//------------------------------// // Chapter Twelve- Fall of Dragon Corporation // Story: Gems I: The Sun Princess // by Pen Dragon //------------------------------// Chapter Twelve- Fall of Dragon Corporation “You want me to what?!” “I need you to leave and go find them,” Pen told his wife-to-be in a very serious tone, “I.. I wish I could explain more. But there’s a good chance we’re both in serious trouble, love.” Stencil Guide refused to budge without an explanation, “Pen, what are you talking about? Everything is going to be okay, the project is on schedule and we’ll soon be powering all of Equestria!” “Don’t you remember the nationwide announcement? Watcher’s friend ‘Tia’ is being accused of posing as a false Princess. They’re in danger… and so are we. ” It was too difficult at this point for Stencil Guide to deny her feelings anymore, her anxiety ratcheting up with each passing second. She had of course seen the announcement, there probably wasn’t a single pony living in The Order’s controlled territories that hadn’t. The mere fact they had worked with their employees turned refugees threatened to end everything they had worked for, and more. But she still loved her fiance very much, and nodded slowly at him to let her stallion know. Pen, knowing what would be coming very shortly, reached under his desk, the same one passed down to him by his father all those years ago, still marred by clunked briefcases and his chair running into it when he got frustrated and pulled up too hard. The rest of his office was kept as almost a trophy room of sorts, decorative cabinets with his various industry awards filling them. Not that any of them would matter once The Order figured out where Watcher had been employed… “You need to take this briefcase to Watcher and Tia as soon as possible,” Pen instructed Stencil carefully, the earth pony bringing up the nondescript black document holder and placing it in front of her. Standing from the other side of the desk, Stencil watched her future spouse open the container, revealing the fruits of their recent experiments. He closed the lid again, and he spun the combination dial to keep it locked up, she knew exactly what number he had picked… her birthday. They stared at each other for a few seconds, fear but understanding in their eyes.  Pen’s intercom came on suddenly, “Sir! Chancellor Apollo has shown up at the front gate, and his forces are surrounding the building! What’s going on?” The unicorn reached down and pressed a small red button on the microphone with his hoof, “Don’t put up any resistance. Just send him up here using the most roundabout means possible. Be friendly, but stall for me.” “Y… Yes sir. Wish me luck.” The president of the company shut off the microphone and unplugged it for good measure. “Poor guy just replaced the last guard there killed off by the griffons,” he sighed, “I really hope The Order doesn’t murder him, too. Damn this nation.” Stencil walked behind the desk, and Pen stood up to meet her, “How can I get out of here now? We’re surrounded!” “Luckily honey, my father knew that The Order would likely pull something like this,” answered her sweetheart, standing up and moving over to one of the display cases, “so he installed something to let us hide things from them. Forgive me for keeping it secret from you, too.” Pen found what he was looking for, the photograph of himself and his father embracing on the shelf, something that he’d deny would have ever happened. The base of the picture frame, made of solid gold, had something like a keyhole at the bottom that formed a perfect fit for a key he had around his neck. The picture receded into the base of the display shelf as soon as he placed the key into it, and the loud sounds of tumblers and gears turning filled the room as the floor in front of the case opened up, revealing a dusty, dark staircase leading downwards. “This bunker has an exit over a kilometer away from the factory, Stencil. Stop to pick up some food, supplies, maybe a weapon if it’s absolutely necessary, I have a strong feeling that your going to need it. Once you are safe from harm, go and find those two.” Stencil set down the briefcase entrusted to her quickly, tears welling up in her eyes, “I.. I won’t mess this up.” “I know…” She pushed forward and gave her love a final kiss goodbye, before grabbing the case containing their life’s work, and started to move down the stairs. “I love you, Stencil,” he called after her, “never forget that!” She didn’t answer him through her tears, focusing on getting out of the way of the sealing secret passage door, the stairs into the cold dark bunker ahead of her. The doors locked up behind her, leaving Pen alone, who sat back down at his desk and wheeled his chair around to face the door. Whatever came next, he had fully prepared