The hardest part was not sneaking away from the massive wreckage site.
That part was actually pretty easy. All he had to do was scoop up the Dark Stone that had landed next to him and disappear into the smoke and shadows on the edges of the tower wall. He encircled the balcony surrounding the tower until he could find a vantage point to observe the cleanup crews that rushed the scene with fire-suppressant foam and brooms and dustbins to scoop up Noxxa ash and debris.
No, the real hard part was him coming to terms with himself. Freedom Fighter, the Super Soldier of Princess Celestia, who never, ever, ever lost a fight... had failed. He always made plans that turned out fine. He never failed.
Well, except for Skyworld. But that was different!
The point was, he had carried out an actually well-thought-out plan, and it had backfired. Literally backfired into the tower. He had executed a plan and it failed. So what now?
Come up with another one. Duh.
'I'd like to see you try! This is a little harder than I thought. The Stone is a teeny-tiny bit more dense than I first thought it was.'
It survived an explosion straight onto a steel tower! And you think it was just a little dense? The only thing more dense than the stone is you!
Freedom Fighter inhaled sharply through his teeth. 'Oooh, good one.'
Thank you. Now think, me. We can't just blow the thing up. All we'd do is make another mess. We need to come up with another way to destroy the Stone. Something that's actually effective.
'You got a suggestion, then?'
That's your job, not mine. I'm just here to entertain you.
Freedom Fighter pondered for a second. 'Well, I at least know what not to do. Explosions won't cut it. We need something a little more destructive.'
What's more destructive than an explosion?
'Words?'
That's what a psychology student would say. What are you going to do, yell at the rock to blow itself up?
'I can't talk- or haven't you forgotten?'
Then use hoof gestures. Who knows? It might actually be more effective than yelling at it. Actions speak louder than words, you know.
Freedom Fighter silently chuckled. He then moved further away from the wreckage site and started to move around the tower to the opposite side. It took him a bit of time, as there were quite a bit more Noxxa rushing to the wreckage site to try and form a net to catch the catapult saboteur.
Freedom Fighter laughed even more at their insistence.
The tower was so wide that it took him half an hour to sneak around the circumference of it. During that time he came up with many ideas to try and destroy the Dark Stone. It was a rather fruitless brainstorming session. He tried to come up with good ideas. Really, he did. But at the end of his thoughts, Freedom Fighter was absolutely sure that among the ways to destroy something, drowning a rock was not one of the most effective.
It was rather frustrating, actually. Inanimate objects were rather tricky to completely destroy because there was no definite way to actually tell when the object was destroyed. Was it when it was shattered into pieces or when it was completely incinerated? If he was instructed to destroy a living being, he would never run out of ways to kill them. There were just so many of them. Anything could be used as a weapon. Absolutely anything. And the body had so many weak spots on it that is was rather easy to subdue them.
He could gouge their soft spots out with a sharp twisted blade, or he could asphyxiate them by cutting off their air supply. He could bludgeon them with something heavy, or make a large open wound on them and watch them bleed to death. He could remove bits and pieces from others until they simply became stumpy torsos, or inject venom into their veins and they'd be dead in twelve minutes. Torture. Pain. Humiliation. Utter degradation.
They were old friends of his. Assuming he knew the concept of friendship in the first place.
He had personal experience in delivering those old friends to the enemies of the state- anarchists, assassins, gangs, corrupt politicians, slave traders, murderers. They had no intent on delivering mercy to their enemies. So why did he have to show mercy to them? After all, if he didn't show mercy to them, they'd just gloat in getting off lucky and continue in their ways of corruption and evil. If you just kill them, the problem is erased and you don't have to worry about them anymore. If you let the filth go, all you do is set them loose to surely commit more crimes.
Freedom Fighter finally got to the opposite side of the tower. One story above him, a landing bay jutted out of the tower like a loose brick in a building.
'Ooh! look at that! A way back in!'
So what are you going to do about it?
'Maybe there's something up there we can use.' He looked at his left hoof. In his large black suit and attached to his arm, a fifteen-foot steel cable with a serrated end was coiled up and ready to be fired at will. 'What do you think?'
Let's try it.
Freedom Fighter pointed his arm up at the bottom of the landing bay and he slapped the firing button. The cable fired upward with a sharp ZING and the end of the cable impaled itself in the bottom of the overhanging landing bay. Freedom gave a few tugs to make sure it was embedded properly, then pressed the retract button on the cable launcher. He sailed upward as the steel cable recoiled itself until it was all the way in except the tip, and he was hanging by one hoof on the bottom of the landing bay. He looked downward.
Holy freaking crap! he yelled. The black sand of the desert was eight hundred feet below him. He had been on the eightieth floor, after all. That's scary!
'Don't worry, me. As long as my magnets are working right, we'll get out of this safely enough.'
That's easy for you to say!
Freedom clicked his hind legs to activate the supermagnets in his hooves and swung his legs up to attach them to the bottom of the landing bay. They did so with a loud CLANG. Now upside down and feeling the effects of disorientation, he yanked the tip of the harpoon out and it slithered back into the launcher.
I still think it's cool how I can do this kind of thing, Freedom thought as he crawled on the underside of the landing bay to the ledge. He got to the edge of the bay and took a step, and suddenly he was vertical. He then walked up the side of the landing bay for a bit with only his forelegs, reaching arm over arm to attach magnet after magnet. Once, the supermagnet slipped for a few inches and his heart started to play the snare drum. But he managed to catch himself from falling and continue to climb up, hoof over hoof. He then reached the top of the landing bay and slowly peeked his head over the edge to catch a glimpse of the things inside.
