//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 // Story: Pony of a Different Color // by Sparky Brony //------------------------------// ***Sparky*** I'm waiting for oblivion, for my next life, for whatever happens when someone dies. I slowly open my eyes. Carter is still above me, but he's not looking at me. He's looking up. Something is distracting him. All the noise that I've subjected myself to in the last few hours has left my ears ringing. I take my chances. I reach out with both forehooves and grab the charm in his pouch. I feel the shield immediately lose most of it's strength. I push hard on the shield as I roll away from him. I end up with the charm. “No!” he screams as he jumps after me. I break through the shield and seize Saidin as his hooves latch onto the charm in my hooves. I reach through the charm as he does. We both are nearly on equal footing now. We roll back and forth on the ruined courtyard. Each trying to steal the charm away from the other. I batter at his connection with Saidin, trying to shield him, he tries the same with me. We are too close together, I can't kick him hard enough to do anything. I end up on top of him, I start beating him with my wings. Anything to distract him from holding Saidin. He seems resolute, he is not going to let go. I rear back my head and slam my forehead into his nose. He gasps, and blood starts leaking from his nose. He sneezes blood in my face. But he won't let go. Sudden he is enveloped in a light blue aura. He is yanked away from me, I keep the charm in my hooves as he screams as he is lifted away. I see the pony holding him in her magic. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is landing next to me. She tosses him at the courtyard wall. His scream is truncated with a sickening thump as she slams him again and again against the wall. She lets her magic go, and he falls twenty feet to the ground. Either he's gained extra joints, or he's got a lot of broken bones. I sincerely think it's the latter. I close my eyes for a moment. I'm just so tired. A hoof touches my face. “Rain..?” I murmur. “No, it's not your Fiancee.” That voice isn't who I was thinking of. I reluctantly open my eyes. Cadence's smiling face is right in front of me. Ugh, she's pretty, but not pretty like Rainbow Dash. I roll over and get to my hooves. “Thank you Princess.” I say as hundreds of Crystal Guards gallop through the wrecked doors to the courtyard. “Never let it be said that the Crystal Empire will ever let down our allies.” Cadence says as she gives me a hug. “Now, let's go find my aunt and sister in law.” She gallops towards the doors into the Palace proper that Twilight and everypony else went through. “Cadence, stop!” she skids to a stop, looking back at me quizzically. “Let's fly up the outside. It's probably a blood bath in there. Let's just get to the throne room.” Cadence takes a moment to call out directions to the Crystal Guards. They rush off, setting up a perimeter. Cadence and I take to the air. In moments we are a hundred feet in the air. I hear an ominous roar. “Cadence, look out.” She dives as the missile rushes past her and impacts into the palace. She turns and fires a blast of magic at the attacking Apache helicopter. It dutifully explodes as another one takes it's place, firing it's chin mounted cannon. Cadence isn't wearing my armor. I dive and take the brunt of the shells on my armor as I slam a fist of air into it's tail rotor. As it whirls down to the ground, I see another half dozen of the machines. I'm merciless, parts of the machines fly everywhere as I throw everything I have at them. I get all but one. Cadence comes out of nowhere on the last one. She lands on the longbow radar dome above the rotor. With a look of contempt on her face, she sticks her crystal armored hoof down into the whirling rotor. Her horn glows brightly as the blades hit the armor and shatters all the blades, she spreads her wings as the final helicopter gunship joins the rest as wreckage on the ground. I look up. A cloud of dust is starting to clear from where the throne room is. I shout out to her as I start heading towards the throne room. I'm interrupted by a Bradley fighting vehicle rolling through the shattered gates into the courtyard of the palace. It's Bushmaster cannon firing at the Crystal Guard. Pinning them down. Instead of up, I fold my wings and dive bomb the infantry fighting vehicle. I land on it with Cadence. Augmenting my strength with spirit, fire and water, I grab the barrel and bend it into a U shape. With that weapon out of commission, I jump off the rear of the vehicle and wait for the rear door to drop. I'm not disappointed. Several soldiers come out. I move forward to attack the dismounted soldiers, and then stumble to a stop. They take one look at my blood covered armor, and shout out that they surrender. One produces a white handkerchief and starts waving it around. “Please sir, spare us. We surrender.” The highest ranking soldier pony from the Bradley screams. His cries are echoed by the other soldiers. Crystal Guards rush up and gather up the soldiers. Cadence looks at me and smiles. “I think we are going to win this one.” I smile exhaustedly back at her. “By Celestia, I hope so.” She looks up, her smile turns into a worried frown. “I think we had better get up to the throne room.” We take off and head up to the throne room. Once we get to the stained glass windows encircling the throne room, I look through. I hear Cadence gasp. Our friends are there. They have been stripped of their armor. And they are all lying on the floor. From what I can see, they are all dazed. “I have to get in there.” I call to Cadence as I fly back a bit. I accelerate to the windows, folding in my wings as I crash through. I land and quickly look around. My attention is riveted on a small object skittering on the floor towards my friend. Oh no. I holler out... “Grenade!” As I gather it up with my wing. I look around frantically. I can't throw it with my wing. I'm barely holding onto Saidin as it is. I need a few minutes to rest before I can really do anything with it. If that grenade goes off, without armor, my friends will be killed. I do the only thing I can do. I hold it in my right wing and fold it onto my barrel plate. I turn my head away from the upcoming blast. The last thing I do before it goes off is close my eyes tight. BOOM!! I find myself several feet left of where I was. I groggily get to my hooves. Saidin is gone. I shake my head. Trying to rid it of ringing. My ribs hurt. My right wing is a mass of pain. I sit up, and look back. My barrel plate is dented in. I certainly have at least two