Act 3 Chapter 69: Dog Fight
"It is not that my sister and I took any sort of 'vow' never to use foul language. It is simply that, over centuries, we learned so much foul language that it is dangerous for the ears of most ponies to hear us in a real temper. Palace staff must go through months of training on the off chance we have a bad day. There are words in languages we have read which strike a hearer deaf with their sheer obscenity. I am certain you have heard the story of 'Vaxlas The Sobbing'. He was a dragon who decided to land himself in Canterlot and declare himself its king four centuries ago.
Well, my sister was the pony who got him to leave. It involved little more than a particularly harsh appraisal of his personal hygiene."
- Princess Luna, Interview with 'Manehattan Now' magazine.
I stared up at the remains of the city council, sitting quietly in the billowing wind as the bodies swayed back and forth against the building, sometimes letting out a wet smack as they were pulled far enough away to hit the glass with a bit of force.
Most of them looked relatively peaceful in their repose, though there were several signs of extreme trauma to their lower bodies. I could see a few bits of bone jutting out of their thighs or hips where the blood had been washed away. It looked like they might have been chewed by a pack of animals, but someone wanted their faces to be recognizable. Councilpony Hard Line even had his signature gold ear-ring in place.
I wanted to throw up. That felt like the right thing to do. A pony who sees so many dead, familiar faces should throw up. Instead, all I could bring myself to do was sit there with rain running off the end of my nose.
Mom came up beside me and put a hoof on my shoulder.
“Sweetie...don’t look,” she whispered.
I swallowed and asked, “Will that make them not there?”
She was silent for a time, then put her forelegs around me and held me close. I hadn’t realized just how bad I was quivering until she did. My heart was thundering against her and I could feel my own pulse in my head.
“Can...can we get them down?” I asked, plaintively.
“They’re not...going anywhere,” she whispered, hugging me tighter.
“Dere be no dignity in dis death,” Wisteria added, softly.
My mother stroked my mane, tenderly as she held me to her aproned breast. “We’ll let somepony know they’re here once we get away from this place. They’ll be buried.”
I swallowed a couple times, but couldn’t seem to clear my throat. “I don’t think there’s enough gr-graveyards in Equestria for all the ponies who’ll need them.”
Nopony said anything for several seconds, before Wisteria leaned in to rest her muzzle against my ear. “Diamond Eyes...W-we be needin’ to get inside. Dis storm be growin’ nasty. Dangerous. I and I tinks der be tornados in de city soon if dis continue.”
I tore my eyes from the strung-up bodies of the council and tried to get up, only to find my knees shaking. I hadn’t really noticed the cold until just then; pegasi tend to run warm and fly high on a regular basis. Still, it was getting downright uncomfortable.
Stumbling toward the swinging doors, I tried to focus on the task at hoof. My hooves shook and I could still see the ruined bodies at the corners of my vision.
‘Come on, Swift. You can have a screaming breakdown later,’ I said to myself, though tears still streaked my cheeks and dampened my glass eyes only to be washed away by the rain. ‘Hardy would focus. He’d see the bodies and strut right in.’
In hindsight, it was probably a good thing I wasn’t Hardy; if I were, I wouldn’t have seen the bomb just inside the door.
It was little more than a glimmering box with a dozen shining wires poking out of it attached to the detonator mechanism, but bomb squad pre-training tends to stick with a pony. I had only a second to grab my mother before her hoof would have touched the door and set it off.
“Tourniquet! Warn them!” I shrieked across our telepathic link.
“Already—” she started to reply, before an explosion rocked us off our hooves, sending me tumbling against my mother who stumbled into Wisteria. I held my breath, wondering if I’d been too late and death claimed me before I’d had time to feel it.
The shockwave spread out into the sky and, momentarily, it rained backwards in a tiny section of Detrot.
A hot breeze blew around the side of the structure as debris rained down across that side of the courtyard. Fire billowed for a moment before being quickly extinguished by the blowing rain. There was a long pause, during which the whistle of water hitting heated stones was all we could hear over the storm.
My heart sank right into my hooves as I desperately reached out with whatever strange senses I’d been gifted, searching for nearby minds. The connection was spotty and felt like trying to read through cheesecloth, but I could feel other ponies somewhere nearby. My breathing hitched as I realized there were two holes, where thoughts and feelings should have been.
“There were bombs on the other doors, too. I...I managed to warn the...the remaining teams before they tried to go in,” Tourniquet murmured, at last. “They...they’re waiting on orders. Wildflower didn’t...she didn’t have time to feel anything. We’ll remember her. Her memories won’t be lost.”
I sniffled and pulled my mother up, steadying her.
“Wh-what in Tartarus?” she stammered, shaking as she looked up at the sagging bodies of the city council.
“Broadside trapped all the doors,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“How did you notice that?”
I reached up and tapped my new eye which made one of those slightly distressing ‘kerchink’ noises as it moved in my eyesocket.
“What about de other teams?” Wisteria demanded, swiping her mane out of her face.
“Safe. Wildflower’s group didn’t make it, but the others...the others are safe,” I answered, stumbling to the wall and resting my shoulder against it. I was suddenly so tired I could barely stand, but it mattered little; the day wasn’t over.
