Hours earlier
Soarin didn’t like the look of the moon. Since it had been dominant in the sky for several days now, he should have gotten used to it, but the missing profile of the Mare in the Moon at once unnerved him and made him wonder where that demon of legends had escaped to.
Fleetfoot, trotting beside him, seemed to have no such concerns, though with the incredible trauma she’d borne in Canterlot it was to be expected that anything so petty would fall beneath her notice. She looked normal, or even good, expect when she didn't think Soarin was looking; In those moments her weakness showed through, and she let herself heave with a phantom sickness that she was not really experiencing, and scratch at burnt skin that was not there. Fleetfoot was holding herself together, but just barely. Rain Gnash's pain pounded through her head.
They were on their way to Spitfire’s family home, in the dense Nimbostratus District, where Cloudsdale was closest to the Unicorn Mountains to the immediate south. The density of the stacked cloud houses had forced them to land as they searched for an address that had proved elusive: When the arrangement of buildings was always changing in three dimensions, standardized labeling became meaningless.
“You’ve been there before, right?” Fleetfoot asked.
“Yeah, once or twice.” Soarin nodded. “Spitfire didn’t really like being there though, so we usually hung out at the officer club or my place.”
“This district isn’t really the proper place for a pegasus knight, especially not a wonderbolt. I can’t believe the admiralty punished her father that badly.” Fleetfoot commented regretfully. “Please remind me to apologize to her for degrading her so much about the whole dishonor thing.”
“Hey, don’t hurt yourself over it. She knows that everypony’s basically expected to mock her about it.” Soarin smiled sadly. “She’s kinda made it a point of pride that she made it as far as she has with the stigma.”
“But she doesn’t deserve it, and I’m ashamed I didn’t see it earlier. Now we’ve out a captain and our bravest leader.” Fleetfoot sighed. “Gnash says she’s sorry too.”
“How did you…” Soarin hadn’t noticed the telltale efflux of light from Fleet’s eyes that accompanied the broader mental linkings between her and Rain Gnash, enough to get complete thoughts through. Gnash he knew, while still debilitated in the hospital, could see as if she were in Fleetfoot's skin. She was in Fleet's skin. Soarin cleared his throat and tried to play it off, for however much it disconcerted him it would be immoral to dwell on his comrade's curse. "Well, I’m sure Spitfire will be happy to hear it. heh heh..."
Soarin hadn’t been watching where he was walking, and a mare rounding a corner collided headlong into him. They fell in a tangle of wings and legs into the malleable cloud-street.
“Goodness gracious!” Another mare, the companion of the one under Soarin, proclaimed. She quickly helped separate the two and get them on their hooves. “We’re ever so sorry and- My oh my! Soarin! It’s been so long!”
Soarin got a good look at the other mare. She was finely dressed, lilac with with a pale blue mane and tail and deep purple eyes. She had all kinds of frilly things, pins, and buttons attached to her vest and skirt. The mare he’d collided with seemed to be the young lilac mare's maidservant. “Uh… Do I know you?”
The blue mare blushed furiously. “Ooh, missy must of hit you harder than I thought. It’s me! Seafire!”
Soarin croaked in embarrassment and facehooved. How could he forget Spitfire’s little sister? “Of course, of course. Shame on me.” He said quickly.
“It’s no big thing Soarin. I wouldn’t be hurt if you’d forgotten me completely! You must meet so many mares, but I really remember you.” Seafire fluttered her eyelashes.
“I…” Soarin sputtered. He’d sworn to Spitfire not to touch Seafire, on pain of death and disembowelment, a threat he knew his captain could and would follow through with. Besides, she was cute but not his type. He used the most convenient digression. “Fleetfoot, this is Seafire, Spitfire’s lil sis. Seafire, this is my friend Fleetfoot.”
Fleetfoot blushed slightly at being called a friend. “How do you do, ma’am.”
“I’m no ma’am. Call me whatever strikes you happy!” Seafire giggled. “Beg pardon, your eyes are kinda funny."
Fleetfoot stiffened in alarm, and covered her glowing eyes with a hoof. When she dropped her hoof down they were returned to normal. "They do that sometimes." She laughed emptily.
"Sure!" Seafire thought nothing of it. "You all already met missy!” She nudged her maid cradling her head from the collision, who waved silently.
“I’m really sorry about that.” Soarin offered. “But, uh, Seafire, it’s lucky we bumped into you. We were trying to find your house, and I’ve gotta admit we’re a little lost.”
“I figured. Spitty’s come home, and I don’t much guess you would have any other reason to come round here.” Seafire shrugged. “We were heading home anyway, so I’d say luck was with both of us tonight!”
She giggled gleefully, trotting up the street with her maid in tow. “Come along then!”
“Spitty?” Fleetfoot smirked. “I’m saving that one.”
Soarin winced. “You know that time I came back to the barracks with a broken rib?” Fleetfoot nodded. “Yeah, don’t call her Spitty.”
The house they stopped at was hidden by a veritable jungle of vines and bushes in the front courtyard. Fragrant air plants dominated the little garden, and most of the fence and path to the front door. In the pale moonlight it had the air of a forgotten graveyard.
“Momma likes her privacy. She hardly tends her plants anymore.” Seafire explained, leading them off the road into the yard.
“This place is a little more overgrown than I remember.” Soarin noted, brushing some hanging moss out of the way with a wing.
“Poppa does most of the trimming, and he’s been getting a little…” Seafire glanced up at the house’s higher floors to make sure nopony was listening. “odd, pardon me for saying. He says he doesn’t want to hurt the plants any more.”
“That is a little odd.” Soarin agreed, not really sure what to make of that.
The maid ran ahead, opening the door and holding it for everyone to pass through.
“I’m home!” Seafire yelled into the foyer. “And I brought company!”
“Seafire, please. We’re not here to impose, just to see Spitfire.” Soarin protested.
“It’s no imposition! Come on in!” Seafire beckoned.
“Who the hell did you bring home this time, you little tramp?” A familiar voice voice, full of annoyance, echoed out from the first floor landing. “Mom might let you get away with bringing your beggar friends here but I-” Spitfire poked her head through the door and saw her subordinates standing there. “Oh.”
“Hi, captain.” Soarin managed a little smile.
“Captain.” Fleetfoot brought up her wings in a salute.
“Gods… I wasn’t expecting any of you buckers to come after me.” Spitfire smoothed her mane back before emerging fully into the foyer. She looked like he hadn’t slept in days, or the equivalent amount of time in the eternal night. Seeing her uniform or even casual wear was weird. “It’s... It's good to see you guys.”
“Same.” Soarin trotted forward and threw a hoof around her shoulder. “We couldn’t keep away.”
“They were lost.” Seafire giggled, which drew in immediate rebuke from her sister.
“Go play with your dolls or something.” Spitfire pushed Seacrest up the stairs. “I have important business with my friends.” She turned back to Soarin, holding back an exausted sigh. “Something’s wrong, isn’t there.”
“There are big problems brewing, yes.” Fleetfoot cut to the chase. “Cloudsdale is going to war.”
“Shit.” Spitfire swore, putting a hoof to her head. “That’s not good.”
“I sat in at the Admiralty on Lady Gnash’s behalf, and a big majority that wants to retaliate against Twilight Velvet and Canterlot. The doves managed to stall long enough for them to settle for a blockade with options for future escalation.” Fleetfoot recounted. “The officers are irate, braying for blood. Cloudsdale pride was wounded, and there's a popular rumor that overthrowing Lady Velvet will bring the sun back." She shook her head. "A full scale invasion is in the cards.”
Spitfire stared into space, contemplating the situation. "Mobilization?"
"Priority reservists have been put on notice, but the picket and preliminary blockade fleet are staffed by active duty and volunteer knights." Fleetfoot recounted. "By Admiral Gnash's estimation, that's about two-thousand ponies about to be sent to Canterlot. If the call for the reservists goes out, that'll quadruple."
Spitfire paled. "Didn’t anypony warn them what's waiting?”
“Yes, but there’s been enormous controversy about the Wonderbolt’s role in what happened. Naval Intelligence is constantly contradicting us with BS. Everything we say is just being taken as us trying to save our hides.” Soarin grumbled. “You’re the obvious scapegoat, captain. If things go wrong a second time...”
“I don’t give a buck what the maggot-brain admirals accuse me of. I did what was right by the Bolts, and now they're sending you back?! It's suicide. You know it, I know it.” Spitfire hissed.
“Our number's been called, unfortunately.” Fleetfoot frowned. “It was obvious we were going to be sent back, and that's the reason we came to see you. Our orders have just come down. The Wonderbolt brigade is assigned to the Feather Slicer to enforce the blockade. We’re leaving immediately. I know you won't, but if you come Lady Gnash can protect you, roll back the accusations dereliction.”
