//------------------------------// // 27-3: A big mistake // Story: Imbalanced: Legacy of Light // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// “I was beginning to think I’d have to come for the sword myself,” snickers the unicorn. Magpie rushed ahead, unwilling to give the enemy the time to launch anything other than an evil monologue. He knew he was cannonfodder, but against a show of power like the one that was going on at the moment he had to stick to the plan. The only question on his mind was whether or not he would be able to raise his shield before the fatal blow came. The key to fighting magic users was to not give them time to breathe. Pack Rat screamed and did the same, only from the left. The noise was there to distract the unicorn, and give Magpie maybe a second to get close. At worst, Magpie would take whatever horrible magic the unicorn was going to doubtlessly use, upon which Packy could get into a position to lunge. Harriet just pounced straight forward. She didn’t understand much of what magic could do, but she had learned a lot from her previous scraps against the dragonslayers, and by now she knew her strength. She was also fairly certain that she was the toughest member of the group in terms of simple physical durability. As the unicorn’s horn lit up, some previously unknown instinct of her Corrupted side screamed at her. She couldn’t decipher what it meant yet, though. Prominence’s horn flared with magic, her eyes turned cauldrons of orange magma as her body turned charcoal black like in the slaver palace. The marble floor under her hooves began to bubble. In few seconds, the plan was to join the battle around the unicorn.  Gem’s role here was simple. She instinctively realized that turning invisible wouldn’t work here. The used potions lost the effect instantly, and she couldn’t trust shapeshifting in case the wizard could sense her in some magical way, which was more than likely. Her best bet was to use the distraction the others wanted to provide in order to get to the wizard and bite him directly. Her venom would work on a living creature, that much was certain. Several potions flew out of their loops on the belts across her chest, about to be telekinetically launched in the right order to cause maximum damage. After all, even if the plan was to bite, this was one situation where she couldn’t afford to be picky. Besides, she was fairly certain the wizard would be able to protect himself from melting or being blown up by her makeshift potions. Starry had his own goal. While defeating the wizard certainly was a thing, the way the army operated didn’t make sense to him. There had to be something more behind it other than the desire to subjugate a continent or the world. He had to get hit by some spell. Still, if he got fried instantly, it wouldn’t serve any purpose, so he aimed his hoof pistol and darted to the side with the help of his wings in order to gain a good firing spot. All that happened within the first second. A second too late, however. A stream of blue from the swirling maelstrom of souls around rammed into Magpie who caught it from the corner of his eye and managed to raise his shield in time. The surge of power and unnatural frost made his raised foreleg go numb and rime form on the shield.  Pack Rat simply crumbled on the floor mid-step, all strength leaving him instantly. He had no idea why or how. The unicorn teleported to the side, avoiding Harriet’s wild pounce, and she felt her instinct take over as something split away from her. She did something, that much she knew. The unicorn had only teleported, and her body reacted to it by doing something she couldn’t understand. Something which left her dazed and stumbling on the spot where she’d landed after her jump. Starry quickly turned his head to see where the unicorn teleported to, and grinned when he realized he was just by Gem and straight across the ‘battlefield’ from him in a clear line of sight. He fired three shots before his world shut down in a bout of head-splitting migraine. Gem’s love-enhanced reaction times left her completely unsurprised when the unicorn landed a pony length away from her after his teleport, and the flying potions shattered as they hit him. Nothing happened. A single second ticked away, which to Gem might as well have been a day to ponder and analyze the situation. Powerful changelings were nigh impossible to be taken down by surprise. Unfortunately, she could come to only one conclusion from the scatter of droplets of her potions, and that was that everything she’d prepared beforehoof turned to simple water. In the end, she had to stop her enhanced reactions, because after about three internal hours of thinking, she came to the conclusion that speed enhancement would be the best way to avoid the tentacles of blue mist currently reaching for her from the wall of souls.  