Lost Souls - Part IV
Chapter 9 - Hurricane
She looked at Princess Celestia’s lifeless body, shining milky white in the beam of moonlight that entered the Royal Bedchamber through a window. She relished the sight. In a moment the storm clouds that now covered almost all of the sky would obscure this last vestige of moonlight.
She looks so peaceful…
She stood up straight again and sighed. In the end she could not muster the courage administer Celestia a lethal dose of the poison. It seemed too wrong of her to stab the Princess in the back like that. However, Celestia would remain in deep semi-coma for hours yet, more than long enough to complete the plan. If she couldn’t kill the Princess, the laws of physics were always willing to give a helping hoof. She thanked herself for having the foresight to plan a fake demise for the Princess that could double as a real one if her own courage faltered.
She gently lifted Princess Celestia with her unicorn magic and walked out into the hallway. She had hoped she would not have to kill the guard before she was done inside, but the mare had realized what was happening when the radio message came. She wondered a second about this. The radios did not figure in her plan, despite all the scouting and observing she had done. They must have been purchased recently.
A thought struck her. She could easily eliminate this disadvantage. She placed the Princess on the marble floor of the corridor, next to the body of her handmaid Iris, and turned to the corpse of the guard lying in a crumpled heap by the door. Although panic struck her for a minute when she noticed the “transmit” button had been stuck in the “on” position when it was pressed against the floor, she calmed down when she realized that the only sound loud enough to be caught by the radio out here was the Princess’ yell for guards.
In any case, that meant help was on the way here. She quickly used a spell she had gotten a lot of practice with in the basement of Sugarcube Corner over the last couple of years. Soon the cleaning spell had removed all visible blood from the area. Contented with her handiwork she brought the guard’s body over to Celestia.
She was just going to remove the Princess’ necklace- or was “collar” a more fitting word given its’ size?, well aware of its emergency function, when suddenly she realized that she could hit two timberwolves with one rock. She smiled to herself malevolently when she heard the clop of hooves against marble approach. She picked up the little radio set she had picked off the guard and opened the transmitter part. She moved a few wires around and threw it away, satisfied with her sabotage. She assumed it would take about thirty seconds before it kicked in.
Dusk Quartz galloped through various corridors towards the Royal Apartments in the Outlook Tower. He was closer to the Ivory Tower, home of the Royal Library and Observatory, meaning he would have to either go down three floors to reach the throne room level and then run up even more floors up the tower, or brave the rainstorm outside and run across one of the many slippery-when-wet walkways in Canterlot.
As he ran, he tried to get through to the lieutenants in the West Wing security central, but the channel seemed occupied by some young private talking about empty apartments without trace of neither Princess nor maid nor gua-
A screeching sound erupted from his radio, an electric static that seemed to fill the channel. Quartz was so surprised that he tripped and fell
.
He stood up and threw the useless radio away in anger. Only then did he notice the two guards standing as if frozen and staring at him from an alcove. They both had the golden armor of the Day companies, but the blue plumes seemed to indicate that they were not from the same exact company as Quartz’ grey-plumed one.
One of them smiled sheepishly and tried to hide a big piece of rock salt he no doubt had just licked on duty. However, Quartz did not have time to be angry now.
“You two!” he barked at them, “What are you lazy sons of mules standing around here for? Haven’t you heard we have a crisis on our hooves?”
The taller of the two blinked a couple of times. “Crisis?”
“Yes! Follow me!”
“Uh… Yes sir!”
“Why are you two even up at this hou-“
Quartz stopped mid-sentence. A sort of warm, vibrating pulse came down his horn and sent shivers down his spine. Suddenly he realized what it was.
“So, the crystal in the Princess’ necklace is… some sort of beacon?”
Twilight Sparkle looked confused at him from the reading table of the Royal Library.
Private first class Dusk Quartz gave her a smile. He leaned towards a bookshelf by the door.
“Yes. Magical. The unicorns of the Guard are trained to detect and locate it. Magical detection and location are usually things for high-level unicorns, but it can be so crucial for the Guard that we do it anyway. The beacon activates if the Princess’ magical aura shuts d-“
“Can you teach me?” The young mare’s eyes were shining with excitement and curiosity.
Quartz raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
Twilight nodded eagerly. “Yes! Yes please, if you have time, I mean.”
