This is a breaking news report from the Voice of Equestria, from your host Sea Crest!
Scandal has rocked Canterlot today, as many prominent nobles and socialites have been arrested for connections to the Patriotic Order of the Nation of Equestria, Prince Blueblood among them! Official statements are silent on the exact nature of the offenses, but it is speculated that they must be connected to the theft of the Crystal Heart!
As always, we will bring you the latest information as this story develops!
The bright moon peeked out over the horizon as Flash Sentry and seven other pegasus guards landed in front of the Crystal Palace, with a small carriage in tow. Prince Shining Armor and six Crystal Empire guards — two of them unicorns — came forth to receive them. Flash Sentry saluted Shining Armor as he drew near.
"Sir! How are things on this end?"
Shining Armor returned the salute. "No activity at the estate so far, but our records show that Bella Donna has hired fifteen griffon 'laborers' to work on her summer home. We are anticipating having to assault a fixed position."
The carriage door opened and Deadwood stepped out with a cigarette glowing between her lips. She was clad from head to hoof in black synthetic fabric, with a steel helmet on her head, gas mask slung loosely around her neck, and carrying a hose connected to three metal tanks on her back. "Did I hear someone's cowering in a hole like a rattlesnake during a cattle drive?"
Flash Sentry stared at her. "What in Celestia's name do you call that contraption on your back?"
Deadwood chuckled and gave it a pat. "Ain't nothin' to worry 'bout, this here's just a piece of agricultural equipment. We use 'em all the time to clear brush out west."
Behind her, he could see Stiletto and Ace disembark. Whereas Ace had opted to go au natural and rely on his chitin for protection, and saddlebags to carry equipment, Stiletto wore the same gear as Deadwood. Instead of tanks, however, she carried carried a set of knives and a short sword.
Shining Armor brushed past Deadwood and came to a stop in front of Stiletto. "I trust you have a permit for that weapon?"
Stiletto nodded and looked him in the eye. "This cutlass is registered to House Argent for use by their honor guard."
Not content with her answer, Shining Armor reached out and drew Stiletto's cutlass. It left the scabbard with a distinct snicker–snack. "I somehow doubt that; this is a restricted item."
Stiletto's gaze never wavered. "Under the Heirloom and Antiquities Act of 431, ownership of restricted weapons was permitted if the house, clan, or family in question could demonstrate prior possession."
The sword slid back into its sheath. "I'll be checking on that next time I'm in Canterlot." Shining Armor turned his attention to Ace. "What about you, Ace? Sure you want to be here?"
Ace puffed out his chest. "I want to do my part, sir! I'd like to show Equestria that we changelings are serious about being loyal citizens and to help fight for the good of their hive, er, I mean nation. Sir."
"Alright," Shining Armor nodded. "But you may want to stay in the back with the unicorns. Griffons are tough customers, and I'd hate to send you back to the Everfree in a bodybag."
Ace swallowed nervously. "Good suggestion, sir."
Stiletto stepped into the conversation. "If I may ask, how are we planning on taking the house?"
"Good question." Shining Armor motioned for the guard to come closer. "Pegasus fliers in the air will cover the moon with clouds and engage aerial targets, while my mages cast Silence over us. A group that stays close to the casters will be undetectable."
"Sounds like it'll be easier than shootin' fish in a barrel," Deadwood chuckled. "So what're we waiting for?"
The night was pitch black and the moon had been completely blocked by clouds as the guards closed in on Bella Donna's property at the outskirts of the city. The half–finished Tudor house looked rather out of place given the dominant local aesthetic, though the bricks and stone masonry was considerably less brittle than the quartz used elsewhere.
The guards had blackened their armor and bodies with grease and soot, and were almost as difficult to make out as Stiletto, Ace, and Deadwood. The ground team approached from the rear of the house, far away from the road and streetlights. They had made it to the edge of her property when there was a flash of light from the house's second story, followed by a thunderous crack as a bright blue bead zipped through the air and hit the lead guardpony. Electricity surged through his body, and he immediately dropped to the ground.