“Buck ‘em. The accusations are true. I have a resignation written up and they can collect it any time.” Spitfire turned away. Her voice dropped to a pained whisper. “I've tried to inspire the Wonderbolts with my actions my entire carrier as an officer. I thought I was teaching not just bravery, honor, but also right and wrong, and a soldier's cleverness. You know what you're getting into if you go back to Canterlot. You know what Twilight Velvet has in store for you.”
Soarin wanted to offer some comfort, but an agitated shiver from Spitfire warned him against it. She didn't want his consolations. “Captain... We'll see you later then.” He backed out of the foyer, head bowed.
“If we come back from Canterlot.” Fleetfoot added, pausing in the doorframe. “It's gunna be rough. Pray for us. Captain, I’m sorry for everything I put you through. We are sorry.”
Spitfire broke from her sour brooding, and nodded solemnly. “You three stay alive, all right? Don't kill die being damn fools."
Fleetfoot saluted again. “Yes ma’am.” She followed Soarin out the door.
Eight hours later, above the Dneighper Valley and Canterlot
“The Helbark signals that she’s reached her station and is holding steady.” The forward spotter called out.
“Very good.” The deck commander nodded. “Make the necessary adjustments to maintain this relative position.”
Among the chorus of ‘aye’, was the muted rustle of the huge airship’s sails being furled on the other side of the hull.
Looking from the airships' forward window, to the right and to the left, one would have seen an awesome sight: Above the darkened fields of the gentle Canter, birds of prey were gathering. Airships, pegasus constructs of fabric, wood, and metal. Rarely was a fleet of any notable size seen anywhere but at the anchorages of Cloudsdale and Los Pegasus, and even in the colonies airship actions involved a singular capital ship with a few escorts.
But there, above the Canter, poised against the city of Canterlot, a full squadron of the Cloudsdale Fleet had been gathered. Like black clouds they drifted into their assigned station, to form a wide semi-circle concentric to Canterlot's plateau. At the center of the ark of airships, the flagship of the operation and largest of the capital ships, the carrier Feather Slicer.
The blockage was established, and the pegasi let feelings of retributive satisfaction swell in their hearts.
But the pony whose retribution the squadron flew for was less enthused.
Fleetfoot watched from the corner of the bridge operations room, observing the unfolding situation. She was in her ceremonial Wonderbolt uniform, a light blue in contrast to the grey of the airship officers around her. Her left eye glowed a brilliant white, as Rain Gnash watched along with her from a hundred kilometers away. She tried to cover the eye with a lock of her mane, and had so far kept the ponies around her from commenting.
“It’s like they don’t even care that we’re here.” Fleetfoot brooded. Canterlot was silent and unmoving beneath them. Lights were shining here and there, but pitifully few for a metropolis of the capital's calibre.
Nothing happened for hours, and a slumbering calm settled over the Operations Center. Of course, that was good, though the more eager pegasi were itching for a reaction from the city, anything to justify an attack before a response came from the Admiralty. Even the officers repeating they were there only to blockade were secretly anticipating the attack, for what better show of Cloudsdale's power, now even surpassing Canterlot's, in the uncertain future after Celestia?
Fleetfoot considered abandoning her duty of observing to run back and check on Soarin and the other Bolts down below in the lance quarters. Then again, they were likely having a roaring good time without her, and she wouldn’t want to bring them down with her cursed presence.
"This isn't right." Fleet heard whispers from the corner of the bridge, where two young officers were lingering. "Sure I hate the hornheads too, but they're ponies. They're Equestrians."
"Maybe that mattered last week, but Equestrian unity was broken by them, not us." The other officer countered. "They mutilated an admiral. They disrespected us. This is self-defense."
"Is it?" The firs officer hissed. "This isn't what I signed up for."
"What did you sign up for? We're protecting our homes just as much as when we're busting pirates in the Southlands."
"So... Not at all."
The second officer let out a low growl. "You should go back to your post, or Naval Intelligence will want to hear where you got your traitorous ideas."
Fleetfoot and everypony else in earshot had a show of not looking as the nervous young officer walked back to his post on the other side of the bridge.
Fleet tried to scan Canterlot again, but it was becoming a tiresome task. There was no signs of activity, no reminders of her mistreatment to rage against. Just a sleeping city, but even that was a wear against Fleet's sanity. Something was wrong; She could feel it, Gnash could feel it, but not quite grasp or articulate it.
"It's about to start." Fleetfoot's eyes instinctively roamed to the southern edge of the city wall, where she knew the Chateau la Garde to be. Across space, she knew Velvet was watching her back. "Gods help us."
“Activity at the ten! Light, possibly magic!” The spotter yelled, breaking the general lul of the bridge.
“Get the captain up here!” The commander jumped up and raced to the spotter’s side, taking the binoculars for himself. “It doesn’t look like an attack. Still, put all hooves on standby alert.”
“Aye!” The midshipmare echoed, running back to the cabins portion of the airship.
“What do you see?” Fleetfoot asked.
“Just some occasional flashes. I think there’s a battle down there by the skydock.” The commander said, handing the binoculars back to the spotter.
“Somepony trying to escape or get in.” Fleetfoot speculated to herself. “We’ll keep watching and see what happens.”
“Or we will seize the opportunity!” Captain Hail Strom strode out into the operations center, prompting a quick salute from the command staff and bridge crew. “The skydock is the perfect place to start our attack.”
“Surely you’re joking.” Fleetfoot arched a brow skeptically. "It's just flashes."
Hail Strom sucked his bottom lip in in annoyance. The eager pegasus stallion was the quintessential 'pegasus of action' that typified the Cloudsdale officer core; The lower order nobles and knights that filled fleet's ranks were ravenous for opportunities to rise above the crowd, for the life of an Admiral was leagues more luxuriant than most Cloudsdale wellborn. And so Hail Strom, in his crisp grey uniform and neatly combed mane, was absolutely ecstatic that he was to command the operation against Canterlot, which would no doubt be cemented for all history as a glorious moment of Cloudsdale.
However, the captain had not been keen on having a representative of the Admiralty onboard to second-guess him, especially not one as subject to rumor as Rain Gnash in the form of her ‘representative’ Wonderbolt.
“The local population, seeing our mighty fleet, is creating a distraction for us. This is the best chance we have of catching the enemy while they’re weak.” Hail Strom tutted. “When the messenger back from Cloudsdale arrives, they be astounded at the beachhead we’ve established.”
“Or they’ll lament over or burning corpses. You were given permission to counter-barrage, not engage willy-nilly.” Fleetfoot said sourly. “Besides it's a trap. No doubt about it.”
“Then we spring the trap, and crush it.” Captain Strom declared, and several of the bridge crew cooed in agreement. “There’s been no activity on their walls for hours! If they plan an ambush, then their defenses will be weak. Either way, the situation calls for action.”
“Captain, strength of will not not carry the day, err, night. If you play by Twilight Velvet's rules, you will lose.” Fleetfoot turned to look at the jagged rise of Canterlot Castle, then Castle Magoria, then alas to Chateau la Garde. “Her servants are powerful and dangerous, and driven by loyalty and fear that we can hardly understand. Lady Velvet herself is a considerable magical talent." She fell silent for a moment. "And there is a ferocious beast under her command, that you don't have clearence to even hear a description of."
"Shall you next tell me she may cleanse my sins if I repent before her?"
Fleetfoot's expression turned cold in the face of Strom's mocking disrespect. "Captain, it's not my way to police ponies' tone, but be mindful: I speak with Admiral Gnash’s authority.” As she said this, the soft glow of her left eye intensified, and it could not help but be noticed by Strom and the ogling bridge crew.
Strom seemed momentarily off-put. Perhaps he'd heard rumors of the curse Fleetfoot had been stricken with. “Of course. My apologies." But this token humility was erased by a wry snort. "But you are still here in an advisory role only.”
Fleetfoot choked back a displeased cry. "Captain Strom-"
“I’m simply trying to say that you are needlessly discounting the option of a preemptive attack because of how scared this Velvet has you.” Strom laughed.
“You would be too.”
“See? You divert the discussion! We are giving the enemy time to prepare and repair. You all see it, don't you?” Strom was clearly selling his order to the crew more than Fleetfoot. "Are we not pegasi? Are we not swift and cutting as the wind? We fear nothing but the chains of lethargy!"
"Aye!" The bridge crew chorussed, and Fleetfoot's gut sank.
Strom turned to the spotter. “How’s that lightshow at the skydock?”
“Ongoing.” The spotter responded. "Intensifying. Magic, but also fire. It may well be an insurrection, sir."
“Captain, your duty are to your orders. Your duty is to obey. This fleet was ordered to to blockade, not to attack." Fleetfoot tried one desperate line of reasoning. "Consider, even if you achieve a victory despite the odds, you may face court martial for this."
