Chapter 18
Dwindling Party
"You guys know that I love you all, right?" Razor said. "But I have to say it's a good thing we didn't become the Elements of Harmony because on this showing Equestria would have been stuffed already."
It had been two nights since Princess Celestia had given them the magic box in which Dawny had been trapped along with Princess Twilight. Two nights since they had run with that box and a company of zebras on their tail. Two nights, two days, and unless something changed drastically they would be caught long before there was a third.
Dawn's friends had stopped to rest under the shade of a hill. A brook babbled nearby, the sound of its passing occasionally interrupted by the noise of gentle slurping as Cherry Blossom took much needed drinks from out of the stream.
Hardy was breathing heavily, panting like a dog as she lay on the grass. Laurel was limping, favouring her left forehoof after she'd stepped on a particularly sharp rock with her right and hurt the pad. Her coat was damp with sweat, and her cheeks were red with exertion. Razor, who was flapping her wings lazily to keep herself airborne as she waited for the others to recover, felt as though she could have kept running for a while, and Cherry didn't look too tired either, but the other three were plainly tuckered out, and would be for some time. A few minutes rest might get them staggering on, but they wouldn't be able to keep up anything like the pace that they needed.
Razor could already hear the zebras after them. She could hear their hooves beating on the ground, hear the baying of the diamond dogs they had brought with them to help track down Dawn's friends. They were close; they were too close, and getting closer.
"I'm sorry, everyone," Laurel murmured. "I'm afraid a scholarly life hasn't much prepared me for this sort of thing."
Cherry raised her head up from the stream. "What if we cross the stream? I've heard dogs can't follow a scent over water."
"I don't think there's enough water to mask the scent," Hardy replied.
"Then what if we walked in the water for a while?"
"Even if we did that they'd still spot us with their eyes soon enough," Razor muttered. "They're too hard on us for tricks like that to work. We need to find somewhere to hide, and hope they pass by us."
"What about our scent?" Cherry asked.
"I don't know!" Razor snapped. She sighed. "I'm sorry, there's no call to be yelling at you. Or being rude about your fitness for heroism, either. Dawny would smack me if she could have heard."
Candy sat on the grass, balancing the magic box in her forehooves.
"All your trials are now complete,
You know yourself, a worthy feat,
Return, and your new subjects greet," she recited, the incantation that Celestia had told them would open the box and free Breaking Dawn, and the others too.
Nothing happened. The box remained resolutely shut, and Dawny remained resolutely trapped.
"All your trials are now complete,
You know yourself, a worthy feat,
Return, and your new subjects greet," Candy repeated, to just as little result as the first time.
"All your trials are now complete,
You know yourself, a worthy feat,
Return, and your new subjects greet, come on Dawny, get out here, we need you!" Candy yelled.
"I don't think that's going to work," Hardy said in between breaths.
"Well we can't do anything else, can we?" Candy asked. "I'm going to keep on saying this spell until Dawn comes back to us. All your trials are now complete,
You know yourself, a worthy feat,
Return, and your new subjects greet. Why isn't she coming?"
"She must not know herself yet," Laurel said.
"I always thought that Dawn knew herself," Cherry said.
Hardy shook her head. "No, she never knew herself, she only acted like she did because she didn't want to admit it. If she'd known herself she would never have tried to best Princess Twilight the way she did."
Razor frowned, and pricked her ears up to the sound of zebras and diamond dogs getting closer. "Come on, we need to move. Candy, put the box back in the back. Everypony up! We've gotta go."
Laurel pressed the weight on her sore right hoof, and winced in pain. "You have to leave me behind."
Razor's eyes widened. "What? No way. No way in Tartarus."
"I can't run," Laurel said. "I can barely walk. I'm slowing you down too much. You need to leave me and keep going."
Razor Wind shook her head. "No."
"I'm a weight around your neck and you know it."
"No you're not," Razor protested.
Laurel smiled. "That's very kind of you, dear, but we both know that it's a lie."
Razor scowled. "Okay, yes, you are slowing me down, but so are Hardy and Cherry."
"Which is why you need to leave all three of us behind," Hardy said firmly.
"What?" Razor yelled. "What is going on with you ponies."
"Good sense is prevailing for once in our storied friendship," Hardy said. "If we stick together we'll all be caught, Sunset Shimmer will get the box back and Dawn won't ever get out. So you and Candy need to leave the three of us here and get moving. You can still run, you can still get away. And they'll have to divide their forces to take the three of us prisoner while others pursue you. You'll have fewer zebras to worry about."
