“...and so if the third air wing is chosen, they'll need to deploy at oh-six hundred hours to make the rendevouz, with another coin flip to determine if the second or first squadron take first shift.”
Crimson Fire stood over a map in a war room. Two other officers were gathered around as he laid down the plans he'd been tasked with. They all wore uniforms as decorated as his own, bearing the special operations patches.
A pegasus held a compass over the map and made drawings while the other two talked.
“Isn't that level of detail usually left to the company commander?” the third, younger officer asked.
“Special assignment,” Crimson explained. “We do things a bit differently for an op like this.”
For a brief moment, it looked like the pegasus was about to ask a question – when he bit his tongue and kept drawing on the board. “Alright, I think I can lay out flight plans. Transmitting them is going to be a real pain in the flank, though, but it will be done. Are the lines secure enough?”
“We don't have much choice. Too late for a messenger train,” Crimson finalized.
“What took Icewind so long in giving this assignment, then, anyways?” the other earth pony officer wondered.
“On the mention.” Crimson didn't even turn towards the door, he'd just heard the bootsteps.
A silhoutte appeared through the opaque glass door and gave three solid knocks.
"Enter," the major answered.
Another young, far-less decorated officer swung the door open, “Major Fire? Brigadier General Icewind wants to speak to you. Says it's urgent, and not to send 'your transmission' until you do.”
“I'm on my way.” He immediately followed the young lieutenant, giving one last order over his shoulder, “You heard'em, hold off on transmitting 'till I'm back.”
“Aye, sir,” they both agreed.
He followed the younger pony through crowded, winding halls of officers, maps, cabinets, secretaries and armed guards, leaving the wing of the building altogether. They were passing over a balcony overlooking a large atrium when he started a little chatter, “Anything else I should know, first, lieutenant?”
“No, sir. That's all I have,” he simply answered.
“Got to kill any unicorns yesterday during the attacks?” he asked with a hint of tease in his voice.
The junior officer just gave a small laugh, “I only wish, sir. I was still doing liaison duty. Got to be a part of the response, at least. Definitely got some appreciation for the brass and leaders who make the tough calls, though, and the guys on the ground with the guns.”
“Every cog drives the machine,” Crimson recited in return.
“Aye.” He nodded. “Every cog drives the machine. Just honored to have such a place in it. Now here we are.” He stopped in front of the entrance to a more dimly-lit hallway than the rest of the bright atrium, in front of two stone-faced armed guards. He turned to face his superior and robotically recite a line, “Part of my duty as laison is to respectfully remind you we have standing orders not to loiter in the hallway.”
A gramophone at the end of the hall played symphonic music loudly, further masking any chance of eavesdropping.
“Very well, as you were.” The major gave a nod and left the younger officer behind, making sure to walk directly and briskly to the thick office door.
Large, brass letters adorned it.
BRIGADIER GENERAL OF
DELPHI FIRST OCCUPATIONAL ARMY
CHIEF OF POLICE
ICEWIND
He gave three firm knocks.
He couldn't help but feel a bit nervous. The assignment held far more power than her rank, though either was more than enough to hang him.
Especially with what had happened with his sister staining his record.
But it's going to be business, not an arrest, or they would've just kicked in my door at night...
“Come in,” a mare's voice answered.
He opened the door and walked in to find the familiar face sitting behind a large, ornate desk, in the dress uniform a pony of her station was expected to wear. It was more civilian than military, reflecting more her position than her rank, and thus lacked the display of ribbons that every officer in the building wore. Her fur was a soft light blue, her mane a brilliant, icy teal, and her eyes a piercing magenta.
He closed the door behind him, and stood at attention just inside for a few seconds as she put down some papers. She took a relaxed sip from a glass of some icy drink, then finally bade him, “come over, have a seat.”
He gladly took it.
At least the governor always seems earnest.
“Major Crimson Fire,” she began her address, “well first off, how goes the assignment? I trust your planning of the air component of the governor's security detail is going well? It's a long train ride to Hatten, and no better way to keep a perimeter around the train but by air with our wondrous flying machines. Feel free to speak of it, I'm in this loop.”
He nodded, “My assignment is going very well, indeed, m'am. We're taking the best measures to ensure nopony can plan to harm our great Order,” he dutifully gave a non-answer, neither confirming nor denying any of her implications. Are you testing me?
Was she supposed to even know I was on this assignment?
She quickly changed to the tone of a disciplining schoolteacher, “Now, about that...” She switched back to a more relaxed, explanatory mood. “I wish to speak about a certain major I've heard reports of. See, his younger sister was executed by the occupational governor's standing purge orders because she possessed certain pro-winter propaganda.”
