Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam
Sonata Dusk
Sonata had never had a hangover before. The one, brief experience she’d had with drugs had ended with such a seemingly catastrophic conclusion that she’d been too wrapped up in her emotional trauma to notice what her physical aches and pains might have been. This time however, it was with a certain degree of confusion, and a hefty amount of groaning and moaning, that she awoke to find her head pounding, and her entire body tingling like she’d eaten something intensely spicy. But... somehow all over her body.
“Keep her quiet!” she heard a voice hiss. She winced at the wave of pain throbbing through her head with each syllable.
“Plse-dnt-shout,” she slurred.
“Sonata!” Sunset whispered. “Are you alright?”
“My head really hurts...” Sonata groaned. “And my stomach feels like... like it... bad.”
“Well at least we know it didn’t make her any stupider than before,” Script commented spitefully.
“We’re almost out, I think,” Sunset whispered to Sonata after sparing Script a resentful glare.
“Just up a head,” Script said, taking hold of Sonata. With an odd spring-like motion, he pulled her off of Sunset’s back, and then lifted her suddenly into the tunnel ceiling. Sonata vision had hardly begun to solidify before it was suddenly plunged into utter darkness. She gulped in an enormous lungful of air to scream before she realised that she’d just breathed in a copious amount of foul-smelling and stagnant mist. She gagged, and then the soil around her gave way and she fell hard into the tunnel again. As lights twinkled in front of her eyes, she distinctly heard the sounds of scuffling, and Sunset swearing loudly. And then belatedly the pain caught up with her senses and she clutched her pounding head.
“I love physics,” Script chuckled.
“You absolute arse hole!” Sunset bellowed. Sonata heard a thump that sounded like a body being thrust against an earthen wall.
“Hey, it’s good news,” Script said, sounding amused. “We’re near the exit. We’ll be in the Nighlands by—” he paused. “Well, it’s always night time there, so...”
“If you do anything like that again, I’ll—“
“Oh go on, say it,” Script sneered. “Come on, you can do it. You’ll... what, exactly?”
Sonata looked up from the floor to see Sunset pinning Script to the wall. Her face twisted into a look of fury, it contrasted starkly with Script’s look of roguish nonchalance.
“The exit’s... up there?” Sonata asked dazedly.
“Come on. Say it with me. I’ll – Kill – You. Trust me, it’s not hard to say,” Script goaded. “Some ponies say it too much.”
“I’m not saying it,” Sunset said flatly, and then punched him in the snout. “What do you even get out of being such an unbelievable douchebag?”
“Oh, a certain sense of gratification mostly,” Script said, picking himself up. “For instance, when you apologise to me later.”
“Um, guys?” Sonata put in, tentatively.
“Tch!” Sunset scoffed. “You’ll be waiting a while.”
“Can you guys tell me—“
“Perhaps. But you will say it,” Script assured confidently. “Equestrians are too nice for their own good.”
“I just want to know what happened.”
“You want another hoof in the face?” Sunset snarled.
“Sure, I’m a bit of a sado-masochist, so one or two more would do me nicely.”
“Shut up!” Sonata cried. Retaliatory backlash of nausea and agony notwithstanding, the tunnel did suddenly become quiet.
Both of them almost instantly began shushing her, Script simultaneously trying to stem his bloody nose at the same time. Sonata shrank back, afraid to say anything else.
“Do you want them to find us again?” Script demanded in a loud whisper.
“W-Who?”
“Soldiers,” Sunset answered.
“Mm,” Script hummed sceptically.
“I remember seeing something in the dark,” Sonata said, frowning. “I think I... I did something. Didn’t I?”
“Oh, you did something alright,” Script choked. He stopped to catch his breath. “You plunged us down into a changeling’s storage chamber. Then, if you please, you broke it!”
“Broke it?” Sonata asked, confused. She clutched at her head convulsively. “My head really hurts...”
“You dropped us through a floor into a room with a changeling crystal. They use them to store gathered love, like a larder,” Sunset explained, sitting next to Sonata. “The one we found had been forced into dormancy for some reason, and it seemed to have some sort of effect on you. You looked like you were in a trance.”
