The ride back was pretty uneventful, and I was silent for just about the entire trip - Rainbow Dash and Trixie not so much. I listened to what at first was an argument that had escalated all from that single comment I previously made, and from there it stemmed into a more relaxed conversation. I idly listened as they talked about their lives, but before long, I saw the end of the tunnel approaching.
The vehicle slowed down to a stop, where I proceeded to shift it into reverse, backing it up towards the end of the tunnel so that it was facing the correct way. From there I shifted to park and shut off the engine, stepping out of the van and making my way to the back. Opening the two back-doors, I was greeted with two ponies jumping down onto the concrete floor below.
"I hope we're not too late - We've been gone for awhile I think." Rainbow exclaimed as I shut the doors.
"It's probably been like fifty minutes." I responded, taking note of how useful it would be if I had a watch. "So yeah we should hurry up."
I wasn't about to take the courtyard exit though, which is where I had parked the van; I knew royal guards had been stationed there, and I wasn't about to start any drama by sprouting out from the inside outta nowhere. I began making my way further down the tunnel where we had just came out of, where eventually I came across the small entry-way etched into the wall - the one that would lead us to the Canterlot Library. I walked on in, going through the smaller hallways with the two ponies following behind me, until I reached the end - only to be disappointed at what I saw. The exit was wide-open.
'The fuck..? I know what this is - god damnit Trixie. Just leave the fucking entrance wide open when you sneak inside.' I wasn't about to say anything to her about it though as I walked out into the library. 'I'd be extremely lucky if nobody saw this - now I gotta make a whole other entrance because Trixie is too dumb to close the passageway behind her.'
Once both Rainbow and Trixie were out, I closed off the entrance with the bookshelf, sealing it with the camouflaged locks and then making my way through the library. Random library goers understandably stared when they spotted the strange group of three walking on through, but I really wasn't paying too much attention to them right now. Soon enough we had all arrived straight to Canterlot's planning room, where I noticed that Spike, the rest of the mane 6, and Celestia were already here.
"There they are." Princess Celestia announced as the three of us walked into the room. "I'm glad to see that you have made it on time."
"Yeah, we're here now." I replied. "Is everyone ready?"
Celestia nodded. "All preparations are set, so with everyone now present, our departure shall begin immediately. Everyone, follow me." With that, Celestia began her trot out of the room, where the rest of us followed suit. We soon approached a carriage - a rather royal looking one at that - and Celestia's horn glowed a soft, yellow light as she magically opened the doors. She stood to the side, allowing us inside first, where I turned to see Twilight Sparkle and Trixie standing outside.
"I'm sorry I can't be with you all." Twilight exclaimed with sorrow in her voice. "But... it's probably for the best. I've already made a number of irrational decisions, and it would bother me forever if I made a mistake that really hurts any of you."
"It's fine Twilight!" Pinkie Pie responded. "You've done so much for all of us already. Now the only thing that's left for you to do is... well, nothing!"
"I'm sure Celestia will protect us better than anyone ever could, so you needn't worry." Rarity added. "Your number one priority should be making sure that horn of yours recovers with no mishaps. That's not something I'd like to play around with."
"Don't you dare forget about your obligations to me, Klade." Trixie spoke up. "Celestia may be forcing me to stay here with Ms. Perfect, but that does not mean I will simply let you weasel your way out of this."
"That's not happening Trixie, just calm down." I replied. 'Is she that insecure over her control over me? She keeps telling me that.'
"Uh, guys, it's not like this is a big farewell." Spike started talking. "They're probably gonna be back by tomorrow or something."
"Indeed - they have Princess Celestia with them." Trixie responded. "The only way they could be even better off is I was with them."
"Yes Spike, I suppose I shouldn't hold you all up any longer." Twilight remarked. With that, her and Trixie backed away, giving the carriage room to take off. Celestia waved to the two ponies and the small dragon, bidding them goodbye as the guards unfolded their wings and began to flap them. I decided to wave as well, watching the three figures get smaller as we ascended into the sky.
'I wonder what's going to happen at Baltimare.' I thought to myself as we flew. 'If I see Discord, I'm killing that fucker immediately.'
The ride there I spent mostly answering questions from Twilight's other friends, where I soon found myself entering a discussion on what I had been doing during the past week, as well as finding out what the mane 6 had been up to. It was nice to finally discover just what had happened during my absence - all the other tower locations and their ventures to try and stop them - and it was here that I also found out that I had been labeled as an enemy of Equestria. That definitely explained some things, most notably why Celestia had been eying me so strangely. It was good that I managed to find that out instead of staying in the dark due to some miscommunication.
