The funny thing about teleportation, specifically across planes of existence, is the interim. It can be difficult to tell just where, or when, one is while traveling; it's not entirely possible to understand that, according to top magical theorists. Some believe that the body is deconstructed at the first location and reconstructed at the second. Others believe that the first body is erased from existence and remade at the point of arrival, a sort of cosmic copy/paste if you will. The vast majority of magic users do what is perhaps the smartest thing: don't question it at all.
But isn't that the sort of thinking that stymies progression? That by not seeking knowledge advancements in society would grind to a complete halt? Possibly. But there are some things that, perhaps, we are not meant to understand. It's difficult for any one person to say when magic became known to the human race; those that are inclined to it understand only that it does exist, and it presumably did far in the past. There are some records of course, and it's widely accepted that the Egyptians had the first case of an organization for magicians.
I digress.
Nobody was sure why Earth came under siege from the various creatures seeking to destroy it; it became a regular occurrence for its inhabitants. There were some who decided it wasn't actually happening, as some are wont to do. That is to say, they chose to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything was okay. There's an easy comfort in the status quo, and far be it from me to disagree with that.
There were others, of course, that had long since accepted the nature of the world that we'd found ourselves in. It took some time with me, as I had a bit of an unconventional mentor and thus an unconventional education in the arcane. By the point where I had reached my early teens I knew much of what was necessary to survive in the conditions the world had fallen to. It was during this time that I had several experiences that I now realize formulated my character.
Defending those without access to the power I had, and some that did, joining with others that shared my same fascination with magic, and meeting someone that had a burning passion for life. The things I did, who I met, and what I witnessed created the desire I have, do, and will always feel to see humanity grow and survive the mess that we've found ourselves in. Even so, it still felt like it would take decades for that point to be reached. Mages have longer lives than the more mundane citizens of Earth, their lifespan extended by the forces they to harness. By the time I had reached the end of my early adulthood I felt like I'd lived a thousand lifetimes. I was ready to live for a thousand more, and keep going until humanity's flame finally goes out.
But nobody lives forever.
Lucien didn't remember it feeling particularly chilly when he and Twilight had unexpectedly departed from Equestria, but he supposed that in a forest where the weather is unpredictable some odd temperatures were to be expected. That or the time dilation was really off and they were doomed before they even started.
He preferred to focus on the first option.
"Damn it." A voice to his right caught his attention, as well as a small showering of sparks. He turned his head to see Twilight was attempting to ignite her horn for some sort of spell, or perhaps just to check its status. Either option, it didn't seem to be working. With her face scrunched up in concentration, she would manage to get her horn to glow in the familiar shimmer that Equestria's magical field produced, only for it to spark and sputter out after a moment or so.
Lucien held up a hand and, with a modicum of effort, encased it in his signature green glow. It seemed that the human method of channeling magic never failed to be adaptable above all else.
"How'd you get it to work so quickly?" questioned Twilight, sitting in the same spot as before and pouting slightly.
Lucien stood from the single knee he'd been holding since going through the teleport and walked over to Twilight. He put a hand on her head and ruffled her mane a little bit. "I'll teach you about the human method sometime after all this is done. After all, I'll be here for a while it seems." There was a little bit of melancholy in that last sentence, but it wasn't something he hadn't made peace with yet.
Twilight's face, first alight with the possibility of learning new knowledge about magic, fell as he had continued speaking. "Hey... if you don't want to follow through with this still, I'm sure we can find some sort of way--"
"I told you, Twilight, I'm fine. I'm here for you now, after all," he said, looking down at her with a smile. It went without saying that there was no way back regardless of either of them second-guessing things.
That seemed to do the trick. She brightened a bit at his statement, a bare hint of a blush present on her cheeks. "Well... maybe we should get to it then?" She stood up and took a look around. "Looks like we're back where you first came into Equestria, in the Everfree Forest."
Lucien was busy staring at the still-regrowing trees that he had smashed earlier in the year when he had fought with Luna and Celestia. Such a difference fighting for your life on a daily basis makes when it comes to combat. "Yeah." Hopefully the pony princess pair had taken his advice on getting some combat training once again. Luna certainly seemed eager to fight when he had visited them whenever Twilight and her friends had gone on some world-saving journey.
"Well? Let's go! We still need to find out if everyone is alright!" Twilight took to the air and began flying in the direction of Ponyville.
"Be careful! We don't know if there's more monsters around since Sandcroft's been in charge!" Lucien turned to see Twilight hovering above the treetops, waiting for him.
"Then come on! I'm sure we can handle anything together!" Twilight said with a confident smile.
"She's changed," Lucien thought with a smile and a shake of his head.
"Fluttershy's cottage..."
"Yeah."
"It looks..."
"Yeah."
"Normal?"
It did look normal. A few animals roamed around outside, flowers were still blooming, the midday sun was shining down just like a normal day on the outskirts of Ponyville. There was the noticeable absence of the butter-colored pegasus, but aside from that everything looked just fine.
"Fingers crossed that our friends took care of everything while we were gone?" Lucien turned to continue walking towards town, crossing his fingers.
"Fingers... Crossed." Twilight looked down at her hoof for a moment, somewhat perplexed, before shaking it off and flying after Lucien.
Fluttershy's cottage wasn't far from Ponyville. The outskirts of Ponyville, at least. Lucien considered recommending they stop by his house before trying to head into town but couldn't think of much of a reason why. It wasn't like he kept much of anything there given that he literally lives out of his backpack.
From the distance away that they were, Ponyville looked about the same kind of normal that Fluttershy's home did. It was the middle of the afternoon and there were barely any noticeable ponies wandering around outside. The ones that they were able to spot from a distance, however...
"They don't look scared, but... Uneasy?" Lucien remarked to his companion.
"Normally Ponyville ponies greet each other and interact while walking through town. This isn't normal at all." Twilight frowned. Maybe we should just try to talk to someone and see what happened. With any luck, we're not too late to stop Sandcroft from..." Twilight looked at Lucien. "I don't know if it's such a good idea. They might be looking for us."
Lucien thought for a moment. "Maybe. He seems like the type to prepare for everything, but I don't know if he expected us to be back so soon. If we are back so soon, that is."
"Then what do you think we should do?"
"Well, they'd expect us to try to get to your castle."
"Or your house. Or any of the others' houses, probably."
"So Ponyville's out."
"So is Canterlot; I doubt that it's safe at the moment judging by what Discord's told us."
"We don't have friends in Manehattan, Las Pegasus, or Cloudsdale that we can trust. I know a place we could stay in Dodge Junction, but it's kinda out in the middle of nowhere.
"So the Crystal Empire then. It's the most likely place our friends would go in an emergency."
"Doubly so since the threat is a lot of monsters and maybe things like animated armor or golems. Neither does very well in blizzard conditions."
"What do you think happened to Aiden?"
"Either he's still at his house in the Everfree or he made it out like the rest of them. Assuming they made it out, that is."
"We should check to make sure."
"Agreed."
"Is there anything you need from your house?"
"Nothing that I don't already have in my backpack. Is there anything you need in your castle?"
"The only thing I would need is Spike, but I'm sure he made his way to the Crystal Empire as soon as he realized what was happening. It was an ordinary code 31 for us."
