It was too bright, and everything was pain.
Awareness came slowly, sinking out of hot, bright, confusion like the onset of night. With awareness came darkness – he was somewhere lit only by pale, fitful orange light. Thoughts came as well, buzzing like a swarm of angry wasps. Thoughts that started bad and got worse.
First, he remembered that he was Blueblood. An unpleasant shock. He dealt with that thought every morning, but it never got less upsetting.
Next, he became aware of his agonies. Burns from the shock lances and the unicorn’s raw magic seared his skin. The two gashes across his chest felt like the went to the bone, and ached with a nauseous heat that warned of infection. His tongue… oh harmony, he hadn’t bitten through it, had he?
He pressed it tenderly against his teeth and gum, wincing at the contact. There was a huge, puffy gash on both sides, but it seemed to be intact.
There was something wrong with his ear. Where that bullet had grazed him. It felt numb up top. He reached up with one hoof. The ear ended halfway up its curve, cut off in a perfect line.
Blueblood started to cry, loudly and bitterly, like a foal. His beauty, the only good thing about him, was ruined forever. He wept until his eyes ran dry, and then he became aware he wasn’t the only one crying. He looked around at what the flickering torchlight revealed.
The arched, stone brick-walled corridor told him they were in the dungeons. Not a section with cells – either the raiju had too many prisoners, or they preferred to use their own cages. He could see two dozen cages, the bell-shaped design he’d seen through his scope earlier, each with a pony inside. Some were asleep, some awake. Many were bloodied and bandaged. Some moaned, some cried, some were silent. In the cage next to him, a concussed-looking pink and blond mare in flight goggles banged her head against her cage bars and muttered curses.
He recognized more than a few of the captured ponies. Guards, nobles, and the sort of popular pony who would have been helping with the festival preparations just to be seen doing it. Fancy Pants was here. Fleur was in the cage next to him; they spoke quietly through the bars.
“Ah, he is amongst the living!” said Fancy Pants in a tone that if Blueblood didn’t know better, he’d have taken for cheerful.
“You are hurt,” said Fleur. Her tone was stiff with barely checked outrage, her cheeks matted with tears, and bloody bandages wrapped one foreleg. “That is unfair. The invaders allowed us to treat our other wounded. When a guard comes, I will ask them to let us help you.”
“Quite right,” said Fancy Pants. “With the ruling princesses… ah…” his expression faltered. “indisposed, and Twilight Sparkle presumably on some sort of mission, you are our leader. You deserve the best.”
Blueblood sneered. “I’m no leader,” he said, his voice slurred by his thickened tongue.
“Facts are facts, my good colt,” said Fancy Pants, “You may feel you are not worthy, and I daresay you have good reason for your doubts. But you are still our prince. No doubt you’ll rise to the occasion.”
Blueblood growled at the backhanded compliment, but his tongue hurt too much for him to snap back. He lapsed into sullen silence.
Soon, voices, steps, and flickering light approached – one voice deep, growling, yet indolent and childish. The other voice, with it’s cruel, drawling tone, was one he’d only heard once, but he’d never forget it. The raiju had called her ‘Tempest’.
“But I planned this operation! You can’t just send me away!” said Tempest.
“You submitted your report to me. I can handle things. We’ve practically won here. We’ve taken the palace. What else is there to do?” The two of them came around the corner – the iron-hard little pony, and a towering raiju who couldn’t look less imposing if he were the size of a breezie.
Tempest’s hooves danced on the stone cobbles in frustration, horseshoes kicking up sparks. “The battle isn’t over, the Storm King! Most of the population lives in the lower tiers of the city, and the ponies there are still fighting us! I warned you about this!”
The Storm King stared down at her, eyes puzzled. “You did?”
Tempest ground her teeth so hard Blueblood could hear it from halfway down the corridor. “In my report! The one you were just talking about!”
“Oh. Of course,” said the Storm King. “Yes. That report. I remember it perfectly. What did it say?”
“It said that we had to act suddenly, and not give the ponies a chance to organize. They aren’t threatening individually, but if they work together they can be incredibly dangerous.”
“You say that like you’re not a little pony.”
“I’m not a pony. Not since I lost my horn. I’m unstoppable when I fight alone.”