for it. Of course, the door was not slammed open when The Order finally got there after having been led astray by the best effort’s of Pen’s new guards. As the young recruit had promised, a few minutes had been purchased by leading the Chancellor in the wrong direction and trying to distract him with flattery and talk of progress on his military’s new weapons systems. At least twice Apollo had been tempted to kill the young stallion in front of the other employees, but he thought better of it, lest he waste time on the pest. Now, having gotten past the tricks of the security team, he walked into Pen’s office with a pleasant smile on his face and plans to ‘set things right’ in his mind. “Pen Dragon, it’s nice to know you greet guests to a deadly weapons facility with such open hooves,” he joked, robes flowing behind him, “I feel as if, however, that I am being treated in an especially preferential manner, though. Care to explain?” “Well Chancellor, we try not to maintain a tense environment when working around the latest in Order firepower,” answered the executive, refusing to leave his seat or get nervous, “wouldn’t want to have a sudden incidence of workplace violence in front of everypony, right?” Apollo grew a bit hostile, knowing what Pen had meant by that. Anything he did was likely to be used as propaganda against him by both the Order’s enemies and internal dissidents. Still, he was fairly certain his recent nationwide alert was going to give him fairly free reign in what he intended to do next. “Perhaps you’re unaware that a false Princess is running around our fair nation sowing trouble and discontent?” he grumbled, opening his white kimono a bit, revealing an orange orb suspended on a necklace fit tightly to the stallion’s throat. Pen had heard about the ruler’s magical device, but wasn’t about to cow in front of Apollo. He had always hated the amount of power the pony in front of him possessed, and how he cheated his way into seizing all of his company’s contracting ability. But seeing how he handled things in pony made him absolutely certain of his hatred. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, “everypony heard the announcement about the false Princess. My company has nothing to do with it.” Pen felt his throat constrict suddenly as the Chancellor’s horn glowed bright white, an aura of magic squeezing his throat and lifting him out of his seat. “Oh but I believe your company does,” he answered, eyes beginning to glow a bright orange, “one of your employees and her little beaux are the pair of refugees we’re trying to stop, Pen. Do you take me for a fool?” Pen noticed out of the corner of his fading vision that the troops in the room seemed to grow fearful of their master, and were trying to avoid eye contact with him as he choked. Pen began struggling as felt the grip of Apollo’s aura loosen a little to allow him to speak, opening his trachea enough to spit back at Apollo one more time. “You’re not just a fool, Apollo. You’re a dead horse. That stallion… that mare… they’ll kill you.” Apollo chuckled to himself briefly before removing the orange orb from his necklace and hovered it in front of Pen where he could see it, the ball starting to spin rapidly and spark with pure power as it built up a charge to fulfill its purpose. “I suppose you’re betting your life on that,” the Chancellor said finally. He released the spinning orb, which burrowed into Pen’s chest, leaving a molten hole in his sternum and causing his eyes to go blank with agony. It burned into his core before releasing its payload of pure magical energy, and the soldiers in the room couldn’t help but grit their teeth as the earth pony in front of them disintegrated from a wave of orange flames that wrapped around his body, ashes falling to the floor. All that was left was the orange ball, now cooling down and smoking from its job, and Apollo replaced it on his necklace before tucking it away behind his cloak. “Spread out,” he said to his troops behind him, “his… widow ought to be close by. We’ll find her, and she’ll take us straight to that false Princess, and her… Watcher.” Nodding their heads, Apollo’s troops began rushing out the room as Apollo followed shortly afterward, smirking as glanced back at the former CEO’s remains one final time and closed the doors with his magic, unaware of the secret passageway that Stencil had entered before his arrival. The grey unicorn continued crying as she continued to make her way down the long passageway lite magic candles that smelled of cinnamon and lavender, two of her favorite scents that Pen had bought her when they had begun dating. And she couldn’t help but collapse to the ground, breaking down as tears flowed freely as she cries echoed throughout the long hallways. Stencil still hear his last words to her ‘I