"I want to make sure," the Captain slowly said, "that everyone has all this straight."
Flash was back in the Captain's office, silently sitting on the carpet. (Sitting at attention, for the nothing that was worth.) It had taken hours before the doctors and thaumatologists released him, and then two more before the inspections had wrapped up for Iron Will: nopony was used to working with minotaurs, and so extra time had been required before anypony had felt comfortable with presenting an all-clear. But as soon as Flash had exited, he'd been told the Captain wanted to see them both at the earliest possible opportunity. He'd been in the Guard long enough to know that meant something which would require a teleport from the hospital, and he'd just barely managed to explain his personal order to the big bull before a pair of pounding hooves had begun to comply with it.
Oddly, the only true injuries were to Flash's shoulder and neck: the force of impacting the minotaur had put too much pressure against his body, and much of that bruising had been produced by his own armor. As for the spells... Iron Will had started moving again shortly after coming out of the tunnel, and the protests hadn't taken much longer to emerge as the Captain forcibly field-carried them both to the hospital (with the bull claiming he could walk all the way). Flash had told everypony there about what he'd felt happening within his body, and the thaumatologists had verified that he'd been hit by something -- but whatever it had been, the spell hadn't had enough time to finish its work. Once they were both away from the source, things had begun to fade, and then...
"You've both been cleared?" the Captain asked for the second time.
They nodded. The minotaur's was nearly on a level with Flash's: Iron Will was sitting on the floor again, although there hadn't been any pillows available.
"And you stand by your stories," he continued.
Another nod.
"Stories which state that everything was proceeding normally until Mr. Will here saw something on the wall. Something which seems to have had an entrancement effect worked in. You don't know if the pattern was always there or if magic placed it once he'd been in the laboratory for a while, and Private Sentry never saw his eyes, so we can't try to backtrack the exact spell from that." The Captain's right foreleg stretched out, and the hoof pushed a few new papers around. The white horn remained oddly dark. "We can't try to backtrack much of anything... but it isn't there now, and given what happened -- well, we'll get to that. But it isn't coming back."
There didn't seem to be any need for nodding to that.
"There was nothing unusual happening before the diagram?" the Captain inquired with what seemed to be a little too much care. "Nothing either of you can recall?"
Iron Will slowly shook his head. "Just two guys talking."
"About what?"
Flash's heart nearly stopped.
"Guy stuff," the minotaur expressively shrugged. "About a girl. Shining, I was just going from piece to piece, using the analyzer, and then -- that thing caught me. Your Guard flew in to rescue me, and he got me out. I saw him get me through the doorway without snagging my horns and I still don't know how he did it. And pushing me all the way to the exit..." The huge muscles of the chest expanded from the breath, slowly moved back in. "He only came in to get me. That's it, Shining. He never would have crossed the frame if I hadn't gotten caught."
"I recognize that," the Captain neutrally replied. "I am in no way faulting Private Sentry for his decision to retrieve you --" paused. "You saw him get you through the doorway?"
Another breath. "You ever have one of those dreams where you're sort of -- watching yourself? Like you're a little away from your own body and you can see and hear everything that's going on, but you can't make yourself move?"
After a long moment, the Captain slowly nodded.
"I knew I was caught," Iron Will softly said. "I could feel it. But I couldn't say anything, not what I wanted to. I couldn't get out of it. All I could do was -- watch. It's -- it feels like being --" and abruptly, with increased speed, "-- let's get back to the main subject, okay? I'm gonna talk this out later with a professional, because I want to make sure it doesn't stay inside. And I already told the docs and spell experts: they'll both have papers for you tomorrow, and they'll probably say more than I ever could. But right now, it's getting pretty late for everyone, and I think we all need some sleep."
Flash thought about his bed. Then he thought about the barracks which contained it, and felt a nerve go on edge.
"We'll keep this fairly short," the Captain agreed. "At least for this portion. I just want to make sure you're both straight on what you haven't gotten to hear yet. The theory about what happened down there. The aftermath."
Flash forced his breathing to steady, and couldn't seem to do the same for his heart.
