Chapter 8
A little easier…
“Are they getting in?” Spike’s voice came from the back wall, clutching at something at his chest. His claws shook visibly, but Amber didn't need to watch to know how the dragon was feeling. Spike couldn’t have hidden his emotions from her even if he wanted to.
Fear was not an emotion Amber had tasted often since coming to Ponyville, and it wasn’t one she liked. Fear was acrid, like a pile of rubber tires burning on a cold day. Fear wasn’t just coming from within the library. It was a flood from just outside the windows, a flood Amber was powerless to escape. It’s your fault. The guards could’ve got reinforcements from Canterlot last night if you told them what was coming.
“No.” Amber peered out the window, watching as a pair of drones slammed themselves bodily into the space just in front of the library. There was no other way to describe it—the way the air grew briefly solid, shimmering with lavender magic, before throwing them bodily aside. “The wards are holding.”
“If you say so.” Spike stood, moving cautiously toward her from where he had been resting.
Amber was only a little surprised to see what he was holding was one of the stun pistols Chance had made. Didn’t do her much good though, did they? “See?” She gestured outside, as the drones continued their vain assault of the library. There was no sign of the wards failing, for which she was grateful.
“Y-yeah.” Spike watched, though he seemed to barely see the drones attacking their library. Mostly he looked out on the rest of Ponyville, eyes wide with terror.
Twilight Sparkle had powerful wards on this library, meant to protect it from physical and magical threats both. None of the wards was mighty enough to keep the screams of terror from finding their way in, though. They heard those clearly, right along with the shouts of battle and the screams of pain as ponies fell. Somewhere, a building had started burning, casting half the town in angry red light.
Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair. Amber banished the angry memory, though it was getting harder and harder to do. She wanted to ask her mother about it, just as she had learned so many other mysteries. But Queen Chrysalis was not here, nor was she anywhere close enough to talk to. Everything made so much sense when I was with her. Why doesn’t it now?
As usual, the alien’s memories answered. It is impossible to do good by evil means. Amber wasn’t so sure she believed most of what the alien had thought she knew so well.
She was happy, and ponies loved her. Who loved me? Well, her mother. The Queen of all Changelings had given her plenty of love to survive her first year of life. But had that been love Amber eared from her, or energy she invested as part of preparing her for this very mission?
Why should it matter? She gave it to me, that’s what matters. The pony memories didn’t seem to think so.
Amber frowned as a group of ponies darted from building to building, trying their best to hide from the chaos as thick flights of drones buzzed overhead.
Spike noticed them too, because his eyes suddenly went wide. “Chance, look! I think the girls are coming!”
She swallowed her fear and looked. It couldn’t be all of them, it was only three adults. She knew them by sight, though Chance had only really known the white one and so she was the same way. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack. Why those three?
“We should get down there! They’ll need somebody to let them in!”
Amber nodded, though she felt more of reluctance and fear than any desire to let Twilight’s friends in.
Spike took the stairs three at a time, sliding and bouncing and rolling but not seeming to care. “I’m coming, Rarity!” He sprinted for the front door, jumped for the handle, then yanked it open.”
Harsh red light came in through the open door, the light of fire thick with smoke and anger. Amber took in the scene, staring.
There were six ponies, not three. She hadn’t noticed the fillies, but now she saw them clearly, hooves pressed desperately to the invisible barrier. It didn’t throw them as it had done the changelings, since of course it used proportional force to whatever was used on it.
The drones that had been trying to get through the barrier had found a new target. Between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, it looked like they were holding their own quite well, except… that fighting these two drones would mean the rest of the hive-mind would know they were here now, vulnerable. “Chance dear, if you would be so good as to tell your wards to let us in… we have some friends of yours we would like to deposit somewhere safe!”
“Yeah!” Spike looked expectantly up at Amber, urgent. “Tell the wards to let ‘em in!”
Second Chance might know how to do that, but Amber didn’t have a clue. She whimpered, dropping onto her haunches and starting to cry. She had a chance to protect a few ponies from the awful things she had done, and she couldn’t even do that. The man who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.
