Rainbow Dash didn’t fling herself out of the hotel window because she’d been told to. Not even the immortal ruler of Equestria had that kind of power. Rainbow Dash had complete confidence in Celestia’s ability to handle a hoofful of gryphons, but that still didn’t explain why she complied without hesitation. In fact, her deep sense of loyalty would have made her hesitate, hoping to kick some feathered tail on Celestia’s behalf. No, Rainbow Dash flung herself out of that hotel window because Princess Celestia had given her a mission, and her blood sang in her veins. Split up! She’d said, Distraction! Oh, she’d be a distraction all right!
Rainbow Dash shot out of the hotel window, banked hard to avoid the building across the street and flew into the night sky, pushing for altitude. The moonlight glinted off of the rooftops, treetops and the vast expanse of ocean unfurling in front of the grinning pegasus. But what kind of distraction did she want? Rainbow Dash thought as she banked around the town. Maybe I should show this place what a sonic rainboom looks like! Rainbow Dash’s face fell, as she realized she probably couldn’t pull off that move while carrying her packs. She grimaced over her shoulder at the bags cinched around her flanks. Why did I even bring this stuff? She thought. All I packed was snacks, a scarf and my Ponystation Portable. Snore.
Then another thought occurred to her. While a sonic rainboom might be singularly spectacularly awesome, it would only be distracting for a little while. If she was going to buy time for Fluttershy and Rarity to cover three miles on hoof, she’d have to think of something else. She frowned at the night sky. She tried to guesstimate how fast Fluttershy could run if she was scared, and whether Rarity would ever move that fast, but she quickly gave up when she ran into mental long division.
Still, things didn’t stay boring for long. A trio of gryphons broke formation and swooped down to intercept her from a higher altitude. As they closed in to flank the rainbow-maned Dash, one of them pitched his voice over the sound of wind and wing strokes. “A curfew is in effect! Please land immediately!”
“Sure thing!” Rainbow Dash nearly laughed the words. Her keen pegasine eyesight had already picked out two other clusters of military patrols sweeping Nova Coltia. A hint of scorn entered her voice. “If you can catch me!” With that she banked upwards, hard.
Had Rainbow Dash glanced backwards as she fled the hotel room, she might have developed a deeper appreciation for the weapons her opponents were equipped with. As it was, only her choice of direction saved her. Most flyers, especially loaded with packs, would trade altitude for speed to evade pursuit. The gryphon flying behind her had cocked both of his shoulder rigs and had fired one bolt in the wrong direction, angling downwards. Dash accelerated upwards, leaving her pursuers behind.
Rainbow Dash spiraled into some corkscrews as she banked towards the second patrol she’d spotted. “A distraction, huh?” Dash grinned fiercely to herself. “You got it, Princess.” She picked up a bit more speed, closing in on the second trio of gryphons from behind. They hadn’t even noticed her yet. With a shout and a laugh, Rainbow dashed right through the middle of their formation, scattering them with her wind stream. She looped effortlessly upward and began winging her way back the way she came. The first squadron was flapping hard to catch up, and the second was still trying to pull back into formation. The third cluster she’d spotted had changed course and angled back towards the commotion she’d caused. She laughed out loud again. She was barely trying!
She banked toward the third squadron, hoping to pull off a couple more tricks and really give them a show. Rainbow Dash’s grin vanished though, as she heard a deep thrum accompanied by a high-pitched whistle the same moment a dark projectile shot past her from behind, barely missing her ear. Her eyes widened in shock, “What the. . .?!?” She blurted out loud.
Rainbow Dash glanced backwards, pulling into some instinctive evasive maneuvers. Her hooves suddenly felt very cold, and her heartbeat thumped double-time in her ears. Were they trying to kill her for not grounding herself? Would they kill her for that? As the adrenaline hit her bloodstream Dash’s fear found itself thoroughly drowned in a sea of righteous anger. If they were willing to hurt her, what in Equestria would they do to her friends? Rainbow Dash snarled as she sped into a swaying helix; something she and Gilda had invented back in Junior-Speedster Flight camp. She followed with an Immelpony, using it to angle herself away from all nine of her attackers. Another pair of shots flew harmlessly past. Missed by a mile.
The hotel room disappeared in a flash of purple light, replaced by fresh air and open sky. Twilight’s knees buckled and a stretch of pavement hit her hard on the chin. Her lip curled up in a silent snarl. Get up. She dragged her hooves back underneath herself. You’re supposed to be better than this. Now get UP! Spike’s voice came from nearby, but it sounded like it echoed down to Twilight through a long metal tube. “Twilight, are you okay?”
She forced herself to her hooves and blinked her eyes open. “Is everypony here?”
“Yup!” Chirruped Pinkie Pie from somewhere behind her.
“Oh, thank Celestia.” The spell had been so taxing, Twilight had been sure she’d lost someone. But she hadn’t managed to get them quite as far as she’d needed to.
“We ain’t in the woods yet.” Applejack adjusted her hat. “Let’s move, everypony! Best hold on tight there, Spike.”
“Aye aye, AJ!” Spike leaned forward along Applejack’s back, twining his claws in her mane.
The five of them broke into a canter following a paved road south away from the town. Twilight had teleported them past any buildings, but they were still a long hay field away from the first trees. Twilight struggled to keep up, but she didn’t need to glance behind her the way Fluttershy kept doing. She knew that the bright moonlight made them all stand out against the road beneath them. It would only be a matter of time before they were spotted. She stretched her canter into a gallop, breathing in deep, ragged gasps.
