//------------------------------// // Oath // Story: Scarlet // by Skijarama //------------------------------// “Can you not change into a pony?” Scarlet asked in a low whisper as she and Sclera emerged from the dungeons. She swept her eyes back and forth across the hallway for any signs of a patrol, but luckily, the pair appeared to be in the clear for the moment. Sclera shook her head. “No… not right now, at least… I barely have the strength to keep pace with you,” she said, her voice breaking somewhat mid-speech. “Changing shape requires magic, and I’ve spent five years in a magic-suppressing cage.” Scarlet grimaced but nodded in understanding. Much like a muscle atrophying after a prolonged period without use, magic too could become stagnant and borderline useless in a creature if they neglected to use it for too long. That’s how it was for ponies, at least, and given the base-level similarities in how changelings and ponies channeled magic, it should not have come as a surprise that Sclera’s magic was, for now at least, off the table. “Alright, then stay close and stay quiet,” Scarlet instructed, advancing out into the hallway and beckoning for Sclera to follow. “I’ll handle it if we get into a fight, but with any luck, we won’t have to worry about that.” Sclera fell into step behind Scarlet, her eyes darting around anxiously as, for the first time in five years, she willfully left the dungeons of her own free will. Her wings twitched erratically on her back, conveying her anxiety just as well as the uneasy look on her face. “W-where are we going?” “If Protea wasn’t in the dungeons, she will be in the lunar wing, if I had to guess,” Scarlet replied with a frown, peeking around the next corner. “Either a Nightblade or a Council member will be interrogating her there. Although, given what I have learned from you, they would realistically haul her to the dungeons once they were done anyway…” “Should we wait for them down there, then?” “Bad idea,” Scarlet dismissed with a shake of her head. “I’m not the best close-quarters combatant. My specialty is long-range artillery, which would be impossible to effectively use in the dungeons. Plus, in such confined space, I’d be just as likely to hurt you or get backed into a corner as I would be to even stand my ground.” Sclera gave off a quiet chittering sound that made Scarlet’s skin crawl but otherwise offered no response. The halls were eerily silent, just as they had been when Scarlet passed through them earlier, but there was something different about it this time. Maybe it was the fact that she was leading a changeling now—something she did not expect she would ever do—that was setting her so perilously on edge. “How did you meet her? Protea, I mean?” Sclera suddenly asked, causing Scarlet to pause for a moment to mull over how best to answer before turning another corner. “I found her in my wine cellar in Swanrun. She broke in to get out of the rain,” she replied, her ears drooping. “That was a month or two ago, give or take.” Had it really been that recent? It certainly felt a lot longer than that. “Was she alright, at the time?” Sclera pressed eagerly. Scarlet glanced back at her, stopping in the middle of the hallway for a second and planting her hoof against the drone’s chest. “Look, Sclera, I get that you’re eager to hear everything, but now is really not the time for these questions,” she stated slowly before withdrawing her hoof and narrowing her eyes. “When I get you and her out of here, you two will have all the time in the world to talk and get caught up. But right now, I need to stay focused on just keeping you alive, so please, be quiet.” Sclera’s mouth opened up, and for a moment, Scarlet thought that she was about to offer up some protest. But then, after a few seconds, Sclera sighed and nodded her head in resignation. “Of course… forgive me, I just…” she looked around her again, her expression contorted with fear and dread. “I know,” Scarlet whispered in a softer tone before beckoning for them to continue. “Trust me, I know.” They pressed on in silence for several minutes with Scarlet trying to retrace her steps to head back for the very courtyard that she and Lens had split up in. From there, she would be able to head the way he did, and, with any luck, she could find him and Protea. Then they could get out of this castle and find some way out of Newcanter. It took some time, but eventually, the familiar door came into