love you Stencil, never forget that!’ repeat over and over as she felt a sharp pain in her chest. She wished she could have been there with him in his final moments. However, despite knowing that it wasn’t to be, she pressed forward, using her magic to carry the briefcase as she began trotting a full speed, hoping that by some miracle Pen was okay. It hadn’t taken long for the employees of the facility to find themselves gathered up by the soldiers that had smashed their way into the complex just minutes ago. Having feigned peace long enough to reach Pen Dragon’s office and cover every square inch of the facility, the seizures were fast and sudden, as if the Chancellor had somehow given them all a telepathic message to capture their victims at once. Lab technicians, guards, and even janitors found themselves lined up along a wall in the inner courtyard of the testing field, magical weapons pointed at them. To say that tensions were high would have been an understatement. The Chancellor entered the courtyard from the back, quite out of earshot of his captives, a few of his ‘fine soldiers’ moving over to talk to him immediately. “Chancellor Apollo? We’ve searched the entire building, from top to bottom and questioned all of the employees. There is no sign of Pen’s… other mare… However, we are continuing our search as we speak.” One member of the group said, but seeing the Chancellor scowl at him gave him chills. “I see… Burn this building to the ground… And dispose of all of Pen Dragon’s followers. Any who defy the Order are our enemies,” Apollo ordered, seeing the other troops with him hesitate as they looked at the prisoners they had gathered. “Sir, the public will not approve,” gently protested the young officer, “b… besides, why waste ammo on these scum?” “Hmmm,” Apollo grinned, making his minions’ blood run cold as ice, “I suppose you have a point.” His stallions seemed to relax, but the Chancellor had come up with something to ensure that they would understand their place as his elites. A pony of course, would be hesitant to slaughter a group of citizens, sure… but Apollo could tell that they were just trying to justify the murders by making him order their deaths a second time, giving them the all-too-common ‘I was only following orders’ excuse when the public found out, and giving them the option to place their war crimes out of their minds. His followers needed to know just how tied to their work they ought to be. “Kill one out of every three of them,” he ordered, “draw lots, and slash the losing ponies.” “Wh… what?!” cried the poor trooper, taken aback by the command. “Well we don’t want to waste ammo don’t we?” smiled Apollo, “Here, I’ll get you started!” Casting a spell from his horn, a wild arcing bolt of red magic bounced around the floor randomly until it finally broke up into multiple dots of light that hung over the heads of exactly one third of the factory employees. “Kill those ponies,” he ordered, “with your knives. NOW!” His soldiers drew their blades, and tried to make eye contact with their intended victims, pleading and tearful looks exchanged between parties who could not believe the horror unfolding. The Chancellor turned his back to the scene, uninterested in watching the blood be drawn. He hoped he had made his point. Back at Small Pine’s Village Celestia had soon awoken from her Slumber, feeling unease as sweat dripped from her forehead. It was as if something terrible had happened and when she looked over to the other side of the room, she noticed that Watcher wasn’t in his bed. Celestia began looking frantically around the room for her companion, but there was no sign of the stallion anywhere. Quietly she slipped out of her bed and began to slowly make her way out of the room. Moving silently, she began using her magic to light the way in the darkness of the hallway of the inn, trying to see if Watcher was nearby, but there were no signs of him anywhere. As the princess began making her way down the hall, she started hearing creaking in the floorboards behind her. “H-Hello? I-Is somepony there?” She stuttered, trying to see into the darkness. Celestia was never afraid of the dark before, but after all she’s been through, her losing the power she once had, is now cowering in fear as she slowly backed up as the creaking from the other end of the hall began to get louder. “Watcher if this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny!” However, she soon felt a pair of hooves cover her mouth and pulled her into a separate room. As the door closed silently she desperately struggled to free herself from whoever had hold of her, but was quickly met by a quiet hush from a familiar voice. “Tia, it’s me, Watcher… Don’t scream.” Releasing his grasp slowly from the princess slowly, he was soon met by jab to his