"Unless they decide to just kill you!" Razor snapped. "Come on, Candy, help me out here. We need to stick together, right? Six against the world?"
"Except there aren't six of us, there's only five," Cherry Blossom said. "And without Dawny we... we aren't really good for anything."
"Don't talk like that!" snarled Razor. "We'll find another way!"
"There is no other way," Hardy said, her voice calm against Razor's rising anger. "Candy knows that too, don't you?"
Candy nodded solemnly. "I don't like it, but I get it. But I think Razor should take the box alone and I'll stay with you guys. I can fight-"
"We're not going to fight, we're going to surrender," Hardy said. "And you need to go with Razor so that one of you can take the box and keep going if the other gets hurt. Keep it out of Sunset's hooves, free Dawn. Do what Princess Celestia asked of us."
Razor shook her head. "This isn't right."
"No," Hardy agreed. "But what about this situation is?"
"Are you sure you'll be okay?"
"No," Hardy said. "But I'm not sure you will either."
Razor closed her eyes and scowled. "I can't... I can't just..."
"Razor," Cherry said gently. "It's okay. Please go."
"Cherry?"
"We'll be fine, I promise," Cherry murmured, a warm smile crossing her face. "We'll all be fine, and when this is all over the six of us will hang out like we used to when we were fillies."
Razor tried to smile, but it ended up looking more rictus than anything else. "Yeah, that'll be great. Just... stay safe, okay. You promised!"
Cherry nodded. "Give our love to Dawny, when you see her."
"Yeah," Razor said. "Yeah, I'll do that too."
"We love you guys," Candy cried.
"Then let us go," Laurel said. "Now! Go!"
Razor and Candy turned tail and fled, the sound of Candy's hooves echoing in Razor's ears as she flew alongside the earth pony mare. She looked back briefly, and saw her three friends facing in the direction of the pursuit, waiting for it to catch up to them without a trace of hesitation.
Stay safe. You promised.
Laurel ran her aching hoof through her chalk-grey mane. "Why did you promise?"
"Excuse me?" Cherry asked.
"You can't possibly know that we'll be anything like safe, so why did you promise?"
"I said what Razor needed to hear," Cherry replied. "I know you shouldn't make promises you can't keep, but sometimes you have to."
"A fact I reflect on every time I tell a client I can get them off," Hardy murmured. "Still, I think in a few moments we will be able to tell fairly soon just how much of a lie or not your promise was."
And so, when two score of armed zebras and a half dozen diamond dogs crested the hill they found the three mares sitting their waiting, as if they were impatient at the slow speed of the pursuit.
"Ah, good afternoon gentlecolts," Hardy said brightly. "We've been expecting you."
They hadn't killed them. Hardy was inclined to consider that a good start.
Obviously the fact that they had been chained up and were being marched back to Canterlot to be locked up wasn't objectively good (except for the part where half the zebras who would otherwise have been chasing Razor and Candy were now walking them back home instead), but it was better than being speared to death by the side of the creek and left there by a long mile.
And so they walked, with a score of hard-faced zebra warriors ranged about them, their shackles rattling in counterpoint to the thump thump of the zebra tread.
Laurel had gone paler than usual, except for the ever increasing red colour around her cheeks. Not only was she tired, she was in pain as well. The shackles were tight around her injured leg, and the zebras were setting a pace too hard for limping. But she was trying not show her pain. Hardy admired that even as she thought it was foolhardy. Perhaps if she had cried out once in a while they might have taken pity on her.
If there was any pity in them.
"Excuse me," Cherry murmured. "But my friend is hurt. Can we stop for a while so she can rest her leg?"
"No," the zebra commander snapped. "But she can get a whipping if she moves any more slowly than she is now."
He was a gaudy fellow, the leader of their captors. Most of the zebras who had taken them wore no armour, and were completely naked, but not the one who led them. He was smaller than those he led, and from his voice Hardy guessed he was considerably younger too, but in terms of finery he put all his followers to shame. His back was covered by a cape of shining black, sewn from top to bottom with gorgeous white peacock feathers. Blue peacock feathers, which shimmered under the light of the sun, were woven through his tail, while colourful feathers of parrots and tropical birds decorated his mane, along with some things that were glinting in the sunlight that Hardy took to be gemstones of some kind. He covered his face with a golden mask, with two red stripes descending diagonally across, and topped with even more colourful feathers, a riot of red, blue and green. He had an attendant close by him at all times, fanning him with a palm leaf.
