Sonata was at Turbo’s side the instant he touched down, terrified more by how unresponsive the stallion he was carrying looked than by the hideous wounds he’d taken. “Lex! Lex, are you okay?!”
“He’s out cold.” Turbo’s reply wasn’t directed at her, but toward the unicorn in the lab coat that was one of the contingent of doctors rushing onto the battlefield, followed closely by Granola Bar, Funshine, and Slip ‘n’ Slide. “I think he was still awake when I caught him, but he went limp a second later.”
The unicorn, whom Sonata belatedly recognized as House Call, the guy who had treated Lex before, was already unfolding a litter. “Put him down here,” he ordered, his voice clipped as he telekinetically dug through his medical bag, a nurse already hurrying over to assist him.
“Lex, c’mon!” pleaded Sonata, her voice trembling. “C’mon, wake up! You’ve been through worse than this no problem! You can totes shake this off!”
“Breathing appears normal,” murmured the nurse, putting her ear near Lex’s muzzle for a moment before moving it down to his chest. “Heart rate is elevated,” she announced after a moment. “Ten beats every five seconds.”
“Get me blood pressure, and get something on that head wound.” There was no change in House Call’s expression as he peeled back one of Lex’s eyelids, his horn shining with a bright but focused light. “I’ve got abnormal pupil responses. Possible concussion.”
“BP is eighty-six over fifty-eight,” reported the nurse, her voice grim.
“Internal bleeding.” There was a tense note in House Call’s voice now, looking at Sonata and Turbo with a serious expression. “The lacerations on his torso are too small to account for this level of injury. Did he suffer any blunt force abdominal trauma?”
“Any what?!” Sonata almost shrieked the question, not understanding what she was being asked.
“Did he take any bad hits to the chest or stomach?” translated River Bank, hanging back as she watched the procedure with a tense expression.
Sonata shook her head so hard her mane whipped around. “No! I mean, Starlight shot some magic beams at him when he was doing his whole freaky-flicker thing, but those went right through him like he wasn’t even there! And that junk she exploded didn’t look like it hit him that hard, and, and…” She trailed off, not knowing what else to say or how to help.
But she was saved from doing either as Turbo spoke up. “It was us.”
Sonata’s eyes instantly locked onto him. “What do you mean?”
“Lex, he…brought us back to life this morning.” Turbo let out a slow breath, still finding it odd to say that out loud. “We didn’t even know that we’d, you know…died. We just appeared next to Lex in that mansion. But when we did, he looked like he could barely stand, as if he’d just been in a fight and lost.”
“No way,” murmured Sonata. Belatedly recognizing Turbo, putting his being there together with what Aria had been saying about Lex right before Starlight had gotten all up in her face, she could feel a lump rising in her throat. “He was already hurt. When he came out here to stop Starlight, he was already hurt…”
“Yeah.” Glancing over at where his friends were clustered around Garden, Turbo licked his lips. “Listen, I hope he’s okay, but I have to go…” Sonata’s vacant nod was all he needed, and he quickly rushed over to where the one pony he hadn’t reunited with yet – and the one he most wanted to – was being seen to.
For her part, Sonata was barely aware that he’d left. “Is he going to be okay?” she whimpered, her expression clearly begging House Call to say that Lex would be alright.
But all she got was a brief shake of his head. “It’s too soon to tell. We need to get him back to the manor as quickly as possible. We’ve got a working ultrasound there, and we can use it to determine if he’ll need surgery or not.”
“Doctor, what about that filly? The one who has healing powers?” asked River suddenly, nodding at where the Cleansweep was flittering over her friends with a worried look on her face as more doctors tended to them.
For a split-second Sonata felt hope rush through her, only for it to come crashing down a second later. “She can’t! She-, Starlight tried to make her use her power, and she couldn’t! Something about how she needs her snake to do it and it’s gone now!”
“Then we’ll treat everyone using conventional medicine,” pronounced House Call, before issuing more instructions to the nurse. “Tell the staff that if their patients can be moved to bring them back to the manor immediately. We’ll triage once we get there.”
As the nurse ran off, Sonata watched her go, her heart giving a lurch as she saw her hurry toward the ponies surrounding Aria. The sight of her sister being wrapped in bandages made her eyes water, and she reflexively started to get up to go toward her, stopping in mid-motion as she realized that it would mean leaving Lex’s side. For a moment she was horribly torn, not knowing what to do, before House Call’s voice broke through her indecision. “Go to her.”
