," Flash replied, "But it doesn't mean the place will always be like that. I'm sure with a little hard work, you could turn it back into a green paradise." The jakhowl smiled at this as they continued to search through the place, Soul commenting, "I can't believe this place has been hiding here this whole time." "It is amazing." Twilight added as they passed a trio of jakhowls playing hopscotch. "And now Springer doesn't have to worry about being the last of his kind. He, Ace and Mira all have a place they can feel at home in." "I thought they did feel at home in Ponyville?" Heart asked, the group turning to him and saw a low serious glare on his face. "Of course they feel at home there," Flash added, "But you felt at home in the Lost City until you came to Ponyville. That's probably how Springer and the others are feeling right now. They might have been happy where they were, but now they have a place they can truly be themselves." Heart frowned, Flash's statement making him look worried. "Does that mean Ace and the others are gonna stay here?" That question made them all come to a stop, their smiles vanishing at the thought of Springer, Ace and Mira not returning to Ponyville with them. But they knew if they did choose to do that, they had no right to get in their friends' way. "Maybe," Twilight told them, "But that'll be their decision to make. If they want to stay here, we'd have no right to stop them." Heart just glanced away at this before spreading his wings and flying off. "Heart!" Flash yelled, but didn't go after him. He knew it wouldn't matter. As for Soul, Twilight wrapped a wing around her as they continued to explore the place, eventually arriving at the edge of the giant biome. Here they found several jakhowls hanging around this area, one being the blue elder that was standing next the large wall that covered the village. As they got closer, they noticed the wall had been painted on. A bunch of images were scattered all over it, though the differing skills of each painting showed they were not all done by the same being. Most depicted images of jakhowls, along with many other creatures. The jakhowl elder turned to them at this and smiled. "Ah. Enjoying your exploration of our humble home?" "Yes," Twilight nodded, "It's a very nice place. You've taken great care of it." "Well, it's not like I've had to do much," he slowly walked across the ground toward the wall. "As much as I hate to admit it, very few issues have occurred here during my tenure as an elder. I've gotten to add very little to the wall of memories." "Wall of memories?" Twilight asked as they stared at the images. "Indeed," he nodded, "This wall is the history of our tribe since we first came here. Every important moment has been added to it so that we won't forget anything." He showed them the latest image, one that still looked wet, and saw it was them. "I'm sad to admit that since being trapped within the seal, there hasn't been much we've got to enjoy." "Well, the images look great," Soul added, "You're really talented Mr..." "Chrome," he replied, "My name is Chrome. And thank you, my dear. If you have any questions about these memories, feel free to ask." They nodded and looked back at the wall, only to see the image of a jakhowl they all recognized. "Is that Razor?" Flash asked, pointing at the image of the jakhowl in his upgraded form. "Yes," Chrome nodded, "He demanded that I add him to the wall when he unlocked that form. I would have anyway, but his insistence didn't make it very fun for me." They grimaced at that before continuning to inspect the painting, only for Flash to come across one that made him stop and do a double-take. On the wall was an image of the mountain outside with a bunch of tiny jakhowls inside of it. And surrounding the mountain were a bunch of creatures Flash didn't expect to see on a jakhowl mural. "Umbrum." Twilight heard this and sprinted over, seeing the images of creatures she had only seen from Sombra back when he was in his evil days. "No way," she whispered as Chrome stepped over to them. "What does this picture depict?" Chrome stared at it and sighed. "That image is of our sealing. It's not a pleasant memory we like to remember, but those that fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." "You said ponies were the ones that sealed you, right?" Flash asked as Chrome nodded, only for the defender to point at the painting, "But these creatures aren't ponies." That made Chrome tilt his head, Flash then repeating what Razor Fang had said before. "Attacking in the dead of night. Turning into clouds of smoke and using their red horns to put jakhowls into trances. Sucking out their spirits and sealing their enemies away for hundreds of years. I can't believe I didn't see it before." "See what?" Soul asked, Twilight also making the connection. "The enemy of the jakhowls from all those years ago. They weren't ponies. They were umbrum." "What are these umbrum?" Chrome asked with a raised eyebrow. Twilight turned to him. "It's hard to explain. Umbrum might look like ponies, but they're our exact opposite. The same way ponies descend from the original alicorn, the umbrum descend from the original umbrum." Chrome just blinked at her at this, Twilight sighing as she tried to think of a way to explain it. Meanwhile... Springer was now watching his pupils being taught the correct way to fight. A part of him said he should be annoyed that all his training with them were being undone, but an even larger part of him was happy. He had always known that being taught by him would leave Ace and Mira's training unperfected. Springer was strong, but he was entirely self-taught. All he could do was teach them what he knew and from what he saw of Mira's training with Mirage, she was clearly more comfortable with the style the older female jakhowl was showing her than his. Springer continued to glance around, seeing all the different styles of training the young jakhowls were learning. No doubt, Ace and Mira would find a style that best fit them. He had always feared that when he was gone, the future of the jakhowls would be in danger. But now the traditions of the jakhowls were secure, so long as this place remained safe. "Try again," Mirage told Mira, the yellow jakhowl taking a deep breath before summoning her aura, then rushing forward as fast as she could. Her speed increased, and as it did, she started jumping from side to side. The speed of her movements were so fast that she was creating an after image of herself, and within a few moments, she looked like she had a perfect twin that was moving just like her. The two young jakhowls leapt at Mirage, one throwing a kick and another throwing a punch. Mirage smiled at this, but that wasn't enough for Mira to land a hit on her. She easily deflected one of the punches and struck that Mira in the chest, causing it to vanish and allowing her to focus on the real one. She sidestepped the flying kick and grabbed her by the ankle, then swung her around until she slammed into the grass. "Ahh!" She cried as Mirage pulled her fist back before throwing it forward. Mira flinched, but felt nothing. She opened her eyes and saw the fist was hovering inches from Mira's face, Mirage smirking as she pulled away. "Not bad," she helped Mira up, "You've picked it up quite quickly. But it'll take a while before you can form the fakes without incredible movement. For now, you should focus on increasing the number you can make." "Got it," Mira nodded as Mirage moved over to a rock and sat down. Mira sat beside her and smiled, "Thanks. I know you didn't have to help me, but I appreciate it." "No problem," Mirage chuckled, "You obviously haven't had any female jakhowl influences. It'd be a crime to let you go without any. Besides, we both have similar names. That might be a silly reason to help you, but who cares." Mira laughed at that. "Well, that's not my full name." Mirage tilted her head at this, "My full name is Miracle. My friend Soul gave it to me." "Really?" She asked, Mira nodding. "Yeah. Before me and Ace hatched, she and Heart talked to our eggs. She said that us being alive was a miracle. That was one of the first things I ever heard." "You heard her from within your egg?" Mira nodded again, making Mirage blink. "I've heard of that happening, but I didn't think it actually happened." Mira shined a big grin at this, "We only heard them because our auras are in tune with them. Same with Springer and Flash." They turned to the older jakhowl, who was watching an Aura Star class. "Flash and Springer are so in sync that Flash could understand him before Springer was able to talk to others. They were even able to see through each others' eyes." "A jakhowl and a pony were able to be that much in sync?" Mira nodded, "Amazing. This Springer certainly is a mystery. Even after seeing everything he's been through, it's still hard to believe just how many insane things one jakhowl can experience in a single lifetime." "Well, the world's unpredictable," Mira giggled before gesturing to everything around her, "We never thought we'd find an entire kingdom of jakhowls, but here we are." Mirage nodded at this. "I've seen that there are many good things in this world. But I'm still unsure about what the world outside this mountain is like. So many dangers that could cause my tribe harm." "But the good things are still worth the risk," Mira chimed in, "If you spend your life hiding away, fearing the unknown, then you'll have never truly lived. It's only by exploring the unknown that you can truly decide what kind of life you want to lead." Mirage smirked at that, impressed by the wisdom. Despite being the older jakhowl, Mirage could see Mira's time on the surface had given her much. And it was at that moment that the light coming from the crystal began to slowly dim. "What's going on?" "That would be dusk. The light of the crystal will dim until it's just bright enough for us to not be in total darkness so that we can sleep peacefully." Mira nodded and noticed the jakhowls were all starting to head back toward the village, Mirage heading in that direction as well. Mira followed and couldn't help but smile at how tranquil the place was. She couldn't wait to see more of it.

Flash Sentry Chronicles: Jakhowls Rising

Chapter 4

Inside the Jakhowl home of Aurarora, nighttime had arrived. As such, the jakhowls and their guests began to head to the village to get some sleep. One of the few who wasn't heading for it was Heart, who was sitting on a large rock next to one of the streams that flowed through the biome. He wore a giant frown, picking up a pebble and throwing it into the water, the plopping sound doing nothing to lift his mood. "Problem?" He jumped and turned to see an orange jakhowl elder walking up to him. "You seem upset. Is our home not to your liking?" "No," Heart sighed as he glanced away, "It looks great. And that's the problem." The elder tilted his head at this, "Its so...perfect. Ace, Mira and Springer...they'll probably stay cuz of it." "I see," the elder replied as he sat down beside him. "And you don't want them to stay?" "I don't want them to leave," Heart responded, "If they stay, that means they'll be leaving Ponyville. I'll never get to see them again." "Ah...I understand." The elder slowly nodded, "I know how you feel. I can tell that many of the jakhowls here are curious to see the outside world, especially after seeing the memories of your friends. I fear that they'll leave and chose to never return." Heart's head shifted back to him at this, "Yeah...I guess so. I mean, you could come and move into Ponyville. I'm sure we could find a place you could all live." The elder frowned at him. "What? It'd be great! There's a canyon near the town you could move into. We could dig out the walls into cave homes for you or maybe build large houses for you if you prefer that. The canyon can get big in places, so it'd be able to house you all without issue. You could still be together and be within walking distance of the town." "As charming as that sounds, I doubt you could convince an entire population to simply abandon their home. As nice as your home appeared in the Aura-Scape, it is not where we belong. And as scared as I am for the younger, less experienced jakhowls' adventurous sides, I doubt everyone will leave." Heart looked away again, letting out another sigh, "It's not fair. I've lost so many ponies already. My parents. My first home." His anger rose at the memory of a certain somepony, "Her. Now I'm gonna lose Ace, who's like a brother to me. Mira can be fun, and Springer's helped me just as much as Flash is. And now they're gonna be gone." "You must not think your friendship with them is that strong," the elder instantly said, Heart's head whipping back to him, "if it were then you wouldn't be so worried about losing them. Them staying here wouldn't stop you from being friends, would it?" "Wha-no!" Heart shook his head, "But I might not get to see them again!" "I doubt that would happen. I saw how close those jakhowls are to those in this kingdom. Even if they chose to stay here, they probably wouldn't want to stay the rest of their lives. We jakhowls have been trapped in this place for a hundred and fifty years. Now that we're free, I suspect some will explore this world the best they can. And one of those places will likely be your home." "So you think they'll come back?" "If they feel there's a reason to come back. So don't go getting grumpy around them, or they'll think you don't care." Heart opened his mouth at that, only to close it. He thought back to everything recently, noticing he probably hadn't been very fun to be around, so Ace and Mira might not want to be there with him. But they might still want to be around Soul and the others, so there was still a chance. "Thanks," Heart flared his wings at this before looking back at the elder, "What's your name again?" The elder chuckled at this, "Name's Core. It was nice to meet you." Heart nodded and took off, leaving Core to sigh as he leaned back and stared at the light glowing crystal ceiling. For some strange reason, talking to that colt had removed his own fears. He was sure now that the jakhowls would return. They would spread out and enjoy the world, but this would always be where they called home. Twilight hummed as she studied the rock she had picked up, using her magic to examine it and nod. She was currently in a hut that the jakhowls had offered them all, which wasn't much better than the rest of the buildings in the village. But it was better than nothing, and they were willing to accept that. The hut was a single room illuminated by a small crystal that apparently came off the one up above them. It seemed the crystal was continuously growing, but pieces on the end tended to break off, the tree catching them all before they could hit anyone below, and the jakhowls used these crystals as temporary light sources during the night. Twilight wasn't the only one there. Spike, Flash, Soul, Ace and Mira were also there, Ace and Mira telling Soul all about what they had learned and Soul was doing the same, telling them about their discovery of the umbrum being the ones that sealed the jakhowls. Flash was simply sitting against the wall of the hut, while Spike was finishing a letter to Celestia that Twilight had asked him to write. And as Twilight continued to study the rock, she put her hoof to her chin as a smile appeared on her face. "I got it." she spoke up, "I know how long the jakhowls have been sealed away." "You do?" Ace asked as they all turned to the alicorn. Twilight nodded. "Yup. The age difference in the two rock sides is roughly one thousand three hundred and fifty years, give or take a decade or two. That means whatever spell was used to seal them away made time in here run ten times as slowly." Flash tilted his head at that, "So...like a hundred and fifty years passed in here, fifteen hundred years passed outside?" "That's right. Very good Flash." Twilight giggled, "Looks like teaching math has helped you learn it." "Oh, stop it." Flash grumbled as the others all laughed, "Anyways, you're saying their...what, five hundred something years older than Springer's tribe was?" Twilight nodded back, "Yes. But that also means they are five hundred years younger than the jakhowls in the Lost City, give or take." Flash glanced down at Ace and Mira, "Looks like you two are still the oldest jakhowls we know." The pair laughed at this as Twilight put the rock away. "I'm sure Sirius will want to know this. But we should probably get some sleep and tell him in the morning." They all nodded while Flash looked out a nearby window, wondering where Springer and Heart was. He got one answer when Heart arrived at the hut, stepping through the door. "Hey everypony," he muttered out. Flash frowned at him, "You okay?" "Um...I think so." Heart nodded as Ace and Mira turned to him, "Sorry. Guess I let my emotions get the better of me." He then walked up to Ace and Mira, suddenly hugging both. The sight made them all blink, Soul then slinging her hoof around her brother. Meanwhile... Springer was at the bottom of the tree, leaning against one of the large roots as he stared at the sights around him. As he did this, he sensed a presence, making him turn to see Mirage. "You should be getting some rest. You've had a long day." "Could say the same for you," Springer replied, "I know from experience that teaching Ace and Mira isn't easy. You were able to get Mira to learn the basics of that move in a single day. Took me months to teach them the Aura Blast." "That is always the hardest one to learn," Mirage responded, "Though from what I saw, you were able to do it from the moment you were hatched." Springer shrugged at this as Mirage looked over at the same dark landscape he was staring at. "Beautiful, isn't it?" "Its amazing," Springer chuckled in a low, deep tone, "I...I've dreamed of a place like this for so long. A place where I could meet others of my kind." Mirage saw the frown appear on his face, a tired expression creeping onto him as he added, "When I received Ace and Mira's eggs...I was so overwhelmed. I couldn't believe there was a chance for our race." He put a paw to his temple at this, "And now I'm here. Its so amazing and...I still can't believe it. Heck, I'm worried that any minute now I'm gonna wake and find it was all a dream." "Well, it isn't." Mirage chimed, "You...you're not the last of your kind anymore. And we're gonna need you to help us get used to the outside world." Springer blinked at her at this, a bit of surprise showing in his expression, "You saw my memories," he slowly said, "You've seen everything I've seen." "That's not the same as experiencing it." She glanced away this, now staring at the ceiling of the biome, "Seeing those memories of yours...it made me realize just how much in the dark we are about this world." She looked back at him, "I know I was...rough at our first meeting, but after seeing those memories...I'm starting to understand what us jakhowl need to do next. We need to learn as much as we can." Springer nodded at this, "I understand. And I want to help you all with that. Though uh...I need help too." Mirage raised an eyebrow. "I...don't know anything about jakhowl culture other than the Aura Blast is meant to be the first thing we learn." Springer lightly laughed as he showed her a small smile, "If I help you all learn about the outside world, can you teach me everything that makes a jakhowl a...well, a jakhowl?" Mirage smiled and nodded, only for a bulb to go off in her head. "Come with me for a second." She gestured for him to follow, the jakhowl soon cutting into a sprint, Springer flinching for a second before following. Flash laid beside Twilight as they all slept away, though he was still awake. Heart had asked Ace and Mira to come visit them if they chose to stay in Aurarora, surprising the pair since they weren't even sure if they were actually staying. Twilight told them they would talk about this in the morning when they could bring Springer into the conversation After that, Spike had finished off the letter telling Celestia everything they had learned. It would likely not be until morning that they got an answer, so the they chose to go to sleep. But Flash couldn't seem to drift off for some reason. He simply laid there, thinking about what Heart had said about them staying there. He imagined what life in Ponyville would be like if Springer chose to stay in Aurarora and it caused his stomach to churn. Springer had been his partner for so long, he didn't know what life with him gone would be. He couldn't help but feel uncertain. "Flash." the pegasi's ears perked up as he sat up. "Flash." He quickly realised that he wasn't hearing someone talk. They were talking into his head. A jakhowl was communicating with him. "Come to me." The voice was feminine and Flash slowly got up, being careful not to wake Twilight or the others as he headed for the exit. "This way. Turn left and go down the street." Flash followed the voice, wondering who was calling him, but not feeling anything in the voice that told him to be wary. All he could do was follow the instructions and make his way through the village. Mirage had led Springer through the biome until they reached an area at the very back of the cavern, where a small forest could be found. Springer hadn't really noticed it before since its position had shielded it from sight behind the central tree. "I thought you said that tree was the only source of wood?" He asked as he followed Mirage. "These woods are special," she replied, "We do not cut the trees down because of what they are." "What they are?" Springer raised an eyebrow and stared at the trees. He noticed the trunks had a series of patterns in the wood, but they didn't look like they had been carved into it. Instead, it was as if the trees had grown with these patterns on them. And when he placed a paw on it, he suddenly felt something connect with him. It was like his aura had been grabbed by another. "Can you feel it?" Mirage asked, "The pull of the ancients?" "Pull...of the ancients?" He could feel this new aura connecting with his, and a part of him told him to pull away, but he had a feeling he didn't need to worry. Instead, he allowed his aura to flow. When he did, the markings on the tree suddenly started glowing. He gasped at this as the light flowed through the entire tree and caused it to light up. That included the roots, and it quickly spread to the next tree, then another and another. Springer could only watch in amazement as the entire forest was consumed by a soft blue glow that made him feel something. In a split second, it was as if uncountable number of voices were whispering in his head. That many voices should have been impossible to understand and distinguish from one another, but he found that if he concentrated, he could make out what the voices were saying. "What is this?" He asked as he pulled his paw away from the tree as Mirage continued to walk through the woods. "Do you know what your tribe did with their dead when they passed away?" Springer tilted his head at this, only for Mirage to continue, "If they were anything like us, they would have burnt their dead and scattered them around the base of trees like this." "Wait..." Springer glanceed around, "Is this a graveyard?" Mirage shook her head, "I wouldn't call it that. When a jakhowl dies, the aura they wielded infuses itself into the body. This creates an echo of who they were in life, containing all their knowledge and wisdom for a limited time. If left, that echo fades and their wisdom is lost forever. But if the body is cremated and the ashes fed to these trees within seventy-two hours of death, the echo will become a part of the tree and its memory shall remain as part of the forest." "Wow..." Springer whispered, "I had no idea jakhowls could leave something like that behind." He then put a paw to his chin, remembering how Shade told him that Tricksters transferred memories through runes, only to look up at the trees and think that this could be the jakhowls' version of that. 'Did my tribe do that? Is there a forest out there somewhere that holds our memories? I mean, I know what happened to mom and dad, so they might not have left anything...though considering today, any miracle can happen.' Those thoughts were put on hold in his head as he continued to follow Mirage, only to see her stop at a glowing tree. She put her paw against it along with her forehead. "This is where we spread my mother's ashes." Springer hadn't been expecting that, but he probably should have expected it given he hadn't seen a female jakhowl like Mirage anywhere. "I'm sorry," was all Springer could say. "I...uh...well...how did it happen?" He instantly flinched at his words, unable to believe he actually asked that. He hit himself on the forehead as she wasn't looking, but stood normal as Mirage turned to him. "When I was young, sickness infected the village." Springer had a feeling he didn't need to know anymore, but she continued. "My mother caught it along with a few others. It wasn't widespread, but it was enough to...to take them from us." She looked down. "Our healers did everything they could, but the illness was too much for them. My mother and several others died." "I'm sorry," Springer repeated as he moved over to place his paw on the tree next to Mirage's. He once again felt the tug of his aura, wondering if her mother was communicating with him. "I never got to really know my parents. Even though I've managed to meet memories of them a few times, I never got to know them. Luna told me stories about my dad and Ruby has talked to me about my mom...but it's not the same. I guess since I didn't know them, I can't really miss them like you can." Mirage once again put her head against the tree. "I was really young when she died, but I remember so much. When we used to swim in the river and play. Her brushing my fur. Looking after me when I got hurt. She was amazing." She looked like she was about to start crying. "I shouldn't be so upset. It's not like I lost both my parents." "Did that happen?" Springer asked. Mirage nodded, "Razor Fang." Springer grimaced at this, "He lost both his parents to the illness. He wasn't the nicest pup before then, but after that...he got a lot worse." Springer sighed at this, knowing what that meant. "I see..." Flash continued to follow the voice as it lead him through the village, only to walk into a small hut. He glanced inside, only to find it was illuminated by a single light source. A crystal ball sitting on a stone table, glowing with aura energy. Sitting behind the table was the elder, Crystal Clair, who didn't even look up at him and was constantly staring at the orb. "Welcome," she slowly said, "I've been expecting you." "You have?" Flash asked, "Did you see that in the future?" She shook her head, "No. I was the one that called you here." "Oh." Flash let out a hum before sitting down on the other side of the table, Clair continuing to look into the crystal orb. "Why did you call me here?" "I can sense great uncertainty within you," Clair replied, "You worry for the future, do you not?" "How could I not," Flash sighed, "Springer might stay here. I'm happy he found this place, and I know he'd be happy here, and I know I have no right to try and stop him from staying, but...I don't know. Springer and I have been partners for so long. He was there beside me whenever I faced off against my biggest challenges. I could always trust he'd be there when I need him. But now that he might stay here...I guess I'm just nervous about the future." "Parting is such sweet sorrow," Clair nodded. "I understand. You two have relied on one another for so long, that it would feel like separating you both would make whatever challenges you both faced in the future a thousand times harder." Flash nodded back, "I saw how strong your connection is through the Aura-Scape. But you must be careful. A connection can become a shackle if you rely too heavily on it. While you two together are clearly a near unbeatable team, you must not let yourself become too reliant on that team, or you will find that when the two of you are not together, you are unable to stand against even the weakest of opponents." "I know that," Flash replied. "I've faced that harsh reality many times before." "But it is not just the future without your friend I can sense you are uncertain about. What else do you worry about?" Flash flinched at this, a memory bubbling to surface as he remembered when he was given a glimpse into his student's future and by extension, his own. "I...I got to learn a bit about the future a while back. I was told that it's a great future, but...I'm not in it. Knowing something like that is coming is..." "I see," Clair nodded, "So, you wish to learn about the future?" "I...don't know," Flash slowly said, "I've seen where that road takes you. My friend, Twilight, once got a glimpse into her future. And when she saw it, she became so terrified by it that she almost drove herself crazy trying to change it. But that just led her to make that future happen anyway." "Yes. One often finds their destiny on the road they take to avoid it." "Can you please say something that I wouldn't find in a fortune cookie?" Flash asked. "I have a suggestion," Clair pointed at the orb, "My abilities to see the future can be spread to others. Place your hoof on the orb and I will allow you to get a glimpse into your most likely future." "Most likely future?" Flash asked, "What are you talking about?" "The future is constantly in flux. Every decision we make can have a drastic effect on it. The simplest choice can have a big impact. Being at a crosswalk and deciding to go left could result in you becoming the richest pony in the world, but choosing to go right could make you a bit-less pauper. There are a hundred decisions to make between that choice and the outcome, but that single choice can affect how the future plays out." "So you're saying that what you show me could happen, but then I could make a choice that could make it impossible?" "Exactly," Clair nodded, "My ancestor was the most powerful seer in our tribe. Only she could see something that was set in stone. But I only have the power to see what will happen based on the past and present. So, if you don't like what you see, you can be sure that there's a chance it can still be undone. So, what do you say? Care to take a glimpse into your possible future?" Flash sat in silence for a moment, wondering if he should tempt fate by seeing what was coming. What if it was all good and seeing it would make that good future never happen? But what if it was also horrible and the only way to stop it was to see it coming. Weighing his odds, Flash eventually nodded. "Let's do this." Clair nodded and reached out to touch the orb, Flash doing the same. As soon as they were both touching the orb, Clair spoke, "Look into the sphere. Do not think and simply let your mind drift as you stare into it." Flash did so, staring at the swirling light within the orb and trying his best not to think of anything. He simply followed the lights as they moved in random directions around the orb, unknowingly falling into some kind of dream state. Eventually, everything except the light disappeared, and Flash found his mind being pulled into the light. And in the blink on an eye, he was no longer in the hut. Instead, he found himself standing in a void of the light inside the orb. "Did it work?" He glanced around, but saw nothing but the light around him, "Clair?" She didn't answer, Flash blinking in response before something began to appear out of the light in front of him. It was a structure of some kind. One he felt he recognized. The light had turned into a fog that was slowly receding, allowing him to get a better look at the building that was coming into view. And as he moved closer, his eyes went wide as he realized what it was. "No..." he whispered, "It can't be." It was the Castle of Friendship, but it was in ruins. The tree-like building had been completely knocked down, the trunk of it lying shattered around the building as the structure on top now lay upon the ground and had large holes in the walls while the star-shaped top was hanging from the building with many cracks and missing pieces. Flash couldn't believe what he was seeing, and things only got worse as more of the fog slowly faded away. He turned to see that the School of Friendship was also nothing but rubble in the side of a hill. "How could this happen?" He spun in the direction of the town and saw that more fog was fading, allowing him to fly toward Ponyville. And as he did this, he was greeted to the same sight as the castle and school. The whole place was a wreck. Not a single building was left standing. Town Hall, Sugarcube Corner, Rarity's Boutique. They had all been destroyed. This wasn't a town anymore. It was a battlefield. "Why?!" Flash asked, "Who did this?!" And as he yelled this, the pegasi spun around to see a new figure in the fog. "Who's there?" He reached for his sword, only to realize he didn't have it in this dream. "Show yourself!" The figure didn't need to move, for the fog around them began to disappear. And as it receded, Flash went wide-eyed, "Void..." The one previously known as Shadow Corrupter stood before him, looking just as crazy and enraged as the last time he had seen him. Flash thought he had died when Heart blasted him, but it seemed it was all for naught. "Did you do this?!" The defender yelled, "What did you do to Ponyville?!" Void said nothing, "Answer me!" In that moment, Void's form began to shift. It began to glitch and morph, only for a black mist to cover it as it took a new shape. And when the fog began to fade again, Flash saw a new pony appear within it. A pony he had never seen, but recognized instantly. Himself. It was a bleach gray version of him, with short blue hair and eyes of red and green. "You...you're the version of me Twilight and Starlight met. The one from another timeline. What are you doing here?" But as he asked this, Flash's form changed again. It reshaped itself into another pony, another Flash. This Flash looked more like the real one, only his coat and mane weren't as bright. His cutie mark was different, the shield being yellow with a blue lightning bolt over it. Flash knew he didn't recognize this one, but the cowardly look on his face made the Royal Knight uncomfortable. That is, till the pony changed into another villain from Flash's past: Shake Shocker. He was then replaced by Big Score, then Rickashay, then Boulder, Electra, Doom Raizer, Banshee and Storm Blade. Almost every serious villain that Flash had ever faced before. And after Storm, they changed back into Void before switching back to dark Flash. "What the-what the heck is happening here?!" He yelled, "I just fought a bunch of these mooks recently! Why are you showing me this?! Heck, who are you and why did you do this?! ANSWER ME!" But the villain didn't answer, instead just exploding into a cloud of darkness that shot toward him. Flash gasped as he tried to fight back, but the cloud struck him before he could and everything went dark. The next thing Flash knew, he was back in Clair's hut, staggering back and falling to the floor. The jakhowl raised her head from the orb, now sensing a great deal of fear within him. "Are you alright?" Flash began to pant, his heart racing a mile a minute. He took several deep breaths before controlling his breathing. The defender soon got up and sat back down in front of her. "What did you see?" "I...I saw my home...in ruins. Not a single building was left standing, and...all my friends were gone." "Was there anyone else there? The one that caused it?" A look of uncertainty appeared on his face as he looked down at the floor. "There was. A villain I thought was dead. But then...then he changed into somepony else. Another villain. One I've never seen, but heard about. Then he changed again, and again and again. It was the same figure, but they kept changing." Clair just stared at him as he glanced back up at her, "What does this mean?" "I don't know. I've never heard of a vision like that before. I can't be sure what it means. I can only guess." "I'm willing to take a guess if it helps me figure out what's going on." Clair nodded back, "It's possible that while the event you saw is likely to happen, the one there during that event is still unclear." "So Ponyville's gonna be destroyed?!" Flash yelped. "It's likely. As I said, simply seeing it in my orb could have changed the events of it happening. Or, it could have set those very events into motion. The future is difficult to understand. But like I said, the figure you said is still in flux." "So any of them could cause the destruction?" "Maybe. Or maybe they have nothing to do with what happens to your home. Can you honestly say that any of the ones you saw have the power to destroy an entire town?" Flash crossed his hooves at this, thinking about each one. Void could definitely destroy the town if he found a way to regain his former power. The evil version of him probably could as well, same with Doom Raizer. Banshee and Electra...maybe, same with Shake Shocker. But Score and his group couldn't do that, even if they worked together. The same with that other Flash he saw, though he was still curious about him. "No," Flash shook his head, "Not all of them." "So there's a chance they have nothing to do with the destruction. Another problem with seeing my visions is you have no idea when in the future this could take place. It could happen tomorrow, or twenty years from now. Anything between now and then could happen to destroy your home and it would be out of your control." "I guess," Flash sighed, "I was hoping seeing the future that would make me feel better, but this is just making me feel worse." "So, what will you do now?" "I'm...not sure. I should tell Twilight what I saw, but then she'd go nuts trying to do every little thing to stop it. No," he shook his head, "I'll keep this to myself...for now. And if I think something that caused that future is about to happen, then I'll tell her and the rest of my friends." Clair nodded and Flash got up, giving her his thanks before stepping out of the hut. And when he was gone, Clair felt her own curiosity get the better of her and looked into the orb, focusing on Flash's future for herself. Doing so caused a vision to appear in the sphere. This image was of Flash, surrounded by a bunch of ponies carrying strange looking weapons much like his sword. Those ponies were all lying on the ground, looking like they were in a great amount of pain. Flash showed nothing but fear on his face for them, only to look up at another figure. This figure was surrounded in darkness, its identity hidden as she saw Flash charge forward before being surrounded by light. The vision then ended, making her gasp. She had never seen such a thing, but she knew whatever was going to happen to Flash, it was going to be big. And she could only hope he would have the strength to overcome it. Springer and Mirage continued to stand by the tree her mother was buried under, both standing in silence as they paid their respect to the jakhowls of old. And after a bit, Mirage spoke up, "Do you think the ponies could have helped them if we weren't sealed away in here?" Springer went wide-eyed at the question, only to glance away, "Um...maybe. I guess it depends on what the sickness was. Pony medicine is pretty good, although I've never been to a doctor." "You never had any kind of medical check-up?" "Oh, I have. But it was done by a vet." "A what?" "It's a doctor, but they focus on animals. And since our anatomy is closer to a dog then a pony, Ace, Mira and I have been relying on her to keep us healthy." "I see." Mirage let go of the tree and moved away. "I hope these Princesses you told us about are willing to send some of these vets here to help us. I don't want anyone to lose their family like I did." Springer nodded back, "They will. The princesses care about all creatures that live in Equestria, even if they're not ponies. And Luna has a special love for our race." He stepped in front of her and smiled, "The ponies only want to help us. If you believe only one thing I'm saying, it's that. The ponies are our friends." The pair stared into each other's eyes, only for Mirage to nod, "I believe you. And not just about the ponies. I believe you about everything." She spun around and stared to walk away, Springer moving with her. "You...Mira and Ace. I'm glad you came. Came to help us find our place in this world." "No problem," Springer chuckled. "But..." Mirage turned back to him, "Will you stay?" Springer blinked at this, "You clearly love the home you managed to find with the ponies, but if what I saw in your memories is true...Aurarora needs you here. I know my father will not force you to stay, but I hope you do. I believe you have much to teach us, and we can teach you just as much. You three would be welcomed here." Springer glanced away at this, the thoughts of staying here and saying goodbye to his life in Ponyville now entering his head. To stop being a Defender of the Peace, and to all the friends he made that he never got the chance to say goodbye to. "I...don't know yet," he sighed, "I'll need to think about it some more." Mirage nodded as they reached an area of the forest that had a waterfall. The liquid was flying out a hole ten meters up, pooling down into a small lake below it and rolling into a stream that connected to several others. "This is where I come to be alone," Mirage moved over to the side of the water and sat down. "It's such a beautiful spot." "Sure is," Springer sat down next to her. They both smiled as they looked out at the water, which was reflecting some of the light from the crystal. Springer didn't know if he was going to stay, but he definitely would want to come back to this incredible place. The pair simply sat there, both beginning to tell the other about their own worlds. And before they knew it, the duo were laughing and joking well into the night, telling crazy stories between the two. But as they did this, a certain jakhowl was standing behind a tree. Razor Fang glared at the two, having heard everything Mirage had told the outsider about their tribe. "This is going too far. I have to stop this...now." And with that, he walked away with a snarl on his face. The next morning... As soon as the sun was up, or the crystal glowed brighter, Sirius had called the elders, Mirage and their guests to the Tree of Ancients. Ace, Mira and the twins were playing with some more young jakhowls, so the adults decided to let them keep having fun. And as they met, Chrome told everyone about what they had discovered the previous day. "Umbrum?" Springer asked, turning to Flash. "The umbrum are the ones who sealed the jakhowls away?" "Yup," Flash nodded. "We're sure of it. Their wall of memories has a pretty good painting of them sealing the jakhowls inside the mountain." "So it wasn't ponies who were our enemies all those years ago?" Clair asked, the others nodding as Spike asked another question. "Do you think they're the same umbrum that are trapped under the Crystal Empire?" Twilight tilted her head at that, "It's possible. According to my analysis, you've been gone for fifteen hundred years. The Crystal Empire was lost a thousand years ago, and from what Sombra told us, he did what he did because of the umbrum that were trapped under the Empire. But since we don't know how long they were trapped for, we can't be certain." "What exactly are these...umbrum?" Core asked, "Do you know where they came from?" "Yeah," Flash nodded. "But it's...complicated." The jakhowl's expressions told him they were willing to listen. "Okay, so the world was created by two powerful entities. The Sacred Light and Corrupted Shadow." The jakhowls seemed surprised by this, not having learned about this during their Aura-Scape with Springer. "They created everything you see. Whenever one created something, the other would create its exact opposite to keep the world in balance." "Does that include us?" Sirius asked, Flash nodded. "Yup. I'm told the jakhowls were a particular favorite of the Sacred Light." They all smiled at that, "And in contrast, the Corrupted Shadow made the Tricksters to keep everything in balance. Then, they chose to live in the world they created. To do that, they made forms for themselves to inhabit. The Original Alicorn and Original Umbrum. And from them, the pony and umbrum race came into being." "Interesting," Sirius replied, "And you're saying these umbrum are now gone?" Twilight nodded again. "There are some sealed under the Crystal Empire, but other than that, we're pretty sure they've all died out." "Good," Sirius respodned, "Then we don't have to worry about them attacking us again. I guess it's a good thing the seal lasted as long as it did." Twilight then took something out to show them. A scroll. "Actually, Princess Celestia thinks she knows why you've been freed at this time. You might actually owe your freedom to a criminal." Everyone blinked at this as she continued, "When you looked into Springer and the pup's memories, did you see what happened with a pony named Cozy Glow?" "Yes," Sirius nodded, "She attempted to take control of the kingdom by getting rid of all magic." "And it's possible that by doing that, she sucked away the magic in the seal. I'm willing to bet that's when the rock trapping you began to give away. It broke apart just enough so that when the magic returned, the seal was too badly damaged to become re-enchanted. After that, it was just a matter of time before the seal broke completely and you were free." "So...something good did come out of Cozy almost destroying the world," Flash sighed and shook his head, "Who knew?" "I see." Sirius slowly said, "Does your princess say anything else?" Twilight nodded and unrolled the scroll. "She says she and Luna are both happy you're back and excited to meet you, if you wish to meet with her. She's also confirmed what we suggested about you becoming official Equestrian Citizens. You'll be granted all the land in the surrounding area to do with as you please, offered any kind of aid that you want or need, and be offered full membership into the United Federation of Creatures." "This is sounding too good to be true," the green jakhowl elder chimed in, "Wouldn't you agree?" "Indeed Cress...but I think this is something we should try. It is an excellent opportunity to re-establish the jakhowls into the world." He turned back to Twilight, "Tell your princess I look forward to meeting her whenever she is able to discuss the finer details." Twilight nodded and took out another piece of paper and quill to write just that. "Which leaves us with just one thing left to discuss." He turned to Springer, the jakhowl flinching at his stare, "What?" "I can sense you're feeling conflicted. And I have a feeling I know why. You are unsure about remaining here or returning to the home you have spent your entire life in." Springer went wide-eyed at this, only for Sirius to add, "I can understand. The ponies have treated you well. I can see why you wouldn't want to stay goodbye to them." "Er...yeah," Springer turned to Flash and Twilight, "It's hard to chose." "Well, it's obvious which one you should choose," Sirius told him. "Both." "Huh?" The group looked back at him, the elder laughing at their confused expressions. "You said the ponies have the power to transport themselves great distances in a matter of moments, did you not?" They nodded back, "Well, then you shouldn't have any problems coming back and forth from here and this Ponyville." "Wait..." Twilight leaned back at this, "You want us to set up a Rune Gate so Springer, Ace and Mira can come and go as they please." "Why not? Is it difficult to create one of these gates?" Twilight shook her head, "Then I see no reason why Springer can't use one to come and go as he pleases. We won't need him here all the time. He can stay here a few days and help us get acclimated to this world, then return to your home and spend time doing whatever he needs to do there. I think that should be a perfect method for him, wouldn't you?" They all turned to Springer, seeing tears almost appear in his eyes, "It is. Thank you." "My pleasure," Sirius smirked, "You have been through a lot in your life. More than any jakhowl I have ever seen. You lost your first family before you even hatched, so it wouldn't be right of us to make you abandon your second family." They all smiled at him as Sirius took a deep breath. "I think that's enough for now. You still have much more of our home to enjoy. And maybe you'll be willing to take a group of our best jakhowl fighters out to show them the surrounding area. If we will be gifted this land, we'll need to know about every inch of it." They all nodded and got up, all but Sirius leaving the tree. Once the last of them were gone, Sirius let out a long sigh. He was glad he had lived to see this time. His daughter would get to enjoy the outside world and peace between his home and the ponies was a certainty. He couldn't wait to see the world himself. "I hope I get the chance to see this Crystal Empire they were talking about." But as he said this, he slowly got up as he felt something. He walked over to the exit and glanced outside, only to see nothing. "Hmm?" He stepped back inside, only to sense the presence again. And as he felt this, his mouth was suddenly covered before a surge of pain shot through his back and all the way through his body before splitting out his stomach. "You old fool." The voice made his eyes go wide, only for the weapon stabbing his stomach was pulled out, making him fall over. The elder slowly turned his head at this, now seeing Razor standing over him. "The jakhowls don't need you ruining their lives." He kneled down in front of him and took something out. A cloth. "Those ponies will destroy us unless we destroy them first. But a weakling like you would rather bow down to them and become their slave. Well, I won't let you bring our noble clan down." "Razor," he coughed as he felt blood fill his mouth, "Don't do this." "It's over," Razor hissed, "War is coming, and I'm gonna be the one to lead us to victory."

Flash Sentry Chronicles: Jakhowls Rising

Chapter 5

Everyone was outside the town now, the adults enjoying themselves as they watched Ace, Mira, Heart and Soul play with other young jakhowls. The sight made Springer shine the biggest grin, happy to see such a sight. The expression he wielded was one that intrigued Mirage, only for the ponies to walk up to her. "Something catch your eye?" Flash asked with a smirk. Mirage turned to him before looking back at Springer, "It's just...I've never met a jakhowl like him before. After I saw his past, I...I understand why, but still." "It figures for him." Twilight chimed in as she walked up to Mirage's side, "Springer...well, he's always been like that. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and he'd do anything for those two." "I see..." Mirage chuckled as she watched them play a game of hopscotch. Flash smirked as he watched as well, "I wonder what other games these youngsters play around here?" "Not many. What other games are there for you all?" Mirage asked, the ponies exchanging glances. "Well, there's softball, dodgeball, kickball and a bunch of other ball games." "Too bad you all couldn't play buckball," Twilight sighed, "Then you could play against our team and Appaloosa." Mirage tilted her head at this, "Well, I guess you could, but you'd have to team up with a pegasus and unicorn while taking the place of the earth pony. Unless you all can secretly fly or levitate stuff." "We cannot," Mirage shook her head, "But those other games do sound like they might be interesting." "What do you all do when you want to have fun?" Spike asked, "You've never heard of basic games, and you obviously don't have video games." Mirage blinked at this, "So what do jakhowl kids normally do for fun?" "Lots of things," Mirage replied, "We play tag, go swimming..." She suddenly seemed stumped, "Um...did I say way play tag?" "Guess there isn't much you can do in a single sealed location," Springer commented as he walked up to them, Mirage turning to the jakhowl. "That's so sad. I mean, have you even seen snow?" "Snow?" Mirage responded, causing the others to gasp. "You don't even know what snow is?" Flash asked, "Oh, you poor things." Mirage and the other jakhowls around them all turned to the pegasi at this, "Don't worry, we'll make sure your area gets some snow during the winter this year." "Hey, that's cheating!" They heard Ace yell as they looked over to see it was Heart's turn and the pegasus colt was using his wings to keep himself balanced. "What?" He asked with a smile on his face. "You all have an advantage being naturally two legged." He hopped over the stone and lost his balance, falling to the ground as the others laughed. He picked himself up and started laughing himself, making Flash smile as well, glad to see Heart looking happy again. But in that moment, his joy was replaced by a particular feeling inside his body. One he knew he needed to deal with quickly. "Um...question?" Mirage turned to him, "Where do jakhowls...do their business? I haven't gone since I got here." Mirage chuckled and pointed at the village. "There's a large building in town where we do our...business. You can't miss it." Flash nodded and flew off while Twilight raised an eyebrow. "You have plumbing here?" "What's plumbing?" Twilight grimaced as she realized what must be happening. "What do you do with the...leavings?" "Oh, the restrooms have a large wooden bucket connected to the toilet that we use to store it in. When it's full, we take it out and use it to help fertilize our fields." Twilight, Springer and Spike all felt queasy at hearing this, though they knew that the jakhowls had to do something with it. Waste not, want not. And as Mirage had been explaining that, Springer saw the jakhowl known as Razor Fang walking up to them. The jakhowls around him all stared at him, seeing the glare on his face. He turned to the game of hopscotch and snarled, "Why are these pups not training? How do you expect them to perfect their fighting abilities if they're wasting their time like this?!" "We're having fun," Ace replied, "You know, that thing that makes life worth living. You need to lighten up." "Our tribe is in danger," Razor hissed, "If we want to survive in this harsh world, we need to be strong. That means we don't have time to play around." "That's enough, Razor!" He turned to glare at Mirage as she moved over to him. "The outside world isn't completely safe, but it's not the death trap we grew up hearing about." "And how exactly do you know that?" Razor growled as he pointed at Springer, "Because you saw it in that outsider's memories?! How do we even know what we saw was true?! Those ponies have magic that can do almost anything. How do we know they didn't effect these fool's memories?! They'd do anything to keep what they truly are a secret, trying to trick us into becoming pets like these three!" "Hey!" Mira yelped, "We're not pets." "Yeah," Soul added, "They're our friends!" Razor glared at her, Soul flinching as she saw aura began to appear in Razor's paws, only for Springer to walk up between them. "Just ignore him." Springer chimed in as his face switched from his smile into one of neither anger or annoyance, but rather pity. "You know, I feel sorry for you." Razor raised an eyebrow at this, his aura sputtering at the words, "You've become so scared of everything that isn't in this place, you can only process them as a threat. But here's the simple facts: The world is a scary place. But it's also a wonderful place with many amazing things worth facing the scary stuff for." "What's your point?" Razor growled as his aura began to form in his paws again. "No point," Springer replied, "I just feel sorry for you. Sorry that you can't overcome that fear. But just because you're scared doesn't mean you need to force that fear on others. You can stay here if you want, that's fine. But there are those that want to see what's waiting for them out there, and I'm gonna help show them what they'd miss if they stayed here. And you can't stop that." Razor glared at him, clearly prepared to break into an argument, only for a voice to scream into every jakhowl's head in Aurarora. "HELP ME!" They all clutched their heads as it echoed through their minds, many falling to their knees in shock. Twilight and the others gasped at this and ran over to their friends. "What's wrong?" Twilight asked Mirage as Heart and Soul helped their jakhowl partners back to their feet. Mirage moaned, but then gasped as she realized who's voice she had just heard. "FATHER!" She screamed as she suddenly cut into a sprint to the Tree of Ancients, Springer following after her with the rest of the jakhowls on their tail. Twilight motioned for the non-jakhowls to go too and they ran into the town, spotting Flash walking towards them as they did so. "Hey!" Flash yelled, "What's going on?!" Nobody answered as he had to take to the air, the group now heading up to the tree. Mirage was the first inside the chamber, only to gasp when she saw her father on the floor, blood leaking from his body. "NOOOOO!" Springer rushed in behind her as she knelt beside her father, rolling him over as Springer saw the wound on his stomach. "SOUL!" He roared for the filly. "Father!" Mirage looked ready to start crying, "Who did this to you?!" Sirius was silent for a moment, but then coughed and opened his eyes. And as he coughed, blood filled his mouth. "Father!" Soul and the rest of the ponies arrived next, all gasping as Soul ran up to him, "Hold on!" The alicorn yelped as her magic activated. "What is she doing?" A jakhowl asked, Twilight turning to him. "Soul has healing magic. She can heal almost any wound." They all went wide-eyed, some sighing in relief, only for Twilight to frown and look back at her student, "But...she can't keep those with fatal injuries alive. That'll be up to Sirius. He has to stay strong until the wound's completely healed." "Father..." Mirage added as she began to cry, "Please don't leave me. I can't lose you too." Sirius looked her in the eyes, gazing into them and smiling. "Just hold on," Springer continued, "Soul will get you fixed up." He looked at the filly as she slowly began to close up the wound. "What did this?" "It looks like some kind of blade," Soul surmised, "Based on the shape of the wound, I'd guess it was a blade with a single curved edge." Sirius suddenly started coughing as she pumped in more magic, "This is bad." "You can heal him, right?" Flash asked. "He's lost a lot of blood," Soul replied. "Father!" Mirage cried as Springer stared at the elder. He then turned to the filly alicorn, "Hey Soul." Soul turned to him, "What would happen if he tried to Aura-scape with us?" Soul went wide-eyed at this, "If he can do it, we could see who did this to him." "I don't think that's a good idea," Soul responded, "At his age and with this wound, that kind of effort could be too much for him." Springer growled as he glanced back down at the elder, only to put his paw on Sirius's head. "What are you doing?" Mirage asked, "Are you trying to Aura-scape with him?" "Got any better ideas?" Springer asked, "Maybe I can do it. Who knows." He closed his eyes and tried to connect it to Sirius, a part of him wondering if Sirius could just tell him through telepathy. But as he connected to the older jakhowl, Springer could feel his mind was a complete mess of pain, panic and fear. "Come on...clear your head." Sirius continued to have trouble focusing, but Springer's words allowed him to calm down. He couldn't connect enough to telepathically talk to Springer, but he focused on what Razor had done. And to everyone's surprise, Springer's eyes went white for a moment. Mirage couldn't believe what she was seeing as Springer found himself in the same white void he had seen the previous day. But unlike yesterday, there weren't a bunch of images surrounding him. Instead, there was only one in front of him. One that showed him Sirius looking down and seeing a bloodsoaked blade sticking out of Sirius' stomach. One that looked just like Flash's Celestic Gear. That was all he got to see before the vision vanished, Springer finding himself back in the chamber. Mirage was staring at him in shock, "You can Aura-scape." Springer shook his head at this, "What did you see?" "I'm...I'm not sure." Sirius coughed again and they turned back to him as Soul kept healing the wound. "Father," Mirage whispered, "You'll be alright. You just have to stay strong." But then Sirius stared up at her again, showing a tiny smile before coughing out more blood. This cleared his airway enough for him to speak. "You...have your mother's eyes." Mirage gasped as she clutched his paw, Sirius holding it tightly as he turned to Springer. "Take care of our tribe. Do what you believe is right and you won't...regret it." He kept both of them in his gaze, the pair staring down at him as he closed his eyes and took one final breath. "FATHER!" Mirage screamed as Soul stopped her magic and placed her ear to his chest. She waited for a heartbeat, but there was none. She pulled away and looked to Mirage, giving her an apologetic look before shaking her head. Mirage burst into tears as she pulled her father toward her, hugging him tightly while the rest of the jakhowls and their guests looked down in shame. That is, till someone pushed his way through. Razor, followed by the rest of the elders, all made their way into the tree and looked down at their leader's body. "What happened?" Chrome asked as they gathered around them. Soul stepped back as Clair moved over to place a reassuring paw on Mirage's shoulder. "He's gone," she wept. "Someone...someone killed him." "Who?" Core asked as he reached down to inspect the wound. "He died from such a small wound." "I was trying to heal him," Soul chimed in, "If only he had held on for a little bit longer. Whatever weapon did this did a lot of internal damage. He...he might have lost too much blood to be saved, even if I had completely healed him." "What weapon did this?" Cress asked next. "Springer," Flash whispered, "You were able to Aura-scape with him. What did you see?" Springer turned to the pegasi, grimacing before slowly saying, "I saw something stab into him...but I couldn't tell what it was. It was a blade of some kind." "Like what I thought?" Soul asked, Springer nodding. "What do you mean?" Core asked, "What kind of blade?" Soul explained what she had guessed, making him hum. "We have very few blades here. And none of them are like that." The other jakhowls nodded and then Razor's eyes went wide. "You're right," he nodded. "We don't have any blades like that." He then slowly turned to Flash, "But you do." Flash raised an eyebrow at this as the other jakhowls all stared at him. "You can't be serious," Flash replied, "You think I did this?" "You're the only one with a weapon like that," another jakhowl pointed out. "Where is it?" Flash glanced down at himself, just now remembering he had left it at the hut, the pegasus not seeing a reason to keep it on hoof given how peaceful the place was. "It's at the hut we stayed in. And I can assure you, it's still there." "Prove it," Razor growled, "Bring this weapon to us and we will determine if it was used to slay our leader." "Razor!" Clair exclaimed as Mirage continued to hug her father's body, "Show some tact. Besides, how could he have used it?! He was with you the entire time." "Was he?" Razor asked, "I don't remember seeing him with us right before Sirius called out to us." They all turned to Flash again, the defender really wishing his bladder hadn't let him down. "Yeah!" another jakhowl yelled, "And he was walking to us when we came here. Maybe he was coming back from here." "That's insane!" Twilight exclaimed, "That's circumstantial evidence at best!" "Then prove it!" Razor spat, "Bring this weapon to us." "Fine!" Flash replied as he spun around and marched out of the tree, Twilight and his friends following him. Springer watched him leave and wanted to join, only to glance back at Mirage. But then the jakhowl lifted her head and nodded, "Go." Springer nodded back and ran out the tree, catching up with his friends as they made their way through the town. "Here," Flash pointed at the hut, "My sword's inside." He stepped into the hut and everyone waited for him, but he remained in the hut for a few minutes. "What's taking him so long?" Core asked, Springer walking into the hut at this. When he looked inside, he was shocked by what he saw. Flash was holding his sword in his hooves and the blade of that sword was covered in blood. "What?!" Springer yelped, "What's happening?!" "How?" Flash asked before Razor burst into the room, only to roar as he pointed at the sword. "MURDERERS!" Before either of them could do anything, he fired a blast of red aura at the pair. The next thing they knew, they were being blasted out of the hut's wall. They crashed into the street and moaned as they skidded on the ground as the hut collapsed, leaving a red glowing aura covered Razor. "Razor!" Chrome screamed as Twilight and their friends ran up, "What on earth are you doing?!" But as he said this, he turned to Flash and saw the blood on his blade, his eyes going wide. "It can't be." "What more proof do you need?!" Razor exclaimed, "I told you these trespassers would do nothing but cause pain and heartache for us! They lulled us into a false sense of security, and now they've taken our leader from us!" "Now hang on, that doesn't make any sense," Twilight chimed in, "Why would we kill Sirius? He agreed with us about our two nations becoming friends." But as she said this, the jakhowls around them all began forming Bone Breakers or Steel Paws. Seeing this, the elders raised their paws as Cress yelled, "Stop this! This is not our way!" "It is our way!" Razor growled, "We jakhowls destroy our enemies, and these ponies have been our enemies for over a thousand years! They tried to seal us away because they knew we would lead to their destruction and now that we've returned, they intend to simply put us under their control. WELL WE WON'T LET THEM!" As he roared this, the ponies all flinched, Soul whispering to her mentor, "Twilight, what do we do?" "Um..." Twilight tried to say, only for one of the jakhowls to charge at them with a Bone Breaker. And as it leapt at them, Twilight's reflexes kicked in and she grabbed her friends with her magic. Pulling them close, her horn unleashed a powerful blast of light that blinded the jakhowls. They all cried out, fearing the pony was going to try and blast them, only to open their eyes and saw the outsiders were all gone. "What the-what just happened?!" A jakhowl asked, Chrome blinking at the sight. "They must have used their magic to warp someplace else." "They must be planning to seal us up again!" Razor screeched as he rushed over to the destroyed house and leapt onto the rubble. "Don't you see?! They're dangerous! They care nothing for us! We must strike them before they strike us!" And as he said that, Mirage and Clair arrived. "What's happening?" Mirage asked as Razor turned to her. "What's all this ruckus? Where's Springer and the others?" "They ran away!" Razor exclaimed, "They were the ones that killed your father!" Mirage's eyes went wide at this, "No...that's not possible!" "The sword that pony had was covered in his blood!" Another jakhowl yelled, "They killed our leader, and they're gonna kill us next!" The rest of the jakhowls all began to cheer and yell in agreement as Mirage's eye shrunk at the information she had just received. "Where is your proof?" Clair asked, making Razor turn to her, "You claim they killed Sirius, but where is the proof?" "The sword was covered in blood!" A jakhowl barked, "What more proof do you need?" "Proof that confirms it was the ponies that actually used the sword to kill him. That blade was laying in the hut for anyone to take. Just because it's his sword, that doesn't confirm anything. If they were the ones that did it, they'd be stupid to use their own weapon and leave the blood for everyone to see." Razor smirked. "Clearly they underestimated us. They were probably planning to clean the blood off the blade, but didn't foresee Sirius calling out to us and bringing us to him before he could. And now their wrongful superiority will cost them! They killed Sirius, and we will have our revenge!" Mirage couldn't listen to this anymore. She turned to run away as Razor continued to speak to the jakhowls, "These outsiders will stop at nothing to destroy us! We will not allow that to happen!" In that moment, his body exploded with light as he took his King Form. "Follow me and I will lead us to victory! The time of the prophecy has come to pass...I will defeat and destroy our greatest threat, and then lead us into our golden age! The land they call Equestria shall fall under our rule! It will become the new Aurarora!" "Stop this!" Cress yelled, only for Razor to point at him. "Restrain the elders. Their time is over, and if they won't come into the future willingly, we'll have to contain them until our quest is at an end." The four elders were all grabbed by the younger jakhowls and pulled away, unable to fight against them as they cried out in protest. And as they disappeared into the distance, Razor looked back at his army. "The ponies will soon come to regret messing with us. War is coming, and I will lead us to victory!" Outside the mountain of Aurarora, a brilliant flash of light signaled the sudden appearance of the eight travelers. "Ahhh!" Flash groaned as he hit the ground, everyone else doing the same. They all moaned as they picked themselves up, only for Flash to yelp, "You teleported us outside?!" "I didn't have a choice," Twilight replied, "Those jakhowls were in too much of a state to listen to reason." "So what?!" Ace yelled, "We're just gonna run away? That'll just make us look even more guilty." Twilight shook her head, "No, we're gonna wait. Hopefully, they'll calm down enough and realize we're not their enemies." "I don't think that's gonna happen," Heart added, "They were all pretty angry and that Razor is probably gonna whip them into an even bigger fury." The others nodded, believing the same thing. Seeing this, Soul sighed, "And things were going so well," She turned to see Flash holding up his sword. "But in the blink of an eye, everything we managed to build vanished." As she said that, Flash moved over to a river, dipping the blade down, the drying blood beginning to be washed away. As he did this, he could only let out a long sigh as he glanced back and saw Twilight, Soul and Mira all showing frowns. Spike and Ace both looked unsure, and Heart's smile had vanished. He was just starting to open up again, only to show that angry glare he had been wearing for so long now return. But then he turned to Springer, seeing the jakhowl stare up at the mountain. The place that could have become a second home to him, with the rest of his race being with him...only to now be an outcast. His own race now likely hated him with a burning passion. The sight made Flash shine the biggest frown he had ever worn in a long time. "So, what do we do now?" Soul asked as they just stood there. "If we can't get the jakhowls to believe us, what do we do?" "We should tell Princess Celestia about this turn of events," Twilight replied, "Spike, prepare a letter." Spike glanced around, only to show her a grimace. "Uh...Twilight?" Spike gulped, "We left all our things in the hut. They were probably all buried when Razor blasted it." They all moaned at this, Heart exclaiming, "So we're stuck a long way from any other form of civilization with no way of contacting Celestia and telling her about what happened?! We've been accused of murder with no way of proving our innocence, and there's a crazy jakhowl that wants to start a war with the ponies, who's probably preparing the rest of the jakhowls for said war! Am I missing anything?!" "Nope," Ace groaned, "That's pretty much it." And as they said that, Ace and Mira turned to see Springer walk away. The two youngsters wanted to follow, but Twilight put her hooves on their shoulders. They glanced back at her, the alicorn shaking her head. And as they looked back at him, the jakhowl was already almost out of sight. Springer moved into the forest a mile or so away and walked through the trees, the memory of the walk he had taken with Mirage the previous night fresh in his mind. His thoughts drifted back to the last moment of Sirius' life, when he had asked Springer to protect the tribe. He had told him to believe in what he believed was right and he wouldn't regret it. But now he felt nothing. The jakhowls were probably preparing to attack the closest pony settlement, wherever the heck that was. He knew they would likely be able to defeat normal ponies if they took them by surprise, but if Celestia heard the jakhowls were attacking, she would have no choice but to send her own army...and that would be nothing but a disaster. The thought made him remember when Shade showed him the past, the war between the jakhowls and Tricksters. It was something jakhowls should never do. The thought made him think back to all those encounters with Shade, seeing the cycle of hatred and how the jakhowls were about to go down that same path. Something he had told himself to dedicate his life to teaching Ace and Mira to never go down that path. "What do I do?" He asked. "Do I try and stop the jakhowls? Do I let Celestia deal with them and make them realize they don't stand a chance? But if I do that, the jakhowl's hate for the ponies will only increase." He muttered to himself, only for the image of Razor inciting the jakhowls to war now appearing in his head...only for the image of how the last war went now in his head. "NOOOO!" He roared as he spun around and thrust a fist into a tree, destroying part of the trunk and causing it to fall. He fell to his knees, tears filling his eyes. "Why?! Why is this happening?!" He then glanced up at the sky, "Dad...mom...any jakhowl. If you're really somewhere out there, I need your help. You told me I was the future of the jakhowl race...but what does that mean? Am I destined to be alone because the jakhowls will wipe themselves out again?!" But there was no response. He put his paw on his face at this, rubbing it down. "No...no...I can't let it happen again." And as he said this, the noise around him vanished, making him blink before he saw he was now in a white void. In front of him was his father Sharp Paw, a blue flame burning around the jakhowl. "My son...you don't need us to tell you what you need to do. That is something only you can decide." "But I don't know what to decide," Springer barked back, "This isn't Shade where its obvious what I have to do! I can't mess this up! I-I-I can't make the wrong decision and ruin everything! How am I supposed to undo what's been done?" "You can't. What has happened is something you can't run away from. You can't ignore. Only by facing what has happened can you hope to overcome it. And even if this results in the jakhowls truly being lost, you cannot let the fear of that possibility stop you." "But...but that's already happened before! I can't let that happen again! What if I make the wrong decision?!" "Then you'll make the wrong decision. But even if you do, it won't be your fault." The words made Springer shake, making him glance down at the ground, "My son, never forget you're not alone." He glanced back up at his father. "You have friends that are willing to help you. And not just the ones that are here with you now. All the friends you've made since hatching. They'll be there for you, to help you from making what you believe might be the wrong decision. Do you trust them?" "Of course." "Then do so and let them see that they can trust you as well." And before Springer could reply, the void vanished, Springer now back in the real world. The jakhowl rapidly blinked before slowly saying, "Thank you...dad." Mirage continued to cry as she sat in the middle of the Forest of Ancients, sitting under the tree her mother had been buried beneath. She knew she should be trying to sort out this insane situation, but she didn't know what to do. She had lost her last relative, and the ones she had just began to trust could be responsible. She sniffled and whimpered, rubbing her paws into her eyes, only for tears to leak out. She couldn't stand it as the dam kept breaking, water pouring down her face. And as she continued to cry, she turned to her mother's tree and placed a paw on it, summoning her aura, "Mother...what do I do? I've lost you and father. How am I supposed to go on now?" The aura flowed into the tree and she waited...only to feel no answer. "Mother...please help me. I...I can't do this alone. I don't want to do this alone." She sniffed and a tear fell from her eye onto the ground, soaking into the soil as it did so. Then, that section of the ground began to glow. "Huh?" Mirage stared at the ground as the light from her teardrop spread out across the forest floor. It was forming a vein-like line that ran through the grass and soil, Mirage blinking at it. Before she knew what was going on, she walked after it wondering if maybe her mother and other ancestors were trying to help her. And as she followed the line, she glanced around, trying to see if anything was off. But after a little while, the line just stopped. Mirage reached the very end and glanced up, seeing it had stopped between the two of the most outer trees in the forest. She placed her paws on the trees, "Why did you bring me here?" But the trees didn't answer, making her sigh in defeat...only to hear a snapping sound. She gasped and jumped behind a tree, turning to where the sound had come from. She was then greeted to the sight of a jakhowl she knew all too well. "Snivel." The small jakhowl, who hatched before her and Razor but had never figured out how to attain his older form, was making his way along the river while looking around. Mirage focused and concealed her aura, a trick she and many of jakhowls learned while playing hide and seek, hoping her disturbed state didn't ruin her ability to do so. She watched as Snival reached the waterfall she liked to spend alone time at, the green jakhowl continuing to glance around...only to hold up something, making Mirage raise an eyebrow. Back outside... Flash had just finished cleaning the blood off his sword. And as he did this, Twilight walked up to him, seeing he was inspecting the blade and seeing it was perfectly clean...but there was a huge frown on Flash's face, "You okay?" He heard Twilight ask, making him glance up at her. "Not really," Flash sighed as he looked back down at the blade. "This sword has done so much good. But...knowing it's been used to take an innocent life makes me feel like it's been tainted." Twilight nodded back as she sat down beside him, "I understand...though I don't get how the killer was able to grab your sword and make their way through the village without anyone seeing. And then come back through the village, carrying a bloodied sword. You'd think someone would have seen them." She commented as she stared at the weapon, "Say...could you put the sword down?" "Huh?" "Do it!" Flash didn't argue and did just that, the others turning to her. "Spike, Heart and Soul. Fly up and block the sunlight from touching the sword." The trio tilted her head at this, only to fly above the sword. They blocked out the sun's light as best they could as Twilight's horn began to shine. "What are you doing?" Ace asked as Twilight's horn glowed a strange purple light that shone down on the sword. This caused the sword to show as a bunch of blots on it. "What is that?" Mira added. "Blood," Twilight replied, "Flash might have gotten most of the blood off it, but there's still stains that'll be on the blade for a long time. But it's invisible until you shine ultraviolet light on it." "And what's it showing you?" Flash watched as Twilight kept studying the blade, turning it over several times before a smirk appeared on her lips. "The blood isn't even." She pointed at the middle of the blade, which seemed darker than the rest. "This is the blood that's been on the blade the longest. If it was used to kill Sirius, the blood should be on the tip. And like I said, the blood isn't even." She showed them one side, the other which seemed to have less blood stains on it. "This blood was wiped onto the blade. They did it on one side, but didn't do such a thorough job on the other." "So Lightbringer wasn't what killed Sirius!" Flash gasped as Twilight nodded. "But then...what did kill him? And how'd they get his blood on my sword?" Mirage watched as Snivel held up a red cloth, which he then wrapped around a rock and tied up before throwing it into the water. As the rock sank, Snivel ran off, Mirage staring at him for a second before silently diving in. Swimming all the way to the bottom, she spotted the cloth covered rock and grabbed it. And as she did this, she noticed some of the red was coming off it. Breaking the surface of the water, she gasped and swam to the shore. She then felt something dampening her paw and looked down to see it was covered in red stuff. And once she was ashore, dog shaking on instinct, she sniffed her paw and the cloth...and went wide-eyed. It was the smell of blood. Her father's blood. And as she continued to smell, she picked up another scent. Razor's. Anger flooded through her entire being, grabbing the cloth and almost ripped in rage. "Razor..." She wanted nothing more but to march up to Razor and use her Steel Paw on his throat, but knew her father wouldn't want that. She only had one choice. Inside the Tree of Ancients... The elders all sat in a circle, contemplating the loss of their friend and leader. Sirius's body had been removed from the tree and taken someplace to be prepared for his joining with their ancestors. The blood was still staining the floor and might never come out of the wood, though Cress was scrubbing it as hard as he could with a wet cloth their guards had graciously given them. But there was nothing else they could do. That is, till they heard a commotion outside. Turning to it, it sounded like a fight, only for a certain jakhowl to rush inside the room. "Mirage?!" Clair gasped as the jakhowl turned to her, the group seeing the fire now in her eyes. "Come on," she told them. "We're getting out of here." They all got up at this, glancing outside to see unconscious guards littered around the tree. Concealing their aura, they all followed her, able to do this due to Razor and the rest of the tribe training, preparing for a fight as the group quickly snuck away. Along the way, they saw Razor was even having the pups train. And by the looks of things, they were being forced way past their limits. "This is insane," Cress growled, "He's going to turn our tribe into a bunch of war-crazed authoritarians. All our future generations will only know one thing: To train for a fight." "A fight we probably can't win," Mirage added, "We have to get help. And there's only one group that can help us. I just hope they haven't left yet." They reached the far wall of the biome and followed it to the exit. The older jakhowls couldn't move as fast as Mirage, forcing her to go slowly up the stairs. And as they got there, they made their way down, only to spot the ones that had been wrongfully convicted of her father's murder. Mirage then dropped the mask on her aura, allowing Ace and Mira to sense her. They both spun around and gasped at the sight. "Mirage!" Mira cried as the silver jakhowl leapt from the mountain and onto the rocks. "Mirage," Twilight walked up next, "You have to believe us, we've been framed. Someone else-" She stopped when Mirage threw something at her, gasping when they saw it was a cloth. She grabbed it in her magic and looked it over, seeing the blood covering it. "Is this..." "A cloth soaked in my father's blood. Yes. Yes it is. I saw Snivel throwing it into a lake." "Snivel?" Flash asked. "He's a jakhowl that is the closest thing to a friend for Razor." Chrome said as the jakhowls all leapt down. "Clearly, there is only one explanation. Razor was the one who killed Sirius. And he tried to pin the blame on you." "So you believe us now?" Spike asked. "We always believed you," Clair chimed in, "But right now we have bigger issues. Razor is preparing our tribe for war. No doubt, he intends to leave and attack the closest pony town." "We figured that," Flash sighed, "I know you all are strong and will probably win a few fights at first, but you're seriously outnumbered." The jakhowls frowned at this, "How many jakhowls in your tribe would you say are actually capable of putting up a fight? Whatever it is, I'm willing to bet Equestria has at least three times that number. And that's before you add in the Crystal Empire, griffons, dragons, changelings, yaks and hippogriffs." "The jakhowls can't win," Heart finished. Mirage shook her head at this before growling, "I was worried Razor would only cause you problems. Now I'm worried he might wipe out our tribe. This could lead to the end of the jakhowls! Forever!" "Which is why we need to stop him," Twilight repied, "We have to show the jakhowls we mean no harm and were framed." "They won't listen," Cress countered, "Razor's gotten them into too much of a frenzy. They believe the great prophecy has come to pass. That ponies are the great threat and Razor will defeat it." "But...but there has to be some way to get them to listen!" Soul yelled, "I don't wanna fight the jakhowls, and I know the rest of Equestria doesn't want to either!" The elders glanced at each other, only for Clair to put a paw to her chin. Humming at this, she spoke up, "Well...what about a kyosongsai?" The jakhowl adults went wide-eyed at this, only for Ace to ask, "A what?" "It means great competition," Mirage replied, "A kyosongsai is how the jakhowls used to choose who the leader of the tribe would be. It hasn't been used in a long time, but any jakhowl can demand one of the leader." "Razor wants to affirm his dominance of the tribe," Core added, "Winning a kyosongsai would do that for him. But if we can beat him, the rest of the tribe would have to listen to us. It's the only way." "That sounds like what Springer's father did when he first met Princess Luna." Mira continued, "Remember Ace?" "Yeah." Ace nodded before turning back to the elders, "Alright, let's go beat him! Then we can stop this crazy situation!" "It's not that simple," Mirage sighed, "A kyosongsai is one on one. Someone will have to fight him on his own...and I don't think the tribe will allow a non-jakhowl to compete." "This could be difficult," Clair added, "Razor's enhanced form will make him difficult to defeat on our own." "That's fine." Flash chimed in, the elders turning to him, seeing the big smirk on his face, "You might not be able to match his power, but I know a jakhowl who can." Springer sat against one of the last remaining trees in the area, having vented his frustrations on the pair wooden towers. He was still at a loss about what to do, knowing he should go to his friends, but also wanted to be left alone. But as he stood there, he felt a certain presence, making him spin around just as something leapt out of the trees. "There you are," commented the jakhowl known as Mirage as she landed in front of him, "I've been looking all over for you." "We didn't hurt your father," Springer instantly replied, "You have to believe me!" Mirage nodded, "I do believe you." Springer flinched at this, only for Mirage to continue, "Razor was the one who did it. I'm sure of it. He framed your friends and he's preparing the jakhowls for war. If we don't do something, he'll get us all killed, and it really will be the end of the jakhowls." "I know that," Springer sighed, shaking his head. "But what can we do?" "There's a way to stop Razor and make the others listen to us. An ancient rite that any jakhowl can demand of the current leader. The kyosongsai. If you challenge Razor to it and win, you'll become the new leader of the tribe. You'll be able to get them to stop and listen to us." Springer took her words into his head and thought them over, making him blink before putting a paw to his chin, "A kyonsongsai...sounds like what my dad did back in the day when he became leader of the tribe." He looked back at her, "Why me though? Aren't you the daughter of the leader here? It should be your birthright." "That might be true, but...but you're the only one who can do it." Mirage responded, "I've...I've seen your power. Only jakhowls can challenge him, and Razor's powers are like nothing me or the elders can stand up to. Only you stand a chance of beating him." Springer stared at her, feeling the doubt he still had before saying, "And what happens if I lose?" Mirage didn't answer, almost flinching at the question as he added, "I've seen war before. Its not something any jakhowl should do." Mirage glanced away at that, "Is there really no other way?" "None that I can think of." Mirage walked up and placed a paw on his shoulder. "My father believed in you. And I believe in what he believes. You are the future of the jakhowls. Only you can help bring us out of the darkness." Springer stared back at her, the female seeing the doubt swirl in his eyes. But before he could say anything, another voice spoke up, "And you won't be alone." They turned to see Chrome, Core, Cress and Clair, the four remaining elders smiling at him. "We trust in Sirius's judgement as well. This is what you were meant to be." Clair nodded, "Razor sees you as an outsider because of your time in the outside world, but it's clear that your destiny was to grow up there so you might lead us better. Only you can bring our worlds together." "And we will stand beside you the whole way," Chrome added. Springer just blinked at them, only to slowly ask, "You...you're really okay putting your faith in me?" "Everything good requires a little faith," Cress instantly replied, "And I'm sure the future you bring us into will not only be good, but great." The others nodded in agreement, making Springer flinch, only for his face to slowly show a smile. He then spun around, now seeing his friends walk up, all showing smiles as well. Seeing this, Springer took a deep breath before nodding, now remembering his father's words. "Thank you." They nodded as Springer looked back at the elders, "Alright. If I'm gonna take Razor down, I'm gonna need to be at my best. And I'm gonna need you to tell me everything there is to know about this kyosongsai." "Luckily, we have time." Chrome responded, "Razor might be a fool, but he won't be so hasty to attack that he'll head out without gathering the needed supplies. I say we have until noon tomorrow." "Sounds good to me." Springer's body lit up with a flare of aura that made the elders' smiles grow. "Let's get started." The next day... Every jakhowl who could at least enter their adult form had been training well into the night. As such, they were still quite tired when Razor forced them to wake up so they could head out. The war with the ponies was going to start, and now that they had had a chance to sleep on it, many were starting to worry they had made a mistake. The elder's words had finally sank in, and many were wondering if the ponies actually had killed their leader. But one look from Razor whenever one brought this up caused them to flinch in fear, keeping their mouths shut. Now they were being led by Razor out of the biome. "Come on!" Razor growled when he saw several on the stairs slowing down and holding the line up, "Keep moving!" The jakhowl could not see how tired they all were, his eyes instead flaming with purpose as he ran up the staircase, only to hear a voice, "Razor!" He heard Snivel yell as he ran down the stairs past several others. "You've gotta come look!" "What is it?!" Razor growled, pushing past him and the others until he reached the top of the staircase. He made his way out of the cave, only to sense something. "Mirage and the elders!" He hissed, now remembering they had escaped, but hadn't thought much of them. He had simply assumed they had run off to be with those outsiders and he would deal with them after he conquered the ponies. He rushed down the mountain with many other jakhowls following, and when he got at the base, he came to a stop. Before him was Mirage and the elders, along with Springer and the invaders. They were all standing in a line, the group ready to stop them from going any further. Springer stood in the center, stepping forward as he locked gazes with Razor. He then sent out a wave of aura and connected his mind to all those outside the mountain. "Razor Fang, I challenge you to a kyosongsai."

