//------------------------------//
// The Red Platoon and the Black Mage [History Overwritten] 
// Story: Split Second 
// by wille179 
//------------------------------//

	Sparkle glanced at Ironwood. Ironwood glanced back. They both quickly looked away. Both were still blushing, but for a different reason than before. And both were sitting on opposite corners of the hotel room.
“I can’t believe I did that... in front of the princess, no less,” Ironwood said.
“I feel dirty. I should have just cut my leg,” Sparkle said.
“The princess is going to demote me. I just know it.”
“I feel like a whore.”
“And what about my wife?”
“Oh maker, Thorn saw everything!”
“I wasn’t even wearing protection! What if I got you pregnant?”
Sparkle looked back at the troubled stallion. “I already am pregnant, remember?”
Ironwood looked back at her and relaxed ever-so-slightly. “Well... um... there’s that... so, that’s a good thing, right?”
“Yeah... I’m sorry, Ironwood. I shouldn't have done that,” Sparkle replied. “Here, um...” The mare’s horn darkened and a wave of black energy passed over the room. As it passed, the musky scent faded from the air and their bodies; they and the room smelled noticeably fresher. “Organic decomposition spell. Great for cleaning the blood and sex out of just about anything.”
After inspecting himself and finding that, yes, he was indeed significantly cleaner, Ironwood thanked her. “Well, I should go and find the Princess. She was planning on giving you a warp stone to bring you to Canterlot this evening.”
“A warp stone?”
“It’s a long-range teleportation spell on a rock. Anyone touching it when it activates gets flung through the warp to their destination. Make sure you use the bathroom and have an empty stomach before you get carried off. Ponies tend to soil themselves otherwise,”  Ironwood explained as he strapped his discarded armor back on. Fastening his last buckle, he stood back up. “I... hope I wasn’t too forceful...”
“No, no. You were fine. That was fun... even if I do regret it now,” Sparkle said. “And you were the best, mare or stallion, that I’ve ever slept with, if that makes you feel any better?”
“Well, they don’t call me Ironwood for nothing,” he said with false bravado. “Eh, I’ll shut up now.”
Sparkle snorted. “It wasn’t that bad of a pun.”
“Right. Anyway... I’ll just see myself out. And since Luna seems to have carried the little guy off, I’ll send him back with the stone,” the vampire said. “Then I’ll see you later?”
The necromancer nodded. “Yes.”
Then, without another word, Ironwood scurried out of the hotel room. As he made his way down the stairs to the lobby, he tried to formulate some sort of excuse that would keep him his job. Descending the last flight, he exited the stairwell and found Luna and Thorn chatting amicably. He cheered internally, glad that she was at least in a good mood.
“Princess, I-”
“I trust that Sparkle accepted our apology?”
“What?” he blurted, confused by the odd question. “Princess?” Ironwood added as an afterthought.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Good work, soldier.”
It clicked in his head what Luna was doing. “Yes, ma’am. I am positive Sparkle will be a staunch ally of ours for the foreseeable future.”
“Then let us return to Canterlot post-haste,” the royal alicorn commanded. “Thorn, remember, the warp stone is set for just under fifteen hours from now, which should be - ” Luna glanced at the clock on the lobby wall, “ - 6:30 pm. Be touching it  when it activates.”
“Got it, Princess Luna,” Thorn affirmed.
Extending her hoof, she motioned for Ironwood to join her. “Are you ready to depart?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Then let us be off.” Thorn watched as the princess and the guard seemed to be yanked backwards before swirling inward into nothingness.
“Well, that looks rough.”





Rematerializing in Luna’s private chambers with a thud, Ironwood ungracefully stumbled forwards in an attempt to regain his balance. He could have sworn that trip was significantly rougher than the first one, despite having been bolstered by blood wine.
“I would prefer not to have to go through that again, Lieutenant. Your behavior was embarrassing to me, to yourself, and to your station as leader of the Red Platoon,” Princess Luna said, irritation now audible in her voice.