Spike groaned, shoving her out of the way with sudden dragon strength. He reached up, finding a place carved into the wood that had been beside Amber. “The master of this house welcomes kind visitors,” he recited.
The wards flickered one last time, then the light went out. “Quick!” He didn’t take his claw from the wall. “Anything can get in!”
Applejack gave the drone she was fighting one last buck, sending it careening into the other with a sickening sound. The other ponies hurried across the gap, rushing through the open doorway.
Spike removed his claw, and not a second too soon. The barrier flashed to life as several more drones struck it from different directions. A few of them had been flying, and turned into a green pulp on impact.
Amber shivered as they died, feeling the brief pain of the hive even though she was specifically isolating herself from it.
“Ah reckon ya’ll ought to get inside.” Applejack gestured to the open library door. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hurried inside, but Apple Bloom lingered. She wore her strange, metal contraption, strapped tightly to her limbs and body with soft fabric.
“But ah wanna help! Ah can fight almost as good as you!”
“Sorry sugarcube.” None of the adults were coming in, resting just within the barrier. “Maybe if ya’ were older. You worry ‘bout keepin’ yer little friends safe.”
“Hurry up, Applejack!” Rainbow hovered in the air just above the ground, scanning the sky all around them. Their little mission was attracting more and more drones, which struck the wards so often now they never vanished, lavender magic burning under constant stress.
“You aren’t staying?” Spike sounded hurt. “You aren’t a fighter either, Rarity.”
“Now now, Spike.” Rarity’s magic flared, and there was a brief ring of steel. A polished white rapier hovered just in front of her now, a single purple gem set into the pommel. The edge looked so sharp it hurt Amber to even look. “A proper lady has many talents.” She reached out, resting a hoof briefly on the side of his head. “Protect the fillies, won’t you?”
He nodded, squaring his shoulders. “Of course! You… You should get going. I’m not sure how much stress Twilight’s wards can take at once.”
Applejack gave her sister one last pointed glance, burning with love and concern. It was so thick in the air Amber could taste it even though it wasn’t for her.
“Alright.” Apple Bloom moped her way past them, motors whirring as she did.
They watched from the porch as the three adult ponies charged back out into the fray. Drones slamming themselves into the wards from all sides suddenly had a far easier target, and they buzzed after the galloping ponies.
They didn’t get to see what happened next, as the adults disappeared into the chaos of the town proper.
“Well…” Apple Bloom glared down at the ground from beside them. “If we’re gonna be stuck in here, might as well make ourselves useful.” She looked up towards Amber. “Ya’ think Truth might know somethin’ we can use to protect Ponyville?”
Scootaloo looked just as unhappy, despite her new cutie mark. “Maybe that artifact we got could help! He’s gotta be finished figuring out what it does by now!”
Sweetie Belle cleared her throat, tossing her white saddlebags onto the ground in front of them. “Before I forget, Rarity gave me something to share.” Even as she said it, Amber heard a second voice in her mind. It wasn’t the voice of memory this time, as she had heard so many times before.
This was no hallucination or unbidden recollection. Sweetie Belle spoke with the voice of a drone, though a drone far more intelligent and confident than the average. The Great Queen sends orders.
“Woah.” The fillies stared down in wonder at “Rarity’s” gifts. There were four glittering daggers, each with a different colored gemstone set into the hilt. They were quite beautiful, wrought of steel and white gold. Amber felt familiar magic burning around each one, her mother’s magic.
What orders? She met “Sweetie Belle’s” eyes, shivering in spite of herself. If one of Chance’s friends had been killed because of her…
Your involvement with the new princess is no longer required. She sends these weapons enhanced to kill an Alicorn. Slit her throat while she sleeps. If she is awake, she will be able to repair the damage before it kills her.
The words brought bile up in her throat, and Amber almost vomited right there. She couldn’t stop herself from stiffening, and memories unbidden of Twilight’s kind face returned to her.