Prominence froze, unable to control her body. No matter what she did, nothing was listening to her, and she felt heat grow inside her barrel. Metallic chains shattered the floor around Harriet, wrapped around her, tightly winding across her barrel in her moment of unexpected weakness, and pulled her down onto the floor. Magpie heard a pop to the right of him again, and blindly swung his mace. He hit the unicorn straight in the neck with enough strength to hear a rewarding crack of snapping spine. As he turned his head, he saw the wizard with his blood-covered head bent almost into a right angle watching him, unimpressed. Craaaaaap, he IS an undead! And then, the griffon’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed on the floor. Some souls from the edges of the eye of the storm split away and seeped into the unicorn whose head and neck returned into their normal state with a snap. Something invisible rammed into Gem from above, making her legs slide aside from the sheer force. The same chains that were binding Harriet wrapped around Gem as well, and she realized after a quick attempt that her shapeshifting wasn’t working at all. Less than five seconds. Together, after all that planning, it was over in less than five seconds. The unicorn calmly walked over to Prominence frozen on the spot. She felt her body grow hotter and hotter, but no amount of magic or divinity she could muster allowed her to free herself. The heat culminated soon, and with a flick of the unicorn’s horn, her chest opened, and the Soulstealer flew out with a wet squelch. “So you are that Celestia’s attempt at imitating me,” the unicorn berated her, flourishing the strange sword, “And a pretty pathetic one on top of that, considering how long it took you to try stopping all this. Still, you and that girl brought the sword here in the end while everyone was following the wrong trail, and that counts.” “Mistake...” growled Prominence. “Oh, so Sunslut isn’t just using you as a pawn to discard like she does with everyone else? She actually told you something about your origins?” Mistake laughed, “Then let me tell you this. I won’t kill you, any of you, no matter how easy it would be. After all, your little ‘adventure’ must have drawn the right kind of eyes at some point, and those love pain and struggle. You will live, and you might even try to escape, which you will regret when Stern’s goons catch you with my help. You will wriggle and plan out your fruitless efforts to avoid death. And in the end, you will evaporate when Celestia inevitably nukes this army,” he patted Prominence’s head, not minding her infernal heat at all, “Well, you might not, but the others will, and you will watch them sizzle and scream. All for the grand spectacle,” he turned away from her, laughing out loud, “I’d think fast if I were you, because your time is running out.” Everything went black. Gem gasped and opened her eyes. She was inside her tent, unharmed, and on the other bedroll was Starry Night, fast asleep with his legs twitching and mouth opening and closing. Looking at her forelegs, she noticed the scratches where the chains had bound her, so it hadn’t been an illusion. Everything had happened like just she recalled, which meant… She smirked. Maybe this… Mistake didn’t know everything. It was important to let Starry sleep and experience whatever his vision was in full. She silently walked out of the tent, fairly certain that the others will be coming soon to share their confusion. *** “What. The. Fuck. Happened?” Prominence was striding towards Gem, the earliest of the morning light melding the darkness only slightly in addition to a tiny campfire Gem had set up for the occasion. Harriet was with her, gasping for breath after the quick walk through the camp to Gem and Starry’s tent. Seeing an exhausted Corrupted was something that happened to possibly a single-digit number of creatures, which was more of a reason for Magpie, who was sitting by the firepit, and warming his still chilly left foreleg, to raise his head in surprise. “Do you mean overall, or to every single one of us?” asked Gem with calm definitely not befitting the situation. “Honey, we haven’t won, and that guy counts on this army getting evaporated. It might not work on be, but a tactical nuke certainly will on you, and I’ve gotten used to watching your ass whenever we take a shower together, so stop smiling and get to explaining. You’re the ancient, calculating changeling here, so tell me what the fuck is Mistake doing, if it really is him,” hissed Prominence. Gem tapped her hoof against the ground, and sighed despite her faint smile not disappearing. “I’m afraid you want a little too much from me, because I don’t know anything about this Mistake. However, I have spent some time thinking about our situation, and I know how we lost. Individually, I mean. Having perfect memory and supersensory awareness I can go through like a recording does help.” “Whuh haphnnd oo mee?” Harriet asked first. “What happened to you? That one is fairly simple. Your Corrupted instinct took over, and when you felt the unicorn use magic, your body reacted with horn rot. Even the weakest Corrupted are a nightmare to unicorns and magic users, because horn rot destroys their minds with pleasure in an instant, and makes their horns liquify and melt off along with their brains, leaving them a Corrupted themselves. The effects are widely documented in any research into Corrupted, although the fact that horn rot response kills the weak Corrupted outright and leaves the common ones drastically weakened is a less known fact. By everything I’ve ever heard, Harriet, your attack should have fatally ended the fight for Mistake. It didn’t. If you’d like to know why, I don’t even know where to start asking,” Gem shrugged in the end. Torturing herself over information she clearly didn’t possess would serve no purpose. