//------------------------------// // Chapter Ten // Story: Clipped Wings // by Desrium //------------------------------// Chapter Ten It is in the face of adversity that a pony knows their worth. It is only among friends where mild conflict can turn into comedy and then be put aside to the realm of memories. For that was what had transpired between Falcon Wing and Klaxon. "Don't irk Klaxon? How do you not irk the stallion who gets pissed at everything and anything?" the red pegasus retorted to Steiner and Klaxon's reply came as quick as a shot. "Says the pony who can't be called 'little'. What's the matter? Feeling a bit insecure?" he said. Falcon Wing sighed and narrowed his eyes. "You? Asking me about insecurity? Why, that is positively ironic!" "Well as your friend, you can bet your ass I know just how much you love it!" Steiner put a hoof to his face and said: "Falcon, I would hate to be the one to have to tell Alana you've gotten involved with another pony behind her back. She already considers me the bearer of bad news without me having to do so." The two of them bristled at that. "The hell is that supposed to mean!?" Falcon Wing yelled while Klaxon had a hoof raised, barely stopping himself from hitting the unicorn. It was around then Alana appeared on the opposite platform. "Guess what I found!" she proclaimed gleefully then pulled out a Sparkle Cola from her coat pocket. She popped the cap off, put it in her pocket then started downing the drink. "It's cold and everything!" she said after taking a long gulp of the two century old beverage. That put an end to the exchange and not too long afterwards, the group was back on the move. They were closing in on their destination. Upon the light blue colored map display shown by his terminal, Klaxon saw the marker for the city, though all he saw ahead of him across the rolling snowy landscape was a thick wall of ice and snow jutting up from the tundra. Though it fit into the environment, there was something about it that seemed...unnatural. The way it was jagged at the top complete with icicles extending out of the face made Falcon Wing think of the Hope citadel, something explicitly meant to keep outsiders out on the other side. As if sharing the thought, Klaxon asked his blue companion: "Did your records mention anything about a giant ice wall of death?" "Oooooh, do you think there are stables here made out of ice!?" Alana said with eyes as wide as saucers. She stood atop the crates looking out into the distance yonder. "I do not think so. For them to close themselves off like this, the ponies of the city would have been mentioned at least once in the records. And no, Alana, I am certain they did not make their stables out of ice," Steiner replied. Alana voiced her disappointment with an "Aaawww!" "So you're saying this came about some time after the war? That ponies were able to make a fortress out of ice?" Falcon Wing asked in disbelief. "I would figure unicorns that happened to live in this frozen waste would be able to combine their efforts and use their magic to make a barrier like so... but to encompass the entire ruin? Especially one that so very few visit?" Steiner responded, his question not directed at anyone in particular. "It is all so... peculiar" "Not even the long-furs? They did try to scavenge things from the city, right?" "Of course!" Klaxon spoke up, having lived the life of a scavenger himself for so long. "But they say freaky shit --" Alana cleared her throat. "... Stuff kept happening to them when they went in. They wouldn't go into detail about it." "If it hadn't been for my findings, I would have dismissed the caravan stories as modern day myth-making. But there are too much substantial, factual ties to do so conclusively," said Steiner. "On the other hoof, the presence of this wall and what it implies simply does not make sense..." "I've had my share of mystery," Falcon Wing began to say. "I've got a feeling we won't be liking what we know when we solve it." "And what mystery was that, mister hero?" Alana inquired. "... Who took the cookie from the cookie jar," Falcon Wing replied, unable to bring himself to tell her the Shadow Sweep's true motives for what he did in Baltimare. Alana cocked her head, giving him that puzzled look of her's. Steiner looked back at him with a raised brow. "It was one of the hardest cases to solve in the stronghold I lived in." Falcon Wing deadpanned. "Your talents are wasted on being a jokester, Falcon Wing," Steiner, unamused, said and looked forward to ponder this new development. "So who did it?" Alana asked with a wry grin. "Caught me red-hoofed," the young pegasus said in a mock confession, raising his front legs up in surrender. "I've been a bad pony, Alana." "I'm pretty sure you meant to say 'better' there." she