Tonya sat slumped with her back pressed against the Chorus, weakly pressing her hand against her bleeding arm. The pain from her wound was intense and she had lost so much blood that it was a struggle to maintain consciousness. Glancing up at the camera showing the hall outside; Poly Glot was still out there--distracted currently by his efforts with a temporary pony he had dragged in front of the camera to make her watch as he slowly and methodically dissected the poor former human. Seeing the grisly act, even obscured as it was by the mists, made her turn and wretch. Unfortunately, she was forced to rely on his atrocities to hold his attention as long as possible so he wouldn’t resume his efforts to get into this room. His morbid need to take others apart was the only thing keeping her alive and the Chorus out of his possession.
It was becoming harder to maintain the weak compulsions she had placed on herself to stop from going crazy. Sooner or later they would fail and she would be like those poor souls that she had watched on the monitors literally try to rip their skin off. The end was rapidly coming near. It was just a matter of whether it would come from blood loss, Poly Glot getting in and using her as a plaything, or from her own madness. There was a small chance that someone outside would be able to get through this death trap, take Poly Glot out, and save her--but she saw no way that could happen in time. She only had a few minutes before one of those fates befell her.
Her head dipped and she jerked it back up. She shook her head and blinked at the monitors, trying to focus on them. The Chorus was still draining, but the process was agonizingly slow. It now stood at eight-six percent power. On the monitor showing the hallway outside she saw Poly Glot had returned to hacking at the door. It was a testament to the security that he hadn't made it through, but it was only a matter of time. This was the most secure door in the facility, with the highest security measures, but he'd already gotten this far. Thankfully, he just didn’t have the attention span to stick to one task that wasn’t causing harm for longer than a few minutes.
She shook her head to try to keep herself awake and did her best to reinforce her self-compulsions. She put a hand up to her shoulder and winced as she brushed her blood-soaked appendage. It was still bleeding, and it was now fully soaked through her impromptu bandage. It really needed to be changed out, or better yet taken to a doctor, but there was nothing she could do.
Forcing herself back to her feet, she gripped the side of the console and braced herself against it. Very carefully she dialed her wife again, accidentally smearing blood all over the controls. A small part of her mind worried at what the blood would do to them, but at this point she wasn't sure that mattered anymore.
"Sunset...can you hear me? Are you there?" Speaking was hard, but she needed to hear her wife's voice.
"Tonya, I'm here. How are you holding up? We're doing everything we can to try to figure out how to counteract the spell gas and get ponies in there to help save you. I've got everypony that isn't assisting with trying to pacify the riots working on it. Twilight Sparkle is looking over every option for how to bypass the teleport barrier, or to get in without releasing the gas to the public."
"Sunset...I don't think there's time," she breathed out. "You need to start figuring out how to stop it before he gets in here. If you...if you don...if you don't stop it..."
"Hush, we'll stop it." She could hear Sunset holding back tears. "You're going to be okay. He isn't going to get in there. We'll make it in there, and take him out. Everything is going to be okay. God isn't going to let you die."
She shook her head again as darkness started creeping into her vision once more, and she had to grip harder onto the console as she almost lost her balance. She wanted to believe everything would be alright, but the world literally was going dark for her.
"Just save your strength, Tonya. Don't exhaust yourself. It will be okay. Just hang in there."
"You need...you need to just destroy th-this place. Even if I'm still here," she breathed out.
"No!" Sunset shouted. "You're going to get out, safe and sound. I'm not losing you. You're going to survive, you and I are going to have a foal together, and we're going to be happy."
"Sunset...we can't let him do this," she cried.
"Destroying the facility isn't an option," Twilight Sparkle cut in. "I still haven't learned how far this mist can self-replicate, but that seems to be an inherent part of the spell. There's too much risk of that spell gas escaping. Even if I shield the entire area, it still seems to ignore normal magic shields, and I need to figure out something that can better contain it. I'm working hard to figure this out. Just hang on a little longer."
"Okay..."
She had to hang on as long as she could. Once he made it through she was the last line of defense before he could reach the Chorus. There was no fantasy where she could fight him off, but she could delay him. Every moment counted at this point, and if she could buy seconds it was worth it, even if it cost her life. Maybe he would get distracted again and begin dissecting her, and that would buy more time.
The world dimmed some, and her mind went fuzzy, as she slumped back down. Her body felt numb. There was no telling if she were freezing or burning up, even if her sense of temperature was familiar to her. Maybe she should be freezing, as she wasn't wearing any clothes, and Amanda and Tom had complained it was chilly down here when they'd been transformed. She wondered what would happen when she died in this body. Would it revert back to her natural form, or would she be some unknown human, mixed in with dozens of other dead down here? Poly Glot was probably going to dissect her, so the question was probably moot.
Songs played in her head as she let herself hunch forward. She needed to take it easy, preserve her strength to fight off Poly Glot. Shutting her eyes for a few minutes wouldn't hurt anything. Just a little rest before he got in.
"About time," a voice snapped.
