Act 3 Chapter 68 : Leadership Crisis
"The worst thing about being a Princess? Truly, I have enjoyed my time as leader, but it is not a simple nor stress free undertaking to keep the wheels of Equestria turning. If I had to lay my hoof on a single point of tension that no amount of planning or preparation can relieve it is that the two of us are always the first target of any would-be revolutionary or hair-brained power-hungry fool who believes the country is better run at the point of a sword.
We are the first people to take the blame for anything that goes wrong in Equestria. Despite a thousand years of relatively peaceful rule, I am not a mind reader, nor am I prescient. There have been times of conflict and strife, but we always rebuild.
For the first fifty years I was in office, I fully expected to wake up one day to find my head on a spear. That tended to happen to poor, corrupt, or inexperienced leadership back in those days. Even today, there are moments I feel like an imposter. When that happens, I look back on all the peoples of Equestria accomplished under my stewardship. It does not entirely cure the sensation, but it is a comfort to know they now have fewer reasons to wish me dead."
-Princess Celestia, Interview With Royale Fashion Weekly
----
There was no time ‘before’.
‘Before’ was a concept for creatures without purpose.
Their purpose was etched into the flesh of their brains with dark magics.
Obey.
In their short existences, they’d never faced anything they could not overcome with obedience. Of course, if they had, they wouldn’t remember it. Memory was for creatures without purpose.
They’d fought, certainly. Most fought each other in their quiet moments, though without grudges or any drive towards vengeance. It was simply a means of honing skills they’d been ordered to hone; any who died were unworthy of their purpose. Some remembered brief snippets of time when they were not fighting or obeying, but those were irrelevant and tended to lead to getting eaten in a distracted moment, so recall wasn’t encouraged.
While they had no past, they did have a future.
After all, they’d been shown the future. It was a time they would become perfect.
Every dead body would be deliciously devoured and every order successfully carried out. Prior to that time, they would fight. A great many of the weak had banded together, intent on defying purpose.
They would pay for that, for nothing could defy purpose for long.
----
The orders were simple.
Ambush the enemy’s primary strike force when it pushed down a particular street. The enemy had attacked without subtlety or care, barreling through the city beneath the raging storm. The masters knew they were coming; hence the orders.
The orders were simple:
Kill everyone who comes with the attacking force. Desecrate their bodies. Eat the survivors. Hang the heads from something visible from the prison known as Supermax.
It’d all been going to plan, though they were getting reports over the limited radio that remained of additional attacks on outposts near the city outskirts. Since those did not fall within the purview of their obedience to orders, the reports were put quietly out of their minds.
When the enemy force appeared at the end of the windswept road, all they felt was elation. A few of their lower brethren were in the air, diving and clawing at the giant magical shield the fools kept in front of them. Every one of the enemy were soaked from head to hoof in blood, but that was nothing worth a deep consideration.
Their lightning cannons were prepped and the mechanisms synced to one another, so they could unleash a single killing bolt that would slaughter the enemy en-masse. It was time to obey.
The enemy was a strange enough mix to give them a moment’s pause. There was a pony who looked like she was partially made of metal, swooping around, killing at her leisure with a grim smile on her face. She was followed by a massive dog with three heads covered in enough layers of armor that nothing short of an anti-tank round was likely to pierce him. Fortunate, then, that enough synced lightning cannons cared little for such protection.
Together, they waited for the enemy to enter their killing ground.
When the moment came, they stood as one and locked onto their targets. Each of the giant sets of capacitors strapped to their backs began to hum. Lightning crackled in their capacitorsboiled in their mechanisms, ready to be unleashed.
Wind and water ripped at them, but they would not yield.
As one, they turned toward their leader, their alpha, head of the pack. He would be the focus. He did not bother to look back at them; they had their orders and they knew their tasks well. Bending toward, he centered the reticle over his right eye on the dog just as the magical shield separating them from their targets began to reform into a bowl shape over their heads.
No matter; no ordinary unicorn could survive a blast from a lightning cannon. It would take fifty hornheads to survive the combined powers of so many. If nothing else, the survivors would be too injured to fight back.
“For the Colonel! Obey!” shouted the leader.
Engaging their triggers, they breathed as one as a dozen bolts of lightning leapt from cannon to cannon, before reaching their leader and lashing out across the street. A sonic explosion shattered every window, filling the air with a typhoon of glass that was sucked after the passing energy discharge. There was no need to warn their remaining brethren in the street. They had obeyed and their deaths were in service to the purpose.
The shield collapsed.
The leader took a moment to assess the damage.
‘Strange,’ he thought, with what was left of his mind, ‘There are plenty of corpses...but the dog still stands. The shield is gone, but the enemy is not on the ground, ready to be eaten. Did we fail to obey? No...no, we obeyed. A simple issue of underestimating their forces. They are injured and disoriented. That is as it should be.’
“Prepare to fire again!” he barked, pulling a strap on his chest to activate the lightning cannon’s charge function. The weapon began to cycle as his squad stepped back and collectively began beating their wings, pushing voltage and magic into their capacitors.
When the building rocked under their hooves, it gave them no pause. So far, obedience was working quite well, despite a momentary setback. The enemy were scattering towards the buildings, trying to get some cover. Their giant dog was staggering about as though concussed, and most of the remaining fliers were still recovering.
“Obedience will prevail,” the leader added, as an afterthought. The phrase swelled his charges with pride. They knew their role in the great purpose was small, but it was essential.
The apartment complex they’d chosen for their ambush suddenly let out a disturbing rattle, and cracks shot across the roof from end to end, nearly knocking two of them onto their backsides. Both looked nervously in the direction of the alpha, but he simply motioned them back to their hooves. They were still obeying. Nothing could go wrong.
For reasons he’d never have been able to properly explain, the leader’s eyes were drawn to the scene of carnage below. There was no reason for him to be looking there; he hadn’t been ordered to. He’d only been ordered to kill them all. Still, as he glanced downward he noticed one tiny pegasus who seemed to have escaped the bloodshed relatively unscathed.
She was standing there in the street, looking up at him with an expression that was hard to read, not that he’d read the expressions of anypony in some time. Ponies were, by and large, irrelevant. They were a ‘before’ thing, and he had no ‘before’ to speak of.