“Ye be havin’ a funny meaning for ‘safe’. Was it a bomb?” Wisteria asked, nodding at the door.
I pointed to the mechanism at the top. “It’s hooked up right there. It’s a simple electrical trigger in what looks like some kind of clay explosive.”
“Ye be...seein’ de bomb?”
“Don’t make me explain, please. I just...I just can.”
Wisteria bared her teeth and glared at the doors. “So say de Lady of Shadows. I gonna rip dat Broadside’s lungs out.”
“We need to get inside before we can do that,” my mom said.
“What about dis? Dis be trapped?” Wisteria asked, pointing at the thick concrete wall beside the door.
“Couldn’t we just go through the hole on the other side?” Mom asked, pointing off toward the explosion.
“The building is designed to have collapsable defense points in case of breach. We’re going to have to be very careful. There’d be a lot of rubble we’d have to climb over. Not to mention...W-Wildflower’s body,” I muttered softly, then turned to the wall, tracing my eyes up and down to see if it’d been tampered with. Aside from the normal electrical wiring, there didn’t seem to be anything. “I don’t think the wall is trapped, though.”
Hefting her gun arm, Wisteria poked a button on the side of the Moon weapon, then raised her foreleg to point it at the wall. I took a couple steps back, pulling my mother along as she shot me a quizzical look. Covering my ears with both hooves, I shot Wisteria a quick nod.
A lance of brilliant white energy arced out from the Aroyo’s leg, slicing straight into the concrete like it wasn’t even there. Red hot stone boiled out of the contact point, dribbling onto the granite with a squeal as it hit the chilly air. Wisteria traced a gentle arc in the stone and, as she finished, the light faded and left only a softly glowing circle on the wall.
Turning on her heels, Wisteria lined up her back hooves and unleashed a buck that would have knocked the block off a minotaur. The wall slammed inward with a burst of dust and smoke which left me coughing, waving a hoof in front of my muzzle as I danced back against the side of the building. Standing there, stacked up in a short row, we waited for some sign I’d been wrong about the defenses. When we’d sat there for a full minute without any greeting gunshots and the air had cleared a little, I peered cautiously into the gaping hole.
The P.A.C.T.’s lobby was full of a thin, hazy dust, as though nopony had been in to clean in some time.
It was a place I’d immediately felt a certain comfort the first time I’d clutched my mother’s hoof as she pulled me through those spinning doors. Something about the eight spiraling pillars holding up the two story high ceiling put me in mind of the legs of elephants; something secure and solid to hold the world up. Back then, posters of brave troopers fighting off dozens of monsters decorated every wall, showing off their heroic histories.
It was a foal’s dream come true. Particularly a filly with too many comic books stuffed in her closet.
That’d been many years ago, during one of the P.A.C.T.’s recruiting days where young ponies were invited in to see the facilities, firsthoof. I’d watched them fire off lightning cannons that turned a dummy dragon into a burst of feathers and straw. I ran their junior flight course and scored a speed record.
The times between were as unkind to my self-image as they’d been to my image of the headquarters. Where I’d seen stability and a future of heroic action in defense of the city, now I could only see the shadows where enemies might lurk. It was a depressing change, but no more so than what the rest of Detrot had undergone.
“No targets,” I whispered.
“I and I go first,” Wisteria added, then put a hoof on my mouth before I could tell her just what I thought of that. “I be expendable. I die, I go wid de Lady of Shadows. Ye be Diamond Eyes and de Warden of Everfree. Ye die, den Crusada...do ye want him goin’ mad? No. So, I go first, ye follow and watch for traps. De other teams, dey come in and sweep de floors below.”
I shot her a hard look, then slowly nodded. Turning back to the hole, she braced herself, spread her wings, then galloped for the receptionist’s desk. It wasn’t much cover, but it was low and wide enough for a pony to get over without taking to the air.
Throwing herself over it, she hunkered down, sweeping her Moon gun back and forth across the balconies above the lobby.
After a long moment, I released the breath I’d been holding.
“Wisteria?” I called out. “You okay?”
“I and I be fine!” she shouted back. “It stinks like de dead in here!”
Now that she mentioned it, I could smell something unpleasant wafting from the interior. Trotting in after her, I kept my eyes on my hooves, looking for trip wires.
A giant pile of rubble and collapsed beams lay across one wall, sealing shut the hole where poor Wildflower tried to make her entrance. It was still smoking, lightly, but a fire suppression spell seemed to be keeping it in check. There was more blood on the various surfaces around the room than poor Wildflower’s death could account for. It seemed like somepony had, at one point, been liberally spraying it around on various surfaces.
“Broadside won’t use enchanted traps, Mom,” I said softly as my mother’s horn lit up and she began waving it around the room. “He doesn’t like unicorns very much.”
“Swift, he’s an insane—”
“Quite right, filly!”
I slapped a hoof over my muzzle to stop myself from screaming. Broadside’s voice sounded like it was right in my ear.
My mother grabbed my shoulder and yanked me behind one of the black, industrial style chairs strewn around the lobby. It was pretty poor cover if somepony tried to take a shot at us, but any cover is better than nothing. I sat there and tried to quell my panicked breathing, the Hailstorm’s turrets swinging wildly from one end of the room to the other. Still, no targets presented themselves.
