[Administrator, you have twelve calls waiting from the Citadel,] said the golem striding passed the curtain we were hiding behind. It clicked and crackled before speaking again. [Administrator, you have thirteen calls waiting from the Citadel.] I clenched my teeth as it turned around the corner.
"One of those could actually be Jury," I whispered.
"Too bad!" Starlight hissed. "Every golem we've seen so far has been controlled by KS 6, so we're not risking it!"
I glared at her and Sugar, who was anxiously gnawing her hoof. "We wouldn't need to risk anything if you hadn't-"
"Hush!" Twilight demanded peeking up and down the hallway. "I think this is our chance. We can't teleport without drawing attention, but we have a straight shot to the console now!" Sugar blinked and then looked at Twilight in bewilderment.
"The con- What do you mean?!" She squealed quietly, desperately stamping her hooves. "I thought we were trying to escape the castle!"
Twilight shook her head and looked up at me. "There's no telling how far KS 6's reach is, so we need to check the console to see for sure," she declared with a frown. "This could be way worse than we realize."
I nodded. "That's an understatement. If she's already got ahold of the Castle's animunculi, she could easily be probing at other regions as well," I clicked my teeth with an anxious groan. "She might even be taking control of the Citadel."
"Boy oh boy! Aren't we lucky that somepony came along and made such a nightmare scenario possible!" Starlight said with a faux giggle as we took off from our hiding place.
"Almost as lucky as we are to have someone who prevented him from getting a handle on things a few days ago!" I retorted with a fake laugh of my own.
Before Starlight could fire back, both of our mouths were clamped shut by magic. "Let's just settle on 'lucky we're not dead yet,'" Twilight spat as we hurried down the hall.
[Return to your quarters, immediately,] a droning voice rang out up ahead, causing us to freeze. It was followed by a series of hooves galloping down the hall and after just a moment a trio of guards and a maid went running followed by a golem that held a squealing and squirming pony in its grip.
"Hey!" Twilight and Starlight yelled simultaneously, before blanching and covering each other's mouths. The golem slid to a stop and turned toward us.
"Nice going," Sugar and I groused as we backed behind the magically capable pair.
It crackled for a moment and then began advancing. [Administrator, you have- Hey, Eddy.] I recoiled and my cohorts looked between the golem and me.
"KS 6?" I murmured. She growled and dropped the pony, who then scurried away.
[My name is Twilight. Anyhoo!] The golem swept its arms out. [What do you think? I've got all of Canterlot locked down so we can safely kill my replica without hurting any citizens!]
"Is that what you're doing?" Twilight demanded. The golem chirped and raised its claw before charging a beam of magic.
[Nobody asked you,] KS 6 replied causing Twilight to spread her wings in a defiant stance. Before she took the shot I slipped between the two.
"K- Twilight, you're locking down the whole city?" I pressed, relaxing only slightly as the golem lowered its arm.
[Yep! We'll need plenty of living creatures to test the transformer on, so I don't want to risk killing any of our citizens,] she replied. From behind, I heard the heavy footsteps of more golems. [I know the concept of being turned is scary, Eddy, but don't you see? I'm being plenty careful! I even managed to seize this whole place despite Jury's attempts to intervene.] Sugar gasped, drawing my attention to the squad of golems stomping up from behind. As Twilight and Starlight lit up their horns, I turned back to the golem 6 was talking through.
"Jury's attempts? What'd she do?"
KS 6 scoffed and the golem stomped its foot. [She figured out how to cut communications between the Old Citadel and the new one,] the golem folded its arms. [Doesn't matter too much since I've already started reaching our other territories through the satellite array.] Chills race across my skin.
"You got into the satellites, huh?" I began clenching and unclenching my hands. The golem's head tilted.
[Sure did,] she replied with a low giggle.
"Fuck," I huffed.
"Hold on, Eddy," Twilight said before we teleported.
My head was spinning to the point that our exodus from the castle was a complete blur. I was too engrossed in my own thoughts. She was in the satellites. Even if Jury had managed to block her from the Citadel, she was now effectively as mobile as she could be. Even if we obliterated the entire old Citadel with her inside, she could just jump from her body to another golem.
Hell, she could hijack a whole facility and build herself a proper backup body. Or two. Or a dozen. Or a hundred.
It hadn't even been a week since she revealed herself to me, and she was already this catastrophically close to destroying everything I'd built. Everything we'd built.
"Eddy!" Starlight yelled, snapping me to attention. Blinking, I looked around to find we were sitting in a hilly valley behind a huge boulder. Twilight was lying on her side, panting and rubbing her temple while Sugar anxiously peeked around the boulder.
"Where are we?" I asked.
Starlight scowled. "You really zoned out hard. We're south of Canterlot and trying to figure out what to do now," she pointed a hoof at Twilight. "Twilight burned herself out pretty hard due to all the teleporting she did to get us here."
I frowned and leaned to look around the boulder. "Sorry 'bout that. Sort of having a panic attack over how fucked we are."
Starlight barked a laugh. "Well, hey, thanks for the empathy, but I don't think her taking over Canterlot's going to affect your operation too seriously."
"It's worse than that, Starlight," Twilight weakly replied with a wince. "If she's in Bedlam's satellites, that means she can start controlling every golem he's got hooked up to them."
"Which is effectively all of them," I added with a chortle before leaning against the boulder and dragging my hands down my face. Starlight scowled and tapped her chin before smiling.
"Well, hey! Sounds like we've got an easy fix already!" We all looked at her as she nodded. "You and the girls can just blast the Crystal Mind with friendship magic and flush the whole thing at once!"
"Oh, like hell we're doing that," I groused. I swore I heard Twilight whimper, but before I could look, Starlight spoke.
"Not up to you," she retorted. I rolled to my feet and loomed over her.
"Absolutely up to me," I spat and she glared. "Regardless of what's happening, the Citadel's defenses will tear you to pieces if anyone unauthorized comes within a hundred feet of the Crystal Mind."
I bent at the hips until I was nearly nose-to-nose with her and smirked. "Guess who didn't make the list?"
She smirked right back and jabbed me with a hoof. "Good thing we've got the v.i.p pass."
I snarled. "You-"
"I wish it was that easy, Starlight," Twilight finally declared with a heavy sigh. "The girls and I have barely spoken since Bedlam took over." We both recoiled and looked at her with hanging jaws. Mine quickly clenched shut at the sight of her. Her head was hanging and all the light had gone from her eyes. In fact, she seemed almost.. greyer than usual.
"You're kidding," Starlight asked with a low, quiet, even tone.
"We were keeping in touch right up until you left," she murmured, blinking and averting her eyes. Then, she grimaced and scowled before glaring at me, all the light and color rushing back to her at once. "That atrocity you did to the Kirin was the breaking point for them, too." My skin crawled at the venom in her voice.
"I-"
She shook her head with a nicker and rolled to her hooves. "Shut up," she took a cleansing breath and scowled again, this time northward. "Our next best bet is Cadance. He might've locked up the Crystal Heart, but having another alicorn couldn't hurt."
Her scowl fell upon me. "After you undo her collar, anyway." I flinched.
"The Crystal Empire is days away, though," Sugar groused as she withdrew from the boulder and stood next to Twilight. "Princess, do you really think you can teleport us all the way there?"
Twilight shook her head. "Nah, but I won't need to," she pointed a hoof further south, toward Ponyville. "If we can get to my old castle, I've got a few trinkets from my experiments with the Crystal Mirror that'll help."