“You need to learn to start running more,” part of Crystal’s mind grumbled, as her heart pounded in her chest and her legs burned from the exertion. But that self-criticism that had surfaced unusually in her mind was pushed down not by her own efforts to be positive, but the swarm of anxiety and fear crowding her brain right now.
She glanced at Midnight as they had turned a corner and run for quite a distance, looking for any distinguishing signs of something, anything in this ruined castle. But these weren’t anything like Canterlot castle that Crystal had been so lucky to tour only once, or like what she’d seen of Princess Twiight’s gem castle. These ruins weren’t pony at all, some destroyed statues they'd found had seemed almost porcine even, and neither one of them could tell what they were looking for. There were barely any windows where they were, the ones they’d found making it obvious they were far too high up to jump out. Midnight had turned away to run again, Crys unable to gasp out any helpful remarks to keep him calmer...
“Dead end...” Midnight gasped, skidding to a halt. Crystal stumbled up behind him, panting heavily as she clutched a hoof to her chest. She couldn’t keep doing this, her legs were going to give out, or her heart. If only this had been an endurance thing, that she was stellar with for a unicorn, but sprints and long runs...
“Midnight...” she gasped, grabbing Midnight as he turned to run somewhere else. “Stop, we...we can’t...”
Midnight grabbed Crystal and helped her stand, letting her lean on him as she struggled to breathe. She gathered herself a little and looked up, smiling at him gently. “Okay, hang on. I think I can carry you if...”
“Think you can fly?” she asked, working on her breathing. Midnight stepped back gently and glanced back at the band around him. “If I...if I can cut that off...can you...?”
Midnight looked back at her and shrugged, but tried to give her a reassuring smile. Crys smiled back and knelt down, lowering her horn towards the band. But as she tried to charge her magic, wincing in pain as something deep in her being felt twisted up and wrong, Crys spotted something on Midnight’s underbelly. She raised a hoof and lowered her head, gently pressing her hoof to his side and pushing his skin a little upwards to get a better view. What she saw made her gasp, twisting the knot in her stomach even further: burns. She could see the burns scrawled across his skin, the same chaotic pattern that she’d cut with her laser spell in the floor and walls of the extraction chamber. She’d left a few slashes in the band, not enough to cut all the way through, but even as she tried to focus on the positive her eyes were drawn back to the angry red welts on Midnight’s skin. She’d hurt him, however unintentionally she had hurt him with her magic.
“Crys?” Midnight asked, turning towards her as she fell backwards, sitting rather roughly with a hoof over her mouth. “Crys what’s wrong...your magic?”
“I...” Crystal began, before trying her hardest not to cry. She focused on her horn and let her magic flow, trying to ignore the twist in her soul as she let a tiny spark of light ignite from the tip of her horn. her magic was still working at least, but as she tried to focus back on her cutter spell she just couldn’t do it. “Midnight are you ok? I...I burned you...”
“Crys I’m ok,” Midnight said softly, smiling at her. But Crystal saw past his statement: maybe he wasn’t so damaged by what she had done to him, maybe he forgave her for what had always been an accident. But Crys knew that her magic was already messed up and controlling it was surprisingly difficult. She knew she’d never stay focused long enough to cut a score deep enough to break the band, and even if she could she felt like her magic would falter and only burn Midnight worse than he already was. She couldn’t do that, she couldn’t hurt him again, not right now!
“I...I...” she stammered, focusing her magic in a feeble effort to try the spell anyways. But the cutting beam wouldn’t fire, she couldn’t bring herself. “I...”” she murmured, eyes damp with tears.
“Crystal...Crys...” Midnight whispered, grabbing her cheek and raising her head. “It’s okay. We can...” But his thoughts were interrupted by a loud slam, a door they had tried to seal shut being broken off its hinges. They had two minutes maybe before one of the creatures found them.
“We have to get out of here!” Crystal gasped, but Midnight grabbed her tight.
“No Crys...you have to get out.” Crys was silent as Midnight stroked her cheek softly. “Think you can still teleport?”
