Upheaval: Breaking Point
Chapter 31: Irreparable Damage
Terrato had seen a lot in the time he had spent in this world. He had seen the monsters that lurked Equestria and beyond. He had seen incredible acts of might and magic, and he had seen the best and the worst that ponies were capable of. He was young by alicorn standards, but he had gotten familiar enough with this world to be comfortable in it.
How odd it was that it was a sight from the world he had come from that left him disconcerted. It was still early morning when he received word that a brief fire had broken out by the western side of the city. As soon as the messengers left, two Equi Ignei materialized before him. Defensive spells flickered in his mind as he dropped to a fighting stance. "What are you doing here?" he asked. He did not merely mean his realm, but the very world he was in.
One of them answered in its own tongue, and Terrato was glad that these two had waited until he was alone. He didn't want to lose legionnaires to either deafness, or insanity. They were here as messengers and escorts: Celestia was calling for him.
"How many of you did she call up?" he asked. "For what purpose would she need her enforcers?" The two didn't speak right away. "Answer me!"
One of them did answer. It was respectful, but far from cowed. Celestia's enforcers were beholden to no pony besides her.
Precaution…Terrato sneered at the idea. Precaution against what? He was Celestia's defender. What threat could possibly make her think that she needed something besides--
He stared at the Equi Ignei. His sister wanted to meet with him alone, in her realm, while surrounded by her enforcers. If he didn't know any better, he'd think that she was trying to assassinate him. He knew what the summons was for. She wanted to test his loyalty, to question him while he was stripped of his protections, and outside his realm. "It's me…" he whispered. "I'm the threat she's summoned them for."
The Equi Ignei waited silently, uncaring towards the increasing anger of the pony they faced. "No," Terrato said. "Tell her I'm busy. In case she's forgotten, remind her that I'm in the middle of defending her realm."
The magic around the area distorted when the Equi Ignei spoke again. Celestia wanted Twilight Sparkle and her friends back in the Heartland. 'So another plan turns around and bites your flank,' Terrato thought. It was unlikely that any of the banished chosen would submit to a memory lock. That would leave Celestia two options: she could imprison them somewhere, or she was willing to spread the word about the barrier.
Terrato scoffed at the latter. If Celestia had been willing to do that, they wouldn't be in this mess. He also couldn't imagine Celestia locking up her chosen either. Not that summoning her enforcers was high in his list of things she was likely to do. Why would she be so desperate to get them back anyway? Did she miss Twilight Sparkle that horribly? An unbearable onset of guilt? No...the Elements of Harmony. He had sensed the power within them when he met them face to face. Celestia was trying to get the Elements of Harmony away from him in some deluded attempt to prevent his imaginary attack. Did a thousand years of devoted protection mean nothing at all?
Terrato maintained an outward calm when he replied. "Twilight Sparkle is neither her property, nor mine. I'd ask you to talk to her yourselves to get her answer, but I'm not willing to risk blowing her brains up, so I'll clue you in. Luna tried to get them to a safe place, they refused. I asked them to stay in my fortress, they refused. Regardless of how they got here, they're staying on their own volition. I'm not going to insult them by asking a third time."
The Equi Ignei's formality belied a persistence when they spoke again.
"I don't care if you won't take no for an answer!" Terrato roared. The entire building shook, and bits of dust fell to the floor. "You glorified cinders can't touch them anyway. If you have a problem with how I run things in my realm, I'll be happy to face you in battle right here and now." His voice lowered to a growl. "Go back to your summoner before I actually lose my temper!"
The Equi Ignei lingered for a few moments more before simply fading out like dying bonfires.
"Hold," Terrato said. The flickering flames remained. In between leaving and staying, they looked like a small collection of guttering candle flames. He softened his tone. "If my words mean anything at all to her, tell Celestia that I have been, and always will be, devoted to her."
The flames completely faded out. Terrato rubbed his temples with his hooves. Who was he kidding? Of course his words meant nothing to her. If they did, she'd be talking to him through a magical image instead of sending messages through summoned beings. He wished he could have gone with them. He didn't care if he had to face Celestia alone while surrounded by her enforcers. He would have risked it just to actually stand in her physical presence.
But he couldn't go. Not after last night's incident. That crafty, flea-bitten mongrel, Fenrir, had been hiding some trick up his sleeve. Bastion City was raided by a familiar presence. Nightmare Moon was around, and Fenrir managed to keep her presence hidden. He couldn't risk abandoning Bastion City.
Fenrir possessed some modicum of honor, but he was not above manipulating the pact. Nightmare Moon was not involved in their agreement, giving her free rein to attack the Legion using her new unicorn host. It was fortunate that the Elements of Harmony had come to the Barrier Lands. He would have to rely on them.
