"Maybe I knocked too hard," Maud pondered aloud as she dug her hooves into the stone floor of the prison, tearing up a chunk of rock to defend herself from the arrows and magical bolts that tore apart the air around her. Behind the mare raced in Applebloom, Scootaloo and ten other members of the Crusade from a massive hole in the prison wall, each firing back at the gargoyles, changelings and other forces that guarded the prison.
"Come on Crusaders! We take the Pit and we wipe out one of the last strongholds that the Three have!" Scootaloo roared to the ponies behind her, unloading with a rapid fire crossbow and dropping two changelings before a gargoyle roared and charged down the hallway towards them.
"Maud, ya think yer finally ready to wreck one of these guys?" Applebloom asked Maud, whose face hardly changed as she lunged forward and drove her hoof right into the bridge of the goyle's nose. Despite its stone body being reinforced with Sombra's magic, the power that was Maud caused its face to break apart in a shower of stone.
"I think that is a yes," Maud replied with no emotion to Applebloom before ducking behind a door while more magic fire bombarded the area around them. Applebloom and the other Crusaders fired back, pinning down the opposing forces long enough to allow Scootaloo to rocket ahead and drop a bomb on top of the enemy forces. One massive explosion later and the forces were cleared out, allowing the Crusade to advance further into the base.
"Should we really be doing this without the Captain?" one of the ponies asked Scootaloo as she flew overhead of her allies.
"Steve has been more than doing his job in helping push the Three's forces back. We need to step up our game as well," she replied. Maud kicked two doors off their hinges and hurled them across the room, revealing a large, multi-floored block of prison cells. The group was greeted with more fire that forced them to spread out to avoid being a target.
"Avoid the prisoners as best ya can! Scootaloo, hit and run!" Applebloom ordered as she lifted a hoof into the air. That hoof was grabbed a second later by an orange blur, who flew the yellow mare over the enemy forces before chucking her down towards them. Bloom slammed her hooves together before driving them down into the floor of the prison, knocking every pony on the ground floor to their backs from the shockwave she created.
"All of ya that aren't a part of the Three, head towards the exit!" Bloom ordered to the prisoners as she raced to their cells, using the increased strength of the Mother Bucker to tear through the cell bars. With the covering fire of the other members of the Crusade and the support of Scootaloo from above, Bloom aided the fleeing prisoners up the stairs that were guarded by opposing forces.
She shattered the jaw of one pony with a well placed hoof shot before kicking a changeling in the chest with enough force to hurl it over the railing. Yet, her prison break was temporarily halted when a gargoyle crashed down onto the stairs with her, throwing a rocky right hook towards the side of her head. She just managed to duck underneath the blow to avoid being decapitated, yet the blow sheered the railing beside her from the stairs.
"Hey you. Look up." The gargoyle did just that to receive a massive right hook, shattering his skull clean in two and causing the body to collapse over the side of the missing railings. Maud nodded to Applebloom who continued to escort the prisoners up the stairs, doing her part in tearing the cells open so that others could go with them.
"We've managed to suppress the Three's forces in here, but it won't be long before backup arrives," Scootaloo informed her as the Pegasus landed next to the mare, who nodded slightly while looking around the room. "We're almost at the prison's control room though. Half of us are going to lead the prisoners to the extraction point while the rest of us head there. Which team do you want to be a part of?"
"Do you need to ask?" Scootaloo smirked before taking off into the air once more, scanning around the room for any source of enemy reinforcements. Spying a side door that had been thrown open, she turned towards the other members of the Crusade and brought their attention to it as well. A fire fight broke out between the two forces, yet none of the Crusaders fell thanks to Scootaloo bombarding the enemies with multiple explosives.
"Alright, just as we planned! Those of you escorting the prisoners, take them and go! The rest of you, with us!" Applebloom led the Crusade towards a large door that resided at the end of the prison cells, wrapping her hooves around one of the handles of the massive door and straining with all her strength. Maud grabbed hold of the other one and pulled back as well. With the combined strength of the two mares, the giant doors slowly creaked apart and allowed access to the Crusade.
"Come on Crusaders, one last push!" Scootaloo ordered as ponies raced by her, quickly grabbing hold of Maud and Applebloom as they did so and pulling them inside. As the twin doors slammed shut behind them, two more gargoyles bellowed at the end of a long hallway that extended over a large pit below.
