A New Dragon in the Crystal Empire

by Vedues

Chapter 37

Spirit was shaken out of his sleep by a loud pounding at the door. He groaned and hugged Autumn tighter, hoping that that they wouldn’t knock again.

They knocked again.

“Could you get that?” Autumn said drowsily.

He sighed. “If you insist.” With no small amount of reluctance, Spirit let go of his marefriend and got up to see what the bad news was. It would be bad news, of course. Good news never came pounding on your door at two in the morning.

As always, Autumn’s porcelain dolls seemed to watch Spirit, their eyes reflecting bits of light in the darkness. Moving into Autumn’s old house had come with certain benefits. The dolls weren’t one of them. Autumn thought it was hilarious that he turned them around every time they made love, but really, how was he supposed to get in the mood with those soulless eyes staring at him?

Spirit slipped out of the bedroom and descended to the ground floor. “Okay,” he said, opening the front door, “what happened and where?”

A green stallion stood outside with nervousness reflecting all over his coat. “Oh, Prince Spirit,” he bowed, “I must speak with Fleur de Verre.”

“Unless you urgently need her help,” Spirit said, “we may as well let her sleep. Just tell me and I’ll pass it along.”

“I’m already awake.” Verre walked up beside him, her face covered in some kind of overnight beauty mask. “Although I do appreciate your concern.”

“Lady Verre,” the stallion said, “somehow parasprites have gotten into the grain silos. We’re rounding up a marching band as we speak, but the damage to our food supply could be catastrophic.”

Verre’s coat snapped to opaque crystal, a sign of firm attention and determination. “How widespread is the damage?”

The stallion shook his head. “I don’t know. The night manager ordered me to come to you before I even got to the scene.”

Spirit pointed behind the stallion to another crystal pony that was running up to the house. “Please tell me that he’s with you.”

“I don’t think so,” the stallion said. “He looks like a palace guard.”

Well duh, he was wearing palace armor and coming from the direction of the Crystal Bunker. The Bunker also happened to be in the opposite direction from the grain silos. “Prince Spirit Shield,” the newcomer said as he drew near, “Princess Cadance requires you and Lady Autumn Gem to come to the Bunker at once.”

Verre turned to Spirit. “I’ll wake Autumn.”

“Thanks.” Spirit looked back at the palace guard. “What’s going on?”

“All of the captured Alliance soldiers have escaped.” The guard took a few deep breaths. “Private Golden Rule says they used some kind of mind magic on him and forced him to show them a tunnel leading out of the Empire.”

Spirit facepalmed. “No food and no prisoners either. Great, can tonight get any worse?” He froze, realizing what he’d just said. “I take it back!” It didn’t count as tempting fate if he took it back, right?

-_-_-_-_-_-

“… And there is a new situation we need to be aware of,” Shining said, looking around the war room.

Spirit banged his head against the table. Fate was a jerk sometimes.

Well, maybe not. The new situation turned out to be that Celestia and Luna had snuck off to the Alliance’s base again, freed all of the Equestrian soldiers, and brought the roof crashing down on everydragon. Spirit could handle that.

“… We’ll keep our guards and scouts on high alert,” Shining said, “but for now we need to focus on our food situation.”

Cadance stood up once Shining was finished. “Number Cruncher, how long will our supplies last if we ration them?”

A gray pony with a darker gray mane and tail sat in the corner at a small table that was covered in notes and calculations. He finished scribbling something before he answered. “Private company supplies are currently at seven point seven five percent of normal for this time of year. The emergency food we have stored in the caves can boost that somewhat, but even if we ration it, our food will run out in approximately sixty-eight days.”

Cadance nodded gravely. “Celestia and Luna aren’t here because they are working out a plan to bring in supplies and earth-pony farmers. It should let us scrape by until the first harvest, but it will also leave both of them extremely drained for a few days.”

In other words, Spirit reflected, we’d be screwed if the Alliance attacks on any one of those days. Well, it was that or starve to death.