"Code... 31?"
"Code 31. It's for when a giant monster (or giant monster equivalent) appears and I'm not in the same city as Spike, in which case we're to meet up in the Crystal Empire to rendezvous with my brother and Cadence. It's similar to a code 4, which is the same thing except we meet in Canterlot and rendezvous with the Princesses."
"What if the monster is in the Crystal Empire like that Sombrero guy you told me about?"
"That's a code 3, in which a giant monster (or giant monster equivalent) appears and I'm near enough to get to Spike within 2 minutes, in which case he's to get me as soon as possible and we can deal with it together."
"...Huh."
"We're very prepared for villain or monster attacks."
"No, look at that."
"What?"
Lucien pointed over to an empty patch of land in the middle of the forest.
"It's just an empty patch of land in the middle of the forest, why?"
Lucien swatted the back of Twilight's head. "Don't be a smartass, you know why."
Twilight wore her smirk with pride. "Yes, I know that I managed to distract you the whole time we were walking over here by explaining how organized Spike and I are, and I know that Aiden's home is very conspicuously missing from where it used to be."
"Was that so hard?"
"No. But it was funny." Twilight walked out from the bushes they were hiding in and lit her horn, sweeping it around the area. Lucien, hesitating a moment, his eyes watching her saunter into the clearing, joined her. His hands were enveloped in a green glow to match Twilight's purple and the two concentrated for a moment, looking around.
"It's not like he was never here..."
"It's like everything just picked itself up and left."
"Starswirl's Moving Furniture?"
"Yen Sid's Animated Objects?"
They looked at each other for a beat.
"Who's Yen Sid?"
Lucien extinguished his hands and crossed his arms, placing a finger on his chin. He closed his eyes. "A great and powerful ancient sorcerer who taught magic to the great ruler of the happiest kingdom on Earth: The House of Mouse."
Twilight thought for a moment, her eyes looking back in forth in the air as if she were trying to sort something out. "Yen Sid... D, I, S..." Her face fell flat and she focused back in on Lucien, the man pointedly trying to ignore the fact that he was being glared at. "Another Disney joke, huh?"
Lucien shrugged, breaking his pose. "Just because it was a cartoon doesn't mean his impact on magic and spell creation was any lesser."
Twilight opened her mouth to retort, but closed it after a moment. "That's... actually pretty true here too. There's a lot of times that ponies imagined a spell in something fictional only for a talented unicorn to eventually make it into a real spell."
"Told you so," Lucien said, walking over and leaning down to give Twilight a peck on the cheek.
Twilight blushed. "I... suppose that Aiden packed up and left, then?"
"Looks like it. I'm not getting much of a trail, since the Everfree is all..." Lucien made a weird wavy motion with his hands, "and stuff. But it looks like it went north."
"That's what I'm seeing too."
"So I guess we go north as well and hope for the best?"
"Sounds like it. The train is a potential option, but I don't think it's very likely to be unsupervised at this point. Should we take a look anyway?"
"I'd rather not get that close to Ponyville, and there's no line of sight from the treeline so we'd have to be out where a pegasus could spot us."
"There's always cloaking spells."
"Yes, but I'm bad at those, and you don't know any that'll get across a mostly open field, last I heard of."
"True. And there's no way of knowing if something else could spot us that might see through the invisibility."
Lucien put his palm on the ground, concentrating for a moment. His hand flashed green after a second or two, and then slowly, with the sound of stone grinding on stone, the ground itself rose to form a small topographical map of Equestria.
Twilight sat back and clapped her hooves together a few times. "That was neat."
"Nah, just a spell to recall a map that I've seen before and map it to the ground."
"Good magicians never reveal their tricks, Lucien."
"You and I both know that you would want to know how that worked if it were anything else."
"This is true. However, sometimes I like figuring things out for myself."
The two smiled at each other for a moment.
"Okay, so I'm thinking we take a patch heading west, then north through the forest around your castle."
"Uh huh."
"Cloudsdale is south of us right now, so if we move fast we can cross the plains there without passing directly under the city."
"Right."
"We can take the train tracks heading into the Crystal Mountains in order to pass through fast and easy."
"And we won't have to worry about the train, because if the Crystal Empire is still safe no trains will be running to it while the rest of Equestria is occupied with the Engineers."
"Exactly." Lucien stood from his single knee, and with a motion from his hand the earth sank back to its previous position. "So it looks like we're still gonna be doing some hiking, Twilight."
"Think you can do that stone surfing spell again like back on Earth? I'd love to see it a second time and see if I can figure it out."
"I think maybe I'll just let you learn it like I did."
"You don't mean-"
"I do."
"Textbooks," both said simultaneously, Twilight with an excited tone and Lucien with a serious one.
The trip north was a fast one. Lucien thought they had covered ground quickly before, when they were just traveling across Earth by the Labyrinth, but having train tracks leading directly to their destination made things much easier. Twilight's earlier hypothesis proved to be correct as well, as they encountered no trains during their travel. Lucien conjured a simple device to propel them along the rails for the rest of the afternoon, letting them relax as they made their way to the colder northern part of Equestria. Twilight spent most, if not all, of the time laying down on the contraption and reading one of several textbooks Lucien kept in his backpack.
When asked why he kept texts on magic in his bag, Lucien could only shrug. "It's convenient, I guess. I keep pretty much anything important in that backpack. I'm on the move a lot, so there's no sense in leaving it somewhere when I'm halfway across the world from it."
After a short time of rail-riding, the fair rolling hills began to turn to snow and ice. Lucien pulled from his backpack a jacket for him and a scarf for Twilight, along with snow goggles for both. They tensed as their vision faded passing into the tunnel connecting the Crystal Empire to the rest of Equestria. What they saw after passing through to the other side didn't shock them so much as it relieved them.
The Crystal Empire was bustling. The train station far ahead had several trains parked, and hundreds of tents and other small shelters were densely packed in the entire area. Ponies were roaming around throughout it all, and the atmosphere, despite the sky being clear and the air being warm, wasn't quite happy. Refugee camps can never quite fit the description of happy, but it was certainly the most cheerful one Lucien had seen.
Twilight and Lucien pulled off their goggles and warm clothing. As the device Lucien had conjured rolled them to the station the first few shouts of "Princess Twilight!" echoed out through the crowds of ponies that had noticed their entrance. Twilight did her best to put on a smile, but there was still a twinge of nervousness behind her features. It seemed she wouldn't be at ease until--
"Twilight!" a familiar voice rang out.
Before either of them could react, the rainbow blur formally known as Rainbow Dash impacted Twilight and sent her to the ground. "I knew you'd make it back! Are you alright, where did you go, what happened while you were gone, did you get hurt--"
"Rainbow! I'm fine, you sound like Pinkie right now," Twilight tackle-hugged Rainbow Dash right back, swapping their positions so Twilight was on top. "We're both fine. I just want to know what's happened here." Twilight pulled out of their embrace and swept a hoof around towards the tent city.
"Oh yeah! I gotta take you guys back to the castle, everyone's gonna want to talk to you and you need to be caught up on what happened. I'm just glad I was flying around when you guys came in on..." Her voice trailed off as she looked to the device Lucien was trying to disassemble piece-by-piece.
