It seems to take forever for the screaming to go down, even with her wild attempts to calm the survivors. The weapon’s continuing- and now rather erratic- zzwoop noise most certainly isn’t helping. She even finds one of the armored villagers, his adversary now a crater in the roadway, doing little other than staring blankly at it. She tries to help them recover from their fright as well- and, by the time the weapon finally issues its last bolt, some villagers are searching through the town to find more survivors. She hadn’t been all that surprised that the armored ones had declared that they- self proclaimed as the ‘Guard’- should be the only ones performing such duty.
Unfortunately for them, she’d had a comeback prepared- with only two members of the Guard present, they’d have to bring in some non-Guards to help, unless they wanted to wait for the next attack to finish their search for them. They had, reluctantly, agreed with her reasoning. As such, even though the guards are searching alone, there are four other parties, of at least six villagers each, also participating in the search. It so happens that, thanks to the miniscule mana cost of her scans, her party single-handedly- or is it single-hoofedly?- brings back over half of the remaining survivors.
While she was out with them, trying to plan her comebacks for Whiz’ inevitable fury, she’d heard the whine of the Mana Engine on the back of the shuttle fade to nothing. Had her sister flown it away? Had she instead flown back to where it had been landed before? She doesn’t know- and she’s spent too much mana, so she doesn’t have enough to invoke their telepathic link.
Only, when they get back to the market square, where they had split out from and planned to return to, she finds her worrying is unnecessary. There’s the shuttle, the landing gear effortlessly straddling the craters that used to be a couple buildings. The only problem, however, is that the boarding ramp is still in its raised position, sealing smoothly overtop the airlock door. Unfortunately, with it in that position, her mana won’t be able to penetrate the ship’s hull to open it or any other door.
The two heavily injured guards her party had recovered- she’d targeted the most injured survivors, guard and not alike- take one look and make the attempt to stand between her and the ship… Unfortunately, one has a crippled wing and at least two broken legs, and the other’s hind legs are still recovering from being smashed by the building he’d been found underneath.
So, with no guards to block her path, she trots forwards from the party, stopping short of the boarding ramp’s landing position, looking up and tilting her head. “Whiz?”
She gets no answer from the ship.
One of the survivors, however, stalks up next to her. “Y-you know what that is?” she asks.
Thiz turns to look at her inquirer. “Uh, yes,” she answers. “That’s our ship.”
“Our… You’ve got company?” The brown-ish mare looks around quickly. “Did I- AAHH!”
Even Thiz jumps at the sudden hissing coming from the side of the ship in front of her. As her gaze locks back onto it, she sees the long, straight cracks growing along the length of the fuselage, splitting up and down at the ends… And the visible rush of dust-laden air flowing out those same gaps. It takes her a few seconds to process what’s happening, during which the upper panel swings smoothly upwards, carrying the troop compartment windows with it, to form some sort of canopy over the opening. The lower panel simultaneously rotates down, further sections sliding out and unfolding as it does so, so as to become a very wide staircase.
And at the top, standing inside the now wide-open passenger compartment of the shuttle, stands her sister… With a rather angry expression… And a remote control tether hanging around her neck.
“Uhh…” Thiz mutters, shrinking away from her sister.
“Is that…?” her inquisitive companion asks.
“Yea,” Thiz utters, taking another step back.
“Thiz!” Whiz’ yell comes thundering out at them, amplified by the echoes off the houses, while she stomps her way down the steps. “What were you thinking?”
The villager abandons her, sidling rather swiftly away to rejoin the rest of the group.
“Uh,” Thiz mutters. “I was following the smoke?”
Whiz raises an eyebrow, now within normal talking distance, but doesn’t stop shouting. “And you didn’t tell me? We could have gotten the ship here an hour earlier- and then, there’d be more than eighty-seven survivors!”
Thiz’ jaw articulates up and down as she tries to ignore the muttering running across the villagers. She’s fairly certain that, had she actually alerted her sister, they wouldn’t be here at all.
“What’s more, we’d know what we were getting into before we got here- and have TWO guns running, not just one!”