Still, something about her pulled his attention. Perhaps it was her giant wings, spread like a cloak, casting what seemed to be much more shadow than they should. More likely, it was the odd white glow radiating from her eyes. ‘Before’ he might have considered that worthy of concern.
His lightning cannon let out a short beep that signaled its readiness.
One of the over-eager recruits down the line triggered his early, and it let out a disappointing crackle and discharged into the brickwork, leaving a sharp black spot on the wall beside him. He shot the leader a frightened look and he narrowed his eyes at the unfortunate pony. The trooper gulped and nodded before stepping back from the line; his death would be a humiliating one. One without purpose.
Turning back to the tiny pegasus in the street, the leader centered his targeting reticle on her face. It would be good to burn the flesh off of it. Her wings would make a fine trophy as well.
Something gently touched his right rear hoof. It was an insubstantial touch, barely more than a light caress. In the pounding rain, he wouldn’t have noticed it but that it brought back an odd spike of fear from some buried part of his remaining psyche: an image of a coiled snake sitting in dead grass flashed through his mind along with old pain.
Sparing a moment’s attention, the alpha looked down to see a thin black cable wrapped around his knee. Giving his leg a firm tug, he frowned as the cable refused to yield. It was a tiny thing, but one end was spitting sparks and the other appeared to be leading down into one of the cracks in the rooftop. Several of his compatriots were similarly entangled, their rear limbs tied in place, though to his pride none of them were granting it any more interest than they would a fly landing on their flank.
Farther down, there was a yelp as the stallion who’d misfired his cannon was suddenly yanked into the air, cut short as a thicker cable lashed out from the rooftop and wound itself tightly around his throat. Just as quickly, He was yanked down onto one of the cracks. The cable strained and his whine of fear got louder and louder until, with a snap, he folded in half like a piece of paper, blood spraying across the alpha’s face as he disappeared.
The alpha stared, dumbfounded, at the place his subordinate had just vanished.
Another of his brethren had only the time to squeak before his head whipped off into the darkness, rolling end over end through the air before careening into the adjoining alleyway.
Then, death was among them. Electrical wires sprang from every surface. Some wrapped themselves around the ponies’ necks or tore into their bodies, while others latched onto their muscles, sending the mutants spasming onto their sides as hundreds of volts coursed through their organs. Two or three managed a couple of wingbeats off the ground, but no more; the entangling cords snagged them like cats catching escaping canaries. Smoke billowed from one’s eyes while another was seemingly drawn and quartered in midair, his limbless torso flung into the void still screaming.
“B-but...but obedience is—” the leader protested, trying to pull himself free of the briar patch of wiring holding him in place. His words were cut short as a single cable lifted in front of his face, dancing back and forth like a snake. He studied it, curiously, as it wandered across his limited vision.
‘Did we fail to obey? the leader thought.
----
The tall stallion’s body dropped over the side of the building, coming up short as the noose around his throat stopped him a few inches from the ground.
The Warden of Detrot felt the city pulsating within her, awaiting my orders. Wherever the electricity flowed, so too did her will. So many more deserved to die. There were many more criminals to punish. Several streets over, the Marked were under attack by dozens of creatures. Most were already dead, but a few had survived and taken refuge in a nearby warehouse. The creatures were hunting them, following the trail of blood they’d left in the street.
Reaching out, she grabbed hold of the entire block and pulled.
The creatures didn’t have much warning before the ground beneath them erupted and a massive cable as big around as a pony split from its moorings, yanking ten of them into the earth before they could so much as blink. One of their number, larger more resilient than the rest, had time to let out a canine bark, but he was gone, his body compressed beneath the earth before the answer came from another street over.
She turned to the next street, only to find a small patrol of the mutants moving building to building, looking for survivors. No sense pulling up more than she needed to; a high amperage wire creeping out to lightly touch the puddle they were all walking through was more than enough to stop their hearts.
Across the city, she witnessed more ongoing little battles. Dozens. Hundreds.
There were too many for a single pony, but where she could, she killed.
Monsters piled out of a train station onto a surprised group of ponies. They were yanked back inside and torn into pieces until they stopped screaming. When she was done, blood painted the subway from end to end.
A group of fighters pinned in a collapsed diner, their ammunition running low and a horde of creatures pouring out of the opposing building, suddenly found themselves sitting in silence. After several minutes, they cautiously stepped out of cover to find a disturbing sculpture in the middle of the street composed of several tens of twitching corpses, their mouths forced full of live electrical wires. None dared cheer.
In the back of a looted convenience store, a mother and child huddled as a giant black creature bashed its head against the door of their hiding place in the mare’s lavatory. The filly wailed as her mother held her to her chest, but couldn’t bring herself to quiet her. When the monster let out a strangled cry, she took it for one of victory and braced to feel the demon’s teeth. They never came.
In pockets where violence reigned, the city itself turned against the unnatural beasts, shredding, choking, and burying them. What’d been a fairly orderly defense descended into chaos in only a few minutes. Still, there were more battles than could be attended to and there was that nagging voice, crying out in the back of her mind. It was straining against her control of the city. It would have to be dealt with.
She carefully disengaged herself and turned her attention to the voice. In doing so, she finally heard what it was saying.
“Swift! Swift, I can’t see! It’s so dark! Swift, I lost everything! I can’t see the city! Are you alive? Are you okay? I can’t see anything! I’m so scared! Please, don’t leave me alone!”
----
I was lying on my back when I came to with somepony gently shaking me. The rain seemed to have abated a little bit, leaving only a cold drizzle and a few snowflakes. My wings ached and the air was making my lungs hurt. Something sticky coated my face, too, gumming my eyelids shut. My eyes hurt terribly, but compared to the soreness in every other part of my body, it was tolerable.
I carefully rolled onto my side and winced as I landed against a warm shape. It was damp, but there was a heartbeat and the sound of soft breathing.
“S-Swift? Are you hearing me?” my mother’s cracking voice reached me through what seemed a great distance.
Pawing at the air, I tried to talk, but my mouth was full of something familiar, albeit kinda gross: a lot of curdling blood. I spat a couple of times before finding my words.