“I am deeply sorry,” the Lieutenant said, prostrating himself before his ruler.
“However, I understand that you, as a vampire, are a creature of passion, and I understand the allure of her blood wine. I also am aware that Ms. Sparkle is obscenely strong for her age and her magic is rather alluring to vampires. And like most powerful unicorns - especially the practitioners of dark magic - she needs the carnal outlet to relieve the stress that her magic places on her brain. Even I was, and still am, susceptible to the lusts that magic imparts on me.
“What I am saying is that, given the situation and the elation she was feeling, she could have surged had you not given into your weakness,” the princess explained. “As far as I’m concerned, you managed to inadvertently increase the cooperation of an ally while off duty. And while I may be conveniently ignorant of your methods, I am sure your wife might have a few words for you.”
“Princess Luna, if it is alright with you, I would prefer to be officially reprimanded than have to face Sweet Rose.”
Princess Luna grinned wickedly. “Reprimanded for what? You’ve done nothing wrong, Lieutenant. You are dismissed.”
Ironwood gulped. Sweet Rose was too observant. She’d find out for sure. He knew it was better just to fess up straight away. It would be the couch for him for at least a month.





If she had thought about it, Sparkle would have been amazed that the compact magic imbued within that little pebble could have carried her and Thorn. She could only teleport ten miles or so every few hours without utterly exhausting herself. Her sister could do nearly four times the distance, but even she had her limits. The magic in the pebble felt like only enough to get her across the city, but safely deposited her in the entrance hall of Canterlot Castle after whisking her away from Manehattan, almost four hundred miles away. What would have been a six-hour train trip took seconds.
If she had investigated more closely, she would have found the time to enter and exit the warp took around six seconds to fully complete. However, the time she spent moving in the warp was so short, she would have found that she had actually exceeded the speed of light by a factor of twelve.
Of course, she did not think about it, and did not investigate it. Rather, she was suppressing the urge to dry heave.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Thorn remarked. “Luna made it sound like it was going to be far worse.”
“Urp...” Sparkle gagged, holding her mouth shut with her magic.
“Oh.” Thorn placed a claw on her back and gently rubbed. “Hey, you should probably sit” - her rump impacted the ground with a solid thump - “down.” 
It was about then that a Royal Guard in gleaming gold armor trotted over to the new arrivals. “Sparkle and Thorn?”
“Yes.”
“Urp... uh huh.”
“I am here to escort you back to Princess Celestia,” he said. A beat passed. “But I’ll wait until you’re feeling better.”
A few more seconds passed. “You do remember you can suppress nausea magically, right?”
Sparkle looked at him as if he had just explained something utterly profound. Her horn darkened, causing the guard to instinctively step back. However, when it faded, Sparkle was looking and feeling remarkably better. “Thank you, Thorn. You’re a life saver.”
Seeing that his charge was standing and clearly able to walk now, the guard gestured for them to follow him and lead them down the hall. As they walked, Sparkle couldn’t help but notice a large oddity about the room that hadn’t been there during the gala. Several of the large, stained-glass windows were covered in black tarps. “Did you have storm damage or something?” Sparkle asked.
“No, ma’am. We did not.”
“Then what’s with the windows?”
The guard glanced over at one. “I believe Princess Luna was arguing with Celestia over you, ma’am.”
“And she smashed the windows in rage?”
“With her voice, yes,” the guard replied. “She has a powerful set of lungs.”
Thorn looked around, tallying up all the broken windows. “She must have been really mad.”
The white-coated guard didn’t add anything else to the conversation as he lead them up the stairs in the back of the hall. He navigated them into a side hall and then into the maze-like interior of the castle. Hallway after hallway they passed. Sparkle could have sworn that they’d made six consecutive right turns without crossing their original path even once. She started to voice her disbelief, but then recalled how unicorn-built fortresses often were defended by the strange hyper-geometry of their layout.