After a moment or two of fiddling, he kicked the whole thing and forced it to disappear. "Sorry, if I don't start with the more complicated parts of it first then dissipating it just ends up giving me a headache. Let's get going." He walked over and tussled Rainbow's hair before lifting her and Twilight under each of his arms and walking off.
"Hey!"
"Lucien!"
Rainbow immediately wiggled out and began hovering next to the pair. "Don't just pick me up like that!" Lucien could swear that he saw a hint of a blush behind that angry expression though.
Twilight was another story however, her blush much more pronounced and smile wider. "Lucien, you're embarrassing meeee," she whined.
"Oh hush," Lucien responded, swiftly giving her a kiss by the base of her horn, only causing her blush to deepen.
This, of course, was all done directly in front of Rainbow Dash. A fact which Twilight became keenly aware of about 5 seconds later. Looking over in realization, she noted that there wasn't an expression of surprise, but rather one of knowing.
Catching Twilight's eye, Rainbow winked at her. "Thought I'd be surprised? I betcha think I was going to be."
Twilight looked to the side. "Well, we weren't gone very long so it has to at least seem a little sudden..."
"Nah, we were pretty much just waiting for it to happen. Pinkie and I were actually thinking about taking bets from everypony that knows you two."
Twilight's face flushed a clean pink and she buried her face in her hooves. "Was it that obvious?" she groaned.
"Well... Nah not really. But come on, you're both giant eggheads for magic, you hang around him all the time, and you have a ton in common. Just felt like it was gonna happen at some point, y'know? Actually, Pinks and I were also placing bets on whether Lucien would be into ponies or not, too."
Hearing his name, the human turned his head to look at Rainbow. "Actually I'm more attracted to personalities than anything, but I've seen and done a lot of things back on Earth, if you know what I mean," he said, bouncing his brows a few times.
Twilight's face was red as could be at this point, and she smacked his thigh with a hoof. "Lucien! We don't need to hear about that!"
Rainbow, on the other hoof, just smiled and nodded, almost knowingly. "Ah yeah, I think I get what you're saying then. So all that time you spent staring at my flank wasn't actually to just get a better look at my cutie mark, huh?" To illustrate her point, Rainbow turned a bit in the air and stuck out her rump, giving Lucien an unobstructed view of her flanks.
This time it was Lucien's turn to blush. "Don't let my curiosity go to your head Dash, it might get so big it'll pop."
"Yeah yeah, keep trying to blame it on me, you know you like what you see," Rainbow accompanied this with a little wiggle before darting forward into the castle. "Come on!" she called back after passing through the entrance.
"I'm gonna put you down now," Lucien said somewhat absently, his eyes focused somewhere in the distance. Twilight was released from his grasp a moment later, and she took a few steps in front of him to regain her balance.
"Hey," she began, turning her head to ensure she had his attention. "These are the only flanks you need to pay attention to," her voice was a little sultry, but the effect was ruined by the massive blush still lighting her face.
Lucien shook his head a little and focused in on her eyes. "Right you are, my little pony!" he said, giving her ass a healthy slap as he passed her by.
Twilight eeped! and flinched as he went by, and a hoof went to rub at her rump. "Hey! That hurt!" Her smile and red face betrayed her actual feelings as she galloped after him.
"That's... certainly a lot to take in." Princess Celestia sipped her tea, an expression of mild surprise written across her features.
To be fair, they had taken it all quite nicely. About two weeks had passed in Equestria during Lucien and Twilight's three-ish days on Earth, making their return somewhat timely. The three-ish days, as the pair had retold them, were densely packed with action, suspense, and romance (Lucien added the last one, much to Twilight's embarrassment, after Rainbow spilled the beans about he and Twilight.)
"So what's happened here? It looks like half of Equestria is at the Crystal Empire now!" Twilight directed her exclamation at Cadence and Shining Armor, both of whom looked slightly worse for the wear, no doubt an effect of hosting so many ponies on their land.
"It was all we could do to evacuate as many ponies as possible before the Engineers laid siege to Canterlot with their airship," Celestia began explaining.
"Normally such a paltry device would be crushed underhoof not unlike a porcelain figurine, but..." Luna continued then trailed off.
"An anonymous tip delivered by one of the ship's crew members allowed us to analyze their plans and their weaponry. Unless we managed an incredible preemptive strike and disabled some of their systems, the fight was going to be bad."
"Very bad, apparently. Sister and I were also not keen on losing our magic once again in the face of impending peril. A tactical retreat and evacuation was the only decision we could make given two of our most valuable assets had disappeared in Canterlot."
Lucien put his hands together under his head. "Aww, she said I'm a valuable ass!" Rainbow Dash snickered at his words, then busted out into full laughter when Luna used her magic to slam his head into the table.
Lucien held up a middle finger and, his voice muffled by the table, responded, "Anytime you wanna fight I'm game, moon horse."
Taking a moment to steady her rattling teacup with magic, Twilight took the lead in the conversation. "So is their ship still anchored in Canterlot?"
Shaking her head, Celestia replied. "No. Our few contacts still inside the city report that the airship is stationed at Manehattan now. Canterlot is being controlled by one of the Engineers, Ironwing, and a small army of various nightmarish creatures from Earth. Manehattan is still being contested by the ponies living there. It's a big city, after all. I've had some of our remaining forces diverted there, but with the rail systems down..."
"Can't defend a city at a moment's notice if you can't get troops there in a moment," Lucien mused.
"What about other locations in Equestria? And Ponyville?" Twilight continued her questioning.
"Ponyville was the first to come under their control, right after Canterlot, of course. We'd evacuated a majority of the population, given their proximity to Canterlot, but some families chose to stay. Other locations in Equestria are secure for the moment as well, from what we can gather. Las Pegasus, Cloudsdale, and Baltimare have all been under siege from monster attacks, but it seems those are just more of a nuisance than anything. Our inside mare with the Engineers informed us that their plan seems to be to move across Equestria one city at a time."
"However, we have found a moment of opportunity," Luna interrupted.
"Indeed. Their airship's station is in Cloudsdale, which, as of now, is en route towards Manehattan. Apparently it requires special equipment for maintenance and refueling, during which time it is stationary and most systems are disabled. Cloudsdale will arrive in roughly three days from now, and the Engineers are plotting to finish the fighting in Manehatten before then by detonating another anti-magic bomb."
"Another? They have multiple now?" asked Twilight.
"Not quite," answered Luna. "From what we were able to gather based on what has been leaked to us, there is only a singular bomb, however it can be detonated multiple times with a long resting period between detonations. Its most recent detonation was about twelve days ago, when Canterlot was attacked. Apparently they had yet to realize there was nopony home, for the most part."
"So the plan is to go and try to help Manehattan before the bomb goes off? Or is it wait for the fighting to end and go raid the ship while it's refueling?" Lucien asked.
"Neither," replied Celestia.
"Our insider works on maintaining and recharging the bomb apparently, and is planning on sabotaging the device to either render it useless or increase the amount of time until it is usable again by a day or two," Luna explained.
"So the plan is to hope your insider does her job so the bomb is out while the ship is out?" Lucien summarized flatly.
