Act 3 Chapter 67 : The Charge
‘I am Officer Swift of the Detrot Police Department.’
‘The mares of my family are the most dangerous in this city and they lead an army of warriors trained to serve and safekeep my home. My godfather is a dragon and my best friend is the beating heart of the city itself.’
‘I have destroyed the Cult of Nightmare Moon and the drug dealing murderers who would have threatened my loved ones.’
‘I won’t let a stupid storm beat me!’
----
The frigid drizzle was blowing my ears back against my head, the wind carrying it out behind me over the stretch of open badlands between me and the prison that’d become a strange refuge for the dispossessed and hopeful. I wanted more than anything on Equis to be back in that fortress, hugging Tourniquet and listening to the gentle whispering of the city as seen through her eyes and ears. Instead, I was perched on a sign for ‘Filthy Dingo’s Discount Emporium’, watching the brewing storm over Uptown, about to throw myself into the teeth of a dragon that’d chewed up the entire police department. My feathers were soaked, and it was starting to creep through my police vest.
Against the sky it all looked like somepony had dunked especially angry cotton candy in red food coloring. I’ve only hated a few things in my life, but I really hated that eclipse. Seeing the city from up high should make it seem cleaner and quieter. Instead, it just looked like it was covered in blood.
My veins were thrumming with magic and as much coffee as my mom would let me drink before a battle. In the back of my head, Tourniquet was mumbling to herself about control systems and electrical interfaces. The anticipation was going to kill me if a monster didn’t manage it. Not to mention my own partner, who was likely to want a piece of my tail to mount on the wall.
I raised an ear at a soft thump from off to my left and glanced over one shoulder to find my mother standing there in the rain, her apron soaked and her tail done up in a bun. She looked exhausted, but no more than she did after a long night working at the Vivarium back when I was a kid.
“He’s going to strangle you for leaving without saying goodbye. You know that, right?” my mom asked.
I shrugged, shifting the Hailstorm higher on my shoulders and reaching underneath to tighten the buckle across my stomach. The turrets were resting in their cradles, but every now and then the gun would let out a faint hum just to let me know it was paying attention.
“He’ll be mad, but if it means he’s alive to strangle me, I’m okay with that,” I replied, looking towards Uptown and the boiling storm. “Besides, he works better when he’s mad.”
There was a loud pop that almost had me reaching for my trigger and Miss Iris Jade materialized on the gravel-strewn roof beside me. The former Chief of Police looked surprisingly calm for a pony whose usual mindset tended toward extreme violence. Her sallow green face and rail thin frame were draped in a freshly pressed suit as an umbrella of energy floated overhead, droplets of water hissing as they hit it and turned to steam.
“You know, I expected to be writing a very contrite sounding letter to your mother over there and mailing it off along with your badge, a city flag, and a jar of whatever was left of you that the crime scene people managed to scrape off the street,” she said, giving her dark green tail a quick shake to flick off a few droplets her shield didn’t quite cover.
“I’m glad I defied your expectations, Ma’am,” I answered, stroking the bunny patch on my chest for a second. It was getting a little threadbare, but still holding up real well. I’d have to get another one, one day, if ever I managed to get another set of armor in my size.
“You haven’t defied them, yet, Miss Cuddles. Walking away from Hard Boiled and not getting yourself killed would defy my expectations. Right now? You’re on solid track to a jar on your dad’s mantlepiece. Celestia help me, today, because I’ve somehow committed myself to trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Jade looked out towards Supermax and drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t get to talk to my own daughter, today. Cerese was off with that Aroyo girl...Jambalaya or whatever her name is. Probably screwing in some corner before heading off—”
She hesitated, a catch in her voice, before turning sharply away. My mother slowly moved over and put a leg around Iris’s side. The other mare looked up, a couple of tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.
“I don’t deserve your kindness, Quickie. I manipulated—.”
“Mothers have to stick together, Iris. Just accept it. You and I will have a long talk when this is all over, if we live, but I do want to try to be friends. I think you’re a pony who will need a friend when all is said and done, and it’s hard to find ponies I can spar against without breaking them into little pieces.”
Gulping, Iris Jade rested her head against my mother’s shoulder. “Thank you. Maybe once this is all over, I might give a go to being something other than insufferable bitch. No guarantees, but...I do miss taking care of the birds. It’d be nice to go back to that.”
There was a clank that shook the roof as Scootaloo came in for a landing; she skidded a few steps before getting control of her prosthetics, which let out angry hisses of steam. She looked like a tank that’d somehow had a pony’s torso mounted into it; all four of her legs were giant metal creations which added an extra fifteen centimeters of head height and served to remind me of just how much nearly everypony else towered over me. Her wings were mounted in two steel frames covered in glowing gemstones which shimmered with projected magic.
“Those are really cool! But...wait, I thought you only lost your back legs,” I commented, leaning close to peer at my reflection in the polished metallic surface.
“Well, thought wrong, didn’t you!” the Crusader mare chuckled, raising one massive hoof and giving it a wiggle. “Those were my pretty legs. When they were taking my back legs, I told Bloom to take the front ones, too, and doll them up with her tech so I could switch out all four when I needed to. She had these tucked away for a special occasion. I’m told we’re blasting in the front door, so I didn’t figure I’d need ‘subtle’.”
With a clank, the front panel on her right foreleg ratcheted open, and the muzzle of something that looked like a P.E.A.C.E. cannon poked out. After a second, it snapped shut and retracted.