"The analyzer," the Captain told them, "came out with you: you never completely lost your grip. Now, when I briefed Iron Will on how to use it, I told him which runes he could touch, and in what order, because I spoke to the thaumatologists after it was discovered. They told me what they knew about operating it, and so I told him. From what they said, you usually didn't have to worry about pressure on the wrong rune, not after it had been set to do its job. There was just one thing you couldn't do."
Oh no.
And without mercy, the Captain continued. "A sequence of very light pressure, across specific runes, in a very short time frame. What they called the sequence for initiating a catastrophic dump. Because analyzers partially work by temporarily sampling any thaums nearby, so there's a procedure for getting rid of whatever it's taken in. Just in case it somehow got something bad and couldn't cycle it out normally. I warned Iron about that sequence. And only Iron. Because Private Sentry was never going to use the thing, or touch it, or set something off by accident. In fact, nopony's ever done a catastrophic dump, because the thaumatologists are afraid it'll delete the internal memory of every working the analyzer ever took in. They know how it's done -- but since there were only three known to still exist, nopony's been curious enough to find out what actually happens when you trigger that rune sequence. Now -- would either of you care to guess the exact order of symbols Private Sentry touched when his foreleg slid across the disk?"
The pegasus felt the wince freeze on his face, and no amount of effort seemed to shift it.
"So we now know," the Captain concluded, "what a catastrophic dump feels like, from an eyewitness. A hundred thaumatologists across Equestria will want to thank you, Private, right before some of them try to take off your head. I deliberately didn't tell your medical personnel about what had happened to the disk because I'd rather not clean up after a murder today. They might kill you before you got to tell them how that energy apparently clashes with any workings -- at least for those cast by Sombra, things nopony should treat as completely normal magic -- which happen to be in place within a small area. How that clash quickly turns violent and, after a few seconds, incendiary. But shortly after that, the conflict reaches a point where everything -- cancels out. Once the tunnel had cooled and everypony had stepped past the melted sunglasses, I sent a few Guards down it. Carefully. And they found that there is not one lingering thaum present in that area. Every single working has been neutralized. We won't ever figure out the spells Sombra was using from our own senses because there are no spells left. Even the faintest residue is gone."
Iron Will leaned forward slightly, adjusted his hands against the carpet. "How's the analyzer?"
"Sitting in a room by itself for a while," the Captain replied. "I'm told it's got platinum inside, so it might recharge if we give it some time. But until it gets some power back, we won't know what happened to the memory. Maybe it's got something left. It could be everything or nothing. But we don't know. It's a question for another day. Or given how long it takes them to charge, another moon."
Which was when Flash went to his most frequent vocalization, the word which never worked.
"I'm sorry, Captain," he said as his eyes sought the carpet, coming to rest on the minotaur's large fingers instead. "I know there could have been a lot of things in there, things nopony today understands, and... I cost everypony that knowledge. That was me. I didn't mean --"
He heard the minotaur inhale, start to open his mouth -- but that was when the horn's corona flashed: light, and then no light. No projection, no workings, just a simple signal for attention: stop.
They both stopped.
"The Cabinet's head of Assertiveness Training and Emotional Recovery," his officer said, "still has both of his legs, for their full length. I'm sure he considers that to be a worthwhile trade, and I --" there was a second where his lips quirked "-- am not going to argue with his priorities. Yes, we may have lost the analyzer's memory, and that includes what we could have learned about some of Sombra's workings -- possibly including things we might encounter in another laboratory, should we be unfortunate enough to locate another one. But if we do get another one, we can study that. I don't know where to find a working minotaur tibia. Now -- everypony --" a brief pause "-- and everyone has had a Tartarus-freed day. We're all tired. I just wanted to make sure you two knew, from me, how it ended down there. Now that it's safe for ponies to go in and out, we're going to empty the place tomorrow and give the horns a proper burial. So Iron -- go home. Get that sleep."
The minotaur slowly stood up. "In a while," he told them. "There's a couple of things I want to do first."
It brought a head tilt from the Captain as the unicorn gazed up. "Getting a drink?"
"For starters," the big bull replied. "Plus some talking. But I'll get to sleep eventually." The left hand gestured towards Flash. "What about him?"
The Captain took a slow breath.
"You're relieved of all duties for tomorrow." he told Flash. "I already told the rest of the squad. I'll meet you in the barracks two hours after Sun-raising. We're not done talking. Dismissed."