They rounded one more right turn when Sparkle finally saw somepony she knew, though not who she was expecting, and not somepony she’d seen recently. “Cadance?”
The pink princess turned when she heard her name called. “Sparks? Thorn? You’re safe!” She ran towards her former charge and her charge’s son. “I was so worried when Shining Armor told me you were missing. But you’re safe now!”
Suddenly finding herself in an alicorn-tight hug, Sparkle squeaked out, “It’s good to see you too, Cadance. It’s been a while.”
Setting Sparkle down (and after hugging Thorn too, much to his displeasure), Cadance looked her over. “Oh my. I know Shiny said you’d lost your leg, but I never pictured it like this. How are you even walking around?”
“With difficulty,” Sparkle admitted. “But I’ve commissioned a prosthetic, the good kind that you can control with magic.”
“That’s good. But until you get it...” Cadance trailed off. Her horn lit with baby blue magic and, much to her victim’s surprise, scooped Sparkle up. Depositing the fully grown mare on her back, Cadance said to the guard, “Lead the way.”
“Cadance! I’m not a baby!” the extremely dangerous necromancer whined petulantly.
The pink princess of love snickered. “Doesn’t matter. You’re still the little filly I foal sat, and you always will be. Besides, you can’t even do our secret dance like this. I’m not letting you out of my sight until then.”
Behind them, Thorn gagged. “Why are ponies so sweet like that?” the lich muttered under his breath.





The door opened. Shining Armor, sitting at a table he never thought he would have ever sat at, looked over to see who was entering the private dining room of the Princesses. He expected his sister, or possibly his marefriend. He didn’t expect the latter to be carrying the former on her back, and the scene only made his smile bigger.
He shot up. “Sparks!”
Hopping off her hold foal sitter, Sparkle limped to meet her brother halfway. “Hey, Shiny. How are you?”
“How am I? How are you? You ran from a hospital the day after you got your leg amputated! You ran who knows where and left me without a clue as to where you went! How could you do that to your poor big brother?” he said, ending with an extra helping of melodrama and ham. “I don’t want to be old and gray at twenty-six!”
Meanwhile, the guard that had led Sparkle, Thorn, and Cadance here saw that he was no longer needed. Turning about, he decided to take the initiative and go alert the unexpectedly absent princesses that their guests were here. He quietly shut the surprisingly plain door as he departed.
“I’m fine, you big oaf. It was a big old adventure for me. Mystery, adventure, suspense, murder, romance, the works!” Sparkle said.
Shining stared at her. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Hopefully it was nothing like that, but knowing you-”
“It was exactly like that, Uncle Shiny,” Thorn interjected. “All of the above. We nearly died twice, we solved a murder mystery, I met a nice dragoness, and Sparkle kissed two different stallions, one of whom tried to kill her and the other of whom tried to eat her.”
Shining donned a thousand-yard stare. Then, shaking his head, he said, “For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to pretend that Thorn is playing along with your joke. So... The princesses should be here any second.”
“Well, I’m here,” Cadance piped in. Silently, she noted that she would have to talk to Sparkle about that last week, especially her choice in stallions. “Aunt Celestia and Aunt Luna are on their way. I’m pretty sure they got sidetracked by nobles.”
The door to the private dining room opened not a second later. “Greetings. Forgive our tardiness,” Princess Luna said as she entered the room, followed by her taller sister. “Those pests that have the gall to call themselves nobles delayed us.”
“As I said,” Cadance commented.
“Hello, Sparkle, Thorn. I am relieved that you decided to come,” Princess Celestia said. Strolling over, she stopped when she was standing right in front of Sparkle and bowed her head. “I am deeply sorry for my treatment of you, both last week in the hospital, and in the years before.”
Sparkle had expected an apology regarding last week, sure. She hadn’t been expecting more than that. “Princess Celestia?”