She needn’t have bothered. Well before they reached the trees, dark shapes flew down out of the sky, landing heavily on the path ahead. As the companions pulled up short, more gryphons landed behind them and to the side of the road around them. Twilight glanced backwards at the town, and thought she saw a rainbow of color flash between two buildings. She shook her head. She couldn’t stall for rescue, not this time. She had to get them all out of here herself. Somehow.
Celestia emerged from her teleport at full gallop, mentally preparing her next jump before all four hooves had hit the ground. Things had gotten out of hoof yet again. If she could just signal Aether’s Vigil to pick them up by the docks, they could easily throw off pursuit. But something brushed against her senses, something bitter and acrid and nearby. She pulled up short, digging shallow furrows in the dirt with her hoof-shods as she studied the path ahead. She knew there was no need to call out a challenge, not with the entrance she’d just made. A few tense moments drifted by before a smaller shadow detached itself from the host of larger shadows beneath the surrounding trees and stepped to the middle of the path twenty or so paces ahead. Despite the distance and the darkness, she recognized him.
“Cinder!” She called out into the night. “I have spared you and I have spared your hive! I would think, given the circumstances, this artifact would be a small price to pay.” They both knew what she referred to.
He walked closer, his orange eyes catching the light from the moon as he passed out of the shadows. “The Element is mine. It belongs to me.” His voice sounded strained.
Celestia pushed her awareness away from the path, searching for other changelings closing this trap in. Yet, where she expected an army, she discovered nothing. He was alone. That made several things clear to the Princess. The challenge left her voice as she spoke, “Chrysalis never knew about the Element of Deception, did she? You managed to hide a dangerous power from your own queen. Amazing. . . How did you even find it?”
He hadn’t slowed his advance. “It doesn’t matter.” Up close, he looked drawn and pale, not at all healthy. Celestia wondered if he was suffering from some sort of withdrawal. She filled with pity despite herself.
“You can’t defeat me on your own, Cinder. Go back to your hive.” Celestia stepped back a pace from the approaching changeling to brace herself against a charge. She twisted her neck, leveling her horn to aim it at his throat. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
Rainbow Dash leveled out and flew straight for a breath, presenting an excellent target. One. . . Two! and she cupped her wings and cut downward hard, feeling more than seeing or hearing the shots whizzing through the space she’d been. Just before she dove between the buildings she risked another backwards glance. All nine gryphons struggled to keep up, but keep up they did. Good. Rainbow Dash thought. Gotta keep them occupied. Once she broke line of sight she leveled out, skimming the street. She spotted a pair of gryphons walking down the sidewalk ahead of her, so she strafed them both, knocking one’s hat clean off. They both took to the sky after her.
Flying fast is as much about speed as drag racing is about pushing down a pedal. There’s so much more to it than that. And Rainbow Dash had spent most of her young life obsessing over the fine details of momentum, banking, braking, wing-position, trajectories, drafts and wind streams. She turned at an intersection like a jackrabbit, angling sharply between a lamppost and a hardware store before picking up more speed down the straightaway. She spotted more nighttime strollers, and Dash called out something that was half-greeting and half-taunt as she whooshed past.
Rainbow made quite the distraction winging her way from street to street, banging off of shuttered windows and shouting at the top of her lungs. She hadn’t been told just who to distract, so she simply went all-out. By the time she pulled up over the rooftops once again, she found she’d done her job better than she’d hoped. She gasped. The sky above Nova Coltia was speckled with flying shapes, the nearest of which were only houses away. There must have been fifty of them, maybe more, and they were closing in.
One gryphon walked towards them from behind. Twilight recognized him immediately. “I deeply regret that I must place you all under arrest.” King Rirton’s voice had a natural ring of authority to it. He was used to having his orders followed. “Please accompany me back into town.”
Twilight placed herself between him and her friends. “Why, Your Majesty?”
Rirton hesitated before he spoke. “I believe you can tell me, young Twilight Sparkle. Please, tell us all. Speak aloud what your Princess intends that the night itself might hear your words!”
Twilight licked her lips nervously and drew in a breath. “We intend to see what has become of the lands across the ocean.”
The King nearly shouted, “In direct violation of everything my subjects and I hold faith in!” Scandalized murmurs surrounded the group. Rirton composed himself. “Twilight, I know you are bright. I have heard grand compliments concerning your abilities. But it wasn’t until I met you up close that I felt you might genuinely be the decent soul I’d heard you were. Please understand, we cannot let you do this.”
Twilight took another step closer and gathered her courage. She thought she had a card to play here, and she took her best shot. “Yes, your Majesty. I think I do understand. Your ancient teachings tell you we mustn’t be allowed to cross the ocean, and you must obey them. But, your Majesty, you seem to me like a rational thinker. Do you really believe your ancient scrolls are fact?”
King Rirton glanced at his subjects. “Of course I do.”
“He’s lyin’.” Applejack said without hesitation.
“Applejack!” Rarity sounded quite taken aback. Fluttershy covered her face.
The King’s eyes widened in anger and his ear tufts flattened to his head. “How dare you impugn my faith, when your own mighty ruler crossed my border and lied to my face?!?” Rirton took two angry steps around Twilight to point a talon at the wheat-maned earth pony. The guards closed their circle in, looming over the cluster of ponies. “How dare you?!” he shouted again.