Flash Sentry Chronicles: Jakhowls Rising

Chapter 6

The jakhowls of Aurarora that had been preparing to set out for war all came to a stop as they stared at Springer, the jakhowl glaring as Razor after he had issued the challenge of a kyosongsai. Razor Fang was growling at this, his eyes wanted to drill holes into the jakhowl as Springer stood there with his friends beside him. "You dare attempt to claim the right to demand a kysongsai?! You, the outsider who aligns themselves with our mortal enemies!" He turned to Mirage and the elders. "You told him about it, didn't you? You spit in your father's name, Mirage! Trying to get this traitor and his murderous allies to claim the right of leadership!" Mirage glared right back at him, "You have no right to speak about my father. Not after what you did!" She then threw down a certain blood-soaked cloth on the ground. "Everyone, listen. The ponies aren't your enemies, and they aren't the ones who killed my father." She pointed at Razor, "He is! And he got his lackey, Snivel, to plant the evidence on the ponies!" The jakhowls all heard this and gasped, all turning to Razor with wide eyes, "You think I had something to do with your father's death?!" Razor roared before pointing at Flash, "He was killed by the blade in his paws!" "No," Springer stepped forward. "That's just what you wanted us to believe. But it was you who did it." Springer pointed at him, "The elders told me everything about you, including your impressive talent over shape manipulation. You made a sword of aura that was the same shape as Flash's blade, and then had Snivel plant the blood on Lightbringer." "Do you hear yourself!?" Razor growled, "You're accusing me of this crime?! Why would I kill our leader?" "Oh, I don't know," Flash gestured to him and the rest of the jakhowls. "Cause you knew killing the one who wanted to work with the ponies you hate and blaming them would get you exactly what you wanted. A pointless war!" "And honestly," Core walked up, "I don't care why you did this heinous crime. What matters is that you did it and justice shall be brought." "This is ridiculous," Razor hissed before turning to the rest of the jakhowls. "The ponies have obviously brainwashed these weak-minded fools." He pointed at them, "Blast them!" But the jakhowls did nothing, "What the-what are you waiting for?!" "A kyosongsai has been declared," one of the jakhowls replied, "Until the challenge has been determined, there is no leader of the jakhowls." "Don't be ridiculous! He is an outsider! A traitor!" Razor exclaimed while pointing at Springer, "He has no right to challenge me!" "He's a jakhowl," another one responded "And laws state that any jakhowl, even those not recognized as members of our tribe, can demand one. You must accept the challenge or step aside as leader." Razor's eyes narrowed at this before turning to Springer, hissing at the sight of the jakhowl, "Think carefully about this. If you waste anymore of my time, I will not be lenient on you. I will accept your challenge and when I do, I won't stop until you are ripped to shreds. You sure you want to face the most powerful jakhowl that has ever been born?!" Springer glared right back at him. "You're strong, but I've faced way tougher opponents than you and come out on top." He got into a battle stance, "Now let's do this." Razor's glare turned into a smirk as he jumped off the side of the mountain. He flew down and landed on a rock before leaping into the air again. After several flips, he landed right in front of them and stepped on the bloody cloth. "You had your chance." The rest of the jakhowls leapt down, slowly spreading out and forming a ring around Razor and Springer. As they did this, Flash moved over to Springer. Putting his hooves on his shoulder, Flash started rubbing them. "You can do this buddy. This nutjob might be strong, but he's been stuck underground his entire life. Probably never been in a real fight. Not like you. You got this." "Thanks," Springer nodded, "But his lack of experience is probably made up for by years and years of training." He looked over at Razor and saw him talking with Snivel, "He's been waiting for this day for a long time. Now I'm all that stands in his way." "No pressure," Spike held up a drink for him to slurp through a straw. "But Flash is right. You can do this." The others nodded as well. As this was happening, several jakhowls moved over to Mirage and the elders. "Do you really think Razor killed your father?" A female jakhowl asked Mirage, who looked hurt hearing those words. "Yes," Clair replied, "Razor's always dreamed of becoming our leader. He probably feared Sirius would make Springer his successor and any hope Razor had of becoming the king he always dreamed he'd be would be lost. Not that he ever had the right or chance to be one to begin with." The other jakhowls nodded as the circle completely formed, Springer and Razor stepping forward. As they did this, Razor turned his attention to Mirage and the elders. "I hope you realize how foolish you've been. After I crush this miserable worm, I'll have no choice but to charge you all with treason." The five frowned at him. "Submit to me now and I might overlook this mistake. But I warn you, nothing you do once this kysongsai begins will earn my forgiveness." "We will never submit to you," Mirage instantly replied, "My father believed in Springer. The fact he did after only knowing him a day proves to me that he's more worthy of leading us into the future than you'll ever be." Razor shook his head before turning to Springer. "Your poisoning of their minds truly has sunk too deep. I hope you understand the pain and suffering you'll have caused for them." He got into a fighting stance. "When this is over, they will be forever banished from Aurarora. And if they go scurrying to those ponies for help, I'll simply crush them when I conquer the rest of this land." "You won't be crushing or conquering anything," Springer responded, "Your reign of terror ends here and now." As he said that, the jakhowls around them formed Aura Blasts. "Kyo!" They held their paws up. "Song!" The competitors stared one another down, "SAI!" The Aura Blasts flew into the air and collided, creating a loud explosion that signaled the start of the fight. The two shot forward, Razor creating a Bone Breaker sword while Springer used his Steel Paw. The pair roared as they reached each other, Razor swinging down the weapon as Springer raised his paws and blocked the attack. The weapons clashed with a loud clang, Razor's strength instantly pushing Springer back. But Springer quickly regained his footing and roared, "Aura Force!" He thrust his paw, firing the laser as Razor swung his sword in response, cutting right through it. And as the laser was sliced in two, Razor created an Aura Blast and leapt up before throwing the orb. Springer quickly dove to the side and fired his own, only for Razor to backhand it with ease, knocking it away just as another Aura Blast formed in his paws, but this one he shaped into a star that he threw at Springer. Springer gasped and side-stepped, barely missing his ear. Razor then launched more stars, Springer quickly dancing around them, only for one of the tips of the star nicking his cheek. His friends watched this, grimacing as they saw Springer keep getting forced back while Flash and Core just stared at the sight. And as Springer dodged another star, he put his paws together and formed an Aura Guard. The stars began to bounce off the aura barrier, Razor growling as he kept firing Aura Blast after Aura Blast. "You can't stay in there forever!" "I don't need to," Springer replied as the explosions kept smacking the shield, "Just long enough for you to exhaust yourself." "Shows what you know," Razor spat, "I'm the strongest jakhowl to have ever lived! I've spent years preparing for this war, and I've honed my body to become the perfect weapon! I can go for hours!" He then fired an Aura Force, the laser slamming into the shield and causing it to start cracking. Springer groaned as he felt the attack, "If you're so powerful, why do you need the other jakhowls? Go wage your stupid war on your own and leave the rest of us alone!" "I could," Razor hissed, "But these jakhowls need to see why we are the most powerful creatures in this world. Our conquest of those worthless ponies will prove to the other species that they are right to be afraid of us! We will no longer hide away from the world! We will rule it, and crush any who dare oppose us underfoot!" The jakhowls around him went wide-eyed at this, almost all frowning at the idea. They began to murmur, whispering how they wanted to live in peace and not have to constantly worry about being attacked. They wanted justice for what happened to Sirius, but now they didn't know what to do. And amongst the crowd, Snivel saw that the crowd was starting to turn against the Razor's opinion. At the same time on the other side of the fight, Ace and Mira were watching their guardian as the shield began to crack. But as they did this, Ace saw Snivel moving away from the group. He had a feeling he wasn't just bored about the fight, so he nudged Mira before talking to her through his aura, "We might have a problem," "What is it?" "I just saw that Snivel jakhowl walk away." Mira glanced out at the crowd, only to see no sign of the green jakhowl. "Where'd he go? We better keep an eye on him." Ace nodded and when nobody else was looking, they also broke away from the group and moved around the outside of the circle. And as this happened, Springer felt his shield giving way and dropped it before it broke, leaping into the air as the laser blasted down under him. He summoned his Steel Paws and spun like a top, flying down at Razor and slashing into him. "Augh!" The red and black jakhowl staggered back, clutching his now bleeding chest as Springer landed. The blue jakhowl started launching several more slashes, Razor backpedaling as he dodged each one by the thinnest of margins. He then formed a Bone Breaker sword and used it to block one of the attacks, pushing Springer back and cutting at his shoulder. "Gyah!" Springer jumped back and touched his arm, feeling a slight sting as Razor charged in to stab him. But Springer jumped to the side, rolling on the ground before forming a Bone Breaker that he snapped in half. The two jakhowls charged at one another, both clashing so fast that Flash was the only pony that could track their movements. And as this happened, he went into Theta Mode to keep track, the pair seeming to be evenly matched, Springer managing to hit Razor in several spots, but receiving several cuts for his troubles. They weren't deep, but each one had to be stinging and distracting him. The pair then stopped moving and locked weapons, glaring at each other as they attempted to overpower the other. But as this happened, a cut on Springer's leg exploded with pain. "AUGH!" He cried, losing his balance and allowing Razor to push him back. He staggered and barely managed to avoid getting his head cut off as Razor swiped at him, only for the cut in Springer's arm burst with pain. "Raaah!" "What's happening?" Heart cried as Springer dodged an Aura Blast while clutching a cut on his side. "I think Springer's injuries are more severe than they look," Soul added with a grimace, only to see him fall to his knee. "What do we do?" Spike asked, Twilight and the others not responding back to the drake. Mirage began to worry she might have led Springer to his doom, the jakhowl then looking down to where Springer's charges were supposed to be...only to find nothing. "What the...where'd they go?" Ace and Mira had detected Snivel as they continued to climb over some rocks. Following his aura to a higher section of boulders, they saw that they were now overlooking the area the kyosonsai was taking place. The duo then spotted Snivel, who was hiding behind one of the larger rocks with a perfect view of the fight. And as they approached, Snivel summoned some aura and condensed it down into a tiny needle, one that was so small that it was almost invisible. He held the needle between his paws and looked around the rock, then threw it. Moments later, Springer cried out in pain despite not being hurt. The pair gasped at this, "Cheat!" Ace yelled, making Snivel gasp before turning to see a charging Ace. He slashed a Steel Paw at him, the green jakhowl jumping back with a startle. Mira then fired an Aura Blast, Snivel yelping as he made his own and threw it, both attacks connecting and cancelling each other out. But as this happened, Ace leapt at him and summoned a Bone Breaker, Snivel jumping back at this before firing a ton of tiny aura needles. And as they struck Ace...he barely felt anything. Just a slight prick. "Well, that was anticlimactic." Mira glanced back down at Springer's fight, seeing the jakhowl covered in cuts. "They only hurt because they're being driven into open wounds. On their own, they're weak." "Kind of like him," Ace added. "You won't stop me!" Snivel growled back at the two, "Razor will be the leader. And when he's in charge, I'll be on easy street." "What?! That's why you're helping Razor?!" Mira yelped, "He's going to wipe out our entire species!" "Oh please. I've seen how powerful Razor is. Those ponies won't stand a chance. And when he rules Equestria, I'll be his right paw jakhowl." With that, he started firing Aura Blast after Aura Blast at the pair. Ace leapt in front of Mira and used his staff to deflect them as Mira took a deep breath. She remembered what Mirage had taught him, the yellow jakhowl digging deep as she started to glow. Taking a few steps back, she then charged as Ace continued to deflect the orbs. And when she was right behind him, Mira leapt straight up as the light around her flew off and split into two. Snivel saw this and gasped when he spotted a trio of Miras flying at him. He fired another Aura Blast and struck the middle one, but found it just vanished. He then shot the one to the left and it vanished, leaving only one, only for Ace to charge in with an Aura Blast, Mira making one as well. And with a mighty roar, both slammed their attacks into Snivel in unison, the jakhowl screaming as the attacks exploded and blasted through a rock before slamming into another. He slumped over next, the two panting for a second before walking over to the knocked out jakhowl. "Come on." Mira grabbed Snivel's right arm, "We gotta show everyone what he was doing." "Right!" Ace replied as he grabbed the other arm. Springer panted as he stood opposite Razor, holding his aching arm while his opponent shined a huge malicious grin. The bursts of pain had stopped, but he found he had no time to counter Razor as the other jakhowl charged at him. Springer tried to put up a shield, only for it to instantly shatter upon Razor's sword strike. Razor then swung at Springer and he staggered back, losing his balance as his opponent threw a punch right into his gut. Springer gasped at this, the air being forced out of his body. Razor then grabbed Springer's neck, Razor lifting him up before slamming him down into the ground. Had Springer had any air in his lungs, it would have been forced all out again. Springer began to cough, only for Razor to put his knee into the jakhowl's stomach. "It's over," Razor hissed, "You were a fool to think you could beat me. I am the future of the jakhowls, not you." Springer gasped again, feeling the world around him go black. "You're not the future of the jakhowls," he managed to force out. "And neither am I." "Oh?" Razor loosened his grip a little, "Then who is?" "Nobody," Springer gasped, "No one being can become the future of an entire race." He reached up and gripped his arm, trying to pull it off his neck. "You...me...we're nothing? Dust in the wind. We're just a single step on the journey our race will take. No more important than the last step, or the step that comes after. It's only the collective steps that give our race meaning." "Maybe," Razor tightened his grip again, "But one step is all that stands between walking into prosperity, or walking off the edge of a cliff. And I won't let us walk off that cliff." Springer felt himself beginning to black out again, and as he stared at the growling jakhowl above him, only one idea came into his head. He then closed his eyes, and with all the focus he could, he connected his aura to all those around him. Razor and the others felt this, Razor raising an eyebrow. "What are you doing?!" Springer didn't answer and instead thrust his paw up and grabbed Razor by the temple. And before Razor could pull away, Springer's eyes shot open and revealed themselves to be glowing. The rest of the jakhowls did the same, all now being brought under the Aura-Scape's power and pulled into Razor's mind. In the blink of an eye, Springer was inside a white void. Multiple images appeared around him, but he was only focused on one. One he hoped was on the front of Razor's mind. And sure enough, an image appeared that he passed through. In a flash, he was standing in front of the Tree of Ancients and moving closer. He then heard movement coming from within and leapt up, using his Steel Paw to dig into the tree above the entrance. Sirius stepped outside and looked around, allowing him to carefully jump down while concealing his aura. He moved into the tree and waited out of sight as Sirius returned. As the elder did this, Springer saw a Bone Breaker form in his paw that quickly reshaped itself into the exact same shape as Flash's Celestia Gear. And in a flash, he moved in and covered Sirius' mouth before thrusting his sword. "You old fool." He pulled and drew the sword from his back, dissolving it as it dripped blood everywhere. Sirius fell to the ground and Springer watched himself move around the elder. "The jakhowls don't need you ruining their lives." He kneeled down in front of Sirius and took something out. A cloth. "Those ponies will destroy us unless we destroy them first. But a weakling like you would rather bow down to them and become their slave. Well, I won't let you bring our noble clan down." Sirius coughed as blood began to fill his mouth, "Razor...don't do this." "It's over," Razor hissed, "War is coming, and I'm gonna be the one to lead us to victory." Sirius then slumped over as Razor used the cloth to soak up as much blood as he could. After that, the scene changed to show him standing in front of Snivel. He gave him the cloth and Snivel nodded before walking out of sight. That was all he got to see before everything around him went white and he could feel Razor fighting against him. He was suddenly ripped from the vision and returned to the real world, where Razor pulled himself away from Springer as he clutched his head. Springer gasped for air, finally able to breathe and panting as air began to fill his lungs. As he did this, he glanced around and saw the jakhowls' eyes returning to normal. He hoped they saw what he had and slowly, they all turned to glare at Razor. "You monster," Mirage growled in both anger and sorrow. "You took my father from me just so you could take command and trick everyone into thinking you were right!" "I am right," Razor growled, "I'm doing what's best for the jakhowls, and once I win this kyosongsai, you will all follow me!" "You're not winning anything!" Ace's voice suddenly called out, making them all turn to see him and Mira pulling Snivel toward the circle. "You broke the rules and had your friend here interfere!" "Tell them!" Mira pulled Snivel's arm back, making him cry out in pain. "Okay, okay! I admit it!" He screamed, "I was throwing aura needles into Springer's wound! Razor told me to!" Razor let out a snarl, only for the other jakhowls to glare at him. "You have violated the laws of the kyosongsai!" Chrome exclaimed at this, "By our ancient laws, you are no longer fit to compete for the right of leadership! You are no longer fit to be part of our tribe!" As he said this, Soul rushed over to Springer, her horn shining as she began to heal him. Springer sighed as he felt his wounds slowly close up, the jakhowl turning to smile at his charges. They grinned back as they threw Snivel to the ground while the rest of the jakhowls began to surround Razor Fang. "Come quietly," Core growled, "You have much to answer for." Razor's whole body shook, rage pouring off of him. "No...NO! This isn't how things were supposed to go!" They could feel him starting to build up energy. "I...I am the most powerful jakhowl! The king of our race!" "You are anything but a king!" Clair spat, "You are a fool, and a thug. If your parents were alive, I'm sure they wouldn't even be able to look at you!" Razor's eyes went bloodshot red at this as Clair added, "Now surrender yourself." "No," he whispered, "I'm...NOT DONE YET!" With that, his body exploded as a wave of aura flew off him, knocking everyone back. Jakhowls hit the dirt, some rolling and others slamming against the rocks. The only ones left standing were Springer and his non-jakhowl friends, Mirage, and the Elders. Twilight had put up a barrier to protect Flash, Spike and the twins while Chrome and Core had done the same with an Aura Guard. They all watched as Razor glowed and began to transform, his eyes glowing red as he entered his King Form. "Great..." Flash sighed as the shields faded, "Like this nutjob wasn't bad enough without that." They watched him as he began to gather more aura, only for some of the jakhowls to push themselves up and saw Razor looking ready to start hurt those around them, charging at the insane jakhowl. "Wait!" Mirage cried as some launched several Aura Blasts at him while others created Bone Breakers and Steel Paws. Razor saw them all coming, able to sense each of their auras as they drew closer. He didn't even move as he instead unleashed another, though weaker, wave of aura. This wave caused the Aura Blasts to explode, the force of them being blasted back to those that fired them. As some of the jakhowls were knocked back, others got through the aura wave and attacked, only for Razor to disappear. Within seconds, each of his attackers felt themselves struck in the chest, neck or stomach. They all cried out as their attacks faded as Razor returned to where he originally was and spun around. "How strong is he?" Spike asked as Razor glared at Twilight, his eyes narrowing on her as he charged with his sword forming in paw, "Look out!" Twilight prepared to put up a shield, but Flash was quicker. In the blink of an eye, he was in front of Twilight and blocked the aura blade with his own. "You're not going...anywhere near her," Flash grunted at the impact. "You think a pathetic pony like you can stop me?" Razor asked, only for Flash to start glowing. "You clearly weren't paying attention when Springer showed you his memories." Flash deadpanned. "Of course I didn't! It was nothing but lies, just like your lies over friendship!" Razor spat, the defender rolling his eyes at that. "It's no lie. Here, let me show you the power of friendship. ARMORiZE!" Razor was suddenly blinded as Flash morphed into his Shining Guardian form, the pegasi then slammed his hoof into Razor's face before thrusting his sword, Razor quickly blocking it. Everyone watched as Flash and Razor began to clash, both blades clanging as their bodies slightly vanished in their eye due to how fast they were moving. As this happened, Springer pushed himself back to his feet, "I gotta get in there." "No! You haven't fully recovered," Soul instantly replied. "It'll have to be enough." Springer groaned as blue aura coved him. "Mega Mode Power!" He transformed as he leapt at Flash and Razor, using his Steel Paw to slash at Razor's sword. "Raaaah!" Razor roared as he blocked the attack before leaping a few feet back as Flash and Springer stood side by side. "How pathetic. Needing the help of this pony to even stand a chance against me." "Like how you needed your little friend's help before?!" Springer responded as Razor growled. "And being able to work with someone else isn't a weakness. It's strength that those like you fail to see again and again. And like all those before you, you'll regret that mistake and every other mistake you've made." "My only mistake was not destroying you when you first got here." Razor's body glowed as his voice got louder, "You...thinking you can come here and take my title as king! I'll kill you!" Springer and Flash tensed up at this before the two, Mirage and even Twilight started firing at him with beam attacks. But as this happened, Razor was surrounded by a red dome of aura, which blocked all the attacks and several others thrown at him by the surrounding jakhowls. That dome then quickly began to reshape itself into his head before he floated into the air, the head growing the rest of his body beneath it. The jakhowls screamed as they ran away from the red avatar, all fearing that they were about to be crushed beneath its feet. Some continued to fire at it, but Razor's avatar just swatted the attacks away. And once the form had completely solidified, he let out a roar before launching an Aura Force through the energy jakhowl's mouth. "Look out!" Twilight screamed before teleporting all those around her away, the laser hitting the ground and causing it to explode. They reappeared behind the rocks and watched as the avatar started looking around, firing laser after laser from his mouth. "What do we do?" Soul asked. One of the lasers then hit part of the mountain, causing it to shake and rocks to break loose. They all gasped at this, some fearing Razor would cause the cave entrance to Aurarora to collapse. But Springer was more worried about his two charges, who were still near that mountain. "Run!" Ace cried as he and Mira tried to escape the falling rocks, blasting some of them as they ran. Snivel was right behind them, "Razor!" He called out, making the larger jakhow turn to him, "Bring me inside before I get crushed! Please, hurry!" But the jakhowl inside the avatar just glared at him. "Useless," he opened his avatar's mouth and charged up another Aura Force. "Not only have you never been able to access your stronger form, but you allowed actual pups to defeat you!" Snivel's eyes went wide as the laser exploded out the avatar's mouth. "BEGONE!" Snivel screamed as he tried to run, only for the laser to explode around him, sending him flying as a cloud of dust consumed him. Seeing him intentionally blast the mountain was the last straw. Springer got up and ran toward Razor, summoning as much power as he could. "RAAAAAAAAAAH!" He leapt into the air as an orb of aura formed around him, which then quickly reshaped itself. Razor heard his voice and spun around, only to get punched right in the avatar's face by Springer's. He staggered back as the blue energy jakhowl completed and grabbed the red one's arm. He then pulled him away from the mountain, spinning the avatar around him until Springer had his back to the mountain. "Yeah!" Ace cheered, "Get him!" "Beat that overgrown bully!" Mira added while the rest of the jakhowls and his friends cheered as well. The two jakhowls began trading blows, Razor slashing at Springer while Springer kept punching him. But as he did this, Razor began to step around, not even looking as he walked about, threatening to crush any jakhowl underfoot. As this happened, Springer tried to push him away, only for Razor to notice. Laughing at this, he started attacking Springer while trying to push him above a group of jakhowls, forcing the defender to stay in place. "So weak." Razor laughed as he opened his avatar's mouth and unleashed a blast of aura at him. "Whoa!" Springer yelped, raising his arms as the beam struck his avatar. The force almost knocked him over, Springer doing everything he could to hold his ground. "That's right!" Razor cackled, "Now fall! Fall into the mud like the miserable worm you are!" But before Springer could be overcome, something slammed into Razor's back. "AUGH!" His attack stopped and he almost fell over, only to spin around and see a flying Flash, "You ponies really are dumb. You actually think you can defeat me?!" "Yup." Flash smirked as he glowed as well, "Once again, you should have been paying attention when Springer showed you everything. If you did, you'd know you're not the only one who can create an avatar." With that, he formed the sphere of energy around himself. Razor's eyes went wide as the sphere then took shape and started forming the alicorn avatar. "Impossible! No pony can have that kind of power!" Razor exclaimed as Springer raised his avatar's paws at him before firing his own force attack. It struck Razor's avatar, knocking him forward, the red giant staggering away from the other jakhowls. Flash and Springer smirked at one another before Flash's avatar flew down, and once close enough, Springer's faded and he fell into Flash's energy field. Phasing through the light, he joined Flash in the air above Razor. "Ready partner?" "Anytime!" Springer cheered before they grasped paw and hoof. Razor regained his balance and looked back at his opponents, only to see the alicorn avatar begin to transform. "What?!" He growled as the energy construct rebuilt itself into a bipedal from while jakhowl-themed armor began to form around it. Soon, the transformation was complete and the pony jakhowl fusion spread its wings and took to the air. "What the...you dare use that power with a pony?! What kind of insult is this?!" "No insult!" Springer replied, "This is the power of two friends, working together." Flash smirked at this, "Maybe you'd understand that if you actually had friends." The avatar flew down and formed a Bone Breaker sword as Razor got into a defensive stance and formed his own blade. The two giants swung their blades, the clash causing a powerful gust of wind that almost blew everyone away. Many of the jakhowls at this point had run around the base of the mountain and taken refuge there, all safe from this powerful wind, but those that hadn't were forced to take shelter where they could. Ace and Mira had found a section of rock that formed a shield they could hide behind, while Twilight and the elders had put up magical barriers. They watched as the two swords struck one another with a mighty clang, only for the hybrid avatar to pull back and fly above Razor. This caused the red and black jakhowl to stagger forward while the avatar launched a laser from its horn, hitting him in the back. "Augh!" Razor felt the explosion, then spun around and launched his own. But Flash and Springer managed to spin through the air and dodged the attack before firing another laser. Razor blocked it with his sword as the flying avatar raised their sword and charged it with energy. That energy then flew off it when the sword was swung through the air, sending out a crescent of energy. Razor's eyes went wide as he once again blocked the attack, though the blow sent him staggering back. The flying avatar then shot down and before Razor could respond, spun around and kicked him in the head before spinning again and thrusting a hoof into the red giant's chest. "AHHHHH!" He staggered back, hitting the dirt and causing the surrounding area to shake. He panted at the strain of all the damage he had felt his avatar take, coupled with keeping the construct in one piece. And as he did this, the flying avatar slowly floated down to the ground. "How?!" He pushed his avatar onto one knee, "How is this happening?! I'm the strongest!" "Maybe you are," Springer replied, "But being the strongest doesn't mean you can't be beat. Especially when you're all alone." He turned to his friend, who smiled back at him. "Time and again, I've seen those weaker than the threats they face overcome them because they had others that cared for and helped them stand against that threat. No one being is invincible." He pointed his sword at him, "Let's end this...now." Razor let out a snarl, only to glance away as he saw the mountain and spotted something that made him smile. "No." He turned back to Flash and Springer, "This isn't over yet!" He launched an Aura Force from his avatar's mouth and it struck Flash and Springer, knocking them back as Razor pushed himself to his feet. "Stop!" Springer yelped as Razor charge at the mountain. "What's he doing?" Heart asked, Mirage not willing to wait and find out. She fired her own Aura Force at this, only for it to simply bounce off the energy body. The other elders also launched their attacks, along with Spike and the ponies shooting at him, but Razor either didn't feel the attacks or tuned them out, too focused on his goal to stop. And then he thrust his avatar's paws, "You're mine!" He declared as Ace and Mira saw the giant paws, both firing Aura Blasts to no effect. He then grabbed both in the energy construct. Flash and Springer charged at this, both yelling, "STOP!" only for Razor to spin around and hold up the duo in his avatar's paw. The pair were screaming at this, both in pain as Razor let out another laugh. "ACE/MIRA!" Heart and Soul cried as Flash and Springer came to a stop. Seeing this, Razor thrust his other paw forward, striking the hybrid avatar back. "Let them go!" Springer roared as their avatar regained its footing, the avatar's horn preparing to unleash a beam of energy. But as it did this, Razor clutched his paw tighter, Ace and Mira's screams now increasing in volume. "That's right," Razor cackled, "Try to blast me and I'll crush them like grapes!" "You coward!" Flash roared as Springer stared at his charges. "Let them go and settle this like a real warrior!" "Razor!" Mirage cried from the ground. "This isn't our way and you know it!" "Shut up! I will not be denied anymore!" Razor stomped his foot at this, sending a wave of wind that struck Mirage and blew her back. Twilight caught her in her magic, only for both to glance back up and see Razor clench his giant aura paw, making the two scream again, "I'll do whatever it takes to annihilate anyone that tries to stop my destiny. Now don't move and accept your deserved punishment!" He started firing blast after blast from his avatar's mouth, hitting the hybrid and knocking it back. Flash and Springer tensed up at every impact, each blow pushing them back, only for cracks to form around them. "Springer!" Mira cried as the gold and blue avatar began to break apart. "Flash, no!" Ace yelled as Razor charged at them. "NOW BE CRUSHED!" He punched the damaged avatar and unleashed a burst of energy from his fist, causing the humanoid energy pony to explode and send Flash and Springer flying. They cried out as they both struck the ground, slamming and rolling as Flash's armor vanished and Springer barely kept his Mega Mode on. Their friends gasped at this, only for Razor to fire another blast in front of them. "You will stay back. You will not help them. Stand and watch what happens to anyone that tries to defy the king of the jakhowls. Stand...and watch the future of my world!" Flash and Springer both glanced up at him at this, the two trying to get up. And as they saw the avatar began to walk over, he moaned out, "Alright," Springer sighed, "You won. Now let those two go." "Not yet," Razor snarled, "You still have to pay for your insults to me. Coming here. Trying to steal what's rightfully mine. Calling me a coward. You will pay for them all." He pointed at him, "Kneel before me. Announce that I am the true future of the jakhowls, or I will crush these two like the insignificant pests that they are." "You slimeball..." Flash growled. "I'm tightening my grip," Razor smirked as he did so, Ace and Mira screaming again. And as this happened, Springer saw the pain their faces. The sight made his heart sink, his mouth beginning to move as the words formed in his throat- "SPRINGER!" Mira's voice filled the air, making him stop. "Don't give up! Keep fighting and don't listen to this bully!" "Yeah!" Ace added, "He's just like Shade, just a big old bully!" Springer went wide-eyed at this, only for Razor to raise an eyebrow, "Who is Shade?" he asked, the group now seeing that Razor really hadn't paid any attention to Springer's past. But as Razor continued to squeeze them, Ace let out a scream before saying, "Don't worry about us! Do it for the jakhowls and the rest of Equestria. Blast him! Blast him right now!" "Ace...Mira..." Springer whispered. Razor laughed at the pair, "HA! You stupid pups! He will surrender as long as I have you. He is weak, just like you." Ace and Mira just glared at him. "You don't know anything!" the yellow jakhowl pup growled, her body starting to glow along with Ace. "We're not like you." "We're a team!" Ace added as the glowing grew brighter. "No...we're more than that! We're a family! Even if we're not connected by blood, we're connected. That's what Springer taught us when he wanted us to be the next generation!" Mira nodded, "And there's one thing we've learned about family." Then, they both yelled out in unison. "WE ALL FIGHT FOR EACH OTHER!" With that, the light exploded off of them. It started out as blue, coming from their aura, but then it changed to a shining golden light that filled the air. "AHHHH!" Razor cried, feeling his avatar's paw burn as the light ripped through the construct. The light off the two then flew off them and curved down toward Springer. The twin energies spiraled around before slamming into Springer, making him gasp as he felt it flow through him. Everyone gasped as Springer stood up and was completely enveloped by the light. Then, his eyes shot open as he felt new strength flow through him. The golden light began to merge with his body and form armor-like constructs around him, a helmet forming around his head, covering everything but his ears and bands. The same armor then formed around his lower arms and legs, with holes in them to allow his spikes to poke through. Finally, armor appeared around his chest and had an opening for his chest spike to stick through. From his back had something else begin to form out. A pair of energy wings that looked like they were made of feathers, which began to beat as Springer was lifted into the air. The energy constructs remained on him and shone with an amazing light, while Springer felt more power than he had ever felt in his entire life. Everyone else was in utter amazement. The bright light should have blinded them, but it actually made them feel better, stronger. The jakhowls that had fled around the mountain had been drawn in by this light, all just as amazed. Ace and Mira just stared at this, only to feel themselves falling. Razor barely flinched at the sudden transformation before glaring at the pair. He attempted to grab them again, but Springer appeared in front of the avatar and threw a punch. The force struck the remaining energy paw and made it explode, knocking Razor back with a cry. He then spun around and caught the two before practically warping down to where the others were. "Springer..." Mira looked him over, "What happened to you?" The jakhowl didn't reply, instead turning to Razor as he picked himself up. He then took to the air, flying through the sky like he had had wings his entire life. Razor healed his avatar's hands and summoned a blade, slashing it right at Springer, only for the defender to summon a Steel Paw and slash at the sword, and to everyone's amazement, the blade shattered. "No way!" Ace gasped as Razor pulled the sword back. "Impossible." Razor whispered as Springer formed an Aura Blast in his armored paw, which then reshaped itself into a star that he threw at Razor. The star shot through the air and Razor ducked under it, only for it spin back around and slam in his neck. "AUGH!" Razor screamed, only to then try and punch Springer in the air. But the jakhowl vanished in a blur before several super speed streaks slashed the avatar, the armored jakhowl reappearing behind Razor and blasting him with an extra strong Aura Force. This pushed him forward, away from the mountain and everyone Springer cared about. His friends watched from the ground, "It's like his power's been tripled!" Spike exclaimed as Razor tried to slash at Springer again, only for the defender to dodge and throw a punch into the avatar's face, knocking Razor back. Clair stared at the sight as she thought back to her great grandmother's words, "A jakhowl who would awaken a form greater than any other jakhowl, and use it to defeat the greatest threat our race has ever faced." The others turned to her as Mirage gasped, "Springer's the jakhowl of the prophecy?!" Core then glanced down at the younger ones. "And you two somehow helped him awaken it. How?" Ace and Mira blinked at the elder, only for Flash to walk over to them, "That's simple. Aura is the energy of the soul. So maybe if your soul is pure enough, something like this can happen." He smiled at the pair. "Springer was willing to risk his very life to save you two, and you were willing to do the same. That pure intention, complied with your care for each other must have awakened something." "That's surprising poetic coming from you." Twilight commented. Flash just shrugged, "I can use big words when I want to." The alicorn giggled and shook her head before turning to the elders, "He's right though. It created a new more powerful aura, that Springer was able to turn into a new power." "But if that's true, why hasn't something like this happened before?" Chrome asked as Springer stopped Razor's punch with his bare paws. "I don't know," Flash responded, "Maybe it's something that can only happen around a special jakhowl, or maybe no jakhowl's wish to help another was pure enough. Though that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that Springer has to power to take Razor down!" The others smiled at this, only for Cress to point at the battle, "Or does he?" They turned and saw Springer's glowing armor was starting to dim. "The power Ace and Mira gave him is starting to fade." And as Springer avoided another slash from Razor's avatar, he could feel his strength starting to wane "I need to end this, now." He charged and summoned a golden Bone Breaker that he prepared to thrust into the avatar's chest, but Razor blocked it with his own Bone Breaker. The giant weapon shattered, but Razor was able to grab Springer and crush him between both his energy paws. "Now I've got you!" He growled as everything except Springer's head was trapped, the armor around Springer's head now no longer glowing and starting to flicker out. "We have to do something!" Soul cried, Flash and Heart flaring their wings, only for Mirage to walk in front of them. "He needs our help. All of our help." She turned back to the battle and closed her eyes, trying to think the purest thoughts she could. "Springer, my father believed in you...and you were right. One jakhowl can't be the future of our race. Only when we all combine our strengths will we be able to forge the future we want." She started glowing. "Please, take my power and use it to save our kind from this monster." With that, her eyes opened and the light exploded off of her. It shot toward Springer and Razor, hitting the avatar's hands. Springer felt this, as his armor once again solidified and started glowing, only for Razor to tighten his grip. "She is right." Chrome added as each of the elders stepped forward and closed their eyes. "You can do this." They all began to glow at this, "We are right behind you. We trust you. So please, stop the madness before it's too late." The light shot off of him at Springer as Core continued, "You're strong in both body and in spirit. You have the strength needed to lead us into a golden age." "Don't give up," Cress declared, "Not yet. Our people need someone like you. So please, keep fighting." Clair nodded. "I don't need to see the future to know you are who we need. You, who doesn't seek power, are the one that is most worthy of having it." All their lights flew off them, meeting with Core's light. They also turned golden and struck Springer, causing his armor to shine even brighter than when it had originally appeared. Seeing this, one by one, each of the jakhowls watching began to focus. Spike and the ponies could only watch as each of them glowed and unleashed a light, all of them flying into Springer. And as each one hit him, he began to push Razor's grip back, the mad jakhowl starting to feel himself get overwhelmed. "No!" He cried, his avatar squirming to keep its grip. But then Springer let out a mighty roar. "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The avatar's arms exploded from the wave of energy flowing out of Springer, the defender thrusting his arms and legs out wide. The blow pushed Razor back, only to see Springer begin to fly upward, light now forming around him, "This...end...NOW!" The light then flew into Springer's paw and began to spiral around, forming a golden Aura Blast. "No," Razor screamed as he began firing Aura Forces at Springer, only for the light surrounding him to act like a barrier, deflecting each attack. "NOOOOO!" Springer then shot down as Razor fired another laser, only to thrust the orb forward, striking the beam and splitting it in two. "Aura...DESTROYER!" With that, the golden sphere struck the head of the avatar and unleashed a light so bright it blinded all those that saw it. And as they were forced to close their eyes and look away, Razor's voice filled the air as he screamed in absolute agony, "AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!"

Flash Sentry Chronicles: Jakhowls Rising

Chapter 7

Razor Fang was in absolute agony as the light from Springer's Aura Destroyer ripped through his avatar and struck him head on. He continued to scream as the light superheated his body, now feeling his fur beginning to burn away and blister. And as this happened, Springer flew forward while still in his armored state, the two jakhowls locking eyes in anger as Springer thrust his fist into Razor's face. The blow instantly knocked Razor back as the armor around Springer began to disappear along with his wings. Both jakhowls fell toward the mountain, Springer spinning around before catching himself using a Steel Paw on the mountain while Razor slammed into the rocks and slid down until reaching a wide ledge. He then collapsed as Springer landed beside him, Razor's evolved form vanishing in a burst of light. The sight made Springer sigh as his Mega Mode faded, only to stumble as he felt all the power now leave him. And as he began to slump over, Flash flew down and caught his side, "You okay?" The pony asked, Springer nodding back before seeing Mirage, Ace, Mira, Spike, the elders and ponies all appear a few moments later. "Yeah...I'm good. All that power's gone and I'm feeling a little drained." Flash chuckled back as the others all ran up to them "Springer!" Ace exclaimed as he and Mira tackled Springer into a hug, "That was awesome! You could fly!" Mira nodded as she embraced him, "You managed to beat Razor with all of our powers!" Springer smiled as he patted them both back, "Yeah...but I don't think that's something I'm gonna be able to do on command. Hopefully, I won't ever have a need to use it again." Mirage and the elders all chuckled at that, only to hear a moan beside them, all turning to see Razor already waking up. "So...what do we do with him?" "Good question," Core replied as Twilight turned to him. "What are your laws concerning murder?" "We don't have one," Cress responded, "We've never needed one. No jakhowl has ever done anything so heinous before. We've never needed to come up with such a punishment." The ponies went wide-eyed at this, only for Chrome to point at Springer. "Deciding his fate is the decision of the new chief." "What?" Springer instantly said, his voice almost shaking. "You won the kyosongsai. You are now leader of the jakhowls." Springer blinked at that before glancing back at Razor, seeing the jakhowl glaring back at him. "We should execute him." Mirage chimed in, the group turning to her with wide eyes, only to see her sigh, "That's what I want as his punishment...but I know my father would never condone such an action." She looked back at Springer, "What do we do?" Springer bit his lip at this, only to glance back at Flash, the defender giving him a small nod. "We have to lock him up." Razor went wide-eyed at this as the others just stared at the new chief, "He'll serve his time imprisoned where he belongs. Hopefully, that time will make him see the error of his ways." "But we don't have any way to keeping him contained," Chrome replied, "And as soon as he's regained his power, he'll escape again and we'll be right back where we started." Twilight stepped up at this, "The ponies will take him." They turned to her, "I've learned enough about aura to know how to block it. I'll place a rune on him that'll keep him from accessing his powers and Celestia can find a place in one of our prisons for him." "I see. Thank you," Clair nodded, "We owe you a great deal for all you've done for us." Twilight smiled at her as Springer turned to Razor. "Don't try anything stupid. We both know you're in no fit shape to try and fight against what's happening to you. Accept your sentence and try for some remorse. And if you truly do come to regret your actions and ask for forgiveness, I'll give it to you if I feel you're remorseful." Razor growled at him, "You would forgive me after everything I did?" "I'm not you," Springer responded, "I've seen how toxic constant hatred can be. I won't let it corrupt me like it's corrupted you. It'll do nothing but destroy me." He and all but Twilight and Flash turned to leave. "I'm gonna live my life surrounded by love and friendship, not fear and hatred." And as he began to walk away, Razor watched him as he clenched up his paws, "You...someone that weak beat me?!" he whispered as Flash and Twilight moved to his sides in order to restrain him. But as they were about to grab him, he unleashed a burst of aura that pushed them away. "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He threw himself back to his feet and formed an Aura Blast, firing it at Springer. Everyone spun around and saw this, Springer's instincts kicking in. He created a Bone Breaker and deflected the sphere with a single swipe, knocking it back into the mountain above Razor. The explosion caused the rocks to break apart, the jakhowl glancing up and saw a rock slide begin. Everyone gasped and began to run, the winged ones taking to the air as the jakhowls leapt away. But as this happened, Razor didn't move, his body clenching up due to the move he just did, Springer seeing this and gasping. He began to sprint after him, only for the rocks to slam down into Razor. The rubble made Springer leap back, the edge Razor was on now shattering into pieces. A second later, the rocks covered the side of the mountain, boulders falling for a whole minute as the group landed on the ground just outside the mountain's base. And as it finished, Springer stared at the now pile of rubble...and didn't sense a single life force inside the rock pile. The jakhowls all frowned at this, none exactly sad that the psycho was gone...but knew that it wasn't right that Razor couldn't let go of his hatred and instead had succumbed to it. Now, all he would be remembered for was being a criminal that almost destroyed them. And as everyone came down from the mountain, they all turned to Springer, ready to see what he would do now, only for another sound to ring out. They spun around to see the rocks on the mountain to move, only for a small green jakhowl to crawl out of a pile, "Snivel!?" Mirage yelped as the jakhowl coughed and brushed himself off. "How the heck are you still alive?" "No idea," he replied, only to glance around, "But what happened? Where's Razor?" "Gone," Springer responded, "And he's not coming back. The jakhowl you put all your faith in isn't gonna help you anymore." Snivel went wide-eyed before gulping as the others jakhowls all walked up and glared at him. The tiny jakhowl's eyes darted around at the sight, his body shivering before he muttered out, "That's...great." He turned to Springer and tried to smile, "I knew Razor was no good. I'm so glad our kind has a real leader to bring them into the future. And, of course, if you need anything, I'll be happy to be of service." "Guess nobody taught you anything about loyalty," Spike crossed his arms. "He needs a good lesson or two from Rainbow Dash." Ace added as Mirage walked up to the green jakhowl. "You helped Razor kill my father. His death is on your paws as much as Razor's." Mirage growled as she pointed at him, her aura now flaring around her. "T-t-that's not true," Snivel muttered out, "I-I-I didn't know anything about that until Razor came to me and handed me that bloody cloth." "But you tried to cover it up," Twilight added, "That implicates you in the crime. You should have told someone else. Mirage or one of the jakhowl elders." The others nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly with the visiting princess. Snivel then saw nothing but glares around him, his eyes shaking as he felt the auras around him now flare up. And before anyone else could say anything, he fell to his knees, "I was scared!" he screamed, looking like he was about to cry. "Please, have mercy on me!" He then actually started crying as he slowly crawled toward Springer. "I am your humble servant. I'll do anything you ask of me." Springer glared down at him, disgusted by his spinelessness. The other jakhowls looked up at him, ready to hear Springer's judgment, only to see the jakhowl just stare at Snivel. Silence now embraced the area, Snivel shivering as he put his face in the dirt. And after another minute, Springer spoke up, "Five years." Snivel glanced up at him at this, "You have until nightfall to leave these lands. After that, I don't want to see you here for five years. What you do in that time is up to you. You can live just outside the jakhowl land, or go find a far-off place to live. But if I see you in the lands the ponies have given us until the time of your banishment has passed, I won't be so forgiving." Snivel went fully wide-eyed at this, only to turn to the rest of the jakhowls. Not a single one seemed to be against this statement, clearly meaning Snivel wasn't going to get off. "F-f-five years?! How will I survive?!" "I don't know," Springer replied, "That's for you to decide. But if I find out you've been stealing or doing anything else that might hurt others, I'll find you and throw you in the first prison cell I can find." Snivel gulped at this, the jakhowl slowly picking himself up and turning to leave. Everyone watched him quietly walk away, stopping for just a moment right before entering the trees and looking back at them. Clearly, they weren't going to change their minds. As such, he disappeared into the woods. Hopefully, none would see him for a good five years, and he would return as something better. But as this happened, Springer glanced back at the elders, "Was I too harsh on him?" "No," Chrome shook his head, "You were right. Snivel has been behind those more powerful than him for a long time. Who knows. This might even help him learn to access his adult form." Springer smiled at this, only to spin around to the rest of the jakhowls. There, he flinched as he saw them all bow before him. Mirage was the first, getting down on one knee with her head lowered, and the rest of the jakhowls soon followed suit, Springer now truly seeing what he had become. "Springer." He turned to see the elders all moving over to a rock, one that had gotten burnt during his fight with Razor. He moved over as the jakhowls stood up, Chrome reaching down and taking some ash off the rock and onto his fingers. Springer knelt on one knee as Chrome and Clair stepped forward, Clair speaking up. "Do you swear to lead our tribe with honour, to uphold justice and to never use your position for any form of personal gain?" "I swear," Springer nodded, Clair smiling as Chrome moved up to him and using the ash to draw a symbol on his forehead. And when the symbol was drawn, Chrome and Clair both did a slight bow. They stepped back, allowing Springer to stand up as Core and Cress stepped up to either side of him, all turning to the crowd as Core spoke out to the masses. "The chief...has come home!" "Long live the chief!" Cress added as the jakhowls all cheered and repeated his words. Many started firing Aura Blasts into the sky, which collided and exploded like a bunch of fireworks. Springer looked out at all the jakhowls that were now looking to him for leadership and guidance, the task making him tense up...but he knew it was something he had to do for Sirius. For the jakhowls that had lost their lives to get to this point. And for all the future generations of jakhowls that needed him to create the best world he could for them to inhabit. But he also knew that this meant something else. And as he turned to Flash, he could tell his pony partner was thinking the same thing. Hours passed as everyone returned to Aurarora, all needing to focus on a particularly important event. Many jakhowls were glad this was taking place since Razor seemed to be so focused on his insane war that he didn't allow them the chance to do it. Had Springer not won, the time would have likely elapsed. But now, they were all gathered in an area of the biome that was entirely made of stone. The jakhowls were gathered around the stone circle, which had a large flat blackened stone in the middle of it. And on that blackened stone was an object that was wrapped up in ceremonial bandages, allowing all those that wish to pay respect the chance to do so without needing to see anything too gruesome. Once the body was placed there, Springer, Mira and the elders all gathered around it. Each had a wooden torch, which Heart happily lit for them. They stepped forward and each held the torches to the body, the flames catching onto the cloth that had been soaked in a special flammable oil. The body burned quickly, Mirage watching as her father's physical form was turned to ash. Everyone bowed their heads, the many jakhowls remembering the times Sirius had been there for them. As for Flash and the rest of the visitors, though they hadn't known Sirus for very long, also thought about how kind and understanding he had been to them. He had opened the door for the ponies and jakhowls to be united, and now it was up to them to make sure that unity lived. And as Sirius's body slowly burned to dust, Mirage couldn't help but start crying. Springer stepped up and placed a paw on her shoulder while Ace and Mira grabbed her paws, the jakhowl feeling how much they wanted to help her, Mirage smiling as she realized she wasn't alone. Not truly. The ritual continued until the fire completely burned away the body, then slowly went out as the last piece of flammable material was gone. The elders then used a special clay jar to collect the ashes, all of them being careful not to sneeze and breath too hard and blow the ashes away. Once the jar was completely full, they covered it up and everyone headed to the forest of ancients. As they entered, the jakhowls started using their aura to connect with the memories of their ancestors. Twilight and the others were amazed when they saw the trees begin to light up, Mirage giving them the same explanation she had given Springer before. Eventually, they arrived at the same tree Mirage's mother had been scattered under. Once there, Mirage took the jar and opened it up. Taking out a pawful, she started sprinkling it along the ground, Springer doing the same thing, followed by the elders, Ace, Mira, and every other jakhowl in the tribe. As the ashes were scattered along the ground, the tree they were spreading it around's light grew brighter as it spread to the ground. The ashes started glowing, the spiritual aura within them being drawn out and into the tree. Spike and the ponies also got to spread some of these ashes, something they all considered a great honor. And after they had done this, Mirage took the remaining ash and scattered it around the tree. The light spread to this new ash and also drew out the echo of her father, Mirage stepping back and taking a deep breath. "Father, I'll miss you. But I promise I'll keep doing your work for as long as I can. I'll protect our home, and show the world how amazing the jakhowls can be." Then, she opened her eyes and saw something that made her gasp. The light that was being drawn out of the ashes flowed upward like mist, which slowly began to take shape and form the blue ghostly image of her father. She could barely believe it, Mirage glancing around, but no one else seemed to see this. She looked back at her father and was close to crying again, but stayed strong for Sirius. Her father smiled and nodded, telling her he knew she would make him proud. This made her feel great joy and pride as another cloud of light came off of the tree and began to form next to her father. This did make Mirage begin to cry as she saw the form of her mother appear. She and Sirius smiled at one another before holding paws and turning to their daughter, Mirage's heart swelling at the sight of her mother after so long. She smiled back at them, wiping her tears as she watched them glance at Springer. Mirage knew what they were trying to say and mentally swore she would help Springer as best she could. She had seen how difficult being leader could be, and knew Springer would need all the help she could offer. The pair gave her one final smile before their physical forms began to fade away, transforming back into the glowing mist that had formed them and returning to the ash on the ground. The light was then absorbed by the roots of the tree and sucked into the trunk and leaves. Sirius had joined with his beloved in eternal rest, but would always be there for them if they ever needed his guidance. Springer, Mirage and many others knew they would likely be asking for that guidance in the weeks, months, and possibly years to come. They had stepped into an age of uncertainty, and there were many trials awaiting them in the future. But together, they knew they could overcome these trials. And as the prophecy stated, it would allow them to enter a time of unbridled peace. The golden age. It was a night of mourning and celebration as the jakhowls welcomed their new leader with a party that also acted as a funeral for Sirius that was meant to celebrate his life. Springer and his friends got to experience jakhowl music and song, along with their dancing. It continued right into the night, all soon too exhausted to party anymore. They all slept until noon the next day, and by that time, Twilight knew they needed to return to Ponyville and update Celestia on everything that had happened. As such, they were now outside the mountain, Twilight now working on a Rune Gate. They had managed to dig her saddlebag out of the hut's wreckage and were happy to see that the temporary Rune Gate was undamaged. Now they could go home, which meant it was time for a certain teary goodbye. "You're really staying?" Heart asked, looking ready to start crying. "We have to," Mira replied, "We still have so much to learn about the jakhowls." "And they've got loads for us to teach them about the modern day," Ace added, "Besides, Springer's gonna need all the help he can get now that he's the new leader of the jakhowls." Mira nodded in agreement while the twins frown at them. The pair pulled their pony partners at this, the four hugging it out as Twilight finished setting up the Rune Gate and turned to them. They then pulled away as Mira said, "Besides, it's not like this'll be the last we see of each other. Summer's not that long." That made Twilight go wide-eyed, "Wait...are you planning to come back to the School of Friendship?" They both nodded, making Twilight smile and clap her hooves. "That's wonderful." "Yeah," Ace laughed, "We can't drop out yet. Not after everything we went through to pass our first year." Mira nodded again. "Besides, your school is the perfect place for other young jakhowls to learn about how amazing the other kingdoms are. I doubt they'll be eager to go if the first two jakhowl students never graduated." Twilight laughed at this and nodded, then turned to activate the Rune Gate. As the beam of light flew into the sky, the few other jakhowls watching all gasped as Flash turned to Springer, "Well, I guess this is it." Springer nodded as Spike flew up to him. "I'm gonna miss you fuzzball," he pulled Springer into a hug, Springer chuckling as he embraced the drake back. "Same. I'm gonna miss our crazy shenanigans." Springer laughed, the two biting their lips, trying to hold back the tears. Spike then flew down to the pups, the pair high-fiving him before he flew into the Rune Gate, glancing back for a second before going through. Heart and Soul both shared a hug with Springer as well, the jakhowl telling them to stay safe and get stronger before giving one final hug with Ace and Mira before going into the Rune Gate, disappearing as well. Twilight smiled at the two young jakhowls that would soon be returning as her students, and then to Springer. "Things aren't gonna be the same in Ponyville without you." "Yeah," Springer nodded, "But you'll survive without me. And...thank you." Twilight tilted her head at this, "Thank you for taking me in and for showing me what a leader really looks like. I've learned so much from you, and I know that if I'm even half the leader you are, I'll be just fine." Twilight giggled at this and hugged him as well, "You're always welcome in Ponyville, Springer. Remember that." She pulled away, tears appearing in her eyes, "I know I didn't say it much, but...you're part of our family. You've always been the moment Flash found you." "I know. Thank you Twilight." The alicorn nodded as a few tears went down her face, "Goodbye. Oh, and I'll keep your room just the way you left it." Springer laughed at this, "It might need a bit of a cleaning though." Twilight laughed as well before wiping her tears away before walking up to the Rune Gate. She stopped and placed a hoof on Flash's shoulder, the defender nodding before Twilight went through the portal. With her gone, it was now just him and Springer staring one another down. Both weren't sure what to say, the two knowing this would be the most painful parting of them all. "So...this is it," Springer slowly said. Flash sighed and shook his head, "Honestly, never thought this day would come." He held out his hoof, "So long partner." Springer looked down at his hoof and took it, the pair shaking. "So long." The pair stared at each other, tears trying to appear in each others' eyes. Memories began to go through their heads at this. The day they met and became partners, working together to protect Ponyville. This was followed by them making new friends together, fighting in the Battle of Canterlot, their battle against Discord, their adventure in the mountain that bought them even closer together, their mission in Omniara, getting sucked into a comic book, Springer's time loop, learning about Springer's past, their adventure to the lost city and so many more incredible adventures. And it wasn't just the big stuff they remembered. It was the little things that they remembered the most. The times they simply hung out as best friends, whether it was reading comics, playing games or just relaxing or playing music together. The years they had spent together all slowly blurring into a group of incredible memories. There were bad memories as well, but those were few and far between the great ones they had made. And now, it was time to say goodbye. The days of making constant new memories was over. No longer able to take it, Springer and Flash pulled one another into a tight hug. "I'm gonna miss you." "I'm gonna miss you too," Springer muttered out, "But...it's not like we'll never see each other again." They pulled apart. "Just watch. Our best adventures are probably still ahead of us. And even if we won't see each other that much, we're still partners. And more than that, we're friends." Flash smiled and held up a hoof, Springer smirking back before their pumped fists. With that, Flash pulled away and began to move toward the Rune Gate. He stopped right in front of it and turned back to Springer, then looked past him at Mirage, Ace and Mira. "Keep an eye on him for me. Don't let him do anything stupid." They nodded with a smile before Flash and Springer shared one final look, Flash then stepping back into the Rune Gate. "Be happy old friend," was Flash's last words before he completely vanished. The Rune Gate then disappeared as well, vanishing in the blink of an eye before the paper that held it burnt up. Springer sighed as he spun around, now staring at his new home and family, who all stared back at him. He took a deep breath and said, "We've got a lot of work to do. There's a big wide world out there that needs to know the jakhowls are back, and it's up to us to prove we belong here. This isn't gonna be easy, but together we can do it." The jakhowls all cheered as they began to head back into Aurarora, Springer wondering just what was next for the jakhowls. And as he looked up at the sky, he felt he was already missing Flash and the others, but knew this was the right thing. And it wasn't the end. "Don't worry," he said to the wind. "We will meet again."