broken ribs. I take another look. My right wing. My beautiful wing. It's been mangled. Just a mass of blood and broken bones. I turn away from it. Bile rises to my throat as more pain hits me. I fall to the ground. Twilight stumbles to her hooves, she comes over to me. “Oh, Sparky.” She says as she nuzzles me. “I'm so sorry.” Tears fall from her eyes. She looks back at our friends. Every pony is unconscious. She's barely staying alert herself. “What happened?” I'm able to gasp. She looks down, “There was an explosion, knocking us out. When I came to. They were stripping our armor off of us. I don't know how they got through the charm you used to keep it on us without our permission. But they did. One of the soldiers threw that grenade at us. They cleared out of the room just before you burst through the window.” She looks at my ruined wing. “I can't heal that. But I can stop the bleeding, and restore some of your strength. She places her hooves on me like my daughter does when healing me. I feel the chills as she embraces Saidar, in moments, it feels like I'm being dunked in cold water as healing is performed. I look back at my wing. Damaged flesh and bone dropped off, leaving a small stump. Twilight sobs. “I'm sorry, I couldn't do more than that. That was almost more than I can do, I have very little talent at healing” I hug her. “It's okay Twilight. I'll manage.” I get to my hooves. We walk among our friends. Healing them as best as we can, shortly, all of us are on our hooves. Cadence comes up to Celestia. “I'm so glad you're okay.” She says at she hugs her aunt. We are interrupted by the sound of the door to Celestia's study opening. I turn as I hear something I've never heard in Equestria. The sound of boots hitting the marble floor. La Rouche is there. And he's human. He's wearing some device on his head. In his hand is a gun. That gun is pressed hard into a midnight blue head. “I should have known that grenade wouldn't finish you damned ponies off.” He growls. Luna has a charm on her horn. She can't use any magic. I can see her wings are bound as well. He has his arm around her with that damned gun to her head. “Don't even think of any funny business adept.” He saw me tensing to leap at him. He adjusts the gun against Luna's head, eliciting a small yelp from Luna. He looks at all the assembled ponies in front of him. “If I see any horns glow, if I even feel a twinge that might be you using your magic, I pull the trigger, and you can say goodbye to your Princess of the Night.” Out of the corner of my eye I see Celestia straining to get to her sister. Twilight is holding her back, whispering in her ear. Both have tears in their eyes. I see Rainbow Dash. I give her a hard look. She subsides. I step forward. “I surrender, La Rouche.” I unstrap my armor, pieces fall to the floor. I reach up and pull the helm off. I set it off to the side and walk forward. “You win.” I hang my head. “Just don't harm any more of my friends.” I hear a low chuckle from him. “Oh, I accept your surrender. But I am going to punish these creatures for the deaths of my soldiers. I really can't believe it. After you handed me my ass several months ago, I did some research. I had to laugh. You went to the world of My Little Pony. A powerful adept like you. I can't believe you went to a world of magical unicorns and flying ponies. I wanted to puke. I watched some of the episodes of that show. Shame on you adept. This is a show for little girls, and you came here. What is wrong with you?” After several seconds of silence from me. He growls out. “Answer me.” I swallow for a moment. “I first came here out of curiosity. I wanted to know more than what the television showed. I wanted to know what made them tick. I got here. I lost my powers. And without any thought for themselves, they took me in. They are the characters you see on the screen, but they are so much more. They really do embody the elements of harmony. Not just these ones here, but all of them. I have never felt so welcomed, never felt so loved, as when I have been here. I really don't want to leave.” I look up at him. He smiles, “Well, you don't have a choice now. We will put a dominion band on you. You will belong to us. You never know, I might bring you back and take over this world. With their rulers dead, they will be easy pickings.” He sees me flinch. “Oh, so I've hit a nerve. Tell me, adept. Which of these ponies have you fallen in love with?” I'm not telling him. He cuffs Luna with his gun. Then points it at me, he shifts it to Twilight, points it at Applejack, then Rainbow Dash. I must have reacted somehow, for he smiles and puts the gun back at Luna's temple. His laughter fills the room. “I can't believe it, you fell in love with the tomboy? Rainbow Dash, the element of Loyalty. You actually fell in love with her?” He laughs hard. After a few moments he cuts his laughter off. “I know which pony I will kill first. After Luna here, and then Celestia, then I will take a long time killing your precious Rainbow Dash. She will scream that she hates you before she dies adept.” Rage overtakes me. The healing Twilight did has given me some strength back. I seize Saidin. He holds up a finger. “Ah ah ah, no funny business, or you are going to see how much blood is in a Princess.” I relax for a second. I look back at my friends. A mixture of infinite sadness on Celestia, to horrible rage on Rainbow Dash's face. I have to do something before he kills Luna. I relax my body, so he doesn't think I'm up to something. He starts talking again. I don't listen, I'm focusing inward. I need to get to him, I concentrate, harder than I ever have before. I feel a surge of Saidin in my head. Everything blinks dark for an instant, and then I have the gun in my hooves, I've somehow teleported to him. I push the gun as it goes off. Discharging it's round into the wall. I punch him in the face with my hoof and he drops the gun. I didn't see his other hand, but I find out where it was as his ka-bar combat knife plunges into my chest. I scream as I feel the damage the blade is doing. He twists the blade savagely and withdraws it. I stumble back. My hoof going to my chest, I'm bleeding. He takes the blade and plunges it into my stomach, ripping downward. I fall down on my back. Saidin disappears as the world goes blurry. I hear a loud scream. I feel a blast of magic pass over me, La Rouche is blasted against the wall. He slumps to the floor, unconscious. I can't move. Everything hurts. I look up. Rainbow Dash's face is there. I touch her cheek. “I'm sorry Dashie,” I'm able to gasp. As blackness envelopes me, I feel her lips on mine, her tears on my face.