“I don’t know why she lied to you!” Twilight raised her voice, trying desperately to be heard. “But I’m sorry!” Twilight continued talking into the stunned silence. “We are all sorry. None of us would have backed Celestia up if we knew ahead of time she would be dishonest with you. Especially Applejack.”
Applejack chuckled sheepishly and spoke. “Yeah, I wouldn’ta stood for it. But uh, Dash mighta.” Rarity elbowed her in the flank, and she hastily added, “Um, yer Majesty.”
Twilight continued. “I never would have dreamed that Celestia had ever lied in her life. But lately I’ve been finding out that she’s not exactly the Princess I thought she was. She hasn’t even told us everything, and we’re risking our lives for her.” Twilight couldn’t keep a small waver of pain out of her voice. “I swear to you. I would have told you the truth.”
The King of gryphons drew a couple of deep breaths through his nares. His ear tufts un-flattened a bit and he nodded. “I’m not sure why, but I believe you. However, that doesn’t change. . .”
He was interrupted by a shrill, panicky voice. “Um, something’s happening.” Pinkie Pie sounded very worried, and her knees were twitching. “Something dangerous and yucky somewhere in the forest. Mostly yucky.” She sucked in a breath and yanked her right foreleg off the ground. “Nope, mostly dangerous. Twilight, I think something scary is coming.”
Cinder pounced forward, nodding his head sharply. As the point of his horn swept towards Celestia’s eye, she twitched her head to the side, deflecting his sweep with her own horn. As he over extended, Celestia jerked her head to the side, opening up a cut along Cinder’s cheek. She took a light step back from his return swing and he caught nothing but her mane. His eyes radiated ferocity, but no fear. His horn began to glow, gathering power into a bolt he hurled at Celestia from point blank range. It missed as she teleported to the side and swatted him to the ground with her own magic.
“Cinder, I’m warning you! I do not have time for this!” He gathered more energy and feinted an attack. When Celestia leapt nimbly to the side he adjusted his aim, forcing her to meet the blast head-on. The green magic broke and dispersed on her shield, obscuring his charge. He attacked again, and Celestia dodged a pair of hoof-strikes before catching his horn on hers. Celestia winced in pain as the impact jarred her head and neck, but she held him off. She grit her teeth. He was still very strong, at least physically, so Celestia decided to take that advantage away. She infused her own muscles with the force of her magic and flung him into the air. The changeling commander arced horn-over-tail, spread his wings in a futile attempt to break his fall and sprawled in the dirt a couple of pony-lengths away. Before he could rise, Celestia slammed her will onto him, pushing him to the ground.
“This is your last chance, changeling. I don’t want to kill you.” Celestia scarcely looked winded.
Cinder’s limbs convulsed, and then they slowly curled up beneath him. With a snarl, he lifted his head up, pushing against the weight of Celestia’s spell. Then he placed one hoof underneath himself, and then a second, slowly trying to force himself to his hooves. Celestia’s expression fell from anger into shock, before slowly melting into regret. She sighed, but she didn’t hesitate. With a toss of her head she flicked Cinder into the air, and she followed immediately with a searing ball of magic, designed to kill. The light burst over Cinder’s form, the heat chasing the deafening detonation as it washed back over the Princess and the surrounding landscape. Disorienting an opponent before the killing stroke was an old and sadly effective tactic. Her heart feeling heavy, Celestia turned her attention back to reaching her island. She needed to get her crew out of Nova Coltia as quickly as possible.
Rainbow Dash snapped into a couple of turns, evading another shot from her pursuers, but she found herself angling upwards towards a gryphon in a steep dive, its talons outstretched. Dash flapped hard once and clamped one wing in to her side, rolling her light body above her attacker’s reach. As she shot past, she stomped one hoof down on the gryphon’s back eliciting a squawk of surprise and pain.
Rainbow Dash flapped madly, straining for altitude while swaying and dodging. But she was surrounded, and there was no clear escape. Even as she managed to climb to dizzying heights, there were still menacing shapes above and below her, closing in. She’d done her job too well and left herself out of options. In desperation she tried to recall what Celestia had said about magic. To Dash’s complete surprise, she found she could feel the power inside herself, just like the Princess said. She shouldn’t have been surprised; it was only when flying hard that Dash ever truly felt alive. Quickly, she pictured a bubble in her mind and forced the energy outside of herself. With what Dash felt was an entirely unfair amount of strain, a translucent red bubble formed around the pegasus. Her eyes widened in utter amazement and joy. She’d done it! She’d used magic! She couldn’t wait to show Twilight.
Rainbow Dash’s elation lasted only moments before her shield shattered like glass, and what felt like a bus hit her in her right flank. She spun out of control and blacked out.
The King glanced from Pinkie to the quiet forest, and then back to Twilight. “Does this have to do with the Element of Laughter?”
Twilight shook her head. “Nope, it’s just Pinkie Pie.”
A deep rumble shook the ground, and somewhere in the woods a tree fell. Pinkie gasped. “Twilight, it’s the Princess! She’s in danger!” She leapt straight into the air in panic. “We have to help her!” She tried to shoulder her way past the guards, but they blocked her path.
