Most of the time Bacon’s pretty cool to be around, but every once in a while she really finds a way to be an enormous pain in the posterior. Like when she gets it into her head that she should go running off to fight the big evil superdragon on her own. It’s like she took our talk about how we were all worried she was making a martyr of herself and said, ‘Oh yeah, killing myself is a totally great idea! Let’s double down on that!’
I groaned and trudged along through the snow, following the very obvious trail left behind by the small army of abominations against nature. When I sank up to my knees in a loose patch of snow, I felt the need to comment to Bug Boy. “For the record, did you tell Bacon anything to make her think this was a good idea? ‘Cause I’d love to be able to blame you for everything about our current situation. You could even shapeshift into a goat to make the scapegoating a bit easier.”
Bug Boy sighed and rolled his eyes, pulling his jacket a bit tighter around himself. “This one can’t imagine what it could have done to cause this. Unless you were thinking about how it told her to do the exact opposite of something this stupid?”
“Knew it was your fault.” I scoffed and shook my head. “You should’ve known that telling her not to do something would set her off. So it’s absolutely one hundred percent your fault we’re stuck following her trail, trudging through the snow.”
Bug Boy sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, how thoughtless of this one to give the Shimmer-mare good advice. Next time it will be sure to give her bad advice instead. It could hardly have made things worse.” He followed in my hoofsteps and wound up sinking into the same loose patch I had. “Has this one mentioned that it hates snow? It’s cold and damp.” He smirked at me. “Unlike you, who is warm and dry.”
I scoffed. “I wish I was warm and dry right now.” I sighed and tried to shake some of the snow off my back. “You know, I really miss Freeport. Sure, it’s a crime-ridden pit that usually smells like dead fish, but it’s in the tropics. I got way too used to taking it for granted that the weather would be warm and pleasant all year.”
“This one would like to stay there for the next several years as well,” Bug Boy muttered. “Especially in light of how badly things have gone since we left.”
I groaned and stretched out my one wing that wasn’t bandaged up. “Next time we try to give Bacon advice, I vote we tell her to go running off on her own as part of a crazy stupid plan to be a hero. That way she’ll do the opposite just to spite us.”
“That sounds like a infinitely better plan than whatever the Shimmer-mare is up to. At least it has logic to it.” Bug Boy groaned and tapped some snow out one of his leg holes. “We should have pushed her harder during the talk about how self-destructive she’s acting. Instead we backed off so it wouldn’t turn into a big ugly argument, and look how that turned out. This one would ask what the Shimmer-mare was thinking, but it’s rather certain she wasn’t.”
“Oh she was thinking, just not very well.” I pulled out the letter she’d left behind, going over it again. “We need to get her a boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Or both—just, you know, someone who stays with her 24/7 so she can’t make any more dumb calls after we go to sleep. You’ve got a lot of info broker skills, I’m sure you can come up with something.”
Puzzle groaned and rubbed some snow off his snout. “This one is hardly an ideal matchmaker, but under the circumstances we should perhaps look into that once we get back to Freeport. Up to now this one assumed her lack of interest in any romantic entanglements would make it easier for us, not harder.”
“Yeah, let’s be glad we didn’t have to put up with her getting involved in messy teenage romance on top of everything else.”
“Indeed.” He chuckled and wrapped one of his wings around me. “Though often a life partner can help provide a degree of guidance and moderation in difficult times, and she would certainly benefit from that. Though that’s assuming there is an individual in the world who she’ll listen to once she gets into a stubborn mood.”
“Point.” Once Bacon set her mind on something, she tended to keep going for it unless it was physically impossible not to. I poked around in the snow a bit and eventually dug out a long strand of red hair. “Least she gave us a good trail to follow.”