“He can hear us,” my mother whispered.
“He can see us,” I replied, pointing toward one of the room’s upper corners. A boxy little security camera was aimed straight at us.
“You can get up. I haven’t used a mare today, and that pathetic creature that walked into my little trap won’t be coming up to greet me. A waste, really. She might have been lovely under all those tattoos.”
“I and I gonna stomp’em...” Wisteria snarled, pulling herself out from behind the low cover she’d been crouched behind.
Broadside laughed, a belly laugh that shook the dust in the air as it echoed out of the headquarters’ public address system.
“You are welcome to come and try, gutter trash. I’ve killed more than a few ponies with those silly facial markings just this week. I amused myself, first, of course. Even members of your little band of streetwalkers were quite upset at the sight of a stallion with mouthfuls of their guts.”
Getting to my hooves, I dusted myself off. It didn’t do much for the impacted blood and filth in my tail, but the gesture felt right. A pony should look her best when meeting a foe.
Raising my voice, I called across the lobby, “Colonel Broadside! For crimes against Equestria and the city of Detrot, I am placing you under arrest! Surrender or we will use force to subdue you!”
My mother stared at me like I’d just said I was going to fly to the moon as silence stretched out for several seconds.
When the speakers sputtered again after what seemed like a long time, all I could hear was the stallion’s raucous laughter on the other end. It took him a bit to get control enough to grab the mic.
“Oh filly, I’m going to enjoy ruining you. Come on up! Up and see the Colonel! I’m half-way through dinner and I’d hate to miss dessert. No more bombs for you. Just a little elevator ride, then I’ll have you and the streetwalker and that bitch in the apron one after another!”
There was a soft pop that seemed to indicate the mic shutting off, but I felt sure he was still listening to us.
“Elevator?” my mom asked.
“It’s at the top of the stairs,” I replied.
“Dat one be mad enough to let us go to him?” Wisteria asked, trotting out of cover to stand in front of the grand staircase leading up to the balconied second floor. The lobby of the P.A.C.T.’s headquarters was distantly modeled on The Castle, either as a joke by the architects or as a case of coincidentally syncing design.
“He’s not crazy, or at least, not crazy like that,” I said, softly. “There are stories of Broadside taking down a hydra by himself. He’s fought every kind of monster that’s ever come anywhere near Detrot’s borders. If there’s anypony who deserves to be confident he can kill us...it’s him.”
“Ye be soundin’ like ye admire him.”
I chewed on my lower lip nervously for a moment.
“I...I used to. I used to want to be him. Meeting him was one of the most spectacular moments of my life and...and finding out what he is was one of the worst. I really hoped he was brainwashed or something, because he should be a hero of Equestria. I know he’s not, though.”
“Well, you’ll get the pleasure of a little romp with me before your end, missy,” Broadside mocked over the speakers. “Join us! My dinner plate is starting to look empty, and I’d hate to have to come looking for you!”
I glared up at the security camera, but there wasn’t a ready retort in mind. Besides, unlike the Detective, I didn’t need my enemies angry for them to make mistakes. Everypony had underestimated me since the day I was born, a runty little pegasus with wings and dreams too big and legs too short.
“I can freeze the floor of the elevator and break us out if I have to.”
“Can’t we just take the stairs?” Mom asked.
I shook my head. “They come out in the same place: right beside the elevators. If he really wanted us dead, he could have just sat outside on one of those anti-dragon guns and taken a shot at us. Or he could have set up another line of defenses in here, or just gassed the lobby with something nasty. He wants us here. He wants a fight.”
“Dat means...he kills de rest of de team to...what?”
“Even the odds,” my mother angrily muttered. “He’s got a hundred battles under his belt. He must have known the tactic we’d use, or at least suspected it. He whittled us down so he could fight whoever survived.”
Reaching out with my wings, I pulled both of them close and lowered my voice until I was pretty sure the mic pickups couldn’t hear us. “Do...do you think he was really that far ahead of us?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no, but we should assume so.”
I shook my head. “You’d have to be crazy to walk into a combat scenario like that.”
Wisteria nodded at the hole in the wall. “We go home?”
“Not a chance,” I replied, then spread my wings and leapt into the air, my backdraft sending both of them tumbling head-over-flank.
My mother and Wisteria didn’t have anything like enough time to right themselves before I folded my feathers into a close flight pattern and dove for the elevators at the far end the balcony. I slapped a hoof on the ‘call’ button and the doors dinged open. Throwing myself inside I frantically tapped the ‘close-door’ and leaned out just in time to catch the briefest glimpse of my mother galloping up the stairs, her expression full of a thousand dinners to be meted out without dessert. The doors slid shut just seconds before she reached them.
I’m pretty sure, if she’d caught me, there would have been a spanking in my immediate future. Considering what I’d just done, I probably deserved it.
“Swift, you open this door this second!” she barked, only a little muffled by the heavy steel between us.
Reaching over, I pressed the only lit button on the control panel. It was labeled ‘Floor 10, Briefing Room’. The elevator began to rise and I gulped a couple breaths, momentarily reduced to full body shakes as the events of my day started to catch up with me.
There were so many moments when death was right there, waiting to snatch me. All that kept me safe was a bulletproof jacket and a whole heap of luck.
