//------------------------------// // XXXVIII - Making Arraignments // Story: A Beginner's Guide to Heroism // by LoyalLiar //------------------------------// XXXVIII Making Arraignments Typhoon’s sky ‘wagon’ was, in truth, a full sized carriage with a roomy interior and two cushioned benches for its riders.  I climbed up two sizeable steps to reach the interior, and sat opposite another mare in armor, facing the back of the vehicle. It was this soldier, a white pegasus with a blue mane that eerily mirrored my own coloring, who first extended a hoof.  “I’m Frostfall. Adiutoris to Commander Typhoon. You must be Mortal Coil. Gale’s been talking about you non-stop since she got back.” “He prefers ‘Morty’,” Typhoon observed flatly as she entered the vehicle with a single flap of her wings, before I even had a chance to interrupt.  She turned to close the carriage door, and at almost the very moment I heard it click, the rest of Typhoon’s soldiers began pulling us into the air. I watched in a fearful reverence as Typhoon maneuvered in her gleaming black armor, defended by a veneer of void crystal that I could almost feel eating magic out of the air.  If I had any doubt it was the same suit of armor that had earned her father the title of ‘the Butcher’, that disbelief was washed away when I realized that the armor was ever so slightly loose at her waist, and thus that the suit had originally been sized for a stallion. If the leader of Equestria’s military noticed my attention, she disregarded it.  With calm grace, she shifted the long slender sword she wore on her side so that it would not be in her way, and then reclined onto the cushioned bench beside Frostfall.  From how close they sat, I immediately decided they were lovers. Once reclined, Typhoon reached up with her frigid hoof, which I now recognized as a prosthetic ending abruptly in the middle of her formally trimmed fetlock, and removed the gleaming black helmet from her head. A three-tone mane of brown, blonde, and red slipped out, cut short and styled with military restraint.  In all, her face reminded me of autumn. With the cheek guard of the helmet absent, I also took note of the scar around her right eye: a vertical burn that mirrored Cyclone’s perforated scar almost perfectly. Typhoon wasn’t a particularly beautiful mare, but I realized quickly that wasn’t the look she was going for. “Do the scars run in the family?” I asked, jokingly.  Typhoon raised a brow, and I lifted a hoof to my own right eye, tapping lightly on my cheek.  “I noticed Cyclone has one on his left, though it looks more like a shark bit his face, or—” As soon as I mentioned Cyclone, Frostfall lifted a wing to her neck, rapidly making slashing motions with her leading feathers in an attempt to get me to shut up. Typhoon’s stern mood did not turn angry, but I felt a notable chill in the air of the cabin.  “We fought the day he killed King Lapis.” Gently, she extended a wing, and I took note that its crest was armored in tiny bladed wedges that folded together like scales, giving the limb both thin armor and a cutting edge without being too rigid to fly.  After a moment’s reflection, I realized the little blades were just about as far spaced out as the notches on Cyclone’s face. “Maybe we can talk about something more pleasant,” Frostfall suggested rather forcefully.  She then promptly failed to provide any sort of idea or example, though the way she chewed on her lower lip suggested she was feverishly in search of one. Typhoon leaned back on the bench.  “We’ll be stopping in the Hollows on the way to Everfree; our business shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, so I’ll ask you stay in the carriage, Morty.” “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” I countered. Typhoon snorted.  “Arrest and attempted hanging in the Crystal Union.  Bar brawl in Lübuck. Wizard’s fight in the cathedral.  Prison escape, including assaulting Lübuck’s archmage. And an outright siege of Platinum’s Landing.  I’m not asking you to stay put for your protection.” I rolled my eyes.  “Fine. Sure, I’ll stay here.” She didn’t seem particularly pleased, despite my agreement, when she flatly muttered “Thank you.” We sat in an awkward silence for at least a few minutes after that, until I finally stumbled onto a subject. “Typhoon, how is Gale doing?” The response to this question puzzled me for a few seconds.  