“You say that as if it makes up for all the other things she’s done wrong..” Puzzle sighed. “Let’s see, that’s one point in favor of her plan and...” He trailed off, frowning to himself. “This one can’t think of a ridiculous enough number to encapsulate the sheer absurdity of her plan. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Eleventy-bajillion,” I tossed out. I loosened the bandages a bit and gave my damaged wing a careful flex. It seemed safe, but the docs had been pretty clear about how I shouldn’t be flying on it yet, and there was a big difference between it seeming okay when I tried moving it around a bit and actually going airborne on it. I’d rather not find out my wing wasn’t healed up while I was a hundred feet in the air. “Shame we’re stuck trudging along, though I suppose it helps us keep our eyes close on the trail.”
“At least that,” Puzzle agreed. “Especially since it’s not like getting there faster is going to make that much of a difference. The Blightspawn have a considerable lead over us, and given how long it’s been they’ve probably already gotten to wherever Blackfyre is hiding. There is little point in rushing into the lair of the beast without some idea of what we’ll do once we get there.”
I frowned and scraped some snow out of my mane. “Yeah, is the thing. I mean, we stand a decent chance of out-clevering Glim-Glam if she’s still hopped up on angry-enough-to-be-dumb, but that’s a fight without much room for error. And her big boss ... well do you have any good plans for how to take him down?”
Bug Boy sighed. “Outside of getting the White Pony and Argentium to fight him for us? None that have any realistic chance of success. Our best hope is to sneak in, find where he’s holding the Shimmer-mare, and get out before he knows we’re there.”
“Yeah, unless Facon managed to get us some backup. Think she’s made it to the Equestrians by now?” Something about how I’d said that struck me as odd. “When did I start calling my own ponies Equestrians?”
Bug Boy ignored my low-level existential crisis to focus on more immediate matters. “That depends on how close the Equestrians are to us. Getting an army into Northmarch in the middle of winter is a tricky proposition at best. The White Pony will move quickly once she learns the Shimmer-mare is in danger, but she has to know about it first.”
“Yup, she knows a lot but she’s not omniscient.” I glanced over my shoulder at him, then took a seat to stretch out for a bit. “So ... how likely do you think it is we’d get an entire company of mobile forces backing us up before we get to Blackfyre’s hidey-hole?”
Bug Boy frowned in that deeply thoughtful way of his that looked kinda cute. Almost nerdy, except he was way too suave to actually pull off nerdy contemplation. “Assuming Kukri was quick in getting to the White Pony, she had a quick reaction force at hoof, and then immediately sent it? About fifteen percent.”
I nodded along, doing a quick bit of math in my head. “So ... if I were to bet you two hundred ducats that it would happen, you’d pay out over a thousand, right?”
Puzzle put his attention fully on me. “If this one took that bet, yes.”
I grinned. “You wanna?”
Bug Boy shot me a flat look. “You’ve been looking over your shoulder at something behind this one and just challenged it to an oddly specific wager. Couldn’t you have just said that we had help incoming?”
“S’more fun to do it my way,” I answered with a cheeky grin. “Besides, it gave me a shot at picking up some free money.” I waved at the group of pegasi off in the distance. They seemed to have a pretty good idea where we were already, but why take chances?
Puzzle chuckled and nudged me in the ribs. “If we both survive, this one will buy you something suitably grand to celebrate. That way we have something to look forward to if we get out of this madness in one piece.”
“Works for me.” Bug Boy seemed to like buying me nice and expensive things I could never afford on a government salary, and I hadn’t seen any reason to try too hard to stop him. I would’ve made a few suggestions, but the incoming Guard Officers probably took precedence over flirting with Bug Boy. “Hey guys. ‘Sup?”
A stallion built like a brick house landed in front of us, accompanied by a mare in red armor with captain’s bars. Probably his second in command. “You would be Agent Heartstrings and Puzzle Piece, then? Major Shield Breaker. My second, Captain Gust.”
Bug Boy looked them both over. “A pleasure. This one is going to guess our meeting isn’t a coincidence, though it has to wonder how you found us.”