They both left the office. The minotaur silently went one way, the pegasus slowly trotted down another, too tired to consider flight. Eventually, he reached his barracks, deep under Moon, and found everypony else had already fallen asleep.
Flash made his way to bed as silently as he could, forcing himself past exhaustion and that edgy feeling and the certainty that somehow, some way, he'd screwed up everything from this day too. It took some time (and one hoof-skidding near-fall) before he managed to get there, tucked himself uneasily under his blankets, and finally fell asleep with the same thought he had to conclude every day of his Guard life.
I'll be fired tomorrow.
And in the morning, it once again turned into I'll get fired today.
The first thing he saw when he finally pushed his head up was that everypony had already left. He'd slept through the morning wake-up call, all the Guards getting up and ready for their shifts, all the little jokes which he was never a part of unless they were being made at his expense. Unconscious for all of it, and there was a moment when he wondered if he'd been out for another week.
The second thing he saw was the minotaur, whose weight was putting an impressive dent in the mattress of the somewhat-neighboring, perfectly-made bed.
"Guess you needed that," Iron Will said. "I was gonna wake you in another twenty. It's about an hour before Shining's due, in case you're wondering. I thought he shouldn't catch you sleeping, even when he knows you're tired."
Flash tried to stretch, winced at the pain in shoulder and neck. "Thank you."
"I tried to thank you back in the bubble," the minotaur told him. "And in the hospital, before they started the tests, and after I got out. I'm not sure you ever heard me. So -- thank you, Flash." He paused. "I'm -- still talking to ponies. But I'm starting to think that maybe no one says that enough."
Or ever, especially when there was never a true reason for it. "I cost everypony the analyzer. There's only four in the world and I brought it back to three."
"They don't know yet." The words had been oddly sharp -- but the ones which followed them were softer. "You go right for the negative, don't you? You saved my life. I'm thanking you for that -- again -- and you don't really take that in because you're thinking about a piece of metal and spellwork. There's four of them in the world, and maybe only three are working now. But there's only one of me. I'm gonna be a lot more focused on me."
Flash couldn't find a response for that, and so pushed himself out of bed.
Iron Will stood up, turned around long enough to smooth out his dent. "Getting some breakfast before he comes down here? Because I brought hay. Good hay. The imported stuff. The Empire's crops aren't quite up to it yet."
The pegasus sighed. "Maybe. If there's time. I have to get washed up, make sure my armor and body are at inspection standards, make my bed..."
"Oh, yeah. The bed. Shining mentioned that, while we were arguing. How you couldn't do it."
Of course the Captain had. Flash silently began to work on that portion of near-future failure.
"Want to know the secret?" Iron Will casually offered.
Flash slowly glanced back over his sore shoulder, and saw the minotaur was grinning.
"There's a secret?"
"Yeah," the big bull said. "I'm not military, but I talk to most of your squad. I drink with a few of them. And it's about the same two things a lot of military stuff centers around. Orders and unity."
He blinked. "I... I don't get it."
"You have to know when an order is stupid," Iron Will said. "And that's when the squad pulls together in unity, going behind their Captain's tail to get things done. You can't make a bed with your hooves and mouth to those standards, Flash. Nopony alive could unless they had a mark for it, and I don't think that would be a great mark to have. It takes a field. The unicorns in your squad wait until nopony's looking and then make the beds for everypony. Them making yours is how you know they've accepted you as being part of the squad."
He felt his heart sink into his ribs. "They've never made mine. Ever. Anywhere."
"I figured," the minotaur admitted. "And maybe that'll change. Maybe it would have changed today, but you slept through it --"
Part of Flash didn't want to hear that, and nothing within him was capable of believing it. "And I can't do it. I'll never do it." His gaze shifted, leaving him morosely staring at the rumpled sheets. "There's no way --"
The cracking sound filled the room, and Flash nearly jumped before looking back to see Iron Will unlacing his fingers.
"These," the big bull said, rubbing at his knuckles, "are called hands."
They talked for a few minutes, while there was still time to do so, and Flash didn't truly take in most of it. But one part immediately stood out. The minotaur had asked him how he'd gotten into the Guards, and he'd provided the usual answer. Then he'd asked how Flash was still in the Guards, and there was a standard response for that too. But those had been followed by a third question, something no one had ever asked.