Looking down, I poked at my badly weathered, police issue armor. There was a fresh hole in the fabric on my chest where something like shrapnel had punched through, but it wasn’t going fast enough to do more than tear the surface and scratch the metal plate underneath. I hadn’t even noticed the hit.
“That was a dirty trick, little filly.”
Broadside’s voice broke into my thoughts and I froze, pressing myself to the wall before realizing he was coming through speakers in the elevator, again.
I looked up at the ceiling and shook myself off. “It was what I had to do. I took my oath to protect Detrot seriously.”
“You know, it took me a bit to put a name to your face. You’re that scrub who beat the stuffing out of that cockatrice with her bare hooves. Swift Cuddles, am I right?”
“That was me. Now I’m going to beat the stuffing out of you!”
He let out a derisive snort of amusement. “Oh, I wish I could keep you around for a while. I have your psych profile just here. My, my, my. Child of a prostitute? No wonder you’ve got a hero complex. Hrmph. What I don’t know is how you haven’t transformed entirely. Every barracks room was adjacent to one of our spell circles. If you slept so much as one week in there, you were infected with the arcane conservancy. You should have turned into a ravening beast by now, happy to dance when I whistle.”
I bared my sharp teeth at the ceiling. “I have friends who take care of me and stopped your stupid magic!”
His voice took on a slightly somber tone. “Mmmm...those eyes are an interesting twist. My brother advocated for a little more ‘consistency’ in the creations of our spell, but I wanted deviation. You can’t make a new race off the back of a failed experiment like equinity.”
“Your brother is about to kill everypony!” I snarled back.
“Heh. He’s about to try.”
“W-wait...you know?”
“Of course I know. Do you think somepony gets to my position by being stupid?” he asked, sardonically. “We both survived in a family where few elder children reach adulthood. Breeding age is considered ‘quite old’. Our fathers and mother worked together to kill their parents before they came to Detrot. Then our fathers killed our mother. I watched them drag her into that hole and listened to her screams. Much like our sister’s screams, really. Pathetic. Unworthy.”
His voice was so matter-of-fact that I staggered against the wall as the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened on an empty office full of a dozen cubicles. I knew the layout by heart. The briefing room was at the far end of the hall, just beyond.
“If you know...why would you go along with this?” I asked, softly. “He’s going to murder...millions...”
“If there is one thing the Crusades proved, Miss Cuddles, it’s that people will find reasons to murder each other all on their own. We only gave them a nudge, and ponykind came out of that war stronger for it! Do you understand? We made dragons fear us!”
I stepped out of the elevator and let my vision wander across the walls. The flows of bright energy behind the drywall were all headed more or less into and away from the conference room. There was still only one target down there.
The elevator across from the one I’d just gotten into dinged and began to descend. I quickly aimed the Hailstorm at the doors. The turrets whined loudly as a sharp beam of freezing energy lanced out, coating the elevator from floor to ceiling in a thick layer of crackling ice. It probably wouldn’t be enough to stop my mom getting out, but it would give me a few minutes breathing room.
“If your brother fails and you somehow get out of the city, all of Equestria will know what you did. They’ll all come for you,” I growled.
“I welcome it. I will be as a knife upon the stone, sharpened and honed. I’ve slaughtered countless ponies. My life doesn’t matter except if I am the strongest I have faced. If another can kill me, then I’d shake their hoof on the way to Tartarus. But you? That’s not you, little filly. Come on in and we’ll play a bit. I’m almost done here.”
His voice was really starting to irk me. Straightening my flak jacket, I marched toward the conference room. My breathing was shallow, and I could hear my pulse in my ears. Truth be, I was terrified.
Tourniquet’s voice poked into my thoughts.
“Swift?”
“Yes, T? I’m about to do something really stupid, so could you make sure Hardy knows if I don’t make it?”
“You better make it, because I need an explanation of what you did to the city electrical grid! I’m going to be weeks putting things back together!”
“I’ll do my best. What’s going on with the storm outside?”
“It’s...it’s getting bad. Most of our fliers are grounded. You might be okay, but I’m pretty sure anypony with weaker wings is probably not going to want to be up in the sky. Wait...I can’t see you. Where are you?”
I paused outside the conference room, one hoof on the doorhandle.
“I’m at the top of P.A.C.T. tower. Broadside is on the other side of the door. He’s waiting for me.”
“Oh Celestia, Swift!—”
“I have to do this, T.”
“I...I know...but alone? Where’s your mom? Where’s Wisteria?”
“I couldn’t let them be here.”
“P-please tell me you’re not about to pull a ‘Hard Boiled’.”
“Sorry, T. This is how it has to be.”
“Then I’ll get you some backup from somewhere! The fighting is easing up on the east side and maybe—”
I couldn’t tell you exactly how, but I gently pushed her out of my thoughts. It was a mean thing to do and I was probably going to get an earful from everypony later. I was due more than a few angry words from my friends and loved ones. By my calculations, if I died, I could avoid that unpleasantness. If I lived, then I’d welcome a spanking and a dressing-down. Granted, all immediate calculations seemed to indicate I was going to miss out on a red flank and ringing ears.
Pushing open the conference room doors, I readied the Hailstorm to unleash a blizzard.
