Ignis

by Blue Blaze {COMET}


Underline

I held on for my life.

The bomb’s packaging was stuck to my sweaty fingertips, the moisture setting into the paper exterior. A quiet beeping sound ticked off from the explosive device at the rate of a slow heartbeat. The red light bulb near the top face numerical buttons blinked steadily once every two seconds and was so dim only under the veil of utter darkness someone would be able to see it. I hugged the C4 close to my chest as I tried to stabilize myself on the computer console I was leaning against, my knees shaking against the trebling steel grating beneath me. My other four fingers were hanging on to the cold metal edge of the computer’s large casing, the supercomputer freaking out in a flurry of red font error messages. I could hear the whole silo shaking, the foundations of the building crumbling underneath some incredible force, the core of the energy building we were in groaning in protest. I grit my teeth and breathed through my mouth while the computer’s endless symphony of tiny, rapid sound-offs increased my already speeding heart rate. My eyes kept glued to the computer monitor’s black background. Critical error. Critical error. The same error warning kept appearing, but no two messages were completely alike. The complex workings of pipes in front of me that stretched from ceiling to a hole in the floor seemed to pulse and bend under a sudden change of pressure. The highly unstable, dangerous, violate liquid magic that traveled within these enormous highways flowed even faster down the paths, pushed by something I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around.

Ironheart yelped as she was flung to the wall with a clang as the room rattled under an ugly wave of the quake. Whirlwind was having trouble stabilizing himself mid-air with all the vibrations in the air throwing off his instincts. I bet he could feel them, just didn’t understand what was going on and how to deal with it while airborne. I felt the grating underneath my knees threaten to break loose and let its payload fall to their doom into the black abyss of the dead zone beneath us, the toxic magic waves killing us before we would ever reach the bottom of the pit. I frantically scanned the edges of the room. There were six doors before us, one on each wall in the hexagon-shaped container, but we would never be able to get our hooves and feet beneath us to reach one of the exits before the floor gave out. I swallowed. There really wasn’t a spell I knew that could get us out of this situation. If Libra was here, she could teleport us out with her overpowered teleporting magic, but I had no idea how to cast teleport. I would probably end up only teleporting our top halves while our bottom halves flailed about in their original locations. I held my breath. That would not be a pretty end.

“We have to do something!” Ironheart shouted, getting to her hooves. The extra Earth Pony strength in her legs allowed her to stand up without the trouble my two legs were having. It didn’t help that she had twice the feet that I did to stabilize her balance.

I didn’t say anything. I had no idea what to do. Sawdust had the only Radiostone we had, so we couldn’t call for any backup. I briefly wondered how the rest of the squad was doing. Stars only know how much easier it would be to handle all the shaking underneath some solid concrete. Then again, with all this quaking it would be all too easy for one of these corridors to collapse on itself. I suddenly hoped that if anypony were to get out alive, it would be Sawdust and the others.

I tightened my grip on the edge of the console, shutting my eyes as if flinching for a blow to the face. Then, it all stopped.

All the shaking stopped.

Just like that. At the drop of a button.

I opened my eyes slowly. My vision was still shaking from all of the uncontrollable movement that I had done previously. I focused on the glass pipes that were strung in front of me, and the liquid magic had stopped rampantly gushing through the tunnels. The computer halted its cacophony of aged sound triggers, but the screen was still filled with red, blocky letters. The ambience of the core resumed and lightly hummed against the surfaces of the room, creating a somewhat soothing sensation despite all of the trial that happened moments ago. I let go of a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding and peered down at the bomb that was inches away from my face. It didn’t blow up yet, and the timer was still ticking down at a good rate. I began to wonder if the shaking stopped because the bomb had already blown up and I was just experiencing the period of death before I got sent to the afterlife. I checked behind me to see Ironheart still holding on to one of the bronze pipes against the wall, visibly shaken with deep, dark creases underneath her wide eyes. Whirlwind landed beside her putting a hoof over her shoulder but also examining around the room to make sure that he wasn’t simply seeing things. I swallowed, letting go of the package to push down on the metal computer case and get to my feet. I stumbled at the height of my stance but took a step back, shook my head and tried to get the room to stop spinning.

“What… happened?” Ironheart asked, finally letting go of the wall.

I didn’t look at her, instead trying to get my vision out of cross-eyed mode. “I don’t know. I guess the shaking stopped.”

She snorted. “Well thank you, captain obvious.”