Celestia wasn't going to approve of using Twilight Sparkle and her friends like weapons, but he had done a lot of things recently that she didn't approve of.
"But the truth is, she's never forgiven you for going out to fight yourself."
Terrato let out a sigh. Luna was right: he was deluding himself. He had been out of Celestia's favor the first day he led the Legion into battle, and he had been fighting the impossible battle of trying to get back into her good graces ever since. He struck the floor with a hoof, giving the walls of the Grand Meeting Hall a good shaking. Curse these Equi Ignei. In addition to showing him how much Celestia distrusted him, they reminded him of the Herd.
He closed his eyes, and tried to look back past centuries of fighting and killing: to remember galloping through the endless rolling plains of Elys, where the golden grass tasted sweeter than any mortal food, flying through the marble, cloud-covered mountains of Bytos, where springs of crystalline water flowed forth. And Empyrea...the Eternal City. Empyrea, the house of the Throne, where their parents ruled.
Most of all, he tried to remember Celestia standing right next to him and smiling, unconcerned for things like mortals and ideals, her bright pink mane flowing out behind her like sea foam, gently caressing her lustrous white coat.
"Perhaps it is time to go home," Terrato muttered. Their stay here was tearing them apart. No, it had already torn them apart. The damage may well be permanent. He dreaded the prospect of standing before the King and Queen, explaining how it all came about.
Rainbow Dash zigzagged swiftly through the row of poles. As she did so, she aimed with her crossbow, fired at the targets lined up at the sides of the training ground, then reloaded without slowing down. By the time she reached the end of the training ground, five wolven cut outs had been shot at. She wiped the sweat off her brow, and looked back at her hoof-work: two out of five targets had been struck, two of her shots were close, and one was wide. Far from a perfect, but it was certainly an improvement. Ever since the initial attack, she hadn't flown into battle at all. She didn't like how she had performed that last time: panicking, spacing out, getting grazed…first time or not, it was embarrassing. The lack of opportunities to put that dismal performance behind made her giddy. She focused all her pent up aggression on training, and it showed in the mess of practice bolts scattered across her section of the training grounds.
A distant boom came from somewhere in the city. It sounded like the rumble of thunder. She was about to investigate when she heard her flight captain.
"Two out of five, Rainbow Dash?" Tailwind called out from the ground. "Those three you missed just shot you dead!"
Rainbow saluted, then landed in front of Tailwind. "Did you hear that loud noise, Flight Captain?" she asked. "It sounded like an explosion."
"Sounds more like our prince being a bit upset," Tailwind replied. "Never mind that. Come along, we've got work to do."
Rainbow followed as Tailwind walked towards the center of the training grounds. "Flight Dreadwing, fall in!" Tailwind shouted. After a brief scramble, every pegasus in area lined up. "Last night, the wolven tried to launch a raid on our city. Thanks to that stupid son of mine, and Twilight Sparkle, they didn't get much done. We''re going to pay them back with a raid of our own along with Flight Storm Dawn. I want everypony to be ready. We'll be hitting one of their exposed supplies by sundown. Is that understood?"
"Yes, ma'am!" the flight answered in unison.
Rainbow went back to training once they were dismissed. Twilight had done it again. For all her squeamishness about what they had to do, she had been the one making a name for herself. How many wolven did Twilight incinerate this time? And that was assuming she was still using the same spell. Knowing her, she probably had ten more combat spells down. It seemed impossible to catch up, let alone to overtake.
'Well, here's my chance to shine!' Rainbow thought.
"Hey, Rainbow Dash!" Scarlet Rabbit called out. It took less than a second for him to go from distant to hovering nearby.
Rainbow snorted, and put away her crossbow. "Are you following me?"
The question, along with the attached annoyance, bounced off Scarlet Rabbit as if she had been throwing pieces of crumpled paper at him. He reminded her a bit of Pinkie Pie, if Pinkie was a hardened killer of a soldier. "It's going to be your first raid tonight!" he said. "Excited?"
"Well…" Rainbow hesitated. She imagined her friends facing her. Applejack and Twilight Sparkle were looking away. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie, looked on in concern. They didn't say a word. They didn't have to. Their silence reeked of disapproval, disgust, and fear. How dare they judge her! It wasn't her fault that she couldn't feel the same guilt as they did during the last fight! They were the ones who were wrong. They were ponies of the Barrier Lands now. Time to stop crying over the Heartland. "Yeah," she said. "I am excited."
Scarlet looked a little confused at first, then matched her enthusiasm with a grin. "Great," he said. "We're going to have a blast. Literally! I might even show you some of my tricks."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Wait a minute, why are you coming? You're not Flight Dreadwing or Storm Dawn."