“Court martial? Do you speculate that as a Wonderbolt or an admiral's representative, Lady Fleetfoot?” Hail Strom said over his shoulder. His tone mellowed though, with clearly feigned contemplation. “But you may be right. Perhaps the fleet did not send this grand fleet here for war. Perhaps Cloudsdale's honor, your honor, will not be avenged."
He saw every pony on the bridge and operations room were watching him expectantly. It was a moment like that which spawned legends, Strom thought. “Take us off standby alert.” He ordered.
“Aye.” The commander saluted, confused but obedient. “All hooves, resting stat-”
“Did I say resting status?” Hail Strom interrupted him. He looked Fleetfoot right in the eye. “General quarters.”
The midshipmare pulled the alarm cord, and clanging bells echoed throughout the large airship.
“Full Alert! General Quarters!” The commander hollered, galloping to his battle station as the rest of the bridge crew did the same. “This is not a drill! All hooves to action stations!”
Fleetfoot was not surprised, just disappointed. “This is treason against Cloudsdale.” She said solemnly.
“Do you really believe that? The admirals will not punish the son of Cloudsdale that delivers them Equestria.” Hail Strom moved slowly to his command position in the center of the bridge. He looked to his officers, and saw that they were all alert and diligent. They were behind him, for revenging Cloudsdale's honor and earning their own. “And my fellow childeren of Cloudsdale, do not mistake this. This moment will bring Equestria under the pegasi."
He laughed. "And we stop a madmare along the way. You have but to look at what’s become of Lady Fleetfoot to know that Twilight Velvet has to be stopped. Nopony but us to bring down justice.”
Fleetfoot stood up. She considered for a brief moment trying to making a physical protest. But she was far too outnumbered. It would take too long to run and find Wonderbolts among the other lances. “I implore you, at least risk this ship alone.”
Strom smiled triumphantly at Fleetfoot's pleading tone. He turned to the commander. “Signal the task force. We converge on Canterlot on my command.”
“Aye!” The commander galloped out to the upper deck to the signal teams.
Weathering Fleetfoot’s burning glower, Hail Strom closed his eyes and brought a hoof up to his neck, tightening the collar of the grey uniform. “And may our princess guide us to victory.” He whispered, making a star sign over his breast. “Ave Celestia.”
Night Light coughed violently to try to clear the smoke from his lungs. In mere moment, a terrible blink of an eye, the gate leading out to the skydocks had been transformed into a burning ruin. The gatehouse, built into the mighty city wall, was intact, but gouts of flame came from every window. The wooden gate, scaffold, and guard stations were mere cinder in the midst of a magical inferno, and the blocks of homes nearby had been caught in the zone or were starting to catch.
Luckily for Night Light he had been on the very edge of the attack, singed and blow back, but otherwise alive. Screams and howls of terror and pain sounded all around him, from the ponies trying to get out of their flaming houses and the guards trying to drag themselves away from near death, some nearer than others.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” Sunset Shimmer’s laugh carried through the smoke, echoing and morphing into a demonic cackle in Night Light’s ear. “Yes! It feels so good to be back. Magic, MAGIC! How I missed it. Come now! Provoke me again!”
“L- L- Lord Light!” Came an anguished wail, and he could see shadowy shape in the smoke nearing him, crawling. “My lord- I-” The guard was missing most of his barrel, and half of his face had been burned to the muscle. “I-” His remaining eye rolled back and his tongue lolled out, and gravity pulled him back to the dirt.
“Oh gods...” Night Light squeezed his eyes shut to avoid seeing the grizzly corpse. Instead, memories of the massacre of the Estates flashed across the inside of his eyelids. He could remember the rush of battle, as one sided as it was, with his own hoof leading fatal strikes into helpless ponies. He was seeing wanton murder from a different perspective now, that of prey.
“Did you have fun being the hero, for all of twenty seconds?” Sunset’s mocking voice brought him back to reality. She was right above him, looking down at him with arrogant, psychotic mirth. “Play it again. Play the hero again and I’ll play along!”
Night Light struggled for a solid minute to get to his hooves, with Sunset leering over him all the while. He played up his exhaustion and pain, while he made his plans.
He pretended to collapse in a faint, but tucked in his hooves and rolled to the right, snatching up the Blackhorn Sword with his magic as he neared it.
But by the time he was on his hooves again Sunset had gotten over her surprise, and his swing only cut the hazy air as she teleported. She reappeared behind him.
“Tricky.” Sunset snorted. “I LIKE it!”
“Yeaaaah!” Night Light screamed as he wheeled around, swinging and thrusting forward again and again with the black blade. Again and again, Sunset teleported, moving by inches each time, just enough to dodge the attacks, in an astonishing display of magical power and control.
“Good! Good! Fight the devil! Usurp the tyrant! Battle the Traitor!” Sunset teased, her words like joyous exaltations. “This is what heroes do!”
“ENOUGH!” Night Light tried changing the speed and angle of his strikes, but still Sunset evaded him. “Fight back, damn you!” The ash in the air was making his eyes water uncontrollably, and uncountable little cuts from the explosion made dirty rivulets of blood down his ash-coated fur. "Fight me!"
“Yes yes yes! Curse at me! Hate me! Fill your heart with righteousness!” Sunset’s peals of laughter were paused each time she teleported. “Be the one that they all look up to!”
In a last act of desperation, Night Light bounded forward and tried to grapple the laughing mare. She teleported again, and this time Night Light swung the sword where he thought she’d reappear, behind him. Instead, as he fell to the ground from the failed tackle, she reentered reality right in front of him. The Blackhorn Sword planted itself in the ground beside him.
“That would have worked on a lesser villain.” Sunset smirked. “Better luck next time, hero.”
“You scoundrel... You scoundrel..." Night Light fought to catch his breath. "How... How can you revel in your flagrant evil?"
Sunset looked at him like he was crazy. "My lord, you're not taking this seriously are you?" She smiled. "I was harkening back to the last time I was on the run like this. Traitor, villain, devil, tyrant. Those are the names they hurled at me as I stepped back from Celestia, and began my exile in realms beyond." She shrugged. "But you're not Celestia. No, you're definitely not Celestia. Or her avenger, for that matter."
"I'm a knight doing what's right. Yes I can not beat you... Even inconveniencing you comes at a terrible price.” Night Light hung his head, trying to ignore the destruction all around him, the result of his hubris. “Whatever you do to me, I beg that you spare Canterlot and it’s ponies any further pain.”
Sunset cocked a brow amusedly. “What, you think I’m going to execute you over a cart of capacitors? I honestly don’t care, not one little bit, about what you try to do to me. You're a good knight! Upstanding and respectable! You remind me of my dad. I was never going to kill you, Lord Light, but I had to punish you.” She acted as though she was talking to a foal.
“You’ve killed dozens!” Night LIght struggled to his hooves again, leaning against the Blackhorn Sword for support. This time it was not an act.
“Yes I did.” Sunset nodded. She cleared away the smoke with a wave of her horn, and the extent of the carnage was revealed. The marble gate itself was turned to slag and the surrounding homes were turned to tinder. The road was littered with ponies of all ages choked by the smoke. Some of the guards were still standing, but as charred husks that disintegrated into ash as the wind began to howl through the new gap in the wall. “Don't be so overwrought. Mortal lives are so monumentally inconsequential I have trouble putting it into words. What matters is the goal, the DREAM. You know that, my lord. Just because you think these ponies were innocent bystanders doesn't chance we both kill for our dreams."
“Wax eloquent all you wish, but you remain a monster. I’ll see you pay for this.” Night Light promised, a bloody ferocity tinging his words.
“You? I wouldn’t count on it.” Sunset chuckled, turning away from to return t to the skydock. “Maybe I’ll give you a chance some other time, old hero, when the-”
Night Light attacked once more.
Instead of cleaving through the cloaked unicorn like Night Light expected as he plunged it downwards, the Blackhorn Swords glanced off Sunset’s back. It tore away the loose cloak, revealing the black lacquer armor underneath.
Sunset chuckled, casting a saucy look at him. The Blackhorn armor enclosed everything below her ears, its straps pulled tight, its buckles jingling. Now that she was revealed, Sunset pulled the matching helmet out of her saddlebag and snugged it over her head.
“So tricky! I like your perseverance, Sir Light. Again!"
"What?" Night Light pulled the sword back to a defensive stance. Why did Sunset have the Blackhorn Armor? With horror he remembered how he'd assumed Velvet had taken it when he noticed it missing from the throne room.
No matter, Night Light tried again, hefting the sword that his exhausted body had no buisness hefting, and bringing it down.
Sunset, giggling, headbutted the blade away easily. The helmet wasn't even dented. “But the Black Lord can’t be turned against itself. You’d think that our parts of this set out be reversed, me with the weapon forged for murder, and you with the armor crafted to protect. But really, both of them together were meant for oppression.” She advanced on Night Light. "Try again, my lord! See if you can get it this time! Kill the traitor!"