chest, causing him to wheeze in pain as he tried his hardest not to yell or scream and give sign as to where they are. “N-Nice… to see you too…” “Don’t do that to me again! You scared me-” She tried to explain, but was soon met by Watcher’s hoof covering her mouth again. “Be quiet!” He quietly shouted, emphasizing the situation they were in at the moment. “Look, we need to get out of here right now.” “H-How come?” She asked, after removing the stallion’s hoof away. “I think the ponies around here are onto us!” Watcher answered sharply, “Call me paranoid, Tia, but we can’t afford to take any chances.” “W-What makes you say that?” Celestia asked, seeing the unicorn make his way over to the other side of the room. “Well… I woke up to get myself something to drink, but I heard Stellar whispering into a crystal, talking about you. Two hours had passed when he made that call and now there are six experienced magic casters here searching the building, so I used a spell to move you into another room undetected, while I went out to try to find a way out without alerting them.” Watcher explained as much as he could, taking a peek out the curtains of the window, letting the moonlite in for the princess to see. There he noticed two unicorns standing near the front entrance, wielding spears. “Did you figure out a way to get us both out of here? If not, I can teleport us out of here.” She suggested, but Watcher shook his head in response. “If we did that, then they’ll pick up on your magic since that’s what gave you away when you raised the sun in front of me.” Watcher replied, tapping his chin. “Both the front and back entrances are blocked off, we can’t risk teleporting cause they’ll track us, and we can’t just jump out the window unless we can fly out.” Watcher tried thinking of an alternate route they could take, but the only one that came to mind was levitating out, but he spent most of his magic moving Celestia to a different room. The only option was to allow Celestia to teleport them, but it would likely lead to the Order tracking them down again, leaving him one option left. “Watcher, listen I can get us out of here and… We can find somewhere else to go.” Celestia suggested, trying to convince the stallion that she was capable of protecting both herself and her friend. “Tia… Everfree City is the only place I know that can protect us, or at least keep you safe.” He said, looking back at the princess, not with a stern look, but a look of sincerity. “The only chance I see for us getting out of here without you compromising our location, is if I lury all those casters in here and take them all out.” “No, I’m not letting you do this on your own. You’ve been protecting me since the day you and I met. Now it’s my turn to pull my own weight, this is my fight as well.” She argued, glaring at the stallion, but his expression never changed. “You have to let me help you, I know your magic energy is low, I can sense it with my magic. You won’t stand a chance if you don’t allow me to help you.” “This isn’t up to debate your majesty… The last thing I want is for you to get hurt or worse… So please let me deal with them and you make an escape out the back, but wait till I lury them all towards me.” He said, trotting past the Solar princess as she stared at her only friend left her. “W-Why… Why can’t I… Stand up for myself… I’m the Princess of the Sun damnit!” She nearly shouted to herself as she stood back up, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She knew that using her magic would risk getting the both of them caught, but she didn’t want to leave the only friend she had made since returning after two thousand years. “Screw it! I’m helping him! Whether he likes it or not!” Outside the Inn A small hovering construct had been floating around the area ever since Watcher and Celestia had arrived. It was a metallic device shaped out of lightweight aluminum, two sets of white-green painted mechanical wings mounted on the side of a slender body with fuzzy antenna that gave it the appearance of a large forest moth. Its mechanical flapping made hummingbird-esque sounds as it flew, observing events around Small Pines for an unknown operator. The little machine had been mistaken for a bug by Watcher and Celestia, giving it plenty of cover to follow them to the inn. Once they went inside, it had rested carefully on the roof, the cameras mounted on the front of the machine watching the doorway for when they’d exit next. However, the little drone lifted off from its short break as soon as it saw a detachment of ponies belonging to The Order approaching the hotel with various levels of magical cloak and weapons. If it were spotted by magical detection or even a good old fashioned eyeball, it would surely be swatted down. Getting a good look at the incoming forces, at least