"But she's hurt," Cherry said. "She can't go any faster than she is. Can't she at least have some water?"
"I'm fine, Cherry," Laurel gasped. "I'm...okay. Don't... don't... "
"No, you're not okay and it isn't right," Cherry said.
"You are slaves now, you have no rights," the zebra commander shouted. He glared at the three mares for a moment. "Zetenes, give her some water."
A big zebra uncorked a waterskin with his teeth and held it up to Laurel's lips, pouring some of the crystal clear water down her throat before taking a swing for himself.
"Now get moving!" the commander said.
Laurel tried to walk on her right hoof, but stumbled as she cried out in pain.
"Get up!" the commander yelled. "Get up, or you will be whipped."
Laurel lay on the grass, tears in her blue eyes, whimpering in pain.
"Get up!"
The big zebra, Zetenes, bent down and scooped Laurel up onto his back.
"What are you doing?" their commander yelled.
Zetenes shrugged. "Your pardon, estimable one, but I thought that you were impatient to move."
"I was impatient to make the slaves walk," the commander snapped. "Not to... never mind. Move, all of you."
The zebras prodded Hardy and Cherry forward as they began to advance themselves.
"Thank you," Hardy murmured.
Zetenes glanced back at Laurel, who looked as if she had half fallen asleep on the large zebra's back. "I have a daughter her age, or near enough. Feeling the weight, it reminds me of all the times I would carry her home because she was too tired to walk." He smiled wistfully. "I miss her. I have not seen her in too long. I have not seen home in too long."
"No," Hardy said. "Because you're here invading our home instead."
"You think I want this war?" Zetenes asked. "You think anyone wants this war? You think I would not rather be home with my family?"
"Then why are you here?" Hardy asked.
"Because we are commanded," Zetenes replied. "The great lords have given the commands and we obey as we are sworn to do."
"So for your oaths you have left your home and marched halfway across the world to fight in a war that you want nothing to do with?" Hardy asked. "Makes sense to me. Is that your lord?" He gestured at their peacock of a commander.
"His third son."
"I see," Hardy said. "Tell me, have you ever thought about not doing what he told you? You might be much happier in the long run."
"You ask me to forsake my oaths?"
"I'm asking you which your family would rather have: a father who keeps his oaths, or one who is home with them when they need him."
Zetenes looked away. "I know what you are trying to do."
"Then tell me, because I'm not quite sure myself."
"It will not work," Zetenes muttered. "Even if I wished to forsake my solemn oaths, there are not enough other zebras who feel the same way."
"There aren't enough zebras who want to go home?"
"There are not enough who would forsake our ways and culture to get home."
"A culture of slavish obedience isn't worth defending," Hardy said.
"Enough talk there, slave!" the young lord snapped. "Wine, give me wine." His attendant stopped fanning his master for a moment to pour some red wine out of a skin down his throat.
"I see that you get to drink wine while all of your followers drink water," Hardy said. She raised her voice a little. "That doesn't seem exactly fair to me. Does that seem to fair to everybody else?"
"Hold your tongue! Fair, unfair, such things are irrelevant. My birth grants me privileges, your chains grant you none. No more talk, or I will rip out that chattering tongue of yours," the commander glared at him for a moment before turning ostentatiously away.
"What are you doing?" Cherry hissed. "You're going to get yourself killed!"
"Maybe," Hardy murmured. "Or maybe I might just save the day."
"Hey, Candy?" Razor asked, as she sat in a tree as night gathered around them. Candy sat at the foot of the tree, nestled within a knot formed by the roots, while Razor plucked peaches out of the branches and tossed them down to her.
"Yep?"
"You know about stories, right?" Razor said. "I mean, being an actor and all."
Candy was silent for a moment. "Well, mostly that means that I know plays, but I suppose that, yeah, you could say that I know about stories."
Razor hesitated, loosening a peach from its perch on the vine and dropping it into Candy's waiting hooves. "If this were a story, what would our chances be?"
"Our chances of what?"
"Escaping," Razor murmured. "Surviving. Winning?"
"Are you asking me if we would save the world if this were a story?"
Razor shrugged. "I guess so, yeah."