She looked up, suddenly feeling much more alert. Before her were a pony on fire and a skeletal pony. That could only mean one of two things; either the Dreamwardens had secret powers to manifest in the real world that they weren't telling anyone about, or she was asleep.
"Asleep," Sha'am confirmed as she glared with empty sockets. "We've been waiting for you to properly fall asleep, you've been drifting in here a little at a time for some time now, but we didn't want to try to touch you while you were in such a state. Your mind is barely holding things together as it is, and we need you."
"There is still a risk in what we're intending on doing, but it cannot be avoided," Ghadab followed up.
She looked around at her surroundings. She still seemed to be in the Chorus room. It wasn't until she tried to stand up that she realized she was in her pegasus form and how slightly off everything looked.
"What do you want? I can’t be asleep, I need to defend the Chorus," she said as she glared at the two undead Dreamwardens.
Sha'am hissed. "Ponies have gotten so disrespectful since we did away with the Oaths; no proper respect, no manners."
Ghadab turned and looked at his companion. "Quiet, Mother of Bitches; the mare is simply trying to fight for the lives of others. It is a worthy cause, and one that she can't be blamed for not giving you your pleasantries while doing. If we're successful you won't be needing to be concerned about such things much longer anyway."
"What's so important that you're keeping me here instead of letting me guard against Poly Glot," she demanded as she stomped a hoof. Sha'am could complain about her rudeness all she wanted.
The skeleton snorted. "Fight? You can barely stand. You heroic fools, and your grandiose belief in what you can accomplish. It would be laughable, if it weren't so sad. Sit down, filly, our goals coincide with yours. We too want that beast dealt with."
"Why didn't you deal with him before now? Why'd you let it get this far, if you could stop him?" She demanded in a rage.
"Do you think we didn't want to?" Ghadab asked as he let his fires extinguish. "Our Oaths are not mere words. There was nothing we could do unless he broke a rule, and right now he is wide awake and outside our grasp. Unfortunately, by the time he sleeps again he will have done incalculable harm to the world using that device behind you."
Tonya slapped herself with a wing. "I need to wake up then, so he can't do that."
"Stop being stupid!" Sha'am snapped. "You can't put up a fight. There is something else you can do though. You have the capability to stop him...it just will come at a high cost."
Her ears laid back. "If I'm going to die doing it then it will be still worth--"
Ghadab held up a wing and made a loud sound in his throat that sounded like he was getting ready to hack up a loogie. "It is more than you just dying. What we want from you will cause death and destruction in your home."
Her ears now flattened against her head. "Why would I do that?"
"Because it's the only way, and if you don't it will be tens-of-millions if not hundreds-of-millions who will die," Sha'am explained in a somber tone. "It is the lesser of two evils. We wish there was another way, but the only other way is to let him have his way and let this world plunge into chaos. Chaos that will erase any hope of the world ever holding back the Devourers. Tragedy happens all the time, but I won’t allow anything to prevent the world from combating them. We don't have the centuries the chaos he will unleash will take to settle."
She shook her head as she again considered the scale of harm that could happen if Poly Glot reached the Chorus. "What...what're you wanting me to do? I'm not saying I'll do it, but tell me what my options are."
Ghadab stepped forward and waved a wing. An image of the black sphere that was kept in Sunset's vaults appeared, the thing the Dreamwardens had her make. "You're going to destroy the Chorus, and all the magic contained within, using this."
She gazed at the sphere, even in a dream it was unsettling. "What is it? You never told us. We've studied it, and still have no idea what it does, or how it is supposed to work."
Sha'am stepped forward and ran a skeletal wing over the sphere. "A prototype Devourer, even then it’s far less advanced. We had intended in time to make a proper one to act as a Trojan horse to the other Devourers, destroying them from within. We realize now we simply don't have the time. This device was made to test for vulnerabilities and exploits in their workings that we can't properly determine in the dream realm. It's still capable of absorbing the magic of the Chorus, and his infernal cloud. It will detonate when it does, though; with enough force to consume all the lives in Riverview."
Her eyes went wide as Ghadab started speaking as soon as Sha'am quieted. "The way your facility is built will help buffer against much of the explosion, but shall not be enough. We ask that you reach out to Twilight Sparkle, and let her know that the Chorus is going to detonate, and that she needs to shield against the blast as best she can. Phobia shall back you once you do, and we'll be searching for more help to assist her. We'll do our best to keep as few dying as possible...at least I will, but even if every effort we have in doing so is successful, much of your city may still be leveled."
"You can alert your wife to start evacuations, before activating the sphere. That should save many. There will be a delay from when it absorbs and when it explodes, but we're unsure how long," Sha'am said, picking up the conversation again. "You may call me heartless for saying the truth, but what happens to the residents of Riverview is ultimately unimportant, as long as the world doesn't plunge into chaos. You can work to save who you can, but in the end this must happen, regardless of the casualties to your city."
"You will be dead from the explosion instantly when it happens--vaporized. You won't even feel a thing. No one in your facility will have time to feel a thing. Depending on how effectively Twilight Sparkle can shield, how effective you evacuate the most vulnerable areas, and depending on how long it takes to detonate, you may be able to limit the deaths just to those underground," Ghadab finished.