“And I... broke the crystal?” Sonata surmised, tensing up a little at the thought. “Why does my head hurt so much...?”
“You drained it dry and made it explode,” Script said conversationally. “Effectively disorientating the two ‘ponies’ that appeared to apprehend us. Mother-May-I here and I managed to throw up shields in time, and so used the opportunity to escape.”
“Maybe your head hurts because you somehow absorbed love instead of negative energy. I really don’t understand what was going on down there. Maybe your pendant was just attracted to what it sensed was some big power source or something.
“That makes sense... I guess,” Sonata lied, since it didn’t make much sense to her. But since she herself didn’t have any better explanations, she left it at that. “Why did you say the word ‘ponies’ with that disbelieving inflection?” Sonata asked Script.
“Because they weren’t who they were claiming to be. They weren’t Roaman, that’s for sure.”
“That doesn’t mean they were changelings,” Sunset said, suggesting to Sonata that they’d already discussed the matter.
“They could have been Equestrians in disguise,” Script nodded. “But then I have to wonder why they’re down here.”
“You thought that we were spies,” Sonata pointed out. “Maybe they actually were spies.”
“That makes no sense either,” Script said, waving a dismissive hoof. “I know every cranny of this particular route, and that particular chamber wasn’t even in the Land of Friendship.”
“Have we gone that far?” Sonata asked.
“We had been walking for a good hour or so in a straight line,” Sunset said thoughtfully. “Where were we?”
“Near to a small town called Canterbury, if I remember right,” Script answered. “Somepony want to give me a boost? We might be able to actually get out this way.”
“Canterbury?” Sunset yelped. “But that’s just outside of Canterlot. Not a few miles even.”
“Yes,” Script said, not really listening. “Boost?” he mimed picking somepony up and lifting them through the hole. “Or would one of you rather go first?”
“Sure you’re not going to just leave us down here?”
“First of all, the nearest natural exit is just a bit further down the tunnel here. Secondly, I don’t break my deals with ponies. And thirdly, if I did, I’d obliterate her before I left.”
Sonata put up a leg to stop Sunset breaking Script’s nose. “You don’t have to get mad, Sunset. To be honest, I don’t think he could do anything to really hurt me.”
“I could try,” Script shrugged. “But I do have this ominous feeling that whatever you drained from that crystal has only strengthened that red abomination.” He gave Sonata’s gem a half-resentful, half-wary glare.
“If you throw me through a ceiling again though, I’ll bite your ear,” Sonata finished matter-of-factly.
Script twitched one of said ears in an apparently unconscious way. “Well, that’s plainly spoken.” Without warning he raised his horn, and blasted the hole above them to make it larger. “Since I’m evidently not going to get a boost: Ladies first, then.”
Sonata touched ground to find that their surroundings had much changed. Ponyville was nowhere in sight; instead, all around was a grassy landscape cleaved in two by a fairly large gorge through which a river ran. On either side of the rocky split were deep, dark bodies of trees, as though some enormous blade had cut a forest in two. The sky was dark and cloudy. From somewhere above came an indefinable sort of hum, like the sound of a far away cataclysm.
“Ah!” Script cackled. “The Twins. I thought it must be close.”
“Why is it called the Twins?” Sonata asked, looking at the gorge.
“The forests are the Twins. Twins Forest. Divided by the Twins Beck,” Script explained, looking around.
“Because there’s two of them?”
“No, no, it’s because of a story about two great giants who—“
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Sunset said quickly. “Can you hear that?”
“You mean the humming?” Sonata asked. “I hear it too.”
“No, not that,” Sunset said in a low voice. For some reason she was lowering her head, as though the grass was whispering something to her. “It sounds more like...”
Then Sonata heard it too. Script swore loudly. Out of the hole that they had made in the ground burst forth a number of distinctly miscellaneous individuals. Indeed the stark contrast in their appearances was somewhat more alarming than their sudden arrival; so much so that for a moment all that Sonata, Sunset, and Script could do was stare at them. Once about thirty had risen from the ground like some parody of a zombie invasion, they arranged themselves in a threatening formation, advancing slowly on the three of them from all sides.