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” Prominence punched the ground, “And now he has the sword, whatever it is good for. And no, you don’t need to explain to me how I got fuc-” Prominence took a deep breath to calm down a tiny bit, “-why I couldn’t do anything. If he has a control over that weird Corrupted who brought us here, then he likely can easily control my Corrupted side as well.” Gem nodded. “Yep, I came to the same conclusion. As for you two,” she nodded to Magpie and then to Pack Rat, “Since he clearly dispelled the effects of my potions instantly, he just knocked you out with magic. There are thousands of ways to do that - impact, temporary blood flow blockage to the brain, shutting down your motor center, you get the drift.” “You don’t seem bothered by the fact that we lost our shot, our moment of surprise, and that we can’t escape,” commented Magpie. “We survived. I assume that counts for something,” Gem poked his forehead, “Villains love their gloating, and leaving the hero alive has never turned out wrong for any bad guy ever, right?” she added with an unusual bout of sarcasm, “Granted, we are running out of time, but running out of time is still a lot better than having run out of time five minutes ago.” “So you do have a plan,” Prominence finally calmed down enough to take a seat across the firepit from Gem, and crossed her forelegs on her chest. “I always have a plan, if you count waiting and examining the situation from all sides,” as Prominence opened her mouth to object, Gem stopped her by raising her hoof, “But this time I have something a little better than that, and that is Starry Night.” “Oh?” Prominence raised an eyebrow. “While we were acting like ants trying to kick over a mountain, he did what he set out to do, which was to get hit by whatever Mistake used against him. He’s asleep right now, experiencing his vision or dream. When he wakes up, we might be a little wiser. With that in mind, I’d advise you to have a good night’s sleep. Magpie, I might need you to take over Starry’s watch and stuff in case he takes longer to wake up. You game?” “My foreleg’s acting up a bit, but sure,” the griffon shrugged, “It feel as if I shoved it into an icebox, and forgot it there for a day.” “Magic,” Gem shrugged, “Sometimes I wish I had Seven’s gift. It would make our current situation a lot easier. I’ll give it quick check just in case, come here,” she shuffled over, not waiting for him to move first. Harriet yawned, her tongues wibbling in the air. It quickly spread to the others as well. “Yeah, our bodies are smarter than our brains here,” Prominence said after the round of yawns had passed, “It should be another day of marching, so getting whatever little rest we still can is worth it. Night, everyone,” she stood up, and poked Harriet who joined her. “Oog aht,” Harriet’s back tentacle waved to the others. “We really need to work on your oral skills,” Prominence chuckled, making Harriet stick her tongues out at her. At least she was gaining some control over those. As they disappeared into the morning gloom, Gem finished her examination of Magpie’s foreleg. “I think there’s some neural damage,” she shook her head, “I can’t treat it right now, so you might be limping tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do after I’ve had time to mix some potions. For now, try to keep moving the leg as much as you can, and keep it warm to let the blood flow.” “Will do,” the griffon stood up as well, “Speaking of which, Prominence cursing that hard and then making a sex joke. That’s not usual.” “Yeah, she’s freaking out, but isn’t letting it show too much,” Gem nodded, “Can’t blame her, really. You’re awfully calm about all this, though.” “You know me. Just point me in a direction and unhook the leash,” Magpie shrugged, “If I go kaboom, step over the red, gross pile.” “You really should-” The griffon flicked Gem’s ear with his talons. “You should make sure the important ponies survive and can make sense of what happened tonight and what we can do to stop it. Hired muscles like me are dime a dozen. Pack Rat, let’s go.” When the two left, Gem shook her head to herself, doused the fire, and returned to her tent to finally catch some sleep. Shortly after, she heard a gasp from her right, and Starry sat up, breathing heavily. “What did you see?” asked Gem immediately. He gradually calmed down, eyes open but not particularly looking at anything. “Two worlds. All the seal keys