The Storm King waved a talon dismissively. “There’s still fighting because you let one of the princesses get away. Go find her. Without their leaders, the ponies will stop fighting.”
Tempest jumped a quarter the length of the hall and thrust a hoof out at Blueblood. “Do you want a princess? Look at this!”
The Storm King sighed. “Princesses are girls, Tempest. And if he is a princess, where are his wings?”
Tempest narrowed her eyes and craned her neck to look up at the Storm King. “You didn’t read my report, did you?”
“It was very long. I skimmed it,” said the Storm King, waving one talon in an evasive spiral.
“I spent months writing that report!”
The Storm King shrugged. “I didn’t have months to read it. Bullet point it for me. Who is this?”
Tempest squinted her eyes closed and took several deep breaths before speaking, as though calming herself before she said something she’d regret. “This. Is prince Blueblood Augustus of House Empyrean. Sole living blood relative of the two sisters. He’s neither popular nor intelligent, but he is currently the legitimate ruler of Equestria.”
The Storm King sneered. “No, I that’s me. You’re thinking of me.”
“Not in the eyes of the ponies.” Tempest turned to the Storm King and planted both hooves on his hip imploringly. “Let me talk to him. If I can turn him, we can turn the ponies against each other, and we’ll have this city.”
“As long as you’re on your airship and headed for the Badlands by six in the morning, I don’t care what you do. Ta ta.”
Tempest glared at the Storm King’s back and then turned to press her face against the bars of his cage. “Hello, weak sister,” she growled in Ponish.
Blueblood thought she ought to know about weak sisters, since she worked for one, but he held his mangled tongue. Knowing that much about the Storm King’s personality might give away that Blueblood spoke Raiju, and he needed every advantage he could get.
“Hello? Hello, can you hear me, pretty pony?” She kicked the cage, knocking it up off the floor and shaking Blueblood’s battered body.
“I can hear you,” said Blueblood.
“How would you like to get out of that cage, pretty pony? I could have you set free. Clean you up, have your wounds tended to, get you something good to eat, and a warm bed.” She smiled a barbed smile. “Would you like that?”
“That depends,” said Blueblood, “on what it costs.”
“Well, aren’t we the canny… little… diplomat!” She said, kicking the bars to punctuating the last three words. The cage scooted back with each blow. Blueblood felt dampness on his chest as the motion tore the slashes on his chest open afresh. “What it costs is that you work for us. Tell your people to stop fighting. Tell them that you are their ruler now and that you support the Storm King.”
Blueblood braced himself, forelegs out stiff so that he wouldn’t be shaken if Tempest decided to kick the cage again. “So the Storm King has promised me my rightful throne if I betray my little ponies.”
Tempest leaned her head against the bars, with her broken horn pointing towards Blueblood. “Don’t think of it as a betrayal. Think of it as bringing peace. The Storm King will win, one way or the other. You’ll be saving a lot of lives, by convincing ponies to surrender.”
“So the Storm King told you that he’d make me King of Equestria – under his rule, of course. But King, nonetheless.” Blueblood heard the ponies in the hall shifting in their cages. He knew it sounded like he was considering the deal. Of course he wasn’t, because he’d heard the Storm King and Tempest talking, and there was no deal. The Storm King had promised nothing.
But Blueblood had… not a plan exactly. But the germ of one. A keyring with one key on it jangled against breastplate of Tempest’s armor. He had some ideas about what it might open.
“You’re wasting my time, little pony. Will you help us, or not?” sneered Tempest.
Blueblood rolled his eyes. “It’s late, and I’ve had a long day. Answer my question, or I’m going back to sleep.”
Tempest’s forehooves danced a nervous little dance against the stone. She hesitated – the hesitation of a pony who must lie, but for whom the very concept of dishonesty was deeply offensive. “Yes. Yes. The Storm King backs the deal.”
Blueblood made a soft, appreciative noise. “Well, then, now you have my interest.”
From across the hall, Fleur spoke. “Blueblood, no. I beg you…”
Blueblood ignored her. “As a gesture of good faith, why don’t you let me out of this cage.”
Tempest reared up and kicked the cage. The back of Blueblood’s head slammed against a bar, and he yelped.