In the landing bay were a few rows of propeller-based flight machines, ranging from just single-passenger to a massive troop carrier. They were incorrigibly aligned in straight lines, ready for piloting. Far in the back was a small corner where a few winged Noxxa were lounging indolently as they waited for orders to fly out for patrol. On the left wall were several dragons leashed to the wall that were straining against their chains violently, and several wingless Noxxa were trying to restrain them with ropes. But what drew Freedom Fighter's attention was the thing looming over all of them.
The overseer of the red tower they were in, and the city it was in, as well as the leader of the Noxxa, was a pale, red-eyed abomination known to all as Marshal Malice. He did not bear resemblance to any of the other Noxxa and ruled by silent intimidation. When not in the massive red tower, he rode on his mount, which was as pale and red-eyed as him, and patrolled throughout the land, making visits to other Noxxa outposts and violently re-instilling order in resilient ones.
Marshal Malice's mount was now tethered to the wall with chains, much more massive than anything else in the room. As Freedom Fighter watched, he noticed the white dragon struggle against his chains and snarl and stamp on the ground. At that moment, the doors to the landing bay opened on the other side facing the dragons and two wingless Noxxa pushed a large cart into the room with a grey tarp covering the cart. Many blocky objects were in the cart, outlined by the tarp over it. Freedom Fighter ducked his head down, still holding on to the edge of the landing bay, then poked his head out over the edge again when he was sure he was not spotted.
"Okay, okay, Bloodlust," one of the Noxxa sighed as they came near to the large white red-eyed dragon. "We hear ya. Don't worry, here comes your snack time."
Bloodlust? Freedom Fighter was confused until he saw the white dragon move at the name. His eyes then locked on to the cart and they grew wide and hungry.
Then he understood. Bloodlust was the name of the dragon.
"Did you hear about the break-in?" one of them asked as they took the tarp off of the cart. Inside was a sight fit for a king. The cart was filled to the brim with jewels, crystals, and precious stones, like geodes and Tiger's Eye.
"Yeah. Heard they have it contained, though."
The first Nox snorted. " 'Course not. There were two separate incidents that just happened."
"I heard about the catapult sabotage. I wonder if the saboteur died."
The first Nox selected a good-sized jewel out of the cart and lobbed it into the open mouth of the pale dragon, who chewed it happily like a potato chip. "He probably got away. If he's clever enough to try and take control of a catapult while there's a lot of patrols up and about, he's probably clever enough to elude capture as well. Who knows where he is now."
Freedom Fighter drew himself up onto the edge of the bay and sneaked closer, unnoticed by anyone else. He melted into the shadows and listened closely.
"So if there was the catapult sabotage, was there anything else that happened?"
"Yeah. Once we managed to attack an elevator that was going down, but there was an accident in it, and everyone in it died. A scavenger team found the remains of the elevator car at the bottom of the shaft."
Freedom Fighter felt a twinge of fear. What if his fellow Guardians had died? Or the princess?
"Did they find any bodies?"
"Nah. They were probably crushed by the bloody elevator." The first one replied, then hurled another jewel at Bloodlust. Bloodlust snapped it up hungrily.
"Not bloody likely. I heard the intruders were the..." he gulped. "Guardians of the Sun," he whispered fearfully. "What are we going to do?"
"Probably fight them, of course. Right now they can't use magic to help them, so that puts us at an advantage."
Freedom Fighter unhinged a military stick from off his hip and twisted one end until a click could be heard from it. But nothing happened.
'What's wrong? Why aren't the enchantments working?'
Check the batteries, perhaps?
'Har har.'
It's probably the Dark Stone, you dunce! The stone blocks all enchantments, not just unicorn magic. Why didn't you think about that before?
'You know as well as I do that I was thinking about other things. Like destroying that stone, or thinking of ways to slap a nonexistent voice.'
He shook his head and tried to focus on the conversation taking place.
Suddenly a loud voice crackled over a loudspeaker, bringing every head up. "Attention. All personnel to the ground floor. Attention. All personnel to the ground floor."
The Noxxa not doing anything at the time jumped up and drew their swords. "They've found the Sun Guardians!" one of them yelled, then they all rushed out of the room in a horde. The two guards feeding Bloodlust sighed and chucked one last jewel to him, then came out as well. Bloodlust leveled an even glare at them as if expecting more. The cart of jewels was just out of the dragon's reach.
From his dark hiding place behind an outfitted chopper, Freedom Fighter started to think in overdrive. His bretheren were caught, or at least close to it. It was a diversionary tactic, or at least, that's what he thought. And he still needed to destroy that rock so they could use their magic to escape. Looking around him, he was curious as to what he could use to destroy it. What to do, what to do...
'I need to do something now! Something permanent! Something- " He paused his thinking as he eyed his surroundings. And what he observed was astounding. Why hadn't he seen it before?
His eyes traveled from the pale, red-eyed dragon chained to the wall to the cart loaded with tasty jewels. He unzipped a part in his black armored bodysuit and took out the Dark Stone. He looked back at the cart of jewels, then at the dragon again.
Dragon. Jewels. Dark Stone. An idea started to form in his head, and he smirked.
'You know what I'm thinking?'
I'm always thinking what you're thinking.
He smirked even harder. 'Then let's end our problem.'
I thought you'd never say it.