//------------------------------// // The Torch Bearer // Story: Innavedr // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Manabullets impacted all across the wall as Bellesmith skidded around it, dragging Phoenix in tow. A daring pony, she may have been, but her muscles weren't built for this sort of an ordeal. She sweated and heaved to the breaking point, trudging the two of them down the final stretch until they broke into a solid canter. Sooner than later, they made it to the last junction before the sequencing room. Trotting through the broken doorframe, Belle threw the two of them inside just as a solid array of mana surged through from the uniformed stallions who had made it to the straightaway behind them. Tumbling across the floor, Belle holstered a rifle and fired violently at the doorframe. After several successive blasts, she caused the door to bend and crumble. As the sound of hoofsteps grew louder, she reloaded, cocked the weapon, and fired several more rounds. At last, the doorframe collapsed, taking a chunk of the hallway along with it. The far end of the compartment caved in, forming a solid wall of metal mesh and hard plaster. As the smoke cleared, Belle stood up, checking her last two rifles and ammo. She cursed under her breath. “No spare bullets left. All I have is half a clip...” Gnashing her teeth, she stood up and hoisted Phoenix to his hooves. The collapsed rubble pounded from the far end as the stallions struggled to telekinetically heave their way through. “Come on, soldier,” Belle managed to say. “Just a little further...” Phoenix shuddered, his moist eyes gazing at the broken furniture and bloodstained walls. “I h-hate this room,” he said in a foalish whimper. “It's okay, Phoenix,” Belle panted. Her energy was still bubbling, but her body was struggling to keep up with it. “It's all going to be okay.” Wheezing, she pulled him along through the dimly-lit sequencing room, past the circle of seats and the equipment hanging above them. “We're almost out of this mess. They won't be able to harm us anymore.” “Won't they chase us down?” Phoenix remarked. “Won't they hunt us d-down until we're good and dead?” “They seem to have a lot more on their plates at the moment,” Belle said. “The place is crawling with enforcers.” “Enforcers?!” Phoenix only trembled more as the two trotted up the black metal stairwell. “Since when?” “It happened while we were gone,” Belle remarked. “Kera and I, that is. When we came back, we saw managliders everywhere. They were battling a Searonese ship.” “Searonese?!” Phoenix flinched as the stallions hammered against the barricade far below and behind them. Nevertheless, he did his best to crawl in pace with Belle. “What in spark's name is going on in this city?” “If you ask me, I'd say Nightshade's little emperor is collapsing in on itself.” “You think the Madame would escape to safety.” “Yeah, tough luck with that. Kera and I crashed her precious airship in the mountains north of here.” “You... cr-crashed her airship?” Phoenix stammered. He gulped and said, “Jeez, Belle. If you ever thought of joining the Blades Guild...” “Let's not dwell on that quite yet.” As the guards pounded through the barricade, Belle emerged with Phoenix onto the floor with the redflame. She looked all around, looking for something to slow the advance of their pursuers. At last, she gave the stairwell a solid glare. Trotting over to a wall, she leaned the stallion against a wall. “Wait here, and look away from the stairwell...” “What are you doing now...?” “Anything I can to stop them,” she grunted. Cocking the gun, she pulled the trigger but did not release. The energy weapon glowed louder and louder, and a vicious humming noise filled the air. Phoenix gasped, “It sounds like it's going to overload!” “That's the idea!” Once the weapon was too hot to handle, Belle tossed the entire thing halfway down the stairwell with a rattling noise. “Get down!” She dove with Phoenix towards the floor. The weapon blew up, and it took a good chunk of the stairwell with it. The metal steps collapsed on each other, forming a dense web of tangled bars and grating. It was just in time too, for she could hear the barricade of the junction room giving way, followed by the angry shouts of frustrated Nightshade workers. “Okay, Belle... bonus points for ingenuity,” Phoenix said as she helped him up again. He winced from his aching skull and murmured, “Can we please high-tail it out of here?” “Not quite yet...” Phoenix's face went pale. “Not y-yet?!” He gawked at Belle as she galloped immediately into the offices flanking the flame compartment. “Belle, isn't Kera and the foals waiting for us?! They need us as much as we need them!” “This is about them!” Belle said, immediately diving into desk after desk of piled-high paperwork. “I need to know where their families are being situated!” “You think Nightshade is seriously going to leave that crud lying around for anypony to peruse?!” Phoenix hobbled until he could afford a weak lean against the doorframe to the offices. “This isn't the first time you and I have raided this place, y'know...” “Yes, but Nightshade hasn't entirely shown herself to be the most careful of do-badders,” Belle said as she rummaged and rummaged and rummaged some more. “Her entire plot with the sequencing—if you can call it much of one—is so full of holes that it isn't even funny. No wonder this entire town is collapsing from the inside out.” “Such a waste...” Phoenix shook his head, sighing. “These Ledomaritans have so much potential, so many resources... and it's all just a stupid tragedy in the end...” “Not if I can help it,” Belle said. She froze, suddenly, then turned to face