“I think I’m okay. What happened? I’ve got something in my eyes.”
“There’s blood all over your face, b-but I can’t see where it’s coming from,” Mom muttered, then took my knee in hers, tugging me to one side. There was a faint crackle and a gentle warmth brushed at my face, before fading. “My magic is pretty empty. I don’t think I can do more than basic telekinesis for a few hours. Honey, what happened? What was all that? I woke up and you were standing there and your eyes were glowing and the monsters were—”
“I...I don’t know. I feel kind of woozy,” I replied, putting a hoof on her chest as I edged into a sitting position. The pavement was slick with things I didn’t really want to think about. “W-where’s Goofball?”
There was a thump off to my left and a wide, wet tongue wiped its way up my side from flanks to ears. I couldn’t help a tiny giggle as I pushed one of the big idiot’s heads away. He bumped me with the end of his nose.
“I’m alright, boy. What about Miss Jade?”
Mom took a deep breath and held my hoof a little tighter “She’s unconscious, but I think she’ll live,” she replied. “Her horn...her horn is a mess. Iris almost shoved me out of the spell before the lightning cannon hit. She took most of blast, herself. I only caught the edge of it.”
Clunking hoofsteps approached, each with a faint mechanical whirr.
“Well, my wing augmentations are toasted,” Scootaloo’s voice said from nearby. “No more flying for me, today. Leastways I can walk, until my batteries die. As Apple Bloom would say, ‘What in tarnation was that?’, little filly? I’d swear I saw the ground open up and swallow the bastards. Mercy, that sewer grate wasn’t overflowing a minute ago. Pretty sure that’s all blood, too.”
“I’m...I’m not sure,” I muttered, wiping at my face with the back of my fetlock. “Does anypony have a paper towel or something? I’m a mess and I can’t see.”
“I and I be carryin’ wet napkins for de foals, if ye can use dem, Warden,” Wisteria chimed in, fluttering to the ground in front of me. “Dey alcohol, but—”
“It’s fine. Mom, do you mind helping me? I’m...I’m glad you’re all okay.”
“Aye, minus Miss Jade dere. She be not castin’ magic again, thinks I and I. De medics, dey be among de dead and her horn be...eh...splintered. Would not like to be doin’ dat puzzle.”
“H-how many did we lose?” I asked. A wet cloth draped over a hoof pressed against my face and started working in little circles up my muzzle. It stung a little, but didn’t feel like there were any open cuts.
“If you mean ‘dead’, then it looks like seven. Why? I thought you were in some sort of telepathic contact with everyone?” Scootaloo asked.
I started to shake my head, only for a hoof to grab my chin.
“Don’t move or this is going to get in your eyes,” Mom growled, maybe a little more harshly than necessary, but I couldn’t blame her for worrying.
Wisteria’s voice broke in again, “De Lady of Shadows be not speakin’ to me.”
“Aye, but me, either,” added a mare who sounded like she was several meters away. “I and I be not hearin’ de others. I feels de magic inside, but...it be quiet.”
There were a couple more noises of agreement from the remaining Aroyos. Finally, mom got to my eyelids. I held my breath as she cleaned them. It felt very strange when she did, like there was something harder than an eyeball underneath. I had a momentary worry that I might have caught a piece of shrapnel, but didn’t think anything hurt bad enough for that.
“Oh Celestia. Swift...I need you to open your eyes,” Mom whispered.
“I-Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Swift, open...your...eyes!” she snapped.
I slowly cracked an eyelid on a very strange world. It wasn’t so terribly different but that everything seemed to be glowing. I could see my mother’s face, and beneath it, a webwork of flickering lights. It was like she’d worn a thousand tiny gemstones just beneath her skin, each flashing in time with one another at a speed that made it almost impossible to track.
Scootaloo was there a second later, her giant body unmistakable as she pushed her face in front of mine. Her legs were like immense columns of energy with fireflies rushing up and down inside them. Studying my face for a moment, she drew back with a disturbed expression.
“Whooo, filly...”
“What? What is it? Everything looks funny.”
“Y-you can see like that?!” Mom exclaimed, grabbing my face in both hooves and squishing my cheeks together.
“L-like...like what?” I squeaked, wiggling out of her grasp and taking a few steps away as panic started to well inside me.
Wisteria shifted her weight from one hoof to the next, glancing back at the few Aroyos still with us before slowly lowering herself into a bow.
I looked back and forth at all of them, then back to my mother. “Oh Celestia, what are they doing?! What’s wrong with my eyes?”
Scootaloo gently pushed my mother to one side, her massive but implaccable weight making it easy. Lowering herself to my height, servos and pistons protesting as she settled down on her stomach in the filthy road, she nosed in closer to me. I tried to move away, but she quickly stamped a toe hard enough to crack the street.
“Hold still, girl.”
I froze in place, my eyes following the dancing lights in hers. After a second, I realized a few of the glowing shapes under her skin were too regular to be organs; they were more like tiny mechanisms built right into her head.
“Girl, I looked into you. You were hit by some kind of transformation magic that did a number on your teeth, right? Same nastiness that transformed those creatures?” she asked, carefully, waving a leg toward the ruined, body-strewn street.
“Y-yeah?”
Scootaloo’s wrinkled face inched a little more into my personal bubble until we were almost nose to nose.
“Since you weren’t out there chewing our throats, I’m assuming you got somepony to fix that magic before it turned you into one of the poor devils we just finished killing. Now...be real clear, honey. Did you remove that magic, or did you have somepony suppress it?”
“My friend...Tourniquet. She said she couldn’t...remove it so she drained it constantly,” I replied, softly.
“The metal pony. Right. And...that little act you pulled a minute ago with the electrical wires?”
“I...I don’t know. I... did something similar once before when Hardy got hurt and I got angry, but I don’t remember—”
“Swift!”
Tourniquet’s voice broke into my mind so loudly it almost knocked me right on my flank. I clamped my ears against the sides of my head, but it didn’t stop the angry ringing that made my eyes throb in their sockets. I put my hooves over my face and drew in as much of a breath as my shaky lungs would let me. It was a terrible mistake; the whole road smelled like dead bodies, fire, and ozone.