"Sniper!"
The other members of his team took cover where they could, but the terrain was too well cared for and offered little protection. Shining Armor deployed a blue shield around the injured pony, which drew several more shots. The electrical discharges cackled as they ate away at his shield, until only a tattered veil of magic stood between him and electrocution.
Deadwood launched herself into the air and flew over Shining Armor's head. She landed on the ground in front of him and punched the soil. A shockwave rippled through Bella Donna's backyard as a crater deep enough for a stallion to hide in formed. A second tremor rolled through the earth when Deadwood bucked the lip of the crater facing the house, forming a small hill of dirt.
"Much obliged!" Shining Armor dragged the twitching pony beneath him into the crater.
Ace braved the lightning and tumbled into the crater, while Stiletto gracefully slid in behind him. "What're they shooting at us?"
Stiletto peeked over the lip of the crater. "Crystallized lightning! Pegasi collect it from the highest clouds, and use pellets as ammunition for slings and batteries!"
"That ain't no sling, darlin'. If I didn't know better, I'd say our feathered friends brought a few muskets with 'em."
Shining Armor snorted. "Well, two can play at that game."
He gestured towards his guards, and three dove into the crater with bows drawn. They planted the bows into the hill and drew ice arrows out of their quivers. The walls and windows of the house slowly became covered with ice, but the griffons inside managed to break that ice when it became too thick and continued firing.
Flash Sentry broke out of the cloud above, leading a flight of four pegasi, but soon found a lightening bolt issue forth from the roof and scatter his team. Arrows soon rained down from the sky as well, and the air was filled with magical ammunition and lightning strikes.
Shining Armor stamped his hoof. "They're too well entrenched! We need to flush them out!"
"Yeah! That's more like it!" Deadwood cocked her right foreleg and punched the small hill in front of her. It crumbled and spread a cloud of dust between them and the house. She gave rised the hose above her head and screamed incoherently as she charged out of the crater.
Bullets whistled through the air and detonated against the grass and soil around Deadwood as she zig–zagged towards the house under cover of the smoke grenades. She reared up on her hind legs as she came within spitting distance of the building and pointed the nozzle of her hose at it. A searing plume of flame leapt out of it and illuminated the area around her as bright as day. Squawks of terror filled the air as Deadwood swept the flamethrower over the second story. Burning liquid splattered in through the windows and silhouetted griffons as they ran back through the house.
Many of the guardponies watched Deadwood's rampage slack–jawed, or else seemed mesmerized by the fire. Deadwood laughed maniacally as she lowered the flamethrower, kicked down the door, and marched through a hail of lightning pellets into the burning building, spraying fire to cover her advance. A glass skylight shattered as fifteen griffons tumbled out of the building through it, with a jet of flame licking at their tail feathers. The pegasi above intercepted the griffons. Bayonets and sabers met the trusty spears of the Royal Guards, while Shining Armor's archers shot arrows into into the frenetic melee.
The radio in Stiletto's helmet came crackling to life. "Hey darlin', the chickens have flown the coop, but there's something inside making for the basement!"
"Don't go in, wait for backup," Stiletto barked.
There was only silence.
Ace adjusted the frequencies on his radio, but came up with static. "She's probably gone underground already!" He quickly saluted Shining Armor. "Sir, permission to retrieve her? Stiletto and I are the only two equipped for the smoke–filled environment."
"Granted," Shining Armor growled. "But no more surprises! Just do what's necessary to get her out of there."
Stiletto nodded and checked off her equipment one last time, while Ace hacked up a hoofful of translucent green gel and smeared it over his muzzle and eyes. They ran towards the burning house, with Stiletto in the lead. The doorway sagged and collapsed in front of them as the interior wood framework was consumed by flame. Stiletto swept it aside with her telekinesis to allow entry into the building.