Chance’s friends didn’t seem to notice, each one of them slipping the scabbard around their necks and looking proud. She did the same, though she weapon seemed almost to burn against her coat. What happened to the pony you replaced?
The drone’s eyebrows went up. Gone to be harvested. Why do you care?
Amber didn’t answer. Didn’t answer, because at that moment there was a sudden flash of light and magic from beside her. It came without the rush of air Amber knew to expect from a teleport.
“Twi?” Spike looked up at her from beside them. “What took you so long?”
Twilight shook her head, barely seeming to register what was in the room. Amber saw her barely restrained anger, and tasted many other things also. Twilight felt exhilarated, but also terrified. For me, she realized, with another harsh twisting of guilt in her chest.
“Princess Twilight!” Chance’s friends shouted almost in unison. Only Sweetie Belle was off, and even then not by much. “Are you here to save Ponyville?”
Twilight shook her head sadly. “If I could. The changelings are only the beginning of danger.” She gestured with her horn, and the shutters and blinds all over the library floor closed, plunging them into sudden darkness.
Only her horn lit the space, with its brilliant lavender glow. “I came to… no reason I can’t bring all of you.” She gestured. “All of you get close to me. We’re going somewhere safe.”
“Again?” Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have a magic shield and a pile of magic artifacts in the basement to keep us safe?”
Twilight's eyes darkened. “From the changelings, yes. Not from him.” There would be no resistance this time. Amber felt something lift her into the air, pulling her beside Twilight. She felt other little bodies pressed in close, Chance’s friends and the scaly little dragon.
“Sorry Celestia,” she muttered, not looking at any of them. “I’m not leaving these foals to their fate either.” Amber’s world filled with light, and the library vanished.
* * *
Subject is suffering from thaumic strangulation.
She did not dream as she drifted, though she did sleep. Time swept up and around in a world that no longer made sense.
Kimberly Colven sat on her favorite rock, only a few miles west of Luna-7. The rock was surprisingly smooth, worn down by hundreds of uses. She knew what she had to do—she had visited so many times that the instinct did not even require conscious thought.
She tried her magic, levitating one of the rocks to throw as she had done so many times before, but found her horn no longer worked. No, that wasn’t quite right. She didn’t have one anymore. So Kimberly reached with her hand, throwing the stone. It arched in the far distance, before curving ever-so-slowly in the slight gravity and starting to fall. As usual, the rock didn’t make it.
Recommended treatment carries mild risk of liver damage and requires subject authorization.
“Shut up!” Kimberly screamed at the voice, though she saw nobody.
Screaming didn’t help, unfortunately. As she rose to bare feet in the lunar dust, she found her anger had drawn more angry attention on her.
“We’re trying to help you, Chance!”
Kimberly found another rock and flung it violently up at the direction the speaker’s voice seemed to come from. “I don’t want your help! Not after what you did to my planet!”
Recommended treatment carries mild risk of liver damage and requires subject authorization.
Kimberly collapsed into a whimpering ball in the dust, covering up her face and not caring that the gray dust got everywhere. Couldn’t it cause all sorts of awful cancer things if it got into her lungs? She didn’t care.
Strange hands touched her on all sides, trying to hold her down. The sensations didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t fight them off. No amount of struggling seemed to make a difference. She just curled up, praying they would go away.
Recommended treatment carries mild risk of liver damage and requires subject authorization.
“Fine!” she screamed, thrashing out again. “Just do it! I don’t care!”
The Sea of Tranquility began to swim, its outline becoming hazy. Kimberly screamed as the ground became a soft paste that swallowed her, filling her nose and burning her throat and searing her eyes.
The world came rushing back. Vision returned and Second Chance saw concerned ponies watching her. One was familiar, a minty green mare with a slightly faded coat and eyes without some of their color.
The other was Sweetie Belle, holding Chance down with a levitated blanket.
She stopped struggling, rolling onto her back and looking up at her friend. “You don’t have to hold that, anymore. I’m back.”
