Even knowing where the entrance was, it took some time to get into the passage: Rainbow told them that the heat impression from hooves tended to be minor, faded quickly and was hard to spot unless it was made against a truly chill surface -- and if that happened, the negation would happen all the faster. (Twilight briefly remembered the war of hues, and still could not bring back what those colors had been.) It left them crowded around the edges of the door, tapping and pressing everything they could -- and with that many ponies involved, they mostly got in each other's way.
Several bumps against bruised bodies later, it had occurred to Applejack that the trigger for a door didn't always have to be on the same wall as the door: relocating it was another way to slow down pursuit. And in the end, it was just about directly behind them.
The passage itself had clearly been maintained. There was no dust present on floor or walls, and the lighting devices were fully charged. They could see exactly where they were going: down. They even had a little extra room in which to move, as this travelway was wider than any of the others had been -- and became increasingly so as they worked their way through. Heading past what Twilight felt had to be ground level. Dropping into the earth.
She wanted to gallop, to push forward as fast as she could. She didn't.
"Hurry..." Which came from behind, at floor level: the passage still wasn't wide enough to accommodate a full wingspan.
"There could still be traps, Rainbow."
A blast of frustration. "They're getting away!"
"I know." It took far too much for Twilight to keep the words mostly even, prevent the bulk of her fears from taking over every syllable. "But we know there's traps, and they'll be trying to slow us down." Or worse. Had Doctor Gentle become desperate enough for worse? "I have to search."
"Search faster," Rainbow muttered, and picked up her own pace. All that did was momentarily put her snout into Pinkie's tail.
Another set of hooves hesitated, then stopped moving entirely. It didn't stop the rest of the procession: Rarity was at the back of the line, serving as rear guard -- but it took a moment before the others noticed.
"Rarity?" Applejack checked. "Y'got a really funny expression right now. Are you okay?"
The designer's right forehoof came up, lightly rubbed at her forehead, near the base of the horn. "I'm getting..." Pressed against fur and flesh, as if trying to keep something from escaping. "...chaos pearls. There are chaos pearls ahead of us. Several of them. And -- and there is another. And another..."
They had just enough time to stare at her.
"Very well," Rarity irritably declared, "Yes, I am clearly abandoning 'shiftstone,' but regardless of how I feel about the stallion from whom I learned the most recent term, I still feel it is the more elegant one. There are chaos pearls at the end of this passage, and their number is increasing. As if they were suddenly appearing in the world. But if it takes time for the world to form that protective shell, that cannot be happening --"
"-- unless they were coming out of concealment," Twilight quickly said. "Being taken away from a working which had been preventing detection." Doctor Gentle had directly admitted to the existence of that spell during the conference -- but such spells were generally cast on the thing which was concealing the object, not the item itself.
He must have had one on his birthing garment. But it didn't stop the smell. An odor only one of us could detect. Spike could barely stand to be near him when we were all moving Shining...
And now the hidden pearls were being moved. Taken away from a spell which would take more time to recast than the stallion had, assuming he'd originally performed the working at all.
Rarity's nod was automatic. "There are --" Concentrated. "-- a lot. And counting."
"...he can't leave them," Fluttershy breathed. "It's too hard to find replacements. He has to take them along, because they're the only way he knows to make changes..."
"And that means," Rarity declared, a little satisfaction drifting across the surface of the accent, "that for as long as they remain within some form of range, I can follow them." A glance down the line at Twilight. "Your range is greater than mine --"
She quickly shook her head. "I still can't detect them, Rarity." And there was also time for a smile. "There's something to be said for being the original."
"Quite," Rarity decided -- then sighed. "Although the increased area would have helped. I'll simply do the best I can. Forward, then." Lowered her hoof, winced. "And another. How many does he have...?"
The line shifted forward, and Rainbow's left forehoof came down on a completely innocuous bit of stone.
A portion of the wall retreated into itself, shot sideways to reveal darkness, there was a high-pitched metallic squeak added to the smell of rust as Twilight's corona flared, a field bubble moving directly for Rainbow, trying to lift her, get her out of the way --
-- the weight wasn't anywhere near being an issue. The speed was. She only had a split-second in which to act and strictly speaking, she didn't completely succeed. The upper edge of the sprung trap hit Rainbow's rapidly-ascending hooves, producing a yelp above and beyond that which the jerking lift had triggered.
And then they all watched as the ancient, half-decayed net slowly slid down the opposing wall.
"So they're keepin' up the lights," a shaken Applejack finally said, "but some of the defenses haven't been touched for a while. Doesn't meant the next one won't do what it was supposed to."
Rainbow, caught within a hover she couldn't control, was oddly silent.
"He's been reactivating them as they pass," Twilight confirmed. "That's what I was afraid of. And the next one might be worse. A decaying spell can do things which a fresh one wouldn't. They might just be trying to stop us, but -- something which was originally supposed to stun..." A working which had lasted long past the death of the original caster, intermittently and poorly maintained, might not emerge as the intended effect. "I hate going this slowly as much as you do, Rainbow." There was a little part of a pony mind which always wanted to gallop: Twilight had truly heard hers for the first time during the Running, and had told it to just maintain the endurance pace. "But I'd rather lose him than one of you."
The pegasus quietly nodded, and Twilight cautiously began to set her down --
-- stopped, with Rainbow's hooves about twice their own height off the floor.