Typhoon held out her remaining original forehoof, and Frostfall grudgingly dropped a couple silver bits onto it.  Only after Typhoon had stored the coins in some pouch or pocket on her armor did she answer. “Lady Celestia explicitly said not to tell you.” I slapped a hoof on the cushion.  “You’re serious?!” “Of course.” Typhoon leaned casually as the carriage shifted, beginning a descent. I sat back.  “Alright something else… Let’s see.  How’d you lose your hoof?” Typhoon lifted the relevant prosthetic.  “We were at war with the buffalo.” “The what?” “Buffalo,” she repeated. Frostfall leaned forward to clarify.  I wondered if Typhoon had misunderstood my confusion, or if she just couldn’t bring herself to care.  “They call themselves ‘bison’. Big huge creatures with massive lumps on their necks, and horns.” I nodded.  “So they do magic?” “Not like a unicorn,” Typhoon answered.  “They have shamans that mix herbs and burn incense to manipulate the weather and heal wounds.” “Oh, alchemy.  That barely counts as real magic, but alright.  So do the buffalo have wings or something?” “No, Morty, I think you’re misunderstanding.”  Frostfall sort of waved her wings in the air as if trying to brush away the confusion.  “They’re not dragons or griffons. They look like big cows.” I blinked twice, slowly.  “Cows?” Typhoon nodded. “You have an army of pegasi, right?” Typhoon nodded slower, slightly frowning.  “They used a smoke that suppressed our magic.” “Ah, alright.  Now, just to make sure I’m understanding: nopony noticed this smoke before it got to you?  Nopony thought it would be a good idea to blow it away, or fly slightly to the side so you weren’t downwind?” Frostfall dawned a frown in emulation of her leader.  “Hold on; we didn’t know it was going to do that to us.  It just seemed like smoke…” “Oh, the enemy’s sending smoke at us, and we know they only have alchemists for magic.  This is certainly not a threat; we should just stay right in the middle of it…” I put a hoof on my face.  “I’m sorry I misunderstood you earlier, Commander. I promise, I’ll stay in the wagon for your safety.” Frostfall hung her head.  “He’s just like Gale…” “No,” Typhoon corrected.  “Gale swears and insults ponies on purpose.  She doesn’t want them to think she’s a stuck-up princess, but she’s actually very good at being diplomatic when she wants something.  She’s knows when she’s making an ass of herself.” I chuckled.  “I hear much like cows, asses can be very dangerous.  You should be careful what you call other ponies. You wouldn’t want to lose a war with the donkeys too, would you Commander?” Typhoon leaned back, propping her wings behind her head.  “I rest my case.” “As long as you don’t rest it downwind from a fire.” The Hollow, as I observed from glancing out the window of the carriage, seemed to contain not a single resident.  The village sat in the middle of a clearing in the woods, and if I were to describe it in a single word, I would simply call it ‘spooky’.  From the rampant cobwebs to the drawn curtains, it was as if the residents—if any truly existed—had gone out of their way to produce the visual effect of a ghost town. Typhoon donned her void-crystal plated helmet before she stepped out of the carriage, and once free of its cramped confines, immediately drew her sword.  It seemed to be made of the same blue steel as her hoof, and its leading edge was shrouded in a visible icy mist. Frostfall followed, drawing a dramatically less interesting sword of her own. “Anypony here?” the latter mare shouted.  “We’re with the Cirran Legion; nopony is going to get hurt.  We would just like a few words.” Something moved in a window off to their left, before vanishing entirely as the two soldiers approached.  Frostfall jumped at it slightly, but Typhoon made no sudden motion. The shadow vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and then the hamlet was once more still. It was at this point that I decided something was very wrong.  That combined with the fact that we had only flown at most half an hour from Platinum’s Landing suggested very strongly what a culprit behind the wrongness might be. And with that decision, I climbed down out of the carriage. Neither of the soldiers noticed my disobedience, as they were both absorbed with a door opening on the opposite side of the street, and the young colt who emerged.  “Y-you’re here to help?” “We are.” Typhoon’s voice carried confidence that made it audible even from some distance away, with her head turned away from me.  “Where is everypony? We were expecting to pick up some supplies.” “There was a candle pony,” the colt answered.  “He was just here, not ten minutes ago. And everypony started to fall asleep…” “Wintershimmer,” I announced, and then scowled.  Was he following me? Attacking some unprotected hodunk swamp was one thing, but to try and take me on while Typhoon was present seemed completely against the strategic mind of the Wintershimmer I knew. Frostfall twitched at my sudden proximity.  “Mobius, Morty, don’t scare me like that.” “I told you to stay in the carriage,” Typhoon noted with a hint of annoyance. “And I just heard Wintershimmer is here.  And if he’s been making ponies fall asleep here, you’re going to need me to free them before we get to the part where you start stabbing things with your magic sword.”  I glanced toward Frostfall. “You get back in the carriage, and have the ponies who are all harnessed up take off. Take this colt with you.” “Now, hold on,” Frostfall began.  “Commander Typhoon is in charge here, and—” “He’s right,” Typhoon interrupted.  “Loathe as I am to admit it. Go, Frost.  Morty and I will deal with this.” Frostfall sheathed her sword, picked up the colt, and flew the dozen strides’ length to the carriage.  Not thirty seconds later, it was a speck in the sky. Typhoon paced slowly in a circle, her head on a constant swivel within her magically untouchable armor.  “Alright, Morty, how does this work?” “He’ll have the souls he’s stolen bound to the candlecorn body.” “I don’t know what that means,” Typhoon grumbled. “Doesn’t really matter.  I’ll make it simple. I’m gonna get the souls out and let them possess my body.  Don’t mind me if I start screaming with a lot of different voices. Once that’s done, you just stab him.  Or if you can, your magic will work too. But it has to be magic; your wing spikes probably won’t do the trick.” A gloopy hoofstep issued from up the street behind us.  Typhoon and I turned at the distinctive noise to find exactly who we would expect. “Wintershimmer.” This candlecorn body was indistinguishable from its predecessor.  It wore Wintershimmers’ face as well as his jacket, cast into a tone of even wax.  “Here we are again, Coil, and once again you’ve found a new companion. Shall I take her soul as well?” “Wearing that armor?  I wish you luck.” I took two calm steps forward, which Typhoon echoed.  “Are you that obsessed with this revenge you promised? I would have expected you to run away, now that you’ve stolen the souls you wanted.  You’ve had, what, a week?” That question Wintershimmer refused to answer.  And in the silence, I felt a weight in my gut. My instincts warned me that something was horribly wrong, but my mind couldn’t place an explanation. “What are you doing here, Wintershimmer?  Do you deny Morty’s claims about your actions?” Wintershimmer snorted.  “At this stage, I see no reason to pretend.” “I would not have expected that out of you, Archmage.”  Typhoon calmly walked forward, and lowered her wings to the point that they dragged along the ground.  “Do you remember what you told me seventeen years ago?” I glanced nervously between Typhoon and the candlecorn body of my hated mentor as every nerve in my gut shouted that I should teleport away and not look back. Wintershimmer, strangely, relieved my concerns.  “We met seventeen years ago?” “It wasn’t important.  I suppose you just don’t remember.  Very well. Give up, and Equestria will promise you a fair trial to—” Wintershimmer’s candle flared to interrupt Typhoon’s offer, and a boulder roughly two Mortys (Morties?) in diameter rose above his head. When the rock was sent flying for Typhoon, I realized why she had put her wings on the ground.  With the force of all six of her limbs acting in concert, the soldier hurled herself into flight at a speed I had never before even imagined.  By the time Wintershimmer’s rock had hit the ground, Typhoon’s sword had slashed through the candle on the stallion’s forehead. I expected the wax to reform around the shallow blow, but instead, Typhoon’s blade left behind a clump of ice that seemed to resist Wintershimmer’s waxy regeneration. Typhoon landed by lowering all of her hooves at once and sliding to a stop behind Wintershimmer.  “Morty, now!” I hardly needed to be told twice.  Without a horn to fight me, reaching into Wintershimmer’s body was easy.  I felt the arcane bonds he had made on two… no, three souls. They fell away without much challenge.  The spirits I had freed emerged from the candlecorn body, and with the same spell I guided them into my chest. Their voices appeared suddenly in my head, screaming out in confusion and anguish.   Why they demanded, perhaps the only word comprehensible amid the cognitive cacophany.  It took more than a bit of my focus to tune them out and repress their battle for control of my limbs, but in the end, they stood little chance against my substantial force of will and my knowledge of necromancy. Then, with two spells still left for the day, I pressed for Wintershimmer himself.  My horn flared with the very spell the stallion had intended me to use as his unwitting assassin.  I reached once more beneath the wax and into a hollow space that is not a space. Despite his face on the golem, Wintershimmer’s soul was nowhere to be found. “Missing something, Coil?” my mentor’s voice taunted.  Wintershimmer reached up to his horn and with a dribbling hoof, he pried off his candle-horn below the line of ice Typhoon had left.  A moment later, the threatening horn was remade. Typhoon flicked out a wing, and I saw three torso-length icicles snap into being from the water in the air, all aimed for Wintershimmer’s core.  With obvious strain that left him sweating wax, the dead archmage conjured a wall of magic to deflect them. Wintershimmer sought to cast another spell, but his drained magic was simply too slow to match Typhoon.  Rather than waiting for his shield to falter, she dove straight into it, letting the black void-crystal-plated armor eat the magic out of her way.  Wintershimmer’s eyes widened for just a moment before a blue steel blade sunk into his skull. Had the body not been made of wax, the sight would have been altogether gruesome.  Instead, more pleasantly, I watched as ice enveloped from the lethal wound, freezing Wintershimmer’s head solid even as his body melted to nothing. As the wax dripped away, the frozen head slipped off of Typhoon’s sword, shattering into several dozen shards on the ground. The look she gave me as she sheathed her sword threatened to freeze my blood just as solid. Restoring the citizens of the Hollow, and explaining to them exactly what their restorations entailed about the risk to their souls if they experienced a violent death, took the better part of four hours.  Once I’d healed them, the few hundred citizens of the tiny village cheered and chanted for me, following me even up to the steps into Typhoon’s carriage. The welcome I received once the door closed and the vehicle took off was… different. “Sit down,” Typhoon demanded, before I’d even really gotten my balance from the sudden takeoff.  It took me a moment balancing against the wall of the carriage with my hoof before I found comfort. I balanced myself on my seat and then turned to Typhoon.  “Is something wrong?” Typhoon answered by running one of her wings up the side of her armor.  Surprisingly dextrous feathers unlatched a small pouch against the black gemstone surface of her cuirass, and her wing reached into. “Are you okay, Commander?” Frostfall asked; it seemed she too noted concern from the stern focus on Typhoon’s features. A moment later, Typhoon lunged at me.  I gasped and slid back, but I was a scrawny, lanky unicorn in a flying box and she was a veteran soldier performing a practiced action. Her feathers touched my horn, along with a click, and I felt a ring lock into my grooves.  I knew enough to recognize the feeling of void crystal sapping my horn after so many encounters in my adventures. “What?” I shouted.  “Time out, what—” “I have no intention of sitting quietly and listening to you rant,” Typhoon answered me.  “Try to mock me like you did Tempest and I will gag you. I know what you’re playing at.” Frostfall seemed worried as her eyes jumped between her superior (and lover) and I.  “Commander, what happened? Did he do something?” “There is no ‘Wintershimmer’,” Typhoon replied.  “I confirmed with Jade that she had his corpse, and Star Swirl told me there was no way for a dead pony to take control of the wax ponies I sent Tempest after in the living world.  