Part Five: Reunited
The one thing about ghouls Airborne could admire was that they never tired nor did they feel the cold. Whenever they stopped to make camp Shining Armor would stand guard all night watching over the warmskin’s he had come to have a healthy respect for. There was one thing he envied about them and that was the natural rhythmic music of their heartbeats. During the night he would listen as the organs pounded liquid life through the ponies, listening as the beats rose and fell with a crescendo of sounds. Inside his heart lay silent, a reminder of the painful fact that he was nothing more than a walking corpse in this land he had once called his own. For the first time in a long time Shining Armor wondered what life would be like if he hadn’t died during the War. The ghosts of his fantasies danced around him as he stared into the inky blackness of the starry sky above. He thought of the parties he could have enjoyed with his sister and her friends as he watched his wife dance gracefully to the melody of one of their favorite songs, curling up with his wife by the fire on the cold nights when winter visited the Empire. But these things were not meant to be, so much had been robbed from them during the War, and now it was unlikely that they would ever get some of those things back.
When dawn rose Airborne awoke to find Shining Armor still at his ever vigilant post, looking at him he asks, “Sorry to pry Shining Armor but what happened to you during the War?” Shining Armor sits down across from Airborne poking at the few remaining embers in the fire pit they had built the previous day saying, “The War didn’t immediately affect the Empire at first, in fact we didn’t even know there was a war with the zebra’s until the first of the refugees crossed our borders and told us what was going on in Equestria. Eventually Cadence received a letter from her cousin Celestia asking for her to travel to Canterlot to discuss a potential alliance with the Empire. Cadence knew that if she was to travel to Equestria and meet with Celestia that word would no doubt get out to the zebras about an alliance between the Crystal Empire and Equestria and that might as well be a declaration of war on our part, on the other hoof she couldn’t simply ignore the possibility of war with the zebras who had been seen leading patrols on the borders of our territory.
So she did the only thing she could do, she declared the Empire neutral in the conflict, but little by little we were dragged into the war at first it started with the refugee issue when zebra spies would abduct a few refugee’s here and there. That winter an Equestrian Loyalist faction reared its head in the royal court, the fanatics that led it demanded that Cadence send military aid to Equestria and provide it’s armies with some of the unique arcane technology and magic found only here in the Empire. Cadence stubbornly refused to send any aid to Equestria outside of medical supplies, but a scandal developed when some members of the group secretly smuggled some of our weaponry across the border into Equestria. Eventually the zebra’s had enough they declared war on the Empire and began to send troops to raid some of the outer settlements around the Empire. After that I have never seen Cadence so sad, she would spend hours reading the casualty lists and writing letters to grieving families who lost somepony in the War.
At first our armies fought the zebras to a standstill but when they replicated some of our own arcane technology the tide began to turn. The zebras were inflicting massive losses on our military, most of our generals agreed that it was only a matter of time before the zebras had the martial strength to march on the Capital city. But then on the Last Day when we were expecting an all-out assault on the city we instead were greeted with the sight of missiles rocketing towards the city. Earlier that day I had been in the communications center monitoring the progress of the war in Equestria when all of a sudden most of our communications with the major cities in Equestria went dead. At first I thought it was merely some type of glitch in the terminal systems but when we checked out the hardware in the terminals everything was functioning exactly as it should. I noticed a small group of ponies who had gathered around the window and then I saw what they were looking at. A large mushroomed shape cloud rising hundreds of feet into the air was visible all throughout the city. It was a few hours later when the guards reported the sight of missiles flying toward the city, I ran to Cadence who was still in the throne room reading the latest batch of casualty reports from the front. When I burst in she had already conjured a force field around the city. The first group of missiles exploded when they came into contact with the shield, but it was the missiles that exploded into fine bursts of mist that’s when I knew something was severely wrong. I could see in the streets below ponies suddenly falling over coughing then gradually one by one they fell silent. A crowd of ponies had gathered around the base of the castle and was trying to force its way into the palace. If it wasn’t for the guards they would have overtaken the throne room within a matter of minutes.
