Hostile History

by Jest

Chapter 10

Perfect Tempo led Sunset back through the facility quickly, the man apparently quite knowledgeable of the structure’s layout. The man walked with ambivalence to the blaring sirens overhead, and the sound of stomping boots all around them. The facility was clearly panicking, and from the sound of it they seemed to be organizing for a resistance effort of some kind.

There was no mystery about why.

As they left Sunset’s own cell block, she saw a pair of crumpled bodies on the floor, each one with their own little pool of blood. They were both conventional soldiers, with rifles and black uniforms. They didn’t move, nor sport any obvious injuries.

Tempo watched her gaze, and seemed to misinterpret her expression, because he said, “Your companions were deemed a higher escape risk than yourself. Please do not take offense. Foxtrot and his type think in terms of tanks and artillery shells. They don’t realize that a single whisper could steal the funding they use to feed their troops, or deploy them to a pointless war in a god-forsaken desert somewhere. They didn’t appreciate the fact that you were their most valuable captive.”

Sunset stopped beside one of the soldiers, searching for any sign of life. She reached down for a moment, hesitating. This man’s hair might be cropped, and he might be in a uniform, but his expression was horrified. His last moments of life had been just as terrible as the ones in the theater.

“Did you do this?” Sunset asked in a hushed tone.

“No,” Tempo replied. “But the ones who did gave them ample opportunity to surrender. If you learn no other lessons from me today, Sunset, learn to shed no tears for an enemy who will not help himself.”

He bent down and gently turned the head of the dead man away. “I told them confining you was unacceptable, and yet you remained a captive. The incompetent are always drowning in the blood of their slaves.”

His eyes twitched as he said it, his expression losing focus. The pain in his face went deep, much deeper than Sunset’s own understanding.

I shouldn’t argue with the one rescuing us. If he abandons me now, it might look like I killed these people. They’ll feel justified hating Equestria then. Sunset thought to herself.

“Did none of them surrender?” Sunset Shimmer inquired, the former pony imagining all the cooks, janitors and other personnel this kind of base would require.

“A number of them did, and I expect more will once the futility of their defence is truly realized,” Tempo explained, standing up once more. “And mark my words. Those who do give in will be treated with respect.”

“We’re still going to save my friends though right? Even if they are still fighting? ” Sunset asked, the woman hesitant to even hear his response.

“Yes,” Tempo exclaimed, turning away from the corpses and starting to move again at the same unconcerned pace. “It would be more efficient just to bring you back with us, and obviously that was the idea from the beginning. But I respect your loyalty towards your allies. It is something we share, something our enemies will abandon on a whim if they think it suits them. Thus I will respect your desire.”

And Sunset saw why he was so calm as several passages around them looked like they might’ve been accessible once, but not anymore. Heavy security doors were completely choked with a faint green slime, or had spreading frost growing across their surface. Past one she heard men on the other side hammering away at the metal, but Area 7’s own security was working against them.

“I’ve…” Sunset shook her head. “This has to be the work of magic, yet…”

“You are not wrong,” Tempo exclaimed. “I have endeavored for many years to unite those wronged and betrayed by Equestria. You’ll understand our methods and magic in time.

He stopped suddenly and fixed the girl with a firm look. “But first I must ask. How much did you suffer at their hands?”

Sunset looked away, lowering her voice. She didn’t really want to argue, but some part of her had to. She couldn’t stay silent, not after everything she’d learned with her friends.

“Much of that was… my own doing. I didn’t have to go through it, yet in my arrogance I did anyway,” Sunset Shimmer murmured.

Perfect Tempo waved a dismissive hand, leaving a faint glowing trail of magic in the air behind him. It looked almost like a horn’s own glow when casting a spell, except of course it couldn’t be. He didn’t have one, he hadn’t “gone pony,” and even when her friends did, they couldn’t perform arbitrary spells the way unicorns did.

“That is a convenient fiction. It’s what they feed you in order to pacify you. But in my experience, a creature doesn’t strive for power because she is a selfish monster. She strives for power because there is some flaw in her world that needs to be rectified, about which the powers that be have done nothing to rectify. Considering your own history, Sunset. What nightmares were suffered unheeded in your day? What terrible things did Equestria ignore?” Perfect Tempo continued.

Sunset Shimmer looked away from him. Not because he was wrong, and she was afraid of angering him further but rather she wanted to avoid the truth entirely.

“Celestia’s been living in Canterlot for so long she barely even understands life outside it,” Sunset Shimmer murmured, her words growing louder and more confident as time passed. “There are dozens of little towns with their own problems, and she was doing nothing about them. Nightmare Moon was going to return to invade, and all she did was sit by and count the days until it happened. She needed another alicorn to fight beside her and she refused me despite all I had done for her.”