But Night Light had learned his lesson. He retreated a few steps, until Sunset stopped chasing him.
They stared at each other for a long moment, Sunset with impetuous glee, Night Light with defeated resignation.
"I surrender." Night Light said quietly. "You shall have no more resistance from me."
"I don't want your surrender. I want you to do better. If you can't defeat me, as utterly pointless as I am, how can you hope to defeat the gods? Get better, Lord Night Light, or aim your sights a little lower. When you shoot for the moon and miss, you'll splatter again the stars."
Sunset trotted lazily away, over the melted gate to where her companions were finishing loading the contents of the carts onto a bulky cargo airship.
“Sayonara, Lord Light!” She called out, boarding the craft as it ascended away from Canterlot.
It was too late now. Night Light thought that death would be an acceptable sacrifice to fight the Traitor, but she found his martyrdom unsatisfactory. Unconsciousness overtook him, and he slumped to the ground. The Blackhorn Sword clattered beside him, shining darkly in the silvery moonlight. The Traitor was ascendent.
Ancepanox opened her eyes, her real eyes, and immediately winced at blinding light of the moon in her eyes. The luminosity of that satellite had varied much over the night, but now it was beaming with a power that rivaled the late sun.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw a second pair staring into hers. Rarity was silently glaring, her expression of unadulterated malice somewhat sabotaged by her unsightly position, prone on the floor.
The oppressive numbness Ancepanox felt all over her body told her most of what had happened while she was in the dreamscape. All the cursed ponies connected to her were all paralyzed by the alicorn Agana's psychic attack.
'Good morning, Lady Rarity.' Ancepanox tried to taunt, but with as poor control over her mouth as she had, ‘phhhhh’ was all she could manage.
Ancepanox knew she needed to get back into Twilight Sparkle's dream. Agana would soon make her next attack, in her quest of ambiguous vengeance against Celestia. Ancepanox had her own grudges against them both, not to mention her resolute promise to herself to defend that virgin mind of her former self.
There was no time to mull over the information Agana had pushed on her. In fact, Ancepanox hardly cared. Celestia and those relic alicorns had so much intellectual energy invested in their little battle of Light and Dark, and all their evangelizing did was piss Ancepanox off. There were real battles to be fought, so couldn't the ideological debate be postponed?! But then again, the battle was as much about ideology as anything. It was just that Ancepanox had gone through the cycle of shock, revulsion, and acceptance a dozen times already. Nothing shocked or surprised her anymore.
Nothing except the one niggling detail: Agana, whose forte was the mind, had seen and acknowledged her as an alicorn. Surely if anypony could see through her persona, it would have been Agana.
But first things first, Ancpeanox had to solve her issues in the waking world. She tried shaking off the paralysis that gripped her body but the numbness lingered horribly.
Mind over matter, Ancpeanox told herself. She knew she controlled the alicorn body by sheer force of will, and not by an inheritance of flesh and neurons. She focused inwardly, but her consciousness was unruly. Mind over mind, she told herself. She would not be prisoner to emotional weakness. So she used meditative techniques that she hadn’t used since she was a filly doing her first experiments with magic: She took slow, deep breaths, letting magic in all it’s forms flow through her, soothing her like a cold stream. Her mind became calm and the numbness in her limbs was washed away.
Ancepanox rolled to her hooves. However she did not allow herself time to feel triumph. Rarity was still there before her, still prone, still staring with a unique hatred.
"Oh Rarity, even if you had attacked me while I was in the dream, it wouldn't have done anything. You could turn this flesh to paste and I'd still get up." She tapped her blue steel cuirass. "Until you learn how to attack a soul, this is just play."
That only enraged Rarity more. The unicorn fought against her paralysis to chock out a guttural threat. "I'll fuck anything you ever cared about."
"Oh yeah. The ponies I care about."
Ancepanox stepped away from Rarity and returned to her meditative state. She opened her eyes to the magic of the castle. The world was ablaze with invisible auras: Streaming down from the moon, blowing in with the wind out of the Everfree Forest, swirling in little eddies in the corners of the throne room. And something she never noticed before, a thin connection between Rarity and herself, like a black thread, tracing the course the corrupting influence that Twilight’s darkness had taken. It was like the linkages in the deeper Dreamscape mapped back onto the waking world.
Ancpeanox looked and saw more more of the silken links. Like a little web, she could see her connection to Applejack and Twilight Sparkle, and two that went in opposite directions, deep into the forest and up at Canterlot so far away. Any others, if they existed, were too thin for even her empowered eyes to see. She could have spent a year pondering the threads, evidence of a lifetime. It was not just the curse that linked to the others... It was something more.
"I..." Ancepanox was strangely moved the the sight. A pony was not an island. They lived within ponykind, that they effected and effected them with bonds that transcended physicality. If only she could dwell on it more, rather than rush into bitter conlicts.
But wait… Ancepanox paused. She faced north, the direction of Canterlot, where a gleaming thread led. Why would she still be linked to Ripple Wreath if he was dead?
Blood pooled underneath the broken body of Ripple Wreath. The earth pony knight lay exactly where Agana had tossed him, his skin shredded by the violence of her magic when she'd eaten the Dark within him. He was not breathing, his eyes were glazed, and a frothy mixture of spit and blood bubbled out of his open mouth.
But a spark of life still clung to him.
“You’re pitiful.”
He was home, on the wall of his families castle on the banks of the Crystal River. He was sitting on the edge of the ramparts, looking down at the swiftly flowing water a twenty meter drop below him. Everything was silent, except the harsh voice behind him.
“Lame, is what you are. A cripple, basically. Just look at you! Somepony should put you out of your misery!” It was so harsh and screeching, he wished he could tear his ears off to keep from hearing it.
“I can’t fight.” Wreath sighed, cradling his face. “It hurts too much.”
“If you weren't so weak, maybe your family would love you! Maybe Glori would respect you! Maybe somepony on this earth would look at you and feel something other than disgust.” Those voices were so familiar to him but defied identification.
“I know. I should just die.” Wreath mouthed.
“Death is not too far away now.” A cold hoof pressed against his shoulder, paused there for a moment, and pushed. Wreath slipped off the wall and plunged down into the water.
Wreath lost awareness of the warped aberrations of his trance, until he regained some awareness. He was laying on the riverbank, the cold Crystal River banding everything behind him. Before him was a vast and misty forest, it’s thick grey trees so high their tops disappeared into the abyssal sky.
"I... I'm downriver." Wreath looked to the direction he thought his home would be, but a mist obscured the distance. "What forest is this? " But despite his qualms, the grey trees beckoned.
Wreath pulled himself to his hooves and took a step towards the forest.
“No. Go no further along this path.” A creature stepped out from between the thick trees. It could have been called a pony, with a nebulous suggestion of wings and horn, it’s fur so black that Wreath though for a moment the abyss that was encroached on his dream had become tangible. The region of her face was a cluster of glowing violet eyes the same color as Ancepanox’s. It’s voice was low but stern, sympathetically authoritative, something Wreath’s troubled soul could hardly understand. It was decidedly Dark. “Don’t die. Fight to survive.”
Wreath looked at the entity with watery eyes. "Ancepanox?"
"Don't die." The dark visage was unclear, but definitely reminiscent of Ancepanox. But Wreath was not sure it was her, or an analogue of her.
“But this life... It hurts. I failed it.” Wreath fell into quiet sobbing. He wished nothing more to enter the forest, past which his woes would disappear forever. "I buck up constantly. What good am I? Years of training, only to end in repeated humiliation." He searched the hazy entity for signs of pity. "Then Ancepanox 'takes me in', then immediately fobs me off to find my own way in this new world. I'm unwanted, but I know that's because I'm worth nothing to anypony."
The Dark entity dipped its nose. "Is that what you think?"
"I'm so many things! I'm curious! I'm kind! But the world doesn't care. It just wants to see my face in the dirt. It cares nothing for my struggles."
"So? That gives you no license to die? Don't.” The Dark entity demanded. “There was no point to having lived this long to die now. Fight to live.” It's many glowing eyes turned one by one to something behind Wreath. "Or would you rather listen to that thing."
From behind Wreath, a gurgling sound.
“What a waste. What a waste. Why spend breath on this dead soul?” It was the same harsh voice from the castle returned to taunt anew. The river rippled as the voice’s owner pulled itself onto the shore. It was a enormous, undulating mass of vines, ponies’ legs protruded at various angles, their struggles proving the horror its propulsion. “Hello, sister Nightmare.” It said offhandedly to the Dark entity.
“Gross. Grosser even than Twilight Sparkle's manifestations. What a pent up pony you are, to create a manifestation like that.” The Dark entity sniffed. “And like the others, it has no regard for its own preservation. Listen, you native Dark, your host must live!”
