Chapter 3: Realizations and Troubling Thoughts
"What do you mean, dead?" Fortress ripped the page out of the journal, wrinkling it up in a quick haste, and hid it behind her ear. It was very important that Silvershot didn't learn who the leader of the Vanguard was. It would shatter what was left of his amnesiac self.
She stood next to him and nearly screamed when she saw what he had found. The body of the deceased Chief Editor was lying under the blood stained sheets. Silvershot prayed to Celestia for forgiveness for examining the body without any prior medical experience. He took the sheets off of the bed and carefully looked at the Chief Editor’s body.
The Chief Editor was tortured to death. There were bruise marks everywhere and the swishing of water in his stomach when Silvershot turned him over, showing that he was drowned. Those methods of torture did not compare to the very last gruesome one. The Chief Editor's cutie mark had been branded with a circle and a capital ‘V’. The brand nearly covered his entire cutie mark.
Fortress teared up as Silvershot closed the Chief Editor's eyes. He had died with his eyes open, a horrible way to leave a body. He recovered the body, along with the blood stained sheets. He stomped his hoof on the floor, grunting in anger.
"It was those damn Vanguard Knights!" Silvershot cursed. "That 'V' means Vanguard!"
"Silvershot, you don't have to be angry. There's nothing you could have done," Fortress said, trying lighten Silvershot's anger.
"This was a brutal murder. It looks like he hasn't been dead for more than a couple of hours. We could have brought him to a hospital if I didn't get lost. I wish I could have..."
Fortress stopped his tirade from continuing any further. She put her hoof over his mouth and gave him a hug. His anger went away as he felt Fortress' slow heart beat against his own. His anger was ultimately overwhelmed by kindness.
"All we can do so that the Chief Editor's death isn't in vain is to follow his hoof steps." Fortress opened the Chief Editor's journal and flipped through the pages until she found something. She read the contents of the page out loud. "One of the subordinates of the Vanguard Knights lives in Canterlot. He is in charge of controlling the economy of not only the organization, but the entirety of Equestria as a whole. I cannot talk to him any further as I nearly lost a hoof trying to get this much information on him. His name is..."
...After taking another train ride to Canterlot...
"Fredrick Goldhoof, the richest pony in all of Equestria."
Silvershot's mind pinged with pain again as he remembered another memory.
It was a starry night in Canterlot. Silvershot was older than the last memory, at least by another year. Silver Lancet didn't look any older. It didn't even look like he had aged at all. Both of them were wearing a ragged, brown cloak to cover their faces and cutie marks. A single lantern lit Fredrick Goldhoof's door.
Silver Lancet knocked on the door, and Goldhoof answered the call. Much like his name, he was a golden unicorn. Fredrick Goldhoof had everything golden: his yellow long mane and tail were tied in golden bands, his neck was decorated in a golden bejewelled necklace, and he had golden boots on his hooves. Even his coat was white and his yellow mane and tail matched his decor.
"Did you make my necklace?" Silver Lancet asked Goldhoof.
"I sure did." Goldhoof replied. "I lost a couple of ponies finding the fragments for the necklace, but the final project is here. The Missing Element of Harmony, guardianship."
Fredrick Goldhoof floated a golden necklace into the air and put it in a leather bag. He tied the bag up and gave it to Silver Lancet. Silver Lancet put the leather bag holding the element of guardianship into his saddle. Silver Lancet and Silvershot left, and the memory ended.
Silvershot's eyes saw the real world again.
"Why am I only seeing memories of my dad? Can't I remember anything else?" Silvershot asked himself.
Silvershot led Fortress to the house of Fredrick Goldhoof. The lantern from the memory had been left untouched for all those years. Cobwebs entangled the lantern and the front door. Silvershot took a step onto the doorstep of the mansion and a cloud of dust blew up in his face. Dust had piled up on the doormat. Silvershot coughed the dust out of his lungs and knocked on the door.
"Fredrick Goldhoof? It's Silvershot." Silvershot knocked again.
He put his ear to the door and listened carefully. He paid attention to any echoes or sounds behind the door. He could hear breathing; it was Goldhoof's.
