Gloaming

by Rambling Writer


27 - Assault on the Precinct

I hobbled for the door as fast as I could go on three legs. From the sounds of things, Bay was really going at Crystalline. But it wouldn’t last forever and I wasn’t going fast enough.

For the third time in five minutes, magic tightened around my neck. Before I knew it, I was being dragged through the doorway of the police station, the flare gun clinking against the linoleum. The doors were slammed behind me and several ponies shoved sandbags into position to block them. Immediately, the magic around my throat vanished. “Sorry, but you were taking too long,” said Cascadia. “And the chimera’s dead? Seriously?”

“Staked it- myself- with a- ‘For Sale’ sign,” I gasped, rubbing my neck. Constantly getting strangled wasn’t a good sensation. “Got lucky.”

Damn,” somepony said quietly.

“Tributary — the one who isn’t a raving idiot — she sent a couple of vampires after me, but Hailey staked them,” I continued.

“So how many are left?” Cascadia asked nopony in particular. “Those two, I killed one when they first arrived-”

“-and that was after the first four died,” piped up somepony. I think it was Blue Canary.

“Wasn’t it five?” somepony else asked.

“No, it was definitely four,” said another voice.

“Hailey took down another three going for the Tri-B,” I said.

“And there were the two we got when they chased us down Wisteria Road.”

“So, if twenty-one first came…” Cascadia tapped the ground and stared at the ceiling. “Nine left, max.”

Nine. Only nine Crystalline vampires were left. I lifted my head up a little; there were six or seven other ponies in the station at the moment, but I couldn’t remember how many had been in the first group. Maybe, if Cascadia had survived- “How many made it here?” I asked.

Cascadia grinned. “Everypony. Seriously, those vamps just ran straight at us, no strategy at all. They really don’t know how to properly apply their powers.”

“Much to Tributary’s chagrin,” added Homeguard. “Crystalline is woefully unused to this sort of preparedness, and Rebirth consistently fails to admit that we outnumber them. Tributary attempts to penetrate her thick skull at every opportunity, but she continues to delude herself into assuming that she can defeat us easily.” He glanced at my cut; his nostrils flared and he twitched, but that was it.

Well. Dang. No deaths. Far better than I could have hoped. I wobbled to my feet; the cut on my side twinged and my broken ankle burned. I breathed slowly, through clenched teeth.

“Let’s get you out of the hall,” said Cascadia. “Boysenberry, can you-”

Homeguard gasped. “One of Crystalline’s vampires just left.”

We all turned to him. “Left?” somepony asked. “Going where?”

“Elsewhere,” said Homeguard quickly. “She was so disgusted at how Rebirth was handling the situation that she decided to simply cut all ties with Crystalline. She ran into the forest without telling either Rebirth or Tributary and she has no plans to see either of them ever again or to do any further damage to Delta. She- She has no direction; she is simply going away.”

It was too much to ask for. I had to see this for myself. I stumbled to the door and, putting an eye to a window, took a quick look outside. Rebirth was glaring at the door with murder in her eyes, even Tributary seemed pissed, and the shield was back up — I vaguely could hear bolts clattering against it. There were… four, I think, vampires behind them, all muttering to each other, one of them pointed at the door. Bay was nowhere to be seen; if I had wings, I would’ve crossed them. Maybe she was just outside the shield when it went up. One of the nameless vampires took a few steps forward, but Rebirth whirled at her and yelled, so loudly I could hear it, “You stay right where you are until I say you can move!”

“What the fuck is her deal?” asked Cascadia. “Is she just a micromanager?”

“Rebirth is many things,” said Homeguard, “but as her actions have so consistently demonstrated, rational is not one of them.”

“Good. Now, come on, all. We need a plan.”

It wasn’t long before we were all snuggled into the cafeteria. It’d seemed small earlier, when I was working, but now it was comfortable, more than large enough to hold us all. We were nine ponies in total. With, at most, eight vampires outside. Still, they were vampires. Even with numbers, this wasn’t going to be easy.

Cascadia paced back and forth along three feet of open floor. How she managed it, I don’t know. “So we all know the situation,” she said. “They can dodge crossbow bolts without too much difficulty, so we can’t shoot them. Anypony have any ideas for getting out or taking the shield down?”

“Well, um…” I raised my good hoof, the one with the flare gun strapped to it. “Hailey and Bay and I found the shield doesn’t go all the way underground. We might be able to just dig our way out from the basement. If Homeguard can work fast-”

Everypony looked at him. He started squirming in his seat. “I, ah…” he said. “I have… no experience in… these matters-”

“It doesn’t need to be a good tunnel,” I said. “Just enough for us to get out of here.”