Twilight’s voice was laced with dread. “Please let us go, your Majesty. Pinkie’s never wrong.” He hesitated, clacking his beak in frustration. She continued. “At least come with us. If there’s danger, we might need your help anyhow.”
The King nodded to himself. “Aubri, Lightcrest, let her through. The rest of you, fan out and follow. Let’s move! Don’t let them get too far ahead.”
“Thank you, your Majesty.” Twilight turned and leapt into a gallop behind her friends, and the gryphon guards kept pace running on all fours, close enough to keep the companions from slipping away. The pavement ended abruptly, becoming a compressed dirt road only slightly less comfortable to run on. The forest began rather suddenly, with tall pines springing up all around them. They made good time until a dark beam of magic arced into the night sky above them from somewhere ahead. Twilight felt the discharge of power like dry desolation across her face. The power involved must have been massive. “Oh no. . .”
“Twilight?” Fluttershy’s voice shook as she kept pace next to her friend. “What was that?”
“Bad.” Twilight swallowed hard. “Very bad.”
From behind them, Rirton mumbled gruffly. “If you have placed my citizens in danger Celestia, you will answer to me.”
Light burst somewhere in the sky far above the tree canopy. Everyone skidded to a stop except Pinkie Pie, who tripped over her hooves and landed on her face. No one saw though; all eyes were staring up through the branches of the tall trees, trying to see what was happening. The night grew darker somehow, and Twilight noticed her vision narrowing as darkness seemed to sap her peripheral vision. She went through her mental encyclopedia of spells and couldn’t remember learning about anything like this. A bright light burst into life, a shining cynosure of hope that dispelled the darkness, and Twilight silently cheered.
As she watched breathlessly, an impossible screech of pain clawed at her ears, resonating from somewhere up above. As she clamped her hooves over her ears, something horrible happened. Everything in the world seemed to shift to the side, only not all at once. Everyone around her, gryphon and pony alike, collapsed to the dirt. She wasn’t certain that it hurt exactly, but the sensation was excruciatingly unbearable. Although Twilight’s heart still beat in her chest, she felt convinced that each one would be her last. She was vaguely aware that her legs were twitching. She heard Fluttershy nearby, and it sounded like she was crying.
Celestia blinked. The force of her magic had dispersed revealing a dark figure, entwined and crawling with living shadows hanging in the air, wings spread. It radiated cold, and the deep blacks of its eyes tugged at Celestia, making her feel off-balance; like she might topple towards this creature at any moment. What hovered before her was not Cinder. It looked like him. It had the changeling’s form from crest to tail, but something else inhabited his body now. You foolish little changeling. What have you done? Celestia thought. The twining shadows writhed slowly, like maggots, across wings and legs and torso alike. And when they came together they almost seemed to form runes or sigils, the meaning of which just barely eluded discernment. For the first time in a very, very long time, Princess Celestia felt terrified. This thing was clearly older than any changeling. She slid into a combat stance and began to glow with a soft white light.
The avatar of darkness hovering before her blinked slowly, as though studying her. Its expression was both alien and unsettling. It smiled fondly, and then blurred towards her, horn lowered, and even though she’d already mentally prepared the spell, Celestia almost didn’t teleport backwards in time. The ground shook as dirt and rocks exploded outward from the impact, forcing Celestia to shield herself from the debris when she appeared. The creature walked calmly out of the crater it had made, and in the silence that followed, a tree somewhere nearby toppled and fell.
“Who are you?” Celestia’s voice trembled, just a little. “What are you. . .?” The creature smiled again in response, and wordlessly began gathering more energy for an attack. Celestia took to the sky, drawing the creature’s aim away from the town behind her as her form burst forth an aura of bright yellow sunlight. Before she cleared the treetops a coruscating beam of darkness hit her like an oversized train. Celestia managed to deflect the worst of it, but she felt the tips of her wings singe. On a whim, she let herself go limp and fell towards the ground as though she’d been mortally wounded. As she fell, she glimpsed her opponent rushing towards her, propelled by magic rather than wings or hooves. Celestia hit him with a disorienting burst of light as she teleported herself as high into the air as she could manage just before she would’ve hit the ground. She threw a veil over herself as quickly as she could, then started scanning the landscape below.
She was higher up than she’d expected. Celestia could see the lights of Nova Coltia far below her. The ocean stretched away to her left, the rugged coastline before her unfurling into forest aglow with moonlight. She could even see her island; close enough to reach in a single jump, if she could just focus. No. She thought. Not until I’ve dealt with this monster. Her heart hammered in her chest. She tightened her veil around herself. Where is it? It should be right below. . . Celestia felt a familiar chill run down her spine. She didn’t turn her head the slightest fraction, but she knew she’d been outplayed. It was just sportingly waiting for her to catch on. Celestia turned in midair to see. . . nothing. Nothing except a faint smudge across the otherwise untrammeled stars adorning the sky.
Celestia swallowed hard and, gripping her courage, dropped her veil. When her opponent did the same, she gasped. He was close enough for their horns to touch. On reflex, thinking only of placing more distance between herself and this unknown attacker, Celestia gathered more energy and flung it forward blindly, using the detonation to shove herself backwards. It charged through her blast, keeping pace, but only for a moment. It gathered more darkness and lashed out, but its bolt rebounded as if off a mirror, forcing it to duck away from its own attack. The shadowed thing grinned fiercely.