"Um," she awkwardly started. "I'm... self-levitation really isn't my thing. And even if I could fly for more than a few seconds, there isn't enough room in here to try it."
They waited.
"But... if there's more triggers in the floor..."
Twilight winced.
"Sorry about this."
Her corona brightened, and embarrassment happened.
"Hurry as best you can, Twilight," Rarity told her, speaking a little more loudly to get past any possible distortion from the field's border. "There are still more of the stones now. And eventually, they will begin to move."
She set them down again after getting the door open, and part of that was from shock.
"...Sun and Moon..."
She didn't have time to count all of the wire cradles on the far stone wall: she just knew there were more than a hundred of them, and every last one had been woven from platinum. It was something else he'd told them during the conference: that it was being used to pull in the thaums which had maintained the concealment spells.
But platinum required great care. A pony working with the metal was lucky to get one mistake, and anything which wasn't perfection could so easily qualify as a mistake...
He wasn't there. His daughter was absent. (She had a brief moment of paranoia regarding Quiet.) The chaos pearls were gone. But they had also been moved in a hurry, enough so that the fields and mouths, she would have been working with her mouth hadn't been as careful as they could have been. None of the wire was broken: Twilight would have gone up the passage at full gallop with everypony in glowing tow rather than risk having them around that. But far too many of the cradles had new bends, distortions which never would have been in the original plans. The thaums continued to flow through the metal, but she couldn't be sure how long that state would maintain.
"Don't touch the wire," she softly told them. "At all. We can't risk a break, and even a sharp angle could be bad. Just find the way out --"
"-- they went that way," Applejack quickly said. (Rarity's confirming nod was an exceptionally strong specimen.) "Look down, Twi."
She did, and saw two thin tracks of old dirt, moving across the floor, stopping at a blank section of wall.
"There's a tunnel on the other side of that," Applejack told them. "An' there's ponies moving down it. We ain't that far back. We just need to get through." More quickly, "And don't just push the wall in, because past the stone, it's earth. That tunnel's old, and it hasn't been kept up. Sure wasn't reinforced with much. Earth ponies didn't dig that, and Diamond Dogs would have made it safe. I can try to steady it while we're in there, and I'll listen for anything bad starting. But it ain't a place we want to have a fight."
Towing a cart... It would make them easier to spot from the air. "Can you tell where the tunnel goes?"
The farmer's ears rotated. Listening. "It ain't that long. More or less forward for a while, an' then it starts slanting up. It's going for the surface." Winced, as if fighting off a headache. "And there's too many little impacts up there, too much rain coming down. It's blurring things. I'd have to get a lot closer before I could say if there's anything near the exit. But -- ain't no traps in the tunnel, nothing a pony planted in the dirt. Might have been once, but if there was, it fell out a long time ago. We just have to keep the whole thing from coming down on us."
"Judging by the movement speed," Rarity observed, "they're aware they are at risk. But... she is currently an earth pony: we saw her. If a collapse begins..."
"She'd shout," Applejack said, now trotting forward, her path following the cart tracks. "Shout when she doesn't know how to do anything else, shout when she might not know what she's saying. We can't fight in there, and we can't scare her."
She shuddered, and she wasn't the only one.
"Come on, everypony," Applejack concluded. "Only one way to go now. We can't scare her --" a little more softly "-- but maybe there's still a chance to save her."
Her head was down. She heard us: I'm sure of that. But she never looked at us.
And he...
It had only been a moment, when she'd been able to see him. She felt he'd been aware of their presence: there had been a shift to the right eye, enough to get some degree of view. But there hadn't been acknowledgement. He'd just kept moving on the other side of the living barrier. That limping trot of confidence.
"The lockdown's in here," she told them, moving forward to help check the wall. "I'll check every so often to see where it runs out." That sort of spell was meant to flow along a surface: it wouldn't surprise her if some of it had gotten into the tunnel -- but it needed something to flow along, and an anchor point to flow from. It wouldn't be on the surface. "Spike, keep working on scrolls."
"I don't have many left," he reluctantly admitted. "I used two to clear that last space, just before their line broke. Those got trampled."
She winced, and was glad to have been facing away from him at the time. "Conserve what we've got left, if you can. But if it's a choice between getting hit or losing a scroll, forfeit the scroll."
"That's a weird stone in that part of the wall," Pinkie observed from her new position near the left forward edge. "It's a little more recessed than the others. Like -- somepony pressed it down, and it didn't spring all the way back out?"
"Yes," Rarity breathed. "Carefully, Pinkie. Everypony be ready to move..."
Soft blue and pinkish light, with a sort of muddy violet at the intersection: all they had to work with within the damp tunnel, the only thing they could see by. Moving as fast as they dared, hooves sinking partially into the half-mud of the rough floor. Some of the moisture had seeped to this level, and they could hear muffled bursts of thunder from above. Sometimes they were followed by little hoofwidth pieces of the earthen ceiling falling into their fur, and it said something about their situation that Rarity made no comment about having suddenly become rather more dirty than she'd intended.
Then again, the chance to wash off was just ahead.
"Slanting up," Rarity softly said: they had no way of knowing how far their words would carry. "They're almost out, I think." Stumbled a little as her left forehoof hit half-buried stone, adjusted her pace. "Quickly now..."
It was nothing like the Diamond Dog tunnels. There, sound had echoed, made everything that much harder to track. There had been light: phosphorescent moss, some lightly-glowing rocks which might have only been known to Diamond Dogs, or that could have potentially been created by some small aspect of their magic. All kinds of colors along the walls: mostly muted ones, but colors. Decorative touches. Here and there, the runes which made up their written language: something Twilight hadn't recognized for several trips.