She took a moment to relish herself, “See, 'pro-winter' because they would support the creators of winter. It's a nice term, I think I like it,” then continued, “But you see, we possessed a sort of unspoken disagreement over how leadership should be conducted. The occupational governor believed in strict adherence to the law, to the letter, while myself, I tend to be a bit more...” she waved a hoof around as she fished for the term, looking off to a corner of the ceiling, before her eyes landed back on him, “liberal.
“See, certain ponies who have distinguished themselves through loyal service to The Order deserve to be rewarded, cut little breaks, like overlooking a certain incident with their sister. Why, if this sister were even somehow still alive through some little cosmic miracle, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. A stallion who's distinguished himself well for his loyalty would deserve such a break as a fine gift from the cosmos, surely.” She gave him a sly, knowing smile.
He felt his heart beat ice.
“I even doubt this Golden citizen of our Order deserved such a fate. Of course, this governor considered having this major dismissed, even executed out of fear that he may turn against her for not pardoning his sister. Such folly! Thankfully she decided not to execute such an upstanding and loyal member of our glorious Order. I hope she doesn't change her mind. For his sake, or the sake of his living sisters.” She continued to speak as though it were all some hypothetical.
He tripped over her last word in his mind, trying to swallow it. Sisters. As if the earlier hint wasn't enough.
“But, at any rate, I'm sorry for your loss. If only the cosmos – fate – had been more kind. But truly, the only defense we have against The Unicorn's Winter is each other. I really do believe in rewarding loyalty, you understand? And speaking of fate...” She opened a drawer, produced four dice, and dropped them on her desk. They landed on four, five, three and six.
“Sometimes the only way to get what you truly want in this world is to make your own fate. That's what ponies have always done, and always will do in order to keep themselves and the ones they love alive and safe, or to protect their little cosmic miracles that come along... I think you should assign the first air wing, second squadron, second flight to the second shift for the governor's escort on your assignment. It just feels like the lucky number for the ghost of your sister, right? And it's what the dice rolled.” She put her hoof on the dice, and rolled them to one, two, two and two.
“You understand, right?” She leaned in and looked him squarely in his green eyes.
He shakily, fightfully nodded.
“Good. Calm down a little, major. I don't want to have to have my chair cleaned.” She cracked a humorous smile. “You have nothing to fear from your friend Icewind,” she comforted. “Remember, I'm the one who believes ponies ought to be rewarded for their loyal service. I'm here to protect you and your family, and a friend is a friend. You can count on me to be there for you and your sisters, to protect them, just as I know I can count on you.” She reached forward and patted his shoulder, then looked back down at the dice.
“Just remember, first wing, second squadron, second flight on the second shift. Now go to it.”
A dim yellow incandescent glow covered the streets. The sky was a solid black abyss. Twilight rehearsed everything in her mind as she walked over the cobblestone in a semi-casual blue dress. A simple illusion spell hid her horn, and hastily forged documents were in her saddlebags.
The prison was a fortress pointed both ways, and although it was mostly pointed inwards, going in to rescue Rarity would also mean coming back out, and it was meant to contain ponies with magic. Walls layered with a special paint that had magic-reflecting gem powder, guards armed with gem shard projectiles that would pierce a simple magic barrier, and even chemical weapons she didn't want to get locked inside with.
She shuddered at the thought. She knew certain gems could reflect magic, but reflecting a teleport spell with a million tiny dust specks of gem would mean what felt like a simple forward teleport would cause a pony to teleport to a million different places at once.
According to Astilbe, security was always heightened during a “unicorn spectacular”, and she didn't want Rarity to have to experience any of it, never mind the torturous show itself. But the security was mostly against acts pegasi or earth ponies could carry out. A small, quick response team was always on alert for unicorns, but both times they'd been too slow to catch Rarity or her and she bet that they'd be too slow again. Teleportation and shield spells should be more than enough for dealing with the regular police. They worked last time. I've just got to be quick. In and out. After they've taken her out of prison, but before she's dragged through the streets.
She looked over her shoulder – the street was conspicuously empty except for Astilbe, following her from a hundred yards back in order to appear unassociated with her.
When Twilight would strike, the entire city would know, and she didn't want any ponies to see them together and call Astilbe a “unicorn ally”.
The plan was simple, straightforward and efficient. She'd enchanted a small candle so that as soon as it was lit, it would take her and whoever she was touching back to the storage room under the theater. All she had to do was get to where she could see Rarity, teleport right up to her, throw up a shield around them both, touch her, and light the candle with pyrokenesis.
If worse came to worst, she had carefully memorized a map of a huge swath of the dome, meaning teleporting through it was available as a last resort. As Astilbe had warned her with brazen “operations” like this, “'worse' always happens, and it always goes to worst”.