Celestia, reading his expression, held up a hoof. "If we were not certain of the reliability and trustworthiness of this inside mare, we would not even entertain the idea of following through with this plan. All the information, plans, diagrams, and blueprints she has sent us so far have been 100% accurate. I am finding it difficult to find reasons to doubt her at this point, given how much she has done to keep us informed. The only thing that we would have to worry about is her being found out."
"...Do you know who it is?" Lucien asked after taking a few moments to think.
"We are not sure," answered Luna. "However, we do have reason to suspect it is none other than Bronze Gear herself, based on her intimate knowledge of the devices and her access to the plans of the Engineers."
"She did seem... upset the last I talked to her. Maybe she decided whatever the heck Sandcroft had been promising her wasn't really worth it anymore. Either way, it sounds like it couldn't be anyone but her, with what you've gotten so far."
"So all that's left until the fight begins is rallying the ponies here and preparing those who are able for a fight. Training for combat against those monsters, however, has been a challenge. We don't suppose you could help us out with that now that you've returned, Lucien?" Luna asked.
"I've got just the thing to help," Lucien responded, taking a moment to withdraw his notebook from his backpack. "I've only got one of these, so be careful with it, but feel free to read through and copy whatever information you'd like." The notebook glowed a faint blue as Luna took it with her magic, the pages flipping quickly and her eyes scanning for information.
The book closed with a quick snap. "Thank you Lucien, this should be most helpful." Luna stood and excused herself, exiting the room.
"Twilight, we could really use your help managing all the ponies here, if you could," said Cadence, rubbing at her eyes.
"There's nopony as good as organizing after all," Shining chimed in.
"Of course!" Twilight stood to join Cadence and Shining as they left the room, taking a moment to say her goodbyes to Lucien and Celestia.
A silence filled the room once they left, leaving only Lucien and Celestia sitting.
"I trust you're aware of what happened to Discord?" Lucien started, taking a sip of his previously-untouched tea. He grimaced as the lukewarm liquid hit his tongue and immediately put the cup back down.
"Yes, Discord confessed to us what he believes happened when he first came to Equestria, and departed to Earth during the evacuation." Her features softened and her gaze drifted. "I do hope to see him again at some point. As much as I hold disdain for his actions centuries ago, I did come to enjoy his company at the castle every once in a while. I doubt he'd be so eager to leave Fluttershy behind as well..."
"And what's happened to Aiden? I promised myself I'd look after him, even if I don't know him all that well."
"He's here, of course. Some of the research that he brought from Earth on monsters has been useful to us. He's been helping Luna train the army, but I'm afraid he doesn't seem to have much combat experience."
"No, I don't think he does. So what about--"
"Twilight's parents are here as well, and undoubtedly going to catch Twilight as she's helping Cadence and Shining."
"Ah. Good."
A moment passed.
"Soooo--"
"I approve."
"What?"
"I approve," Celestia repeated.
"Of... what? And stop reading my mind." Lucien was confused.
"I don't think I really have to spell it out for you. It was written all over your face as soon as you asked about her parents," Celestia said, hiding a snicker with a hoof.
Lucien, instead of firing back with something witty, opted for a genuine smile. "That means a lot to hear you say that. I know just how important she is to you, and how important your relationship is to her."
"Also if I didn't approve I could just bring the sun down on you."
Lucien smiled, but there was a challenge in his eyes. "Looking to go for round two, old-timer? I beat you and your sisters asses into the ground last time."
Celestia smiled mysteriously and took another sip of her tea. "I think you'd find that when I really apply myself I'm much stronger than you'd anticipate."
Lucien could feel some of the power behind that smile, and it was considerable. "Well, schedule me for a one-on-one after we bring that ship down, then. Just don't chicken out and bring the Elements this time." Lucien stood as he said this, beginning to turn towards the door.
"Wait just a moment, Lucien." He heard Celestia's chair move across the floor as she rose. "There's one more thing I'd like to discuss before you leave."
"Yeah?" he said, turning back around and motioning for her to continue.
"I need you to help me with regards to properly dealing with Sandcroft."
The next five days were spent hour-by-hour for Lucien and Twilight. Both had rotating responsibilities helping around the Empire, either helping to sustain the overpopulation caused by refugees from other parts of Equestria or helping with preparations for the final fight. The militia and military had to be trained to fight all possible manner of threats, both from Equestria and Earth, and Lucien was the best equipped to help. Twilight was conscripted to help with the logistics of Equestria's forces versus the Engineer's as well as figuring out the best way to board the vessel. There was also the problem of helping cities like Manehattan rebuild whatever was damaged in the attacks.
Needless to say, Lucien and Twilight didn't see each other for a while. It wasn't until the final day before Equestria's retaliation that they managed to secure some time together to talk.
"You look..."
"Exhausted?" Twilight chuckled. "I know. I wear it with pride though."
"Well you do look proud at least. Have things been going well enough on your end, then?"
"For the most part," Twilight replied, sipping at a cup of coffee. "Everypony's been settled in at the tent city outside the Empire's walls. Of course, if everything goes well tomorrow then they'll just start moving back..." Twilight gently set down her cup, then let her head fall to the table. "I feel like all that organizing is just gonna go to waste."
"Well it's a good thing you like organizing, right? Even if things are gonna get all messy right away." Lucien reached over and rubbed her head.
"Yeah, but still. It doesn't feel like the most important thing at the moment. As much as I try to put the good of the citizens of Equestria first, what point is there in setting them all up here if they're going to be moving back right away?"
"You also set up a schedule to get them all moved back, right?"
"Yes, and that was what took the most time!"
"Then it sounds like it's not a waste at all then, right?"
Twilight sighed and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, you're right." She pulled back and sat up straight to look at him. "How have things gone on your end?"
Lucien held up a hand and tilted it a few times. "Eh. I'm no drill sergeant. Luna was born for that, though. You should have seen her once I picked out exactly what we'll be likely to face. I'm glad that I got over the initial stereotype of ponies being soft and happy all the time because holy shit that woman is scary."
Twilight giggled into a hoof. "I've heard the stories." After a few moments of silence, Twilight's face fell neutral again. "Do you think everypony's ready?" she asked softly.
Lucien's face turned to concern. "Everything's going to be fine. They're about as ready as they can be, and they already have some serious advantages over humans fighting the same things. If we could handle it on Earth, where magic takes ten times more effort to channel, then they'll manage here on Equis where it's so saturated."
"...Ponies are going to die, aren't they?" Twilight said, her tone neutral.
Lucien sighed and reached over to take her hoof. "Yeah. These aren't going to be run-of-the-mill pushovers like what showed up in Ponyville a while back. You saw the Wyverns in Cloudsdale. They're going to be vicious and hit hard. We're just gonna hit harder. There's a whole lot more on the line this time."
"Yeah..." Twilight put her other hoof over Lucien's hand. "Just... be safe, alright?"
Lucien grinned. "I'll be right next to you the whole time."
The morning of their assault was bright and cheery, as most days are in Equestria. Or, at least, it became bright and cheery once the sun actually rose. If they were going to strike at an opportune moment they would have to depart from the Empire early, and so early it was. One of the trains stationed at the Empire's station was fired back up and departed with 75 of Equestria's finest ready to do battle. The ride to Manehatten takes 8 hours, and there was the problem of actually getting to Cloudsdale after arriving. Given the lack of contact to the flying city, there was no way they could get enough pegasi to float it to the ground, so they would have to use unicorn power to improvise. Most of the strike force had airborne capabilities, and the remainder had enchants to walk on clouds, including Lucien.