"Come in. I have been waiting for you," Goldhoof said.
"You don't have to call out from behind a door you know," Fortress said to Silvershot.
"It's just gentlecolt-like," Silvershot rebutted.
Silvershot opened the door and saw Fredrick Goldhoof. Goldhoof was much older than he remembered. Goldhoof was crippled in a wheelchair, unable to move from his golden, moving throne. Silvershot could see wrinkles on Goldhoof's face, still decorated in his gold jewellery.
"Did you say you were waiting for us?" Silvershot asked.
"Yes. I kind of read your news report in the paper," he answered. He took out a newspaper from his side with his magic and gave it to Silvershot. "Sit, sit. We have so much to talk about."
Silvershot and Fortress did as Goldhoof requested and sat on the floor. Silvershot opened the newspaper and read it. The newspaper talked about a mysterious pony entering Ponyville with no name, and the Chief Editor dead in his apartment with no known murderer or suspect. Silvershot put the newspaper down, and was handed a cup of tea. Goldhoof had brewed it himself.
"What did you come here for, now? I thought I already paid your father my debt," Goldhoof asked when he finished taking a sip from his cup.
"You owe my father a debt?" Silvershot volleyed the question back at Goldhoof.
"Of course. You and your father came here five months ago. Don't you remember?"
He shook his head no. He retold his whole endeavour, starting with his memory loss in the Everfree Forest to him finding the Chief Editor's body and telling the authorities about the murder.
"That is why I am here; I am looking for my father. I don't remember anything else besides the partial memories I just told you about."
Goldhoof laughed hysterically. "You don't know the half of it, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your father isn't involved with the Vanguard Knights…," Silvershot sighed with relief, but it was quickly cut short when he found out that Goldhoof was only finishing his breath. "He is the Vanguard Knights! He is their leader!"
Silvershot gasped, but Fortress doesn't. She already knew the truth when she read the Chief Editor's journal back in Manehattan. In her mind, she didn't want to tell Silvershot because he would go berserk. In her heart though, she knew she should have told him right when she saw the name. Fortress touched her mane behind her ear to see if the journal entry was still there. It was.
"Why in the name of Celestia would you give my father the missing element?" Silvershot yelled at Goldhoof.
"He would have killed me if I didn't," Goldhoof yelled back at him. His old age caught up to him and he began coughing some saliva from his throat. "My special talent isn't controlling the economy of Equestria. My special talent is making gold. Gold is a precious metal. It can repel magic, be stronger than steel, and it can be molded to anything you wanted. That is why he needed me. He needed me to craft the missing Element of Harmony called guardianship."
"What does the Element of guardianship do?" Fortress asks.
"Unlike the other Elements of Harmony, which all have to be used at the same time, guardianship can act on its own. The magic is too raw to control though. If you recall from your memory, I lost a couple of ponies? It wasn't from finding the gold material I needed to make it; it was its magic that killed my family."
A tear ran down Goldhoof's face.
Silvershot was flooded with memories, but they weren't his own. They were Fredrick Goldhoof's memories. He was transmitting them with magic.
Silvershot watched the memories play for him. He saw Goldhoof and his wife having fun with their first son, the son graduating from magic college, and even the son having a unicorn filly. The memories were all happy ones until the unspeakable happened. The entire Goldhoof family were assembled in one place around seven gold fragments of the Element of Harmony. Goldhoof, his wife, his son and his grandson, used their power over gold to control the element pieces. The pieces floated into the air and combined into one gold piece, but the magic went haywire soon after. Streams of magic shot out of the gold and struck everypony in the heart.
"I should have died with my family. I should have, but I didn't. Silver Lancet saved me because he still wanted that damn element!" Goldhoof wailed, outrageously loud.
Fortress reached out to quiet him down, but Silvershot stopped her. While Goldhoof thrashed around in his wheelchair, ranting that it was his fault for his family's death, Silvershot retold Goldhoof's memories to Fortress. Anypony should know that you can lose your sanity if you don't take your anger out on something.