Candy giggled. "Honestly, Razor, if this were a story there's no way that we'd be the heroes."
"I know that," Razor said sharply. "Dawny's the hero."
"Yeah...no she's not," Candy replied. "She'd certainly like to think she is, but she isn't. She never was."
"Then who..." Razor paused for a moment. "It's Princess Twilight, isn't it?"
"'Fraid so," Candy said cheerily. "And wouldn't that just kill Dawn if she were here."
"It already nearly killed her once," Razor said. "Honestly, how many times has Princess Twilight been the hero, now? Three, four?"
"I think it was four when all of this started, but now it's more like six," Candy said. "Depending on how you count them up."
"Can't she retire and leave it to somepony else to carry the burden?"
Candy leaned back in her tree root knot, closing her eyes. "Loyalty is great and all, but you have to admit that, great as she is, Dawn doesn't really have what it takes."
"If you think that then why are you here?"
"Because she's still my friend, in all her glorious flawed-ness," Candy said. "Flawfulness. Imperfection, in all her imperfection she is still my friend. Just because I can see the warts doesn't mean I don't love her. And she's got her part to play, just like we all do."
"And what's that?" Razor asked. "The villain?"
"Nah," Candy said. "It was once, sure, for a while. But it never fitted her that well, and now Sunset Shimmer has that part sewn up. Dawny's more of an anti-hero, now."
"Okay," Razor murmured. "What does that make us?"
"I dunno, really," Candy confessed. "We used to be her minions, but most anti-heroes are kind of loners. "I would say we are... third tier characters. We get scenes, but not our own story line."
Razor sighed. "That's depressing. No wonder Dawn couldn't stand it. So, what are our chances?"
"Huh?"
"Going back to my original question: as third tier characters, what are our chances of coming out of this in one piece?"
"It depends," Candy said.
"On what?"
"On whether anyone in the audience would care if we died or not," Candy said. "You can kill of third tier by the bucketload, but there isn't much point unless you're going to get them crying in the cheap sets because of it. And we certainly couldn't be got rid of while we've still got the box, because the hero has to get out and save the day somehow. So if we were going to die we'd find somepony else to give it to first."
"Let's not do that then," Razor said.
"Of course," Candy said lazily. "All of that only applies if we were actually characters in a story. Which we're not."
"No," Razor murmured. "No, we're not."
"If this was a story it would be better written," Candy chirped. "And not so contorted at the beginning."
Razor grinned. "Yeah, you're probably right. We should probably try and get some sleep. We've still got a ways to go."
"Where are we going?"
"I don't know yet," Razor said. "Away from pursuit."
"That's always a good place to go," Candy said.
The wind, blowing upon Razor's back, began to carry with it the sound of dogs howling in the gathering darkness.
"Speaking of away from pursuit," Razor said, flapping her wings as she launched herself off the tree branch. "It sounds like we haven't quite made it yet. Come on, Candy, let's see if these third tier legs can keep us out of harms way for just a little longer."
"Ugh, my stomach hurts," Sweetie Belle moaned.
"Ah told you not to eat them crab apples," Apple Bloom said.
"But I was so hungry," Sweetie said.
"I'm still hungry," Scootaloo said. "And thirsty. And tired. Do you know how long we have to go before we get to Appleoosa?"
"I don't rightly no," Apple Bloom admitted. "But I think we're going in the right direction, and we're bound to get there eventually."
"Are you sure that that's where we should be going?" Scootaloo said. "Applejack told us to go to Canterlot."
"Except the zebras got there before us," Apple Bloom said. "That's why we had to turn back. Don't worry, my cousin Braeburn will take care of us; maybe we can even get help there."
"If we can find him," Scootaloo moaned as she sat down on the cold hard ground. "We're lost, aren't we?"
"...Kinda?" Apple Bloom admitted. "But only a little bit."
That was an understatement, but Apple Bloom did not feel up to confessing the full extent of how lost they were. Not that she needed to admit it, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were every bit as lost and knew it, but that still didn't mean she wanted to announce the fact to the whole world. For several days now they had wandered in a vaguely south-ward direction, but without any clue whether they were aiming for Appleoosa or the dragon infested badlands. Or somewhere in between. Or Las Pegasus. The only place they weren't going was the one place Applejack had told them to go: Canterlot, and they weren't going there because there'd been an army camped around it the last thing they'd seen, and none of them had fancied their chances as Cutie Mark Crusader night-time infiltrators. Though that was an idea to store for later, maybe when Rarity could make them some cool ninja outfits.