“I wish there were more of us going on this mission,” my mom muttered, staring at the gun for a second before shaking her head.
I tapped the side of my head and grinned. “Tourniquet is going to be listening, and I’ve got a bunch of ladybugs inside my armor. Their ‘queen’ or whatever it is told me that it’ll save everypony’s memories and stick them in Hardy’s brain so he can see everything we see, except...faster. He’ll know what I do and will know when to make his run.”
“So, at least Hard Boiled will have the pleasure of seeing us die, if we fail,” Jade grumbled. “Considering the shape of this, I’d still like backup.”
Scootaloo clapped her on the back what must have been very gently for those giant, mechanized hooves, but it still staggered the former Chief of Police. “You’ve got Aroyos, Miss Jade. We fought Jewelers. We fought you. We fought the Family. We fought other Cyclones. You’ve got all the help you need.”
A flock of pegasi suddenly burst over the edge of the building, bringing themselves to a stop to hover in front of me. All of them were Aroyos and every single one had a bright red crest burnt into the flesh of their chest, mirroring my own. Nearly every one of them carried some kind of heavy artillery strapped to a combat saddle; there were rocket launchers, gatling guns, and even a couple lightning cannons
I grinned up at them as I lightly touched their minds with my thoughts in order to get a sense of their feelings. Hardy would probably be upset to learn that it had become second nature for me to peek on the emotions of everypony walking by in the halls of Fortress Everfree.
Wisteria, the leader of the Aroyos, swooped out of the group and landed light as a feather beside me, bringing a lavender wing around to her forehead in a Wonderbolt salute.
“We be here, Warden of Everfree! We be ready for de stomp! All speakin’ wid de Lady of Shadows and all ready to be livin’ or dyin’ as ye say!”
“B-but you have a foal. Shouldn’t you be taking care of—” I started to protest, but she cut me off with a feather to my lips.
“I and I be havin’ a foal. But if dis day goes bad, it be not matterin’. Dey grow in darkness, or die when de evil comes. I and I fight for dem. If I die, den my child be raised by de Aroyos.”
I tilted my head sideways at the sleek little gun attached to her knee. It looked much like Hardy’s gun, with a bit of extra metal on top and a flat panel which shimmered when the light caught it.
“Is that...one of the Moon Guns we took from Nightmare Moon’s cult?” I asked, trying to keep the envy out of my voice.
“Courtesy of de sea serpent,” Wisteria replied. “I and I never be seein’ a scarier weapon. Went right through concrete, no troubles. Makes me wish we be havin’ it when we was fightin’ de cops. Might work nice against de queen bit—” The Aroyo quickly trailed off, glancing at Iris Jade who was giving her a glare that darn near turned the air green. “Erm...Different times.”
“Yes, different times,” Scootaloo said a bit forcefully as she stepped between them, cutting off what might have ended up a very awkward discussion. “Let’s hope you don’t see a more frightening killing machine today. Keep all of your eyes open, though. Those murdering animals scraped up the prototypes we had stashed at the Office. Most of them didn’t work or would just kill the user outright, but there were a couple that I wouldn’t want to face off with in a straight fight.”
Reaching into my vest, I pulled out the map Tourniquet and I drew up. I didn’t really need it; the one in my brain was an awful lot more reliable than paper, but it was good to have for my mother and Miss Jade since they’d both decided against taking Tourniquet’s mark for some reason.
“Alright, so Miss Taxi’s people told us there was a blockade by some ponies on Marionette Street,” I said, pointing in the general direction of Uptown where the shifting glow of the shield surrounding the middle of the city underlit the storm whose farthest edge was whipping at my mane and causing dust to dance through the streets. “This is the best route we could figure that won’t take us through any known areas that are super effective crossfires.”
I shut my eyes for a second and sent a thought in the direction of my friend back at Supermax, then listened to the waves of gently murmuring information passing through a nearby electrical line. Hardy didn’t like it when I did that, but he wasn’t around to get all huffy about it. A moment later, the answer came back.
“Tourniquet says there’s nopony on the adjoining alleys, but the closer she gets to Uptown, the less she can see.”
“Dear, it...it occurs to me that we have all these pegasi. Why aren’t we simply going up and dropping on the P.A.C.T. headquarters from above?” my mom asked. “Wouldn’t that be...you know...safer?”
I pointed at the storm. “The P.A.C.T. main building is made to take direct assaults above ground level, because it was designed to fight off dragons.”
“Aye,” Wisteria agreed, folding her wings in tight against her sides and casually adjusting the trigger attached to her gun so it was closer to her muzzle. “Dey be ready if we be comin’ in hot. Lightnin’ cannon on de rooftops and nests of killers wid de sniper rifle. We go de ground way, fast, but careful.”
The Hailstorm’s turrets popped out of their casings, lifting on the tiny robotic arms that controlled them as a collection of crosshairs appeared in my vision overlaying everypony there.
“I’m going to mark targets for everypony who is hooked into Tourniquet. Mom? You and Miss Jade are here to shield us from anything which might hit us head-on. That should be easy, because you’ll be on our ride’s back and he’s pretty durable.”
“Do you really need to brief us again—” Iris snapped impatiently, then paused. “Wait...ride? On his back? Whose back? No ‘ride’ was in the briefing.”
I stuck a hoof in my muzzle and gave my best whistle. Considering I’d spent three months practicing my Anti-Parasprite Sonic Defense back in middle school, it was a whistle that got me in trouble with more than a couple teachers when I’d done it to get a friend’s attention across the hoofball field. The sound echoed into the distance in the direction of Supermax.