Foals and Mortals

pre

"Gchk?" responded Featherweight as Rumble dropped Hurricane's helmet on him "Darn right." He steadied himself, took a deep breath, and then plunged into the fray with purpose to do his best. I saw him descend, wings blurring, as he swooped in and snagged Silver Spoon to hoist her up into the air, kicking and cursing. "Oh no!" declared Rumble. He still wasn't looking at the audience. But he seemed to be riding some mad sort of determined high, and was powering through his fear of dialogue by shouting it all. "Our silly leaders aren't being friends! I, Private Pansy, think we should be friends, don't you, Silve-- I mean, Smart Cookie!" It was a little abrupt compared to the dialogue we'd had in the script for this scene, but at this point, the script was so much paper. And I could dig the brevity. "I'll kick you till you can't kick-- I, um," Silver Spoon paused, took a second to breathe and focus, and blinked at Rumble. "Er, yes. Yes!" "Very good! What about you, Clover the Clever! Shall we be friends!" Her head was still on the floor somewhere, amidst the mad scuffle. Maybe Rumble was planning to do the voice for it. I know I was. But before either of us could start up, Tag-A-Long broke in. She must have been watching from the sidelines, and, stars save her, she knows her moment. "''Esh I goo!" She doesn't know her approach, but she knows her moment, and that's the important thing. "Excellent! We've solved the problems!" yelled Rumble, powering on through his fears, ploughing on through the quickest approach to the story, getting us to what would be the ending. Not the prettiest or most planned of endings, but an ending regardless. He swept down towards the floor, dropped Silver Spoon into a semi-controlled tumble, and alighted right by the campfire, primed and ready to shine. "And so ponykind found the strength to stand against the windigos and the hatred in their own hearts!" I blurted out. I knew my cue as well. "And the fires of friendship shone like never before!" Rumble opened his eyes. The whole world must have been staring back. His hoof wobbled. But he stood his ground, and with a mad, delirious laugh, brought his hoof down on the button. What's that old things ponies say about stories? If your ending is strong, ponies'll forgive any weak beginning. The journey's important, but the destination makes it stick. We could have pulled that off, as well. If, at that moment, the fires of friendship hadn't misbehaved. Rumble kicked the button, and a prolonged gurgling noise came from the campfire ring. And then, just as whichever of us were left standing and paying attention and not kicking or getting kicked broke into the first line of, "The fire of friendship lives in our hearts--" it spat out and set the curtains on fire. At that point, Twilight just kinda stood up and shut everything down, and everything after that's a blur. "Well," I said, in the hush of afterwards. "That was, um ... that was a play." Rumble considered this. "Yep," he agreed. There didn't seem much more to say on the topic at that time, so we just sat together in silence and watched from a balcony in the School of Friendship as a general state of kerfuffle spread below us. We still had our costumes donned. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and their parents were fussing over their bruises and throwing the occasional dark look at Dinky, who seemed to be coming down from the highs of Platinum, but only slowly. Ditzy hovered over her, proud as anything, and cooed over her sword. To their left, Apple Bloom stood with Twilight, all her friends, and Bulk Biceps as they tended to the semi-concussed Cheerilee, Sweetie Belle, and Featherweight. Apple Bloom was explaining things. Sweetie Belle, though still a little dizzy-looking, looked thrilled that the play had gone off, at least. Miss Cheerilee looked as if she could do with having a few less things explained to her, thanks. By them, other teams of ponies and some of Twilight's students hurried about with buckets, often crashing into each other, and doing their best to arrest a plume of smoke puffing out of the auditorium's open door. By that door, the hastily-reassembled Clover the Clever stood, and looked faintly proud. It was a pommel-horse with a history, now. Lights shimmered around it and the door, and green seemed to have made Clover its perch. I reckoned there was enough acrimony here to keep some of us from not talking to certain others for, oh, a couple of weeks at least. And enough bad decisions to keep us all grounded for the next thousand years. But I could worry about that in a sec. Right now, nopony had noticed me, and nopony was yelling yet. "So," I said. "You still low about Thunderlane missing all that?" Rumble considered the question, very carefully. "No," he eventually allowed. "No, I think ... no. No, he's better off having fun with the Wonderbolts, I think. In fact, he's welcome to stay there until everypony forgets about what happened here and who was involved." "Yeah. I think we've dodged a crossbow bolt there." I winced a little. "Mind you, Rainbow Dash's probably already writing to ask how it went. She's going to laugh till she's sick when she hears the story. And then she'll groan for weeks about how she missed all the fun." "Same with Thunderlane." Rumble grinned ruefully. "He'll want details. Exhaustive details." We were quiet for a moment longer. From below, the sound of Miss Cheerilee having conniptions arose. Then Rumble said, "Hey, you know, you were a great chorus. You told it awesomely. And, y'know, kept things as on-track as you could, for what you had to work with." Alright, I blushed a little. It's not every day you're told you were a great chorus. "Heh. Thanks. You were ..." Honesty kicked its spurs in, and I wobbled for a second. "Alright, I won't lie. You were warming up to Hurricane, even if it was taking a while. But you were a great Pansy. Saved the whole play, right at the end there." He grinned again, this time with extra rue. "I'll put that in the next letter I write to Thunderlane. Scootaloo says I'm a great pansy. Though, um, if I saved the play there ... call it even for Cutie Mark Day Camp and everything I did there?" I felt we'd been even since the start. But he was smiling and expectant, and what the heck. There were worse ways to round things off. "Even," I confirmed, and sealed the deal with a hoofshake. And then, when he was least expecting it, I turned that hoofshake into a hug. He protested. He didn't do affection. But he didn't protest that much. The sounds of fervent arguing rose up, as Twilight seemed to be making plans to gather up all the wild light and release them into the next aurora that came migrating by. And I knew I'd have to go down and face the music alongside Apple Bloom and the others. Friends don't leave friends in the lurch. But let's leave that for another story, and close off on me hugging a friend who'd helped us finish a play, and bring something vaguely resembling the magic of friendship to the season. Sappy, I know. But what better season for sap?

Halo: ODSP

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"I'm telling ya I didn't hit Rainbow! I shot the jackal, nothing more!" Twilight suddenly disappeared in a flash of pink and reappeared outside near where Fluttershy had caught Rainbow Dash. She reappeared a few seconds later, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash in tow. Rainbow Dash was wide eyed and frozen, but had no visible bullet wound. "See?! I told you I didn't hit her!" Romeo's voice broke Rainbow's paralysis. She flew over towards Romeo, knocking AJ, Pinkie Pie and Rarity away. She was in his face again, just like during the manticore incident. "YOU! YOU ALMOST HIT ME, YOU JERK!!!" Romeo, undaunted, pushed the pony off and rose to his feet, the rainbow maned pony hovering in front of his face the whole time. "And if YOU hadn't have been showboating so much I wouldn't have had to make that dangerous shot! You should be grateful! I saved your life!" "You saved MY life? You missed the first go round! I knocked him off! If I hadn't come along you'd have been dead!" "Twilight saved me! If you had knocked the jackal off right the first time we wouldn't be having this shouting match!" "EEENOOOUUUGH!!! Lightning filled the skies outside the throne room when Princess Luna made herself heard. Her voice was more deafening than ever, and Buck's ears were ringing, even through his helmet. He wondered if his eardrums really would have been shattered had he not put it on after the sniper's first barrage. "BE STILL YE FOALS AND HUMANS!" Luna soon noticed everyone's wincing faces and covered ears and lowered her volume. "An attempt has been made on our life and the Covenant has dared to enter our kingdom of Canterlot. We believe it would be best if we stayed here and guard the kingdom whilst thee venture to Appleloosa and claim thy weapons. This night's events have made it clear to us that you humans are better versed in the ways of conflict than we are. We...humbly ask for your assistance in dealing with the Covenant." Romeo slung his rifle on his back and walked by Rainbow Dash who was still huffing after their argument. He joined his fellow ODSTs and turned to face Luna. He spoke for the group. "Your highness, it'd be our pleasure."

Halo: ODSP

Ch. 6 - Railway

Tiberium was furious. According to one of his underlings a scouting party he had sent to observe the mountainside castle had been wiped out by the humans...those damned humans. He had dispatched a number of scouting parties but none had provided any intel, save the fact that one of his brutes had reported to him that a jackal had observed weapons' discharges from the top of the mountainside castle city. Tiberium sometimes wished he had the jackal's keen eyesight, being able to see things dozens of kilometers away was certainly an enviable trait. Their species was an asset to the Covenant but their want of money and general mercenary way of doing things made them somewhat unruly, especially after the Great Schism; he heard reports of them already dealing weapons with humans, even three months after the Heretic 'Vadamee had slain the Prophet of Truth. His Phantoms were on patrol, as well, but the dense forests in the area would make ample cover for the humans. He had considered sending more scouts up to the palace but an enormous lightish red bubble had appeared around the entire mountain city. The two Phantoms he had sent to investigate had lost power once they tried to breach the bubble. The Phantoms had plummeted hundreds of feet and were ripped open on the crags. They didn't explode due to their lack of power but Tiberium couldn't imagine any of his troops surviving. Suddenly he was down dozens of soldiers, a pair of Phantoms, as well as two Hunters. Tiberium was shaken from his pondering of recent events by the annoying blathering of a grunt. He picked up the squatty creature and seriously considered biting its head off but remembered how foul Unggoy tasted and thought better of it. Instead, Tiberium ripped of the grunt's methane mask and dropped the little alien to the ground, pinning it under his foot. The grunt gasped in the oxygen rich air and began to squirm without its life giving methane. Tiberium chuckled. "Now, I'm going to give you ten seconds to think about whatever it is you were going to tell me, and if it satisfies me, I'll return your mask to you; if not, I'll remove your head and put your mask back on it." Tiberium waited the ten seconds then gave the mask back to the grunt's grabbing hands. "Speak." "Boss..." The grunt gasped. "We found something. Long strips of metal that go on forever...looks like track for vehicle." Tiberium grunted. He lifted his foot and the grunt scurried up and stood a few feet away. "Gather some grunts and be ready. You're going to follow that rail and see where it leads." Tiberium let out a small smile. Surely this rail was a means of transportation. If he followed it he would find something. Perhaps the humans, perhaps not. Maybe they would find some of these new pony creatures...Tiberium always liked torturing a new species. Either way, something was sure to be found, and may hap something would die. He would definitely enjoy that. ~ ~ ~ Now we're riding a steam engine...wonders really will never cease. The more he thought about it, the more it really felt as if he and his ODSTs had gone through a magical time machine. Magical ponies, unicorns, and pegasi all on an invisible planet that seemed to be in another, more primitive time, but had technology of late 19th century Earth. Now, his men were accompanied by the six ponies they had met over the past few days and were going to a town called Appleloosa to retrieve their weapons dropped by Captain Dare and the UNSC Prowler Fast and Loose. The train's mechanical hum helped them to get some decent sleep until they were awoken by an intercom message informing them they were about to enter Appleoosa. It still amazed Buck how rural the ponies were despite having electricity. It was far too low tech for his tastes but Buck thought he could live out here given the peaceable nature of the ponies. They knew little of war, greed, or hate, and Buck had had enough of that these last two decades. His ODSTs began to stir, all of which, of course, except the Rookie. He had assumed the Rookie was just able to turn on and off at will. Buck remember a story the Rookie told him, once. The Rookie had once ran several kilometers flat out and took shelter on the other side of a mountain, surviving a Shiva nuke being detonated in the process. Dirty ODSTs had been involved, something about stealing gold from a city vault that was about to be glassed and abandoning civilians...it had turned Buck's stomach, but Buck was most impressed with the Rookie's endurance, being able to run that far knowing a nuke was hot on your heels. Buck figured if you could outrun a nuke, not much could scare you, so the Rookie slept when he could and stayed frosty every waking moment. The ODSTs had a train car to themselves and the six ponies had one of their own, and Applejack made her way to greet Buck. Mickey let loose a yawn that was instantly contagious; Buck yawned, followed by Mickey and Romeo, and AJ, too. The Rookie was the only one who showed no sign, still wearing his helmet. To Buck's fascination, the Rookie once told him it was cozy inside; he was rarely seen without it. "So, I reckon y'all are gonna want to find your weapons, first?" Buck rubbed some sleep from his eye. "Yes, ma'am. Our current arsenal in a joke. We wouldn't last five minutes if they sent a squad after us. Hopefully we can get outfitted and roll back to Canterlot within a few hours, then we can take the fight to them." He noticed Applejack frowning. He cocked his head and shrugged, prompting Applejack. "Well, its just all this talk about fightin' and killin'...Ain't there any other way to handle this?" Romeo spoke up. "You've got to understand something. These things spent the better part of three decades trying to wipe us out. There isn't any reasoning with them." Romeo thought for a second. "Have you ever seen glass at the bottom of a fire pit or furnace?" Applejack nodded. "Well, the Covies can do that to ENTIRE planets. They've glassed dozens of worlds trying to kill us. I hate to shatter your perception of perfect little peaceful world, but we have to kill them..." Buck raised his arm to Romeo's chest. "Alright, that's enough." Applejack was clearly shaken. "Ah didn't know. That's...awful" "Yes, it is." Buck said dryly. "So, what is this Appleloosa like?" Mickey asked, ever inquisitive. "Well, mah cousin Braeburn lives there. Its a humble little town that has apple orchards on the outskirts of town. Its pretty sandy and desolate all around but its a nice change a' scenery." "From what Princess Luna showed us, it looks like something out of a western." Applejack cocked her head at Dutch. "A what, now?" "Oh, umm...back on Earth its a movie genre. You have movies here, right?" Applejack nodded. "Well, most westerns featured a town like this Appleoosa, and it usually involved cowboys and the like, fighting over one thing or another." "Y'all humans sure do love fightin'..." "I'll say they do..." Rainbow Dash fluttered over Applejack's head into the ODSTs' car. She landed, a small scowl on her face. "Its in our nature, Miss Dash. We've been doing it for thousands of years." Dutch was rubbing the back of his head in apology. "Maybe at the end of this war we can finally make peace and do what the Good Book says." Twilight poked her head. "Ooh, I love books! What's this one about?" "Well, in the beginning, the Earth was..." "Dutch, please don't start a theological discussion with the ponies. It would take too long and I don't want to see them arguing with you over your points of view." Dutch slumped. "Okay, Gunny." "We might not have to fight at all, thanks to my brother. He's the one that put the magical bubble shield up to protect Canterlot. Its practically impenetrable..." Practically isn't completely, Buck thought. It was still night thanks to Celestia's recovery but Buck had gotten used to it. At least the stars still moved, so he guessed Luna was still performing her nightly duties. In the hard pan of the the desert the night was a blessing, really. They wouldn't have to worry about heat should they be forced into a fight out here. Buck got back to the matter at hand. "Are there any defensible positions in the town? I don't want to fight there if at all possible but just in case I'd like a layout of the town. Is it flat, is it hilly, are there any high positions we could get Romeo into so he can survey the area?" "Well, gosh, lemme think...there's a clock tower near the center of town, at least there should be. When we fought the buffalo the last time we were there..." "Whoa, whoa, whoa...you ponies actually FOUGHT something? Buffalo, you said? And here you are giving us a hard time..." "You listen here, Romeo..." The cyan pony hovered in front of Romeo's face. "Calm down, Rainbow. Yeah, we fought em, but we didn't kill any of em. We only used apple pies..." Romeo frowned. "Really? Pies in the face as offense. Well, I must still be asleep. OOOOOWWWWW!!!" Romeo clutched his cheek where Dutch had pinched it. Rainbow Dash chuckled and held out a hoof to Dutch who bumped it with his fist, his previous slight about humanity's warlike nature temporarily forgotten. "Will everypony PLEASE keep it down? Fluttershy and I are trying to get our beauty sleep!" The purple maned unicorn poked her head into the ODSTs' car, startling them with her cucumber eyes and off blue revitalizing mask. "If you wouldn't mind, that is..." Fluttershy's voice was barely audible over the low hum of the train. Buck wondered how anyone could be so shy, save his 3rd grade crush back on Draco III. "You see? That one has the right idea." Rarity raised a hoof and pointed at the Rookie who was still asleep despite the bustling conversation. She slammed the compartment door and a collective sigh went out amongst the ponies and humans. How she could see through her cucumber covered eyes Buck could only guess. "He sure does sleep a lot, doesn't he?" Buck turned around and was surprised to see Pinkie Pie examining the Rookie. He did a double take at the door Rarity had just closed and then jerked his head back to the pink pony. "How..." He felt a nudge on his leg. Its owner was Twilight. "Its best not to ask. I've done tests and well...I can't explain some of the seemingly supernatural stuff Pinkie can do. The best thing to do is just accept it." Buck looked back towards Pinkie and shrugged. The pink pony had practically teleported from the next car and now held a marker in her teeth. She looked as if she was going to decorate the Rookie's VISR as the ponies had done to Romeo earlier back in Ponyville. She came within an inch of the Rookie's helmet and a hand whipped out and grabbed the marker. The other ponies gasped but Pinkie just smiled. "Oh, you don't want me to decorate your helmet? Its so dull and black. It could use some color!" "Sorry, Pinkie, but with it still being dark out those colors would just make us too noticeable. Its a wonder they didn't spot us on the way to the castle. You girls stick out like a sore thumb." Pinkie put a hoof under her chin and thought about Buck's statement. "What's a thumb?" Buck held up his hand and wiggled his digits and gave a thumbs up, pointing at it with his other hand. "Anyway, Gunny's right. Bright colors get you noticed." Dutch added. Mickey thought so, too. "Yeah, bright colors are a death mark at night." Romeo was grim but to the point. "Eeyup." The Rookie agreed. The ponies stopped, looked at each other, and started laughing like never before. The ODSTs looked at each other, wondering what had been said or done that was so funny. Sure, the Rookie didn't talk much, but he had just agreed with Romeo. Buck couldn't imagine what was amusing about that. "I SAID TO KEEP IT DOOOOWN!!!" Rarity banged on the cabin from the next car. "You don't want me to come over there again, do you?" "No..." "Uh uh." "No ma'am!" "Nnnope." The ponies rolled with laughter more than ever, and Buck was still at a loss. Once again the Rookie had just agreed with them. What was so damned funny? ~ ~ ~ The Rookie's first reaction was a surreal one. The town was straight out of a western, just as Dutch had said. While it was still dark out the town was lit up by gas lamps which adorned the "old" buildings. There didn't appear to be any shops open but the local saloon was raucous and a player piano could be heard billowing from its swinging double doors. He guessed that most of the town was in there by the sound. The eleven companions departed the train station and made their way to the saloon, Applejack hoping to meet her cousin and his Sergeant hoping to get out to the weapons as soon as possible. The ponies entered first, a few wolf whistles could be heard, especially when Rarity and Fluttershy entered, the latter having to be practically dragged back in by Twilight with Fluttershy's tail held aloft by Twilight's magic. Greetings for Applejack were abundant and Pinkie ran over to the piano and hopped on and started to dance. The ODSTs had lingered outside, waiting to see if Braeburn was, indeed, in the saloon. Applejack soon emerged with a pale yellow pony, complete with a what appeared to be a brown leather vest and hat. The Rookie wondered how the ponies harvested leather in the first place. Assuming it came from cows; they obviously weren't carnivorous so what would they do with the rest of the cow? "C'mon, Rookie, time to mingle." The Rookie was shaken from his pondering by his Gunnery Sergeant. As the ODSTs entered the saloon the only noise that could be heard was Pinkie's dancing and singing which, to her credit, the Rookie somewhat enjoyed. Her performance wasn't half bad. The other ponies were in awe of these strange creatures who walked on two legs and had digits where their hooves should be. Applejack's cousin broke the silence. "Hey, y'all! These here are humans! They come from another planet and need to pick up some supplies. Apparently that meteor shower the other day was really some of their equipment that fell from their space ship!" A low murmur started up buy Braeburn continued. "Don't worry, none, they'll be packin' up and goin' back to Canterlot once they get all their stuff. In the mean time, let's give em a warm welcome! Whaddya say?" Silence. Nopony made a sound. Even Pinkie Pie had quieted down. Dutch was the one who followed up Braeburn's speech. "So...what's there to drink around here?" The barkeep approached the counter top. He had a handlebar mustache, a comb over hairstyle and a monocle, complete with white cuffs at the end of his hooves and a nice grey vest and tie. He looked nervous but answered Dutch's question as though he were any other paying customer. "We have apple cider on tap from Sweet Apple Acres, Applekjack's farm, some corn whiskey from Kenbucky, and water and soda, a'course." Dutch looked at Buck who nodded. "Alright, we can each have a little to drink and then we head out, clear?" "Yes, sir!" Dutch turned back to the barkeep. "Gimme a shot of whiskey and a mug of Cider!" The barkeep smiled. "Comin' right up!" The other ponies were still quiet and watched in silent wonder. The wooden mug was filled to the brim and foam dripped down its side. Dutch slurped the excess foam and took the shot and mug in hand and raised it in salute to the patrons of the Salt Block Saloon. "DOWN THE HATCH!" Dutch dropped the shot into the mug of cider and upended the mug and began to chug. The Rookie observed a transformation within the ponies at the bar. While most of their faces had been neutral to fearful upon the ODSTs' arrival, the act of Dutch chugging a whiskey spiked cider got them into a cheerful frenzy, and when the big man slammed the empty mug on the bar top and shouted "THAT'S GOOD CIDER!" the crowd erupted into cheers. The music started up again and the barkeep started filling mugs and taking orders. The Rookie let go a rare chuckle, under his breath, of course. He noted Buck had quickly lost control of the other ODSTs. Mickey ran to the bar after Dutch's demonstration of his alcohol imbibing prowess and tried to copy the act, but coughed about halfway through, spilling the rest of his cider, raising laughs and guffaws all around the saloon. Romeo took a bourbon and soda and pounded it back in one gulp then had a cider to follow up. Buck helped Mickey up and walked his way through the crowd of ponies to where the Rookie was leaning. "I guess with your helmet still on you're not going to partake in any of the festivities?" The Rookie merely shook his head. "I guess we really should get going to find the drop pods from Fast and Loose. Hopefully the Captain sent us some goodies. We could use em. You running low?" The Rookie detached his pistol from his thigh and ejected the clip. Six holes with even ascending numbers two through twelve shown on the outside of the clip, with the '8' hole showing the brown metal of a shell casing. The Rookie held up the clip to Buck, gave a shrug, and slammed the clip home. He slapped the pistol back on his hip with a pop. "Alright, I'll give the boys an hour or so to sober up and then we'll get going. I'm gonna go have a round." He paused. "I hate to ask but since you're not going to have a drink why don't you walk around town and have a look around? Scout out some defensible positions. Come back in an hour. I'll keep em in line...I hope." The Rookie nodded. He went to Romeo and gather his sniper rifle, much to Romeo's relief. Apparently, he had had a few incidents with booze and weapons discharges, just one of his many violations of the codes of conduct he had racked up over the years. He also collected a pistol magazine from Mickey who had already seemingly passed out on the bar, from inebriation or hitting his head on the bartop the Rookie didn't know. No pony saw him leave the saloon and it was just as well. He enjoyed solitude and the night's (or day's) walk would be a good time to clear his head. So much had happened over the last few days, and he hadn't had a chance to truly think on the events that had occurred. As he made his way down the middle of Appleloosa's main road, he heard a small and shy voice. "Umm...mind if I walk with you?" The Rookie glanced over his shoulder to find the pink maned pegasus pony following him from the saloon. After their first meeting, the Rookie was honestly surprised that Fluttershy actually trusted them. He had heard from the other ponies how much she cared for animals and seeing something get killed must have been very traumatic for her. The Rookie slightly snapped his head in the direction he was going, indicating that she could follow him. In all honesty, the Rookie didn't mind if the pony accompanied him. Of the six, she was definitely the quietest, and he had a feeling that even if she talked, he would still be able to think. She trotted alongside him, no more than two feet away. The pony came up to his midsection so he would occasionally have to crane his neck to lock eyes with her, but she didn't speak much while he made the walk around town, and the Rookie appreciated that. He was climbing the clock tower when he was truly glad she had accompanied him. There was scaffolding around the tower and the Rookie forgot to factor his extra kilos of body mass and armor he was wearing in comparison to the average weight of a pony. He had gotten to the top by climbing a rope and was up a good thirty feet. When he put his weight down a wooden beam snapped underfoot and he stumbled backwards. He missed the rope but instead grabbed Fluttershy's outstretched hoof. She had hovered around the newly built clock tower, thinking of something to say, but the snapping wood had broken her train of thought and she had acted quickly. With effort, Fluttershy pulled him back to the rope and the Rookie made his way down. He had saved the clock tower for last and began to make his way back to the saloon after thanking Fluttershy. The scene he saw when he arrived didn't surprise him much. His Gunnery Sergeant, Mickey and Romeo were sprawled out on the side of the saloon, lying on the ground or leaning against the wall, all stone drunk. He peered through the window and eyed Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Applejack passed out at a table. The only unaccounted members of his band of humans and equines was Dutch, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash. As if on cue the missing trio exited the saloon, Dutch and Rainbow Dash clanging mugs and whooping it up. Rarity followed, holding a martini glass with her unicorn magic, occasionally sipping at it. The Rookie slumped his shoulders and turned towards Fluttershy. "Oh...my..." is all the yellow pegasus could muster. "YO, ROOKIE!" Dutch boomed. "Hey, Rook! What's up?" Rainbow shouted. "Fluttershy, darling, I was worried about you! I was afraid you had gone off on your own..." Rarity eyed the Rookie suspiciously. "I hope he was a gentlecolt to you?" Fluttershy blushed. "Of course he was, Rarity. We just went for a walk, that's all..." The Rookie couldn't understand why she was getting embarrassed. Chalk up something else he had to think about later. "So, Rookie, you get any good recon in?" The Rookie nodded then motioned towards his three drunk comrades. Dutch, somehow, seemed totally sober, despite the Rookie's suspicions that he'd been drinking the whole time he'd been gone. "Oh, them? They're out like a light. Romeo and Gunny got into an argument then got into a drinking contest. They got to eight shots of whiskey a piece before the bar keep cut them off, and then...get this..." He started to chuckle. "Romeo fell forward and accidentally headbutted the other one! Classic! HA HA!!!" Rainbow Dash finished Dutch's statement, her laughter tinged with squeaks." "Yeah! It was priceless! I dragged the two off them out here and Mickey soon after." The Rookie pointed towards the outskirts of town. "Yeah, I know we have to get the weapons, but can it wait? These three will be out for awhile. Look." He lifted Romeo's arm, shook it a few times then dropped it, the action causing the arm's owner to fall into Buck who fell into Mickey. "Like big black dominoes..." Rarity ventured, taking a sip of her Manehatten martini. The Rookie was sure that Dutch and Rainbow's laughter would wake his three squad mates but to no avail. He looked down at the ground, placing his hands on his hips. Even through his VISR, Dutch could tell the Rookie was giving him a serious look. "Alright, alright, Rookie. I'll come with. My blood alcohol's gotta be 0.2 but I'm still coherent enough to walk." The Rookie looked at Rainbow Dash and Rarity, next, giving the same impression. "Yeah, sure, I'll tag along. I've drunk more than this before. I'll be good so long as I walk, too. As for Rarity, she's been nursing that same drink all night, so she can't possibly be tipsy." "Moi, tipsy? Surely you wouldn't assume I'd ignore proper etiquette when drinking in public." Rarity sighed. "I suppose I'll have to teach the other girls the proper way to have a drink when one is out on the town. You, my dear Rainbow Dash are beyond my help." "Help, schmelp. I don't have a drinking problem, if that's what you're getting at. Besides, the guys need our help, so are you in or out?" Rarity let out a hmph and downed the rest of her cocktail, magically throwing it back in the bar. The Rookie saw the bar keep handily catch the flying martini glass with ease and begin to polish it. These ponies sure were something. "Oh, all right, dear. If it will put your mind at ease I will accompany them. I suppose you'll want me to carry something when we get there?" It was Dutch who blushed this time. "Well, it'll certainly come in handy, Miss Rarity." Rarity smiled and started to trot, slowly veering towards the Rookie. It didn't look like doing so was her choosing. She had gotten tipsy from the last of her martini. She tripped and began to fall but the Rookie reached out and caught her, slowly standing her up and offering her a nod afterwards. "My...you are a gentleman, aren't you?" She smiled up at the Rookie, turning red. "Well, girls, let's be off. Fluttershy, fly with me. I'd like someone to talk to on the way, and you're always such an excellent conversationalist." The Rookie wondered if Rarity did most of the talking in those conversations, and quickly assumed she did. Fluttershy began to follow Rarity without a word of protest. Rainbow flanked them and Dutch and the Rookie brought up the rear. Soon the town of Appleloosa was at their backs and they were off to find the weapons that would help give them a chance against the Covenant should the fighting intensify, and with grim observation of his past experience, the Rookie knew it would certainly come to that.

Halo: ODSP

Ch. 7 - Inventory

"WHERE THE HELL DID THEY COME FROM?!" Dutch yelled at the Rookie as if he knew the answer. He didn't. The Covenant had ambushed them shortly after he, Dutch, and the three ponies took an inventory of their weapons, ammo, and supplies. The bad news was they were outnumbered about ten to one, not that the Rookie considered the ponies combat ready. There were a pair of Ghosts, as well, but the grunts piloting them were horrible shots. The good news was the number of goodies that Captain Dare had dropped them enough firepower to level an office building. Aside from thousands of small arms and anti materiel ammunition in the drop, the best prize was the four Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifles, affectionately known as the Spartan Laser. A perfectly placed shot could cripple a Phantom dropship, and a barrage of them could blow one out of the sky...in theory. Dutch had told the Rookie about the awesome power of this weapon; during the Battle of New Mombasa, Dutch had destroyed several enemy Wraiths, many with one shot. It was truly an awesome weapon. The downside was you only got about four or five shots from it before the battery was completely drained. The upside was that Captain Dare had been kind enough to send a generator for the laser's battery, which effectively doubled the amount of firepower the ODSTs could dish out with them. The ODSTs and their pony companions had taken cover behind a huge crate. They hadn't had time to pry it open, but it was big enough to provide ample cover in the mean time. "What are we gonna do? There's a hundred of them!" The Rookie knew Rainbow Dash was exaggerating, but still, fifty or a hundred, it was all the same. They were hopelessly outgunned. They weren't surrounded but their cover wouldn't last long, and they were too close to use some of the rockets they had gotten in the drop and the Spartan Lasers were long range weapons, and the enemies were no more than twenty yards away. The Rookie and Dutch had dropped about five covies, four grunts and a jackal, in a few seconds, but the jackals had set up a line of defense that they couldn't hope to penetrate without some heavy firepower. An ever familiar hum and blue glow suddenly appeared next to the group. "GRENADE!" Dutch grabbed Rarity and Fluttershy, slinging them over his shoulder as if they were a sack of potatoes. Fluttershy was crying and whimpering and Rarity was wide eyed. The Rookie started to run but slid in the desert's loose soil. Before he could curse himself, a cyan hoof reached out. He took it without hesitation. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings with all her might, and she and the Rookie sped away as the plasma grenade exploded, knocking a wall off the crate. The Rookie nodded at Rainbow Dash before grabbing her and throwing them both behind a rock, narrowly dodging plasma fire. "Well, Rookie, wouldja look at that!" The Rookie looked towards the crate and let a rare smile cross his lips. Within the crate was an M12 Force Application Vehicle, better known as the Warthog. And not just any warthog...in place of the usual mounted light anti-aircraft gun, was a Gauss Cannon. Firing at near forty times the speed of sound, the 25x130 millimeter slug could punch through almost anything and keep going for hundreds of meters. Now if they could only get to it... Several glowing orbs appeared behind the jackals. The grunts were preparing to lob several plasma grenades their way. The Rookie got Rarity's attention. He pointed at her horn, then at the grunts, and made an arcing motion with his hand, going from the grunts to their location, then stopped, and arced his hand back towards the grunts and jackals. Fortunately, Rarity was still level headed enough to understand. "I'll see what I can do..." The grunts lobbed a half dozen or so plasma grenades their way. Rarity's horn glowed a brilliant neon blue and the grenades stopped mid flight. Using her magic, Rarity whipped them around and threw them back towards the Covenant forces. Her aim was perfect. The plasma grenades landed behind the jackals. She had managed to stick two of the grunts with the plasma grenades. The other grunts broke rank as well, and the jackals jumped forward, trying to avoid the blast. Chaos ensued. The grenades went off within a second of each other. At least a dozen grunts were immediately killed. The two grunts who were stuck ran back and took one down one brute a piece. Several jackals' energy shields went out; whether from the blasts or their deaths was anyone's guess. "Rookie, with me!" Dutch and the Rookie ran towards the Gauss Hog, shooting stragglers with their silenced SMGs. An enraged brute shoved a grunt out of his way only to be sprayed by four dozen rounds courtesy of the ODSTs went down in a heap, panicking the remaining grunts further. The ODSTs were at the Gauss Hog in three seconds. The Rookie hopped in the driver's seat and powered the hog up while Dutch mounted up in the gunner position. The Rookie drove out of the crate only to have a brute jump on the hood of his hog. The Brute had a plasma grenade in its hand, and it was glowing. This time the Rookie did curse. The brute snarled and chuckled. It raised its hand to throw the grenade in the Gauss Hog but a rainbow flashed in across the Rookie's line of site. The brute was gone but not the grenade. A blue explosion flashed on the Rookie's right, about six meter's away. Rainbow Dash plopped down in the driver's seat with a smirk on her face. "That's two you owe me, Rook." A seemingly white beam of light erupted from the barrel of the Gauss cannon, punching a hole in a brute and making a small crater behind it. Rainbow Dash gasped and looked over her shoulder. "Keep your head down, RD! We're not out of this yet!" Dutch kept on firing the Gauss cannon, and Covenant kept dying. After the Rarity assisted grenade barrage, the remaining Covenant had scattered. The few brutes had tried to rally some grunts and jackals to mount some kind of offense but it was too late. The Rookie plowed the warthog into the side of one of the ghosts, spraying the grunt driver with his SMG. Dutch shot the other ghost simultaneously; it exploded into a purple fireball. The Rookie's heart sank when the Phantom showed up. A Gauss Hog was a formidable weapon with all intents and purposed had a mini MAC cannon attached to it, but the best it could do against a Phantom was take out its weaponry. He didn't care how handy Dutch was with heavy weapons...it'd take a miracle to knock a Phantom out of the sky with a mere Gauss cannon... The Phantom opened fire at the ODSTs. Its heavy plasma autocannon peppered the ground behind the warthog, never getting a bead on the Rookie's expert driving. Dutch pecked away at the Phantom's heavy armor, trying to hit the plasma autocannon but to no avail. The side mounted autocannons were having better luck. The grunt gunners had smaller turrets and more manual control over them, and they were a hell of a shot. Rainbow Dash flew out of the passenger seat just before superheated plasma cooked the seat she was sitting in. "WHOA! I'll show him...a Sonic Rainboom outta do it..." Rainbow Dash kept pace with the warthog, dodging incoming plasma fire. "RAINBOW! Don't do anything stupid! Go back to the other ponies! Head back to town. We'll draw their fire!" "Like hay I'm going to leave you two here! I've gotta help..." Rainbow Dash's wing was singed by plasma fire. Dutch reached out to grab the falling pegasus but fell off of his mount. Rainbow Dash fell to the ground beside him, clutching her burnt wing. "I messed up...sorry..." Rainbow Dash was fighting back tears. Dutch simply picked her up and started to run. The Phantom was more interested in the Rookie and his hog. As he cradled her in his arms, Dutch noticed that Rainbow Dash was, to borrow a phrase, light as a feather. Despite being almost four feet tall, she weighed far less that Rarity had felt earlier. Fluttershy was a lightweight herself, but he hadn't noticed it earlier, what with the impending plasma grenade explosion, and all. He reached Fluttershy and Rarity a few seconds later, the Rookie still taking fire from the Phantom. It had lowered its altitude and was getting awfully close to turning the warthog into bacon. Dutch fiddled with one of the drop pods, grabbing a Spartan Laser and leveling it the Phantom. It was about two hundred meters off, but the 3x zoom made the shot somewhat easier. "Rarity, can you use your magic to fire one of these?" The white unicorn stammered. "M-me? Use that thing? I am a lady, not some ruffian." "Please! I could really use your help. That Phantom will turn the Rookie into Swiss cheese if we don't help him, and I can only fire one of these things at once!" Dutch tapped the side of his helmet, opening a channel to the Rookie. "Rookie! Swing back to my position. I'll light it up!" The warthog spun around and made a b-line towards Dutch and the three ponies. Fluttershy yelped and hid her face behind her wing. Rainbow Dash comforted her, still favoring her singed wing. The Phantom was closer now. 160 meters. The side mounted plasma cannons let loose on the warthog. A few shots strayed and impacted near where Dutch made his stand. "Rarity, please! You just have to push this button and level it at the Phantom! Easy!" 120 meters. "I'm telling you! I will not be involved in such barbarous behavior..." It was Rarity who was singed this time, but only she didn't gasp in pain, she gasped in horror. A stray plasma bolt had singed a good portion of her mane. Now instead of flowing well past her shoulder her mane now only fell halfway down her neck. She had lost a good eight inches of hair. "My hair...they shot my hair..." Her lip quivered but soon turned up into a snarl. "Son of a..." Her magic engulfed the other drop pods that were scattered about. She raised the remaining Spartan Lasers as well as two rocket launchers. The business ends of the Spartan Lasers began to glow a menacing red, mimicking the hatred in Rarity's eyes. The Phantom was upon them. The Rookie's hog roared past them. The Phantom was only twenty feet off of the ground and about 50 meters away. Rarity unleashed the power of three Spartan Lasers all at once. She fired a pair of rockets only moments later. It couldn't have been any more lucky. The three lasers hit the Phantom's left engine, killing it almost instantly. A second later, the rockets made their way into the cavity the lasers had left. What followed was an immense explosion that knocked Rarity out of her rage induced mania. Dutch dropped his weapon and dove on Rarity, shielding her from the blast. The Phantom landed with a loud crash, spewing up sand as it went. The burning hulk cut a path in the desert landscape before coming to a halt a few meters in front of them. Dutch ran around to look for survivors to turn in to casualties but found no Covenant had made it. The Rookie drove up a short time later. He hopped out of the driver's seat, examining the purple debris and his fellow ODST. He let out an enthusiastic whistle. Rarity, momentarily forgetting her mane problem, perked up. "So, how was that?" Rainbow chimed in. "Not bad..." "Not bad...for a girl." Dutch choked out. "Hmph...let's get out of here." Dutch just looked at the Rookie in amazement. Did they have a story to tell Gunny and the others when they got back... ~ ~ ~ Another scouting party hadn't returned. No matter. He could forgive their not checking in. Tiberium had his hands full at the moment. Full of three humans for him to interrogate. Three humans to torture. Three humans to eat. Yes, he would enjoy that part. Tiberium had followed the rail system to a small town in the middle of a desert. On the way they had found large horned and hoofed animals with thick brown fur. He and his brutes had made a meal out of some. That wasn't to say they hadn't fought back, oh no. They put up quite a fight. They had encountered about a dozen of these large animals, more native inhabitants of this planet, Tiberium had no doubt. They spoke and even had a fierce fighting spirit. It took several shots from a spiker to drop one of the beasts, and even more from a plasma weapon. He had smashed one's hip with his gravity hammer only to have if land on a group of grunts and start thrashing. It killed three of them before blacking out. Three less mouths to feed. Buffaloes, as one of them described themselves, were absolutely delicious. In comparison to humans, these buffalo were a delicacy. It was a shame there had been so few. He'd like to hunt some after this mission was over, with his Prophet's blessing, of course. "You goddam monkey. Kill us and get it over with. We got nothing to say to you." Tiberium looked down at the dark skinned human with amusement. These humans were so defiant. Of course they had slain many of his kind over the years but he and his Jiralhanae had killed millions, if not billions of humans. They were not a cowardly race, by any means, but they were arrogant and sickeningly brave, and that was their greatest strength and weakness. If a human thought that all but one of them would die if it meant victory, they would always fight to the last. It was a somewhat admirable quality, albeit a foolish one. In a sense they were like those accursed elites. Those damned Sangheili...they would all burn for their part in the Great Schism. "Yeah, you damned dirty ape. Eat me! RAAAARGH!!!" This time it was one of the light skinned one, the older of the two. The leader. Yes, he looked familiar. The brutes had amassed a record of humans who they had dubbed "stains" on their warrior race, that is to say, humans who had killed prominent Jiralhanae. This one in particular had killed a chieftain during the Battle of Earth. He wasn't the Demon, but Tiberium would kill this human with pride, knowing that one of his fallen brethren would be avenged. The youngest human hadn't said a word during the beatings. He had grunted in pain just like the other humans, but hadn't taken a verbal jab at him or his brutes. Tiberium was curious. Surely this human had something to say. He stepped on this quiet human's foot, not putting his full weight on it. That might break it. He had had plenty of practice over the years with the anatomy and frailty of the human body. "Well, human? Nothing to say?" Tiberium increased the pressure. The human winced but didn't avert his gaze. His eyes were burning. Tiberium was genuinely enjoying himself. He squatted in front of the human, even now towering over its sitting form. "Actually..." The human leaned back and put all his weight into a headbutt. He wasn't aimed at Tiberium's head, however. Tiberium let loose a wild howl, leaping up and holding his groin. The humans guffawed loudly. Tiberium hunched over, still clutching his groin, glared at the human. Blood was streaming down his forehead. He must have cut himself on Tiberium's codpiece. It was one similarity that Tiberium cursed about brute and human anatomy. "I was wondering if you had any working genitalia. You obviously do. Maybe not NOW..." The other humans had slid down to the ground, they were laughing so hard. Most of his brutes were snarling and telling him to kill the humans, but he did here some muffled snickers. There would be more cannibalism tonight. Apparently eating their former Elite captain hadn't taught them any respect. They would all feed on those who laughed at him, down to the marrow. He swore it. Tiberium quickly composed himself. He stepped on the human's foot with all of his weight, smashing it underfoot, and this time, it DID have something to say. The human wailed. He was screaming. Its armor was the only thing that kept its foot from being separated from its leg, but Tiberium had little doubt that every bone in the human's foot was broken, if not dust. He would surely lose it, not that it mattered. It was simply the first part to be tenderized. "YOU SONUVA!!!" The dark one was silenced by a quick jab to the back of its head by a forearm of one of Tiberium's brutes. He was stubborn. This human didn't lose consciousness but didn't cry out, either. It let out a loud MMMMMMM through a shut mouth. He would soon scream. They all screamed. ~ ~ ~ Buck cursed himself. He was responsible. For all of it. He had let the men get drunk. He had encouraged it. He had joined in. He and his ODSTs had gotten stone drunk and the Covies had just waltz into town and taken them prisoner, and they hadn't done a damned thing about it. Buck was the first one to wake up, noticing that his men and a number of ponies had been corralled in the town hall. The brutes had actually dragged them halfway across town before he had come out of his drunken stupor. He sprung up, unsheathing his combat knife, but quickly fell back to the ground before he could make a swipe. He got a stiff kick to the arm for his trouble. It was still throbbing. His pain had to be a point five on a pain scale in comparison to Mickey's situation. Mickey was probably going to lose his foot. A brute without armor weighed more than a fully armored Spartan. With full armor, like this Chieftain, a brute weighed close to a solid ton. After the kick to his arm, Romeo and Mickey woke up, and the beating began. The brutes really were pulling their punches. All of them were a full two feet taller than any of the ODSTs and their arms were the size of logs. A group of three of four would spin one of the ODSTs around in a circle, taking turns punching and kicking. When one of the ODSTs would fall, a brute simple picked them up, like a rag doll, and continue the beating. Mickey was still in agony, but he had contained most of his screaming. Buck truly admired Mickey for that. He was the youngest of the bunch and was definitely the most timid of the squad, but he had balls. Buck looked up at the chieftain, trying his damnedest to look intimidating, but knew his efforts all flat. "You know, I'm going to enjoy doing the same thing to you, only instead of just your foot, it'll be your whole body." The chieftain grunted. "Oh? And how will you accomplish this?" Buck hadn't thought that far ahead. "Well, when we break out of here, we're going to kill all of your grunts, all of your jackals, and all of your brutes. But you? Oh, we'll keep you alive." "And then?" "Well, I figure we'll take one of your spikers and crucify you somewhere...maybe just stake you to the ground. Then we'll take turns stomping on you. Either way, it'll be slow. Real slow. Hell, maybe we'll ask for the help of some of these ponies." "Don't get us involved!" One of the ponies shouted. "Yeah!" Another one added. They were quickly silenced by a group grumble. Tiberium chuckled. "These puny, creatures? They didn't attempt to stop us. They put up no resistance. They're cowards." "We're no cowards! We just weren't ready for ya!" Applejack's cousin, Braeburn, spoke up. "Cousin, I don't think ya'll oughtta rile em up. Didja see what he just did to that human? He could do that to us." "Indeed. Speak up again and I might eat you first." Applejack and Braeburn gulped simultaneously. Twilight and Pinkie hadn't said a word the whole time. They were terrified beyond words. Pinkie Pie had tears in her eyes. It was the first time Buck had seen the pink pony shaken. Buck then noticed something that made him smile. He couldn't hide it. He had never had a good poker face. Well, the cat would soon be out of the bag in about five seconds or so. He might as well let Romeo and Mickey know. "Hey, Mickey, Romeo. Check it out. Looks like we won't be able to dish out punishment to this guy slowly, after all. A real shame." Tiberium looked around at his brutes in confusion, smiling somewhat uneasily. "What are you blathering about human?" "Oh, you'll see." What the chieftain didn't see and what Buck, Mickey, and Romeo did see, was the targeting laser of a Spartan Laser, square in the center of the brute chieftain's chest. Complements of Captain Dare, no doubt. He'd have to kiss her later, even if it meant a punch to the face. Dutch and the Rookie must have gotten her care package. In two seconds this chieftain would be red mist, and all hell was going to break loose. Buck met the eyes of Twilight Sparkle, and mouthed the word "down" very slow and deliberate, and turn his head away from the chieftain. He wasn't wearing his helmet. He didn't wanted to get blood on his face, after all.

Fiends of Manehatten

pre

'Just how many bits does that kid have?' she mentally questioned, before opening the door to the shower. She placed herself inside, finding it so neat that it actually had more than one place for the water to exit. Waves and waves of water rushed over the mare as she stood in the middle of the shower, much needed relief washing over her as the water was turned on and she could almost just feel how the stench softened slightly. 'Sweet Celestia I needed that...' she said as she reached for the soap and began washing out every single hair upon her body, every part of fur and run her mane so thoroughly that it ended up completely straight and covering her eyes. As the soap was repeatedly soaked into her fur and washed away, she began to feel another great feeling come over her. The sense of smell. Her snout began working again as it felt much less numb, the lovely smell of the soap and realizing that the bathroom was actually rose scented. Wait, rose scented? Cheerilee raised an eyebrow beneath her wet mane and sniffed the air again. While the smell was a bit covered by the steam, she could smell the scent of roses. 'Why does he have his bathroom smell like roses?' she mused before she rubbed some more soap into her mane, just wishing to be sure she got out the last of the sewer stench out of her mane. Trying to ignore the strange question of why her colt partner had a constant rose scent in his bathroom, she tried to think back upon the issues more important. Emerald was gone... And she was only able to deduce that the pony kidnapping her was a white unicorn. She had thought him too brittle so she had not assumed that he was clever enough to buck her off the ledge. Cheerilee shut off the water, finally feeling confident that the smell was out, continuing on to grab a nearby towel and dry herself, while she was still thinking. 'Somehow said unicorn was in contact with doctor Featherband in order to make him bring Emerald to the sewer entrance... Most likely they use the sewers as a transport system.' She thought again, running the towel through her mane. While the towel did make her mane slightly unruly it was still very straight, blocking her vision. She reached up a hoof to move the mane out of her eyes and looked around for anything that could help her curl her mane again, but she could not see anything immediately. She shrugged, why should a colt have something like that after all, so she just opened the door to the bathroom slightly in order to call for Pen. "Pen! Can you get me my curling iron? It should be in my bag!" she said, her mane still obstructing her view slightly. Pen´s voice called back. "There is a Curling Iron in the left cupboard next to the mirror!" he called back, Cheerilee not seeing what he was working on. Raising an eyebrow, Cheerilee looked back inside and easily found the cupboard he was talking about, and true to his words, there was a curling iron there. It was a rather nice one as well. 'Huh... Thats surprising...' she mused, before moving on to curling her mane back into it usual fashion, making it much easier for her to see again. She returned to her thoughts. 'So the Unicorn in the Sewer is somehow connected to all of this... he looked like vanity was a virtue, so it was very possible that he was a noble. That would mean we have to ask around more privileged circles.' An artificial sigh escaped Cheerilee´s lips. While it was fun to act arrogant for the sake of a cover, it was something else to try and keep up the act in front of ponies who were truly arrogant. The acting arrogant did at least have a tad bit of self parody about it, which made Cheerilee inwardly smile, though when somepony actually was serious about their arrogance, it made her want to vomit the contents of her stomach. Speaking of that, Cheerilee´s gave off a small rumble, making the agent look down a moment. She was hungry... Or more precisely thirsty. A more true, artificial sigh escaped Cheerilee´s lips again as she looked herself in the mirror, smiling a moment as to show her fangs and letting her tongue run across the two pointy canines. 'Seems like I will have to hunt tonight...' she thought resignedly, quickly running her towel over her body to make sure that she had not missed any water stuck in her fur, and gave her mane a last curl, before placing the iron down. She forgot to think about why this was in a colts bathroom before she headed outside again, trotting into the living room. "Pen, I think I will need to get some sustinance tonight, so I will....Will..." she ended up dumbstruck as she found Pen staring upon a huge assortment of papers spread out all over the living room. There were photos, reports, his own notes, and curled up paper lying everywhere as if a small explosion had happened. The writer pony himself stared over all of these papers, running back and forth between paper and pictures, to some looking like a complete madpony. Cheerilee cleared her throat, which made his ears perk up, but he didn't look at her, instead he moved some more papers around, desperately trying to give them some sort of strange symmetry in this chaos. "What just happened?" Cheerilee asked with a voice one would suspect she used against students whom she had just caught in cheating. Pen didn't look at her. "I am trying to piece all of this together with my data already, and it just does not fit together..." he said, his voice annoyed, with the same fervor Cheerilee recognized when Twilight didn't have her library neat. That was something that just struck Cheerilee, this did look an awful lot like Twilight, if she had just figured out that five of her books were in the wrong place. The same form of obsessive face. Cheerilee knew all well and good not to mess with ponies with OCD if she wanted to stay sane, so she tried to just walk around the huge amount of papers. "Uhm... I'll just go out and get something... to sustain myself... You just keep on doing... What you´re doing..." she said, turning to the door, but she was barely able to trot another step forwards before Pen spoke up. "The agency has supplied me with enough blood to sustain you easily, its in the fridge..." he said, gesturing absently over to the kitchen and continued on to levitate five different pieces of paper around him, his crazed attempts at order out of his self created chaos seemed to fail. The vampire teacher unconsciously licked her lips a moment at the prospect of getting fed, but she really raised an eyebrow again. Did he have blood for her in the fridge? She questioned before moving over to check herself. Lo and behold, he was right. All she had to do was open the fridge and there it was. About half the fridge was normal pony food, Carrots, Lettuce, Hayfries, Haybacon all sorts of things, while the other half was neatly stacked and relatively sterile plastic bloodpacks with small valves for the easy accessibility of transfusion. Cheerilee picked out one of the bags, looking upon it in disbelief a moment before looking over to Pen, who was still running around in his OCD craze in the living room. She reached down and stuck the valve and straw in her mouth, turning the valve, letting the cold red plasma pour into her mouth. No matter how many times Cheerilee fed upon blood, it always tasted so sweet. It was just so... For lack of a better word... Bloody good. She´d get feelings like a mixture between a Pinkie Pie Sugar rush, and a deep buzz of the apple cider season. She really hated how she liked it but could not do anything about it now. She was damned to do this until the end of her days. Which could very well be till the end of the world. Cheerilee´s strange mixture of melancholic revery and blissful gaining of sustenance was broken as the bag was emptied, and she was left with a floppy plastic container. She looked up to ask Pen of where she should throw it out, but the unicorn was already ahead of her, even if he wasn't looking at her. "Just throw it in the can, nopony comes to check it anyhow." he said, trying once again to look over a large amount of papers, before he in anger and OCDly frustration screamed and threw the papers aside. "WHY DOES THIS NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!?" he exclaimed as he threw himself backwards onto the floor, lying in the middle of the maelstrom of papers. The vampire teacher discarded the empty blood pack and walked over to Pen, careful to step over the papers and lowering herself as to Look more into the young colt´s eyes with her soft teacher demeanor. "How about you let the work rest until tomorrow and then perhaps it will make sense?" she asked calmly, knowing several foals who had not been able to see sense in their homework because they were too sleep deprived. Playing with other foals until far in the night is not really a great idea when you have an assignment to the next day. Pen stared up upon Cheerilee for a few brief moments, before he sighed in defeat. "Fine..." he conceded, his horn lighting up and most of the papers lifted all at once and slowly gathered themselves together. Cheerilee was a bit impressed with the fact that he could lift up all the papers. "You seem to know your fair bit of magic." she commented offhoffedly. The young writer unicorn just gathered all the papers in one pile, gently tapping them against the table in order to make them symmetrical as he shook his head. "I just have enough training with Papers... Ask me to pick the same amount of furniture up, and you will get a lot of annoyed Feng Shuists", he said before blinking a moment. "Oh right, you´ll need to get into your room..." he remembered before quickly trotting over to a door, opening it slightly. "This is the guest room, you are allowed to use it as however you well please... If you need anything, I am right beside you." he added, gesturing to the next room. Cheerilee gave small nod and walked quickly over to pick up her bag, of which had just been placed inside, and went over to the room in question. "Thank you Pen... For everything I mean..." she muffled out, with the bag hanging from her muzzle, making the young writer just avert his face a moment. "Oh its alright... its my job..." he said before trying to turn away, but was stopped a moment. "And... sorry for that slap earlier... That was not fair of me..." She tried to diplomatically convey. A small thing piqued her interest, as she saw the unicorn´s face didn't change, nor did he try to look at her. "You don't need to apologize..." he almost whispered. "I deserved that one..." he just quickly added before opening the door to his own room. "Goodnight agent Cheerilee..." he said and disappeared inside the room. Cheerilee was left alone in the big appartment as the door clicked itself shut and the sound of a lock in place sealed the deal. Cheerilee frowned a moment, wondering just how deep an effect her slap had upon the young colt. 'That was stupid of you Cheerilee' she told herself before she headed inside the guest room, seeing that it was also relatively large, having a double bed and a large closet, but Cheerilee did not regard it any further. She placed her bag aside and threw herself onto the bed, letting rest creep up upon her as she rubbed both her temples. Her thoughts immediately fixated themselves upon Emerald, and those terrified eyes. Dear sweet Celestia she prayed that Emerald was alright... Somewhere in the depths of Manehatten: "Little one, Little one, Little one, do not fear instead think of what you hold dear. Little one Little one Little one, utter the name of your master, and he might be, merciful..." the voice cooed with malicious intent and deep pleasure rooted in uttering every syllable. Emerald Song gasped for air as her eyes shot open. Anesthetics almost never stopped instantly, but for Emerald, the fear and adrenaline was enough to kick out the remainders of haziness from her mind. She instantly tried to move, but was barely able to wiggle more than a few centimeters before the powerful yank of chains forced her back down again. Her eyes darted around in panic, trying desperately to decipher where she was. It took not long for her to realize she was the one place she never wanted to see again. Her blood felt like it was boiling and she desperately tried to slam her head back into the cruel bricks to which she was chained to, but she was barely able to get one weak knock done, before her face was grabbed firmly by two hooves, forcing her to look into the face of evil. And It grinned. "Oh no no no little mare... That's very wrong... No need to punish yourself... What would I do then?" he asked in a small cooing fashion, before he roughly let go of her face and getting back onto his own hooves. Emerald shivered and her voice was shaking as she tried desperately to form pleads of mercy, but it all just turned into stutters and mumbles. The Fiend gave a small cruel giggle. "Oh Dear... Have nothing to say for yourself, little mare? My little song mare..." it cooed again as it leaned its face so close to Emerald, she desperately trying to avert its horrible red shining eyes. A small pout formed upon Its face. "Awww... Why are you so snubbish? I thought you wanted to be normal again... Not arrogant... Not... So... uptight..." the voice cooed again, but this time Emerald was in even more terror, as she felt a cold as a corpse hoof gently place itself upon her chest and slowly move upwards, more and more towards her throat. Emerald could not keep it in anymore, she was actively whimpering, tears already streaming down her face as she was hyperventilating again. All that just emotions the fiend was positively soaking up with a malicious grin. "You´re so pathetic little Emerald... You thought they liked you... You thought everything would be okay once you changed.... So weak..." the fiend´s voice so dark and cruel, succeeding in making Emerald sob even more, as she clenched her eyes shut, trying to shut out the world, just praying to Celestia that her misery may be taken away. But to no avail. A deep and terrified shiver went down her spine as she felt the cold and strange feeling of the Fiend´s tongue over her throat, it slowly dragging itself across such a sensitive area. Emerald´s face lit up in a mixture of terror and red blushing, and she knew why. It was that aura about the fiend. That... Terrifying... Inequine... Attracting aura... And that smooth voice... She knew everything about it was a lie, a cruel ruse to torture her. But she knew what it also did. Even as she was terrified, her head unconsciously moved itself to the side as to give him more access to her throat. A small chuckle escaped the Fiend as it let its tongue back and licked its own fangs. "Tell me my little mare... How was your trip outside? Was it worth it? Was it worth seeing the dark of the night before you got home to take the consequences of your actions..." it asked, so maliciously happy about the trapped mare and its ability to do what it wanted. But it was halted as the mare spoke. "I never was free... You Fiends are everywhere.................." She was just able to whisper out, her voice stuttering and she hoped she somehow could shut up. The Fiend stopped. It pulled its head back a moment and grabbed Emerald´s face with a hoof to glare into her eyes. "Fiends?... Plural?... How can you have seen more of my kind?" he sort of stated, yet asked. Had the earth pony mare not been in binds and or absolutely terrified, she would have questioned his change of demeanor, however she just nodded. "Y-Y-Yes... A mare... A teacher... Sh-She... Was like you..." She stutteringly admitted to her captor. The fiend stared into her eyes a moment before roughly letting go of her face and getting normally back upon his hooves. "That's impossible..." he added, taking a thoughtful face on a moment, before, like a lightning strike, his malicious face returned with that cruel grin of realization. "A vampire..." he just said. "The vampires survived... While we were destroyed?... Oh how lovely... Just.... So... Lovely" its voice became increasingly dark and filled with a sort of strange hate, but it then suddenly calmed itself and got into a more amused grin. He turned to Emerald again, its face turning almost pleasant and smiling a fake warm grin. "Tell me Emerald.... Tell me about this other Fiend... Maybe then I will consider revising your punishment a bit..."