forming a magical circle twice, one in each world. One world was barren, charred, and dead. The other one was… it was… I saw...” Starry facehoofed, “I know where the seal key is supposed to be used, the altar from site alpha is the central point. On one side there was the bubble of the Crystal Empire, and on the other was the Everhoof range-” Chill ran down Gem’s spine. “That’s near my hive...” she whispered. “I saw something massive break the ground and crawl up, like a huge torso with spider legs supporting it. It was… it was as tall as Canterlot castle. Then a rift opened, like one of those Flow opens when he teleports, but this one was massive, and then… then darkness swallowed everything,” he blinked, shook his head, and looked at Gem with eyes wide open, “I know what Flow wants, and I know how he wants to do it. The creature he releases will open a rift into the void so huge nothing will be able to close it, and it will devour our reality. Time, existence, matter, energy, potential… everything will end.” Something was wrong, and it took Gem a moment to figure out what. “How did you get a vision about Flow from getting hit by Mistake?” “It’s all connected. One key is connected to warlord Stern, that’s why all this is going on. Mistake can’t get it from him with magic for some reason,” Starry slumped back on his bedroll, “Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.” “That is more than I dared to hope,” mused Gem, now lying on her back with her eyes closed, “We know where the final attack will happen, we know how, and all we need to do now is to somehow warn those who can help.” “That presumes getting out of here,” commented Starry. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll talk about it with Promi tomorrow.” *** Looking at the fortress in the distance, Prominence knew their time had run out. Over the past two days, the army had crossed a desert strip separating central Zebrica from the states on the north coast. It had been a rough trek, but the army had plodded through no matter what. What had awaited them must have been expected, and that had been another day’s worth of a trip through a recently burned section of land, likely done so not to allow the army to gather food on the way. Not that it had mattered, because the mysterious Corrupted had dragged enough victims with supplies before the desert trip, upon which the steady stream of newcomers slowly dried out, ending in about one van per day. Promi had her theory about it, which was that the desert would now be full of the dead who had been used only as carriers for fuel and everything else the army needed. Why the Corrupted wasn’t simply drawing citizens of the northern territories was a mystery, because if it could envelop an entire city, there was nothing that could stop it from just taking over Northern Coalition territories on its own. Maybe the united zebra armies had figured out some sort of protection, but that didn’t matter anymore. As noted before, their time had run out. “Celestia?” Prominence sensed her maker after so long, but as much as she would like to let out a relieved sigh, she genuinely couldn’t. “Prominence?! What are you doing here?” the surprised voice of the princess of the Sun still warmed her inside, though. “Long story short, I have intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the zebra army, about their unicorn wizard, and Flow’s ultimate goal. Am I right in assuming that you are here to evaporate everything for leagues around?” “Yes, I am. The zebra leaders agreed on a tactical spell strike. I am the power source for it, and the orders of unicorns are here to aim.” “And where are you?” “In the port city of Zem.” “So, not in the fortress right past the burned land we’re about to siege?” “All border fortresses have been evacuated. There are only volunteers with access to underground bunkers who keep the lamps lit and inform us about the army sightings. What can you tell me if you’re in the zebra army, and if time allows - how by the stars did you get there?” “That all depends on whether you can call the strike off, because I’m not here alone. Luna’s son Starry Night is here, Gem from the northern changeling hive is here, and few others.” The sudden silence of their touching minds made Prominence smirk in reality. She didn’t know how separate from the princess she truly was, and the ability to still completely shock her creator did bolster her individuality. “Luna is in Canterlot, investigating the involvement of Silver Sun in all this while Twilight is in charge. I can’t talk to her, but isn’t Starry protected by her stasis spell like? He might be the safest one in there.” “Yeeeeeah, he had to strip her spell off of himself to use his natural talent and figure everything out. Oh, and few more things - the Soulstealer sword was his goal all along and, sorry to say it, Bladedancer is dead. Flow killed her while she was protecting Starry after being hit.” She couldn’t hear Celestia sigh, but she was sure she felt it. “Prominence, tell me everything. We can’t call the strike off. The spell is being channeled as we speak. Our scout warned us about your arrival, so we started the ritual about an hour ago.” “Fuuuuuuck...” Prominence breathed out. She had to… she had to… she wasn’t sure what to do.  