sight. Scarlet gave off a quiet sigh, reaching out to the door with her magic. She turned to look back at Sclera. “We’re also looking for my partner, Sharp Lens. We split up in the courtyard up ahead to cover more ground. If I didn’t find Protea, then maybe he has. We find and link up with him and travel as a group.” Sclera nodded. “Alright… can I trust him?” Scarlet’s expression darkened with shame as she turned back to the door. ‘You can trust him more than you can trust me, that’s for sure,’ she mentally berated herself, the memory of how she had chased Protea away resurfacing in her mind. However, when she spoke aloud, she said: “I trust him completely. You have nothing to fear from him.” The door opened, Scarlet and Sclera passing through. “Ah, and there she is.” Scarlet went rigid, her blood turning to ice and her eyes flying wide. Up ahead, standing under the protective roof of the gazebo, was Silent Edge. A pair of Nightblades flanked him, both pegasi. To Scarlet’s rapidly mounting horror, she saw Lens and Protea, their hooves bound in chains and their mouths gagged, under the careful watch of Silent’s subordinates. Even worse were the four Dragon Sentinels that stood at each corner of the courtyard. Two unicorns and two earth ponies, each armed with heavy horseshoes and masterwork swords, respectively.  Lens made eye contact with her, his expression conveying the depths of his regret. Her heart plummeted on seeing the various bruises and small cuts that now decorated his body. He had at least put up a fight, then. Scarlet’s gaze then darted to Protea, finding her barrel tightly bandaged with a stain of red on her back. Her eyes were locked onto Silent, her nostrils flaring as she breathed heavily through her gag. Silent grinned at Scarlet and Sclera as they emerged. “And Sclera, too? I’m surprised, Scarlet. I thought you hated changelings,” he said tauntingly. Scarlet took a step back, ready to duck back through the door and make a break for it. She very well might have, were it not for the wide-eyed changeling mother that stood behind her, eyes locked on the frightened filly. “PROTEA!” Sclera screamed, moving forward to try and go for her daughter. The cry drew the filly’s attention, and Protea’s eyes locked onto those of her mother. “Mm-mrmph?!” Sclera lunged, and a spike of adrenaline pumped through Scarlet’s veins. They could not afford to be reckless right now! If Sclera charged, she was liable to get herself killed, not to mention putting both Lens and Protea in immediate risk. With a regretful grimace, Scarlet held out a foreleg to catch her, keeping Sclera from advancing. The drone’s eyes never once left her daughter even as she feebly struggled against Scarlet’s far stronger hooves. “Protea! PROTEA! Let me go, dammit! THAT’S MY BABY!” she cried hysterically, tears rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes then drifted up to Silent, and her lips peeled back to reveal her fangs. “LET HER GO YOU BASTARD!” “I don’t take orders from demons,” Silent rebuffed casually before taking a few steps forward. “Now, then, Scarlet. I don’t believe I need to explain to you just how hopeless your situation is. You’re trying my patience with your efforts, and so this is your final chance. Give up. Now.” Scarlet grunted before turning to Sclera and forcefully pushing her back, causing the fragile changeling to fall back onto the ground. “Sclera, stop! You have to calm down!” Scarlet barked emphatically. “He has my baby!” Sclera retorted, glaring up at Scarlet. “I thought we were trying to save her?!” “We are!” Scarlet snapped, her horn lighting up to keep Sclera down. “But going into a wild rage will not help us! Stand down for now!” Sclera snarled and hissed as she pulled against Scarlet’s magic, but it was clear she did not have the physical strength to overcome the battlemage’s grasp. Satisfied that Sclera was pacified, for now, Scarlet turned back around to face Silent. Her eyes briefly locked onto Protea to find her struggling against the Nightblade’s hooves in much the same manner that Sclera had been, tears of her own rolling down her cheeks and muffled cries to go to her mother slipping past her gag. Scarlet held up a hoof to the nymph, her ears folding back. “Protea, please, calm down. It’s going to be okay, I promise, just calm down,” she said in a vain attempt to comfort the foal, but it became apparent very quickly that her words were for nothing. Protea wasn’t even