Captain Gust pulled out a weird little magical bubble that had a couple strands of my hair in it. Guess Bacon must’ve snagged those off me at some point. Cheeky little ... well, couldn’t really blame her. Really, considering the kind of stuff we got up to semi-regularly, she should be keeping some tracking spell components for all her pals stashed away for life’s just-in-cases.
The Major evidently felt showing off his tracking thingie was answer enough for Puzzle’s questions. “Machwing Company. Princess Celestia sent us here to assist you. If you wouldn’t mind briefing Captain Gust while I see to the troops...” He did a quick about face, taking back to the air to organize the company’s worth of pegasi he’d brought along.
Puzzle turned to the captain, not wasting any time. “So do you want all the little details, or should we just cover the bare essentials?”
“Her Highness already told us the basics,” Captain Gust answered. “We’re trying to either recover Sunset Shimmer or confirm her location if we can’t rescue her on our own.”
Bug Boy nodded. “Hopefully before she reaches Blackfyre, since while this one is sure your troops are very good they’d still have a hard time taking him on in a straight fight. She’s been captured by a dangerous warlock known as Starlight Glimmer, who has an escort of three large and a dozen smaller Blightspawn.”
“We got one of the big guys, so it should only be two.” I reminded him. “Or at least, I think we got him. Hard to say for sure with how they are.”
Puzzle shrugged. “Probably, but this one would rather be ready for three and only find two, especially since he might have sent more forces to back the Glimmer-mare up. The good news is that the Spawn left a very clear trail, and the Shimmer-mare has dropped a few hairs to help us confirm we’re on the right track.”
“Though we’ve been following her for three days, and judging by how cold the trail’s getting, they have a ton of lead time on us.” I put a hoof over Puzzle’s mouth. “No jokes about cold trails, bad puns are my thing. One of my things. I’m allowed to have multiple things.”
Bug Boy brushed my hoof away. “They’re making good progress. They’ve barely stopped for rest and food the entire time we've followed them. They aren’t making any effort to cover their tracks, so we do at least have a very clear trail to follow. Though with how far ahead of us they are, it might be too late to stop them before they reach Blackfyre.”
“Then we should hurry,” Captain Gust concluded. She gave us both a quick once-over, taking note of my bandaged wing. “Can you fly?”
“This one can, but the Heartstrings-mare’s wing is still recovering from an injury.”
“Tried to tell Bug Boy to go ahead without me, but he figured there wasn’t much point when it’d take both of us to do a rescue,” I filled in. “And carrying me the whole way wasn’t an option ‘cause of the weight.” I glowered at him. “Not. One. Word.”
“This one didn’t say anything,” he assured me.
“You were thinking it.”
“This one was not.”
“Well you could’ve been,” I grumbled. “That’s basically the same thing.”
Puzzle sighed. “This one will do it’s best to refrain from having the potential to think anything mocking about you in the future, Heartstrings-mare.”
“Damn well better.” I smirked and nudged him.
Captain Gust shot both of us a flat, unamused look, then waved down a stallion who looked like he enjoyed bench-pressing actual benches. While ponies were sitting in them. “We’ll see to your transportation, Agent Heartstrings.” I squeaked just a bit when the guy picked me up and set me on his back like I was a little filly instead of a full-grown mare.
Puzzle took just a moment to grin at me before getting all serious and business-y with Captain Gust and her stoney, stoic face. “Very well, then. Will you be leading the way?”
Captain Gust nodded. “Our trackers shouldn’t have too much trouble following the trail from the air as long as it stays this clear. Let’s move, we can finish the rest of the briefing in the air.”
I grinned and tossed my mane as we went airborne, struggling to repress the instinct to spread my wings. Wouldn’t be a good idea even if I had two working ones. Still, I’d missed flying. Normally I didn’t think of myself as much of a cloud-hugger; comes with most of the family being unicorns. Guess I didn’t appreciate casual flying until I couldn’t do it for a bit.
I settled in on my mount, making sure I had a very secure grip. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle Puzzle a bit. Well okay, I totally could’ve resisted it, I just didn’t want to. “Don’t get jealous, Bug Boy.”