"Why don't you quit? There's no minimum term of service for a Guard. If you think you're this bad at it, you could just fly away."
"It's my parents," Flash quietly admitted. "They were legends when they were on the Solar staff, and they still have Guards drop by their home, old ones and new, to talk about the things they did or ask for the stories. If I quit... it just looks bad for them. It's already bad enough, having me. I know something about what happened everywhere got to them, with all the ponies who visit. I don't write home any more, and --" He stopped, thought about the unopened envelopes in his horseshoe locker, and then tried to forget them again.
"It's better for them if you're fired?"
"If I quit," Flash slowly said, "that's my opinion. If I get fired, then it's a Guard admitting I shouldn't be here. They would respect that more. They'd understand. And -- this is the last stop. The Captain said so. There's nowhere else I can go."
"Did you think you'd be any good when you joined up?" The question seemed to be sincere.
"You know how some ponies say you can find out who you truly are in the Guards?"
"No," the minotaur readily admitted. "Never heard that one. Sounds like a recruiting slogan."
It had been. "I was hoping they were right. And I was wrong about myself. I only got the first half." He sighed. "You -- really didn't tell the Captain?"
"No. I'm still thinking, Flash. Still talking. And even when that's done -- maybe a little longer, I think I've almost got the shape of it -- he doesn't have to know everything."
His blood started to chill, and no heat could ever be shifted in. "But you're going to tell him something."
"If this is what I'm starting to think it is -- if you're what I think you are --"
Equestria's biggest mistake. A broken pony with a mark which didn't work. Something everypony would know. "-- he'll be here soon. You'd better go."
The minotaur sighed.
"And that's why I'm not ready yet," he said. "Because you are not going to believe a red-tinged thing without evidence, and a lot of it. But I'm almost there, so after you wrap up with him -- you've got the day clear. So come find me in the park, after my morning training session. I think I'll be ready by then. And maybe after a few drinks, you might be ready to listen."
Flash waited by his bed.
It wasn't easy. He didn't like being in the barracks on a normal day, and now the Captain was coming in. To speak with him, although that might not take place in the barracks. It might be a trot-and-talk, all the way to the train station.
Yes, he'd saved Iron Will's life -- somehow. Made enough mistakes that they'd added up into something cohesive, an accident with benefits. But that accident had broken the analyzer. There had to be a price paid for that.
At least my bed is made.
It was a dark thought, as was any humor within it. He had one thing right, and he hadn't even done it. He understood what the minotaur meant, but -- nopony at any stop had ever helped. Nopony had ever accepted him as part of the squad. Yes, he kept to himself, but that was trying to minimize the damage, and then when the accidents inevitably began...
His armor was polished. He had cleaned himself to regulation standards, although the base of his mane was still slightly damp. He felt he was as ready as he was going to be, for whatever came, and he was wrong.
"Private," the Captain steadily stated as he trotted into the barracks. "I see you're ready. Now, before we start: I had the night to sleep on everything, and I've spoken to the Princess. She feels, that in light of your recent --"
-- and he stopped.
"Your bed," the Captain said. And for the first time, the first with any officer addressing him in a way that didn't end with passing over the completed transfer forms, Flash saw something almost like a smile on the unicorn's face.
"Sir?"
"Your bed," the Captain stated, "is made. Expertly."
Only Flash hadn't done it, and the ponies who were supposed to hadn't...
"Yes, sir." It seemed to be the only thing he could say.
"Well, then," the Captain shrugged. "Before we do anything else..."
His horn ignited, opened the lid of his left saddlebag, rummaged for and removed a little shard of crystal, one which was almost completely clear. It was transparent enough to let anypony see the pattern of silver flecks within, the ones which, when translated from Ancient Crystalia, represented the number five.
"For lack of bits," the Captain told him, "we'll use the local currency." His field lowered the money to the bed, winked out. "But be careful with it, Private, because nopony's figured out how to bring the minting procedure back yet, which is why we've been keeping all the coin collectors out of the Empire. We can't afford to lose too many. Literally."
Flash blinked.
The words had been -- casual. They had almost sounded like a joke.
"Let's see if it bounces," the Captain said. "You do the honors."