I smirked. At least she was still in one piece enough to take pot shots at me.

“But the question is,” Whirlwind began, the back of his throat sounding scratchy. “What stopped the shaking?”

“And what caused it in the first place?” I muttered to myself. The silence in the room was almost deafening. Glances were exchanged and hooves were shuffled and suddenly I had a sinking feeling in my gut that was all too familiar. My sixth sense was going off like nuts and told me that more danger was coming, and fast. I looked up towards the ceiling, the harsh white lights baring down on us. We didn’t have much time, because from what I could tell, it was going to be a doozy. I mean, we needed to get out of the core and regroup with the rest of the squad anyways, but now there was a sense of urgency more than ever.

“We need to go.” I simply stated, taking long strides towards the door we entered through in the first place.

Ironheart read my face like a book and frowned. “Trouble with the bomb?”

“No, it’s not the bomb.” I said. I explained my sixth sense phenomena. Whirlwind raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Iron still understood. She had already experienced my sixth sense before in a previous mission.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s bad.” I started turning the white painted wheel of the door as fast as I could. “Really, really bad.”

In the corner of my eye I could see Whirlwind look at Ironheart. She returned a concerned look and nodded. I finished turning the giant doorknob and pushed the six inch slab of metal open. My partners in crime weren’t too far behind me as I jogged out onto the open bridge. I stopped to examine the situation carefully before continuing. The bridge to my right was out, its platform ripped free from the arms that held it between the core and the rim. There was no sign of it below, only darkness in the never-ending hole below us. I was nervous as all Tartarus. The shaking in the building occurred for a reason, and I could only imagine what kind of force could make an entire energy silo quake from its roots to the very core itself. That kind of shaking was not a part of any plans the Valoran plotted out for us. Holly couldn’t have made an explosion big enough to actually rock the entire building. I’m actually surprised that it didn’t topple over onto the GENEROSITY district after that. But the fact is, something got it shaking and something stopped the shaking, and I did not want to hang out to find what did.

I got on the move again. I could hear my comrades’ hoofsteps behind me, then a flutter of wings as Whirlwind took to the air. I was at a pace a little bit higher than a jog, but the others could keep up with me easily. We had to get out of here. The sick feeling in my stomach kept getting deeper and deeper. There was no cover out in the open space on the bridge. It was wide, sure, but if there was something that jumped us from nowhere or if guards were to attack us from the other side at the rim of the core, the only thing between us would me the best barrier spell that I could conjure. As far as I could tell the door on the other side was closed shut still and hasn’t opened since we entered and Gizmo closed it on the other side, but I had no idea how they were faring. Sawdust’s warning echoed in my mind and I wondered how long we were in the core for. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. I just hoped that I had set the bomb to a long enough time period for us to get out.

The heavy thumps of my footsteps rang out into the air, the sound passing through the bridge and making it clang from the other side. Each step I took only made me wearier to the point of paranoia. I checked behind my back, just in case something was chasing us and we didn’t know. I looked up. Maybe there was something hanging on the ceiling, waiting to drop down on us like a pack of Blood Spiders. Man, I hate those things. I hate spiders in general, and I would hate to get eaten by one just because I didn’t check up in the first place.

As soon as my right foot planted itself in its next step I slid to a halt, warning running of wildly in my head. I looked directly in front of me and my teammates stopped as well. There was nothing there, but something awful was telling me to watch out for that spot exactly.”

“Ignis, why are we –” Ironheart started saying. I didn’t give her a change to finish as I whipped out my wand and thrust it away from me.

“Alacritas!” I commanded. A lance of energy flowed through my arm and shot straight forward in the blink of an eye, the thread of lightning heading towards the nothingness before me. But just then, the sound of a large ripple of energy shot out and a dome appeared out of nowhere, its reflective surface shining against the light of the ceiling like a glass shield would. There was a miniature twister that swept through the area, occurring from the point where my magic was blocked. I held my Stetson in my left hand, my leather coat billowing from the gust. There was a wipe of white over the barrier and nine ponies appeared from the other side in three lines, all wearing Blueblood military equipment.