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” growled Tempest.
“Are you afraid of me?” said Blueblood.
Tempest jammed her horn in between the bars again. Energy crackled around the jagged stump of her horn and was immediately sucked into the bars. Magic shielded. Of course. Otherwise one of the unicorns might’ve found a way to pick the locks by now.
“Come, what could I do to you? Am I not a ‘weak sister’?” Blueblood still didn’t have a plan. He just wanted to be out of his cage, even for a moment.
Tempest tilted her head to one side. “Fine. Fine. I suppose if you misbehave I can always kill you.” She took the keyring in her mouth, unlocked the door of his cage, and returned the key to its place on her armor. “It’s all right,” she said, stepping away from the door. You can come out.”
Blueblood pushed himself gingerly to his hooves, nosed the door open, and stepped out. Every eye in the hallway was on him, and that was awful because he knew how he looked. Bloody, sweaty, singed, mane tangled, disfigured by a ruined ear. It was humiliating.
Nonetheless, he raised his head and stood as straight and proud as he was able. Good posture counted for quite a bit. “Is it true you were the one who killed Celestia?”
Tempest smiled. Not a cruel or sardonic smile. A smile of genuine happiness. Up to this moment, Blueblood had been angry at Tempest, but he hadn’t hated her. That ended now, with that smile. He could never forgive Tempest for that smile. But he did his best to hide his feelings.
“I did,” said Tempest happily. “I’ve wanted revenge on her since I was a filly. She refused to heal my horn, and I decided she had to die. It took me a long time to figure out how, and even longer to find an opportunity. Now she’s dead, and I’m well on my way to destroying everything she ever loved. There’s no deeper satisfaction than that. And you. How you must have resented her – passing you over for that twee little pretender. Well. She’s gone now. And I can make you king. What do you say?”
“If Celestia wouldn’t heal your horn, then she couldn’t. I’ve never seen her refuse to help a pony in need, no matter how humble,” said Blueblood. “Some wounds can’t be healed.”
Tempest’s smile vanished, replaced with a scowl as if Blueblood had slapped her. “What?”
“I don’t especially like being a prince. I’ve never had a need denied, and it has made me spoiled and weak. I’ve never been without companions, but they are all mewling sycophants who only want access to my power. I’ve sought peace in competition, when only my skills matter, and not my prestige. But I’ve never been good enough. I’ve fallen short of perfection again and again, and it rankles, even as the practice of my skills brings me solace. I can have any sexual partner I desire, but I’ve never been in love. In all that time – in my whole life of unnecessary and self-inflicted unhappiness, only one pony has ever been truly kind to me. Only one pony has ever loved me for who I am.”
Tempest took one step backward. “No. No. She’s not like that.”
“I won’t be your pawn,” said Blueblood. “Not that your offer was genuine, to begin with.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The shame of a lie forever besmirches a warrior’s honor.” said Blueblood in Raiju. “I understood your conversation with the Storm King. He’s not interested in me. You think if you turn me, he’ll let you stay and finish your revenge on Celestia’s city. But he won’t. He used you to capture the city, and now that he thinks he has it, he wants you out of the way so he can take all the credit.”
“That’s nonsense!” growled Tempest.
“He’s a narcissist. Trust me, I know the type.”
Raw magic shot from Tempest’s horn. The searing impact knocked Blueblood to his knees.
“You’re lying!” screamed Tempest.
Blueblood shook his head. His tongue was bleeding again. Blood trickled from his lips. “I’m not. There was no point to your treason. The Storm King promised you your horn back, didn’t he? You know he can’t do that, right? Horns, legs, ears, our magic can’t regrow them. Not with the power of all the…”
Tempest lashed out with her lightening again, and again, raw magic raking Blueblood’s body, worse than the Riaju’s shock lances by a dozen times. His body shook against the cold stone. The smell of ozone and singed fur surrounded him. At least he didn’t bite his tongue again. Unspeakable pain wracked his body. He wished he’d die so the pain would end, but Tempest didn’t want to kill him.
Eventually, she stopped. Blueblood lay in a heap, panting. He raised his head, looked up at her. A true prince would have said something cutting, to show his defiance, his inner strength, but his mouth wouldn’t work right, and he just mumbled and drooled at her.
