//------------------------------// // Chapter 20: The Horseshoe Nobody Wanted To See // Story: Memories of the Stone // by WanderingPony //------------------------------// For the moment, Alexandrite had ceased to blast the surroundings- a feat only accomplished by the utter obliteration of hundreds if not thousands of the creatures that had wreaked havoc in the Crystal Empire. The cries that followed were not of joy- but of pain. Uncaring of the lives before it, the sweeping beams had left whatever ponies that hadn't fled the city burnt, maimed, or blinded- and occasionally, mercifully dead. Crystal ponies found themselves leading chains of the injured nose-to-tail through the choked streets, trying to ease the torments of the ones for whom the agony left them senseless, or simply mourning a friend who had failed to endure the trials of the pony-star that burned in the heavens. Many simply followed the well-beaten path down the tracks, vowing never to come to the twice-cursed place again. The cold snow became a blessing as they cleared the boundaries of the Empire, cooling burns and quenching the thirst of dessicated ponies. In half an hour, the only residents that remained were the dead, those too wounded to move, lost in their blindness, or anchored by their sorrow for the other three. For them, only the broken ruins of life and home remained. Princess Luna found herself sagging lower with every flap, snow and ice forming a white coat on her wings and saddling her back with the heavy hand of winter. Halfway back to the city, she was forced to land...in the midst of the mob trudging away from the desolation. The sight froze her to the core. Those who could still see called her name, the sightless turning their heads back and forth as they echoed the cries- for help, for healing, to be saved, saved, SAVED. Dozens and then hundreds of the lost gathered around Luna, begging, weeping, bleeding, lost. Celestia could not save them. Who would save them? The Guard already had it's hooves filled to the brim with the thousands on the trains and the excess who had galloped to safety when the last seat was filled. For Luna, the fight ended in under a minute. Tears freezing to icy flakes in the wind, she lifted her horn and banished the snow and storm around her in a bubble of moonlit calm. Turning southward, she walked with the herd, an encouraging word here, a gentle touch of relief to the worst-wounded there, a steady flow of minor miracles to the unending sea of equines that had found her in the cold night. "Cadence? The ponies, thine subjects and mine alike- I have found them, they need me, and I am here- but they must flee, none but me to guide them. I, I....I too can do no more. May the Moon bless and aid you, for it's Princess cannot come." Perhaps the trail of droplets that followed Luna's path were snowflakes melting to rain as they struck the protective barrier she held against the weather. At the least, it was what Luna told herself as she shepherded her ponies through the darkness. Strange that melted snow should taste so salty, no? --- "...for it's Princess cannot come." Luna's thoughts closed the last door of companionship in Cadence's face, standing in the false daylight as she watched Alexandrite's mindless scrying of the depths of the Crystal Heart. In the end, a Princess must care for her own rule. So be it. The thought left a bitter taste in the back of her mouth as she rose into the skies to confront the six-headed beast that had brought the Empire to it's knees. The moon became visible as the glowing pollution lessened, a faint silvery circle berift of it's starry companions. The sight gave Cadence a moment of comfort as she flew at the edge of the corona to raise her voice. "TO THE CREATURE WHO CALLS ITSELF "ALEXANDRITE", I GRANT YOU ONE CHANCE. SURRENDER THE PONIES YOU HAVE TAKEN, MY SISTER, HER