By Lex’s estimation, they had maybe forty-five minutes left before the ghouls arrived.
That was an approximation, of course. The Night Mare had said that they’d be there in “a little over” an hour, which left the exact time indeterminate. More important was that her pronouncement guaranteed them a minimum of sixty minutes before the undead ponies would make it here, though he’d already wasted more than ten minutes in fruitless pursuit of the spells that had been embedded in Xiriel’s scroll.
Of course, Lex wasn’t willing to bet the safety of everypony here on someone else’s word, even that of a goddess. To that end he’d left Severance at the western edge of the camp, reiterating his orders that it was to cut down any ghoul, monster, or anything that wasn’t a pony that approached the place. Even then, he planned on heading back there once he made a statement to everyone about their current situation. Not that he knew what to say, besides that they were about to be attacked by what had to be a horde of undead creatures and he had no idea what to do about it…
“Okay, so I just want to make sure that we’re totes on the same page,” spoke up Sonata, glancing over at him with her usual happy expression. But a second later her eyes widened, lips twisting into a grimace. “Oh geez! I’m really sorry!”
Lex frowned, confused by the sudden change in her temperament. “What?”
“I said ‘page.’ You know, like ‘scroll’?” she admitted sheepishly. “Too soon, right? That was super thoughtless of me.” She finished with an apologetic smile then, apparently not understanding that the look he was giving her in reply to that statement was one of incredulity mixed with exasperation. “I won’t do it again. Anyway, we should really book it to-, aw nuts, I did it again!”
Rolling his eyes at her inanity, Lex tried to steer the conversation back towards something less nonsensical. “You wanted to coordinate something with regards to my public address?”
Now it was her turn to furrow her brow. “Huh?”
Letting out a slow breath, Lex tried again. “What did you want to make sure we were ‘on the same page’ about?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, understanding blossoming on her face before her expression reset to its default look of happiness. “Yeah, so listen, we’re gonna do our usual gimmick, right? You use that whisper spell, and tell me what you wanna say, and I’ll totes turn it into stuff that sounds good.”
“Yes,” nodded Lex curtly.
“Because it’d be a really, really bad idea if you tried to do this by yourself.”
“I’m aware of that,” he huffed, glancing at her irritably.
“I mean, you sorta screwed up the whole thing with Garden Gate in a major way, and Spit Polish wasn’t much better, plus you did kinda do a bad job with letting the cat outta the bag about what happened to Cloudbank and the others, not to mention that you never really told everyone what the deal was with Block Party, and-”
“Sonata!” snapped Lex, stopping in place as he turned to look at her sharply, jaw clenched in irritation. For a moment he was ready to lambaste her for rubbing his nose in his previous failures, but his ire fell away an instant later, and he closed his eyes for a second as he let out a slow breath. “We’ll do this the way we usually do,” he confirmed. “I’ll speak, and you translate it into whatever you think is both accurate and palatable.”
Sitting up on her haunches and clapping her fore-hooves together, Sonata gave him a toothy grin. “Right!” she cheered. “Accurate and palpable are my middle names!”
“The word is…nevermind,” sighed Lex. Turning, he continued toward the center of camp, Sonata walking beside him happily.
Despite the relative brevity of the distance, Lex was already feeling winded by the time they approached their destination, his body aching all over. Although the explosion that had destroyed the scroll had been extremely localized, with only the very edge of it catching him, he knew that it had exacerbated his current condition. But right now he didn’t have the luxury of letting that impede him, despite the fact that he had to fight down a grunt of effort with each step he took. Refusing to think about what this meant with regard to his fighting the undead ponies that were likely already on their way here, he instead looked toward the crowd.
Sonata had indeed managed to gather almost everypony together. Although he could see stragglers still coming to join the crowd from every direction, the sheer number of ponies that were already there was considerable. It was impressive that she’d managed to gather so many of the camp ponies together so quickly…then again, considering what she’d just outlined about how he’d provided these ponies with so little information about what had been happening, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that they were hungry for answers.
“I made sure to get everything ready. See?” bragged Sonata, her expression making it obvious that she was exceptionally pleased with herself as she waved a hoof toward the crowd. “I totes remembered that you wanted a ring of fires around everypony, so check it out!” She nodded toward where small campfires – most of them little more than makeshift braziers composed of bowls or buckets with a few burning sticks in them – had been set along the ground at various intervals in a loose circle.