Eventually, I noticed a city coming into view, something that only could've been Baltimare. A tower erected from one of the buildings was glaringly obvious - it looked just like the one that I had dealt with at Los Pegasus. I suddenly realized though that I wouldn't be able to use magic once the carriage got close enough, and that I really hadn't done any preparations on what I could do to destroy the tower specifically. It had completely slipped my mind amidst everything I had been experiencing in the past couple days, which was something that usually didn't happen.
'Well fuck.' I looked around at the surrounding ponies; Celestia was seated at the front of the carriage, while everyone else including me were in the backseats. 'I know shooting at the tower doesn't seem to do shit - maybe I was just missing it though when I shot, I don't know. I should be able to make some explosives as a backup plan - I don't think I'll spark any drama with that.' With that, I began imagining a tan yellow backpack in my mind, with the interior being completely filled with C4 explosives. I created it into the real world roughly five minutes later, sliding it onto my back and then catching the attention of the other ponies.
"What's that? Oh is that for a picnic?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"No, it's for Discord." I replied. "Just a backup plan against the tower."
"Oh." Pinkie glanced at Celestia - who was currently facing away from us at the front - and then back at me. "Well, I guess you could never be too careful?"
"Klade's like that." Rainbow spoke up.
"Well, as long as Discord gets what's comin' to him." Applejack remarked.
After only a couple more minutes we began to approach the outskirts of the city, where the carriage soon lowered and then landed at a large stretch of grass just outside the premises. We all proceeded to step out from whichever door we were seated closest to, and from there the ponies found themselves grouping around Princess Celestia.
"Discord is not an enemy to be taken lightly, so let us move forward with great care." Celestia exclaimed. I watched as everyone nodded, and we proceeded to follow her into the city. The inhabitants were understandably in awe when they saw the princess walking through the city streets, to which some cheered and began stomping their hooves. The eagerness to be free of the tower's emissions was as clear as day, and Celestia was like a symbol of hope that those days would soon be over.
'I guess magic is pretty important in Equestria, even though only one species of ponies can actually use it.' I thought to myself as I looked around. 'That kind of really makes unicorns seem like the superior race - I wonder if that's sparking some kind of tension. I guess it probably would in the human world because we seem to get butthurt over everything.'
We soon arrived at a building that the tower seemed to be on the roof of, where a saw a stallion who was standing up by the entrance. His eyes went wide when he saw the princess approach, to which he immediately bowed. "It's Princess Celestia!" He exclaimed, lowering his head for a second and then raising it to look at her. "She's returned!"
'Returned? I guess she's been here before then.'
"I hope that when I leave this city today, there will no longer be a tower to plague its citizens." The sound of cheering proceeded after Celestia spoke, and I looked to see that we had already gathered a bit of a following.
"Celestia will restore this city of ours to its former glory!" The stallion exclaimed as he moved out of the way of the entrance. "I'm gettin' tired of standing there all the darn time, I tell ya what."
Celestia proceeded to levitate the Elements of Harmony to each of their respective ponies. She was wearing the crown that Twilight would usually wear, and once everyone was equipped, the princess spoke once again.
"We must stick together once we go inside." With that said, she began to make her way inside the building, with the rest of us following. The interior of the building was dark and gloomy, with the only light sources coming from the outside sun shining in through the windows. That was short-lived, however, as I pulled out my flashlight and used it to shine at our surroundings. The ponies looked at me in first in curiosity towards what I was doing, when Pinkie's voice rang out afterwards.
"The stairs are over here! I've been in here like twice so far, so I kind of know where everything is." Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "That doesn't make it any less spooky though. This place gives me the creeps!"
We followed Pinkie up the creaking stairs, where I made sure to shine the light in-front of us as we went up the building floor by floor. Eventually though, the putrid smell of what must've been rotting flesh became apparent, where I saw Rarity gagging and Fluttershy trying not to throw up.
"Gosh that smells horrible." Applejack remarked with a frown. "Those poor ponies have to have been here for at least a week by now."
"I wonder who they were..." Fluttershy spoke up softly. "But they're gone now.. they've been.. k-killed.."
'This is reminding me of Los Pegasus.' I thought to myself as I walked with the group. 'Has this same thing happened at every tower location? I guess so. That's pretty brutal - has Discord always been like this?'
Soon enough the sight of the bodies came into our view, and I signed my flashlight at one of them, giving everyone a clear view of the rotting flesh that was deteriorating onto the floor below. The pony's ribs were visible by now - dried blood surrounding his, or maybe even her body - and even though the body was so decomposed, I could still make out that it was riddled with bullet-holes. This had to have been the work of my clones.
'That's actually really gruesome to look at, holy shit.' I glanced at the other ponies, seeing their shocked and disgusted expressions. 'It smells so fucking bad too and it's hot as hell in here - I'm starting to sweat my ass off.'