The all-powerful stink of freshly spilt blood almost sent me running back to the elevator as a small wave of red liquid rolled over my hooves. The tile floor inside the conference room was bathed in it, wall to wall, as though someone had opened a griffin slaughterhouse indoors. I gagged, covering my muzzle with one wing as I pressed up against the wall, trying to get a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, my wing didn’t smell much better than the room and I was going to need a solid week of preening just to make my feathers presentable after cleaning the grit and grime out.
I raised my head above the edge of my wing joint and peered out, trying to make sense of the abattoir scene in front of me. Everything was painted in varying shades of gore, from the walls to the ceiling to the long conference table down the middle of the room. Every inch seemed to have been used as a dinner plate by a beast with the table manners of a meat grinder.
At the far end of the room, a landscape window was lit by the thunderstorm. Before it sat a hulking figure in a giant, throne-like chair, and in front of him on the table were the remains of a pony. I’d have never recognized him or his meal, were it not for the P.A.C.T. armor he wore and the dead pony’s head sitting on the table between us.
Colonel Broadside stared down the table at me, casually chewing a piece of gristle.
Mayor Snifter’s gristle.
The old mayor’s face was locked in a stricken expression, his tongue protruding from one side of his mouth.
I wanted to throw up, again, but it just wasn’t coming. Maybe I’d gotten it all out, or maybe my stomach was too numbed by shock. I wasn’t even feeling frightened, anymore. All I felt was a sort of cold, angry thing boiling in my heart that I’d never really known before.
I stared slack-jawed at the two of them as the massive stallion picked up some unidentifiable piece of flesh from the mayor’s split open ribcage and tossed it into his own muzzle. His glistening, razor-sharp teeth glittered in the dull lights overhead and the flashes of lightning through the window. He bulged with more muscles than even a pony on steroids could hope for and his wings were so massive they lay spread on the floor on either side of him. Though I knew his fur was white underneath, his pelt was so stained with dried viscera he might as well have been brown.
On his back there appeared to be some kind of odd growth which took me a long minute to realize was not actually a part of him; it had the broad outlines of a gun with two long, disturbingly phallic barrels poking over his shoulders. It looked like it was made of some kind of skin or webbing, silvery and saturated in as much filth as Broadside was. Tucked in amongst it all, I could just make out the remains of what might have once been one of the Moon weapons, its guts cracked open and dozens of wires running into its interior.
“Welcome back, Miss Cuddles,” Broadside chortled after giving me a moment to study him. Blood dribbled off his chin as he reclined in his oversized chair which barely fit his enormous bulk. “Come and join me! The mayor and I were just having dinner and discussing the state of the city. I’m sure there’s a bit left over to fill a little filly’s stomach.”
I felt my belly lurch. The smell was making my tongue water, but it was some psychosomatic reaction. It had to be. I didn’t really want a piece of pony flesh, did I?
He didn’t wait for me to respond before continuing.
“Those eyes are an interesting mutation,” he observed, thoughtfully, as he gestured at my face with a bone clutched in the crook of is knee. “I’ll be cheered to examine them once I’m finished with you. We might incorporate something similar into the next generation, if they’re a beneficial alteration.”
Courage. Courage, Swift.
“C-Colonel Broadside. Y-you are under-...under...-”
“Arrest?” he finished cooly. “I do wonder where you’d find a pair of hoofcuffs big enough for somepony my size. I have gained a few pounds in my old age.”
I gulped as the Hailstorm’s reticle centered on his face.
“Please surrender. You can help us end this. I’ve killed enough people today,” I whispered.
“True,” he agreed, rising in his seat and sweeping the remains of Mayor Snifter off the table in front of him where they splashed into the bloody mess on the floor with a wet squelch. “I wondered if your little ‘band’ would make it here, to me. It seemed sure there would be some direct assault, and here you stand. My brother assured me you had enough troops for such a thing. He is usually right. I wish he’d told me it would be just one little filly. Still, you did make it. That shows a strength that makes you worthy of my seed. The creatures your womb bears will be—”
I didn’t let him finish that sentence. Gut churning implications were enough to turn my stomach as it was. The Hailstorm’s turrets spun up in a tenth of a second and a shining knife of magical force cut across the room, leaving a trail of frost in the air.
He wasn’t there when it arrived.
He’d been moving before I committed to the shot.
“That’s the spirit!” Broadside bellowed, swinging around on all fours and bucking the conference table. I held in a yelp as it skidded across the room and barely had time to leap up into the air, spreading my wings. The massive table crashed into the doors rather than turning me into an orange stain, but it was a close thing. I quickly landed on the disgusting surface, trying not to think about what I was standing in.
Glancing at the streak of ice that’d been left behind across his chair and the window behind him, Broadside ran his tongue across his blade-like teeth. “Impressive! You’ll like mine, I think. Might as well take off that armor. This will go right through!”
I had only a second to throw myself to one side as the two protrusions over his shoulders centered on me and a sound like a thumping bass in a nightclub shook the room. Something caught me in the shoulder, spinning me around. It wasn’t much more than a flesh wound, but it stung bad enough to make my eyes water.
I looked down and it was as though something had simply sliced away an even circular line of flesh.
“Mmmm, smell your blood there, I do! Let it never be said my brother’s technological ambition never bore fruit! Those griffins in that damned hotel never knew what hit them!”
