//------------------------------// // [%timescale%][%%%+1], fragment five // Story: A mare and her dog // by cammera //------------------------------// They stood in the street outside the big church, no longer wearing parts of their armors. Spike's helmet hung from a strap in his hips. "Take them to an hospital," said Spike, Quibra taking both Mariela and Applejack carefully "And turn yourself in too." Quibra nodded and walked off, Spike already forgetting him. Where had Twilight gotten herself? Last time one of the girls had been seriously hurt... "I overreacted. Yes." she said, behind him. "Twilight," He turned to her, "What did you do?" He took care of eclipsing his thoughts, remembering aleatory things to generate what she had once described as static. "Spike, don't be so glum. It'll give you warts!" she added with a small laugh. "What did you do?" he insisted. "Sheesh, it isn't like I am that far gone," She started walking towards Reddo's palace, clearly intending for him to follow. He didn't. "You sound like Discord." Was all he said. He could've as well have insulted Shining. When her head snapped in his direction, he didn't flinch. He just stood watching her, not putting on his helmet, which he heard clack in warning of imminent singularity level magical events. "What?" Her horn alighted, the mass growing in its tip escaping her containment measures with distressing speed. Electric arcs escaped from it, melting the pavement when they made contact. "What did you say?" "You wouldn't be so offended if it wasn't the truth," he said "Do I need to remind you about honesty?" he added. "What does that have to do with anything?" He could feel it, her tries to worm into his mind and see whatever he was trying to get to without having to bear his words. "Will you tell her what you did?" he asked, "What you did in her name?" "It's what she'd do for me." "No. It isn't. Because these days you don't simply beat people, that'd be too weak for the grand and mighty Sparkle, wouldn't it? These days you outright torture, and make monsters worse than they were." He shook his head in distaste "How long until Discord offends you too much? Until you destroy all scissors because Rarity cut herself? Until we have Mad Queen Twilight?" "Don't you dare to use that tone on-" "Me? I am using the wrong tone?" he interrupted her before she could overwrite anything, genuinely baffled "You, the mare who can't stop yelling at the world to change, you dare to chide me about the tone of my voice?" He walked to her, "You yourself gave me full authority to judge and enforce over you. Don't make me use it." She didn't answer, and he noticed the little telltale signs-- ears erected in attention, clenched jaw, perfectly rhythmic and regulated breathing. "I didn't want to do this..." He took a small metallic cylinder from his belt and, feeling far older than his years, spoke while holding it next to his mouth: "From this moment and until further notice Princess Twilight Sparkle is, under the authority of Sir Spike and the Astral Alicorn Sisters, declared unfit to rule and relieved of her authority." The cylinder vibrated in response. He swallowed it before Twilight reached him, wincing when it fell to his belly, and barely had time to guard himself against her tackle. "Remove that order!" she shouted at him, face contorted in anger, "Remove it r-" He sent a stream of flame against her throat, disintegrating it, and put a claw in the hole before it had time to regenerate. Her horn lit up, but he used his free claw to take a ring from a pouch in his belt and slide it into her horn, wincing when the magic on her horn burned his scales. She tried to break it, but the metal only grew stronger. It absorbed the spell she had been readying, forcing it back in. "You--" She managed to talk despite his claw "How-- you---" "Luna made it." He grimaced at her, feeling shame at having had to do that "And you will be spending a long time with daily visits to a psychologist," He took her by the barrel and, when her wings lit up, he took an elastic band from another pouch and put it around her horn. Her eyes dilated from pain when every magically-centric zone of her body was sealed from each other. She collapsed, muscles unaccustomed to not being overburdened with arcana. The throat was harder for him to do, but there was no painless way to do it-- he took a small length of steel wire, sterilized it with a flame, and put it in her neck too, taking out his fingers as he did so. The flesh sealed around it almost immediately. "I wish I hadn't had to do this," He grabbed her limp figure and took on the way to Reddo's palace carrying her. "I really do." "My--" Her legs moved weakly. "I don't... feel--" "They'll be working in a few hours" he said. -ยบ- Soday Mint ran to Nanda, breathing heavily. "Miss..." He panted "Miss, the gauges..." He showed them to her, a small wooden box with an antenna and several gauges on it. The needles still peaked every few seconds, and the antenna was still hot to the touch, but the machine indicated normal levels nonetheless. "Hmm," She tapped the glass just in case. "We are very lucky, then. Did you know that?" She turned to the team that was assembling connections between the three metal boxes, "Alright, gentlemen. We will leave it as it is in case--" She started, but was interrupted by the box screeching alarms. She looked at it. The needles had, again, reached the higher points of their scales. "Oh, blimey"