Approach the fringe of Ponyville's settled zone and you would find tunnels. What rested beneath this part of Trotter's Falls felt very much like a tube-shaped coffin.
"Something just shifted," Applejack whispered. "Might have been the exit. And -- there's something up there. I think we're coming out close to the playground, but there's still so much rain..."
Forward. The conspirators had to know they were being followed. Had to be thinking about what they could do to stop it. But there had been no attempt to collapse the tunnel on them. No last stand within the earth.
"Maybe that's puddles," Applejack softly projected as the floor began to slant up, the tunnel widening enough to allow a little more comfort in those directions, even as the ceiling came closer. "I think there's puddles. A lot of them. Raining too hard for the soil to absorb it all, especially since the sports areas compacted the ground. Plus some big stuff: that's the playground equipment..." Brow furrowed now, as if fighting off a headache. "It's getting clearer, but with all the water..."
There was a panel in front of them: stone, and a simple, very long, heavily-reinforced hinge.
"Doesn't weigh much," Applejack decided. "Not if somepony his -- his --"
Twilight's skin began to pale beneath the fur.
"-- Quiet's size could move it," the farmer finished. "But maybe that was her shifting the thing. Twi?"
Who nodded. "Be careful," she told them. "If they were going to try ambushing us again, this might be the best place for it." Knock them back into the tunnel, then try for a collapse. "Here we go --"
Her horn ignited. Light shoved against stone, they charged back to the surface and the rain hit her, went into her eyes and made her blink, soaked into fur at the exact moment the lockdown's feel finally went away, thunder roared from what felt like far too close a distance, the wind turned every drop of water into its own little missile and her tail was already drooping, her bangs were slumping into her eyelashes and when she could see again, there were at least thirty ponies in front of her.
Oh.
She could barely make out any real details. Clouds had rendered Moon into nothing more than a minor grey patch against a dark vapor ceiling: the only light she had to work with was that from her own horn. At the current intensity, when she was at least ten body lengths away from the new front line, she was mostly looking at shadows. It was enough to tell that there were ponies there, and that most of them didn't have robes: she'd become more than familiar with that particular outline. A few did -- but it was nowhere near the majority. The rest were obscuring themselves with jackets and dresses, scarves and -- a true sign of desperation, if any of those outlines represented unicorns -- hats. Whatever they'd been able to find in time, with all of it pressed against their bodies by soaked-in water weight.
Waiting for them, within the storm.
She had just enough time to think.
The ones who held out the longest needed something to focus on. We might have been dealing with increasing levels of devotion, all the way out. Eventually, it got down to the fanatics. The ones who would stay no matter what, who would follow one more order and go to guard the place where Doctor Gentle knew he would have to come out.
And the weakest ones, those who ran first... at least one of them ran into town.
She didn't think they were looking at newly-arrived members of the cult, for those who lived close enough to help would have been at the conference. These were likely townsponies.
The Doctor's estate burns and they go to help.
Somepony says the Doctor is being pursued and even if somepony tells them it's by us, they still go to help.
He's on the other side of this line...
And now opposing horns were starting to ignite. Still not as many as might have done so -- but a significant quantity, a total which instantly worked out to be too many.
Her friends were charging out behind her. (She heard Rainbow's wings surge to their full span, picked up on the stronger flapping necessary to stay aloft in the storm.) They emerged, and saw.
We're getting tired. Some of us are hurt. They were waiting.
The playground equipment was close by. Uprooting some of it, using it as a weapon... it would take her off defense. It would let workings through. It also had a good chance to kill whoever she hit with it.
I don't know if we can --
-- and in the face of so many coronas, the darkness of the storm lit by what was moments away from turning into pain, a friend made her decision, got out from under her surprised rider before charging two abrupt body lengths past Twilight, coming to a stop where everypony could see her. To focus on her and only her.
"Do you know who I am?" that mare grandiosely demanded, sheer strength of drama soaking into the world.
It froze them, if only for a moment. It froze everypony, with the sheer level of near-hysterical query forcing all of the combatants to temporarily serve as nothing more than her audience.
"I," Rarity declared, "am the world's worst weatherpony!"
Her horn ignited, the corona going double in an instant, and so many opposing fields lit to counter her -- but nopony had been expecting the bolt to project straight up, soft blue lightning stroking from ground to sky. A single flash of power, everything Rarity had been willing to risk, just about everything which could still be given at all following the earlier battles, and then her field winked out.
There was a moment when nopony did anything more than stare at her, with no idea of what had just happened. And then the rain stopped falling, doing so as wind shifted, began to swirl as the clouds twisted, the lower edges distorting into something which, if given enough time, would eventually assume a checkerboard pattern.
The rain had stopped.
Or, seen from another viewpoint, it had simply paused to gather reinforcements.
Sheets of water plummeted from the sky, pounded earth and metal and ponies with enough force to almost hurt. Lightning struck somewhere near the lake: another bolt came close to the castle. The wind speed doubled, randomly changed direction, twisted the direction of liquid impacts. It was almost impossible to see, to think, to do anything, coronas started to wink out as several unicorns instinctively quelled their power, with many suddenly wondering if it was possible for rain to hit hard enough to create backlash --
"-- now!" Rarity screamed, even as all four knees began to collapse. "Go right through them!"