“I’m h-here, T,” I answered, carefully, trying to keep my mental voice from cracking.
“Are...are you okay?”
“I...I think so. Something is going on. Everypony here says—”
“I lost everyone! I can still feel them, but I can’t talk to anypony except you! My energy reserves are gone! I’m small again!”
“Wait, what?!”
“T-there are...oh wow...Yeesh. Did...did you...”
She fell silent, and I felt her presence fade for a few seconds before she popped back.
“Swift, the fighting was going really badly for a minute there. Did...did you destroy all those monsters? I felt you...take...take control of me. Like before, when you were in the hospital room after Hardy got shot and burned. I felt it, then everything went dark.”
“I don ‘t know, T. Something is wrong with my eyes. I...I can see stuff. Everypony looks like they’re full of lights.”
She was quiet again, and when her voice returned it was much softer.
“Like they’re all pony-shaped Hearth’s Warming Eve trees?”
“A little bit...”
“Swift, get a mirror.”
“I’m trying, but everypony is freaking out!”
“Just try. Oh brother, this is a mess. I’ll...I’ll try to start getting things back together from this side. Communication between the Marked is totally sideways and ponies are really frightened, but I think we’ve got some breathing room...yeep!”
“What?! What is it?!”
“Can’t talk! Outskirts! Dragons! Back in a bit!”
I blinked and found everypony gathered around me and my mother’s hooves on my cheeks again.
“Mom? I’m...I’m okay, I was just talking to Tourniquet. Can I please have a mirror?”
Setting her hooves down, she shook her head. “I lost mine in the fighting. I had it in my mane, but—” She gestured to the blood-slicked mess atop her head.
A tiny panel on one of Scootaloo’s legs retracted with a spurt of steam. A short mechanical arm popped out with a hand mirror attached to the end. It had what looked like a pony’s cutie-mark emblazoned on the back: a trio of smiling sunflowers. She flipped it around and raised it toward me.
“Here. Little gift from my elementary school teacher. I’ll want that back.”
Carefully taking the mirror, I angled it so I could see myself and very nearly dropped it when my face appeared. Scrambling it back into position, I raised a hoof into my view and gently waved it back and forth. Lowering it toward my eye, I felt a soft ‘clink’ as my hooftip met crystal.
Pink crystal.
My eyeballs were gone, replaced by many-faceted, glittering crystals. A tiny dot of dancing light inside seemed to be where my pupil was. I winked one eye, and my eyelid shut cleanly, but it looked strangely textured, as though it wasn’t entirely round.
“M-my eyes...look like Tourniquet’s?!” I asked nobody in particular.
“I’d bet it’s that transformation magic,” Scootaloo said, snatching the mirror out of my hooves and sliding it back into her leg.
“The P.A.C.T.’s magic? The arcane conservancy they stuck in her head?” my mom asked, worriedly bunching her ruined, bloody apron in her hooves.
“You said it was suppressed by your little friend? Transformation magics don’t play well with other kinds of enchantments. Can’t say for certain, but it sure as the moon looked like you just filled yourself with the construct’s magic. I don’t imagine you thought to maintain the suppression on the spell conservancy when you snatched your friend’s arcane energies?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t think. I just did it. Ugh, my brain is full of wasps. What exactly did I do?”
Wisteria tossed a lump of something dark and lumpen at my hooves. “Ye be savin’ de Aroyos. Dis be all dat left of some of dem dat was killin’ us.” I squeaked and danced backwards as I realized it was a charred skull sitting in front of me.
“It looked like the wires under the road started reaching up, snatching the blackcoats, and dragging them down into the ground,” my mother added, shuddering as she looked down at the burned head.
“Oh. But...so, what? T-that happens and my eyeballs just spontaneously transform into glass?!”
Scootaloo shrugged and her right knee let out a grinding hiss. “With the number of variations that mutation spell keeps spitting out, you’ve got to imagine it’s affected by ambient magic. You just fueled it with a whole heaping helping of ‘not-so-ambient’ magic. You’re lucky your brain didn’t blow like a boiled egg in a lava flow.”
Taking a deep breath, I tilted my head back and screamed as loud as I could. It was probably a bad idea, considering we were in the middle of a battlefield and there’d been entirely too many things trying to kill us up until just a few minutes ago, but it felt really good. When my lungs finally started to run out of air, I held up my hoof to forestall any questions, took a deep breath, and let out another one that lasted even longer and echoed up and down the street.
As the final strain faded, I opened my eyes to find the whole group standing there staring at me uncertainly, shuffling their hooves and waiting for somepony else to make the first move.
I pulled myself up, dusted at my hopelessly filthy vest, and turned to where Goofball was sitting on the curb, eating a trashcan.
“Goofy! Drop it!” I snarled.
Scootaloo let out a little surprised sound as Goofball lifted his heads and the remains of the garbage bin slowly fell out of a mouth. I tapped the pavement, and he coughed, spitting up a bowling ball before trotting over to sit on his haunches in front of me. Grabbing his shoulder, I swung myself in behind his heads, planting my hooves.
“Everypony, get ready to move out,” I barked as the Hailstorm spooled up and eager frost dripped from its barrels. “We’re not done, today. The P.A.C.T. building is a couple streets down, and we’ve got a clear road ahead. The...their defences don’t look like anypony is at them. I didn’t see anypony there.”
Thunder rumbled dangerously in the blackened heavens, suggesting there was more storm to come. Soft pops and snaps of gunfire as well as the baying of wild animals trickled in, but it was hard to hear anything much as the rain started to pick up again, washing the last of the blood off my face. I stared up at the shadow just above the skyline where I knew the P.A.C.T. tower to be. Nearby, the weather factories—whether manned by mind-controlled ponies or on some kind of automation—continued mindlessly pumping clouds into the already oversaturated skies.
“Filly—” Scootaloo started, but I shook my head.
“Don’t ask how I know. Just...just listen to me. We spent however long fighting our way through the creations of that spell and I just lost my eyes to it. I’m not crawling back to the Fortress Everfree with nothing.”