"It's going to be okay. Everything will be fine, at least you didn't die," Fortress said, forgetting Silvershot's will.
"No, it’s not." He turns to Silvershot. "Look, Silvershot, you got to listen to me. You have to save Princess Celestia and Luna or else we will all be in grave danger. I was also forced to not only make the element of guardianship, but I had to create an even more dangerous weapon. It is a weapon that can even kill alicorns."
"What weapon?" Silvershot was intrigued, but scared of the term ‘weapon’.
"I call it a ‘gun’. These guns shoot round, golden balls at high velocities using an explosive compound called ‘black powder’. The balls can penetrate armor far better than an arrow could. You need to destroy the gun factory, and then you have to fight Silver Lancet before it is too late."
"How can I…?" Silvershot muttered until a crack in a nearby window appeared.
A bouncing sound shot around the room, scaring the three ponies. The nearby window shattered after another noise. Goldhoof was thrown out of his chair and onto the floor. Silvershot and Fortress dropped to the floor soon after. He checked on Goldhoof and saw a hole in his side. He used his magic to dig into the hole and took out whatever hurt him; it was a round, gold ball.
He looked out the window to see four ponies on the roof of the house next door, using Goldhoof's invention of warfare. The ponies fired their gold bullets at the Goldhoof house. Silvershot nearly got hit with one of the balls. He dragged Goldhoof out of the sight of the gunponies and into the safety of a wall. Fortress hid next to him.
Goldhoof's side was bleeding, and Silvershot could not stop it. He gently put Goldhoof on the ground and tried to stop the pain. Goldhoof grunted, which meant he was alive for now. He reaches to his hind legs and clicked a button on each side of his boots. The boots came off automatically. Goldhoof did the same with his front legs as well. He gave the boots to Silvershot after grouping them together. Silvershot took the boots from him and held his hoof.
"You are going to need these. I wish you good luck," Goldhoof moaned over the sound of flying gold balls.
"Sorry we got you into this mess," Silvershot said back to him.
"It’s okay. I can finally rejoin my fam...ily..."
Silvershot no longer felt the tension in Goldhoof's hoof. He put the unicorn's legs crossed on his chest and pulled a window curtain over the body. He then puts on the gold boots that Goldhoof had given him. The boots were as light as a feather. He could barely even notice he had them on.
He and Fortress faced a new problem now: escaping Goldhoof's house without getting shot at. Fortress spread her wings to get them stretched. She had a plan: to escape, by flying. Noticing how long it took for each of the gunponies to reload their guns, she estimated when it was an appropriate time to jump out the window.
"Are you ready to fly?" Fortress questioned Silvershot.
"I don't know how! I don't even have wings!" Silvershot argued.
"Yes, you do, you are an alicorn for a reason. Just imagine your wings, and they should come."
Silvershot did as Fortress said. He closed his eyes behind the shelter of the house walls and tried to imagine Pegasus wings. He imagined being weightless, and soaring through the air like a bird. Silvershot could feel his body changing. He opened his eyes and saw Pegasus wings tucked in on his sides. He spread them out; they were angelic.
The feathers were white, which didn't match Silvershot's grey mane but the wing did.
Fortress waited for the right moment when the guns had to be reloaded outside. It was only for a split second, but she could see the gunponies stopping momentarily. Silvershot and Fortress took the chance to escape. The two got a galloping start out the window and into the air. The gunponies were too occupied to fire at the flying Pegasi because their guns had jammed. It was a good thing the gunponies were only Earth ponies.
"Where do we go?"
"Check the journal for answers, maybe the Chief Editor found the gun factory."
Silvershot used his unicorn magic to get the journal from Fortress' bag without stopping flying. He flipped through the pages until he found a page with information about black powder.
Black powder is a mixture of certain chemicals that form a compound big enough to cause an explosion. It was discovered by the dragons who used black powder to make brilliant light shows at night called fireworks. The Vanguard found that they could use black powder as a weapon, and had their own factory making the explosives. One of the key ingredients to make black powder is sulfur, which can only be made underground.