Hopping up to the eave of the building, I put a hoof over the side and leaned forward over it until gravity took hold. Plunging off, I spread my wings until they caught the wind, yanking me upwards with a thrill as the ground suddenly retreated. Coming up in a thin twist, I came to a hover in front of the flock of Aroyos.
From down the road, a faint sound returned just loud enough for me to catch; it was a canine howl, in triplicate.
Swooping higher, I banked over the road until a black spot, quickly approaching, came into sight following the lonely stretch of road out of the wastes. Reaching under my vest, I pulled out a dead pigeon wrapped in a few plastic bags, lightly seasoned with motor oil and coated in a thick layer of bar-b-que sauce.
Goofball, my friend, my pet, was a transformed puppy.
The Aroyos had taken their time outfitting him. He looked like one of the robot dogs from the comics; there was enough hardened metal bolted to his butt to armor a whole heap of pegasi. They’d done a great job of covering every exposed inch that a pony might reasonably want to take a shot at. He even wore three gigantic pairs of doggy goggles with thickened bulletproof glass. The only thing nopony had managed to slap metal onto was his tail, which was wagging so furiously that it kicked up little dust-devils in his wake.
Dropping low over the road, I chucked the dead bird in his general direction, plastic and all. He leapt into the air and snatched it straight up in his middle mouth, coming down with a crash of armored plates. Letting out a grateful yip that shook the air, he barrelled under me toward the city until I dropped onto his giant back. There were three wide slabs of metal angled backwards from his necks with little slots in them a pony could see through and stay out of the considerable wind he generated running at full speed. Some thoughtful pony had even added a couple of nice little welded hoofholds.
“Whoa boy! Over there!” I shouted, leaning sideways toward the building we’d just left. He barked again, then swung off in that direction, darting up onto the sidewalk, then back into the road, his armored body rattling and clunking along though the weight didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
Skidding to a halt in front of the grocery, I tapped on the back of his middle head.
“Sit!” I called, then jumped off his shoulders into mid-air, catching myself before the downdraft could send me plowing into the pavement.
All three tongues lolling and panting like a freight train locomotive, Goofball dropped onto his haunches. His left head started idly chewing at one of the armored plates on his foreleg until the right head bopped him between that set of ears.
I dropped back onto the roof, grinning at my mother and Miss Jade who were standing there with open mouths. Wisteria merely looked smug as the rest of the Aroyos perched on the crenelations around the roof, checking their weapons and chatting quietly to one another. Scootaloo looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.
“Tell me this isn’t what it looks like,” Iris Jade said as she finally found her tongue, trotting to the side of the building and staring down at my dog.
“What does it look like?” I asked cheekily.
Jade watched as Goofball tried to clean his crotch with a couple of reaching tongues, but couldn’t quite make it because of the armor around his middle.
“It looks like you and that maniacal stallion you call a partner somehow stole the get of Cerberus from Tartarus Correctional, got him into Detrot, armored him up, and trained him to sit up and beg without anyone noticing. My stars, the Warden will blow her stack. How did you—”
I held up my hooves and grinned. “He followed me home from Tartarus when we visited to get information about the case. The Aroyos helped me hide him in the Skids. They took care of him, too.” I pulled another dead pigeon out of my pocket, tossing it down to Goofball. He snapped it up and went about messily tearing it into tiny pieces. “Isn’t he great? He eats everything and he’s almost totally bulletproof! Mom, what do you think?”
My mom’s ears laid back against her head as she slumped forward on the damp gravel roof. “S-sweetie...Three months ago, I was worried about you getting shot on your first day of work. Three days ago, I didn’t know you were...symbiotically entwined with a filly who looks like she’s made of metal. Three minutes ago, I didn’t know you had a giant, three headed monster dog. I n-need to put my mind straight.”
My heart sank as I saw a few little tears in her eyes and I all but galloped over to wrap my front legs around her. She buried her face in the crook of my neck as I put a wing over her face, shielding her from the rain. A moment later, I felt another hoof reach across her shoulders and looked up to see Iris Jade standing there stroking my mother’s hair.
“What?” Iris huffed, keeping her gaze carefully away from mine, “You’ve got a good mother. I hope she rubs off on me one day.”
I held the hug for a few seconds, then stepped back and put my hooves on my mother’s shoulders as she sniffled and wiped at her eyes with the back of her leg. “Mom, I’m still just how I was. I still like comic books and I write when I get a spare moment and I’ll still beat up anyone who messes with Scarlet. I’m still your daughter. I promise, I’ll never stop being that.”
My mother slid her forelegs around my neck and hugged me close once more, stroking the spiky fur on the back of my neck. “Oh, little bird...I know. Chicken sandwiches and extra toothbrushing aside, you’re still my Swift. Every part of me wants to hide you in some deep hole from everything that’s about to happen, but you deserve the chance to fight for Detrot. If I can’t protect you from this, then I’m glad I can be beside you.”
There was a tiny sniffle behind me and I looked up to see Scootaloo quickly wiping her nose on her metal kneecap.
“You’re making me miss my aunts and parents there, kiddo,” the old mare muttered. “Before I rust, why don’t we get this show on the road?”
Gulping down my feelings, I stood up and spread my wings, trying to look as ‘in charge’ as I could.