Ripple Wreath looked at the heinous river creature, and knew that under those vines, his body was amongst the limbs and mouths: It was giving voice to something he tried to push down. Now that he was on death's door it had come to talk. "You... You've been with me a long time. I've known you since I was young." He told the manifestation.
"We grew up together." The twisted mass of wet vines and flesh agreed. "Your home was not nurturing for you, but it was for me. If you thought you could ignore the, the whippings, the sucker-punches, and the castigation, you were wrong, because they were feeding me. I'm big now, and you're so very small."
The Dark entity trembled with disgust. "How uncivilized. Dark does not need to be so self-destructive."
Wreath shook his head. “But I am.”
“Pitiful!” The vine monstrosity laughed, the vines uncurling just enough that the trapped ponies’ mouths were revealed; Their pitiful wails and pleas for reprieve were quickly stifled as the vines consolidated again.
The Dark entity looked very disappointed, its multitudinous eyes narrowed. "Ripple Wreath there have been uncountable mortals that have had less, suffered more. They fought on."
That put Wreath on the defensive. "Probably because they had something to live for! What have I got? Family? Family is the bed of my trauma! Loyalty to a lord? Glori Sabonord abandoned me to die! My new 'progenitor'? Anceapnox... Ancepanox..." He trailed off, his tears returning. "I'm not stupid. I know this place is allegorical. In real life, I'm a bloody pulp. Accepting death here is just a formality."
"Is it? Life is always changing, and you will evolve away from that which pains you now. There is no progress in death, only eternal constancy. Do you want to die as you are, and remain the dismal and failed wolf-knight?” The Dark entity asked.
“Everypony thinks of me that way already.” Wreath went back to hiding his face in his hooves.
“What does it matter what others think?! That native darkness behind you is not your own creation, and it admits as much! Other ponies have made it. You can throw them out!” The Dark entity became agitated, stomping her hoof against the squishy grass. “You have nothing to prove to them! You have only your own advancement, your own virtue. Take that Dark, and USE IT. You should be the best! Do not compare yourself against the best there ever was, but to the best you ever were! Better yourself! DO NOT DIE.”
“And maybe if you get better, somepony will actually like you.” The horrid vine-covered manifestation cackled.
“I’m not good enough. It’s never good enough.” Wreath gnawed at his lip as he thought about Agana and the insurmountable powers she’d used against him. “The pain is too much.”
“What is pain? Fiction! Your body and mind may seek to dissuade you, but you must persist! Adversity will force change, evolution, and progress.” The Dark entity encouraged. “Win here, and you will be the best you have ever been. And the moment after that, when you seek new horizons, you will surpass that record again and again!”
“I want to be better. Who bucking wouldn't! But...” Wreath admitted. He looked past the nightmare, to the shrouded forest. The world was chaotic and stressful, but the forest promised a certain comfort, peace, and rest. It called to him. “I... I don't even see the point. I'm a corpse. Where I go isn't up to me.”
“Listen to him, making excuses again! He wants to die, and he should!” The native laughed. “You’re so pitiful! Nopony cares about you. You’ll die and be forgotten, dragged to the depths. You and I.”
“W- Well…” Wreath wavered. “What will it matter? If, my utter miracle I live, then what? If I survive this, and still nobody cares about me-”
“But somepony DOES care about you.” The Dark entity spoke with a rough sincerity that bordered on mushy. “There is somepony who has, will, and will forever help you, because she believes in your power to succeed and evolve.”
“How can you mean that?” Wreath muttered.
The hazy visage of the Dark entity became briefly more solid. For a reason, despite its menacing profile, Wreath was comforted by its presence. "Because I'm here."
"You are." Wreath sighed. The nightmare was right. There had been a mare who had saved him and given him a second chance. “It’s her. She got me out of a situation like this. I still don't understand why.” He let out a weak breath. "If she'd killed me like she was supposed to-"
"Stop your fatalism!" The Dark entity ordered. “Ancepanox saved you from death once. You must trust her to do it again. You must trust her to trust in YOURSELF.”
“After this 'Ancepanox' almost killed you! Ripple Wreath they are just as obsessed with death as you!” The native screeched. “It is only a shame you are not counted among her victims. The incompetence of that hussy-”
“QUIET!” Wreath bellowed, curling his hooves in sudden fury. He wanted something to beat on, to punish the disrespectful dream abomination. "I AM a victim! I'm cursed!" He ground his teeth. "But I'm coming around to the idea that I'm alive because of it... That I'll continue to live because of it."
“But of course. You have something that connects you to something larger, but also a driver of personal evolution.” The Dark entity said. "The words you weathered as a colt will mean nothing to you when you become assured of your own place in the world."
“Or I can silence those words!” Wreath was not taken in by the Uberpony vision the Dark entity was selling. Pain. He wanted to cause pain.
He turned his back on the forest. There was still more to do in the world. “Those contemptuous little shits won’t have much else to say after I rip their faces off! You're right. You're so right. Why am I beating myself up? I should be BEATING THEM UP.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared.” The native manifestation ridiculed, shaking with foul mirth.
“Everypony only respects power. Maybe I’ll just show them real power.” Wreath imagined the massacre of Glori’s camp, of the hundreds of dead and the burning bodies. There with Ancepanox, cutting down knights with her stolen sabre, he saw himself, crushing heads underhoof, tearing out throats with his teeth, gleefully slicing away at his terrified comrades.
He wished he'd joined in.
"Buck that forest. I need to get back. How do I wake up?"
The Dark entity made a plaintive gesture. "Every path away from here leads back to the waking world."
"Fine by me." Wreath stepped forward into the Crystal River, letting the icy water numb him.
“But be careful as you embrace the curse anew. Such reckless use of power can overwhelm you.” The Dark entity cautioned, hiding a sly smile. "With that I leave you. Ancepanox has her own battles to fight." It backed away into the forest.
“I’ll live again, and this time I’ll use power however I want to.” With the the Dark entity departed, Wreath had the awful native manifestation to address. It's utter repulsiveness meant nothing to him anymore. “I’ll reshape you. When I come back here, you'll be as sleek and deadly as that nightmare.”
The native coughed dismissively. "Don't think you're getting away from me so easily. I'm still bigger than you."
"Not for long. I'm a growing boy." Wreath leaned forward until he toppled into the river, which swept him away with impossible speed.
Deep in Wreath’s heart, his faint dream linkage with Ancepanox sizzled and bloomed as he embraced the Dark. Unlike the first time, he welcomed the alicorn's curse. Reinvigorated by his unholy fury, his soul used the Dark in leu of any kind of physical or mental strength. A singleminded drive for chaos of destruction would bring him back to life.
Agana was too focused on her metal battle with Celestia to notice the blasphemous transformation transpiring below her.
Ancepanox breathed a sigh of relief at feeling the thread between Ripple Wreath and herself strengthening. He was coming back alive. Her joy waned when she felt the cancerous hatred that he emanated. It unnerved her to reconize the same bloodthirsty hatred in him as existed in Rarity. She'd pushed him too far.
But that didn't concern Ancepanox too much. The reason Rarity's anger was dangerous was because she could hurt Twilight or Spike. Ripple Wreath was hundreds of kilometers away.
Moving on to the next thread, Ancepanox submerged herself into the ocean of magic once more, and found the a silken dream string to pull on.
Across the forest, the other end of that dream thread was jolted.
‘Dash!’
“What the buck!” Rainbow Dash shot upright, ready to fight the interloper who’d snuck up on her. She'd heard a voice with no direction.
“Hey, we’re just fillies you know.” Apple Bloom shot. “It ain’t proper to swear round us!”
“Yeah, you are being a bad influence.” Sweetie Belle chimed in, stifling a giggle. “It’s a good thing Scootaloo and Spike are asleep and can’t hear this.”
Scootaloo punctuated with a snore.
“I swore I heard somepony calling my voice.” Dash frowned, looking around again. Her nightmarish instinct was to charge into the forest to fight and confront whatever interlopers lay in wait.
“I think y’all really are going crazy.” Apple Bloom raised a brow.
“In which case you should probably go somewhere where you won’t hurt anypony in your madness.” Sweetie Belle could no longer keep herself from grinning.
“Oh, you think this is funny?” Dash scowled.
“Yes.” Sweetie snorted.
‘Dash!’ The disembodied voice came again.
“Okay, this is weird.” Dash rubbed her head. “That sounds like Sparkle.”
“Now you’re just taking the piss!” Apple Bloom rolled her eyes.
“Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle gasped.
“She started it.” Apple Bloom accused, waving to a distracted Dash.
“No, that was seriously Twilight Sparkle.” Dash mumbled.
‘Yes, it’s me, Ancepanox! Can you hear me?’
“Yeah, yeah I can! Woah this is too weird.” Dash fended off more scornful looks from the fillies. She scooted to the edge of the campsight and stared into space as she tried to focus on the voice inside her head. “How are you doing this.”
