Breathless curled around Cadance, smoke turning into frozen ash around her that sapped the warmth from her body as it closed around her hooves.
“I’ve waited for this for so long,” Breathless hissed. “You can’t imagine what it was like, stuck in one place, staring into the light and unable to even scream. Death would have been better.”
“Maybe it’s not exactly the same, but I went to grad school,” Twilight Velvet said.
Cadance looked at Velvet with something between betrayal and shock.
Velvet winked. It would have been more reassuring to know that she had a plan if her plans hadn’t so often gone poorly and literally explosively. Among the many things Cadance did not want to do today, being eaten by a monster and/or exploding as a result of her teammate being clever.
“You know, for all the time I spent thinking about this moment….” Breathless sighed happily. “I never prepared a speech. I’ll have to come up with one before I destroy the Sun Pony. I want to really… savor that moment.”
“I don’t mind waiting for a while and not being eaten!” Cadance blurted out. “I should get a speech too, right? How about we all sleep on it?”
Breathless laughed. “Oh, little alicorn filly, you were never worth the words. My victory will be sweet but… a toast is for the pony drinking it, not for the drink.”
The pooka’s mouth dropped open like a snake’s, everything unhinging and revealing a terrible black void ringed with clouds, like looking down the throat of a hungry tornado.
Cadance screamed, her coat paling as a stream of pale blue magic was drawn out of her body, the pooka gulping it down, tearing it away from the alicorn until it finally sputtered out, Cadance slumping.
Breathless let her go, the ash around her crumbling and flaking away like a sandcastle being consumed by the tide, Cadance falling back into Velvet’s hooves.
“It was all worth it,” Breathless sighed, her jaw folding back to something approaching normal. “Now with this, I don’t have to fear the sun. I don’t have to fear anything!”
“Your brother probably thought the same thing when he came up with this little timeshare hideaway with you,” Velvet said. “You know, my father once fell for a timeshare scheme.”
“I am trying to enjoy the moment of my victory,” Breathless growled.
“No, this is important, you’ll like this,” Velvet assured her. “You see, the thing about a timeshare is, they lure you in with a promise of a vacation or a prize or at least a free meal, and all you have to do is listen to their little pitch. A quick little thing and then you’re free to go.”
“I am beginning to see how having to listen to somepony could be annoying,” Breathless muttered, raising her chin, enjoying the feel of the power surging inside her.
“The thing is, though, once you’ve agreed to their terms, they have you as a captive audience. Ponies will sit there for hours listening to them prattle on and try to convince them to buy a share of a second home in Las Pegasus that they can only use one weekend a year.”
“Is this going somewhere?”
“My father went to one of these little timeshare schemes because he thought we could get a good dinner out without me ruining it or him having to cook, and what happened? We sat there with the food on another table and we couldn’t go and eat it until the annoying stallion had finished his presentation. And you know what happened to the meal?”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll tell me. I hope you know these will be among your last words?”
“By the time we were able to actually eat, it had gone cold. We thought having to wait and suffer for the food would make it worth the cost of admission, but all that happened was we ate something that had been out too long and got food poisoning.”
“What a wonderful story,” Breathless said. “I’ll make sure not to buy property in Las Pegasus.” The pooka swelled up, doubling in size, ashen armor starting to form along its limbs. “Now, I think it’s time I tested out this power I gained. You’ll make the perfect targets until I can track down Danger Zone and eat what’s left of her.”
Velvet waggled a hoof.
“You didn’t learn the most important lesson of the story!” she admonished.
“Unless the moral involved how to survive the power of a goddess of death, I don’t think it applies very well to your situation.”
“The moral of the story was that anything somepony is just giving to you comes with a price,” Velvet said.
Breathless shook her head and took a step towards Velvet, trailing ash and soot behind her like she was consuming the clean air she walked through.
“And that price is all the trouble I had to go through to--” Breathless started, stumbling as a ripple of blue energy shot through its body, starting somewhere deep inside her and ringing like a bell. “--what?!”
“I suppose the other moral is that you should always be careful you don’t get indigestion when you eat strange food,” Velvet said, shrugging.
“What did you do?!” Breathless demanded, black spittle dribbling from her lips, another pulse of energy hitting her from within like a hammer.
“I’m a quick study,” Velvet said. “Back when we first met, Sunset showed me a spell that could cause a pony’s magic to get a connection to the core harmony of the world.”
“Oh right!” Night Light said. “She used it on me!”
“And it protected you for hours,” Velvet agreed, nodding. “Of course, Sunset is much stronger than I am. When I cast it on Cadance, there was no way it would last nearly that long, and it would take much longer to kick in.”