Puzzle shot a dry look my way, though I spotted the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Is this the part where this one is supposed to make some sort of quip about how you can ride on it later? Perhaps once we are done. It would prefer to maintain at least some level of professionalism in front of the soldiers.”
“If we make it out of this alive, I’ll hold you to that.” I shot back. “I expect jokes so cheesy they’ll make me lactose intolerant.”
“This one will make that its top priority then.” He smirked at me. “This one and the Heartstrings-mare will have to survive if there are bad jokes on the line.”
“Never hurts to give a mare something to fight for,” I agreed.
Captain Gust flew up in between us, frowning. “If the two of you are quite done…?” I was tempted to keep it up just to mess with her, but this wasn’t the best time to push a pony’s buttons just to find out how they’d handle it. Focus, me.
When neither of us did anything to earn more of her disapproval, Captain Gust got to business. “What can you tell us about these Blightspawn? All our briefing material was from centuries-old archival information or Her Highness’ memories, both of which are a poor substitute for someone who’s seen the most recent generation in the flesh.”
“They’re dangerous,” Bug Boy said, because sometimes he likes to start off by stating the blindingly obvious. “Each of them is made to kill and nothing else. They’re magic resistant, feel no pain, and attack without reservation. They also seem to possess some level of intelligence, at least enough to be capable of pack tactics.”
“And a lot more if they’ve got someone controlling them,” I added in. “So far as we know only Blackfyre and Glimmer can actually give them orders, but considering we’re chasing Glimmer while she’s on her way to Blackfyre’s hideout...”
“In which case they’ll be as smart as the ones controlling them,” Captain Gust concluded. “How hard are they to kill? What natural weapons do the posses? Do they have any weak points?”
“Only fatal damage seems to put them down,” Bug Boy answered. “If they have chitin, then the only weak points this one has been able to spot is places along the joints.”
“And when it comes to weapons, each one seems kinda unique.” I frowned, then amended. “I mean, the little chaff ones seem to mostly just be a huge mouth full of sharp teeth on legs, but the ones he’s not mass producing tend to get a lot more weird and unique.”
“Well that’s bothersome,” the Captain grumbled. “Any other suggestions or advice, or will we just have to improvise?”
“Spears and crossbows,” I suggested. “Haven’t seen any of them with wings yet. I’d be surprised if a dragon doesn’t know the value of flight, but if we can play aerial hit-and-run with the guys stuck on the ground it’ll give us an edge.”
“The Glimmer-mare is also dangerous,” Bug Boy pointed out “If she’s not loyal to Blackfyre, he’s got her on a tight enough leash to make her pretend to be, and with all the raw power he’s given her she was able to beat the Shimmer-mare in a straight fight.”
Captain Gust grimaced and nodded. “We have a warlock hunter team. Machwing is a rapid reaction force. We have specialists for most threats we’re likely to run into. Our Long Patrol members are curious to see Blightspawn in action.”
“It always pays to be prepared.” Bug Boy nodded, and probably would’ve smiled if not for his follow-up question. “So what do you have for if we run into Blackfyre?”
Captain Gust grimaced. “If he gets involved, we fall back until Celestia or Argentium can support us. We tried to come up with a good plan to take him on, but all of them involved horrible risks and massive casualties with nothing more than a fool’s hope for success.”
“Slaying a dragon is no small task,” Bug Boy agreed. “Especially one as old and powerful as Blackfyre. So this would be one of your Code Gold situations?”
“Exactly.” For a moment I thought she was gonna elaborate on that, but then Major Shield waved her over. The two of them talked military stuff for a bit along with one of the scouts, and then Captain Gust came back to us. “We’ve found a cave that our trail leads more-or-less directly towards.”
Bug Boy frowned. “Then it seems likely they’ve reached their destination. Which means that in all likelihood Blackfyre is inside.”
I shrugged. “Well, we didn’t come all this way just to fall back without confirming anything. Guess we could always knock on the front door and pretend to be traveling salesponies. Cave that big, you better believe he’ll need a good vacuum cleaner.”