“After my sister spoke with me on your behalf, I began to reflect on our common past. This raised some questions for me, and so I went to check the castle’s records. If there’s one thing this country’s excessive bureaucracy is good for, it’s generating excessive and thorough paper trails. And what I found make it all the more necessary that I appologize to you.” Straightening up, the solar princess walked over to her seat at the table. “Come, sit. We can talk over dinner. I hear the chef is preparing Prench ratatouille and pasta for us tonight.”
The group sat down at the table and were soon served by the palace staff. The meal itself was very delicious and flavorful, as expected by chefs of the caliber that the castle employed. Celestia set her fork down on her plate with a light tink and, after a sip of water, launched into her story.
“I started by pulling your record, Sparkle, and cross referencing it to events taking place at about the same time and places. Then I was referencing guard reports, castle logs, damage paperwork, and a whole assortment of other documents. Within a day, I had started noticing a trend. Everywhere you went, you always touched something that gave me evidence to find a completely new problem. A zombie you put down three months ago? Child negligence scandal. Shining Armor’s kidnapping? Thirty new potential suspects in the criminal underworld in Canterlot alone. Your escape attempt last year? Government corruption. Your disappearance a year and a half ago? Another dark cult. So many things have come up that I now have a thirty-pony-and-growing investigation team running 24/7 to unravel everything you alone have stumbled upon. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“You can add ‘solved murder case’ to that list,” Thorn commented. 
“Congratulations, then,” Celestia said. “I would say I’m surprised, but by this point, I don’t think I can be. My point is that I’ve seen where almost every time you’ve been caught doing something wrong, good has come from it, be it directly or otherwise.”
Sparkle nodded, accepting her words at face value. However, a nagging little voice popped into her head that sounded suspiciously like Lady Death. ‘The Dread Necroptica can only be read by those it deems worthy, and you two, as well as Thorn, are probably its most worthy readers ever.’ She remembered her saying that. If Death, a self-proclaimed time traveler and the highest authority on mortality and destruction, could say that about her and her little family, then what did that say about them? Could they even change the future, or were they doomed to be the very monster she had dedicated her life to eradicating?
But as the Princess wasn’t finished speaking, Sparkle quickly shoved her thoughts aside. “What I am about to tell you is something I’ve told very few ponies. There is a spirit with whom I share a symbiosis - Apollo. It is the spirit of the future, and has given me visions of the future for as long as I remember. Sometimes they are cryptic. Most of the time they are vague on details, such as the one I had last night. And all of them present me a choice: Make it come to pass, or prevent that future from happening. Perhaps seeing the future so often and so precisely has made be blind to the world in front of me; I’m not sure. However, I am going to trust my instinct and make last night’s prophecy true.”
“Wow,” Thorn commented. Sparkle could  only silently agree. Never had she suspected future sight being part of Celestia’s arsenal. The necromancer would have loved to question the princess about the specifics of who Apollo was and how its prophecies worked, but she held her tongue. If there were not more pressing matters, Sparkle would have made time to ask if there were any prophecies concerning her.
“I assume, then, that you are curious to the specifics of why we have decided to request your partnership with the Red Platoon,” Celestia concluded.
The necromancer nodded. “Yes, your highness.”
“That warning you gave me in the hospital turned out to be completely correct. A large collection of covens, both large and small, have been gathering under a single banner. While we are not completely sure of their goals, we have found evidence of hostile action and as such are classifying the whole group as a threat to the safety of the country. Unfortunately, this group, codename BLACKBLOOD, is estimated to be larger than the entire Night Guard and is more willing to kill for blood than limit their intake to minimal amounts.”
“So,” Sparkle began, “Thorn and I are here to even the playing field.”
“And to limit civilian casualties should open conflict break out,” Princess Luna added, affirming Sparkle’s assumption.
“Have you contacted Lune de Sang Cirque yet? They’re still independent, as far as I am aware. Vinyl, one of them, was the one who warned me after all. While not the best fighters, they might align with us,” Sparkle said.