Darkness gathered across the night. It seemed to coalesce out of nowhere, blotting out the stars and the nearly full moon above. The host of shadows swept its horn through an arc, and Celestia found herself hauled physically towards the ground below her, as though gravity had doubled its force on her. And darkness seemed to fill her existence, crowding close and leeching the warmth out of the very air. It had been literal ages since she’d felt this kind of power. In a panic, Celestia threw caution to the winds and drew upon the full force of her gifts. Her shield exploded outward in a blinding shower of sparks, and she burst into light enough to make the sun itself jealous. The darkness reaching for her was repelled, seared away in her light. And as she fell, Celestia focused that light on her attacker, forcing the beam through sheer will to concentrate on her enemy, continuous and lethal. Celestia felt its defenses crack. Finally. She panted to herself. She poured even more energy into her spell.
A concussion wave of blackness rocked the night followed by an otherworldly screech of pain; a scream that simply could not have emerged from one throat. Reality seemed to ripple outward, like the snapping of a sheet, and Celestia felt her heart stutter and lurch in her chest as it washed over her. Her spell guttered and her concentration slipped as high above her a thousand small, black motes of power erupted into the sky, dark cousins to the stars glinting behind them. As she tried to form a defense against the myriad attacks closing in on her from above, she remembered a fraction of a second too late the ground rushing up to meet her from below. As her shield blazed back to life, she crashed through the tree canopy and hit the ground like a wrecking ball. At the same instant, the magical bolts closed in and blanketed her in a series of explosions so close together they sounded like one continuous roar.
Rainbow Dash came to moments later, still spinning and yawing sickeningly. Her heart had just stuttered in her chest for no reason, and her entire body convulsed in panic, convinced she’d just died or worse. The ground was still far away, but it seemed to be proof that she wasn’t dead yet. She fought her momentum with her thankfully-unbroken wings and stabilized her spinning into a simple steep dive away from the town and towards the pearl and onyx ocean. Her hindquarters hurt terribly, but she fought to ignore it. A glance around showed her something truly strange. Every other flyer she could see was in a similar state, plunging towards the ground in a freefall or fighting their way out of a freefall. It was raining gryphons in Nova Coltia. She wondered for a moment if Celestia had done something princess-y to buy her some time.
Not that it mattered. Dash unstrapped her packs and flung them away, pouring more speed into her dive. This was her chance, and she couldn’t afford to let it slip by. Unhindered by her packs she lurched ahead, gaining even more speed. A faint penumbra of compressed air began to gather around her, a visible cone that dragged against her, trying to leech away her speed and force her to obey the laws of physics. The harder one pushes against the sound barrier, the harder it pushes back. ‘Can’t’ is still the word used in most textbooks concerning flyers attempting to exceed the speed of sound. Rainbow Dash has never in her life taken the word ‘can’t’ seriously.
Tears streamed out of her eyes and her face stretched backwards in a grimace from the force. She was running out of room, so she leveled out and turned upward, straining for more speed. She could barely feel her wings anymore, and the breath was ripped from her lungs before she could properly breathe it. The cone around her elongated, pulling hard against her whole body. Spots danced before her eyes. Hints of color, like tiny, half-seen bolts of electricity flashed through her wind stream.
What Rainbow Dash didn’t know about magic could fill a book. Several books, in fact. When she finally pushed through that barrier the resulting detonation ripped at the fabric of the magical world, shedding colorful light in an expanding ring through the sky. She also shot forward as the resistance disappeared, reaching speeds no flyer had ever matched through all of known history. The sheer speed was breathtaking, and Dash’s heart leapt with elation. Remembering Celestia’s words she angled south, aiming for a large and conspicuous island she’d spotted, leaving a shimmering contrail of rainbow colors behind her. Rainbow Dash allowed herself a small smile. Now that was a distraction! They might all make it out of this alive after all. That was a little too close, though.
Even at her speed, she’d only covered part of the distance to the island when reality seemed to blur, as though everything in the world was suddenly not where it just was. It felt intimately familiar and entirely alien at the same time. In a horrifyingly deep way it made Dash feel small and alone and helpless and scared in a way she could never remember feeling before in her life. She didn’t know it, but she was screaming until she hit the water.
“Hey!” Pinkie Pie’s sounded fairly worried. “What’s wrong? Why did everypony fall down? What did I miss? Fluttershy? What’s the matter?”
Another impact tremor, much louder and longer than the first, shook the ground beneath them, but the sound didn’t scare Twilight. She was already terrified. Pinkie Pie dragged Twilight to her hooves. “Twilight. . . what’s wrong?”
Twilight nodded to herself, swayed a bit in place and said, “We need to find her. Right now.” Her voice sounded a little too high-pitched, threaded with panic. Her friends scrabbled to their hooves as well, as Applejack helped a distraught Fluttershy. Spike clung to Applejack’s mane, his expression distant and unfocused.
“Stop.” Rirton struggled to pull himself up off the path. His wide eyes winced away from every benign shadow, and his wings twitched sporadically, as though he only kept himself from taking flight through sheer force of will. “You. . . You have brought some terrible evil down upon our heads. The prophecies were all true, true and so. . . so much worse. . .”
“We need to. . .” Twilight began.
“You’re all coming back with us.” Rirton interrupted harshly. “You will use your Elements to defend my town against this evil.”