“I...I don’t know maybe. But I...you know I can’t...”
“Then go Crys. Warp out of here, go!” Crystal started to shake her head, but Midnight grabbed her and held her head still. “Crystal, get out of here. One of us has to get out of here...go get help. You can get out of here, I know you can! Go!”
Crystal whimpered, biting her lip as she tried to argue against him. She couldn’t bring herself to admit he was right, because that would leave him all alone. But she had the best chance to escape, her teleporting would let her slip past them as long as her magic held out. Without his wings Midnight could only run, and she could teleport far greater distances faster if she were properly motivated. And saving Midnight, bringing help back to him and letting him escape...that was motivation solid enough to keep her going. With her entire body shaking, Crys reached out with both forelegs and grabbed Midnight tight, hugging around his neck and squeezing even as her collar dug painfully into her neck. “Be careful Midnight... I’ll be as fast as I can...”
“I know you will,” Midnight replied, raising a hoof and hugging her tightly back. “Now get out of here, fast. I’ll do what I can to stay safe, I promise.”
Crystal nodded shakily and stepped backwards, wiping tears out of her eyes. Midnight smiled sadly at her, before she gently let her hooves down. She nodded to Midnight, who nodded sternly back to her and turned to run back down the hallway. “Midnight!” Crys cried, halting him abruptly. “I...I know Winter still loves you.”
Midnight looked back at her, stunned. She could see he was searching for the word to say, something to respond with, but he found nothing. She knew him too well, knew that he would be criticizing himself for this and fueling the anguish he’d feel thinking he’d destroyed his relationship with Winter. It was a small comfort, something absolutely tiny facing the titanic fear he’d be enduring all alone in this horrifying castle, but it was a tiny comfort she could give him and pray that it would help him.
Finally, Midnight smiled a little confused, and nodded once before turning to run down the hallway. He hurried past the turn they had made and down the other direction, ready to lead the creatures far from her. It was her opportunity to get out, now, and if she succeeded she would be Midnight’s only hope for rescue.
With purpose burning in her mind, Crystal focused on her magic to expand her senses. She reached outwards past the walls, looking for someplace that was obviously outside that she could teleport to. She didn’t have a visual representation for where she was, but she felt the only safe place to stand that was obviously outdoors was a roof three floors up. So in her mind’s eye, Crystal drew a tunnel between there and where she stood, even as her magic felt ready to corkscrew her through space. Her stomach felt all out of order, her magic arguing with everything she knew, but it was her only hope. So, without thinking further on it, Crystal took a breath and jumped into the tunnel.
Despite the strain her magic was under, Crystal vanished perfectly from the hallway, reappearing almost a meter above the slanted rooftop of the castle. She fell and hit the tiles hard, fighting to gain a grip on the tiles as one slid loose under her hoof and skidded right off the side. But Crys stayed standing, panting and gasping for breath as her head spun. Her magic hadn’t protected her as much as it usually had, and she felt the strain of the teleport through her entire body...even her magic felt noticeably weaker. And as the pain grew, her will began to shrink, and the sensation of guilt clutched her heart. If only she’d learned to teleport more than one pony, she could have saved Midnight too. If she hadn’t started freaking out with her magic and just cut him loose...
“Not now!” Crystal snapped at herself, hoping to avert the pain for just a moment. She forced herself to glance upwards, turning her gaze towards the moon high in the sky. She whispered a tiny prayer to Luna, begging for some kind of mystic intervention to save both herself and Midnight, before focusing on a more practical method of help: searching.
All around the castle was a stretch of desert, dark and dreary in the pale moonlight. Determined to not give up just yet, Crys squinted off at the horizon, looking for any signs of faint lights from a town or anything nearby. Her search didn’t last long, as half a turn around the tower roof pointed her directly at a faint light source in the distance. It was hard to tell what it was, but it was certainly larger than a single campfire, even so far away. It was going to be a long trek, but it was her best shot.
