//------------------------------// // 39 - Devotion, Part 16 of 16 // Story: The Last Cutie Mark Crusader // by Jatheus //------------------------------// Sharp stabbing agony was the first sensation that heralded a recovery of consciousness. With each breath, torrential ripples of pain worked through the chest and made the entire body hurt. Everything was a blur, but even as it came back into focus, the world was swimming in front of Cloud Blazer. He was on Bon Bon’s back, being carried. Each step intensified the hurt. Junebug was walking beside them, carrying a limp form. Dark crimson ran down from the body, staining Junebug’s chartreuse coat. She wasn’t moving under her own power, but her head sort of swayed with the gait of the one who bore her. Pixyglitter’s mouth hung open awkwardly. It was enough to fill the stallion with fresh despair that he’d been unable to save her. The two mares began speaking frantically. Cloud Blazer was confused at first, because he only remembered what had happened while he had tried in vain to save his friend. The larger things going on around them had been forgotten. His hearing sharpened before his vision cleared. "Oh no! Oh no, oh no! No, no, no!" Junebug spoke. "The whole thing is frozen," Bon Bon said. "It’s falling." "Oh no, oh no!" The ground shook with the noise of a great disturbance. Buildings creaked on their foundations and a gust of wind blew the stench of battle into Cloud Blazer’s nose. The laden mares recovered and continued walking. The stallion coughed and realized that his throat was parched. "Cloud Blazer?" Bon Bon said. "Yeah," he replied. "I could use some water." "We’re almost to the hospital." "Thanks," he replied emotionlessly as he looked up. The sky was clear to the south. "Wait, where...?” "The hospital," Junebug replied. She had misunderstood. He took a moment to reform the question so as to communicate clearly. "No, not that. Where is Cloudsdale?" Junebug began crying. "Bon Bon?" "It fell," she replied. "It got frozen solid and fell out of the sky." A great shout went up from soldiers from all around the city, pony soldiers. It sounded as if they were celebrating. It was enough to rally Cloud Blazer’s spirit only a little. It didn’t take him long to put everything together with this new development. Cloudsdale had been intentionally destroyed. Falling from altitude, a glacier of that size would have been more than sufficient to smash the timberwolf force that had been advancing from the south. Any real joy he would have felt was eaten up by guilt. He had chosen to leave the farmhouse. It was his fault that Pixyglitter had died. He wanted desperately to ask the other two about her, but he had known from the moment the arrow hit her that there was no hope, though he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. He’d killed her. As he lay across Bon Bon’s back, staring at the body of the other pegasus, Cloud Blazer felt his heart wither under the weight of the sorrow. He was being crushed from within by a pain more immense than any he had ever known. He’d lost her. Tears ran freely, muddying the stallion’s vision. The anguish seemed to become magnified with each passing moment, threatening to smother the stallion beneath its weight as the timberwolves had been smashed by the falling ice. Only one desire was left to Cloud Blazer in that moment. He wanted to die. "Looks like it’ll still be a fight for the sky," Bon Bon broke the silence. "There’s still a lot of-“ A deafening splitting sound overwhelmed all other noise. "By Celestia!" Junebug exclaimed in fright. It was magic of some kind. It blasted again and again. It was like rushing of a train, or the ripping of a giant tapestry, only much louder. The air seemed suddenly to grow hotter. "What’s happening?" Junebug cried out. "I don’t know," Bon Bon answered. Cloud Blazer wiped his eyes and looked. His mouth hung open as the blinding light display exploded from the center of the pony defenses. It was more magic than he had ever seen. It spewed out in great sweeping arcs of red energy, incinerating the changelings that were regrouping in the air. Bon Bon changed the subject, "There it is, we’ll be inside in a second." Cloud Blazer’s blood ran cold when he saw Prince Shining Armor levitating into the air. The monarch let out a wild cry that resounded across the countryside as even more magic poured from him. The injured pegasus had never witnessed anything like it in all his days, and he knew that he wasn’t likely to ever again. In spite of that, he didn’t care. ... Scootaloo was dumbfounded. The bombing run had been even more wildly successful than she had dared hope. Cloudsdale, once they unbound their arrows and began dropping them, froze from one end to the other due to the amount of magical ice that was dropped. It broke up into three large pieces that hit the ground all at the same time. The timberwolves and any changelings that had been below were obliterated, smashed flat by the meteoric hailstorm. The few that remained were quickly mopped up by pony forces on the ground. She had been part of the victory cry that the soldiers let out. The demise of the timberwolf army, however, was not what had her attention at the moment. It was a sweeping swath of magic that poured from the center of their line. Great red beams of energy split the sky in the direction of any changelings that were still in the air. For a moment, it looked as though they might rally and attempt a counter attack. After the third blast, they retreated in complete disarray. Not wasting the confusion, EUP forces sprang into action and were able to capture thousands of changelings that tried to retreat in the wrong direction. Scootaloo was so busy the rest of the day assessing damage and dealing with prisoners that it was evening before the repercussions of what had taken place really began to set in. Over six-hundred thousand timberwolves and at least forty-thousand changelings had been killed, with another five-thousand captured. They had sacrificed Cloudsdale to take out the massive enemy army. Without it, the changelings no longer had overwhelming numbers on their side. Scootaloo realized that she had likely just participated in the deciding battle of the war. It was now only a matter of time; the ponies were going to win.