"Didn't Tailwind tell you?" Scarlet asked. "I'm coming along to help out with raids. Besides, I used to be Flight Dreadwing."
"That doesn't count!"
"Oh yeah? I may be in Special Operations now, but I'm more Flight Dreadwing than you!" Scarlet pulled out some small metallic object from his harness, and showed it proudly. It was gold, and shaped into a stylized wing with a pony skull embossed at its base: Flight Dreadwing's symbol. "You're not really a member of the flight until you get one of these!" he said.
Rainbow's eyes widened. She could just imagine the insignia on her harness. "How do I get one then?" She didn't even bother disguising the desire in her tone.
Scarlet tilted his chin up. "Tailwind gives them to anypony in the flight who fulfills one of her three tasks."
"What are those?" Rainbow suddenly wished she had a piece of paper and a quill with her.
"A thirty wolven kill count. Don't ask how she knows, she just does. There's also having a fifteen wolven kill count in a single mission. Or you could do what I did."
"What's that?"
Scarlet's lips split into a grin. "Take down a brachyurus."
Rainbow Dash swallowed. "Brachyurus? As in those really big white ones that hang around their rear lines?"
"Yup. They're not just big. They can jump really high, and catch you when you think you're flying out of reach. They're tough enough to take an entire case of bolts without slowing down, and they can rip you apart as if you were made of paper, if they don't just swallow you in one gulp!"
"How did you kill one then?" Rainbow's eyes narrowed, as ideas went through her mind as to how to kill something so big and strong.
"By being really awesome," Scarlet opened his front hooves wide as if presenting himself to an admiring audience. "I timed my shot just as it was about to bite me, and put a bolt right down its gullet."
Rainbow studied Scarlet carefully. Brachyurii were the strongest of the wolven. They didn't even belong to the list that pegasi worked down on when picking targets. They were just too big, and too strong. Taking one down required coordinated efforts from different ponies. Scarlet was always so cheery that it was impossible to tell if he was lying. He talked about killing thirty wolven as if he was talking about collecting stamps. He was certainly the opposite of Twilight and the others, who blanched at the thought of killing even one wolven. "Say Scarlet…" she said.
"Hmm?"
Rainbow looked away. "Do you ever feel bad about killing wolven?"
"Of course not!" Scarlet scoffed. "Nothing gets me more pumped than flying into a furious fight, putting bolts through wolven skulls, dropping a few to their deaths, then reporting how awesome I was to the Captain!" He flew about in place, barely able to contain his own excitement.
Rainbow hovered backwards. She expected that from Scarlet somehow. What she didn't expect was being…reassured by the response. "But they're still living creatures, right?" she asked.
"Of course they are. You can't kill something that isn't alive." He paused, and stared at Rainbow, his eyes narrowing. "You have to stop getting little details like feeling sorry for wolven get you down, Rainbow. They'll only slow you down. The slow don't last long in the Barrier Lands' skies."
"I am not slow!" Rainbow snapped. "I'll show you! Thirty wolven, fifty wolven…even a brachyurus! I'll kill them and get that insignia. And it'll look more awesome on me than you."
Scarlet's grin widened. "Sounds like a plan, but you should lighten up. Take some joy out of these things." He put on a mock sagely face. "You're going to be doing this for a long time. If you can't take joy in doing in it, you'll go crazy. Being a legionnaire's only a drag if you let it!"
Rainbow returned the grin, and glanced at her crossbow. "I think I will," she said. Perhaps she had misjudged Scarlet. At first, he did seem a little crazy for being so cheery despite all the carnage around him. Now that she thought about it, perhaps he made a lot more sense than her friends. He'd been living his entire life fighting the wolven. He was the fastest flyer of the Northern Equestrian Legion…for now. He was obviously doing successfully in the Legion. His feelings on the matter were closer to hers than her friends' were. He must be right. He had to be right. It was Twilight and the others who had to understand.
"Tell you what," Scarlet said. "If you can kill even five wolven on tonight's raid, I'll treat you to a drink over at Storm Brew's. The only thing as exciting as a bloody fight is a round of celebratory drinks over at Storm Brew's!"
"Deal," Rainbow replied. "You'd better get your bits ready!"
The two of them continued chatting while Rainbow resumed her training drills. More than ever, she was determined to sharpen her skills, and catch up to Scarlet. No, not just catch up. She was going to overtake him. She was going to be a faster, more awesome, and a better legionnaire than he was. She flapped her wings quickly, relishing the sudden lightness. If she threw away even trying to feel guilty over killing, she just might be able to do it. Maybe that was the secret to Scarlet's speed.