With Poly Glot's random killings she wondered how many in the facility were even still alive.
"Time is of the essence before he reaches you," Sha'am snapped. "Are you willing to do that much? Because that's only half of what we ask of you."
"What else can you possibly demand I do when you're already asking me to commit suicide, destroy my wife's work, and possibly Riverview as a whole?!" Tonya asked in wide-eyed shock.
Ghadab raised a wing and images flooded her mind, many of them terrifying. She whimpered at what she was seeing, but when they ended she knew the price they were asking.
"You can't be serious!" She gasped in disbelief.
"You have the choice to refuse, but if you do then the efforts to stop Poly Glot will fail, and so shall Earth when the Devourers come," Sha'am replied in a menacing tone.
"There has to be another way," she sobbed. She didn't want this.
"We don't ask it lightly of you, and if it weren't the only way to assure you knew how to operate that sphere we would not pressure you so," Ghadab replied in a quiet voice. "You have the right to refuse, but the consequences to everyone else shall be dire. I believe you'll make the choice to do what needs to be done to save others, rather than worry about what will be done to you. I would not ask this of you if I did not. I believe you place the well being of others above yourself enough that you will make this sacrifice."
Ghadab was right, she would do whatever it took to help save others, but she never imagined that price would be so steep. What they were asking from her was a fate worse than death, a fate only few had ever met in all of history. Tears ran down her face as she nodded.
"We have an accord then," Sha'am announced. "Awaken briefly to let your wife know to begin evacuations, and inform the alicorn of what she must do. Be quick, staying awake right now will be difficult in your current state. Every moment counts for you to save lives."
She suddenly felt weary again, as the two undead Dreamwardens vanished. She was back in the waking world, and she knew by the shadows on the edge of her vision she didn't have much time here. She raised a hand and grabbed the edge of the console again, and struggled to pull herself up. She remembered this time to just hit the redial button, and she waited for a reply.
The phone was quickly picked up. "Tonya? Is he close to getting in? We're still doing all we can to-"
She cut her wife off with a pained groan. "Sunset, you need to listen to me. Evacuate the pony resident sector, and everything near the Bastion. Get everyone as far from here as you can. We don't have time, and I'm going to do what I have to do."
"What do you mean...what you have to do?" Sunset asked worriedly.
"I'm d-destroying the Chorus, and taking out this cloud. I can do it...but it's going to explode when I do. You have to get everyone away. I-it's going to be like I set a nuclear bomb off here." She wet her lips. "You need to tell Twilight Sparkle she needs to shield the city from the blast."
"Tonya, no! We're going to save you!" Sunset cried.
"How?" Twilight cut in again. "What are you going to do that can stop that cloud? Maybe I can-"
"You can only try to shield us all from the blast," Phobia sleepily cut in. "She is set on what she is going to do, and it will save millions. We have to do our part to prepare. Mom, I'm sorry, but you need to call for evacuations now. Time is of the essence."
"But Tonya..." Sunset cried.
"Has made her choice, and she's going to save a lot of people," Phobia said sadly.
"Sunset...I'm sorry. I can't let him hurt everyone," Tonya cried, and wiped her nose with her good arm. "I'm taking that bastard out with me. Help me, Sunset. I don't want anyone else to die. Do the right thing. Help save the world. Do this for me."
"Fuck the world if you aren't in it," Sunset sobbed.
She labored to respond. "My sunshine… Please...don't let anyone get hurt because of this. I-I need to go. Know that I love you."
She hung up the call before Sunset could respond back, and cried hard. She couldn't even feel the pain in her shoulder through the pain in her heart.
One of the worst lessons to learn in life was life isn't fair. Right now life wasn't just unfair, it was unnecessarily cruel.
"Maybe, you have to do something first?" She suggested frantically, as her brother slammed a hoof repeatedly on the desk in frustration. "Or maybe it is dialing and we just can't hear?"
Robby lowered his head and wrapped his wings over it in frustration. "I don't know! It gives me a dial tone when I pick it up, but when I dial a number there's just nothing! I don't know what to do!"
They were in an office at the far end of the hall. The door was open and all the foals kept looking off in the distance, expecting any minute for one of the monstrous crystal ponies to appear at the far end of the hall. This stretch of hall was around the corner from where the stairwell was, and looking down it they just saw a dark hall full of lockers, and windows at the far end that didn't let in enough light to banish the shadows. There were no emergency lights here, and a series of small square skylights let in dim light from the roof. They too weren't doing a very good job, maybe because it was so dark outside. There were normally a few regular lights on, but now that there was no power it really showed how much of the light actually came from them. A clock hung above the windows, and showed that it wasn't yet evening.
While Jessie tried to help her brother figure out the phone, Jordan and Jackie suddenly found that being aunts meant it was their responsibility to be what the distraught demons cried on. The twins had latched onto Jackie, and were bawling loudly over the fate of their mother. Alfie had likewise latched onto to a confused, and very upset herself, Jordan. The demons incessant cries of Mama were understandable, but it made it very hard to focus, or think. She wanted to yell at them to be quiet, but didn't have the heart to do so.