There had to be something to do about this. The nuke would hit the army no matter what now. She had to save her friends, but… No, what was crucial was to share her knowledge. And that’s what she did. Mental communication had the advantage of being quick, so telling Celestia everything that had happened since she’d left Canterlot with Gem, Packy, and Magpie wasn’t a blow to their remaining time. She had to think. She knew she would survive most likely, being corruption and fire incarnate, but she was young after all… too young to take the incoming death of her companions in stride. “Look, can you at least make sure the nuke is fire-based? I mean not some thermobaric shit, but just genuine incinerating firestorm? You can go all out or something.” Celestia was silent. “Mistake...” she eventually whispered, “What? Yes, I think I can help with that if you’re not in the center of the army.” “Good, thanks! How much time have we got?” “Two hours at most.”  “Then I have a lot of stuff to do.” Prominence gave one final look to the zebra fortress in the distance, turned around, and bolted so hard sparks flew from her tail. It turned out that a mad, magic enhanced dash around the edge of the camp took only half an hour before she shoved her head through the tent flaps of the medicine tent where Gem was currently examining zebras with various illnesses Prominence didn’t understand, being a divine creature and all. “Gem, get your striped ass over here!” she bit the changeling’s tail and hissed, pulling her away with no regard for Gem’s award-winning zebra plot. Outside, she let her go and whispered into her ear, “We have about hour and half before we blow up. Correction - before you blow up.” “Already?” Gem frowned. “Yes, so get to brewing fireproofing potions. I told Celestia everything, but the spell has already started. All she can do is to turn it into pure fire magic. You get the potions, I stand in the front, and we hope for the best?” Prominence gave Gem a pleading look, hoping that the changeling would come up with something, anything better. “We’ll need more than that, much more,” Gem muttered, “Okay, you get the others here. I’ve got few zebras here so pumped up on my venom they’ll do anything I ask, and I need hooves. I’ll also need a bathtub or something big enough to properly soak a full tent in. I’ll also need few tents, the thickest helmets you can find, and… no, that might be enough. I need time, every minute counts.” “Where should I get spare helmets? Everyone here has just their clothes and a sword-” “Trade someone high up for a quickie with your ass or something, I don’t care! No one could last with that thing more than few seconds anyway, so go for volume discount,” Gem hissed back at her, and stormed back into the medicine tent. *** The army hadn’t moved. Clearly, no one was ready for the sky to go dark within minutes. Lightning crackled above, and the few first flakes of ash floated through the air like droplets of black rain. Gem was sitting by a fireplace at the edge of the camp as zebras were milling around, calling for orders and explanations of the increasing amount of red sparks flying through the clouds. “I’ve never made a jug of fireproofing potion before,” she passed the container to Magpie, Starry, Packy, and in the end to Harriet, “I’m not sure how or if it will work on you, Harriet. I’m sorry.” “Ahm a draghn! Ahnd a Khorghupftd,” Harriet announced as carefully as she could, tapping her puffed out chest with her foreleg. It was all bravado, but Prominence had told all of them what was coming, and they knew there was nothing they could do. All of them were wrapped in tent flaps soaked with Gem’s brews, ready to put on specially treated and padded helmets. Not for any additional fire resistance, but to shield their eyes. After all, it would be pointless if they survived but were completely blind, even though point one was still a huuuuge if. Next up were the potions stopping them from needing to breathe, because all oxygen would burn out quickly. Simple lung capacity wouldn’t have worked, or maybe it would, but Gem wasn’t about to risk taking a deep breath and then having the air in her lungs explode her from the inside. Flames danced through the air openly now, and the black sky started boiling. The full divine power of the alicorn of the Sun was about to be unleashed, and the minds and horns focusing it had to be straining to maximum to prevent the incineration of the whole continent or possibly the world. No one knew exactly how powerful Celestia was, simply because no one had ever seen her go all out. An alicorn who was so powerful in her divinity that it limited her use of magic to the level of mundane unicorn wizards.  