He and Twilight were able to catch a bit more sleep while riding to their destination, the former much more than the latter. Twilight's mind was alight with what Lucien had deemed pre-battle jitters, but he was fairly certain it was also her normal worrying and anxiety.
"How are you even able to sleep at a time like this?" she asked him after he'd gotten up for lunch.
Lucien gave her a sideways glance between bites of fruit. "This isn't the first time I've had to sleep in a stressful situation," he answered simply, as though the answer was obvious.
"Sure, but this goes a little beyond stressful, doesn't it? I mean, Equestria's more or less on the line here!" As the words left her mouth she remembered just how many times she and her friends had been in a similar situation.
Lucien's deadpan stare also did well to reinforce that reminder. "So why aren't the rest of the girls coming with us?" he asked, reading her mind in its entirety.
"They are, they're just a car back."
Lucien blinked, surprised. "Uh... okay."
Twilight grinned. "Not what you expected to hear, huh? They'd follow me even if we told them to stay, plus they're some of the handful of ponies in the Crystal Empire right now that have actual combat experience against Earth monsters, as limited as you might want to claim it is."
"Yeah... you got me with that. Doesn't answer why they're a car back though," he noted.
"We're in the front car with the squad leaders and unicorns and magic-enabled individuals--"
"Nice inclusivity there."
"Because-- thank you-- we, the Princesses and I, thought that it would be best if we all were able to process cloudwalking spells to everypony in the rest of the train if we all stayed in the front and disembarked first. We'd also let the squad leaders strategize with each other before the fight begins."
"Not a bad setup, Sparkle. What's the plan for getting everyone up to the city?"
"Originally it was just to improvise by individual, which pretty much meant that each pegasi would take a unicorn and fly them up, but I also hate improvising, so I'm working on a solution right now." Upon finishing the sentence, she turned to Lucien with a big smile.
Lucien, in the midst of eating a small bag of assorted nuts, took a moment to register the silence and look over. Their eyes met for one moment, and Lucien's gaze immediately dipped to the massive smile on Twilight's face. He sighed heavily, nearly spilling his nuts with the over-exaggerated motion. "What do you want me to do?"
"Drink an energy drink and levitate everypony on a disk of earth." Twilight smiled a bit wider, somehow, and Lucien could swear he saw a drop of sweat slide down her temple.
Lucien full-body sighed, illustrating that he could outperform his last sigh with stunning ease. "Fine. But I better not get any lecture for sleeping in late tomorrow, when most of this is taken care of."
"Deal!" Twilight leaned in quickly and pecked Lucien on the cheek. This time it was the human's turn to blush, as he placed a hand on his cheek, where he had been kissed.
In a fit of retaliation, he reached over and booped her on the nose, causing her face to scrunch up momentarily. They pouted at each other for a few moments before relaxing and letting out a few chuckles. "See, just relax a bit. It's just another day on the job," said Lucien after their chuckles had died down.
"Yeah," Twilight said, turning to look out the window, "Just another day on the job."
The affair of getting cloudwalking spells processed on the Equestrian forces was a surprisingly quick and efficient process. The Company wasn't the most organized organization when he was helping to run things, and its members weren't known for their discipline or manners. In a sharp contrast to his previous human comrades, the pastel horses processed the spells across the entire train within a minute, despite having only about 20 unicorns to deal with 50 pegasi and earth ponies. Granted, Twilight helped with the processing, and she was able to cast the spell within just a few seconds. She finished her work by casting it on Lucien, who had sat off to the side and sipped his energy drink, preparing the spell that would get them onto the flying city.
"Ready to go?" Twilight asked Lucien as she finished casting.
Lucien cracked his neck, and then his knuckles. "Thought you'd never ask." He stepped forward and straightened up, standing at his full height. "Alright, listen up! I'm not in charge of this operation, but I'm everyone's lift to Cloudsdale, so i'm gonna need you all within the circle that I drew on the ground over there! We might end up facing airborne issues on the way up, so the pegasi will break off for defense if need be. Unicorns, provided something that actually has wings attacks us, aim for those and it'll take down basically anything that's flying. If they don't have wings, just aim for the face I guess. Earth ponies just hold tight on the disk until we've made it to the ship's deck. I should be able to take us right in so you can all get to work neutralizing the ship's crew and wrecking basically anything on board that looks either dangerous or important. Keep your hammers with you at all times, and if it looks like it might explode, for the love of god don't touch it! Everyone ready? Let's go!"
And with a triumphant yell, Lucien lit his hands with magic and pointed towards the flying city nearby. With the sound of rumbling earth, a disk about 30 feet across and 3 feet wide rose from the ground and began hovering. Lucien, hands out and eyes narrowed in concentration, made a swiping motion and sent the platform flying towards Cloudsdale.
The cityscape approached rapidly, and they would undoubtedly reach it within minutes. Lucien, despite his attention being focused on maintaining the spell keeping the Equestrian forces afloat, heard Twilight and the girls discussing something quietly, but he was unable to make out what they were saying.
As they reached the same height as Cloudsdale the looming figure of the Engineers' airship quickly became visible. The massive metal structure towered over all the other buildings in the city, casting a long shadow in the mid-afternoon sun. Lucien could make out small flying creatures circling the air over the ship, likely the wyverns that he and Twilight had encountered before.
They were flying into the city proper and still nothing had attacked them. The large group of ponies, and one human, quickly approached the airship, Lucien unwilling to slow down and press their luck further. Once they were nearly beneath the numerous wyverns circling far above, Lucien stopped the disk and then forced it to climb rapidly, ascending to be level with the ship. As they approached deck-level a siren began to issue forth from within the hulking metal construct.
"Pegasi, grab your partners and fly up to the deck! Unicorns, prepare for ranged countermeasures!" Twilight called out forcefully, exerting her leadership.
Just then, a cacophony of shrieks and caws echoed across the city. Looking up, Lucien saw the wyverns had finally noticed them, and began to dive-bomb. "No time! Pegasi stop! Unicorns prepare defensive spells!" Lucien was pitting his speed against the wyverns, a creature practically designed to be fast in the air.
He increased the speed of the disk as it soared over the side of the main deck. "Unicorns, shields up!" Lucien called just as the first few bolts of magic, crossbow bolts, and other odd projectiles were thrown at them by the crew of the airship and the assorted Earth monsters that worked with them. A shield was erected in time to render all attacks null, and Lucien was able to safely maneuver the disk over solid metal. "Everyone off! Unicorns move the shield to a half-dome!"
Moving as one cohesive unit, the entire group leapt from the disk and landed on the deck. Grunting with the effort, Lucien then, quickly as possible, flipped the disk and moved it overhead of the squad. It was just in time as well, as the squishy sounds of wyverns impacting solid rock could be heard by the group beneath.
After five quick seconds of listening to impacts and watching the shield hold up under the onslaught brought by the ship's defenders, Lucien heard the wyverns stop and watched as they began to circle to the sides. "Alright, let's go! Attack!" Lucien roared.