Fiends of Manehatten

Morning routine

Manehatten Appartment As Cheerilee woke up, the far reaching and once enticing scent of haybacon got caught in her once again sensitive nostrils. Groaning and shaking slightly in her stance, the vampire teacher rolled off of the bed, leaving behind a ruffled up sheet. Cheerilee didn't feel completely rested. It had felt more like she had been taking a nap than a real night sleep. It was annoying, but a nap was still better than no sleep. While Cheerilee didn't truly need sleep, it would still make her very grumpy if she didn't get it. Also it conserved on her blood supply if she slept, as her undead body did not need to consume as much when idle. Still, with that amount of blood she had seen in the fridge yesterday, she might not have to worry about it, Cheerilee liked sleep. It was comforting. It was normal. Following the old familiar scent of haybacon, she made her way out of her bedroom, seeing the large combined living room and kitchen of the safehouse, with Pen standing behind the cooking stove. The unicorn was not wearing his fedora nor his shirt, but an apron and his mane combed back just so that nothing got in the food. He had just finished cooking the haybacon, and removed it from the frying pan, only to almost immediately pour some strange mix of eggs, milk, pepper and salt onto the pan. It was rather lucky for the unicorns who had enough focus to be able to use both their magic and their limbs at the same time. Cheerilee knew unicorns who, once they had learned magic, they almost completely lost their ability to handle everyday life. They kept questioning how earth ponies could go through life with only their teeth and their hooves and so on. Closing the door behind herself, Cheerilee sat down at the table. She noticed Pen perk up and smile at her. "Morning Cheerilee... Slept well?" he asked, letting the cooking simmer. The teacher groaned and leaned her head on the kitchen table, giving Pen enough information. "That bad huh?" he asked, scratching the back of his head a moment, thinking of some way to apologize for what he perceived as his horrible housing, but the teacher was faster. "It was my own fault... I used way too much time thinking... And I just need to get used to... Such a soft bed and with... space..." she commented, trying to give him a feasible excuse that did not involve him. He hadn't done anything wrong, she had just been too worried. Cheerilee looked up at the coltish writer pony and noticed he had a small white bandage on his cheek, covering up the blue bruise she had given him the day before which was still haunting her. He didn't seem affected by it at all, though. The writer unicorn gave a small nod, quickly checking on his cooking, before looking back up at Cheerilee as she continued. "I just want to capture this Fiend and be home in my own bed... in my own apartment, and with my own privacy..." She grumbled slightly, not thinking much of the fact that she was in somepony else´s house. 'Sweet Celestia I am out of training...' she thought with a small frown, thinking she might have said something wrong to Pen again. "If it would make you feel better, I can share with you everything I know in all those papers you saw yesterday. You might be able to make more sense of it than I can..." Pen mused a bit as he turned away from his cooking, opening a cupboard and bringing out some bread. Cheerilee shrugged a moment. "Maybe... I guess I could try..." she said, sending a small look over at what the unicorn was cooking. Pen gave a solemn nod before gesturing to the pan. "Would you keep an eye on that for a moment then?" he asked before walking across the living room and into his own room. Cheerilee complied to his request, but she didn't really need to, seeing as Pen was out of his room with the huge file of papers floating in front of him within the minute. The unicorn levitated the pile of papers over to the kitchen table, spreading out the papers into different piles and in a very orderly fashion placed the piles in a sort of pattern. Cheerilee observed his efficient movement of papers with interest, though she was much more interested in what was written on them. Pen urged Cheerilee to come over, the teacher complying to get a much better view of what Pen had made upon the table. Everything was separated into different case papers. One pile for each victim. And each victim pile had a paper with the details of their disappearance. And every single pile was placed in some sort of large circle with a single piece of paper in the middle. Except for Emerald´s file. That pile was laying outside the circle, and Cheerilee could almost sense the infuriating effect it had upon the unicorn. That one pile of papers outside of his perfect system. One little pebble to ruin it all. Pen took a deep breath a moment before placing a hoof on the table, next to one of the piles first. "See Cheerilee, this is the collection of all the victims, where they disappeared, when they disappeared, and witness accounts." Cheerilee could already hear how his voice felt slightly more firm, with a bit more confidence, which made Cheerilee inwardly smile. She looked down at the papers and scanned them for a bit. "The disappearances started about half a year ago, when this unicorn," he placed a hoof on top of the specific file. There was a picture of a blue-coated stallion with yellow eyes and a flowing white mane. "Disappeared without a trace... His name is Clear Brush. He was a freelance artist, very critically acclaimed and was on his way to receive an award for most original painting in the Manehatten area.... As you can assume, he never arrived..." Pen said in a serious voice and moved his hoof on to the next file bundle. This time it was a mare, unicorn, orange coat with a puffy green mane and a more statuesque look in her eyes. "Second disappearance was about two months later, when this mare, 'Sweet Gold.' Owner of the Manehatten city bank. She had earned a great amount of money both on the recession, and on fixing the recession by being clever and manipulating the bits. She was on her way to a celebratory party in her honor of not letting the City fall into disrepair... Again, she never arrived..." he said before placing his hoof on to the next pile. Another blue-coated unicorn, though this was a mare, with a curly white and purple striped mane, she clearly had a hard time not smiling on her photo, and had quite a playful look in her sapphire green eyes. "Third disappearance, only two weeks later... Sunset Spring, meteorologist for Equestria Round News. She was the local correspondant between the Manehattenite Weather patrol and the news stations. Very bubbly and quite a blast at parties, just don't let her get near the cider..." he stopped a moment as he noticed Cheerilee looking at him with a quizzical look. "I got invited to a party where she was there once... She ended up making a dress out of lampshades and woke with a cider mug balanced on top of her head." he added the last comment with a small reverential giggle. "One of the few parties I enjoyed, that one." he just mused before quickly moving on. "She was supposed to arrange a party for the yearly 'Weather team´s social', where she had promised quite the blast publically... She even stole newspaper space to announce it. Don't ask me how she was able to sneak in an article... Nopony honestly has any idea." he quickly shook a hoof as to dismiss the issue that seemingly nopony had the answer to. "Anyhoof, as you can most likely imagine, She never got to arrange said party, her co-planner claims she just left her for two minutes to blow up some balloons, and when she came back, Sunset was gone." he once again got his solemn tone in place and moved his hoof a fourth time. However this time, it was somepony whose name Cheerilee recognized. 'Money Bags' .He was a gray coated Unicorn with white curly hair which usually was associated with an old pony, but he didn't look THAT old. He was in no way like Principle Hoofton from back in Coltenhagen. He just had the old colours, but not the real age to follow it. As Cheerilee Squinted her eyes a moment she wondered what Emerald saw in him. He actually looked slightly boring. "Fourth disappearance, Money Bags, Manehattenite stockbroker, though he was mostly known for his charity events, and generous nature towards those less fortunate. He was supposed to go on to a charity with his wife, and his wife was the main performer for the event, which brings us directly to-" "Emerald..." Cheerilee said ahead of her coltish partner. Both the agents´s eyes shifted over to the file which was lying outside the system, just poking out like a dragon in a foal nursery. Emerald's beautifully streaked blonde mane and dark green coat was just standing in stark contrast to the background on the image in her file. She had such a sweet smile on the image, and didn't seem like she had any worry in her world. It stung. Seeing her so happy compared to what Cheerilee had seen of her before. Pen frowned a moment, seeming like he almost could see the thoughts running through Cheerilee´s mind. He apprehensively placed a hoof on Cheerilee´s shoulder and smiled slightly. "We´ll find her at some point..." he said before continuing, "Anyhow, she disappeared at exactly the same time as her husband, same place, same circumstances." he calmly stated before looking a bit more firm and serious again. "Now... Cheerilee, I need your help here. I want you to De-Or-Confirm something for me here." he said before slowly gesturing a hoof broadly over the table. "What do you see these ponies have in common?" Cheerilee sat back on her haunches a moment, her attentive eyes scanning over every single case file again, thinking of all the details she had gotten, and all the ideas she had. The cogs were turning in her head, trying to piece together a feasible thesis. "Hmmm they all had some kind of popular position... a Bank owner, a Broker, a Singer, an Artist, a Meteorologist." she mused, just thinking aloud as she looked over the pictures of the different ponies. And then she looked at the shape that Pen had laid them out in. She began wondering again why he had laid them out like that. Her eyes scanned over the manes and coats and horns and- And then it dinged. Pen quickly jumped up, "Oh, the eggtimer!" he said as he ran for his cooking again, which was thankfully only slightly burnt around the edges. The coltish writer skittishly picked the pan from the stove with his magic, his horn lighting up the room even further, which just filled together with Cheerilee´s mind even further. "Pen... All these victims apart from Emerald, are unicorns, they were kidnapped when they were alone with no evidence behind them. But Emerald Song is an earth pony, and she was kidnapped along with her husband, Money Bags, who was a unicorn." Cheerilee stated loudly, and turned to see Pen´s reaction to her thesis. The coltish writer was standing and quickly lifting up his eggmix onto a piece of bread with some butter and prepared his brunch. He however lifted his head and nodded at Cheerilee. "That was what I thought, which was why I placed Emerald outside of the system, at the first three kidnappings, I thought perhaps it was some kind of... Magic draining creature, or somepony who had some kind of personal vendetta against unicorns." he said, before floating his food onto a plate with his magic, and then quickly also got out a knife and fork, along with some salt as he walked to the table, quickly placing them down and sat down on the chair besides Cheerilee, placing a hoof over Emerald´s file. "But as Emerald and Money Bags disappeared, My thesis broke down... Emerald was an earth pony, and not only that, she was someone whom Money Bags knew." he stated as he levitated his kitchen utensils and began cutting a bit at his food while talking. "Then I thought that perhaps she was just unlucky to be at the same place as Money Bags, but then I remembered Sunset Spring had also been in the company of another pony, but she was completely fine..." he said as he finally groaned and rubbed one side of his head a moment. "It just isn't making sense to me!" he declared in frustration before sighing in defeat and taking a piece of his food. Cheerilee looked back at the files a bit, rubbing her chin again, a sudden thought striking her again. "Pen, remember what Emerald said? That she was never safe and 'just when you think its gone, it catches you again'?" she questioned, turning to face Pen again, who actually stopped his fork just an inch short of his muzzle as he heard Cheerilee´s words. "'Before it catches you again'..." he repeated, the wheels in his head turning and almost as a realization, he turned to Cheerilee. "Do you think he might be playing with her? Like some sort of strange cat and mouse game just with her? She after all was the only one who escaped..." he theorized, which made Cheerilee give a small nod of her head. "Its a possibility... Perhaps she was lucky to escape as he was feeding on her." She added to the thesis as the two ponies were trying their best to understand their enemy. "In the end though, We won't know until we either find Emerald or the Fiend in question... We are still not sure what he looks like. Though I have a nagging feeling I might have met one of his lackeys..." Cheerilee said as she decided to instead sit on a chair, compared to her haunches. Pen looked over at her, a fork sticking out of his muzzle. "You have?... What did he look like?" he asked curiously as he levitated the fork out of his mouth. "He was white and had a red mane. Though I never got a look at his cutie mark, He did looked almost as brittle as you..." Cheerilee quickly looked apologetically at Pen. "No offence..." "None taken." he quickly added, but mused over this information. "I think I could ask around a bit for a pony fitting that description... I have a few connections." he mused, before just letting his kitchen utensils float down to his table before he almost jumped out of his chair. "Well! We aren't progressing by simply sitting here and talking about it! We got Featherband to interrogate, and he is our best bet for now!" Cheerilee raised an eyebrow at the enthusiasm, but she appreciated it, and gave a small smile. "How about your papers and your dinner?" She asked, almost accusatory, however it was actually a question of curiosity. Pen just shook his head a moment. "I´ll eat later, and the papers ain't going anywhere, the penthouse apartments are well known for good privacy." he declared before opening the door. "Lets go, Countess De La Cheer, your humble assistant is very eager to get on with the agenda!" he said, once again enthusiastically, if however jokingly. Cheerilee gave a small chuckle before following along on the joke and raised her head. "Let the Countess prepare herself first!" Cheerilee hadn't had the time to actually spruce up and or get her morning shower, so it took a little longer than Pen had originally anticipated, but they got out of the safehouse and locked it tightly behind them, heading for the guard station via Carriage. Unknown Location within Manehatten. "Interesting predicament... Interesting indeed." The Fiend was lying down on its back in the shadows of its hideaway, pondering on the information that had come from little Emerald Song. "This will demand my immediate attention..." It sighed, placing a hoof across its forehead, but below its horn. "Just when you think your schedule is set, you´ll have to change it..." he sighed dramatically, as the sound of the rattling of chains made it perk up its ears and smirk slightly. "Oh well... Might as well pack a bit more into the day's schedule..." it purred before disappearing back into the shadows. Manehatten Guard Station "I swear you have caught the wrong pony! I didn't Do anything!!" The exasperated look upon the superior guardspony was enough to tell that this had been just about the same song that he had jammered about the whole time they had interrogated Doctor Featherband. He was holding a steaming cup of coffee in his hoof as he just stood by the one-way glass which formed the outside of the interrogation room. Both Cheerilee and Pen saw the exasperation of the senior guardspony. Pen was the first to clear his throat. "I dread to ask, but have you gotten anything out of him?" the coltish writer asked perhaps a bit timidly, as if fearing an outburst by the guardspony. The outburst didn't come however. He just turned his tired face and shook his head. "Nothing valuable whatsoever... It´s hard to make him squeal when he is convinced that no one can prove he did anything wrong." The senior explained, rubbing one hoof against his temple before taking a sip of his coffee. Cheerilee´s focus was more into the interrogation room itself. "Would you give me a go?" she asked, having had a not too shabby morning, so she had patience enough not to demand. The senior guardspony raised an eyebrow before looking at Pen again. "Who is she specifically?" he asked, though not in a respectless manner. It was just for his own clarification. "She is an Agent sent by Princess Luna herself... So she exceeds my authority." Pen simply stated, which in turn caused the guardspony to nod and turn his head to Cheerilee. "You don't need to ask miss... This is your area after all. Just... Don't be too rough." He tried to reason with the agent. He had experienced more than one interrogation that had gone down a very unpleasant drain, and he didn't want the same to happen again. Cheerilee nodded in return. "I promise..." She said before she walked ahead into the interrogation room. The room was metallic, dull and efficient, only really containing the Mirror/looking glass, a table, and a pair of chairs. Nothing more was needed for the effects of the room and everything was recorded from the outside. As Cheerilee came inside, the yellow coated doctor Featherband tensed, immediately recognizing his attacker from the earlier day. "W-w-What are you doing here!!?!?!" he asked, instantly very nervous about his disposition. Cheerilee sat herself down on the chair opposite to Featherband, putting her forehooves together on the table and looked over at the doctor with a serious look. "I'm here to ask you a few questions... we barely got to talk last time I saw you..." she said, her face and voice sounding more like she was speaking to an old friend than a suspect, though that demeanor quickly changed as she got on with her first question. "Who did you give Emerald over to?" The doctor visibly tensed even further, almost reflexively reaching a hoof up to his own neck. "W-W-what are you talking about? Emerald escaped me in her crazed panic-" he tried to reason with his own fake argument to save his flank, sadly it did not cover him from Cheerilee. The vampony teacher asserted her voice and sank her hooves slightly more onto the table. "You know, I was the one who followed you yesterday... You can't deny it here... I am all the proof an Equestrian court needs to put you in the spotlight... That would not be very pleasant would it now?" she asked, first her voice just sounding like that teacher that was giving a bad child a few more straws, before the dreaded detention might be used. Featherband tried to look confident, but he wasn't... No way. There was sweat seeping into his fur and some was running down his forehead as he had one of the worst poker faces Cheerilee could imagine. "B-B-But an Equestrian judge can't convict anyone of something they haven't commit-" "Did I fail to mention that if you don't spit it out now, I am authorized to rip that foreleg back into place with much needed violence?" she asked with a perhaps slightly cruel smile, but it was needed now. She needed to be harsh and consider this pony a possible enemy of equestria. She rose from her chair and very, very slowly walked around the interrogation table, getting closer and closer to Featherband, who tensed even further with each passing millimeter she got closer. He was actively stammering now. "Y-Y-Y--Y-Y-Y-you can't do that! Th-This is Equestria-" he barely squeaked out, not very stallionlike, but the question was his pride or his life. He had not been able to get another syllable out before Cheerilee made her way over to Featherband, and roughly grabbed him by his foreleg, and pushed his muzzle roughly into the table, not slamming, but just mashing it into the table. She had moved herself behind him gracefully and now held his right forehoof in a rather stressful position, where just the right amount of force could break the entire leg off, if one was determined enough (or had enough strength), while her body was pressing against the back of the doctor´s chair, as to pin him even further against the table. "I think you have much bigger problems than geography, Doctor Featherband... Like whether or not you want to continue to have four limbs." she hissed into the doctor´s ear, not hiding her contempt for him, her hatred for him having some kind of connection with Poor Emerald´s disappearance. Pain from both his muzzle and the stressed out foreleg was rushing through the doctor´s system and he was staring wide eyed back at Cheerilee with the best of his ability, Frightful tears in his eyes, and immediately squealed. "P-P-Please stop! I didn't Know! I swear I didn't know anything! I don't know where she is! He just said I had to do it-" "WHO said it?" Cheerilee growled as she pressed Featherband slightly more against the table, applying even further pressure that had an immediate reaction from the pegasus doctor, which desperately tried to flap his wings, However they had been strapped against his sides as a standard procedure when a pegasus was arrested. Like when under normal arrests, a unicorn would receive a magic suppressor upon their horn. Featherband tried to reply. "I'm not lying!" he cried out in desperation. "He attacked me from behind in my office! He said if I didn't do as he said, He would..." he bit into his lower lip, trying to keep the issue of the blackmail behind, but another sharp pain of his foreleg begin twisted just a smidget a very uncomfortable way, made him scream out in pain again. "He would what?!" Cheerilee demanded. "He would reveal my opium flower addiction!" the doctor squealed in what could only be described as a sound of pure shame. He immediately covered up his eyes and face with his other foreleg, just wishing to sink into a tiny hole and completely disappear off of the surface of equestria. He was expecting the worst now. But nothing of what he had expected happened. Cheerilee stood behind the pegasus doctor, staring at him with a new look in her eyes, one that was actually slightly sympathetic. The moment those words had escaped the doctor´s mouth, so many things just seemed to flow through Cheerilee´s mind. She stared at him, Her mind flickering with emotions. How... Could she not have considered that? she questioned mentally, before gently releasing the doctor´s foreleg, which immediately did the same as the other foreleg, covering up the Doctor´s face of shame and made him curl up even further. Cheerilee could swear she had also heard a few gasps from outside the interrogation room, but that was most likely just what she expected, interrogation rooms was usually almost soundproof except through speakers and microphones. "Featherband..." Cheerilee´s voice sounded, now turned into something much more soft. She was back to her softer teacher demeanor. "Don't be ashamed... Tell me what happened..." she spoke kindly, actually asking nicely for the information she wanted, rather than demanding. Featherband didn't want to answer, he would rather face a pack of timberwolves than answer that question. It was just so... Shaming. But he had already experienced just a smidgen of what the mare behind him could do, and didn't want to go through it again. Also... It was out in the open now. At least five other ponies would have heard it beyond the walls of this interrogation room. Nothing more to do. He sniffled, and tried to stallion up, but he did not stop hiding his face, and his voice was crooked and weak. "I was just walking into my office, after hoofling a patient from my department... I had the family on my flank who constantly wanted to know if she was going to be fine... I shooed them off and locked myself in my office as my migraines returned." Featherband sniffled a moment again, rubbing and wiping his muzzle. "I have had head-splitting migraines for almost three years now, and it almost cost me my job once... B-B-but I found that natural growing opium poppies was great at mending it... I could even get through an entire shift without being grumpy." he said with a small bit of hope before exhaling a deep sigh. "And then yesterday... My flowers were gone... I usually keep them locked up, but just yesterday somepony, somehow got their hooves on it. I thought I was done for! That I was going to be found out, that I would loose my job, my friends and-" "And then He came?" Cheerilee questioned, her voice asked softly, as she had actually sat herself down upon her haunches right besides the borderline crying doctor. Featherband simply gave a small nod. "Yes... He... I never saw him... I just heard his voice... He said if I didn't do as he asked of me, he would reveal me as an addict..." the poor pegasus bit his lower lip nervously. "I had to do it... And then when I agreed He grabbed me and stabbed some kind of... Really good stuff into my neck, I mean really good and I have tri-" "Wait, He injected something in your neck?" Cheerilee´s attention suddenly perked to its fullest again and firmness. Featherband finally removed the hooves covering his eyes and looked at Cheerilee before giving a small nod. "Yes, He´d have to... I just know I felt some kind of pricking painful feeling on my neck, and all of a sudden I was in complete ecstasy." Featherband said with a small shrug. Cheerilee stared upon Featherband, for a moment running the new facts through her mind, before she reached up a hoof gently to his shoulder a moment. "Featherband, may I see your neck a moment?" she asked, the doctor visibly flinching back a moment as Cheerilee made her request, but the teacher followed up with, "I promise, I won't hurt you... You have my word..." she said softly, yet sincerely. Featherband stared upon her for a few moments before finally giving in. It wasn't like he had any choice anyhow, so he tilted his head aside to allow Cheerilee to see the entirety of his throat that had been attacked by that strange stallion. Cheerilee peered closer, her hoof gently stroking over the supposed area of injection but she found nothing. As smooth skin beneath the fur just like any other place on the body she could see. It was as if nothing had happened. But a wound of injection would be visible, even a faint needle mark... A thought struck Cheerilee. While part of her said it was illogical due to the lack of entry wound, despite the doctor´s account, she still wanted to be sure. She looked up at Featherband again. "Say Featherband; what happened afterwards, after the high you felt?" The pegasus doctor raised a small eyebrow at her question. "Well, I was given the command to bring Emerald down to the cellar, and then He disappeared-" "How did you feel directly afterwards? Did you feel dizzy, did you faint?" She inquired for further details. Featherband brought a hoof to his muzzle a moment. "Well, I did feel very dizzy, and I actually passed out for about an hour... I was awoken by one of the nurses who knocked on the door to my office... I really still felt dizzy afterwards however." he gave a solemn nod as to confirm whatever Cheerilee were thinking of. The vampire teacher gave a small bob of her head, taking her time to think over this new information before she rose back up to her hooves again. "Thanks Featherband... For your cooperation." she said calmly and headed for the door, leaving behind a dumbfounded doctor. "Wait, just like that?" he asked, rather surprised. "You´re not going to... twist my limbs further, or something equally malicious?" He asked curiously, making Cheerilee stop at the door. She looked back at Featherband and smiled softly. "Featherband... I am not a torturer... I am a teacher..." She just said before leaving the room, Just allowing doctor Featherband´s jaw drop to the floor, practically slamming through it and the first two layers of bedrock. 'A teacher... Dear Celestia, I wouldn't want to hand in an assignment late to her class...' Outside the interrogation room, Pen and the senior guardpony were still standing there, along with several others who were there for the security. Pen was relatively quick to get up to Cheerilee. "Are you thinking what I am thinking?" he asked almost eagerly, but he kept the serious tone, knowing the situation. Cheerilee gave a small nod before reaching up a hoof to move some of her mane out of the way as it had gotten itself free after her rough handling of Featherband. "He was attacked by the same Fiend that attacked Emerald, and drained of a bit of blood... I would bet my teaching degree, that if you were to check his blood supply, you would find him lacking of a significant amount..." she stated seriously, before sending a small look over at the one way looking glass, seeing Featherband still sitting inside his little room. Pen quickly nodded and levitated up his little notebook, flipping through the pages quickly. "That certainly would fit some of the notes..." he said, not elaborating further as there were other guards in the room, though the Senior guardpony raised an eyebrow, he knew not to mess with agency business. He had seen some messed up things in his life. He simply gave a small clearing of his throat. "We will take him over from here... We will make sure he will get to a rehabilitation centre, and get him off of his addiction... It will certainly also ease up his sentence if he was truly under the influence of blackmail..." he stated calmly before giving a bow of his head and leaving the two ponies alone to their notes. Cheerilee and Pen headed out of the interrogation room to get their space and privacy that the agency needed, before Pen continued up on his previous line. "If this Fiend can attack ponies, drain their blood and not turn them into vampires, then it might be the same one who attacked Featherband... Most likely the reason the wounds persisted on Emerald could be because of her escape... Perhaps she knocked him off, screaming?" the coltish writer theorized, as they walked towards the exit of the guards sation. Cheerilee nodded in agreement with her younger partner. "That would seem like quite a feasible option, though it leaves us at a predicament. We still don't know where the Fiend himself is or where he will strike next," she stated sullenly. Pen could only agree, but he didn't really want to, as it placed them right back at square one. Cheerilee raised her head slightly and looked out onto the streets of Manehatten, the sun hanging high and annoying her sensitive eyes, yet the determination within her was much greater. "Pen, Let us Split up, You try and search your sources, and I shall try my luck on the streets. We will meet back at the safehouse at ten, if I am still not home by next morning, feel free to contact the Princess." The Coltish writer thought about the plan a moment before he nodded in agreement and smiled, liking that he now had most situations mentally covered. "You got it." And with that, they did.

Fiends of Manehatten

Dogs and Fiends

Manehatten: Every pony in Equestria knew Manehatten in one form or another. Some knew it for its great monuments, huge skyscrapers and the closeness of so many ponies and other creatures from all over Equestria and beyond. Certain writers knew it was the great melting pot, or salad bowl of cultures, which could mix between ponies, Zebras, Deer, and Buffalo. Almost anything you could think of with hooves (and a few without hooves) were able to live in this great city of progress. Though what not that many knew was that the greatness of such a city did also leave a bit of a darker mark. Manehatten was filled with lots of rich ponies and the upper crust was only beaten by the even uppier and crustier Canterlot royalty. And sometimes, those ponies found themselves in neighborhoods they would wish they had not walked into. A married couple of nobleponies, dressed in their finest were walking down the street in such a neighborhood. The stallion was a black coated unicorn with a beautiful golden clock for a cutie mark, and a darkly blue combed-back mane. He kept a watchful eye around the area, a black top hat almost hovering above his head as he looked around. The mare was white coated with a wine glass cutie mark. Her mane was bleach blonde and tied up in a nice bun, with jewels embedded into it, though that was nothing compared to the jewels she was carrying around her neck. It was a huge deep blue sapphire, perhaps the size of a large stallion´s hoof, and it was so finely cut out that one could practically use it as a mirror. The necklace it was hanging in was also adorned with pearls from the deep seas. So in other words, the two ponies were big walking targets. And they knew that. "I told you we should have taken a left, Now look where you have gotten us!" The mare huffed and turned her head away. The stallion sent a small angry glare back at his wife. "It was you who insisted that we could not wait for the carriage! I told you it was a shortcut, and it is! So stop complaining!" He grumbled as the two quickly but carefully walked along though the less than attractive neighborhood, getting a stare or two from the occasional passersby. Thankfully it was bright day and if anything happened, there were many a pony they could call for help. Even if they were only looked upon by an occasional passersby, there were really many ponies in the streets. But after a while of walking they got to a corner, which lead into an empty alleyway. Despite how high the sun hung in the sky, there were still shadows creeping around the city of skyscrapers and this alley was one of those places. A cold chilling feeling came over both the upper class ponies as they walked through this shortcut. It was as if something was there, observing them. And there was. A pair of golden eyes, with long, thin pupils were staring upon the couple from the shadows created by the sun. Even Celestia´s beautiful life giving protector in the sky, created darkness in which the inequine could hide itself in. These two golden orbs just stared hungrily and trembling at the two ponies. A deep, dragged out breathing lowly hummed in the alleyway, which made the two ponies speed up slightly from a normal walk to a brisk trot. Even if the two did not know what was behind them, they knew it was not good. And they were right. The two golden eyes slowly followed behind the ponies, hiding in the shadows, a small amount of the body that connected to those eyes were barely visible. Nopony was able to get a good look of it, before it was too late. With a swift pounce, the creature jumped out from the shadows, and rammed into the two victims, sending them crashing into the alley wall. Shrills of fear and horror sounded from the two rich ponies, one could question who was shrilling the loudest of the two, but they were expecting the worst as they were knocked aside. Shaking their heads a moment, they clenched their eyes shut. "Don't kill me!" both of them almost automatically yelped out and huddled together as they were lying on the harsh ground, preparing for some sort of Celestia-only-knows monster to take their craven souls to Tartarus. However nothing happened. The stallion slowly peeked out from beneath his eyelids, seeing that the two... were... in fact, alone in the alleyway. There was nopony there. He looked around in confusion. "What... was that about?" He asked, before he heard the sharp shrill of his wife´s voice almost deafening him. He reflexively rubbed his ear, before looking in frustration upon the mare. "WHAT?!" "My JEWELS! OH CELESTIA MY JEWELS! THEY ARE GONE!" The upper class mare whined and cried, as, true to her words, All of her jewels were gone. Even the ones from her mane. The stallion tried to comfort his wife, not seeing any trace of their valuables, not even the one that had been dropped near a manhole in the middle of the alley. The manhole cover quickly opened a bit and a gray paw grasped the gem and quickly closed up the cover again, escaping into the separate world beneath the streets. Leaving the ponies and the upper world behind, the owner of the yellow eyes and the paw sprinted through the sewers. Running on two paws, while the other two grasped the booty stolen from above, the creature huffed and panted. A smug grin formed upon the creature's gray muzzle, while its eyes adored the treasures it had stolen. The blue sapphire was almost so mesmerizing that one could forgive the creature for taking a wrong turn, or falling over. But it didn't. The creature had taken this path so many times before. It knew where to go. Only ten minutes of running through the complicated sewer tunnels passed, before the creature reached its destination. There was a large hole in the tunnel wall, the stones completely dug out from within, forming the entrance to a long and dark tunnel, that would lead to home. Quickly heading through the entrance, the creature sped up a bit, its breathing now really ragged and panted, its steamy breath almost forming fog in the tunnels, before the cold sewer tunnels were replaced with the warm feel of its tunnel home. Reaching the end of the tunnel, a larger room came into view. It was crudely dug out, the walls still as rocky and ragged as they were the day they were dug out. It was very well lit however, by small oil lamps which had been affixed to the walls with unequal distance in between them. The lamps were sturdy, but they clearly weren't placed by any professional interior decorator. There wasn't any sign of professional flooring either. The only thing there was a small beaten path in the middle leading through to a few other tunnels. The creature finally walked into the full light of the room, and caught the attention of several other similar looking gray creatures in the room. All of them gray furred, Having paws instead of hooves, and was wearing some kind of clothing, black sturdy jacket or even metal plating. This was a Diamond Dog hideout. The thief that had just arrived was one of the smaller diamond dogs, though he had stuffed his pockets and paws with the stolen gems, and did not care for the extra weight he had to carry. He was grinning like a madpony and giggling as he finally dropped all what he had stolen in the middle of the room, generating excited and interested "Ooooee"-s from every other dog in the room. The smaller diamond dog stood back proudly, allowing his kinsdogs to clamber over each other just to get a sight of the absolutely amazing gems. "Wow Scruffy! This is the biggest sapphire I have seen in months!" one of the larger, iron plated dogs said in its huge, almost droning like voice. Yet even through the droning, Scruffy could hear and feel the adoration, which only made the smaller dog even more proud of itself. "How did you get this?! Did some stupid pony drop dis?" another diamond dog asked, this one a slightly taller, but not armored. Scruffy dusted off his own shoulder and had a superior grin upon his doggy mussel. "Ohh It was heavily guarded! But that was nothin' for Scruffy!" the small diamond dog´s rough voice declared proudly. "The gems were protected by.... Uhh..." he ran a paw through his fur a moment, trying to think of something feasible to improvise with. "Ponies! Lots of Ponies!" Scruffy declared with much determination, which made him only look more tryhardy. However Diamond dogs was never known for their deductive skills, so the other dog´s just stared in amazement upon their smaller kinsdog´s tale. Scruffy grinned a moment before he lowered himself upon his paws. "There were hundreds of Ponies! With... Big spears!" Scruffy gesticulated, and got a few gasps from his adoring crowd. "Y-Yea! They were being protected by so many ponies! But when they saw scruffy, They ran away! Just small scarey poneys, ehehehehe!" The smaller diamond dog fake gloated and tried to live the part of this much greater dog. It seemed to work as its fellow dogs began laughing along, it all becoming a sort of collective laughter of how dumb those ponies clearly were. However, as the dog´s laughter died down slightly, something was odd. Someone was still laughing. An almost hysteric laughter, which clearly did not belong to any dog in the pack. Everydog´s faces turned in the same direction to the tunnel entrance where the sound came from. There was a Pony, Unicorn. Its coat was completely white, shining almost, and its mane was a deep red. It leaned against the wall, laughing hysterically. Silence first fell over the dogs as the crazy pony didn't seem like it wanted to stop laughing, however as it saw the dogs had stopped laughing, the pony whipped its eyes, even if there was nothing in them and waved its hoof at the dogs. "Oh, please continue! This is the most hilarious thing I have heard in a thousand years... I had forgotten how funny you mutts are." the pony said in between its laughter, which was slowly dying down, since its source of stimuli had gone silent. "GRAB THE PONY!" yelled one of the unarmored Diamond Dogs. The huge metal plated diamond dogs leapt from the group and lunged at the white pony. In any normal situation, this pony would have been doomed and captured within the minute. However, this was not a normal situation. The pony smirked and sank to its hooves to brace before it leapt at one of the armoured dogs. Even if it had metal plating to protect it from most enemies, the dog had the air pushed out of its lungs as the pony somehow managed to not only stop it mid leap, but actually send it flying backwards. The armored dog was too dazed to see what was going on, but its peers (which had not crashed into each other after their target had leapt ahead) stared on the spectacle in horror. The dog´s armour was completely bent in as if a huge boulder had twisted the metal in its molding stage, but everydog knew this was the act of this singular pony, who was now standing proudly, grinning wickedly on top of their kinsdog. The pony´s hoof lifted and came crashing down into the face of the poor armoured diamond dog, cracking its skull and ending its life within seconds. Blood splashed from the creature´s cracked skull and head, so much of it smearing over the white pony´s coat, however enough splashed around for it to freeze everydog in their step. Even the hardened guarddogs stared upon their kinsdog's crushed skull in terror. How could a single pony have done that? In a single stomp as well? The pony was grinning maliciously as it simply lifted up its head to face the shivering bunch of creatures around it. "Now then... That´s no way to treat a guest," the pony almost purred as it slowly stepped off of the dead diamond dog, slowly walking towards the unarmoured group of shivering creatures, who shuffled backwards until the stone walls behind them were pressed to their backsides. Scruffy was unlucky to be the small one who was pushed in front and stared in total terror of the pony in front of him. The white pony finally stood barely a few centimetres away from Scruffy. "Now that we got that little... mess out of the way, I am in need of some assistance, brave little dog... You, after all, took care of so many ponies with spears, right?" the bloody pony spoke with a superior tone about it. Scruffy swallowed hard and tried to stammer out a response. "I-I-I was just kidding! I didn't Really-" however the dog was silenced as the pony slowly lifted up its bloody hoof, making Scruffy huddle up in a ball of terror, expecting the hoof to come down and kill him, just like it killed the bigger dog. However the bloody hoof simply placed itself upon the dog´s shoulder, before the pony cooed gently. "Oh don't worry about that, my little mutt... I just need a teensy tiny favour of you... and I am even going to give you... A little help." Streets of Manehatten: "Well that worked like a charm..." the teacher muttered sarcastically as she grumpily walked down the streets of Manehatten, Pen right behind her with a bit of a quizzical expression on his face. "You know just because we didn't find the fiend does not mean it was useless... We at least disproved that the Oranges might have something directly to do with the kidnappings," the coltish writer tried to point out with a small smile in an attempt to raise the mood. He was dismayed however to find that Cheerilee would have none of it. "Pen, I know you're trying to cheer me up, but every moment we waste, even longer do Emerald and all the other victims have to suffer under to whatever cruel schemes that that... Fiend or whatever has planned for them! I just can't take it lightly!" She grumbled aloud, stopping a moment by a lamp post, rubbing one of her temples and leaning against said lamppost. The coltish writer nervously looked a bit to the side, trying to think of something to say to his superior to help cheer her up a bit, but his brain failed him. "I-I'm sorry..." he said, lowering his head a moment and looking at the paved roads. It was a frustrating situation. However, he was not allowed to look for long, before he felt a hoof lift up his head, ending up meeting Cheerilee´s sweet eyes in a slightly tense moment. "You really should stop apologizing so much Pen... You don't have any power over the situation so you don't have to take it upon your cape." Her honest teacher demaenor once again breached forwards, making both her and Pen smile slightly. The writer took a deep breath before leaning in, and in appreciation, nuzzled his neck against Cheerilee´s neck. "I know... Just... Thanks for being so patient with me..." he said sincerely, closing his eyes a moment as he just wished to show his true sincerity. Cheerilee was a tad bit surprised by the show of appreciation, but she gently returned the nuzzle as a gesture of kindness. "Don't mention it," she said with a small smile, thinking perhaps this night might not have been too bad in the end. They had, after all, cut off one possibility as Pen had said. It wasn't another lead lost, it was a possibility disproved, which would bring them a step closer to the truth. This could actually be a very positive thing. However Cheerilee´s night was just about to get a tad bit worse. She heard someone gasp, and then yell out. "Cheerilee!!" the voice borderline shrieking, while at the same time having a sort of slurish feel about it. Now, being a vampire made sure that she usually could react faster than just about any pony, however Cheerilee had been so surprised that she could only slowly react as she felt not only Pen being pushed back, but then a foreleg being placed over her shoulders, and somepony pulling her firmly into a cheek to cheek nuzzle. Before Cheerilee saw who it was, she saw the hoof pulling her in. It was a purplish colour holding a bottle of wine. Wait...purpleish... wine. Cheerilee was just able to sniff in the air before she turned her eyes, and she didn't even need to see who it was before she knew the situation had just taken a turn down very bad avenue. She came eye to eye with an eerily similar pony to herself, however she was more purple in her coat while Cheerilee was more lavender. The mare´s mane was more messy and curly, while Cheerilee´s mane was curled up as her choice of style. The vampire teacher´s green eyes met with the magenta eyes of the uncanny similar mare. "Berry Punch!?" Cheerilee squeaked out the name of Ponyville´s most famous winemaker (connoisseur and drunk), as she was forcibly nuzzled by her old friend. "Yes its me, you silly filly!" Berry declared loudly and proudly. This... was not good. Cheerilee tried quickly to think of the situation she found herself in, but her old friend didn't give her the time to breathe (not that she needed it). "Where have you beeeen mare??!? We were all so worried when you moved away from Ponyvilleeee... I know its a little late, but Daaaaaaaammmn I didn't want you to goooooo~" Berry blabbered out in her drunken slurry. Cheerilee tried to, as gently as possible, release herself from the uncannily similar-looking old friend of hers. She gave off an overly nervous laugh and had a very bad pokerface due to the sudden breach of her usual professionalism. "Beeheherryyy.... Good to see you... Wh-what are you doing in Manehatten?" she asked, before sending a small pleading look over at Pen, who was standing dumbfounded in front of the two mares. 'Get. Me. Out. Of. Here!' She desperately and silently screamed, to the coltish writer, who only then began to realize the gravity of the situation. Vampires weren't supposed to meet up with old friends who did not know of their condition. It would only complicate things further. Pen Cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Ms. Berry, but-" "Hold your hooves there sweetheart, I got my eyes on you later, but let me put on the reins later, ehehehehe" Berry interrupted Pen and laughed rather slurrishly at the end, thinking she still had her own charm, convinced she had just shown herself as a brilliant ice queen. Though Pen just smiled awkwardly at the mare, who was still nuzzling his superior. Berry quickly continued as she still clung to Cheerilee. "I came here to Visit Pinchy´s dad, thinking perhaps we could hit it off againnnn, ehehehehe" she said, before taking a heavy swig of her wine bottle, which was rather awkward considering that meant she had to squish into Cheerilee´s face to reach the bottle. Cheerilee was slowly getting more and more annoyed, knowing that if her friend were allowed to walk around without restraint, she would continue to drink and be miserable. The news that Berry had met up with her daughter´s father told Cheerilee that easily. She couldn't just let her stumble around without anyone. The last time she did that, Ponyville needed to get a new fountain... Don't ask how, how somepony as Berry Punch could make that kind of damage was beyond her. Cheerilee smiled slightly sympathetically at Berry and tried to get through her drunken focus. "Berry... However it went with Pinch´s dad, I think you should get home by now-" "Home!? I'm not going home yet! I got to taaalk to you, maare~" the drunk replied determined, tightening her strange hug like position. Cheerilee knew Berry was stubborn, so she had to figure some way of convincing her. Thankfully, Pen apparently had the same thought. "Excuse me Miss Berry, but Cheerilee can't talk right now, she has got a very important meeting to get to." The coltish writer insisted before winking a moment at Cheerilee. She returned the wink and turned to Berry with an apologetic smile. "I really wish I could stay Berry, but its really important-" "MORE IMPORTANT THAN MEEEE!?!" She yelled, in drunken confusion and complete lack of control over her vocal levels. "What happened to the proper teacher I used to knowwww?~" Berry asked as she leaned herself against Cheerilee, using her best puppydog eyes. 'She died and turned into a vampire,' Cheerilee thought in response but thankfully Pen was there to pull her out of the awkward situation again. "Cheerilee has a very important meeting with some high standing Unicorns from Canterlot." He then turned his head back and forth, as if the message was the most important to keep secret, before leaning in to Berry. "Just between the two of us, she is going to make it big... if Just she can get to the meeting, on time... Without any interruptions..." he insisted the last words to try and make it go through Berry´s drunken slurry. Berry stared back at the coltish Writer with a puzzled face. One could almost see the cogs turning very very slowly inside of her head, as if the entire clockwork of her mind was only slowly starting. Finally it clicked and she went "Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... I seeeee" she said a bit sadly. Cheerilee felt bad for lying to her friend, but she was more trouble than she was worth right now, and she still needed to find this Fiend and Emerald. She decided to roll along with Pen´s plan. "So, Pen, can you perhaps help Berry home to her apartment?" she asked, yet also sort of urged of her compatriot, who was quick to smile and nod. "Of course, Miss Cheerilee." he said before walking over to nudge a bit at Berry Punch. "If she can remember the direction that is." he said in a small challenging tone, of which Berry was quick to pick up on, despite her drunken disposition. "I will have you know! That NOTHING can make me forget where home is! Or my hotel! I got a talent for that!" she said with a proud grin, as she was beginning to wobble a bit more. Pen was able to just place himself where Cheerilee was before and allow the drunken mare to support against him. "I presumed your talent was wine production?" he replied in casual conversation, before sending back a wink at Cheerilee. The vampire teacher´s flank was figuratively covered, and she could make her way back to the safehouse without a certain mare from the past following her. Cheerilee smiled and mouthed at Pen 'I owe you one', before turning around to make her way off, just as Berry began to respond to Pen´s question in her full drunken slurry. "THAT IS ALSO MY TALENT! I am a conno... conner... connu... I am a genius!" Berry assured him, as she could not really pronounce connoisseur. Pen simply smiled and nodded, while he began to walk forwards with Berry, doing his best to give Cheerilee the distance and help Berry to walk. Cheerilee had after all asked him to bring her home, so he would do that. Cheerilee and Pen could be thankful for the fact that Berry was drunk enough to be distracted easily. Or else she would most likely have seen through this oh so clever ruse. "So which way to the hotel?" Pen asked as the two slowly walked down the streets of Manehatten, Berry still holding a foreleg around Pen and weighing him down more than the unicorn was used to, but he bore with it. Berry took another swig from her bottle with the awkward movement that ended up squishing Pen a bit more, before answering. "That way! Just take that alley, its a shortcut." The Coltish writer complied with the drunken mare´s directions, barely giving the alleyway a questioning look. Having lived in the city for quite a while, he was almost completely unphased by the darker alleys of the city. Perhaps a bit too unphased. The alley was relatively long, and a bit shifty as it had several smaller alleys that gave access to other parts of the city and other buildings, but none of the two ponies gave the scenery much, if any appraisal. The only ones who was being observed, were them. A pair of slim golden eyes were observing the two ponies from a slightly lifted ponyhole cover. The owner was staring intensely at the two, the eyes almost shivering with anticipation. They were there! They were getting closer! The target was just there! Just coming closer, and closer and closer and... wait. How close were they getting? Turned out that the creature didn't have the time to consider that before the two ponies ended up accidentally stepping on the ponyhole cover, thus smacking the creature in the face with several kilos of hard metal. The twang from the impact was loud enough to make the two ponies jump aside in smaller surprise. "The Tartarous was that?" asked Berry in confusion, as she looked at the ponyhole cover. They had both heard a loud twang and something falling into water, but only Pen had put two and two together to think that something had fallen down the ponyhole when they stepped on it. The colt gritted his teeth a moment as he said, "Excuse me," to Berry, before just stepping over to the ponyhole, and satisfying his OCD by just shifting it a centimetre as to place it back into its spot, and turning it a moment to lock it safely. A loud clank sounded as it got into its place, but another twang made the two ponies jump back again, as they could see the ponyhole completely ripple as if something had hit it directly from below. Berry stared at the shivering metal a moment before observing, "I think that hurt somepony..." The coltish writer shrugged his shoulders a moment. "Might be a Diamond Dog... The local guard force have gotten a few mentions of robberies from those once in a while... Don't worry about it, the city has designed the ponyholes after it. It would demand that somepony had forgotten to lock this, or if they were strong enough to brea-" And before Pen was able to say anything more, as if summoned, The ponyhole cover was smashed upwards and sent flying several feet into the air, completely bent inwards, with locks and even parts of the concrete ripped along with it. Both ponies exclaimed in surprise and jumped backwards as the crazy display of strength happened before their very eyes, and out of the hole, a very big diamond dog wiggled its way out and into the alley. It was twice as tall as a normal pony and it stared down at them. Berry froze in fear instantaneously, while Pen lowered his horn defensively as the Diamond Dog was staring at him. However, before it was able to move any further, another Diamond Dog poked its head up of the ruined ponyhole, and growled at its kinsdog. "You IDIOT! Don't focus on the unicorn pony, its the earth pony-Pony!" the smaller scruffier doggy barked in command. The larger dog complied, and turned around to look upon Berry, who only then snapped out of her frozen state. "W-Wha, you´re not looking for mehehehe!" she said with the worst poker face smile her drunken state could summon while she slowly stepped backwards, only to feel the coldness of bricks press against her plot, hindering her escape. The larger diamond dog didn't change its expression. It was simply stoic yet so... determined, as it almost lumbered towards Berry. It lifted up its large paw, as to prepare it to bring down and grab the defenceless earth pony. Until it felt the shock of a certain coltish unicorn, attempting to shoulder tackle the much larger dog. Despite Pen´s flimsy unicorn build of a body, he was able to throw the large dog off of its balance, and the creature actually toppled over, crashing into a few trash cans. Pen quickly shifted his focus to Berry Punch. "Run, Berry! Get out of here no-" Pen´s words were cut off, as the dog had risen from its fallen disposition, and grabbed his tail. With a mighty yank, the coltish writer was forced backwards and off his hooves. This would normally have been enough, but the dog was annoyed with the unicorn. So it did not simply just pull him back. Instead it swung him by his tail around, like he was a small lasso, before letting go, and sending the stallion crashing into the alley wall with a loud thump. But Berry could swear she also heard a crack. That made her wince. Pen bounced limply off of the ground as gravity finally took over, his fedora falling off of his head. The coltish unicorn winced as he finally began to come to, feeling pain throughout most of his system, and his a floating feeling, as if he was on a ship in a storm. He opened his eyes and slowly began to grasp his surroundings. The larger dog had grabbed Berry Punch, however she was seemingly unconscious, making Pen question how long he had been out, and the dog was crawling down into the broken ponyhole again at the behest of the smaller scruffy Diamond dog. "Come on! Hurry,Hurry, Hurry Hurry! Don't want to upset de Fiend-Pony!" the smaller dog snapped at the larger one, who complied by speeding up and quickly disappearing into the ponyhole. The words snapped Pen´s pained attention to the ponyhole, with the splashing sounds of paws, making their escape into the Manehatten sewer systems. 'The Fiend!' Pen mentally gasped before with grinding teeth, forcing himself onto his hooves, feeling pain all over, still reeling from the shock of being swung into a wall. He especially winced a moment as he felt a specifically sharp pain back from his tail region. He could not move his tail without it sending a sharp jolt through him. Pausing a moment to keep his focus, Pen quickly ran over and lowered himself into the ponyhole. "Ok, tail dislocated... Can live with that... Cheerilee´s friend Berry being kidnapped by associates of the Fiend. Cannot live with that." he thought aloud, just as his hooves landed in the sloppy sewer water and his nose was assaulted by that wretched stench. With a quick and slightly panicked disposition, Pen looked around and flicked his ears back and forth just to catch the sound of the dogs making their escape. Pen quickly focussed his magic into his horn to make a simple flashlight spell, and to his luck, he was just able to see the tails of the smaller dog from earlier, turn a corner, far into the sewer. "Oh no, you´re not getting away from me!" he thought in a mumble, before setting off in a gallop. While it was hard to make his way through the murky and icky sewer water, with a constant insistent pain in his tail, Pen´s stubbornness was enough to carry him along. He turned the corner to follow the dogs and quickly mentally checked down 'Right'. Pen was in luck. The much larger dog was severely slowed by having to use one paw to hold on to Berry Punch, so once again, Pen was able to stay within sight. Though, due to the flashlight, they could also see him. And the scruffy dog was not happy. "Hurry, you oaf!! A Unicorn-Pony is following us!" the dog hissed before turning down another pipeline. 'Left'. Pen remembered as he took the same turn, following after the dogs in the dark sewer systems. Pen had no idea where directly he was. But he knew which way to go. Just had to keep reminding himself the turns. 'Right, Left... Right Left Left... Right Left Left right... Right Left Left Right Left... Right Lef Left Right Left, Very straight, Down, Left.' After what felt like an eternity, and long enough to make the not so athletic pony stop for a moment to heave for breath, but only receiving the wretched air of the sewers instead of the more pleasant city air; Pen was certain, he had found their hideout. It was clearly a crudely dug out diamond dog tunnel, while ugly and filthy with old sewer water and the stench of the numerous dogs having used it, it still was rather well kept considering. Pen carefully made his way inside the tunnel that he had seen the dogs disappear into, making sure to stop his flashlight spell before he placed a careful hoof against the tunnel wall and descended into the Diamond dog lair. 'Make sure to remember... Keep the wall... Careful.. Careful...' he kept mentioning to himself silently as he knew there could be Diamond dogs just around every corner. Thankfully, the wretched stench of the sewers SHOULD cover his scent for at least a few minutes. Slowly making his way forwards, Pen could slowly begin to hear the growls and yells of Diamond dogs, much further into the tunnels, but it was hard to localize where specifically it was. Thankfully, Pen took the chance of dead reckoning and knowing he could remember the way back, and was successful. He saw the light of a much larger room begin to illuminate the tunnel of which he was in, and the voices of the dogs became much much more clear. "You Stupid, Stupid, Stupid Stoneskull! You allowed Scruffy to get stepped on! By a unicorn pony no less!" a small dog growled at the much larger creature in front of it. Pen quickly shifted off to the side of the tunnel entrance, hiding by a little side tunnel that would lead in some unknown direction, and listened in on the conversation. Though it turned out to be more of a rant, as the larger Diamond dog, still seemed to be completely stoic. "And den! You were so slow dat you almost revealed our hideaway! How dumb dumb dumb are you!? I am going to tell dat Fiend-Pony on you! And Evil-Fiend-Pony will not be pleased!" Pen peeked inside to see the reaction of the larger dog, to be less than... anything. It just stood there, soaking up all the ranting from its much smaller kinsdog. The smaller dog growled even more and jumped up and down in frustration. "Why must you me so stupid, Stupid, stupid!? You know if Evil-Fiend-Pony does not get, purple Earth-Pony-Pony, den we all end up like Biggus! Do you want to end up like him!?" the dog asked, as it peered at the much larger dog, who still didn't even bat an eye. Pen was confused. How could that much larger dog be so... still? It looked unnatural. He slowly reached up to try and get the quill and noteblock out from beneath his fedora, only to realize that he had dropped it on street level. 'Ah Fudgenuggets... Have to remember this as well' he thought before peering inside again. Just as he did, an average sized dog, dressed in a small black vest walked up behind the dog, that Pen designated as 'Scruffy'. "Ah don't think he think about it, Scruffy. He been just as blank since he licked da Evil-Fiend-Pony..." The second dog said, seriously, but also slightly terrified. 'Wait, licked the Fiend?' Scruffy turned to the other dog with a frustrated look on his doggy face. He shook his paws a moment before grabbing his ears in frustration. "I knoooooouuuwwww! But he is just soo... Stupiddd! He don't do what I say, And he is supposed to do what Scruffy says!" This however, prompted the other dog to scratch the top of his head and retort. "But... Isn't he supposed to do what Evil-Fiend-Pony says, and not you?" Scruffy certainly got annoyed by this remark and began turning his anger towards his less sizeable kinsdog, while Pen retreated slightly backwards to review his thoughts. 'So the larger dog has licked the Fiend, and somehow changed... Could this be some kind of power it has? Have we not been dealing with a vampire at all? Or is this perhaps one of the things this new strain of vampires can do? Wait.. has he changed the Dog into his sort of vampir- No, lets call it Blood Drainer for simplicity. So has this blood drainer somehow enslaved this diamond dog? Its higher functions seems to clearly be gone. That, or it has gotten much more control of them, as to not betray any emotions. Much like the Canterlot guards and- Wait a minute... Could he have taken these dogs as his guards?... That would certainly make sense. It's a possible resource...' Pen´s extremely long inner monologue was broken as he was snapped out of his thoughts when Scruffy began yelling. "Uuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrghhh Enough!! Just get the Earth Pony-Pony into the cells! The Evil-Fiend-Pony could be here any minute now, and Scruffy does not want to die!!" This made Pen freeze for just a second before he quickly peeked inside the room again, seeing the other dog scamper over to the much larger one, before all three of them turned to trudge over towards another tunnel, most likely leading to the cells. Pen gritted his teeth a moment as the dogs were just out of sight. "I hate to say this but... I have to get Cheerilee... I can't do this without vampire backup..." he said before stepping backwards. But then a very, very sharp pain indicated that he bumped into something. Pen´s tail had been dislocated, and dislocations can hurt like hell when you move them. Which was what just happened. Pen reflexively yelped out in pain and tried to jump forwards, and away from whatever was causing the pain. But something had other plans. In a quick and rough move, hooves grasped around Pen and yanked him back into a tight ,cold grasp which quite bordered the line of embrace. However, one of the hooves had grasped around his snout and muzzle, constricting his air supply slightly, but mainly his ability to scream. Which was exactly what he wanted to do, when he heard... and saw... the Fiend. "Sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... Wouldn't want the dogs to hear you, now would you?" The words traveled down Pen´s spine like a bar of ice. The voice was low, teasing and strangely alluring, and obviously male. Pen tried to wrestle himself free of the white pair of hooves that was constricting him, but the embrace only became tighter and tighter the more he struggled. And it meant his plot and tail began pressing more against the Fiend as well. Small whimpers of pain escaped the coltish writer´s constricted mouth, as his dislocated tailbone was getting more and more unbearable. This made the Fiend giggle. "Oh my dear... Does your tail hurt?" the Fiend asked, slowly leaning its face forwards, revealing its shining red eyes and just as red hair in stark contrast to its white coat. Those eyes eagerly drank in Pen's struggles. "My my... If your tail hurts so much, you might give yourself away..." the Fiend cooed slightly, as Pen suddenly felt the gentle, but none the less agonizingly painful, press of a hindquarter against his dislocated tail. It was just a slow, and gentle press, but it was enough to make Pen hiss and whimper again. The Fiend let out another giggle. "Can't... Have you... Scream.. Now can we?" he asked before pressing harder against the dislocated bone, forcing out more whimpers of the weaker pony, but also bringing painful tears to Pen´s eyes. A slow, but satisfied, fake intake of breath sounded from the Fiend as he whispered into Pen´s ear. "Ahhhhhhh That's what I like to seeee..." he said before gently tracing his tongue across Pen´s neck, sending shivers down his spine and putting a light blush upon his face. Even though he was terrified, he was still embarrassed by this level of... Closeness... Which only intensified as the Fiend seemed to know his weak spot, pulling Pen just a little more backwards, and nipping a bit at the tip of his horn. The sudden, very intimate move, made Pen do something he certainly DID NOT want to telegraph to the fiend in this situation. He let slip a little spell. The coltish writer´s horn flickered slightly from magic, and the Pen´s face blushed furiously in terror and embarrassment. This was the moment that the Fiend moved down to his ears and whispered. "Now... Tell me, my sexy little stallion, when can I meet this vampire of yours?"