“We’ll fall back if we confirm Blackfyre’s there,” Captain Gust agreed. “But confirming his presence is one of our secondary objectives. Right now it could just be a false trail. There aren’t any visible guards or defenses.”
“Which probably means they’re very well hidden,” Bug Boy pointed out. “So what’s the plan? Are we going to try and sneak in to get the drop on them?”
Captain Gust nodded. “No reason to give up the advantage of stealth needlessly. One of our scouts will check the area first, then we’ll make our move. Her Highness suggested we let the two of you handle extracting Sunset Shimmer, given your skills and relationship with her.”
“Yeah, we’re plenty sneaksy and she’ll trust us a lot faster than some random guardpony she’s never seen before.” Sure, Bacon probably wouldn’t go super-paranoid if one of her Sun-Mom’s troops showed up to pull her out of the fire, but she might stop to ask questions or something. Like try to argue with the rescuers because that would be the most stupidly short-sighted thing she could do, and why buck that trend now? Not great when time and stealth were both critical. Not to mention that if Blackfyre had gotten his talons into her, friends stood a way better chance of snapping her out of it.
Everyone sat back and watched as the scout went in. Talk about drawing the short straw; the guy had to go in all by himself to poke around and see if he could find any monsters. Preferably without making like the canary in the coal mine and dying to prove the situation was serious. Guess that was why we didn’t put scouts in red armor. Well, maybe we did if they were in a place where red made for good camouflage. Or if they were Kickers, but those usually had the sense to put pragmatism over clan pride. Or that one colorblind scout I’d known back in the day.
The scout started walking towards the cave entrance, moving one carefully measured step at a time. He got about halfway there before he tensed up, then shot straight into the air. A second after a claw swiped up from beneath the snow, just barely missing the chance to gut him from below.
The scout reacted on instinct, pulling out a fire gem and chucking it straight down at the patch of snow. The explosion didn’t do much damage against the monster’s magically hardened chitin, but it did do a very good job of blasting away all the snow covering it.
And its friends. The Blightspawn must’ve been a real social butterfly, because he had a lot of friends. Even more than we’d gone up against when Glim-Glam attacked the convoy. “So much for surprise! What’s the gameplan?”
“Get past the Blightspawn, they’re just a distraction. Shimmer-mare’s our objective!” Puzzle chucked some tanglehoof at one of the spawn that was only halfway out of the snow, tangling up its legs. “We didn’t think it would be easy!”
“But it will be fun!” I vaulted off my ride’s back, pulling out the epee I’d been holding onto. Shame I couldn’t bring the spear along, but those were a bit too big and obvious for my tastes anyway. What’s the point of having a weapon the other guy can see coming? Besides, when I landed on the Blightspawn’s head with the point of my epee leading the way it did the job just fine. Too bad the monster didn’t have the decency to die right away.
Bug Boy snap-threw a couple darts into the Spawn’s beady little eyes to help it die a bit faster. Well, I mean, it was already dead on account of having a sword in the brain. Just that its body was taking a bit to catch up and admit as much. Thankfully that didn’t take long enough for it to rip us to pieces. Bug Boy stared at me as I pulled the sword out of the ravening monster’s head, wiping a few bits of brain gunk and ichor off in the snow. “Heartstrings-mare, you have a very strange definition of fun.”
“‘Exciting’, then?” I smirked at him. “Really, you should know by now what you’re getting into with me. Anyway that’s one down, infinite numbers to go.”
“Hopefully not,” Puzzle murmured, pulling a pair a thrusting knives. “At least we know we’ve found the right place.”
“The horde of ravening mutated murder-beasts kinda gives it away,” I agreed. “So, guess we gotta hammer through them and head for the entrance?”
“Just so,” Bug Boy agreed.