“Alright! Aroyos!” I shouted, though I could have sent the instructions over my link to Tourniquet. Sometimes, there’s a benefit to a certain amount of drama. “We’re going straight for the Blackcoats, today! P.A.C.T. headquarters is our target! We’re going to get in, do as much damage as we can, and draw off anyone who is going to try to attack the refugee caravan or our friends going after the Shield Pylon. Miss Taxi will be following up to help with the dragons, but we’re not supposed to engage them! If you see dragons, avoid as best you can until we get to our target! Use conventional arms if you can. The Moon Guns only have limited range. Once we get there, we have to get Colonel Broadside!”
“You mean kill Colonel Broadside, don’t you?” Scootaloo asked.
I shook my head. “He’s the one who knows how the P.A.C.T. magic transformed everyone in Uptown into monsters. If we can capture him, we’ll hook him up to Tourniquet. She’ll get the answers out of him.”
“To be clear,” Iris interjected, “We are not making him having all his limbs a top priority, right? If his prison nickname is ‘doorstop’, nopony is going to object?”
“If he puts up too much of a fight and we have to...” I felt my stomach twist into a knot, but pushed on, regardless. “—kill him...then we’ll dig through P.A.C.T. headquarters until we can find however they cast the transformation spells. It must be there.”
“Saddle up, stompas!” Wisteria barked, winging her way to the front of the Aroyo formation as they jumped off the building in a wave of feathers. “We killin’ de Blackcoats for all dey take from us! Make dem afraid!”
“Mom? Do you need a lift down to Goofball?” I asked.
My mother raised her eyebrows. “Who is...Oh, you didn’t! You named this creature Goofball?!”
I felt my cheeks heat and stomped a hoof, defensively. “Goofball is a perfectly okay name! Besides, that was already his name when I got him!”
She snorted and waved both forelegs. “No, no, far be it from me to offend our...erm...our ride. Should I have a pigeon to give him?”
Rolling my eyes, I pulled my last dead bird and held it out. She carefully took the corpse in a telekinetic field, dangling as far away from herself as she reasonably could. “He ate most of a pile of tires this morning, so I don’t think he needs any more treats after this. Let him have the plastic bag. He’ll get mopey otherwise.”
“Right. Oh Celestia, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
My mother’s horn crackled and a thick, flat pane of shimmering magic appeared under her hooves, lifting her off the rooftop and over the side, her apron billowing in the wind. Goofball cocked two heads at her, then leaned up and gave my mom a light sniff before licking at the magical platform. Finding it not to his taste, he snuffled around her for a moment then blinked as he found the pigeon Doing his big, doggie grin, he planted his legs and let out another cheery trio of deafening yips.
She tossed him the bird and his right head immediately snatched it, swallowed whole, and licked its chops. He dropped onto his butt with an expectant look. Levitating over, my mother carefully set herself down on his back, bracing her rear hooves in the holds as he turned one head to inspect her more closely. Deciding he didn’t mind a passenger, he dropped onto his stomach and wagged his tail, watching the cloud of pegasi overhead with interest.
“I’m not getting on that thing,” Iris Jade grumbled.
Scootaloo clapped her on the back with one armored leg, which sent her staggering sideways. “Oh, come now! No need to be scared of the big puppy! Besides, you can ride the dog or you can ride on my back. Teleportation and flight spells are going to get real messy once we get into the middle of the city, if the P.A.C.T. have set their defenses correctly. Might even hit a few null fields. I saw a pony come out of a teleport in the middle of one of those during the war. Well, I saw a mist that used to be a pony.”
Jade clenched her jaw, then drew in a breath and whispered something that sounded like “For Cerise...I’ll be better...”
There was a flash of light and Iris appeared on Goofball’s back. He was too busy licking the remains of the oily pigeons off his faces to notice.
I shut my eyes and focused on the crescent moon symbol on my chest, feeling warmth begin to radiate from it. All at once, Tourniquet’s voice poured into my thoughts.
“Swift! Oh skies, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to monitor you very closely. I barely have enough power to keep all these things straight! I really need some more electricity if I’m going to be managing armies in the future. Have you even started your attack, yet?”
“Nope. We’re getting going right now. How is the Detective?”
“Mad as a ball of cats stuck together with bubblegum, but he’s trying not to show anypony. Miss Taxi is on her way to her staging position. Nopony knows how the dragons talk to each other over distances, so we’re just going to attack all the ones we can see. If Propana shows up—”
“Then Applebloom and Taxi will goosh her! Relax, T. We got this. Besides, we have a bunch of our own dragons.”
“Ours are tiny dragons, though! The dumb one and her brother—Vexis and Ambrock—barely count and the rest are not any bigger than we are.”
I mentally rolled my eyes. “You’re worrying too much.”
“I spent decades in a pit, and now all the ponies I love are going out to fight and...and I know some of them won’t come back and I can’t be there with them! Wouldn’t you be worried?”
Shivering as a cold breeze blew through my hair, I slowly nodded. “Yeah, but...stiff upper lip, right? We either fight, or we all die. If I go down, make sure somepony else becomes Warden. I don’t want you going back to sleep forever.”
“I...I don’t know if I want to be awake without you, Swift.”
“Promise me.”
There was a long interlude where she said nothing, then a very soft, “I swear.”
I opened my eyes to find everypony watching me.
“Sorry, talking to Tourniquet. Miss Taxi is going to attack the dragons soon. Let’s go!”
----
One day.
My whole life was going to end or begin again in one day.
