Chapter 6: The Beast
"Form up!" snapped Flash Sentry, looking around at the few Guards he had with him. Like Shining Armor, Flash had stayed behind in Canterlot to help coordinate the Royal Guard's actions as they swooped down upon the Cult Solar strongholds that Princess Celestia's agent had uncovered. However, Flash found himself rather unhappy with his placement, given what was going on right now.
There weren't very many ponies left in the Palace. Mixed in with the shining gold of the Royal Guard were the grays and blues of Luna's personal Guard. Several of these ponies were underdressed, having been forced to leave some of their armor behind as they scrambled from their bunks, where they'd been resting off-shift. Even now, many of the ponies behind Flash were desperately trying to rub sleep from their eyes even as they formed up into lines behind their leader.
Licking his lips nervously, Flash focused his attention ahead at the barricade that had been erected in the doorway leading to the Cathedral. The enemy force had holed themselves up in there, clearly expecting that breaking into the vault would take some time, if it could be done at all. Flash's first thought had been to get his pegasi airborne and send them in through the windows. However, if their opponent was even mildly competent, the windows were probably already covered and sending ponies through them would only result in further casualties for the Guard. Flash had already lost two ponies today. He didn't want to lose any more if he could help it.
Now then...how to do this... he wondered, scratching at the orange fur visible between the plates of his armor. The enemy was pretty well-situated. Granted, there was nowhere they could go, but the last thing Flash wanted was to turn this into an extended standoff. They just didn't have the marepower for it. The whole situation was absurdly precarious. However, if they simply broke in against the undoubtedly staunch resistance from the enemy force, it was likely to result in even more casualties.
Presently, the Guards were assembled in the room leading out to the walkway across from the Cathedral. Though they had formed up, they would have to narrow their marching order to make it through the door before spreading back out on the other side. We can hold this position and we control the ways in and out of the Cathedral, thought Flash, Maybe if we hold here, then we can negotiate their surrender.
However, Flash's musings were interrupted by a sound that almost seemed to make the room drop ten degrees in temperature. An echoing, bestial howl issued forth from the annex. Shaken, Flash turned about to face the source of the noise, clutching his spear tightly, trying his hardest to keep the shaking in his legs from being visible to his ponies. What the hay was that?
Before anypony could actually give voice to that question, the answer became all too apparent. The barricade in the doorway literally exploded outward as a large, green pony barreled through it. It was a pegasus, his body covered in scars, with one patch over his eye. All of these details were secondary concerns, given the incoming stallion's current state. His mouth and nose were lined with white foam and his single eye was practically red as he surged forward, using his wings to propel him in a flying charge along the ground while his forelegs were curled about the shaft of a large scythe that he swung as though it were a twig.
"Hold together!" Flash yelled behind him, bracing to meet the stallion's charge. He could hear the shuffle of hooves, but it was subdued and hesitant. His ponies were trying to maintain their lines, but the sight of the incoming pegasus, wildly swinging a scythe like the mad specter of death itself was causing them to falter.
Before they could rally, the stallion hit. Flash lowered his spear and thrust it at the stallion as he came on. However, the wild pegasus shifted his approach slightly, less to dodge and more so that he could put more force into the swing as he lashed out with the scythe. As a consequence, the spear drew a line of red along the madpony's neck, barely missing a vital artery. The stallion didn't even seem to notice as he brought the scythe around. Flash barely had the opportunity to glance sideways before the shaft of the heavy weapon slammed into his helm, knocking Flash off his hooves and sending him skidding across the floor.
From his position, Flash could see the stallion slam into the Guard ranks behind where he had been standing, still swinging the scythe about wildly. Ponies scattered to try and avoid the crazed attack, but one toppled over as the blade of the scythe hooked around her leg and cut it out from under her, sending a spray of blood flying into the air. Earth ponies thrust with their spears, unicorns launched spells, and the pegasi tried to fly up above in the limited space they had to try and corral the monstrous stallion down. But their fear hampered their movements. Spells and blades both missed their marks and the stallion didn't even seem to notice the few strikes that actually did hit him. Instead, he continued to swing the scythe around like a pony possessed, tossing aside a pegasus withe a shaft before sinking the tip of the blade in between the plates of an earth pony. It actually took the scarred pegasus a few tugs to get the weapon back out, leaving another pony immobile on the floor.
The rest of the guards were starting to regain their courage. As terrifying as the specter of the mad pegasus was, his wild swinging had done relatively little harm, the four ponies down being his only victims so far. They were getting ready to close in and block off the stallion's movements, their focus now on restraining him and bringing him down...