All that was about to strike and test Gem’s alchemy and shapeshifting to its limits. She regreted not being able to help the mostly innocent zebras fleeing the camp, sure that Stern’s top goons wouldn’t be able to catch them all while the growing firestorm inevitably would. The only reason the small group sitting still hadn’t been trampled was Prominence in her volcanic form standing in a circle of bubbling magma surrounding the group. “Dad… I know I wasn’t home as much as I should have, and I’m not enough of a liar to promise that I’m going to settle down in Brauheim for a decade or two if I survive this, but if I do I’m going home and giving you, mom, and Three a big hug. Hole, I might throw in few others for good measure.” Of course no one could hear her thoughts as she pulled her helmet over her eyes.  *** Warlord Stern barged into Mistake’s tent where the unicorn was standing with his horn glowing. The zebra slave mare who had been with him since their first destroyed city was lying on the carpet, clearly dead but with no visible wounds. “What’s going on?!” Stern barked out. “They actually did it,” said Mistake slowly, “They actually decided to destroy the land itself to stop us.” “What do you mean?” Stern shook the smaller unicorn by his shoulders. “It means that it’s over. Nothing can survive Celestia’s full power. This is divinity, not just magic. I can’t stop it. It will be worse then any spell strike against griffons during the pony-griffon wars which left areas of the Griffon Empire dead even to this day. And those days, she was only supporting the wizards. This is all her divinity.” “Stop it, that’s an order!” Stern growled at Mistake. “I can’t,” Mistake shook his head, “This is too much. If this was magic, I could think of something, but I can’t stop divinity. Face it. Your conquest of the world is over!” “I AM THE RIGHTFUL HEIR OF ZEBRICA!” Stern screamed at him, “I DESERVE-” “I can save you,” said Mistake quietly, “and you can start over in the northern territory. No one knows who really was in charge of this army. We killed everyone attempting to escape.” “THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!” Stern punched a hole in the tent. “You know what I want,” Mistake looked straight at him. “Fine, fine!” Stern kicked a wardrobe as he started pacing back and forth, “I’ll open the family cache for you. Can you get us there and then to some village in the north? Doesn’t really matter which.” Mistake nodded. “I can teleport us that far, since the land isn’t corrupted.” With a flash of light, the two disappeared. They reappeared in the wilderness familar to them, a beautiful forest spreading everywhere the eye could see with only one exception - a metal square set in the ground. Stern lowered his head over it, the square beeped and opened out, revealing it was a trap door all along. Mistake followed him down a set of stairs and into a metal tunnel barely over a pony tall and three ponies wide. It wasn’t long, and at its end there was a metal door with a panel in the side. The zebra warlord leaned down to the panel which beeped again. “Remember, unicorn,” Stern hissed, “The best zebra technicians from my family studied this technology, and everything in there belongs to me and ME only.” Mistake followed Stern inside, looking around the circular room filled with alcoves on the walls, all containing what had to be some sort of high-tech devices the purpose of which was of no interest to the unicorn. “I never thought zebras would be able to reprogram a Silversmith cache biometric scans for themselves,” said Mistake, striding towards a pedestal in the center on which lay something that looked like a granite cube covered in runes. He picked it up, and it disappeared with a flash of teleportation, “Much less rig it to blow up along with everything inside it if the wrong guy managed to get inside.” “We are a crafty species, unicorn,” Stern glared at him from his height, “Especially when we had to face your kind throughout history. Now, you will send me to-” Stern rose from the ground as faint blue glimmer enveloped his neck, cutting his sentence off. “You will never understand how much I despise everything about you, you vile, sadistic piece of shit, but you were useful. You don’t deserve to be a spirit and continue the cycle, you’re just food,” growled Mistake, and the blue glow twisted, snapping Stern’s neck with a sickening crack. Blue spark flew out of Stern’s body, headed for the Soulstealer in a sheath on Mistake’s back. Before it could reach, the unicorn caught it in his mouth and swallowed. *** Prominence felt Celestia screaming as her power was being drawn out of her at much vaster volume than the ritual required. Something was completely wrong. Eventually, her mental connection to Celestia weakened, and she knew the alicorn passed out. That, under no circumstances, should have happened. She was terrified to look behind her, to see what happened to the others, because she was seeing with absolute clarity what happened to everyone else. The ground was just ash. There were no bones, only pools of molten metal everywhere. The tactical spell was supposed to hit just the army, but… ...it clearly hadn’t. She looked to the fortress to the north, from which only few blackened stumps belonging to the bases of the thickest turrets remained, and the dead land continued on and on. Either Celestia had lost control, or the ritual was flawed on some level, but the spell incinerated everything.  