Unlike all the mines in the Badlands, which contain minerals such as copper, iron, and cobalt, sulfur can only be mined under the purest of conditions. I tested all kinds of conditions; desert, mountain, and raining conditions. None of them succeeded in making a pure mineral. Only under a fruit tree where rain can filter to the ground and evaporation would leave the pure heavy elements behind. Sulfur created life and it keeps it going.
Silvershot pulled the brakes on his wings. Fortress stopped her flying when she could no longer see him. She flew to Silvershot, and stopped to read the journal. Silvershot tried to compile the facts in his head.
The Vanguard Knights need sulfur to create the black powder to use it in Goldhoof's guns. According to the journal, sulfur can only be made underground, so in reality the entire factory has to be underground. Sulfur can be made under trees since the whole filtration process purifies it. Sulfur created life and it keeps it going. Food keeps life going and ponies mainly eat fruit. The most common fruit ponies eat are apples.
"Sweet Apple Acres! That is where the most apples are grown next to Canterlot. Applejack said she had to pick apples up for the season! If she picks those apples, she could be in trouble when the Vanguard Knights notice their sulfur is low and it is because of her," Silvershot exclaims. "We have to go warn her!"
Silvershot began to fly toward Ponyville suddenly, without telling Fortress. She bit his tail and Silvershot whiplashed back to her.
"We don't even know how to get inside the factory. There could be a door entrance one kilohoof away with a labyrinth tunnel system that could go on for days. We need to find somepony that knows underground facilities," she explained to him.
Silvershot landed on the ground to think it over. He tried to remember somepony, anypony that would help.
Silvershot was a young colt, playing outside with a ball. Other fillies and colts played outside, too, but they leave Silvershot alone. They knew that Silvershot was the son of the fearless leader Silver Lancet. He liked playing in the mud, but the other kids didn't see eye to eye. When Silvershot splashed in the mud really hard, all the other children left, thinking the prince was weird; he was alone with his ball. In a fit of rage, he kicked the ball away from him. The ball stopped under the hoof of the colt Digger Stonefinder. Digger Stonefinder was an Earth pony with a white mane and tail, and a brown coat like dirt. Digger jumped into the mud with Silvershot and both of them laughed.
The memory fast forwarded to a year later when Digger and Silvershot were older. Silvershot, wearing a fancy feathered hat, walked down the street of the perfectly fine Venturia Reign. He continued to walk until a crevice the length and depth of five houses blocked his path. Silvershot looked down at the crevice and found his old friend Digger.
"Do I have to arrest you for making a large hole in my town?" Silvershot asked Digger.
"This is all in digging science. I'm trying to find old prehistoric life!" Digger yelled from the bottom of the hole.
""It's called palaeontology."
"No, I beg to differ. Palaeontology involves fossils. One day, there could be a whole civilization underground, and I could be the one to do it."
Silvershot told Fortress of Digger, and she remembered Digger in Venturia Reign. He ran to Ponyville after the fire with her. The two flew to Ponyville in search of their old friend.
The two fliers stopped in Ponyville and tried to find Digger. Fortress took Silvershot to the home Digger had stayed at for the last three months. As the two walked through Ponyville, Fortress took the opportunity to tell Silvershot more about their past together.
He remembered more and more about Fortress the more time he spent with her. He remembered all the plays he took her to, the moonlit dinners they ate, the parties they went to together. He felt like his heart had begun to rekindle their past love. Silvershot walked closer to Fortress and put his wing around her. Fortress rested her head on him and weighed herself on him.
"I am getting tired of this," Fortress complained to Silvershot as they walked.
"Getting tired of what?" Silvershot wondered.
"Of waiting for that question you wanted to ask me before Venturia Reign was destroyed."
"I wanted to tell you something? I can't remember."
Silvershot attempted to remember the question, but his memory came up blank. Silvershot apologised to his girlfriend for not remembering anything. Fortress said she would wait a little longer, just for him. She kissed his cheek and they moved on. The duo found Digger's home, and Silvershot opened the door. He didn't feel like knocking first; he was running out of time to save Equestria.