...Which was why they were caught completely off-guard when a charging line of earth ponies surged up behind the green pegasus and slammed straight into the still disorganized ranks of the Guards. Swinging heavy hammers, the earth ponies battered their opponents, caving in armor and breaking bones. Behind the earth ponies came a rank of pegasi, also armed with the heavy mauls that they brought to bear on their winged Guard counterparts, quickly heading up as soon as they got through the door and beginning the attack just as the Guard pegasi were about to turn their attention to the earth ponies.
Flashes of brilliant light accompanied spells being thrown through the door by approaching unicorns, blasting past their comrades and blowing ponies off their hooves. The remaining Guards scattered, now fighting to simply preserve their own lives as they fought to drag wounded comrades away from the line of fire and cover them. Flash, in his addled state, noticed one of Luna's Guards taking up a protective stance over him.
The enemy ponies were now forming up around their leader, who had slumped down shortly after his comrades had arrived, gasping hard for breath. After a moment, he seemed to regain himself, with no signs of his previous madness, save for the flecks of foam left clinging to his lips. Turning, he waved a forehoof and the unicorns came through, escorting four earth ponies bearing a chest between them.
The Elements! thought Flash in horror. He didn't know how the enemy had broken into the vault, but they had succeeded and were now making their getaway with the prize. What was more, now that they had broken through his formation, there was almost nopony to stop them from getting back out.
Fortunately, the enemy was more interested in getting away with their spoils than finishing off the wounded. They followed their leader, taking off down the passage, the sound of their hooves fading into the distance.
"Lieutenant! Are you all right?" asked the Night Guard as she pulled him back up.
"I've been better," admitted Flash, shaking his head, "What are the casualties?"
"Ten down, three dead," reported one of the surviving Guards, "The survivors are in a pretty bad way."
"Get the Palace staff to help them," ordered Flash, "The rest of us are going after those bastards. If they get away with the Elements of Harmony, then we'll never be able to face Princess Celestia when she returns." Not to mention that they'll have escaped with a set of the most powerful magical artifacts in the world.
To their credit, the remaining Guards didn't balk at his orders and formed up behind him, save for one pegasus who flew off to get the Palace staff to help the wounded. Less than a minute later, they were rushing down the stairs and hallways after the thieves. I won't let you monsters get away with this! thought Flash, his mind going to the Guards that had lost their lives already and the ones who might still lose their lives before the day was out.
Seeing that Shining was distracted by the sound of Greenblight's berserker howl, Perlin smirked and swept his wings out behind him. Even with the shield pinning him down from above, he could still move his wings laterally, which allowed him to launch his wired feathers behind him, sinking them into the stone walls of the hallway. A twist through the wires anchored them into the walls and Perlin yanked his wings forward, the motion sending him sliding across the floor and out from under Shining's shield. It's a good thing the Palace staff keeps the floors so nicely polished, he thought as he got his hooves back under himself and kicked off into the air, moving in a backwards flip that allowed him to land further down the corridor.
"Damn!" snapped Shining as Perlin launched the wired feathers at him once more. Shining broke apart the hexagonal sections of his shield once again, using them to deflect the feathers before they could reach him.
Perlin came barreling down the corridor right behind his feathers, retracting the wires as he went. Shining assembled several of the remaining hexagons in a loose formation between him and Perlin, forcing Perlin to slash at them with his wings in an attempt to get through them. However, a few of the segments split off to come at Perlin's body at different angles, forcing the young stallion on the defensive as he whirled his wings around, trying to cut down or block the shields before they could reach him.
Shining fired another bolt from his horn, but Perlin intercepted the shot before Shining could use the shields to rebound it again, instead knocking the blast of telekinetic energy out through one of the hallway's windows. In the meantime, Perlin was also cutting down the shield segments as fast as he could manage.
With a grimace, Shining once again gathered the glowing hexagons in front of him before sending them rushing straight at Perlin en-mass. Each one was angled slightly differently to keep Perlin from slicing through them all at once. Even as he fended off their blows, Perlin was forced to dance back as he used his wings to cut down the remaining shield segments one at a time. With a final ringing sound, Perlin's feathers cleaved through the last of the shields, leaving him and Shining alone in the hallway once more.
Shining wasn't feeling too well. He felt tired and worn out, even though he'd hardly exerted his magic at all so far. The mental strain of controlling so many individual shields had worn him down and he was having trouble remaining focused. If he couldn't stay alert, his casting speed would drop and Perlin would be able to take him down in the interval between spells. Perlin, on the other hoof, was panting lightly, but looked as fresh as a daisy otherwise. He even seemed to be enjoying himself.