He shrugged and returned to all four. “I’m here for three hours more, anyway. I’m just surprised you want to know about it, Sparkle, that’s all.”
Quartz came over to her.
“Okay, close your eyes, Sparkle.”
Twilight closed her eyes.
“As you know, contrary to popular belief by non-unicorns, magic does not come from our horns. Rather it is a
latent physical energy…”
“… that can be manipulated via the nervous system by the brain through our horns, to refract light to create illusions, affect the density of air to levitate objects, and even change the properties of matter by way of molecular separation.” Twilight interrupted him, annoyed, “I did pass Magic 101, you know…”
Quartz frowned at her. “You didn’t let me finish, Sparkle. It is a latent physical energy that surrounds us, and therefore we can detect disturbances in the field if we empty our mind and simply feel the stream.”
She snorted. “You sound like one of my teachers.”
He rolled his eyes. “Just keep your eyes shut and pay attention to what I am telling you, okay?”
…
Quartz felt pained at the memory. He had trouble believing that Twilight was… was…
He shook his head and emptied his mind, ignoring the curios looks from the two guards. He closed his eyes and simply felt the magic energy flow in the room around him. Although rumor had it that Princess Celestia could scan all of Canterlot this way, unicorns in the Guard could mostly only feel fifty to hundreds paces around them, even shorter when inside the thick marble walls of the castle. Quartz could do seventy, buy that was not necessary, as…
He froze and turned slowly. The pulsating signal was coming from only about fifteen paces away, behind a door almost right behind him.
Quartz turned back towards the guards. None of them were unicorns, only normal drab-colored earth ponies. They stared nonplussed at him and seemed utterly incompetent as he saw them now. He could only hope they remembered their silent operation training.
He held a hoof to his mouth to signify silence, nodded his head towards the door, looked back at them and smacked his tongue twice to order them to follow him. Thankfully the shorter one seemed to understand. He nodded and elbowed the confused-looking taller one in the side.
The door was a standard Canterlot outer gate, only smaller. It felt oddly familiar, a feeling that was explained when he inched it open and saw the same catwalk that he had taken with Storm only four days earlier. It felt an eternity away.
He slipped out of the door somepony were standing over a heap of something just a few short paces away. He could probably close the distance silently in less than ten sec-
A magically propelled knife shot out of the rain and passed so close to Quartz’ temple that he felt the whizz. He turned when he heard a metallic *clang*. The knife had bounced of the neck protection of the tall guard who had followed behind Quartz, and fell harmlessly over the balustrade and down into the darkness. This catwalk was not above the Royal Gardens, but the steep lightly wooded hillside that Canterlot was built on, meaning it was a long fall.
The guard grinned stupidly, but it faded when he noticed the cut on the right side of his neck. A red stain coloring his coat was streaming out of the severed artery. He stared blankly at Quartz, his facial expression one of light surprise, before he stumbled to ground. He whimpered and tried to cover the wound with his hoof, but Quartz knew it as too late for him. With such a cut he had about ten seconds before he lost consciousness and three minutes before he died of blood loss. Too short to do anything without even a bandage.
The other guard had frozen, horrified, on the other side of the half-opened door when he saw what happened to his friend. He looked frightened at Quartz, who mouthed “get help” as visibly as he could. Seconds later the door slammed shut, apparently sealed with magic, judging by the glow. Quartz forced his gaze away from the dying stallion, and turned to look at the murderer, a flame of rage building inside of him because of all the troubles he had been through because of this one pony.
“TWILIGHT! WHAT THE HAY ARE YOU DOING?!”
Twilight, who had been busy lifting the body of the handmaiden over to the crack, turned back to him and raised an eyebrow.
“Haven’t you caught that yet? I’m killing the Princess, of course. Or rather, gravity will do it for me. I thought you were quick, Dusk…”
This last little insult carried Quartz over the top. He roared in anger and used his magic to hurl the spear at Twilight. She easily deflected it over the balustrade with her magic, but this left her vulnerable to Quartz himself, who came smashing into her with his full weight.
Twilight got the air knocked out of her lungs as she was smashed into the balustrade. They were locked so closely together that none of them could really hit each other; they just stood flailing as Quartz pressed her against the balustrade.