They heard her. They charged, and Twilight gathered her friend into a field bubble, protecting her, carrying her along. They went directly into the cult's last true defense, with nopony caring very much about any injury they were inflicting along the way.
Hooves kicked out in all directions. Lightning struck over and over, and the closest bolt came within forty body lengths of the battle. Thunder nearly deafened Twilight, stopped her from hearing one attacker, a pony she only saw just in time to dodge the blow which had been aimed at her horn, a horn which had to remain lit until Rarity could recover. Applejack spotted the problem, turned away from nearly caving in a rib cage to reach Twilight's right flank, began to move around her, kicking out at anypony within reach --
-- the mare's appearance had been mostly concealed. But even through the storm, through thunder and lightning and combat, her voice couldn't be missed, and it was no less hated for being familiar.
"CLOD!" the coffee-seller screamed, her head down, horn angled to stab as she began her charge. "YOUR HOOVES TOUCHING OUR SETTLED ZONE, DEFILING OUR SOIL -- !"
Plant. Spin. Kick.
The horn was unbreakable, refused to transmit the force of impact to its owner. The skull around the base couldn't say the same.
"Ah think," Applejack panted as the unicorn hit the ground, already looking for her next target, "the only pony doin' that right now can just keep doing it."
Some fought. But the lightning was too close, the thunder too loud, the world wasn't safe, and for every pony they dropped, three were racing away, trying to find shelter, any form of shelter, a need which sent some of them into the open tunnel: Twilight slammed the entrance shut.
And then it was a few fallen ponies, sheets of rain, howling wind, and Pinkie quickly moving to make sure that those who had been knocked down had their heads turned away from the water which coated the world.
Rarity, still within the field bubble, raised her head.
"Still... still not very good with the thundery ones," she smiled. "Set me down, Twilight: I am still capable of trotting, and I would rather not try to detect through your signature. For now, the last sensory impression I gained --" a foreleg gestured "-- was that way."
It hadn't been the triple corona this time, and the burst had merely been a single sharp one. It meant Rarity was in fact capable of trotting, and could even manage a run. She even had enough strength left to hold up her end of the argument.
"I can't stop this!" Rainbow shouted over the howling wind. "It's still spreading, and I'm just one pegasus!" In the familiar tones of ultimate offense, "I can't even fly in this, not for very long!" A brilliant flash of hot yellow-white briefly lit the night, and a tree which was twenty body lengths to their right turned into splinters and quickly-quenched flame. "What did you do, Rarity?"
"We needed a distraction! I provided it!"
"It's not safe out here! Not for anypony! We can't stay exposed in this! Twilight had to put those other ones in the tunnel before she dropped the slides on the exit!" Followed by something so rare for Rainbow: vocal desperation. "If you just knew what you did --"
The abruptly-increased level of volume was only partially meant to get through the thunder. "-- I have no idea what I did! I just did it! Now I'm trying to deal with it!"
"You cast when you didn't know what you were doing? You could have gone full parasprite on --"
"Was there a part of 'world's worst weatherpony' which you didn't understand? Let me think, Rainbow: I need to concentrate on the pearls! We can barely see in this and if I do not retain focus, we will lose them! We're getting closer, I know we are! They can't force themselves against this wind any more than we can --"
-- Twilight's field went up, caught and deflected the broken branch --
"-- and without help --"
Help.
We're outside the lockdown.
"SPIKE!" Twilight called out, turning to face him: Pinkie had taken his weight. "Did you send --"
-- and his right claw was just barely visible as he raised it, with only the lightning rendering sagging scraps of falling paper visible.
"...it's the rain." (He was young, he was still so young and he hadn't sounded this young in years...) "Everything just -- fell apart. I -- I can't..."
They did not stop: they could not. But the pursuit formed a tight cluster, centering itself closer to weeping eyes.
"There's nothing left?"
"I..." He swallowed, forced back fear. "I managed to get one away, before it could be ruined. To a safe place. But I hadn't written on it. It's... it's Cadance, Twilight, she sent her answer while I was running, and... I had to make sure it was safe. That if anything happened to us --" and now the words had to be jolted loose by more than the motion of the gallop "-- nopony could ever read it. We couldn't be captured with it. Doctor Gentle can't ever see it --"
Blinking at him helped to clear away water, and more arrived right behind it. "She answered? Why didn't you tell --"
"-- there was too much happening! And it wouldn't have done any good, Twilight, it --" on the verge of hyperventilation now, little streams running between heaving scales "-- it would have made things worse! It can't help her! It can't help anypony! Please, when it's over, I'll tell you, but not now, not until we're all safe!"
Claws clutched, took in handfuls of the curly mane while scattering scraps into the mass. Desperately latching onto the buoy which would save him from drowning. And there was a moment when she wanted to know, had to know --
-- but she trusted her brother. And she couldn't hurt him any more.
"When we get home," she softly told him, and a light touch of field wiped his closed eyelids. "Because we'll get home."
Had she just lied?
There was a way to make it happen, of course. It was called giving up. Heading for safety, allowing father and daughter and most devoted to escape.
He's crying.
I always feel so helpless when he cries...
"Spike?"
He sniffed.
"We have to catch them," the little knight said. "Keep going."
And they ran. Pushing against the wind. Hoping they had a little more strength than two of the ones they were chasing, for that group would be limited to the speed of its slowest member. That there was a chance physical weakness and dragging hind leg would allow them to close the gap.