"This is going much better than our last altercation," the young stallion noted with an amused smirk.
"I'm glad you're having fun," groused Shining, trying to figure out what to do next. Perlin could cut through his shields like they weren't even there and even layering them had barely slowed the young stallion down. At this rate, Shining was fairly certain that he was going to earn himself another trip to the hospital with a severed horn. I do not want to go through that again.
Perlin, on the other hoof, was silently counting down the minutes since he'd heard Greenblight's howl, trying to figure out how much longer he had to stall Shining Armor for. If he could wear out or incapacitate the Guard Captain, so much the better. Unfortunately, he hadn't worked out a signal with the Banehammers that would let him know when it was safe to disengage. If he left too early, then Shining would be free to go intercept the Banehammers. While Perlin had little difficulty with Shining's shields, he sincerely doubted that Greenblight would have such an easy time breaking through them, particularly if Shining managed to catch the Banehammers inside the Palace where Inkwell couldn't provide ranged support.
The two of them stared at one another in silence, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Shining hid a grimace. The situation certainly favored Perlin. He was free to wait as long as he needed to while the window that Shining had to go and support his Guards was rapidly shrinking. However, Shining knew that one wrong move could be dangerous, if not fatal. If only I were as good at teleporting as Twilight is, he thought. He wouldn't be able to activate a teleport spell over any decent range without taking a moment to concentrate first. He definitely couldn't teleport a significant distance while he had other spells active at the same time, which precluded trying to stall Perlin with another series of shields.
Surprisingly enough, the stalemate was broken, not by Shining or Perlin, but by somepony else entirely. The silence in the hallway was broken by the faint click of hooves against the floor as the willowy, pink form of Princess Cadance gracefully stepped out of Shining's office, where she'd been hiding while the fight was raging on. She stepped up behind her husband, her eyes looking past him at Perlin, meeting his own.
Perlin shivered as he looked at those eyes. There was no anger or hatred in them, only clear, calm understanding that seemed to look right past his outside appearance and see into the depths of his soul. With that one look, Perlin had the impression that Cadance had gotten a better understanding of him than just about anypony he'd ever interacted with. His legs shook and he found himself unable to look away from her eyes. He was so completely drawn into her gaze that he even failed to notice Cadance light her horn. The teal aura from the horn swirled and resolved into a pink heart that drifted across the space between them, bursting with a pop as it came into contact with Perlin's forehead.
The noise knocked Perlin out of his reverie with a jolt and he reeled back, wrenching his gaze away from Cadance's eyes. His heart thudded alarmingly in his chest. It wasn't like him to be this flustered. He was completely vulnerable now. However, both Shining and Cadance were forgotten in that moment as the face of a different pony entirely drifted up before his mind's eye. I shouldn't be here.
With an echoing crash of shattered glass, Perlin launched himself out through a window, a different one than he'd come in through. He fell for a short distance before spreading his wings and soaring away.
In the hallway that Perlin had left behind, Shining blinked in confusion, trying to figure out what had just happened. "Huh? Cadance?" He was surprised to see his wife, having not even noticed her coming out of his office.
Cadance, for her part, stared silently at the space where Perlin had been standing.
"What did you do?" asked Shining.
"I helped him...I think," said Cadance with a small smile.
"What do you mean?"
"I could see it in him," she said, "the feelings he has for somepony else. I just used my magic to reach in and make him see that it was more important than fighting with you."
"I think you saved my rump there," said Shining, reaching up to wipe some sweat off his brow.
Cadance looked around. "I don't think it's over yet."
"Yeah," said Shining grimly, "there's still the matter of those intruders to see to."
"Go on then," said Cadance.
With a nod, Shining fired up his horn and vanished in a flash of rosy light.
The Banehammers and their leader burst out into the main entryway. Ahead of them were the doors. Beyond them were the two carriages, still parked and waiting. Inkwell now stood between them, watching impassively as the mercenaries charged down the broad hall.
Behind them, the remaining Guards came charging along in pursuit, Flash Sentry taking the lead. As they reached the entryway, he and the other pegasi spread their wings and took to the air, getting ready to swoop down at the Banehammers from above. It would take time for them to load all of their number and the chest containing the Elements into the carriages. In that time, Flash was confident that they'd be able to take the group down.