Quartz saw an opportunity and started to hit her head repeatedly with his own, helm-clad one. In response, she kneed him the stomach and used the opening to send of a spell. Quartz saw a violet flash before everything turned dark.
Lieutenant Grove massaged his forehead with a hoof. “And the Princesses?”
The private swallowed. He was not used to seeing so many officers in the same room, and it made him nervous.
“Uhm, Princess Luna is underway, sir, but we can’t find Princess Celestia, sir!”
Grove sighed. “What a waste of our time…”
“Nightingale! NIGHTINGALE!”
A drab guard came running down the hallway outside the so fast that he slid past the door to the guard central when he tried to stop.
Grove rolled his eyes and turned to one of his fellow officers, still dressed in the evening dress from his interrupted party.
“Flora? Yours?”
Lieutenant Flora Nightingale nodded and sighed. “Yes. He’s mine.”
The guard came running in and made a weak salute while catching his breath.
Nightingale waited patiently.
“Private Sponge? Are you up at this hour? What is it?” she asked softly.
Sponge huffed and puffed. “Catwalk… Princess… dead…”
While Sponge tried to form a coherent sentence Nightingale turned to Grove with fear in her eyes. Grove felt like a lump had formed somewhere deep in his guts. He swallowed and turned to the private he had just been talking to.
“Do we have any pegasi who can check the catwalks?”
The private shook his head. “No, sir. All are either up in the storm of carrying the royals’ carriages.”
Grove cursed silently. It would take at least several minutes before they could get anywhere at the rate the confused, tired and scared private Sponge managed to take them to wherever the Princess was.
Twilight whistled a happy tune as she dumped Iris’ body over the edge of the catwalk through the crack in the balustrade.
A moan interrupted her tune as she turned to Ruby’s body. She looked over to Quartz, and to her surprise he was forcing himself up on his legs again. She thought the last strike had knocked him out, if not snapped his neck. But here he was standing again. Small amounts of smoke came from his coat, which had been partially burned underneath his neck, where her bolt of magic had hit. His helmet had been blown off, but he only had a small cut on his muzzle, no serious injuries.
“Why, aren’t you a stubborn one…” she quipped.
Dusk moaned again and swayed dangerously, his eyes trying to focus on her. He was winced and clutched his side at what must have been a sudden jab of pain. Twilight guessed he had broken a few ribs. She looked more closely at him. She hardly recognized the tall stallion she had been so impressed by several years earlier. He was unshaved, pale, his mane was a wet and fat mess, and his eyes seemed to almost have sunk deeper into his skull in the last few days. For a brief moment she reflected on what had been and if maybe they, if things had been different, could have… No. She shook the thought out of her head, but Dusk had noticed the weakness in her eyes.
He extended a hoof towards her, as if trying to touch her. “Twilight…”
She shook her head. “Don’t talk to me, Dusk!”
“But… why? Why are you doing all of this? Is it that amulet?”
She looked surprised at him. “No. You made me this way! It is your fault!”
He frowned at her hard words. “Me?”
She grew angry, but at the same time sad. “No, you big dumb mule! You in plural! Everypony! She did it,” she extended a trembling hoof towards the Princess, “and nopony helped me!”
Suddenly Quartz’ expression changed to a grin. However, her next sentence made his face fall into pained folds again.
“I thought you were different! That’s why I cried when you came! I even almost told you at Fluttershy’s, but you brushed me off before I finished the sentence…” a few tears rolled down her cheek, to her chagrin “It turns out you are no different than the others. Nopony listens! Ever!”
Suddenly she felt a calming theoretical buzz from her brain. She spoke again, this time in the emotionless and cold tone of a lecture.
“I displayed clear signs of psychopathy. At the very least paranoid schizophrenia. Borderline Obsesssive-Compulsive Disorder, an extreme need to please… her,” she spat in the direction of Celestia, “and an extreme fear of failure… Etcetera, etcetera. You could have found all of this out if you just asked somepony about me, but nooo, you just care about your assignment, ‘second lieutenant’…”
Quartz bit his lip. “I’m so sorry, Twilight, I really am. But… why didn’t you ask for help if you could see all of this?”
She lifted up Ruby’s body with her magic and angrily sent it flying over the balustrade into the darkness.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it! I couldn’t ask for help because then they would stop my… hobby. The ponies around town that knew me were getting worried about my fits. And then one day Pinkie told me what her mother had done all those years ago… I couldn’t stop myself, I had to see how it felt. That power. I who had always been Celestia’s lapdog, with power over life and death? Could anypony imagine?”