“Wh-what?”
“Your sister. Go see how she’s doing.” Holding one of Lex’s hooves as he took his pulse, House Call didn’t look up at her as he spoke. “I’ll do everything I can for Lex, so go check on her.”
Sniffling, Sonata nodded, getting up and shuffling toward Aria. But she’d barely crossed half the distance to her when a new voice rang out. “My wing!”
Sonata wasn’t the only one who looked up as Rainbow Dash stumbled over from where she’d crashed on the far side of what was left of the train station. She had scuff marks and bruises all over, but nothing that looked serious, save for her left wing, which hung dead at her side. Making no effort to hide her panic at her unresponsive limb, Rainbow’s face was pale as she lurched toward the doctors. “I need help! I can’t feel my wing! I-”
“YOU! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” Sonata immediately turned and started to gallop toward Rainbow Dash, her anguished expression contorting into one of rage.
“Wai-, Sonata?!” Recognizing the other mare from the brief period that they’d traveled together on Everglow, Rainbow Dash’s one good wing gave a flap as she instinctively tried to put some distance between herself and the furious mare rushing toward her. But with her other wing crippled, she succeeded only in unbalancing herself, almost falling over as she held a hoof out. “Sonata, calm down! I know you have a crush on him, but Lex hurt Princess Luna really badly! And not just her! You can’t seriously think-”
“Shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT UUUUUUP!!!” Her voice ragged, Sonata immediately screeched out a series of off-key notes, and a second later Rainbow Dash stiffened, caught in the grip of Sonata’s paralysis spell. “You don’t get to talk to me about Lex! Not after what you did! Not when you don’t know anything about him!”
Stalking right up to the frozen mare, Sonata continued to rant. “I am so sick and tired of everyone always acting like he’s the worst when all he does is try to help! Well guess what?! He’s not the worst!” She leaned in then, putting her face an inch away from Rainbow Dash’s as her voice dropped down to a growl. “I am!”
Another dissonant series of songs heralded another spell, and Rainbow’s eyes immediately grew wet, hot tears spilling down her cheeks a moment later as Sonata smirked evilly. “Feels totes awful, doesn’t it?” she taunted, circling the paralyzed mare. “Like you’re so sad that you just wanna curl up and die? Well, maybe this’ll help.” Another batch of sour notes, and suddenly rainbow’s breathing became irregular, huffing in short bursts as small twitches wracked her unmoving frame. “How’s that?” cooed Sonata, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “I bet if you could move, you’d be laughing so hard you’d fall over. It must be super unpleasant to feel like laughing your head off and crying your heart out at the same time, huh? Like you’re gonna explode from how crazy-intense those feelings are, especially since you can’t even move.”
Leaning in, she put her mouth an inch away from Rainbow Dash’s ear, her voice dropping to a whisper. “What emotion do you want me to throw in the mix next? Maybe you wanna be so angry that you can’t think straight? Or how about becoming so turned on that it’s unbearable? Or maybe scared out of your mind?” Shrugging, she pretended to think about it as she turned and sauntered away from Rainbow Dash for a few paces, before finally turning back and looking her dead in the eye. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed in a chipper voice, her lips curling upward in another smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Let’s do all of them!”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t answer, but Sonata could see her reaction in her eyes, and it made her grin turn vicious again, savoring how good it felt to punish the pony who’d hurt the guy she loved, suddenly wanting to rub it in even more before she kept going. “This is just the beginning,” she purred. “I’m gonna keep twisting your brains until they turn into mush and leak out of your ears. I-”
“He’s going into cardiac arrest!”
The sound of House Call’s normally-stoic voice filled with alarm commanded Sonata’s complete attention, her lust for revenge immediately drowning beneath an ocean of fear. “What’s-”
She couldn’t finish the question, her voice failing her at the sight of House Call desperately pressing down on Lex’s chest in quick, firm motions, several other ponies in lab coats rushing over to help him. For a moment she was just as paralyzed as the now-forgotten Rainbow Dash, watching helplessly as the doctors surrounded Lex, cutting off her view of him. That was enough to snap her out of it, and she rushed back toward them at a full gallop, stopping only when River grabbed her before she could hurl herself through the press of ponies. “LEX!”