I’d woken up that morning in Tourniquet’s chamber, hugging my friend, listening to the heartbeat of the city. We breathed together, adjusting and making little corrections here and there to make sure as many ponies lived as possible. We dragged a few new ponies off the streets, put our marks on a few more, and our circle grew larger.
I could hear the minds of nearly all of the Aroyos, chattering and considering and mulling over problems. The thousands of other citizens who’d hooked themselves to Tourniquet were mumbling or making quiet introductions. It should have been weird to have all those memories, pictures, bits of music, or plots of old shows winging around inside my head, waiting for me to latch onto one. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Together, we organized the battle of Detrot.
We worked out the myriad little kinks in the Detective’s plan.
For normal ponies, it would have been completely impossible, but for the Marked, it was like breathing. Need a bit of welding done? Call a mind that has experience with a welder to take over your body for a few hours. Need to know how to use a gun? Call up a killer. Need comfort? Send out for a friend to take some of the pain away.
I hadn’t really considered what was going to happen to the Marked after the day was over, much less what was going to happen to me.
Mom wanted me to be a little pony again; a filly with big dreams. Somewhere, out there, Broadside had wanted me to be his tool of destruction, to wreak havoc on any Essys that might oppose their plans. The Detective wanted me to stand by his side, but he still saw me as the rookie he had to protect; not even my partner really comprehended what had happened to me, either in the days before I joined the police department or in that moment when Tourniquet laid her mark on me.
Truth be told, I didn’t either.
One day.
----
The city ahead lurched up and down like the waves on choppy seas as Goofball pounded along a narrow, debris-littered road between two building blocks. Guiding him was mostly a matter of having Mom or Iris gently grab one of his heads with their magic and wrench it into the direction we wanted the rest of him to go. Everything else was handled through sheer enthusiasm.
The leading edge of the storm was a nearly solid wall of rain, wind, and sleet that would have ripped me right off Goofball’s back if my mother hadn’t thrown a bright pink shield over the three of us. To my left, Iris Jade looked miserable as she rested her head on the armored plate which jutted up from Goofball’s back; it was a fresh kind of misery that included an occasional dry heave as she tried to keep her lunch down. On my right, my mom was grinning like a crazy mare, her teeth bared against the storm as she watched the Aroyos flocking ahead of us. Behind them, like a flying juggernaut and holding a speed that felt like it should be too slow to maintain herself in the air, Scootaloo kept pace with her strange gang.
I smelled the smoke a minute before we saw the first burning building, wheeling around a street corner onto a scene of devastation.
In the middle of a small parking lot sat what might have once been a convenience store; the remains were little more than a pool of steaming lava cooling under the pounding sheets of rain. The broken, slagged corpses of several cars and carts sat in the lot.
The Aroyos stopped short in midair and Wisteria’s voice crept into my head. “Scootaloo says that looks like sustained dragonfire. Probably in the last hour, too. Most likely a bored lizard cooking things to keep himself entertained,”
“There’s a dragon around here, somewhere,” I shouted above the raging storm for my mother and the former Chief’s benefit.
“You think?” Iris called back.
“Do you see anything on that magic scope thingy of yours?” my mom asked.
I spread my wings and the Hailstorm’s turrets popped out of their cradles, turning this way and that as I scanned across the nearby buildings. Several bright green targeting reticles appeared over my friends, my mom, and Miss Jade. Funnily enough, each of Goofball’s heads had their own.
In the distance, a single red target appeared, followed by another, then another. After a second, twenty more appeared, flying in close formation just below the roofline. I quickly lost count.
“I see...oh Celestia, I see a lot. There are a bunch of things all moving together, like a cloud! They’re coming this way!”
“Dragons?” Wisteria asked mentally.
“Not dragons! They’re too close together!”
Iris tilted her head back and snarled, “They must have had spotters in the sky. Dammit, I hoped they wouldn’t get reorganized that quickly after Hard Boiled and the merry band of suicidal idiots took out their tracking magics!”
“This is our purpose!” Mom snapped, expanding her shield until it encompassed all three of us in a shimmering bubble, “We’re the hammer and Miss Taxi’s forces are the anvil. We have to keep them distracted! Push for the P.A.C.T. headquarters!”
I leaned over and grabbed one of Goofball’s ears where it protruded from his armored helmet. “Come on boy! You wanted something to play with? Here they come! Sic’em!”
I couldn’t tell if Goofball was listening to me. He’d gone very still, his ears perked and his noses twitching. Letting out a curious whine, he took a couple steps toward the line of buildings before suddenly surging forward with the closest thing to a growl of actual anger I’d ever heard from him. I almost rolled off his back, but a quick flash of magic from my mother locked my hooves tightly to his shoulder plate. It didn’t keep my wings from instinctively poofing out, leaving me feeling like an orange kite in an especially high wind.
The swarm appeared as a flowing black liquid, pouring down the street like an angry river ready to burst its shores. Their wings made it almost impossible to differentiate one beast from another, but the second they laid eyes on us, dozens of flashes started up and, an instant later, the crack of gunfire reached my ears. They didn’t bother with being in proper actual range, and the amount of incoming lead didn’t need to be aimed; it was a wave of death reaching out to kill all of us.
“Miss Jade! Do you know the unicorn melding techniques for advanced spellcasting?” my mom asked.
Iris’s magic plucked me off my place on Goofball’s back as she stepped over beside my mother, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Never needed them, but I paid attention in class! Shall we, Miss Cuddles?”