“Super.” I charged for the entrance, and got about ten steps before another one of those giant mouths on legs intercepted me, doing its best to swallow me whole I shoved my blade down its throat by way of response, but it seemed to get stuck on something in there. The creature yowled in pain, but didn’t seem to be going down. Thankfully I could use the length of my blade to keep it at bay. Evidently it couldn’t ram itself down the epee’s length to get into biting range.
Good thing I wasn’t fighting him alone. While I had the spawn tied up, Bug Boy came in behind it with his knives. The Blightspawn has a lot of tough chitin, but most of it was focused on attacks from the front, and joints could only have so much protection. A couple stabs in the back of the knee did a pretty good job of disabling the spawn, which bought me enough breathing room to free my blade and finish it off properly.
“Go team,” I deadpanned. “Now let’s get past all the nasty little distractions and go find Bacon before Blackfyre bails.”
Bug Boy and I pressed forward, dealing with one or two more of the little guys as we headed for the huge dragon-sized entrance. Really, someone should be keeping track of how many caves were big enough to hold a dragon Blackfyre’s size and his horde of twisted abominations. Finding the place would’ve gone a lot smoother if we had a comprehensive list of those to work through by good old process of elimination. Plus, if we had a good gameplan Bacon might not have run off half-cocked.
Oh who am I kidding, of course she still would’ve done that. I’m sure Bacon is capable of not doing insanely dangerous things on pure impulse, but the way she’s been acting lately, I wouldn’t put it past her to just modify the plan to be even stupider and dangerous-er.
Right as Bug Boy and I were about to head in, something let out a massive roar that knocked snow and ice off the lip of the cavern in a miniature avalanche. For a moment I wondered if Blackfyre was about to join the fray himself, but instead all we got was a massive brute of a Blightspawn that just about blocked the entire entrance with a solid wall of chitinous flesh. And big scythe-shaped talons that looked like they could chop a pony in half with one hit. “Well, nice to know we’re only mostly screwed. Bug Boy, if you’ve got some secret weapon that can take out a really huge nasty monster in one shot, this’d be a great time to use it!”
“If this one had such a thing, it would have used it already!” Puzzle shot back.
Before we could come up with a clever plan, Captain Gust shot over our heads, her wing blades flashing as she sliced at the beast. “Go! I’ll keep it busy.”
Before I could get any silly Bacon-esque notions about helping her go one-on-one with a monster ten times her size, Bug Boy grabbed me and flew the two of us up and over the huge Spawn’s head while it was focused on Captain Gust. There wasn’t anything behind the big guy, so I guess Blackfyre had bet everything on BulkSpawn McLargeHuge keeping us out. Normally not the worst thing to gamble on. “Yay, onward into the evil creepy cave.”
“This one can’t wait.” Bug Boy took the lead, heading in fast but quiet. I followed right behind him, trying to match where he placed his hooves just to be a little extra sneaksy. After a couple minutes of walking the already massive tunnel opened up into the sort of huge cavern a dragon like Blackfyre could settle into. There was no sign of his big black evil-ness, but there were dozens of huge crystals all along the wall. I looked into one of them, and saw something that looked like a huge lump of misshapen flesh. Must’ve been one of the Blightspawn-in-progress.
“Heartstrings-mare,” Puzzle hissed, waving me over. “Found her.”
I scooted over to him as quiet-like as I could. Sure enough, trapped inside one of the crystals was our Bacon. It was probably a very good sign that she was still our Bacon, rather than some sort of horrifying mutant monster that had just enough Bacon-ness left for us to know it was her. Maybe Blackfyre had just gotten started on her. I could certainly see Sunset holding off being transformed into a monster out of pure bloody-minded stubbornness.
Still, she was stuck in a big crystal. Breaking it would probably make a lot of noise, and the two of us trying to haul it out on our own didn’t seem like it’d be much better in terms of stealth. “So how do we play this? Maybe we could—”
I never got around to saying what exactly we could do, because all of a sudden every single muscle in my body locked up at the same time. For the record, that is not fun. From the way Bug Boy went stiff as a board before slowly toppling onto his side, the same thing had happened to him too. Probably not a good sign.