Flash leaned forward, carefully took up the shard between his teeth, thoughts distracted by that strange tone in the Captain's voice. The words which weren't angry, which didn't seem to be heading in that direction at all...
Whip it.
He felt the thought. He knew what it was, recognized the source, and did so after he'd whipped the shard into the mattress at the best speed his quickly-turning head could manage, boosted by the takeoff and wing downbeat he hadn't even recognized as they'd been happening.
The shard bounced. It flew off the mattress, went for the ceiling on a line which lacked any degree of arc, hit the crystal roof point-first. And with a little cracking sound, it stuck there.
Unicorn and pegasus stared at it for a moment. And because they were both looking at exactly the right spot, they saw it starting to happen, a split-second before the much louder cracking sound hit their ears.
Neither spoke. One galloped, one flew, moving just ahead of the spreading horizontal chasms overhead, backwards-rotated ears hearing tiny falling pieces bouncing off properly-made beds all over the barracks. Flash automatically swooped down, pressed all four legs against his final officer's ribs, got him off the floor and into the hallway --
The hallway turned out to be the border.
Flash went low, released the Captain from the pressure lift, landed. They both looked back at the much-lower ceiling, which was all anypony could see of the now-buried room, and both glances were completely involuntary.
The Captain took a breath. Any energy gained from it was immediately transmitted to an instant double corona which was spiking more heavily than anything Flash had ever seen.
"I would normally tell you to get your things," he hissed, "but I don't think I'm willing to risk waiting for the three days it'll take to excavate them. Get to the station. Get on a train. Get out. You are discharged from the ranks. Permanently."
He flew. He fled. And he never looked back, for to do so would have been to let the last crack reach his heart.
A pegasus, underlying bruises darkening the fur of exposed shoulder and neck, stood on the empty platform and looked at the schedule again. None of the words had changed over the last three hours.
He'd left the armor behind in the castle, just about shedding it on the wing. Armor was for Guards, and he was... just a pony. A broken pony, one dealing with a truth of the world: everypony might care about getting you out of the area at something beyond a military definition of 'immediately,' but nopony could magically summon an extra train. There just wasn't that much traffic between the Empire and the rest of the world yet. Most of the passenger cars typically ran at something very close to empty, and the railway scheduled accordingly. He had been waiting for three hours, and he would have to wait for one more.
A ticket had been claimed, on government business: a Guard had that right, and -- one who had just been discharged was allowed to do the same, for as long as it took to get home --
-- he didn't have a home. He had lived at his postings. There was no apartment waiting for him anywhere, steadily draining salary through rent charges for a pony who never managed to even drop by and dust. He could -- go to his parents. They would find out sooner or later, after all: he would be able to beat the news if he went directly to them. It might even be better, hearing it from him. But after that... there was nowhere waiting for him. No job he knew how to do, nothing where he was confident in his ability to make a living, unless somepony wanted to hire a professional saboteur, albeit one who couldn't plan out his results.
The dark internal humor didn't make him laugh: nothing could have, and so he checked the unchanging schedule again. It was something to pass the time.
What could he do? His techniques weren't bad: unless somepony in the ranks directly intervened on a hire, there was a certain minimum standard for a pegasus Guard's magic, and he'd passed it. But it didn't qualify him for being part of a weather team. He wouldn't be much for sales. Politics seemed to be out. Scouting, perhaps. Wild zone exploration could bring all sorts of disasters down upon him without anypony else around to worry about, and if he wasn't any good at the profession, at least he wouldn't have to worry about it for very long.
He had bounced a crystal shard off a bed and collapsed a ceiling. He felt as if he should have been vaguely impressed by that: it was a scope of disaster beyond what he typically created, and that took some real work. But the next glance went to his mark, and he hated the icon, hated it with everything he still had left to give. No words of apology echoed in his mind.
But nopony was hurt.
Which wasn't for lack of chances.
There was nopony else on the platform. There might be later, as the train got close to arrival. He wondered if anypony would recognize him without the armor, as that was so often all anypony saw when they looked at a Guard. If they had heard the newest story yet, if any of what had never been his squadmates would come out to say a few last words to the pony who'd buried their possessions. Have a few last kicks.
I'll let them.
