A screeching sound from up ahead, followed by a loud pop accompanied by a burst of light, made Aria frown. “What was that?”
Lex’s reaction was far less restrained, going stiff with alarm. “That was a fireworks spell, the kind unicorns use at parties! We have to hurry!”
On his other side, Sonata blinked. “For realsies? ‘Cuz this is, like, the worst place to throw a party.” Her comment came with a glance behind them, where the fire was creeping closer despite their having moved further toward the back of the building. Already, the heat was becoming pervasive, with smoke now visible above them as it collected at the factory’s high ceiling.
“It means,” hissed Lex, his voice thick with tension, “that there’s some sort of altercation going on up ahead!”
Sonata tilted her head in confusion. “Alter-what now?”
“He means a fight,” grunted Aria, picking up the pace. But she wasn’t able to move anywhere near as fast as she could have, still half-carrying Lex between herself and Sonata. “How do you know that spell means a fight’s happening? In fact, how do you know that was even a spell at all?”
“If that had been a physical firework, it likely would have flown upward, above all this debris, where we could have seen it,” replied Lex. Aria didn’t miss the strained tone in his voice, despite the fact that he was resting most of his weight on them. Even beyond the horrific wounds he’d taken, he looked exhausted, his face pale even though sweat was running down his brow. “If it hadn’t, it likely would have ignited more of whatever flammable materials this place is filled with. But the magical equivalent has no combustible properties, ergo that’s likely what that was.”
“So the kidnapper’s a unicorn?” asked Sonata, her eyes widening as a thought occurred to her. “Hey, is this one of those things bad guys use for luring people into a trap? Whatchamacallit…a lure?”
Lex shook his head, not bothering to react to her inanity. “That’s unlikely. If this was some sort of ruse, the perpetrator would almost certainly have used something less subtle in order to make us abandon a cautious approach. And although they have magic, they’ve never used telekinesis when fighting, despite the tactical advantage it could have given them. Which means someone else used that spell.”
Aria’s brow furrowed at that. “Who? It’s not like Feather Duster’s a uni-”
“No! NO!”
The scream, full of fright, that rang out from nearby answered her question, as they all recognized the owner of the voice.
Nosey.
Lex immediately withdrew his forelegs from around Sonata and Aria, shoving the two of them away. “Go!” he hissed at them. “I’m slowing you down! Go help her!”
Aria looked torn, glancing between Lex and the winding path ahead of her. “But what if that’s the less subtle lure you were just-”
“There’s no suggestion that the person behind this even knows who Nosey is!” snarled Lex, the words spilling from his lips faster as his tension rose. “If this were a ploy, they would have used Feather Duster’s voice! Go!”
Sonata bit her lip. “But will you be oka-”
“I said GO!”
Both sisters hesitated for just a moment, then nodded in unison, turning and running toward where Nosey’s voice had come from.
For his part, Lex managed to wait until he was sure they were gone before he collapsed, biting back the pained groan that threatened to escape from his lips. Even a few seconds of standing on all fours without the girls’ help had pushed him to his limits. If it hadn’t been for the iridescent spindle circling him – the floating gemstone that was enchanted to let its user ignore the need to breathe – he wouldn’t have been able to pull it off, his muscles clenching in agony from the combination of injuries and overtaxing, to the point where standing and breathing at the same time would have been too much.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. That stone was, Lex knew, his only hope if he couldn’t find an antidote to whatever he’d been poisoned with. The difficulty he’d had breathing before he’d delayed the toxin suggested that it attacked the lungs. The problem would be if the poison continued to spread, affecting organs like his heart…
Terminating that line of thought, Lex forced himself to his hooves, an endeavor that required three tries before he was successfully able to stand. His magic would keep the poison from being a problem for several more hours; whatever was happening with Nosey – and, in a few moments, Sonata and Aria – and quite possibly Feather Duster, since she had to be nearby, was far more immediate. He’d worry about himself afterward.
Forcing himself to move through sheer willpower, Lex put one hoof in front of the other, somehow managing to hobble forward. It was at a snail’s pace, but he refused to relent, reminding himself of all the times other ponies had paid the price for his being unable to help them. He’d failed to keep Nosey from being tormented by Xiriel. He’d failed to notice that Feather Duster was being blackmailed by River Bank.
He wouldn’t fail either of them again.
Dark Streak reacted to the sudden explosion of light and sound before she’d even fully registered what was happening.
One instant she was crouched over the pony who may or may not have been Lex Legis, ready to bring her dagger down and put an end to them. Then she was throwing herself into a roll, dropping her weapon in favor of reaching for her bandoliers even as she started to process that someone had just fired something at her. The specifics of what exactly she’d just dodged were less important than where it came from though, and even as her brain traced the trajectory back around to the equinoid shape hiding in the shadow of the vat across from her, Dark Streak was already throwing the small pouch she’d grabbed, one talon tearing a small rupture across its surface as she lobbed it at the indistinct figure.