With a ferocious battle cry the assorted ponies charged forth to engage in combat. The unicorns dropped the large shield and instead paired off to raise personal shields for charging earth ponies, while pegasi took to the sky to do battle with the quick, but fragile, wyverns.
Lucien continued his war cry as he swung the disk of earth above his head once, then slung it at the control room of the airship. The chunk of solid rock careened through the air, flying not unlike a frisbee until it slammed straight through the glass and metal that separated the control room from the outside. A plume of dust and smoke issued forth with the contact, and the entire ship shook for a moment under the force of the impact.
Lucien stood still for a moment, knees bent and body slightly crumpled, to catch his breath and watch the smoke and dust dissipate into the sky. "Lucien!" he heard from right behind him, as he heard the sound of a wyvern get simultaneously blasted by magic and slapped by a heavy chain.
He turned to see Twilight and Applejack look at him grimly, with the rest of the girls looking at him expectantly. "Thanks. Okay, Twilight and I are splitting off to go put that bomb permanently out of commission, the rest of you help out up here and make sure that everyone gets inside the ship alright. If you see Sandcroft, run away and use the sending stones I gave you to send a message to me." Each pony nodded, recalling the rocks he'd given them back on the train. "Alright, break!"
The Elements charged into battle with the rest of the Equestrian forces attempting to combat the varied monstrosities that constituted the defenses on the ship, keeping together as a cohesive unit even during a heated fight. Lucien could only shake his head as he witnessed their ferocity, a far cry from the first time he had seen them all in combat. The entire scene before him seemed entirely out of place, and it only compounded the guilt he had felt earlier.
"Lucien, let's go!" he heard Twilight shout and felt her pull him, thus breaking him from his stupor.
"Right! You remember where to go?" he ran after her, following her as she ran towards an entrance to the ship's main interior.
"According to the blueprints we got the engineering bay should be close to the bottom. Four flights of stairs, the first two are up here on the right!" She blasted a dark and lanky creature to the side as they ran past, Lucien giving it an extra punch as he followed. Just as Twilight had said, they reached a staircase that led down two floors. The sounds of fighting grew further as they bounded down the staircase and the pair slowed as they realized the sounds of battle wouldn't mask their steps as effectively.
"There shouldn't be much down here in the way of guards or defenses, I think. They should all be bush dealing with the problem we're making topside," Lucien noted quietly as they slowed to a walk.
"I still expect the engineering bay to have something guarding it. Or someone," Twilight responded as they rounded a corner and took the final two flights of stairs down into the engineering bay. As they began to round the final set of steps, a loud and upset voice reached them, at first too faint to make out. Twilight motioned to Lucien to stop as she peeked around the corner, Lucien leaning over to take a look after making sure neither of them would make any noise.
The engineering bay was a spacious area deep in the heart of the ship. Labels and signs along the walls of the interior had directed Lucien and Twilight to the bay, and further signs directed them towards the engine rooms through an entryway at the side of the large room. The bay itself was littered with mechanics, metals, tools, and assorted magical paraphernalia, likely there for sake of experiments and designs designed by Bronze Gear, who happened to be standing in the middle of the bay; right next to the anti-magic bomb, which occupied a majority of the space.
However, she was not the only one in the room. The voice Lucien and Twilight had heard earlier belonged to the stallion that was currently lecturing Bronze angrily, his back turned towards the pair on the stairs in the back of the bay.
"I don't care that we're not in Manehatten yet! You told us that it would be ready today in preparation for the siege! What happened, you idiot!?" the gold-colored stallion nearly yelled at Bronze.
"It was difficult enough to design a reusable bomb, Gold, I need a lot of time between discharges to make sure that it'll actually work again. And that's not even mentioning the amount of energy required to even power the spells that nullify magic! Frankly, it's exhausting! It's left me with barely any magic left to lift a screwdriver!" Bronze shot back, taking an aggressive step towards the stallion, who Lucien and Twilight could assume was Gold Dust, one of the other engineers who they had barely seen before being sent back to Earth.
"Maybe you should have designed a better bomb then!" Gold Dust blew air from his nose, snorting in anger. "Whatever, it doesn't matter now. How soon can you get this operational? Things might not go very well on the deck."
Bronze shifted her gaze to look at the anti-magic bomb, lingering on the parts where the paneling was missing, exposing the mechanical, magical, and chemical aspects of the device. "I'd say..." she continued sweeping her eyes around the room, until they finally passed over Lucien and Twilight peeking around the corner of the staircase. Her eyes widened a bit, then she looked back at Gold. "I might be able to coax out a weak detonation in about ten minutes if you do me a favor?"
"Ten minutes? That's... acceptable, provided his creatures slow the Equestrians down enough." Gold, whose gaze had fallen in concentration as he spoke, leveled on Bronze again. "What's the favor?"
Bronze dropped her face into a deadpan stare. "Get out of my shop. And let me work." Her horn ignited, lifting a heavy-looking and oddly-shaped tool from a nearby workbench.
"Uh, can do." Gold shifted a little, clearly uneasy seeing Bronze's loss of patience. He turned towards the stairs, keeping his head turned to look at Bronze. "Just make sure you get that thing repaired quickly, I don't want to risk anything with this fight." He started to walk towards the stairs, directly towards Lucien and Twilight, who quickly ducked behind the corner as he turned to look in their direction.
"Yeah, I don't want to risk anything either." Lucien and Twilight had to strain their ears to catch the rather quiet remark from Bronze Gear before a dull thunk was heard echoing throughout the bay. Lucien and Twilight looked at each other for a moment before peeking their heads around the corner of the stairs again.
Bronze Gear stood where they had last saw her, though her stance was now wider and she appeared to be breathing heavily. Gold Dust's back was to her, though now he was sprawled out on the floor, clearly unconscious.
Clang! The tool Bronze was hovering in her magic clattered to the ground as she sat down heavily, still breathing hard. "You can come out now. He's out cold," she called out.
Cautiously, Lucien and Twilight emerged from their hiding place on the steps and entered the engineering bay proper. "I guess you really were the one leaking their plans to us, huh?" Twilight said after a tense moment.
Bronze leaned against the metal plating of the anti-magic bomb, her breathing slowing. "Yeah. All of that stuff I told Gold about the bomb was fake too. This thing's mostly decommissioned now. Nobody could tell but me, so it wasn't too hard." She stood and walked over to Twilight. "I was jealous of you at one point, you know? Filly prodigy and student of Princess Celestia. We never really even met."
Twilight blinked, surprised. "I'm... sorry?" She looked back at Lucien, her expression conveying in equal parts confusion and a desire for help. Lucien just shrugged in response.
"No, no, I'm sorry that this whole situation has caused so much trouble. I'm sorry that my pride and desire for revenge on the Princess blinded me so much that I trusted Sandcroft blindly with my work. At least we can finally put things to rest." She glanced sideways at Twilight. "I better be getting a pardon for my help here, after all this is over," she said with a small smile.
Twilight matched the smile. "I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, do you think you can put this bomb permanently out of commission?"
Bronze's smile widened into a grin, and Lucien noticed the tool she'd knocked Gold Dust out with float up into the air again. "The only thing I like more than building things is breaking things."
