I didn't even know what to do or how to do it at this point, but I knew I had to do something. My instincts were yelling at me to rescue my friends and escape, to grab them and fly out of town as fast as we could, but I couldn't just abandon all the ponies of Los Pegasus. Whatever was going to happen was certainly going to happen soon, or else we'd not have been let in on this plan. Right now, the murderer was taunting us. It was convinced it had won.
"Did sat voice seem familiar to you?" Erdrick asked Midnight, and she shrugged.
"Could have been anypony. Princess, what do we do now?" she asked me.
I thought for a moment, running through all the variables and possibilities. If my theory was right, everypony in town was probably already infected, and I wouldn't have been able to tell even if I were right next to them.
"Midnight, are you feeling okay?" I asked her.
"Same as ever. You don't think -" she started. I nodded.
"... What if this creature spiked the water supply with corpses, like those of the fillies we fought?" I asked her.
"Vat vould sat accomplish, besides being disgusting?" Erdrick asked me.
"Wouldn't that make everypony really sick?" Midnight offered, but I had thought of that.
"Not immediately. If I'm right, then this creature can manipulate the muscles of a body as long as it has some sort of contact with that fluid. So, if everypony drank it..." I said, trailing off.
"Ew, gross. I totally don't want to end up like that," Midnight said, shivering. Erdrick was lost in thought.
"Sen vhy has sis not happened yet? If it can control see whole town, vhy not do it?" he asked.
I made a leap of logic, right then.
"Glory! It's taunting us, it wants to make a big impact all across Equestria! And what'd be the perfect time to do that?" I asked grimly.
"Tax Break!" Erdrick shouted. Midnight and I looked at him, confused.
"Sat vas see voice I heard, vasn't it?" he asked us, referring to the voice on that the pony had spoken in. I admit, it sounded quite similar.
"She is scheduled to give a speech at see ceremony sis evening, ve have no time!" he shouted, and before I could say anything more, he ran out the door and flew out through the skylight, leaving Midnight and I dazed.
"Now what do we do?" Midnight asked me.
"Evacuate? I don't want to have to butcher the entire town if I can avoid it. Perhaps the control has some sort of distance limit, and we could get everypony outside of it?" I theorized. It was desperate, and could backfire easily.
"Yeah, or we'd just wind up spreading infected ponies all across the country," she said.
"Whatever we do, we're not doing it here. We need to get downtown," I said, and the both of us ran from the control room to follow Erdrick out the opening in the roof.
The Science Center was three blocks diagonally away from the ribbon ceremony where the parade was to start, though its route went right outside it. As we flew towards the center of town, I could see great crowds lining the streets, all the way along the parade route, right up to the Science Center. I sent Midnight ahead to try to warn the twins, maybe she could save them in time, or at least get Gabby someplace safe. I didn't want to think about having to cut them to pieces if I couldn't save them...
As expected, Tax Break and a bunch of other business-dressed ponies were standing on a stage which had been erected in front of the ribbon. A crowd, larger than the rest, had gathered to hear a speech which was due to begin any minute now, and I banked downwards towards the stage at full speed.
I landed right on the stage, and none of the security ponies made any effort to stop me, as I realized my horn was still showing. I didn't care, I didn't need my disguise anymore, I had to stop Tax Break. She trotted over to greet me, and I noticed she didn't have a parachute on like she usually did.
"Princess Amoria! I'm so glad you could make it," she said, with a familiar grin on her face. Now that I heard her again, now that I saw her smiling like that, there was no doubt in my mind hers had been the voice I heard.
"All right, whatever your plan was, I'm here to stop it," I said, as I stood up and drew my sword. The crowd seemed to think this was some sort of a show, and began to applaud.
"My dear Princess, if you could stop it, then I wouldn't have told you about it," she said, as she waved her hoof to indicate the gathered crowd, "and even if you did, what about all of them? I hope you've figured it out, I'd hate to have to explain it."
"Some sick mind control poison, or maybe something worse, and you tricked everypony into drinking it," I said, snarling. I hefted the sword to threaten her, but she was as calm as ever.
"Close enough, though it's much better than a mind control agent. No, this is what I came up with to deal with you and your talents. You see, I've been planning this for a while," she said.
"How long?" I asked.
"Decades," she answered.
"Just who the hell are you?" I asked. I figured maybe I could stall her long enough for Midnight to get away, or maybe just long enough to think of something else.