As they closed in, Flash's ears picked up a faint whistling noise and he looked up just in time to see a jet-black bolt of ebony energy flying straight at his face. With a yelp, Flash dodged to the side, barely missing the bolt as it streaked past him. Off to one side, he could hear a cry of pain as one of the Lunar Guards that had taken to the air with him was taken by another bolt straight in the stomach. She crumpled and dropped toward the floor like a rock.
Flash was about to turn to help her when the bolt he'd dodged suddenly doubled back on itself and slammed down right between his wings, completely stunning him and knocking him out of the air as well. All around him, more black bolts of magic whirled about, effortlessly evading the enemy mercenaries and easily finding their marks among the Guards. Even when they were dodged, they simply changed their course to come in at a different angle, catching more than a few ponies off guard. The entryway filled with grunts and shouts, followed by the clank of armor as ponies fell to the floor.
Flash hit the floor hard, feeling something snap in his leg as he landed. Unable to get up, he could only watch as the Banehammers reached their carriages and began climbing aboard. However, Inkwell had not moved her eyes away from the Guards, whose charge had been stymied by her previous attack. Her horn glowed black and smoke crawled out from the cracks running along its length as several more crackling orbs of black energy appeared in the air around her. It seemed that she wasn't even concerned with escaping, remaining wholly focused on obliterating her enemies. The barrage of bolts lanced forward. From his position, Flash could see one zipping straight at his face.
What a way to go, he thought glumly, I'm sorry, Hope...
The bolts burst as a shimmering wall of rose-colored magic interposed itself between them and their intended targets, the shield stretching to fill the entire entryway, blocking off all avenues of approach that Inkwell could use to attack.
"That's far enough," said Shining Armor, stepping out to the front to glare at the Banehammers.
The mercenaries were more interested in their withdrawal than trading barbs and continued to board the carriages. Inkwell continued to hurl bolts by the dozen at Shining's shield, blasting at it from every conceivable angle, as though she thought she could break through on her own.
Inkwell focused all of her attention on the Guard Captain, frustration boiling up inside her as her spells crashed uselessly against his shield. She barely even noticed when Greenblight called out her name. She did notice, however, when he barreled into her, knocking her over as a jet of dark-blue energy ripped through the air over their heads.
"THAT IS ENOUGH!" Ahead of them, on the road leading down into Canterlot, stood none other than Princess Luna. Her swirling, star-studded mane and tail billowed around her as she glared down at the mercenaries. Her eyes were a glowing turquoise, the pupils having elongated into vertical, draconic slits as the weight of her anger crashed down on the Banehammers.
"Crud," growled Greenblight, "I thought the Princesses were out."
"You have taken the lives of good ponies today," said Luna, "solely for the sake of satisfying your greed and lust for blood. But no more. You will disarm yourselves and I shall find out exactly who you are working for so that I may find that pony and slowly strip the skin from their bones."
We weren't told about this, thought Greenblight, his blood rising again. With a grunt, he struggled to force the rage down. This wasn't the time or place for him to go berserk. Luna would swat him like a fly. Beside him, he could already see Inkwell narrowing her eyes dangerously, smoke beginning to curl out of her horn once again. Don't do it, you fool!
Luna had noticed Inkwell's display of aggression and focused her baleful gaze on the dirty-white mare. Luna's own horn began to glow as she prepared a spell of her own.
We're sunk, thought Greenblight, sure that the flash of Luna's horn would be the last thing he ever saw.
A sound, like a large balloon bursting, filled the air and Luna was suddenly blown off her hooves and knocked over into a hedgerow off to the side of the causeway. Greenbliight blinked and looked over at his second-in-command, but she was just as startled as he was, if not more so.
It took him a second longer to remember what they needed to do. Whatever had happened, this was their chance. "Everypony get aboard!" he roared, "Let's get out of here!"
The pegasi pullers finished hitching themselves up to the harnesses as the rest of the earth ponies and unicorns clambered inside the carriages, a quartet of unicorns climbing up on the top of each one. Greenblight nodded to the pullers of the carriage holding the captured Elements, urging them into motion. The pegasi bent to their task and beat their wings as they ran, lifting the carriage up off the ground.
"Hold it!" shouted Shining Armor from down in the entryway. He dropped his shield, but was forced to bring it right back up as another ferocious barrage of bolts from Inkwell hammered in mercilessly. She climbed up on top of the second carriage, still firing away as the pegasi began pulling it up into the air as well.
Over in the hedges, Luna forced herself up, glaring up at the retreating carriages. "You won't es-!" She was interrupted by another burst of...something...that blew her even farther away.
