//------------------------------// // Finding the Sun // Story: Legends Never Die: The Return of the King // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// Night had fallen, and Zoom Zephyrwing had just been released from her post - but her day was far from over. Once she had checked in with her commander, the pegasus royal guard spread her wings and flew towards - not to the guard house - but to Maretime Bay. She had a mission and she was determined to complete it. “Psst!” Zoom skidded to a stop in midair and whirled around to see somepony hiding behind a dumpster in one of Zephyr Heights’ many alleyways, gesturing to her. Rolling her eyes, Zoom landed in the alleyway and trotted around to meet the pony. “First of all,” she growled, “what are you doing here, Thunder?” The green pegasus sighed and stepped forward so that the artificial light from the city glinted off his helmet. “How’d you know it was me?” Zoom snorted. “Believe me, it was very easy. Now answer my question.” Thunder grumbled, “I saw you leave, and I wanted to see what you were up to. And then I thought, you must be going after Sunny Starscout and her friends, and I wanted to come with.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not doing anything of the sort,” she snapped. “Doing so without being given express permission from the commander would be treason. And I can’t leave the queen unprotected - who knows what those villains may be planning next? I was just going to do a quick lap of the city - make sure nothing suspicious is happening.” She thought it sounded plausible enough to her ears, but Thunder clearly thought otherwise. “I don’t think so,” he said, shifting his hooves. “You know I can tell when you’re lying. And you were given permission by the commander to search for Sunny - you and I chose to come back here. The offer never expired - you can still use that.” Zoom scoffed, but she knew Thunder was right - though the fact that he had noticed made her feel a bit uncomfortable. “Also,” he continued, now looking very proud of himself, “the queen won’t be unprotected. She has a very scary unicorn following her around everywhere.” Zoom snorted at the thought that Alphabittle could ever be considered scary. “Besides, there might not be a reason to protect the queen anymore.” That caught Zoom’s attention. “What?” she snapped. Thunder immediately wished he hadn’t said anything. “Um… I just… heard something. Last night, the queen and her unicorn friend were talking, and I was stationed nearby, so I… may or may not have accidentally overheard their conversation?” “Do you have any idea how lucky you are?” Zoom snarled at him, and he flinched. “If the commander found out that you were eavesdropping on the queen, you’d be thrown out so fast it would make your head spin! I couldn’t-” She slammed her mouth shut before she could spew anything else. Publicly admitting that she would miss the silly green pegasus if he were thrown out of the guard was something she didn’t think she could ever find the courage to do. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled. “I just sort of… was there.” “Well?” Zoom snapped. “What was she saying? Is there anything we should be worried about? A new threat we need to protect her from?” Thunder was silent. Finally he said, “I won’t tell you unless you tell me where you’re going and take me with you.” A low growl built up in Zoom’s throat. Why had she taught this pony diplomacy and how to stand up for himself? It had brought her nothing but trouble ever since she’d bothered to get herself involved with other ponies. And yet, whenever she saw him do it, a feeling of pride swelled up in her chest - just like it did now. “Fine,” she finally agreed. Glancing around them, Zoom pulled Thunder further away from the lights and bustle of the city until they were completely enveloped in darkness. Lowering her voice, she hissed, “The earth ponies have built this device that can detect magic - like, lots and lots of magic. Including the magic in ponies… if they had a lot.” Thunder’s eyes widened as he realized what she was saying. “So, if we got in there and figured out how it works…” Zoom nodded, the light glinting off her helmet. “I could find Sunny and bring her back.” “But you don’t have any clue how to work it,” Thunder guessed, and she wilted while glaring at him for spotting the one flaw in her plan. “And how would you even get in there? Breaking and entering is punishable by law, and I know for a fact that you do not have permission to break into earth pony technological facilities.” “We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Zoom decided, spreading her wings. “You’re pretty good with tech - I’m sure you’ll find some way to make it work.” The two guards took off into the sky, staying above the low clouds until they were well past the city limits, avoiding the spots that they knew were heavily guarded. As they flew towards the earth pony town of Maretime Bay, Zoom turned to Thunder. “So what did you hear the queen say?” He flinched, as if hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this. “Come on,” Zoom pleaded, “I brought you along, I told you what was going on. Now tell me, or by all the stars I am going to-” “I think the queen’s going to run off to go find the princesses,” Thunder blurted. Whatever Zoom had been expecting to hear, that was far from it. Her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide and for the first time in a long while, she dropped the formal posture she always carried with her everywhere. She only snapped out of it when Thunder took a picture. Shaking her head, she snarled, “Don’t you dare post that.” “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said innocently (and clearly sincerely, which, for some reason, made her even angrier). “But do you think she’d actually do it? Ditch everything just to see her daughters one last time?” “You make it sound like they’re going to die,” Zoom said dryly. The very thought let loose a series of thoughts that she had trouble shooting down. I’m sure they’re fine. “Not that,” Thunder