She kicked him in the chest, knocking him back into his cage with one blow. His ribs creaked as he struck the bars. He slid down, landing in a limp puddle on hard iron. “Don’t think we’re done, weak sister,” snarled Tempest. She slammed the cage door shut, locked it, and stormed off, head and tail held high.
Darkness roiled around the corners of Blueblood’s vision, slowly eating the torchlight. He’d passed the edge of his endurance a while back. But he had to see. He had to see if he’d distracted her enough. He crawled to the front of the cage, scorched muscles protesting.
There. On the floor. Well out of his reach. Tempest’s key glittered, forgotten.
Blueblood fell forward, and burning dreams swallowed him.
✭☆✭☆✭☆✭
A speck of orange-tinted darkness crept into Blueblood’s nightmare of white light. Voices whispered in the darkness.
“What do you mean you can’t get it open?”
“I mean I can’t get it open!”
“You said you could do this, dude!”
“For the last time, I am not a dude!”
Blueblood crawled up out of the well of sleep to see four ponies – no, two ponies, if he forced his eyes to focus – fussing over the lock of his cage. Of them was Spearhead, and that fact filled his chest with that strange warm feeling again. This was very concerning. Was he becoming ill? Also, was he thinking of him as Spearhead, now? Orange guard. He was orange guard. It was important not to get attached.
The other one was Raven, who definitely did not cause a warm feeling in his chest.
“Is there anything I can do to help, dude? Like hold anything for you?” said Spearhead to Raven. No. There he went again. Orange guard.
“No,” growled Raven. Her horn glowed purple, and little rays of purple light sometimes shone out from the gaps in his cage’s lock. “It’s made of some kind of magic resistant alloy. I can’t… I can’t get a grip on the tumblers.”
“Yeah, like, can I hold them for you?” said Spearhead.
Raven turned away from the lock and threw up her forehooves. “Oh for Harmony’s sake!”
Blueblood sighed. “If you two idiots will kindly look down.”
Raven whipped back around. Blueblood noticed she had bloody bandage strapped over one eye, right behind the shattered lens of her glasses. Blueblood felt a stabbing feeling in his chest. “Oh no. Your eye. That wasn’t…”
Raven shook her head. “Raiju.”
Blueblood hung his head. “I am so sorry that I struck you. It was uncalled for and inexcusable. As a price and a…”.
“You’re right,” said Raven, cutting him off. “It was inexcusable. But don’t belabor it. I haven’t got time to feel bitter about it. I forgive you. We’ve got bigger things to deal with.”
“Hey, a key!” said Spearhead, looking down near Raven’s hooves.
“As I was saying,” said Blueblood. “I went to considerable trouble to get that. Spearhead, open everypony’s cages. Raven. Report on the situation.”
Both of them looked much worse for wear. Spearhead seemed to be unwounded, but his armor was dented and scratched in many places. Blueblood felt an inexplicable desire to push his forelock back under the edge of his helmet. Raven’s collar was missing, her uninjured eye was bloodshot and weary; her dark mane escaped in curling wisps from her tight bun.
“We lost,” said Raven, hanging her head. “We were brave, and we fought hard, and we lost, and most of us died. I’m starting to think your plan of running away wasn’t so bad.”
“Maybe if I’d been consistent about it,” said Blueblood, stepping out of his cage.
Raven shuffled her hoof. “We heard you’d been captured, and came to find you, in case you knew a secret way out of the palace.”
“I do,” said Blueblood. “My private airship. Guard, I meant all the prisoners, not just me.”
“D–Your highness,” said Spearhead.
Blueblood stamped. “What? We can’t rescue everyone, but the Anan can carry twenty-six ponies.” Probably. “All of the cages. Please.”
Raven nosed him on the shoulder. “There are more ponies. About a half dozen other guards, hiding nearby.”
“Good,” said Blueblood. “They will come with me, as will you. If we just charge for the airship dock, we’ll be caught. We need to stage a diversion.” He stepped over to where Fancy Pants was helping Fleur out of her cage. “I assume you’re familiar with the layout of the palace?”
“Yes, quite!” said Fancy Pants.“Though I’m happy to say I’ve never been in the dungeons before.”