Each word was an effort, like she was prying them from the jaws of some great predatory lizard and yet she had gotten them out somehow.

Perfect Tempo nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I knew you would understand. It was likewise during my own time in Equestria all those years ago. Celestia acts like a pony you think you can love, a pony you trust and admire… until keeping you is no longer convenient for her, and you’re swept aside.”

Sunset gulped, internally struggling with the realization that he was true while also not wanting to believe his words. In the end she said nothing, and merely looked away, too consumed in her own internal considerations to speak a word.

Tempo sighed and turned away. “Before we continue I must apologize for not coming sooner. I was in europe when I first caught wind of your obduction, and had hoped that merely reprimanding Foxtrot would remedy his poor behavior.”

“Foxtrot doesn't seem the type to listen to anyone once his heart is set on something,” Sunset Shimmer remarked.

Perfect Tempo nodded slowly. “I had known that before, but had assumed he would value his position more then keeping six teenagers locked up. Again I was wrong, and again I must apologize.”

“Well your here now,” Sunset Shimmer muttered.

“That is no excuse,” Perfect Tempo quickly declared. “I had known of you for years and had chosen to let you grow into adults before contacting you. I see now that was a poor choice.”

“So long as my friends and are sent home safe and sound I’ll forgive you,” Sunset Shimmer replied.

Perfect Tempo flashed the woman a smile. “You set my heart at ease, Sunset Shimmer. Now come, let us put this dreadful place behind us.”

Together, Perfect Tempo and Sunset Shimmer proceded deeper into the structure, passing by more corpses as they went. The man led them down one hallway and then another before they were at a large security door, made of interlocking steel sections that were probably larger than Sunset Shimmer’s whole body. He held one hand over the security panel, but didn’t activate the scanner.

For a moment he seemed buried in intense concentration, then the screen started to spark. A second later and the doors ground open, metal bending and flexing as they rotated inwards.

There were more soldiers on the other side, or at least there had been at one point. More slime coated many of them who were still wearing their suits and several others were completed encased by the stuff. A few were actively struggling to escape, occasionally belching out whatever cold fluid let those suits do what they did. But none had made progress. They couldn’t even reach their weapons.

Even still, the place was a warzone. Cells had been violently ripped open, metal bent, crushed and left with spears of ice sticking straight through a few of them.

Not just spears either, but huge shards the size of a human being which were so cold they steamed and hissed against the metal. Some had bullet holes running through them, or had been shattered violently by some unknown force.

Sunset shivered, wrapping her arms closer about herself in the thin prison jumpsuit.

“Sweet Celestia… we can’t just go back to the way things were after this. People… people died here,” Sunset Shimmer murmured.

And what about those creatures that attacked Canterlot? Were you the one who sent those too? In the last attack, people had died too. Sunset Shimmer thought. They might’ve died in the earlier attacks, if it wasn’t for Sunset and her friends’ intervention.

Perfect Tempo shrugged one shoulder, clearly ambivalent to the deaths of others.

“I have certain powers over this organization. It seems as though the fiat currency they rely on is more important to them than those they pointlessly sacrificed. The right pressure on the right people, and I can purchase security for your friends. Though much of the evidence of today will be destroyed, I will preserve everything that exonerates you, have no fear,” Perfect proclaimed. “Each of you was recorded inside her cell during the entire event. Escaping is not so terrible a crime. In some countries, it is a duty.”

Sunset wasn’t convinced, but she also didn’t want to argue with the man who had just saved her. Foxtrot had left her for dead, isolated from companionship in a dark cell for what felt like months. She’d been slowly losing her mind down there and she wasn’t exactly jumping to go back. For some reason—a reason she was beginning to guess, she was too fearful to ask her saviour.

Finally, she saw the first sign of creatures that weren’t locked up in jail, or dead, or covered in slime.

They looked a little like ponies, except their limbs were spears of ice to which their bodies were only loosely connected. They were shorter than Sunset, and gave context to the many huge chunks of ice littering the hallway behind her. For they were like these creatures, only dead. Their eyes were pinpricks of glowing blue in an otherwise clear head which turned to look at her and Tempo as they approached.

And the woman at the other end of the hall was… something else. Tall, beautiful, with skin so pale that she looked a little like a corpse herself. Her own eyes didn’t glow, but they were just as bright as the many sets watching Sunset as she moved through the room.

They stood at the very end, beside a row of cells separated by a dozen paces or so each.

“Darling, you’ve returned,” the woman exclaimed.