FRIENDS, AND YOURSELF TO MY CUSTODY FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST THEM, MY PEOPLE, MY EMPIRE, AND EQUESTRIA. AS PRINCESS AND RULER, I DEMAND YOU TO OBEY AND ANSWER FOR THE INJUSTICES YOU HAVE POURED ON THEM- OR I SHALL DRIVE YOU FROM THIS LAND AND LIFE ITSELF. WHAT SAY YOU?" Six heads ceased their meditations and turned to follow Cadence as she orbited. And spoke, words seemingly flowing randomly from each of Alexandrite's thralls. "THOU ART...LIKE ME, AND YET UN-ALIKE.", came from the lips of Rarity. "THY FORM CONTAINS THE BLESSINGS OF SPIRIT, BUT HAS ALWAYS KNOWN THE IMPURITY OF FLESH. I SORROW FOR THY STATE.", spoke Applejack. "I SEE THE WORLD THROUGH THE HEART OF OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, AND IT HAS GROWN STAINED WITH SIN AS I HAVE SLEPT, BROKEN THROUGH THE AGES.", echoed Pinkie Pie. "AS I HAVE SEEN, SO SHALL WE MAKE IT PURE ONCE MORE.", judged Fluttershy. "I SHALL GIFT THIS WORLD WITH OUR DIVINE JUDGEMENT, AND THE HEART SHALL DELIVER IT TO EVERY CORNER. NO FLAW SHALL ESCAPE. NO DARKNESS, UNLIT. UNTO EVERY FORM CHAINED BY INIQUITY, I GRANT FREEDOM.", uttered Rainbow Dash with the tone of an executioner preparing to drop the axe. "AND THESE WHO HAVE BECOME MY VESSELS SHALL KNOW AN ETERNITY OF JOY AS THIS REALM RETURNS TO THE PRISTINE, HOLY STATE IT HAS YEARNED FOR.", finished Twilight's puppeted body. The aura of light hardened about Alexandrite like a pearly shell, and Cadence lunged forward only to rebound off the barrier. Blasts from her horn were ignored as the ponies turned towards the Heart as one. The eyes of the Elements focused, white streams of glow fracturing into rainbows as they played over the relic. Far below, Shining Armor added his fractional firepower to the assault, but the defenses against them were like trying to break a mountain with a dull tin spoon. Above them, a horseshoe-shaped brand slowly began to burn in the air. --- Inside Sombra's mind, Jolfr's response to the entire thing was summarized in a single, primal and cosmic obscenity, then: "SHE'LL KILL YOU ALL, TRYING TO GET RID OF THE SLIGHTEST SCRAPS OF ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T MEET HER STANDARDS OF "PERFECTION". SHE WOULD MAKE AN OATH-BREAKER OF SADR, THE TRUTHFUL! THE WOLF'S TOOTH! BY MY MANY NAMES, THIS CANNOT BE!" "YET....YET...I KNOW NO SPELL, NO PATH THAT WILL SLIP PAST THAT WHICH ALEXANDRITE HAS WROUGHT. FORTRESS SHE IS IN NAME AND ART, AND ONLY HER FLESH AND BLOOD COULD PASS. THE SPELL WILL NOT LAST LONG, BUT LONG ENOUGH TO FINISH HER JUDGEMENT ON EVERY MORTAL THAT DRAWS BREATH." The spark of genius that burned in Sombra's mind blossomed into the light of inspiration on the word "blood". "I know where to find you some.", he replied- racing out into the night-turned-day and searching the ground for a fallen spear...and the weapon that had maimed Applejack lay untouched in the drifiting ashes of demons, dried blood leaving the spearhead a crusted black and crimson. Sombra snatched the weapon up with his horn and examined it. "Now, can I kill Celestia's little ponies with this, or are we all going to burn?", he spoke to the black presence inside his mind. "ONE SPEAR WOULD BUT SLAY A SINGLE PART, AND THE REST WOULD SLAY THEE IN TURN BEFORE SEEKING A NEW HOST. NAY, BUT THINE WEAPON SHALL YET SPOIL HER PLANS. BE THOU PREPARED TO LEARN FAST, MY RIDER?", replied Jolfr's midnight tone. "CRAFT NOW A VISION OF ME IN THE AIR BEFORE YOU. FILL IT WITH THINE POWER AND I SHALL AID THEE, FOR THOUGH MINE FULL STRENGTH WOULD CRUMBLE ANY ONE MORTAL TO DUST, A MERE SHARD THOU CANST BEAR AND SHALL SERVE US WELL." Sombra's magic became a shadowy, hollow image of Jolfr's eight-legged form, a shell that filled and gained substance as ebon threads wove themselves from his horn to stitch the phantom from mist into a quasi-solid image of his master. As