//------------------------------// // Chapter 38: Rage // Story: There's a Monster Pony Outside My Window // by Halira //------------------------------// Wendy got up. She was going to beat the shit out of Sunset, one arm or not. Sunset Blessing had said that Andrea would be alright. Others had promised that too, but now, sixty years in the future, they were saying it couldn't be done. Andrea had only been in that position because they had gone through with that insane plan to come to the future.  She looked across the table; Sunset Blessing was gone. Everybody but her and Charles were gone.  "Guards! Please help me! Sunset's going to do murder!" Amicus screamed from somewhere outside the dining room.  "Get the prisoners to a more secure location! Sunset has blood in her eyes!" Legal Brief yelled, also somewhere in the distance.  "Auntie, stop! This won't change anything!" Líng pleaded.  Wendy started following but got knocked to the floor as a massive boom echoed through the air, and the entire house shook. "HOLY FUCK! WHY IS SHE THIS STRONG! SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS STRONG!" Amicus screamed.  "Auntie, please stop! I'm begging you! You're going to kill everyone in the house trying to take your vengeance!" Wendy and Charles scrambled through the dining room door and stopped in their tracks. A dozen guards had assault rifles aimed right at Sunset Blessing, who had collapsed down on the floor, sobbing. The entire front door was just gone, as well as its doorframe and part of the wall. There was fiery debris littering the floor, and Líng was calling out to guards to get fire extinguishers. Sinker was standing at the head of a staircase, looking so terrified he could run at any second. Legal Brief was holding Amicus as she sobbed against him.  One of the guards gestured to them. "Please go back into the dining room for the time being, for your protection. Miss Blessing does not seem to be in her right mind and presents a very clear and present danger." Sunset Blessing started standing up, and the guards took tighter grips on their weapons. It was a tense few seconds where it seemed they might fire.  "I'm fine," the unicorn said in a tired voice, ignoring the fact that guns were pointed at her. "Well, no, I'm not fine, but I'm under control." "You could have killed me!" Amicus screamed, looking up at her sister.  Sunset flinched at that. "I… I know. I'm sorry." "Why the hell are you so strong?!" Legal Brief demanded. "That was your sister, my wife you took a shot at!" "I was…I still am… angry. I lashed out. It…it was unacceptable." "Unacceptable?!" Legal Brief yelled. "That's your word for it?" "I'm sorry," Sunset said again, weeping.  Legal Brief scowled. "Come on, Ami. We can go to a hotel tonight and start preparing to move out tomorrow." Amicus's head shot up. "No! We're staying here." "You can't mean that. She almost blasted you into cinders!" Legal Brief exclaimed.  "Sunset has a temper," Amicus said firmly. "These were extraordinary circumstances." "This isn't something you can just blow off!" Legal Brief replied, looking aghast. "You know you sound like an abuse victim justifying their abuser, right?" Amicus stared at her sister for a few seconds before answering her husband. "I'm scared; I'm not ashamed to admit that, but Sunset is my sister, and I'm not turning my back on her yet. If there is ever a hint of something like this happening again, we will go. If you insist on it now, I'll probably cave in, but I'll not forgive myself for walking away. We've lived here for years without an incident like this. I'm asking you to give her a second chance; just a second, there won't be a third." Legal Brief's head sagged in defeat. "For you, she'll get her second chance. If she ever takes her rage out in your general direction again, we won't need the guards; I'll smash her skull in myself." "If I ever hurt Ami, I'll let you do it," Sunset Blessing said despondently. "I know you all don't feel safe right now. The guards can confine me to my room for tonight, and Andrea can decide what to do in the morning." "I think you should have an inhibitor ring on," Legal Brief half-snarled.  "That's not—" Amicus began.  "That's perfectly fair and reasonable," Sunset interrupted. "Someone get a ring. I won't fight it. My emotions are running wild, and my magic is far more potent than I know how to control. A ring just makes sense right now." She seemed too calm. That seemed almost as worrying as the earlier outburst—a storm held in check. "Are you sure, Auntie?" Líng asked. "You still don't seem right." "That's because I'm not. I'm helpless and angry and upset, and if one more thing goes wrong, I could snap again. Have the guards get that ring," Sunset Blessing said in a very even, very controlled way. Wendy just now noticed how labored the unicorn's breathing was. A guard did come and placed something around the old unicorn's horn. They then led Sunset Blessing upstairs with her giving one last sorrowful look at everyone down below.  Amicus took a deep breath and lifted her leg to show a similar watch thing. "I need to call Andrea. She needs to come take care of this." "Aunt Andrea is already trying to cope with the little version of her," Líng said, then looked over at Wendy and Charles. "So are they." "She still needs to come here. You saw what happened. That was Sunset coping. Maybe I should have let her just go down and murder those fanatics," Amicus said, flopping on her butt.  "She'd have been jailed for murder. They're detained and not an immediate threat. She couldn't claim self-defense," Líng said.  "I'm well aware; that's why I tried to stop her," Amicus snapped. "I just didn't think she would lash out at me." "At least that took the fight out of her," Líng said, sounding like he was looking for any silver lining.  "Let her reclaim her sanity is more like it. I think she still wants to murder those ponies," Legal Brief said. "She's dangerous right now. We don't know if that sanity will hold." "It will hold," Amicus said firmly. "She loves us more than she hates them." She then lifted her leg again and tapped on the watch thing a few times. "Andrea, are you there?" "What the hell happened over there?" Andri demanded over the line. "I heard muffled shouting, then it sounded like an explosion, and the line went dead." "Sunset went full psycho and tried to charge down to kill the prisoners, and when I tried to stop her, she took a shot at me," Amicus said. "Andrea, she's freaky strong. She missed me, and she about leveled the front of the house. The guards have an inhibitor ring on her and are locking her in her room. When are you coming home?" "We're on our way back. I've got mini-me with me. She's sleeping. They gave her a heavy sedation spell. She should sleep on till morning. You can't even tell anything is wrong when she has this necklace on. She doesn't know she is dying." Wendy started crying again. Charles did too as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. What were they going to tell the other girls? They had to be up after all that commotion. Mèng might be keeping them away, but they had to be up and wondering what happened.  What were they going to tell Andrea? How could they even talk about that with her? "The doctors really gave up?" Amicus asked. "Phobia seemed so confident." "Phobia and the doctors didn't know how bad this was. She already has failed organs, and a major artery has been burned away, not just broken or severed; the whole section just isn't there and just spilling blood out. It practically killed her for them to figure that out. If that unicorn were in sight when I heard that, I would have charged over to kill him too." Amicus started to tear up again. "So there's no hope for her." "There's one last chance, but no one is going to like it," Andri said grimly.  Wendy jerked her head up and ran towards Amicus, grabbing her leg and practically yelling into the watch. "What is it! What will save my daughter!" "Oww! Don't yell like that! You'll hurt my ears and might wake the kid," Andri whined.  "What's your last option!" Wendy repeated.  Andri took a deep breath. "You aren't ready to hear this right now. It can wait until morning when I have time to assess the situation." "Like hell! Tell me now! How can you be so heartless!" Wendy screamed and sobbed. "Do you think it's easy for me to look down at a younger version of myself and know she is basically on life support with a time limit?" Andri harshly demanded. "I get that you're her mother, but this is fucking me that I'm looking at here. You've no idea how this feels. What's worse, I have to be the calm and rational one because no one else can be a rational adult right now, and I don't want to be that right now! I can't sit here and lose my shit like Sunset, and I can't turn into a crying mess like you or Ami. I have to make the hard decisions." "Just tell me! I don't care if it is risky or I won't like it! Tell me how she can be saved!" Wendy cried.  Everything was quiet for several long seconds except for Wendy crying.  "Sunset is going to fix this," Andri said at last. "She's got all that power; then she's strong enough to cast the spell that is the real deal instead of that cheap knockoff she carries around in her necklace. She's the only pony on Earth who knows that spell, and there's no way we could get little me through the portal to Equestria in four days. There's too much red tape. That necklace would never make it through customs, even if we could get her through otherwise." Amicus gasped. "That spell is illegal! Sunset would be sent to jail for it!" "You're a lawyer, Ami; think like one," Andri hissed. "I can see the loophole, so should you. Those five don't technically exist right now. Not until the paperwork is done. Even if they did, and even if Sunset were to go to jail for it, she'd still do it. You know she would." "What spell?" Wendy asked.  Andri seemed to ignore her. "Sunset needs to get a grip on her magic, and she has four days to do it. It should take her months at least to do that, but she's supposed to be this great mage who can use whatever she has been given and make more out of it. Well, now's the time to put that to the test." "What spell!?" Charles yelled before Wendy could repeat herself.  Amicus shook her head. "She's talking about the real transformation spell, the permanent one. She wants Sunset to change Andrea into a pony permanently." "We could get in trouble for just being associated and complicit with her doing that if someone decides to take action against her," Legal Brief warned.  "That's a little kid's life on the line, and in a way, my sister," Amicus stated slowly to her husband. "I accept those consequences if they come. The question is, can Sunset pull it together? Andrea, you didn't see her tonight." "I believe you. I felt her enhanced power earlier, and I've seen her in a killing rage before. Her having both those things is a terrifying concept to contemplate, enough to make me piss myself, and I'm sure she is pissing all over herself too, thinking about it," Andri said in a low voice. "She has to pull it together. That's all I can say. We don't have other options." "Can she do it?" Wendy asked.  No one answered.