said hurriedly. “But… Come on, Zoom, you’ve seen them with their friends. Do you really think they’d come skipping happily back to Zephyr Heights after this is all over when they could stay with them?” “Their friends could come live here,” Zoom suggested, but even she knew it was a long shot. Deep within her, she knew Thunder was right. Pipp and Zipp had developed such a close bond with their friends that she knew they would never voluntarily leave them for anything else, even if their mother was here in Zephyr Heights. The lights of Maretime Bay appeared in the distance, and Zoom focused on their mission. Some way, somehow, they had to find a way into the Canterlogic facility and gain access to what was most likely their most-protected piece of tech, and then figure out how it worked. Easier said than done. She automatically began scanning the ground below them and directed Thunder to a small area hidden from prying eyes just outside the Canterlogic factory. She and her companion poked their heads out from the bush in which they were hiding, watching as everypony left for home. Once the last ponies had cleared out, Zoom dashed out from behind the bush, snapped, “Now’s our chance!” to Thunder, and flew as fast as she could towards the doors… which shut and locked before she could reach them. “Oh, for the love of Haven!” “Yeah… I didn’t think that was going to work,” Thunder supplied unhelpfully as he landed beside her. She glared at him. “What are you doing?” came a stern voice, and the two guards turned to see two earth ponies staring at them, the larger stallion cowering behind the mare, both looking very familiar to Zoom. She squinted at them in the dark night until she came up with their names: Toots and Sweets. Sounding hopelessly cringy. “Please don’t eat us!” Toots squeaked, ducking behind Sweets’ tail. “Toots! Shush!” she told him, swishing her tail out of his reach before directing her gaze back to the guards. “What are you doing here? If you don’t give me a reason, I’m going to have to call security-” “We were hoping to borrow something of yours,” Thunder said, and Zoom shoved him, hoping he would get the message to keep quiet. “What? It’s the truth,” he said instead, approaching the earth ponies. “Well, not really borrow, but we want to use something - to find a friend. Who’s lost. And we heard you had something that could be able to help with that?” As she had been raised to believe that earth ponies weren’t exactly the brightest ponies, it took Zoom by great surprise when Sweets looked between her and Thunder with pursed lips and a concentrated look, seeming to put two and two together in her head. Her mouth dropped into a perfect O, and she whispered something into Toots’ ear. The chubby earth pony seemed to calm down somewhat. “You’re looking for Sunny, aren’t you?” the pink earth pony said slowly, meeting Zoom’s eyes. “You’re the pony who asked me if the magic detector could detect extra-powerful ponies like Sunny - you want to use it to find her.” Zoom shrugged. “More or less,” she said cautiously, not quite willing to let her guard down. Toots and Sweets looked at each other and had a silent argument, which Sweets apparently won. She turned and marched up the road to the door to Canterlogic and pulled out a key, saying, “I’ve been wanting to do that myself for a while, but couldn’t quite figure out how. Maybe the two of you will have some luck. Follow me.” It was eerily dark and quiet inside, and Thunder kept bumping into things - chairs, conveyor belts, white boards. “Could you try to make a little less noise?” Zoom hissed at him right before she slammed into a tall, wide machine that was bigger than she was. “Would you care to show me how?” Thunder asked innocently as Zoom massaged her muzzle. She shot him a glare as Toots and Sweets snickered. “Whatever. Let’s just keep moving.” The four ponies found the elevator and boarded, Sweets pressing the button that carried them down to the basement. The bottom floor was lit with an eerie red light that came from all the machines, and it was filled with a quiet beeping. The two earth ponies expertly led the way through the maze of machinery and to a door that Zoom recognized. Toots held his name tag to the door, and it made a beep before opening. Sweets turned on the light and directed them over to the computers. “We can’t really search for anything specific,” she explained as she sat down and began pressing buttons. “We can just detect magical energy as it is emitted, and we have our sensors tuned to magic more powerful than the average pony. Liiike… that.” She pointed to the top of the map. “That does not look good,” Thunder agreed, taking a step back nervously at the unnatural amount of red light coming from the northern mountains to show where lots of magic was being detected. “Maybe we should avoid that.” “We haven’t seen anything that could be Sunny,” Toots agreed. “Right.” Sweets started clicking around. “But I think I might be able to reprogram it to temporarily block out these readings so we can look for other things…” There was silence as Sweets typed a few things and opened a few new files and did some crazy technology stuff that Zoom had no idea how to keep up with. Suddenly, the monitors went from a bunch of crazy lines to a single, red straight line, and the constant beeping that had been present in the room from the beginning was cut off. “There,” the earth pony mare said in an exhausted voice. “That should do it.” And so they waited. It must have been an hour when the beep finally came. The red line suddenly was reshaped into more up-and-down lines like a heart rate monitor, only these formed the shape of… stars? “That’s it, that’s the other one we’ve been seeing,” Toots said excitedly. “It must be her!” “Where’s it coming from?” Zoom demanded, and Sweets pressed a few more buttons and flipped a switch, looking expectantly at the map. And… nothing. “That’s odd,” she said in a concerned voice, “this should show us where it’s coming from. Wherever Sunny is…” Thunder finished Sweets’ thought: “She must be off the map.”