‘Magic obviously. I'm exploring how my curse binds us together. I thought you'd have to be sleeping to hear me, but I guess not. Perhaps the nightmarism is a dreamlike state? But I digress.’
"Freaky."
‘Stop speaking as well as thinking your words, it’s making an echo on this side.’
“Okay, right.” Dash clamped her mouth shut. ‘Wait, you can hear my thoughts?’
‘Yes, and you are thinking very dirty things about me right now, miss Dash.’ Ancepanox's etherial voice rose and fell in a light laugh, then became serious. ‘Okay I was joking but now you actually are... ewe.'
"You went there, not me!" Dash grumbled out loud. ‘Just tell me how it's going over there. Did you save Applejack?'
‘The situation is complicated and I need your help. I only have a few moments, so this is what you have to do...’
The situation above Canterlot was moving fast.
“The Helbark has faced the city walls at the southern quarter.” The commander reported.
“Very good.” Hail Strom nodded. “Signal them to launch all pegasus lances in reserve formations, in preparation for a ground assault. Lances from the Feather Slicer will join them soon. The frigates will move forward and support with cannon fire once they reach the city, at the points of heaviest resistance. Force dispersal and support concentration.”
Every so often he shot a smug smile at Fleetfoot. Once he’d achieved victory in Canterlot, the Admiralty would be tripping over themselves to make him the new postercolt of Cloudsdale supremacy. Any accusations Fleetfoot or Rain Gnash leveled against him would be dismissed as jealous attention-mongering.
Fleetfoot, for her part, had gone completely silent. Hail Strom knew she was planning something, but didn't care too much.
“Captain, new signal from the Slashing Dancer.” The spotter alerted. “She reports no activity in their sector. Hold on… The smoke is clearing from the skydocks. It looks like-” He gasped. “Captain, the skydock gate has been completely leveled!”
“What?” Hail Strom frowned. “Thats… Excellent! Signal the Helbark to begin the assault immediately! I don’t want them filling the hole in their defenses!”
Finally Fleetfoot spoke up. “Except there are no defenses, not anywhere. The enemy is a complete unknown still, and this attack is a sham. If that wasn't suspicious enough, you order the attack on the only area where there’s any sign of danger.”
“Obviously the partisans within Canterlot destroyed the wall for us.” Strom leaned back in his chair. “The smoke was Velvet’s attempt to hide the devastation of the wall from us.”
“You’re making so many complicated theories to avoid the bare fact that it’s a trap! You’re blinded by glory, captain.” Fleetfoot warned. “You’re being led like a dog on a leash.”
“When I make admiral, you will be apologizing for your insults.” Hail Strom smirked. “Helmsmare! Move the Feather Slicer closer! All pegasus lances, make ready to launch!”
Before the crew could enact that order, Fleetfoot stood up. If she was going to intervene, this was the last chance.
“I promise you Captain Strom, or any of you, that this will only end in an atrocity. We're not going to win." She felt a great chill. She fell to a whisper. "God's not on our side."
“How can you be so obstinate? The gates a literally thrown open for us.” Hail Strom laughed softly. “At this point, your screaming is less annoying, and more pathetic. You're so afraid of-”
“LOOK OUT!” Fleetfoot tackled Strom to the floor as every window of the Feather Slicer shattered inward.
Astral Nacre rocketed past the Feather Slicer, releasing a stream of turbulent magic that burned through the upper layers of the hull, vaporizing the banks of cannons. The great airship was rocked by secondary explosions as powder barrels detonated. Within seconds, most of flagship was engulf in flames.
Astral Nacre, soaring ponderously on her featherless wings, circled around and faced the next airship in the blockade. She swooped down at incredible speed, peppering the frigate with bolts of energy. Untrained as she was, her power was still great enough to blast apart the hull of the airship, and as she shot over Astral took great delight in seeing helpless ponies tumbling out. The smaller airship cracked apart like an egg and fell to the valley floor in two pieces.
But atrocity Fleefoot had predicted had only just begun.
Inside the walls of Chateau la Garde, the cacophonous gunpowder explosions were felt as gentle rumblings.
For Twilight Velvet, who true to her word was trying to sleep, it was torture. She wanted to be up there witnessing it.
"I can't take it much longer." Velvet sat up in bed. "Sleep can wait a little longer."
It being that she hadn't gotten so much as a wink in fifty hours, she was slow in descending from the upper keep to the connection with the city wall. But when she did sleepily stumbled into the cold night air, she knew she'd been right to come out.
It was a sight to behold. Her demonic daughter Astral was picking apart the airship blockade with amazing speed and grace. A mere silvery dot at that distance, she darted around like a sparrow, weaving in and around, up and down. Flashes of magic filled the dark sky, then another airship burned, a floating torch.
Velvet was of course overjoyed at the sight. "Get them! Get them!" She cried hoarsely. All her worries about political ramifications or violent escalation were forgotten. She felt a swell or pride and power, and all her doubts about Astral were pushed aside.
This was power. This was HER power. "How's that for playing hardball politics! Get Bucked!" Velvet shouted.
Equestria would hear loud and clear that Twilight Velvet's Canterlot was a force to be reckoned with.
Other ponies were watching the destruction too.
On the Canterlot Skydock, a small cargo airship began to rise from the moorings. It was a tubby thing, with a rotund balloon and truncated bow, but it was hardy. As it drifted away from the dock, the oars came out and rotated it west. The square sails unfurled, the ballast was cast off, and the little cargo airship began to rapidly rise.
"It's happening. It's finally happening." Sunset Shimmer purred.
The unicorn was riding high off her game with Night Light, but the feeling of leaving enshadowed Canterlot made her feel something much more complicated: Joy at her success and progress, but a deep apprehension. She knew her star was rising, but not for how long.
Sunset stepped back from the railing and took a deep breath. It was always best to focus on the joy, not the fear.
"Hey, should we be rising this fast?"
"We're within safe parameters."
Sunset knew very little about aeronautics and airships, and had entrusted it to her smaller companion, ‘Entanglement Theory’. The smaller unicorn had a mind for the mechanical, and knew almost on instinct how the airship should act without having seen one before. She scurried around the deck, making sure their helpers were doing what they were supposed.
Sunset's smile wavered. "You don't sound very happy."
Entanglement Theory paused what she was doing, her crafted look of neutrality turning sour. She pulled a pocket watch from the folds of her robe, checked it, and put it back. "Oh. Don't I." She said softly.
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Come on, don't make me beg to hear your two cents."
"You won't. I'm just wondering why." Entanglement Theory turned away and returned to her task. "What was the point of that stunt you pulled back there."
Sunset shrugged. “I was saying goodbye.”
"No you weren't. You were playing! Cosplaying! Goodness sake, you were outright flaunting that armor." Entanglement theory rubbed her eye.
"Yeah, because I look good in it." Sunset laughed.
“Look I’m happy we’re out of that god-forsaken cave, even more out of that city, and not so happy you basically announced your return to this world with by loudspeaker." The small mare said, embittered. “Are there loudspeakers here?”
“Nope. But I understand what you mean. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Sunset said, doing her best to look remorseful.
“No you’re not. You’re never sorry.” Entanglement Theory groaned. “Whatever."
Sunset pursed her lips. "I know this hasn't been as easy on you as we thought. You've talked about leaving."
"And I will." Entanglement Theory agreed softly. "After the projection, I go home.”
“I know that's what you want, but are you sure I can’t convince you to stay?” Sunset fluttered her eyelashes. “There’s so much more data to gather Twi.”
“One: Stuff it. Two: Use the codenames! Your world is messed up. Don't know whose listening.” Entanglement Theory ducked into the airship cabin, leaving Sunset standing alone on the deck.
Sunset chewed her lip, her good feelings of minutes prior dried up. For some reason, she was loosing her friend.
"Well... Nothing for it. If she wants to leave, she can leave, and I'll be fine with it." Sunset lied to herself.
Sunset pretended she had a reason to linger around the deck. She checked their altitude against the distant mountains of Unicornia, far to the West on the opposite side of the river valley.
"Well... Twi might leave, but I'll have somepony else."
Soon, the sun would rise, and Sunset would be the first pony to see it. The Traitor's path would come full circle.
As she considered the future, a light in the sky illuminated the whole port side of the cargo airship. Sunset was jolted out of her reverie.
"Airships?" Sunset scowled. "Burning airships?"
At the north end of the airship picket line, one small scout airship, Slashing Dancer, was inert and trying not to be noticed by whatever was savaging the capital ships.
"No orders from the Feather Slicer yet." The spotter did not need to speak loudly to be heard across the small bridge. "The bridge looks damaged. Command may have been transferred. It's chaos over there."