“S-sorry,” Thiz finally mutters. “I thought it was the engine…”
Whiz hangs her head. “All the more reason to tell me. You don’t know how those things work, I do.” She plants a hoof in Thiz’ chest, using herself as a conduit for the ship’s power grid. “Next time, make sure I know before you go. It could spell the difference between saving a town… and being late.”
Thiz hangs her head even further; much more and she’ll find out what paving stones taste like. “Yeah…”
Whiz lets out a sigh, shaking her head, and steps past her sister as the shuttle’s interior lights all kick on, banishing the shadows from which she’d emerged. “But, hindsight always has such perfect vision. As far as in-the-moment decisions went, you did well, for someone with no military training.” She looks ahead, directly towards the gathered survivors. “Is everyone okay?”
Nevermind that she already knew the answer; such information was irrelevant for the question. Her answers start coming back in the form of a few yeses, a few pained yeses, and a groaned “ ‘Mokay!”
She grins at all of the positive answers… Seriously, there aren’t that many villagers left for kilometers around that can truthfully answer the affirmative. “Okay really, now. I’m good with injuries- who all is hurt?”
The entire crowd seems to shift a couple inches to the side as every villager averts their eyes by about the same angle, all at once. “Uh…”
Whiz sighs, and trots forwards. “Anyone need-Aargh!”
The crowd stares, without laughing, as Whiz trips over a fallen timber and faceplants the ground. She recovers fast enough that Thiz suspects she was expecting to fall, but slow enough it could have been accidental.
“Ow,” Whiz mutters, rubbing her nose briefly, and scattering the dirt out of her mane with a single hoofstroke. “Anyone else?”
This time, the crowd splits, allowing a couple bruised villagers to carry the injured guards into her view. Whiz takes one brief glance, the ship’s high-fidelity sensors informing her instantly of exactly how badly broken the wingless one’s hind legs are… and how much worse the winged one’s knees- and even ribcage- are damaged. She must have done some serious fighting; given the wings, Whiz decides it’s not only possible but probable she had struck with every hoof until she had been grounded. In either case, Whiz decides, that’s her priority.
Oh, and while she’s at it, she’ll straighten out the massive dent in her armor- the one that’s pressing against her damaged ribs. Bending metal is easy compared to mending bones.
Speaking of which, at least she can draw from the ship’s mana supply, through her tether… This is going to be expensive. She makes sure to ignore all the other natives’ wide-eyed stares as the pegasus mare’s armor, legs, and wing straighten, in sequence, under her soft touch. Further, she tries to ignore the number of those stares that seem to be directed towards her flank. Seriously, there’s nothing there.
Thiz watches her sister for just a couple seconds before she rushes away, intent upon greeting the rest of the groups. Thanks to the full recharge Whiz had given her, she’s now got plenty of mana to drop a scan over the entire town, locate every search party… and she runs off on another heading. This one won’t take her to any of the parties gathering towards the ship; rather, it’ll take her to the only villager still undiscovered. As a matter of fact, this one is right along the path she’d taken earlier, but her lower-energy scans hadn’t been enough to penetrate the thick stone to see into the basement that collapsed on top of her.
Double score, now she has enough mana to move the aforementioned basement… well, enough to free its prisoner, at least.
As she approaches the collapsed basement, and drops a better scan on the position, she realizes something looks a little… off about it. The mare inside is injured, yes- but most basement collapses don’t look quite like concrete bunkers. As a matter of fact, she should have to move very little to reach- and free- that mare. How? She tries to imagine how so many of the fragments of the floor above had fallen just right as to create a dome overtop the mare, layered overtop with enough concrete fragments to make it look- on the surface- like it hadn’t happened. Then, of course, there’s the laser weapon strike that had, after punching through some hostiles, wiped out half of the debris covering the dome… yet the dome is still completely covered and hidden, even the part that’s inside the smooth crater.
She enters the crater, trots up to the edge of the debris covering the dome, and pauses. What should she do now? She’s still not sure exactly what the pointy things sticking out of some of the villager’s heads are for, and the mare in the dome has one too. Whatever- it’s not like any of them have tried to attack her. Only the centaurs… That died.