Fiends of Manehatten

Pon3 Spins

Manehattan Safehouse: With Cheerilee´s flank figuratively covered, the vampire teacher could calmly make her way back to the safehouse to sink into the couch and into her thoughts. She was very thankful for Pen having stuck his neck out for her at that moment. Berry could be extremely clingy when she was drunk. Something that always was, if not entertaining, then heart warming. She could still remember those times back in Ponyville when Berry would show up half drunk to a Parent-Teacher conference, and yet STILL come off as the nervous one amongst the parents. Cheerilee turned around on the couch and faced the fabric. Her train of thought was slowly moving into territory that she would not really want to go into: her past. It felt so close, and yet so far, considering it wasn't really THAT many years since she had just been... average teacher Cheerilee. She could still remember when the Smell of Sugarcube Corner´s kitchen caused her glee, not melancholy. When the smiles she had given to the children in her class were directly from her still beating heart. All of that just felt so far away now. Rubbing her head a moment, Cheerilee tried to steer her thoughts in a positive direction. There was still her job in Coltenhagen... She could at least teach for a few years there, and see those smiling foals grow into more mature young ponies. That was a slightly comforting thought. "Yes... Just remember that..." she mumbled to herself before looking over at a nearby clock, affixed to the wall in the safehouse. It was just a bit past midnight. Cheerilee slowly sat up in the couch to make sure that she had seen it correctly. 'Huh... How far could Berry´s hotel be?' she questioned a moment before walking over to the kitchen, opening up the fridge and deciding to help herself to a nice bag of cold blood, from sterilized bag. Popping the straw in her mouth and turning the valve to release the cold red plasm, Cheerilee sat down on her hindquarters and released a sound of content. It was always such a buzz to get what she knew she always desired. Always craved for. But before she truly felt like she had reached the utmost high, the bag was empty. Cheerilee let go of the straw from her mouth, and instinctively licked around her fangs and lips, wanting to soak up every single last drop. Lifting up the bag and confident that she had not missed anything, Cheerilee chucked the bag in the wastebin, along with the others she had been drinking at their visit. Still frustrated with the length of time it took her coltish partner to bring her old friend to her hotel, Cheerilee came to the thought that she could perhaps reread a bit of Pen´s papers. The large amount of files were still lying out in plain sight on the apartment dining table, along with Pen´s unfinished breakfast. Not paying the food much heed, Cheerilee sat down by the table and perused the papers. Time passed easily by as the ticking of the clock began to be a more monotonous background noise. Cheerilee had found nothing new in the reading that could possibly aid with the spot they were at. All she could do was cross out the Oranges as possible suspects. Pen had come to the idea that the Oranges had some connectivity, after some perusal of the enemies of the victims. Though it was rather obvious that the Oranges, and Money Bags, never had seen eye to eye. Their visit had concluded with both Cheerilee and Pen realizing they had neither the means nor the motive to somehow get in connection to a supernatural kidnapper. Annoyed, Cheerilee headed off into the bathroom to take a shower, and relive her thoughts. Just as cheerilee had gotten that last nice curl on her mane, she could hear the door opening. With certainly an amount of annoyance, yet also curiosity for why as Pen had taken so long to get back from the simple job of escorting a drunk pony back to their respective living space, Cheerilee walked out of the bathroom, already halfway into her sentence as she closed the bathroom door behind her. "Ok, tell me, how long did she keep you with her speeches about the consistency of oat...meal?" It was not Pen who had entered. It was a unicorn guard. Specifically one of the guards that had helped with the detaining of Featherband. Cheerilee almost instantly turned more stoic and serious as the guard bowed his head a moment and addressed her; "Agent Cheerilee?" "Yes, that is me... is Pen suddenly sending the guards to bring messages? Did he get held up by Berry that much?" she asked, slightly unamused, but kept her professional stature. The guard however, looked... sad. Cheerilee picked up upon this easily and raised an eyebrow. The unicorn guard cleared his throat and his horn lit up in a levitation spell. "I think the situation is much worse than what you think..." he said, before the subject of his levitation spell floated in front of Cheerilee´s eyes: Pen´s fedora. "Wha- Where did you find this?" she asked in return, a horrible part of her intuition prodding at her worst fears, which were rather quickly... confirmed. "We found this not far from a completely crashed Ponyhole in the inner city. It looked like a monster had breached the surface of the concrete like it was graham crackers... We at first suspected Diamond Dogs... but... Then we recieved this..." he guard slowly reiterated, before floating a small piece of paper over to Cheerilee. "Addressed to you". Quickly snatching the paper out of the levitation spell with her hoof, Cheerilee quickly read it aloud. "Meet me at the 'Pon3 Spins Nightclub' at 3am, Come alone. I believe we have a few things to be discussed, Cheerilee." At the bottom of the page, a small red rose was drawn in what Cheerilee could unmistakingly smell was blood. Cheerilee was staring daggers at the paper, the guard almost fearing that she would set it ablaze with her gaze alone. His fears was proven wrong though, as the same, hard, professional, and utterly terrifying gaze of the vampire teacher met with him. "Get me all information on the 'Pon3 Spins Nightclub', and send my orders on to your superior in exact detail." she spoke, with a voice as cold as ice. 'PON3 SPINS Nightclub' Manehattan; 2:50 Am Come alone? By Discord's beard no, she would not just come alone. The Fiend had really messed up this time, he had brought himself out into the open, even dictated where she could meet him. Even if it was an elaborate trap for her, she would simply have to trump it with an even bigger trap. The moment she had read the paper, she had ordered the guards to set up a perimeter around the nightclub, that only would be active the second the clock struck 3am. The guards would be in their civilian clothes, and would then move in to cut off all exits for the Fiend. She had perused the building plans back at the station and knew there was no sewer access in the building, and the exits were very easy to cover. Five guards on the roof, ten by each of the street accesses, and even more up to cut off any wild pedestrians that might step into the scene. The moment Cheerilee would find the fiend inside the Club, she would not be talking. Oh Celestia no, she would be breaking bones and tearing apart flesh. A small nibbling voice in the back of her head reminded her that she still needed him to tell her where Emerald, Pen, Berry, and all the other prisoners were, but she shushed it with saying to herself she would only tear his legs off and break off his horn. That should be enough. She was standing outside the Club now, in her usual sweet, fake teacher facade, with a pleasant smile to those ponies who were still walking in and out of the doors to the Club. It was a relatively large building, but most night clubs did need a certain size in order to accommodate all those ponies either drinking themselves into next week or dancing their hooves off. She looked just like any other visitor to the club. It was rather popular as seemingly it was owned by the famous DJ PON3, giving the club its name, and thus, all sorts of ponies would be walking in and out all night. Perfect meeting place. She casually leaned up against the wall a moment, giving a small glance over at a pair of drunkards who were arguing with the bouncer, before lifting up a hoof calmly up to her mane to feel a small hair clip. It looked like a perfectly normal accessory, designed to keep hair out of the user´s eyes. But it was much more than that. It was a magically connected communicator. The Chief of the Guard had the other half. And if Cheerilee was to crush her clip, the other clip would light up, and signal for the guards to move in. A failsafe mechanism. Discretely, a gray pegasus, one of the guards in disguise, snuck up besides Cheerilee and whispered "Everypony in position, Agent Cheerilee, You are green to go, everypony is just waiting for you." With a soft smile, which to the outsider looked like she was accepting some kind of flirting comment from a completely random stallion, followed by a small nod, signalled the guard off, before Cheerilee turned around, and walked into the club. The interior of the club was what one would come to expect from any modern Equestrian nightclub. A bar, A large dance floor, A turntable as the center of the attention, clear signs of the exit and fire escape. But the downside of everything being as expected, was also that the music was obnoxiously loud, it was all some sort of Electronic track with a bassline which actually was so powerful that it was meddling with Cheerilee´s fake heartbeat. For the second time in this city, Cheerilee was cursing her stronger senses, as not only had her nose gone numb the former day from a trip to the sewers, now her ears were throbbing from that overpowering bassline. 'Sweet Celestia, I am getting old...' she actually thought to herself a moment as the music kept hammering at her ears, though music was to her a generous term. And the smell of the room was not much better either. It was this huge plethora of sweat, alcohol and sick. 'Of course the Fiend picks a place that hides his scent... But why then meet me in the open in the first place?' she asked herself, as she was walking further and further inside the club. Standing well inside already, yet not onto the dance floor yet, already Cheerilee was mentally running over how she would pull the Fiend out of this club. Perhaps she would smack his muzzle into the bar, and drag him out by his tail. Or perhaps she would break a few of his legs to keep him from running. Perhaps breaking off his horn and stab it through his hoof would be good enough to keep him focussed. But sadly many of these ideas would bring too much attention of the other partiers. She would have to figure out some kind of discrete, yet visceral way of making that blood sucker squeal. Nothing would stop her from that. "CHEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRILEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~" Or so she thought. With eyes for a moment as large as carriage wheels in surprise, Cheerilee was once again, for the second time that night alone, Pulled into a cheek to cheek nuzzle with the one and only, Berry Punch. "BERRY!?!" Cheerilee exclaimed in a surprise that she should have gotten used to by now, but that's the thing about surprises, It surprises you. Berry looked harrowed, her hair was all out of its place, even more than usual, and her breath actually drowned out most of the other smells in the club, with its texture of pure alcohol. The purple mare smiled for just a second as she grasped Cheerilee´s cheeks in her hooves. "Yes its me silly~ And I got to tell you... I have had a Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzyyyyyyyyyyy night out, Guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrll~ Ehehehehe~" she said before leaning more into Cheerilee, almost mashing her muzzle into Cheerilee´s in her drunken stupor, with that silly smile on her face. Cheerilee was not amused. "I should damned well say!!! I heard that you and Pen disappeared and feared the worst!" She growled at Berry, careful not to reveal her fangs. Berry was taken a little aback by Cheerilee´s sudden aggression, but she just kept smiling. "Oh Yea, That, Yeaaaaaa There was a bunch of mean dogs who... picked me up and dragged me down to their little den, it was soooo cool~" she said, in retrospective fun, before attempting to get a more serious face on, though the alcohol prevented it from being fully genuine. "Uhm, sorry bout your date though... But It all turned out all right in the end!" She said with a grin of conviction, while pulling at Cheerlee, urging her to come along, up towards the bar. Cheerilee did follow along, but she was agast. And Angry. "Alright in the end!? What in the name of Tararus do you mean!? You just said you were kidnapped! How did you escape!? And what happened to Pen!?" Berry Punch just kept pushing Cheerilee towards the bar, but was getting a much more unamused look on her face, as if he was getting insulted by her constant insipid questions. "Well, I'll tell you if you will tell me why you lied to me, gurl!" she said with a huff. "Why´re you here, if you had to go to some important meetin?" she asked. They had almost gotten to the bar, before she sat down on her haunches and crossed her hooves. 'Dont... Rip... Off... Her... Head...' Cheerilee kept telling herself, as the anger and confusion was bubbling within her. How in the wide world of Equestria Berry Punch had gotten herself free from a pack of Diamond Dogs, was beyond her. Where the hell was Pen, then?! And why had she gotten a message from the Fiend!? "Berry, you have no idea what you are in the middle of at the moment, just tell me how you got away, and where Pen is!" Cheerlee demanded to know in her most insistent voice. She was thankful now for the loud music, it made their heated conversation turn into something much more of the background than if she had been yelling in the middle of the streets. And yet, through all this noise, she heard one answer clearly, coming just to the right of her, up in the bar. "Perhaps it would be best... if I explain that to you, Miss Cheerilee." Cheerilee turned her face to find the source of the voice, and for a moment everything just stopped. It was him. That white unicorn from the sewers. That unicorn she had seen carrying Emerald away like she was some kind of downed prey that he would put away to devour later. That same almost shining white coat, which could easily make him be mistaken for one of the guards, if he was not so much more averagely sized. Those same hind legs that had bucked her in the face, and actually caused her skull to crack with a single strike. She remembered crawling desperately out of the sewers, blood seeping down the side of her face, before the wound and bone finally healed up. That very same pony she had suspected all along was just sitting there casually on a bar stool, leaning on the bar and with a casual smile on his lips. Cheerilee was not moving a single muscle, even as Berry reacted before her. "Heyyyyyy there Angelllllll~ Sssssssho nice of you to help me with this... Cheerilee can be stubborn as a mule shometimes!" Berry huffed, before looking around herself a bit. "No offence to mules though..." The white unicorn gave a small chuckle as Berry quickly added the last comment, and quickly, and of course with quite an imbalance, sat herself on a barstool next to him. "Of course, Berry. No offence to them." he replied. Berry was a bit wobbly on the chair, before she turned to Cheerilee with a bright grin. "Well, come here gurl! Share a drink with me. Angel here can explain a whole horse better than I can!" she said, without the least bit of shame in her voice. This was not good, Cheerilee knew this. Nothing was good right now. The evil unicorn was right there. All she had to do was smash his muzzle into the bar and start questioning him right there! But she would make a scene in public, and Berry would begin to ask questions. It was an avalanche waiting to happen. 'Ok, calm down, when Plan A fails, move to Plan B, if Plan B is out of reach, move on to Plan C, if you don't have a Plan C, improvise!' Cheerilee quickly told herself, before her face shifted back into an angry feature. Staying calm didn't mean staying nice. "I certainly hope he can come up with a damned good explanation, Berry, or so help me I will somehow get back at you." She scowled at her friend while calmly moving to take the barstool right next to Berry, still within a hoofsreach of that white unicorn. "Perhaps you could give her detention, Miss Cheerilee?" he said in a calm, sort of joking tone of voice, while sending Cheerilee a knowing look that she returned with a scowl that only was between the two of them, flying directly over the head of Berry. She instead was aghast at the unicorn´s suggestion. "Don't encourage her! She is a teacher, she does that on a regular basis!" Berry declared loudly, as she clumsily fumbled for her glass of cider, taking on some lighter liquor now that she was deeper in the buzz. Cheerilee wanted to snap at Berry about revealing her personal details, but instead just kept up her glare at the Unicorn. "Well then, sir? Can you give me a damned good explanation for why one of my friends who was kidnapped earlier today suddenly appears in a bar?" Cheerilee asked. The unicorn gave off a small amused chuckle before he calmly leaned himself more on the bar and looked over at Cheerilee past Berry. "Well you see, Miss Cheerilee, I just so happen to work some odd jobs, and one of them was to investigate the sewers today. It is not a fancy job, but it is a job nonetheless." He spoke with a small wave of his hoof dismissively. "Anyhoof, I was looking around for any odds and ends, when I found the dog´s lair, seeing them drag poor Miss Punch into their little den. I was worried about what they would do to her, so I quickly liberated her from the place." His expression was casual, mirroring his tone of voice. "You should have seen him! I mean... Seriously, you should, I only saw when the dogs were running away with their tails between their legs because thats when I woke up, but REALLY! You should have seen him! I bet it would have been awesome!" Berry quickly chipped in with much confidence, even though her sentence only really put even more holes in the story than Swizz Cheese. Cheerilee knew he was lying through his teeth, and that there was many more details to this, but she could not call him out on it. Not as long as Berry was there. She gave a soft, yet the most fake smile she had done in such a long time. "Oh, that is very fortunate... But what about Pen? The unicorn stallion with Berry?" she inquired further, peering over at the White Unicorn, with what looked like worried intrigue. The white unicorn casually shifted himself in his seat before answering. "Oh, the young stallion sadly got his tail dislocated by the beasts, so I sent him on to the hospital. Most likely why he might not have contacted you, Miss Cheerilee." he said with a calm, yet superior smile. It was a sort of silent message towards Cheerilee. He didn't just feel slightly superior, he was the one with the ultimate upper hoof in this situation. Cheerilee sent a momentary glare in retaliation which once again flew completely over the head of Berry, who was still fully convinced the conversation was nice and civil. "I see..." Cheerilee finally replied. Before the unicorn could make any sort of retort, Berry suddenly burst out giggling. "Oh don't worry about it Cheerilee! He´ll be back on his hooves by tomorrow... I think... Anyhoof, I don't think you should hold your hopes up gurl, He seemed like a Pony on the other side of the barn, if you get what I mean." she said, leaning over in Cheerilee, nudging at her and winking overtly, and overly signalling her meaning. For a split second, Cheerilee was distracted by the comment, but just gave an annoyed sigh. "Yes Berry, I get what you mean... Now stop nudging me..." she said, as Berry had simply continued to nudge for much longer than necessary. Berry finally picked up on the suggestion and stopped the nudging, only to lean back on her chair and more onto the unicorn. "Aaaaaaaannnnyyyhoof, Cheerliee is a teacher, it's her special talent, she has become more of a night pony, and used to enjoy long walks on the beach, is still single and has even a personal friendship with a ceeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrrtain members of the elements of harmony~" Berry summed up in a slurry, which was supposed to sound like a sales pitch tone of voice, but just ended up sounding like a pony with its tail stuck in a door. The white unicorn chuckled slightly at Berry´s antics, while Cheerilee was laughing in completely false way. "Beheheheryy... I told you so long ago to stop summing up my private life to perfect strangers..." she spoke in between grinding her teeth in frustration. Berry just huffed at the notion. "Oh, shush Cheerileeeee, you´re still young, and yet you haven't been going out with anypony since that Big Mac inchident... And now I find you in town, nuzzling with somepony who most certainly is in the closet... You need some help, guuuuurlll!" The white unicorn was looking upon the spectacle in sadistic amusement as Cheerilee was squirming within her small confined borders of not wanting to make a scene, yet still having to put up with her friend. Cheerilee ground her teeth again. "Listen, Berry-" "HEY HEY HEY! WAZZUP EVERYPONEIGH!?" Suddenly, their conversation was broken by a voice that towered over the music speakers, not really bothering to turn down the volume on the music to speak through the microphone, effectively almost deafening several ponies in the bar. The group´s gazes shifted up towards the turntables where another white unicorn was now standing there with a microphone. This was a mare though, with a blue striped mane and sunglasses. "ITS ME! The Ruler of Rock, the Mistress of Music, the Delightful Discjokey, DJ-PON3, And you know that I will always rock your hooves off!" The obnoxiously loud DJ announced through the speakers, gaining a wave of cheers from the dancing ponies. Though only gaining groans of pain from Cheerilee, and a flicker of pain from the unicorn near her at the bar. Satisfied with the response, the DJ continued. "Now all you wonderful ponies have been out partying all night and rocking the foundation of Manehatten, But you seem to forget that with a great party, one also needs to get your throat wet, so just to give us all some more time to down multiple litres of cider, and knock our brains loose, Here is some music from a personal friend, and personal favourite of mine. It's a bit calmer, but that will just be the contrast for later when we all are back to strength, Is everypony cool with that?" Surprisingly there was a seemingly unanimous agreement with the sentiment, and many ponies was beginning to shift from the dance floor and more up towards the bar. Cheerilee thought that finally perhaps her ears could get some rest, but no such luck. The voice continued just once more. "This number is much slower, so take your time to enjoy it. Maybe bring that Special Somepony out onto the dance floor for just a one on one, I know I am going to~" the DJ declared before lifting up her sunglasses and winking out into the audience, who seemed to all cheer the idea along, and most of the club was now shifting. Many of those from the bar and the corners were getting to the dance floor, and those formerly inhabiting the dance floor was heading for the bar, just as the music started. It was much softer than before, and actually more reminiscent of classical music. Cheerilee gently rubbed her ears to just ease their throbbing. Supernatural hearing was just not helping the situation, though out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Berry had gotten a huge beaming grin on her face. "What is it, Berry?" she with a slightly frustrated tone, knowing the mare would most likely speak up, even if she was silent. "Well, didn't you just hear what the DJ said? Get somepony out on the dance floor!" she said, her head sort of nudging towards the white unicorn. "Take Angel out for a Dance!" "What!?" Cheerilee asked, both her covering teacher facade and her underlying agent core agast. Get out on the dance floor with the damned Fiend?! How earthshatteringly... brilliant did Berry have to be. It just dawned before Cheerilee just as the unicorn that Berry had constantly been calling 'Angel', casually got off his chair and smiled. "Well, Why Not, Miss Cheerilee? I believe that would be a perfect time to... Get some Quality time together." he said calmly. Cheerilee knew what he meant. The dance floor was emptying, and Berry was going to stay at the bar. It was perfect. With a quick shift off of her chair, Cheerilee shrugged her shoulders slightly. "I... guess that would be nice..." she said, being good at acting uncertain, and even giving Berry a small worried glance, who only returned it with an enthusiastic nod, before walking out onto the dance floor, deep into the club with 'Angel' right besides her. Berry was wearing a grin the width of a barn door as she shifted a few seats at the bar, to get to the nearest drinking pony before the seats would be taken. "I, am the BEST shipper EVER!" she declared as she suddenly intruded on a gray earth pony in a pink bow tie. The gray mare looked for a moment in surprise and confusion, before Berry did a complete U-turn in her demeanor, as she suddenly broke down in sobs, yelling out in drunken frustration; "THEN WHY CAN'T I HANDLE MY OWN LOVE LI-HI-HI-HI-HI-HIIIIII-FE!?!?!?" and then ended face planting the bar. A few moments of awkward silence (under the music of course) stayed before the other mare awkwardly asked "Another round?", and Berry lit up like a Hearth´s warming eve tree. "Yes please!" Back on the dance floor, Cheerilee had finally found what she was certain was a secluded spot, before turning around to face 'Angel' who seemed to take advantage of the secluded spot to calmly flick his mane back a bit, before smirking in return at Cheerilee. "I must say, your friend is quite an interesting pony." he said, approaching up to a... Rather intimate distance between the two, their muzzles not far apart, yet Cheerilee did not flinch. She was dropping the teacher demeanor and glaring at him. "So she is... 'Angel,' tell me, is that what they call you before they move on to 'Fiend'?" Cheerilee asked with a certain amount of venom in her voice. The Fiend just chuckled, though. "Both are right... In their own ways. I tend to keep to Angel when around the unsuspecting Roan..." the Fiend casually spoke as he took a step back, and gave a small bow, on the outside still making believe that the two were going to be pleasantly dancing. Cheerilee returned the bow. "The Roan?" she asked with a small raised eyebrow. For a moment, a slightly surprised expression washed over the Fiend´s face, before he sighed. "Oh yes, it has been so long since you vampires have seen any of us... I should only expect that you have degraded even further..." he mused, before walking closer to Cheerilee again, casually leaning in to the side of her neck, getting a close, intimate dance, yet the two both knew that the other could possibly kill the former. Cheerilee made a low sort of growl, before the Fiend continued. "It is a term for the... mortal ponies..." he replied. "What are you... You aren't an average vampire, that much I know, or else Emerald would have been another newborn." Cheerilee growled at the Fiend, while the two were so slowly dancing back and forth, the music drowning out their conversation for any other pesky ears. The Fiend shook his head and let out small tsks. "A conversation usually contains answering questions on turn, Miss Cheerilee, you have for now only been asking me things, and I believe you´re getting rather intrusive." He smirked, his voice just so sadistically confident, knowing that he could drag out the time as much as he wanted. Cheerilee snorted in return. "This isn't a conversation. I am questioning you... If I wanted a conversation, I would want to be sure that whatever is spoken, is true." she said with a firm nod. The Fiend just giggled though. "Oh really? Since when have you had a truthful conversation with your friends?" he inquired. Cheerilee was taken aback by the metaphorical slap to the face. She had not spoken with her friends truthfully for... years... And she didn't think that Luna counted as... a friend. Fiend slowly continued to slowly move in sync with Cheerilee. "Let this then be your first in a long time." he spoke, gaining Cheerilee´s attention again. "An agreement of truth, between liars." he offered, with a confident, if slightly suspicious smirk. Cheerilee took a few seconds to consider it, but she could not think of any reason why not. This was most likely the best she could get out of him. "Alright then... What is your question?" she asked. The Fiend turned his head to face Cheerilee and looked her in the eyes. "Who is your elder?" Cheerilee blinked in confusion a moment at the question. "My elder?" she repeated. The Fiend responded by sighing and giving a small facehoof. "Sweet Allfather, you beasts have truly degenerated... Who was the vampire who turned you? Who was the one to teach you the rules of the night?" Cheerilee was slightly surprised how the Fiend seemed to be genuinely surprised and disconcerted. "I don't believe he could be described as my elder, but a pony named Valiant turned me... He didn't teach me anything, though." she responded, not wishing to give him every detail. That was going to cost him questions. The Fiend gave off a low annoyed growl, but not at Cheerilee. He was looking aside before returning his gaze to the vampire mare. "I hope you have put him down for his lack of responsibility..." he replied before both of them made a small synchronized turn while the music shifted a bit. The one calm track was replaced by another one, again very cello filled. "Your turn, Cheerilee." he stated, before smirking again, his annoyance having settled, and his confidence seemingly back. Cheerilee took mental note of this. "What are you? You both speak as if you´re something different, and you didn't turn Emerald into another vampire, even if you bit her. According to our data, that should not be possible..." she slowly stated the last comment, before firmly glaring at the Fiend. "What, are, you?". A moment's silence passed between the two, before the Fiend answered. "A remnant of the past... A stallion out of place... I am superior to you smaller beasts... I am a Kaynite." he answered, his voice filled with pride, superiority, and darkness. He reveled in a sense of empowerment from the word Kaynite. Cheerilee froze. Kaynite. It sounded familiar, somehow, she was not certain how it just felt like it was nibbling at the back of her head. The Fiend smirked and leaned more forwards, pushing completely against Cheerilee, leaning in to her ear. "Now you tell me Cheerilee, does that awaken something within you? Does that not wake a little nibbling feeling? A little sense of... inferiority?" he whispered sadistically. Power and gratification was hanging in his voice like a bad smell, and it actually made Cheerilee want to shiver. How could he know? The Fiend retracted himself again and could not keep himself from letting out a satisfied, dark chuckle. "Oh no need to answer me that, little vampire. I know it... its in your nature. Its in your blood." he said, laying extra emphasis on the last word. Cheerilee flinched as the Fiend now seemed so intrusive and his words gave away to so many new questions. But she had to make sure to ask the right ones. Biting into her lower lip a moment, she composed herself again. "Then tell me, what is a Kaynite? As far as I am concerned, you are just another undead bloodsucker like me," Cheerilee retorted with a small amount of extra confidence which she had dug up. The Fiend looked like he was more amused than insulted by Cheerilee´s incursion. "Oh a Kaynite is a true nightdweller. One with grace, elegance, heritage, and power." He smirked before waving a hoof dismissively a moment. "Vampires are like a disease. We are a true race." His response held an air of dignity and confidence, before moving on to his question. "Tell me, how many have you had to kill in order to sate your hunger? How many Roan have suffered the loving embrace of the final death at your fangs?" he inquired with a low, almost purring voice. The questions were stinging Cheerilee like long, cold needles. He seemingly knew just what to ask to make her feel uncomfortable. Her fakely beating heart was sinking slowly with each question, the everlasting guilt trip slowly sinking over her mind, yet she kept on her facade of stoic glaring at the Fiend, even as they continued to dance. "Was that an official question?" she growled in return of the Fiend, before making a small twirl move. The Fiend mirrored the twirl before giving off an amused huff. "No, I just simply wished to see your reaction," he spoke with amusement. "Alright then, here is an official question. Why do you believe yourself so powerful? I still haven't seen anything that makes you Kaynites any better than a regular vampire," she spat at him, trying to throw the ball into his curve, and keep the pressure on him. The retort was that same, amused giggle that he so sadistically enjoyed. "My dear Cheerilee... Haven't you noticed already?... Oh of course you haven't... and that's exactly the point..." he purred his words lowly, before suddenly reaching his hooves out and grabbing Cheerilee into a tight, on the outside, dance like embrace, and whispered in her ears. "Why don't you, take another look?" He purred. Cheerilee was baffled as she felt the strength that was within the Fiend´s hooves, and especially the grip around her. It was as if it was ready to shatter her bones at any command. She was confused and squirmish a moment. Take a look at what!? But thats when it dawned to her. She looked over his shoulder and finally was able to see his cutie mark. It was a red, twisted, thorny rose, wrapped around an unknown item, yet what she could see, was that the thorns were drawing blood. They were dripping. It was a bloody rose. Cheerilee´s eyes widened in realization. "Why have I only seen that now?" she asked. "Power, Cheerilee... With the right power, you can make yourself anything... Imposing, inspiring, terrifying... Or as you now see... simply... something you don't notice..." he grinned with sadistic glee, in both seeing, and feeling the puny vampire´s reaction. Cheerilee looked like she was completely blank for a moment. This was gradually turning out to be a bigger and bigger threat than she anticipated. She had to get him now. "And now for a very important question, Miss Cheerilee... Tell me, who do you work for?" The Fiend had gently begun to let go of her as to make the two look eye to eye. Cheerilee was slowly, and casually lifting her hoof up to try and reach for the hairclip. "Princess Luna," Cheerilee said casually, and even with a confident smirk of her own, hoping that it would throw off this so called Kaynite. Letting him know just who he had begun to mess with. But just inches before she reached the clip, her hoof stopped. In an insanely swift motion, the Fiend had swung up his one hoof to block Cheerilee off from access to the clip. Cheerilee looked back at the Fiend and realized that his formerly smirking and superior face... had turned to anger. "You... work for Luna?" he almost hissed at her. It was almost a terrifying flip of a coin. "Yes... I do," she replied with as much confidence as she could muster from the sudden surprise shift of demeanor. The Fiend´s gaze had turned almost feral, as his eyes also began to shine up in red anger for just a moment, before it all shifted back to a small smirk again. "Well then... that changes everything..." he said, before in just as swift a motion that had stopped Cheerilee from reaching the hair clip, he snatched it out of her mane with his magic, letting it levitate in between the two of them. "I must say, it was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cheerilee, but if you want any further information about me or my kind, please refer your questions to your boss. Don't be surprised if she has you executed, then," he said with a wickedly self confident grin. "And do tell her a little thing from me..." he said before taking a step backwards, and letting go of the hair clip from his magic. "What?" Cheerilee asked, in confusion. "That an Amour, does not take kindly, to breaking an oath." he said before his hoof suddenly came crashing down upon the hairclip. Everything happened so fast after that. The doors crashed open, and the guards that Cheerilee had posted came flooding in, causing panic and confusion amongst the guests. Cheerilee only had a split second to look upon the Fiend before he smirked at her and sprinted through small crowd on the dance floor. He didn't care about the ponies in his path as they were just pushed aside, like it was some kind of rugby game. He was heading for the stage. Cheerilee remembered the building layout perfectly, and she knew there was an emergency staircase behind the stage, which could lead to both the street level, but also to the roof. The Fiend jumped from the dance floor to the stage, smashing into, and toppling over a pair of large speakers, which proceeded to smash into the turntable. The unicorn DJ almost screamed in some kind of mix of horror and anger, "MY TURNTABLE!!". The Fiend was completely nonchalant though, he just sprinted off behind the stage, with Cheerilee left to deal with the chaos behind him. Cheerilee set off in a sprint as well, following in the wake of the Fiend created chaos. Leaping from the dancefloor, she followed after him as fast as she could. Getting backstage, she saw the door to the backalley had already been crashed open from the outside, as her guards had been flowing in. But she also saw the Fiend. He didn't seem to care about the guards, as he simply dashed up the stairs, ignoring their yells, and demands of him keeping in place. Cheerilee sprinted after him, only turning her head to call back down to the guards "Its the Fiend! Follow me!" The guards got the command and followed as fast as they could, but that was like asking a regular pony to keep up with a speeding train, they did, inevitably lose ground on their supernatural target, simply by being slower. Cheerilee cursed under her breath, realizing that if she were to catch the fiend, she could not rely on those guards. But hopefully, those on the roof would be able to stop him. The stairs were a large square structure that kept going around and around, the railings in the middle to keep ponies from falling in. But Cheerilee knew she could not be careful with this. The Fiend was already halfway up the stairs, and she could not let him get away. She leapt up upon one of the railings, and set off with all her strength and speed, making the metal shiver from the sudden shock, and sent her self flying upwards, towards the next railing. She mirrored her former leap on the next piece of railing, and got even further up, much like what ponies had seen in those ninja films. However this was much less elegant, and much more urgent. Finally reaching the top of the stairs, she found the door already smashed open, yet from the inside and the outside world was revealing what could be described as an accursed brawl. Stepping out onto the rooftop, she did not at first see the Fiend, but the guards she had posted on the roof engaged in a desperate struggle with a pair of large diamond dogs. The guards had snuck spears along, but they seemed to be of little aid against the lumbering creatures who simply swept the weapons out of their hooves/magic/wings. The guards had done damage on the creatures though. While they still seemed to be fighting unwaveringly, large bruises and wounds were apparent on the dogs. One of the guards noticed Cheerilee and waved at her in the heat of battle. "Agent Cheerilee! Help us!" He yelled, before suddenly getting smashed into the concrete roof by a large diamond dog paw. Cheerilee was too late to save that guard, she could hear the crack of his skull as his head collided with the concrete, but she knew that she could possibly stop all of this right now. But just out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Fiend was making his escape. Jumping from the Club building over to the fire escape staircase of the next one, heading up to a much higher roof, no doubt to get on to the next one. Cheerilee was torn. One of the guards was already dead, and they didn't seem to stand a chance against the two diamond dogs, but if she stopped now to help them, she would be letting the Fiend escape. This could possibly be her only chance to get him, and to save Emerald and Pen. For a split second, the crying face of Emerald flashed in her mind, and she took a snap decision. She would just have to see if she had made the right one later. Setting off in a sprint, she passed the guards, and the large dogs, before leaping over to the opposite building´s fire escape. A pang of guilt came over Cheerilee as her hooves clattered against the metal stairs, but she pushed the feeling aside, as she looked up, seeing the Fiend was still moving. The screams and yells of the brawl below was slowly drowned out by the ringing of metal beneath her hooves as she sprinted up those stairs, constantly keeping her face looking upwards to see if the Fiend got off any earlier than the roof. Finally reaching the roof, she saw the Fiend was standing on the far edge of the, looking back over his shoulders, directly at Cheerilee. "You know, I was rather convinced you would stop to help your Pet Roan. Rather cold to just leave them to fight my subordinates," he said with a smug grin. Cheerilee let out an almost feral growl, revealing her fangs in fury and anger. "Stop this now, Fiend. This ends here. I am taking you down!" she said, stepping threateningly forwards, aching to get all the pent up anger out in a good fight. The Fiend shook his head, though calmly stepped down from the edge of the roof. "Tsk Tsk tsk, Vampire. This is not going to be the last time we meet. You still have a traitor to visit..." he said with that same sort of smug grin that just made Cheerilee want to rip those lips straight off of his skull. "Come here you coward! Lets end this!" she yelled before lunging at the Fiend. To a normal pony, the fight would look completely impossible, as if the laws of physics and magic had been completely suspended. Cheerilee was insanely fast in her lunge, but the Fiend seemed to be just that bit faster as he sidestepped Cheerilee, making her slide forwards along the concrete for about a meter before she turned to try again. She was yelling in anger as she was jumping, yet only getting more and more angry as the Fiend seemed to be just able to dodge her. All the while he was wearing that same smug grin. "Listen, why do you not simply just surrender, you know in your blood, that I am superior." he said, before taking a complete halt, looking at Cheerilee who was about to lunge at him again. "Why do you struggle against your blood born master?" he asked, before taking another casual sidestep. However, he did not not anticipate what happened next. Cheerilee lunged at him, yes, but instead of aiming to tackle him, she had aimed herself in front of his hooves, so the moment he had sidestepped, she was still in front of him, with a smug smile of her own. "Because, this," she said, before shifting her weight onto her front hooves, and putting all her strength into her hind legs, and made a mighty buck that could break the bones of a normal pony. Her bucking hooves smashed directly into the under the chin of the Fiend, who was flung backwards like a tossed over ragdoll. Cheerilee smirked as she heard the thud of flesh and bone hitting concrete. Turning around to look upon her handiwork, she saw that he was already getting up upon his hooves again, but he for once not had a smug grin on his face, but one of surprise. Also, a small amount of blood was gently dripping out of his mouth. The Fiend wiped it away with a hoof before looking upon it in the same sort of surprise. Cheerilee smirked and leapt at him again, this was a perfect chance to crush him like the beast he was. But now she was being the smug one. And smugness often goes hoof in hoof with hubris. Leaping for the Fiend to tackle him, and get into the perfect position to kill him, had left her exposed to something she had not thought of. A stand your ground counterattack. The Fiend glared at Cheerilee as she was barely a metre away from him, before he punched his hoof forwards, making it crash directly into Cheerilee´s abdomen, almost halting her like a piece of paper would be halted against a brick wall. Cheerilee could feel how several of her inner organs had actually burst from the collected energy of her lunge into, and the power of, the Fiend´s hoof. She collapsed off of his hoof and gasped reflexively for air, even as she didn't need it, before trying to get up again. She didn't get far however as the Fiend shifted his momentum on his hooves in order to let both gravity and energy work together in a mighty stomp down upon Cheerilee´s neck. Bones cracked beneath hoof, and blood rushed into Cheerilee´s throat as she gasped reflexively for air, and tried to calm her body and reflexes. Even as the Fiend was still keeping the pressure of his hoof down on her throat. "I must say, rather impressive of a simple vampire to draw blood from its better. Really, bravo, Miss Cheerilee, bravo." his smug tone still shining through as his eyes had begun to light up in the red flare of blood lust. "I´d have rewarded you in the past... perhaps even considered putting a good word in to your true ruler." he mused before pressing even harder down upon Cheerilee´s throat, making her writhe and gargle in pain. "But times are different now..." he lamented. Cheerilee growled and gurgled up at the Fiend, her glare only meeting his smug eyes as she tried to reach her hooves up to push him down, but instead of getting the intended effect, the fiend simply stomped his other hoof down upon Cheerilee´s. Another crunch sounded as bone was shattered beneath the stomp, and making Cheerilee cry out in pain. Finally, the Fiend sighed and removed the weight from Cheerilee, and stepped off of the vampire. "Just stop following me... you will see me again soon... but you need to see somepony else first," he said, before leaning his head down to Cheerilee´s, looking straight into her glaring eyes. "Now, please excuse me," he said, just as he lifted up his hoof a last time, and stomped it directly into Cheerilee´s face. Thats when everything went black.

Fiends of Manehatten

Rising Darkness

Manehatten: "...-eerilee! Agent Cheerilee, Can you hear me!?" The voice penetrated the darkness of Cheerilee´s mind like a pickaxe striking through sedimentary rock, and at the same time summoned up all the collected pain that was still rushing through her body. Groaning painfully, Cheerilee slowly opened her eyes, seeing that above her were several paramedics, and the superior guardspony from earlier this morning. The soldier breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh good, you´re alive... Or... Aliveish... I thought certainly you were a goner there!" he spoke in his Manehattenite accent. All the pain from the different wounds came back into sensory reality as Cheerilee opened her mouth to try and reply, but the almost burning pains came back to her, making her hiss out instead. Cheerilee could slowly begin to feel and recognize her surroundings. She was still lying on top of the rooftop she had fought the Fiend on, but it was clearly hours later. The sun was slowly rising in the horizon, and her innards felt like they had healed up again. Several paramedics were gently wiping away the blood away from her downed body. She slowly lifted up her hoof which had been stamped upon earlier, It didn't look good. It looked rather healed up on the outside, but Cheerilee had a complete feel for most of the bones in her body. She could feel how it was incorrectly twisted and slightly off beneath the skin. One of the paramedics looked concerned upon Cheerilee and he gently gestured for her to lower her hoof. "Please rest, we will have to scan you back at the hospital. The anklebone looks slightly off." the paramedic asserted. Cheerilee slowly opened her mouth to try and reply, but as the air tried to escape her lungs, she could both feel and hear the gurgling of blood from her lungs. She reflexively began a fit of coughs, turning her head towards the ground and began to empty out all the remaining blood from her lungs. It was beyond uncomfortable as while a certain amount was still liquid, there was a lot which had clotted and stuck to the inside of her lungs. The ponies around her took a slight distance to her as she was, almost literally, coughing her lungs up. Cheerilee felt horrible, it was painful to just cough the remaining muck out of her lungs. She turned her head, while still heaving for breath to readjust her fake heartbeat and air needed for talking. "H-How... how long has I been out?" she croaked, as her throat had cracked slightly from all the coughing, but with her healing factor, it was quickly fixing itself. The superior guardspony calmly sat down upon his hindquarters. "Two hours." he stated firmly. Cheerilee tried to pull herself up upon her hooves again, but two of the paramedics gently nudged at her to stay down. "Please wait till we get the stretcher up here." one of the paramedics said, and almost as if summoned, another pair of ponies who clearly was from the Ambulance service came running with the item in question. Cheerilee grunted and held her wrongly healed hoof closely to her chest as the paramedics all clamoured around her and did their best to bring her onto the Stretcher. Just as the ponies was about to lift up the stretcher though, Cheerilee lifted a hoof. "Wait..." She said, before looking over at the superior guardspony. "The Guards... On the rooftop..." she began with a serious face. The guardspony tried to dismiss the issue he knew was coming up. "Its not important Agen-" "Its important to me." she asserted with an almost icy glare that made the guardspony freeze. "How many?" she asked, finishing her original question. After a few moments of uneasy silence, the guardspony sighed. "None of the guards stationed on the roof survived, and a few others were crippled by the diamond dogs before we finally were able to bring down the beasts..." he reported slowly, his face falling as he saw his words make the impact upon Cheerilee that it had. The Vampony teacher clenched her eyes shut and tugged her bad hoof closer to her chest. "Listen, you couldn't have d-" "Shut up..." Cheerilee cut the guard off, before her healthy hoof grasped around her other one. With a few quick feels, she then suddenly put a large amount of pressure upon the side of the hoof in what to a normal pony looked morbidly creepy. She twisted her hoof around in a loudly cracking adjusting of bones. She screamed again in pain as several healed up muscles snapped under the sudden force she applied to the wrongly healed hoof. The paramedics gasped in terror. "Stop that you cant just do that!" - "That could be causing irreversible damage" - "You need to get to the hospital" and similar words were escaping all the paramedics, but Cheerilee found herself ignoring them completely as she could finally feel her anklebone back in place. Cheerilee breathed through her teeth a moment before she sat up on the stretcher, still sore from last night's fight, but determination was trumping pain. "Filles and Gentlecolts, I thank you for your medical assistance, but I have no more need for your help." she said in a slightly pained voice, before firmly gazing at the guardspony, who instantly tensed, like the abyss was suddenly staring at him. "And you, bring me an express coach, I need to be in canterlot within the next few hours," she commanded before slowly getting up upon her hooves, though not leaning upon the now newly healing bones. Everypony around her was staring in a mixture of disbelief and surprise, but the guardspony was still a bit on the backhoof so to speak. "W-Within a few hours? What are you going to do?" he asked in confusion. For the second time this morning, Cheerilee sent her stare upon the guard who froze, and counted his blessings. "I am going to find out everything about this Fiend. And to do that, I am going to hear the story, directly from the Alicorn´s mouth." Unknown Location: The first thing that Pen could feel was the merciless cold of concrete that had pressed itself against his fur for several hours by now. As his senses slowly came to him again, he clenched his eyes shut and slowly tried to move his limbs. His hooves felt heavy as they pressed against the concrete floor to slowly try and lift his head up from the unforgivable floor. Opening his eyes to finally look around, he found himself in what seemed to be a small concrete room, barely lit up from a small stream of light that emitted from the door. The door seemingly was designed with a small plexiglass window, while the rest of it seemed to be made out of steel. Pen groaned slightly as he tried to lift himself up to his hooves, but his body just seemed to ache, and just as he began to get to the altitude that heads normally reached on a day to day basis, everything began to swirl around him. He felt so unstable upon his own hooves, almost anemic. He stumbled to the side and caught himself with the cold concrete wall. "W-What in the sweet name of Celestia..." he slowly mumbled before looking down himself. His shirt was very disheveled and ruffled, but thankfully it seemed relatively unharmed. So did the rest of him. He felt groggy certainly, but other than that seemed alright. He stretched his forelegs a moment, feeling nothing off, though as he began to stretch his hind legs, he began to feel a slight hissing pain. It clicked for him at the moment as he remembered his tail had been dislocated by that diamond dog. In a sudden moment of realization, Pen whipped his head around to look at his tail to see that it was back in its socket. All nice and fitting, not only that, somepony had tied a small bandage around the root of his tail, tightening the hairs and lifting up his tail slightly but also restricting the movement of the tail. It was the way dislocated tails was treated in just the beginning phase, just to make sure that the recipient does not end up dislocating the limb again. Also in case any muscles had suffered strain, then they would get some time to heal up again. "Huh..." Pen lowly muttered, before looking back at the door again. "Ok... Let's... Recollect..." he thought aloud, while taking in all the facts, and remembering the ordeal from yesterday. "So, I must assume that the Fiend has trapped me after..." he stopped a moment and blushed remembering the Fiend nipping at his horn, and his magic going off. He covered his face in his hooves. "Oh sweet Celestia this can only go bad..." he whispered to himself. Earth ponies had their usual, nervous dispositions in such situations. Pegasi had their 'Pomf' moments, and unicorns had slipspells. "Why did that happen?" he asked aloud, trying to make his curiosity and professionalism go above his embarrassment. "Of all times..." he lowly mumbled, before shaking his head firmly. He couldn't think about that now. Why he was in the predicament was not as important as getting out of it. Giving the room another perusal, Pen once again returned to the door with the glass window. He walked up to it and peeked out at what he could see outside his prison cell. There didn't seem to be anypony, or anydog for that matter. Not completely sure if it was the best way to proceed, Pen carefully pressed against the glass. He mused a moment how much force would be needed to smash through, before shrugging. Only one way to find out after all. He turned around and sank down into his forelegs, and made a buck backwards towards the door, hoping to hit the glass. He did, though only with one hoof, sadly not having coordinated his hind legs correctly, so one did crash through the glass, while the other made an audible twang against the metal floor, sending quite a shock through his body, and making him faceplant the floor. "Umph..." he lowly grunted as he imagined how awkward he was hanging from the door. His one hind leg was throbbing from the sudden shock, but he was thankful to not feel anything in his other hind leg, which signalled that he at least didn't cut himself on the glass. Awkwardly, he stretched his hind legs correctly and got himself onto all four hooves again. "Alright, that could have been done much more elegantly..." he mused before his horn lit up in the average telekinesis spell, unlocking the door from the outside now that there was nothing constraining him or his magic to the outside world. With a certain little smirk of his own, he strode outside the room and found himself in a long hallway of a sort. It looked like there was several rooms much like his own, however a quick peek inside a few, he found nopony inside. "Huh..." he said in slight confusion. If this place was somewhere that the Fiend had brought him to, would his other prisoners not be here as well? As if summoned from the aether, the sound of lumbering paws could be heard as something large was heading his way. Acting quickly (and trying to panic minimally), Pen set off in a sprint on the opposite direction. Pen had no frame of reference to where he was, so he had little to no way of figuring out where he was going either. He just took a quick turn by the end of the hallway and continued down another dark hallway. He presumed however that it was something underground. Which would explain the lack of light from outside sources beyond the occasional magical lantern. The echoing clatter of his hooves against the concrete suddenly seemed to be the only thing he could hear beyond his own breathing. Pen was perplexed, considering that he knew the Fiend had Diamond dogs to help him, they should have heard him. Pen slowed down and leaned against the wall for a moment as he began feeling slightly faint. He was panting actively already and his heart was racing. He looked around for any sort of door that perhaps could hide him. The hallway he had set down had been very door less, as compared to the other one he had been in. Though he did find a few. In urgency, Pen pulled at the doors, none of them budging an inch. "Celestia Damn it-" he cursed, while in the same movement, he slammed his shoulder against the door in frustration. And the door gave absolutely no resistance. He fell forwards and smashed into the floor for the umpteenth time that day. Confused and momentarily dazed, he quickly clambered inside and closed the door behind him. With heavy breaths and a slightly wobbly vision, Pen looked back at the door and realized why the door had given in... It was a push door... Not a pull... He facehoofed so hard that he could swear he heard an echo. "Right... Always like that..." he grumbled, before slowly getting back upon his hooves again, gently dusting off his still ruffled shirt a moment and turned to look into the room. He wished he hadn't. The room was a large concrete square filled with what he could only describe as Objects of torture. There were several chains connected into the wall, tables with the same kind of chains connected directly into the concrete, with one large one, dangling just above it. Besides the table was another smaller, hospital roller, which was filled with several different kinds of scalpels, and surgical tools. Everything was hidden in the dim lighting which only seemed to light up from the door. The entire room was reeking of what smelt like old blood, yet in the darkness, Pen could not see any. In fact, most of the corners of the room was so dark that he could forgive even Princess Celestia for not being able to illuminate them. Suddenly, a rustling sounded at the door. Pen panicked and instantly threw himself into one of the dark corners of the room and pressed himself against the wall, holding his breath and just staring ahead to see who was going to enter. If he had not been holding his breath, he would be gasping. It was the Fiend, but he was carrying somepony over his back. A stallion with a white mane and blue coat. It was Clear Brush, the victim of half a year ago. He looked horrible. His coat looked dull, his mane almost looked like it was ready to pop off of the pony´s head due to excessive stress. Pen could not see it, but had the light been on he would have seen horrible signs of scarring and constant abuse. But he didn't need to see them to figure that out. For the Fiend just casually strolled inside, thankfully not looking in Pen´s corner, but instead walked over to the table in the middle and strapped down Clear Brush. He then lit up his horn and levitated the chain that hung into the ceiling, and clamped it around the captured unicorn's horn, the chain for a moment lighting up in smaller runes. A small, pained and absolutely pathetic whimper escaped the blue unicorn as he seemingly began to wake up, just as his captor had begun to giggle. "Rise and shine, Clear Brush, the sun is out, and I am certain it looks, Oh so fine." The Fiend cooed, as it leaned its head down to face with Clear Brush. The blue unicorn whimpered again. "P-Please... N-Not me... P-Pleaaseee..." he was begging in a low, borderline crying voice. But the Fiend only grinned and lit up his horn in a levitation spell, which picked up one of the scalpels on the table. "Now now now, Clear Brush, You´re my oldest little plaything, and I think you should have the honour of being the preparation." he spoke in and almost cheery voice. Pen was breathing so carefully through his nose as possible, praying that even his own heart rate would lower so much that he would be invisible. He knew that if he bolted for the door he would just be caught. So he prayed that the stench of blood was covering his scent. The Fiend gently levitated the scalpel up against Clear Brush´s cheek, and gently stroked the fine, non-sharp side of the metal piece against his roughed up fur and skin. Clear Brush was lowly whimpering now. "P-Pleaaaseee..." he kept on begging, but the Fiend gently covered his mouth with his hoof. "Mister Brush, don't be such a baby, we are just working on a little art piece." he spoke in a condescending manner, while the scalpel floated up towards Clear Brush´s horn. "And we just need a bit of paint to start with." he said with a grin, before in one quick motion, sank the scalpel down upon the unicorn´s skin and cut a fine line around the horn. Blood gushed from the small wound in the skin and the blue unicorn whimpered in pain, and tried to pull at the chains, yet nothing seemed to be able to help him. Pen bit into his own tongue, trying to focus on the pain he was causing himself instead of the horror in front of him. But there was one thing that caught his eye though. The moment the Fiend cut into the unicorn, the runes on the chain upon Clear Brush´s horn lit up just slightly. Something, left Clear Brush and went through the chain? The Fiend leaned up to Clear Brush´s horn and gently let his tongue run across the small wound he had created upon the unicorn´s forehead, lapping up any excess blood. Clear Brush was wincing at first, but somehow seemed to relax, even while there was still tears welling in the Stallion´s eyes. The Fiend then floated the scalpel down to one of Clear Brush´s hooves, it quickly slicing through a bit of the skin around the fetlock. He just seemed to revel in every movement and whimper of pain from Clear Brush. Once again, as Clear Brush was pained, the runes lit up on the chain, and something seemed to go through the metal links. The wound was small, but it must have hit a minor artery, because the blood was gushing freely from the wound, seeping out upon the table and even beginning to drip off of the side. "Oh that should be enough." The Fiend spoke in a cheery tone, as he actually dabbed his hoof in the growing pool of blood and then gently placed a hoof upon Clear Brush´s chest, making a small imprint from his own blood. The retching stench of blood was assaulting Pen´s nostrils, his heart hammering against his chest in fear as he was staring upon the Fiend as he casually drew his bloody hoof across Clear Brush´s restrained body. To top it off, the Fiend was humming. He was humming a light tune whilst drawing in blood. "The plight of an Artist, You pour your heart and your soul, Keep working for days on end, Perfection, Is your goal." The Fiend let the scalpel sink down into the Blue Unicorn´s chest and proceeded to seemingly draw a shape in the skin, all the while Clear Brush was crying out in pain. The Fiend stopped there, though. He pulled out the scalpel and looked upon his mutilated victim with a small dismayed frown. He sighed and sank himself down to the cut artery, and gently began to lick the wound. Pen didn't want to look, but his eyes were drawn to every move the Fiend made, knowing that every single disgusting piece of information could be so important. That's also when he saw it. After the Fiend had licked up the wounded fetlock, he seemingly bit into his own lip, making it draw blood. The tiny wound closed up quickly, but not before he dripped a bit of his own blood directly onto the wounded fetlock. And like a miracle cure, the wound closed up again, with the same sort of Vampiric healing factor he had expected. 'Fascinating', Pen thought, for a moment distracting himself with the scientific aspect of this, instead of the inequine display. The Fiend sighed slightly again, lifting himself back up so he could look at Clear Brush´s face more clearly. "The search for perfection is always so tedious, isn't it?... Mister Pen?" Pen´s heart stopped for half a second. The Fiend turned to face directly into the shadow that Pen had been hiding in for the whole time there, and smirked at the red unicorn. "Enjoying the display?" he asked wickedly. Pen could not hold it in anymore. He gasped for air, screamed in fright and bolted for the door. He swung the door open, only to be met by the sight of a large Diamond dog blocking off one of the corridors, so he fled in the other direction. The diamond dog grunted a moment and prepared to give chase, but was stopped as the Fiend called. "Stay where you are... Guard the blue unicorn..." he commanded, while he walked out into the hallway with a malicious smirk and blood smeared coat. "I´ll take care of this myself..." Pen just kept running, he didn't know where he was or where he was going, but he didn't care. He just had to get away. He took every turn he could, praying that somehow he could loose the Fiend in the strange maze of corridors he found himself in. He had never before been so terrified, in the few years of his service in the Agency, this was the first time he truly feared for his own life. Finally getting to some upwards going stairs, he thanked Faust, Celestia and Luna in advance for what he thought might be his salvation. He was wrong. As finally he got up the stairs, he found himself in a large, circular room, which had an eerie similarity to the torture chamber below. There were lots of different tools for extracting pain from a pony, along with lots of ways to restrain them, including a plethora of chains. A certain amount were connected in reasonable intervals along the circular wall. Four for each limb, one for the neck, and a last, Pen guessed, was for a unicorn´s horn, as they were smaller than the other ones, and all were connected to the ceiling. There was however also all sorts of medical supplies and sanitary items. Pen bolted across the room, avoiding all the... other items, he didn't even want to describe mentally, and tried to open a door that was on the opposite side of the room. He fiddled with the handle and kept trying to get it open, pulling and pushing, but it revealed itself to be securely bolted. "No, no no no, please don't be locked." he spoke aloud in panic, as if the door would react and neatly open itself for him. That was when he heard the giggle from behind him again. "Oh certainly, I am certain the door would love to sort out this misunderstanding, Just keep asking nicely, perhaps it will comply." Pen turned around and stared in absolute terror upon the white unicorn who was standing on the far end of the room. While his manner was casual, his blood smeared coat did nothing to soothe Pen´s already strained nerves and hammering heart. He had nothing to resist with. He knew the Fiend could just crush him if he wanted to. The Fiend began to casually walk forwards towards him, but stopped as Pen seemingly began to slowly pace to the side. The Fiend could not help but giggle at the display. It was like a predator facing off with his cornered prey. Pen was the first to raise his voice of the two. "Well, that's the thing about doors, you can't rely on them!" He said in a slightly joking manner, having retreated to wit as his last defence from just breaking down and submitting. But the Fiend knew fear when he saw it, but it was still amusing to see the way this young stallion coped with that fear. "I find them rather reliable, Mister Pen, After all, you´re still here." he said in a slightly musing tone, while pacing to the side, mirroring Pen´s walking. "T-That's of course true... May I ask why you know my name?" Pen asked, quickly trying to switch the subject, whilst his eyes kept themselves transfixed upon the Fiend, waiting for him to pounce. The Fiend did not, however. He just gave a bemused smile. "I have my ways of gaining information Mister Pen. And any information about such a young, talented, and attractive pony as yourself, will not go past my nose," he purred lightly. Pen tried to keep a straight face, but the Fiend´s words was really making him uncomfortable in so many ways. He´d have to shift the subject around somehow. "Well, You´re not too bad looking yourself, I´d perhaps have asked you out, if it wasn't for the whole, Malicious and Evil Fiend, thing..." he said, trying to pass it off as yet another comment, and not come off as the nervous wreck he was. The Fiend smirked and walked forwards, Making pen freeze a bit, as he knew he could not bolt to either side. "Why thank you Mister Pen, and I must admit, I do owe you another show of appreciation." He said, before stopping in the middle of the room, at one of the rolling tables with a pair of items on it. Pen swallowed. "Thank me? What for?" "Why, for being the stone to start the avalanche." he said with an almost appreciating smile. "If it wasn't for you, I most likely would just have been playing with my Toys for much longer than necessary. But thanks to you, I was able to get the attention of the pretender." "T-The pretender? Y-You mean Celestia?" Pen asked, seeing that the Fiend was staying in the middle of the room, his magic seemingly fiddling with a few different items. The Fiend seemed bemused. "How´s your tail?" he asked, not answering Pens question, but instead lifting up what Pen could only describe as a Gagball. Pen swallowed his spit a moment, giving his tail a small glance. "Uhm, Its, alright... its... Healing... I think... Why´d you bandage it up?" he asked curiously. The Fiend looked back at Pen. "It was hurt, So I bandaged it up again..." "Oh... Well, Thanks I gu-" "Besides, it does give a good view of your rather fine flank~" The Fiend emphasised, making Pen light up in a red embarasment, once again suddenly feeling very, VERY self conscious. Its bad enough to feel out of place at a party, but it didnt match up to being seemingly desired by a supernatural creature who could kill him in an instant. "W-well, thank you for that!" Pen tried to sound defiant, though he had no idea how to phrase his words, he was terrified, yet had to seem confident. His eyes shifted around to the room and he stepped forwards in a moment of inspiration. "But now that you have me here in your little play room,why not just spill the beans, Hmm?" he asked, pushing all his pretend confidence into his words, that actually seemed to make the Fiend raise an eyebrow slightly. "What is all of this!?" Pen asked, waving a hoof around, his eyes also shifting around the room. "What do you need all these chains for, What are they all connected... Toooooo..." his words gave up upon him as his eyes fell upon the item in the ceiling. The huge thing was brimming. Every single chain seemed to in some way also be connected up into the ceiling, and up onto the- Suddenly the Fiend was there in front of Pen, and forcing him eye to eye. "You want to know what this is? Alright, Its very simple... This is half my world... And your princess has the other half. And I want it back." he growled slightly, before slamming Pen back into the wall, knocking the air out of the young unicorn. While he was dazed, the Fiend´s horn lit up, and the chains attached to the wall each seemingly came to life and clamped themselves around each limb of Pen´s, except for the horn chain, that one instead flowed over to the Fiend so he could place it gently into his own hoof, and stare upon Pen, who only then realized that he had gotten chained to the wall. In a panic he tried to rush forwards towards the Fiend but was stopped and yanked backwards like a dog on a leash. Once again, the Fiend laughed sadistically. He oh so enjoyed seeing them struggle. "And as I said, thanks to you, I have planted the seed of the usurper´s destruction..." he said, before looking upwards in a thoughtful moment. "Though I will perhaps need a much more direct way of contacting her..." He mused, before lifting up his hooves to open the horn chain and move it towards Pen´s horn. Pen obviously struggled to try and move his horn out of the way, but the Fiend just pushed him firmly against the wall, and then clamped the chain around the horn. "There we go~" he cooed, and then stood down upon all his four hooves again and looked into Pen´s eyes. "Now, there should be at least three hours until I will need to send any sort of reminder to the usurper, so we have lots of time to play~" the Fiend quipped happily, before leaning himself against Pen, who was slowly stopping to struggle as the Fiend´s close proximity was not only making it harder to move but also it was just, uncomfortably terrifying to feel his cold body pressed against his. He stared into the Fiend´s eyes, his own growing wide as the Fiend gently began to stroke a hoof down his chest, and down to a very... private... place. "You know, I always loved them younger~, You have so much more energy~" the Fiend purred. He leaned in and gently licked his tongue up the coltish pony´s neck, tasting the skin and fur again, and revelled in the feeling of his new toy, who in turn was gasping in terror, as his body began reacting. That feeling... Terrifying... Hot... and only going to lead to something horrid. 'P-Please Cheerilee... Save me..." Canterlot Castle: The great imposing castle of the Equestrian capital was an architectural marvel, having been standing, and been renovated, for millennia, some of the stones within even older than the walls that surrounded it. Everypony who would be inside of it would always remember it, due to this imposing and awe inspiring display. Though of course it could get a bit dull and tedious if you yourself were a long living being like an alicorn. That was the case for Princess Luna. Even with all the changes that had happened to the castle for the entire millennia that she had been gone, it still felt the same. So now as she was sitting inside the great dining hall, which could take the breath away from most normal ponies and make interior decorators bite their hooves in the huge task it would be to make any sort of improvements on this seemingly perfect room, Luna was just using it like normal ponies would their dining room. Thus, dining in it. She was sitting on the one end of the table, having her breakfast, served and cooked by the great staff of course, with her sister Celestia on the far end, who was all fresh and talking, seeing as she had gotten a full night of sleep, only just woken up to raise sun, running her mouth on about interesting kinds of magic that Twilight Sparkle had rediscovered. Celestia was in no way decent by royal standards, as she had not bothered to brush her mane, and still had not gotten out of a pair of pyjamas she had taken on, mainly to tease Luna who said it was childish of her. Luna looked rather normal, since she was used to working on her beautiful nights, so much that such things as sleep began to become of so little importance to her that sometimes she could not remember when she last slept. The nights just sort of flowed together. It was while considering when she had slept last, that she was slowly zoning back into the celestial monologue. "-and thanks to this sort of siphoning magic, all sorts of emotional energy would be able to be used as much more tangible magic. Its sort of like a changeling strategy, though while changelings perhaps could use a single victim, this would take a large amount of donors, or the same donor for years at least-" She continued on, making Luna keep her focus more on her breakfast, though Celestia was finally beginning to realize that her sister was not listening. So she leaned her head slightly more forwards. "And after those long years, clowns would appear out of the sky, bringing with them dubstep canons and bring on the apocalypse..." she said, going off a completely ridiculous tangent, to confirm that Luna was indeed not listening, before the word apocalypse. That did snap her attention though. Celestia could not help but giggle lightly, that dignified and mature giggle he so often had done around Twilight Sparkle before. "I'm sorry if I am boring you, little sister." Luna rolled her eyes. "Don't apologize, big sister. We simply have things to think about..." she spoke, still holding on to her royal we, it just having stuck for now. She levitated a napkin up to gently wipe her mouth, before rising from her large seat. "Please excuse us, sister." Celestia tilted her head a moment, and frowned slightly, she didn't like when Luna just left her alone, but she respected her sister´s wish for either privacy or time to work. She sighed as the door closed and Luna had left her behind alone to finish her breakfast. "You really should be more social, Luna... I have always said that..." she lowly muttered, levitating her spoon to get into her food. However, her ears perked up the moment she caught the sound of commotion outside of the dining hall, hearing someone mutter about 'You cannot go in there', and 'Halt'. The Celestial diarch turned her head to the door just as it was swung open to reveal a very, very grumpy looking Cheerilee. Along with a certain amount of Guards who were seemingly about to try and stop her again, but Celestia raised her voice. "At ease, let Cheerilee pass," she commanded at the guards, who followed their orders obediently with an "As you wish, your highness". They walked out the door and closed it behind them, letting Celestia and Cheerilee be alone. Celestia smiled, despite Cheerilee´s grumpy exterior. "Greetings Cheerilee, It has been a long time since I have seen you at the castle. I presume you're looking for my sister?" she asked, her voice pleasant and dignified. Cheerilee took a deep breath through her nose, keeping as calm and stoic a face as possible. "Yes, I am, Would you perhaps know where she is? I was told she was in here..." she said, getting straight to the issue, not even bothering greeting the Princess of the Day. Not many had the audacity to do so, which was why Celestia was mildly surprised, but it was more out of concern than anything else. "Yes, she just left a moment ago, Take the door there by the end of the room, and follow the hallway until you get to the tower stairs, up in the furthest tower is her room, that's most likely where she will be..." Celestia answered calmly, before giving a more regal and firm glance down at Cheerilee. "Is something of the matter?" "Yes..." Cheerilee answered, already walking past the Princess. "Which is why I am going to talk to Luna directly..." she answered before she was already halfway out the door on the far end on the room. The door closed with a relatively loud slam, causing even some of the windows to shudder a moment. 'Whats eating at her?'