a bulletin board located on the far end of the office. Bounding a few steps, she rushed up to a hanging display of blueprints, complete with floor schematics and intricately labeled architecture. “Come on... come on... please let my hunch be right...” He squinted at her. “What hunch?” “Yes!” her voice cracked. She almost did a backflip, but suddenly flailed, remembering she didn't have wings. With a twirl, the golden mare beamed while waving the documents around. “It's Deep Ridge! The Xonan families and Ledomaritan Foster parents are being held in Deep Ridge!” Phoenix blinked. “And just where is that, pray tell?” “Only seventy miles to the southwest, along the edge of the Azure Canyon! It details an underground detainment camp for the families of the foals who were 'borrowed' for Nightshade's experiment!” “That m-must make them neighbors to all the cr-creatures that the company experimented on...” Phoenix winced. “You think they'd still be there? I mean, with what's going down in Blue Nova...” “It's worth a shot, Phoenix...” Belle tucked the blueprint tightly away in Luna's satchel. “We could make it there in a day by zeppelin—even less time if we hurry!” “Bellesmith, about all this—” “Phoenix, I know what you're about to say.” Belle sighed. “But we have to do this. The foals don't deserve to have their families taken from them, especially so early in their lives. They didn't ask for their horns to be broken off, and neither did you—” “Belle...” Phoenix smiled warily. “You don't understand.” He leaned forward with an earnest expression. “I am with you on this. I mean it. I will follow you all the way, even if it means to our death.” He shuddered as he said, “And, in my case, that... th-that isn't really that far off a possibility...” Belle blinked. She smiled and trotted over to him, giving the stallion a dear hug. “I did not come here just to have you die. You're getting your second lease on life, Phoenix. You're gonna see your family just as much as the foals will see theirs.” He blinked his tears away in time to remark, “How can you say that, Belle? The odds are stacked against us. Getting out of all this alive? It's... it's impossible...” She leaned back and glared at him with a devilish smirk. “And just what's wrong with doing the impossible?” He said nothing. Below, a crumbling noise echoed through the building frame. The barricade was being broken through. Before the sound of stallions' hooves echoed, Belle tugged on Phoenix's forelimbs and led him back into the main chamber. “Come on, we have to go.” “My sentiments exactly,” he said, hobbling with her. Suddenly, he bumped into her side. He nearly fell, instead gasping, “What is it now?” She stood still, staring up at the billowing red flame. “Belle...?” “This fire...” She pursed her lips. “It doesn't belong here either.” “I... uh... I very much doubt that you'll find the flame's parents, Belle.” “No, you don't understand...” She trotted up to the ring of metal, gazing up at the billowing ruby energy. “This was whisked out of the heart of the earth, out of the machine world. It powers up something that we can't understand.” “Well, no wonder Nightshade couldn't get her act together,” Phoenix said. “She was dealing with something she couldn't understand, no matter how many brains of foals she threw at the thing.” “But it's still dangerous!” Belle exclaimed, throwing a serious face over her shoulder. “What if the enforcers tear this place to shreds and find this thing hidden up here? If it falls into their hooves, it would be just as bad as if we rewound time and allowed Prime Enforcer Shell to get the red flame deep beneath Blue Shelf!” “What's done is done, Belle,” Phoenix said. He twitched at the sound of guards hammering away at the collapsed stairwell just a few feet from them. “And Nightshade is completely done for! Maybe you can somehow do the impossible by saving me, the foals, and our families. But this red flame is beyond us!” “But... it is not beyond Rainbow Dash...” Belle gazed down at the metal ring that acted as the dais for the levitating flame. She squinted at the incomplete number of runes being lit up by the dancing ruby light. “Hmm... I wonder...” “What?” Phoenix trembled harder and harder as the guards dug their way up from downstairs. “Wonder wh-what, Belle?” She reached back and opened Luna's satchel. With gentle hooves, she took out the ancient tome that had been discovered ages ago in the possession of the pegasus skeleton. Opening it up, she flipped through the faded pages, gawking at every symbol and rune that passed her by. As with every previous perusal, twelve runes in particular showed up more than the others. She simply didn't have a reason to notice it until now... now that she had dipped her mind through the mental construct that Nightshade's foals had constructed. “I wonder...” She looked up at the flame once more. “If perhaps the only thing Nightshade has been missing all this time... was the right kind of torch?” “Belle...?” “Stand back, Phoenix...” Belle sat on her haunches and held the open book in two hooves. She pushed it up, up, up towards the flame like an offering. “I'm not entirely sure what is going to happen—” Something happened, and it happened violently. With bolts of crimson lightning, the flame dissolved, then flew into the tome like a ruby missile. The book took on a fiery glow, its many runes lit up like stars. The force of the absorption knocked Belle back by twenty feet. “Bellesmith!” Phoenix gasped, wide-eyed. “Ungh!” Belle landed with her flank against the wall. In her trembling hooves, she held the book, and it pulsed with otherworldly energy, possessing every ounce of the billowing flame's aura.