The back line was filled with unicorns that had red scanner goggles over their eyes. Their armour was a dark, harsh green that had light paneling along the flank and legs so that they could maneuver a bit easier than most soldiers. Their suits were enchanted in such a way that every single unicorn had a pearl white coat, horn and a mane that had strands switching between black and, you guessed it, more white. There were rectangular metal containers strapped to the armour where saddlebag would be placed on a normal citizen. My mind was scrambling trying to remember what Unicorn Elites would be carrying in those things. The second line consisted of four earth ponies, all in heavy armour with laser automatics holstered on their back. Their goggles were black and their fur a dark grey. I could see a gun muzzle on the wrist of each of their forehooves. That couldn’t be good. They were the heavy artillery in a sense, with the power to withhold many attack and shrug off magic like a swan would to water.

Standing in the front though, was a very familiar face. He was shielding his face from the wave of wind that appeared, but his wings fluttered in the breeze, wanting to get a taste of that rush of air. He wore light armour, like all the other Blueblood Pegasus Elites I’ve seen. However, his was a bit more customized. There was no padding around his hooves and an even bigger space void of protection around the base of his wings. A large holster for a knife was strapped onto his chest, the handle easily in reach for his teeth to grab at a moment’s notice without having to let his eyes off his target. His fur was jet black, his mane a combination of grey and gold, as were his eyes. When he put his hoof back down on the ground, his glare bore down on me like a pissed off Manticore that was out of patience and full on energy to kill.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. My jaw hung loose from the top of my mouth and I almost dropped my wand, the rod of wood sliding down my sweaty fingers until I clutched it at the last second.

“Ignis,” he stated. Taking a step forward. “I haven’t seen you in a while.

There was an impact on the bridge and I jumped to see four more ponies hop on from nowhere and surround us in a circle. They all bent low, ready to take flight again at a moment’s notice, or pounce at us with lighting speed and reflexes, bringing us down in a mere matter of moments. They had the lightest armour of them all, and their matching green wings and brown eyes made for an intimidating combination, especially if you knew what kind of position they were playing. All three types of elites were here outside the core just to deal with use three. I had no idea what happened to the outside defence Sawdust promised us, but whatever happened, I hope they got out alive. I was glad to know that we were so dearly loved.


“Underline?” I asked, my mind boggled. There were so many sudden variables that I had trouble keeping up with the situation.

“You know this guy?” Ironheart asked me from behind.

Underline smirked. “Yeah, he knows me. He knows me from a long, long time ago. How many years has it been since you left, since you ditched us? Four years? Five years? And now, when I finally find you, you’re playing on the opposite team?”

I felt Ironheart tap the back of my ankle with her back hoof. “What is he talking about, Ignis?”

My heart leaped up to my throat and my tongue tied into a knot.

“Oh?” He sounded, tilting his head slightly and lifting up a hoof. “They don’t know? You’re playing ball on their side and they don’t even know?”

I bared my teeth at him. “Shut up, Underline.”

He laughed, scoffed at my statement. “Wow, that is rich. That is truly, truly rich. Let me ask you a question, Ignis: How many lies did it take you to get through to the other side, huh? How many of them trust you, and how many of them are you going to let down when they learn who you truly are, huh?”

“I’m done with the Blueblood military, Underline!” I shouted, gripping my wand even tighter. “I’ve gotten past that already! The New-Age Government are scum and you know it!”

There was pain on his face, even though no blows had been traded yet. “But don’t you see? You’re on the wrong side! It doesn’t matter what the New-Age Government wants, you don’t want to get involved with these terrorists, do you? You don’t want to cause all the death and destruction that comes with the Valoran, do you? Have you seen what they are doing to the honesty district at the opposite side of the city? Do you really want to be a part of that? Is that really who you are, Ignis?”

“There’s a reason why I left in the first place, Underline. We weren’t doing any good for anypony. We just kept causing more chaos and mayhem and the cost peace, no, silence, was too high to actually be of any worth. We weren’t soldiers. We weren’t heroes, protecting the weak and helpless against the monsters that hunt in the dark. We were cowards, ponies who hid behind heavy armour and money so that they could protect their own dirty hide, ponies that barely lifted a hoof to protect anypony except themselves, ponies that shot down on the helpless because when they were frustrated that they couldn’t do their job, they took it out on an easy target. I didn’t want to be associated with that kind of junk. I wanted to fight back.”

“Do you know how many ponies miss you?” Underline asked, his tone almost begging. “Bright Light, Sliver and Bank Shot are all waiting for you back at base! We could be together again! The Omega squad, all as one, pounding down on those who dare risk the well-being of the city so that none may challenge us again! Remember who you are, Ignis, because there are others that still remember you!”