“What a stupid plan,” Sunset muttered.
“I had to make sure to use it right before you ate her magic, and then delay you until it started to kick in. I bet that can’t feel nice, all that alicorn magic inside you, tearing you apart.”
She looked down at the alicorn in her hooves.
“Sorry about using you as bait, Princess,” Velvet whispered.
“I’ll forgive you if we get out of here alive,” Cadance whispered, smiling through the pain she was in.
“It’s a good thing I never promised to spare you,” Breathless growled. “I’d hate to be a liar.”
The pooka reared up, nearly reaching the high ceiling of the room. Thick tendrils of smoke ripped out of her ribs, lashing at Velvet like a dozen whips made of rock-hard frozen cinders.
Night Light stepped in front of her, putting up his shield, tiny and woefully inadequate for the task.
“Out of the way!” Sunset yelled, shoving the stallion. Her horn crackled with potential, and a wall of magic like a tower of iron will erupted around the group, Breathless’ attack shattering on the buttress.
“What?!” Breathless hissed.
“You know, I finally figured out why I was getting so peeved with Velvet!” Sunset yelled. “She’s clever! Clever ponies can beat strong ones because they win with cheap tricks! It’s not playing fair!”
“Not all of us are as talented as you, Sunset,” Velvet admitted.
“Yeah, and you know what? Now that you used Cadance as bait I really respect you a lot more!” Breathless lashed out again, the attack rebounding from Sunset’s shield, octagonal patterns of runes shimmering where the absolute barrier deflected the attack.
“I’ll try not to take that personally,” Cadance whispered, still too weak to talk or stand.
“I’ve always been strong enough that I never had to trouble myself with taking a problem sideways! I’ve always used brute force!” Sunset pushed at her barrier, turning it into a bulldozer and knocking the ailing pooka back, toppling her black throne. “And when I do have to fight, I won’t lose to anypony!”
The room on the other side of Sunset’s barrier exploded, pressure waves rebounding from the solid stone walls and shattering the armor the pooka had formed, the monster’s body ripping apart like a used raincloud at a pegasus destruction derby.
“I set a bunch of delayed blast fireballs to go off at the same time,” Sunset explained. “It takes a while to set up, but you were talking so long I had all the time in the world.”
“Wouldn’t they have killed us if you hadn’t used a shield?” Night Light asked.
“They didn’t kill us, because I plan ahead,” Sunset said.
“She’s not dead!” Cadance warned, shouting as loudly as she could with her hoarse, drained voice.
The dark vapors in the room swirled and reformed, bursts and pulses of blue light making the gathering torrent bulge and swell, blasting whole chunks free to fly away as ashes. Breathless slowly reformed, her body hunched over and twisted in pain.
“You, you…” Breathless hissed.
“That’s right,” Sunset smirked. “Me, Sunset Shimmer!”
What was left of the castle shuddered, a block of stone falling from the ceiling to slam into and through the floor, which was continuing to slowly burn. Breathless looked up just as a boulder as big as Twilight Velvet’s whole body slammed through her head. A dozen thin, wavering lines of multicolored light tore out of the pooka, flying away like shooting stars.
“That must be the magic she took from the ponies here!” Velvet said, pointing.
“I think this would be a really great time to run away!” Night Light yelled, bucking the ice blocking the only door out. It was already melting from the heat of the burning coal, and long cracks had formed through the thick sheet from all the shaking.
“It’s not over!” Breathless screamed, reforming and scattering again as she took a step, unable to keep her form together, the pulses of magic coming faster and faster. More shooting stars of stolen magic ripped from her body like she was bleeding everything she’d stolen. “Not yet!”
“Come on, Princess,” Velvet said, lifting Cadance up and walking her to the door.
“We have to save the ponies here,” Cadance whispered.
“We will,” Velvet promised. “Sunset, some help with the door?”
“On it!” Sunset yelled, looking back and firing a blast of force that shattered the ice wall into pieces small enough for Night Light to clear out of the way.
“Let me give you a hoof with that,” Night Light said, taking Cadance’s other side and helping Velvet get her out of the castle.
Where they were immediately met with a mob of ponies carrying mining tools.
“This isn’t good,” Night Light whispered, taking a step back.
“Wait, look at their faces,” Velvet said.
They all looked confused like they’d woken up from a long nap and had no idea how they’d gotten down into a dark hole in the middle of nowhere.
“You need to get out of here!” Night Light yelled. The crowd ignored him, muttering in confusion.
“Princess?” One of them gasped when they spotted Cadance.