Apple Bloom shook her head. This was no time for wild imaginings. She had to keep a clear head. They all did.
"If we were lost," she said tentatively. "Would anypony have any better ideas?"
Sweetie Belle collapsed on the ground. "How about we just rest here?"
"It'll get cold the darker it gets," Apple Bloom said softly, as darkness fell all around them, the sun descending over the horizon and the moon climbing upwards to cast the world in shades of blue. "We need to find somewhere warmer to rest."
Scootaloo's ears twitched. "Do you guys hear something?"
Apple Bloom listened. There was the sound of the wind rustling through the long grass, making the rushes whistle a little, and...
Hoof beats!
Emerald Ray bounded out of the long grass like a lion stalking his prey upon the high plains, a massive double-headed axe as large as Sweetie Belle glinting in his forehooves as he raised it over his head.
"So you want somewhere warm to rest, huh? How about the flames of Tartarus, you little punks!"
For a moment, all three crusaders screamed in unison, before they turned as one to flee from the enraged crystal pony.
They galloped for their lives, hooves racing across the grassy field, while Emerald Ray churned up the soil with his own pounding hooves behind them.
"You won't get away from me this time, you little brats!" he snarled as he chased after them. His crystal armour glistened in the starlight, casting diamond-like glimmers upon the ebony plate so that it have seemed as though he was wearing night, that the darkness itself had become his ally in this struggle. His cape of black and crimson flapped behind him, flowing outwards like some hellish river poised to sweep the three crusaders all away. His axe, raised up above his head, blocked out a part of the moon, so that he seemed to have devoured even a part of Luna's silver orb.
And he was gaining on them.
"Come on, Crusaders!" Apple Bloom yelled. "We've got to get out of here!"
"I'm...going...fast...as...I...can," Sweetie Belle panted as sweat began to glisten on her white coat. She was moving more awkwardly than Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, and she was starting to fall behind her friends and descend closer and closer to Emerald Ray and the murderous gleam in his eye.
"Come on, Sweetie Belle," Scootaloo shouted. "Come on, faster!"
"...trying," Sweetie gasped.
Apple Bloom looked Scootaloo in the eye. Unspoken, a thought passed between them. They slowed briefly, dropping back until they were level with struggling Sweetie Belle. Each one grabbed one of Sweetie's legs and hauled her up onto their combined shoulders. Then they began to sprint again.
Emerald Ray laughed. "I hope you remember who to blame when you're all dead because you tried to save your friend! Friendship only slows you down, girls. I'd tell you to remember that, but you won't live long enough."
Scootaloo growled. "If Rainbow Dash were here-"
"But she ain't, nor Applejack neither," Apple Bloom muttered. "So don't talk and just keep running."
They were slower, carrying Sweetie Belle. But at least Sweetie Belle was keeping pace with them, and never let it be said that the Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't stick together through thick and thin. No way were they going to leave Sweetie Belle at the mercy of a monster like that.
"Girls," Sweetie murmured. "I think I can hear more hoofbeats coming this way."
"Awesome," Scootaloo said, forcing the word out in between intakes of breath. "Maybe they can help us out."
"But what if they're-"
"Come on," Apple Bloom said. "The universe doesn't hate us that much." I hope not, anyway.
"Besides," Scootaloo said. "We've got enough problems without worrying about maybes."
And then the world proved that while it might not have hated them it certainly had a sense of humour, because the very second after she spoke a grey pegasus and a mint green earth pony barrelled out of the darkness as fast a steam engine and ran right into them.
The two mares and the three fillies went sprawling in a heap. A carved wooden box, intricately carved like an antique, hit Apple Bloom on the head before it rolled into the dirt. Impulsively she grabbed at it, wrapping her hooves around the graven wood and clutching it tight.
The dark grey pegasus sat up, and rubbed her head with one hoof. "What the hay-"
"I've got you now!" Emerald Ray bellowed triumphantly.
The pegasus' eyes widened. "Candy, we need to go!"
The earth pony's head darted this way and that anxiously. "I lost the box!"
"What? How could you lose the box?"
"Do you mean this box?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Legend!" the pegasus yelled as she scooped Apple Bloom up under one hoof and Sweetie Belle in the other. Her wings flared out as she lifted them and herself up off the ground. "Hold on tight, fillies, and get ready to fly!"