As their walk stretched into the tens of minutes, and they got nearer the grand event, she noticed closed stores and offices, and the streets began to be more crowded with ponies going to the same destination. Eventually they were only a block from the prison her unicorn friend would be dragged out of. At this point there were more than a few ponies usually in-between her and Astilbe as they neared the head of the event. From there, ponies would be able to see the monster they'd heard so much about dragged to the city square, where she would be tortured, to satisfy the rage of those who'd lost so much, and finally executed.
Of course, it wasn't the unicorns who actually killed their friends and started this winter, but it sure is convenient for the state to blame them... She shook her head. Only in a fictional universe could so many ponies become so cruel, manipulative and dishonest.
It's overwhelming to be so surrounded and immersed in it, even for a well-read pony like me! But that's got to be the proof that this is just like that enchanted comic book Spike got, not some actual, real, other world the book teleported us to.
Every so often, the avenues would go the right way so that above the rooftops of distant houses she could see the tall, imposing walls that surrounded the prison. Patrolling fireteams and squadrons of pegasi infantry, all carrying rifles, flew above in perfect wedge formations. She looked up and around it all, wide-eyed at the display. Astilbe didn't say the security was this bad during these “unicorn spectaculars”...
“Hey, miss, with the purple!” She turned back down to the street to see a small team of guards approach her.
Her heart froze in her chest, and she had no practice disguising her expression.
“No need for panic, we just want to know what's in those bags,” the leader explained. Three more armed earth pony police in a wedge formation behind him all closed to just a few steps from her.
“Uhm...” she grabbed her saddlebag's latch with her magic, just barely remembering in time not to use it. Fortunately, while unicorns could feel the magic glow, other races couldn't see it – but she could tell they were suddenly just a bit more on edge, as though they sensed something off.
She turned and opened the bag with her hoof, pulling her candle out. “Just this – and some of the normal papers,” she explained with a nervous grin.
What am I doing grinning at the the enemy? I don't know, this is weird – I'm not used to fighting other, normal ponies who aren't trying to take over the world or some enraged monsters.
Well, they are trying to hurt Rarity, though.
But pretending I'm not defending her just feels weird. And incredibly uncomfortable. But if I give them enough warning, Astilbe said they'd probably shoot Rarity!
“Oh, nice, just put that back in and hoof us over the saddlebags, just so we can take a look.” The leader finally stopped walking, now within reach of her.
Astilbe had mentioned there might be more formal military units, but these wore the same police uniforms she'd seen shoot Pinkie.
She complied with their order. Let's not start a fight. Not yet. Not if I can help it. She turned, lifting the saddlebags off her back and giving them to the ponies.
He rummaged through the bags, took out the papers, looked over them carefully, pausing for a minute as he glared at them, then put the bags in one of his own before turning back to her. “Looks suspicious to me. Why don't you come with us?” he gestured for her to follow, then turned around, his squadmates moving up on either side of her.
“I – I need that candle!” she yelled.
He stopped, then turned around. “Well, with a response like that, that's so suspicious It'd be criminal for me to give it back. You're definitely coming with us.”
Two of the other ponies put hooves on her while a third reached for something in his bags.
“L-last warning, get off of me and give it back!” Her voice shook as she prepared to fight, her stance spreading wide. Just remember – just like in Spike's comic book – they're not real ponies! I can hurt them to protect Rarity!
The hooves tightened their hold and they pressed down on her.
She grabbed all four of them with her magic, pushing the two on her sides away – even grabbing their mouths to keep them from yelling. She quickly ran a few steps away, levitating her candle over to herself while onlookers on the street shrieked.
In the same moment she heard their cries, she charged her horn and teleported away – straight to the large open area where Rarity was due to be dragged out of the prison. She hovered at rooftop height above the streets and threw up a protective bubble. More panicked cries sounded from the sidewalks around her.
She quickly scanned her surroundings – there was no sign of her unicorn friend, or even guards keeping ponies off the street.
She shrieked as her magic felt a hailstorm of bullets crash into her bubble. A roaring firecracker of shots banged around her as the sound followed.
I have to get out of here! Where – where do I go now!? We were supposed to wait here for her, but – they haven't taken her out of the prison yet!
She looked at the prison. There was a great metal gate in the stone wall nearby. She saw it was shut. She looked the other way, down the street already lined with soldiers – Or maybe we're too late and she's already at town square?
She couldn't help but cry out again as her horn felt another volley barrage her magical barrier.
Hurry!
The constant shots stopped, and only a second later, as she argued to herself which way to search first, she heard another, much more distant bang from the direction of the city square. Her pupils shrank to dots.
No!...
She flared her magic again and teleported herself by the map she'd studied, right into the air high above the city square. It was an enormous opening, stuffed with ponies, surrounded by tall, imposing buildings, banners and endless patrols of guards. A great, wooden row of gallows stood in front on a large wooden stage, two much larger banners behind it, and a few guards on it.