“There’s one more problem,” Cadance said. “After everything that has happened to them, the crystal ponies are beginning to lose hope. The Crystal Heart can barely maintain a shield. We could have it cover a smaller area, but that would mean giving up lot of farmland, and we desperately need all of it right now.” She was doing a good job of hiding it, but Spirit could tell that his sister-in-law was scared.

Autumn pressed a hoof against her forehead and finished off the last of her coffee. “Perhaps a celebration of some kind. An emergency Crystal Fair, if you will.”

“That would use up a large amount of our limited supplies,” one of the other ponies said. Apparently he ran a series of crystal berry farms, but that didn’t stop him from being a cantankerous old stallion that had tried to shoot down every single idea proposed so far. Spirit was deliberately paying no attention to him whatsoever.

“I think a fair would help,” Cadance said. “Maybe some of Twilight’s friends could help plan it. They did a wonderful job putting a fair together when the Empire first reappeared.”

A maid placed yet another cup of coffee in front of Autumn.

“Thank you,” Autumn said before downing the entire thing in one gulp.

Spirit smiled a little at that. Autumn spent so much time trying to be the perfect leader and tactician that it was a rare treat to see her give up all pretense and just act normal. He shifted his attention to Cadance. “I’m sure Twilight would love to lend us a hoof, and as luck would have it, Cheese Sandwich, a professional party pony, is staying in Everfree right now. We could ask for his help too.”

-_-_-_-_-_-

In the kitchen of Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie frozed as both her front legs went weak and her left ear started flopping back and forth. “Oooh, one of my friends is going to ask me to throw a party today! A big one too!”

“That’s nice to hear, Pinkie,” Mr. Cake said, spreading chocolate frosting on a batch of donuts.

Pinkie pulled out the miniature coffin that held Discord. “Maybe this will be the one that finally gets you back to your old self.”

Discord was wearing a black suit and cape with a pair of fangs peeking below his upper lip, but otherwise he hadn’t changed at all since Pinkie first got him.

Returning the draconequus to wherever it was that she stored everything, Pinkie grinned. “I’d better start getting ready!” She was gone before the last echoes of her voice even faded.

Cheese Sandwich stopped mixing his bowl full of cake batter as a series of shudders and twitches washed over him. Once it ended, he turned to Mr. Cake and tipped his hat. “Sorry, Mr. Cake, but the ponies of the Crystal Empire need me.”

“Don’t worry,” Mr. Cake said, waving absentmindedly after the departing stallion. “Tell me how it went when you get back.” Once he finished with the donuts, Mr. Cake put a fresh batch of cookies in the oven and then picked up where Cheese had left off with the cake batter. As days with those two went, this was one of the more normal ones.

-_-_-_-_-_-

Spirit had long since come to grips with the fact that he was at his best when he was helping others. Sure it wasn’t as impressive as running at mach speeds, or building revolutionary suits of armor, or sneaking into enemy territory to report on troop movements, but he did take a fair amount of pride in his ability to take a bunch of different groups and get them to work together more effectively. It was a talent he put to good use over the next few days.

Autumn and Verre were working out an Empire-wide rationing system with the other important businessponies, but they couldn’t do that without knowing how many supplies Celestia would be able to gather from the rest of Equestria. Celestia, meanwhile, couldn’t do her job without updates on what was most needed in the Empire. She also wanted to know how the barracks for the griffon mercenaries were coming along. Pinkie and Cheese Sandwich had taken over most of the preparations for the crystal fair, but they weren’t in the Empire yet, obviously, so Spirit had to give them all the details they needed. Twilight, meanwhile, wanted to bring up the rest of Everfree Village so that they could see their friends and family, which meant discussing security with Shining Armor, just to make sure that nothing happened to any of the Element Bearers. The Rainbow Power of Harmony wasn’t going to help in this war, but Equestria would still need it the next time some god-like being of evil showed up.