Fiends of Manehatten

Past Returns

Canterlot, Present Day Princess Luna´s room looked like something out of time and out of place. It was as dark as her own night, and yet at the same time illuminated enough as if her own moon was within the room itself. Its furnishing even seemed as dark and flowing as the night. Her bed was large and round with deep blue sheets, which presided just beside a door that lead to the balcony, so that she could raise and lower her night as she wanted. Even now with the sun hanging high, the room was dark. It was just tranquil. But the universe, having something against tranquillity could always come up with a suitable excuse for breaking it. Either through the annoying buzzing of a bee, a message, an official occasion, Or in this case, a grumpy vampire agent who proceeded to promptly smack open the door with an audible crash. Had the doors not been as sturdy as they were, they would possibly have popped off their hinges. Princess Luna turned to face the door. "You know the door was unlocked?" she asked stoically. She was sitting in the middle of her room on a large soft pillow to replace the traditional chair, a scroll levitating in front of her as she looked upon the intruder. Cheerilee looked like she was ready to pounce the Princess at any moment, but the alicorn had enough self discipline to stay still. "You have a few things to answer for, Luna," Cheerilee said in a small growl as she walked inside, keeping a glaring eye contact with the ruler of the night. "Whatever do you mean, Cheerilee?" she replied calmly, letting the document float off to give Cheerilee her full attention. "I remember when you sent me out on this assignment in Manehatten, that you told me not to worry if your suspicions were correct... Well I would very much like to know what those suspicions were, because I met something more than worrisome. Its a damn problem," she growled at the diarch, causing the alicorn to raise an eyebrow. "What have you found?" "Something called a Kaynite..." Cheerilee added. "And it told me specifically to speak with you... Now, I have never heard of anything called a Kaynite, and I doubt many others have either. So would you perchance know something about this?" she asked, her tone almost accusatory, while keeping a sort of sarcastic snark. The Princess gave a calm glaze over at Cheerilee, adjusting herself slightly on her pillow. "A Kaynite is an old variation of the blooddrinkers like yourself. They are barely a few stragglers alive, and an experienced vampire should easily be able to do the rest of them in, Which is why I sent you-" "So you KNEW It was going to be a Kaynite?" Cheerilee asked, her accusing voice cut through the room like a hot knife through butter. Had this not been Princess Luna, the mistress of the Pokerface, she would have flinched. "We knew the possibility, thus why we decided to send our best agent." she spoke calmly. "We presume you´ve dealt with the situation, thus why you are here in our face, angry at our decision?" she asked calmly. Cheerilee gritted her teeth. "Well no, Your Majesty! I have in fact returned to report that both Emerald Song and your Agent Pen, have been captured by a Kaynite known as either 'Angel', or 'Fiend', and that he seems to have quite the grudge against you, since he made it VERY clear that you were a traitor... So no, I haven't come here for a congratulatory pat on the shoulder, I have come here for honesty..." The princess of the night froze for just a second, staring in disbelief upon her most trusted agent. "Are... Are thou certain? Perchance you have misheard? That, it was not Angel or Fiend he named himself?" she asked, hoping utterly that she was right. Though Cheerilee just replied with a deadpanned look. "Did you just ask if a vampire with heightened senses heard correctly, in a one on one conversation?" The princess winced almost at that question before shaking her head. "Of course you heard correctly, apologies Cheerilee its just..." She averted her gaze. "It should not be. We are certain that... Said Kaynite is long dead..." She tried to reason. "Well so am I, but I still pack a mean punch..." Cheerilee commented, only gaining a slight look from Princess Luna, however Cheerilee made sure to press that moments advantage. "And this only confirms what has been said. You do know who it is." "We only have a suspicion, Agent Cheerilee." Luna stated. "After all, tis could just be another with a similar name." she postulated. She was rather happy with that possibility and for a moment, found herself content in the belief that it was all a coincidence. Untill Cheerilee spoke again. " 'An Amour Does not take Kindly To Breaking an Oath'" she repeated, finally seemingly cracking the Princess´s poker face completely as she seemed to wince slightly. "That is what he asked me to say... Now will you please, just tell me what is going on?" Luna looked down in thought before finally responding. "It... would seem that an old... Acquaintance of ours... has survived." she admitted with much reluctance. She then let a small sigh escape her, looking up at Cheerilee. "Please, Take a Seat, we have a feeling that answering your questions might take a while..." Cheerilee was hesitant for just a moment, keeping up her angry stare at Princess Luna for just a few seconds further, before finally complying and taking a seat in the soft, almost bean bag like, cushion just opposite to the princess. The Princess observed Cheerilee as she sat down with a solemn expression, as she calmly braced herself for the parade of questions. "Now, One Question at the time, What would you like to know?" "Well firstly... How do you know this, Fiend or Angel, guy? He seems clearly to bear a grudge against you..." Cheerilee deduced. "And he stated that its been almost a thousand years since his kind was seen. So I will presume you have known him for a long time. Why is he only a problem now then?" she inquired. Luna lowered her head slightly at the questions, and gave a small sigh again. "Tis be a long Story..." "I have the Time, Though his victims might not. But you are the best lead I have, so I am going to sit here until I have understood every, single, detail about this monster..." Cheerilee asserted. Luna rose her head to look Cheerilee in the eyes for a few brief moments. "Very well then... It was A long time ago... Before... Before the time of Nightmares..." The Castle of the Ancient Pony Sisters, 1020 years ago. The moon hung high in the sky, and loomed over Equestria in its beautiful shine, that only seemed even more majestic in those days. Almost a thousand years before any of the future bearers of harmony had even seen the light of day, there was still a strong and united Equestria. A beautiful realm of joy, happiness, and Harmony. Or at least, it was seen as such. The land was still filled with the creatures of Magic and Myth, like Manticores, Dragons, Hydras and many a monster alike, and thus so many ponies saw the land outside Equestria as dangerous. And especially at night. That was the detail that hurt her highness the most. Princess Luna was standing on her balcony in The Sisters Castle, staring up upon her beautiful moon, doing her best not to let rich and warm tears roll down her beautiful star-kissed cheeks. 'Why?' she mentally questioned, her wings tightening slight around herself as she wished she could wrap herself in sheets and just cry her beautiful night away. Nopony was enjoying it. Nopony was out in her beautiful night and frolicking in the fields, or seeing the paths her starlight had now revealed to those who would look for them. Her effort, and her beautiful moon had done so much, yet nopony was noticing her effort. It made her feel... Useless. And... Angry. 'Why me?... Why will nopony love our night? Our beautiful creations of night, our compassionate moon and wonderful constellations of stars? Not even when we had spent almost all of our energy to bring a rain of shooting stars, had nopony told us it was beautiful... Nopony had stared in awe upon the sky. Everypony had simply stayed inside. And shunned our beautiful night'. Princess Luna´s reverie was interrupted by the knock on her door and the slightly muffled voice of one of her guards spoke. "Requesting an audience, Your Highness." The voice was sharp, and respectful, just as demanded of the guard. Luna reached up a wing to quickly wipe off any tears there might have formed in her eyes before she called back in her (soon to be known as) Royal Canterlot voice. "Yes, what does thou want!?" she asked, perhaps a bit snappishly, but to be fair to her, she was depressed. The door squeaked slightly as it just opened enough for her guard to just poke his head inside, being careful not to scratch the metal armour against the precious wood. "Your sister is requesting that you get out of your chambers, and join her at the party." The guard reported calmly yet firmly, doing his duty perfectly. Princess Luna huffed a moment as she walked back into her room, the room rather large and filled with all her personal items, her dresser, her large circular double bed with veils to cover up when she was sleeping and lots and lots of soft pillows. "Tell our sister, that we have duties to attend, we must take care of the Moon and its beauty while Our Little Ponies are sleeping and sheltering from the horrors of the night." She added the last part with much of a sarcastic, yet snarky and dismissive tone. The guard lowered his head a moment in acknowledgement of his Princess's orders, however he slowly lifted up his head again and cleared his throat. "Uhm, your sister knew you would say that, so she ordered me to tell you, 'To stop being so antisocial, you will never get any friends if you keep hiding in your room and being moping. Come down Luna, it will be fun'. " The guard slowly reported, and quoted the Sun Princess´s message perfectly. Luna sort of glared at the guard, but it was not really directed to her faithful guardspony. It was more to the sender of the message. Oh sweet heavens, her sister could be obnoxious. Luna sighed audibly and raised her hoof arrogantly. "Tsk, so be it then... If our sister truly wishes for us to join such a useless and boring social event, we shall indulge her." Luna said with much annoyance. "Tell our sister we will be right there." Luna spoke calmly, the guard immediately carrying out the order and closing the door behind him, giving the princess of the night time to freshen herself up slightly. The Sisters Castle, Down at the party. If a certain future pink party pony would have seen how this party was, she would have instantly deflated and screamed in terror at the sheer dullness of it all. Luna didn't even need to indulge everypony in the room with a glance before she could see that it was not going to be something she would enjoy. Everypony that was around were some kind of noble, or rich upper class pony, all of them talking about their things and how their oh so hard lives were getting just a tad bit worse. The Princess of the night had dressed herself up in her usual royal outfit, her light blue shoes, which almost matched with her crown and her necklace, which symbolized her position of power in Equestria. Marking her as the one, true princess of the night. However she still found just about everypony in the audience to be overdressed. So many nice jewels and fine fabrics on display that Luna felt as if this was getting a visit from the royal tailor, twice, a second, without delay. It was almost nauseating. Maybe it was just her earlier bitterness that was still getting to her, but she didn't like the ponies in the gathering. Not a single one. "Luna! You came!" a voice sounded, which Luna quickly recognized as her sister´s. She turned her head and saw the Sun Princess Celestia standing at a snack table on the far side of the room, waving lightly at her with a bright smile. Her shiny flowing mane carefully combed to both be beautiful and practical, seeing as there was a cake table. Oh, Luna wanted to just slap her with her wings. Yes, definitely bitterness. Slowly, Luna made her way over to her sister who was also dressed in her royal duds like herself. "Yes, we did, dear sister, however you will have to forgive us, if we withhold our enthusiasm about this event. We have yet in all our years of controlling the moon found any of such social events to be of an entertaining nature." She spoke, while still using the Royal We because there were still ponies nearby who could hear. She didn't want them to get any idea that she had gotten soft or something of the like. However, Celestia had another idea. She grinned. "Oh hush Little sister. These gatherings are lovely, there are always some interesting ponies amongst those who come to our castle. Some of whom have come from very far away." She said, before her eyes scanning over the crowd before pointing out a certain pony. "Look, there is Charlemane of Prance!" she said with a bit of excitement, as she looked upon the tall pale white coated earth pony. While he had a bit of a larger snout than his peers at the party, his tall and powerful stature made him look rather attractive to those around him. However Luna didn't even give the Prench Monarch the benefit of indulging a single thought. Luna only glanced and then looked back at Celestia. "Why how interesting, sister..." she said in cynical sarcasm. "As if we do not visit Prance often enough to know Charlemane. We played Chess with him last month." She simply said dismissively and tried to walk along the snack table, and away from the patrons, but Celestia just put a foreleg around her sister´s neck and smiled, gesturing out into the crowd again. "Just look around you Luna, you should socialize... Perhaps you could find some friends!" she said with much enthusiasm, which was in no way shared by Luna, who looked dead-panned out upon the gathering. Her bitterness still strong and lingering in her heart. "If thou keep on repeating the same pestering sentence about Friendship, dear sister, we will proceed to take away all thine cake." She said a bit dead-panned, before trying to sort of wrestle out of her sister´s foreleg. It was not as hard as Celestia removed it herself and gasped dramatically at her sister´s threat. "Cruel Luna, how could you take away my cake? That, that's just too evil!" she said jokingly, but frowned slightly as she saw Luna simply continue to walk. The Princess of the night didn't even bother with answering, and it just left a disheartened Celestia behind. She quickly took upon her kind smile again, as another guest required her attention, though she kept one lingering look upon her sister, who seemed to disappear into the gathering. Luna used just about all her grace and elegance to NOT speak with anypony at the party, at all. She walked through the crowd in order to escape from her pestering sister, but that only caused new problems as suddenly so many ponies wanted to talk to her. From Prance to Manehatten, Even an emissary from the Griffon Kingdom, all tried to get into pleasant conversation with the Princess of the night, however she ignored them and tried to head for a place of solitude. Or relative solitude at least. She found herself a corner of the party where no ponies had placed themselves yet, and had made sure her pursuers were more distracted with each other, before she sat down upon her royal haunches in the corner and sighed. 'Tia, why art thou doing this to us? Thou know we hate parties...' she thought to herself, lowering her head in melancholic reverie. Luna didn't have any feeling of how the party was going on around her, she didn't want to either. She just wanted the night to be finished so she could retreat to her bed sheets and curl up in her own little ball of misery. At least her own dreams were much more beautiful than reality. "Excuse me, Your Royal highness." A voice interrupted Luna´s reverie, which almost made her want to yell with the full form of her Royal Canterlot voice into whoever was interrupting her. It took a great deal of restraint not to, but even more as she raised her head, and heard the next comment. "But might I ask why your beautiful muzzle is plagued by such a sad frown?" Luna finally got a look of who was speaking to her. It was a white unicorn stallion, perhaps only just beginning to qualify as such, his fur white with a great deep red mane, which was actually relatively long and hanging much freer than the usual nobility, who prided themselves with very clean and very flowing manes. However this stallion´s mane seemed a bit unruly, but in a sort of orderly way, which wasn't as paradoxically as it sounded. He had a pair of soft blue eyes and a warm smile upon his muzzle that under normal circumstances perhaps would have spread a bit of warmth to Luna herself. However she was in no way in a mood to accept it. The pony was also dapperly dressed, wearing a shirt about as red as his hair, which had quite a few ruffles around forehooves, and just below the neck, which also happened to have a small red rose in it. Coincidentally, that was also the pony´s cutie mark. A sweet red rose standing proudly with its thorns not even seeming the least bit sharp. Grumpily, Luna glared at the stallion. "That is none of thine business! Would thou be as kind as to leave thine Princess alone to her thoughts!?" she asked with a tone that would make her guards cringe, and her servants run for the cupboard to hide, shivering in fear. The stallion however, seemed unaffected, as he just kept his soft smile. "But your majesty, thou art the ruler of the night. The most beautiful pallet in all of Equestria. I cannot leave ye alone" he said in almost a solemn tone, inching his head closer as to inquire further. "And I cannot bear to see our beautiful princess sad." He spoke, his tone sounding slightly sincere, but Luna had heard that kind of tone before. It might very well be sincere, but there was also another underlying subject. "Be off with you, paramour! We will have none of what thou would offer!" She growled at him, trying to just avert her eyes and face as to get a sort of peace for herself. However, what she did not expect was that the stallion began to giggle a bit. "Paramour? Have ye perhaps by coincidence met my father?" he asked, actually curious but smiling, as Luna returned his head to him, raising a small eyebrow. "Art thou the son of Pa Amour?" she asked, remembering a stallion from a party like this, a few decades ago. A stallion named Pa Amour had openly tried to woo Princess Luna, however she was not the least bit interested in him. So many other mares were, but Luna had no care for dating or courtship. She expected said stallion to be an old charmer now, somepony who lived on their own, always having travelled around trying to get their next meeting, like Casanova. Which seemingly now was being proved as untrue as the stallion in front of her now nodded. "The first-born son of the Amour, yes, that Is I, Your highness. Oh dear, is this the moment where I have to hear some story about my father´s attempted conquests? I will presume he failed miserably." The young stallion asked with a small grin, which actually began to knock a bit against Luna´s shell. She kept herself from growling at him this time, as it seemingly was a fair question. "Thine presumption is correct," she simply said, rising up from her Haunches, still wanting to find a place where she could be alone. "Now thou must excuse us-" "Your highness, I have a request." The young stallion said in a purely sincere tone as he looked almost pleadingly upon the Princess of the night. This look made Luna inwardly sigh and wanted to just brush him off, however her conscience got the better of her. "Speak, young Amour." She said, perhaps a bit snappishly, but she at least heard him out. "Could thou follow me out into the castle garden? I have something to show thee." This request made the Princess of the night take a small step backwards in surprise. He wanted to show her something in her own garden? What kind of mockery was this? Was she assuming that she did not even know her own castle? Was he trying to use cheap tricks to woo her, like his father? All these sorts of accusatory questions flashed through her mind, but slowly the paranoia was subsiding. Perhaps it was a bit unfair to immediately suspect a young stallion who otherwise had been rather polite. Then the thought struck Luna that she could easily slip away back to her chambers if she was out in the castle gardens. And after all, dear sister said that she should mingle with the guests. A small smirk crept upon Luna´s face before she returned to her hard face, looking down upon the white stallion. "Very well... Lead the way, young Amour." She commanded, her voice lowered, yet still with a thick air of authority, as the alicorn royalty should have. A grin flashed itself upon The young Amour´s face, as he bowed his head. "As you wish Your Majesty," he said before leading them both through the party. Despite Luna´s size and innate ability to draw eyes to her, they were able to make it out of the great party hall, and slowly made it into the gardens. The castle gardens were huge, filled with almost every piece of beautiful fauna and flora that one could imagine. And the dark of the night only made the normally ominously large garden seem even more ominous, but also beautiful. Its shadows were slicked around in beautiful curves and the stars hanging above Equestria was giving the garden its perfect canvas to be upon, with blinking lights and shimmering shiny skies. All of this was only topped off by Luna´s own beautiful moon as it was hanging just above the castle at this time of the night, Illuminating the entirety of the garden, showing so many things that the sunlight would only have erased. All of this made Luna´s heart sting a bit again. She had put so much effort into this... all this beauty... and all those ponies inside the party hall was just indulging themselves with games, conversation and frolicking in the light her sister gave from within . Luna just wanted to tear out that muscle in her chest and throw it to the ground so at least it would stop hurting, but she comforted herself with the fact that once she had indulged this little stallion in whatever he wished to show his Princess, she could sneak back into her own room, and at least appreciate her own night. The stallion lead Luna out through the garden, walking for actually a few minutes with Luna before they reached the great Labyrinth. He began to walk inside, though the Princess stopped up a moment, raising an eyebrow. "What in Equestria would thou want inside of the labyrinth?" she asked, with perhaps a bit of an accusatory tone. The red maned stallion looked back and just smiled softly at the Princess. "Trust me, Your Majesty! It is something thou would very much like to see." He replied, his tone at least sounding sincere, so Luna could not do much other than mentally shrug and continue. If anything suspicious happened, she could after all simply fly out, and the stallion would be stuck. The cruel thought of leaving the stallion alone in the labyrinth, lost, actually made her giggle slightly, but she dismissed the thought for now. She could have pranks later. The two continued through the labyrinth for a few more minutes, seemingly not getting anywhere, just taking turn, upon turn, upon turn, upon turn. Luna became slowly more and more infuriated, but finally the stallion stopped, just before a larger opening, giving a small smile. "It's just inside, Your highness." He gestured into the opening. A final suspicious thought struck Luna, but she walked inside, seeing how the labyrinth opened itself to a large open area, with a few benches and a few more statues placed around, almost as a sort of centre for it all, but Luna knew it was not directly the centre, as that looked much different. Standing inside the area, Luna felt a twinge of annoyance come over her. "What are we supposed to see?" she asked with a rather demanding tone. The Princess of the night wanted to have an answer promptly, if not immediately, but confusion came over her mind as she heard no answer. She then turned her head around to find that there was no stallion around. He was gone. Anger bubbled and flared within the Princess of the night. "Young Amour, show yourself! Your Princess commands it!!" she called out in great frustration, using the fullness of the Royal Canterlot voice, her eyes even lighting up in anger as she called out, the amount air being pushed away from the sound waves, shook the hedges down to their very roots. She demanded an answer! But none came. Not any from the stallion at least. "P-P-Princess Luna!?" a mare´s voice said in a mixture of fear and surprise. The Princess turned her head to the source of the voice to find something that perplexed her. A mare was standing there, however she looked almost like an inverted image of the Stallion from before. She was instead of red maned and white coated, completely white maned, and with a deep red coat. Her white mane was flowing freely, even as she was dressed up in a deep blue dress with small freckles along the edges. Luna noted how the dress was the same colour as her blue night sky and even there were small stars sewn beautifully into the fabric, some of it looking like a pair of her constellations. The mare stared in amazement with her blue eyes that looked almost identical to the stallion´s and stammered. "Y-Y-Your highness! I didn't mean to sneak away from thine wonderful party, I just... Just..." She tried a moment to defend her position before something struck her and she bowed her head a moment. "Apologies your highness, but how come thou are out here in the gardens and not in the great hall?" she asked with great respect. Luna stared a moment at the mare, the uncanny resemblance to the stallion from earlier, made her raise a small eyebrow. "We were brought out here by a stallion who wished to show us something inside our gardens... Though we believe we might have been deceived," Luna replied, with a much dark and authoritative voice. She was about to question why the mare was out here, but the mare ended up cutting ahead of her with a small gasp. "A stallion? Did he look like me, but just with inverted colours?" she asked, looking pre-emptively embarrassed. As Luna replied with a nod, the mare flushed so that her cheeks suddenly looked more pink than deep red. "Oh sweet Moon, I am so sorry for his behaviour." She skittishly tried to say, covering up her face with her hooves, looking as if she had done something wrong, and not the stallion. This made The princess of the night give the mare a quizzical look. "Would ye kindly explain thyself?" She asked, a small hint of annoyance in her royal voice. The mare just kept blushing a bit as she looked around, almost as if searching for somepony. "Angel, I swear if I find you I will tie you to the front door and force you to wear my clothes into town!" the mare called out into the darkness with embarrassed anger. Luna raised an eyebrow in confusion, but then the mare was answered by only a small giggle in the darkness, that Luna could not completely pinpoint where actually came from. The mare only got more frustrated and groaned, as she tip tapped on her hooves a moment. "Angeeelllllllll!" She called out in embarrassment and frustration, calling out, but inevitably failing in what she was trying. This was a rather crushing blow to her as she sort of collapsed in shame in front of Luna and hid her face in her hooves. "This is my entire fault, Your Majesty." The mare´s muffled voice escaped her hooves. The Princess of the night had been looking upon the display of the skittish mare and part of her had found It rather amusing. "We presume thou know of this stallion who brought us here." Luna said with a calm look over the mare, while still finding it amusing. Especially how quickly the mare was to respond with a nod. "Yes your majesty. I know him. Tis dear brother of mine. Angel Amour. I am Fond Amour, his sister. And it doth seem like that we have been tricked to the same location," she said, a moment glaring out into the darkness again. "And if I get my hooves on dear brother of mine, I will ridicule him in front of Ma and Pa Amour as vengeance!" she hissed, but only got the same kind of giggle from the darkness, which made her growl in frustration and stamp on her hooves again. "And if dear brother of mine will not cease this incipient laughter, then I swear to Luna I will twist his ears into a fancy hat he can show around!" she growled out, again, though the threat was rather, childish. This time... Luna could not hold it back. She actually let out a tiny giggle. It was sort of a fun little banter Fond seemed to have with her brother, who still was out of her grasp. The princess of the night slowly walked over besides Fond and looked at her a moment. "Let us, help thee with that." She said, before her horn lit up in her powerful magic. Before Fond was even able to question why her majesty´s horn was glowing, she got her answer in the form of a floating Angel Amour who was struggling to get himself out of the levitation magic. He looked a bit miffed as he was being floated out of the bush and over towards the two. "Oh come now! That isn't fair, Your Highness! How would thee like it if I were to carry thee around!?" he asked a bit childishly, crossing his forehooves as he was being levitated in front of his sister and his night´s monarch. Upside down, to top it off. Fond´s face scrunched up slightly and she poked Angel in his chest. "You have got a lot of nerve Angel! You have not only tricked me, but you also had the audacity to pull her Majesty out of an event for one of your STUPID pranks!" she chastised him. Princess Luna glared at the white unicorn in her grip as to add to the pressure, however he suddenly seemed slightly offended. "Stupid prank? Well excuse me for letting Dear Sister of Mine meet with the Princess of the Night. Was it not you who said-" he was cut off by having a hoof shoved into his mouth for a moment by a glaring Fond. "Don't say it!" she hissed at her brother. This however gained Luna´s curiosity, making her send a small look over at Fond. "Say what?" she asked, causing Fond to instantly blush and lose her focus, stammeringly trying to come up with some excuse. But Angel was quicker to get the hoof out of his mouth and grin up at the Princess. "Oh how I would love to meet the Princess of the Night. She is an artist beyond compare, a Goddess of all that his beautiful and mystical. Oh if only I could-" Angel mimicked in a mocking replica of his sister´s tone of voice, before once again getting a hoof from a now completely red flushed Fond shoved into his face again. "Dear Brother of Mine, I swear to everything magical and gracious that I will shove your mane down your throat if you utter as much as one more word!" Luna just stood there while the exchange of words and hooves took place, contemplating upon the words that was actually being spoken. "You... love my night?" she asked carefully, making the already completely red faced (Which was hard to see considering her already red coat) Fond, to stare nervously up at Princess Luna. "Uhm... I... I... I..." she stammered, only to once again have her sentence finished by Angel. "Love it? She is obsessed with it, I Swear your Majesty, If she could do with only three hours of sleep, she would fall the moment the sun rises, and only wake up when required by Ma and Pa." he said with a great grin, still hanging upside down in Luna´s Levitation. "I say that Dear sister of mine is quite a fan of yours, your Majesty!" He said, gesturing as if nudging at the princess. "Angeeeeeeeeeeelll!!!" Fond squirmed and stamped her hooves on the ground in embarrassment. Angel just giggled. "Oh you look so cute when you´re embarrassed, dear sister of mine." he said through his giggles. "It really is the height of my day, or night, to see that embarrassed face of yours." "Why are you doing this!?" Fond snapped back at Angel. "I don't go around embarrassing you when you fool around with the neighbours!" she tried to reason. "Why thats because I love you, Sweet Sister of Mine. And there is no way you´d be able to embarrass me, I am an open book, and everypony at home knows who I am, but no one knows us here~" he rolled on his tongue, feeling rather superior in the situation, despite being hung upside down by the diarch of the night. He had a thoughtful expression for a moment. "You know you really should be thanking me about now," he said with a slight tone of arrogance. "How very un-gentlecoltly of you." Angel and Fond both turned their heads to look directly at Luna, who seemed to have, relaxed a bit, yet still keeping her regal air. She just seemed to have what, to Angel´s huge surprise, could only be described as an amused smirk. "She is thine sister, and you should be aiding her, and acting like a gentlecolt around her, and about her. Thine pranks are in ill taste and poor manners. You may have had good intentions, however they are no excuse to treat a Lady as such. And especially not breaking into Thine highness´s business." she calmly chastised him. Fond nodded in agreement. "Yea! You should be ashamed of yourself Angel!" she quickly jabbed at Angel. Angel, who was beginning to feel more and more surrounded, tried to hold up his hooves in defence. "W-wait just a second here-" "And a prank of ill taste, deserves a punishment of equally, if not even further ill taste, don't you agree Miss Amour?" Luna asked with a small knowing glance at the mare, as an underlying meaning came through her words, which Fond could only grin and agree with. "Oh yes, your Majesty." Fond added, giving a small almost predatory gaze back at her brother, who suddenly had gotten a cold sweat down his face. "W-Wait! Y-You, what are you planning to do!?" Princess Luna calmly floated the white unicorn up to face her and stare straight into his eyes, before she replied with a smirk. "Oh whatever we want~" ~Interlude of darkness for effect~ Not so Long after, something completely broke the tone of the royal banquet, putting a stop to every conversation inside the great hall and bringing all eyes to the centre of the room. What had caused such a shift in tone? Well in part, one thing had been that out of nowhere, in the middle of the feast, a white unicorn seemed to have been teleported into the middle of great banquet, falling comically onto the Banquet table, straight through one of the much larger pastry creations, known as Princess Celestia´s favourite cake, (which was about as large as herself), getting him stuck halfway through a sugary pastry. In other part, it was also that said stallion unicorn was wearing a rather tiny part of a mare´s dress, which seemed more to be the preparative corset. Beyond that his mane and tail was made into a rather unorthodox fashion, in the sense that it was completely filled with small pink bows. The final thing to put the cherry on the top of this bizarre and rather fun image making itself before the gathering, was the fact that as the stallion was half stuck through her majesty´s favourite pastry, his eyes rolled around in its sockets in a rather derpy fashion, as he, out loud, spoke the words. "Why thank you for the banquet Your Majesty, but lay off the cake, five more bites and I would have been a rather decorative part of the upholstery about now." Even if the room itself was only getting filled with a few obscure giggles in the background amongst the shocked gathering of ponies, There was two ponies who was rolling around on the ground in laughter. Those two, were Princess Luna, and Fond Amour, who had witnessed the success of their little punishment prank from a window. "Oh sweheheheheeheheheeeeet moons, That was hilarious!" Fond was able to get out in between laughing. Princess Luna wiped a bit of water from her eye as she had been laughing too hard from the entire display. "W-We must admit, that was quite amusing!" she spoke aloud. The night diarch and the Amour daughter let their joy spill into the night and slowly began to gather their breaths, until they were just calmly looking up at the skies that Luna had created. "I must apologize for his behaviour again..." Fond spoke up first, gaining her a slightly surprised look from Luna. "I am sort of... in the end, responsible for you being brought out... He just tried to make me happy... always does that..." she mumbled the last, crossing her hooves and looking away. "He keeps saying I'm half his world..." "And that is bad?" Luna asked curiously, having dropped most of her Royal persona, just for the moment. Fond sighed. "No... It's just... I feel bad for receiving everything from him... He'd do anything for me... I'm pretty sure he´d have dodged the punishment somehow if I wasn't also one to agree on it..." she considered aloud with a small sad and forced laugh at the end. Luna was silent. She turned to look back inside the window, to see Angel Amour being once again floated about, but this time by her sister, Celestia, who seemed to be giggling quite a bit at the display of the cake smeared white stallion. It burned a bit inside of Luna´s chest, staring upon Celestia. She was still the centre of attention, and handling everything perfectly... She and her Sun. "I-I'm sorry... I took too much of your time, Your Majesty... Maybe... We will see each other again?" Fond asked sort of nervously. Luna didn't look. She was staring at Celestia. Trying to figure out what she was feeling. "Maybe we will..." Luna just conceded, not turning nor moving. Fond right behind her frowned slightly, seeing where she was staring at, and slowly stepped back. "Well then... Uhm... Goodbye... Your Majesty..." Today, Canterlot Castle: "That... was the first time I met him... and his sister Fond." For about a minute or so after Luna had finished speaking, Cheerilee was still trying to knit things together in her mind. "So, you met him, or, them, when they were normal ponies?" she asked for clarification. Luna nodded. "Yes, I did... I met them a few times more, only at social events like the one I first met them at, but I only got to know... a little... It wasn't until they were..." Luna hesitated a moment. "Turned?" Cheerilee asked. Again, Luna nodded. "Yes, It was only after they were turned... And a long time after that, that I saw them again... Twenty Years to be exact... on my worst of nights." Luna said, her eyes turning up towards her moon. "Upon the night that I turned to Nightmare moon... Angel and Fond came back... But as Kaynites." she slowly reminisced. "And what have you then done to make the Fiend so angry? And what happened to Fond?" Cheerilee asked. "I believe... Failing my ambition to make eternal night... And for betraying the Amour´s and their army.... And..." Luna was hesitating to continue, and actually didn't say anything further before Cheerilee had to interrupt. "Their army?" Luna turned to face Cheerilee, who was more looking with much greater confusion. She replied with a small nod. "Yes, The Amour´s had taken control of the Kaynites and swore allegiance to Nightmare Moon. For they wanted the same as... I..." "Wait just a second..." Cheerilee could not help but stop up Luna´s explanation, something was just not adding up for her. "You were saying that they had somehow, wrestled power over these... Kaynites in twenty years?! And all of them swore allegiance to you as Nightmare Moon?!" She asked in surprise, it almost sort of blowing part of her mind, as she remember having taught the old mare's tale of Nightmare Moon to numerous foals in school, but she had never imagined that behind the story was an army of vampire like creatures. Luna just floated a cup of tea up to her muzzle, which had grown cold over the long time of explanation. "That is what I am saying, yes... Circumstances was quite extraordinary back then..." she clarified, calmly floating her teacup down to the tray again. "The Kaynites themselves had been in quite a rough position prior to the death of the Amours." "How bad a situation?" Cheerilee asked. "Well, I am not certain, but as much as I have been able to gather since then, Fond´s elder had used her and her brother to usurp a power position during some kind of crisis, that lead to many thousands of Kaynites killing each other over arguments of bloodlines and such. Beyond that... I never had a chance to ask..." Luna lowered her head by the end. "Because you were banished to the moon..." Cheerilee asked for confirmation. Luna cringed slightly at hearing those words, though she nodded. "Yes... They had trusted me to defeat Celestia, and thus allow them to wreak havoc on the castle as they´d like themselves... Eternal night would be a new order for the night dwellers..." "But wait... one thing I don't get, if there was this large group of Kaynites at your disposal, all out and ready to fight everyone in the castle, what happened to them?" Cheerilee asked in confusion. "Couldn't they just have fought their way out and then stayed covert?" Luna shook her head with a small frown. "Most of them didn't even get the chance to fight... They were doomed the moment I was defeated, and Celestia raised the Sun..." she recalled calmly, with a heavy voice. This however caused Cheerilee to tilt her head in confusion. "Why´s that?" Cheerilee inquired. "Because Kaynites cannot stand the sun. They burn if Celestia´s sunlight touches their skin." Luna explained like it was nothing. Cheerilee´s jaw just dropped a moment. "What?" "I said Kaynite-" "I heard what you said, Your Majesty but... I Just... How? Why? I know the sun is annoying, frustrating, even slightly detrimental for me, but... Do they actually burn?" Cheerilee asked in actual confusion and almost morbid curiosity. Could the Fiend be killed that easily? Luna waved her hoof slightly back and forth. "Sort of. It's a slow, as I have been told, agonizingly painful process, as if you have been thrown into a fire, and you cannot die from the smoke. They'll only really die once they've burnt enough, but once the Sun touches them, it paralyses them in pain, and it takes a lot out of them to do much of anything," she explained in a rather, morbid mental image. "Even the burns themselves are hard to treat for a Kaynite, compared to any other injury." Cheerilee stared at Luna while she got this weakness described. It was perfect, all she had to do was to get the Fiend out in the open and... Then a thought struck her. "Princess... If the sun killed many of the Kaynites during the uprising, then how did the Fiend survive?" "As far as we know," Luna started. "Angel and Fond was deep within the castle at the time of my defeat, so the two hid away in the deepest reaches of the castle. As it became abandoned, they, or I believe Fond, decided that they would have to wait for Nightmare Moon´s return..." she slowly explained, with an aire of guilt hanging in her voice. "So they slept. For a thousand years." "They slept?" Cheerilee asked in curious confusion. "Yes, Kaynites have been known for hiding away and sleeping in coffins, or similar pony sized boxes for ages. Its a skill they have had since the First Kaynite, Sugar Kayne, was cursed by Faust-" "Keep the history lessons a bit... Short for now, please Your Majesty." Cheerilee tried to be polite in her request. "I´d much rather just get the details about you and the Fiend down. The more time we waste, the more time Pen, Emerald, and all the other ponies that the Fiend has captured stay in his clutches." The mention of the victims of the Fiend made Luna turn her face away from Cheerilee, and into the darkness of her room. Despite it being still mid afternoon, Luna´s room was dark. "Forgive me Cheerilee, I guess its hard to keep focus..." "I´ll consider it, If you would back up a moment here." Cheerilee said, making Luna look back at her slightly confused. "You were saying some reasons that the Fiend might hate you, and you omitted adding anything after 'and'... What is the last reason?" Luna´s mane, for a moment seemed to shift its flowing direction, almost as to cover up the Princess´s face. "That connects to your second question... What happened to Fond..." she slowly began to explain, which really piqued Cheerilee´s interest, making her lean forwards inquisitively and eyeing Luna. "Yes?" "She... and Angel... Woke up around the same time I escaped from the moon, but, they did not meet up with me before the Nightmare... was no longer." Luna explained with a tint of guilt in her voice. "And they had no idea... So they... They felt that the Princess they had sworn to serve... had betrayed them... Fond did anyhoof..." she slowly explained. "She was furious... She... attacked me. And I didn't want to just kill her. So I..." she hesitated for just a second. "I sealed her away in stone." At that moment, Cheerilee blinked once, before getting a face of realization, that almost looked like she had found the meaning of life right there. "You sealed her in stone? You sealed the Fiend´s sister in Stone?" she asked for confirmation. "Yes." Luna nodded. "It's...not a spell I enjoy using. But it was the only solution I saw... The two were twisted. Many Kaynites are much more twisted images of their living lives, and I knew that if Fond was free to go, she would shift her energy onto rebuilding the Kaynites... and I could not let that happen." "What of the Fiend then?" Cheerilee asked, almost sounding excited, as everything seemed to be coming together in her mind. "Well... He went into an equal fit of rage, demanding that I released his sister, but that's when the sun came up... He tried to flee, but the last I saw of him, was him curling up in a screaming mess of... burnt kaynite." Luna said, trying not to sound too morbid. Cheerilee took just a few seconds to put everything together, before rising up upon all of her hooves. "His sister, Fond Amour, is she sealed nearby?" "Yes, she is, why do you ask?" she inquired. "Can I see her?" Luna looked upon Cheerilee with confusion. "I, guess you could. Though I do not understand why..." The princess said, slowly rising up upon her hooves as well. "We have to go out into the dungeons of the castle." "The dungeons?" "The sealing spell does not completely isolate the prisoner from the world, they are semi awake, and can get affected by the elements. If I were to place her out in the sun she´d..." She bit her lower lip a moment. "I'd just rather not do that to her." she finished, gaining an understanding nod from Cheerilee. "Alright then, shall we go?" She asked. "Yes, of course..." With that, the two headed out of the princess's room, and descended down into the darker parts of Canterlot castle. There werent that many ponies outside of those that worked in the castle who actually KNEW there was a dungeon. Many a paranoid pony had suspected that there must have been dungeons that reached into the deepest reaches of Equestrian soil. But in reality it was not really that large, and there wasn't seemingly any prisoners. Not to the outside eye at least. The only way you could reach into the dungeons was via a long descent of circular stairs, leading into what looked much more like storage rooms. Cheerilee walked right beside Luna, who had simply gotten immediate access from her guards, without as much as blinking. The vampire teacher was rather intrigued by the new view of Canterlot Castle. It was like stepping into a little sub-dimension, where everything was darkened, only lit by magical lanterns and every room seemed to be filled with boxes labelled; "Do not open". Luna had been silent during most of the walk. She was staring ahead, not looking forwards to being down into the Canterlot dungeons. The less she saw of this, the better. And knowing who they were supposed to see, it was even more eating at her nerves. Everything was supposed to be sorted. She thought she had everything fixed... But now, apparently, her former servants came to bite her in the flank. Which only made her feel more awful over the situation with Cheerilee. She had after all lied to her. Even if she was just an agent, she did deserve to know everything about the situation. She thought she could just have her kill off any of the remaining Kaynites, and then everything would be much simpler. But in the process, she had ended up forgetting how much Cheerilee had done for her. Maybe Cheerilee saw it just as a job, but for Luna it was a duty that needed done, and Cheerilee was the most reliable agent she ever had. A pang of guilt striking her royal heart again told her what to do. She at least deserved honesty. "Cheerilee... I... Wish to apologize... It was careless of me to send you on an assignment without giving you all the information..." Luna slowly said, her eyes falling to the floor in guilt. "I just want you to know I am really, really sorry." After a minute of ominous silence between the two, Cheerilee finally replied. "I forgive you... I know you mean it." she conceded, with slight reluctance in her voice. "You know?" Luna asked in confusion. Cheerilee turned her head to face her. "You usually only speak in the 'Royal We', so whenever it breaks, I know something is up..." she said with a small whirly smile, her almost teacher like face returned for just a moment. It warmed Luna´s heart slightly, and lifted a bunch of weight off of her shoulders. "I... Thank you Cheerilee." She said, before begrudgingly turning her face forwards, seeing a large door, locked with what seemed to be a royal seal. "We are here..." Cheerilee looked over the door a moment, guessing the seal was magic, her theory being almost immediately confirmed as Luna´s horn lit up along with the seal, and the doors slowly opening inwards. The large heavy doors creaked, and revealed an ominously dark room, filled with statues of different ponies and creatures arranged perfectly up in lines. Slowly walking inside, Cheerilee was seeing that there wasn't actually that many statues around in there, at least not if you´d consider this was prisoners sealed in stone over the last thousand years. There were less than a hundred, that she could count, and most of them either seemed to actually be reluctantly accepting of their stone fates, at least in their expression. There was one that stuck out though, and Cheerilee´s sneaky suspicion was yet again confirmed, as the princess and the teacher stopped in front of the statue. It was of a mare, that much was clear, exactly as Luna had described, and she looked curiously similar to the Fiend, though clearly with a more female build. It was the expression that stood out though. She was glaring daggers forwards, and her mouth was open, revealing a hissing and aggressive set of teeth with sharp fangs. Cheerilee ran her tongue over her own fangs in a little reflexive reaction, while her eyes looked over the statue in front of her. She was barely a few centimetres taller than her, and yet she could see this pony always tried to be bigger, fiercer, and more powerful than anypony else. Even in stone. "She has been down here for very long, both Celestia and I have made sure that the gates are magically locked and only to open to our magical essences, much like the stone sealing spells themselves. It assures that if we want to release anyone, its only us who can do it." Luna explained while Cheerilee examined the statue. "I think I have it..." Cheerilee said with a small smile of realization. She turned to Luna with an air of confidence. "I think this was part of his plan... And we could be expecting a message-" "Your Majesty!" A voice resounded down the long corridor. "Speaking of Chaos." Cheerilee commented, as both she and Luna turned to look out of the room and into the hallway, seeing one of Luna´s faithful guard, looking around for his ruler. "We are down here, soldier, What do ye wish of us?" Luna asked, her Royal demeanour and bellowing voice returning. The guard stood at the outside of the room as he bowed before the Princess. "There is a Message for you, Your Majesty! It seems... Rather important." he said, with a slight reluctance, as he picked the piece of paper from beneath his armour and offered it to the Princess. It was completely red, and smelt of dried blood. Cheerilee and the Princess exchanged glances. "I believe we can safely assume who it is from..."