"Well you call me Tax Break, but that's just one of the many faces I wear. Perhaps you'd like to call me General?" she said.
"We took care of all of you. Discord, the Windigoes, everyone. Try again," I said, calling her bluff.
"No no, not like that. You see, I am not like they were, I am not weak. I am hewn from the perfect form of my master, I can assume any form I so desire, I am without vulnerability. I am the General of its armies, and unless you've got some compelling reason why I should keep taunting you, I'd like to bring my plan to fruition," she said.
"Here's a compelling reason!" I shouted, and quickly brought my sword down to cleave her head in two. The flesh split apart like it had been made of butter and the two sides hung in the air as the crowd gasped. The entire city went silent.
Her head started to reform itself, in under five seconds she had reformed her face into a scowl.
"You're dumber than I thought, did I waste my time trying to outmaneuver your intellect? No matter, it begins, now!" she shouted.
And with that, a wave of darkness rippled through the air around her. It was like reality was being warped as a pond is when a rock is thrown into it, and everywhere that wave touched, the ponies who felt it began to change.
It was not as I had feared, though, for while it was still terrible, it was reversible, at least that's what my instincts told me. Whatever jamming field General had been using had been broken, and I could sense every single pony who was affected in the entire city. It was nearly all of them, a few visitors were still clean, that was about all. It was like I was surrounded by an army of enemies, and then the screaming began.
The ponies were not under General's direct control, but rather began to attack one another, and the buildings around them. Perhaps there was not enough agent in them, or perhaps that had never been the plan, but regardless, the entire city was now descending into madness. Their eyes became unfocused, their coats became grey and they screamed, oh how they screamed. A terrible din that would only stop as they began to strike one another, desperately destroying everypony near them.
General began laughing, in exactly the same tone I had heard in the basement. He, she, it, it was everywhere. Every pony was a plaything for it, every pony an amplifier for that maniacal laughter. As I looked back at the body of Tax Break, it had begun to show its true form, a great beast made of blackness whose weight crushed the stage beneath us.
I leaped back and took to the air, as the creature began to get larger and larger. The screaming didn't stop, it got louder as the creature continued to expand. First, it was the size of the stage, now the size of a building, now two. It was huge, impossibly huge, and what could I do to stop it? It melted its legs back into its body and sprung enormous tentacles out, each larger than a tree, and simply leveled the building that was next to the stage. I don't know if any ponies were in it, and I could do nothing to have helped them. Totally powerless. I ran.
I flew towards the Science Center, all thoughts of fighting back erased completely. I had to get out of here, grab what could be saved and flee, tail between my legs. Totally outplayed, and now so many were going to suffer for it. What a failure I was.
The Center was in chaos just like the rest of the city, though the residents kept their battle on the ground, thankfully. The streets were a throng of ponies assaulting one another as I landed on a balcony and kicked open the glass doors within.
Surprisingly, the inside of the building was relatively clear. I guessed most of the ponies had been outside to get spots to watch the parade, there were a few unconscious ponies laying on the floor. Fairly close to the middle, stood Gabby, protecting Rainbow and Fluttershy as another pony in a lab coat screamed and charged at her. Midnight appeared from behind a divider with Minty and Squeaky behind her, as Gabby spun around and bucked at just the right time, catching the pony in the chin. He fell over and struggled to stand up, as Gabby recognized me and tried to decide what to do.
She bent down near the pony and grasped his foreleg in hers, and then twisted and pulled until I heard a distinct snapping sound. The pony made no further attempts to stand up, it seemed he had passed out from the pain.
"Cadence, what the hell is going on?" she yelled at me.
"I really screwed up, really, really, really screwed up! This is all my fault," I shouted back as I ran up to them.
"What? How?" she shouted, as I noticed that my friends were all right. Perhaps they had been unaffected due to our having to install a local faucet, I guessed, though the fillies should have shown a reaction. Perhaps they had been flushed out over time, I didn't exactly have time to interview them.
"Princess, are you here?" I heard a pony shout from the balcony I had come in on. There, standing before me, was Erdrick again, except this time he was wearing a Wonderbolts uniform, complete with goggles. The familiar blue with yellow lightning trim, that was the uniform his team had given him when he retired.
"Erdrick! Come on, help me carry Gabby out of here," I shouted, but he shook his head.