Another scan, now much closer, reveals what looks like air holes… Arrow-straight air holes. This dome was almost certainly manufactured somehow. She tilts her head; perhaps the mare inside can hear her? “Hello?”
Her active scan shows the mare’s head turning towards her, but she hears no response.
“Are you okay?” She knows the strange mare is not; like much of the village, she didn’t get away unscathed. It looks like one of her forelegs is broken- though only in one place.
Silence again.
“Uh, the minotaurs are, um, gone?” she offers.
More silence. She’d released her scanning spell once she found the broken bone; no more need for it and, besides, she has a limited supply of mana. She tilts her head, waiting… and, right before she directs her mana into clearing the debris to open the side of the dome, much of the cement is suddenly covered in a glowing golden… aura, for lack of a better word. As she steps back, levitation forgotten, the concrete seems to levitate itself, the pieces repositioning themselves to form a smooth tunnel before the glow disappears.
She tilts her head. “What…?”
A mint green head pokes out from the end of the tunnel. “They’re gone?” she asks.
“Uh, yes,” Thiz mutters. “They’re gone for good.” She takes a step forward, gazing at the wall of the tunnel. “Is that…?”
“A stone igloo? Yep!” She seems quite excited for a mare with a broken leg. “So, why are you here?”
Thiz draws back at this. “Why am I here…? What…?”
The mare chuckles, glances at the stone debris littering the slope down from her current position to the bottom of the crater upon which Thiz stands, and closes her eyes. Two seconds of glowing aura later- Thiz notices the same aura around the spear on her forehead- and she has a decent staircase to walk down. Which she does, holding her injured foreleg off the ground. “How’d you know I was there?” she asks, as if rephrasing her question.
Thiz looks at the igloo. “Uh… because I’m good at finding things?” She turns back to the mare in front of her, only to find what could only be called a skeptical expression.
“Nuh-uh.”
Thiz shrinks away from her. “Maybe, uh…” She puzzles for several seconds.
“Thought so,” the mare declares. “What’cha hiding?
She averts her gaze as well. “Nothing…?”
“As likely a story as the first,” she states.
“Um…”
“So, is everypony okay?”
“Every… pony?”
She lets out a huff, and glances around. “Tell me later?”
“Uh…”
“Please?”
She tilts her head. “Uh… okay.”
“Promise?”
“... I guess.”
“Pinkie promise?”
“Huh?”
“... Nevermind.”
“So, uh…”
“There’s search parties all over town looking for me?”
“Um…”
She smiles. “Didn’t think so- nopony even knew I was here.” She turns to look back at the debris, her smile vanishing in an instant. “Except Miss Swirl… but she died when the building collapsed.” She shakes her head, turning back to Thiz.
“Uh…”
She sighs. “Say something comprehensible!”
“Huh?”
“Ugh.”
“What?”
“Score! Now, what’s the names of everypony left living?”
“Uh…”
“I thought as much. You know how many?”
“Um…”
“Where are they?”
“Eighty-seven… Oh? That way.” She holds out a hoof.
She looks in that direction for a second, complete with glowing… pointy forehead.
“Eighty seven, you say? When I add us, I get eighty nine…”
“Oh, um, I wasn’t counting…”
“You and the other adult with no cutie mark, who came from out of town to perform a rescue?”
“Huh?”
She tilts her head. “You are from out of town, right?”
“Uh…”
“And you came to perform a rescue?”
“Um…”
“Accidentally?”
“Uh… maybe?”
“And you came with that other earth pony mare?”
“Huh?”
“The one doing a better job than a unicorn doctor.”
“Uh…”
“The blue one.”
Silence, save a tilted head.
“Golden mane?”
Her head tilts the other way.
“No cutie mark?”
Back the first way.
“They’re calling her Whiz?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Can you do that too?”
“Not as- wait, what?”
“What what?”
“Earth pony…?”
“Yes. Do you know anything about Equestria?”
“Uh…”
“How about ponies?”
“Um…”
“Out of town, yes.”
“What…?”