Crystal looked between the lights in the distance and the castle ruins, looking for any obstacles she might run into or distinguishing landmarks to find her way back. This was all going to be pointless if she made it to safety, only to fail in leading anypony to Midnight’s rescue. Thankfully, there were a few distinct rock formations on the way, spaced well apart enough that Crys felt she could even use her teleportation to reach them safer than just running. If she ran, she’d leave a trail for those creatures to follow, if they chose to split up and go after her when they realized she’d slipped away. Certainly Midnight would be safer, but she couldn’t garuntee she would outrun even one of them; she had to be careful.
Shaking her head and focusing on her magic again, Crystal picked the nearest rock formation and drew her tunnel towards it. Now that she could see the target the process was easier, she didn’t have to sweep for a clear landing site with her magic and burn up more energy than she already had. She merely focused on the side of a far away rock and willed herself to leap there, feeling the magic bubbling in her heart flood forth to her horn as she vanished from the roof. As she landed on the rocks, however, her chest burned like she’d swallowed a fire, forcing her to clasp it and breathe until the pain weakened. It didn’t go all away though, only moving closer to her horn.
“No...please, I need more...” she murmured, shaking as the memories came flooding back to her. She’d felt this burning sensation before, during Tirek’s attack where he’d sucked her magic dry, along with pretty much every other equine in Equestria. Her heart had burned as her magic was pulled, every last shred of it, out of her body with incredible force. It had been so painful Crys hadn’t been able to move after it, her whole body weakened from the pain and loss of such a vital part of her being. And here she was, feeling that sensation again.
Crystal shook her head in denial, forcing herself to not think further on the matter. She didn’t want to realize the truth, that she was burning her magic supply out and possibly hurting her body badly. She couldn’t slow down now, not while Midnight was in so much danger. So she focused on the next rock formation, determined to lay no trail for those monsters for at least a mile if she could help it. She found her landing site and threw herself forwards, landing on the rocks a bit sturdier this time, but again her chest burned. She couldn’t tell if it was worse than before, but it again subsided after only a few seconds.
Her next teleport wasn’t so forgiving, as her forelegs buckled on landing and sent her to her knees, shaking from a sudden weakness gripping her. Her magic seared her chest and horn, her body begging for some kind of relief. “If Midnight doesn’t get a relief, neither do I...” she growled at herself, standing and focusing on the next rocks. But in her determination, she lost her focus, and as she warped again she fell out of it on her side, slamming hard into the rocks and skidding into the sand, yelping in pain and clutching her shoulder. She shook herself off, focused, and warped again.
As she landed once more, Crystal’s magic finally seemed determined to torment her. She felt the fire dull in both heart and horn, but instead of pain there seemed to be a void of feeling, sucking all her energy from her entire body. It was almost worse than the torture she’d endured during the siphon, she felt almost like she was being plunged into an icy lake and her body was going completely numb from the chill. Her knees buckled again and sent her crashing down, slamming into the same shoulder hard. She gasped as a momentary prick of pain lit her body up, but it too vanished into the void of feeling devouring her. She wheezed, desperate for air as her body silently tried to maintain itself, but as her body tried to silence her and take her into an emergency sleep, her mind continued to race with images of Midnight. She saw him now, cornered, grabbed, plucked feather by feather by those horrible monsters...
With the last of her strength, Crystal raised her head and pointed at the next outcropping. Drawing everything she had, she forces herself into her tunnel once more, teleporting straight into the last pile of rubble. But unable to stand up, Crys fell from thin air and hit her back painfully against a raised stone, forcing her to roll off and fall under a rocky outcropping nearby. She gasped and strained to raise her hoof to hold onto the minor pain the stone had left, but her body was so drained of energy she could barely move. Her hooves shook so bad it was less risky to just lay there panting.