Somepony here would have to cast that magic. It isn’t a coincidence that the golems came to life and escaped just as Coil was returning to Equestrian soil.” “You’re saying I made it up?” I asked her.  “You honestly think I wanted to go running through a swamp and dragging around all his victims?” “Solemn Vow used a very similar plan to work his way into Equestrian power,” Typhoon countered.  “He took control of two spirits and forced them to attack innocent ponies in Everfree City. Then he fought them off himself, making it look like he was so much more important that the Cirran Legion.  Ponies called him a hero.” I swallowed hard.  “A ‘hero’?” “His word,” Typhoon replied, focusing even harder on my gaze.  “We were hosting a delegation from the Crystal Union. Queen Jade, Smart Cookie, and Wintershimmer.  Wintershimmer came to talk to me, but before he could say anything, Vow approached us. So in plain earshot, Wintershimmer told me that he had an idea what was behind our murders, but that he wouldn’t be sure until he could get proof the next morning.” “What proof did he need?  Didn’t he recognize Vow?” “He did, but that wasn’t the point.  That night, for the first time, the nightmares attacked the palace.  Wintershimmer was expecting them, and killed one, but Jade and Smart Cookie weren’t so lucky.” Immediately, I remembered Vow’s claim.  He hadn’t gone after Jade or Cookie that night; only Wintershimmer.  Could I trust him? I couldn’t think of a reason he would lie, but he was a damned dead warlock.  I opened my mouth to counter Typhoon’s accusation, and then caught myself. Better I didn’t admit I had spoken to Vow, if she didn’t know already.  Instead, I asked a boring question, feigning surprise. “That’s what happened to Smart Cookie?” In that moment, my mind was racing.  Assuming Vow had been telling me the truth, the implication was obvious.  What I couldn’t answer was ‘why’? Typhoon gave my question a slow nod.  “Vow was the only pony in earshot who knew Wintershimmer was on the verge of his ‘proof’.  He was worried he would be revealed. The fact Wintershimmer was attacked that very night gave me all the proof I needed.” “Wintershimmer helped you?  Selflessly?” “Yes,” she replied.  “Seventeen years ago.  Something the real Wintershimmer would have known… but your clone didn’t.” I winced.  “He lied to frame me in the Union!  This is exactly the same!” “And despite going to such great lengths to hide his control over these golems, he made an entirely pointless attack on Platinum’s Landing, drawing attention to his own existence?” Typhoon pressed.  “Tempest told me what happened. The golems weren’t a real threat. In the whole attack, the only pony killed was Silhouette… I think it’s a strange coincidence she was the only pony with you in the swamp after Tempest left.  The only other pony who supposedly spoke to Wintershimmer, and could identify him from the Crystal Union.” My mouth hung open as Wintershimmer’s plan fell into place before my eyes.  “I swear, this is him doing it! I know it looks bad, but… I give you my word!” “That seems… unlikely,” Frostfall muttered, her eyes narrowing slightly as well.  “You’re saying that despite Star Swirl’s word, he somehow figured out how to cast magic without a real horn, and then he revealed himself in a useless attack?” “More likely the point of the ‘useless’ attack was to make you a hero.  That’s exactly the same ploy Vow used years ago… and I know you’ve spoken to him.” “I needed his advice on Wintershimmer!” “Hold on!” Frostfall held up her wings.  “Commander, I thought you killed Solemn Vow personally.  Are you saying that bastard is still alive?” “No,” Typhoon corrected.  “But like Wintershimmer and Vow, Coil here is a necromancer.  No doubt he dragged Vow out of the depths of Hell to help him with his plot.” “I only talked to him one time!” I told her, but it almost felt like idealism to protest.  I knew I wasn’t going to win Typhoon over. The pegasus commander nodded.  “Even with all that evidence, I still wanted to give you a chance.  For Lady Celestia’s sake, and for Gale’s. But Wintershimmer’s proof worked just as well on you.” I felt a ball in my throat as I struggled to swallow.  “What do you mean?” Typhoon glanced out the window of the carriage.  “I didn’t tell anypony we were headed to the Hollows until we were all aboard the skywagon.”