"Maud. AB. You're up," Scootaloo said to her two friends as the gargoyles rushed the group. Maud was the first to react, lunging forward and striking the first gargoyle with her hooves in a jackhammer-like fashion. The gargoyle barely had time to register what had happened to it before it was completely pounded to dust.
Applebloom didn't have as much luck, for when she went to strike the goyle it caught her hoof in its hand and lifted her over its head. It then drove her into the stone floor, laughing before lifting her up to do so again. Before it had the chance, Maud bucked it in the knee, turning its entire leg into dust in a single strike. Another shot to the head put it down for good, giving the Crusaders access to the final door in the facility.
"After you," Scootaloo said with a bow to Applebloom, who rolled her eyes before using the strength of her suit to tear open the doors. A flash of light shone from the other side, quickly followed by a blast of green fire that scorched the air. Scootaloo was fast enough to knock Applebloom out of the way, but the Crusaders standing behind her had to retreat to avoid being burned. Applebloom ordered them back as a colossal beast appeared.
"Haw! Ah wondered when ya little scamps would show up?" a gargoyle that was far larger than any of the others cackled, emerging from the room as he cracked his knuckles and extinguished the fire in his maw. "Come all the way here just to have old Crusher put an end to ya, huh? Got to say ah'm honored that ya chose me out of all the others."
"We didn't come here to lose. We came here to put an end to your prison," Maud said, turning the gargoyle's face towards the mare with a smirk crossing his face. He then swung one of his fists towards the mare, who evaded by simply moving her head to the side before striking the gargoyle with one of her hooves. Though it didn't show on her face, surprise filled the mare as the gargoyle didn't even flinch at her blow.
"Oooh, I felt that one. Yer a strong one," Crusher snarled before driving his foot into the chest of Maud, hurling her across the hallway and into one of the walls. Stone shattered around her body, yet Maud hardly seemed fazed by the impact. Before Crusher could follow up with another attack, Applebloom and Scootaloo leapt onto Crusher's back. Bloom slammed her fists into his face while Scootaloo unleashed the flames within her wings to burn the gargoyle's face.
"Maud! Finish him!" Maud nodded as she tore herself free from the stones and lunged towards the gargoyle, slamming into his chest and hurling the both of them into another wall. Maud's strength was so great that the pair didn't just stop at the wall, but instead went clean through it. The pair began to fall into the void below the room, with the mare still slugging Crusher in his face.
"Haw! Think yerself something special?!" he said before laughing at her efforts to hurt him. He then grabbed hold of her head with both hands and drove his own stone skull into hers, snapping her head back. Yet Maud slowly brought her head back to gaze at the gargoyle, a stream of blood slowly pouring down a cut in her head. "Wait a moment, ah think ah recognize ya."
Crusher then let his wings spread before flapping with all of his might, ascending back out of the void and to one of the turrets of the prison. He snatched Maud off of his head and hurled her down onto the turret, where she cracked the stone with her hooves upon landing.
"That's it. Yer one of that pink ponies sisters!" he said when he recognized Maud, whose face remained unchanged despite the red dripping from her injury. "Haw, I remember when boss captured yer sister and her friends. Did ya know that yer sister tried to remain happy even after watching what the boss did to the others? She was a stubborn one, ah'll tell ya that."
Maud's face remained exactly the same as it had, but the stones near her hooves were crushed into pebbles as she twitched. Crusher failed to notice the action and continue to speak. "And her last words were, how she was sorry about how sad you would all be, with her gone. Not too bright that one, but ah guess that's what happens when ya stuff yer empty head with-"
Maud turned away with no change on her face, yet Crusher never noticed as a sudden force of power blasted him apart into pebbles. The rest of the castle's turret was obliterated as well, while the rest of the prison shook from the force that had crushed Crusher. Maud descended what was left of the stairs and worked her way back to where Applebloom and Scootaloo were, finding them in the room Crusher had been occupying.
"How is it going?" she asked the pair, who turned to face her as she entered. Their eyes glanced at the injury upon her head, but when Maud said nothing about it they decided not to either.
"Going well, actually. We've managed to mine a few of their data crystals and are actually making copies of their maps, which will tell us where most of the forces are located," Scootaloo explained as Applebloom got back to work before a smile crossed the orange mare's face. "So, I take it by the fact that you're back, it means that you actually managed to beat Crusher?"