looking at her. Silent advanced another step. “Are you still planning on resisting?” he asked, his expression darkening with disappointment. “Do I need to spell out the situation to you?” There was a flicker of silver and a scrape of metal, and suddenly, Silent’s blade was held up Lens’ throat. The bound stallion sucked in a sharp breath through his nostrils, holding his head back to try and get away from the blade, but there was nowhere for him to go. “NO!” Scarlet shouted, panic overtaking her. She took a shaking step before coming to a stop when Silent pressed the blade closer to Lens’ throat, visibly pressing against the skin. “NO! No, please, don’t hurt him!” “Then surrender,” Silent snarled out, his brow furrowing. “I have not the patience for this ridiculous game any longer, Frost. You’ve caused me no end of trouble since getting mixed up in all of this, and I have run out of reasons to hold myself back. Give yourself up, and no harm shall come to you or your companions.” Scarlet swallowed heavily, her hoof slowly lowering back down to the ground. She looked at Lens, then to Protea, and finally over her shoulder at the still-struggling Sclera, whose angered cries had since devolved into pathetic, miserable sobs. And then she spotted the Sentinels. Each of them was looking amongst themselves uncertainly, and while she could not make out their faces or even their genders through their heavy plate armor, she could see their eyes. And not one of them looked comfortable with the situation. They shifted on their hooves, they glanced at one another, and they glared at Silent’s Nightblades, who similarly stared at the pegasus with shock. Scarlet’s eyes widened, and slowly, an idea came to her. Being careful not to make any sudden moves, she held her head high, her expression hardening with resolve. She looked to each of the faces in the courtyard in turn, making sure she caught their eyes before glaring directly at Silent. “...Look at you,” she spat caustically. “Keeping a child away from her mother at sword point… holding a stallion’s life on the edge of your blade for the sole sake of making one fugitive give up the fight. How noble and good of you. You’re doing New Equestria proud.” “Do not think to lecture me on morals, Scarlet Frost,” Silent shot back. “You, who have slaughtered several of my finest Nightblades in your delusional quest to defend a changeling, who left the entire city of Shimmervale quivering in fear after using your magic to mercilessly obliterate an entire home and street. You, who have interfered with my duties time and time again, even now that you know that the beings you seek to preserve are little more than demons and monsters, one and all!” Scarlet’s pupils dilated, and she turned to point a hoof at Sclera. “DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A MONSTER TO YOU?!” she roared, a vein bulging in her throat. “A mother, crying and weeping and calling out for the last of her children! The rest of whom, may I add, you murdered in cold blood?!” “For the sake of Equestria itself!” Silent countered. “The threat these beings pose could not be ignored-” “Then what of the rest?!” Scarlet interrupted him, turning to face him directly. “What of Lovestruck, the priest in Stonethrow, who you slaughtered when he went to defend what he believed to be an orphaned foal in need of a loving home? What of all of the ponies that Protea has stayed with that knew nothing of her true nature who you cut down without a second thought?!” Silent’s eyes widened, and Scarlet felt a small spark of hope ignite in her heart when his Nightblades glanced between themselves in shock, their eyes flying wide. They muttered amongst themselves, now staring into the back of Silent’s head with suspicion and doubt. The Dragon Sentinels were even worse, slowly lowering their weapons as they considered her words. Silent bared his teeth. “I did only what was required of me to fulfill my orders!” he tried, his own eyes darting around as he realized what was happening. “They left me with no choice!” “No choice?” Scarlet echoed doubtfully. “For a trained assassin such as yourself? Do not make me laugh. You and I both know there are a thousand ways you alone could incapacitate an enemy without ending their life. And I think everypony here knows that!” “Bah! Enough of this,” Silent snarled, his brow starting to twitch with rage. He nodded towards Scarlet. “The rest of you, detain her.” Nopony