Deadwood had blazed a clear trail of devastation through the interior and even dropped the flamethrower by the stairs to the basement. The door below had been bucked open, and the sound of fighting could be clearly heard above the roar of the flames. Ace and Stiletto raced to the bottom to see Deadwood being thrown in their direction by a burst of purple magic. She managed to flip around in the air and land on all fours next to them, pawing at the ground in anticipation of her next attack.
Bella Donna stood across the room from them, some sixty feet away, blocking access to the pedestal the Crystal Heart rested on. Dark energy was leaking from her eyes, and her wickedly curved horn was pointed directly at them. In contrast to her pale coat, her horn was black at the base and slowly turned red at the tip.
"Well well, some ponies just couldn't leave well enough alone," she sneered, with a voice that was far too deep for a mare. "But you are far too late. Soon I shall absorb all the power that has been collected in the Crystal Heart, and twist it to my ends. A new era shall reign over my Empire and Equestria, one of fear and terror!"
Stiletto immediately dropped her head and fired another thin needle of force at Bella Donna, but she teleported out of the way in a flash of smoke. The needle hit the empty space where Bella Donna's head was as she reappeared next to them. Ace promptly flashed a beam of light at Bella Donna's eyes and pulsed it, while Deadwood slugged her right on the muzzle.
Bella Donna roared in pain and detonated a burst of dark magic in front of her. Ace flinched as it washed over them, but all he felt was a powerful tingling sensation. He looked down to see Stiletto's thin magic aura enveloping their bodies.
"Raw magic may protect you against its own kind," Bella Donna snarled, "But let's see how you stand against fear itself."
Stiletto's crude magical shield cracked as Sombra's horn lit up brighter than the flames surrounding them. Ace's heart raced like a locomotive as his friends quivered in terror and dropped to their knees. He knew they had to keep fighting, but his body refused to listen as visions of terror filled the changeling’s mind.
The fire would eat them alive.
There was nothing to do.
They were doomed.
And there was nothing his feeble magic could do about it.
"I shall not fear. Fear is the mindkiller." Ace repeated the words from one of his novels like a mantra. He had to gather his wits and focus. If he could just get a moment of mental clarity–
"Cute," Bella Donna sneered, as she advanced on them. "But mere words will not save you from my power."
Ace ground his teeth together and forced himself to slowly exhale. As the air left his lungs, so did all thought, leaving his mind wonderfully blank. A chill spread through his body despite the raging fire, and a fuzzy warmth spread through Ace's heart as he reached out for Stiletto's hoof. His eyes glowed with the projected aura of soft white light from his horn that caused all sensation of fear to vanish from the room.
"You have no power here," he said softly.
The burning beams above broke and landed on the floor between the trio and Bella Donna. The basement entrance was already blocked by debris, and it seemed as if the house was teetering on its last legs.
Bella Donna laughed as the inferno raged around her. "Fine! Then I shall complete the ritual elsewhere."
Her body turned into smoke and she fled up through the hole in the ceiling, taking the Crystal Heart with her. Deadwood leapt up to grab it, but her hooves passed through Bella Donna's insubstantial form. Bella Donna's laughter was the only aspect of her that remained.
"Exit's blocked, and I can't clear it," Stiletto yelled from behind him. "We've got to fly out!"
Ace's eyes widened. "But...but none of us can fly!"
Stiletto grabbed him by the shoulders. "ACE GAMBIT! ARE YOU A CHANGELING OR AREN'T YOU?"
He flapped his gossamer wings sheepishly. "Ah, right. But we're weak fliers, and I might not be able to carry both of you."
"Don't sound like a hard decision to me, darlin'." Deadwood lit a cigarette on a piece of burning wood.
"If you think for one second I'm letting you stay in this conflagration," Stiletto hissed, "You truly are the dumbest–"
Deadwood cut her off with a right cross that sent her reeling into Ace's embrace. "Now, do I have to clean your clock and throw the both of you out of here, or do you got enough sense to leave?"
Ace looked up at the hole in the ceiling, and then back at Deadwood. "Goodbye, Deadwood," the changeling sighed.