"You think you can get away so easy?" Emerald Ray demanded as he pounced upon them, his great axe glinting in the light of the moon as it swept down upon them.
Then the mint-green pony was between him and them, a collapsible staff in her forehooves, parrying the blow and knocking it aside where it slammed harmlessly into the ground.
"Get outta here, Razor," the earth pony said. "I'll catch up."
"Candy," Razor murmured.
"Everypony's love to Dawny, Razor," Candy muttered. "Now beat it, okay, while I beat this guy." She giggled at her own play on words.
Emerald Ray smirked viciously. "So cocky? This will be even more fun than taking out those three blank flank brats."
"Come on," Razor said, flapping her wings furiously to carry them away, while Scootaloo followed behind. She kept glancing back, as her friend began to duel furiously with Emerald Ray, matching her folding staff against his battle axe, but she kept on moving forward all the same.
"Candy...everypony," Razor murmured, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "I'm sorry."
The sound of other hooves began to echo through the night, and the howling of savage dogs.
"There she is! Surround her!"
"Stay out of this!" Emerald Ray bellowed. "If any of you so much as try to interfere, I'll kill you all!"
The mare and the three fillies took shelter beneath the roots of an old, gnarled oak tree, crawling through the dirt and past the ancient, knotted wood to reach the hollow beneath its base. There in, the cramped space walled and roofed with so much tangled wood that it seemed almost like ancient, long forgotten temple, the Cutie Mark Crusaders caught their breath while Razor stood guard in front of the tunnel down to them.
"Come on, Candy," she muttered. "Come on. Come on."
"I'm sure she'll be okay," Apple Bloom said.
Razor scowled. "She'd better be."
The Crusaders shared a glance.
"Thank you," Sweetie Belle said quietly.
"I hardly did anything," Razor murmured. "Thank Candy when she gets back."
"You're real worried about her, aren't you?" Apple Bloom said.
"Wouldn't you be worried if it was a friend of yours out there?" Razor demanded. She shook her head. "I shouldn't have left her there."
"Then why did you?" Scootaloo asked.
"Scootaloo!" Sweetie Belle gasped.
"What?"
"It's a fair question," Razor said. "I left her because... because of that little box you've got hold of."
"What's so special about it?" Apple Bloom asked.
Razor's eyes narrowed. "How about you tell me a little about yourselves first. What are three fillies like you doing roaming the countryside in the middle of the night."
"I'm Apple Bloom," Apple Bloom said.
"And I'm Sweetie Belle."
"And I'm Scootaloo."
"And together," Apple Bloom said.
"We are," Sweetie Belle said.
"The Cutie Mark Crusaders!" they chorused as one mare.
Razor grinned. "Are you now? That sounds fun."
"It is," Apple Bloom said.
"Not so much right now, though," Sweetie Belle moaned.
"Not since Sunset Shimmer arrived," Scootaloo growled.
"She took over our home and took our sisters prisoner," Apple Bloom cried. "We ran away, but... we got lost."
"You must be on the run from Sunset Shimmer too, right?" Scootaloo said. "Otherwise why would the zebras have been chasing you?"
"No, you're right about that," Razor said. "The name's Razor Wind, my friend's name is Hard Candy, and the zebras are after that box there. It has somepony very special trapped inside of it, with magic. Somepony who could stop all of this, if she were here."
"You mean Twilight?"
"No!" Razor said. "I mean, yeah, she's in there too, but that wasn't who I was talking about."
"Why don't you let them out already?" Apple Bloom demanded.
"We've been trying," Razor replied. "It doesn't work for some reason. I think they have to reach the end of...something. I don't quite get it, but it's like a road they have to go down. Something like that. They can't come out until they get let out, but they also have to be ready to leave, something like that. So-"
Her words were cut off by a scream of pain that echoed down the tunnel and reverberated off the walls of the tree hollow.
"Yoohoo," Emerald Ray called. "Pegasus! I've got your friend out here, and she's dying to see you again."
Candy screamed again.
"It wasn't very nice of you to cut and run on your best friend," Emerald Ray laughed. "But you can make up for it if you come out, now. Then I can kill you both at the same time."
"Razor, don't, it's a traaaaaaaagh!" Candy howled.
"At the moment she's still alive and mostly intact," Emerald snarled. "But if you don't come out here and bare your neck I'll start to cut off pieces, and make her death slow and painful. So get out here."