The captain rubbed her eyes anxiously. "Check periodically. We don't know if it's really an attack, or sabotage. Otherwise... We follow the last order and keep scanning the city."
The atmosphere on the small airship was one of building horror. In the mid compartment by the cannons and oars, the were constant murmurs of fear and apprehension. What was happening out there? Were the gods punishing them for daring to come to Canterlot with weapons drawn.
A few minutes later, the spotter noticed something. "There's movement around the damaged skydock. Looks like a cargo airship." He was silent for a few minutes. Based on its course we’re the closest to an interception point."
“We maintain our position." The captain repeated. "Based on how quickly the fire is spreading, we may need to help the Feather Slicer... when the order comes. We do nothing until the order comes."
There would be no order coming. The ponies on the Feather Slicer were more concern with saving their own lives than ordering the fleet.
Fleetfoot was the first to her hooves. She brushed the shards of glass off her uniform. "Where's your glory now, captain? Where?" She asked with a barely controlled rage. "You've killed us all."
Hail Strom propped himself up off the ground. He looked around his once magnificent operations room. Broken glass and splintered wood covered the ground, along with all the maps and instruments that had slid off their tables. Everywhere there had been a crewpony, there was now a body, their uniforms and fur perforated by hundreds of glass shards, their faces contorted into looks of shock and agony.
He cleared his throat. “This setback-” Fleetfoot bucked him across the face, bouncing him off his chair and back onto the ground.
“Idiot.” Fleetfoot spat. She galloped into the heart of the Feather Slicer. She needed to find Soarin and the Wonderbolts.
“Ooohh...” The bridge commander flittered back into consciousness. Half his vision was missing, and when he reached up to brush back his hair he felt instead a large shard of glass that had impaled itself in his eye. “Is anypony there! Medic!" There was no answer except the rumble of the terrified echoes of the crew seething in the rest of the ship. Nopony would be coming to help them. It was everypony for themselves. "C- Captain Strom?”
“Ce- C- C...” A gargled whimper echoed through the dead operations room. Hail Strom, his windpipe crushed by Fleetfoot’s buck, pulled himself to his chair and tried to deliver his last order. “Ce- Celestia... Sa- Sa- Save-” The message was concluded by its messenger choking on his own spittle.
Smoke began to fill the room, and fire not long after.
Fleetfoot didn’t have to search long, pushing and shouting to get through the cramped corridores at the same time as everypony else. Soarin and company were racing up the central passageway at the same time she was galloping down.
“What the heck is going on?!” Soarin demanded, shouting to be heard over the general chaos and yelling filling the burning airship.
“Astral Nacre. The bridge is a total loss.” Fleetfoot said solemnly. “She’s doing a number on the Helbark right now.”
“Well, that’s no good. If they’d only listened to us.” Soarin sighed.
“Well it’s too late for that now.” Fleetfoot nodded. “We need to get out of here, and signal the squadron to retreat.”
Soarin hesitated only for a moment. "I'll do it, Fleet. Things have gone crazy and, well, Spitfire isn't here to get us out. We've gotta step up."
He turned to the other Wonderbolts behind him. “Raipidfire, take first and second lance and the lower decks! Tell the crew to evacuate and rescue any wounded to the valley floor. The rest of you are with me. GO!”
Soarin and the Wonderbolts separated and went about their tasks. Fleetfoot was left contemplating her next move, either to help them or do something else.
But the etherial voice of Rain Gnash pushed from the back of her mind with her forceful suggestion.
‘Find Astral’
“That’s suicide.” Fleetfoot muttered to herself.
‘maybe, but we have to stop this massacre if we can’
And maybe Fleetfoot was imagining it, but she felt an optimistic tug from Gnash. It was a very long shot, but Astral Nacre could be the key to undoing the accursed bond that connected the two pegasi's minds; After all, Astral had been the one to create it, intentional or not.
So Fleet quickly made her way up to the main deck, but found that it as bad a shape as the operations room. Fire and smoke was billowing from the gun deck where Astral had strafed it. Wounded ponies were streaming up from the lower decks, tripping over each other and debris. Here and there dedicated pegasi struggled to keep the rigging together and the ship aloft, and mercifully the upper balloons looked intact, though the sails and rigging were shredded beyond repair.
She saw Soarin at the aft arguing with the surviving signalpony, who was adamant about waiting for an officer. It was almost too late the task force he was trying to save. Two smaller airships had been completely destroyed and were plummeting to the valley floor. The Helbark, an only slightly smaller craft than the mighty Feather Slicer, was being torn apart board by board by the rampaging alicorn of life. As Fleetfoot watched, explosions rocked through the Helbark, before it was completely blown apart as the gunpowder storage ignited. For a few moments, the valley was lit up like the day, before the fireball spectacularly burned itself out. The resulting shockwave rippled through the air, sending splinters whizzing by Fleetfoot’s head.
When the haze of smoke thinned, the Helbark could be seen through the watery moonlight as a corpse, drifting for a few moments before the balloon imploded. The massive airship went down with all hands, silently, to crash down on the valley floor.
“Holy buck.” Fleetfoot forced down her terror. She saw Astral Nacre flying stationary in the smoke. "I'm really not sure about this."
‘That means you’re still sane’
Fleetfoot was not finding this funny. Gnash could be liberal with her jokes while she lay in traction in Cloudsdale.
“Really doubt that. I’ll try not to kill us.”
“The Feather Slicer is signaling the fleet.” The Slashing Dancer’s spotter mumbled the words to himself as he translated the flag patterns. “R… Damn, it’s dark. I can hardly see. Might be a T or P… Something… E… A… T… And now they’ve hoisted the U flag.”
“Rpeat U? Repeat U? Is it code?” The captain pondered.
“The U flag is ‘you are heading into danger’, sir.” The spotter noted.
“And what does that mean for the current circumstance? ” The captain asked.
“I can’t say. They’ve left the U flag hoisted.” The spotter turned his binoculars to where he thought the Helbark would be, but instead saw the cloud of smoke and debris. He tracked the cloud down to the Helbark's corpse, just as it smashed into a thousand pieces on the valley floor.
He whimpered fearfully, and made the calculation that only by keeping away from the fleet would the Slashing Dancer be saved from destruction, and that included staying away from the retreat path. "Captain, I think they are ordering us to stay in our assigned sector."
“Fair enough then. Yes. Let’s stay in this sector.” The captain rubbed her chin. “That gives us a free hoof to intercept that cargo airship we saw earlier. Is it still in our sector?"
The spotter hesitated, and turned to find the cargo airship. "Uhh, aye captain, it's a half-klick to port of us, still rising rapidly."
The captain motioned forward. "Helmspony."
“Aye, intercept course.” The helmspony said, throwing the wheel to port. "Oars full ahead, stabilizers to ascend."
The sleek form of the Slashing Dancer turned and began to follow the cargo airship.
Astral Nacre hovered in the smoke cloud left by the Helbark's explosion, holding a pair of screaming ponies in her tendril mane. She rode the flapped higher into the sky, giving her a good perspective of what remained of the blockade. Five corvettes and one frigate were retreating at full sail back to Cloudsdale. Two other corvettes were hanging around to help the surviving carrier, the Feather Slicer, which was heavily listing. The crew of that mighty airship was evacuating, the pegasi carrying the earth ponies and unicorns to the valley floor.
Astral swooped around and latched onto the front of the Feather Slicer, hanging off the decorative seapony figurehead on the prow. She could see that besides the Helbark's, most of the airship crews had managed to survive the breaking of their airships.
“Goodness gracious. This is a time when I wish I was more skilled with magic like Ancepanox.” Astral told the ponies in her constricting grasp . “It would take many hours to kill you all."
“Please! I have a family!” The mare sobbed. The explosion had burned all the fur and feathers off her back and wings.
“Hey! So do I!” Astral said, her fleshy face pulling taunt in her best impression of a devilish smile. “I guess we’re not so different after all. I guess I can, hee hee, let you go.”
She lobbed the mare into the path of a pegasus fleeing the Feather Slicer. The target was knocked into unconsciousness by their hard collision, and the mare’s blistered wings were unable to keep her in the air. They fell like rocks.
“Did you see that! Hee hee, what a throw!” Astral roared in approval.
“L- Listen, I’m a well respected officer.” The stallion stuttered in a wavering tone, his eyes following the mare’s plummet. His grey uniform was stained by blood. “Cloudsdale would pay for my return. They’d pay anything you asked.”
“OoOo, that’s very tempting…” Astral hummed deliberation. “It’s a deal! They can have you back right away, and we can work out the details later.” She smashed the stallion through the side of the airship.
That did not amuse her nearly as much. It was not fulfilling to blow up the airships and slaughter the ponies within. Once she ran out of creative kills, she could predict it becoming quite boring. She'd stick through it because that's what Twilight Velvet wanted from her.