Quartz shook his head, apparently in disbelief.
“But… Some of them were your friends! How could you do this to them?”
She sneered. “I wrote everypony I knew down on a list and assigned them a number. That included them. I had my doubts about it, but by the time Rainbow Dash’s number came up… I had long since found great pleasure in my ‘work’. You should have seen her face, Dusk, when…”
Twilight’s horn lit up for a second before she was engulfed by a flash of white light. When Quartz regained his eyesight a few seconds later a pink earth pony with a poofy mane stood in front of him.
“…when her bestest friend in the whole wide world gutted her alive. ‘I want to go home, Pinkie’ she said. Pathetic.” The sneer didn’t fit the saccharine voice with which she was speaking.
“I did of course have to remove Pinkie. She had told me, and even if she didn’t understand, she might tell honest Applejack or one of the others, and boom! I’m gone,” she continued, “But I let her continue with her usual business until yesterday. She didn’t even think about where all the extra cupcakes I used to dispose of… evidence came from. That banana bread of yours was without pony, by the way. Anyhow, I couldn’t play with her, of course, like the others, but I did get to look her in the eyes and tell her about what Rainbow Dash thought of her before she died.”
Another flash of light and Twilight was back in her normal form.
Quartz shook his head again. “I still don’t understand how you could do this to your best friends.”
“I had to!” she exclaimed, “I had to because of Celestia! I needed to be free of her! Freedom isn’t free, I had to sacrifice to go on with my plan. When Lyra found me out I realized I had to stop dreaming and hurry up. I had to!”
Quartz stopped shaking his head and frowned. “Celestia?”
Twilight sighed. “Yes. All my life I have been bound to her tried to please her. For what? Her approval? What is that worth? A future job as a court magician? I don’t know why anymore. I needed to take my future back. Permanently. She can’t die on her own for millennia yet, so I had to… help her.
That is why I telegraphed my brother and asked him to send some guards down to Ponyville. I wanted you to find my nighttime lair under Sugarcube Corner. When you returned to Canterlot I would leave a greeting for you, and you would assume that some insane Pinkie had killed Lyra Heartstrings, or rather me, as the ‘purple eyes’ I created on her with contact lenses would seem to suggest. After you roused the castle, the body of Pinakamena Pie would be found near the exit of the Sugarcube Corner tunnel within days. Turns out…”
Another flash, and Lyra Heartstrings stood where Twilight had just stood. “that the brave Lyra Heartstrings fought her way out and killed the assailant. Sadly she has to move to Vanhoover because of the stress and trauma suffered.”
She morphed back and gave Quartz a content smile.
“However, to the great dismay and sorrow of the nation,” she finished, “a panicked guard started a false alarm, and in the darkness the Princess, her handmaiden and two of her guards fell off a broken catwalk. One of them was Dusk Quartz, the panicked guard. So now, in order for me to be free, I have to ki- Why are you shaking your head all the time?”
Quartz had started once more after Twilights changed tense. He stopped and looked her directly in the eyes. Twilight felt a shiver go down her spine, for some reason.
“Twilight,” he said, “please just give it up. You need help. It is over. While you have been spilling your guts one of the guards I was with has gotten more. Look!”
Twilight swallowed and turned to the windows on the wall on one side of the catwalk. Behind the stained glass windows depicting some historical scenes she could she shadows moving and muffled voices arguing. They had the plumes of Royal Guards. She winced when she started to hear banging at the magically sealed doors on both ends of the catwalk.
“Twilight…”
She turned back to Quartz, and felt like her whole world was in shambles. All her carefully construed plans, for naught.
“Twilight, let me help you… Just take my hoof.”
She heard Quartz’ voice faintly, saw his outstretched hoof as in a blur… But his face… His face was no longer the face of second lieutenant Dusk Quartz, it was…
“Twilight, let me help you. You take the back hooves.”
Twilight looked frightened at the young green foal sitting in the rowboat with her, but nodded. She couldn’t stand the mocking voices and hateful faces of the other foals at shore anymore. She just had to do this, and she would be cool. Then everypony would be her friend.