it gained coherence, the bloody spear was torn from Sombra's grasp by the will of the avatar he had called into being, suspending itself above Jolfr's spectral head like a scorpion's sting. Despite the omnipresent light, the shaft of the spear vanished into a cloud of black, bubbling mists. "MINE OBSIDIAN SPEAR SHALL SPLIT ATWAIN THE THREADS OF THY FUTURE..." Above them, Alexandrite began to pronounce her final sentence upon the mortal realm. "ACCEPT THY DESTRUCTION..." "...WHILST IT'S CRIMSON FULLER SHALT CHANNEL THE LIFEBLOOD OF THY PAST." "...WISH FOR ETERNITY, YEARN FOR IMMORTALITY..." "NOW WAIL AS THY SOUL IS BESTREWN TO THE WINDS OF FATE!" "SENSE THY TRANSIENCE, KNOW THY INSIGNIFICANCE!" The horseshoe of flame split itself into two, then four, then eight and sixteen....and a divine judgement shone from each to pour itself into the Crystal Heart, then...to everything. A single ebon line pierced through the searing radiance to reach the Heart first, piercing it through and through before streaking off into the sky. The Heart screamed as the spear impaled it, then rang like a broken bell as Alexandrite's spell found the flaw and focused it's wrath on the artifact instead. The Heart began to crack in a crushing grip made of solid light for a long moment... And the spell rebounded on it's maker, flung back in the teeth of Alexandrite's thralls. Six brightly colored forms streaked out of the blast to plow furrows in the ruins. As they lay in their craters, the gems in the Elements...failed. Twilight's cracked, then crumbled from the center outwards. Applejack's blew out a gout of stone, the core melting away to blackened metal. Dash, Rarity, Pinkie and finally Fluttershy's stones lost their painful glow as they gave out in turn, the Elements slipping from head and necks to lie useless upon the ground. Eyes opened. Dazed ponies looked around to find each other as a concerned alicorn overflew each in turn. Shining Armor did a broken-field run as he raced for the hole his sister was rising from, one wing twisted and bent from the landing. A drained Sombra paid for his effort, sprawled in a boneless heap of exhausted pony. The Heart sang out above them all with the sound of a shop full of wind chimes crashing to the floor as it fell from it's housing. A bit of the bottom point fragmented and bounced away to be lost in the maze of debris. Cacophony poured from the broken stone- cries, howls, squawks, words that never had known a tongue of flesh - as if an entire world had lived within it. Cadence narrowly dodged as a random streak of lightning spat from the widening crack in the heart and fled into the night sky. The split widened further. A stone the size of a small hill flung itself from the impossibly small gap and slammed itself into the hole where Twilight had been, Shining Armor yanking her still-wobbling form clear just before the boulder finished it's flight. Princess Cadence focused on the Heart and gave it a push with her special talents. The crack narrowed again, trying to knit itself together from the wound Jolfr's spear had began and Alexandrite's spell had worsened. Flecks of color rushed madly across the surface of the Heart in angry patterns...and the crack visibly strained to widen itself as Cadence fought to put it to rights. Some hearts, no matter how much you try to mend them seemed destined to break... "SHINING! GET YOUR SISTER AND THE OTHERS OUT OF HERE!", she screamed as the grip of her magic began to shred... Rose light joined with blue and the pressure eased, just enough to find equilibrium. A warm flank invited her to lean against it for support as her husband's spell encased the Heart in a shell of unicorn magic, giving it no room to spread itself further. "We.....can....do this...honey....", Shining Armor managed to get out from between grinding teeth. "We...will. Get. This. Done."