The storm slows us. But it also slows them. The same factor working against both sides, so that makes it even. We just have to --
-- the sky lit up: a near-horizontal stroke this time. It let them see, and it let them be seen.
The cart was perhaps thirty body lengths away, and she had been hitched to it. Pushing herself forward with earth pony strength, pace limited not by wind, but agony. For them, the liquid pelting against them almost hit hard enough to hurt. For her...
Twilight had seen a picture once: a slingshot, a basic minotaur distance weapon. A small stone, launched with enough force, had the potential to kill. A hundred thousand projectiles of water, beating against a body already so wracked by pain, merely made the suffering pony wish for death.
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I --
But in the flash, she also saw him. Limping at her side. And there might have been a third form there, but she was focused on him, she had to get the first spell off, she had to surround him, counter anything he might try, but he'd been looking behind him when the lightning had crashed through the checkerboard sky, he'd seen them, and his eyes went wide and in that single moment of light, she thought she saw his mouth open. Not speaking: simply framing a silent word.
'No...'
And then it all went wrong.
Her horn was igniting and he was moving towards her. She was lining up on her target, slowing down to be certain of her angle, and he was going towards his daughter's left flank. She was factoring for rain and he pushed at the earth pony, making the pain so much worse, getting her attention and she turned and she saw them and the one pony she trusted in all the world screamed for the first time, screamed words of desperation, screamed in what he might have seen as his final attempt to save his Great Work, went to the last resort while believing the chance to be nothing more than futile. Demanding, even while knowing there could be no possible results. Acting from the heart of the lie.
"DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHING, YOU --"
The rest was lost in the thunder. And between contact and pain, sighting and light and noise, she was very visibly scared.
NononononoNO!
Twilight had slowed. It meant Applejack passed her.
It meant she saw the moment when Applejack fell.
The orange body stumbled, pitched forward, dropped, ears flattening against the skull, forelegs coming up to futilely press against the sides of her head, the muscular form skidding forward for two body lengths on the thin sheet of water as her voice cried out in accentless agony. It almost completely drowned out what was happening on Twilight's right, the tiny gasp which just barely found a place in her terrified mind as the ground between the groups heaved and there was something like the last dying gasp of an echo, the faintest note ever played surrendering the final vibration to unimaginable distance and
the grass was at least three Celests high. Thickened giant weeds bent and bowed in the wind. A wall of green life, at least five dozen body lengths from end to end and who knew how thick, blocked the way. However, for the very little it might have been worth, it was exactly the wrong time of year and part of the continent to get dandelions.
"...oh," Twilight said, and barely heard her own words from the twin depths of storm and stun. "She grew plants at us..."
Doctor Gentle stared at the wind-twisted, swaying plants, roughly six body lengths away.
"Oh," he finally said, the syllable emerging from somewhere in the midst of verbal daze. "Yes. I suppose that would be within the realm of theory..."
And there was something he almost thought of then. But he did not, for it would have invalidated everything.
"Mah head," Applejack softly groaned as she tried to lift her dripping body away from the ground. "Oh, my head... she's so loud and we were right on top of --"
A bright pink hoof gently touched Applejack's right shoulder.
She forced herself to turn, looked up, saw tears streaming from blue eyes.
"I..." Sobbing now, crying harder than Twilight had ever seen Pinkie cry. Sobbing and laughing, all at the same time. "I heard her..."
Slowly, Applejack forced herself to her hooves. Briefly pressed her body against Pinkie's, and let the tears merge with the rain.
"This won't give us much time," Doctor Gentle quickly decided. "They'll come around it soon enough. We have to reach the entrance: get out of their sight." They had to find the entrance. He'd been sure of where it was, but then the storm had --
-- she was swaying.
Of course. That was magical exertion if anything was. (He did not think of it a second time.) "Are you all right?"
"You said... you -- said..."
Had he said something? He had told her to act, he was sure of that, and... well, she had acted, so his words had been the right ones. "Can you move?"
"...yes."
Good. "How did they even find us? I only told ponies to give us our chance once we emerged." They could have traveled with the group -- but it would have been too easy to spot. "Not where we meant to go. They had nopony to question, no way to track --"
"I don't know, Doctor," Quiet urgently said. "But we have to move. This isn't going to hold for long, and we're having enough trouble with you hurt and pulling the cart through mud --"
The interruption took the form of a whisper, and so was nearly lost in the storm.
"-- the cart."
Orange eyes focused on the old wood. The ruts which would usually be left by the wheels: with the rain at its current force, those had been worn away within seconds. But the contents...
"...the unicorn. The concealment spell was anchored to the cradles. The unicorn is tracking the pearls..."
They stared at each other, and then silver ignited.
"Everything I can carry," Doctor Gentle, his field stuffing ever-changing gems into his jacket. "And no more. We don't have a choice." More softly, "A trick. We have come so far and we are being beaten by a simple trick cast by the most average unicorn I have ever seen, a hidden talent which exists for no reason other than to oppose us..."
The flow of silver energy paused. His corona briefly flickered.
"We have no choice," he stated. "None. Quiet -- my most devoted -- I have a final favor to ask of you. It seems... the most dangerous pony is not whom I had believed it to be. I will stop her. But that leaves --"
His daughter was looking at him. It was an expression he could barely make out, even with the glow of his horn to provide light -- but it struck him as being a rather odd one. There was a considerable amount of fear in it, and there was also something else. An aspect he couldn't identify.