The elderly mare squinted up at me. “But...the job’s done. We distracted them—”
“Broadside is still there. He’s still in control,” I growled, then pointed toward where Iris Jade lay on the sidewalk. She was still unconscious and I felt a little bad for not taking a moment to check on her, but if Hardy had taught me one thing it’s that feeling bad won’t keep anypony alive. “You can’t fly with us, right? I need you to take Miss Jade and get her somewhere safe.”
“I can run damned fast,” she replied, glancing back at the warped metal frames around her wings. “My batteries will last me another hour or so.”
“I don’t have time to argue!” I snapped, pointing back the way we’d come. “Get her out of here. You have to make sure she gets medical treatment.”
“Swift, I can’t cast the shield by myself. I can’t even raise one,” my mom interjected, rubbing the base of her horn.
Thinking for a moment, I reached up and pulled Masamane off my foreleg, unclasping the trigger and tossing it down. Mom reflexively caught it with her horn, wincing as her telekinetic field flickered. After a moment her magic steadied and she raised the pistol, popping out the magazine to check it before slapping it back in place. Her lip quivered as she looked up at me again.
“This...this is crazy, Swift. Are we really still going to try to take on a whole building with just...just this?” she asked, waving a leg toward the remaining Aroyos. “S-shouldn’t we get you some medical attention for your eyes? Maybe your father can do—”
“I can still see, even if I look a little weird...weirder...and these are the only ponies we need. We’re going to try. What are our weapons looking like?”
“We be low on de ammo,” Wisteria said, tugging her own double shotguns off and shaking her head before dropping them in the gutter. Raising her Moon Gun, she checked it, then nodded. “Charge on dis be good, though.”
“I don’t think there’s anything left between here and there. Those ponies with the lightning cannons were the last defense. We just have to get inside the headquarters.”
Turning to her remaining charges, Wisteria called back, “Aroyos...We rides for Diamond Eyes...Warden of Everfree!”
‘Diamond Eyes,’ my mother mouthed, as though the word tasted sour.
Spreading her wings, Wisteria took the the air, hovering above Goofball. The other Aroyos didn’t have to be told twice. They raised their voices to join hers, lifting off the ground as one. They might not have had Tourniquet to coordinate their movements, but they were still a unit.
“You best bring me my Aroyos back, young’un,” Scootaloo grumbled as she clomped over and shoved her head underneath Iris Jade, deftly rolling the unconscious mare up onto her shoulders. “I don’t care for leaving a fight when there’s still faces that need demolishing.”
“I will! Just make sure Miss Jade is safe, then go help Taxi! If we’re not back in an hour, don’t come looking!”
“What do I tell Hard Boiled?” she asked.
I hesitated for a moment, then grinned in a way that made her draw back like she’d discovered a poisonous snake in her sock drawer.
“Tell him he owes me a pidgeon and a pint!”
----
Crazy.
I’m crazy.
That’s the only explanation I could come up with at the time. I’d finally lost it and gone absolutely whacky noddles. I didn’t feel scared or nervous. I didn’t feel much of anything besides a sharp determination to keep going until the mission was finished.
As my mother and I rode Goofball towards destiny, I tried to go back in my mind and search out how I’d reached that place. The steps were clear, but each one was a leap up a mountain. Shouldn’t it have all been impossible?
I could still feel the childish joy at getting my cutie-mark and the kick of Masamane as it took Lieutenant Grapeshot’s life. There was my mother’s approval when I finished my first short story and had it published in the school newspaper alongside the first taste of meat that’d started my transformations.
I felt Hard Boiled’s life draining away as I clutched his wounded body, then the terror at seeing him standing beside me, followed by an overpowering relief as I realized he wasn’t just an illusion of my broken psyche. I remembered Tourniquet’s first burning touch, then the glory of our ever-growing connection. I could smell the burning flesh as my dead partner was dragged in without his skin, then a few hours later I watched him sit up in bed and smile at me.
Freshest of all, there were the animal shrieks of the hundreds of monsters I’d struck down using a magic that shouldn’t have existed in our world. Tourniquet wasn’t meant to be a weapon, but I’d used her as one. Worst of all, maybe, was the knowledge that it was probably the right thing to do.
I was left with lots of questions and few answers.
What awful world were we in where that could be right?
Any reasonable pony would have lost their mind somewhere along the way, but what do you do if you lose it and have to carry on, regardless?
Is crazy just another step?
----
We’d entered the industrial part of the city and stores had given way to warehouses, factories, and working class apartments. No bodies lay in the streets and most of the buildings were unlooted, but there was still a strange sense of foreboding. It was too clean, particularly for a city under siege. Aside from a few broken down cars and abandoned carts, there was little sign of the Darkening other than the persistent red glow from overhead, which was muted by the heavy cloud cover.
As we rode, the wind beat against my wide-open eyes and I only had to reach up from time to time and give them a light wipe with the tip of one toe if frost built up on my eyelashes.
I’d quickly realized I didn’t need to blink anymore, which was a weird change. I’d always had a bit of trouble finding flight goggles in my size and wearing children’s was a bit embarrassing; they always had stupid, kiddy designs on them. My brain still kept signaling to my eyes that I needed to shut them, but not doing it never seemed to affect what I could see.
The passing city should have been beautiful. Everything had lights inside of it; every wall coursed with inner luminance and my friends blinked and shimmered like stars, their veins and organs glittering against the duller backdrop of the sky. It made me want to climb up high and look at as much of the town as I could, but there was no time.
The storm’s power was growing the closer we got to the weather factories. Goofball was heavy enough to keep his paws under him without difficulty, but the Aroyos were having trouble. Most had taken to the ground and were running alongside him, keeping up as best they could.
One final turn and P.A.C.T. Headquarters was there ahead, a giant with its head in the raging clouds and its heavy, squat body below.
----
Perimeter Aegis Control Taskforce Central Station.
They’d called it a waste of taxpayer dollars until a hydra, for reasons unknown, decided to wander into the city and mate with the City Council building.
In elementary school I’d written a seventeen page paper on the building and its history for extra credit. I spent nights memorizing maps of the interior and tracing my way through the halls of the heroes who kept our city safe from monsters. The day I was accepted into the P.A.C.T. Academy was the proudest of my life.
When I saved a reporter from a cockatrice with only my bare hooves, my drill sergeant actually smiled for half a second before making me run fifty laps around the building to keep me from getting cocky. I thought sure I’d be joining those heroes one day.