She grabbed the kid by the hind legs as good as she could. She just had to chuck it in the lake for a second, it would walk along the bottom to the shore, and eveypony at the magic kindergarten would be friends with her. Everyone knows that goats walk the bottom. Right?
She closed her eyes, and at the count of three from the other pony, the young unicorn foal threw the kid as far as she could.
She followed it with her eyes until it splashed in the water. A few bubbles broke the surface, and everypony waited in silence. Seconds passed, minutes.
“I see something!” the green foal exclaimed. He grabbed a long pole with a hook in the end that lay in the boat, and started fishing around in the water. After a little while, he pulled the kid aboard.
Twilight looked horrified at the cold glare into space and the open mouth, and knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
She was a killer. A murderer.
Twilight whispered the words a second before the green foal said them out loud.
“It is dead.”
“It is dead!” Twilight yelled, “IT IS DEAD! THEY ARE ALL DEAD! I will kill you all! I will be free!”
Quartz covered as a wild bolt of magic shot over his head. Twilight had suddenly descended into a thus far unseen madness. Her eyes left glowing strips in the air as the magic pulsed through her, and her hooves lifted off the ground as she started floating in the air. Raindrops fizzled and evaporated into small pillars of vapor as her horn lit up brighter and brighter to the point that the magic was almost white.
He realized what was going to happen. Twilight was unable to control her magic and would let out one huge raw magic strike in his direction. Raw magic had no intended effect, making it an almost uncontrollable force capable of incinerating nearby ponies with pure energy and cause horrifying magical effects to everything else nearby.
Strangely enough, he didn’t feel fear at his imminent death. He had expected that. Neither did he feel any anger. He only felt sorrow, sorrow for Twilight.
Suddenly a yellow streak in the periphery of his vision reminded of the pegasus he had seen and spent the last ten minutes shaking his head to keep her from busting into the conversation. Now she was headed straight for Twilight with the fury that seemed as burning as a thousand suns.
“Fluttershy, no!” was all he managed to call out before the yellow pegasus hit the purple unicorn at full speed and caused a giant bolt of white magic to go shooting uncontrollably into the sky.
High Winds flapped her wings to get some altitude as the height of the cloud banks increased. Contrary to popular belief, clouds could have complicated “valleys” and “hills” even when they looked like flat blankets from the ground. She sighed.
I am a Wonderbolt! I should be directing pegasi at the sides of the bank, or at the very least be getting a good night’s sleep… But noooo, patrol duty. Thanks a million, Spitfire, I hope you enjoy the party…
As she gained altitude, she could see across the vast expanse of the rain storm cloud. It seemingly stretched from horizon to horizon. Here and there the moonlight revealed two-pegasi patrols such as her own. Speaking of which…
A grey mare came flapping up to her, attempting to hide her breathlessness.
“Don’t… make such sudden moves, ma’am. You… can be hard to see, let alone… follow.” she gasped.
She was probably referring to High’s curly mane, which was large enough to cover most of her body from behind and the same time was the color of the night sky. She pretended not to understand.
“’Hard to see’? My coat is milky white, Rainstorm, even if most of it is hidden by my Wonderbolts costume.”
Rainstorm nodded weakly.
“Yes, ma’am. But with all due respect, ma’am, why are you wearing that here? The aerodynamic benefits must be minimal at such an altitude.”
High smiled to her. “You have much to learn, Rainstorm. When you gain a mark of distinction, you must wear it proudly so that people associate you with it. I am here not as High Winds, but in my capacity as a Wonderbolt. Now, continue your story about last Hearth Warming Eve.”
Rainstorm gave her a big smile as they started flying in a southeastern direction.
“Well, as I was saying, I was giving my dad a plush pony I made myself…”
High Winds let the soft voice lull her senses as they maintained a steady speed and heading. It was way too late at night. Or rather too early in the mo-
She was distracted by a growing light in the clouds just in front of and beneath them. Rainstorm was happily chatting away, but High’s distraction training from the Wonderbolt Academy kicked in, causing her to call out a warning.
“FLASH! Cover your ey-“
The huge bolt of magic tore through the clouds just a few wingspans in front of them. It singed High’s mane and left glowing dots on her retina for several seconds after she opened her eyes, but she had covered them with a hoof in time. Rainstorm had not been as quick.