“Changelings,” Script said, backing up, his horn sparking. “Called it.”
“We’re not changelings,” one of the advancing party declared.
“We’re Roamans,” another said, a hulking brown stallion in a red tunic and steel armour.”
“No you’re not,” Script argued.
“No, we’re not,” another said, sounding puzzled. “I’m not, anyway.”
“A few of you don’t seem to be,” Sunset observed nervously.
“I thought we were supposed to be Equestrians,” a royal guard said slowly, his golden armour clanking as he looked around furtively. This led to a buzz of uncertain chattering.
“Moronic vermin,” Script sighed under his breath.
Sonata heard Sunset inhale suddenly, possibly to tell Script to keep his bigoted comments to himself, when there came a low hissing from all around. Every eye was turned towards them, their squabble forgotten. An innocent-looking mare with an unassuming and whimsical colouration of purples and pinks stepped forward, her expression carved into a look of cold intensity. With a little ‘phht!” like the sound of a short-lived flame, she changed, becoming an black, insectoid creature of vaguely pony shape. It had a twisted horn on its head and gauzy wings held close to its side, its bright blue eyes flashing in the dark.
“Capture them!” it rasped.
“Bring them to the Queen alive,” another said, edging forward like a stalking lion.
“Delicious,” another said, its voice low and purring. Sonata couldn’t be sure, but she had the distinct feeling that most of them with the more hungry looks in their eyes were staring at her and Sunset.
“Oh wonderful,” Script said sarcastically. “They can sense you two love-birds. No wonder they found us so fast.”
“What do we do?” she whispered out of the side of her mouth.
“Call the exterminator?” Script suggested.
“I can make a shield,” Sunset said, “but not big enough to keep off this many. Especially with more coming.”
Indeed, now that Sonata saw, many more were rising from the ground, shrugging off their hodgepodge disguises as they advanced in seemingly endless waves.
“Whatever, it’s better than nothing,” Script said quickly. “Shield up.”
Sonata backed up, noticing the thick wall of trees behind her; they were being backed into it. Perhaps they could run through it, but what if they got lost in the dark? Could changelings see in the dark? She didn’t know, but it would be just their luck. She looked at Sunset, wondering what the delay in the shield was.
“Sunset? What’s wrong?” Sonata asked at the look on her marefriend’s face. Sunset grunted, drew in a deep breath and then strained. Feeble, sputtering green sparks crackled from her horn, and she suddenly gave a gasp of pain. “Sunset!”
“A succendum field?” Script exclaimed. “But—No, where could—“
A sudden sound from Sonata’s right drew her attention. Trying to hold a swaying Sunset, she was nearly blinded as a floodlight flashed across them, illuminating the area in bright white light. The sound of spinning rotors blocked out the sound of Script swearing.
“That’s impossible...” Sunset groaned, looking up too. “Sonata, are you seeing...?”
“It’s a helicopter,” Sonata said, dumbstruck, her mouth agape.
Whichever way one looked at it, it was a helicopter. A sleek, dark red body in a roughly rectangular shape, its tail glittered as the rear blades slowed. On the side was a large, painted golden laurel crown above the words Senatus Populesque Roamanus.
“Quick!” Script cried over the roar of the rotors. “This is our chance to escape!”
The helicopter descended with surprising speed, setting down backwards a little way down the ridge. In response the changelings’ attention had been understandably diverted; they hissed and snarled as though the helicopter was an old enemy that had done them tremendous harm. From the rear of the chopper a ramp lowered, and several armoured individuals burst onto the scene.
“Legionaries!” the apparent leader called as the helicopter lifted sideways over the gorge. “To me! Lock formation!”
“Where can we go?” Sonata asked as she, Sunset, and Script took shelter beneath the overhanging branches of the forest’s perimeter.
“Didn’t you have a destination?” Sunset demanded, looking at Script.
“Of course I did,” Script snapped. “Unfortunately, it’s that way,” he said, pointing over towards where the squadron of unknown soldiers were advancing, their large square shields blocking the route.