"Hey! Haven't you heard of… Silvershot!" Digger bellowed in his own home. Digger put down some mineral samples and galloped to Silvershot. He gave him a hug, and looked at his face. Digger noticed Silvershot's hair over his eye and his golden boots.
Silvershot also looked at Digger's face. Digger was wearing goggles over his eyes, and there was a magnifying glass on his side. They asked questions about each other, but they kept talking at the same time, so nopony understood them. Silvershot took a quick minute to tell Digger about his amnesia and his story, up to their meeting.
"We have to find that underground factory, or else Celestia and Luna could die. Is it possible for there to be a sulfur factory under Sweet Apple Acres?" Fortress asked Digger.
"There could be a high possibility," Digger walked over to his bedroom and took out a large sheet of paper to show Silvershot and Fortress. "The last couple of days, I have been tracking seismic activity under Ponyville. Shockwaves move in waves like the sea, so I found where the waves came from: under Sweet Apple Acres."
"This is amazing. How did you find out?" Silvershot asked, puzzled.
"Hello! My special talent involves rocks. Anything to know about rocks, I already know."
Digger showed his flank to his friends. Digger's cutie mark was a shovel digging a hole. Silvershot remembered when Digger discovered his cutie mark; it was a glorious day where he had had to save a life by trying to tell the difference between two types of minerals to use as medicine. The minerals looked exactly the same, except one of them would kill the patient. The correct mineral was used in the medicine, and he got his cutie mark for rocks and minerals.
Silvershot looks at Fortress' cutie mark. Hers was a little creepy to be a cutie mark. On her flank, there was a heart, but unlike any others he knows. Half of the heart was pink and lovely, but the other half was black and covered in thorns. He thought he might ask her later what her special talent was.
He looked at his own flank though; his cutie mark was a mystery, still. A silver four edged star with a hollowed out center didn't mean much. Twilight Sparkle's explanation of his cutie mark gave small hints, but even those hints didn't unlock Silvershot's talent.
Holy crap! Silvershot forgot to tell Applejack of the gun and sulfur factory. Fortress and Digger were chatting up a conversation when Silvershot remembered. He waved his hoof in front of the two and reminded them of the task at hoof. Digger grabbed his chart of seismic activity and ran with Fortress and Silvershot to Sweet Apple Acres.
"Fortress, what is your special talent?" Silvershot inquired about Fortress' cutie mark.
"My talent is called Mare Luck. I can choose whether to give or take good luck," Fortress replied.
"So when I almost died in the carriage accident-"
"I gave you the most luck I could give you. I changed your luck from one per cent to fifty. Even with my power, I still prayed for your safety."
Silvershot kissed Fortress on the cheek, and they continued to gallop to Applejack's farm. The three arrived at the farm minutes later, but Applejack was nowhere to be seen on the farm. Silvershot lead his friends to Applejack's house in the middle of the farm and looked through the window.
Applejack was inside the house washing dishes. Silvershot barged in and nearly scared her to pieces. Fortress and Digger followed him. He told her about his father's plan to attack Princess Celestia and Luna to take over Equestria.
"His plan is to mass produce weapons so he can attack Canterlot. With Canterlot overrun with Vanguard Knights, Silver Lancet could overthrow Celestia and Luna," Silvershot said, with undeniable truth.
"What can we do?" Applejack asked, putting away her apron.
"We have to find the underground factory, and my friend Digger knows where it is."
"Where is it?"
Silvershot turned to Digger, who had already begun to look for the factory. He stepped outside and tapped his hoof on the ground. Digger snuffed a puff of air from his nostrils and moved around along the ground. He tapped his hoof to the ground every time he stopped moving, and he would continue if he didn’t find anything. Everypony trailed behind Digger as he made a path to the barn.
Digger tapped the ground one last time, and then he smiled. Digger suddenly screams loudly, scaring everypony. Digger smashed the ground beneath him with his hooves, and a cloud of dirt and smoke covered him.
Silvershot, Fortress, and Applejack coughed and waved dirt out of the air, and waited for the smoke to clear.