Cadence maintained the spell for as long as she could but we could both feel the air beginning to bear down on us with an oppressive weight. It became difficult even painful to breath, it took every bit of strength I had just to stand. That’s when the second wave of missiles thundered into Cadence’s weakened force field. The field broke and the ponies outside were killed in the barrage, Cadence only had enough strength left to protect a small portion of the palace, I caught her as she collapsed. I told her to hang on” stopping to wipe the tears from his eyes Shining Armor continues to say, “She was so weak, I could feel her heart fluttering like a dying bird inside her and she could barely breathe. The virus had taken its toll on both of us, eventually I could feel her slipping away I begged for her not to leave me, but she simply looked at me and smiled saying that she would never leave me. She died with a smile on her face, I gently closed her eyes and placed her body on the throne, I used what little strength I had left to preserve her body because I couldn’t bear the thought of her rotting away. It was after that I fell to the floor. I couldn’t breathe anymore and I gasped for any bit of air to make it into my lungs but eventually I grew tired and closed my eyes. When I awoke I was like this, I couldn’t remember my own name or even how I got to be where I was. I wandered the wastes and eventually stumbled upon a group of other intelligent ghouls who took me in and gave me a purpose. So there you have it Airborne, that’s my story of how I came to be here.”
Airborne sat back on his haunches absorbing the tale Shining Armor had just told him. Thinking to himself, “It’s no wonder why most ghouls lose their minds, after suffering from so much grief and despair I would lose my mind too.”Airborne notices that Celestial, Fractured and Starshine had awoken and had listened to Shining Armor as he spoke, Fractured says, “I knew things during the War were bad but I didn’t know they were that bad. I always blamed Princess Cadence for the destruction of the Crystal Empire but now I know she tried her best to keep us out of the War. I hope she at least died painlessly.” Shining Armor nods and looks at Airborne saying, “When you said my wife had ordered you to come and find me, what exactly did you mean by that?”
Airborne gulps nervously not sure how to tell Shining Armor that his wife’s spirit had lingered in the ruins of their palace for two centuries. “Well…you see Shining Armor when your wife passed away she didn’t exactly pass on if you get what I am trying to say.” Shining Armor raises an eyebrow saying, “You mean to tell me some form of my wife survived after she died?” Airborne nods and replies, “That’s about the gist of what I am saying” Shining Armor slumps to the ground saying, “It’s all my fault, she has waited for me after all these years and now look at me, how am I supposed to face her looking like this?” Starshine replies, “I don’t think she will be too concerned about that Shining Armor, I think she will be happy to see you after all these years.” Shining Armor sighs and says, “I hope you are right” later after everypony had something to eat, Airborne says, “All right let’s make the final push to the Crystal City today, come ghouls or yetis we are going to get Shining Armor to the city” Shining Armor looks at Starshine and says, “Don’t tell me you ran into one of those things, they were even a problem when I was still alive.” She nods and says, “Yeah we ran into one but we took care of it” Shining Armor’s jaw drops and the ponies chuckle at his reaction then he says, “They must make ponies out of sterner stuff now than they use to” Airborne nods in agreement and says, “Yes, they do.”