Fleur embraced Fancy Pants, and then circled Blueblood, casting healing spells over his more obvious wounds. It was a relief when she reached his mouth; he’d done a lot of talking, recently, and now it looked like he was going to be doing quite a bit more. His tongue still ached, but at least it stopped throbbing and bleeding.
“We’re underneath the main ballroom right now,” said Blueblood. “If you go all the way down that hall, and up the staircase to the left. That will take you to the Elder Flower Conference Room.”
Fancy Pants raised an eyebrow. “The one that was half-devoured during the great parasprite infestation of negative thirty-three?”
“Yes. Exactly. It’s been out of use for longer than Tempest has likely been alive, so if there’s anything she missed in her report to the Storm King, that will be it. Wait there until you hear an explosion from the direction of the throne room. Then proceed as quickly and quietly as you can to the airship dock. Do you understand?”
“Very good, your highness? And if I may?”
Blueblood snorted with impatience. “Yes?”
“I confess that I doubted you. But your example today has inspired us all.” Fancypants bent his forelegs and bowed before Blueblood. “Thank you, Your Highness, from the bottom of my heart.”
All around him, all of the ponies who had been in the cages knelt. Murmurs of ‘thank you, Your Highness’, filled the corridor. Blueblood looked back and forth between the ponies, confused. Were they that impressed that he’d been tortured and humiliated? He could see Spearhead and Raven at the edges of his vision; they looked as bewildered as he felt. “Thank you. Thank you all,” he said, trying to appear confident. “I thank you, and Equestria thanks you. Now rise. We have much to do.”
“Your Hiiiggghhnnnesss,” said Spearhead softly, drawing out the syllables as he sometimes did when saying ‘dude’.
“What the hell just happened?” whispered Raven.
Blueblood tossed his head, and trotted away, expecting Spearhead and Raven to follow. “I’m magnificent. I assume we’ll need supplies?”
✭☆✭☆✭☆✭
Like the Elder Flower Conference room, Blueblood’s personal armory was little known and less spoken of. If Tempest had written of it, there had been nothing in that report to motivate the Storm King to loot it. Blueblood tore away the tapestry that concealed its door. There was no keyhole; Blueblood twisted the combination lock hidden inside the door with his magic and swung it open.
“Whoa,” said Spearhead, craning his neck to peer through the door. “You never showed me this before.”
“Take what you like,” said Blueblood. “It’s all trash.”
“This is manifestly not trash,” said Raven, eying a display case holding a pre-Celestian bronze short sword blade with an expression of filly-like awe. “Some of these pieces are priceless!”
His horn flashed, and the glass of the display case shattered. “They don’t make me happy anymore, so they’re trash. This one looks about your size.” He levitated the sword blade over to Raven and let it go. She caught it in midair with her magic and shot him a look equal parts bewilderment, respect, and annoyance, which he ignored. Also in the case was an elaborately decorated, horse-shoe shaped objet d’art with a copper earth cross sticking out of the top. He collected it and tucked it into the ceremonial ammunition belt which he had rescued from his closet.
“Whoa! This spear is awesome!” said Spearhead, lifting a short pole fitted with a sword-like blade and a sharp crescent-shaped crosspiece.
Blueblood went to the greentree wood case that held his spare target pistols. He pulled out one at a time and inspected them. Two he tossed to unicorn guards, three others he set on top of the case and began reloading. “It’s not a spear, it’s a spetum.”
“Bless you,” said Spearhead, tucking the weapon into the spear harness on his barding.
Blueblood didn’t let his little party of nine ponies leave until they were bristling with weapons. Everypony had a shield on their shoulder – some magic-reinforced battle shields, others decorative sheets of gaily painted wood. All the earth pony and pegasus guards had a polearm in one side of their spear harness, a rifle in the other, and a sword in their jaws. All the unicorn guards had that, and a pistol or sword clutched in their magic. All except for Raven, who insisted she had no idea what to do with either, and that she could fight better with her magic unencumbered. Blueblood tied a pillowcase around the tang of her sword blade, and then around her neck, “So you have a last resort.”
“Now what?” said Raven, regarding her new necklace skeptically.