I pulled a healing talisman out of my front pocket and slapped it across the wound, ducking low to keep the table between us. “Y-you killed the griffins in the Moonwalk?!”
“Heh, course! You don’t think I’d leave that pleasure to someone else, do you? My brother wants enough ponies alive to power his little project, but he was less specific with damned chickens. That table won’t protect you, by the way.”
I registered what he was saying just in time to get my hooves under me and launch myself forward as the air shook again, and I had the distinct sensation of something taking a few hairs off the end of my tail.
Scrambling out from under the table, I decided the only good defense was a good offense, particularly seeing as it was the only thing likely to keep me from getting turned into a pincushion. Fortunately, it seemed his weapon didn’t have much in the way of accuracy; it mostly fired straight ahead of wherever he was pointing it. It wasn’t much of an advantage, considering his bulk. I might need more than one shot to put him down and he only needed to hit me in something vital once.
The Hailstorm hissed as frost leapt across the room and drew a sharp line up the wall. Broadside was forced to dance to one side, which he did with disturbing speed.
Backing against the window, the giant stallion raised one rear leg and carefully laid it on the glass. “Ah, missy! In an hour my storm will rip this city to bits and take the damn dragons with it. Any of my children who survive will earn the right to breed! I’m looking forward to breeding you with a few of them!”
“You’re not going to live to see the next hour!” I snarled, getting ready to launch myself at him for another shot.
“Oh? Well, if that’s the case, then we best make it count! Truth be, this isn’t my kind of fighting! How about we take things outside, eh?”
Before I could recenter my aim and turn his head into an ice cube, his hoof slammed into the window. It exploded outward and a maelstrom wind nearly ripped me off my hooves, sending a torrent of blood and rainwater into my face. Broadside, grinning like the lunatic he was, spread his wings and let them catch the wind. He was yanked backwards into open air, but took only a second to right himself before soaring off into the storm.
I heard a crash behind me and stole a look back to witness my mother stomping down the aisles of the office like a bull with a red flag in her sights. She was mad enough I could make out a vein pulsing in her forehead. Wisteria was a few steps behind her.
“Mom! You’ve got to get somepony to the barracks! The spells that infect ponies and turn them into monsters are in there!” I shouted.
She paused mid-stride for a second. “What? Swift, where is Broadside?!”
“The weather factory is overloading and if it destroys this building, it’ll take the transformation magics we came to get with it!” I turned back to the gaping window and the raging storm beyond. “I’m going after the Colonel!”
I didn’t catch her reply. I could imagine it, but I didn’t want to hear it. The guilt was enough to make me ache, but arguing with her parental instincts wouldn’t save the city, nor would it stop the maniac outside from destroying everyone I loved.
In two bounds, I was out, wings wide, dangling over the disaster area that Detrot had become.
I didn’t have much time to examine the city. I had the vaguest impression of fire and buildings stabbing out of the ground like sharpened teeth or stalagmites. Then I was being wrenched about by crosswinds. I felt the tip of a wing touch the edge of the P.A.C.T. building before I could get control and lift myself a little higher on a passing thermal. Stretching out every flight sense I had revealed a minefield of dangerous rip-tides and whirling death traps that would put an unwary pegasus into a crashing spiral.
The cold winds were full of rain, but it wasn’t weighing me down much. More than anything, I was worried about frostbite. Pegasi are pretty weather resistant, but skin and bone have limits.
Off amidst the roiling clouds, I could just make out a sparkle of light. A tense second later, the Hailstorm’s targeting reticle appeared just over top of it.
I swooped barely fast enough to avoid Broadside’s attack and the sensation of immense energy tearing past my head made me let out an involuntary shriek. The very tip of one of my ears suddenly burned and I felt a slight tickle down the edge of it. I spared only a second to touch the freshly clipped edge of my ear, then filled my wings with as much air as they would carry and shot off towards where I’d last seen Broadside.
Most ponies think a headlong charge into enemy fire is a bad idea, and on the ground, that’s totally true. In the air, it’s super difficult to aim at something that’s flying straight forwards you. It’s much easier to strafe an opponent in the air than to take them down when they’re charging you head on.
Lightning crackled across the sky, momentarily lighting it as the wind whipped into my face. If I’d had my old eyes and no flight goggles, I’d have been blinded by the storm. As it was, it was only a chilly inconvenience. Unfortunately, the lightning seemed to be confusing the Hailstorm’s targeting system; I’d lost Colonel Broadside completely.
A winged shadow appeared on the clouds below me.
I dropped into a sharp jig, only to have him soar right over my head at a speed that beggared belief, disappearing into the cloud cover in seconds.
How’d he gotten above me? He must have calculated for me to charge him. He knew I was going to try that tactic and adjusted his trajectory. How do you out-maneuver a pony who has twenty times your experience in actual combat?
Twirling in place, I shot upwards, trying to get as much distance between myself and Broadside as I could without leaving the cloud cover. He’d know I was doing it, but making him chase me meant a few seconds to think.
What to do? The Detective would know. The Detective always knew.
How would Hardy beat Broadside?
‘He’d make him mad, so he’d make a mistake,’ I thought.