Her accent was strange—American for certain, though it was still unfamiliar to Sunset. Like something out of time. Her manner of dress was similar—an old style of overlong gown, with various holes and openings at random, revealing bits and pieces of the black fabric underneath.

“You know how impatient I can be during these adventures of yours,” she added.

Tempo met her with a light touch, a kiss, and they were apart again. Professional yet—obviously more than simple cohorts. Sunset also realized that they were both wearing black rings on the same finger.

Could they be…

Sunset Shimmer wasn’t given enough time to stop and think about it, because the woman suddenly turned her attention on her.

“And this is she—Celestia’s own apprentice. Child of the court, abandoned for asking for what she was owed. You’re in good company, sister. You’ll find many a sympathetic ear here,” exclaimed the woman.

Sunset nodded weakly, unable to meet the older creature’s eyes. “I just want to save my friends.”

“Of course,” the woman flicked her wrist, a keycard emerging from her clothes.

The lanyard had been stained red, and now a thin coating of frost crept along the plastic from the woman’s bare fingers.

“We thought you would want the honor,” stated the woman.

“This is my wife,” Tempo added. “Call her Ghost, if you wish. We’re past titles, or we soon will be. While you gather your friends, I will prepare our escape.”

He turned to a bare patch of ground, before gesturing at it with one hand. Flames began to burn into the concrete, laying a familiar rune circle. It was a mass teleportation rune, the sort that the average unicorn learned in high school. They would have also learned not to use such a rune, for how easy it was to screw up, but somehow Sunset didn’t think Perfect Tempo would do that.

Sunset Shimmer hurried to the first door, shivering in the cold as she clutched the keycard tightly. There was a tiny window visible atop the door and Sunset stood atop the tips of her feet to peek through it. She could see Fluttershy was inside, the girl curled with her knees pressed against her chest.

“Hey!” Sunset waved one hand. “Hold on, I’m getting you out.”

Fluttershy opened one eye, whimpering. “Sunset? You’re… Was that you making all that… noise?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t do it, the ones who did saved me too. We’re getting out!”

Fluttershy rose, shaking out her black jumpsuit. “Sure. Need to get home… water, food, walks… I hope they’re all doing okay.”

Sunset slid the keycard through the reader, and there was a loud click. The door swung open, and Fluttershy staggered out of the room. Her eyes widened at the carnage outside, but Sunset pointed her towards the circle. “Wait there. I’m going to get the rest of the girls out.”

And she did, one after another. Each lock worked just the same as the first. None of her friends seemed like they’d been beaten or otherwise abused, though each was shaken from their long stay in isolation. As Sunset worked, she heard the sound of gunfire from the other side of the long hallway. “Ghost” growled bitterly, and the ice ponies darted down the way they’d entered, into the line of human shaped outlines approaching from down the corridor.

Finally Sunset finished, and the despondent crowd of refugees packed into the transport circle, each one handling the sights of carnage with their own unique flavor of horror and disgust.

“I’m afraid a change of leadership may be necessary here,” Tempo muttered, finally rising from the circle to face them. “Foxtrot has lost his ability to reason. If he cannot identify a useful creature from one of primal, reasonless fury, then he is not suited for command.”

He snapped his fingers, and the floor seemed to melt away inside the circle, turning to a soupy, red-colored glow.

“It’s warming up down here,” Ghost whispered, facing the group and grinning wildly. “Time to go.”

She then leaned back, and fell into the portal. Magic frothed and splashed, then she vanished.

Sunset could feel the eyes of her friends on her. She at least had some information, and she’d been the one to let them out of their cells. Getting them through this was on her.

“They’re friendly,” Sunset explained. “And this is safe. It’s a hard spell, but I think Perfect Tempo is an expert.”

He chuckled. “To put it mildly. Hurry. My wife’s simulacrum will not continue to function for long and I am less adroit at protecting others.”

One by one, they passed through the portal, each one climbing or dropping down through it. Sunset went last, pausing just long enough for one last look at the ruined facility and those who had died trying to keep them here.

We didn’t want any of this. Sunset thought bitterly. If only they would have listened.

Then without another thought she jumped into the portal, and the magic swallowed her.

Author's Note:

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Comments

[verypeeved]

that was quite the slaughter. i can't fault them for it, of course. if a man is determined to throw himself on your sword, you're quite justified in letting him.

[vectorVll]

10912842
Do not let flowery words lead. You astray and sweet promises filled with nothing. Because it will always be the evil man that says he is good and the good man will always claims what he does is evil.

These people did not throw away their lives. They were taken away by a man who in even his simplest of speats prove. He is callous if he had the power to truly stop the man he would not need to come in like a thief in the night and still.