“Sonata, stop!” yelled River, struggling with all her might to keep the hysterical mare at bay.
But Sonata couldn’t be calmed down, fighting to break out of River’s grasp as she saw someone inject Lex with something, the sight only driving her deeper into hysteria. “Lemme go! LEMME GO! LEX! LEX!”
“I’ve got a pulse!” The sound of House Call’s voice made Sonata gasp, reacting more to his relieved tone than the words themselves. “He’s stabilizing! We need to get him back to the manor now!” He’d picked up one end of the litter in his telekinesis before he’d finished speaking, the nurse from before grabbing the other end as they lifted Lex between them and began to hurry back the way they’d came.
Barely noticing as River released her, Sonata rushed after the doctors, sobbing.
She wasn’t the only one, as Rainbow Dash collapsed a few moment later, laughing and weeping in equal measure as Sonata’s paralysis spell wore off…
“My word, Valet…do you know what this means?”
Gulping nervously, the scrawny stallion nodded. “Yes, Your Highness. I’m sure we can impress upon Miss Bank to return us to Las Pegasus immediately, and then-”
“Are you utterly daft?” scoffed Blueblood, his lip curling with disdain for how foolish his servant was being. “Why would I leave now, when I have the advantage?”
“The…the advantage, Your Highness?”
“Of course!” Smiling with supreme self-satisfaction, Blueblood gestured in the direction that Lex had been carried off. “Did you not see what just happened? For all his boasting, that villain has hooves of clay! One tussle with that loutish mare-”
“That was Rainbow Dash, Your Highness. One of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s closest friends. The former bearer of the Element of Loyalty.”
“Yes, yes, whoever.” Throwing a disdainful glance at where the mare in question was shuddering on the ground like a complete wreck, apparently deeply distraught by whatever Lex’s girl had said to her during their private exchange, Blueblood rolled his eyes. “The point is that one lummox was all it took to put the lie to Lex Legis’s bravado. That means that his bluff has already been called! He’ll never go through with our duel now that his weakness has been exposed! Which means that I need to stay here and insist that he does, leaving him with no choice but to back down and apologize for his rude conduct!” His eyes wandered over to his mangled slipper at that last part, his expression darkening at reminder of Lex’s brazen show of disrespect.
“That’s brilliant, Your Highness!” applauded Pretty Penny.
“An insight worthy of a prince,” added Gladmane.
“You’ve got him right where you want him,” cackled Razzle Dazzle.
The other Las Pegasus ponies were quick to add to the swell of compliments, causing Blueblood’s chest to puff out with pride. “Now, since that cretin is staying in River Bank’s manor, I believe I’ll retire to that dingy little yacht of hers instead for the time being. Its lodgings are subpar, but let it never be said that Prince Blueblood isn’t willing to forego the finer things in pursuit of his duty to Equestria. Now, Valet, I want you and the other servants to form some sort of palanquin out of the cushions that we have and carry me back. All of this unpaved ground is doing terrible things to my delicate hooves.”
Murmuring his assent as he started to gather up the royal pillows, the gangly stallion who served as Prince Blueblood’s primary servant glanced back at Rainbow Dash one more time. She hadn’t moved, save for the tremors that wracked her body, but it was her wing that drew his attention.
Lex Legis had been overwhelmed by Rainbow Dash’s attack, that much was certain. But despite that, he’d still done…something, that had left the mare screaming and falling from the sky, her wing ruined despite not only her reputation as one of the best flyers in all of Equestria, but as part of the team that had defeated the likes of Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Tirek. And Lex Legis had been able to take her out, despite how fatigued he’d already looked when Prince Blueblood had issued his ultimatum. And yet now Blueblood was intent on letting Lex Legis rest and recover his strength before pushing this ill-considered duel, clearly thinking that he couldn’t possibly end up in the same shameful state as Rainbow Dash.
But that, or something worse, is exactly what will happen if this duel goes forward, he sighed inwardly, already despondent over the temper tantrum that Blueblood would throw when he lost. I suppose the only hope now is for something unexpected to happen before it does. Although unlikely, the effete unicorn clung to that thought as they began to march back toward Vanhoover proper.
An hour later, a train carrying five very worried ponies arrived.