"You won't," she choked out, as the rain tried to drive her into the dirt. "You said. You wouldn't. Let somepony --"
"I will not," he assured her. "I will simply do the needful. Quiet?"
The younger stallion regarded him, through darkness and a blue-white flash of lightning, with the second odd expression in less than a minute. And then those grey features locked in resolve.
"I'll try to buy you some time."
(There was rustling coming from the giant plants, and they never heard it, with so much lost in the storm.)
His small right forehoof came up. Doctor Gentle pressed his larger left forehoof against it.
"Catch up," he told his most devoted. "If you can. If you cannot..." Orange eyes briefly closed. "...it has been my honor --"
-- and seven bodies broke free from the plants. Six mares and a dragon, in full charge --
The disaster took, at most, fifteen heartbeats to create, and every last one echoed in Twilight's inner hearing.
His horn was already lit, he was turning, Twilight saw that light, focused on it, on the only plan they had, just barely heard wings flare out as Rainbow fought against wind and world to take to the air again, and the sight of a pegasus attempting to fly in this level of storm couldn't be missed, especially when that mare was managing to succeed.
They had chanced the expenditure of seconds on thought and in that, they had risked everything. But they were right there --
-- two of them were right there. She was, and he was, and Quiet --
-- it didn't matter. The plan was already in motion. Rainbow had managed to take flight, but she wouldn't be able to stay in the air for long. The execution of the plan partially relied on speed, had a little hope placed in shock, and a whole lot was built around Spike's aim.
His arm went into the cloth sling, took out the heaviest object, threw, with the arc going off-line --
-- Rainbow darted right, pressed and pinned it between her forehooves. Powerful wings beat at the air, moving her forward, and the older stallion's corona was swelling, increasing its light --
-- the sparkles vanished.
No.
It had been a statement.
Twilight's horn was already lit, and her own power started to surge forward. Getting between him and Rainbow, he would be targeting the pony who was openly moving, he had to --
-- which meant she was looking in the wrong place.
Silver lanced. Headed directly for Rarity.
She understood what was happening. He'd worked out how he was being followed. He was taking out their tracker. He was targeting her friend, and she'd lost her chance to counter. All she could do was deflect, and her field projection wrenched away from the original line, whipped into the new path, knocked the bolt of what she could only see as death off-course --
-- and Rainbow was already coming down, doing so faster than Twilight had imagined she could. Shouting, something about Let's see how this looks on you! as her forelegs swept forward and slammed howlite, spinel and iron onto the older stallion's forehead --
-- but the power had already been released. Power which no longer had a mind directing it. And she'd deflected that power.
It hit the cart.
Uncontrolled magic, something which was meant to go inside objects, soaked into the shifting gems. Gave energy free passage.
Something erupted from the cart. Something which was not light or dark, neither heat nor cold. It could not be described as solid or ephemeral. It was everything at once and so in many ways, it was nothing. It was too much. It was everywhere, and it wished to become everything.
Air was earth. Night was sea. Thought was pain and all emotions were fear. They had faced so much, they had held against their own instincts throughout the night, but this was something different. This was the purest of insanity, without even sapience to give it direction. It was something which made their blood scream, in those brief moments when it felt as if they had blood again. Only one had any experience with it, and that which had been won from dream was not enough to resist the breakdown of reality.
The chaos storm surged, swelled, and they broke.
It could be seen as a tiny amount of power. It dissipated quickly, as much as it truly could. (Where the cart had rested, there were cracks in the earth. Within a year, there would be ice and lava and vacuum, all in the same patch of lost land.) But they didn't think about that. For the most part, they couldn't think at all. They were running, all of them were running, most did so in different directions, father and daughter somehow managed to flee together as she broke free of the cart, but the Bearers had broken and Twilight was running and running and she was nothing more than something which only knew how to run and there was no barricade there was no safety there was no defense she had to run
and somepony followed her.
I...
Perhaps that was always the first thought, when thinking could take place at all. Sapience might mean the recognition of consequences, but it also meant acknowledging there was somepony there to recognize anything.
...where...
That might have been the universal followup.
The storm beat against her. Wind pushed through moisture-clumped fur. Waves of rain pounded against her snout. Somewhere to her left, another tree died.
She was too close to the treeline. You couldn't be near trees during a lightning storm. She was sure of that. But for orienting, trying to search -- she couldn't see all that far through the storm. She couldn't find the castle. They weren't close enough to the actual town for anything there to be visible. She wasn't sure where the lake was. The world was nothing more than the storm, and part of her welcomed that because now wind was air and rain was water and sanity had a chance to return.
...I have to find them. I have to find my friends...
(And maybe that was the typical third. If you were that lucky.)
She told her left foreleg to move. It responded. Progress.
Vocal chords were next. "SPIKE! RARITY! PINKIE! APPLEJACK! FLUTTERSHY! RAINBOW!"
No answer.
"...please..."
The storm howled.
"I'll find you. I'll..."
A step forward. Then another step --
-- and the impact hit her right shoulder, almost hard enough to bruise.
She yelped, jumped back, manage to steady herself on the landing, looked wildly around to see what had hit her --but she couldn't spot anything. No ponies, animals or monsters visible to have delivered what had felt almost like pure kinetic force. Energy without an origin point. She couldn't see what had done it, hadn't felt anything --
-- and when the storm spoke, she couldn't hear where the words were coming from.