Oog. Making the pony who could turn you into a puddle with one good shot angry seemed like a bad idea. But then, Hardy always walked away from it.
‘Except when he got shot dead, repeatedly.’
No, it was a good idea. It could only be a good idea, because I didn’t have any others. But how do you make a pony like Broadside mad?
‘Well, he did say he wanted to...oh...’
----
Long ago, my mother taught me to defuse every situation with words, before I defused it with hooves. I’d never been a mean pony. It’s not in me to want to hurt people just for the sake of hurting them. My mom taught this same adage to the pony who sat beside me after almost every fight I’d ever been in. He was frequently the reason I was in those fights, and he’d taken a different lesson from it.
He’s my best friend.
He’s also one of the meanest ponies I know when you try to complain about his prices.
----
“Oh darling, he was mad because I wouldn’t hack off half my usual fee to bounce around on that sad little knob he called a penis. Anyway, it would have been a waste of both our times. There wasn’t enough there to make proper friction in a sippy straw.”
----
“If I wanted to have a male bore me, I’d pay one of the boys to read me an encyclopedia before I’d spend my evening with that one-and-done sack of can’t-top-to-save-his-own-life manic moose droppings again. At least the encyclopedia might have some tips in it. He sure didn’t.”
----
“He asked me if I’d do it for free. I said I wasn’t sure if my boss would agree with letting me charge by the inch.”
----
Despite the awful circumstances these thoughts entered my mind in, I felt myself turning a bit red. I could be pretty sharp-tongued on paper, but my mom had strong feelings about me learning any of Scarlet’s brand of bad language. She wanted, more than anything, for me to have opportunities outside the family business. Not that she felt there was any shame in the family business, but she thought a pony should be able to be whoever she wanted to be.
That meant not cussing like somepony who felt it was a personal challenge to make a stallion lose the entire Equestrian language for between fifteen and twenty minutes via use of his mouth alone, whatever use he might be putting it to.
Still, a mare can’t help but listen—from time to time—when her best friend is grumpy and her mom isn’t around.
So, I had a strategy. It was a terrible strategy, so it required an equally terrible battleground. Where to engage him?
There were plenty of options in the broken cityscape. I wanted to be sad about that, but I was mostly just scared out of my fur. I glanced around for the worst possible place for a pair of pegasi to fight, but was only able to catch short glimpses of the city below through the violently blowing winds and the swirling clouds.
I could almost feel Broadside bearing down on me from behind; I might have lost track of him, but I was pretty sure he hadn’t missed me for a second.
I could just make out the beginnings of what might have been a couple tornados starting to develop towards the outskirts, though none of them had touched down, yet.
A lightbulb popped on inside my head and I immediately tried to shut it off. It wasn’t a sane lightbulb. It was an angry, vindictive little glimmer from a pony who’d read too many comics. Unfortunately, it shined on, bright and stupid as could be.
I angled my wings, pulled them in close, and went into a falling dive towards where the clouds seemed to be densest. The skin on my face tightened as I beat against the air, driving myself faster, trying to draw as much attention as I could. A soft circle of air started to form around the end of my muzzle as the air pressure increased. I’d heard stories of speed freaks losing themselves trying to catch that halo. I always wanted to try it, one day, but considering what I was about to be heading into at much higher than terminal velocity I didn’t want to gamble on that kind of maneuver, but I wasn’t doing something much smarter.
I broke through the fire-lit clouds above the city and found myself right where I’d hoped: directly over the weather factory.
It was a spire of metal and cloud that someone, somewhere must have thought looked very ‘modern’. I thought it looked like a lumpy, metal ice cream cone that’d fallen cream-first in the middle of the city. For reasons that I’m sure were very sound and design conscious, it was tilted at about a ten degree angle, which didn’t help the illusion of a spilled treat. Giant puffs of cloud spilled from all sides, and where they normally looked like grey cotton leaking into the sky, in the darkness of the eclipse and in a state of near total overload, they appeared as some dangerous, red gas billowing from massive funnels.
Worse, the stabilization magics that normally kept the entire thing from making more weather than the local atmosphere could handle were apparently off. Once a pony got outside the field of enchanted calm immediately around the building, something close to a blizzard was blowing. Others parts of the city looked like they were experiencing gale-force winds, lightning strikes, and crazy electrical storms with balls of crawling energy leaping from building to building.
It made for some dodgy flying.
I tried to pull all the weather magic I’d ever really managed to figure out into my mind and focused on my wings.
‘Shape the air. Pull it past you. Let the clouds move on their own. Keep yourself steady. Don’t chase the halo.’
It was all great advice and in normal flight, most pegasi do it without thinking. Considering the awful condition of the air, the cloying smoke coming off the city, and the storm I was trying to navigate with all the grace of a chicken fired out of a cannon, it was hard to do each thing separately, much less put it all up together.
I cast around for some kind of entrance on the weather factory’s surface. I’d never been inside, but most pegasi get ‘The Weather Packet’ when they finish school, including me. Detrot’s packet included a mock-up of the inside of the weather factory; it was mostly a giant hollow inside where the clouds were assembled and shaped.
Fighting in close quarters with Broadside didn’t appeal very much and that gun of his meant there wasn’t really any such thing as ‘cover’, but it was better than the open air where he held all the cards.