Razor's brow furrowed as she turned to face the Crusaders. "Stay here, don't make a sound, and whatever you do don't lose that box. Every so often say these words, okay, you have to remember these words: All your trials are now complete,
You know yourself, a worthy feat,
Return, and your new subjects greet. Say it back to me."
"All your trials are now complete,
You know yourself, a worthy feat,
Return, and your new subjects greet," Apple Bloom recited.
Razor nodded. "Good. At some point that should let everypony out of the box, my friend and your Princess Twilight. When that happens... tell Dawny we never stopped believing."
"You're not going out there are you?" Apple Bloom demanded. "That don't make a lick of sense!"
"When the three of you get older you'll realise that there are some things that you just have to do," Razor said. "And most of them are pretty stupid, like agreeing to help your best friend stage a coup, or going out to confront an armed and dangerous psychopath. But you have to do them, or you're not much of a pony and even less of a friend. There's only five mares in the whole world who've ever had my back, and one's lost and I let three of them get captured today. So I have to do right by this one, now. Stay here, and whatever you do don't lose the box. And remember the words."
And with that, she turned away from the three Crusaders and began to crawl up out of the tree root tunnel.
Razor found Emerald Ray not far away, standing at the edge of the trees with all the zebras and the diamond dogs ranged about him. Candy lay at his feet, bleeding from a nasty wound to the shoulder, blood staining her minty coat and soaking through her peppermint hair. There were tears in her eyes, and her breathing was faint. Fragments of her broken staff lay all around her.
You idiot. Please, Celestia, don't let this be the end of her.
"Yoohoo," Emerald Ray called. "Is there anypony there?" He chuckled. "It seems like nopony loves you after all, kid." He kicked Candy in the flank, making her squeak in pain.
"I'm right here!" Razor Wind declared as she strode out of cover, glaring at Emerald Ray with such ferocity that if looks could have killed Emerald Ray would have been ash on the ground by now. "You wanted me, and you go me. Now leave her alone."
"Leave her alone?" Emerald Ray laughed. "Is that what you thought was going to happen? Oh, she's going to die. It's just that she'll die quickly this time, and after she's watched you lose your head."
"Mistress Sunset-" one of the zebras began.
"Mistress Sunset can bite me," Emerald Ray snapped. "I have been insulted, belittled, led a merry chase across the country and even had my ear sewn to the floor. I am entitled to have a little fun and if Sunset Shimmer has a problem with that then maybe I'll have some fun with her next."
"Razor," Candy mumured. "Go."
Razor grinned. "Sorry, Candy, but I can't do that. It seems we were just too popular after all."
"How admirably loyal of you," Emerald Ray growled. "Not get down on the ground and bare your neck for the axe."
"No!" Sweetie Belle yelled. "Don't do it!"
Razor's eyes closed as she cursed inwardly. No, no. No! Not only was Sweetie Belle standing there, not far behind Razor herself, but her two friends were with her as well. Sunset will get the box back and all of this will have been for nothing.
Emerald Ray chuckled. "Now this is just getting better and better, isn't it? Take them!"
Sweetie Belle scowled as her horn began to spark with an aura of verdant green magic. "No. Get away from us!"
The magical shockwave that erupted from the tip of her horn moved with the speed and power of a great wave, a great green tidal wave to sweep all before it. All whom it didn't like, at any rate. Razor felt it pass through her a ghost, making her spine shiver and her feathers trembled but doing her no harm. It passed over Candy like the water passing over the beach at high tide. But the zebras, the diamond dogs, Emerald Ray in his armour of midnight, they were picked up by this wave of magic and thrown aside like so many discarded toys, vanishing into the darkness with cries of pain and of alarm.
Razor's eyes widened in shock. So did the eyes of Sweetie Belle's friends.
"Sweetie Belle?" Scootaloo murmured. "Since when could you do that?"
"I don't know," Sweetie Belle admitted. "I mean, I've been practicing a little with Twilight, but... I don't know."
"However you did it, I'm glad you did," Razor said. "I need to go tend to Candy now, but from now on, we're sticking with you three."
Some distance away, a distance that could be measured in miles, Emerald Ray sat up and rubbed his head.
"I am definitely going to kill somepony," he growled. "In fact, I'm going to kill the next pony I see on principle. And then I am going to hunt every last one of those five down and make their ends exquisitely painful."
All around him the winds began to howl, but Emerald Ray heard none of it.