The tremble passing through the cavern floor a second later confirmed it, as Big Bad Blackfyre finally graced us with his enormous self. Glimmer was there along with him, trailing after her master like an especially loyal and affection-starved dog. The dragon smirked down at the two of us and chuckled. “Well well well, I see we have some guests. I would offer you my hospitality, but I’m afraid I don’t recall inviting either of you in. You really should have known better than try sneaking into a dragon’s lair.”
Ugh. Evil big bad dragon gloating. No way I was letting him get away with that. Thankfully, whatever he did to us wasn’t stopping us from talking. Probably because he wanted us to beg for mercy or something. S’how bad guys usually do it. Too bad I wasn’t interested in playing his sick little game. “You really oughta put up a sign or something. We didn’t know this was a dragon’s lair. I mean, I bet you had to zap two or three random nobodies who just wandered in looking for shelter from the winter weather. Bet that was just embarrassing—you come in to do the whole ‘tremble and despair’ villain spiel only to find out you just nabbed a shepherd looking for one of his lost sheep.”
“Do you ever shut up?” Glimmer growled at me. She turned back to Blackfyre, shifting back into loyal little lapdog mode. Those runes on her back must’ve done a real number on her. “What should we do with them, master?”
The dragon leaned over, looking us both over. I was tempted to make a remark about his breath, but he’d probably just kill me then and there. Which just goes to show Glimmer was wrong, I can shut up when I really want to. I just don’t care most of the time. Besides, the point of poking at people was to throw them off balance or figure out how they ticked. I knew what Blackfyre’s deal was, and right now pushing him hard enough to make him snap would just get me and Bug Boy dead. Granted, that might be a foregone conclusion.
Blackfyre chuckled softly, giving me a good whiff of his carrion-laced breath. “Tempting as it would be to make them into Spawn, we’ll need to move as soon as Sunset's transformation is finished and my new Warpmouth fully matures. Celestia’s troops have found us, so we must assume the mare herself will not be far behind. If Argentium joins her, even my wards will struggle to hold them off.”
Glimmer shrugged. “Just gonna kill them, then?”
That’s when Bug Boy came up with a clever idea. “That would be incredibly short-sighted.”
“Oh really?” Blackfyre sank back onto his haunches, grinning in a way that seemed to show off every single one of his massive fangs. “Do tell.”
“Don’t you want to test your latest abomination out before the big game?” Puzzle’s eyes flicked over at the crystal holding Sunset. “You don’t want to suddenly find out it has some spark of free will that’s going to show itself at the worst possible moment. Especially since you know the first thing The White Pony will do is try to break your control over the Shimmer-mare. Far better to test it under controlled conditions first.”
“So you want us to keep you alive so she can kill you?” Starlight scowled. “They’re just trying to play you, master.”
“Well duh.” I tried to roll my eyes, but evidently Blackfyre’s spell wouldn’t let me do that. “Of course we’re coming up with some horseapples to try and stay alive for a few more hours. But that doesn’t mean we’re wrong.”
“Exactly,” Bug Boy chimed in. “If you need a bit more control over her, better to find out about it before you send her against the White Pony. If she refuses to kill us you can always add more runes and put her back in the crystal to cook a bit longer. You can’t get a do-over against The White Pony. Besides, you know it would be fun to have her kill her former friends. Live a little. You know we’re not a threat to you.”
“Tempting.” Blackfyre smirked down at us. “Very tempting. Almost enough to win me over. But that very cleverness will be your downfall. Clever enemies with good ideas are the sort you should never leave alive. Too much of a risk. A small one, but I haven’t lived for centuries by taking needless risks. Perhaps—”
A single crystalline tone sang through the cavern, cutting off whatever Blackfyre was going to say next. I managed to fight against the spell enough to turn my head and get a good look at the crystal holding Sunset.
There was a crack in it. That had to be a good sign for us.
Glimmer frowned at it, then uncertainly stared up at her master. “What’s going on? Is her transformation already finished? She doesn’t look any different!”