There were words: her ears took in speech, recognized it as such, processed it normally. But there was no direction to it. Her ears rotated in every direction, failed to find a source.
The storm spoke to her, and did so in Quiet's voice.
"Please. Twilight, please listen to me..."
To her very great surprise, her first instinct was to laugh, and so she learned that instinct itself could be madness.
"Rarity figured you out."
It was as if the very wind had been surprised.
With open respect, "She's more than Doctor Gentle thought she was."
She began to move. Shifting left. Looking for something she couldn't see. "And that's why he tried to kill her."
"He was trying to knock her out. She's how you followed us. Put her down for a few hours --"
"-- how does he know?" Furious challenge. "Has he attacked so many ponies that he knows just how long to squeeze? Compress the heart this long to drop a pony, two more seconds to kill?" Stepped forward --
-- another impact, this time against her left flank.
"I don't want to hurt you," Quiet said. "I want to talk."
"We already talked." Shifting right this time. "Actually, I think you mostly listened. You do that a lot, right? You go around listening: I guess that's why you're so good at it. Only this time, somepony actually knew you were doing it." This laugh was bitter. "Projecting the resonance of dismissal: I worked that part out. I'm right, aren't I? I could look at you, but my mind rejects the sight. I can hear you, because you want me to -- but I can't tell where the words are coming from, because you're making some part of me decide that aspect isn't important. And I can't feel your magic, so I can't counter it. How much strength are you using, Quiet? How many thaums are you burning? How long can you keep this up?"
Softly, "Long enough. I can pull myself out of every sense you have, Twilight. Once, when I was still figuring out what my limits were... I touched somepony, and they knew they'd been touched -- but not what had done it. It was a pretty big jump. I could lower my head and charge right into you." Wryly, "Not that it would do much. I'd probably just knock myself out. But I can hide, Twilight. I spent a lot of time hiding when I was a colt, and when my mark came..."
Another lightning strike, somewhere behind her. She tried using the thunder as her distraction to move, got pushed back again.
"I could study you for weeks."
Not without humor, "I believe it. Twilight, please listen --"
"-- his most devoted!" she furiously broke in, wind sweeping her soaked bangs across her forehead. "You know everything, don't you? What he's done, who he did it to, why, and you stay at his side, as his most devoted! You'll do anything for him, anything for a mad stallion --" the words were speeding up, getting louder "-- because you're just as bad as he is, you're worse because he has his excuse, he has his wife and all you could possibly have is hate, hatred of anypony being born different, fear that you might not be pure --"
The soft sentence just barely reached her through the storm in all of its forms: outer and inner. It felt as if they'd just barely been spoken, and they arrived in her ears as broken.
"-- I had a sister."
The final word held the last remnants of an ancient sob.
Twilight stopped moving.
"Celestia's hooves, it feels so strange to say that," Quiet slowly told her, unseen and unfound. "I haven't said those words for years. I had a sister. My parents were... trying again, because I wasn't what they'd wanted. And I was so happy, Twilight. Somepony to talk to, somepony to teach and play with and protect. I told myself I'd always be there for whoever came, and I got up that night, I found where my mother had just finished labor, I got into the room without being seen because they were all arguing about something, my mother and father and the midwife who'd attended with Doctor Gentle out of town. But I didn't care about that. I found the basket, I looked inside, and I had a sister. Her fur was the color of a dove, and her eyes were grey like the sky becomes when Sun is getting close to the horizon. She was beautiful, Twilight, and I was going to spend my life being there for her, because there was somepony to be there for. I looked in that basket and I loved her, from the first second I saw her. The only seconds I ever had -- because I asked, out loud, where her horn was."
She couldn't move.
"My father got me out of the room," the pained voice told her. "Blocked my door. I was trapped in my bedroom for hours. And when I was let out... they lied to me, over and over. Said there had been nopony at all, nopony alive. That I'd had a dream, I was believing in a dream. And I just knew she'd been there. I went to so many ponies, I cried and I begged and then... Softtread told me everything. Because he loves me, he loves me still. More than they ever did. Loved me enough to tell me the truth, and -- who I should seek out."
"They..." The word had been choked. "They -- ki --"
"-- I don't know! I don't even know that much, Twilight! You heard the words tonight: I was there when Doctor Gentle said them. Sending on. Two words with two meanings. And one of them is... somepony takes the foal elsewhere. An earth pony is left at an orphanage, or a doorstep, or near a police station in another settled zone. They grow up there, they don't know who their birth parents are, they'll never know. I... wanted that to be what happened. But -- the other option..."
The sudden sob came from everywhere and nowhere.
"...is to send them on to the shadowlands. Softtread didn't know what my parents did. I've never found anypony who knows. I had a sister, Twilight, for less than a minute, and because she was born an earth pony, she might have lived for all of an hour. I can't have children --"
And then she had somepony to take it out on.
"-- because you'll have to send them on --"
"-- this isn't about me!" the storm howled.
Two more lightning strikes, and the thunder took its time about fading.
"Bella knows," Quiet shot at her. "We've never been together, we never will be. She wouldn't accept an earth pony foal, any more than she accepts me. I'm the contract her parents made, one she can't get out of, and she's happy just to spend my money without worrying about even bothering to order around servants who could raise a foal for her. I don't care if my children are earth ponies, or pegasi, or unicorns. I just want them to be okay. Healthy. Loved. And..."