It was disturbing how often that happened.

Perhaps the biggest trick was keeping all news of the upcoming fair a secret from the rest of the Empire. The Alliance couldn’t crash the party if they didn’t know that one was being held. As such, it was with a barely concealed grin that Spirit met with the the Everfree Platoon in front of the Crystal Bunker at sunrise the next Saturday.

“Spirit,” Cliff grumbled through a yawn, “I thought this was supposed to be a meeting about your new plan to defeat Yol Toor. What’s going on, and where’s Autumn?”

The younger dragon chuckled. “She’s working on some things with Verre, and our plans for Yol Toor are coming along nicely, but today we’ll be taking a break from military stuff.”

Cliff looked at him for a moment before shrugging. “Fine, then I’m heading back to the lab.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Spirit caught his brother by the arm. Looking more closely, he realized that Cliff’s armor was spotted and unpolished, while the dragon himself was slumped forward and had bleary eyes. He also didn’t smell great. “Cliff,” Spirit growled in frustration, “you pulled another all-nighter, didn’t you?”

“He did,” Fire Eyes, who was standing on Cliff’s other side, said. “I found him at his desk this morning.”

Spirit sighed. “When I installed that personal nest in your lab, I was expecting you to use it, you know?”

Cliff scratched at the metal covering his cheek with one claw. “I figured out how to make the shadow rune work right.”

At least that was some good news. The ability to transform into shadows would probably save more than a few lives before this war was over. Before Spirit could say anything though, Luna stepped to the front of the group, next to a wall of the Crystal Bunker.

“We thank you all for coming,” Luna said. “My sister has finished gathering a shipment of supplies and volunteers, and we will now open a portal to the storeroom in Canterlot where they currently are. However, we can only maintain it for a few minutes. Please stand clear so that things can go quickly.”

Fire Eyes frowned. “Stand clear? Why are we here if it’s not to help?”

Spirit just chuckled.

Luna’s eyes flashed white, and she turned to face one of the walls of the Crystal Bunker. Light flowed from her horn as the wall started to flicker, then shift. It was kind of like trying to stare at the bottom of a pond while someone was splashing around in the water.

After a moment, the ‘splashing’ started to fade, revealing something very different than the flat surface that had been there previously. Now it looked like a large square entryway, with Celestia standing on the other side, holding Flurry Heart in one foreleg. The young alicorn had grown since the last time Spike saw her. Behind them was a huge stone room, filled with ponies and wooden crates.

Celestia stepped to the side, clearing the way for a line of a dozen or so earth ponies hooked up to wagons. “Please move quickly, my little ponies. We cannot maintain this gate for long.”

The ponies needed no second prompting. They all but ran through, making the wagons they were carrying creak and groan from all the equipment weighing them down. Next came a long caravan of ponies of all types, pushing or pulling flat metal platforms on wheels. Each platform was more than twice as wide as a pony was long, and loaded up with eight wooden crates, which they started to unload as soon as they were all clear.

Spirit knew that it would only be enough to keep the Empire fed for a month or so, but it was still impressive to see how much food Celestia had been able to round up, and at the beginning of planting season no less.

He turned back to the portal and grinned as a familiar purple alicorn walked through, followed by the rest of the Element Bearers, plus Cheese Sandwich and a six-tailed fox that could only be Zephyr. Behind them was pretty much every single member of Everfree Village, including a large group of drakes and ponies that he didn’t recognize, which was probably Zephyr’s honor guard. “Hey, Cliff,” he nudged his brother, who was still looking at the supplies, “there’s someone here to see you.”

Cliff turned, freezing when he saw Fluttershy.

She was noticeably round in the stomach, and her mane was back to hanging so that it covered one eye, a style he hadn’t seen much since she and Cliff got married.

Spirit held his breath when she met Cliff’s gaze, and behind Fluttershy, he saw their other friends do the same. Fluttershy herself didn’t seem to notice anything other than Cliff. Tears welled up in her eyes as she literally flew into his arms.