eight total ponies with violence in their eyes, the moth look alike hovered over their heads from a safe distance and relayed information back to its master. Once the troops had entered the building through the front door, it could do nothing more to spy on either party, and the creation flitted away with a buzz of its machined wings. Watcher stormed into the lobby of the inn, hoping to catch their ‘generous host’ off guard if possible. Even if he was wrong and Stellar was up to nothing, he would at least be distracting them long enough to permit Celestia safe passage to Everfree City without him. As long as he made it out alive, they could always meet up later. But if Stellar was a threat, he had to be dealt with before he ratted them out to The Order. The room seemed rather quiet, just the grandfather clock and the front desk as he had remembered it when they first agreed to stay. Each loud ticking from the clock threatened to drown out his racing thoughts, as he called out for the owner in a menacing tone. “STELLAR! COME OUT HERE AND FACE ME!” Surprisingly, his demands were met, and Stellar emerged from behind the desk, having apparently hid from his guests. “Watcher, there’s no need to shout!” he said softly, “I’m right here, you know.” “Quit playing around,” Watcher growled, spinning around to face him and motioning with his hoof, “there’s something going on here and you know it!” Stellar decided to go ahead and play his hand right away instead of lying his way out of the situation, “Has walking through the forest with the False Princess made you gone mad or something?” Watcher gasped and tried to cast a spell from his horn, but it failed in a miserable shower of dull sparks. Four stallions from The Order dropped their invisibility spells, revealing themselves in the corners of the rooms, their faces hidden behind their cloaks. Each of them stepped closer to try and force Watcher into the center of the room. “You were waiting here for us to check out,” the stallion growled at the innkeeper, “glad to know even you’d rat somepony out.” “Every business needs customers, Watcher, and The Order is perhaps my biggest one!” explained Stellar smuggly, pulling out a very rusty and painful looking blade that he’d been keeping behind the counter as a self-defense implement, “I’m afraid there’s no escaping. These fine gentlecolts will be taking you away and leaving me with my promised reward.” After taking a look at the soldiers around him, their horns glowing in anticipation of needing to riddle his body with energy blasts, Watcher smiled and bluntly replied to Stellar’s statement, “What reward? I doubt these dopes will give you anything without Tia. She’s the one they really want.” The other stallion went pale as the troops glared at him, “Where is she, Watcher!?” “Hopefully long gone by now,” he answered, pushing the foe back with his hoof, just narrowly dodging a frustrated swipe with the tetanus-encrusted kitchen knife, “you missed your chance, Stellar. Even if these guys get me, you’re going to get nothing.” Watcher had thought his statement was fairly awesome in his head. What he didn’t think was how an angry innkeeper with a throat-slashing blade was going to react to him being pushed around. Stellar, driven to draw blood out of the frustration of losing his promised riches, rushed him and started hacking away wildly with the knife. Watcher considered jumping out a nearby window, but The Order Acolytes pooled their magical skills to project a cylindrical barrier around them. He was effectively stuck in a cage match with the murderous stallion trying to catch his jugular with his improvised sword. The toothy grins seen under their hoods let Watcher know The Order’s stallions loved the sight of ponies getting hacked to death, a thought that sickened him. “Eat this!” screeched Stellar, swinging in with a wide horizontal swipe as he lunged. Watcher dodged left, trying to jump out of the way, only to hit the force field and bounce back inside, leaving him defenseless. Stellar brought his weapon around again and was able to thrust upwards in an attempt to push the knife into Watcher’s face. Luckily, it barely glanced his cheek, drawing a small amount of blood and startling the unicorn. Having drawn the first few drops, Stellar stepped back and chuckled, pointing the blade under his chin. “Ha! My friends here from The Order were right, you really are pathetic! Once I’ve cut you to ribbons, we’ll track down that stupid princess and the gents here will rip her legs off one at a time. All because you’re a nosy little bastard who couldn’t come quietly.” Watcher felt a sudden jolt of emotional energy at the mere thought of Celestia being ripped apart because of his failures. The charcoal coated stallion ran a hoof across his face, and looked at the blood