He looked at his bruised shoulder, which might have been orange, or yellow, or even some sort of brown. And he waited.
"You."
He heard the word a moment before the wings, and looked up. Two Guards were hovering overhead.
"You're wanted in the palace," the mare said. "Now."
It didn't surprise him. A few criminal charges might be justified, or there could be a whole line of Guards awaiting their chance at a kicking.
He slowly took off, flew behind them. And if the mare's face had seemed confused, it was probably because she didn't understand why she hadn't been permitted to just blast him with lightning on the spot.
They led him to the Cabinet's meeting room (with crystal ponies staring at him as he passed through every hallway: the newest story had clearly already done some traveling), and there he found the rest of the squad. The kicking party was a well-organized one.
Ten seconds after he'd stepped in, standing still near the table and wondering why nothing had begun yet, he got his answer: the door opened behind him, and he looked back to see the Captain, whose expression had never changed from the furious, trotting in. And right behind the pony who'd been his last officer was the Princess, who was followed by Iron Will, forever angling himself to get through doors, and finally Painite entered the room.
The Captain spoke, and the words weren't for Flash. It was as if Flash wasn't even there. "Why are you doing this?"
The minotaur silently held up the file, a little more than twice as thick as Flash's former armor. It looked as if a few new pages had been recently added. One was partially sticking out from the back of the folder, and the fieldwriting was easy to recognize.
"Shining," Cadance gently said, "he asked me for this. The entire squad, you, me, and him." That with a small nod to Flash. "Iron has his reasons. Please give him a chance."
"I gave him a chance." This head movement was also in Flash's direction, but it was more of a whip. "Because you felt that after what happened in the tunnel, he'd earned one. I agreed with you. And you saw what happened. The ruins of what happened." (Flash's head dipped. Nopony noticed.) "If there's a mark for disasters, we're looking at it right now, and the best thing we can do is get it out of the Empire while sending a warning to every nation, just in case he tries going back to any of them --"
"-- it's the mark."
Flash looked up, towards the soft, serious voice. Everypony did. The bull nodded, just once.
"But you've got it wrong," the minotaur continued. "Everypony does. Flash has it wrong, and I wouldn't have believed that was even possible. But he's too close to it. You're all too close. I'm a little further away. I can step back, get the full picture. And I've been thinking. Talking. And now I know what I've been thinking and talking about. Everypony needs to hear this. You need it, Shining, and Cadance had better goring hear it, and I want his squadmates to know exactly what they've been bunking with. I thought I had the shape of it. Then the ceiling came down. Flash didn't meet me in the park. I found out why, I talked to one more pony, and I knew."
The empty right hand gestured backwards.
"Painite," the bull asked, "tell them what you told me."
Four legs of the darkest red anypony had ever seen moved their owner forward.
"I am," the crystal pony stated, "the Empire's last true builder, the only one who survived Sombra's reign, and I may be the last for some time, until the talent manifests in the next generation. Most of you know that, and recognize that it is why I was granted the Cabinet's post for the head of Construction. But now I need you to grant me something else. The trust that you would give an Equestrian with a builder's mark. To believe I fully know of what I speak, and to do so without question." He turned slightly. "Captain Armor, will you grant me that? You have the most reason to doubt, and so I have to ask that you try and grant me that."
"When it comes to construction," the Captain eventually said, "I trust you."
A small nod. "On Iron's request, I inspected the collapse and tracked it back to the fracture point. I then used my own magic on that area, and learned everything I could. The impact of Private Sentry's borrowed shard set everything off: you all believe that, and may continue to do so, for it is true. He caused the ceiling to collapse today."
The stallion paused.
"Otherwise, the roof would have caved in sometime next week."
The simultaneous group blink was the loudest sound in the world.
"...what?" the Captain finally asked for all of them.
Painite snorted. "It was flawed, Captain. Catastrophically so. The area you use for your barracks was grown in the latter stage of his regime, when only the appearance of perfection was essential. It is the sort of thing I've been inspecting for and trying to solve. But whoever created that lattice... the alignment was improper. The pounding of hooves, the vibrations of speech and laughter -- everything spread the flaws, cracks invisible to Equestrian senses. With all there is to do, I wasn't due to go over that area for moons to come. Nopony else would have seen it. Nopony could have stopped it. Private Sentry hit the center point, set everything off -- but without him, the normal passage of life within the barracks would have exacerbated the problem to the point of collapse all on its own."