“You were a part of the Omega Squad?” Ironheat asked, incredulous. I didn’t blame her. The Omega squad was famous for being the most efficient, most disciplined, most deadly squad in the entire Blueblood military. They were the end all be all. If there was something that the New-Age Government wanted done, they would call upon the six that made up the Omega Squad and they made sure that the job was done with quick, cold precision. Countless assassination and assault operations had been made all under the credit of the Omega squad, all of which were successful. The body count racked up in the hundreds leaning towards the thousands by the time the Omega Squad was disbanded after their four-year long campaign. The Valoran were and up-and-coming rebel group at the time, barely pushing their fame to the levels of the Party Patriot and Lunar Rebellion, but even they feared the power that the Omega Squad could enact.

No one was safe from them. They got targets, they killed those targets. No questions were asked, no traces were left behind, and when everypony was asking where all of the mass genocides were coming from, instead of keeping their mouths shut the New-Age Government actually promoted the activity of the Omega Squad. They tried to convince ponies that they were doing good, that all the killing was actually a part of a large campaign by the Blueblood military to kill members and spies of the larger rebellion groups in New Canterlot. They supported the workings of the Omega Squad, but instead of feeling safe, the citizens of the city fell into a short age of fear and repression. No one was safe from the knife of the Omega Squad. The Blueblood military almost successfully destroyed the Valoran after a direct attack on their First Commander succeeded. The Valoran were left with no leader, and it was only by a miracle that they actually found a new one and was able to recover in short time after that.

That was when I left the Blueblood military. That was when I pulled off the blinds that were over my eyes and opened them to see the light. My redemption of all the terrible acts and deeds I did were at hand, and the first step was to quit the Blueblood military. Of course, the Blueblood military don’t allow ponies to leave before their term is up, but I ran. I ran away from my squad and the head base and I didn’t look back. Even when they sent several squads and machines after me, looking for me, hunting me down, I still didn’t look back.

Because if I did I would have seen the faces of every single pony that I killed while on duty, and they would have been looking right back.

I held off a shiver. This wasn’t the time or place to be thinking about that. I led my team head first into a trap, and I was surprised that I wasn’t dead already. Underline could have killed me many times before this point. I guess he still felt sentimental about when I left. It had to be sudden. I didn’t tell anypony that I planned to leave, of course. Not even my squad mates, my closest friends at the time, would know about my true intentions. I bolted out of the place as fast as I could and left many wondering just how crazy I had become.

They didn’t see. They couldn’t see the blood-bathed faces of all the ponies that died by my own hand.

“But we’re still missing one, aren’t we?” I asked, talking about the old squad that Underline and I used to be in. “I mean, I haven’t heard that the Blueblood military has found a way to resurrect the dead, because I swear to the stars that Joybug has been dead ever since I left.”

It was his turn to become frustrated. “Don’t you dare talk to me about her! You don’t even know! You can’t even comprehend the pain I felt when I lost her, even after you left!”

I had aimed for a soft spot, and I hit right on target. Joybug was our medic, a cheerful and upbeat Pegasus pony with a blonde mane and a light blue coat that worked in the army because she wanted to help those in pain. She got placed into the Omega Squad after officials heard word of her outstanding work in the field. She didn’t want to work solely in a squad and instead wanted to help as many ponies as she could, but she really didn’t have a choice in the matter. Sad to say, she died during our last mission. Well, the last mission that I was involved in, anyways. I wasn’t a pretty sight, ditching one of my closest friends as we continued the mission. She bled out after getting gutted by a large magical spear, one that a Valoran commander had threw at us at the time. She took the shot for Underline, who was already in trouble when he got knocked out of the sky. The commander escaped and we had to give chase, but not looking back at her bleeding, dying form one my time to have its image engraved into my memory. I would never forget the sacrifice Joybug gave us that day, and neither would Underline.

I shook my head. “We all lost a little bit of ourselves that day, Underline. Bright Light lost her childlike demeanour, Bank Shot his cockiness, you your determination, and me…” I glanced to my right hand, which was holding my wand. “I lost my innocence.”

“Bull hockey!” Underline shouted, stomping the ground and huffing out of his nostrils. “It was a tough day for all of us, but that gave you no reason to just get up and quit like you did! What were you thinking? You had a nice, safe, warm place to live with a family that cared for you every single day. You had a good income of money, could buy anything that you wanted. You had everything that a pony in this city could dream for, and you gave it all up! Did you really think that the hole you left in our group would just get filled up by sand and dirt?”