The smoke cleared, and a huge hole had been made in the middle of Applejack's barn. Digger was nowhere to be seen. The three looked inside the hole and saw Digger at the bottom of it. Digger had a light on his head that shone into the dark hole. Everypony's eyes hurt when the light was shined in their faces.
"Thank goodness I have this invention called the flashlight. I found the shaft that leads to the factory," Digger called out from the hole.
Everypony laughed as they climbed down the hole. Silvershot was the first to get off the climbing wall. He met up with Digger and brushed the dirt off his head. Applejack and Fortress then joined Digger and Silvershot. The shaft was enormous, at least the height of fifty hooves. There were two ways to go down the shaft: left or right.
Fortress took a bit out from her bag and flips it. Fortress said head for left, and tails for right. The bit lands on right. Fortress picked up her bit from the ground and headed in the direction the coin landed on.
Silvershot, Digger, and Applejack went in the same direction.
"How did ya'll find this shaft without doing any digging before?" Applejack asked Digger.
"Vibrations in the rock bounce off the ground in the shaft, creating this good sound indicating there is an opening underground," Digger explained.
"Pardon?"
"I used sound. I have good hearing."
Applejack got it, and she laughed with Digger. He put a hoof around her neck and continued to laugh with her. Even though he knew she did not know the real science, it was still okay because she had learned something new. Silvershot put a wing on Fortress and sighed. Fortress could feel Silvershot's weariness. Not physically from the way his wing is, but a symbolic connection between each of their hearts.
The group continued to walk until everypony saw a glimmer of light at the end of the shaft. They passed through the opening without thinking. Silvershot saw a Vanguard Knight doing a patrol run and he quickly reacted. He pulled his friends away from the opening before the Vanguard Knight saw them.
The Vanguard Knight was dressed in a full metal suit, with his face covered in a helmet. He patrolled the catwalk, and then stepped down some stairs. Silvershot took a sneak peek out the shaft, and then told everypony to get out.
He could see the whole factory from the ceiling catwalk at the opening of the shaft. Sulfur was being mined from the ceiling above, and it fell to the ground where unicorns would purify it using their magic. A large, yellow pile of sulfur could be seen at the end of the production line in a room enclosed by a door. The piles of sulfur were then taken to make the black powder for guns.
"That is a lot of sulfur. That is highly flammable," Digger muttered silently.
"What did you say?" Silvershot asked Digger to repeat himself.
"That is a lot of sulfur."
"No, no after that."
"That is highly flammable."
"That is how we get rid of all of this sulfur. We light it up and it will destroy the whole factory."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Applejack interjected. "We can't just simultaneously light that pile of sulfur and get out before it explodes."
"I know a certain pony that can," Fortress pointed out for everypony.
Following where her hoof pointed at, Silvershot saw a jail cell holding at least twenty ponies. Those ponies were Venturian residents; he remembered each one of them. He remembered everypony there and their past connections with him. One of those ponies was Ember Burst, his friend back in Venturia Reign. She was the last pony to leave Venturia Reign, and he remembered her special talent: she had a knack for creating fires using her unicorn magic.
"Down there in that jail cell is my friend Ember Burst. She can make the fire for us," Silvershot told everypony. "Here's the plan. We go down there while avoiding the Vanguard Knight Patrol guards, free the captives in the cell, and then we set the Venturian people free through the shaft hole we made. Ember Burst and I will cause a distraction by lighting up the sulfur and fighting a couple of Vanguard Knights while everypony else runs.”
"What if you die, or the plan fails?" Fortress pleaded. "I don't want to wait for you at the shaft opening."
Silvershot quietened Fortress with a kiss, this time on her lips. Her worriedness died as happiness took over her. Fortress stepped back and held her hoof in his.
"I am not going to lose you. I will see you at the opening," Silvershot said while looking into Fortress' beautiful eyes. "I also remember that question I almost died to ask you."
Silvershot took Fortress' hoof, held it to his cheek, and gently placed it down. "Now, let's go stall my father's plan. It's time to save Equestria."