"He said some things that irritated me," Maud blankly replied, but Scootaloo never saw her eye twitch once.
"Can you believe it, Bloom? Crusher, the gargoyle that had killed or captured so many of our allies...gone," Scootaloo said with amazement before Bloom turned around with a smile on her face as well.
"Well then, ah have some news that yer going to enjoy as well. See these disks?" she asked as she held up a blue and red crystal. "These have locations of where potential threats have been located. Seems the gargoyles here were trying to make a list of all of them before they went to wipe them out. But now we know exactly where all their most dangerous foes are located."
"That...is...awesome!" Scootaloo exclaimed before wrapping a hoof around Bloom's shoulder and laughing aloud. "Take that, Sombra and Tirek! Our army gets stronger by the day while yours continues to suck! Pretty soon we won't need the Captain to fight our battles, will we?"
"As if we haven't been doing all of the heavy lifting ourselves," Applebloom teased back with a wink at Scootaloo as she finished writing down the maps. "Ah mean, we created the Crusaders, we fought against the forces of evil fer years and we're the ones that helped him. Ah think it's high time we got some recognition."
"But you know how it goes. Only the heroes get the glory while the rest of us have to settle for just being alive," Scootaloo said with a shrug of her shoulders before her smile returned and she glanced back at Maud, but the smile fell when she saw that Maud's eyes were slightly narrowed. "Maud, we're just joking. Why do you look like that?"
"Pinkie's letters...back when she sent them to me, she told me about you three--you, her and Belle," Maud said to the mares in her same bland tone. "But ever since I've gotten here, I've rarely seen the three of you together. The only time Belle speaks to you is when there's danger, but other than that she's on her own and the two of you don't leave the other's company. What happened?"
Applebloom and Scootaloo shared a look before the former decided to answer. "Ever since the fall of Equestria, Belle has been just as distant from us as she has everypony else. We try not to pry or be upset by her attitude. We know she lost a lot that day."
"Doesn't mean she can't be a colossal jerk though," Scootaloo added, getting Bloom to nod in agreement. "We figured that if we gave her time, then maybe she would...stabilize. But it doesn't seem like she's going to ever heal. So we...drifted apart. Speaking of her, we got what we came for. Let's head to the rendezvous."
Maud's eyes narrowed slightly while the two raced past her, thinking to herself about the letters Pinkie had sent her. She then glanced at the mares while recalling what she had just been informed, narrowing her eyes further as she came to a decision.
===3===
White flashes of magic shone as the Crusade appeared before a gargantuan tree that they called home, each of the members talking excitedly with each other as they headed inside. Applebloom and Scootaloo were lost in conversation with each other as they headed inside, yet when Belle tried to walk away a strong hoof rested upon her shoulder and held her in place.
"Hey," Maud said to her, getting a snarl from the mare as she tried to escape. Maud's grip held like iron and with a sigh Belle turned to face Maud, knowing that she wasn't leaving until Maud had spoken. "Scootaloo and Applebloom told me that the three of you aren't as close as you used to be. Why?"
"Ugh, that's what you're worried about? Let me go, I have other things to think about," Belle demanded, but Maud's grip tightened and Belle was rooted in place as pain coursed through her shoulder. "Alright, I'll talk. Jeez, your hooves could probably crack diamonds."
"They can."
"You want to know why we drifted apart? Because friendship is bull. Harmony is weak. The Five Dark Gods showed us that only through planning and skill can you hope to fight back against your foes," Belle said with a snarl, yet Maud's face remained unchanged. "So I don't distract myself with friendship and love like those two do. I do it so we can have a tomorrow to look forward to." Belle then turned on her heels and headed towards the base, but a sigh from Maud made her stop.
"I know you lost your sister. I also lost mine. And every day I regret that I was not there for her when she needed me," Maud admitted to Belle with a single tear streaking down her face. "We've both lost so much. So don't lose your friends as well. Even though it may seem like weakness to you, your friends will be there after all your plans and skills have failed. That is one of the last things Pinkie taught me. Cherish your friends...because we might not have them tomorrow."
Maud then walked over to Belle and pulled her into a quick hug before heading back inside, with her stone-like face returned to normal once more. Belle watched her go with both uncertainty and guilt clawing at her heart while Maud's words wracked her brain. The mare then shook her head and followed after the others, deciding that she would worry about it later.