"Sounds like you've got it handled then," Lucien said, taking a few steps back towards the stairs. "Where's Ironwing?"
"Probably fighting. Stupid bird was always itching to throw down with someone." Bronze had turned her attention to the bomb, beginning to dismantle pieces of the plating with her magic.
Twilight levitated some chains off a nearby table and tied up Gold Dust, then deposited him to the side of the room. "And Sandcroft?"
Bronze Gear stopped. "No idea, to be honest. He's the type of pony that finds you, not usually the other way around. But with the ruckus you're making around here, I don't doubt he'll show up soon."
"Thanks." With that, Lucien and Twilight returned to the staircase and ascended. Once they had climbed back up the first two flights, they paused for a moment.
"What's our next step?" Twilight asked, keeping an eye out for any enemies.
"I'd say go help out topside but I don't want to catch anyone in collateral damage. Neither of us are very suited to large-scale combat with a lot of allies in the way."
"How about checking the bridge, then?" Before Lucien could respond, the pair had to grab hold of the walls to stabilize themselves as the entire ship shook for a moment. A loud grating echoed down the halls, and a rumbling emanated from below them. "That must be the engines being disabled," Twilight offered.
Lucien nodded. "We can go check the bridge, but I did kinda hurl a giant rock through their window. Not sure if anyone is in there anymore." He paused for a moment. "At least, not in a state that would make them a threat," he then added, darkly.
"You're... not wrong." Twilight's face adopted a grim frown. "Let's go check."
"Alright."
With their next destination in mind, Lucien and Twilight continued making their way down the halls, ascending several sets of stairs along the way. The main section of the airship was ten floors tall, with the lowest being the engine rooms and the highest being the bridge. The pair passed through living quarters, the galley, and what seemed to be entire floors dedicated to hosting the odd assortment of creatures from Earth that Sandcroft had brought on board. It took them five minutes in all to navigate to the bridge, Twilight taking the lead due to her memorization of the airship's blueprints. The fact that there were signs for navigation posted at every intersecting hallway certainly didn't hurt their journey either.
Upon rounding the final set of stairs, Lucien and Twilight arrived at the bridge, or put more accurately, what was left of it. The metal door leading into the control room of the ship had been blown off the hinges and lay smashed on the opposite wall, and the wall of the room itself was dented nearly to the point of caving in. The cause was visible through the gap left by the broken door: the stone disk that Lucien had thrown at the start of their siege.
"Well. I guess this was a pointless trip." Lucien sat down on the top step of the staircase.
"We should go join everypony outside. Things should be wrapping up right around now, if my calculations were correct, but the wild card is still unaccounted for." Twilight walked past Lucien, heading down the staircase, frowning.
"You'd think that he would pay more attention to the siege of his ship and destruction of his army, right?" Lucien joined her in walking, shrugging as he spoke.
"It bothers me. He was there immediately the first time we boarded the ship, where is he now?" Twilight had adopted her thinking face while they walked, heading back down to the main level.
"Maybe we got lucky and he was on the bridge when I hit it," Lucien suggested. "Wouldn't that be--"
Before he was about to finish his sentence, he and Twilight had reached the main level and rounded the corner. Across the narrow hallway from them, just having climbed up the staircase from the engineering bay, was a familiar blue-colored top-hat-wearing unicorn. Their eyes met and surprise crossed his features for a split second before his horn lit and began to draw in magic.
"--Nice." Lucien finished his thought before pulling Twilight back with a pulse of magic and taking a single short moment to charge up a blast of pure energy, firing it off just in time to collide with Sandcroft's. The green-tinted torrent of magic poured out from his hand, roaring forth and colliding with the unicorn's with enough force to cause the floor to shake. The beams covered the entire hallway from wall to wall and nearly blinded them just as the raw heat pouring out from it nearly burned them. The unicorn on the other side matched Lucien's strength, forcing their duel to a standstill.
After taking three deep breaths to maintain concentration and draw deeper from his magical reserves, he increased the output of his beam, causing it to widen and eclipse the metal walls of the hallway. Almost immediately the walls grew red hot and melted down under the force of the magic pouring from Lucien's core. The stalemate he and Sandcroft were in began to slowly shift in Lucien's favor.
At least, it began slowly. After seven seconds of sustained magic output, Twilight had decided that she had seen enough. After taking a moment to assess the situation, she charged up her own spell and let loose as Lucien increased the strength of his blast.
Purple-tinted magic spiraled around the green-tinted crackling beam, enhancing its already considerable strength and turning the tide of the fight, which was already in Lucien's favor, into something that hardly resembled a contest.
Lucien and Twilight's combined blast rocketed down the hallway, practically devouring Sandcroft's beam and slamming into him with all the force of a train. As soon as Lucien had registered that Sandcroft's magic flare had died down, he ceased his own, breathing heavily from the exertion. He nearly stumbled as Twilight pressed up against him, breathing hard herself feeling the stress releasing so much magic puts on the body.
The walls of the hallway they were in had melted entirely. The ten feet of clearance they had from wall to wall had opened up to include the rooms on either side, and a massive circular hole dominated the back wall, revealing the main deck of the ship and several moderately wounded Equestrian soldiers looking in on them from outside. The floor had not entirely been spared either, an inch-deep scar of quickly-cooling molten metal spanned nearly the entire length of the ship, stretching almost all the way to the bow. Shakily standing where the beam had finally dissipated was Sandcroft, hat now missing and looking worse for the wear.
Lucien and Twilight took a moment to look at one another before she helped him stand straight, and the pair walked out to the main deck. Equestrian forces stood to the side as they walked out, and the dead or unconscious bodies of Earth monsters and Ironwing's crew lay scattered across the cold metal.
"The outcome of a fight," Sandcroft called out, his voice tinged with the exhaustion of casting a powerful spell, "is supposedly decided within the first ten seconds, isn't that right, Lucien?" Even from their distance, the pair could see his eyes narrow. "It's been about fifteen."
"It looks pretty decided to me," Lucien responded confidently, gesturing to the state of the opposing sides' fighters.
"Looks can be deceiving," Sandcroft shot back with a chuckle, catching his breath finally. "Now how did the two of you get back to Equus?"
"You may have meddled a lot with Earth," Twilight answered, "but you never erased the magic circle that Lucien used to get here in the first place." Her voice rang with the same confidence of Lucien's but with the added benefit of not sounding drained from maintaining the beam spell.
"Well, I suppose that it doesn't matter. I'll just send the two of you, and the rest of the Equestrians too, this time, back to Earth once again." His horn lit and immediately began to glow brightly. The glow increased in intensity until it finally overrode Lucien's and Twilight's vision, just like the last time.
However, unlike the last time, they weren't waking up on a beach in California afterward. The glow faded, and the pair stood strong, glaring at Sandcroft, the Equestrian forces at their sides ready to continue the fight. "Keep back, everyone, I don't want collateral damage."
Upon finishing casting the spell and dismissing the light, Sandcroft immediately saw the results. His face, up until that point fixed in a smug grin of assured victory, morphed from confusion, to something that looked suspiciously like fear, and then to anger.
"You. Unbelievable. Human." Sandcroft growled the words, rage bleeding through the emphasis. "You would forsake your planet, Your people. For Equestria? I watched you for years, saw how you had grown to love humanity. You were perfect for my plan, right up to the point where you would be unable to give Earth up to stand against me."