I gulped, sweat matting my forehead and arms. It was true. I was nothing until the Blueblood military picked me up and let me work for them. I was just a sixteen-year-old nobody, living in an orphanage as the only human orphan in the entire building. No pony could would want a human being as their child. Humans are horrendous, dirty and filthy beings that walked on their two back legs with no balance and were skinny enough to be considered sickly. It was even worse that I had magical talent, for it was highly unnatural for a human to be seen with the abilities that I had. I was a freak, a monster of nature that should have never been born yet somehow survived by the skin of my teeth and found my way over to the orphanage. I was forever destined to be alone until the age of eighteen when the orphanage would finally have kicked me out to the streets of New Canterlot, with nothing to defend myself with except my broken will and sub-par magic skills. When I reached the age of thirteen and I heard that the Blueblood military were recruiting orphans that were of the age of sixteen, I couldn’t wait to sign up. I would get a free pass to freedom outside the building walls of my caretakers and I would be able to carve my own destiny as I saw fit. No one would handle my fate except me.

Back then, I did a lot of things that I’m not proud of. But at the same time, I was for once in my life happy about who I was. The Blueblood military thought it was a fantastic thing to get a human with magical abilities in their hooves. I was trained in the laws of Offensive Arcane Arts and how to handle guns and Blueblood class armour. I learned how to throw a fireball, how to hold a gun properly, how to summon a thunderbolt to strike at foes in an instant, how to aim down the sight properly, how to defend myself with a magical barrier. My magic skills were refined within the aspect of half a year, which was amazing in its own right and I was showered with praise, but the happiness I felt didn’t end there. Not only did I feel that I finally belonged somewhere and was useful to somepony, I met my first friends there. One by one, I befriended my fellow soldiers that I walked out to battle with on the many assaults across different planets in the seventh cosmos. I talked to them, laughed, grinned, traded tales of my experiences in the military and fought with them side my side. Eventually my superiors put my friend and I all together in one squad, but that made the experience even better. Now, I got to spend all the time I wanted with my friends, who would selflessly cover my back like I covered theirs. It was all of them plus I. It was the six of us who went through trial and tribulation to achieve success in and out of the battlefield. Whether it be in a siege mission or a highly organized assassination attempt, we were all in it together.

And that was why the Omega Squad was the most efficient squad in the history of the Blueblood military. Because together they made a family, a circle of six that no pony could break apart. No squad could understand the strength we put in ourselves together. All squad have some sort of connection one way or another, but we were special. We were like six peas in a pod, a hex of bright smiles around us in the darkness of the universe. We found magic. The magic of friendship.

But after one fateful day, I had a horrifying realization to me. We were using friendship for the wrong purpose.

I saw it on the day that I had my last mission with the Omega Squad.

The day that I got my Harmonis, the tool that I use with all my power for the greater good.

The day that Joybug died, and with it the rest of the team that made up the blunt of the Blueblood military.

I saw it reflected in the purple eyes of Valoran’s First Commander Twilight Dawn as I burned her to a smoldering pile of ash and singed flesh while her sister screamed out her name from the opposite side of the room, unable to help.

And after that day I vowed to make things right again.

“I’m done talking.” I stated, swinging up my wand arm and pointing it at Underline. “You’ve had your chance to spew all the bull hockey to need to get out, and I listened. But the fact is, I knew what I was leaving behind when I left. I knew what I was sacrificing, knew that I would never get to live in such great status, knew that I would never be able to face my friend with a straight face ever again. But I knew, and I made that choice, and I never looked back.”

His wide eyes were shaky and appeared to be losing their grip on the world. I took a step back and shrugged, which was such a disarming, uncaring gesture. “And you know what, Underline? I’m glad. I’m glad that I ditched the Blueblood military and all those star-forbidden soldiers and superiors that picked me up and shot me like I was their own personal shotgun. I’m glad that I lost the great home that I got and the left the ponies that cared about me. Because guess what? Now I am living, paying off my blood debt little by little, so I can free myself from the shackles of guilt one day while ponies like you are hiding behind their misery by smiting those below them. I am cleansing myself one step at a time, old friend, and I am enjoying every single moment of it.”

Underline bared his teeth, his face going far past postal. “Kill them! Fire at will!”

And all Tartarus broke loose.