Fortunately, I quickly found what I’d been looking for: an employee landing pad. Every old pegasus building had them and the weather factory, while not exactly ancient, was still old enough to qualify. The landing pad jutted from one of the exterior walls of the factory and wasn’t much more than a tongue of metal with some stairs, but it would do.
Just then, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up.
I spread my wings wide and air-braked hard enough that I could feel my shoulders creak just in time for Broadside to blow past me, again, laughing like a mad pony as his backwash threatened to knock me out of the air.
He’d expected an attack after I pulled out of my dive and was already spinning around to face me, back beating his wings to create some distance between us, bringing his gun up faster than the Hailstorm’s reticle could get a solid lock with all the electrical interference in the air.
Drawing a breath, I shouted across the distance.
“How are you going to breed me with that pathetic little penis I saw when you went overhead? That couldn’t fill hotdog buns, much less mine!”
The second the words were out of my muzzle, I had to resist the urge to apologize. I kept my eyes on where Broadside was, but in the high winds and poor lighting it was hard to tell by body language alone what he might be thinking. I’d have lost track of him without the strange magics in my eyes, even with pegasus sight.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.
Then he turned and I saw his face.
‘Oooh, he heard me.’
I bolted for the employee entrance.
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It's a desperate time for ponies. They're resorting to harsh language.
damn i feel old evin thou im not yet 20 .i got into the fandom just a few months before this story was started and ive been reading this fic for the past 4 years damn. you know when you remember before twicorn that you've been around a while hell when i first found fimfiction everyone was writing changeling fics and the crystal empire was not a thing yet and fimfiction looked nothing like it does now . god ive been a brony for almost 8 years . sorry for the long comment new years is just making me think about some stuff. fitting considering in fandom age im like a 70 year old ranting to the young kids sitting on my lawn
yep found the pmv that got me interested in pony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4RImFN_U4U
Ohh, so thats why they didnt just get Wisteria to topple the building by slicing it off at the base.
Still, going to be intresting seeing if a Rainboom triggered implosion in a gamma ray class reactor can kill off Kingpin+. Cos its going to take at least nukes, or portals to do the job even half way?
Well now I simply need the next chapter. I have to know what happens next!
Also, this is wonderfully written as always, Chessie. I'm not a fan of gore but the bits afterwards mentioning Scarlet made reading it worthwhile.
Now I just hope Swift will make it out alive so she can tell Scarlet that he saved the day.
10014309
I had intended to finish Swift's scenes during this episode, but...well...girl got busy and this needed to go out the door. Next chapter will be short, but it'll wrap things up.
-Chessie
10014322
Didn't mean to tell you to hurry, I'm just super excited! I hope your new year has gone well. I'm loving the story so far and I look forward to seeing where it's going next!
10013966
Words have power.
And brother, those were some damn powerful words!
Most intense chapter we've had in a bit.
The ribald insults seem for Swift a cathartic expelling of the role she's been trained to
play for the past couple dozen chapters.
I'm on the edge of my weather factory seat.
Right in the masculinity eh Swift? Guessed that would irk him with all of his muscles and ego.
10014322
everyone dies next chapter and the true god arises, Donut Steel...
10014322
Eh... well... spontaneous involuntary venting of one’s core from both ends does quality as a legitimate excuse...
Hope you’re feeling better.
And now he's peeved
Swifty... I love you... that is all.
What on earth?
Sheeh, what a chapter!
That is our Swift.
Now it is time to get Schwifty.
Show us what you got girl.
10015261
You're gonna love what I have planned. I did actually plan this, surprisingly. That took weeks.
-Chessie
No, but it might help you have fewer appearances in your nightmares.
True, but then again Hardy could have just crawled to a wall socket afterwards and been right as rain.
Surprised he didn't decorate the lobby in FoE Raider Chic.
Pretty sure Swift is just planning to turn you into a meat popsicle.
I imagine it's a lot easier when your weapon automatically locks onto its target.
"By process of elimination" is not always the way to come up with a winning plan.
I don't think the sane light bulbs managed to live through the last few weeks.
Did you ever read "The Art of Flying" by the Great Gonzo?
Oh this is gonna be some fun times.
I'd like to suggest that Swift double down on the masculinity insults by suggesting that his larger frame of muscle would be better served as breeding stock than she would. After all, he's got dem large breeding hips. Just need to call in a favor from one of her friends with Zebra transformation magics and he'll be begging like the weak mare he is inside.
....I hope that doesn't turn him on. But hey, if he's gotta fight horny and angry then all the more advantage for Swift, right?
EDIT: Or just call him a stinky doo-doo head. He'll be peeved and we all know how serious that is for ponies.
A trash-talking Swift Cuddles. I did not know this was a thing I needed until now.
Alright Swift the warm ups are over it's time to throw down, Show me what you got Officer Swift (Diamond eyes) Cuddles!
Swifts first reaction to seeing a dead pony, puking.
Ah swift
Please never change
Sure, you can survive a lightning brigade
But can you survive a bomb after that?
Sorry mom, gotta singlehandedly save the world
Swift, don't apologize to the bad guys
Honestly the idea of a pegasus with wings wider individually than she is tall still makes me giggle.
This fight requires listening to José Pavili's Kings.