Luna looked thoughtful. “I shall consider it. Lieutenant Ironwood should have some valuable insight, but I would imagine he would agree to such an alliance.” Celestia nodded in agreement.
“Now, Sparkle, I must mention something important,” Celestia said. “During my investigation, I came to realize just how strongly the city and the nobles are against you and your continued freedom. It is my belief that many of the restrictions on you come from these multi-sided constraints they force on you. However, if I employ you as an independent military contractor, I can also issue you a Sorcerer-Combatant license. Better yet, there is a precedence for this, so the nobles can’t complain.”
A Sorcerer-Combatant was any magic user - not necessarily a unicorn - deemed capable of using magic in a combat situation, and allowing them to learn and practice significantly more dangerous magics, magics that could be lethal to the victim. The license also allowed them to use such spells on an enemy. With it, about a tenth of the spells Sparkle knew would suddenly become perfectly legal for her to use at any time, and another tenth would be good in combat situations. Obviously, most of the spells she knew were far too malicious to ever be legal, but it was still a major improvement.
It also would hardly change a thing, Sparkle subconsciously knew. She’d still learn and practice everything she could get her hooves on. The mare would be more bold with her learnings, definitely, but in the end, that would be it.
“Thank you, Princess. That means a lot to me,” Sparkle partially lied. To those who knew her well, namely Thorn and Shining Armor, they could see the calculating cogs turning behind her eyes. Among them, only Thorn could really tell what she was thinking.
After all, while Thorn may have been part pony, Sparkle was, at heart, part dragon.
And she had just been given so much.





Dinner concluded with Sparkle hashing out a contract of Employment with the Princesses. After writing a short letter to Twilight saying that, yes, she was still alive, and explaining what went down, and then reading the novella that Twilight wrote back, Sparkle finally got to check up on the one that had been in the back of her mind since she had fled: Cobalt.
Embracing the stallion, she asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Better," Cobalt replied. "I can remember most of last year, and I can remember my family... somewhat. But..."
"But what?" Sparkle asked.
"This is going to sound kind of crazy, but I don't think I want to remember any more. It kind of feels like somepony else... that that abuse from her was for her son, Red Fields, not me, Cobalt. Does that make any sense?"
Sparkle nodded. "You're dissociated from the memories. If you think that you can function fully and happily with what you have, then by all means, we'll stop. No therapist, and I'll pull my specter from you."
"NO! Wait!"
Having not even started to remove it yet, Sparkle simply cocked her head to the side in curious confusion. "Why?"
"I like it in there. It's funny and really optimistic, and it feels good. I can focus more with it in there," Cobalt explained.
The teacher pondered her student's request. The magic used to sustain it would be lost to her until she recalled it. And while that wouldn't be much of a sacrifice... Actually, she didn't mind at all. Failing to come up with a good counter-argument, she shrugged and agreed. "Are you going to name it?"
"She's Dye," Cobalt answered after a moment of thought.
Sparkle smiled. "Dye and the painted pony. I like it."
"Oh, I didn't even think about that. Huh."
Sparkle's smile faded as she changed to a more serious topic. "Do you still want to be my student? Even after what's happened?"
He blinked. "You're the only happy memories I have. You're stuck with me," he replied.
"Do you want your next geas now? I know that the first one damaged your mind, but I know how to stop that from happening this time. Or I could teach you something else..." She shrugged. "It's up to you."
"Do it," he resolutely declared.
"Alright." She summoned the book of Soul, the book of Mind, and the book of Pain. "Your first geas was the geas of duty. This one will be the geas of servitude. That means you're going to be my student for the rest of your life and afterlife. Because that was one of the exit terms for your first geas, you will never break free of that one either. Do you still want to do this?" He nodded, and she sighed, "Very well. This will hurt. A lot."





