As they ushered the last of the would-be thieves into the warehouse, Lex looked them over coldly.
While the presence of monsters in Vanhoover had been beyond what he’d anticipated, he’d known before he’d arrived that social order had broken down. With no relief incoming in the days immediately following the flooding, it had been a question of when, not if, the ponies remaining in the city would turn on each other as their situation worsened and their desperation mounted. Encountering thieves and raiders was therefore entirely unsurprising…and easily dealt with.
Subduing the motley group had been pathetically simple. With a thought, black crystals had grown over their knives and other weapons, rendering them unwieldy and useless. That had been enough to rattle the group, and nearly half their number had tried to flee, including their portly leader. A few others had gathered what little courage they possessed and had attempted to tackle him, presumably thinking that they could bludgeon him unconscious with their hooves. Turning into shadow had defeated the latter, and a spell of slowness had easily kept the former from getting very far. After that, he’d created a miniature tornado – the same spell he’d used to subdue Aisle and his companions when he’d first met them – to knock some sense into the few that still had the will to fight. The ones that had kept trying to run or fly away had black crystals grow around their hooves or wings for their trouble, hobbling them. After that, none of them had been able to oppose him any longer.
It had taken Lex a little over thirty seconds and almost no effort to completely defeat fourteen other ponies.
The victory brought him no sense of accomplishment – after fighting dragons, krakens, sahuagin warriors and more, this was too small to deserve to be called a victory – but to his surprise not everypony seemed to feel that way. Scrubby and Band-Aid had cheered after the fight had concluded, with the latter saying how they “shouldn’t have messed with us.” For a moment Lex had felt indignant, since he had been the one that had done all the work. Then he’d remembered what Sonata had been telling him a minute ago, and wondered if he was being uncharitable before deciding to ignore it for now.
Instead, he’d told the two of them to throw the thieves’ crystal-covered weapons into the bay, and the duo had leapt to obey. Some of the defeated ponies had let out a disheartened cry at that, but a sharp glare from him had quieted them down. Then they’d marched them into the warehouse, letting them huddle fearfully in an empty corner while he considered what to do with them.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one wondering about that. “Wh-what’s going to happen to us?” The speaker was the same fat little earth pony that had been barking demands at him two minutes ago. All of his arrogance was gone now, and he was shaking as he spoke, breathing heavily in fright. His companions were all the same, all wearing their terror openly…except for one. The unicorn mare – the one that the fat pony had called Fencer – was staring at him coldly, her face an expressionless mask. She was one of the ones that had tried to fight back, he recalled, only stopping when she had been knocked down.
Turning away from her, Lex glanced behind him. A quick gesture and a word of magic were all it took to cast the spell to carry his whispers to his beloved. “Sonata.”
“What? Oh!” Apparently something had been on her mind, because she gave her head a quick shake before she trotted up by his side. Behind her, Scrubby and Band-Aid were grinning, apparently still thrilled about the brief fight that they’d witnessed. Aisle, however, looked rather perturbed. Perhaps he was upset at how thoroughly he’d been duped? Or was he worried that the captured ponies would be made to suffer for what they’d done? Either way, he didn’t seem inclined to share his thoughts, and Lex wasn’t interested enough to inquire as to them. Instead, he turned his attention back to his captives, whispering to Sonata as he announced their fate.
“Okay! So, this is Lex Legis,” she announced, grinning guilelessly as she held out a hoof to indicate him, “and he’s totes in charge of Vanhoover now. He-”
“Are you kidding?!” blurted the fat little stallion.
“Huh?” Sonata paused, the interruption breaking her warmup. “No, why?”
“I’m Piggy Bank!” he announced. When he saw Lex glance at Sonata, who just shrugged in reply, he continued. “My mom, River Bank, ran this town! That means that I’M supposed to be in charge now!”
Sonata snickered at that, but it was Aisle who spoke up. “The Banks were one of the most prominent families in Vanhoover,” he explained. “Along with the McNeighs and the Hoofingfords, they were pretty much the ones who oversaw everything.”
“Huh, that sounds kinda familiar,” mused Sonata. She put a hoof to her chin for a moment, then apparently gave up and turned to Lex. “Didn’t Twilight say something about the three big families not doing a good job of fixing things here after the flood?”
“Wait, Twilight?” This time it was a pegasus that spoke up, the one that Piggy Bank had called Turbo before. “As in, Princess Twilight Sparkle? You know her?”
“Oh yeah, are you kidding? We-” She stopped abruptly as Lex’s whispers reached her ear. “Um, she and her fellow princesses formally ceded control of Vanhoover to Lex,” she said, enunciating carefully enough to make it obvious that she was repeating what she had been told. “From now on, this city is under his sole authority.”