In this land of snow and death, Airborne had become use to the frequent snowstorms that blew in out of nowhere. The storms would rise and fall like ghostly tempests then fade back into the icy landscape. The storm that had blown in was particularly vicious, the cold wind biting at his muzzle freezing droplets of sweat to his face. Airborne thought, “If it wasn’t for these parka’s we would all be pony icicles before morning.” Shining Armor trudged ahead of the group, his tattered coat fluttering in the breeze like an old banner, Airborne yells to him, “How much further to the city?” Shining Armor yells back, “Maybe a few hours, it’s hard to tell with this much snow blowing about.” Airborne looks at Starshine and says, “Do you think he is right?” She replies, “He must be. He would know this land better than anypony after all he did live here once” Airborne replies, “Yeah but that was like two hundred years ago, so much has changed since then.” The storm quickly turns sour as the visible quickly goes from barely visible to whiteout conditions. The strands of hair on Airborne’s tail have frozen together; even the feathers on his wings had turned to ice. He can feel every part of his body shivering and his teeth begin to chatter together from the extreme cold. Fractured trots ahead to Shining Armor and says, “Listen I know you can’t feel the cold but we can. If we cannot find some place to take shelter from the storm, we will all die which I know seems like a minor concern to you given that you are already dead but some of us would rather prefer to stick around for bit longer.” Shining Armor sighs and says, “There should be an old tavern or at least what’s left of it nearby. We can take shelter there until the storm blows over.”
Shining Armor good to his word finds the remains of the tavern buried in a massive snowdrift. Bucking down the front door which quickly collapses he says, “Everypony get inside” Airborne can barely moved a hoof before collapsing face first into the snow, Starshine and Celestial drag him inside as Fractured puts the battered door back into place. Starshine removes Airborne’s barding and unzips his parka, Fractured looks at her saying, “What are you doing?” she replies, “He has hypothermia, if I don’t share my body heat with him he will die.” Fractured nods and doesn’t press the matter living in the frozen wastes of the Empire he had always walked a razor’s edge between life and death where just having a spare bullet could make the difference between living and ending up as a yetis dinner.
Looking around at the interior of the tavern, Fractured was surprised it was in such good condition. The bar taps still worked although when he pressed down on one it poured a dusty liquid he was sure he couldn’t drink even if he wanted to. Most of the wooden tables were intact and hadn’t rotten away, most of the snow outside hadn’t managed to seep into the place which meant that it would be comfortable once he could get a fire going. Celestial wandered upstairs watching as Shining Armor broke some of the legs off an old chair to use as fire wood then handed them to Fractured who placed them into an aged fireplace. Climbing the stairs which creaked with every step she searched the rooms to find anything of use. Searching through the old desks, wardrobes and cabinets she finds a few bottles of whiskey stashed away under a mattress. Having no luck in finding anything else but piles of dust bunnies everywhere she turns she quickly grabs some bedding from a few of the rooms and walks back downstairs. Fractured had managed to get a small fire going, Celestial tosses Starshine a few blankets and she replies, “Thank you Celestial.” Celestial nods in reply then hands Fractured a bottle of whiskey, he takes it and says, “I haven’t had this stuff in a long time, a real treat in the wasteland. I will be sure to save Airborne some whenever he wakes up.”
After a few hours Airborne starts to stir, Fracture happily says, “Welcome back to the land of the living buddy” he hands Airborne a bottle of whiskey, Airborne looks at it and says, “What is this stuff?” sniffing it curiously, Fractured replies, “Never mind what it is, just drink it. It will warm you up inside.” Airborne takes a swig of the whiskey and starts to cough saying, “Damn that stuff is nasty. Where did you get it? It tastes like two hundred year old syrup” Fractured replies, “Celestial found a few bottles of the stuff upstairs. Somepony must have stashed them away for a midnight drinking binge. Regardless I am glad she found the stuff, it’s really hard to come by out here.” Airborne takes another swig of the whiskey and hands it back to Fractured who helps himself to the rest of the bottles contents, looking around Airborne says, “So is this the tavern Shining Armor spoke about?” Starshine replies, “Yes, we found it just in time. The storm outside has gotten really bad and I doubt we could have traveled much further without our limbs dropping off from frostbite.” Airborne looks around the room and spots Shining Armor sitting by the fire a forlorn look etched across his face, trotting to his side Airborne asks, “Are you okay Shining Armor?” Shining Armor snaps out of his pensive gaze and says, “Yeah I am fine just wondering what I will do after all of this.” Airborne says, “Well I am sure you will think of something” Shining Armor smiles weakly and goes back to staring into the fire.