Deadwood took off her gas mask and stuck the cigarette in her mouth. "Adios, compadre."
The hole in the ceiling lead into a collapsing building filled with smoke. Ace rode the thermals the best he could as he pulled Stiletto up through the sea of flame. He found the same skylight the griffons had escaped out of. He flew through it into the open air and emerged from a cloud of smoke and embers to see the griffons fleeing the battlefield due to Bella Donna's nightmarish presence.
Shining Armor had erected a barrier around the estate, much like he had done in Canterlot, while the guards pelted Bella Donna's gaseous body with arrows and lightning bolts. Ace glided down next to Shining Armor and laid Stiletto on the ground. She grabbed him before he could turn away, and brought his face to her's. He could see her eyes through the gas mask's polarized lenses, and they burned with all the intensity of the midday sun.
"Ace, you've got to stop Bella Donna. I'm too weak, and Deadwood did a number on my jaw," she groaned. "Feed off of my love. Use it to fight Bella. Now."
He recoiled in horror. "I would never– I don't want to hurt–"
"No time to argue! Please, while I'm still conscious."
Ace slowly lowered his horn to hers. "I swear on my chitin, I'm going to pay you back with interest."
Stiletto smiled as her eyes glassed over. Ace seized her freely offered love before she could slip away. He drained it out of her horn like a camel at it's last oasis, until he felt he might explode then and there with the swelling energy within him. His eyes glowed white as he slowly levitated up off the ground as if he was possessed, until he was level with Bella Donna.
"No amount of darkness can hide the light of a single candle," he stated simply, as he lowered his horn and charged at her.
They met in a cacophony of light; an explosion of pure energy rippled through the air and sent everypony, save for those in the crater, flying into Shining Armor's shield. The blast died down to reveal Ace sprawled on the ground with Bella Donna in her physical form again. The unicorn stood up over him and seized a discarded griffon sabre with her telekinesis. As she brought it down upon the changeling, the soil beneath her hooves shifted. A pair of brown and white forelegs shot out of the earth and grabbed Bella by the neck, pulling her down to her knees.
"Take 'er out!" Deadwood yelled from beneath the ground, as she pummeled Bella Donna's head and horn with punches.
Ace looked around for a weapon before he felt something digging into his side; he reached a hoof down to his saddle bags and found Stiletto's cutlass tucked into his belt. He stared at it for a moment (when had she slipped it to him?) before Ace drew it and dove towards Bella Donna with the blade held high. Deadwood gave Bella one last blow to the temple before withdrawing her hooves. Bella Donna barely registered Ace's presence when the cutlass came down with a sharp snicker–snack, severing her horn. The unicorn collapsed on the ground from shock, her magical prowess gone.
"And that's a wrap," Deadwood chuckled, as she hauled herself out of the dirt. Her mane was burnt, her armor melted into a plastic goop in many places to reveal silvery chainmail beneath it, and her coat was badly singed, but she was definitely alive. "Mighty fine job you did there, partner. In fact–"
A bolt of green energy hit Deadwood in the chest and sent her flying back to join Stiletto in the crater. Ace turned his smoking horn away from her and levitated Bella Donna's horn fragment. There was a buzzing commotion around him as ponies drew their weapons and pointed them at him. It hardly mattered. He held the horn and turned it over in his hooves. Such a small thing, to have caused this much trouble. Such a little thing. It seemed so harmless...
Ace's horn disappeared in a burst of green fire as he slowly lowered the cursed horn in its place.
"Ace! No!" Stiletto's voice pierced the night and caused him to pause. He looked over at the crater to see Stiletto crawl out of it with her gas mask off and tears running down her cheeks. "Put it down! Please?"
Ace blinked as the world around him shot back into focus. His own horn reappeared as he looked between her and the cursed horn between his hooves. After a moment of silent consideration, he tossed it away.
"Come on, Stiletto," he smiled wearily. "Let's go home."