When I washed out after trying to fire a lightning cannon and burying myself in a drink machine it was, up to then, the worst day of my life.
Ponies treating me like I was a foal was something I’d gotten used to. I know I’m short. It just drove me to prove myself all that much harder. I wanted to be the pony Scarlet told me I could be. I wanted to join the P.A.C.T. and stand against the darkness and evil in the world.
How wrong can one little mare’s life go?
----
I’d heard the P.A.C.T. headquarters compared to a snail shell with apartment living on top, which wasn’t wholly inaccurate; the bottom floors comprised a heavily reinforced combat training facility while the upper floors were all barracks and classrooms for the recruits still in the academy as well as any troopers who didn’t have places to stay.
There was no wall, only a privacy fence with a guard shack at each of the four cardinal directions around the building. The upper floors were starkly painted black concrete with rows of narrow arrow-slit windows just large enough for a pony to peer out or fire a gun from. Below, the chunky base of the building was as utilitarian as it could be with sandbags piled around the base and across the rooftop as well as anti-air gun fixtures every fifteen meters, jabbing their stubby barrels toward the sky.
The original plan was to bash our way in with Mom and Jade’s shield, followed by Moon Guns. As it turned out, that was unnecessary. In the brief moment when I’d become the city, I’d seen the headquarters of the P.A.C.T. standing like a dark and empty sentinel against the furious storm.
Goofball stopped as we came out of the rows of buildings on the side nearest the entrance, panting like a freight engine. Dropping onto his belly, he sat there with his heads on his paws, gently rocking underneath us as rain pounded my mother and me. I slid off his back onto the pavement and looked up at the cloud-shrouded fortress, its windows black and its emplacements unmanned.
Wisteria trotted over to my side and shouted to be heard above the furiously blowing winds that whipped her wet mane against her neck, “Dis be feelin’ like a trap to you?”
“A trap, or they just threw an entire army at us and they expected us all to be dead already,” my mom answered, shaking her head as she leaped down beside me.
Raising my head, I looked up at the cloud as the Hailstorm’s reticle appeared over my new eyes. It was comforting, somehow, to know that still worked.
Far above, in the misty heights of the tower, a single red target appeared.
“Broadside is up there,” I said, pointing toward the roof. “There’s nopony else inside.”
“How do you—” Mom started to ask, but I turned to look at her and her muzzle clicked shut so fast she almost bit her own tongue. After a second, her ears pinned to the sides of her head. “Swift, y-you look a little like Hard Boiled right now.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“That wasn’t a compliment, honey.”
I rolled my eyes, which was a very strange sensation as the tiny peaks twitching under my eyelids.
A sound like a hundred angry train whistles split the air before a giant, amorphous shape rushed past overhead, coming and going so quickly nopony even had time to draw their weapons. We all stared after it as it winged away, flailing at the air in what my adrenaline-soaked nerves told me looked like distress. Turning to my remaining companions, I pointed at the sky.
“Whatever that was is not our problem, okay everypony?”
“I and I be sayin’ dat a lizard long as de city block. Dat be not our problem?” Wisteria asked, skeptically.
“Our problem is right in front of us,” I replied, pointing at the P.A.C.T. headquarters. “That’s our dragon. This mission isn’t done.”
I glanced at Goofball, whose left head was watching me expectantly while the other two lay there breathing heavily. Trotting over, I laid a hoof on his dribbly jowl, giving him a light pat. He gave my hoof a light lick, watching me expectantly.
“Goofy, you’ve got to head home, okay? We can’t take you inside with us.”
His brows knit together, and he pulled his tongue in as his other heads turned to look at me.
“I mean it!” I stomped a hoof at him, and he let out a soft whine. Shaking my head, I flicked my tail towards Supermax. “I’ll come back, though. I promise. My dad would be furious if I died today, not to mention what Stella and my grandmare would do. And Hardy. Horseapples, I don’t even want to think about what Hardy would do. I gotta watch my tail, but that means you need to be safe, okay? I will see you tonight. Besides, if we pull this off, I’m going to make sure the Princesses give you a whole fried ostrich, just for you.”
Goofball licked his chops and reluctantly got to his paws. Turning toward Supermax, he shot me one last, slightly mournful look that almost broke my heart. I didn’t really want to send him away, but if we lived, our path of retreat was likely to be down the sewers.
Starting off at a trot, he quickly broke into his usual headlong gallop, turning down an alley to find himself what I suspected was probably some trouble to get into. Telling a puppy to go somewhere, even a smart one, is very different from having them listen. I followed his reticle on the Hailstorm’s display for some distance before it vanished completely.
Turning back to my mother, Wisteria, and the remaining Aroyos, I quickly took stock. There were only seven of us left and it didn’t seem enough, but we’d left enough bodies behind to qualify as a small scale ecological disaster. I couldn’t think about that just then. Later, when I could hold Tourniquet and maybe have a really good cry, I’d try to feel those feelings.
“What be de orders, Diamond Eyes?” Wisteria asked.
“P-please, just call me Swift.”
“Heh, dat be ye name out dere,” she murmured, jerking her head towards the city skyline. “Wid us, de Aroyos, ye be Diamond Eyes. Earned dat name ye did when we fight side by side. Wear it proud, sister of de Lady of Shadows. Now...ye know dis dark place. What be de orders?”
I wiped my sodden mane out of my face and gulped a breath that tasted like ashes before turning to face the P.A.C.T. headquarters across the empty expanse of concrete leading up to the front gate. I’d started to shiver at some point as the cold water and sleet soaked into my fur. My teeth were chattering in my head, but I tried to keep my voice steady, with mixed success.
“W-we’re going to have to spread out across the parking lot. Try to move quickly. You all have the maps of the interior I drew you, so if we get separated inside, you’ll know where to go. If there are any snipers, they’ll have a hard time hitting us in a wind this high. If you hear a gunshot, don’t lie down and don’t drop. Just run for the b-building. If somepony falls, but doesn’t die...you...you can’t go back for them. Snipers will take advantage and kill you, too.
“Ye be sure dis be de way?” Wisteria asked, softly, her painted features looking fierce despite the worry in her expression.