"I am so sorry, I failed you. My followers were just as vulnerable as any, and I did not realize it in time. Now, sey have only compounded the problem, and I can do nothing but watch as my city is destroyed," he said.
"Soon, sere will be novhere left to run, sis creature has an army greater than any see vorld has ever seen. My whole life has been a vaste," he said. He hung his head, and though his goggles were too opaque to see behind, I could see the drops of water on the bottom that betrayed his tears.
Gabby spoke up, "Oh will you quit crying? So the entire city is in the middle of a death match, it's not the end of the world."
"I believe sat it literally is the end of the vorld, miss," Erdrick said.
"No it isn't, because we're still here, and as long as we don't give up, we haven't lost!" she said. She seemed sure of herself, but nopony else did. I wondered how long we had left.
"Cadence, we can handle ponies, but what was that about a monster?" Gabby asked me.
"Tax Break, she was one of them, the whole time," I said. Erdrick shook his head, I hung mine.
"She's mutated into something huge, a creature the size of a tower. Not even an dragon would have a chance against it," I said.
"Who said anything about a dragon? You've got me, I'll go straighten it out," Gabby said.
Seeing Gabby refusing to give up was kindling hope deep within me, I felt like if I could go down fighting I'd not have wasted my time. Perhaps I could find something important out and pass it along to Celestia, maybe we weren't defeated yet.
"Go and recon it, we'll stay here and keep everypony safe. Dark lady, help me barricade these doors!" she shouted at Midnight, and the two of them started grabbing furniture and walling up the Center's other doorways.
"Allow me to accompany you," Erdrick said, and we made out way to the balcony. It was a street level balcony, we were only a hair's length away from the roiling brawl but the madness had evidently made the combatants forget they could fly. It was a sea of fighting hooves, heads, tails and manes, I could scarcely see any individuals in the chaos.
We took off again and flew high above the city, to get a better look at the monster who was gleefully smashing buildings. It was methodical, it had leveled half a block now but seemed to be taking care not to crush any ponies. Perhaps it intended to unleash them on another city later, or perhaps it would turn them into a proper army for its faceless followers, by absorbing their bodies. In either case, the civilians were a peculiar kind of safe for now, we needed to stop the damn thing from destroying the city itself.
I swooped closer to get a better look, but the beast looked just like the many other faceless ones I had encountered. It was black, a roiling mud-like substance made up its body as hints of green crystals could be seen periodically on its body. The night would be its natural camouflage and I didn't think the city would last until the morning, nor could we try to fight it until then. I had no time to beg Celestia to keep the sun up either, for I'd never find something to write a letter on in time, we had barely half an hour.
Hope had been dying as I sized up the creature, but something inside me said to keep trying, keep thinking. Erdrick flew closer as I stayed back and thought, I noticed the creature's tentacles tried to swat him out of the sky but he expertly dodged around it. Still, one bad dodge and he'd be done for. He was unable to find any weaknesses in its body, and flew back up to me with a dejected look on his face.
"Vat veak point could sis sing have?" he asked me.
"I've fought these before, but they don't have a weakness. You just slice them up until they cannot be sliced anymore, they're like putty," I said.
"If it vas made of putty sen it could not stand up like sis," he said.
It occurred to me that maybe this creature only resembled the faceless ones of old. I had a hunch, so I closed my eyes and concentrated.
The other world was in complete chaos, a million orbs of light with the black corruption staining them, the connections between them flowing wildly around. I'd never be able to clean them off in time, hell, I'd have a hard enough time cleaning one off with it fighting the way it was. But, that wasn't what intrigued me.
Deep within the creatures body was another stone, a Ziristone ball just like the one I had found earlier, except much larger. It hovered in the center, rotating on an invisible axis in accordance with the movements of the body outside of it, each crushing motion reflected in the ball whirring in place. The creature did have a weakness!
"Erdrick, I know what we have to do, and it's crazy," I said.
"I vould hope so, as I cannot see a path that is sane," he said.
We flew back to the Science Center and landed on the same balcony as before. Gabby and Midnight already had most of the doors blocked off, while Minty and Squeaky were poring over something hidden behind their bodies.
"Minty?" I asked her, and she looked up suddenly.
"Cadence, I know what you're thinking, but hear me out," she said. I cut her off.
"I need to borrow your rocket," I said.