Up above, the first of the carriages and the pegasi flying in formation around it shimmered in the air before vanishing from sight. A few seconds later, the second carriage vanished as well. The sky was empty once more, save for a few clouds dotting the area. Back at the Palace entryway, it almost looked like a normal day...save for the battered and broken Guardsponies and the still bodies of the fallen.
Shining glared up at the empty sky, his nostrils flaring angrily with each breath. Not only was his sister missing, but now the (presumably) same ponies that had taken her had stollen the most important artifacts in all of Equestria. From his perspective as the Captain of the Guard, this was a complete failure. Clenching his eyes shut, he lowered his head, his entire body shivering. Finally, Shining punched down with a hoof, nearly cracking it against the floor. "Dammit!"
The air seemed to shimmer around Greenblight and the carriage he was escorting. Though he could see out of the cloaking field, everything had a hazy, rippling look that made it hard to discern details. "What happened?" asked one of the pegasi flying next to him.
"We were bailed out," said Greenblight. His mind immediately went to Wight Shade, the only pony in the Palace he could think of that was on their side. Was it him?
"Either way, looks like we did it," said the other pegasus triumphantly.
"Shut up!" snapped Greenblight, glaring with his good eye at the other pegasus, who immediately quailed away in fear, "The job isn't over until we get back to the Baron's estate. Keep alert and do your part or I'll gut you like a fish."
"Y-yes sir..." stammered the cowed pegasus, quickly shying away and dropping back into formation.
Greenblight snorted and faced forward once again, keeping his eye roving about for any signs of trouble or ponies that might be following them. Cloaking spells weren't infallible after all. Still, there seemed to be no signs of pursuit.
However, as Greenblight and the other ponies turned their attention outward, they failed to notice that the carriage itself was carrying an extra passenger. Clinging tightly to its underside, hiding herself between the axles, a charcoal-gray pegasus smirked as she waited to find out where exactly the Banehammers were heading.
Princess Celestia looked out from her perch. The small town of Appleloosa spread out before her. From her position, she could make out the angled roof of the temple, which towered over every other building in the town, standing out all the more as it was angled awkwardly, choking off the road running in front of it slightly and making it seem crooked and unsightly from a distance. I am going to bring that place down and destroy whatever is beneath it, thought Celestia grimly. For too long she had stood back, afraid to act lest she take those final steps into outright tyranny, forcing her will completely over the ponies she ruled. But now, after so many had been hurt, after some had died as a consequence of the Cult Solar's actions, it was time to bring this to an end, once and for all. She would stamp out the Cult Solar with her own hooves, starting here.
The fact that Swift Stride had sent her information that the one behind the Cult Solar's recent actions was none other than her former student made matters even more urgent. Swift had no idea what the mysterious devices Morning Star had been building beneath the temples were for, but Celestia was afraid she knew exactly what Morning had been working on, which made it all the more urgent that she deal with the temples now.
She pursed her lips, wondering if she should have gone to the temple that Swift had recently escaped from, the one where Morning actually was. However, she could not afford to get into a battle with Morning Star at this juncture. According to Swift, Morning needed all the arrays to be functional in order to go ahead with his plan. If she could disable or destroy even one, then Morning's plan would be at an end. She could then hunt him down at her leisure afterwards. After all, Morning had assembled a workforce of hundreds working simultaneously across the country and it had still taken him a decade to build his devices. Even if he escaped for now, she would still have plenty of time to track him down later, especially since she had no intention of letting him live once she found him. I made a mistake, Morning Star. I wish you hadn't forced me to do this. But, when I find you, I will kill you. It is the only way to end this farce once and for all.
Celestia's attention was captured by a cloud of flame that drifted in front of her, which then congealed into a rolled up scroll. She caught it in her magic. She noticed that it had been sent from Shining and Luna via Spike, routing it through the dragon in Ponyville. Unrolling the scroll, Celestia read its contents and immediately felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.
"Your Majesty?" asked the Guard attending her.
"The Palace was attacked," said Celestia, barely able to even bring herself to say it out loud, "The Elements of Harmony have been stolen."
"What?" gasped the Guard, his wings flaring, "We need to return to Canterlot immediately! I'll start organizing-"
"Hold!" The sharp tone of Celestia's voice cut him off. A single look from her sent the Guard into silence as she turned her attention back to the letter, her mind running at lightning speed as she pondered the situation.