“Put me down,” Cadance whispered. “I need to stand on my own. They’ll only listen if it comes from a leader.”
Velvet nodded and eased the alicorn onto her own hooves.
“My little ponies,” Cadance said, in as strong a voice as she could manage. “You need to flee this mine. Anypony who knows the tunnels, take the lead and get the others to safety. Carry those that can’t run on their own! We will guard your back while you escape!”
The ponies started to run, some of them calling for others to follow, fleeing up towards the light.
Sunset came flying out of the doorway, bowling into Cadance and knocking her over.
“I don’t think she’s gonna let us just walk out,” the filly said, dazed.
Breathless roared, trying to force her larger frame through the doorway, slipping through inch by inch as her body tore apart into vapor and reformed between heartbeats.
“She seems upset,” Night Light understated.
“We need to keep her away from the villagers,” Cadance said.
“Well, if it helps, I’m pretty sure I really got her peeved when I turned her inside out with that explosion,” Sunset said.
“That’s the opposite of helping!” Night Light groaned.
“No, it’s perfect,” Cadance said. “She’ll chase us.”
“In most circumstances, we wouldn’t want a horrible monster chasing us,” Night Light pointed out.
“Especially since you can’t walk on your own,” Sunset pointed out. She tried to help Cadance up, the lanky alicorn almost collapsing under her own weight the moment Sunset’s telekinesis stopped supporting her.
“Perhaps I can offer you ponies a ride?” Velvet asked.
She motioned to a minecart, the rails leading off to a side tunnel.
“We don’t know where that goes,” Sunset said, even as she helped Cadance into it. “It could just go right into a rock wall!”
“They have to be using it to carry coal and debris out of the mine,” Night Light said. “They couldn’t have cleared those tunnels just by carrying buckets out. Right?”
“Sounds good to me,” Velvet said, pushing the cart and trying to get it moving.
The doorway to the inverted castle cracked and broke, the pooka shaking itself free of the destruction, gaze fixed on Cadance.
Sunset jumped in, almost landing on the pink alicorn. “You’re going too slow! Get in and I’ll give us a boost!”
Velvet looked back, then jumped into the minecart, helping Night Light get in. Breathless stormed towards them, building up speed like a locomotive.
“Hang on!” Sunset warned.
Night Light’s eyes widened, a lingering pain in his skull reminding him what happened the last time they let Sunset help propel a vessel. “Wait, we should--”
The cart jumped into motion, launching down the rails like an arrow shot from a bow. Velvet caught Night Light before he could hit his head.
“Careful,” she warned, smiling down at him. The smile didn’t last long, though, because unfortunately, their plan worked. The plan where they wanted a huge monster to chase them.
Breathless bounded through the tunnel after them, ignoring the rocks tearing at her as she forced her body through the tight passage, moving so quickly she was catching up with them. With every other step, she slammed through wooden supports holding the tunnel up.
“Well, she’s not going after the townsponies!” Night Light reported, just in case anypony in the minecart hadn’t noticed the howling horror.
“Can you go faster?” Velvet asked.
“This thing’s already skipping!” Sunset shouted. “If we go faster we’ll just derail! I learned my lesson with the boat, okay?”
The rails shook under them, almost throwing the cart, the tunnel starting to cave in behind them from the abuse the pooka was doing to the support beams. She roared, sharp shards of ash and ice hitting the minecart and sticking in like hail made of thorn and razor blades.
Velvet winced as a cut opened up on her brow, only an inch from her eye.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel!” Sunset yelled.
“I’m glad we’re finally using the power of positive thinking,” Night Light said, still watching the pooka, her snapping jaws growing close enough to almost touch.
Velvet looked forward. “No, she means literally! Hold onto something!”
The minecart shot out into the open at the same moment Breathless’ weight came down on the same section of track they were on, launching them high into the air. The pooka exploded into the sun and screamed, skin turning to stone before blue light exploded from its chest, ripping the petrified body apart.
The pale blue light shot back into Cadance, and the alicorn’s color returned, the pale pink becoming healthier in just a few heartbeats.
The minecart started falling, its momentum spent.
Cadance grabbed onto Velvet with one forehoof, Night Light with another, and resorted to grabbing Sunset’s mane with her teeth, spreading her wings and arresting their fall, the minecart continuing on like a cannon shot and slamming into the dirt hard enough to leave a crater.
Cadance landed a few moments later, much more softly.
The pooka’s remains blew away on the same wind that was carrying the last of the mist away from the town.
“Put me down!” Sunset demanded, ruining the moment.
Velvet sighed and closed her eyes, exhausted.