Jessie whimpered, as after yet another failed attempt, Robby took his forelegs and just threw the phone off the desk.The other foals cried even louder, and now her older brother buried his face in his forelegs and began to sob as well. "We're not getting out of here. Rosetta put her faith in me, and I can't even make a phone call."
The crying and sobbing seemed deafening, and Jessie held her ears flat against her head, trying to hold her own tears. She looked around the office, trying to find any answer, anything at all that could help them get through this. She read the titles of the books sitting on the bookshelves; The Twenty-Four Hour School-Day: Teaching Humans and Night Ponies After Midnight, Developmental Differences in Foals by Tribe, Magical Hijinks: Disciplining Unicorn Foals Effectively, Managing an Interspecies Classroom, Fundamentals of Secondary Education, New Standards and Education Practices for Integrated Schools, How to Effectively Help Teen Mothers Stay in School, Integrating Extracurricular Activities Between Tribes and Species: The Challenges and Opportunities, Species Neutral Reading Recommendations; Second Edition...none of these were at all helpful for their situation at all.
"If Ms. Rosetta and everyone else is asleep, won't they call for help in the dream realm?" She asked, trying to think outside the box.
Robby shook his head sadly, and got down on the floor, next to the now broken phone. "No, when someone is hurt really bad they don't dream right. It takes a Dreamwarden actively seeking them out. Phobia might go looking for them, we can hope, but with all the stuff going on she might be awake. She keeps really weird hours because she takes constant naps. Sha'am notices anyone that's dying, but a coma isn't dying."
"Could you go to sleep and get help?" She asked.
He shook his head. "Not right now. I'm too worked up to sleep, pretty sure the adults were too. Not a lot of night ponies can do that thing where you can dreamwalk in a trance. Phobia can't even do that, and I don't even know how she can just fall asleep at will like she does. That's why they didn't do that. Not that sleeping when someone is hunting you's a great idea anyway." He then paused and squatted down next to the phone staring at it. "Fuck!"
She winced at his curse. "What?"
He pointed a wing at the edge of the phone. A tiny label that had fallen loose underneath said dial nine first to get an outside line. "We just had to hit an extra key, and now I've gone and broken the phone!"
Her head dropped in despair, but she then picked it up and frantically continued to look around the room for anything, anything at all, that could help them. Her ears perked up, and she dared to hope as she spotted something worthwhile. "Robby, look! Keys!"
Her brother stopped crying and followed her gaze to a set of keys hanging beside the door. He flapped his wings and flew over to them, grabbing them with his mouth, before settling down to the floor and taking them into his wings to examine them. Then his face fell again. "No key to the front door, or the other stairwell. They're all labeled. These are all to the classrooms for the top three floors, and one for the roof."
Her ears fell again. She had hoped that there was a set for the front doors below and the other stairwell. They could have run down the other stairs by ramp and gotten to the front door to get out. Locking the classroom doors wouldn't be much help if the crystal ponies were just able to break down the doors.
All hope might not be lost though. "We could get up to the roof, and you could fly for help."
The other foals quieted as she spoke, but Robby flattened her ears. "But Rosetta said I had to protect all of you. I'd be leaving you all alone. They could get you while I'm gone."
She stared at her brother and forced herself to accept uncomfortable, but logical, facts. She then walked over to him and spoke a hard admission in a quiet whisper. "Robby...you're my big brother, and I know you'll do anything to protect us ...but if all the grown-ups couldn't protect us, then you can't either. You need to find help. If you don't...if you don't we're not going to make it."
Robby stared her in the eyes, and blinked a few times. "Jessie...you're right. I'll do what you said." He then looked down. "It's embarrassing that I'm twice your age and you have to be the one to tell me the right thing to do, because I'm too afraid to think straight. When did my egghead little sister get so brave?"
"I'm not, I’m scared, really scared," she replied in a half-croak, not able to hold back the emotion. She was admitting her brother couldn't protect her, and that was painful. "It's just everyone else is crying and-and...and someone has to think."
"Bravery is a response to fear, not the absence of it," Robby replied, as if quoting off something he had been told. It sounded like something Phobia Remedy would say. "But we need more of a plan than me flying for help. Something to help buy time for help to get here."
She looked at the other foals, and then out into the hall. They needed a plan. She was smart, so she needed to come up with it. Just the idea of Robby going for help had been hard. It was hard to think when all she wanted to do was cry and hide.
Think logically, break down the facts that you know. She said to herself. What information did she know? First thing she knew was that they couldn't let the crystal ponies touch them. The adults had made it very clear that the drain of magic was enough to possibly kill any of the foals. The next thing she knew was that they seemed to be able to track where magic was, and with all the adults pretty much drained they'd be moving on to the next biggest targets; which were almost certainly her and her brother. That meant that if there was any sort of trap that she and her brother were the primary bait. After that, she knew that Ms. Jean at least was stronger than her, Layla, and Ms. Rosetta combined, and that she could probably break down any door that they locked. Simply locking a door wouldn't work to keep them away. It might slow them down a little, but not for long.
