Nobody knew who struck the first blow. The Unmarked claimed it was the Guards, the Guards claimed it was either the Unmarked or an overzealous counter-protester, and none in the crowd could recall seeing exactly where the blow was struck, let alone who had dealt it.
In a way, it didn't matter; once the first spark had been lit, the demonstration went up like a tinderbox. As if by some unspoken order, the Unmarked rushed the Guards, screaming unnatural battlecries. The line largely stood firm, but the few gaps the Unmarked managed to punch through it allowed them to reach the civilians behind. Screams of fear and pain roared in Rarity's ears as the crowd, too late, broke and ran.
A passing arm smacked her around the head, but instead of unbalancing her it brought her back into focus. She couldn't let herself get lost in the riot's haze; the other civilians, Sweetie Belle back home, needed her to keep her head. Shaking it to clear it, she looked around, gauging the situation.
Situation: not good. The Unmarked had managed to tear several holes in the Guard line, holes which they began pouring through like ants. Shining had pulled back to near the top of the steps, barking orders into his communicator, clearly trying to direct what was rapidly becoming a battle, but even with the Guards from the rest of the city coming back to reinforce the square they were clearly outnumbered. Those Unmarked who weren't fighting to reduce those already low ranks were loosing savage cries and charging the civilians, every so often running one down. She didn't want to think about what they did after that.
Then one of them charged her, teeth glinting like fangs in the light, and she let him come. Once he was within reach, she showed him the mistake he'd made, easily using his momentum to flip him over her shoulder. He spiraled away into the crowd, eventually slamming into one of his comrades and knocking them down.
"Sassy," she told her jaw-dropped friend. "I know how little sense this is going to make, but please listen; we can't run away. They'd ride us down long before we managed to reach our vehicles. We need to fight them off, or at least hold them long enough for reinforcements to arrive."
Pin ducked under a punch from an Unmarked before retaliating with one of his own. "And how do you propose we do that?" he asked, voice sharp.
She flicked a glance at Shining atop the steps. "Get to Captain Armor," she replied. "He'll know what to do. If he asks, tell him one of Twilight's friends sent you."
"What about you?" Coco nervously asked. "Why don't you come with us?"
She took a breath as she put a hand on her geode. Exhaling, she felt the familiar tingle of her magic, and gently smiled at her slack-jawed friends as they saw the construct gems dancing among her fingers.
"I already know what I need to do," she replied. "Give the Unmarked even more of a reason to hate me."
She was going to need a spa day after this, and probably an aspirin or two.
While Sassy and the others tried to sneak their way over to Shining, she was trying to draw the Unmarked's attention, something she was succeeding at rather too well. Since she'd fired off her first gem, it felt like a third of the Unmarked were trying to attack her, and while fighting with her mind wasn't the same as fighting with her muscles that didn't mean it was any easier. Every blow they struck on one of her gems was a throb in her brain, while every blow she struck with them was a crick in her neck. As another Unmarked jumped out at her and she smacked them away, she wondered just how much pain she could endure, and just how long it would take her to find out how much was too much.
A cry somehow pierced the roar of the battle, and her eyes trained hawk-like on a woman standing defensively in front of a young man, an Unmarked wielding a plank of wood like a cudgel before her. A quick mental shove sent the Unmarked reeling, and the woman turned in Rarity's direction dumbfounded. She mouthed "Go" at her, hoping that she understood, and found her hope quickly fulfilled, the woman helping her companion up and bearing him away, one of his arms wrapped around her shoulder. Another Unmarked appeared in the corner of her eye, and she was forced to turn away.
Sweat dappled her brow as the day wore on; more Unmarked challenged her and fell, more civilians managed to escape, and eventually she saw Sassy and the others jumping up the steps towards Shining.
A hand landed on her shoulder and she prepared to strike, but turned and saw that the hand belonged to a smiling Guard. She smiled back at them, and beamed as she saw their companions; they were rallying, regrouping. They stood a chance, now.