that had been drawn from his chin, before tasting a small amount of it from the end of his hoof. Stellar held the knife steadfast, but was visibly startled by the new expression Watcher had suddenly gained after sampling his own fluids. The Stallion’s head was bowed just enough where he couldn’t see his eyes, and yet the innkeeper felt his heart rate surge from the aura of raw hatred. “We… we’re done here!” stuttered the now uncertain pony, before charging forward and thrusting his knife in for the kill, “DIE!” A bright white halo of energy emitted from Watcher’s horn, transferring down to his right hoof. The ring quickly grew into a glowing sword made of light that dwarfed the knife coming towards it, each of the hooded ponies in the room covering their eyes from the radiance and forcing them to drop their containment field. Stellar, having already committed to throwing himself at his enemy, couldn’t back away in time before Watcher pulled his right hoof back, and with a powerful thrust of his leg, put the blade of pure energy through his sternum and out his back. The knife dropped to the ground, still fresh with Watcher’s blood as the innkeeper was thrust all the way to Watcher’s hoof. Then, with a swing of his barrel to the right, the unicorn moved the blade in a powerful motion that sent the impaled stallion out his own window, shattering it. Watcher regained control of himself in time to view The Order’s stallions running away out of terror, the blade of light disappearing into its ring form and retreating back into the tip of his horn. The realization of what he had done came to him. “That… that’s what happened when I faced Midnight!” he said slowly, running outside, “Damnit! That’s going to make The Order come down on us harder!” Hoping against all hope that there’d be something he could miraculously do, he found Stellar outside the shattered window.. lying dead on a pile of glass. The magical blade had cauterized the massive wound perfectly, leaving his corpse rather intact… but with a terrified look in his now glazed over eyes that haunted Watcher. Out of respect, Watcher bowed his head and ran his hoof over the stallion’s eyes, closing them. “It didn’t have to be this way, Stellar. I’ll make The Order pay for you, too.” Looking up, Watcher shook his head, as if he hadn’t really meant to say that… but something had compelled him to, “Why am I saying stuff like this? This guy tried to kill me, and I probably have tetanus now from that stupid knife! I hope Tia knows how to cure this...” Meanwhile…  Celestia watched silently in the darkness of the halls of the inn as two earth pony guards began making their way inside, getting impatient for their targets to come to them. One of them, started yawning, irritating his companion. “You could cover your mouth when ya yawn, ya know!” She shouted at him, glaring at the stallion while earning a stern looking from him. “Hey, it’s been a long night, so you shouldn’t complain about me yawning. It’s only natural.” He replied, keeping his composure as his partner growled in response. Thinking that she was a bit immature for her age. “I never said it was a bad thing to yawn… I said you should cover your mouth, cause it’s rude!” She stated once again, but before he could even get a chance to retort, he found his world suddenly going dark as a vase landed over his head, trapping him. The other guard knew better than to laugh at the situation and turned around quickly to see who had thrown the flowerpot on him, finding Celestia with her horn aglow. She seemed like she was ready to fight, at least in a manner she found acceptable. “Oh hey, that’s enough” warned the other guard, stepping forward to engage, “we aren’t looking to hurt anypony tonight!” Celestia talked back to her, “Who said anything about me getting hurt?” With a clever use of a levitation charm cast at her enemy’s hooves, the mare found herself being lifted into the ceiling rapidly before he could even react. Grunting as her head bonked on the top of the hallway, she was knocked out cold from the impact and dropped down to the floor with a dull thud. Her partner had just managed to remove the ornate vase Celestia had thrown at him from down the hallway, only for the princess to pick it up again with her aura and bash the glass container over his skull, dropping him right where he stood. “... and that’s what you get for not wearing your helmets,” huffed Celestia, rubbing a bead of sweat off of her forehead. She smiled, looking at the stunned ponies on the floor along with the shards of vase, “That felt… amazing! I’ve not been so excited since I met...” After realizing where she was going with that, the pink-haired mare cleared her throat and cut off her own sentence before running down the hallway. There was still business at hoof to attend to.