The crystal ponies were also big, and might not be able to fit into small spaces. She thought about how she and the demons had fled through the walls from Tempest. She looked around the room and spotted a vent on the ceiling. It looked big enough that any of the foals, except Robby, could get in it, but it was also in a place on the ceiling that only Robby could reach it, and a quick glance down the hall showed that same pattern of the vent being well away from any wall or thing to climb on to get to it.
"Are you strong enough to carry us up one at a time to the vent there?" She asked her brother, as she pointed to the ceiling.
Her brother gave the vent a doubtful look, then walked over to her and gripped her. He started beating his wings and they gained a little height, but they ended up collapsing down to the ground after getting just two or three feet off the ground. Robby groaned. "Sorry, if I was a pegasus or full grown I could probably do it, but I'm just not a strong enough flyer to be carrying that much extra weight. I maybe could get Jordan up there if I tried hard enough, since she's the smallest, but that's a big maybe."
That wasn't going to work then. They could try stacking things to climb up there, but with it being dead center in the room she already knew how unsteady that would be. Plus, she didn't think it was a good idea to be separating Jordan off from the rest of them. She needed to think of something else. What else did she know? She knew crystal ponies couldn't drain crystal ponies, but they were without their crystal pony defender now, since she had gotten hurt.
Thinking about Crystal made her look out into the hall. Crystal was really strong too, but she'd been hurt and taken down by the lockers falling on her. Lockers were one of the things that they had in abundance. Could they deliberately bring the lockers down on the two monster crystal ponies? She didn't know how reliable that was, or if these lockers were exactly like the ones below, and not properly bolted to the wall. That was missing information.
"Robby...can you check something?" She asked as she tried to put together the plan in her head. It was still a work in progress, but it hinged on one particular piece of information.
"What do you need?"
She pointed out into the hall. "Can you check to see if those lockers are bolted to the wall, and how loose they are if they aren't bolted?"
Her brother looked out at the lockers. "How do I tell that? I don't want one falling on me."
She pointed upwards. "Fly up and try shaking them from up high, but if they're loose try not to knock them over."
Robby nodded and with a running jump took to the air towards the lockers. The other foals quieted down to sniffles as they watched her plan start to come together, perhaps comforted that something was happening to try to help them. Robby hovered near one of the lockers and reached out his forehooves to give it a little shake. Shake it did, very easily. There was no way that locker was properly bolted to the wall. He checked several others, and it was mixed results, with maybe one in four lockers being loose. It would need to be lined up just right.
"But, how do we make them fall at the right time?" She asked herself out loud.
"We can do it!" Charlotte shouted excitedly. Jessie whipped her head around to look at the night pony that looked most like a mini-Ms. Rosetta. "It's just like when we're trying to get things in the way of Mama, Crystal, and Tempest. The three of us are really good at knocking things over."
Tabby stood up and looked at the lockers. "We can climb up on top of them if we have some desks or something to climb on first. It isn't as high as the ceiling."
Alfie flattened his ears as he looked out at the lockers. "But they might fall down while we're trying to climb up."
She looked at the lockers again. "Maybe we can brace them with something so they don't do that. Just the first lockers you need to climb up."
"The same desks the demons would be using to climb up," Robby cut in. "Jessie and I can hold the desks steady against the lockers, and if they accidentally fall down then the desks will block them from hitting us."
She perked her ears up again, as it seemed like this might actually work. They had their bait, and they had their trap. She didn't want to hurt anyone, but it seemed like the only way to slow the two crystal ponies down long enough for Robby to have time to get away and come back with help. If they didn't do something to make the crystal ponies at least slower they were all going to die here.
"Here's the plan," she announced. "When they come down the hall Robby and I'll be in plain sight at this end of the lockers. Demons, the three of you will be up on top of the lockers being very still. Jackie and Jordan, you two will be hiding on the edge of the lockers, ready to run. They will come after me and Robby, and the demons will knock the lockers over on top of them. When the lockers hit them everyone needs to run for the staircase-" It just occurred to her that the demons would be up on top of the lockers when they needed to be running for the stairs. She looked at the twins. "Um, are you going to be able to get down from the lockers okay?"
Tabby flapped her wings and hopped while nodding. "We can do it. We ride bookshelves and stuff down all the time! Riding the lockers down will be just like that." The other two demons nodded eagerly in agreement.
"Well, if you're sure, I guess that's no problem," Jessie replied, choosing to trust her friends to know what they were doing. They were trusting her after all. "After that we'll all run to the roof. Robby, you'll fly ahead of us with the keys, because that will get you going for help faster. You just have to leave the roof door open for us, and leave the keys in the outside of the door so we can lock it behind us when we get up there. If we hurt the monster ponies they might have a harder time breaking down a locked door, even if they start chasing us again. That buys more time."'
"I can't…" Jordan cried. "It's too scary!"
Jackie nuzzled her sister gently. "You can do it. You can bite my tail and just follow me. I promise I won't run too fast for you. You just have to hold on and keep watching me instead of the bad guys."