There was no way this could be a coincidence. The mysterious forces had attacked the Royal Palace just as she was about to unleash her wrath upon the Cult Solar's secret sanctuaries and uncover the devices Morning Star had spent the last decade working on creating. She didn't know how, but Morning Star must have arranged for this situation in an attempt to draw her and the Royal Guard back to Canterlot. It's a play for more time. Swift Stride had dealt a severe blow to Morning Star's plans, a severe delay at a critical time. If Morning had resorted to something as bold as an attack on the Royal Palace itself, then it must have been because he was desperate to finish his devices before she struck.
But what if I'm wrong? she wondered. It was clear that the theft of the Elements of Harmony and the foalnapping of Twilight Sparkle were linked. Had Morning really arranged for those events just for time, or because he wanted the things that could truly thwart his plans out of the way? After all, the Elements of Harmony were powerful tools for countering rifts in reality that Morning Star's plan threatened to unleash...at least, that was what Celestia assumed Morning's plan to be. It had been his desire since he had studied under her and he most likely hadn't given it up in the intervening years. Or...knowing her former student's generally pragmatic bent, it could be a play to fulfill both objectives at once. He both removed the only force that could close the rifts from Celestia's hold and delayed her action.
If that was the case, then going forward with the plan was the best course of action. Taking a deep breath, Celestia turned to the Guard standing next to her. "We're proceeding with the operation as planned. Order your ponies to move in now."
The Guard clearly looked unhappy with the orders, but saluted sharply nonetheless. He turned and began barking orders to his subordinates, who immediately moved into action. One way or another, I am bringing this to an end.
"We're surrounded!" cried out an earth pony as she dashed in from the surface entrance, "The Royal Guard is everywhere outside!"
"So it has come to that then," said Morning Star with a grim frown. He wasn't at all surprised. He'd known that the Royal Guard had been closing in the for the past few days. Even now, looking down at the unfinished state of the final component of the array, he knew he wouldn't be able to make it in time.
He couldn't help but pout at least a little. The one time I really make a gamble and am personally vested in its outcome, it fails to produce a good result. Evidently, the attack on the Royal Palace in Canterlot hadn't drawn Celestia back as he had hoped, though he'd always known that was an iffy possibility at best. Most likely, she was moving in on the other locations as well. He could protect this one on his own, but the other locations were vulnerable and, until the final piece of the array was completed, they were still susceptible to interference from the material plane. Celestia could dismantle any one of them and all his work for the past ten years would be undone...
The mare looked at Morning, fear evident on her face. She had no idea why the Royal Guard would be outside and closing in on their sanctuary. Even though she had tremendous faith in the Supreme Pontiff's abilities, the situation seemed hopeless. However, as she watched, Morning Star's body began to shake slightly until he threw back his head and laughed. It wasn't a mad laugh of a madpony, but more the quiet laugh that a pony lets out when they've heard a good joke and have finally grasped the punchline.
"My...I wasn't much for planning contingencies in my youth. I'm certainly glad I've learned from those experiences now." He sighed. "We have just a little bit more time. Continue working right up until the very end. Our success or failure depend on these last few minutes. This is the final test of our Order." He turned to regard the mare. "Do not concern yourself with what is going on outside. Join the others and dedicate everything to finishing our project."
"Yes Holy Father!" shouted the mare, at once jumping to obey his orders and rushing down the stairs to the worksite.
"Who knew?" said Morning wryly, "I found a use for those silly weapons after all."
"Forward!" ordered the Guard. Behind him, earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns marched sharply down the streets of Appleloosa with Celestia following behind them. It was practically a parade and, like most parades, attracted an audience of ponies who speculated in low voices as Celestia and her forces made their way to the temple. The grim looks on the Guards' faces, however, told the observing ponies that this parade was no ceremonial affair. The temple loomed in the distance.
They reached the temple and formed up in the street outside of it, making two rows so there was an aisle between them leading up too the door. Celestia strode up through that aisle and glared at the door. Lowering her horn, she called forth her magic, launching a bolt of blazing, golden light that slammed into the doors and shattered them, burning the remnants to cinders. The insides had changed since the time of Shining Armor's investigation. Rich tapestries had been hung on the walls, filling the large space inside with color. As Celestia strode through the door, a blustering green stallion strode out from behind one of the interior pillars.
"What in tarnation do you think yer doin' bustin' into a sacred..." His voice and bluster all melted away as he saw just who had blasted her way through the door.
Celestia's eyes narrowed as she glared at the stallion. "There is nothing sacred about this place, Blenheim of the Apple Family."