She couldn’t look behind her. She didn’t have the strength to look behind her. She didn’t have the courage to look behind her. “Aghwwww...” At least until she heard the groan of who had to be Harriet. She jerked around, and her eyes watered as she saw the huddled figures with tentacles wrapped around them. “I think...” Gem touched her helmet which crumbled into dust, “I could go for a drink...” Prominence pounced at the now undisguised changeling and rolled her over on the ground, unable to see again through the haze of freely flowing tears. “Geez...” Gem patted the unicorn’s back, and coughed out a bit of dust, “That asbestos carapace might have been overkill, but since Three can cure cancer, I think I’ll be okay.” After an unsuccessful attempt to shove away Prominence still holding onto her like a tick, Gem simply sat up, the potion-treated tent still baked onto her body. She was alright, and the tentacles curling around her proved that so was Harriet. “Promi, shove off!” Gem slapped her lightly, making her look up and let her go, “Everyone?” “Ahwwww...” Harriet groaned again. Gem grabbed another helmeted figure with much more care, but the helmet crumbled again, showing ash-covered batpony underneath. “Starry?” she whispered. He gasped for breath, but couldn’t say a word, instead just clutching the charred mix of his coat, skin, and the tent. Magpie and Packy were the same way. “Second-degree burns all over,” Gem waved her hoof in front of Starry’s face, “Eyes still working. We need something to stop infection and-” She finally stopped, realizing that there was nothing to stop the infection anywhere. The world was made of black and grey ash on all sides and everywhere. “I… so this is what happens when Celestia gets mad?” she chuckled nervously and then burst out into crying and laughing at the same time. Everything she’d learned over the centuries, all her alchemy and shapeshifting, all that faced the full fury of the alicorn of the Sun… ...and proved worthy. With Prominence shielding them all and Harriet’s back in the way of the spreading conflagration, of course. She saved them all. Her analytical mind corrected her in her moment of victorious joy. She saved them for now. They were badly burned, and she would have to treat them enough to be carried… somehow, or to be able to walk. Her job was far from over. “No, Gem,” said Prominence, pointing at the empty space all around, “This wasn’t supposed to happen. The army was supposed to get hit, not the whole damn continent!” It was at that moment when she felt Celestia wake up again, and the princess’ shock seeped into her as well. “What happened, Sunny?” she asked. “It’s… gone...” “What?” “I’m looking out of a fifth floor window. Half of Zem is gone, just black ash everywhere. Did the spell misfire? Was it reflected back here? What happened?” “No, Sunny,” replied Prominence in horror of the realization, “It started here, and if you’re saying it reached all the way to you… in a circle...” “I incinerated a quarter of the continent,” Celestia started sobbing, “All refugee camps, all cities, all survivors of the army massacre fled here...” “Sunny, we need help,” said Prominence sharply to draw Celestia out of the setting shock. “What? We?” “Yes, all of our group including Luna’s colt survived, but they are in no shape for transport. We need an ambulance with proper gear, and a surgeon. Gem might keep them alive, but with no equipment or even goddamn water it won’t be for long.” “I’ll send somepony right away. No, I’m coming myself so that they can find you quickly,” she heard Celestia reply, and felt what Gem had to be going through as well. It was important to get busy, to get helping. There would be time for emotions later. Unable to watch Gem silently dripping various kinds of goo from her mouth and mixing those into something for everyone’s wounds, Prominence looked into the distance, and froze. She could see a tiny black blot, but she knew with creeping dread what or who it was.  Mistake raised the Soulstealer, and the temperature started rapidly going down. Blue sparks appeared, seemingly flying from massive distances and coalescing into blue mist around the unicorn. “We need to hide!” Prominence turned around. “Are you crazy? We can’t move them,” objected Gem. “Harriet, dig a hole or something, now!” Prominence pointed towards the gathering blue mist which Gem quickly recognized as the flow of souls like back in the pocket dimension. Harriet worked quickly, and the distant view of Mistake was quickly blocked by an artificial dune made from ash. However, suspicion crept into Gem’s mind as she cleaned the mess baked on Packy whose mouth was open in a silent scream. The more she thought about it, the more her paranoia grew. Mistake hadn’t been lying when he told them this was supposed to happen, had he?