Jessie nodded. "Yeah, just follow your sister. Jackie isn't going to let anything bad happen to you. Big sisters protect their little sisters."
Jordan looked at her sister, and then meekly nodded. "Okay."
Robby walked out into the hallway and then gestured with a wing for the rest of them to follow. "Come on, we need to hurry to get ready. We don't know how much time we have before the demons' grandma and that other pony come looking for us."
Jessie and the others followed him out. This had to work. If it didn't, she'd just sealed their fates. She wished her mom and dad were here, or Wild Growth, or Phobia Remedy. Her friends were trusting her, and she hoped that she didn't let that trust down.
"Wild Growth! Stand down!" A member of the National Guard yelled out to her.
She glared at the members of the military, and their guns. Being military, chances were that someone among them actually had something that could seriously hurt her. At the moment she didn't really care about that. She was more concerned about those guns being turned on other people. Those guns had been fired. She still smelled the faint residue of gunpowder and other things in the air.
For what had seemed an eternity she had been running through the crowds of rioters, forcibly bringing an end to violence. Had it been minutes, hours, days? She didn't know. She knew that her barrel burned from exhaustion. She knew her head pounded like it never had before, and she knew she had made a promise that no one else was going to die today.
She had slipped on something wet and fallen, right before she had run into these people. Finding a bunch of guns pointed at her when she picked herself back up was not a pleasant surprise.
"I'm helping bring an end to this violence," she called out to them angrily. "Do you really want to stop me? Are you really that eager to shoot someone?"
"Ms. Growth, look around you. The riots are dispersing," the same guard called out. "We cannot condone your vigilantism, but we have to admit that you've been more than successful. Someone can discuss your actions with you later. Stand down, you're obviously injured, and need medical attention."
She looked around her. There were no signs of violence, and only the guards were near her, all looking fearful. They still had guns pointed at her, and right now guns put her in a very uncooperative mood. She'd found way too many people for her liking that had guns today.
Her ears perked up as she heard gunfire in the distance again, off towards the central green. She noticed the guard look up as well. The violence might have been cleared here, but who knew how far the riots had spread. She wasn't even sure where she was at right now. Lifting up her leg she saw that her phone was cracked and broken in several places, maybe from the fall she had just taken, maybe from something else, there was no way of knowing.
"Wild Growth! Please stand down! Do not attempt to continue this. It is for your own safety!" The guard yelled out as she turned to head towards the gunfire.
She looked back at them. "No more guns, no more violence, no more death or hurt," she said slowly and clearly.
As a few guards started readying weapons, she decided that she had enough of them all. Her power surged through the earth, and a massive wall of brambles broke through the concrete between her and them, blocking their view and path to her. There would be no more violence. They wouldn't be hurt, or be allowed to be in a position to hurt others. She had a job to do, and that was to protect everyone, and nothing or no one would stop her from doing so. Not while she still heard gunfire and screams in the air.
"Attention! Citizens of Riverview and visitors!" Sunset Blessing's voice rang out loudly, carried by some unknown means. "This is a critical emergency announcement! The Bastion is going to explode in an unknown amount of time. It is vital that everyone evacuate everything within or surrounding the central green, the monorail, as well as the entire pony district. If you are in an area within a mile of the central green, I plead to you, get away now! If you are protesting, whatever you are protesting can wait a day for the sake of your lives. Expect severe earthquakes, fires, and explosions! Don't wait to pack! Don't take time to gather your belongings! Get out! Those things are not as valuable as your lives. Emergency teams will be setting up operations just beyond the fields, the military base, and Old Town. Move now, this is not a drill, or a joke!"
Her ears rang at the deafening sound of Sunset's voice. When they finally stopped she turned towards the brambles, still filled with resolve. "I'm going to get those people away from the central green. I think your priorities are getting people away from here. Help me make sure no one else dies today."
She didn't wait for a reply. She just galloped off towards her new destination.
"Attention! Citizens of Riverview and visitors! This is a critical emergency announcement--"
Jessie stood stiffly as she stared down the hall, waiting for the crystal ponies to appear. Her auntie Sunset's voice had sounded off loudly earlier, terrifying all of them. Now it repeated regularly. What it had said added a whole other level of precariousness to their situation, but the fact remained that they needed to alert someone that they needed help. On the plus side, if that kind of warning had gone out then Phobia Remedy had to be checking on Ms. Rosetta if she knew she was here. They weren't going to change their plan though. If the crystal ponies got them first it didn't matter if help came.
Robby stood beside her, as the two of them made themselves bait. The demons were all crouched down on top of the lockers, still as statues, and barely breathing for fear they'd accidentally knock a locker over early. Jackie and Jordan stood tensely at the edge of the lockers, awaiting their signal to run. The world was still and quiet, and the air seemed to barely move. This was either going to work, or they would die. It didn't help knowing that some disaster was coming that might kill them anyway, but one problem at a time. At least Robby would be able to fly to safety. Hopefully he would get help to them in time.