Sonata blinked, sure that she wasn’t seeing things correctly. The soldiers, who were marching forward in a cool V-shaped formation, were standing on their hind-legs, a shield on their left forehooves, and a sword in their right. A gear snagged in Sonata’s brain as she attempted to work out the anatomical wonder that seemed to be making this possible.
“I visit a town on the border with the Nightlands to the south west,” Script explained. “If we can escape during all of this fighting, we can follow the river right to it.”
“South west along the river,” Sonata repeated. “Okay, then we can just run, right? Those soldier guys over there and that helicopter will keep the changelings back, won’t they?”
“What’s a helicopter?” Script asked, bemused. When Sonata pointed at the vehicle in question, Script snorted loudly. “Oh, sure,” Script said in his usual sardonic tone of voice. “We’ll be just fine. If being riddled full of javelins counts as being fine.”
“What do you—“ Sunset started to ask. All three had instinctively looked at the helicopter, just in time to see exactly what Script meant. On the chopper’s left and right side, visible thanks to the dim moonlight that could be seen through them, a pony could clearly be seen operating a sizeable machine with a curved layer of thin metal plating. As they watched, several long, dark objects whizzed lethally through the air in the direction of the changelings, landing in front of the advancing horde. The changelings gave a collective hiss of anger and backed up as more projectiles sped their way.
“I’m not entirely convinced that they won’t shoot us if we try make a run for it,” Script said tensely. “But we can’t stay here.”
“True,” Sunset agreed, watching as the still increasing horde of changelings was forced back. Green blasts of energy pelted forth into the V-shaped formation from the changeling’s horns, but all of them glanced harmlessly off of the curved square shields. “Whichever side wins this, they’ll will come after us.”
“That’s not what I was talking about,” Script corrected her. He pointed upwards, and Sonata’s insides plummeted.
Whilst she had been bleeding to death back at Twilight’s castle, she’d only managed to get an oblique look at what Script had called the “ventnavis” hovering over the ruins of Ponyville. Back then she’d thought that it had simply been submerged in the clouds, dropping down into partial visibility, but now she saw that she had been wrong. The large, black underside of the ventnavis hadn’t been protruding out of the storm cloud over Ponyville, it had been attached to it.
The gargantuan machine, shaped like the long underbelly of some enormous battleship, could clearly be seen from their vantage point to be hanging from the cloud, attached by lines of what Sonata thought might be steel girders and thick cable encircling the cloud’s body, although it was too far away to see properly. The dark cloud this monster hung from crackled with internal lightning, and was shaped in an enormous, elongated oval, so that it was very easy to view it as a blimp or zeppelin. On the side that they could see was a localised area of plating, bearing the same legend of ‘Senatus Populesque Roamanus’ and the laurel crown.
“If I’m not much mistaken, that ventnavis is bringing itself into firing range of this forest. This entire line will be very much be a flaming crater in a few minutes.”
“What!?” Sunset yelped. “Why?”
“Obviously to stop us escaping,” Script replied, rolling his eyes. “But I wonder why they’re so interested in us. Surely they simply suspect a spy or a deserter. There’s no need to level the forest...”
“Should we run then?” Sonata asked. “I really don’t want to be a flaming crater.”
“We have to time it correctly,” Script instructed. “They won’t fire until the contubernium has driven the changelings far enough back, or else they’d hit their own—“ He stopped suddenly, his face paling.
Sonata looked up, and was instantly deafened by a loud, ear-penetrating
GOOOOM!
What looked like two great balls of fire erupted from the ventnavis’ port side. Streaking across the sky like meteorites, they slammed suddenly into the forest’s northern tip. Sonata cried out as the ground shook beneath her feet, the trees behind her trembling and quaking in the aftershock. A great wave of heat and kinetic force hit them like a sudden gust of hot wind.
“Well I was wrong,” Script muttered. “RUN!”
Sonata and Sunset didn’t need to be told twice. They pelted after him, their eyes on the canyon’s edge as they heard the same sonorous explosions behind them, obliterating the perfectly innocent forest with several tonnes of explosive fiery death.