"Ya-ya-"
"Yes. I know who you are," said Celestia, "I know you, thanks to your niece and the now-deceased matriarch of your clan. You are a disgrace to your family name and an eyesore to me."
"What are ya talkin' about?" asked Blenheim, stunned by her words, "All this was fer you."
"It is not!" snapped Celestia, "I have had my fill of your cult's lies and the violence those lies perpetrate. I also know that they are merely a mask for a far greater treachery. You will open the way and show what lies beneath these stones or, so help me, I will blow the floor open and look for myself."
Trembling from the tip of his muzzle to his hooves, Blenheim immediately moved to the alter, sliding its top apart and rotating the two flat stones it was made of. After rotating them, he slid the stones back together and heaved against the alter, pushing it aside to reveal a concealed passageway directly underneath it.
Not giving the stallion another look, Celestia stepped down through the opening of the floor, following the staircase down. As she did, she stepped into an open, cavernous room. Dominating the center of the room was an almost indescribable device. It hung from the room's ceiling, which was the temple's floor, like a grotesque stalactite. It was composed of rods, gears, pistons, and blocks in a riot of shapes and sizes many of which did not look remotely like they belonged in this world. They met at angles that seemed impossible and actually hurt Celestia's eyes to look at for too long. The size and shape of the structure actually seemed to warp and shift as she watched it, even though none of the pieces were yet in motion. The sight of the thing made her sick to her stomach and she recognized Morning Star's work, even if the design was beyond her comprehension.
Shuddering with disgust, Celestia turned and strode back up to the stairs, where she could see her Guards shackling a quivering Blenheim. "Get clear of the building," she said, "I am going to make an example of this place."
The tone of her voice brooked no arguments and Celestia followed her Guards outside. Spreading her wings, she took to the air and came to hover above the building. Looking to the sun overhead, she began to call upon its power. The sky darkened as the light of the sun seemed to condense into a single point, high in the atmosphere.
"Now," said Celestia grimly, "It ends."
A pillar of pure radiance and fire descended upon the temple swallowing it up with a roar. Below her, she could see the shape of the building, thrown into stark relief by the intensity of her sun's light, before the entire thing seemed to crumble away into nothingness, consumed by the sunfire, which burned away even the ashes of the temple's foundations.
Finally, the light faded. In its place, the air rippled and danced from the waves of intense heat that ascended upwards. A perfect hole had been burned into the earth where the temple had once stood, smoke rising up from the crater. Even with the intensity of the heat that Celestia had directed downward, there wasn't a single burnt blade of grass adjacent to the hole. Breathing hard, Celestia began to descend. I haven't used a spell that powerful in decades, she thought. As she came in for a landing, she was reminded of why she usually refrained from using such a spell in the looks upon her Guards' faces and the faces of the rest of Appleloosa's ponies. She could understand their awe, even as she loathed it. From their perspective, she had summoned a pillar of light from the heavens and practically erased a large building from existence. It was a godlike act.
In the past, when she had been less reserved about performing such acts, it had been called "divine judgment." Was it any surprise then, that ponies who witnessed such a terrible display of power would turn to its source and regard it with awe, as something to be feared and appeased? Was it any surprise that, in spite of her protestations to the contrary, ponies had turned to her and seen her as a god and venerated her in worship?
Celestia hated that feeling. Not only did she not want to be seen as a god, for she wasn't one, she had seen what such beliefs could do to ponies. The Cult Solar was but one such manifestation of that particular symptom. She had seen the terrible things ponies would do in the name of their "god," from hunting down innocents from Dawn Lightwing to slandering her beloved sister and driving Luna past the brink of madness. Even this decisive act upon her part, even if it put the nails in the coffin of the Cult Solar, might simply usher in a worship of a different stripe that she would have to contend with further down the road.
Worst of all, it made ponies all too dependent on her. They turned to her to solve their problems instead of looking to themselves. Even when they didn't see her as a god, they still saw her as some ultimate authority, some perfect mother who would come down and make everything better if they simply depended on her hard enough. They refused to learn how to walk on their own and looked to her for everything, asking why she wasn't simply doing everything for them.
Still...her inactivity this time had cost those close to her dearly and Celestia realized that. She only hoped that this would balance the scales in some obscure way.
"Y-your Highness..." said the commander of the force, stepping forward tentatively. When Celestia looked at him, he stretched out a hoof, pointing to the gaping hole in the earth. "Look!"
Turning around, Celestia looked and her eyes widened at what she saw. The mysterious apparatus that had been hanging from the underside of the temple's floor was still there, now hovering in the air, the stone that it had been anchored to annihilated in the blast of her power. It survived! How! Then her ears picked up a faint buzzing noise, a low hum permeating the air.