“No.” Blackfyre started to lean in closer, then abruptly took several steps back. “This is not ... It should be several more hours before—”
Another tremble shot through the cavern floor, and for a moment I thought we were in the middle of an earthquake. Several cracks did show up in the cavern floor, and every single one of them seemed to start beneath the crystal holding Bacon. Speaking of which, that crystal was showing more and more cracks as well, with painfully bright light leaking out of them.
I bolted up to my hooves. I guess Blackfyre didn’t care about keeping us locked down anymore. All things considered, he had bigger problems on his plate right now.
Bug Boy grabbed my shoulder. “Strumming, we need to find cover. Now.”
I wasn’t gonna argue. I had no idea what Bacon was up to, but I didn’t want to be at ground zero when it went down. The fact that feathering Blackfyre thought it was a good idea to not be this close said a lot.
Puzzle and I got behind a solid stone wall just time. The crystal holding Sunset shattered completely, sending shards of razor-sharp crystal flying everywhere. Dozens more crystals holding half-formed Blightspawn shattered from the force of Bacon’s breakout, and I wound up clamping my hooves over my ears to try and block out the cacophony.
If only the noise was the worst of it. There was something ... like ... it was kind of hard to explain. Just this kind of ... force, I guess. It kind of reminded me of the time I saw Celestia at the Summer Sun Celebration. Not exactly the same, but ... I dunno. Kinda like it, except not. “This is ... Puzzle, you have a horn. I don't, and even I can feel this. What’s going on?”
Puzzle grimaced. “Ever felt like a vice’s been clumped to your head? It’s like that, only over this one’s entire body. The closest this one can imagine was when it ran across the Old Mind while she was fully fed and very angry with it.”
Considering our two closest reference points to what was going on were an alicorn and an alicorn-like being, it kind of begged the question ... “You think she did it?”
Puzzle closed his eyes, and his horn lit up. “It’s definitely her magic. But ... no, not just her magic. Or if it is hers, it’s changed somehow. It’s not Blackfyre’s magic though, this one would recognize that. Whatever’s going on, it’s something completely different. It’s ... maybe she really did pull it off.”
I took a deep breath, then did something a bit stupid and insanely dangerous. I poked my head from our nice safe stone wall to get a better look at her. It was like looking into a raging tornado, except instead of wind and debris it was a wild, swirling mass of magic. A lot of it was Bacon’s usual teal, but there were other colors mixed in there too. A fair bit of red and gold that reminded me of the colors on her mark, and some silver and amethyst that ... well I had no clue where those came from. I couldn’t see much more of Sunset than a vague silhouette, standing out within the maelstrom of raw power.
It was hard to tell with everything going on, but... “I think I see wings.”
“What?!” Puzzle reluctantly poked his head up to get a look alongside me. “Do you think she ... this one was honestly never sure if she would actually pull it off, especially not after everything ... all this madness.”
We both stared for what felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. The wild hurricane of power slowly started to fade. No, fading away wasn’t the right word for it, but I guess it sort of cleared up. I wouldn’t say it was gone, though. More like we were just in the eye of the storm.
I guess that meant Sunset Shimmer was the storm.
When it finally cleared up enough for me to get a good look at her, I realized I’d been wrong. There weren’t wings. She hadn’t even gotten the missing leg back. Just by pure appearance, she was the same old Sunset Shimmer who’d run out of our camp a couple days back.
But appearances can be deceiving. And while Sunset had never exactly been a lightweight when it came to magic, she’d never been this. I’ve seen her throw down and go all-out before. It was pretty impressive, but now ... just looking at her made my throat go dry, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I was very glad she was on our side.
As the last flickers of wild magic slowly faded away, she turned to where Blackfyre had fallen back to, a nice safe distance away from all the crazy magical goings-on. Then, with a rather disturbing level of calm considering all the crazy that had just gone down, she said. “Alright, Blackfyre. Let’s finish this.”