“But that-” Piggy Bank’s protest was cut off as Lex glared at him, his eyes flaring green and purple. It was enough to make Piggy’s sudden burst of indignant courage vanish, and he quieted down.
Sonata spoke up again as Lex fed her more lines. “Now, as ruler, Lex is in charge of the well-being of everypony in Vanhoover, and that totes includes you guys!” Another warm smile crossed her face as she looked at them. “He totes understands that you’ve had it super hard, and that you might have had to do bad things to survive up ‘til now, but it’s all gonna be okay from now on. So! You guys are now officially part of our group!” She stood up on her hind legs and threw her forelegs wide, as though welcome them into a theme park. “We have food and shelter and supplies, and we’ll totes share. But no more doing bad stuff! From now on you’re all good ponies again, ‘kay?” She fell back down onto all fours as she finished, and gave Lex a smile, proud of the job she’d done turning his boring proclamation into something that sounded warm and welcoming. For his part, Lex fought to keep from rolling his eyes.
The captured ponies seemed nonplussed, staring at the two of them in frank disbelief. They weren’t the only ones, as Scrubby stepped forward. “Hang on, are you sure about this?” He gave Lex an incredulous look. “These guys were ready to kill us and do Celestia-knows-what to everypony else, and you’re just going to welcome them in with open hooves?”
“W-we weren’t going to kill anypony!” spoke up Turbo suddenly. “We just said all of that stuff to make you guys give up without a fight, honest! We were just going to take your food and leave!”
“You say that now,” muttered Band-Aid, looking at Aisle for support.
But the other stallion was shaking his head. “I disagree. I think that letting them in is the right decision.”
“You can’t be serious!” blurted Scrubby. “Aisle, they had knives to our throats!”
“I saw the look on your face, Scrubby,” countered Aisle quietly. “You weren’t in any real danger and you knew it.”
“That was because he was there!” Scrubby pointed at Lex.
“And he’ll be here now.” Aisle still didn’t raise his voice, speaking plainly. “If we throw these ponies out, who’ll be there for them?” When neither answered, he continued. “I know you guys are worried, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried too, but…” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “But being here when it all happened, and after it happened…being scared and hungry and desperate for so long…” He screwed up his face, feeling tears suddenly welling up. “It…there are no good choices, only bad ones. That doesn-, that can’t mean that you’re a bad pony.” For a moment he seemed to want to say more, but then shook his head and looked away, rubbing his hoof across his eyes.
No one seemed to know what to say after that, and after a long moment Lex whispered again. Sonata gave him a sidelong glance, then spoke up. “Listen, why don’t you guys take our new friends to the shelter? I’m, like, sure the doctors will want to check them out. We’ll be along with food in a few minutes.” As she finished, Lex gave her a sharp look. He’d told her to have the others lead the newcomers to the shelter, but he had NOT said anything about staying behind!
The ponies slowly filtered out. Most of them stole glances at Lex and Sonata as they passed them, still uncertain about their sudden good fortune after the one-sided fight they’d been through, but a few mumbled words of thanks. Fencer, her features still as hard as stone, was the last to leave, giving Lex another long stare before she departed. “Geez, she was really giving you the stink eye, wasn’t she?” frowned Sonata. “I bet she’ll be trouble, for realsies.”
“When I accepted the idea of you being my spokespony,” Lex spoke abruptly, “it was with the implicit understanding that you would parse the phrasing of my words, not their meaning. So why are we apparently hanging back here instead of supervising our new ‘friends’ to make sure they seamlessly reintegrate into civilized society?”
Sonata turned so that she was facing him directly. “You said that word before, you know.”
Lex frowned in confusion. “What word?”
“Friends.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Before, back when we were fighting the kraken.” Sonata smiled gently. “Cloudbank had just been sucked into that tornado, and I was saying that we should retreat, and you said, and I quote, ‘I will never give up on my friends.’”
Lex’s eyes widened, a look of disbelief crossing his face. “I said no such thing!”
“Did too.” Her serene expression didn’t change. “Maybe nopony else heard it, but I did. You think of everypony here as your friend, and you should tell them that, because I’d bet this tattoo on my butt-”
“It’s a cutie mark!”
“-that they’ll say they feel the same way about you.” She continued as though she hadn’t heard his indignant interruption. “And no, that won’t ruin your tough guy, fearless leader image, Mr. Grouchy Pants.” She winked at him as she threw that last line out there, seeing the sour expression that he’d adopted in regards to her advice. She turned away then, knowing he’d need time to stew over what she’d said. She’d learned the hard way that it was better to let him think about something rather than press him for an immediate concession. And she could tell he was thinking about it, the way he frowned and looked away with narrowed eyes. Smiling, she headed back towards the shelter…then stopped, as she couldn’t resist tossing one last thought over her shoulder before she left.
“Also, seeing you kick all those ponies’ flanks without breaking a sweat like that? Super sexy.”