“Perhaps, but-” Homeguard’s ears suddenly went up straight. He paused, then screamed, “Take-!”

The entire building shook, drowning out his words and knocking a few ponies to the floor. The lamps rattled and a tile fell from the ceiling. The shaking hadn’t even stopped before Homeguard was running for the door. “They’re trying to get in,” Homeguard yelled back. “Rebirth finally took some of Tributary’s advice, and-”

He tripped. Then he curled into a ball and started screaming.

Everypony started talking at once. “What happened?” “Pull him in here!” “Is he okay?” Somepony bit down on his tail and pulled him back inside the cafeteria. Cascadia crouched down next to him, lightly slapping his cheeks. “Homeguard? What’s-”

Then everypony screamed, yelped, gasped, all at the same time. They all started waving at the air, like they’d been blinded. A few cursed. I didn’t feel any different.

“Get in there,” I heard Rebirth scream, “and bring them out! They need to suffer!”

I grabbed Cascadia by the shoulders. “What’s going on?” I asked her. “Do you see something?”

“A forest,” said Cascadia. “Nothing but forest. I can-” She reached out and patted at my face; I cringed instinctively. “I can feel you, but I can’t see anything real.”

Some kind of illusion, then. A mental one, leaving me unaffected. My psychoactive immunity was really convenient tonight. So, what could I do? Vampires were coming in, but they wouldn’t be expecting me to be up and kicking. But the only time I’d ever beaten a vampire, it’d been through luck. But I had beaten a-

I heard hooves come up outside the cafeteria, and somepony spoke. “Are you projecting an illusion into Homeguard’s mind, too?”

I froze, then imitated the other ponies, trying to look like I was blinded, too.

“Why bother? You’re causing him enough pain to down a dozen alicorns.”

Two vampires stepped into view through the door, a pegasus and a vampire, both mares. The pegasus seemed to be concentrating on something, but I couldn’t tell what. “Still,” said the pegasus. “He’s a vampire, not just a pony. He c-”

“Oh, quiet,” said the unicorn. She waved a hoof dismissively. “He’s not getting up.”

The pegasus. She was keeping Homeguard down. If I could distract her, just for two seconds…

“Any chance we can eat one or two?” asked the unicorn. “I’m hungry.” She stepped into the room, quickly followed by the pegasus. They roamed around, examining the effectively-blinded ponies but not touching them.

Come on, I said to myself, come over here…

“Didn’t you hear her? Rebirth wants them alive,” said the pegasus.

Trying to defocus my eyes, like I was seeing something else, I hesitantly stepped forward, waving vaguely at the air. The vampires didn’t pay any attention to my movement; there was no way I wasn’t incapacitated, right?

“Yeah, and I want to have already completed the ritual,” snapped the unicorn, “but thanks to her, that ain’t happening, either!”

A few more steps forward. I was only a few feet away from them. They still looked convinced.

“Look, if you want to face her aft-”

I took a swing at the pegasus.

Her reflexes were too fast. She blocked my blow easily and stared at me, agape. She tilted her head as if I was just a weird picture on the wall. “How are you-”

And then Homeguard bodyslammed into her. The vampire slid across the floor; Homeguard scooped up a spear from a downed pony, lunged, and stabbed the vampire in the heart. It all took less than two seconds.

But before Homeguard could move again, the unicorn blasted him with magic, throwing him against the wall. He jumped to his hooves quickly, but his eyes were unfocused and he swung wildly at the air. He made a beeline for the unicorn; she grabbed a table with her magic and forced him back with it.

I didn’t stick around to see what happened next. I scrambled into the hall, towards the entrance, and, not thinking, threw myself into my office. I locked the door and tried to move my desk, but with my broken ankle, I couldn’t get a good enough grip to move it fast enough. I looked around, but already knew my office didn’t have windows. I’d gotten myself cornered. Well, if I was going down, I was going to go down fighting. I had only one thing left. I raised the flare gun, pointed it at the door, pulled the plunger back with my teeth, and waited.

Hoofbeats outside my door. The vampire simply bulled her way through the door, reducing it to splinters in an instant. And before the dust cleared, I released the plunger.