That opened the proverbial floodgates, and soon everyone was gathered into one big cluster of hugs, laughter, and tears.

A rather big surprise came in the form of a blue stallion and a light gray mare, Spirit’s pony parents. They both latched onto him in what would have been a vice-like hug if he wasn’t wearing armor.

“It’s been far too long, honey,” Velvet, his pony mother, said, pulling back to get a better look at him. “How dare you throw a party and not invite us?” She frowned, but it wasn’t serious.

Underneath his helmet, Spirit found himself blushing. “Sorry, Mom. Things have been crazy and I kind of forgot.”

Night Light, his pony father, smacked him playfully on the shoulder, which made a metallic clunk against his armor. “You might have more sets of parents than the average pony or dragon, but that’s no excuse.” A warm grin split his face as he leaned in for another hug. “It’s good to see you again, Son.”

Spirit returned the gesture. “You too, Dad. We thought about bringing you up for Hearth’s Warming Eve, but considering what happened, it’s probably for the best that our plans fell through.”

Both ponies fell silent for a moment.

Velvet recovered first. “How are you holding up?” She did her best to pinch Spirit’s cheek through his armor. “Twilight says that things have been hard lately.”

“Losing most of our supplies and having all our prisoners escape, both in the same night, didn’t exactly do wonders for morale,” Spirit admitted. “Cliff is so upset about Heart Echo getting loose that he keeps working himself to exhaustion.” Over Velvet’s shoulder, Spirit saw that Cliff had taken off his helmet and was tenderly nuzzling Fluttershy as he held her close.

“I think he’s feeling better now,” Velvet said with a warm smile. “Speaking of relationships,” she turned back to Spirit, and her expression hardened, “Twilight told us something about you and Autumn that we need to talk about.”

Spirit blushed a little under his helmet. “And what exactly did she tell you?”

“Something that shouldn’t be spoken about in public,” Velvet said.

Really? Spirit glared at Twilight, who was caught up with their draconic parents. She’d gone and betrayed his trust like that?

Night Light noticed the look. “There’s no use getting mad at her over it, Son. We have a right to know.”

Spirit didn’t see how. He also made a mental note to have words with Twilight.

Across the courtyard, Luna stepped away from a group hug with Celestia, Shining, Cadance, and Flurry and called out in a loud voice, “We welcome you all to the Crystal Empire. The other citizens are gathering in a large park to the south for a glorious fair that has been prepared for us all. Let us retire there and renew the spirit of love and friendship in each of us!”

Several thousand children were coming through the gate now, the evacuees from the Empire, and were being directed to the park by the guards on duty.

The rest of the Platoon started walking with them, but Cliff and Fluttershy slipped off into the Bunker’s side door.

Meanwhile, Spirit found himself still confronted by the expectant gaze of his pony parents. He took a deep breath and embraced the Stillness. “We can talk in my office. Just give me a second.” He pushed through the crowd to Twilight. Giving her a hug brought his mouth conveniently close to her ear as he whispered, “Mom and Dad say that you told them about me and Autumn, Twi.”

“They have a right to know,” she whispered back, even though she was returning his hug.

Spirit rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned, the only individual who had a right to know about his business was himself. “Whatever. If you see Autumn, tell her that I’ll be a bit late.”

“I will,” Twilight said, looking a bit sheepish as she turned to follow the crowd. “Don’t be mad please.”

“I’ll do what I can.” He’d also find a way to get even. Spirit turned back to his pony parents. “Alright, let’s go.” He directed them toward the Crystal Bunker and what would probably be one of the most awkward conversations of his life.

-_-_-_-_-_-

In retrospect, things weren’t that bad. Sure, he must have spent a good hour reminding his mother that he was an adult and could make his own decisions, but at least she never pulled out the ‘Where did we go wrong?’ line.