“Ahh! I can’t see!” She yelled as she spiraled helplessly downwards into the clouds.
High zipped down and grabbed her under her front legs, finally having the Wonderbolt strength training pay off as her wings carried the weight of both of them.
“Don’t worry, Rainstorm, it just lasts half a minute or so. You should be happy we weren’t closer. That… thing would have done far worse harm than temporary blindness.”
“Y’ n’d help?”
A wiry beige pegasus descended next to her and took over the weight of Rainstorm. He was wearing the gold-clored armor of the Royal Guard, and High figured he was one of the guards who had been brought in from Canterlot to help keep order in the gigantic storm-moving project.
Together the three of them ascended back up above the clouds, Rainstorm’s own wings carrying more and more of her own weight as she regained her sight and sense of direction. Another guard, in silver-colored armor, was waiting up there, and gave High a quick salute.
“Hello, ma’am! We were patrolling nearby when that little fireworks display back there alerted to us to the fact that you might need a tad of assistance.”
He turned to the other guard, who just had let go of an insecurely flapping Rainstorm.
“Good job, Cirrus! Now, I suppose you are in the Wonderbolts,” he said to High, “but allow me to introduce myself. Second lieutenant Grouse Lightning, Equestrian Royal Guard, First Night Company. That heavily accented klutz over there is sergeant Storm Cirrus, Second Day Company.”
“High Winds, Wonderbolts,” High rejoined, “and that there is St-“
A loud rumbling interrupted her. All four pegasi turned to the sound and saw flashes of lightning between clouds and rolling thunder filling the air.
“That… thing energized the clouds!” Lightning exclaimed, “Sweet Celestia, if those bolts reach the cloud barracks by the front edge… The sleeping cloud herders will be toast!”
High had thought the same. “We’ve got to warn them!”
She and Rainstorm zipped off in an easterly direction. Lightning was about to follow them, when he noticed Storm Cirrus lingering by the hole that the magic bolt had left in the clouds.
“Cirrus! What are you doing? Get you rump in gear!”
Storm still hesitated.
“’t cam’ fr’m C’nterlot, sir…”
Lightning was slightly surprised, but remained focused at the crisis at hand.
“I’m sure Canterlot can handle themselves just fine, Cirrus. Although it wouldn’t surprise me for a second if that idiot platoon leader Quartz of yours was somehow behind this. Now come on!”
The idiot platoon leader Quartz of his ducked to avoid a stray bolt of magic from Twilight Sparkle. The unicorn was have a furious fight with teeth and hoof with Fluttershy, who was as enraged as a wounded harpy. He wasn’t sure how she had come to Canterlot or where she had been, but she had been circling above them for about five minutes, only keeping her distance because Quartz shook his head. Now he wasn’t sure how to separate the two, as his magic was not strong enough to lift two heavy and struggling objects like these. He could try brute force, but then one of them might fa-
His train of thoughts stopped in its tracks as he saw the two roll over the edge of the crack in the balustrade and fall over. It felt like moving through syrup has he lunged forward and grabbed Fluttershy with his left front hoof. Lacking digits of any sort, the hold slipped quickly, but allowed Fluttershy to clamber around his waist, dragging Quartz with her.
He just managed to grab onto one of the poles of the balustrade with both his front legs, carrying the weight of both him and Fluttershy. To his terror he discovered his trembling legs were not strong enough to pull both of them up.
Quartz looked down at the horrified pegasus clutching his abdomen.
“You’re a pegasus, for Celestia’s sake! Fly up!”
She shook her head and clasped her wings close to her body.
“I- I… I can’t”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I’m… too… sc-“
Quartz never got to hear the rest of the sentence as she was interrupted by the jingle of broken glass and yells. He looked up and saw a familiar face.
“Well, you certainly took your time, Winter…”
Winter Dawn beamed down at him in response. “My apologies. Ms. Fluttershy there and I had to take a later train due to the cuts she got from jumping out from a hospital window. So… How’s it hanging?
Quartz rolled his yes. “Y’know, hanging out and stuff… But hey, one thing, could you please DROP THE FRIKKIN’ PUNS ALREADY AND HELP ME OUT HERE?! In case you haven’t noticed I am about to plummet to my death here in a minute or so…”
“Sure thing, Dusk,” Dawn assured, “just a second. Hey, you! Yeah, you! Get over here and give me a hoof, eh?”