I expected the flare to simply hit her in the face (or chest, or wherever), burn her a little, and bounce off. But the flare blasted out of the gun with enough force to force my leg back a few inches and actually embedded itself in the vampire’s chest, still burning. The vampire shrieked, reared, pawed at the flare. A few hairs of her coat caught on fire like wicks. Then more, then more and more, then-

The vampire was distracted. I spun and, compensating for my bad hoof as best I could, bucked her out of the doorway as hard as I could. One of my frogs screamed in pain from the intense heat before adrenaline shut it down. I turned around again; the vampire had hit the far wall hard enough to dent it. She was writhing as she burned, but although her mouth was open, I didn’t hear her scream. I was grateful.

In what seemed far too little time, the vampire had been burned to ash, leaving not even bones behind. Several small flames still smouldered in the ash, burning away whatever was left. The fire started licking up the walls. The wallpaper caught.

Oh, shit.

I’d just set off an incendiary weapon indoors.

I stumbled past the ash pile and back to the cafeteria. Ponies were picking themselves up, rubbing their eyes, mumbling. I quickly found Cascadia in a far corner of the room. “Swan!” she said. “What just-”

“We need to get out of here,” I said quickly. “The building’s on fire.”

Cascadia blinked twice. Without a single change in expression. She flattened her ears back. “Swan. Why is the building on fire.

I cringed. “I wasn’t thinking and shot a vampire with a flare gun.”

“Great.”

“And… it’s… kinda on the way to the entrance.” I poked my head out the door and glanced down the hall. The flames were growing. Smoke covered the ceiling and was rolling down the hall.

“Lynden’s halfway-decent with shields,” Cascadia said, half to herself. “She can protect us. Probably.”

“I beg pardon,” said Homeguard, poking his head in, “but did you say a fire blocks our way out?” He bit his lip, looking more nervous than I’d ever seen him.

“Yeah.

“I- I have a fireproof suit,” said Homeguard. “For my job. In case I need to enter into burning buildings to rescue those trapped inside. I- I must have it before-”

“It’ll just be for a few seconds,” said Cascadia, “and if you keep moving, your burns won’t be that ba-”

“I am a vampire,” snapped Homeguard. “Fire merely burns you, but it is anathema to me.”

“Fine. Go get your suit.”

Homeguard didn’t even take the door. He punched his way through the wall into the fire station half of the building and vanished. A couple of ponies stared.

“What kind of highly flammable vampire becomes a firepony in the first place?” muttered Cascadia to herself, and shook her head. To the whole room, she said, “Bad news, ponies. The place is on fire. Good news is it’s not too big yet, so we can still get out. Lynden, do you think you block it?”

“Against fire?” said a unicorn. “In my sleep.”

“Good. Get ready to move, everypony, before-”

No.

Rebirth, still carrying her gilded saddlebag, was standing in the doorway, grinning madly, levitating large chunks of burning wood behind her. She pitched them into the room, at the hole Homeguard had vanished through. All the ponies managed to duck out of the way, but once the wood hit the wall, fire raced across it supernaturally fast, sending a scorching wave of heat at us. Ponies screamed as they stumbled back and I felt like I was being roasted.

Rebirth didn’t notice the heat at all. “You’re not leaving this room,” she said in a giggly voice. “With no vampire to protect you, you’re just-”

Cascadia telekinetically pitched a table at her. Some other vampire, one who’d taken the threat we posed seriously, probably could’ve dodged it. Rebirth, caught up in her grandiose speechifying, took it full in the face. When she hit the wall, something snapped, and I saw Rebirth’s horn go flying across the room. At the same time, her saddlebag flew open and something skittered across the floor. I took a quick look and cringed.

A horn. A whole unicorn’s horn, bloodred, curved, pointy, evil-looking. I gagged just looking at it.

“Father!” screamed Rebirth. “No!” She dove for the horn, but Cascadia yanked it away and Rebirth fell flat on her muzzle.

“You want this?” asked Cascadia. She waved the horn over the fire. “Stay back, or it’s going in!”

“You can’t! You wouldn’t!” shrieked Rebirth. But she didn’t move forward at all. “You are not fit to touch the great Sombra’s horn! If you-”

A figure exploded through the fire in the hole in the wall, dressed in the gear of a rescue firepony. I caught a glimpse of Homeguard’s face through the breath mask right before he tackled Rebirth to the ground. He stomped several times, and I heard Rebirth’s bones snap. “Go!” he yelled at us. He wrapped his front legs around Rebirth’s trunk. She screamed, beating at him, but it was no use. He rolled the two of them back into the fire.

“Out! Out! Everypony out!” screamed Cascadia. But with Rebirth gone, most of the ponies were already making for the exit. Lynden’s shields were already up, and she was shuffling ponies through the gap in the flames. “Leg over my shoulder, come on,” Cascadia said to me. I yelped as she telekinetically grabbed my bad ankle and swung it over her withers. With her supporting me and the flames briefly contained, we half-stumbled, half-scrambled through the station.