And on the scaffold, in a large gap between the two middle gallows, a white unicorn in red clothes lay still.
The spells were taking a toll on her energy, she was rapidly exhausting herself with such difficult teleports and shields that could stop trains – but this last teleport, at least, was within her line of sight. Down to immediately over the white unicorn dressed in red.
As quickly as she appeared over her, she threw the nearest guards away with a telekinetic wave, not giving a second thought to knocking them off the tall structure, and raised another shield, then looked down at the corpse of her friend, hovering down to land next to her.
Rarity laid perfectly still on her side. She was bound in a straightjacket and a long, simple, narrow skirt with a heavy canvas belt cinched around her back legs, locking them together. All her clothes were a crimson red, even her blindfold and gag. Where her horn should've been, there was the only clothing on her body that wasn't dyed red – some bandages with a bloody splotch in the middle as crimson as her dress.
Screams and gunshots around her faded away behind the shield's magenta glow. In her little bubble of a world, there was nothing but a wood floor and her friend's body.
“N-no...” she shook her head in disbelief, her eyes going wide and shimmering as she recognized the body's unnatural stillness.
She noticed a small spot of broken hair and blood on the back of her friend's mane, just above the knot of the blindfold.
Twilight took the blindfold, gag and straightjacket off of her friend's body with her magic. Underneath the straightjacket sat a small, gold-chained emerald necklace. Rarity's eyes weren't even closed, but they were still, unfocused and lifeless.
“R-Rarity, c-can't you hear me?” she hesitantly asked, tears welling in her eyes as she reached down and touched her friend's shoulder, as if to stir her from sleep, while she moved over her to look into her lifeless eyes. “They-they can't have – n-no!”
She felt the unicorn's body with her magic. It wasn't as uncomfortable as before with Pinkie. Now she knew how the various cavities and pockets of air in the body felt, and it was much easier and quicker to tell exactly where and how she was injured.
A bullet had gone into the back of her skull, and stopped as it cracked the front. Most of her brain was nothing but scrambled gunk.
She'd used a transfiguration spell to repair vessels to stop bleeding, but transfiguring some random material into her friend's very being...
Although her eyes were open, there was nothing left to save inside her head.
“I -... I can't...”
I can make some tubes, I can make some tissue, but...
She desperately clung for the last hope that maybe she could repair the damage – but she could see it in her mind. The brain, a web of neurons all arranged in just the exact right way, linked and wired together perfectly to turn lifeless matter into her friend's mind – the thing the body kept alive. The thing that no longer existed. The thing she knew she had no hope of making, herself.
“I... I'm so sorry, Rarity, I was too slow – I, I shouldn't have let you read this damn book!” She stomped on the stage's boards. She lifted her friend's body in her hooves and hugged her, one last time. She was still warm. “I'm sorry. I -... I failed you.”
Twilight bowed her head. She sniffed as she lost control of her breathing, and broke into sobs.
Her crying was interrupted by an earth-shaking bang, strong enough that the bubble that had shrugged off salvos of bullets now pulsed from top to bottom.
“I have to get us out of here! And you're coming, too, even if only for a proper burial! I'm so sorry...”
She began charging her horn, preparing for a longer-range teleport, when she remembered her candle and produced it from her saddlebags. The shield began to shimmer and fizz to nothing in patches – she glanced up, and immediately stopped her pyrokinesis. A cloud of dust was settling around her, eating away her magic barrier wherever it touched it. Gem powder!? She wouldn't be teleporting home.
As the bubble melted away entirely she saw guards around her wearing rags over their snouts, behind tall, square shields, and bearing more rifles.
Although she could feel her magic weakening as the dust descended, she still summoned the strength to grab the rifles and tear them away from their wielders, only to accidentally send the ponies vaulting backwards with them.
She stood up, keeping a hoof on her friend's body, frantically looking around, trying to figure out how to get off the platform and home without magic.
The blast from another deafening bang above her threw her down onto the stage and sent the world tumbling as another wave of thick dust blew around her. As she breathed it in, she started coughing violently. She clambered back onto her hooves, and the world almost stopped spinning, when she heard something clang next to her. She looked down at it.
The canister at her hooves blasted out a gush of thick, white mist in all directions, washing over her, burning her snout and eyes like acid.
Her eyes clenched shut and she bent over in pain and wretched, collapsing back onto the stage as her chest was crushed by an invisible vice as she struggled for air through a burning throat. The world spun around her, her limbs too weak and uncoordinated to even stand.
She felt countless, overpoweringly strong hooves seize her and drag her across the stage while a rag was stuffed in her mouth and her limbs were bound. She felt a sandy rag go over her horn, while the hard, serrated edge of a knife pressed at its base.