I nodded, then turned to look up at the tower. “I think Broadside wanted to watch the city end from up there. He didn’t leave defenders because anypony who’d survive an attack by a full lightning cannon squad is...his. He wants to kill us himself.”
“Swift, that could be anypony up there,” my mom murmured.
“No...no, Mom. We both know there’s only one pony it could be,” I replied, then braced myself before bolting out of the cover of the two buildings on either side of the avenue as fast as my legs could carry me. After a second, I heard other hoofsteps through the torrential downpour heading towards the gatehouse.
Being a small target has certain advantages, but I hadn’t thought to dye myself a different color. Every second of the run, buffeted from all sides by raging winds, my soaked wings threatening to knock me square on my flank, I listened for the telltale snap crack of a sniper round. Considering how close they’d have to be to get line of sight, I might have had time to hear the gunshot that killed me, if there was any brain matter left to hear it with.
Still, nothing came. I galloped until my chest hurt, then galloped some more, stopping only once I reached the guard house. It was little more than a concrete hut with a parking gate across the entrance, not really a defensible position. Skidding to a halt, I dived inside the fence and pressed myself against the wall of the guard house. A second later, my mother charged in behind me, shoving herself up against my other side.
“Swift, I am going to tan your tail if you do something like that again!” she snapped in an angry stage whisper.
“Oh please, Mom. You never spanked me.”
“That’s because I am a professional, but I am not above using my skills to make sure my daughter doesn’t get herself killed!”
Wisteria zipped inside, but she was alone.
“Where is everypony else?” I asked.
“Ye tell dem to spread,” she replied, waving a hoof towards where a vague shape could be seen through sheets of rain making for the guard hut on the adjacent corner of the building. “Dey hit de other entrances. Go inside, move slow, seek answers. Dey smart ponies. If dey find anythin’, we hear about it or dey run back and tell de Lady of Shadows in Fortress Everfree. Dey got de Moon Guns and dem kills everythin’. We be goin’ up top, yes?”
“That saves us hunting through the bottom floors, I guess.”
Returning my attention to the P.A.C.T. headquarters, I tilted my head back as far as I could. The single red target reticle hidden amongst the clouds hadn’t moved much, though it seemed to be pacing back and forth. It reminded me of a tiger I’d seen in a zoo, waiting to be fed.
“Swift, there’s something hanging above the doors,” my mom said, and I dropped my chin, following the end of Masamane to where she was pointing with it across the track surrounding the outside of the P.A.C.T. central hub. Wide granite stairs led up to two sets of turnstile doors, but we’d come in on the shadowed side of the building and in the low light it was hard to see the entrance. Still, I could just make out that Mom was right; a row of irregular shapes seemed to be dangling above the entry.
Looking both directions to make sure we were still clear, I started creeping toward the building, keeping low, trying to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible. While I was inclined to watch the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, I forced my eyes down, looking for traps, triggers, or tripwires.
Reaching the steps, I put one hoof on the bottom one when the lightest whiff of a scent caught my nose through the rushing winds. Sickly and sweet, it was a smell I’d become too used to since the day I got my badge. It was the stink of rotting flesh.
Raising my head, I stared up at the front of the academy I’d once called home.
Eight mangled shapes were strung across the wall above the door. Their bones were broken and their limbs twisted, but I had no trouble recognizing what they’d been in life; they were ponies. Their bodies were shredded, and dead, frozen flies clung to their faces, but there was no mistaking them.
Most were strangers, but I’d met the one stallion in the middle whose chubby jowls were still a little recognizable under his pale orange fur. He’d congratulated me on saving a reporter from a cockatrice, then promised he’d make sure I had a place if I didn’t make it through P.A.C.T. training. When I called his secretary after I washed out, she’d told me to sign up for the police academy. Her body was right there beside his, her pretty braid wrapped around the metal wire that’d been jammed through her flesh with a force that suggested magic.
Above their heads, carved into the wall with a carefully placed tracery of bullets were these words:
‘Welcome To City Council. Join The Conversation.’
Stats
Page generated in 0.04 seconds
Total duration
676 users online
1,011,413 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Just think of the savings in eyewear.
For the first fifty years I was in office, I fully expected to wake up one day to find my head on a spear.
Looks like electricians will have plenty of work to do after this all is over, what with all those monster-killing wires ripped out of the ground and whatnot. I wonder how Torniquet will get on then, if she's cut off after that. And it looks like Broadside is going to be getting the ass-kicking we've all been waiting for
Look forward to seeing that.
9956411
It took a solid week to map out the confrontation with Broadside. If it goes to plan, he should get his due, though to be fair I didn't know about Swifts transformation until this chapter was already begun.
So, she might just die.
-Chessie
PACT HQ is an Akbar setup Ive ever seen. All those weather factories setting up one synchronous lightning canon with the HQ Defeences as the targeting point? Thats the energy in mid up Tactical Nuclear, running accelerators that are pumping out X Rays, Gammas and Antimatter.
The resulting EMP is going to fry pretty much all electrical gearthrough the whole city, electronics over half the planet, and take out every living thinking mind within a mile. The only things left standing should be the Wish Machine, and Bony.
And heres me thinking Id never be allowed in there with Heavy Weapons. These guys are setting up for Something, and given the Office, the only thing I can think of thats DBZ equivalent enough is the EYE.
Wait... 8,500 word chapter... How is it over already? Daaangit!
9956433
Yikes! Or, pull a Groot: have a baby-Tourniquet living inside Swift's head.
I love how each person is stepping forward. And damn if it doesnt take a hell of a steel pair to walk into an expected killzone and level it.
Something lost, something gained. They are each pushing forward into being more than they are, but reaching their own as legends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj_hApbc5qg
"time as leader, but"
"time as a leader, but"?
"can relieve it is that the two"
"can relieve, it is that the two"?
"on all the peoples of Equestria accomplished under"
"on all that the peoples of Equestria have accomplished under"?
9956906
I don't...think any of those are mistakes. Just phrasing choices.
-Chessie
9956946
Ah, sorry? Well, it's up to you.
Wow...
9957526
Wow?