“O-oh.” Sweetie Belle let go at once, the shimmer fading from around her horn. The filly looked the worse for wear, her mane all matted and her coat smelling of harsh cleaning solution. “Sorry. You were… thrashing around. I thought you would hurt yourself!”
Chance sat up. “I probably would have.” Her own voice sounded strange in her ears, though she couldn’t place why. Chance felt cold in her chest, a cold that didn’t go away. Even though her limbs practically shook with energy, even as medication filled her with a physical strength she had never known as a unicorn before.
Sweetie recoiled from her, and Chance recognized the look in her eyes. It was revulsion, the same Chance had felt when she had first seen Lyra. “Y-you don’t look so good…”
“Yeah.” Chance flopped to one side, twitching her hooves one at a time. She felt numb—it took great effort to muster the will to care about anything. “You’re… probably sensing magic. Well… the lack of magic. I noticed it too… when they grabbed me.”
“You’re not as bad as the others!” Sweetie Belle approached the bed, nudging her hopefully with one hoof. “Maybe they couldn’t get it all, since you’re from far away.”
Chance shook her head. “I don’t think… I don’t think it works that way.”
Lyra spoke from beside Sweetie Belle, sounding matter-of-fact. “She used Precursor medicine on me. Maybe that’s why.”
“O-oh.” Sweetie nodded. “Guess that makes sense.” She sat down on her haunches, looking defeated. “Guess we wait for somepony to rescue us.”
“No!” The words were out of Chance’s mouth before she even knew what she was saying. Chance imagined Sweetie Belle being locked into that room with monsters, imagined what they might do to her.
Chance’s emotions weren’t gone after all. She felt rage, rage against this unspeakable atrocity. How many ponies had suffered? How many more would it take? Would they take her friends next? Her mother?
“No.” Chance hopped down off the bed, no longer shaking. Even in the low light she could see her own coat had gone pale, just like Lyra’s. One glance behind her was all it took for her to confirm her cutie mark was gone too.
“We’re breaking out.” She looked up into Lyra’s face. “You wanna help?”
Lyra nodded without hesitation, lowering her head. “You saved me. Of course I’ll help!”
“Alright. Are my saddlebags still in here, somewhere?” Lyra nodded, and dragged them out from under the bed with her teeth. She didn’t use her horn, and Chance no longer needed to ask why.
“Good.” She started emptying things. “Sweetie, did you have anything useful when they threw you in here?”
The unicorn shook her head. “I don’t think so. I was walking back from Sugarcube Corner when they grabbed me.” She levitated a box of cookies onto the ground next to the saddlebags. “Unless you think we can use these.”
“Probably not.” Chance didn’t even think, making to levitate the box open and lift one of the cookies to her mouth. Of course, nothing happened.
Error, thaumcraft node nonfunctional.
She sighed, then bent down to use her hooves instead. “We might as well eat them. Then we’ll escape.”
* * *
Far beneath the earth, Bree still sat in the hearing chamber Leo used with his squires. The room was filled now—each chair taken by a squire. Not only that, but there were hundreds of dogs, packing all the standing room around the table and choking the room with their organic stench.
Bree could not dismiss them, though. Not when fate had just handed her the biggest opportunity of her life. Every dog here was a witness that would later make her case before the king, or else an officer that might soon be taking the field.
“Switch to high altitude,” Leonidas instructed, and one of his squires leaned close to fiddle with the controls. He uses organics instead of his radio. Weak.
The dog apparently knew what he was doing, because the projection did change. The angle shifted to one far, far above the burrows, so high that the trees were nothing more than little green specks.
There were more drones than the one, and the image grew to encompass the little pony village, then the distant pony city built into the cliffs. It looked far less regal from this height, more like a theme park attraction than a real city made from real stone and towers.
“Four hours ago.” Leo gestured, and all the little dots and figures changed. Ponyville was on fire, swarmed with hundreds and hundreds of little red dots.
“Three.” He gestured again. The pony guard advanced, in orderly formations, breaking into the swarm around Ponyville.
They broke with very little resistance, scattering into the air and taking off over the Everfree. Only a few of them stayed to fight, and all were taken to pieces by the pony guard.