“We need to find Celestia!” Twilight nearly shouted.
“No.” Rirton made a curt gesture, and one of his shaken subordinates cocked a bolt back above her wing, ready to fire at Twilight or her friends.
Twilight’s eyes filled with tears of frustration. “Why won’t you believe us?” She asked half-heartedly, although she already knew the answer. They’d deceived him. Why should he believe anything they said? She wiped at the corner of her eye.
Twilight gasped in shock at another series of crashes, followed by what might have been sharp cracks of lightning. Without thinking, Twilight threw herself forward, running towards the sounds of violence. Rirton pounced upon her, easily driving her to the ground with his greater mass. “Hey!” Pinkie Pie shouted, offended.
Another ripple surged through the world around them, another disjointed shifting in the fabric of time and space. Rirton collapsed atop Twilight as everyone around them hit the dirt. Once again, Twilight felt as though her body wasn’t quite where she’d left it, and her heart stuttered and lurched like a rabbit trying desperately to evade a wolf.
The moment she found her voice Twilight shouted to her friends. “Go! Find the Princess!” Her horn began to glow. “I’ll catch up.”
“Stop them!” King Rirton gasped as Twilight’s friends scrabbled back to their hooves again. The first gryphon to her feet swayed in place, but made it clear she would fire if she had to. Rarity had barely coaxed Fluttershy to stand again; the strange spell seemed to affect her worst of all. Fluttershy shuddered uncontrollably, and tears leaked out of the corners of her clenched eyes.
Twilight’s horn flashed, and a brief cyclone of wind ripped through the branches high above, showering the gryphon guards with pine needles. Quick as blinking Twilight dropped the wind and channeled another spell, one she’d learned last Nightmare Night in Ponyville. Every pine needle exploded into huge white cottony masses of spider web. The decorative kind. All of the gryphon guards instantly found themselves thoroughly mired in festive, pale cocoons.
Pinkie Pie giggled once, halfheartedly, and both Twilight and the King of the gryphons vanished in another flash of purple. The whole altercation took only a pair of seconds. Spike clenched a tiny, clawed fist in victory. “Way to go, Twilight.” He spoke softly as the four ponies turned and cantered away. One of the guards fired after them, but the rubber-tipped bolt didn’t make it two feet, tangled as it was in fake webbing.
Rainbow Dash surfaced, spluttering, somewhere in the ocean. She spit saltwater out of her mouth and glanced around furtively. She kept her breathing steady, her nose and eyes just above the water as she meticulously scanned the whole of the sky and the horizon. Dash was not easily scared, so she rarely had to deal with that emotion face-to-face. But her heart pounded away in her chest and all her limbs shook. Whatever weird spell or whatever that knocked her out of the sky had left her feeling strangely skittish. It didn’t help that she couldn’t feel her right hind leg. Whatever those flea-bitten gryphons shot her with had hit her hard. She was just glad she’d had her packs on when she did. The whole ‘magic shield’ thing was complete garbage.
She absently touched the choker still clasped around her neck, reassuring herself that it was still there. Dash’s assumption that whatever danger there was, it must be somewhere above the waterline was quite the unknown blessing. Had she considered for even a moment that the ocean might contain its own dangers, she would have thoroughly panicked.
Rainbow Dash felt keenly alone. She wondered whether her friends were alright, and whether the Princess might somehow find her out here so far from shore.
As the smoke and dust dispersed a little, the ex-changeling landed on its hooves next to the large swath of forest it’d just demolished. Despite its hide being covered with cracks and blisters, it limped through the smoldering remains of the forest floor until it came across the still form of the alicorn princess. It tilted its head to the side, studying her without fear. She was still alive, her chest rising and falling shallowly. It ignored the scattered and charred remains of the packs she’d been wearing. Instead, it leaned over her and gently, slowly pushed the hair back from her face. It stood there for several moments, just staring wide-eyed. All at once, its brow furrowed and it kicked her in the ribs. Hard. Celestia rolled limply, but she didn’t respond. It kicked her again, and again, and yet again, growing fiercer and more frantic with each blow.
It seemed not to notice a distant cobalt blue form pulling into a steep dive out of the moonlit sky high above. The newcomer spread its wings just enough to level out of the dive and, with beautiful precision, impacted Cinder’s flank with a heavy thud. The scorched avatar of darkness found itself sped out of the clearing, smashed through a number of tree trunks and flung to the ground as the attacker flipped gracefully in the air and landed softly on blue-shod hooves. Moonlight glinted in Princess Luna’s eyes as she glared out from under her starry mane. “Vile corruption. Lay not a hoof ‘pon my sister.” She growled under her breath as the creature of shadows picked itself back up. “Stay, and we shall make thee suffer for thy transgressions.” Her words were lost amidst the sound of falling trees, but her combative stance spoke louder than she did.
The creature, panting heavily, cracked a broad grin. A grin that vanished as a distant concussion, easily heard over the din, caused the ex-changeling to glance towards the town and a bright spectrum of colors expanding in a ring through the sky. Seizing the moment, Luna snarled and her horn burst into soft blue light, telekinetically pulling the nearest toppling tree over towards her opponent. It shielded itself, but did so from the wrong direction and was instantly buried beneath a massive pile of foliage. Luna’s horn grew brighter and her eyes began to glow as lightning bolts hurled from the sky in rapid succession, hammering the fallen tree and setting it ablaze.