moved. Silent’s eyes widened with confusion, and he looked around at the others nearby. “What the hell are you doing?! I said detain her!” “And why would they do that?” Scarlet asked slowly, holding her head high. “When it’s clear that the orders they just received were given by a murderous psychopath?” It was then that it became clear that Silent had realized his mistake. His posture spread, becoming more unstable as he looked around at the increasingly conflicted ponies around him. In the heat of their debate, he had failed to deny her claims that he had murdered innocents. In fact, he outright admitted to it. Scarlet turned to face the nearby sentinels, her eyes boring into those of the nearest one. “All of you, listen to me! I am former Sergeant Scarlet Frost. I fought in the second half of the war against Talonreach. I saw and did many horrible things in my years as a soldier, this I freely admit. But none of it was done with a smile, and through it all, I never once turned my back on the oath I swore! The very same oath that all of you swore!” She turned to the other Nightblades, her eyes pleading with them. “Like all of you, when I signed up, I swore an oath to always uphold the core beliefs our nation was founded on. I swore, on my life, to preserve the ideals of kindness, honesty, generosity, loyalty, and laughter until my dying breath. And while I may have shirked my rank and the law, I never once cast aside my oath!” She pointed her hoof at Silent Edge. “Unlike him! You need only look at him now to see it plain as day! You need only look back on his history! The killer of Talonreach’s king, the hunter of children, the murderer of parents! The one holding hostages as leverage! He is a cruel, deceitful, selfish, heartless monster, far more than the desperate mother behind me! And so I ask you… are you going to stand by and let this perversion of our nation’s ideals have his way?! Are you going to follow the orders of one who has betrayed every part of the oath we all swore?!” “Don’t listen to her!” Silent barked, his voice trembling. He took a step forward, his blade leaving Lens’ throat as he jabbed a hoof at Scarlet. “She is a criminal, and she is helping prisoners escape! It is your duty to apprehend her!” But none of them moved. Silent’s breath was getting heavy, his eyes darting about frantically. “You… you cannot… this is insubordination! This is treason!” “No,” Scarlet spat coldly, her horn lighting up with magic. “This is justice.” Behind Silent, Lens and Protea both vanished in bursts of violet light. An instant later, they re-emerged at her sides, their gags and metal chains removed. Silent spun to look behind him, then turned back to Scarlet with his pupils dilating in rage. He let out a wordless scream of rage and charged. Scarlet was, for once, faster. A wave of unfocused magic shot out of her horn like a tsunami to slam into the charging pegasus, sending him flying back into one of the gazebo’s pillars. The stone cracked behind him, and he fell dazed to the ground. His Nightblades, despite their doubts, snapped out of their trance and went to advance towards Scarlet in his stead, wings flaring out and their blades snapping free. Scarlet screwed her eyes shut, pulling Sclera closer and pouring more power into her horn. She could hear the sharp whistling of blades slicing through the air for her, and she could even feel the air shifting as the first came within an inch of her face. There was a flash of light and an instant of intense wind before she emerged back into the hallway she and Lens had initially come from, along with the others.  She opened her eyes and turned back to the door, pressing her shoulder up against it with all of her weight. “LENS!” she shouted. “WARD!” The stallion staggered for a second, seemingly surprised by how suddenly everything had happened. Then, with a sharp nod, his own horn lit up with pale blue magic that then washed over the door. A series of glowing runes appeared along its surface, showing that his wards were in place. “Mom!” Protea’s voice echoed in the hallway. Scarlet turned to see the filly putting her hooves on Sclera’s chest, the older changeling laying on the ground in a dazed, confused heap. “Mom! Is it really you?! S-say something!” Scarlet felt a small pang of guilt in her chest. “Protea, we don’t have time!” she said, reaching out and lifting the filly in her magic. “There will be time for reunions later!” “No! NO! PUT ME