Leaning close, my mother and the former Chief of Police rested their horns against one another. A white hot wave of magic nearly scorched the tips of my feathers, bursting out in all directions. The spell that’d been holding me in place on Goofball’s back dissipated and I found myself in midair.
Catching the wind, I darted after Goofball as a vast, transparent glowing wall burst into being between our forces and the oncoming horde as we closed on one another down the broad city street. It curved back towards us, hanging in midair like a moving pane of shining glass as tall as a three story building. Fortunately for my feathery butt, it was a good deal more solid than that; the second the Blackcoats were within range, their bullets lit up like a thousand points of flashing light and ricocheted in every direction, shattering windows and cracking the concrete as they bounced off the magical barrier.
Swooping in low, I landed heavily on Goofball’s back, scrambling back into place with my hooves in the holds. Raising my head a cautious few inches over the armored barricade, I almost missed the moment when our forces collided with one another.
----
I don’t know why I didn’t really think beforehand that there would be an actual battle with actual blood being spilled. We’d done all the preparation and every one of those guns was loaded. Our enemies weren’t equine enough to stop and talk through exactly what their goals were so we could find some kind of mutually beneficial compromise.
I killed a whole bunch of ponies or watched them die. Scarlet was lying back in the Vivarium with no legs. Grapeshot was dead, his body probably dropped in the countryside somewhere when the cloud I shot him on finally dissipated. How many more were there? More than I could remember.
Sitting down and thinking about it was the worst thing I could do, but Tourniquet made it easier. Sometimes, when I was having nightmares, she’d send me images of fields of grass, or stars, or the taste of ice cream. I’m sure I’d have gone insane without her, and all she wanted was to wrap herself around me and listen to the city breathe.
‘She’s my reason to survive.’
----
The monsters were in every imaginable shape; no two were perfectly similar though they all had the outline of a pony. Most were extra-limbed, big-fanged horrors which seemed out of their minds and driven only by some instinctual need to attack whatever was in front of them. A few were still ponies, though those appeared to be keeping back from the front lines. The creatures climbed over and under one another, misshapen wings lashing at the air. Some simply ran along the sides of building facades, digging powerful claws into the brickwork to throw themselves towards us.
Those creatures that had guns fired them, but the bullets weren’t making any headway against my mother and Chief Jade’s combined power.
Still, a despairing little voice whispered in my head, “What can fifteen little ponies and a dog who spends his days eating tires and licking his own butt do against such a force?”
Of course, four little ponies had managed to bring together an army to fight the big jerks who’d pushed the city into chaos for the sake of a dumb wish.
When they came, it was in a wash of violence, teeth bared and bodies ready to slaughter us like a bunch of cats in a pigeon coop.
They hit the shield like a thousand eggs being flung at a hypersonic wall.
Goofball charged headlong into the beasts, all three tongues lolling out and the bright pane of magic maintaining a constant distance ahead of us. Most didn’t have time to feel the impact; they burst into red splotches as their fellows piled in behind them. It was a swelling mass of gore being painted from one side of the road to the other, and yet we didn’t stop moving. I quickly glanced over at my mother and Miss Jade. The two of them were leaning into one another, quietly smiling like they were sharing some private joke.
A few of the creatures clawed their way around the edges of the shield, but were quickly cut down by the overwhelming weight of gunfire the Aroyos could focus on each target. The roar of a gatling gun and endless flashing lights of exchanged bullets lit the street. Torrents of blood flowed down the gutters like a steady river and still we advanced.
One especially clever beast had snuck inside an apartment window and flung itself out at Goofball and I as the shield passed. The thing had no less than twelve sets of eyes up and down its hissing face and an extra set of legs under its giant, gnashing jaws which reminded me a little bit of a lobster. I didn’t have time to signal to any of the Aroyos to get it. The Hailstorm didn’t give me the time.
My gun clicked once, then a rush of cold hit my cheek as the creature’s head burst in a frozen shower of crimson ice. The remains skidded under us before shattering into a thousand pieces on the opposite wall of the road. I hadn’t asked the Hailstorm to fire, but like so many things in my life, it was ready before I was.
One would think that having a horde of vicious, heavily modified creatures bearing down on us might slow our march a bit, but it didn’t even cause most of us to break a sweat. The stiff rain and sleet were quickly washing the sidewalks and buildings of the evidence of our passing, but they’d never get the larger chunks; I didn’t envy the street sweepers, if there were ever any street sweepers, again.
Street after street, we charged into the gaping maws of the malformed enemy, covering the road in viscera. There were brief breaks, but nopony could catch their breath. I guided Goofball as best I could, but he seemed to know where we were going, which just so happened to be where the enemy was coming from in greatest numbers.
I barely witnessed the moment when the first unlucky Aroyo was yanked out of the sky and torn in half by one of the creatures. Seconds later, another caught a stray bullet and went down in the street, collapsing in a gasping heap of pony too alive to be left behind. We left her behind. I didn’t look back to see if she managed to get to cover.
The Aroyos moved with a bloody precision, picking targets right out of my brain as they moved from one abomination that managed to cross the shield to the next, gunning them down, ripping them to shreds, and leaving the bodies to be run over by Goofball’s relentlessly pounding paws. Bullets grazed our armored mount from time to time with a spray of sparks, but none came anywhere close to penetrating the half-inch-thick armored plates.
I felt cold and wet, though from time to time I’d get a splash of warmth from somewhere. Strange as it might sound, I found myself starting to zone out. I wasn’t exactly bored. I don’t think it’d have been possible to be bored in those circumstances. More numb. I was becoming numb to it all. Our tactic was working, and dealing death could only be so mechanical before becoming disengaging.