Spearhead trotted over, steps parade ground high, his exotic polearm poking out proudly in front of him. “Raven. Dude. You’re supposed to say, ‘what are your orders, Your Highness SIR!’”
“My orders,” said Blueblood, raising his voice, “are that we all charge for the throne room, screaming at the top of our lungs.”
“YES YOUR HIGHNESS SIR!” shouted the guards. And all of them took off, filing one at a time out of Blueblood’s chambers, then spreading out into a V formation on the stairs with Blueblood at the head. Raven rushed up behind hind him.
“Excuse me, what are you doing?” She shouted over the sound of the royal guard singing marching cadence as loud as they could.
“Creating a diversion!” said Blueblood. “So the civilians and wounded ponies can escape!”
Raven glared at him with her one good eye. “And what about us?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know. You’re a royal adviser – make yourself useful and try and think of something. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to sing the guards’ little song.”
The little task force hit the ground floor and swung down the north hallway towards the throne room. This corridor was perfect for their diversion – it had few large decorations or side corridors that could be used for ambushes, and it was broken at several points down its length by doorways that kept any potential target within pistol shot. They charged at a quick trot, kicking over planters and pulling down curtains as they ran.
Everypony!
Kick it!
Bite it!
Stab it!
Kill it!
Canterlot guards can break right through it!
Shoot it!
Stomp it!
Kick in the ass!
Canterlot guards are all the best!
At the first bulkhead, one double door opened, and a raiju stuck its head through. Blueblood killed it with a single shot between the eyes. He’d learned a thing or two since his last fight. “Guards! Charge!”
“YES YOUR HIGHNESS SIR!” Pony hooves pounded on pavement. It had been centuries since the foes of pony kind had trembled before such charges; advanced pony magic now proved a better deterrent than military might. But the palace guards had kept the art alive. The burst through the bulkhead doors and ran straight into a cluster of confused-looking raiju soldiers. A crackle of rifle fire cleared most of them out of the way; the rest the guards stabbed to death with polearms before the enemy had time to ready their weapons.
“Guards, reload!” snapped Spearhead. Blueblood waited for them – he’d only fired one shot so far. Single-shot rifles were so inefficient; maybe there was a way to put a revolving chamber on them?
The guards were still ramming their bullets home when five raiju riflebeasts stepped through the next bulkhead. The guards’ eyes opened wide with horror, but Blueblood raised a revolver and brought each raiju down with a single shot. Blueblood’s heart swelled with satisfaction. Perfect. Was killing creatures supposed to feel bad? That’s what he’d heard, but he didn’t seem to mind. Maybe there was something wrong with him.
The guards finished reloading. As they started their march again, Spearhead sang a new cadence, which the other guards took up after the first repetition.
Blueblood! He’s a fancy lad!
Blueblood! A bastard and a cad!
Blueblood! He loves it up the ass!
But Blueblood shoots the very best!
“Best doesn’t rhyme with ass,” muttered Raven. “Blueblood, make them stop. Tell them that doesn’t rhyme.”
“No. I accept the compliment in the spirit in which it was intended.”
“You’re not offended?” said Raven, her good eye blinking.
“None of those things are untrue,” said Blueblood, tossing aside his empty revolver and drawing his second one.
“You’re very self-aware for a narcissist.”
Blueblood nodded. “Yes. It is my curse. I am cognizant of the consequences of my actions, yet I cannot stop myself. It is a heavy burden to bear.” He took a moment to admire his own largeness of spirit. Then a spatter of rifle fire crackled behind them, and a line of hot agony tore across his back. Near him, a guard fell down and didn’t get back up.
Raven twirled, slammed the double doors closed, and sealed them with a force field. “Run!” She said.
They charged for the throne room at a full gallop, manes flowing behind them, dispatching raiju guards along the way. Raven knocked the throne room doors off their hinges with a telekinetic blast, sending them skittering across the marble floor.
Blueblood gasped in surprise – there, lounging in Celestia’s throne, was the Storm King, playing with an action figure version of himself. Blueblood hadn’t expected him to still be up at this hour of the night. He wished he had a pistol out, but he’d put it away to draw out the little egg-shaped device from his bandolier. In a second, the opportunity was gone – the Storm King dived behind the thrones towards the secret escape tunnel that Blueblood knew was hidden behind the thrones.