Several Guards abruptly sat down.
"Personally, I would have given it a week," the builder repeated. "And most likely during the night."
Followed by all of the rest.
Iron Will stepped forward, occupying all of the sudden silence. "I pulled his file out of your office," he told Shining, "and you can yell at me all you like later. But I needed to read the words. I wanted to see the original reports. And it was there, over and over. 'Nopony was hurt.' 'No one was hurt.' He's at the center of everything and no one is ever truly hurt -- because of him."
Flash finally found the strength to blink.
"Sir," he said, "that isn't --"
"Shut up," Iron Will said.
It was an order from a Cabinet member. He shut up.
"I said you were gonna need evidence," the minotaur told Flash. "The pieces of ceiling in the barracks are the last pieces I needed." And suddenly, with increased volume, "You're too close to it! You're too ready to believe the worst of yourself, no matter what happens, even when you've just saved my life! But I put those pieces into this file, with all the other pieces..."
He spun on a single hoof, and yellow eyes focused on the Captain's blue ones.
"I talked to the crew who put that statue back down," he said. "They admitted they were tired. They went out and looked at where the base was planted. The ground was packed more solidly in one corner. They put it back down on top of a hill, and they put it down with a lean. A subtle one -- but that thing was going more and more to one side with every hour. Wonder how long it would have taken before somepony noticed? Was it gonna go over before the ponies got back to it, late the next day? Because I looked at that packing myself, I saw the direction, and you're not a minotaur if you don't know something about force. It was going to tumble straight down the hill -- right into where the kids play. Until somepony comes along and leans against it..."
Cadance's hind legs went out from under her.
"The zebras' potion," Iron Will stormed on. "There's a fun one. Couldn't talk too much about that one because we don't have any zebras around, but we do have a couple of Guards who've spent time in Pundamilia Makazi, and that potion's just a little bit notorious, isn't it, Checkpoint?" (The mare who'd led Flash in managed the smallest of nods.) "I asked her what would happen if it went without stirring too long, and she said she thought it went inert after twenty-one seconds. But if you didn't get back to it within a minute, it's supposed to turn into poison. And maybe that's an exaggeration, ponies not understanding that type of zebra magic. Maybe it just makes you really sick for a while. But she was sure about the only way you could tell how it came out: you drink it. And I'm thinking that over three years, maybe somepony lost track of time, or got distracted, or anything where more than a minute ticked off the clock and nopony knew. Flash didn't know. His mark knew, and he knocked the vat over, the same way his magic put him in a place where somehow, the statue collapses away from the kids. The Appleloosa stuff? What if somepony else was out there before him, defiled the place and the buffalo didn't know it? That's a disaster, because they'd never reconsecrate. It means somepony else needs to get caught, maybe somepony who's just going along the border --"
I saw tracks, I was sure I saw the remnants of tracks, the last before the wind wiped them out
"-- and then they can fix things! Oh, and let's not forget the kudu," Iron Will snorted. "The King's son got a little teenager-feisty and challenged a pony without a horn to a head-butting contest two months before it was even the right season, because the kid's an early bloomer and probably a slow thinker. Flash doesn't want to start a diplomatic incident and dodges straight up, the kid goes into a wall and breaks a horn, Flash gets kicked to his next posting before the King can throw a fit. Well, kudu challenge horns don't break like that unless the male is sick. You know how you find out you're sick? By the time the horn breaks on its own two moons later and shows you the first symptom, it's too late for the cure. Who wants to contact that nation and see if the doctor who checked the break diagnosed the prince? Who wants to verify that the kid's only still alive because he charged down Flash, just because there was a pegasus in what he'd decided was the wrong part of the palace? I could go on, Shining: I could go all over the world checking my theories. But here's what I'm completely goring sure of: every time he starts an accident, it saves lives. Has anypony really looked at his mark? Ever? He's a shield! Here comes the lightning, and then out of nowhere, there's a pony it can hit instead of you!"
He slammed the file down. Reassignment requests scattered all over the crystal floor, and the most recent came to a stop against Flash's motionless forelegs.