We continued up the stairs to the next floor, where I noticed that the wall behind the stairs was littered with bullet-holes. Ascending upwards we were met with a whole bunch more of them, completely surrounding the floor and the walls around where we were standing. Bodies were spread out everywhere now, and the smell was so much worse - I could barely breathe at this point. The rooms were no doubt poorly ventilated too, and Celestia was the next to speak up.
"The person behind these horrors will face the harshest punishment imaginable." She paused for a second before continuing. "We need to press on." We continued forward across the room, passing by what appeared to be a spotlight that was turned off. What must've been hundreds of shell-casings were all over the ground behind the spotlight, and I noticed some of the ponies glancing at me as we continued on.
'Yeah, I guess that's kind of my bad. It never even occurred to me though that those clones might get magically brainwashed.'
The sound of the tower whirling above became louder and ever-more apparent as we made our way up the next plight of stairs, and soon enough we could see the end of stairs, leading right up onto the roof. The bright light of the outside sun was partially shining through, and Celestia turned to look at us.
"I don't know what might happen up there, but we need to be ready for anything. A strong, evil presence surrounds this place."
I nodded, deciding that now was a good a time as any to pull out one of my G18s. I turned off the safety mode, holding it with both hands as I stepped up each individual stair along with the group. If Discord were to be up there, it would be the first time I'd have seen him since I was trapped and almost killed. For all I knew, he could've thought I was already dead.
The bright light of the afternoon sun blinded us at first as we stepped onto the roof, and I squinted my eyes as I quickly looked around. The roof seemed empty, but that didn't convince me that no one was here. We had gotten this far without a single hitch - that had to be intended. Something was up, and I fully-expected it to happen in the next few moments. The cyan-green light located inside the glass orb at the top of the tower swirled, illuminating us in its constantly moving glow. If worse came to worse, I would blow up the orb at the top with the C4 that I had created earlier.
For the moment we all simply stood on the roof, looking around and waiting for something to happen. Celestia's expression showed that she was waiting for something as well, which meant that surely there was something planned if she was expecting it too. As the seconds went by though, nothing still happened, and eventually Pinkie Pie spoke up.
"Uhh, did Discord forget to show up?" She asked. "We got the guy who was here last time, so it kinda makes sense why we didn't see him, but hasn't it been a whole day since then?"
"Something's fishy." Rainbow responded. "I don't like this."
"What should we do, Celestia?" Rarity inquired as she looked up at the princess.
"Discord is here." Celestia answered. "I suspect he's waiting on us to use the elements so that he can absorb even more of their power."
"Oh." Pinkie frowned. "So then... we can't destroy the tower?"
"We can still try." The princess replied. "He must be planning on defeating me afterwards, but I will not allow that to happen."
"I can destroy the tower from here, Celestia." I spoke up. "He won't have to absorb any power."
Celestia turned to look at me, but she then shook her head. "I want him to show up. If you do that, then he has no reason to appear." She proceeded to look at the rest of the ponies. "Ready the elements."
'She must be planning on battling Discord herself.' I thought as I watched the Elements of Harmony begin to glow. 'Either way, the instant he appears I'm shooting that fuck.' I readied my pistol, with the standard issue full-auto currently set so I could spray the fuck out of him. My excitement was building at the thought of finally putting an end to this bastard - the same one who killed my brother for whatever godforsaken reason. I wanted nothing more than to kill him for what he had done, and at this point my only other wish would be to be able to torture him somehow. I knew he deserved it, but I wasn't the type of person to let any chances slip anyway - I would kill him anyway the instant I had the opportunity.
The ponies began to glow as their magic built up, resisting the tower's influence, until a rainbow beam soon shot out from their united magical output. I readied my gun as I watched the rainbow barrel straight towards the orb at the top, until, to my surprise, it made actual contact. The beam absorbed into the glass, making the entire orb glow a bright, hot white until it eventually blew up with a loud explosion. Shards of glass flew in every direction, rattling and splattering against the floor with high-pitched clattering. I remained alert anyway, looking for any sign of Discord, but he never did show up.
"Well, that works too I guess." Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "We got the tower! Yay!"
"Really?" Rainbow looked around. "That's it? He doesn't even show up? Okay something's seriously not adding up now."
I looked over at Celestia, who appeared to be just as perplexed as everyone else. Eventually though, she spoke up. "If Discord won't show himself, then so be it." She turned her head to look at us. "Let us move on to Manehattan. There should be enough hours left in the day to rid of that tower if we act now."
"Two of them in one day!" Rarity exclaimed. "That would be all of them Princess Celestia, would it not?"
"It would, yes." She replied. "Let's move onward." She turned to look at me for a couple seconds before making her way back down the stairs, where the rest of us followed suit.