Whenever I’d read about battle, I’d thought it would be exciting, and it was that, but it became more of a painful, hideous, violent routine than anything else. There were too many enemies for us to keep mental track of all the ones who died. I saw more than a few shatter as they felt, parts of them turned to ice.
The only punctuation was Scootaloo diving in from time to time, not really bothering with her armaments as she engaged beasts hoof-to-hoof in midair, her shimmering, mechanically augmented wings holding her aloft despite that she never seemed to flap them. Nothing that came under her attentions survived longer than a few seconds.
For miles, we tore through the things as they came.
A couple more Aroyos died, their bodies trampled along with our enemies.
It wasn’t until a voice broke into my thoughts that I realized I was shivering from head to hoof.
“Swift! Swift, are you okay?” Tourniquet squeaked in my thoughts as another monster got by the wall, only to catch an armored hoof in the head as Scootaloo swooped in to squash it flatter than a fly under a skyscraper-sized swatter.
“I’m okay,” I replied, then made the mistake of looking down. At first, I thought I’d been wounded. Then I realized I was drenched in blood and bits of gore. Goofball was drenched. My mother and Iris Jade, still pressed against each other, their horns blazing and turning every droplet of moisture that came anywhere near them to instant steam, were mostly dry, but even they hadn’t completely escaped the spray. “Oh Celestia, no I’m not! There’s so much blood and—”
“Swift, you have to listen! You’re three blocks from P.A.C.T. Headquarters! You need to slow down! Get ready to turn down Friesian Street! You have to tell your mom to curve the shield around you!”
I edged myself up into a standing position and almost threw up. My stomach was bound up in knots and the air smelled atrocious. For all he’d been running for upwards of thirty minutes, Goofball didn’t seem to be flagging much, even though he was showing the strain. His middle head was panting, while the other two were still snatching beasts that got near us out of the air and dashing them against the walls and storefronts of nearby buildings.
How’d we moved so quickly? The Aroyos swooping around my head felt like a dangerous horde of bats. Turning my head, I tried to shout, but my voice felt a thousand miles away.
Reaching out, I grabbed on to my mother’s shoulder and gave her a shake. I didn’t know if she’d felt it what with the rocking of our mount’s motion until she cracked an eye to look at me.
“Mom! Mom, you have to make sure the shield covers our sides! Bubble over top of us!”
She made the tiniest of nods, then shut her eyes again.
“Swift! Friesian Street is one block up!” Tourniquet shouted into my mind. “They’ll come from both directions! Front and back!”
The streetwide plate of magic thinned slightly, pulling in towards Goofball until it formed a concave scoop like an umbrella a meter overhead. The ground was no longer protected, and the Aroyos had to dip under it and match our speed rather than diving and dipping in open air; an exhausting exercise for any pegasus, much less a bunch that’d spent the last half hour in an aerial dogfight and constant strafing runs.
My mother’s face pulled into a bit of a grimace and Iris’s mouth drew down at the edges, but they kept their horns in contact and seemed to breathe as one.
Up ahead, a t-junction that must have been Friesian Street appeared. Monsters weren’t coming so thick or fast, and it took me a second to realize why: the rooftops ahead were lined with dark shadows. The Hailstorm painted a row of targets for me and my friends, but there were more than I could quickly count.
Reaching over the armored shield, I grabbed Goofball’s right head’s right ear and gently tugged on it. He let out a whine and glanced back at me. I pointed with one wing and he let out a slightly ragged yip before leaning into the turn.
I was nearly unseated again as we scrabbled around the corner on blood-slick paws. Goofball rebounded off a brick wall and bounded off down the road again. An Aroyo, not as fast as the others—or maybe wounded—smashed face-first into the inside of my mother’s shield and dropped straight onto the pavement. I didn’t have time to see him rise. In the shadowy street it was impossible to tell exactly what was above us.
The Aroyos had only a second to turn their guns in the direction of our attackers before there was the telltale crackle of released energy and, all of a sudden, the street lit up from end to end.
A sharp dazzling line of light was drawn across my eyes, leaving me momentarily blinded. I felt the air under my hooves and tried to spread my wings, but they only caught enough wind to keep me from being ripped off Goofball’s back as he staggered dangerously to one side. Looking up, I realized our shield was gone.
My mother and Iris Jade lay slumped against one another, their horns tipped with scorch marks. Three more Aroyos were absent, their thoughts missing from the circle of minds, while the rest seemed to be stunned and barely able to keep themselves in the air, winging along on pure inertia.
On the rooftops, the figures were preparing to fire again. Energy arced back and forth as the cannons synced with one another, readying to unleash their dragon-killing magics. They were going to leave my father a childless widow. They’d let my best friend languish alone in a darkened hole under the earth. They’d leave my partner to die, waiting for a signal that would never come.
For the first time since we’d left the Fortress Everfree, I found myself getting really, truly angry.
So many had died while I waited and fretted over right and wrong. I’d written the truth before we left that day. I’d sat down and put it on paper, huddled in my childhood room with a pencil in my mouth.
Tourniquet’s screaming voice dimmed as I reached out and felt the tendrils of power running beneath the streets of the city. I took them, as a seamstress might take up the strings of her loom. I wove with my anger, and the world began to take shape. The storm swelled and the rain beat down on my face, but it was little more than a distant distraction.
“I will do whatever it takes to save my family.”