Heart aflame, she joined them as they pressed towards another cluster of their comrades, forcing through the besieging Unmarked. Now they were twenty, her making twenty-one, forming up into a wedge in an attempt to join Shining and the rest of the Guards on the stairs. They marched, batons and shields and constructs singing through the air, but found resistance thickening; three-quarters of the Unmarked must've stood against them, surrounding them and trying to claw their way through.
They were about fifteen meters from the steps when the first Guard fell, dragged down and swallowed up by the besieging horde. The last Rarity saw of them was their terror-stricken eyes and reaching hand, a hand which disappeared just as her fingers were about to brush it.
They pushed on, making it about a half-meter before the next Guard fell. Their foes' ferocity seemed to grow as they advanced, Unmarked who had at first only shouted or slapped the Guards' shields now savagely tearing at them, trying to rend their armor and mangle the flesh beneath. But still, they pushed on.
They made it three meters before the next Guard fell, two more swiftly following them. They were being overwhelmed, the wedge was breaking. Desperately, Rarity used her gems to shore up the gaps in their wall, though the spots dancing in her vision as the Unmarked pounded them didn't bode well for how long she'd be able to hold them. She held out long enough, though, the Guard who'd first found her managing to reorganize the survivors and lead a counterattack which bought them some breathing room.
With legs like lead, Rarity passed the ten meter mark, and felt her spine shiver as another Guard fell with a blood-curdling shriek. But not all was lost; Shining was coming down to meet them, along with those Guards who'd managed to find their way to him. The last quarter of the Unmarked were doing their best to hold them off, though, and it was an open question whether he'd manage to reach them before they joined their fallen comrades.
They were slowed almost to a halt at the eight meter mark, two more joining the fallen in the process. The Guard who'd initially found Rarity would have joined them if not for a well-timed construct, a feat the spike of pain in her brain would make difficult to repeat.
They crawled another half-meter, and then they were ten, and then nine. Rarity peered through her sweat and weariness at the steps; Shiny was still coming, but too slowly. They would fall before he could reach them, unless they did something drastic.
Gathering up as much energy as she could into her hands, Rarity prepared to do something drastic, something she was unsure she would survive. "Guards," she told her comrades. "I'm going to put as much as I can into this. Once I fire, start running; if they manage to recover before we reach Captain Armor, we're done for."
Not giving them a chance to respond or the Unmarked a chance to prepare, she bent to the ground and reached out with her magic. Razor-thin, impossibly thick crystals formed under the feet of their besiegers, and with one last command Rarity ordered them to rise.
The energy behind her command gave out as it approached the edges, but it was the center that was most important for it to strike, and there it struck with self-sacrificial desperation. The Unmarked between them and Shining were cast aside as if by a whirlwind, while those on the edges of the avenue so cleared were either themselves unbalanced by Rarity's gambit or the other victims of it. The way was open, but not for long.
"Go," she coughed, blood pouring down her nose as she began stumbling down the path.
The Guards followed her and quickly overtook her, though two of them, brave hearted boys, tried to stay back with her to protect her. She waved them away; if the Unmarked caught her like this, they would simply add two more bodies to the pile. She wouldn't tolerate having their deaths on her conscience, anymore than she would have Sweetie Belle's.
They left, and now it was just her, hobbling down the cleared road, desperately trying to outrun the roar of the approaching Unmarked wave. Shiny and the others were coming to meet her, forming a beachhead in the riotous sea; if she reached that spit, she would be safe. She would be able to see Sweetie Belle again, she would be able to live for her sister.
She was a stone's throw away now, the Unmarked bellowing towards her, but Shiny and the others were louder than them. Sassy's voice was as shrill as Sweetie Belle's, and it was her sister's hand she saw stretching out towards her. With the last of her energy, she leapt and reached for that hand.
Then a club took her behind the head, and all went dark, Sweetie Belle's crying face being swallowed up by a sea of clawing hands.