Fiends of Manehatten

The end of the Fiend

Canterlot Castle: "This is a bad idea" Cheerilee´s deadpanned voice was to be expected. She and the Princess had closed off the prison and found an isolated place to discuss the Fiend´s message. It was just too suspicious. 'You still hold Dear Sister of Mine Imprisoned, And I have some ponies you want returned, How about we simply exchange what we want and part ways? Come to the enclosed address, Princess Luna. Feel free to bring your pets along, I don't care. You have a day to comply, If you break the deal, I will simply have to keep your little ponies for myself.' It was signed off just like the note Cheerilee had received the night before, with a thorny rose drawn in blood. Luna had been considering the contents of the message ever since it had been read, and her thoughtful expression hadn't changed once. The two had not left the dungeon yet. The room they were in was separate, but not far from the 'statuary' as Cheerilee had considered calling it instead. A prison where all prisoners were encased in stone. Statuary was much more fitting. "That may be... But we do not have much of a choice," Luna replied with a reluctant sigh. "Angel wants his sister back, and he is going to continue with different plans until one of them succeeds. If we can just catch him now, then we can stop him before he causes even more damage." "But if the Fiend is this insane,-" Cheerilee raised her voice, concerned with Luna´s conclusion. "-Then reuniting him with his Kaynite sister would only double the problems.," she asserted. "He is not going to be reunited." Luna replied. "We are going to bring Fond along to make him drop his guard. And then I shall seal him away just like I did to Fond." Cheerilee looked up at Luna. "Can you do that? I hardly think he is going to keep still and just let you blast him into stone?" Cheerilee asked in a small amount of cynical assurance. Luna however just nodded. "Trust me on this, Cheerilee. He will if we bring Fond Along... He will have other things on his mind," she finished, before walking out of the secluded room, opening the squeaky wooden door that had not seen much use in quite a while. She turned to the side, a pair of her Lunar Guards standing vigilantly outside the door, ensuring the Princess´s safety, and privacy with the matter. "Private Nightlight," Luna spoke, her powerful voice shining through the echoey hall. "Pack up Prisoner #93, prepare her for transfer, and meet us out in the back of Canterlot castle with a carriage. You are to under no circumstance to mention your orders to any of the Solar Guards or to Princess Celestia. Is that understood?" she commanded, her eyes imposing the same authority her voice did. The Guard saluted his Princess as trained. "Understood, Your Majesty!" He quickly replied, like a good soldier. "Good, make it so," Luna commanded, allowing the two guards to get to their duty quickly. She then turned to see Cheerilee having walked up beside her. "We best get going, if we want to reach Manehatten in time and avoid talking to Celestia." Luna explained almost dismissively, as if Cheerilee just needed to know it, but she had no say in the situation. Turning on her hooves and beginning to walk out of the dungeon, Cheerilee was left for a few seconds confused. "Hey, where are you going!?" she asked, before hurrying after the Princess. "I need to return to Celestia. I have to come up with an excuse for why I will not be home at the castle tonight." Luna responded without looking back. Cheerilee caught up with Luna, jumping out in front of her and began walking backwards at the same pace of which Luna walked. "Whoa, whoa, what? You mean to tell me you're not going to tell her the situation?" Cheerilee asked in disbelief. "That's what I am telling you." Luna nodded in her dismissive reply. "Why!?" Cheerilee asked loudly. "She is your sister, she must know of the situation as well, and if what you told me about Kaynites is true, then she would be able to help-" "My sister must in no way know anything about the rescue operation tonight." Luna asserted, sending a powerful glare down at Cheerilee. "I will not have anypony die tonight. The last of the Kaynites shall be locked away safely, and without any more bloodshed..." "Princess, do you really think the Fiend is just going to give in?" Cheerilee asked in disbelief, now awkwardly walking backwards up the stairs leading out of the old dusty dungeons. "I know he isn't. But I will make him. It's my responsibility," Luna said as the two reached the top of the staircase. "What's your responsibility?" Both Luna and Cheerilee stopped mid step and turned their heads to see none other than Princess Celestia standing there, tilting her head inquisitively. For just a second, Luna and Cheerilee exchanged glances, as if each was expecting the other to quickly come up with a reasonable alibi, until Luna spoke up. "An inspection in Manehatten. Cheerilee here found an infestation of Diamond Dogs, and I´ve decided to take care of it personally." Luna lied, her voice even and stoic as she confidently sidestepped Cheerilee without looking at Celestia. "Cheerilee and I will have it sorted out by the time you have to raise the sun again." Celestia looked in confusion upon Luna as she walked away from her. What had gotten into her? Why wasn't she making eye contact? "Well, do you want me to come along-" "No, we will handle it well enough. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some preparations to make." Luna interrupted Celestia and walked off, taking the turn down the hall towards her tower. She did her utmost to make sure to not allow Celestia to look her in the eyes. She knew when she lied. She could see it in her. Luna hated lying to her sister. It never felt good, but it was necessary, she would tell herself. "My sister doesn't need any further worries than the problems of the day. Ruling Equestria is quite a hooffull. You understand, Cheerilee..." Luna spoke as she was certain the two had gotten out of earshot, and eyeshot of Celestia. Though she didn't get Any response. "Cheerilee?" she asked, and looked over her shoulder, seeing that her best Agent wasn't there. "What in the-" "I'm here!" Cheerilee suddenly came trotting around the corner, catching up with Luna. "Did you tell Celestia anything?" "Yes, but I dodged the true answers." Cheerilee responded with a small smile. "Are you sure?" Luna asked in clear skepticism, her eyes narrowing at Cheerilee. The vampire teacher just raised her head and smiled at her boss. "Absolutely," she assured Luna, her smile staying a little too long. Luna raised her eyebrow slightly, for a moment concerned if Cheerilee was truly sure, Her sister was a wily one when she wanted to be, but Cheerilee was Luna´s top agent. She sighed, reclining to the idea that she was right. She had promised her to trust her more after all. "That is good," she said, turning away and walking ahead again. "I will take care of what duties I have now, we'll meet up once my guard has prepared us a carriage." The Princess stopped just as she almost reached another corner. "Make sure to get some rest before tonight". "Of course, Your Majesty." Cheerilee bowed her head in reply, making sure to keep it bowed just long enough for Luna to leave before the two´s eyes would meet again. Now alone in the hall, Cheerilee released a breath she had not realized she had been holding. She really hated lying to Luna. The Fiend's Lair : The long known, yet never old, passionate sensation of his fangs piercing pony necks and blood gently sliding down his throat, still gave gentle shivers down his spine. Each single time he took someone´s blood to sustain himself, he was just reminded what a damn wonderful world he had been brought into. Reluctantly, he let go of the pony´s throat, a small string of saliva was still clinging to one of his fangs as he pulled away from his victim of choice. It was a gray unicorn with a curly white mane, the stockbroker known as 'Money Bags'. The pony was restrained, gagged, and blindfolded. Yet he still was able to give off some so lovely whimpers, and twitches of resistance as its captor was no longer sharing in the ecstasy. The Fiend giggled. "I think you're ready for the crescendo, Little Bags..." he said, before shifting his eyes slightly, looking over to the corner. In the corner he had placed Emerald Song Bags, restrained in the same fashion, but she was still able to see. In fact, she was forced to witness everything the Fiend had done to her husband. And it terrified her. Emerald was shivering, desperately averting and closing her eyes, however she could still hear everything that had gone on. The whispers, the cuts... The Fiend grinned and stretched himself, clicking a few of his joints before he turned his head to the door. "Mutt! Get in here!" he called out. The door opened up and a large lumbering diamond dog walked inside, throwing itself at the hooves of the Fiend as soon as it had come in completely. "Yes, Sire?" it asked in its deep scratchy voice. The Fiend stepped off of his victim and whipped his mane backwards slightly. "Bring Mister Bags up into the main chamber, and prepare for the return of the Princess..." he spoke in a calm but commanding tone. The diamond dog bowed its head again. "As you wish, sire." the dog said, it was just about to comply with the order before the Fiend placed down its hoof in the way of the dog, stopping it in its track. The dog looked up into its sire´s eyes and froze, staring into the red eyes of its Kaynite sire. "I hope you will remember to treat the Princess with respect when she arrives..." The Fiend said, his voice dark and intimidating for the huge beast. The dog shivered in fear, before nodding its head. "Of course! All praise the Princess of the Night..." The dog quickly added, before looking up, to see if its sire was happy with the reply. The Fiend was, and allowed the dog to comply with his first order. He sighed happily as he saw the unicorn stock broker get carried away. "If only I had these mutts back then... They´re quite the helping hoof," he mused, smiling as if it was the neighbor's foals who had helped with the yard. He then poked his head out and called out. "Scruffy!" The name bounced off of the walls and echoed throughout the hall. It didn't take more than a few seconds before the scuttling of feet and the huffing breath of the smaller diamond dog came along, the dog almost tripping over its own feet as it tried to reach its master. Scruffy threw himself down before the Fiend. "Y-Yes Sire Fiend Pony?" He nervously greeted. The Fiend smirked and gently lifted the smaller dog´s chin up as to look him in the eyes. "I am going to need a... messenger, who can wait and guide our guests." On the way to Manehatten: The trip back to Manehatten was a bit shorter than expected, considering they were hauling a large pony sized box along with the carriage. They had opted not to take a royal carriage, as to not arouse suspicion. Luna insisted that the Fiend would stay by his side of the deal until the time he had stated, but Cheerilee did not think him above just robbing them blind. Then again, the Fiend would need Luna to release the prisoner, so he would need to wait for them anyhow. Cheerilee and Luna had used most of the trip, arguing about how to handle the situation, and the momentary silence between the two was more because of the living princess´s need of oxygen than anything else. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, with what you have told me of Kaynites, I don't believe we should even allow him to get within meters of the prisoner," Cheerilee stated firmly. Luna shook her head. "He will not let his guard down unless he thinks he can have Fond back." Luna asserted in return. "I will exchange her for the promise of the return of his prisoners, however, when he demands the spell to be lifted, I should be within the perfect distance to perform the sealing spell on him as well." Cheerilee shook her head. "It's not worth the risk. The Fiend has escaped me before, I don't want to give him the chance to do so again." "He won't escape." Luna asserted. "He won't leave without Fond... Not again." "Why would he not?" Cheerilee asked. "Fond is his sister, and his Sire. He has no reason to leave," Luna responded "Beyond saving his own life?" Cheerilee continued, sounding unconvinced. Luna lowered her eyes for a moment. "If we just have Fond along, his obsession should help us distract him," she asserted, as if wanting to end the discussion now. She averted her eyes from Cheerilee, hoping that the vampire would drop the discussion and simply trust that her plan would work. Cheerilee groaned in frustration, facehoofing hard, knowing exactly what Luna was hoping. "Your Majesty. I understand," she insisted, though her frustration shining through her tone of voice. "But you have to understand, we can't just go into this without any backup plan..." she continued, quickly lifting a hoof defensively as Luna looked back at her with a slight accusatory glare. "I am not saying that I don't trust in your abilities, Luna! You know that. What I am saying is that this Fiend has bested me once before due to my arrogance. I don't want it to happen again!" Luna stared for a few moments upon Cheerilee, taking in her concern and her thoughts. She wanted to simply tell Cheerilee to remember her spot. She was under Luna's command after all. But remembering their conversation earlier, a small pang of guilt made her sigh in defeat. "Then what would you suggest?" she offered. "There should be no way he could overpower an Alicorn, but, hypothetically, what would you do?" Cheerilee smirked for a moment as the Princess finally conceded, before she lowered her head down to pull up a bag she had brought along into the carriage. It made an audible thump as she placed it on the seat next to her. The Princess raised a small eyebrow as Cheerilee opened the bag and began pulling out its contents. "If everything else fails, It will have to come down to the old fashioned way." Cheerilee begun, first pulling out some rolls of electricians tape and a couple of stakes. Luna recognized the kit, they were used by most vampire hunters throughout history. Cheerilee then proceeded to strap on of the stakes along the cannon of her foreleg, being careful to fasten it correctly and firmly. "I am going in fully decked this time." Cheerilee asserted, gnawing at the tape to rip it from the rest of the roll. "If the Fiend makes any kind of move towards you, I am going to tear his legs off of him." Luna could not disagree with that plan. It was the most sound and most logical extra plan to have after all, though she did raise and inquisitive eyebrow again as Cheerilee pulled out a couple of flares, and proceeded to taping those to her gaskin. "Flares?" she asked in confusion. Cheerilee gave a rather confident smirk. "Just pop the head off of these things, and you have a flame in your hoof. Rather effective when fighting against anything undead," she replied, as if Luna had been one of her students, inquisitive about some kind of random trivia. Luna opened her mouth to inquire if it wasn't more detrimental for Cheerilee to have a source of fire upon her in the case of a fight, as it could easily be turned upon her, but instead she just shook her head. "I... Will trust that you know what is best here, Cheerilee..." She eventually conceded, looking out of the window of the Carriage, not seeing Cheerilee´s expression visibly relax as she did not question the flares. Luna sighed slightly, beginning to hope that they could just arrive to the address and have everything be done with. Ever since Cheerilee had returned to her, reporting her failure and the loss of yet another pony, Luna´s thoughts had been haunting her. Ironic, considering she was the mistress of the night, ruler of dreams and nightmares, but even she could not keep her conscience from haunting her. Cheerilee, in the meantime, continued to strap the weapons to reasonably accessible areas of her legs, making sure that they did not restrict her movement too much. Her thoughts was also on the time ahead, along with all this preparation. She was feeling almost a little buzzing in her hooves as she imagined tearing the Fiend´s head from his shoulders, and stamping the thing into oblivion. Maybe even toying with him a bit before ending him. Would serve him right for all the things he had done to Emerald, and the things he was undoubtedly doing to Pen. Oh how she would take deep seeded pleasure in ending that beast´s unlife, ridding him of the world. She could just imagine his screams of mercy as she´d- And then she just stopped. In the middle of thinking and in the middle of taping the last flare onto herself. Cheerilee stopped. She had an epiphany. And not a pleasant one. Was that the way the Fiend was thinking? She already could tell he was a sadist, but... Was that maybe the way he thought always? Enjoyment from others suffering, where he´d have rationalized it somehow? The idea continued to simmer in Cheerilee´s mind and it was slowly making her feel sick to her stomach. Could she possibly ever turn into something like... him? She shook her head. No. That couldn't be true. She wasn't a Monster. She wasn't a Kaynite she.... She was just a regular vampire. A small shudder was sent up her spine. Since when was, 'I am just a vampire', a comforting thought? "Luna..." Cheerilee´s voice barely above a whisper. "Would you do me a favour?" she asked, raising her eyes to meet with Luna´s who had just turned to face her in confusion. "Anything, Cheerilee. Simply ask, and I´ll see to it." Luna assured. "Why?" Luna blinked in confusion. Cheerilee suddenly had gone from focused and determined to, somber, maybe even... sad? "Because you're my best Agent Cheerilee... and..." Luna took a deep breath, closing her eyes, before exhaling and letting a true sincere look go back to Cheerilee. "I know you do your best for those around you. You have a good heart, Cheerilee. Despite everything you have gone through, you're still determined to fight for the good of Equestria, even if you have seen some of the darkest parts of its underworld." The Princess spoke in a sincere, somber tone. "Are you certain?" Cheerilee asked, her voice sharp and challenging. "What if I were to turn? What If I were to go insane? What If I-" "You won't." Luna cut off Cheerilee, both her voice and eyes like sharp knives that cut everything to a screeching halt. "I trust you, Cheerilee. You may not trust me after my..." She sighed. "averseness with the truth... But I trust you." "But I am-" Cheerilee began, but was cut off by Luna again. "But you're what? A vampire?" Luna asked, before scoffing. "I am The Nightmare who almost brought ruin to all of Equestria... Why would anypony trust me, Hmm?" Luna leaned forward to emphasise her point. Cheerilee was silent for a little while. She just stared at Luna, letting her words sink in and compile inside of her. "I guess you're right..." She conceded, but it wasn't really that uplifting. Luna frowned, sensing Cheerilee´s low spirits. "Cheerilee. You are doing what must be done. You are the one who are protecting Equestria from the things those who walk during the day doing even realize exists. You're a Hero." Luna asserted. "A hero who constantly need to drink blood and Kill..." Cheerilee mumbled, turning her face away from Luna. The Princess opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by the shaking of the carriage, as it landed on solid ground again. She pulled aside the blinds of the carriage and looked outside, it was well into the night by now, and darkness had fallen over the city. "We are here..." Luna stated, the carriage giving a small jolt as it came to a full stop. The Princess looked back at Cheerilee. Her best agent looked sadder than she had seen her in years. She could almost see her thoughts going on an introspective rampage. That was when she leaned forwards, taking one of Cheerilee´s hooves into a gentle embrace of both her royal hooves. Cheerilee´s attention was snapped to the Princess as she began to speak. "Cheerilee. You're a better Pony than you think. Just remember, You're actually thinking about this. You're thinking about your actions. I don't think The Fiend have ever done that." Cheerilee stared into the Princess's eyes for what felt like an eternity, taking in her words and just the caring tone of her voice. It was... comforting. A word she hadn't expected to feel from her boss. Princess Luna was her boss wasn't she? Just her boss... She was just like any other agent- She stopped that train of thought. Because she could hear who was saying that. It wasn't her idea. It was the Fiend´s. His words had still run through her head. 'Traitor' he had called her. She had betrayed him and Fond. But... That was the right choice. She knew it was the right decision. And with that thought, she suddenly threw herself forwards, embracing the ruler of the night tightly, to the great surprise of the Princess herself. "Thank You... Luna... I... Really appreciate it..." Cheerilee said in a slightly shaken voice. Mildly confused at first, Luna finally smiled and returned the embrace. "You´re Welcome, Cheerilee." Luna whispered. The embrace was short lived, as the sound of somepony knocking against the carriage door pulled the two from their moment of understanding. "We are at the address, Your Highness." Private Nightlight called into the Carriage. The two let go of each other, Luna turning to open the door of the Carriage. "We Thank you, Private Nightlight. Bring along the Prisoner." She ordered, the Young soldier quickly saluting his Princess and seeing to his orders. Luna turned to Cheerilee one more time with a soft smile. "You just take a moment to breathe. We won't leave without you." Cheerilee could not help but give a little smile in return. "You wouldn't be able to outrun me, Princess." She replied. The Princess replied with an amused grunt, before leaving the carriage and Cheerilee to finish her preparations. Cheerilee took a deep breath into her old dead lungs and closed her eyes. She placed a hoof upon one of the flares she had strapped to her legs. "This will be the last time I lie to You, Princess." She tried to promise herself, Just in that moment, meaning this sincerely. A couple of minutes of preparation and awkward lugging of a pony Sized box passed by, and then everything was ready. Finally arriving at the address enclosed in the letter, Luna ordered her guards to slowly encircle the building. It was an old ruined warehouse, looking like it was up for demolition. Cheerilee, Luna and a couple of her Night Guards were the ones who walked inside, the guards carrying the pony sized box containing the prisoner. Nothing seemed off once they got inside. Just like the outside, it looked unremarkable. It was just empty and ready for demolition. Cheerilee wondered if perhaps the Fiend had just thrown them a random address, though dismissed the notion, thinking it wouldn't make any sense. 'Why send a letter in the first place then?' The question was answered as suddenly, a loud clanking announced something had been moved, and everyone turned to see a large flooring panel, about the size of a carriage, was slowly being lifted aside. As the floor panel was removed, it revealed a relatively small diamond dog, who was huffing and puffing with trying to remove the heavy panel. The dog looked around, giving a small yelp as it´s eyes settled upon Cheerilee and Luna. "U-Uhm... Yous! alicorn pony and... earth pony-pony!" He addressed. "M-Mista... Fiend Pony-Pony wants Scruffy to show you two... The way... ALONE!" He did his best to convey with his shaky and scared voice. "Oh, and Uhm... Bring the... uh... Uh... Thing! Yes the Thing! Along with you!" he quickly added. Cheerilee and Luna exchanged a glance with each other. They each nodded, seeing the same opportunity. "Why of course, Scruffy was it?" Luna spoke, stepping forwards. "However, we cannot bring along the... 'thing', unless we have somepony to carry it. So we need to bring along some of my 'Friends'" the Princess of night spoke, her air of regality only furthering the diamond dog´s fear. Scruffy swallowed a moment, before exclaiming loudly: "Fiend says Earth-Pony-Pony is strong enough to carry alone! Fiend specifically says only to bring Princess Pony and other Earth-Pony-Pony! And only if they have the Thing!" Cheerilee stood behind as Luna did the talking. But she could not help but eye up the small diamond dog. It really looked terrified, and it was clear to her that he was trying to follow his orders to the letter. He feared the repercussions. Luna spoke again. "Well, young Dog, we can only bring the Thing, if we bring along our Friends to carry the Thing... So it seems you better let us." The princess calmly pressed, not even betraying the smirk that Cheerilee was sure she wanted to flash. The dog stared in a combination of internal panic and uncertainty upon the Princess. "B-But... I... The..." He then groaned. "Alright! Bring along other ponies! But makes sure to bring the thing!" Luna was happy with the result and nodded lightly. "Of course," she said, then looked to her guards, signaling for them to follow her. Cheerilee sent a small look over at the dog that was still sticking halfway out of the floor. It ran its claws through its fur. "Da Fiend is gonna kill Scruffy..." he mumbled to himself, only Cheerilee´s sensitive ears catching it. 'Well, He certainly keeps his minions on a short leash', Cheerilee mused. "Right then! Follow Scruffy! Only Princess pony, earth-pony-pony, and ponies carrying the thing!" The group complied, Luna taking the lead into the hole in the ground, followed by the guards who were carrying the box, and Cheerilee taking the back guard duty. She would not be surprised if the Fiend had some kind of extra trap to just take back the prisoner from them. What they landed in as they got down through the floor showed itself to be a storage room, leading into the Manehatten sewer system again. This time, Cheerilee instinctively covered her nose most of the way, and kept walking on the sides of the tube. She didn't want to smell like eight different flavors of disgusting again. The guards were of course not as picky, just following their orders and marching straight behind their Princess. Luna was almost completely unphased by the sewers. Or at least, that's what she looked like. Princess Luna, Ruler of Night and Mistress of the Pokerface, was hard to shake. That said, Cheerilee was certain that those shoes was NOT going to be seen in public view again. More than likely they would be sent to the moon for the stench. The group followed calmly behind Scruffy, who didn't have any trouble with navigating the dark tunnels of the sewer system no matter how far they got. Cheerilee was constantly keeping her eyes and ears out for any possibility of an ambush but found none. Instead she came to realize how the tunneling was getting narrower and narrower, and how the branching paths seemed to lessen as they continued to walk. The Manehatten sewer system was quite the maze, all with constant turns and possibilities of circling in on yourself. But now, they had been walking in only one direction with not even a single side path for a few minutes. Cheerilee took a few moments to think of the logic of the situation. If the Manehatten sewer system all went in labyrinthine directions, but they now were without branching paths, there were only a few possible places they could be in correlation to the surface, and the most logical would be- "No... That can't possibly..." Cheerilee lowly stated in disbelief. Finally the group came to a halt. They were at what looked like an old vault door. Something you'd put in a bunker. Much like the ones that was made during World Party 2, to help ponies who had partied too hard, be shielded from the rampant party canons and flying pies. Cheerilee knew of a few of those having been built in Manehatten, This only furthering her thought. "Noouu..." She repeated, hardly able to believe it herself. Luna and the guards were calm and stoic (Though the guards were betraying a few huffs of breaths and beads of sweat) as Scruffy made a few knocks upon the door in a special rhythm. Everyone waited as they heard a few knocks against the metal in retort to Scruffy, who responded with even more rhythmic knocking. Finally the door opened with loud metallic screeches as the bolts got removed, and the hinged grid against each other. The door was large, heavy and only just large enough to allow the box to wiggle through, thankfully. As the door opened, it revealed a much larger Diamond dog on the other side. The much larger dog gave the group a small perusal, before looking down at Scruffy. The smaller dog huffed and raised its voice. "Scruffy brings Thing for the Fiend! Move out of the way You lumbering rockhead!" A momentary stare of challenge was exchanged between the two dogs, before the much larger one stepped aside. "Master is waiting..." it just said. Luna nodded her head in acknowledgement, and sauntered inside. "Best not keep him waiting then," she stated calmly, the guards right behind her, doing their best to move the box unscathed through just large enough door. Not being full time movers, they did clang it once or twice, but otherwise nothing happened. Cheerilee followed after the two, only stopping to take a peek over her shoulder, seeing the much larger dog close the door behind them all. "Now, follow Scruffy!" Scruffy once again spoke aloud, taking the lead. Inside, There was very long stretching hallways in soulless gray concrete. The walls was riddles with doors with tiny windows, creating perfect holding cells. While their original purpose might have been to contain ponies on too high sugar rushes, or for the protection of the introverts in the harsh days of the World Party, it was clear they had been taken into much darker use. Even if the halls were seemingly clean, Cheerilee could smell it. Stale and dried out blood. Everywhere. It was as if it had been painted upon the walls itself, before then getting an extra coat of gray paint on top. Finally reaching the end of the journey, having gone down halls, and up a set of stairs, the group funneled into the large circular room of the Fiend´s sanctum. Scruffy was in first, with Luna right behind him, along with the Guards and Cheerilee. Everyone walking into the room, their demeanors changed. Luna was barely able to keep her firm gaze, while her guards were horrified, freezing in place, allowing Cheerilee to walk past them and see what they all saw as well. It was a torture chamber. Those were the best words to describe the room. Along the walls, with a perfectly equal distance between each, were the victims of all the cases chained to the wall, with one door on the far side, straight opposite of the entrance. Clear Brush, Sweet Gold, Sunset Spring, Money Bags. And on the opposite side of the room, she saw Pen chained to the wall as well. All the Ponies had chains around each of their limbs, and one specifically around the base of their horns. They were all gagged and blindfolded as well. The final victim, Emerald Song, was in the middle of the room. Right there with him. The middle of the room had several tables filled with surgical tools and other instruments Cheerilee truly wished she hadn't seen. The Fiend was holding Emerald Song in what seemed to some a passionate embrace, but Cheerilee recognized it as one of the many positions in which a vampire could extract blood from their victims. His fangs were buried deeply into her throat, and Emerald was left with nothing but a blank stare into the room, as she was at the mercy of a predator. As everyone finally was inside, the Fiend released his bite upon Emerald, throwing his head back in the ecstasy that it was for vampires to feed. (Clearly even 'Kaynites', felt the same kind of satisfaction from feeding). He took a small reflexive breath in the enjoyment, before he leaned his head down again. No one could see it, but he again licked up the wound, cleaning it and closing it with his own blood, before just dropped Emerald onto the floor, letting her body flop weakly. He then turned around, still licking his fangs instinctively, seeing everyone who had entered, and his previous look of pure pleasure had turned into one of maniacal glee. "Why hellou there, Prrrinceesss..." He said, his tongue rolling on the word Princess, with a deep amount of spite in the utterance. His eyes then shifted to Cheerilee. "And hellou to you too, Cheerilee. I welcome you all to my... Sanctuary~" Once again, his focus shifted onto the two guards and the box they had brought along. Cheerilee noticed the tiniest bit of twitching from his lip, as it seemed to perk up in excitement. "I see you have... Agreed, to my demands." Cheerilee´s chest tightened and she grit her teeth in anger at the display before her. She wanted to just pounce onto the Fiend and tear out his throat right there. Her energy and anger was adding up, as she took in the room around her. She also noticed that as the Fiend had begun speaking, Pen, on the other side of the room, while gagged and blinded, had begun struggling against his chains a bit more, trying to say something through the gag. The Fiend seemed to ignore it though. Luna then stepped forward. "As long as you release your prisoners, you may have what you demand." She spoke calmly, her self control being truly put on a test, as she kept her eyes upon the Fiend. When the conversation began, Cheerilee took her chance to look around. She saw that there was no other guard dogs in the room. That meant that possibly she could sneak around and get around to Pen. He was obviously trying to say something, and the others seemed much more, passive and or exhausted to actually be of any aid in the situation. The Fiend had really done a number on them all. She then took slowly a few steps aside as the Fiend replied to Luna. "Why of course, Your... 'Majesty'..." he said with a small amount of venom in his voice. "Shall we, proceed? If you please?" He asked, inclining his head slightly towards the box the guards were still carrying. Luna nodded and turned to the guards. "Open the box." Her guards snapped into action, doing as commanded, and cracked open the box. The walls of the box fell to the ground, and the statue prison of Fond Amour was revealed to the room. Cheerilee took a moment to study the small details about the Fiend during the exchange. It was especially interesting to see just, what an impact it had on him. He almost visibly shaken as he was greeted with the sight of his Sister, even while locked away in stone, his eyes softened for just a moment. He took a quivering breath and closed his eyes again, exhaling, and steeling himself. He then was back into his superior smile. "I... see you are able to hold your word for once..." He said, his voice just shaking a bit at the start before it completely returned to his 'normal' arrogance. Cheerilee slowly stepped aside, checking to see if the Fiend was paying any attention to her. As far as she could see, he wasn't. His eyes were transfixed between the statue and the Princess. Not even a single glance her way. She decided to continue and was slowly getting half the way over towards the restrained Pen, her eyes fixed upon the Fiend, with a burning glare. Princess nodded in reply to the Fiend. "Now, release the prisoners." Luna demanded. The Fiend tilted his head slightly. "I was under the impression that this was an exchange." he said, putting his usual arrogant emphasis on 'Exchange'. "You have to give me what I want, then I give you what you want. How else am I to trust you?" He smirked. Cheerilee continued, getting closer to Pen, seeing the Princess´s frustration. "Very well," she resigned, as she had already planned. Cheerilee still didn't like the situation, but she continued her silent steps around, seeing the Princess´s horn lighting up, her personally lifting the statue from her side, and slowly levitating it into the center of the room. Just as the statue clanked down besides the Fiend, who still didn't seem to have seen her, Cheerilee finally reached Pen. She first pushed his head aside, causing Pen to freeze momentarily as she undid the blindfold. As Pen was able to see again, and that the one turning his head was not the Fiend, but in fact Cheerilee, his eyes lit up, but not in relief as Cheerilee would have expected, but in panic. He got even louder at attempting to speak, before Cheerilee pressed a hoof against his mouth, doing her best to signify that they had to be quiet. Pen shook his head frantically. Back in the middle of the room, The Fiend starred in a moment of bliss upon the statue now placed besides him. He lifted a shaky hoof up and placed it upon the cheek of the statute, for just a few seconds letting the realization sink in, before he turned his head to Luna. "Now, if you would kindly undo the lock on the spell. Release Dear Sister of Mine. Dear Sister Of Mine has been locked up for long enough don't you think?" He asked, taking some calm steps towards Luna, not even phased with him pressuring an alicorn. The exact arrogance that Luna counted on. She for once, got a small smirk on her face. "I don't think so." Suddenly, her horn flared up in an immense concentration of magical energy. The Fiend stopped in shock, and Luna lowered her head, discharging the spell directly towards the Fiend. The huge burst of magical energy was beyond anything any singular pony could conjure up, the magical potential of the alicorn. The Fiend´s horn lit up as well, trying to shield himself, but the Princess´s spell crashed through the shield like a bullet would go through a piece of plywood. Though the sudden raising, and destruction of a shielding spell caused the Fiend to be flung backwards, even as the spell hit him directly, he flopped backwards and landed besides the statue of Fond. As the spells had met, the room had been blinded for a moment, and Luna had calmly raised her head again, and walked forwards. The Fiend had flopped back onto the floor next to the Statue of Fond. He was groaning in pain after the sudden impact of the spell, and his limbs were twitching. "I am sorry, Angel." Luna spoke, her voice hard and determined, despite the sincerity of her words. "But I cannot allow you to harm my subjects any further. Nor can I allow Fond to be freed." The Fiend grunted in pain as he forced himself onto his knees at least, just being able to look up at the Princess of the night with a defiant stare. "So, you´re going to betray your word a Second time?" Cheerilee had turned to see what happened after the sound of the spell discharging, and was almost unable to believe what she was seeing. Luna was easily besting the Fiend, who had been pummeling Cheerilee into the ground just a few nights earlier. Luna showed no regret or remorse at the Fiend´s accusation. "My highest duty is to protect My Little Ponies, and to shield them from those who would seek shelter in my nightly domain. Including you," she stated clearly. The Fiend was staring up at Luna, who was now barely two meters away from him, towering over him like the night itself. His face looked resigned, as if he was prepared to meet his fate. "So, there can be only one Princess of the Night, then?" he asked. Princess Luna lowered her head, her horn once again, slowly charging up her magic. It was time, she thought. She had him where she needed him, and now all there was to do was to do the spell. "I am sorry, Angel." She said again. This was the moment Cheerilee felt another bump against her, she turned to see and hear Pen resist against his restraints again, seeming to want to say something. Thinking that it didn't matter if the Fiend heard them now, Luna was about to lock him away after all, she reached her head behind Pen´s head as to undo the gag. The Fiend reclined back. "Don't be sorry, Luna..." Pen gasped the moment his mouth was freed, and then Screamed. "PRINCESS DON'T! ITS A TRAP!" But it was too late. Luna closed her eyes and fired off the Sealing spell directly towards the Fiend, expecting it to strike him, and begin to seal up the Kaynite into stone. But that did not happen. The moment the spell struck The Fiend, his horn lit up, and he fired magic straight up into the ceiling, into what looked like nothing, but which quickly showed itself to be much much more. The magic struck the stone, and the entire ceiling began to fade like a fata morgana, and revealed that the ceiling was just a bit further up, and that a gem about double the size of Princess Luna herself was suspended from the Ceiling. Latching out from it beyond the suspenders, were five exact chains, each leading down to each a different victim. The gem lit up from the sudden surge of magical energy coursing through it, and all the chains suddenly lit up in magic as well. Cheerilee backed away reflexively as suddenly Pen began to writhe in pain. She saw the chain lit up in magic, and Pen wasn't the only one who wanted to scream, he was the only one who could however. All the other victims were caught in their gags, but she could still hear it, their attempts to scream, their pain. Everything was happening so fast, even to Cheerilee. She had just been able to turn her head towards the Fiend as she saw the next step in the trap snap right before her eyes. The magic beam that was striking up into the Catalyst gem, suddenly shot down in one concentrated beam straight into Princess Luna. There was a blinding light as the spell collided with the alicorn, and Cheerilee was almost thrown backwards again in another burst of powerful magic that threw both her, the Lunar Guards and all the victims roughly against the wall. Cheerilee was taken by surprise, so the knock against the wall had dazed her slightly. Her head swayed a bit as she tried to get back on her hooves and get her bearings. She didn't like what she was able to hear though. She heard no more magic, and she heard the maniacal Laughter of the Fiend. "You are so predictable!" The Fiend announced before taking another round of his cackling. Cheerilee opened her eyes and the scene slowly dawned upon her. A magical force field was in place, in the shape of a Hexagram, each part of the outside having one victim, including the part where Cheerilee was, inside of it and then a central part in the middle. On the opposite side of them, Luna´s guards were slowly recovering, and in the middle of the room were The Fiend, And Luna. And that's when she saw what had happened to Luna. The mighty alicorn was had fallen down, just about half of her body encapsulated in the same stone she had expected to use upon the Fiend. The Princess had also been dazed by the sudden return of the spell, but she was returning to her senses. "Wh-Wha... What? How?!" The Princess stared in confusion down upon her hooves that had been encased in stone. She could feel them, but she could not move them. She raised her head as the Fiend began laughing once again, sitting back on his flank and holding his stomach. "Ohhh This is just so wonderful!~" he almost sang. Cheerilee growled in anger, and leapt forwards. She twirled quickly on her hooves and sent all her strength into bucking at the Shield, which just seemingly blinked at the disturbance. It was like bucking five tonnes of topaz, The only thing moving, was Cheerilee from the feedback, as she flopped forwards. The Fiend looked over his shoulder, seeing Cheerilee´s attempts at breaking the shield and only laughed further. "I do so love when everything works out as planned~" he announced before walking casually over to where Cheerilee continued to try and smash at the shield. She tried bucking, charging it, punching it, nothing was working. The Shield just flashed slightly each time she struck against it, and with each time it lit up, the chains did as well. The Fiend grinned as he was merely inches away from Cheerilee. "That's right, just keep punching, Don't you worry. You almost got it. Oh, just a little more." He spoke in a very condescending tone, as if prompting a child to reach the cookie jar. Cheerilee was only getting more and more infuriated by the taunting. She reared back, baring her fangs in anger and with an almost warcry like outburst, she slammed her hooves into the shield again, making it bulge just a tiny bit, enough to make the Fiend actually jump back in surprise. "My my." He commented, though clearly not happy with seeing the shield wavering a bit. But he was still confident. "Now you just stay out there and hammer at that all you want. The adults are going to have a little talk." Cheerilee continued to growl as the Fiend just casually strolled over towards the downed alicorn who had also taken on a spiteful expression. "How is this possible!?" Luna demanded to know, her voice still proud despite her disposition. The Fiend smirked. "Simple magics, Princess." He said, rolling his tongue and leaning his head in for emphasis on the word Princess. "It's like placing a mirror in front a light beam. All you need is a powerful enough mirror," he said, raising his head up, allowing both his and Luna´s eyes to find the Catalyst gem in the ceiling. "And I have had years to charge this thing... Ever since you took Her away from me." He gave a small sneer at the end of the sentence and glared down at Luna. The Princess looked back into his eyes, and for the first time that night, she could see those eyes she had remembered. That pure anger, rage, and blind hatred. "You know..." he said, stepping forwards again, bringing a hoof under her chin to keep her from looking away. "I could not care less about your betrayal..." He said, causing Luna´s eyes to open in surprise. "I could not care less about the lives of your precious little ponies. The only thing I want... is Dear Sister of Mine. So I will ask you one more time..." His voice grew increasingly darker. "Release her." Luna stared back at The Fiend. That anger, It was unbearable to look at. His eyes were shining red with a beastly rage. The rage that all the blood drinkers all had to fight with. The beast beneath their skin. "No," she said softly. "I will not, Angel. And you know why. I know you do. Somewhere inside there, behind the beast, lies a pony who understands." Luna spoke, her voice calm and comforting like the blanket of night itself. "I know you´re still there, Angel. You must understand." For just a few seconds, The Fiend and Luna stared into each other´s eyes. Him looking into what once had been a source of comfort and awe, but now had grown into the purest object of hatred he had. She staring back into the eyes of the beast beneath. Staring at just that little flicker she could see. The flicker of a crying Angel. "I'm sorry." The words fell from Angel´s mouth, rolled onto the floor and was immediately stamped on by The Fiend turning around. "I understand this, Princess Luna. You have Dear Sister of Mine trapped in stone," he declared, strolling over to tap gently against the statue. "However, there is a way of unlocking this spell, it just demands a key. A key that you have in the sense of being you," he explained, beginning to actually sound calmer again. He sent a small look over at Cheerilee, who had stopped pounding against the shield, just holding her hooves onto it and looking around, trying to decipher a way to undo the spell. The Fiend looked back at Luna. "And much like normal locks, it is possible to create a fake key. All you need is a cast of the original key. Now creating such a cast demands a huge amount of magical energy. Lucky for me..." he said, finally getting his smirk back. "I have years of pain stored right above our heads, and more added each time our wonderful little pet vampire hammers at the Shield." He said, turning to see Cheerilee stop, mid-buck, as she realized what he just said. She looked back around at the different victims, taking a specific notice of their excessive panting and his pained expression. The Fiend looked bemused before turning back to Luna. "I don't need your cooperation, just your presence... Though I would have preferred if we just each got what we wanted and then parted ways..." he said with an overly dramatic sigh. "But alas. It seems you insist on betraying your words yet again." He slowly stepped aside from the statue, sending a look over his shoulder to Cheerilee. "You'll see that one day she'll do the same to you. She'll lie to you. She'll betray your trust. She'll have you removed. You´re nothing to her." He took a small pause. "You'd be better off- "You're wrong." The Fiend looked in surprise as Cheerilee glared back in defiance. "Luna is my friend. And I trust her to do what is best for Equestria. And if I ever turned into a psychopath like you or your Sister, I'd want her to lock me away," Cheerilee said, making eye contact with Luna. The two exchanged one clear look of respect. Luna bowed her head and smiled at Cheerilee, who returned the gesture. "Fine then..." Both their attention was taken by the Fiend speaking up again, who began to charge up his horn. "Let's hope the magic of your friendship will somehow pull through in the end." The Fiend unleashed a powerful beam of magic straight at the Catalyst Gem, which lit up once again, the winds of magic flourishing around inside as suddenly most of its reserves were being used, and shortly after another beam shot out from the gem and straight down upon the Princess. She threw her head back, screaming from the sudden influx of magic that felt like it was going through her very being, drawing something out of her, extracting it with force. Cheerilee grit her teeth as she saw the Princess in pain, and seeing no way of getting to the Fiend and stopping him. "Buck!" she cursed and hammered her hoof down into the stone floor. If the Fiend had been telling the truth, she could not keep hitting the Shield, it would only aide him. 'What am I going to do!?' she thought, the situation demanding a solution now, yet she could not think of one. "Cheerilee..." A voice rasped. Cheerilee turned around to see Pen was forcing himself to focus upon her, even with the chain lit up upon his horn. "The shield... The chain..." He panted, trying to form his words as clearly as possible for her. Thats when it clicked for Cheerilee. "Of course!" She said, running over to Pen, immediately trying to pull the chain off of his horn, but the moment she began wiggling it a bit, She felt a magical shock go through her body. She exclaimed in surprise and pain, and let go of the chain again. "No!" she growled in frustration. "It's stuck. If I rip too much it will only charge the shield more-" "Exactly!" Pen confirmed, causing Cheerilee to raise an eyebrow. He could see her confusion and took a hissing breath through his teeth. "You need... to make a deficit of energy." he squeaked. "Add more, then take it away quickly....Hsssss... Cause it to fl...fluctuate!" Cheerilee looked back at the Shield, and behind where Luna was still writhing under the Fiend´s spell. She tried to process the plan that Pen seemed to have. "If the shield fluctuates, it means there will suddenly be a moment when the shield is weaker," she spoke aloud, making sure that the two had the same plan. Pen twitched slightly, but then nodded. "Yes! You... You could smash through! Just hurry! You must make it fluctuate, somehow!" Cheerilee quickly looked around again. The shield was charged by the pain of all the victims and the residual energy from the gem, the gem was currently being used, so the victims was the most important. The chains was connected to each victim at the source of their magic, so somehow she would have to... Cheerilee stopped. For just there, she stopped and looked down at Pen, to truly see the state he was in. He was slightly bruised, and there was the unmistakable smell of blood, sweat, tears and sex over him. He was chained to the wall, but still allowed enough line of chains to lay down and writhe around. Small amounts of tears had been forming in the corners of his eyes for a while, but right now he was looking up at Cheerilee. There was a small amount of determination in them. They were determined, and they were looking upon her in hope. Despite everything he had been through the last forty eight hours, He was trusting her to come up with a plan. She had. She stepped over Pen, and gently placed a hoof down upon his chin, turning his head as to position it just perfectly. "Pen," she said, their eyes meeting, her own preemptive pained expression was not alleviated by the sudden realization Pen clearly got just those seconds too late. "I am so sorry." And with those words, Cheerilee applied pressure down upon the young unicorn, keeping him from moving and then lifted up her spare hoof. In a swift but strong motion, she brought down all her strength down upon just the base of the unicorn's horn. The crack just resounded inside of Cheerilee´s head with almost a sick glee in its own existence, wishing it could stay longer to torment Cheerilee, as she snapped the horn straight off the Pen´s skull. Pen´s eyes grew as wide as they could be, and it was as if he had to scream, but could not possibly reach the level he wanted, as the most sensitive part of him, the very thing that made him a unicorn, was broken off. In the same moment as this, immense amounts of pain rushed through the entirety of Pen´s system, and the momentary magical connection that still was between the horn and its owner, sent a sudden massive influx of energy up through the chain, striking directly into the gem, and out into the shield, which suddenly glowed immensely. The chain with the disembodied horn then just swung backwards, clanking against the wall, no longer connected to its source of energy, and the entire chain gave up its glow and its energy. And with that, the Shield attempted to stabilize itself, but suddenly going from having an abundance of energy, to suddenly having less than normal created too big a deficit, and it began to waver, it flickered. That was just the moment that Cheerilee needed. This was a moment she had to put her emotions aside, even as she leapt off of the poor pony she had just maimed. Now was the time to strike. And strike she did. She leapt forwards, getting just enough ground to make the destined charge. She crashed her shoulder into the Shield, which this time didn't just bulge, it cracked under the sudden pressure from the vampire Cheerilee´s immense strength. Like smashing through a window, shards of magic was sent everywhere, and the entire bubble-like hexagram shield collapsed in on itself, all remaining energy reverting back into the catalyst gem. Cheerilee landed firmly upon all four of her hooves, and thankfully had just enough time to steel herself as the gem acted up again. For as suddenly the shield had cracked, the energy that was being used by the Fiend in his spell, also suddenly began to flicker weirdly. The Fiend opened one of his eyes and watched in confusion. "Wait, nooou!-" He didn't have the time to say more before suddenly the gem´s energy pulsed, throwing him off of his mental focus, and the entire spell suddenly flared up. The glow that was being pulled out from Luna flared as well, and the essence, magic and energy all suddenly spun around the magical system. From Luna to gem, from gem enhanced to Fiend, and back again. Another blinding light flashed along with what sounded almost like an explosion occurred. Cheerilee had steeled herself, and only averted her eyes from the flash, but held her ground against the magical pulse. She could hear the Fiend yell in surprise, and the magical pulse had even cracked some of the floor tiles and the walls themselves had pieces of debris fall off of them. Cheerilee turned back to look upon the scene. The entire room had been wrecked, whatever sort of stability the room seemed to have earlier, had suddenly been replaced by this unnerving feeling that everything was broken. Cracks were all over the wall and the floor in lightning like arches, and piles of wall and ceiling had fallen a couple of places. Luckily it hadn't hit anyone. Anyone that Cheerilee cared for. Princess Luna was still stuck halfway in stone, and the victims were still stuck to the wall. Being able to hear everything again, it truly ate at Cheerilee to hear the pained whimpers and gasps of Pen lying behind her. She didn't want to turn around and see him. She would leave it to later. The unicorn was still awake... She had hoped the flash perhaps had knocked him out. At least then he would be at peace for a bit. But now she had her focus upon a couple of hooves sticking out from a smaller pile of debris. The Fiend was easy to recognize, even lying beneath the heavy debris, though his at first pained grunts turned into frustrated growls. "You... Little..." The Fiend punched his hooves upwards, removing the debris on top of him, and sort of flopped upwards. "- Pea brained, blunt fanged, thin blooded-" The Fiend continued to come up with outdated slurs, when he felt something tug at his back. He tried to rise up again, but something was sticking him to the ground. He turned around and pulled at the aforementioned things. Only to stop the moment his newly formed pair of limbs were free. Cheerilee almost had the same sort of slack jawed expression as the Fiend had, at the revelation that the Fiend had gotten a pair of wings. "- Absolutely... Wonderful?" he said in amazement. It was a pair of perfectly proportioned feathery pegasus wings. They looked like they had always been there, fitting together just perfectly with his back and the joints within. He flapped a few times, feeling the new muscles working. He looked genuinely as confused as Cheerilee for just a few seconds, before a grin crept upon his lips. "Well Well Well! Seems like the interrupted gave me... a little more than a key~" He said, looking back along with Cheerilee over at Luna. Luna looked exhausted, but she was still sporting everything, wings, cutie mark, horn everything. Cheerilee looked back as the Fiend got slowly onto his hooves, stretching his new appendages and flaring them up with glee. "I have gotten the key... or at least a fake enough edition of it... and now, a physical gift to Dear Sister of Mine." He turned to face with the Statue of Fond Amour, which was still standing there like nothing had happened. He grinned and took slow steps, taking pleasure in every moment he got closer and closer to her. "Dear Sister of Mine," he spoke. "You were taken from me a broken mare. I shall take you back, and turn you Into a Queen," he finished, his voice almost quivering with its own anticipation, his own dead heart beginning to pound with glee at the possibility of seeing its Sire again. The Fiend´s horn slowly began to light up. All he had to do was unlock the stone and let her out. Nothing could ruin this moment, nothing could- "With you, as her consort I presume?" A voice interrupted. The Fiend stopped dead in his tracks. He knew who said that. And he could just imagine the challenging face of Cheerilee standing behind him. He turned around, finding not her challenging face, but an amused smirk placed upon her face, as she was within leaping distance of him, but just standing there for now. "What did you just say?" Cheerilee just calmly flicked her mane back arrogantly. "That way you constantly describe her as 'Dear sister of Mine'... It's rather, forced is it not?" She asked, sounding like she was casually questioning an acquaintance, rather than a blood sucking creature, which was now slowly turning around, taking attention to her. "It sounds much more like that's what you want people to think." "Dear Sister of Mine and I have been together since before we were born." He glared back at her, his air of confidence gone and replaced with anger. "Oh, of course you have. I heard, you're twins... But you really sound like you want more than just being 'With' her." Cheerilee casually mused, keeping an eye on the fiend at all times. "Sounds much more like... an unhealthy obsession with an object of desire." Cheerilee took upon an almost mockingly similar tone as the Fiend had, each time he had taunted her. "Of course I desire her! I wish Dear Sister Of Mine back! Nopony can have her!" He growled, suddenly being on the receiving end was grating at his nerves. "Nopony but you, you mean?" Cheerilee smirked in return. The Fiend growled in anger, his new wings flared, and his eyes began to have more of that angry Kaynite fire beneath them. The red colour beginning to flare. "Oh don't give me that, little Fiend." Cheerilee continued to keep the Fiend´s attention, calmly stepping around as to position herself in front of the second locked door. "It's obvious you want her for yourself. It's obvious you're much more interested in her than a broth-" "Shut up!" The Fiend growled, his eyes flaring into a red shining glare, as he stepped forwards menacingly. Each step was heavy and almost the borderline of a stamp that cracked the floor tiles. "Oh dear me, seems like I struck a nerve." Cheerilee giggled, aping the Fiend´s way of taunting. "And judging by how angry you are, something tells me this has been going on for very long. Tell me, how often do you think of crawling into bed with her and-" "SHUT UP!" he shrilled, The Fiend suddenly setting off in a leap, his wings flared up and his fangs bared. The leap was fast, but Cheerilee was prepared, as she jumped aside, allowing the Fiend to plow straight into the locked metal door behind her. A comical metal bong sounded as the Fiend smashed face first into the iron door, leaving him stunned form the sudden recoil of metal. The Fiend shook his head quickly, regaining his senses and turned around, just in time to face Cheerilee again, But not in time to stop her from grabbing his face. Cheerilee took great enjoyment from quickly using her momentum to slam the Fiend´s head back into the door, using his head as a drumstick, and the door was the drum. As much as Cheerilee just wanted to continue to hammer the Fiend against the door for her own entertainment, and a good bit of karma, her hammering was interrupted, sadly not by the final cracking of The Fiend´s skull, but by the cracking of the metal door she was smashing him into. The vast amount of strength being stressed against the metal had made it bulge to the point of the door no longer being considered locked by any standards. That is not to say that the Fiend´s skull had not cracked, it had in fact, each time Cheerilee had used her vampiric strength to smash the back of the head against metal, but the same crack had just continuously healed. Cheerilee growled in frustration as she tried one final time to crush the Fiend´s skull against the metal door, but instead of the skull giving in, the door gave in, and the two of them were flung forwards, Cheerilee toppling onto the Fiend. The sudden loss of balance had disoriented Cheerilee for a second, which allowed the Fiend to finally summon his own strength. "ARRRGH!" He roared as he kicked all four hooves against Cheerilee´s chest, flinging her backwards into his sanctuary again. Cheerilee flew backwards like a cat flung off a building, but luckily that analogy was even more fitting as the vampire teacher managed to land safely upon all four of her hooves, granted, stumbling a little on the sudden change. She readjusted herself, seeing the Fiend getting back upon his hooves, blood dripping from his mouth for a few seconds before he wiped it away and turned his fury back onto Cheerilee. His eyes were filled with anger and malice. Just as she had planned. "Luna! You stay put! I'll take care of this!" Cheerilee spoke at the same instant the Fiend leapt for her again. This time Cheerilee mirrored the leap, but broke it off, as so she slid just beneath the Fiend, and the two had exchanged places, allowing her near the exit. Luna who was still exhausted upon the floor after the Fiend´s spell, sent a small curious look over at Cheerilee. "Uhm... Sure..." she said. The Fiend growled again and charged after Cheerilee, who fled out the now open metal door, leaving Luna literally stuck with the other prisoners. She looked down at her hooves encased in stone. "It's not as if I have much of a choice..." she commented snarkily despite her exhaustion. Through the door, Cheerilee was running as fast as she could. She was holding a good distance from the Fiend, who was ferociously following behind her. She could hear for every time her hooves clanked against the floor that four more were just within earshot, and accompanied by an almost constant growl of anger. She really seemed to have stirred the hornets nest. Only thing that put Cheerilee to a halt, was the revelation of a ladder, leading straight up through a concrete tunnel in the ceiling. She couldn't stop now, she knew she wasn't quite there yet. If her suspicions were correct, then this could be it. Then again, she could just be running around in a circle. She didn't have the time to think on it further, She didn't even look behind her, all she could do was head up the ladder. Thanks to her Vampiric strength, she took it in leaps, skipping quite a few steps, and was able to scale the long ladder and the tunnel. Only to be stopped by a metal hatch. Cheerilee caught a reflexive breath in her throat as she dared to look down. The Fiend wasn't there, but she could hear him, hear the galloping of his hooves and the distant growling yells he was throwing at her. "STAND STILL SO I CAN TEAR YOUR TONGUE FROM YOUR MOUTH!" He yelled once, just as she came to a halt at the bottom of the ladder. He looked up, meeting with Cheerilee´s eyes and his features twisting into his sadistic glee. "There you Are!" He declared. Cheerilee could feel her dead heart jumping as she desperately tried to turn the handle on the hatch door. She could just hear the Fiend begin to jump up the ladder, and knew that he would be there within seconds. A loud clank sounded as the hatch was unlocked, and Cheerilee threw herself up upon the edge of the tunnel, just hoping to get out in time. She was able to get most of herself out. But just as she was about to pull her last hind leg out, she was tugged backwards. She turned to see the Fiend having grabbed onto her hind leg with both of his front hooves, and his newly formed wings were flaring up and out of the tunnel. He was grinning. "Got you!" He whispered. "No you don't!" Cheerilee shot back, as she grabbed the edge of the hatch door and with full force slammed it straight back onto the Fiend´s face and hooves. Cheerilee could not help but smile as it had looked like a much more violent edition of 'Whack-a-dog' from some kind of arcade, except for this time she had just smashed an undead creature in the face with a reinforced steel hatch. She repeated the smash a couple of times, before finally the Fiend let go, and flopped a couple of steps down on the ladder, getting his legs strangely tangled up between the metal beams on the ladder. Cheerilee took the opportunity to quickly slam the hatch shut again, turning the circular handle to try and lock it again, but she knew she couldn't keep it there. Her eyes quickly scanned around to try and find anything she could use to bolt the hatch with, but found none. "Buck..." She conceded to saying, after taking the decision to grab a hold of the Stake she had tied around her foreleg, ripping it from the tape in a quick tear, and jabbed the thing in between the hatch handle mechanism. 'That should jam it for at least a few extra seconds' She thought before getting up. She finally took a notice of that she was in some kind of old storage room, with an metal door seeming like the only way out. The sound of metal clanking against wood was enough to urge Cheerilee on to ignore the room further and just barge out the door. The now open door revealed the inside of a large metal structure, support beams and a large circular staircase leading upwards into the structure. It was almost undoubtable where she was now... But she still couldnt believe it. "This... Is just too ridiculous..." She said as she set up the stairs. She was taking strong strides and almost small jumps for each, as she skipped steps to get as far ahead as possible. She looked over her shoulder as she heard the second sound of metal being smashed in, and a second later, the Fiend had rushed out of the door and was now at the foot of the staircase. He set off in just as quick a stride as Cheerilee, trying to catch up to her on the staircase. 'Looks like he still hadn't Quite understood that he just got wings...' Cheerilee thought and was thankful for this. Anything that could give her an advantage was welcome. The two kept running up the stairs, the Fiend slowly inching closer and closer up the stairs towards his prey, but he was not able to get to her before she reached the top of the staircase. Rushing out of the doorway at the top of the stairs, Cheerilee came to a screeching halt, as a metal railing was thankfully stopping her from falling to her death. She reflexively grabbed the metal railing and looked down, seeing just how far down there was, Straight down to water. She looked ahead, seeing the bay of Manehatten, the lights of the Cityscape, brightening up the night, along with a rather large one, emanating from this very structure. Now she could see it all. She turned her head back, finally taking in the entire statue she had now gotten to the top of. The large torch held in the hoof of the mare standing atop of the platform. She was on the Statue of Manehatten. That took a few seconds to just truly sink in. "The Statue... of Manehatten... I'm On... the Statue of Manehatten..." She repeated aloud. "The Statue... Of Manehatten..." This now, undeniable fact was circling in her head. The Fiend had somehow refurbished an old safe room into his sanctuary of torture and blood... Underneath the Statue of Manehatten. And it made her smile. In fact, it made her laugh. She held onto the railing as the laughter began to take complete hold over her system. This was just too ridiculous. It was ridiculous enough to keep her full on laughing, even when the Fiend reached the top of the staircase. His face turned from twisted anger, to one of frustrated confusion. "What Is so funny?!" He demanded to know. Cheerilee was still laughing. She held out a hoof to signal him to wait a moment. She then took a couple of deep breaths, trying to balance out everything again, before looking back at the Fiend. "A Hideout... Under a National Landmark? Seriously?" She asked, doing her best to strangle her laughter. The Fiend looked confused for a few more moments. He then walked out on the platform as well, looking out onto Manehatten before shrugging. "You Take what you can get..." he rationalized, turning to Cheerilee who was giggling incessantly. It was really rather grating. He rolled his eyes slightly, and took a polite step away from Cheerilee. "Can We get back to the point where I was about to rip out your throat?" He asked, with a slightly annoyed tone of voice. "Oh, Ehehehe, Of course... Give me a moment..." Cheerilee was still giggling slightly. She braced herself against the railing, taking a deep breath to stop the giggling. "Thank you..." She stated, as she stood off of the railing to face the Fiend. "Dont Mention i-" The Fiend responded, but was interrupted by Cheerilee suddenly leaping forwards and socking him right in the jaw. He staggered backwards, before snapping his eyes back to Cheerilee, his anger returning in an instant. She made another swing for him, but he ducked under and kited around her. Cheerilee quickly spun around for another jab at the Fiend, but it didn't connect. Instead it was finally time for the Fiend to strike. He ducked under her jab and swung under Cheerilee´s jaw, just powerful enough for her to flop backwards. She was saved by the railing however, hammering into it, instead of falling off of the statue. "We remind any and all tourists that the drop is extremely dangerous." The Fiend said rather snarkily as he calmly strolled over towards Cheerilee. The mare shook her head, regaining her senses, just to look up, seeing the Fiend stand over her again. He tried to stamp onto Cheerilee, but she rolled aside and skidded back onto her hooves. Cheerilee wiped a bit of blood from her muzzle, her chin healing up almost instantly again. The hit hadn't been that powerful, but she could still feel it. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, each trying to guess what the other would do, before the Fiend made another leap for Cheerilee. She jumped aside, just getting out in time and letting the Fiend punch a bulge into the torch part of the statue. She saw a quick opportunity and punched him square in the jaw, sendinding him flopping back a few metres. He was equally as quickly onto his hooves again, making almost the same gesture of Cheerilee of wiping away a small amount of blood that had escaped his muzzle. The only difference was that he got angered. Cheerilee had been hurt a lot, but she wasn't just hurting him. She was hurting his pride. "Enough of this..." He stated firmly. Cheerilee stepped slightly aside, finding the perfect position to fight the Winged Kaynite in front of her. And in that instant, the Fiend leapt for her again, this time hoping to slam Cheerilee into the ground. But Cheerilee was prepared. She flopped onto her back, holding all four of her hooves above her, and slammed all four of them into the Fiend just as he was about to slam into her from above. This put the Fiend to a stock still in mid air above her. Now It was Cheerilee´s turn to smirk. "'I hope you know how to Swim M'Dear'" She mimicked his voice, before she arched herself further backwards, and flung him back over her head. And over the railing. He flew just over the railing, his newly formed wings only just clipping against the metal beams in a desperate attempt to save himself from the forces of gravity. Cheerilee hadn't been as satisfied and relieved in a good while since she saw the Fiend fall over the edge, and heard his roaring voice get further and further away from her. She let go of her breath, allowing herself to flop down on the floor. For just that moment, she had time to breathe and was sure she was safe, for at least a couple of minutes. A fall from the Statue of Manehatten should most certainly crack that skull of his a bit, and all she would need was to continue her plan. 'Now... Just need to get the flare...' She thought, remembering her plan. She sat up and tried to rip off the flare from her leg. It resisted quite a bit, as she accidentally had fastened it a bit too well. "Come on you little..." She mumbled beneath her breath, reaching down to try and rip off the tape individually. She was just about halfway through ripping off the tape as she looked at the second flare on her other leg. That one didn't look as well bound together. She sighed at her own little mistake there. "Oh Well" She said, picking that and ripping it off of her leg, the ripping feeling from the tape quickly evaporating. Now holding the flare in her hooves, she smirked. With this, the plan would come to fruition. She only hoped that Celestia would keep her promise. Her train of thought was interrupted by the sudden swoosh of something flying through the air. She turned around, only just in time to feel the agonizingly painful and powerful kick to the face of a perfectly placed hind hoof, sending her crashing to the ground. As her skull stuck the floor, a Second crack resounded and she dropped the flare. She looked up in shaky panic as she saw the flare roll on the ground and right off of the edge of the statue. Her eyes flickered quickly back from the flare, and around to determine what had stuck her, even from her downed position. And there she saw him again. The Fiend was flying. "Did you forget I just got a Pair of Wings, M'Dear?~" He asked, letting out a fit of laughter following up, while he was floating just above the downed mare. Cheerilee was in agony. She could feel fluids leave her skull, and any attempts at retorting was reduced to a combination of gurgles and growls. While she felt dizzy, and had trouble coordinating her hooves, she was able to reach them up to her Jaw, feeling the broken bones and heavy dislocation she had just sustained. She glared up at the Fiend, who was only reveling in Cheerilee´s attempts at making some quick fixes upon herself. She took a deep breath and with agonizing cracks snapped her jaw back into its sockets, needing it there before the bones would heal again. In concern to her skull, she brought a shaky hoof up to just hold in any excess blood that might try to escape, while she slowly sat upwards. "How´s the Jaw?" The Fiend tauntingly asked. Cheerilee growled in return, He could have ended it, he knew it, she knew that he knew it, but that bastard just enjoyed breaking her bones too much. 'Lucky for me... I guess' She thought. "Its.... Fine..." She hissed in return. "Well We can't have that~" The Fiend replied, beating his wings one extra powerful time as to gain him some more air, before he made another dive for Cheerilee. This time, she rolled out of the way, making the Fiend simply disengage and make a full circling around the torch of the statue. He was laughing all the while. "I Must say! I never thought having wings would be so Fun!" He called out from above, before swooping down a second time. Cheerilee threw herself forwards again, barely dodging the Fiend again, before getting back upon her hooves. She threw her head back and kept her eyes on him, baring her fangs and growling. He didn't pay that much mind, instead he flew around and made another swoop down for her. Cheerilee could feel the air being pushed aside as she narrowly escaped him yet another time by throwing herself for the floor again. As the Fiend made his turnaround, Cheerilee was desperately fumbling for her leg, she needed to get that Flare out. She couldn't afford to lose this one, she needed to do it now! She ripped off the flare and looked up. The Fiend was just about to swoop down upon her again, so she needed to pop the hood of the flare now. But she was barely able to get a hold of it with her teeth before the Fiend struck her. Instead of pouncing to crush her bones this time though, he grabbed her, holding her around her abdomen and ascended at a rapid speed. Cheerilee fumbled with the flare, the thing hopping back and forth between her hooves just before she was able to catch it tightly to her chest. The Two continued to ascend, the Fiend keeping a tight hold around Cheerilee as they flew, his newly formed wings not even seeming slightly strained. The flight was just so fast, the lights beneath them were dimming and the cloud free night was soon mainly illuminated by the Moon, rather than the lights of the city. And then, it stopped. The flight came to a halt as the Fiend reached the height he wanted. The two were way above cloud level, but having no clouds that night you could see the entirety of Manehatten from there. The Fiend twirled Cheerilee around in his grasp, the two now being muzzle to muzzle, and staring each into each others eyes. The Fiend with superior glee, and Cheerilee with burning hatred. "Why Its such a lovely night here." He taunted Cheerilee with a smirk. "Now... Any Last Words before I watch you drop?" Cheerilee in one swift motion lifted up her hooves and twisted the hood of the flare off, the thing lighting up in a bright light between the two, causing the two´s heads to rear backwards in undead fear of fire for just a moment, but The Fiend kept a hold of her... and sadly... The Flare. He lowered his head and grabbed the flare between his teeth, and quickly flung it aside. The red flare dropped. Four eyes were following it as it just fell towards the unforgiving waters below. The Fiend gave a small chuckle. "Quite the Last Words." He commented. "My last words!" Cheerilee quickly added, with suddenly a much more superior smile on her face. "Is... 'Good Morning, Fiend Amour'." The Fiend opened his mouth to respond, but then the trap shut. He could feel it. He turned his head towards the east and he saw it rise. Celestia had raised the Sun Earlier. It was as if someone had suddenly doused him in water and then dropped him in a bath filled with napalm. Within even a second, before he had been able to react to anything, he could feel his skin tense from the sudden pain and he could feel all of his muscles tense up from the sudden major input of pain. He let out a Shriek. He was in agony. And it was only about to get worse. For the second his muscles tensed, he had not the appropriate grip upon Cheerilee, and his wings were exposed. The Purple Vampire mare took the opportunity that her plan had so perfectly given her, and grabbed for one of the Fiend´s wings. "Have a good Drop!" She was just able to yell, before she slammed her hoof down on the tensed wing, In one strike breaking the bone and then with all her might, Pulled. With the sudden strike, and the agonizing pain of the Sun beginning to take effect, the two dropped. Gravity took a hold of both of them, as they twirled around each other in the drop. This was mainly due to Cheerilee still holding on to the wing she just broke, but not for very long. Because in another quick motion, Cheerilee placed her back hooves against he Fiend´s body and pulled for all her might. With the bones broken, and the sudden muscle tensions and agony of the Sun beginning to literally burn the fur off of the Fiend, The flesh gave in. With a rip and a loud squelch, Cheerilee tore the wing straight off of the Fiend´s back, sending the two flying away from each other. Cheerilee with a hoof full of wing, and the Fiend falling and slowly beginning to ignite. To the confused ponies of Manehatten, the two were just two specs in the sky, both falling with incredible speed, but one of them, were lighting up. Cheerilee let go of the ripped off wing, seeing it burn up in a matter of seconds, being reduced to ash in the wind, while the Fiend on the other hand was still screaming in agony. His fur had been burnt to a crisp, and now his skin was slowly getting charred as if he was thrown directly into a fireplace. That was the last Cheerilee saw of the Fiend, because the two were falling quickly, and they were falling away from each other. Turning around in the air as to look down towards hopefully something soft she could land on, The last thing Cheerilee saw that waking morning was the unforgiving blue of the Manehatten bay. While Cheerilee crashed with the Manehatten bay, The Fiend had a different fate. Now Mono-winged, his crippled and charred body struck through the crown of the Statue of Manehatten, making a hole in the metal statue. His drop didn't stop, he continued to smash through the internal metal support beams. He cracked both the beams and his bones for each single he smashed into, his fall only slowing marginally for each and every metal beam that he cracked. Other beams cracked from the sudden snaps in the structures, more metal pipes and beams even falling before his broken body crashed into them, and clanging down onto the only thing that would stop his descent. The floor. The Fiend did not see it. He couldn't even feel it anymore. He had an overload of sensory input. He could feel was the piercing of metal through his already charred body and the sudden and enormous force of his body impacting with the floor. He could feel the sudden snaps and cracks of several more bones within him and the snapping of flesh and cords. And then, Silence. There he laid. His senses overloaded, his limbs pained to the level of numbness, his mind only now gathering the full reality of what had happened. His head was leaking, none of his limbs was responding to anything anymore, and he knew what was stuck through him now. He could feel the coldness of the metal beam that he had landed on. It had impaled him through his burnt skin and was now keeping him riveted to the ground. He tried to do something, anything, but nothing was responding. Nothing. Anything he tried, just heightened his sense of reality, and the return of the actual feeling of agony. But the most bitter pain that crept upon his mind was not his bones, not his charred body, not his now mono winged back. It was that he was here... Stuck... And dying. There was no way around it. He could feel it. He couldn't heal this. No amount of Kaynite Strength he wanted to sacrifice, could save his life. He needed that strength, he needed that magic for Fond. She needed it... She was still there. But he couldn't get there... It was over. With the last of his strength, he opened his mouth, drawing in a small shaky breath. He didn't care about the pain of breathing, or the wheezing or shaking of his voice. He needed to say it. Gathering everything he had within him, one more drop of blood was spilled onto the ground that day, escaping as the last tear that Kaynite had and he spoke: "S...Sorry..."

Fiends of Manehatten

Epilogue

Manehatten Hospital: Cheerilee had occasionally woken up in places where she couldn't remember how she got there. After having died, she had woken up in places like a sewer, the ocean floor, at the bottom of a pit, beneath an almost deadly pile of Sapphire Shores merchandise, and many other odd locations which always made her go 'Huh...' when she woke up. But this time, the 'huh' factor, came more over the actual normality of where she woke up. In a hospital bed. It almost seemed too normal to actually be true. Like she would not be surprised if her next actual breath would be her waking up on the end of a spike or at the bottom of Manehatten bay or something. But that didn't happen. Opening her eyes, she just saw the peaceful white tiles of the hospital ceiling. Nothing out of the ordinary. That was till she turned her head and saw Princess Luna resting in one of the guest chairs, reading some sort of health magazine. That was not ordinary. And finally, her senses returning to their regular superpowered state, she could feel a deep throbbing from within her head, feeling the intricate cracks that was still healing upon her head, beneath a couple of professionally placed bandages. "Well... that's different..." Cheerilee commented weakly, her voice creaky from its long resting period. Hearing Cheerilee´s voice was enough to rouse Princess Luna from her reading. She floated the magazine away and walked over to the side of the hospital bed. "Good morning, Cheerilee, good to see you decided to stay with us." The Princess said with a soft smile. Cheerilee groaned a bit as she slowly sat up in the hospital bed, but was able to make a reply. "Well the bay of Manehatten seemed so wonderful I almost decided to stay and become a Seavampony..." She spoke, though the intention of making a joking tone, only managed to sound tired. She turned to Luna, weakly lifting both of her hooves for emphasis. "Fear me, The Scourge of the Seas..." Princess Luna shook her head, but did give an amused scoff at the comment. "I best ask the doctors to come back, sounds like they didn't get all the seawater out of your skull.," she rebutted. "Tell me, do you still have the taste of kelp in your mouth?" The two shared a small chuckle, Cheerilee´s noticeably weaker than the Princess´s. She then took a small breath, glad for the sensation of actually breathing air, as opposed to the water she had expected to wake up to. "Now then..." Cheerilee began, rubbing one of her temples as she spoke. "Judging by the fact that you're not stone, and I'm not dead...er, I'm assuming that I got him?" Luna gave a small somber nod. "The Fiend has been secured, and his victims have been brought into intensive care in this very hospital." Cheerilee felt an immense amount of relief from hearing those words. It was like Luna had literally pulled tonnes of weights off of her shoulders. (Which she had placed there in the first place, but that was a detail for another time). It was more relieving than any kind of vacation she had yet had to date. It was such a relief that she could not help but look away and pump her hoof just a little bit, whispering the word "Yes" to herself. "Yes, it is quite wonderful. And quite fortunate that my sister decided to break her promise to me and override my night, just as you needed it." Princess Luna spoke, her voice rather calm, as if only stating facts. Cheerilee froze slightly, she turned to meet Luna´s slightly accusatory look with an awkward smile. "Uhm... Right..." she began, realizing she had forgotten to think of a way to explain the situation to Luna. "And also rather lucky for Celestia to somehow arrive at the scene within a relatively short time, considering that she was supposed to be in Canterlot at the time we were in Manehatten." Luna continued. "Well you see-" Cheerilee tried to get a word in. "And that she already had roused the daily guard of Manehatten to spring into action the moment she raised the sun." Luna was still speaking in exactly the same tone of voice with the same stare. "Might not have been the brightest-" Cheerilee tried to cut in with the right words to defend her position, but Luna would have none of it. "And adding to the luck of this very elaborate plan having somehow been laid out by only my sister, according to her." Luna´s voice continued in its almost monotone level now. "Oh... Uhm, right it-" "That is until I questioned her and she gave into giving the information that some lucky individual had been telling her secrets behind my back." Luna said, with an extra emphasis on the last words. "I was trying to-" "And given all of these facts, and all of this deception, made by somepony I personally considered my friend. Yet still that pony went behind my back, breaking all rules she had been given as a professional. Enough sensitive information that could possibly have her dismissed." Luna raised her voice. This was getting bad. "Please Luna, I-" "It is quite lucky, that she was right to do so and I forgive her." Luna finished. "Yes that's luc- What?" Cheerilee just stopped. She looked upon Luna, who had sat down next to the hospital bed, her tall stature keeping her at eye level with Cheerilee. She smiled softly at the vampire before her. "Yes Cheerilee... I forgive you." Cheerilee´s jaw was hanging heavily beneath her head as she had somehow just been scolded, threatened dismissal and forgiven within the same monologue. It just roused too many questions in her mind for her to pick one individually. "But..." "But what?" Luna calmly asked, seeing the conflict going on for Cheerilee, and was quite amused by it. It was rare to see her top agent speechless. If only she had a camera. "But I... Lied to you. I went against the orders you gave me specifically! And-" "And nothing more..." Luna cut in. "You did your duty. You did what you needed to do to protect Manehatten and the ponies within it. And you were still able to defeat the Fiend, even after my plan went completely wrong. You weren't blinded by the same arrogance that I was." Cheerilee could not believe what she was hearing. She had expected Luna to fire her, to reprimand her, to put her in ironic detention, something, anything! But... She forgave her? That easily? Luna rolled her eyes slightly, seeing Cheerilee´s confusion. "Let us just call the two of us Equal. I have lied to you, you lied to me, sounds Fair?" Though Cheerilee took a little more time than expected to come up with a response, she ended up nodding her head with a small smile. "I... Guess that's fair," she conceded, feeling rather relieved again, almost as if one of the last weights were removed from her shoulders. Only to have the last one feel just as heavy as the others by the Princesses´s next words. "Besides..." Luna continued. "I don't believe I am the one you'll need to ask forgiveness of." Cheerilee froze and bit her lip for a moment. She knew who Luna was talking about. "Pen..." She said aloud, mainly to herself. The Princess gave a somber nod. Cheerilee looked softly upon Luna. "Is he here?" "Yes... Only a couple of rooms away." Luna confirmed. Rising up upon her hooves and stepping back, she kept her eyes on Cheerilee. "If you'd like, we can see him now..." She offered. Cheerilee nodded, slowly shifting off of the hospital bed and getting back onto all four of her hooves. She stumbled slightly as she landed on the floor, her head still felt a bit heavy considering the amount of abuse she had taken. Luna waited patiently for Cheerilee to steel herself, before opening the door for her, letting the two get into the hospital hall. Just walking out, Cheerilee was quiet at first, she didn't want to think back to what she had done to the poor colt. Yet just the prospect of getting to meet him again just made the sound of his horn cracking resound through her mind. It was almost as if the sound itself had turned maniacal and wanting to linger forever. It was completely different to cause such damage to someone who had done nothing but try to help her, as opposed to some opponent. She had broken many bones and knocked off a few horns before, but there always was that sort of justification in the back of her head, Either they had started a fight or they had actively tried to kill somepony. In this case, she had simply taken the quick yet only solution she had been able to think of. Taking a small breath, she turned to Luna again. "How... How is he?" She asked with a slight uncertainty in her voice. The Princess looked ahead, not meeting with Cheerilee´s concern, which only increased the concern. "The doctors are doing their best..." She simply responded. Cheerilee didn't like that response. It was too vague and too off putting, as if Luna was trying to take the brunt of the pain off of something. She sighed. "Please Luna, cant you-" "I'm sorry." Luna cut off Cheerilee, but not sharply, just by simply raising her voice slightly and taking the steering of the conversation. "I think this is a thing best discussed with him, rather than hearing it from me." The Princess asserted, just as they stopped by the door to one of the hospital rooms. Cheerilee stared blankly at the door for a bit. She almost didn't want to go in there. Ironically she now felt like a student who was about to face the consequences of her actions. The more lighthearted part of her mind just reminded her that maybe it wouldn't be so bad... But cynicism was still hanging like a fog across her mind. She decided to do the only thing she could do. Hope for the best, expect the worst. Slowly, she lifted up her hoof to gently open the door to the hospital room and entered. Inside, Pen was lying back in the hospital bed, his head propped up with a good amount of pillows and the elevation of the mattress. He had been resting as Cheerilee walked in the door. As the squeaky door announced her presence, he turned his head towards her. He was wearing the same kind of hospital gown as Cheerilee had been, and there was a sort of brace placed around the top of his head and his horn. It looked like a combination of a neckbrace and a cone you'd place on dogs to prevent them from scratching their stitches. It was something designed for unicorns who had lost their horns in accidents, as it was able to keep the horn back in place on the head, but due to the incredibly sensitive nature of the horn, preventive measures would be needed to be taken to prevent the owner from touching the aforementioned limb. Cheerilee tried her best to give a diplomatic smile, though it ended up looking more awkward than anything else. Seeing Pen in this position and knowing that she was the one who had placed him in it, was a bit of a hard topic to tip over. "Uhm... Hey..." she said, trying to mask the uncertainty in her voice. Pen looked back at Cheerilee. Seemingly emotionless. "Hey..." he replied weakly, before looking upwards towards the ceiling. 'Okay, he spoke to me, but avoided looking at me... One step forwards, two steps back'. Cheerilee thought. Awkwardly, she stepped over towards the hospital bed, as to get a more polite distance. She smacked her lips, trying to bide for a little time as she really wasn't sure what to say. What do you say to someone you maimed? "So... How're you feeling?" A diplomatic approach. "Well I feel like my head has been split open, and despite the amount of painkillers I am on, I am not able to fall asleep, which means I only have my own thoughts to fight with, and they usually alternate between wanting to write something down... (Which I can't)... Or remember the last forty eight hours... How about you?" Pen responded slightly coldly. 'Ouch' Cheerilee thought, cringing slightly. That didn't bode well. "Uhm... I'm alright..." Cheerilee tried to start. She hoped to come up with something, some way of steering the subject as so that she would not come off as a huge knob. How does one really get to the subject of 'Sorry for effectively severing one of your limbs. Not just any limb, but the limb that practically your kind of pony is named after'? Not like that most certainly. "Good..." Pen responded, his voice still weak and rather cold. Silence settled over the two again, Cheerilee trying her best to think of something to say, somehow to just cut up the silence and get things over with. "I forgive you..." Cheerilee turned her face in surprise as those words once again surfaced, but by a different pony this time. "What!?" she asked in confusion. Pen slowly turned his head as much as he could (As the device restrained his movement slightly), and looked upon Cheerilee. "I forgive you..." He repeated. "I understand why you did it... I should have seen it coming... It was the better option." He said, his voice weak with resignation. Cheerilee heard the words, but as opposed to the time when Luna had said them, these ones felt hollow, if not directly fake. She stared back at Pen, whose eyes looked tired and almost hopeless. He wasn't exaggerating when he said he couldn't fall asleep. A strong pang of guilt came straight back to Cheerilee, the same sting she remembered from the second she had taken the fateful decision. "You don't really, do you?" Cheerilee asked, looking sympathetically back at Pen. The unicorn turned his head back away as she spoke. "I do..." he insisted, but didn't look at her. "I know you do, but you don't, do you?" She pressured. "You don't really want to forgive me for doing it..." "Who would?" he cut in, while his voice still weak and snappy. "I understand why... I get it was the best option..." Pen averted his face, and even closed his eyes, trying to contain himself. "Everything has been sorted out..." "Except for you..." Cheerilee added, making the young Unicorn bite his lip in shame. She seemed to have hit the nail. "I have no right to complain... I am alive, and everyone has been saved. You did your best Cheerilee, and I couldn't ask for more." Pen answered. It was not hard for Cheerilee to see what was going on. He was in the fight between content logic and understandable emotions. Cheerilee walked up closer to the hospital bed, settling herself right besides Pen. She placed her hoof upon Pen´s for a second before he quickly pulled it away, almost reflexively. "Don't touch me... Please..." he quickly jabbed, before he sighed, looking dejected. "I already forgave you..." Pen said, his voice more insistent this time. "No you haven't," Cheerilee said knowingly, softly looking upon Pen, feeling slightly hurt that Pen didn't want her to even touch her. "You don't need to, but be honest with me-" "Can you please leave?" Pen cut off Cheerilee. "And tell Luna that I quit... She can have the safehouse back..." His voice was cold, almost resentful. Cheerilee froze for just a second. "Pen you can't-" "Cheerilee..." Pen finally turned his head slowly towards her, showing his tired, sad, almost pleading expression. "Please leave..." Those eyes stung more than a prison shank. It was almost as if they physically pushed Cheerilee backwards, though she knew that wasn't true. It was just how she felt. She bit her lip, trying to think of something to say that could possibly twist this around... But she couldn't. "Please..." Pen whispered, before turning his head away again. She couldn't just stay here all day silently hoping to come up with the right words. Reluctantly, and with a heavy heart, she complied. "Alright..." She weakly conceded before turning and walking out of the room. Even as she was closing the door behind her, Cheerilee didn't want to leave. She knew she had wronged Pen, even if it was the best of the worst options, that still didn't change the fact that she had maimed someone who had been counting on her. She wanted things to be okay between them, she wanted to see Pen smile again as the last thing before she would leave. Leave... Get back to Coltenhagen, back to the mediocrity and as close to regular as possible life that she had. She leaned back against the door, her hooves covering her face and sank to the floor with a deep sigh. Why did things always have to end on notes like these? Why did her duty always drag her to hurt ponies? She shook her head for herself. No, it wasn't her duty, it was simply what she did. She could probably have done something else, something different that didn't involve hurting her... friends. Cheerilee stayed there for a couple of minutes, thoughts like these haunting her mind like gleeful little moths, circling around a lamp. "You should not blame yourself as much, Cheerilee." Cheerilee looked up just as Luna placed a reassuring hoof upon her shoulder. "I know..." Cheerilee sighed, her eyes returning to her own hooves. "It's just... Hard..." She admitted. About a minute passed and nothing was exchanged between the two. Cheerilee was silently collecting her emotions back to try and settle back to normal while Luna merely sat beside her. Her presence was rather comforting, sort of like a cold blanket on a warm summer night, something to ease you, someone to make you feel better. Then she smiled softly at Cheerilee. "Come with me, There´s something I'd like to show you." Cheerilee nodded weakly, just following along on automatic, not giving the situation much thought, as she was still stuck on her conscience. It was annoying, frustrating, aggravating and comforting that at least she had it. The short walk made its halt clear, as Cheerilee absentmindedly bumped straight into Luna´s flank the moment the Princess stopped. Shaking her head after the momentary collision, Cheerilee looked up in confusion at Luna. She had simply brought her to another set of rooms in the hospital, none of them seeming in any way special or significant beyond the number on the door. Seeing the confusion upon Cheerilee´s face, Luna gently tilted her head towards the door. "Go inside," she insisted. Still not sure about where Luna was going with this, but Curious nonetheless, Cheerilee gently pushed the door of the room open just slightly and went inside. The hinges were completely silent on this one, both as she opened as she closed the door. Inside Cheerilee had a good view of the room. Inside, everything looked normal, nothing out of the ordinary till she saw who was in the hospital bed. Or beds, was this case. Two beds had been moved together, and in the newly created double bed, lay a pony couple intertwined in each other's embrace. And Cheerilee could personally recognize both of them. The stallion was gray, and with a white mane which tried its best to curl in a proper manner, but hours and hours of sleep and embracing had turned it into something more similar to a crow's nest. His embrace was tight and affectionate around the mare in his hooves. She was green coated and her streaked blonde mane looked just as harrowed as the stallion holding her. It was Money Bags and Emerald. The couple had been reunited again in the hospital. Cheerilee remembered only seeing Emerald distraught, sad or terrified. However, their expressions were anything but. They laid there in each other's embraces, their shared heat comforting them more than any kind of protection could ever muster. And even as Cheerilee could see Emerald´s cheeks were spotted from dried up tears, the gentle content smile she had, even in her sleep, told a completely different story. There was nothing more of that scared little mare hoping to end her life in the simple hope of ending the suffering as well. No more of the mare who had screamed in fear the second she had caught a glimpse of a fang. All of it had vaporized and left behind what seemed to be, at least a fragment of, the real Emerald Song. Happy and content in the hooves of her husband, and he in hers. Cheerilee stared at the two ponies for a good few minutes. She had been completely frozen in her stance, as her thoughts and her heart gently fluttered for her, and a small smile crept upon her lips. Even the mere sight of this made her spirits lift just that little step out of the pits her conscience had brought her into. And finally the thought also sank in. 'I did this... I saved them... I did it.' Still on her emotional high, Cheerilee took a few steps forward, but then stopped mid step. Another thought struck her. Specifically remembering Emerald´s reaction upon seeing her fangs the first time. As much as Cheerilee didn't want to admit it, Emerald could most likely remember her. Cheerilee lowered her hoof that was mid step, and took a few more seconds to look upon Emerald and her husband. A small smile crept upon her face as she looked at Emerald, in her sleep gently nuzzled more into her husband's chest, and he returned the nuzzle with care. "You take care of her now..." Cheerilee whispered softly, before turning around and walked silently out of the room, leaving the two sleeping ponies none the wiser of their savior´s visit. Cheerilee silently closed the door behind her, and leaned up against the wall again. But this time, her sigh was of relief. "Feeling better?" Princess Luna asked with a soft, but knowing smile. Cheerilee nodded and smiled softly in return. "Yes... A bit," she admitted. "Good." Luna said, smiling still at Cheerilee, as she slowly began to walk down the hall, stopping for just a moment to allow Cheerilee to come along and catch up. "I guess you can say then that your task has been completed. You can go back to teaching the Coltenhagen foals again." "Yea, I guess so," Cheerilee mused loudly. "Hoofton and Typo will no doubt be missing me by now. Coltenhagen foals are quite the mouthful," she commented casually. Luna flashed a joking smirk. "More of a mouthful than defeating ancient evils?" Cheerilee chuckled slightly. "I'll take the modern evils over ancient evils any day. At least modern evils I can put in detention... And at least they speak consistent Equestrian most of the time." "Ah yes, Scandineighvia, Quite a place..." Luna spoke in a knowing voice. She then tilted her head slightly in thought. "I don't believe I have been there since they stopped celebrating 'Blót'..." Luna mused aloud. "Maybe I should take to visit the place." "Need a tour guide?" Cheerilee asked with a knowing smirk. "Just so you know, there are no friend discounts." Luna did her best to contain her giggle as they walked. "Very well. I guess that is what I have to suffer to experience the northern delights. Shall we get going then?" "Why not?" shrugged Cheerilee as the two were reaching the end of the restricted area. The same guard that had been stationed the day Emerald had been lost was sitting there, and he instantly stood more alert the moment he noticed the Princess and Cheerilee. Luna simply gave a small nod before the guard opened the seal for them. As Cheerilee followed behind Luna, she could not help but feel a bit weighed down still. Almost everything had been solved, the victims were safe and the Fiend was gone... All she had to do now was leave Manehatten. Get back to her life, even maybe enjoy a bit of non work time with her friend. So why was there still something in her gut gnawing at her? Everything had sort of just stopped for Cheerilee. There was still that loose end. That one loose end she just wanted to somehow tie up. And she could. And she would. "Cheerilee?" Luna asked, waving a hoof in front of her friend, who was shaken from her thoughts. "Luna, can we push the tour for a little while?" Cheerilee requested. While at first rather perplexed, Luna went along. "For how long?" "I don't know yet... I... might need a couple of days at least," Cheerilee requested, looking very intent on getting on with whatever plan she had. For just a few seconds, Luna looked at Cheerilee, seeing the determination in her eyes, and thinking of the possibilities of why Cheerilee would extend her stay in Manehatten. Then as it dawned on her, she could not contain a proud smile. "Of course. Take all the time you need. I´ll be in Canterlot when you're done," she assured. Cheerilee then just leapt forwards and hugged Luna. It was quick, it was tight, it was affectionate, and it was over before the guards pony at the station could blink twice and question his own sanity. "Thank you Luna, I owe you one." With that, Cheerilee turned around, almost setting off into a run, only stopping for a second at the guard station. "Excuse me, do you have some paper and pencil?" Back in Pen´s room, the monotonous silence had stayed way beyond its welcome. The ceiling tiles had also ceased to be interesting ages ago, and there was only so much readjusting of your own comfort you could do before it began to become detrimental. The device strapped to his head and neck was uncomfortable, and only further seeking to highlight how frustrating and agonizing the entire situation was. He wanted to do something, to let something flow from his mind onto paper, do something anything. But he couldn't. His horn was barely back upon his head, and most likely he wouldn't be able to use magic normally for years, and this thing couldn't get off his head in at least a month, so writing with his mouth was out of the question. He sighed. Now that he had quit, He guessed he would have to do something else. And the only thing he really wanted to do he couldn't do. Wooptie freaking doo. He couldn't help but feel a stinging tint of anger towards Cheerilee, even if he knew he shouldn't. She did her best... But her best had hurt him... Deeply. "Could be worse..." he mumbled for himself. His own cynical thoughts was interrupted however as Cheerilee came into his room again, tugging a saddlebag along. "Hey Pen," she said, walking inside and casually sitting down on one of the guest chairs, next to his bed. Confused, he raised an eyebrow at her. "I thought I told you to leave?" He asked, suddenly uncertain if that had been some kind of lucid dream. Cheerilee just smiled and nodded however. "You did, you also told me that you're in an immense amount of pain due to you wanting to use your magic again. And who can blame you, you just want to realize your talent after all." She casually said, lifting the saddlebag up upon her lap while talking. Pen sent a small look down towards his own flank, the book that was in the process of being written still being there he knew, even hiding under the covers. He then looked back at Cheerilee, who continued to talk. "You see Pen, My talent is not, in fact, this kind of job. I am not the perfect agent. I am a teacher." She said, shifting herself slightly in her seat, putting emphasis on the flowers of her cutie mark. "And it's my talent, and my deepest wish to see my students, and my friends grow and smile," she explained, opening the saddlebag and pulling out a full notebook and a pencil she immediately stuck into the side of her mouth. "So, no... I am not going to leave. Not as long as there is somepony I care about who need my help. Now, you mentioned something about wanting to write something down?" Pen stared upon Cheerilee in momentary confusion, then in surprise, then in confusion again. He could barely believe what she had said. She was just an Agent, wasn't she? Supposed to come, fix something and then leave again. But... now she was here to... help? "B-But..." He tried to reason. "It´ll be days, weeks possibly..." he said, certain that the simple time crunch would be enough to send Cheerilee away. Yet she simply smiled. "I guess you just best start talking and make the best of the time that you don't have to write down a word yourself then." Cheerilee casually declared, leaning slightly back in the guest Chair, smirking whilst still the pen was sticking out the corner of her mouth. "For now, Countess De La Cheer is at your service." For a few seconds, the two were just staring at each other. Cheerilee calm and collected, Pen still collecting everything she had just said. Then slowly, a sheepish smile dawned on his face. "It's not even that good of an idea-" "Let me be the judge of that," Cheerilee stated with a knowing smile. With that, Pen sighed in defeat, despite the smile now clinging to his face. "Well then... The idea of the story is in this mythical land....."