"Attention! Citizens of Riverview--
She watched the clock, trying not to listen to the announcement, and the ticking of it seemed to echo through the halls. One second turned into five, five seconds turned into a minute, one minute stretched on forever. Then her my muscles tightened as she heard a new sound, the sound of a door opening. The time had come, and so had their pursuers.
Her lungs were tight, as she listened to uneven hoofsteps slowly approach. The form of a mare stepped into view, silhouetted by the dim light of the window beyond. The shadow turned its gaze down the hall, and Jessie could feel those hungry eyes lock onto her and Robby. She wanted to run right now, but she knew she had to stay still. Ms. Jean had to get caught in the falling lockers. The mare turned and started towards them as the stallion came into view behind her.
Fudge! They weren't moving at the same pace! That meant that they might only end up hitting one of them. This could mess up the entire plan and ruin their hopes of getting out of this. She should have realized they weren't moving the same way, the stallion had gotten caught in that earlier locker fall and was already hurt. Ms. Jean wasn't hurt though. She was still healthy and ready to take them.
"Attention! Citizens-- She did not need that blaring alarm right now!
Ms. Jean was starting to gallop towards them, with the stallion stumbling far behind. There was no more time. The trap had to be sprung on Ms. Jean and they'd have to improvise with the stallion. "Now! Bring the lockers down on her now!"
The demons jumped into action. They galloped along the tops of the lockers, pushing off each locker hard as they went. Some merely shook, while others toppled over. Jessie and Robby stood still as the crystal mare rapidly approached them. She closed her eyes, unable to look anymore, and then she heard the deafening crash.
She opened her eyes up and blinked. Only two feet in front of them, Ms. Jean was pinned under a locker, with her eyes closed. They had gotten her. However, the victory wasn't assured yet. The stallion was still stumbling towards them, and not a single locker had come close to hitting him. That was a problem, a huge problem. Not only did they need to get by him, but the path was littered with fallen lockers.
She shook her head and her rump, as she readied herself to run. "He's hurt, and slow. Robby, try to distract him in the air, while the rest of us run by! Everyone move!"
Robby took to the air and started flying above the stallion's head. The stallion focused up at her brother, and feebly tried reaching out towards him. Jackie and Jordan started running on the far edge, away from the fallen lockers. Jessie followed after them, but cried out as the stallion turned his eyes back down towards her. Jackie and Jordan had raced by him, and the demons were by him as well, but he was now blocking her path, and she couldn't see a good way of getting around him. She ground her hooves to a screeching halt, staring in horror as her brother desperately tried to draw the stallion's attention back to him with shouts.
"Attention! Citizens--" She startled, as the announcement started back up again.
"I can't fudging move!" She yelled with fear and frustration at her aunt's repeating message. She backed away from the stallion, too afraid to think of any new plan.
There was a sudden bright flash of light that blinded her. When she finished blinking away the spots before her eyes there was a golden unicorn stallion with a blue mane standing between her and the crystal pony stallion. She gaped in confusion as he seemed to briefly get his bearings.
"Phew! Give me a second to catch my breath; been teleporting straight down one floor at a time looking for you," the new stallion said in a rugged breath. He then looked at her and stepped towards her. "Don't be afraid. I'm with emergency services. I'm here to help you all evacuate safely. I just need to gather you close to me and I can get you outta here."
"Watch out behind you!" Robby screamed.
The unicorn tried to turn around, his horn flaring to life in alarm, but the crystal pony was on him, and she let off a wordless shriek. Their would-be rescue tried to put up a fight, twisting and bucking instinctively only loosened the crazy ponies grip but he was able to hold on. The magic around the unicorns horn flickered out before could resist further and he slumped to the floor weakly trying to push the crystal pony away.
"--and Old Town. Move now, this is not a drill, or a joke!"
She ran. She ran as hard as she could to get by the stallion while he was distracted. The fallen lockers forced her to get dangerously close to him, only just out of reach if he chose to grab for her. However, the new adult seemed too tantalizing for the crystal pony, and he ignored her as she ran by. Robby turned his course towards getting away as well.
As she turned the corner towards the stairwell she saw that once again the crazed crystal ponies ignored them for the highest magic target. This hadn't gone as planned, and she felt awful for that stallion who had come to help, but time had been bought. The vampiric ponies would take time to eat, and now both were hurt. Those injuries might make it harder for them to get through the door on the roof. There was no telling when anyone would realize that something had happened to the unicorn, or if the next would meet the same fate. It was more important than ever Robby get to someone and tell them the kind of danger they were in, and make sure that the next round of help was prepared.
"Attention! Citizens--"
She saw the other foals, waiting fearfully by the stairwell, and she yelled at them as she saw them. "What are you doing! You should be running up the stairs!"
"We were scared for you!" Jordan yelled back.
"I'm okay!" She yelled back, still galloping down the long hall. She had to think of how to make this easy and clear for her friends. "We need to get to the roof and spread out to make it harder for them to catch us. It's going to be like playing tag. We all know how to play tag, right?"
"Just like we play with Mama, Tempest, or Crystal?" Tabby asked loudly.