During the night the howling of the storm had died away leaving an eerie silence that crept into the tavern. But the ponies inside rested oblivious to the change in the weather, when they awoke the next morning Shining Armor had cooked them breakfast. He had found some sausage and bacon in an old freezer in the back of the tavern. Surprisingly they were still good to eat and Airborne noted that they didn’t taste too bad for two hundred year old meat. The ponies quickly devoured the meat, and then packed up their remaining supplies for the final push to the Crystal City.
Exiting the tavern Airborne looks up to see a clear blue sky, he says, “I never thought I would be glad to see puffy clouds after being emerged in this snowy darkness for so long” Starshine stretches out her wings and says, “I know what you mean, I wish I could fly up into them to just absorb the sunlight.” The road to the Crystal City was buried under a good three feet of snow, but this didn’t seem to faze Shining Armor who just trudged through the snow leaving his hoof prints behind for them to follow in. Airborne starts to see familiar sights on the horizon, the large silhouette of the Crystal palace looming in the distance. As they entered the ruined city Airborne could hear a cacophony of disembodied voices and could see the shadows of long dead ponies flitting between the buildings, he could hear the ghosts saying, “He’s here, he’s here. Shining Armor has returned.” Airborne looking at Shining Armor notices that he hasn’t even bothered to look at the ghosts of his former subjects but instead he stoically gazes forward looking up at the remains of his once beautiful home.
Climbing the stairs to the palace Airborne could see the ghostly shadows of the ponies following them to the palace. Shining Armor continued to ignore the ghosts as he entered the front door of the palace, looking around at the interior of his former home he says, “It’s changed so much since I have been away.” Airborne replies, “A lot has changed in the two hundred years since you have been away, but none of that matter’s right now. What does matter is reuniting you with your wife.” Everything seemed still as they approached the door of the throne room, Shining Armor was shaking slightly Starshine trots to his side and says, “You will do fine, she has waited a long time to see you” Shining Armor gulps and gathers his courage saying, “Alright let’s do this.” Pushing the door to the throne room open with his hoof, the door slowly swings back revealing the silent earthly remains of his wife still sitting on her throne. Trotting forward he stares at her murky tears rolling down his cheeks he says, “I had forgotten how beautiful she was.” He gently caresses his wife’s cheek feeling the coldness of death that still clung to her, he says, “I didn’t know what I would feel coming back here. Now I find myself feeling a confusing torrent of emotions that are rampaging through my heart like a manticore.” Shining Armor gently kisses his wife’s body then notices something shimmering in the rays of sunlight pouring in through the shattered remains of a stained glass window. The sunlight cast a shimmering rainbow light as he watched the ghostly image of his wife trot towards him. Shining Armor thought to himself, “If my heart still was beating I image it would be pounding on overdrive by now.”
The spirit of Princess Cadence trots up to Shining Armor taking a forehoof she wipes the lanky strands of blue hair away from his face and gazes softly into his eyes. She smiles and says, “It has been a long time my love” he nods unable to speak. Princess Cadence chuckles and says, “I think I will have to give you a haircut, I don’t think long manes are terribly fashionable this season.” She tries to run her hoof over Shining Armor’s mane but her ghostly hooves pass right through, looking at her body she sighs then turns to Airborne and his friends saying, “Thank you for bringing Shining Armor here to me. I know it must have been difficult in finding him, but you have my eternal gratitude…” she stops in mid-sentence as she sees Fractured Heart instead of Darkstar she says, “What happened to your friend? Darkstar I believe his name was.” She notices tears that start to well up in Celestial’s eyes, Starshine sulks and Fractured doesn’t say anything his mouth firmly screwed shut. Airborne replies, “Darkstar sacrificed himself to save us my lady. He wanted to make sure we completed our mission and get Shining Armor back to you safe and sound” Princess Cadence looks at the ponies and says, “I will remember this debt you ponies have paid for me as I will remember Darkstar, the pony who gave my Shining Armor back to me.”