Marks Of Babylon

pre

Meanwhile, on the outside of the barrier, the Apple family had made their way over to the rest of the girls. "What's goin' on, Twilight?" Applebloom asked, sounding scared for her sister's well-being. "How does that pony know mah parents? How does he know US?" "I wish I knew, Applebloom." Twilight answered, looking concerned for it, too. The blue light shined from inside her again. "But this is only the second time we've seen this guy." "And it looks like he's too scared to take us all on, without his friends." Rainbow added, before trying to get Xoa's attention again. "Hey, cowboy! If you wanna fight, let me tag in for her!" "Yer not mah target, Rainball!" He replied from inside, before picking up Applejack. "What've ya got against mah family!?" Applejack asked him, trying to break free from his grip. "Ah worked mahself ta the bone fer them, an' they just shoved me off fer it!" Roranxoa proceeded to throw her away onto the ground. Not giving her the chance to get back up, he pounced above her. It looked like he was aiming to slam down on her, preferably with his power to shake the ground in mind as he landed. Fortunately, she was able to dodge out of the way and get back up before he slammed on the ground. The vibrations still shook the floor, but now she was in prime position for her to kick him right in the face with her back legs. She did so, kicking him in the face and knocking him to the ground. "Oof! Heh, not back." He said, stomping the ground with his back hoof, propelling himself back to standing on all fours. "Darn right! Ah don't know what ya want with me or mah family, but ah ain't goin' down without a fight!" "That's what ah want. C'mon, let's see ya using that muscle, kid!" Roranxoa stomped his hooves on the ground again. This time, the ground below AJ started to shake, before rising from the dirt and into the air on a pillar of some kind. "Whoaa, hey!" She yelled, as she ascended into the air. "Catch!" She heard him yell back to her, as she could see something approaching her from below at a rapid pace. It was another chain. "Whoa!" She muttered as she dodged the incoming metal. However, she once again fell bait to him, as another chain bound itself to her back leg. "Uh-oh..." The chain pulled her down from the pillar, dragging her down the slope as it did. "Oof! Arg! Ow!" She mumbled, hitting the rocky pillar numerous times. It took a few seconds, but she reached the bottom. However, that didn't mean that the chain would cease. Instead, it pulled itself further into the ground, trying to take her down with it. "Arghhhh..." Applejack strained to break her leg free of the bind. "Gahhh!" It took a few moments, but she found herself free of it. "Heads up." He said from behind the pillar next to her. As she turned to see him, looking ready to face him still, her ears dropped and her eyes shrunk when she saw what was about to happen. Judging from the heavy bucking sounds and the amount of stone and rubble falling from the pillar, he had just kicked it down right on top of her. "Oh no..." Was all she could say, before the pillar came crashing down on her, smashing into the ground below. There was no mistaking the result: Applejack was done. "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!" Roranxoa maniacally laughed. After he had finished, others immediately ran up to Applejack. The forcefield seemed to get smaller, until Roranxoa shouted out "INVERT!", then the field disappeared completely. "Aww... Now ya don't look like a happy farmer." He tried to restrain his laugh. He stopped Twilight and said "If ya still want answers, she'll explain everything." Twilight then looked confused, as it wasn't clear who he was indicating. Before she could ask, he was pulled away by someone. "Ah'm gonna break you." Big Mac said to him, his snout inches away from his, the look of anger in his eyes, and his hoof grabbing onto his clothes. "Listen, handsome." Xoa said, as he calmly got Big Mac off him. "In answer ta Applebloom's question, ah know y'all 'cause ah used ta do a lil' business with yer ma and pa." Big Mac's face turned slightly less angry and more worried for a second. "Before that scumbag cut me off, Ah used ta fight yer pa all the time, and ah won each time. He was much older and much stronger than ya are now. Plus, y'all just saw what ah did ta the Element of Honesty, ah think ah can take on any raw muscle." As much as Big Mac wanted to, he knew that, if what Xoa just said was true, he couldn't just go at him head-on. Regretfully, the big bulky stallion backed off a few steps, instead turning to tend his injured sister. Knowing that he not only beat one of the saviors of this world, Xoa then turned to Twilight. "How could you do something like this!?" Twilight fiercely asked the cowboy. "What did she do to you!? What did any of us do to any of you!?" "That's on a need ta know basis, princess." The Mark answered back. "An' if yer princess hasn't told y'all yet, then she clearly don't think ya need ta know." "That's not true at all! I'm sure the princess will tell us everything we need to know straight away!" "Yeah, ah doubt that. If that was ta case, she woulda done hen she knew about it the second we arrived at yer castle." This earnt a grunt from the princess, before she shook her head in denial. "That's not true! You're a liar!" "Believe what cha want, princess. But unlike y'all, ah at least know what ah'm up against." The others that heard him say this turned to face the pair, with a look of concern and/or anger on their faces. "Next step, Traitors ain't taken lightly." He finished, ready to punch the ground again. He did so, re-enacting the vibration that had tremored several times before. With that, the same hole that appeared last night came. "T..." Applejack weakly murmured, trying her best to painfully reach her hoof out. "Twi... Li..." "Ah'll see y'all again real soon." Roranxoa announced, turning around to face Applejack. "You especially, Apples." "W... Wai..." The Element Of Honesty once again wheezed out, trying to make herself heard. Ignoring her plea, the cowboy jumped down into the hole he created, allowing it to close itself and restore the ground to what it was before. "Applejack!" Twilight called out, running over to join the others. "Are you alright!?" "Gee, I don't know(!)" Rainbow Dash sarcastically answered on her behalf. "Does she look alright to you!?" "Girls, you're not helping!" Rarity snapped at the pair. "We need to get her help, now!" "Rarity's right, we need all hooves on deck! Fluttershy, what can you do!?" "I-I-I can try my best! I can probably tend to her injuries, but-" "That'll do!" Twilight responded again. "Get as much equipment as you can and do whatever you can!" 10 seconds had passed after he left as AJ seemed to be coming to. Everypony (and dragon) was then relieved until something else came to worry them. Not too far away, round about Twilight's house, a rainbow shot out of the ground and impacted beneath. As soon as they saw it they recognized it instantly: it was the same magic that they used to seal Discord away. But had a dark aura all around it. This could only mean one thing, and they were right. Soon enough they heard Discords shout in the distance. Spike, AB, Sweetie, Scootaloo and Big Mac stayed to heal AJ. Everypony else went back to Twilight's.

Marks Of Babylon

Illusionary Fortune.

Marks of Babylon Chapter 3 Illusionary Fortune. The 5 of them arrived at Twilight's house only to see that what they feared was true. The spirit of chaos was oncve again restrained in his prison; Discord was turned back into stone. "Oh no!" Twilight yelled, looking over the misfortunate marble. Stranger still, it looked almost identical to the way it did when the Elements themselves did it. As if this alone wasn't bad enough, they were then greeted with a familiar sign. The same bright light that took away one of the three stallions last night came back and shone in the corner of their eyes, and from what it looked like some pony went in with it. Only, for some strange reason, of looked as though they may have been FORCED in. "What in the..." Rarity said, squinting her eyes to look closer at in with the other girls. As soon as the distant light began to fade away, a flying carriage flew over head and a certain friendly face dropped down from it. "Illiux!" She shouted as the light faded. "Princess Celestia!?" Twilight shouted in astonish. The monarch turned around. "Ah, Twilight my faithful student. How are you dear?" "I've been better." Twilight replied. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here last night; I had a few issues with... Something important. Speaking of which, I trust by now you've become acquainted with my old "friends"?" "If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, then yeah. I think I may have met one of the others. This one had a black mask with brown symbols. Also he had some western clothes on and a black cowboy hat. He said his name was-" "Roranxoa." She finished for her, already knowing who she was speaking about. Celestia then looked straight up and sighed. She made sure that she had every ponies attention before continuing. "Well five of you are here, so we need only wait for Applejack before all is revealed." "Um, your highness? Applejack is sort of..." "Right 'ere!" A southern voice came from behind them, to see Applejack being carried by her legs lifted by Spike and her sister. "Applejack!" Celestia questioned, seeing one of her elements covered in blood, plasters, and dirt with chain marks at her waist. "What happened to you?" "Roranxoa, that's what happened." answered Spike. She looked concerned, then sighed again. "It should never have come to this." She looked sad as she pulled out something she was holding. It looked small, sharp and red, like a horn. It almost appeared to be connected to a hoof size ring. "Very well, Marks of Babylon. If you wish to start a war with me and my ponies, then so be it!" She looked to face the eight of them. "You will all need to hear the story. You see, as you already know, Equestria is made up of lots of different unique and special places. But of them all, there is one that is forbidden not by my order, but by my parents." "Your parents!?" Twilight asked in surprise. "Indeed. It is know as Babylon and is located in the very center of the world. It exists out of the cosmic balance of harmony and chaos. However, several millennia ago, that balance was tipped, and Discord, who is from that Babylon, was sent here to put it back together." "So Discord's home is literally right beneath us? And it needs to be balanced to survive?" "Correct again. This was when I had first met him at night in the royal gardens and we became good friends. Until that one fateful day when he was reminded of his reason for being there and stole the elements of harmony. When he did the Babylon regained some of its former loss and began to rebuild itself. But once me and Luna turned him to stone, it had crumbled again. So we had to make an important decision of who was going to suffer: my home, or his." "So you chose yourselves? We understand." Fluttershy said to the royalty. "I was truly sorry for what we did, but couldn't afford to release him at the time." "That's horrible, but does that give them the right to destroy MY castle?" "And because we were the ones who had turned him to stone, they were unable to break him out. Seeing as how he's now reformed in their eyes as well as our own, they no longer trust him, so they turned him stone, And we can't break him out because of that." "So in a sense..." Rainbow looked depressed while saying, "...You could have saved them, but you chose not to." "Wow!" Said Pinkie. "That was a really long story." Rainbow Dash looked at her when she said this. "That's nothing to be humorous about. This is a serious matter with several hundred innocent creatures having their home demolished because of this idol." "Rainbow, that was rather sophisticated." said Rarity. "Especially for you." "Perhaps, but this needs to be said. How could one remain calm when another has just reminded them of the suffering of their society, and your pompous pink peon just laughs?!" Twilight picked up on these words. "Wait a minute. Reminded? Peon? Your not the real Rainbow Dash, are you?" "Hmmm." Just then her voice became much deeper, much smoother, a hint of a German accent, and very familiar. "Nothing escapes you, does it miss Sparkle?" "A Changeling?! Impossible!" She said, getting ready for anything. "You're absolutely wrong." A bright yellow light then emerged from right in front of 'Rainbow'. "It's nowhere near impossible." "AAHHH!" Twilight shouted as she covered her eyes with her legs, along with the others doing the same, save for Celestia, who just looked at it. "But, in this case, it's not true." The new voice said as a light came and flashed around and hit Rarity into the tree wall. When they all got up a several more of those yellow glass panels that Xoa used came out of nowhere. This time they were a lot longer and just taller than Celestia was. They surrounded him and rotated until they vanished. It turned out to be another one of the stallions that raided last night. "You should be careful who you put your trust into, after you've met me, mein libeste." It was the one with a black mask with yellow lines. He was wearing blue jeans with a light red thin hoodie over a green traced sweater over a polo shirt. "Illiux." Celestia bluntly said. He took a slight bow before her. "Celestia, you look divine. Why, for so many years, you haven't aged a day. Oh my apologies, neither have we. Simply honoring to see you again." "... The pleasure's almost likewise." She said as he rose. "I see we're still up to out old illusion tricks." "Rupolenics, dear. Rupolenics." "What's it been? 1000 years?" He raised his hoof to his chin. "1173, but who's counting?" "Where's Rainbow Dash? What have you done with my friend!?" Twilight demanded to know. "All in good time my lavender beauty." A voice behind her came. She looked behind her in confusion to see that he was standing behind her now, turned back to where he was standing and saw he was gone from that spot. She raised her hoof in shock at this, he saw it, grabbed it with one of his, and gently kissed the edge of it in a gentlemanly manor. "I don't believe we've had the fortune before. So sorry. Illiux Lure. Illusionist, tailor, etiquette teacher, clothes designer, prep faction leader, Mark of Babylon Mistrust and light element of the Babylonians." "Um..." Twilight said, looking confused by the mixture of his actions and the elegance of his behaviour. He let go of her hoof a second later, and got back up to look at her. "From what I've been informed, you and the other Elements of Harmony have little to no information concerning us. I would love with all my heart to explain, however there are other concerns that require my attention. Now if you'll excuse me, I must be off." He rose his hoof up to his face, revealing another of the glass panels appeared, before a bright light flashed before him. With that he was gone. "What was...?" "So now you've become personally acquainted with two of them." Celestia started after he had left. "They seem to know more about the powers of the Elements then I recall them doing. However, some good news is that they shouldn't know who ALL of you are. And knowing their lust for fighting, each one of them will come after one of you each. You see, the Elements of Harmony also wield some counteractions." "Uh... You wanna go a lil' more into detail about them first, yer highness?" Applejack asked her. "Certainly. Long before the Elements of Harmony even had their original owners, six other ponies had been chosen to wield powers of a different variety. They were similar to the Elements, but had very different properties and visual effects. As you've seen, they wear masks as opposed to necklaces, and are black instead of gold. Also their representing images are imprinted instead of crystals." "Well, we've seen that already." Twilight reminded her. "What about the actual ponies wearing them?" "Yes, of course. Well, similar to yourselves, they not only wear the masks with pride, but their magic is amplified by having them on. I'm, sadly, unable to give you their specific names and details due to... Promises." Celestia replied, think back to last night. "However, they will come after each of soon enough." "So they're coming after us each, one at a time?" Rarity said as she walked back over to the others. "They think of themselves as their own elements of harmony, but consider themselves Neo and superior to yours. These include Dedication, Faith, Honor, Knowledge, Respect and Acceptance. However, they also hold powers of disharmony of their own as well. These are Obsession, Mistrust, Fear, Worry, Destruction and Sacrifice. So once you find Rainbow dash, convince them to break Discord out immediately." Celestia finished. "Um, your highness?" Fluttershy asked. "How long do we have? That is, if you don't mind me asking..." "No time at all. Take a closer look at the statue and you'll understand why." They did just that at saw what she meant. This time, Discord looked as though he was in pain. Suffering. Being hurt from the inside. "You see, they are harsh beings." Celestia continued. "They believed that the elements of harmony had no balance between good and evil, so Discord was sent up to reset the balance. Now they consider him traitor." "This is bad." declared Twilight. "We must stop them before anypony else gets hurt/taken. If we don't, then we-" "Hey, sis?" Applebloom questioned, grabbing all attention. "Where'd Spike go?" The seven ponies looked around for him. "He was here a moment ago." Said Celestia. "... Babylon." "Spike!?" Shouted Twilight. "Spiiike!?" Called Fluttershy. "Darling!?" Shouted Rarity. "Are ya' there?" Called Applejack. "Bad time for a surprise!" Said Pinkie. As if it was on cue, they all heard a scream in the distance. Not just any scream, his scream. "SPIKE!!" they shouted in unison. Just then Celestia received a letter sent via dragon breath. It was like Spike's, but had numerous differences such as that the fire was purple, not green, the paper was black, not yellowish-white and was written in white rather than black ink. Celestia saw this and realised only one word: trouble. She began to read it out. "Yo Cel, baby, it's the sypher man! Got any time for ya ol' boy?" The others looked in shock that princess Celestia had just said THAT. She continued. "Guess what I've just got my runny claws on. Give up? It's your old friend the Spike Meister. Now I've caught my handsome self some good 'nuf prey in the past few centuries, but this lil' dude's wicked! So if ya want to ever see 'im again, you and princess Lunatic best be rolling through the Babylon ridge tonight at mid. And don't bring any pony else. See you there babe! Lots of love, Xervint." "There are tons of thing I wouldn't expect you to say," said Pinkie. "But I never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever thought she'd say THAT." "Not my preferred dialect, no." Celestia folded the letter away and put it under her wings, before she signalled for the carriage to return. "What should we do?" Twilight asked, as the sun princess hopped onto the vehicle. "I know this may sound unideal for the situation, but you should let the Babylon come to you. If you try to find them by yourselves, you'll only make it easier for them." "But, princess." Applejack spoke up. "If we just sit aroun', won't those guys jump us at the first chance they get?" "Usually, yes. However, I know how the Marks of Babylon think, and they'll have too much respect to just finish you off in a single day or so." "What about Spike?" Rarity interjected. "The poor dear could..." "Myself and Luna must get to the ridge tonight. If they stay true to their word, then you'll see him again before tomorrow." "But, how will you get there? You said that only a Babylonian can-" "I have one waiting." She interrupted. "A pony with... Unique abilities, that came to myself and Luna last night." "What? Why didn't you mention them earlier? We'll just get to Babylon with you." "That, although undoubtedly helpful, would not be possible." "Why not?" "I gave him my word. My word that I would not do anything to assist you in this matter, unless directly invited to. I'm sorry, but I must be going." "... Alright. But before you go, who was this pony?" Twilight asked, as the chariot began to take off. "His name is Walker! You'll see him soon, I'm sure!" Celestia shouted, as she soon vanished from the scene. Night did eventually come round and they all stayed in Celestia's castle while she and Luna went to this "ridge". "Alright then." started Twilight. "If they are going to stay here, then we'll need a plan for this upcoming war that the princess mentioned." "Well, let's start by seeing what we already know." Said Rarity. "We know that they blame us for anything and everything that may have happened to them. We know they have Spikey wikey and most likely Rainbow dash too, and are keeping them hostage. And lastly we know that the princess knows more than us about them." "Right! So first, it might be smart to-" She went silent at the sound of fighting in the distance outside. It sounded more like someone was just kicking the others plot as opposed to actual fighting. It came closer and they sooner than later saw the cause as it crashed its way into the room. When the smoke cleared, they all saw Spike lying down on the floor only hanging on by a thread. They wanted to help and were about to until, out of the newly formed hole in the wall, Illiux stepped in with some more panels around him. "You are aware, dear boy, it does not have to end for you like this right here!" He shouted across the room. "Merely stand down and tell me WHO and WHERE miss Rarity is." This grabbed all attention in the room as they all suddenly realized what was happening. "I-I-I'll ne-n-eve-er tell y-y-y-yo-ou." He weakly said. "Then I am sorry Junger Drache, but this where you leave us." He walked slowly to the barely conscious dragon. Rarity wouldn't allow this to happen, knowing what he was trying to do. She was ready to stand and fess up. "I-" "I'm Rarity!" Shouted a purple Alicorn as she got straight up. "Hmmm..." He said, until a yellow glow radiating out of the white unicorn's chest flew right into his mask. Fortunately, for them, he didn't see where or who it was coming from. "And ponies insinuate that I'M a liar." The Unicorn said to them and fired another laser from his panel, knocking Twilight into the back wall. "Now, let the fun continue." He grabbed Spike with his magic and readied his hoof to attack until a blinding light shone down from the ceiling and called his name. "Illiux!" The deep voice boomed and he quickly released his grip on the young reptile so he could bow before the light. "If you're alive, we require you back at the ridge for immediate departure." "How trivial." He said after it had faded and he had gotten up. "So this would appear to be farewell. But first..." he used the magic emitting from the yellow glowing horn to force himself and Spike closer to each other. He then slipped something in to his claw. "Hold onto that for me, my boy." He whispered as he faded from the light again. The five looked in relief that he'd gone, then back in concern of the fact Spike is just lying there almost done for as he dropped what appeared to be a key from his hand. "We simply must get him to help immediately." Rarity instructed the girls, lifting him up onto her back.

Marks Of Babylon

Screams From Beyond

Marks of Babylon Chapter 4 Screams From Beyond. "So, how was your little day out, 'me old chap'?" The British pony in the mask with the purple markings asked the Prep stallion, as he could hear him walk into the chamber. "Fairly entertaining, 'mate'." Illiux replied, stopping a few feet away from the tough-sounding pony. "At least, more entertaining than whatever you would get up to in that trailer you call home. And for your information, there was a miniature fight happening during my time." "You were fighting? And you didn't invite us? Mate, you're lucky to get out alive, knowing you." He replied, seemingly mocking him. "Oh, I'm flattered to know you've got my back(!)" Meanwhile the giant dragon was still in the center of the room, observing this conversation. "It's true! Friendship DOES conquer all!" He joked. "Wie auch immer if you must know, I was facing the girl who the key to you-know-what." "You what?!" He snapped, now sounding serious. "You gave it away?!" "Yes, I bestowed it, and unless you get it back, your friends are going to stay in their little crisis, because of what happened to my colleagues." "You think this is funny, do ya?" "It slightly amuses me, yes." "Go on then, who's got it?!" "Pinkamena Diane Pie." It had already been almost twelve hours since their last encounter with Illiux, yet it felt like two minutes. Twilight looked concerned at her Assistant's well being as he was laying there on a hospital bed because of the information that he held and refused to give away to him. "First Rainbow, then Applejack, then Discord, now this." "The poor darling couldn't even walk after what he had done... Because of me." Rarity said with a depressed tone. Twilight turned to her. "Rarity." She began. "It wasn't your fault that Spike tried to defend you. Who knows? Maybe Illiux was planning to do a lot worse if it were you instead if him. I know he's hurt, but Spike may have been happy to go through that for you." "Yes I would." A masculine voice sounded behind them and they all turned to him. Twilight and Rarity walked close, but Rarity went closer. "Rarity." Spike began. "I- I didn't mean- it wasn't- he was- I only-" Spike continued to stutter at her expecting her to lash out at him, but it was quite the opposite; she wrapped her front legs around him tightly and began to cry softly. He was taken back by this at first, until he hugged her back and looked sad, then mouthed something that looked like 'Thank Celestia.' Twilight and her friends merely chuckled at the gesture. "Your love for a young lady is as touching as ever, dear boy. However, to miss Rarity, you are destined to be a friend and nothing more, I'm afraid." Said a voice that was as familiar as it was unwanted. The ponies all turned to the doorway to see Illiux standing there. However this time he had some good news. "Rainbow Dash!!" They all shouted in unison. "Hey girls. Wassup?" She simply said, looking as though she was struggling to stand up properly. "What's up? What's up!?! Didn't they do anything to you there?" Applejack seemed confused. "Oh you wouldn't believe it! They stuck me inside this tube thing and-" Rainbow Dash tried to explain, right as Illiux pulled some kind of small capsule out of his pocket, and opening it in her direction. Just then, a bright light hit her in the face, the capsule vanished, and Rainbow covered her eyes for a second. "Uh... What? What was I just talking about?" Rainbow then turned to see Illiux. "Hey! you're that stallion from Twilight's place." "Okay, now I'm really confused." Pinkie shared. "That was a combination of magic that even Princess Twilight is not aware of. The first is called Gift Of The Diviner, and the second is Memory Mangle." "I've never even heard of those spells before. What do they do?!" Twilight demanded from him. "In good time." Illiux said. "Now then." He turned his head from them and walked towards the bed. "Hey!" Pinkie shouted as she got up on two legs and stood in front of Rarity. "You stay away from our Rarity." "Ah, I see." He walked up to her smiling. "So YOU'RE Rarity." "PINKIE!!" Spike and Twilight shouted at the same time. "Oops..." She smiled nervously. "Anyway, I came here for two reasons and fraulein Rarity is not one of them. Yet. First off: Guten tag Spikey-boy, how are you feeling?" "Well, I'm doing terrible now." "...Understandable. However I could not truly be a gentlecolt if I cannot even be a GENTLE-colt. So I brought you some gems to dine on for fighting me." The seven looked puzzled at this. "Wait so..." Twilight began. "First you attack my house, then your friend Xoa beats up Applejack, then you kidnap Rainbow dash, then you fossilise Discord, then you kidnap Spike, then you abuse him for information, then you hospitalise him, and now you're bringing him a gift?" "Are you loco in that coco?!" Asked a confused Pinkie. "Nein, I'm Germane." Said Illiux passing Spike the box of gems. "And the second reason I'm here is that I'm looking for miss Pinkie Pie. Now I can estimate it's one of you two, and I have a way of guessing who." The unicorn looked over to Pinkie and Fluttershy standing next to each other. As he walked up to them more a light shone from inside of him, and within seconds he created an illusion in the shape, size and form of a giant dragon. The dragon was pale white, shiny and had razor sharp yellow spines. He roared loudly at them and Fluttershy whimpered off behind a chair, whilst Pinkie did nothing. He reverted back to a unicorn, smiled and went up to her and greeted her with the same way that he greeted Twilight. "Is it you? Oh, foolish question, I know it's you seeing as how your friends shouted your name when you tried to defend miss Rarity. Anyway, my dear, I come with a warning: you will be fighting your opposing Mark next. As you hold the resemblance of fear, Caxpe (pronounced Cape) shall be your opponent." "Hey, I never said I was gonna fight anypony." She said with a bit of seriousness. "Would you be calm if I said he has the ability to make chocolate rain from cotton candy clouds?" He asked being cocky. Suddenly, Pinkie's face turned from determination to excitement. "Really?!" "Jawohl. In fact, it was him who taught Vanc- I mean, "Discord" how to do that." "Ooo... That does sound nice!" "Pinkie." Twilight said. She looked at her and then looked back at him. "Sorry, but I already have a friend who can do that. So I'm still not gonna fight." Illiux heard this and had a serious expression behind his mask. "Either way miss Pie, miss Applejack and master Spike didn't have a choice so what makes you so certain that you have one?" She and her friends had no ready reply for this. "Farewell for now mein ravishing darlings." He said as he prepared his escape, but then decided to use the door instead. "So let me get this straight." Rainbow dash said, after her friends brought her up to speed. "These guys are mad at us because we wrecked their home, and now they want to wreck ours?" "Correct. And princess Celestia said that each of us would be assigned an opponent, and from we've gathered, AJ, Rarity and Pinkie already have." Twilight continued to explain. "Well Spike." Began nurse Redheart. "From looking at your results it would appear you're ready to leave." She started to walk out of the door when, at that same time... "Hey you!" A voice shouted from in the hallway as the doors opened. He entered the same time that nurse Redheart left. A stallion with a light brown coat and a matching light brown pompadour hair do walked in. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and blue tight jeans with a brown thin leather jacket over him. "Oh... This looks bad." said Spike as he got out of his hospital bed. "Hey you're Pinkamena, right? My boss Caxpe wants to see you outside." Despite how this pony looked, he sounded surprisingly angelic. "Then tell your boss Caxpe to come in here." Replied Twilight. The stallion pointed at her in a tough manner. "No-one tells Caxpe Fear what to do; Caxpe Fear does the telling." "Yeah, well, I'm not gonna let him to us what to do. Now leave before you make a mess." She was trying to push him out the room. "I said he needs to see this rat!" The pony said, trying to stand still. "Do we look like a wrestling group?!" He then got off her and walked out combing his hair with his hoof. "You're gonna pay for this!" He called out to Twilight as he left. As he was leaving, he heard something trying to speak in his head, and he was quite reluctant to answer it. "Well?" A cockney voice asked him, sounding serious. "I tried, boss, really I did. But she's being difficult, just like you said. You might have to get to her yourself." "Did you get it, though?" "Nah. I didn't even get to bring it up. I'm heading back to you, man." He said, walking away. Back in the hospital room, the protagonists were discussing briefly. "So what're you gonna do Pinkie? If you go out you could end up like how me and Applejack did." Said Spike. "Still, better go see what he wants. Maybe it's a surprise party!" She gleefully said. "I doubt it." Rainbow Dash said lowly. Within minutes the seven of them were outside looking for Caxpe. They searched for a bit but to no avail, until... "So you came." A deep voice came from behind. They turned around. They saw a dark Purple Stallion with a dark brown pompadour mane wearing a mask like the others with a Purple lining on it for a symbol. He was also wearing tight black jeans, a torn white polo shirt, covered by a blue sweater, underneath a baggy black leather jacket. He also had biker gloves on his fore hooves and his left ear pierced. "Yeeaahh..." Said Pinkie a bit worried. "Good, 's about time. You think you can whatever you want, do ya? Think you spread peace and all that stuff on the world, and no pony's gonna care!?" "Not really. Not exactly, anyway. Well, sorta. Alright, yeah, we do." "Yeah? My whole world's come crumbling down, cause of you. Me home, my mates, my bikes, all my work, everythin' we've done, all of it's in vain, 'cause of you!" "Listen mister Caxpe." Began Twilight. "I know you must be upset about your home, but believe me, it had..." Her words were slowed by what she had just saw. It was him opening his jacket and two arms made of darkness came crawling out and were holding something. One had a box of cigarettes, and the other a lighter. He began to smoke right in front of them. "...Nothing..." "...To..." "...Do..." "...With..." "...Us..." He turned to face Twilight. "Oh really?" He turned back to Pinkie, and released some smoke straight into her face. "Did cha bring the key?" "Key? What key? Ooo is it a key to a party?" He then laughed at her stupidity, not her idea. "Think your funny, don't cha?" She smiled until what he did next: he used the darkness arms to grab her by the throat and lift her up. "WHERE ARE MY KEYS, YOU WORTHLESS PINK RAT!?!?!?! The whole life of my first ever friends depends on that, now give me that key!!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. The others rushed to help, but were then cut off by something familiar. "Babylon Tiamat-goddess of chaos!" He shouted as a force field that matched his coat emerged and knocked them all back. "Where is the key?!" He said through his gritting teeth. "I don't have any keys." Pinkie managed to choke out. He then threw her down and slammed her info the ground. Once she had gotten back up, he lifted her up and threw her into one of the forcefield walls. He then ready to pounce on her with a body slam, until she rolled over to the side and stood up straight. "Augh!!!" He grunted, and slammed his hoof into the ground and got up. "Hey Caxpe!" She called. As he turned around he was hit in the face directly by a well aimed shot of confetti and balloons, knocking him onto the floor again. This was followed by Pinkie using her party cannon to launch another shot, and another, and another. This went on until he used the confetti to his advantage. He lifted his cape over him, and he somehow vanished from it. "Huh?" Pinkie wondered as he disappeared. "Heh heh." His voice chucked from literally right behind her. "Aah!!" She jumped. "You almost made me drop me cig. Idiot." He scoffed as he inhaled, the exhaled in her face. She prepared to fire her weapon again, but this time he lifted his cape above his head, then quickly brought it straight to the bottom left. It touched corner of her cannon, and chipped a bit off. "Woah! Well that's not fair!" She complained. He ignored her and whipped his cape to the right, cutting off the top half, then he used his left hoof to go straight for her, breaking the centre, connected by the same hoof making a full circle destroying the whole plastic party cannon. Pinkie tried to back up, but realized she was now up against a wall. This was his perfect time to strike, as his back was turned to her, and he swung his came again, going directly for her neck. "Eep!" She squeaked. Luckily she dodged by ducking, and he sliced the forcefield wall. However, he wasn't done yet. He tried to punch the ground where she was with his left hoof, but again she dodges by jumping to the side. But then he saw this and used his right hind hoof to kick her away. "You not had enough yet!?" He called as he walked up to her. She was panting on the ground, until she turned around with an angry outburst. "AAAUUGH!!!" She roared as she attacked him and pinned to the ground. As soon as she touched him, her mane literally exploded, and flattened. Her mane as well as her coat went noticeably darker. He wolfed whistled at this style. "Alright Pinkameina?" He asked, as he also inhaled his cigarette and blew it in her face again. She pressed him harder. Just then, his cape grew darker underneath him, and he was absorbed into the ground in a puddle of darkness. The puddle then transformed into a rectangle, and then a black fist rose under Pinkie, launching her into the air. She then fell onto the ground, the fist disappeared, and Caxpe was standing where the fist was, wafting his cape over him as he appeared. This time Pinkie didn't get up, until Caxpe lifted her by the neck again with his darkness arms, and brought him closer to him. As he finished off his cigarette, he burned what was left of the butt into her body. "Augh!!!" She screamed in pain. "Where is the key Pinkie?!" "Hey!!" Shouted the young dragon. He turned to him with an uninterested look. "Lay off her, Grease ball!" That got his attention. He released his grip on Pinkie and went over to the edge of the forcefield where Spike was. "You what, mate?" He said surprisingly less angered than before. He reached behind him and pulled something out. "This what you're looking for?" He asked waving a key in front of Caxpe. He looked surprised now. "You can have it if you leave now." "You're a cheeky little muppet, aren't you lad?" He then deactivated the forcefield and took Spike's key. Also, he swooped his jacket over him and a shroud of darkness appeared and took him away. "Pinkie!!" The six of them shouted in unison. They ran over to check on their choking friend on the floor. "Hey, are you alright?" Asked Rainbow. "No. *cough* everything hurts." "Come on now. We should try to stay focused on one task at a time. Right now Discord is still turned to stone because of the Babylonians. If we break him out we can use him to-" "Yes? Use him to what?" They turned around to see and hear Discord. Fluttershy (of course) rushed over to hug him and he hugged her back until... The others stared in fear when he pulled out his claw in front of him, and one of Illiux's illusion panels showed up. Even more frightening was that it started to glow in Fluttershy's direction. "FLUTTERSHY NO!!" Twilight screamed when she pulled her away and he almost attacked himself. "Whoa!" He yelled when some familiar yellow glass panels appeared on their own surrounding him, defending himself from himself and showing that it was really Illiux with the same illusion powers as before. "Not you again." said Rarity as she looked down. He got up. "Nice to see you too." "Why are you here now?" "Why, to see you miss Rarity." He pulled out a another smaller panel and shouted something they really didn't want to hear right now. "Babylon Abzu-god of primeval!" And he and Rarity were trapped inside of a dark yellow forcefield. No-one could get in or out of it and they knew this by now. "We never did get round to our fight, my dear. And if you lose then your freedom becomes mine." Now they became even more worried. "If that should happen..." Twilight began. "What would you do with her?" "I would train her to join my faction of the Preppy and convince her to oppose the rest of you for us." "...You say that with a tone in your voice that you've done this before. Have you?" "Your highness, like you and your lovely friends, we will do whatever we have to in order to save this planet.." "Taking over ponies minds and forcing them to do your bidding is an act of kindness to you!?" "Miss Twilight, kindly stay out of this!!" Their fight began. He rushed at her and slammed her into the ground, then threw her into the forcefield wall. "Are you truly so Petit and weak that you cannot fight? Or are you simply afraid of me?" He said waving his hair. That did it. "Okay, you asked for it! Take this." She charged up her horn and fired a nearby rock at him. It hit, but did nothing and faded. He smiled as if he expected that. She looked puzzled and dropped a tree branch on top of him with her magic, but that just bounced right off him. "So sorry, but our Babylon magic has existed long before Equestria was even founded! Your little stage tricks have no effect on us what so ever; we're immune to your powers. Now then, shall we continue?" He formed another Glass panel just a little taller than him was to fire a laser at her. She was knocked back. Then he kicked right behind him, but hit her for some reason. "Rarity, are you okay?!" Twilight asked her friend inside of the force field. "Nah, she'll be 'right." A male British voice told her from right behind her. The girls looked around to see Caxpe. "Him again?!" Rainbow Dash asked, not getting a reply. "Illiux in't that hard, your mate's gonna be fine." He told the girls, getting another cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lighting it up. "Ah, Caxpe. I see that you've managed to get out of you're fight alive. Maybe you should have asked me for assistance, to watch me finish what you started." Illiux said to the polar opposite pony. "Would've done it sooner, if you hadn't nicked this off me." Caxpe responded, showing him the key he had retrieved a few moments ago. "I felt as though you had to have the favor returned after that little stunt you pulled in my refectory." "What did Caxpe do, Illuix?" Twilight asked him, suddenly interested in their relationship status. "The most vile and uncouth thing you can imagine: He and his friends thought it wold be funny to pour glue into my Hoof Sanitizer." Illiux answered, looking at his hooves. "Ha ha! Nice." Rainbow Dash said, laughing at the thought of that. "Yeah, and you got us back for it after you nicked the key to me quarry. Me and the lads were stood there freezing outside trying to get in for an hour, coz of yous." "You would know all about being left outside in the cold, wouldn't you Caxpe? After your youth, and everything you've been through, correct?" Caxpe looked at Illiux, with a face of extreme anger. "I'm not going back there, you posh muppet. And you ain't doin' this to us again, you hear me?" "Justifiable, honestly. It's not my fault that the spell can inly be undone by the key crafted from it." Illiux said, before turning around. 'I might need to take note of all this new magic.' Twilight thought. "Now then, back to the battle..." He followed his previous attack by hitting nothing, but still Rarity felt it. He continually hit nothing beside him and Rarity felt it. This went on until she dodged one and hit something invisible right next to her. Illiux, on the other side of the field moved his leg upwards to block the hit, and now they understood why. The place where they thought he was faded, and he turned visible where Rarity just hit. "Clever, for figuring out my special talent of illusions. However, it shall not help you for this!" He ran at her and tried to jump kicked when she guarded her front. Then, before he did attack her, he vanished and reappeared doing the same jump kick right behind her and knocked her down. She tried to get up, but he put his hoof on her head and kept it down. "It appears, that I have reigned victorious." "First time for everything..." Caxpe whispered to Applejack. He got off of her and the forcefield shrank, allowing Illiux to pass through and stayed over Rarity. "Perhaps in your new life, our paths will not cross in this manor." A light shone up from the ground and she could feel her soul being stripped from her body. She tried to escape but couldn't get out of the field. She eventually gave up, until... The forcefield let her go, but for a certain reason: she was being pushed out, and she saw by who. "Spike no!!!!" Screamed Twilight. "What are you doing?!?!" He turned to her smiling with tears in his eyes. "You're an element of harmony, Rarity. Equestria needs you... Twilight needs YOU more than ME, so I'm letting the Marks of Babylon take ME instead." "SPIKE!!! NO!!!!" Rarity screamed, but it was too late. He fell to the ground unconscious when the forcefield disappeared. "NOO!! MY LITTLE SPIKEY WIKEY!!" Rarity sobbed with her friend in her hooves. She and her friends ran over to help him and wake him up, but his eyes remained closed. "Spike! Can ya hear me?!" Applejack yelled, trying to shake him awake. "Come on Spike, get up!!" Rainbow ordered, hoping to get him to hear her. "Spike! Please be ok." Fluttershy whimpered. "Spike... No..." Twilight quietly muttered, feeling the tears well up. Before anymore grieve-driven words could be spoken by the girls, they saw a bright light appear around Spike's body, and more illusion panels appeared. The panels then spread out so that the girls were thrown away from his body. "What? The boy sacrificed himself? For you? Preposterous!" Illiux was holding a small glass panel in his hoof, with Spike's emotionless face on it. He seem puzzled at his actions and did something they really wanted to see: He magically made the panel vanish, and moved his hooves to hold his mask, and then took it off. He had dreamy light blue eyes with excessively large pupils, and the front of his mane was fully washed, dried, and combed, blonde and with a parting down the center. "Nevertheless, his will is mine. Although I must admit if I was going to plan on kidnapping some pony close to you, it most likely wouldn't have been him. Come, my dear boy, we have much practicing to get on with." He rose without question and stood there with no pupils in his eyes. Illiux went up to him and took him with him to his light escape. They all just stood there after beholding the sight of losing their friend. AGAIN.

Marks Of Babylon

Intelligence Accredits Governing Capability

Marks of Babylon Chapter 5 Intelligence Accredits Governing Capability For the most part of Equestria, all was normal. Waking up on schedule, getting ready for the day ahead, going to work or school, or staying at home, occupying themselves. Alas, that was not the case for everyone. And everyone, in this case, is the Mane Six. For them, a great loss had just been bestowed upon them all. A loss that they would work night and day to rectify. It was three days later after Spike had sacrificed himself to save Rarity and her soul, and the mane six went back to Ponyville. After much sobbing, weeping, and talking about him, they decided to go to the princesses to see if she knew anything else that could help. "Alright girls, the chariot service is down; something about a formation blocking a passage." Twilight told the girls as they headed for the Ponyville Station. "If it was any other time we could help out ourselves, but right now we gotta see Celestia. So it looks like we're just gonna have to take the Friendship Express instead." "The Friendship Express." Pinkie repeated. "The only service that runs on smiles and joy!" "Yeah... Which raises the question why they still charge ponies to board it..." Rainbow muttered. After a minute, they arrived at the station and took a look at the time schedule. The next ride to Canterlot was in less than five minutes. "We've got here in time." Twilight stated. "Alright girls, let's get moving! Next stop, Celestia." They each brought train tickets and climbed aboard, only to see that every seat were filled with other passengers. They searched around the train for a bit, but there were little to no seats available; every last one of them, save for a few were taken by other ponies. Most of which none of the girls recognized. "Isn't there ANYWHERE to sit on this thing!?" Rainbow exclaimed. "Why's it so busy, anyway? The train's usually never this full." "Hey Girls!" Pinkie exclaimed. The five of them turned around to see her pointing at a pair of seat rows. "I found an empty one!" "Finally!" Rainbow rolled her eyes. The mane six then took their seats, just as they heard a whistle blow outside and saw the doors close. The train began to move forwards. Meanwhile, on the outside of the train, a pony with a dark yellow coat, brown mane and old timey mustache was staring at the giant standing clock, waiting for it to departure. Once it left the station, he turned his head to see it and make sure that the six girls were all on it. "Clockwork to Schedule." He said to seemingly no-one. Before anypony noticed him say this, he got a reply in his head. "I hear you." Another pony's voice answered him. "They've left the station; they're heading to the capital. I'm ready at anytime you are." Back to Twilight and her friends, they would normally be messing about on the train, either playing or doing whatever they did in their spare-time here. But knowing how serious these Babylonians were being against them and that a friend's life may be at stake, they could only focus at the task at hand. Speaking of which, the girls were now recalling the better times they had with Spike. "They could be hurting him for some more information again, or maybe even trying to get him to fight us so they can watch." Said Twilight, when the dark blue light emitted from her chest again. This time when it did, it followed through to the drivers room. "If Celestia can't help us, then I'm willing to go straight up to Illiux myself and get my Spikey back." said Rarity with a focused tone. "Rarity, we might not-" "Twilight, because of me, Spike's been in danger twice. I need to set things right." "They didn't hurt Rainbow Dash when she was down there, so he could be merciful on him." Hoped Fluttershy. "We can only hope for now." Twilight answered her. "I'm angry too, but we need a plan first. Celestia knows more about this Babylon than we do, so only she can tell us anything." "What's the first thing we wanna know 'bout this Babylon thing?" Applejack asked. "If we want to get Spike back, we'll need to know how to get to this Babylon, so we can confront them sooner." "We already know it's underground." Fluttershy continued. "But it's not as if we can just dig our way down there... Could we?" "I'm up for it!" Pinkie announced, popping up from the side, holding six shovels in her hooves. "And I think I speak for all of us when I say we're ready to go dragon digging!" "Uh... Maybe not all of us." Rarity replied, backing off from her a bit. "Besides, something tells me that it's not going to be that easy, Pinkie." "-BZZZ- Attention all passengers, this is your conductor speaking -BZZZ-" An unfamiliar male voice came through the monitor. He sounded dull and bored, but was definitely not sounding like anyone they knew. "-BZZZ- We appear to experiencing slight malfunctions with the gear box, so the trip may take a few minutes longer than expected. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. -BZZZ-" "Well, great." Rainbow Dash spoke up. "Now I have to wait even longer before I kick Illiux's plot." "Hey, we have bigger things to worry about right now." Pinkie said. "Such as?" Twilight asked in response. "Well, call me crazy, but I thought that we weren't the only ones on this train." "What're you talking about of course we're not the only-" She and her friends looked around to see everypony who was on the train was now gone. "Hey! Wasn't the train completely filled with passengers a second ago?" "First the conductor about the gearbox, and now this." Applejack spoke up. "But... But I thought this train... Didn't have a conductor." Said Fluttershy. "Wait... She's right! This train is magical; it moves on its own." Said Twilight. "-BZZZ- You managed to deduce that much quicker than anticipated, your highness. So your brain agility isn't as slow as imagined. However a deserted train is only the least if your problems as of now. For if you wish to see your little dragon again, that is. -BZZZ-" the monitor said again. "Tell me where he is now!!" Demanded Twilight. "-BZZZ- His location can be found on the roof of the train, princess Twilight Sparkle. My mistress is expecting you there at once. -BZZZ-" "Let's move!" Twilight ordered her friends. In an almost uncharacteristically fashion, she bolted from her seat and charged to the nearest roof hatch at a speed that Rainbow herself might've called excessive. They wasted no time and climbed flew to the top of the Friendship express's carriages. They saw someone in the distance, but wasn't who they were hoping for. It was likely another Babylonian. They had a mask on their face as well, similar to the ones the Marks wore. "Are you a Mark!?" Twilight asked the pony in the distance. They didn't answer. Twilight stood on the roof as well, balancing herself, before her friends followed suit. The girls moved a little closer to get a better look. They had on a dark blue sweater over white polo shirt, tied with a red bow tie. They also had a matching extended skirt on, reaching down to the side of their legs, so as not to blow it over their barrel, indicating that this Mark was most likely a female. They finished up the look with white knee-socks and black Mary Sue shoes. "Alright then, whoever you are!" Twilight shouted to her, as she smiled under her mask with the fast wind running through their hair. "We're up here like you asked, but I'm not seeing my friend anywhere!" "Of course you're not. That's seemingly because he's not up here." "WHAT!?" Shouted Rainbow dash. "But you just said-" "My colleague, Rail Works, informed you that 'His location could be found up here!' He didn't clarify he WAS here. An elementary mistake on your part, Princess Twilight Aurora Sparkle. That is truly part of the reason why I chose to come here: to test how high your IQ truly is. So far, your first test has resulted in failure." "You lyin' dirty no good little..." Applejack shouted. The mare's horn then lit up for a second, before dimming again a second later. "From what I recall, he is already in Canterlot. He'll be fine; he's on his first mission already." "Oh great!" Said Pinkie. "Of all the messes Spike could have made, this is the one we've been unable to fix." "I can relate to cleaning up messes that dragons can cause, especially ones of his breed." The mare said to them. "What? You're saying that you know about dragons?" Twilight asked, somewhat interested about this. "That is correct. I know about his species, his purpose, his adaptation to life, and likely a lot more than you and your friends know." "How does someone like YOU know about that kind of thing?" Twilight questioned her. "Simple. As you are likely already aware by now, I have been alive for thousands of years, and as opposed to the likes of Caxpe and Calsuricxs, I have decided to use that life time to learn and study about all that a common being would not know. That is why I founded the Ingenium Faction to begin with." "The likes of Caxpe and whom?" Rarity asked her, keeping her leg above her head, so that the wind didn't ruin her mane too much. "Another Babylonian, miss Rarity." She answered. "However, staying on the subject of your former assistant, I'm reluctant to tell you that due to my capacity of knowledge involving his breed being superior in comparison to yours, Princess Twilight, he would be better of staying with me and my faction." 'Faction?' Twilight thought about that word. "Yes, faction." The mare replied, shocking Twilight. "Did... Did you just read my thoughts?" "Indeed, I did. It was a magic that I learnt when I was a little hundred years older than yourself." She answered again. "Anyway..." Twilight shock her head. "Back to what you said, you're not keeping Spike with you! He's my fami- my best friend! I'll do whatever it takes to get him back with me!" "Is that so? Then would you give yourself up to join our cause for the Babylon? The two of you would be back together then." "NEVER!" Twilight snarled at the mare. "WHO EVEN ARE YOU!?" Rainbow Dash yelled to the mare at the other side of the train. "My name is Xandra Beswick. I am the fourth Mark of Babylon, as you may or may not have deduced at this point." She said as she then lit up her horn in a dark blue flash, and she fired a magic beam into the sky. The beam the turned into a shield like form, surrounding a small portion of the train track. Suddenly the train they were standing on ran into the bright light she fired and emerged over an ocean. It seemed as though that they were all trapped on an endless track, above an ocean in the middle of nowhere, with absolutely nowhere to go but ahead. The mane six looked at this power. Some looked in shock because of the power, others in amazement because of the scenery. "From what your former assistant has told me, your majesty, you pride yourself on being a strong Alicorn, with both your magic and friendship being your strongest element. Is this true?" Xandra asked her, "That's none of your business!" Twilight retaliated in an angry tone. "Keep calm, as a princess should be. I'm simply clarifying if what he's informed me is correct." They could tell she was smiling under the mask. "Stop stalling! Where's Spike!? Undo this spell and let me see him!" "Hmm. Curious, really." She started to slowly approach Twilight on the other side of the train. "What?" Twilight questioned. "It almost sounded as though your actually concerned about him. As opposed to the dozens of times in his life that you either left him alone at home, put his life in danger before your own, or both." "Ho- How dare you talk to me like that about him! HOW DARE YOU!!" "Oh?" Xandra looked puzzled, as she stopped walking. "You have no right in telling me how to bring up my family!" 'Family? Interesting.' She thought. "What happened to your Babylon is between me and you, so leave Spike out of this and deal with me about it, one on one!" "You Elements of so-called 'harmony'. Tell me, do you get tired of being incorrect and naive all the time?" This made Twilight even more enraged. "This wasn't just about you and me, Princess Twilight. This was about the six of us and the six of you, until Rarity was so generous of giving the victory to Illiux. Then your- pardon, my dragon stepped in and gave away his freedom as opposed to hers." "That doesn't give you the right to steal him from me!" "Incorrect once more. We saw that he had the heart of a hero, which is exactly what we need right now." "Take me to him! Now!" "But we have yet to start our battle yet. I still need to analyze your magical capacity, so..." Xandra lit her horn up again, not exactly showing what she was doing with it. "As Illiux might say: Shall we dance?" "I didn't want to ever have to use my magic this way..." Twilight said, putting her head down, sighing, and looked back up at Xandra. "But if this is the only way to save my friend, then bring it on, Xandra!" "Excellent." Xandra confidently said, before she raised her fore hoof, and the ocean beneath began to rumble, and a tsunami rose and formed into a giant water snake-like being that crashed on Twilight. "Twilight!!" Her friends shouted in worry. When they did the dark blue light appeared from Twilight and went straight into the mare's mask. Hers was with blue lines in the form of being part of a bigger logo. "Hold up..." Said Applejack. "I've seen this here trick before when ah faced Xoa! So yer the Element of Worry, are ya!?" "I am not an Element; I'm a Mark, Applejack." She replied, as her horn started to glow. Another wave came from the newly formed ocean and slammed into the side of the train knocking Twilight off the side, hanging on by a hoof. She then flew her soaking wet self up and looked directly at her. "Alright, now I'm mad." She weakly said as she charged up her horn for an attack of her own. She released the magic beam and, like before, no results came about her. "I see." Xandra stated. "You see what, Xandra!?" Twilight demanded to know. "You'll have to forgive me, but it seems as though I've overestimated your powers. For the pony who supposedly defeated lord Tirek, you certainly don't seem to have quick enough reactions to my skills, your highness." She said. As she commented on her efforts, something else came from out of the vast water beside them: it looked like a shield with six spikes pointing in different directions on the curved top. It had four diagonal lines across the center to the corners, two from each corner, and one line across the bottom separating it. It also had razor sharp wings on the side of the shield. It took awhile, but the six finally got it and they figured it was what the different lines on each Babylonian masks were a part of. "XANDRA." It shouted. She bowed before it as it called her name. "I REQUIRE TO SEE YOU AT CANTERLOT IMMEDIATELY." It then faded. "Well, how fortunate that our magical showcase has come to an end. Or, perhaps this is unfortunate, depending on your perspective of this strife." she said to Twilight and her friends. "Although, despite my requirement to leave now, this does not necessarily mean that we will not see each other later today." "Where is Spike!?!" Twilight practically screamed, still trying to get the information out of her. When she said it, the same brown light emerged from Applejack again, and faded a second later, showing how obsessed she was getting about him. "I believe that I already told you that, your highness. You should really begin to open your ears more often, as opposed to thinking that you can know everything simply by asking the same question." The girls all stared at her angrily, before Xandra spoke again. "I give you my word that your friend will not intentionally be hurt whilst he is with me in Babylon. However, any accidental cause of conflict is entirely reasonable." "YOU TOUCH ONE SPINE ON MY BABY DRAGON, AND I'LL-" But Xandra had already jumped into the ocean. "COME BACK HERE YOU-" Rainbow dash shouted as she tried to jump into the ocean as well, but the same light came as before and they reappeared at the Canterlot station where Rainbow hit her head against the platform. "So Spike's already here..." Said Rarity as she looked around. "Hey I think I know why he's here!" Pinkie said optimistically. "What if he's actually devised some sort of secret undercover plan to save us from the Marks of Babylon!?" "Pinkie..." Rainbow unsatisfactorily said. "That's a little insane, even by your standards." "Maybe the princess can help." The six hurried to the palace and immediately went inside to the Princesses room. "Your highness! We've come across some... More... Of..." She was nowhere to be seen in the room. The other elements came to witness this as well. They took a look around for any sign of either of them. They stayed for a bit, but then they thought it would have been better if they tried elsewhere. Eventually, they ended up in an empty throne room. "Hey, maybe she's still at that ridge thing that she was told to go to." Pinkie reminded them. "Oh, yeah." Twilight said looking depressed. "You're still worried about him, aren't you dear?" Rarity comforted her friend. Twilight didn't respond, only stared at the ground some more. "Don't be. It was me who lost to Illiux; it's my fault." "Rari-" The six of the then turned to hear the sound of the door to the elements of harmony being opened. From the inside. Suddenly, they looked in amazement at the sight of a young Drake Twilight was talking about not too long ago. "Spike!! You've returned to us at last!! See?! Told you it was all a secret undercover plan." Said Pinkie full of hope, and she and her friends saw some certain jewels in his claws. "What're you doing with half the elements of harmony, my clever little friend?" "Stealing them, trying to get away from here. What does it look like, you pig?" He answered with a confused look. "Oh. Well, it defiantly looks like that, but I still think that maybe this is all some secret undercover plan..." She whispered and Twilight used her magic to grab her closer. "Pinkie!" She shouted. "He's stealing our elements! How can even you POSSIBLY not understand that!?!" "W-well, Twilight I'm-" Pinkie looked in extreme fear of her supposed friend. "Forget it! Just let me handle this!" Twilight threw Pinkie onto the floor, causing Caxpe's dark purple aura to flow from her body, showing her fear. "Turning against your friends already? Nice. Now out of my way if you want all of your bodies still in tact!" "I can't believe they did this to you! My little Spikey Wikey on the side of evil!?" Rarity exclaimed. He ignored her and carried the elements to the doorway and attempted to make a break for it, when the others came and blocked him. "Evil, Rarity?" Spike asked. "Caxpe was right. Not only do you look like a marshmallow, but you're probably as thick as on too." "Spike, stop!!" Twilight worried. "We're your friends; we don't want to hurt you!" "Oh, what a shame, 'cause I WANT to hurt you!" She shouted as he held the three elements in his single claw and pounced on Twilight using his available claw to rip across her face. His claws caused a large scratch mark of her face, as she squinted in pain. She looked in shock that he'd willingly do that. He was about to attack again until he felt a lasso around his arm. He turned to see his former friend Applejack rope him tight and trying to pull him closer. He used this to jump up high enough to pounce on her and slam her into the ground. This was followed by Rainbow grabbing him and throwing him off. "Come on, squirt!" She said. "This isn't who you are! You'd never do this; you're on OUR side!" "Rainbow, stop messing with my head and just fight!" He replied annoyed. He then did something they never saw him do before. He held out his palm and he created a small green flaming meteor in it and let loose to fire. It hit her and knocked her over. Applejack got back up and readied her lasso again. The two began circling each other. "Jus' think, Spike. What's more harsh than turnin' a couple o' old friends against each other? They stole ya after that fight at tha hospital." She said. "Not like you didn't any better in your fight, Applejack!" He retaliated by grabbing the lasso end and quickly wrapping it around her, catching her off guard, and knocking her down. "You're more than this, and you know it! Remember, my little Spikey wi-" Rarity was cut off. "STOP CALLING ME THAT!!" He lashed out tackling her. When she was down he headbutted her and caused her head to get bruised. When he did this gave an opening to allow Twilight and Pinkie grab him by his arms. "GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!" He roared. They kept their grip on him as he struggled, until suddenly, a large magnitude shock everything around them. The vibrations intensified, and large gush of water flooded the room from outside, and the floor. The water then formed into a fountain, and out the fountain, a certain mare popped out and knocked Rarity down again and stood on her. "You look as though you could use a bit of help." Xandra said to him as they stood there. "Gee, whatever could've given you that silly idea(?)" He replied, clearly pleased to see her. Her smile faded quickly as she turned to the others and focused all of her power on her horn and released. "Farewell." Xandra said, and the whole room began to vibrate when the fountain lid imploded and surge of water shot out at Twilight. This caused the room to flood. Spike then used his available claw to get Pinkie off him as well. He jumped over to Xandra and struck a battle pose as she did as well. He then used his fire breath on the water causing it to turn into steam and aiding their escape. The steam then flew directly at their eyeholes, blindly them momentarily. 5 of them then got straight back up, whereas Twilight just knelt there, crying her eyes out. "Spike... We really have lost him." She sobbed.