Ah well. Assassination wasn’t why he’d come. He pulled the pin out of the Harmonious Horseshoe Grenade of Canterlot.
Dozens of these had been created during the war with King Sombra, an act of desperation against a seemingly unstoppable foe. Now they were considered low-yield anti-personnel megaspells, and Celestia had been horrified when a half dozen had been found on a disused sub-basement armory. She had ordered the evidence of her past sins destroyed, and the were – except for one, which Blueblood had spirited away to his collection, where he had been consumed with its terrible beauty for nearly a week and a half before mostly forgetting about it.
Would Celestia approve of him using it now? No. But what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. And in his defense, he wasn’t going to kill anycreature with it. He just needed a very loud bang.
“Holy Relic out!” shouted Spearhead. Raven and the guards dove for cover. Blueblood counted to three, kicked the horseshoe directly onto Twilight’s throne, and hit the ground, forelegs over his eyes.
A light like the rainbow on an oil slick shone through Blueblood’s forelegs, his eyelids, and into his eyes. The sound was less of a ‘bang’ and more of a ‘wailing of a million damned souls’. That ought to get them some attention.
He opened his eyes and stood. Every part of his body facing the explosion felt sunburned. The grenade hadn’t been as ‘anti-personnel’ as advertised – Twilight’s throne was a mangled, melted mess (oh no), the other thrones looked a bit warped, the dais slumped around the point of impact, and the rug was on fire.
Omelets. Eggs.
“Secure the entrances, dudes!” shouted Spearhead. He and the five remaining guards formed two sad little lines – four of them at the main entrance, two at the side door they’d come in. Blueblood and Raven stood on the dais, giving a good field of fire to his pistols and her magic.
“Don’t you think that was a little bit overkill?” said Raven. “Don’t you have any normal explosives?”
“I don’t have any normal anything, commoner,” said Blueblood, aiming a shot at one of the scattered groups of raiju warriors that were already arriving
Three waves of raiju broke on the guards’ thin line and fell back. Halfway through the second wave, a guard went down – not Spearhead, thank Harmony, but how long could they last?
Then, after a third wave, the attacks stopped. A minute of silence. Two. Blueblood turned to Raven. “All right. Fancy Pants should have had time to…”
A burst of lightning sent the two guards on the side passage hurtling back. They lay twitching on the smoldering carpet.
“What the…” said Raven, eyes widening.
Blueblood’s heart froze. He didn’t have a plan for this, even though he probably should have. “Tempest!”
“That’s right, you son of a festering, syphilitic whore,” growled Tempest, galloping into the throne room and skidding to a halt, raw magic crackling around her horn.
Blueblood blinked. “I didn’t realize you’d met mother.”
Tempest stomped and reared. “I need you alive, Blueblood. I don’t need them alive. How about this: Surrender, agree to work with me, and I’ll let them go.”
In his mind, Blueblood’s response was magnificent. “Of course, you may have me. Only let the others go,” his dream self said, and everyone in the room was so moved by his selfless act that they wept openly, even Tempest. Never mind that he’d actually be betraying all of Canterlot to save f ponies, only one of which he cared about. It didn’t matter – in fact, he merely stammered with open-mouthed indecision, and his little ponies took the initiative. Raven blasted Tempest with a telekinetic bolt. The bolt struck Tempest’s armor and flickered into a transient glimmer – more of the magic resistant metal from the cages? But it knocked her back a step.
“Charge!” yelled Spearhead, and the two standing guards followed, piling into the stunned Tempest. She wasn’t so dazed that she couldn’t parry their spears, and soon she and the guards were engaged in a melee so close and fierce that Blueblood couldn’t get a clean shot. The guards tempest had zapped found their hooves, and joined the battle.
Blueblood hesitated. Should he fire and risk hitting a guard? Sure five-to-one odds were enough to…
Tempest shot up from the melee like a clay pigeon, kicking Spearhead in the belly over and over. When she reached the apex of her jump, she kicked him hard in the chest, sending him flying across the throne room into a wall. Blueblood shrieked with rage, firing off several shots from his revolver. All misses. Why couldn’t he hit her? He jammed the revolver into its holster and ran towards Tempest, wailing with fury. Celestia! Spearhead! His whole day, ruined! And it was all her fault. Raven followed after him, her little bronze sword clutched in her jaws.