Although Sonata wasn’t quite focusing on them, she vaguely noticed that the ventnavis’ activities were throwing both the changelings and the Roaman ground forces into a panic. Screeching loudly, the horde of black parasites swarmed back to the hole, eagerly escaping to the safety of their underground tunnels. The Roamans meanwhile had deviated from their formation, all apparently momentarily transfixed by the sight of their own ship sweeping the line of trees in their direction.
“Move!” their leader cried. “To the transport!”
The helicopter, which was paying Sonata and company no attention whatsoever, lowered quickly towards the squadron of soldiers, its rear hatch opening.
“If we can get to the gorge, we can drop down to a safer level; get out of the blast radius!” Script shouted back to his companions.
A shout from the direction of the chopper just managed to reach them over the cacophony going on from all sides, and it diverted Sonata’s attention. Looking back to the group of soldiers, she noticed that the one she’d identified as the leader was holding back, apparently having just noticed her and her companions. One of the soldiers already on the chopper was extending a hoof to him, but at the last moment the leader leapt back... and made a break directly for them!
“Incoming!” Sonata gasped.
Both Script and Sunset looked right. Script swore loudly as the armoured assailant slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.
“Argh!” Script exclaimed. “Are you insane? Get out of here!”
“Not without you, traitor!” the leader snarled, bearing down on him.
Script gasped and made an angry noise between his teeth. “Loyal Stride!”
“We have to go!” Sunset cried, her voice several octaves higher than usual as the rain of destruction edged closer down the forest line.
“You’re all under arrest!” Loyal Stride announced. “I ordered the bombardment to cease. Why aren’t they stopping?”
“More political intrigue?” Script said snidely.
“Don’t try to worm your way out of things this time, Parchm—“ Loyal Stride cursed as he raised his shield. The first blast from Script’s horn rebounded off of it, gauging a scar into the ground. As close to the gorge as they were, Sonata felt like they were miles away from it.
“Stop!” she cried, “We can’t fight like this, the ship-thing is—“ The second blast was stronger than the first. Still on the ground, Script’s horn glowed white with the intensity of the blast, and indeed the deflection caused Loyal Stride to lose his footing a little. Bouncing off the shield at an angle, it whizzed passed Sunset’s ear and struck the ground right at Sonata’s feet. She felt the concussion blow her back, her feet leaving the floor. She opened her mouth to cry out, but felt all the air sucked suddenly from her lungs. Expecting to hit the ground, her heart shot upwards into her throat as she felt the terrible sensation of coming across a downwards step that she was not expecting, only on a much greater level. As her vision cleared, she found herself staring into Sunset’s bright green eyes, becoming increasingly distant as she fell down, down, down, into the cold shadow of the gorge.
She screamed Sunset’s name, and heard her own name cried back at her, and then all sound was gone, muffled and distorted by the water flooding her ears.
Whether it was because of this sudden and deathly silence, or because the impact with the water’s churning surface had hit her with sufficient force, she suddenly felt her senses become disarrayed, almost distant. She clung to the air still in her lungs, feeling a mounting pressure in her head as the oxygen in her blood diminished. After the cacophonous noises and bright lights against the navy blue sky of the world above, the watery silence and murky darkness was almost a welcome change. As her lungs involuntarily expelled the carbon dioxide mounting inside of them, her body tensed as though she was receiving an electric shock. The cold water stung her throat and stabbed at her insides; it ate into her very being, forcing her eyes wide open as her sluggish brain belatedly tried to grind back into action. Her limbs began to work of their own accord, swinging wildly to bring her back to the surface.
Sonata... she heard from above, over and over again. Sunset... Sunset!
The water’s surface burst with bright yellow lights. She had to get there; she had to reach the surface, reach Sunset! Sunset needed help.
The water held her back, like being dunked in thick pudding, it dragged her down. Her limbs felt heavier and heavier as her muscles screamed for oxygen. She needed to breath, she needed to get out of the water. But the surface was so far away! Her limbs refused to work anymore and her insides were burning like acid.
Sunset, please... I... I’m coming...
Her vision went dark again, as the watery murk closed in around her.
- To be Continued