His father only asked one question. Unfortunately, that question was, “When are you two getting married?” And no amount of explaining that Autumn didn’t want to get married would satisfy the older unicorn.

At least Spirit was still in one piece by the end, and that was all he could really hope for after his pony parents found out that he was sexually active. He even got them to promise to be nice to Autumn before he dumped them with Twilight and set out to find said marefriend.

The Crystal Fair was in full swing by that point, so Spirit had to dodge around groups of ponies as he looked for Autumn. At least their plan to increase love seemed to be working. Everywhere he looked, refugee children were clinging to their parents. The only group that didn’t seem to be ecstatically happy was one large cluster of children that was following around a chestnut brown crystal mare. Spirit recognized her as the owner of the local orphanage, which had more than tripled in size since the marketplace collapse.

It was strange. Once Spirit had thought that he didn’t have any parents either, then he realized that Celestia, Velvet, and Night Light had considered him their son all along. With Scenic Trail and Sky Painter thrown into the mix, he now had five loving parents. Spirit couldn’t help but feel a little guilty when he looked at these young ponies and thought about how much had been taken from them. At least all the game booths nearby seemed to be keeping their spirits up, even if they weren’t as energetic as the other foals around.

Finding Autumn took a lot longer than expected. She wasn’t at the game booths, or watching the jousting matches, or on any of the rides. Eventually yelling near the food court drew his attention.

“Now what?” Spirit muttered, rushing toward the noise. What he found was Autumn and a white crystal stallion engaged in a shouting match as Fleur de Verre stood between them, holding them apart.

Much to Spirit’s surprise and anger, he recognized the stallion as Liberty Valiant, the pony that Autumn had said arrested her and threw her in jail during Sombra’s rule. The crystal pony’s blue eyes were hard like steel, and powerful muscles flexed just beneath his white coat, which was flashing brightly, a sign of unbridled rage. Even his blue mane and tail seemed to have taken on a jagged appearance, like a pony could cut themselves just touching them.

Autumn stood opposite him, out of her armor for a change. Her coat had faded from its normal light blue to something like the color of tarnished silver, and her purple mane was dark, almost to the point of being black. That wasn’t the sign for anger; it was the sign for pure hatred.

Fleur de Verre was stuck between them, struggling to keep them apart as they pushed toward each other, shouting so loudly and so quickly that their individual words were lost. Spirit could pick up, ‘What was best,’ being shot back and forth, but he didn’t want to waste time trying to figure out what they meant by it.

Spirit ran in between them to give Verre some much-needed support, dropping a noise suppression field over them while he was at it.

Of course, he only held it for a moment before Liberty grabbed onto Spirit’s hand with his hoof and threw him out of the way. “Mind your own business!”

Oh, thank Celestia! Spirit grinned maliciously as he flipped back onto his feet. It was bad enough that they had to deal with this guy during morning training every day, and that just being near him stressed Autumn nearly to the breaking point. Now Spirit had a golden excuse to do something he had dreamed about and hurt that jerk for what he’d done to Autumn.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be smart about it, however. Spirit’s talent was illusions, which required caution, foresight, and careful manipulation to be effective. An extremely bright light suddenly flared in the crystal stallion’s eyes, just as a noise-amplifying field quadrupled the sounds of his own shouting, but only within a foot-wide diameter of his head.

Liberty reared back, shouting in pain as he tried to cover both his eyes and ears with his forehooves.

Spirit switched from amplification to negation, cutting off all sound and light right around the stallion’s head. He also threw in an emotion field, effectively scrambling his crystal pony empathy.

Meanwhile, the air around them all grew dark as Spirit pulled in sunlight, a little trick he had learned from Celestia.

The entire food court fell silent as Spirit stepped forward, his scales glowing faintly. “Did you know that light is really just a form of electromagnetic radiation?” A spell guided his voice directly into Liberty’s ears. It would be the only thing he could hear. “Right now, I’ve gathered enough of that radiation to cook your heart right in the middle of your chest.”