"That," Iron Will quietly finished, "is one of the greatest talents I've ever heard of. That might be the best talent a Guard could ever have. To be in the right place at the right time, and if breaking something is what gets the job done, then something gets broken -- but ponies live, Shining. Having that talent under your command should be the best dream you could ever wish for, and you just discharged the pony who has it from the Guards. A pony who doesn't even know he has that magic, a pony whose face is telling me he's doing everything he can inside not to believe." And, quickly turning, "Listen to me, Flash. You brought down the ceiling. Your magic set that up. But you brought it down in the day, when there were only two ponies around, awake and on their hooves and ready to get out. I bet that without you, that thing would have collapsed at night. It would have crushed every Guard in their sleep. And without the shard... your flight would have been a little off, you would have hit your armor against the right point -- it would have been something." More softly, "You're a shield. And if a shield doesn't know why it's getting hit, why anypony would ever hit it, then all it understands is that the hits hurt and they don't stop."
Flash tried to breathe. Tried to think, and wondered if the thoughts were his own.
"I'm not --"
"I could set up a disaster to prove it," Iron Will declared. "Already got a few in mind. But I know the Empire: it'll provide. And when it does -- we need a pony here who stops it. Shining -- you told me this is the guy who couldn't get your restraint off in time, when Cadance had gathered the crystals and things were starting to go bad, before Lapis spoke up. What were you going to do when you got free?"
"Raise a shield," the Captain softly said. "Protect the castle. And -- we already knew I was going to have trouble getting it anchored and hardened quickly, there were so many ponies out there on the edge of panic, and if they'd seen magic..."
"I was there," Painite quietly told them. "Among the herd, feeling their fear take over my thoughts. I know what we would have done, Captain Armor. We would have panicked. A stampede. Ponies would have been trampled in the scramble. Ponies -- would have died."
The builder trotted forward, to where Flash's frozen body sat.
"Thank you," he said, and gently pressed his right forehoof against Flash's chest. "I think -- somepony needs to say 'thank you'. More than they have."
Iron Will nodded. "Until he hears it."
The first Guard stepped forward.
The fourth one nuzzled him.
The Princess kissed his forehead.
The Captain, as the last to approach, simply looked at him for a time, then rested a raised foreleg against the uninjured shoulder.
"I understand you're out of work," his final officer said. "Have you ever considered the employment opportunities and chance for advancement available in the Guards? Some ponies say that's the best place to find out who you truly are..."
He was in Geode Park, watching the children play from his viewpoint at the top of the hill.
Move closer.
He trotted down the slope, because the Princess had told all the pegasi to always be careful about where their shadows fell. The approach eventually brought him to the edge of the play area, near something new: a flat circular platform with pronounced ridges along the edges. Some of the children laid down on the crystal formation. Others reared back, braced their forehooves against the ridges, and then tried to two-leggedly trot as fast as they could, making the ones who were resting entertainingly dizzy. The trotting was something which took some practice, but the children learned quickly, and a giggling filly stumbled her way off the ride as the circle came to a stop, reeling as she tried to figure out where her hooves were supposed to land.
The stumble turned into a stagger. Then something approaching a not-quite-falling continual tumble, until --
He gasped, winced at the impact against his armor. On the average, crystal ponies were a little smaller than Equestrians, and that included their children. But they were also oddly heavy.
"Sorry, mister!" the filly awkwardly offered, now standing over his fallen form. "I didn't see you! And I was all dizzy, and it was fun, and -- you're okay?" Innocent purple eyes blinked at him.
"'I'm fine," he told her. "Go play."
"You're sure? I'm -- not in trouble?"
"No," he assured her. "Besides, being dizzy is fun."
She eagerly nodded, scrambled back to the others. And Flash waited until she was no longer looking at him, then got up and carefully scraped his hooves against the park's natural dirt, searching for the other source of impact. It didn't take long to uncover the mostly-buried fragment of sharp-ended crystal, especially since the point was barely a tail strand below the surface.
He looked at it for a few seconds, thought about what it would have done to a filly who'd fallen on it, then pulled it out of the ground with his teeth and took it to the trash.
The pegasus turned away from the refuse container. Watching the children again.
"I'm here," he whispered. "Be safe."
And Flash Sentry smiled.