There was another scream, and a second black concussion shook the firmament. Luna was ready for it, having been nearly knocked from the sky by the first one. She slowed her breathing and centered herself mentally in the deep bedrock of the ground below her. As the fabric of reality snapped once more like a banner in a gale, Luna remained unmoved. Once it passed, she cried out in challenge and continued her assault with short blasts of magic from her horn.
The burning detritus exploded upward, and the dark figure rose into the air, bleeding and scored. It had lost its crawling aura of shadows, replaced by what appeared to be severe injuries. For the briefest of moments it locked eyes with Princess Luna, and as she stared she felt her concentration falter. In that moment, the scion of darkness retched, and thick, oily blackness poured out of the changeling’s throat, oozed out of the corners of its eyes, dripped out of its nostrils, bled in dark rivulets from gashes in its exoskeleton. When the blackness hit the air, it evaporated, eventually leaving the limp body of a changeling behind. Cinder fell like a discarded foal’s toy into the smoldering pile of branches beneath him, unconscious. Luna took no notice of him. She simply stared, wide-eyed, at the spot where she’d last seen the other creature’s eyes, as though her mind resembled the blasted landscape her surroundings had become. Soon enough though, she shook her head clear and took to the wing, flying as fast as she could to the place where she’d left Celestia.
Luna landed gracelessly next to her sister, kicking up small clouds of ash and smoldering pine branches. The ground beneath was still hot, and Luna briefly debated manipulating a cold-based spell before shaking her head no. Her horn glowed with a gentle light, and Celestia’s unconscious form lifted carefully into the air. A low thrumming noise descended upon the desolate scene, and a massive shadow fell over them. Luna immediately placed herself between her sister and this new threat.
Even though Twilight Sparkle had known what to expect, the cold water assaulted her from all sides and the shock of it nearly caused her to lose the breath she’d been holding. She’d closed her eyes as well, but she could still feel King Rirton clutching her by the shoulder as they reappeared. He immediately pushed away from her and began clawing his way towards the surface. In his panic, his talons raked Twilight’s face. Some of her breath escaped her then through pain and surprise, but she began swimming doggedly upwards, stroking two hooves through the water at a time.
She broke the surface gasping and sputtering, her face afire with pain. The salty water was a blaze of bright agony in her cuts, sapping the strength from her limbs. Twilight swept her mane out of her face and glanced around, blinking her eyes clear.
The ocean about her gleamed silver in the moonlight, a burnished instance of beauty Twilight failed utterly to appreciate in that moment. The shore was over a stone’s throw distant. Her plan had worked, at least as well as she could have expected. But something was wrong. She glanced all around herself, blinking blood out of her left eye as she did so. She didn’t see anyone else. She was alone save for a strange, low thrumming noise. Rirton hadn’t surfaced.
She plunged her face back under the surface, gritting her teeth against a fresh wave of stinging pain and pried her eyes open. She couldn’t see anything. . . just inky blackness in every direction. With an effort of will her horn began to glow, dispelling some of the underwater gloom. It did no good; she still saw nothing. Twilight dropped the spell and surfaced again.
Now the cuts on her face burned and her eyes stung. Her breaths came out more like sobs. Why hadn’t he surfaced? Are gryphons just terrible swimmers? She didn’t remember reading anything on the subject. But another thought caused her a stab of dismay. Or maybe all that gear he was wearing is dragging him down. She struggled to fight off her growing panic. Had she just murdered a foreign ruler? Celestia’s lies suddenly seemed like small sins indeed.
Aether’s Vigil swept out of the cloudless night, scattering ashes and embers everywhere. Luna conjured a quarter dome shield to protect herself and her sister from the debris. The enormous bulk of the ship stopped dangerously close to the ground, and through her shield Luna spotted a silhouette leaning over the rail. “Wow!” A male voice called out over the sound of the turbines. “By the First Forge, I’ve never seen anything like THAT before! Wait, are you Luna? Sorry! Princess Luna! Princess, of course. That was my bad. Oh, and are you all right?”
Luna alone among the citizenry of Equestria was entrusted with knowledge of Aether’s Vigil and its purpose. And rightly so, as Luna was instrumental in the germination of the concept. She also knew that its crew consisted of ponies and gryphons her sister would entrust with her life. Indeed, that seemed like that would be the case. She leaned to the side, revealing Celestia’s unconscious form behind her, still encased within the glow of her levitation spell.
“Oh no. . .” The gryphon vanished, shouting orders out of sight. Then a section of guardrail swung inwards and a long rope appeared over the side, landing within reach of Luna’s hooves. The Princess of the Night rolled her eyes and lifted Celestia’s limp form up into the air magically, flying behind her sister. She landed gently upon the deck. The startled gryphon glanced down at the rope and back up. “Heh, right. . .”
Luna stood taller than he. “FEATHERED SQUIRE! MY SISTER REQUIRES A SKILLED MEDIC!” Luna mostly remembered not to slip into the Royal Canterlot Voice anymore. Mostly.
The gryphon’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “Well, I happen to be the physician here on the Vigil, let me take a look at her.”
Princess Luna stepped in the way. “WHAT IS THY NAME?”
“It’s Pin Feather. And you don’t have to shout, your Majesty. . .”