More of the smoke and dust cleared and Celestia saw the source of the noise. Three dark-gray orbs hovered in the air around the device. Their surfaces were polished to such a degree that Celestia could see her face in their reflections, even at this distance. The orbs appeared to be vibrating in place and Celestia could barely make out a faint nimbus of energy that seemed to crackle between them.
Reaching out with her senses, Celestia explored the orbs and reeled back as though struck by a physical blow. To the pegasus in her, they were practically burning like suns. Each of those three orbs had been packed with enough lightning for several dozen large thunderstorms. "What in the world...?"
Deciding to test them further, Celestia pointed her horn at the device once again and fired a bolt of energy straight at it. As it approached, the orbs cracked and the bolt impacted against a blue-white shield and exploded in a flurry of sparks and electrical discharge. Devices that convert electrical power into pure magic and shape it into shield, thought Celestia, But where did this power come from?
Then it hit her. Last year, during the crisis in Cloudsdale, tribalist forces had been manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, cloud-based devices called artilleryheads. The powerful weapons had been designed to discharge intense bolts of lightning at targets below them, raining destruction down upon anything in their shadow. Spitfire and the Wonderbolts, with the help of a few notable ponies from Ponyville, had put a stop to the tribalist plot. However, they had only recovered half of the created artilleryheads. The other half had been moved out of Cloudsdale to a hidden location.
After Spitfire and her allies had broken the tribalists' grip and captured the ringleaders of the operation, one of her ponies had wrangled the location of the artilleryheads from the leader of the conspiracy. Unfortunately, said pony had been Fleetfoot, who'd later been revealed to be a member of the Cult Solar. In fact, it had been Fleetfoot who had been responsible for providing the information that led an assassin to Ponyville to attack Dawn. She had also passed on the information regarding the artilleryheads to the Cult. As a consequence, when Spitfire and the other Wonderbolts had arrived at the location the weapons were supposed to be housed at, they had vanished.
At the time, it had merely been speculation on Spitfire's part based on Fleetfoot's known association. However, under interrogation, Fleetfoot had confirmed those facts. The Cult Solar had taken charge of the twelve powerfully destructive artilleryheads and hidden them away somewhere else. The concern about what use the Cult might have for those weapons had occasionally kept Celestia awake at night. Only the knowledge that the Cult would have realized that there was little to nothing to gain from using the weapons, especially since they had probably figured that Celestia was aware that they had the artilleryheads, assuaged that fear.
However, it seemed that Morning Star had found a use for those weapons after all; not as weapons, but instead as shields. Celestia couldn't imagine any earthly material that could possibly hold the condensed destructive power of an active artilleryhead and concentrate it into such a small form. But, as was he was wont to do, Morning had created a tool for that task, a tool that also apparently converted that wealth of electrical power into magical energy in the form of a barrier. Combined with two other such orbs, it was a barrier even capable of resisting a direct strike from the sun.
But only one, thought Celestia, Not another, especially since I can sense their limits. She imagined that all of these devices must have been equipped with such protections. The regular unicorns of the Guard could probably hammer away at them for a week straight before finally draining the orbs' power. But Celestia would be able to end it on her end with a single strike. And all we need is to destroy one of them.
"Pull back," said Celestia, looking at the Guard commander.
The pegasus saluted sharply and began bellowing out orders. Celestia took to the sky once again. Her horn blazed and the sky began to dim once more, growing darker and darker with each passing second, until it resembled the night more than the day. "Morning Star...I will end this mad ambition of yours and then...I will end you as well," said Celestia. It was a duty she should have fulfilled from the start. She blamed her own sentimentality for this. Morning Star had been her student, much as Twilight had been, somepony Celestia had loved and doted upon like a son at times. When he had turned against her, that fondness for him had translated itself into mercy as she had spared his life, even as her vindictiveness at his betrayal had convinced her to turn to the punishment she considered the harshest she could give, conveniently forgetting that it wouldn't have caused Morning Star an inkling of regret. Instead, she had unintentionally helped him. However...I won't make that mistake again.
Once again, Celestia struck downwards with the sun's power. She struck with all her anger and determination. She struck with her desire to see Morning Star's aspirations shattered. She struck with every ounce of regret she felt for all the ponies who had suffered because of her mistake. The pillar of pure light and fire descended upon Appleloosa once more.
"This time...it's over," said Celestia as the device and the orbs protecting it were swallowed up by light.