Verre stepped between Spirit and Liberty, her expression firm. “That won’t be necessary.”

Spirit paused.

The older mare turned suddenly and hit Liberty across the face hard enough to knock him flat on his side. “You can release him now.”

He did so.

Liberty winced as complete darkness switched back to a bright, sunny day.

“That was for lying,” Verre said. “You said you could control yourself.”

Autumn approached her mother and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Nice hit.”

Verre turned and hit Autumn as well, just hard enough to make a sound.

Autumn stumbled back, pressing a hoof against her cheek.

“Young lady,” Verre said, “I am neither a foal nor a fool. I can talk to him if I wish.”

Spirit hurried over to Autumn and pulled her into a hug. He could feel her shaking in his arms. “Verre,” he said, barely controlling his rage, “you had better have an extremely good reason for hitting the mare I love.”

“It’s okay,” Autumn whispered, brushing a tear off her cheek. “I-I deserved it.”

“There’s a lot you need to understand about this situation,” Verre said, “and this isn’t the place to discuss it.” She turned back to Liberty, her coat rippling angrily. “With Amore as my witness, I should send you on your way right now, but you’re going to come home with the rest of us, and we are going to have a civilized discussion for once.” Then, all but dragging the stallion onto his hooves, she stormed off, leaving a stunned crowd of ponies in her wake.

Spirit carefully pulled Autumn’s hoof away from her cheek, revealing a small bruise. “Are you okay?”

Autumn looked away, her coat reflecting shame and hurt in equal measure. “Do I look okay?”

In retrospect, it had been a pretty dumb thing to ask. “Sorry.” Spirit healed her cheek.

“We should keep up.” Autumn followed after her mother.

“What happened?” Spirit asked, keeping pace with her.

“I left to use the restroom,” Autumn said numbly. “When I came back, he was there, speaking to my mother. I demanded that he leave, but he refused, and …” She lowered her head and whispered, “you saw the rest.”

Spirit looked ahead at Verre, who was practically stomping down the street, and Liberty, who walked with his head low and his coat faded to gray. Verre had said that she wanted to talk to him. “How do those two know each other?”

“She …” Autumn shook her head. “She just does.”

“You don’t want to tell me.” Spirit couldn’t help but feel a little hurt.

“I do want to tell you,” Autumn said, “but I just can’t force the words up.” She sighed. “Sometimes it feels as though something in me is broken. Why do you think I want you to find someone better after I’m gone?”

Spirit remembered the last thing Heart had said to him before she escaped: Autumn didn’t need to be fixed; she needed to accepted. “You aren’t broken.” He pressed against her side. “And I don’t want anyone else. Ever.”

Autumn didn’t respond, but she did lean into him a bit.

Comments

[Hillbe]

blabber mouth
what?
Mom and Dad saw Fluttershy they too will want grandfoals!

twins!

[GrimmWolfDragon]

A good chapter 37.
For Spirit AKA Spike and Autumn I hope we get to now about Autumn past.
In a time Great Depression a party is always needed

[Jarimor]

calling it now-
he is her daddy.

[ArchimediesMD]

Here's hoping the Alliance won't attack during the fair though since they told them to evacuate the foals atleast a dozen chapters ago I don't think they will

[Joeyjambo122]

How many weeks left are there until Fluttershy and Cliff have their baby?

[Toa Coy]

*still in dragon form*

Me: Twilight broke the bro code

Robot: Smart move on the pony's part

M.wolfdragon: One thing good about not really knowing or really meeting your parents don't have to explain your love life

F.wolfdragon: you say that not having to deal with walking in on that -_-

M.wolfdragon: One time and you will not let it go

F.wolfdragon: nope

[Truthseeker]

And who wants to bet the Alliance is or at least the Hurricanes are going to launch an attack while the celebration is going on and slaughter a bunch of foals.