"Wait... What's that?" At that moment, Astral began to feel a strange aura in the air, radiating from something not to far to the north. It was an impossible thing, like the power of a star was bound up against it’s will, screaming to be let free. Astral suddenly remembered feeling the presence the briefest of moments in the Canterlot Castle throne room, just before she’d met Ancepanox. At the time she'd assumed it was a spell Ancepanox had cast, but this time the aura was unmistakably a force in its own right.
“Has Celestia returned?” She asked excitedly, scanning the skies. “No no no, she is definitely dead. Velvet said as much! Then what? Who?!”
The Feather Slicer creaked it’s last groan of despair, before the heel became too pronounced and the masts splintered under the torsion. The surviving balloons ripped and imploded, depriving the once-grand carrier of all it’s lift. Astral kicked off the hull as it plummeted, following the other airships to the bottom of the valley.
Astral flapped her gaunt wings quickly as she circled around, hunting down the mysterious and powerful newcomer using the sun's power.
Just as divine forced in the skies above Canterlot were hurtilling towards confrontation, so too below, deep under the Mountain where the moonlight did not reach.
Coming back from near death a second time was proving much more unpleasant than the first for Wreath. He was starved for energy and was missing most of his blood, but his pure will to exact retribution moved his body for him.
He pivoted up from his prone position, floating slowly to his hooves in impossible defiance of gravity. He opened his eyes, and they burned with the vitriolic hatred that now guided him, shining out with a blackness that deepened the absolute dark of the cavern.
Blood still wept from his shredded skin, but it also began drip from the corners of his eyes, and to spill from the corners of his mouth with each labored breath.
“Agana.” He whispered. The surge of rancor that followed those words invigorated his will to erase the very concept behind it. “Agana. The Suzerain of Sin. I will... I will kill you.” He promised, slightly shying away from the words.
Above him, the imprisoned alicorn could neither see nor hear him. Her senses were focussed elsewhere, on her phychic attacks against Celestia. She Agana stared into the emptiness of the cavern with vacant eyes.
“I will kill you.” Wreath repeated, more loudly. He took a step forward. “I will butcher you.” He alleged forcefully, picking up his pace. The bound alicorn loomed over him, as big as a hill. “Agana! I'll eat you! Agana! Agana!”
He galloped and jumped, unnatural energy fueling his movement. He impacted against Agana’s massive right hindleg, perching on it like a mountain goat. He stomped, but the leg did not snap like he was expecting. Wreath smashed his full weight against the limb several more times but it did no more than mat the fur.
Enraged, Wreath ran up her leg to her torso, and began beating at gnawing at side with animalistic fury. It was to no effect; Her skin could not be torn or bruised no matter how much he wailed on it. Nothing he could do had any effect against the massive alicorn.
Agana’s dilated eyes returned to sharp focus as she looked down at the attacker. ”The little earth pony is still alive?”
Wreath spat out a mouthful of fur. “I WILL DESTROY YOU!”
Agana chuckled. "Did that upstart nightmare rejuvenate you? How precious." She summoned her magic and swiped at him with a telekinetic paw.
Wreath dodged her magic and jumped up, clambering up her torso until he was on her shoulder. He began beating at her face, making Agana squawk in panic and began pecking at him. Wreath jumped away but lost his footing and fell onto his stomach, straddling her foreleg again.
”I had a little chat with your progenitor, Ancepanox.” Agana said tauntingly. She plucked him up by the tail with her magic and held him before her. ”She is an interesting little thing, but impudent. I will not lament her rejections of me, for it is my assessment that she is just as weak as you are.”
“I AM NOT WEAK!” Wreath howled. He curled up and bit through his tail, causing him plummet down to the cave floor.
Agana was surprised. ”How in the-”
Wreath barred his teeth, now as sharp as knives. He drove forward again, jumping on the tangle of vines that threaded Agana’s hoof and held her against the pillar. The bramble roiled agitatedly, lashing at him with dozens of thorny vines with the speed of whips. Blood flew in every direction as they mutilated him, but Wreath ignored them, and began biting through the black shackles.
For a few moments, Agana just watched Wreath bite the vines. But then the vines holding her other limbs began to tighten, and another part of the creeper wrapped around her neck and began to apply pressure. Agana squawked in panic. "Stop! Stop! If you try to make it release me before Celestia is dead, it will tear me apart!"
"Good!" Wreath roared.
”NO!” Agana struggled as violently as the bindings would allow, trying to shake Wreath off. ”I will not let you do this to me, so close to my release! GUARDS! WARDENS! STOP HIM!”
Guards? Wardens? Wreath was not in the frame of mind to wonder what she meant. He did not have to wait long to find out anyway, for Agana had no sooner finished her cry than A sound of grinding stone filled Wreath's ears.
“Step away from her.” A grating whisper sounded out from behind Wreath.
Wreath paused from his attack to see who had come to interrupt his vengeance.
A massive stone hoof swung out from the darkness. It smashed into Wreath with unbelievable force, smacking him several dozen meters away. He rolled to a stop in the middle of the statues, and as he pushed himself to his hooves again he saw that they were watching him. The towering stone effigies stood ready to squish the troublesome trespasser.
The statues had come alive. Wreath was in no mood to be amazed by the magical machinations that had animated the golems: He was pissed beyond reason.
“Please. I don’t want to do this.” The golem statue that had hit him approached. It had depicted a unicorn mare in a nun’s modest robes. With an unnatural jerkiness, the the face which had at first been one of serene contemplation was contorted into regretful anguish. The statue's voice was no more than the coarse scrape of stone against itself. “Run away, please. Or I will have to kill you.”
“You must not free the Suzerain of Sin.” Another statue said. It was one of the statues Wreath had inspected in detail earlier, that of Prince Lector.
“No. Oh no oh no.” Wreath said in a gravelly growl. “I don’t want to free her. I want to kill her.”
“That is not her purpose. She has a use, and must not be destroyed.” The statue of Argo Blackhorn, spoke next. Though the statues seemed diplomatic, they looked warily for Wreath’s next attack. “She believes the death of Empress Celestia will release her, but she was tricked. "
“The Suzerain of Sin must stay bound where the Dark Lady has put her.” The statue of an elder pegasus mare chimed in. “It is for that reason only we were animated.”
“None can bend the will of the Dark Lady. Not you, her, or us.” The statue of Tomorrow Hope whimpered. “You have to go. Please, we don’t want to kill you.”
The statue of Lector swept a hoof slowly along the floor, pushing the makeshift saddlebag holding Wreath’s heirloom wolf helmet forward. “Leave.”
“I’m not a violent pony. I just want to Agana her in pain, to suffer.” Wreath laughed raggedly, spitting up more blood. “So what if I don't kill her? What if I just drive her insane through pain? What if I just beat her brain into uselessness, but keep her technically alive?” He bared his teeth. "What I'm trying to say is, BUCK OFF, I'm going to destroy her."
For the first time in his life, he felt truly committed. He would see the battle through and he would win, of that he was absolutely convinced.
Only he could not, not in his current state. If he was to surmount the challenge he would need to, as the Nightmare said, advance and evolve. He would need to become something better than a mediocre earth pony knight.
He pulled his helmet out of the sack and regarded it. Fifty years ago, his grandmother had worn the wolf helmet into battle, triumphantly executing Celestia’s will and enforcing peace in the most troubled corners of Equestria. It was meant for intimidation as much as protection.
Ripple Wreath would not die as a pitiful wolf knight, would not bleed out cold in a cave. He would embrace of his progenitors, both biological and magical, and find the wolf and the truest dark within himself.
“I'll set you folks free too. It's gotta be boring down here. Come on, let's all go together.” He set the helm aside. “But let me get changed first.”
In the Canterlot throne room, Ancepnaox was jolted out of inertness by a tremendous upwelling of dark energy coming from her connection to Ripple Wreath. Amazed she explored the power he was using- and had learned to use to quickly and instinctually- to figure out where it had come from. It was only too odd, for unlike Light magic which had its ultimate origin in the Sun, and ordinary magic which came from the currents of nature, the Dark Wreath was pulling from seemed to have no source at all.
Ancepanox was very intrigued. All her use of Dark magic had been by twisting ordinary magic into Dark spellforms. She'd assumed that was just how it worked. Was this pure Dark magic, straight from the mysterious source? Could it be, Ancepanox wondered silently, that it was coming from the Dreamscape?
She looked up at the moon, but it offered no answers.
"Rainbow Dash, please tell me you're almost done over there. Things are coming to a head."
Rainbow Dash's scattered thoughts responded. "Almost. Something wrong?
"Something terrible is happening in Canterlot. But then, what else is new." Ancepanox laughed morosely. "Please hurry. We have to act quick or we lose.’
She looked over to Forlorn Spark. She had to return to that dream. Rushing back into the danger like that was madness, but neither Celestia nor Agana would expect it.
She was going to take back what was hers.