"Just like that!" She confirmed as she reached them, then passed into the stairwell. Robby had already gone through and was on his way to the roof and out by wing. He'd been flying faster than she'd ever seen him fly before. "Now keep moving! We can't let them tag us!"
"--Get out! Those things are not as valuable as your lives--"
As Tonya woke again she laid and sobbed at what had been done to her, and all that she had experienced. Sha'am and Ghadab had not been gentle, but she couldn’t fault them, there wasn't room for being gentle right now. She forced herself to stop crying and to ignore the pain in her arm. There was work to be done. There would be time for tears later.
"Attention! Citizens--"
She got unsteadily to her feet, and turned towards the hallway that led to the administrative offices. It was time to go down to the vaults and fetch the thing that would kill her. Some small part of her mind actually hoped that Poly Glot had already killed all the guards so that she wouldn’t be directly responsible for their deaths. The idea of killing anyone made her sick, and none of those guards deserved what was happening to them. She silently wept as she thought about that. Whether Poly Glot killed them or what she was about to unleash did, they were doomed. It wasn't right. It wasn't just. It was also a cold hard reality, and she hated it. She prayed that everyone outside would have time to evacuate. If any more died, her soul couldn't take it.
The hallway was free of mist, but there were emergency lights flashing that gave it a menacing feel. She weakly made her way through the hall, into Sunset's office. Carefully, she made her way over to the bookshelf. She'd have to trust her legs here, as she had to use her one good arm to get each book over to the proper podium. It was a long and grueling process to carry each book over to where it belonged, and try to use her uncoordinated hands to open each book to the proper page for the microchips in the bindings to activate. Her use of her hand would have been far from perfect to begin with, and the loss of blood and weariness that she felt made it tremble violently as she used it. She had to flip, and reflip, through pages; missing her intended page more than once on each book, before they were finally correct.
The passage leading down to the vaults below opened, and she almost stumbled going down it, just catching herself at the last second. The door opened easily enough, but she tripped over her own feet trying to go through, and came down on her limp and bleeding arm. She cried out at the searing pain, and it took her a long minute before she could force herself back into a sitting position.
There it was, the black sphere that her life had been spared in exchange for its construction. The black sphere that she always felt hungered when she came near it. It didn't help knowing now that it truly did hunger, hunger for whatever magic it could absorb. It was silly to think of it like that, it wasn't alive. The thing simply ate and then destroyed. The Dreamwardens had planned on testing it in a controlled environment, where it couldn't hurt anyone. They'd already been considering making Sunset or one of their other contractors create a testing bunker just for that purpose, where electronic devices could record and analyze everything about it. The hope was that they could learn something of value to help fight its cousins. Testing was supposed to continue with different models over centuries, but now they knew that they simply didn't have that kind of time. The plan might have been a good one, if they had time; but they had decades, not centuries.
With extreme effort, she pulled herself back to her feet. Devourers, and the threat they posed, was a concern for another day, for those who would survive to see it. Right now the priority was making sure as few people as possible died now. This monster was about to be put to use to save the world. Maybe the only good thing a Devourer had ever done. May God forgive her for unleashing it.
"--is going to explode in an unknown amount of time. It is vital--"
Wild Growth slipped again, and hit the ground awkwardly. For a second...or at least she thought it a second, she laid their panting, before pulling herself back to her hooves. Her head swam, but she couldn't stay here.
The repeating emergency message was now just background noise, and she no longer registered the individual words. Despite the overuse of her magic, she stood firmly, and reached out again, searching for anyone that hadn't yet fled. Most were gone, and she had helped in that. Where they were too bottlenecked together she had used her powers to rip down walls and already abandoned buildings, in order to make new paths of escape. Property damage meant nothing at the moment, as the emergency seemed to indicate all of this might well be destroyed anyway. What was important was everyone had a path to escape. No one else was going to die today, not if she could help it.
She could barely think, and everything was a labor. Her nose felt clogged, and her fur wet. The storm must have soaked the grass of the central green, because she kept finding herself slipping in it. But until she was sure everyone was safe she couldn't leave, couldn't rest.
The immediate area felt clear of people, but she felt others in the distance. With shaking steps she began in the direction, not even sure what way she was headed, only knowing there were more people to help.
"Wild Growth!"
She blinked and looked around for the source of the voice. Was the National Guard trying to stop her again? She didn't see anyone, or feel anyone near her. Then a form from above came crashing down in front of her. It took a few seconds for her to realize that it was Robby, he looked as exhausted as she felt.
The teenaged night pony colt looked up at her. "My sister, the other foals, they're trapped in the school!” he exclaimed before having to stop and take a few breaths. “Your mom and that other crystal pony are chasing them. You're the first person I could find to help! Everyone else is gone!"
Her mama? She had completely forgotten the entire reason she had been out in all this chaos to begin with. It took another second to register the rest of what Robby had said. Her mama was after the foals. If she caught them…
Her eyes focused on the school in the distance, it wasn't far from her. “Get to safety,” she responded, taking off with renewed energy towards the tall building, without waiting to hear if Robby had anything else to say. The foals were going to be safe. Her mama wasn't going to become a killer.
No one else was going to die today.