“She’s an earth pony, you’re a pegasus, I’m a unicorn. Now, that healing thing, can you do it too?”
“Um…”
Sigh. “Or should I go to her instead?”
“Uh…”
She looks in the direction Thiz had pointed, briefly. “How badly might a teleport frighten her?”
“Teleport? Nah.”
“Ahh.”
“Uh…”
“Ooh.”
“Um…”
“Moo?”
“What?”
Her horn glows momentarily, and the world disappears.
CRACK!
Whiz leaps rather higher into the air than most earth ponies might when they appear directly behind her.
“Everypony okay?” The minty unicorn instantly asks- even the crowd was startled by her appearance. She gets a round of affirmations while the blue earth pony in front of her calms himself down, and turns to face.
“Please don’t do that again,” she states.
“Um, about that, I think I broke your… friend?” She steps to the side, revealing a dazed Thiz. She then glances between the two blank-flanks for a few seconds. “Sister, perhaps?”
“Uh…”
“Not you too!”
Whiz blinks. “Sorry, it’s just…”
She huffs gently, and offers her leg. “Is there a simple fix for this…?”
More blinking. “Uh, sure… Thiz there should be able to help. Unfortunately…” She turns back towards the cripple she’s in the middle of healing. “They need my skill more.”
The minty mare nods. “Understood.”
And turns back on the cream pegasus behind her. “So, you can do it too,” she mutters, and glances up at the ship. “How about in there?”
“Uh…”
“Oh puh-leeze.”
“Um…”
“Do I have to ask nicely?”
“Uh…”
“Pretty please?”
“Um…”
“With a cherry on top?”
“Huh?”
“Maybe a dictionary?”
“Um…”
“Or a translator?”
“Uh…”
“Maybe a cognitive accelerometer.”
“Huh?”
“Accelerometer?” Whiz inserts, breaking off a building giggle. “What would you need that for?”
“Sounded cool,” the unicorn states simply, before turning back to Thiz. “Say ‘uh’.”
“Uh…”
She turns back to Whiz. “See?”
“Wait, what?”
Whiz doesn’t say anything- rather, she falls down laughing.
The unicorn smiles, turning back towards Thiz. “How many seconds?”
“Huh?”
She sticks her hoof out- her good hoof, she’s now balancing on her hind legs- to press it against Thiz’ chest. “Oh, that’s… Oh, would you look at that.” She flicks her injured hoof a couple times- and, a moment later, flicks off her splints and sets it firmly against the ground. “You do have that healing thing. Come on, there’s ponies to fix!”
“Uh…”
She sighs, and the point on her forehead glows again… as does Thiz, who then lands on top of the similarly glowing pony Whiz had been working on… in midair. “And a three, and a two, and a one, and done!” She drops the ex-cripple pegasus gently back to her hooves, before plopping Thiz down in a heap next to her. “Next?”
Whiz, having stopped laughing at some point, simply stares at her. “How…?”
“True, not many unicorns can use one pony’s magic to heal another, but so?” She glances to the side. “I must apologize, that only works once a day…” Then she looks back at Thiz. “Normally.”
Thiz stares for almost a full second before scrambling to her hooves and darting into the crowd. Once she gets a wall of… ponies, she’d called them, between her and that unicorn, she weaves her way out of the crowd and gallops for the ship. Hopefully, she can hide in here somewhere. Maybe under it? Oh wait- the cockpit door! It doesn’t lead directly to the cockpit; rather, it actually leads into a small airlock, intended for when the main side door is wide open in space. So, she makes a break for the door.
Yes! It’s not locked! She touches the door terminal, checks the lock atmosphere- no mana, Whiz probably set it up for easy access- and flicks the door open.
Only to end up face-to-face with a minty unicorn again.
“Hello again!” the unicorn yaps, and pokes at the door control on the other side of the door. “What’s this do?”
Thiz closes the door in her face, turning away.
Then, with a sharp snap, the unicorn appears in front of her again. “That wasn’t very nice,” she mutters, and holds out a hoof. “The name’s Lyra Heartstrings, by the way. You? … No, I did not just ask you to pass out.” She huffs indignantly. “Seriously.”