Airborne looks at Starshine who nods and then he says, “Shining Armor, the reason we came to the Crystal Empire is that we were hoping that you could tell us why Rainbow Dash was importing so much arcane technology from here.” Shining Armor is shaking out of his stupor and he replies, “If I recall correctly it was for the Equestrian war effort, the Ministry of Awesome was involved in many projects even though Rainbow Dash took very little notice of most of them, she preferred to spend time on the battlefield than in some government office. But towards the final months of the war she made a particular request, it was for a special type of crystal found only here in the Empire, except this crystal wasn’t used to power some type of spell or even a piece of arcane technology, it was for the preservation of somepony’s living essence.” Airborne looks at Starshine and she says, “Do you remember what she wanted it for?” Shining Armor shakes his head and replies, “No, I don’t but I got the distinct impression that whatever she was doing with the crystal’s wasn’t some project sponsored by any of the Ministries, there is more information in a vault underneath the palace. I would check there too see if you can find out any more information” Airborne nods and says, “Thank you for telling us Shining Armor.” Shining Armor smiles then gazes back at his wife saying, “I am so sorry to have kept you waiting here for me for so long” She replies, “That doesn’t matter now, what does matter is that we are together at last.”
Shining Armor looks back at Airborne and trots over to him, handing him a badly weathered piece of paper saying, “These are the codes you will need to enter the vault, the first code is to open the vault door and the second will allow you to bypass the terminal’s security systems letting you see the contents of it.” Airborne looks at Shining Armor and the ghostly spirit of Princess Cadence asking, “What will you do now?” Shining Armor replies, “Something that should have happened a long time ago.” Shining Armor wanders over to his wife’s limp body and places his head on her lap smiling then closing his eyes; he lets out a long sigh. Airborne looks at him then sees a fine mist rising from Shining Armor’s body, the mist elongates as it lands next to the spirit of Princess Cadence. As the mist manifests itself into the shape of Shining Armor, who looks so much healthier than he did a few moments ago. His once grime covered coat now looks like fresh fallen snow, the hair on mane and tail sparkle with a brilliant blue instead of being faded and long overgrown. Shining Armor smiles, his face beaming with happiness, the worn world weary look gone replaced by a joyous radiance that Airborne himself could feel. Shining Armor looks at the ponies and says, “For so long I lingered in darkness but thanks to you I am free.” Then looking to his wife he says, “Shall we go?” she nods and says, “Yes but I have one thing to do before we go.” The spirit of Princess Cadence wanders up to Airborne and kisses him on the cheek and whispers into his ear, “I will always be watching over you Airborne. Goodbye and thank you for everything.” The sun begins to shine brightly through the window as the spirits of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence ascend into the air then disappear with a flash of light. From all around the city Airborne can hear a massive collective sigh as the ghosts of the Crystal Empire finally find the rest that had been denied them for so long.
Airborne and his friends leave the throne room gently closing the door and sealing the tomb of the two lovers of the Crystal Empire. In a corner of the palace Airborne finds a small stairwell leading into the palace’s storerooms. He notices that a stack of crates has been shoved aside and that a hidden door has already been opened. Galloping down the stairs to the vault he sees a note pined to the massive metal door, the note reads, “Dear Dashite Trash, we know of your plans for Rainbow Dash, we also know you seek the location of the Tomb of Dash. We will not allow you to proceed further with your plans, if you open this vault we will know, so we are going to give you one chance. Turn back now and we will not pursue you otherwise expect us to pay a visit soon.” The note was signed by Steelwings, Airborne remembered back to his time in the Enclave, Steelwings had graduated from the Wonderbolt Academy two years before he attended. He was known to be particularly brutal and sadistic, he would made a sport of hunting down any Pegasus who left the Enclave, then dragging their bullet ridden bodies back taking their wings and mounting them as trophies in his office. Now he was after them and Airborne had no doubt he would be seeing him soon. Starshine grabs the note from the vault door and rips it up saying, “That buzzard can go stuff himself, let’s get what we came for and get back to Fluttershy.”