DOWN!” Protea shrieked, thrashing violently in Scarlet’s grasp. “PUT ME DOWN, SCARLET! MOMMY!” Scarlet looked away, her heart twisting guiltily in her chest. Then, with a grunt, she turned her horn to Protea and fired off a sleeping spell. Protea’s eyes widened as the energy washed over her, then fell limp with a heavy sigh. “Scarlet!” Lens protested with wide eyes. Scarlet gently passed the unconscious filly to rest on the stallion’s back. “She wasn’t listening… I’m sorry, but we can’t afford distractions,” she said before marching up to Sclera, who finally seemed to be coming back to her senses. “Sclera, come on, get up, we can’t stay here.” “Is that really Protea’s mother?” Lens asked in a low whisper, his eyes roving over the changeling’s body. “I thought she was dead…” “As did I,” Scarlet acknowledged before giving Sclera a shake. “Hey!” “Ugh… my baby… where’s my baby…?” Sclera mumbled, her eyes finally focusing as she forced herself to her hooves. “Protea… where are you?” “She’s on Lens’ back,” Scarlet said in a reassuring voice while helping Sclera up. “Now come on, all of you. We have to run. The castle will be on high alert any minute!” A loud thud came from the door Lens just warded, and the lights flickered. Scarlet grimaced. “And that barrier won’t hold for long. Come on!” With a few motivating pushes of her magic, she sent Lens and Sclera running for the castle’s entrance. She sprinted after them for maybe a dozen feet before turning around, gathering energy on her horn. The ward was flickering more and more. It would break any second. “Fuck it,” Scarlet breathed, focusing. Her horn lit up with power, a sphere of unstable energy gathering on its tip. After a few seconds of charging, Scarlet grunted with effort and released the artillery shot, aiming for the roof halfway between her and the door. Sending her skidding back a few inches, the spell exploded with incredible force, breaking apart the roof and sending enormous chunks of stone falling down to completely block off the corridor. A pang of white-hot pain traveled down Scarlet’s horn from the exertion. She shook her head, gritting her teeth in frustration before turning and sprinting to catch up with the others. They weren’t out of the woods yet, and they would no doubt need her combat skills to survive. Silent Edge’s vision slowly came back to him. He groaned in pain, looking around at the courtyard, trying to recall what had happened. The entire front of his body was in incredible pain, as was his back. Slowly, he picked himself up out of the grass and took stock of the situation. One of the doors leading out of the courtyard was open, his Nightblades standing in the threshold to stare at a pile of rubble that prevented them from passing. The Dragon Sentinels, on the other hoof, were standing in front of him with narrowed, contemptuous glares. Silent snarled at their looks. “What are you morons doing!? They’re getting away!” The lead Sentinel stepped forward, his horn lighting up with a silvery aura to lift his sword. Silent barely even had time to gasp before the blade came to a rest against his throat, and the voice of the Sentinel spoke to him from behind the helmet. “Silent Edge, under suspicion of murder, and abuse of power, I am hereby detaining you for questioning.” Silent’s eyes widened. “W-what?! You cannot be serious! Are you truly taking the criminal’s word for it over my own?!” he demanded, outraged and terrified. The Sentinel’s expression did not change, though he did glance back at his comrades. “The rest of you, join those Nightblades and bring her in—alive, if possible.” He ordered plainly. “I will remain behind to deal with him.” The other sentinels threw salutes before turning and sprinting away to join their lunar allies. That done, the Sentinel turned his eyes back to Silent. “Even if she is lying about the murders, I cannot deny what I have seen with my own two eyes. Rest assured, she will face the consequences of her actions… and so must you.” Silent swallowed heavily, his eyes boring into the Sentinel’s. He briefly contemplated fighting back so he could continue the chase, but he quickly realized that to do such a thing would only make things worse, not to mention he stood no chance of victory. With a growl, he nodded his head. “Fine… I’m sure the Council can clear things up.” “I am sure they can,” the Sentinel answered before grabbing Silent in his magic and turning to leave.  “For all of us.”