One overnight trip to Fillydelphia four days after returning home and Sparkle was fitted with her new clockwork prosthetic leg. Covered in magic runes, black spikes, and inlaid with her own bones, it was definitely a sight worthy of being a necromancer's leg. One rune drew power from her, one articulated the joints, and one read the incoming neural impulses and signaled the motor runes that drove the gears accordingly. The final set of runes, added by Sparkle to the bones themselves, made the entire false limb nearly indestructible and capable of providing limited sensory information.
It was almost as good as the real thing.
Now all that was left to do was meeting her new colleagues. Soon enough, she and Thorn found themselves being led by Lieutenant Ironwood through the Red Platoon's barracks. "Technically, the platoon is large enough to be a small company at sixty combatants, but we were platoon-sized when we first formed over a thousand years ago. Some of us come and go, but even those that aren't with us are still part of our family."
They passed a door and stopped at the next one. "Here we are, Squad Six, reconnaissance and combat support. You'll be primarily working with them, and Fine Cut specifically, although you'll meet everypony eventually." His hoof knocked on the door and, because he was still energized from the blood wine a few days ago, it proceeded to splinter the wood.
There was a short scream of surprise that came from inside. “Sorry!"
"Lieutenant?" A muffled mare's voice asked.
"Yeah. Wasn't watching my strength," he said as he pushed the damaged door open. "Squad Six, meet your new teammates, Sparkle and Thorn."
"This some kind of joke?" one pegasus stallion asked, not even bothering to sit up from his reclined position. In fact, he hadn't even looked over, deducing their basic appearance by sound and smell alone. "A broken, living mare and a lizard?"
He dodged a fireball.
"Dragon. Dracolich, if you want to be specific."
That caught his attention. The lounging vampire sat up and looked. The mare, from which darkness seemed to pour, drew in his attention first. Her slit red eyes, green sclera, and oozing, purple mist radiated power beyond her years. Her smile looked cruel; despite the audible heartbeat, he could see fangs in her mouth... Along with every other tooth being sharper than normal. Her frame was skinny and her coat was thin, giving her a sickly appearance. The smooth, curved horn and her mechanical leg's design both made her look that much fiercer.
Then was the dracolich. Towering over the mare, his black, smoking wings curled around her protectively. Green balefire seeped from between his lips, as his pupils undulated like flame. A hunger burned in his eyes, and the pegasus knew that very little was standing in the way of him being lunch.
"It's not often that we drop all the illusions," Sparkle commented. "Do you like what you see?"
Ironwood, even from his side view, took a step back. That wasn't anything like the mare he had slept with. Was she really powerful enough to fool even him at his age?
The other pegasus, as well as all the other occupants of the room, went wide-eyed in surprise. "So, you're the real deal, huh?" Finally standing, he walked over to her and gave her a look-over. "Cool. Name's Night Eyes."
"A pleasure," Sparkle said.
"I'm Shadow Weaver. Nice to meet you!" said a pegasus stallion.
"Alabaster's the name, fire's my game," a stetson-wearing unicorn said.
"Aurora Borealis, but you can call me Aurora," a bespectacled pegasus stallion said.
Night Eyes snorted, "You mean Bore, because you put ponies to sleep."
Rolling his eyes, Aurora quipped, "Ignore him. That old man can be such a foal at times. Anyway, next?"
"Swift Shade," the first mare of the group said.
Another stallion nodded. "Fine Cut. I heard you'll be working with me a bunch, right?" Sparkle confirmed that he was indeed correct.
"And then there's me, Swiftwing," a pegasus mare said. "But most ponies call me Splatter, 'cause they don't want to confuse me with Shade over there!"
Sparkle and Thorn looked at them, committing each of their souls, their names, and their faces to memory. Once every fanged, red-eyed pony was memorized, Sparkle smiled. "It's nice to meet you all."
"Hey, is it true that you can make blood wine?" Splatter asked.
Ironwood just groaned.