said. The converted wagon neared the imposing wall that dominated the landscape, Steiner's horn glowing red. It sparked with pent up energy, which glimmered in his eyes. His expression was calm and focused in spite of the fact he was wielding dangerous magic, a spell he was only making stronger with his intense concentration. Less than ten yards between the carriage and the ice. It was time. Steiner bowed his head so that his horn pointed straight ahead. The air was charged again, magical streaks dancing about the vehicle as it approached the wall. In seconds a hemisphere of energy was over the the wagon, crackling and flashing ruby and scarlet. The snow melted in its vicinity and with it, Klaxon simply pedaled into the wall, the barrier cutting a perfect semicircular tunnel through the ice. There was no resistance and water hissed into steam, the hot vapors kept outside of the shield. In no time at all, the wagon was on the other side of the city. The ponies were in the Crystal Empire... ...and it was a most somber sight. The Crystal Empire had been hit especially hard -perhaps the epicenter of a Megaspell blast. From the outskirts of the city the ponies saw the ruined skyline of the city. Tall towers leaned against each other or had been fragmented completely, jagged husks that stabbed into the frozen sky with the other pieces of the structures flattening the smaller buildings they landed on. The truly monumental structure far off in the distance had fared no better. Though it still stood tall, reining over a kingdom of ruins, its walls had been stained and stripped away in the aftermath of apocalypse. It was a fraction of what it used to be in the days of old. And everything was covered in ice and snow. It wasn't a natural covering. Jagged icicles burst through windows and doors, impaled wagons and other wreckage and suspended them high over the streets. The snow was considerably deep, mounds of the stuff at least two stories high and spilling into the ruined buildings. It was as if a bunch of pegasi had focused wintery wrath upon the once great city. "It gets stranger and stranger," Steiner said as he lowered his shield. "what kind of ponies would wall themselves in here of all places?" "Ponies who really have a thing for ice," Klaxon remarked plainly. "So we hit the library, correct?" he asked, clearly not as troubled as Steiner was. As far as he was concerned, this mission was defined and methodical. Enter the city, get what they came for and teleport out before things got too hairy. "The library," Steiner confirmed with a nod of his head. Klaxon pressed the buttons of his terminal, switching map functions to the local based one. A lot of the city had been marked and registered on the map because Steiner had provided a printed copy in the databanks, an admittedly aged copy that designated areas that simply did not exist anymore, frozen over or leveled completely. Once he was finished marking the library with a beacon, Klaxon started to pedal quicker, speeding down the packed in streets and navigating the ice-bound obstacle course they had become. That was until his vision was drowned in a tremendously bright light that forced his eyelids down and made him pull hard on the breaks. The wagon spun to the right and skidded laterally, coming to a stop and sending snow flying. All of the ponies had their forelegs raised over their eyes to shield them from the brilliant radiance. All the ponies except for Falcon Wing at first, who thought his goggles would be able to filter the light and winced when he found that the goggles did in fact do nothing to aid in that regard. When the glow had subsided somewhat, what they all saw left them aghast. It was a pony...except not. It was completely devoid of flesh and features. Only an immaculate, white body that emanated light. Its equally bright eyes differentiated themselves by being of a solid amber color that spilled wisps of energy out of them. There were six hexagonal plates of a strange purple and silver alloy surrounding the energy-pony, three on either side arranged in a triangular fashion. They all had a stream of energy branching out of the pony and into them, keeping them aloft and in formation at all times. Or was it vice versa? Steiner was the first to speak. "Guardian?" he inquired. The phantasm of a pony tilted its head at the name. "I have not been referred to as such... in a very... very long time," said the energy pony without a mouth. Its voice came from the very air itself, the sound seeming to enclose the group of four entirely, echoing upon itself, whispers interlaced within the statement. "I have come to call myself the Maxim Magimus. And you are trespassing upon my domain. Have my warnings to the others before you not been heeded? Evidently so..."