Pavement cracked under Goofball’s hooves and the lightning cannons faltered as the buildings began to shake beneath them. Sidewalks split into ugly, rutted tracks and a fire hydrant nearby exploded, sending a spray of filthy water high in the air. A few of our ambushers started to take flight, but it was uncertain and uncoordinated; they were still trying to figure out what was going on.
“This is my city. These roads are its bars and the buildings are its cells.”
One of the Blackcoats tried to fire an improperly cycled lightning cannon, only to let out a few weak sputtering sparks that lit up his position.
I heard his racing heartbeat. I smelled his rank fear. I felt the little, pathetic magic that held his mind in its sway, wrapped around his brain like a leech that’d robbed him of agency.
Maybe he’d been a good pony, once.
Too bad.
“I am the Warden of Detrot, and you are all trapped in here with me.”
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Everyone will be happier for that, including you.
Detrot is certainly going to be different after all this. a veritable unique panolpy? of ponies. If anything, we see more steel being forged in this crucible.
Heres Pinkie.
9905510 You know, one of the worst things about writing Starlight has been the knowledge that I won't get to play in this universe once it's done writing. I promised myself I wouldn't write any more stories in this world, but what a weird world it's going to be.
-Chessie
9905585
Aww, that would be a shame to see how truly unique this place shall be after everything. So much a part of equestria and yet uniquely apart in what its created now of all things.
Oh you boys and girls are in trouble now...
You done pissed off Swift Cuddles.
Ya'll really bucked up now.
9905585
You do realize a promise made to yourself isn’t ironclad? You can do whatever you want. As long as you’re willing.
Truly one of the most unique Equestrias I’ve seen in a long while. It’d be a shame to leave it behind, especially considering I don’t think any others will take up the mantle.
'fell' instead of 'felt'?
Holy shit Swift about to go off
From the touching moments between Swift and her mom, the regrets and need for redemption from Iris, the sweet little moments between Tourniquet and her Warden, the hilarity of Goofball: Armored Doggo of Justice, and the brutality of the charge to P.A.C.T. against an unrelenting enemy, this chapter has it all!
Wonderful work as always Chessie!
(Though noticed a few spelling errors that seemed to slip under the editors radars here and there.)
One thing that caught me off guard was
When did this happen?! I don’t remember it!
...His...rear crotch?
"DAY-UMN" somehow feels very inadequate.
Wouldn't that make the cotton candy dissolve a little? Try spray paint instead.
Pfft. Like Swift would leave now.
That sounds a little too much like Project Horizons.
I hope it upsets more ponies than just Hardy!
Goodness, Iris Jade, maybe you don't need glasses! :twismile:
I think the Warden would agree here.
Swift should remember this for her next Nightmare Night costume.
I feel like this is the appropriate time to nuke the site from orbit.
My raction upon starting this chapter.
SWIFTY!
Awesome chapter, it was good seeing Iris Jade trying to be better. It was kind of cute seeing her and quickie bonding over a shield wall of death and destruction.
Also, who'd have guessed that the show would finish before this fic, eh?
Absolutely incredible! Swift's lines at the end gave me chills, and it's nice that we get a glimpse into the hivemind of the Marked
Oh, the building climax is soooo good. I waited and built up a buffer so I could enjoy it in close succession... but I underestimated! I just can’t wait for the next chapter. I’m really going to miss this story when it is done. I can always feel the intangible threads of its world being played around me when I read a chapter.
9905585
You should write some saleable books.
https://www.amazon.com/Company-Town-Edward-Pink-ebook/dp/B01HM6WD22 is a book from a fimfic writer and it's very good.
9949233
That comment of is over a month old, I've caught up since then. But thanks for the encouragement, regardless.
9954953
Ignoring the fact that its almost impossible to drown in your own blood, and punctured lungs are almost never lethal, you still said in the story that he died in a few painless minutes, not hours.
The way you described it in the story was something akin to suffocation.
9955980
I think you replied to the wrong post.
9956148
Oops, haha sorry
I don't like the implication here.
The first person and pace of the first few paragraphs really reminded me of Hardy's usual thoughts. Especially the word choice and language. He's clearly been rubbing off on her.
I don't recall if there was one, but in a city full of such singular place names like "The office" and "The castle", I find it odd that the HQ of what's closest to the city's military doesn't have a similarily obvious building name. I nominate the Thunderdome. Because that's what it will be real soon.
With this revelation that Swift can quite literally rearrange the city, I'm wonderin how things will turn out once the significance of it all sets in. Swift in a way *is* the city now. Others have brought up the question of dealing with a literal hive mind, and in a way, I'm reminded of how fascist dictatorships turn out. Tourniquet may live forever, but Swift likely won't as the warden. We all know Swift will do (generally) good things as much as she can, but there's clearly a cult of personality to the warden. What happens when someone not so nice gets into that position? Well they'd have to get through Tourniquet first, I guess.
Not saying anything about Tourniquet/Swift as a pairing, but even if their dynamic was more of a found family or best friends or an extension of the self, language like that is just fuel for the shipping fire.
...same words Hardy uses actually. For Juniper, for Scarlet, for Taxi and Swift and Limerence and more.
Clearly, this is on purpose.
I've cracked the code. HardyxEveryone for finale ship reveal
9906007
Three heads means three heads.
First nice Watchmen reference. Second welcome to full scale engagement war battles swift.
Instead of "kite" I read 'kitten', twice
Its an adorable image
Awe, look shes still squeamish