By now, smoke was everywhere. When I opened my eyes, they burned and I could barely see. My lungs felt scorched every time I drew breath. Cascadia moved quickly and I struggled to keep up with her. The horn she was still carrying kept bumping against my side. Then, suddenly, my hooves were clopping against cobblestones, not linoleum. I gasped; the air was cool. One of my hooves caught on a crack in the road. I slipped off of Cascadia and fell, but I barely felt it. I was out. We were out.

I would’ve been content to just sit there and fall asleep, but I heard somepony yelp and a lot of rustling. I looked up. Two vampires — and only two, a mare and a stallion — were staring at us nervously. Sourceless fire was wrapped around the mare’s hooves, although it didn’t seem to hurt her and she didn’t look like she wanted to attack us. Everypony who had a crossbow was pointing it at the vampires, but nopony looked ready to shoot.

Just as the word “standoff” popped into my head, Cascadia stepped forward. “If you leave and don’t come back,” she said, sounding like she knew what she was doing, “we won’t hurt you.”

The two vampires looked at each other. The flames around the mare vanished. “Screw this,” she muttered. “Once Speckle died, we should’ve chosen another town, anyway.” Then she turned around and ran into the night. The other one raised his hoof, paused, and bolted after her.

Behind us, the station house crackled, popped, and hissed. Homeguard, still in his firepony’s uniform, trotted out of the doorway. He removed the smoke mask and looked at where the vampires had vanished. “Rebirth is dead. As for those two, they shall not be coming back. And Hailey…” He glanced upwards.

Half a second later, Hailey dropped from the sky, not even pretending to slow her descent with wings. She looked at the station house, then raised an eyebrow at me. “Did I miss something?”

“Long story,” I said. I pushed myself up so I was sitting on my rump. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Oh, and just so you know, Bay’s fine. She was outside when Rebirth put the shield back up and couldn’t get back in. I told her to stick around Levanta’s shelter.”

“Hailey,” said Homeguard. “You and I ought to patrol the area. Tributary and two other vampires left after Rebirth entered the station, correctly assuming she would not survive. From the sound of their thoughts, I doubt that they will return, but we must be certain, and there may be other vampires in the forest that did not come with Crystalline’s main force.”

“Alright,” said Hailey. She saluted to us. “Be back in a bit! No vamps left in these parts, so take a load off.” She and Homeguard vanished into the darkness.

Silence, except for the roaring fire. Part of the station’s roof collapsed.

“So,” somepony said, “are we gonna do anything about the fire?”

“You!” Cascadia pointed at a pegasus. “Get to the weather pegasi, tell them we need a downpour at the station. I don’t want the fire spreading.”

The pegasus saluted and rocketed off. Nopony said anything. Then somepony started laughing. Sighs of relief ran through the crowd. At first, I didn’t know why, before I remembered what Hailey had said. I ran the numbers, and… yes, she was right. All of the surviving vampires had decided to cut their losses and leave.

The town was vampire-free. Delta was fine. Everypony was safe and alive. We’d won.

I felt like I’d gotten the wind knocked out of me as the full extent of the situation hit. We were done. I had nothing to worry about. No vampires, no lying, no animal-killing monsters, nothing. After the last few weeks, it was a very strange feeling, although not an unwelcome one.

Next to me, Cascadia squinted at the horn, slowly turned it over. I was surprised she still had it. “So, this is Sombra’s horn?”

“Yep.”

“With which the vampires were going to resurrect him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So…” With a telekinetic flick, Cascadia tossed the horn into the fire. “I just perma-killed King Sombra himself.”

“I guess. We’ll have to check to be sure the horn’s actually destroyed, though.”

“Right.”

“Rebirth’s, too. Nice shot, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

For several long moments, Cascadia and I stared at the remains of the burning station. I wanted to take part in the other ponies’ celebration, but I was too tired, too hurt for it to really come. I waited for it to get worse — the smoke to turn into Sombra, the sky to turn to blood, the fire to come to life and start chasing us — but nothing did. Some detached part of me wanted to get marshmallows. Somepony whooped into the night. Then, suddenly, all of me wanted to get marshmallows. And not even necessarily to roast; I needed something sweet and marshmallows fit the bill. Above us, the first pegasus swooped in with the first raincloud.

“Swan?”

“Yes, Cascadia?”

“This has been a fucking weird month.”

“Yes, Cascadia.”