Airborne imputes the code to open the door to the vault into a small keypad; the door hisses and slowly opens wide. Cobwebs greet the group of ponies as they enter the vault, as soon as they step foot onto the floor the lights above them snap on revealing a large room lined with shelves holding various weapons and other wartime goods. While Fractured wanders through the vault helping himself to some of the long forgotten loot, Airborne finds the terminal and enters the code. The terminal hums to life and he waits for a few minutes as it boots up after not being used in two centuries. The screen glows and Airborne flips through the various entries noting the different types of shipments that came and went from the Empire from so long ago. Then he finds what he is looking for. An entry bearing the signature of Rainbow Dash catches his eye, he reads it, “Today more shipments from the Empire arrived. They contain among other things the crystals I asked for. Twilight doesn’t seem to understand why anypony would need these crystals which according to her are rather mundane. But I know better, we last visited Shining Armor and Princess Cadence in the Empire he told us about the various types of crystals found in the Empire and what their properties were. The effects of one particular type of crystal interested me the most. Shining Armor called them Etheric Crystals; they would retain the essence of any pony for a long time and could even be used as an energy source. I have been looking for a way to develop a new type of robot for the battlefield, the ones we currently have either break down or quickly get destroyed on the front lines. With these crystals we could power a whole army of robots and using the souls of the fallen zebra’s we could fight fire with fire and make the zebra’s kill their own kind. The greatest thing of all is that these etheric crystals never break, so even if the robots became damaged we could recover the crystals and use them again.”
Airborne looks at Starshine who also read the entry and she says, “Things were different during the War, at least she had a change of heart later on in her life” Airborne replies, “Yeah only after Equestria was turned into nightmare straight out of the mind of the sickest pony.” Flipping through the remaining logs Airborne finds one last entry, it reads, “They are all dead, because of me. My friends vaporized by the zebra’s because of what I did during the war, whenever I try to sleep at night I can see their faces and behind them the faces of all those I have killed. And now I killed perhaps one of my only remaining links to my days before the War. The Pegasi sent Gilda to kill me after I left them. They weren’t too pleased with me to begin with but I never thought they would send her after me; they must be really desperate to maintain their fragile hold on things up there. I tried to convince Gilda to leave me alone, to return to the Enclave telling them she had found my burnt body in the Wastes. But she wouldn’t do it, even before the War she was always so stubborn and now she paid the price for her pride. I will regret killing her for the rest of my life but I must see to it that I can get the chance to right the wrongs I have committed that brought Equestria to ruin. I am leaving for the…”
The rest of the entries data had become corrupted in the centuries of sitting in the vault, unused or maintained. Starshine managed to salvage a set of coordinates from the entry and says, “We should get these to Fluttershy maybe she will know where the Tomb of Dash is located just by using these.” Airborne nods and replies, “Alright, let’s go. I have had enough of this frozen place to last me for a lifetime.” Airborne while flipping through the various entries had come across one speaking of an escape tunnel that had been built during the war as a way to safely get the Princess out of the city should the zebra’s attack. The tunnel led all the way into Equestria and with any luck they should be able to leave it without running into any of the hit squads from the Enclave before they can get back to Fluttershy. As they enter the tunnel to leave the palace, above them circles a fierce Pegasus dressed in the deadly metallic armor of the Enclave, inside on its head-sup display the Pegasus notes the open signal from the vault below in the palace. The Pegasus says, “So the fools were dumb enough to open the vault. This will please Steelwings he has been dying for years to get after that traitor Airborne and now it looks like he will have his chance.” The Pegasus quickly zips away leaving Airborne and his friends unaware of the coming struggle ahead as they return to Equestria with their precious and dearly bought information leaving the frozen wastes of the once beautiful Crystal Empire behind.