-Chessie
9956458
Heh, why aren't you writing these stories? I love that concept. It's not what I'm doing, but I love that concept.
-Chessie
9957666
There is a Big difference between E=Mc^2 and The Manhatten Project.
Im just happy to be able to pull the equation, given youre writing the Project.
Now, theres news of a Fifth force of nature been proposed called X17 and at least Two totally different experiments seem to support its existance, so thats going to need some research to see how it fits in magitech etc. I want to see how it varies from or fits in with imaginary space and relativistic light.
9957664
Swift... I don't know how to convey how amazing I found that whole scene and her transformation, so just... wow.
Well, you’re not crazy yet. I think you should worry about Hardy a bit more.
Is something missing here or am I crazy?
9958308
I don't think worrying about Hardy more will help. I mean, he's already so completely hosed that only 'total victory' or 'abject defeat' are options. He's either going to save the world or die trying.
-Chessie
9958808
Well, I think I’ve already accepted that the world will be saved through sheer luck and loss. I assume somebody’s going to get sacrificed. Happy endings with no deaths probably won’t be achieved here, and I think the guy who’s survived death 3+ times is probably going to be taken under the cloak in the final chapters.
That said, if everyone survives, I think hardy will be the most damaged. I don’t think he can function in regular society anymore, tbh. And that’s if everybody survives: if his friends die, even through saving the world, he will be unable to save himself.
Or Chessies going to pull a downer ending and kill everybody. But that would suck.
9959264
I want you to remember that the author I hate more than any other in all of history outside Hitler himself...is George R.R. Martin.
-Chessie
9959347
And speaking of underestimating... you ain't done yet.
Obedience is death.
What's really sad is that before she met Hardy, the mere thought of waking up with a mouthful of blood would have freaked her right into an anxiety attack.
Just wrap it up with some Spellotape and it'll be fine.
A what mirror?
At this point, I'm really hoping post-eclipse Detrot sees a booming therapy industry.
Become an unreasonable pony.
You got the more important part of that wish, Swift.
Maybe not to you, but I bet "Unkillable Detective" costumes are going to be everywhere come Nightmare Night.
9959347
May I ask Why?
9960737 His propensity to simply kill characters with no payoff in their story-lines irritates me no end. He loads Chekhov's guns and leaves them strewn everywhere without really considering how they are to be used. His stories could, in theory, go on forever with no actual ending because they don't follow narrative structure.
His inability to simply sit his ass down and write with any consistency while being paid bucket-loads of money is also a bit of a sticking point. He's going to die before his series is finished at this rate, leaving people precisely as unsatisfied as that screaming dumpster fire of a TV show did. I sincerely hope his legacy is the end of his entire writing style: Reality Television High Fantasy.
-Chessie
That was a great line considering who said it and who it was to.
9960917
that's just what happens when you write fantasy like history, the goal of the story is to show that life is messy, and not to be well written in the traditional sense.
btw not to burst your bubble but it made a lot of money, so there will be thousands of copycats.
9976416
I knoooow...and I hate it. I really hope the sheer weight of hatred the T.V. show received at its end discourages many from following in his footsteps.
9960917
Go off!
9960917
If I may inject myself into the conversation here, reading his books is a nightmare too. I don't know how or why he got the recognition and fame he has now, because trying to follow the narrative, what with the 13 different stories woven into one, coupled with the myriad of different characters, their personalities, unique political views, personal/family histories, nicknames, AND their deaths that keep getting referenced and thus have to be kept track of constantly, makes the books almost unreadable to me. How you are supposed to read the series without an excel spreadsheet with all of the characters on it is a misery. I got to book 3 before I had to abandon the series, unfortunately.
Just completed a full read through of the entire story (up to Act 3, Ch68) after several years of having it in my 'to-finish-someday' list. Had more than a couple episodes of surprised laughter at certain points, and a couple of times where I took the author's name in vain (in a good way) when I hit one of the big plot twists. Following the story again, and really looking forward to seeing how it ends.
Swift is now a Sith Lord. Iris Jade is now Tempest Shadow.
Hardy turned the city upside down, killed or was complicit in the killings of many high profile members of the criminal underworld, took over a cult, became the subject of a cult, let out Nightmare Moon, raised an army, and became the de facto leader and mythic idol of the entire city. All for a dead stranger.
Stands to reason he'd do way more for one of his best friends.
9997637
He only has four legs!
Congratulations Swift Cuddles level up new perk crystal eyes, new eyes allow you to see the inner workings of the city as well as ponies. New title Crystal eyes Swift. Enjoy your new life and upgrade.
10003315
I did fix that.
-C
um swift
Are you suppose to be aiming for your old boss?
So I'm taking this to mean all the cables swift has been using is the city's power grid
Man, its going to take a lot of hours hooking everything back up
Nice recap
You are standing against the darkness and evil sweetie
9960917
GoT had so much potential, I loved aryas arc until season 8 (where the fuck did that killing blow come from)
But instead of taking their time and slowly wrapping everything up (I would have happily watched 20+ episodes)
They wanted to know how fast could they wrap it up and who cares about passing people off. I refuse to watch the last episode, I know what happens, but I personally didn't watch it.
If you want a good example of high fantasy go read the Wheel of Time by (mostly) Robert Jordan, if you like how Chessie built the world giving different cultures and accents, at least 13 complete character arcs, several other partial arcs, 109(I think) unique points of view (several of them are the bad guys), almost every loose end gets satifialy wrapped up (there's one bad guy who just feels like he was wrapped up last minute because he was forgotten about) I will say he is absolutely trash at trying to build a romantic relationship, and woman put their arms beneath their breast way to frequently
Amazon got the rights to turn it into a TV show, following what I can find of it has given me hope, I have watched several Amazon originals (3% anyone?)
GoT might have started to suck once they got ahead of the books (except arya), but WoT is complete and fully fleshed out, and Brandon prob has more notes that Robert wrote that can be thrown in
10399464
also audible has the complete series done by the same two kick ass narrators for the whole series
They were my first audible books
I cant listen to David Eddings
And only the angelbound series sounds as good
...
There is a lot of good books on audible
...
Chessie, please turn this into at least 3 audible books
about that
she really should get her eyes smoothed.