His cornu mareda was useless here. A rough tangle of bodies surrounded him like a bathhouse orgy, twisting and hot, so that he couldn’t tell friend from foe. He grunted in pain as a hoof connected right above his groin. He looked down. Wiry purple mare’s leg. The world righted itself. There was Tempest kicking and biting at the bottom of the least fun ponypile Blueblood had ever been a part of. Raven wormed herself in under a guard and stabbed at Tempest with the sword in her mouth. She struck armor, and the ancient bronze blade snapped. Tempest turned her head to bite at Raven. Overcome with rage, Blueblood lunged at her.
With his mouth.
His teeth clutched on Tempest’s trachea. Her fur tasted like sweat and ash against his tongue. He could end her and take vengeance for Celestia in a single bite.
Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh how vile. No!
Tempest wailed, the sort of hopeless, terrified sound that Blueblood himself might make. The air around her crackled with raw magic, and they went flying.
“Weak! You’re weak! All of you! Weak little ponies!” screamed Tempest, legs in a wide stance, shaking, smoldering, struck by her own blast.
Blueblood rolling into a sitting position and wiped a pastern across his nose. Red streaked his white coat. “And yet we’re quite a nuisance in large numbers,” he said. “Or at least that’s what I find. Raven, what is the current population of Canterlot?”
“Two million, three hundred and sixty-three thousand. Rounding down,” said Raven, rising from where she’d fallen and moving so that Blueblood was between her and Tempest.
Blueblood nodded. “And how many of those ponies would rather die than betray their friends and their nation?”
Raven huddled up against his back. “If you won’t, I can’t imagine that there are many that will.”
“Captain,” said Blueblood. “Do you think the six of us can defeat Tempest?”
“No Your Highness SIR!” said Spearhead, rising stiffly from the dent in the wall where Tempest had thrown him, wings out for balance. “But we’ll sure as Hades try.”
The other guards muttered assent.
“So, Tempest,” said Blueblood, grinning a lopsided, fatalistic grin. “How do you feel about massacring your own kind? Looking forward to it?”
“I’m not a pony anymore,” said Tempest, shifting anxiously from hoof to hoof. “I’m not like you.”
Blueblood shook himself, stood up, and lowered his horn. “You’re not. You’re a traitor.” Spearhead, Raven, and the others formed a half ring around Tempest and began to close in on her. Tempest danced away from them.
“What’s the matter, Tempest?” said Blueblood. “Afraid to get blood on your hooves?”
Tempest swallowed, eyes darting between them. “All you have to do to stop the bloodshed is join me. There can be peace.”
“But you don’t want peace,” said Blueblood, stepping snout to snout with her. If she’d had a whole horn, their horns would have been touching. Sparks leaped between them, making Blueblood’s forehead tingle. “You want revenge, right? You want to destroy everything Celestia ever loved? Don’t lie to me again; that’s what you said. Well, she loved me, and I believe she was very fond of Raven, as well. Here’s your chance to be a cold-blooded killer.”
“No!” Tempest closed her eyes and shook her head.
“You want to be a monster, Tempest, but you’re not. You fight for the raiju because you thought they were monsters. But they have hopes and sorrows and dreams. They love their nation. They mourn their lost comrades. Their leader makes toys of himself. Normal everyday creatures, just like ponies. Which is what you still are.”
Tempest lunged towards Blueblood with her forehooves, and Blueblood dodged back. “I’m not!” she said. “I am a monster!”
Blueblood stamped his hooves. “Then kill us, Tempest!” he screamed. “We can’t beat you! Show us what a monster you are! Show us what, a sad, tortured creature you’ve become!”
Tempest squinted her eyes closed. Tears shot down her cheeks. She turned and bolted for the door of the side passage. She paused there and looked back at Blueblood. The shame and loneliness in her eyes made Blueblood’s heart ache with pity. It felt strange, feeling pity for someone other than himself.
“Go,” said Blueblood, his tone soft. “Find Twilight. She can help you.”
Tempest showed them her tail. Her hoofbeats echoed away down the corridor.