Lex gave a grunt of acknowledgment, not bothering to inform her that he’d been envisioning a single, unbroken ring of fire surrounding the camp ponies on all sides to act as a final barrier between themselves and the ghouls. In hindsight, that had been unrealistic anyway; such a thing would require massive amounts of fuel, and that simply wouldn’t be possible in the little amount of time they had. Worse, there was no indication that the ponies along the outer edge of the group – at least from what he could see – were armed. That was likewise unsurprising, since there were no real weapons to speak of in the camp that he knew about, but it was still disheartening. At the very least, it looked as though the edge of the crowd was formed by healthier ponies, but there was no way to verify that impression…not that it mattered anyway, he knew. With no weapons and no defenses, the composition of the group would be meaningless anyway. One way or another they’d all be slaughtered. The realization of just how helpless and exposed these ponies were was enough to make his stomach clench.
For her part, Sonata pointed off to the side, not even slightly daunted by his apparent lack of a reaction. “Plus, get a load of these! Boxes!” She said that last word in a voice that was practically gushing with enthusiasm, as though she couldn’t get over her excitement at having boxes there. “This way we’ll have something to stand on so everypony can see us! I brought them here ahead of time. Pretty smart, huh?”
Lex paused, not so much to consider her question – he wasn’t sure if it was rhetorical or not – but because he was rapidly reaching the limit of his suspension of disbelief over how she could be so positive in the face of what was about to happen. Normally, he would have suppressed his interest, at least until a more appropriate time, but at the moment he found that he couldn’t hold back his curiosity. “Are you really so unconcerned about the danger everypony here is in?” he asked abruptly.
She tilted her head slightly, her smile turning into an amused scoff. “What, the ghouls?” she snorted, the very picture of nonchalance. “Are you kidding me? We’ve dealt with stuff a bajillion times worse than that. I mean, yeah, you made it sound like there’s going to be a lot of them, but so what? You’re you, and I’m me, and we’re totes gonna fight them together, which means we’re gonna kick their flanks all over the place and look good doing it!” She went over to grab one of the boxes then, planting it right in front of the crowd, who started to murmur as they realized something was about to happen. Oblivious, Sonata looked at him as she went to fetch another one. “So yeah, I’m, like, not worried at all. For realsies. So, let’s give these ponies a pep talk, go school some ghouls, and show everypony that we’re super-awesome heroes!” she grinned as she plunked the second box down beside the first.
Lex wasn’t sure if he should be horrified by her naiveté or… No, he decided silently. Horrified is the proper reaction.
Before he could say anything to her, however, Sonata jumped up on one of the boxes and turned to address the crowd. Taking a deep breath, she began to speak. “Everypony! Listen up, like, please!” she yelled, her voice projecting powerfully. A moment later the crowd’s speaking died down, all eyes turning toward her. Smiling at being the center of attention, she had to resist the urge to prance in place. This is gonna be so sweet! Things were finally getting back on track after all of the stuff that had happened!
“Thank you! Ahem… So, you’re probably all wondering why I’ve asked everyone to gather like this in the middle of the night. Well, I have a special treat for you! The pony in charge, Lex Legis, has a special announcement, presented by none other than me! He’s here right now, so everyone give him a big cheer!” Whooping that last word, she apparently didn’t register that her request earned no more than scattered applause and more than a few murmurs, instead turning to look at her boyfriend, beckoning him toward the box next to her. “C’mon Lex!”
Fighting down a grimace at her jovial tone, he paused just long enough to cast his whisper-spell, before climbing painfully on the box next to Sonata’s. Glancing at her eager expression, he turned his eyes toward the crowd, noting that they didn’t share her excitement. Quite the contrary, more than a few looked perturbed while others seemed confused or suspicious, and a minority looked upset for some reason. Normally he wouldn’t have cared in the slightest, but right now the cold reception made him think back to the list of his communication failures that Sonata had so recently articulated, and he felt bitterness welling up inside of him, suddenly regretting having agreed to this. “This was a mistake,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t-”
But he didn’t have a chance to finish as Sonata nuzzled him, the open display of affection causing him to go rigid in self-consciousness, his faltering confidence momentarily forgotten, and sending a murmur through the crowd. “Don’t worry about them,” whispered Sonata warmly. “Just say what’s in your heart. I’ll do the rest.”
Lex tried to figure out what that meant, but between the exhaustion of his recent activities, the resurgent bitterness he felt at not knowing what he was supposed to say, the embarrassment of Sonata being so amorous toward him in front of so many people, and the mounting anxiety of the imminent disaster facing everyone, it was all suddenly too much. The maelstrom of emotions that flared up in him then was enough to make a reasoned evaluation impossible, and instead he whispered the first thing that came to mind. “I let them down.”
Sonata blinked, not having expected that. “Huh?”
“I let them down,” he whispered again, turning to face the crowd, forcing his face to remain stoic. If she wanted what was “in his heart,” and that’s what she and everypony else would get. “Cloudbank. Thermal Draft. C. Shells. Sandbar. Turbo. Block Party. Pillowcase.” He recited their names mournfully as he looked out over the crowd, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
“I should have saved them.”