Coming up from her roll onto three legs, she had just enough time to watch as the unknown pony reared back, their body language registering surprise as the small packet – known as a tanglefoot bag – hit them dead-center. Then it exploded, a wet splattering sound filling the air as the pressurized sludge inside the sealed bag burst outward. The gunk covered the pony almost completely, stopping just below her neck as she stumbled backward into the side of the vat, finding herself pinned there by the slime as she began to struggle, unable to extricate herself.
“No!” she shrieked, realizing that she was trapped. “NO!”
Her horn lit up then, trying to yank the sticky substance off of herself telekinetically. That wouldn’t work, Dark Streak knew. The mixture of tar, mucilage, and resin that the tanglefoot bag contained could be scraped off with any sort of edged tool, but the simple pushing and pulling of telekinesis wouldn’t be able to do anything to it. At least, not until the mixture began to congeal, something that would take roughly thirty seconds to happen now that it had been exposed to air.
But Dark Streak couldn’t bring herself to care about that at the moment. Nor did the sight of Feather Duster, slumped behind the squirming unicorn, earn more than a moment’s notice from the assassin. Instead, she found all of her attention focused on the trapped unicorn herself, her face illuminated by the light from her horn.
I remember her.
The sight of the bespectacled mare who’d quite literally bumped into her back in Canterlot, when she’d been looking for a magic shop where she could purchase the alchemical ingredients she needed for this job, was so unexpected that for a moment Dark Streak couldn’t do anything except stare. She’d checked herself over thoroughly after they’d parted company back then, making sure that the seemingly accidental encounter hadn’t been the unicorn trying to either steal something from her or plant something on her. When she’d found nothing out of the ordinary, Dark Streak had been content to write the entire meeting off as pointless, not giving it another thought.
And yet now that same pony was here, somehow having followed her across the continent in order to interfere with her assignment to kill Lex Legis. This can’t be a coincidence, Dark Streak decided as she looked the thrashing pony over in silent amazement. I’ll need to interrogate her-
From behind her came the soft scrape of metal against stone, almost inaudible over the four-eyed mare’s struggles.
-after I take care of things here.
Pivoting one hundred eighty degrees, Dark Streak stepped back to give herself some room, her free talon unwrapping and flinging the bolas that she’d secured to her belt in a single smooth motion, the wire taut and twirling between the wooden weights on each end as she released them.
For the second time in less than ten seconds, her aim proved true. The bolas hit Leg Legis just below the knees, sending the red-horned unicorn crashing to the floor as his legs were suddenly pinned together. He let out a pained groan as he hit the ground chin-first, her dagger falling free from where he’d been holding it in his mouth, hitting the floor with a clatter far louder than when he’d picked it up a moment ago.
This time Dark Streak took a moment to regard the pony who was supposedly her quarry, watching as he tried to futilely tried to kick his legs free of the wire wrapped around them.
She hadn’t bothered using restraints against Lex when she’d fought him before. Even with the incense she’d spread throughout the factory suppressing his ability to turn into shadow, he was still able to create black crystals that were sharp enough to cut him out of almost anything. But now…
Unable to resist a snort of derision as “Lex” grabbed her dagger in his mouth and started trying to saw through the wire, Dark Streak sauntered over to him. A sharp kick to the face was all it took to make him drop the weapon, and she couldn’t help but shake her head as she picked up her dagger, more confident now that this was an imposter. But it’s still better to be safe than sorry, she decided, raising her blade again. This time there wouldn’t be any interrup-
“I think it’s this way! Come on!”
“Shut up, you idiot! They’ll hear us coming!”
The voices, which could only have belonged to those two mares who were Lex’s playthings, were close enough that Dark Streak had no time to be irritated. Instead, she wasted a half-second glancing at where it sounded like they were coming from, silently judging that she had maybe five or six seconds before they were here. But that was more than enough time to finish whoever was intent on pretending to be their boyfriend off-
Except the pony with their legs bound underneath her wasn’t Lex Legis anymore.
Instead, it was a dull brown pegasus mare, her eyes filled with fear. But those eyes weren’t looking up at her, but were instead directed toward where the Sirens’ voices had come from. Even as Dark Streak watched, the unknown pegasus’ gaze slid over to where the four-eyed unicorn was still stuck to the vat, wincing as the two of them made eye contact. Finally, she looked up at Dark Streak, her expression turning into one of wry resignation. “You got me,” she sighed. “I’m not the real Lex after all.”
For a moment, Dark Streak was tempted to stab the mare under her to death anyway, just for having made herself so annoying. But that would have been pointless; by now the Sirens were close enough that she could hear their hoofsteps. Even though those two were idiots, they had enough magic that Dark Streak knew she couldn’t afford to take them lightly. Nor could she simply fall back; if they grabbed the ponies here and led them outside somehow, there’d be nothing keeping Lex – who was almost certainly still somewhere inside the factory – from leaving. Not to mention that the fire looked like it was spreading faster; she’d have to finish things here quickly, and then find out where her target had gone.
Clenching her beak so tightly that it was almost painful, Dark Streak began preparing to face Sonata and Aria in battle.