“As I first explained.” Bree went through the dance, her words confident though she already knew Leo was about to prove her “wrong.” This plan wouldn’t work if she seemed too eager. “The natives wouldn’t have lasted this long if they couldn’t fight their own battles. Interfering is not part of our mission.”
Leo’s eyes hardened. “Two hours.” The dots shifted again, pony army putting out fires and taking the injured to the hospital. They reinforced changeling barricades, building up the bulwark their enemy had abandoned.
The dogs filling the room seemed to deflate as they watched the pony victory. “Pony village still strong,” one muttered, from just behind Bree.
“One hour.” Ponyville was secure now, every barricade manned, every fire out. The troops watched vigilantly from all sides for a changeling counter-attack that did not come.
“And now.” Ponyville’s soldiers milled about in confusion, little specks staring up at Canterlot’s distant mountain. The city was tearing itself apart.
Ponies seemed to be fighting each other, even as thousands and thousands of changelings poured into the city. There weren’t many guards left, and where they fought they were clearly overwhelmed. Already strange black flags were waving over some of the towers.
Bree smiled, though she kept the gesture small. She had already seen this from her drones, of course. She knew the reason Leo had gathered all the important dogs from the army and summoned her last.
Leonidas meant to force her hand, by making their disagreement public. He would force her either to mobilize their army or show disunity among the gods and weaken the pack.
“There are powerful shield spells protecting Canterlot… or there were. They clearly aren’t operating now.” Leo rose to his feet, gesturing at the city. “Maybe the changelings snuck ponies inside to disable them already. Maybe their queen brought some terrible weapon and we just didn’t see her use it.”
He cleared his throat. “Richard’s noble orders can’t extend to failing in our duty as citizens. We cannot sit idly by while Equestria falls.”
Bree remained silent, though one of the dogs behind her didn’t. It was one of Leo's lieutenants, though she had never bothered learning their names. The army was Leo’s problem. “Why should we help? Ponies never did anything for dogs. Why should we die to help them?”
A general murmur of agreement passed through the crowd. Every dog but the squires at the table nodded or grunted or barked. I can play the game too, Sir Knight. You be the one to sacrifice your trust by asking them to do something they don’t want to do.
Leo didn’t interrupt. He waited while several more voiced similar complaints, speaking the general consensus that they didn’t want to interfere. “Let the ponies fight their own battles!”
Only when they were finished did Leonidas speak up, resting one hand on his sword. “You all disappoint me. Have I not taught you the Tower’s doctrine?”
Dogs mumbled feeble replies, but none seemed willing to look at him. He did not shout, yet his voice carried through the whole room easily. “If mercy cannot motivate you, if not a desire for justice or to come to the aid of others as you would wish they would come to ours, there is another reason.”
“I was there.” Murmurs died as he spoke, all eyes on him again. “You call it the first invasion now. Do you know what your ancestors were like, the alphas of ancient days you sing songs about?” A shiver passed through the crowd, but he ignored it. “Let me remind you.”
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Ominous.
Well, crud. At least I don't have to worry about the Princesses getting worfed again, since they've given up their magic and are technically off the board.
Gone to be harvested. Why do you care?
"Why do you care?" That is the big question for Amber, isn't it?
Hopefully she'll manage to answer it before she does anything more she'll regret. If Chrysalis expects Twilight's alicorn magic to make her survive the attack if she's awake, I wonder if having absorbed three extra alicorns worth of magic would allow her to survive even if she's attacked in her sleep...
changelings express their affection so weirdly!
7546990 I believe that should be 'earned'.
7874863 (with respect to the comment you are replying to:)
i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/012/132/thatsthejoke.jpg
Please don't, Amber, I genuinely like you.
Eeeeeee she cares!
Thank goodness Leo isn't awful.
Bree is example of what happens to mind that struggles to reach abstract ideal being. It becomes abstract, inhuman, cruelly logical advanced version of abacus.
It's all going pear-shaped, and worse its playing into the little girls plans.