It was almost a minute before Crystal could open her eyes again, her breath still ragged but the pain weakening just enough that she could think again. She raised her head to stare past the rocks, glancing at the town in the distance...still far in the distance. There was no way she’d even cleared a quarter of the trek there, she had to keep going. But as Crystal focused on the town, anywhere closer to it, she sent every drop she had into the tip of her horn to draw herself closer. But the only thing she got was a tiny spark, a little fizzle of energy erupting from the tip of her horn, and nothing else. Desperate, she tried again, begging for her horn to light with magic...but there was only darkness, nothing remaining. She was spent, completely out of magic, her body burned out, helpless here in the middle of nowhere...
So badly shaken by her own state, Crystal’s thoughts again turned to Midnight. Now it was obvious he was all alone, helpless before those three beasts. She shouldn’t have left him alone, leaving was a terrible idea. Now she’d failed him, there would be no rescue coming to save him, because she didn’t have enough strength to get further. Crystal’s mind shattered then, as she curled up tightly in a ball with what feeble strength she had in her limbs, and started sobbing.
“Crystal!”
The voice rang out in the cooling desert night, jarring Crys from her sobs after at least a minute. She hadn’t expected to hear anypony’s voice, much less one that sounded so familiar. Surely she was hallucinating, one more gift from her broken mind as she died from eventual exposure...but mere moments later, she heard it, two sets of hooves running through the sand, getting closer. There was a faint bluish light bobbing as the hooves got closer, slowly coming close enough to bathe her in light and, more importantly, shed light on the faces of those approaching. And one face, the shorter one, was a face Crystal could never have mistaken.
“...Vlyka?” she gasped, raising her head just a little bit. As the little mare charged forwards, head down as she ran full tilt at the rocks, Crystal felt sure she was going insane. Vlyka couldn’t truly be here, there was no way-
Vlyka’s hooves closed like a vice around Crystal’s stomach, squeezing her enough that it jarred the haze of emptiness from her body enough to feel pain...and warmth. Vlyka’s body heat, the smell of her mane as she clung, the tiny squirm of her back half when she was too excited...It was a convincing hallucination, if anything. But as Crystal’s mind slowly started to reason how this was just an illusion, Vlyka lifted her ever so slightly off the ground, placing her head to Crystal’s and shivering enough that Crys felt her vibrations. She could practically hear the little mare’s heart pounding as she stared right into Crystal’s eyes, Vlyka’s lined with tears and etched with the most tremendous relief she had ever seen in her adoptive sis. “Crys I...I found you...” Vlyka murmured, her voice so happy and relieved. Crys knew she had never heard Vlyka that relieved before, it wasn’t something she was taking from memory...this was her. This was really Vlyka, she was truly here.
As reality struck Crystal again she grabbed her sister with all the strength she had, squeezing against Vlyka and whimpering as she sobbed again, this time with relief. Somepony had found her, she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t just to be forgotten in the desert. She was safe. But...
“Crys, you’re ok!” came the voice accompanying the blue light. Winter ran forwards, close enough that Crystal could see her clearly. Her mane and tail were standing on end, a sign she had been consolidating her otherworldly ice magic in her body, along with her eyes being partially glazed over from the sheer power she was storing for later use. Crys knew that Winter’s body could only hold so much of that power, so the fact that she was using it now meant Winter was desperately worried about the future. The rare sight of her charged up like this, plus the relief on her face to see her friend safe, was a combination Crystal had not seen before, only adding further credence to the idea that she wasn’t just going nuts in her final moments alone in a desert. But that didn’t help now, as Winter’s appearance had reminded Crystal of just why she’d been so desperate she’d burned herself out like this.
“Winter...” Crys whispered. “I...I...”
“Crys, where’s Midnight?”
Vlyka shifted uneasily as she continued to cling to Crystal, Crys looking down to see her suddenly looking around. Her little face shifted from relief to panic, fangs pressed tight to her lips as she started to realize what was happening. It was another stab in Crystal’s heart, and she sniffled before glancing back at where she’d come from. She shakily raised her hoof, pointing directly at the castle tower she’d warped from. As she kept staring, trying to speak, no words could form in her mind sufficient to explain everything. She could only turn her head down and start crying again, begging her friends to know her meaning: Midnight was still trapped inside.