A gust of wind swallowed.
"...it's not about me. It's always been about them. About the children. I can only control how I feel." And now the storm was pleading. "There's always going to be hatred, Twilight, there's always going to be bigots and ponies too short-sighted to see the end of their own snouts. We can't control that, ever. But if we could find a way to control what our children would be, if we could make it so that no birth could ever be dreaded, no foal hated, no sending on..."
Stop.
Stop sounding like it makes sense.
The rain fell all the harder. The world weeping, thunder as bursts of rage.
"You're crazy --"
"-- it's the only way --"
"-- you know what he's done --"
"-- he's saving lives --"
"-- you know what he is --"
"-- a racist, in many ways. A bigot in others." Quiet softly finished. "Yes. It doesn't matter. If you pull somepony out of a river solely because they owe you money, that pony still lives. He founded the Great Work, and look what it's done, Twilight. What she can do --"
"-- she can spend her life drugged or screaming!" she shouted. "For however long she lives! She could overdose, she could change with the wrong drug in her body, she could kill herself! She's suicidal, Quiet, did you spot that? She wants to die!"
It silenced him for a moment, if not the storm.
"I'll tell him," Quiet finally said. "He'll take care of her. He always --"
"-- and now he wants more foals to experiment on? What happens if it goes wrong again? What if it's worse?"
The answer came too quickly. "He's trying! And if it's one foal now, compared to every foal to come --"
"-- then volunteer your sister."
The shove hit just below her throat.
Instantly, "I didn't mean --"
The force of the hiss cut through water and air, left her hoping it had somehow wounded flesh. "-- horse apples."
She moved. He shoved: her left foreleg this time, and she kicked in that direction. No sense of impact.
"I need you to understand," Quiet told her, and there was no physical pain in his words. "I need you to -- look forward. Please, Twilight. All of those children, all of the corpses. That has to end, you know it does. I just need you to -- listen. Truly listen..."
I can't find him.
If I had her wave attack, I could just sweep the area. But I don't. All I can do is fire bursts in random directions. I might get him eventually, or I might just tire myself out.
I could run. But if I did... he could charge me. If I can't see him...
"Please, listen..."
He can pull himself out of every sense I have --
And she thought.
She thought about the dying gasps of a faint note.
buried deep
She closed her eyes, shut out water and sight and storm. It was a safe action. It might confuse him, but as long as she didn't try to go anywhere, he wouldn't do anything.
"...Twilight?"
And then she listened.
Sent her hearing inwards. Deep and down.
...I am truth, and truth is painful. Truth can be all the things ponies never wanted to hear or think about, the facts we never wanted to exist at all. But I am truth, and so I must face down every bit of that. I have to be honest, and the hardest thing in the world is to be honest with myself. I do the best I can every day, because lies can be easy and truth is slow, painful work. I take to my labors because that's part of who I am, and the hardest work of all is figuring out how to exist with those truths. But I have that strength. I'm so much stronger than anypony believes, strong in the only way which truly matters. In that, I carry the strength of the world.
I am the earth, and the earth is capable of change. Sometimes those shifts are slow, sometimes they're abrupt, and they are never anything less than powerful. I feel the plates shifting inside and I fear who I might become, as changes move away from the foundations built over centuries. But change must take place, and sometimes that means the earth breaks for a while. I bleed as lava, my wounds solidify as stone. I am stronger than before, and I move on.
I am part of the world on a level few will ever understand. I listen, for there is something which loves me enough to speak. All I can do is return that love, and I offer up the gift of my singing, in the hopes that the song is a pleasing one. And when my labors are done, I will return. The loan will be repaid. The contract completed. I go to my rest, carried by music, and accept it as the reward for a job completed.
(there was a distant sound now, one she was just starting to isolate, and it came from beneath her and around her and everywhere)
I am honesty because to be such is a burden, and somepony has to carry it.
I am steadfast because betrayal is the final expression of a lie, and I will always return to those who love me. The ones I love in return. The family of my heart.
I am always and forever on my own ground.
I am Applejack...
♪ where is he? ♪
She asked her question, and the world answered.
rain
every drop is an impact against the skin of the world. It blurs the world. It tries to drown the surface, but you can always go deeper. There are roots, drawing their life from that which freely offers it. Stones waiting to reach Sun, and others content to rest in the dark, where they can learn how to sing
and there are caves, there are caves so close by, little drips to listen to instead of pounding rain, for stone is born from water and dies from water and so water has always been part of this. Water carves channels of music into the world, and we listen, it's so easy to listen deep when the rain pounds against our skin but
what you need is on the surface
and so we listen
for he cannot escape a sense he never knew to exist
four points of pressure, not too heavy
right
over
there
He was on her left. About eight body lengths away.
We danced, just once.
I watched you. I matched you. I was looking slightly down most of the time, because you're shorter than I am and that's so rare for a stallion...
Is this a dance?
(How much power was he using?)
I think I care about you a little, even now.
(How was it being channeled?)
But I can't love you.
(What would happen if she hit...)
And I won't match you any more.
She darted left. The unseen field ignited, tried to shove her --
-- and the burst of power slammed into his horn and head and thin body, broke contact with the soil at the moment her inner hearing fell away, unable to retain the aspect and attack as a unicorn would. She could no longer feel where he was. She simply heard the direction from which the scream had come.
She risked a full minute to the search, a minute during which her broken heart couldn't bring the song back.
A minute where she couldn't find his body.