A few seconds later Quartz felt a strong leg under each foreleg of his, lifting him up. A few seconds later a burden was relieved as another guard took Fluttershy in the same fashion.
Within moments he was standing on the catwalk, trying to hide the slight tremble in his forelegs. A large group of guards, including several lieutenants, had stepped out onto the catwalk. Most of the officers seemed to be arguing, and lieutenant Cloud attempted to explain into a radio transmitter why they weren’t at the guard central. Quartz guessed captain Armor was on the other end, judging from Cloud’s servile and apologetic tone.
Dawn came up to his side. “Sorry for the late entrance here, but the lieutenants didn’t take kindly to the idea of breaking a ten thousand bit stained glass window to get out here. After that little fireworks show back there I made the decision for… Uh-oh, trouble’s brewing…”
Quartz followed his gaze and noticed a very irate lieutenant Grove shoving his way through the other guards towards them.
“Dawn! I explicitly told you not to touch that window! Now look at this mess!”
Grove turned his attention to Quartz after the unicorn let out a sigh of relief at two guards in the background confirming that Celestia still had a pulse.
“And Quartz, what the hay is going on here?”
Quartz smiled weakly. “it’s okay, sir, it has been dealt…”
He stopped as the lieutenant did not pay attention to him. In fact, everypony on the catwalk was looking slackjawed at a point over his head. In their eyes and in the raindrops still falling in front of him he could see a violet shine.
“She’s right behind me, isn’t she?”
Quartz turned and saw in a flash of lightning from the distance that Twilight Sparkle was lifting herself with her magic to hover just over the edge of the catwalk. She looked absolutely furious, but whatever she yelled to them was impossible to make out over the rolling crashes of thunder and howling wind.
Quartz wasn’t really sure what to do. He was hurting all over and doubted he’d be able to cast any protective spell at all, and there were only three other unicorns on the catwalk, all of them standing like paralyzed.
Suddenly he felt a hoof on his shoulder. It was Dawn.
“I’m getting too old for this business,” he yelled, to be heard over the intensifying sounds of the storm, “but I have to finish all of this!”
“What do you mean?” Quartz yelled back, but Dawn had turned from him and said something to lieutenant Grove, who looked doubtful, but nodded.
Only when Dawn started stepping backwards did Quartz realize what he was about to do. He grabbed Dawn by the neckline of his armor.
“Oh no-ho-ho, don’t you even think about it, Winter!”
Dawn nodded to Grove, who pulled Quartz towards him.
“Tell Aury I’m sorry, Dusk!”
“Who?” Quartz asked, but Dawn had already run forward and leaped at Twilight Sparkle, dragging them both down into the darkness.
The wind and rain whipped Winter Dawn over the face as the two ponies fell together, the mare struggling as he hugged her tightly with his greater weight and strength, but he didn’t care. For the first time in far too long he was in the air! Weightless! He smiled and closed his eyes…
…he opened his eyes as he tore through the cloud and entered the bright daylight of the ever-blue skies, as happy as a pegasus could be. He barrel rolled and zoomed in between the outer buildings of Cloudsdale. As he gradually slowed down he started recognizing faces in the crowd. Friends, neighbors, the old stallion who owned the bakery at the corner… He waved and smiled, eliciting similar responses.
Finally he approached a familiar abode in a quiet corner of the bustling cloud city. He heard the excited calls of his daughter as she clumsily but eagerly flapped towards him. The filly had learned to fly not long ago, and was eager to show off her newfound ability to her daddy. He laughed heartily and gave her a hug, then swung the young’un onto his shoulders.
A vivacious laugh answered his from inside the house. She met him on the doorstep. He looked her in the eye and stroke her over her soft mane with his hoof, sayi-
Quartz tried to block out the soft thud. He turned in disbelief and shock towards Grove.
“He… H-he…”
Grove shook his head with a grim look and walked away. Quartz was left staring into space for a few seconds before silently walking over to the place where Fluttershy was sitting, leaning towards balustrade, huddled in a blanket. Quartz slumped down next to her, still silent. She was crying.
Her soft sobs were the drop that filled his glass over the brim. He could not hold his emotions in check any longer, and for the first time in a decade and a half Dusk Quartz cried.