“KNOW THIS, YOUNG PIN FEATHER. SHOULD MY BELOVED SISTER FARE ILL, MY IRE SHALL BE DEEP AND SPANN’D AS THE GREAT OCEAN!”
“Geez, I get it.” He blinked and rubbed at one ear before gesturing with a blunted talon towards the closed cabin door. “Trust me, just put her on the stretcher.”
“WHAT STRETCHER?”
A moment later the cabin door burst inward, and a gryphon and a pegasus pony appeared, balancing between them a large, flat tray. “Look, I know we haven’t formally met, Princess, but you’re going to have to trust me.” He lifted an eyebrow and flicked an eartuft.
Luna nodded. She levitated Celestia over the stretcher and set her down with all the deliberate care of an artist moving a Faberge egg. Pin Feather reared up over the unconscious alicorn on his hind legs and studied her intently. He gently peeled back an eyelid with the side of a talon, and he delicately ran his spread foreclaws over her ribs. “What happened to her?” He asked no one in particular. He perked an ear and gently laid it against Celestia’s chest. “At least one of her ribs has punctured a lung. Get her to the infirmary now.”
As Pin Feather followed his aides through the cabin door, Princess Luna’s eyes suddenly unfocused. She turned and threw her hooves over the rail, looking back down into the blasted clearing just as a quartet of ponies cantered into view.
“What in tarnation. . .” Applejack adjusted her hat in the wind from the airship.
“That’s neat! What is it?” Pinkie Pie asked.
For once Fluttershy didn’t duck and hide. She looked too worn to do either. Still, she spoke, for her friends’ sake. “It looks dangerous.”
Princess Luna recognized them immediately. “’TIS GOOD YOU ALL HAVE COME.” She said. “TARRY NOT, FOR BOTH OF YOUR PRINCESSES ARE ABOARD.”
“Woah. . .” Spike shook his head in disbelief. “Is that Princess Luna?”
“Seems to be.” Rarity looked as shocked as anyone. “I mean, who else still uses the Royal Canterlot Voice?”
“She’s sayin’ Celestia’s already on board.” Applejack turned her stunned gaze upon the surrounding devastation. “C’mon everypony, let’s go find out who’s tail she’s kicked up and down these parts.”
Okay, I just need to focus. Twilight pictured the clasp on the cloak King Rirton had been wearing when she’d met him. She pictured the two crossed feathers, the jewels inset around and through them. She tried to imagine the weight of it, and she used the mental image she’d conjured to channel a spell, something she hoped would help.
It was tougher than she thought it would be. Water was difficult to work with magically. It resisted definition and rigidity, always slipping away if a spell wasn’t perfectly defined. It’s why advanced students of magic were always instructed to practice levitating small quantities of water from place to place. Worse, water was tough to work through. It tended to diffuse a spell’s energy, dispersing it from its intended path. Had Rirton been submerged beneath a fast-moving stream, Twilight might have found her spell impossible. As it was, enough effort eventually paid off. As Twilight’s horn burst into light, it was answered by a similar glow from beneath the ocean’s surface several pony-lengths away. She latched her dry, burning eyes on that glow and focused on hauling Rirton towards the surface by the clasp of his cloak.
Twilight should have known better. She hadn’t braced herself magically, so the force she exerted upwards simultaneously dragged her back underwater. She berated herself sharply, held on grimly to the breath she had and used her magic to pull herself towards the glow. She kept her eyes doggedly open, trying to resist the urge to shut them again. Within moments she saw him, his regal cloak billowed out behind his head. He’d sawed through a pair of the straps clasping the strange crossbow device around his midsection, but another pair of straps still wrapped beneath his wings. His legs kicked and his wings swept through the water, but he made it no closer to the surface. He locked eyes with Twilight in a silent plea for help.
Twilight felt lightheaded. She hadn’t taken a deep breath before her spell pulled her under, but it was clear that Rirton was out of time. She focused on the remaining straps and tried some delicate levitation to unbuckle the clasps. She failed. The intervening water dispersed her attempts. Spots began to flash before her eyes. I couldn’t save him. She thought desperately. I tried. How could I know this would happen? It was an accident! Nopony would blame me anyway. A dark part of her thought. I don’t owe him my life. I don’t owe him anything!
She shoved those thoughts aside. With a snarl her horn’s glow scaled from purple to white and she snapped the straps through sheer force, and the metal rig fell away. Rirton started rising to the surface. She followed. Every beat of her heart, Twilight fought the urge to breathe. But the urge grew every second, demanding that she inhale or die. How in Equestria did we drift so deep? Her chest convulsed on its own as she struggled to keep her mouth shut and her throat closed until she reached the surface. She was still swimming towards the surface, right? She could no longer see the King. Where is he, anyway?
Twilight Sparkle broke the surface and gasped as much cool night air into her lungs as she could. Except that her throat and chest burned mightily as her lungs filled with seawater, for only the tip of her hoof had broken the surface. Why did she think she’d made it? Another pair of kicks later her head surfaced but it didn’t matter anymore because she couldn’t breathe in any of the air around her with her lungs filled with water and her eyes rolled back into her head and she slipped back beneath the gentle swells. Panic was replaced with stillness, pain replaced with peace, desperation replaced with quiet despair as the darkness closed in. I’m sorry. She pictured her dearest friends, laughing and drinking cider beside the white fence surrounding Sweet Apple Acres. Please be okay.
That thought was not followed by another.