"It wasn't easy," Lucien admitted, "but Twilight made it easier." He looked down at her and smiled, resting a hand on her withers. "And you forgot something important in your plans: Discord's not an asshole, he's a human."
Upon hearing this, Sandcroft began to literally tremble with rage. "That infernal draconequus! He was always too unpredictable but I never thought he would return to his backwater planet!"
Lucien slowly drew his sword. "What did you just call Earth?" He lowered his body into a fighting stance.
Sandcroft grew a malicious grin. "It's a filthy, monster-infested, backwater, trash heap of a planet!" Sandcroft lowered his body into a fighting stance.
Lucien matched the unicorn's grin, feeling the invigoration of a challenging fight rush through his veins. "That's what I thought you said." And with a ferocious cry, he charged forth.
"I need you to help me with regards to properly dealing with Sandcroft."
"Actually I wanted to talk to you about that."
"Oh? Did you have something in mind?"
"I did. We're dealing with a bit of an unorthodox problem in that he lies somewhat outside of the planet's jurisdiction. Discord told you all about Gatekeepers, right?"
"He did. I confess that I was already somewhat aware of a presence of that nature, safekeeping the boundaries of our plane, but I'd always assumed it was a force akin to a genius loci rather than being embodied by a single being. Much less a pony that has lived in my domain for supposed centuries. I digress; continue."
"You know how this is going to have to go, correct? I've seen the whole 'redemption arc' thing work on a lot of the villains that Twilight and her friends have faced, but..."
"This time is different. I'm afraid with the amount of ponies and other creatures living in Equestria that have been lost as a consequence of Sandcroft's actions, peace is no longer an option."
"I'm... glad we're on the same page then."
"Are you sure you're willing to shoulder the burden that comes with such a position? I'm aware of your affinity for Earth, and you must be aware that doing this means you likely will never be able to return."
"...I know. But my mind was made up about this a good while ago."
"In that case: thank you. And good luck."
Lucien's charge was immediately met with a wall of force raised by Sandcroft, sending him sprawling backwards and his sword flying from his grasp. Rolling over quickly, Lucien leapt back to his feet and summoned his sword back to him. With a thought his chakrams appeared in his hands and he flicked them at the unicorn, but he was immediately met with dismay as they were telekinetically blasted away.
After a second Lucien's sword appeared back in his hand and he let out a long breath. Before he could say anything he heard Sandcroft call out. "It seems we're at an im-"
But he was interrupted as Lucien shot a bolt of magic at him. "No impasse here!" he said as he leapt back into action, closing the distance between them with a flash teleport to begin hacking away at the wall of force Sandcroft had raised.
The unicorn raised barrier after barrier as Lucien kept slicing through and shattering the various domes and walls that were created. Lucien was able to keep his eyes locked on Sandcroft the whole time, taking more than a slight please in seeing him wince with the aftershock of having a construct broken.
"We're not... so different... you and I!" Sandcroft managed to get out between barrier breaks.
"Shut up!" Lucien replied, throwing his strength into a particularly hard swing of his hammer. "You're not gonna... pull some Joker shit on me!"
Sandcroft chuckled, nearly wheezing, "You're such a fool... up until now... I've only been using... a fraction of my power!"
Lucien froze mid-swing of his hammer, lightly tapping the next barrier the unicorn had created. "Did you just..."
Sandcroft continued to catch his breath, for some reason not taking the break to go on the offensive. He continued to stare Lucien down.
"You're really ruining this whole..." he gestured to all of Sandcroft with his hands.
"That was my intention, you fool!" he suddenly roared, charging up his horn with magic. Lucien raised his sword in a defensive position, casting a barrier of his own to block the next attack.
But the attack never came.
In a nearly-blinding flash, Sandcroft disappeared. In his place instead was a simple white door with a black spade emblazoned in the center.
"He is really intent on making this as much like a traditional boss fight as he can," Lucien mused, catching his breath. Twilight walked to his side while he stood.
"Lucien..." she placed a hoof to his side, eyes soft with concern. "I can't let you go in there alone."
He set his hand over her hoof, still looking at the door. "You're gonna have to," he said after a moment of silence.
Twilight searched his eyes, her gaze flicking back and forth between them. She took in a breath and stepped backwards, exhaling. "This is what you talked to Celestia about earlier, isn't it?" Lucien finally looked away from the door to notice the hurt on Twilight's face. "I thought you weren't going to keep secrets like this, after the last time."
"She asked me to." A lie.
"It's not Celestia to... Well, actually it is, but still. I thought that you'd trust me enough to tell me something like this."
"Look," Lucien began, kneeling and bringing her into a hug. "I'm gonna go through that door, and when I come out there's gonna be no more secrets between us, alright?"
Twilight pushed him back a little bit. Moisture was clear in her eyes. "I'm holding you to it. Pinkie Promise."
Lucien smiled. "Pinkie Promise," he said, quickly going through the motions.
He broke their embrace and stood. He looked over to the rest of the Equestrians, who had gathered after taking care of the rest of the Engineer's forces. He noticed a knocked-out and bound Ironwing in the back of the crowd. The rest of the Elements stood at the front of the group, all looking slightly worse for wear but clearly happy the fight was almost won.
"Good luck in there, Lucien." Applejack stepped forward, taking off her hat. "We're all rooting for ya," she said, gesturing to the ponies around her. The rest of his friends gave emphatic nods, while the guardsponies stomped their hooves.
For once, Lucien was speechless. He felt a little tickle behind his eyes and quickly hid it by taking off his backpack and rummaging around in it. "Thanks, everyone." He stood, withdrawing his sidearm from the back and making sure it was loaded. "I'll see you in a few!"
And with that, he turned and opened the door. A harsh light shone through, blinding in its brilliance. Normally he would hold himself with caution, going into an unfamiliar room with an enemy guaranteed inside, but his instincts assured his safety in this moment. Taking a final breath, he stepped in.
The white room was silent, unassuming. The fine marble table and slanted windows were free of dust and immaculate in their construction. The blinding light shone through the vaulted openings in the walls, bringing a light not unlike day to the room. Seated at the end of the table, hat off his head, was Sandcroft.
Lucien, after his eyes took half a second to adjust, immediately aimed his pistol at the pony, keeping his sword at the ready in his other hand.
Sandcroft chuckled. "Now now, there's no need for that. Take a seat, would you?"
Lucien sighed. "You couldn't just make this easy for me, could you? Couldn't have just fought me out there and ended everything without more words. I'm as much a fan of banter as the next guy, but," Lucien sat, leaning his sword against the table and placing the pistol on the surface, keeping his hand next to it, "this has gone on for too long." He stared the unicorn down, remembering the feeling of rage he had always relied on when fighting to defend Earth. Strangely, he felt more hollow than ever before. Worn out, in a sense.
"It's not just banter though, is it? I've made enough... pop culture references to make you curious at the very least. I'm sure that you didn't come in here expecting answers, you never do, but I know that you would very much like some." Sandcroft smiled good-naturedly, if a bit haggard. The drain on his mana must've been hitting him hard.
"Why do you know so much about me? I get that you've been watching me for some time," he said, referencing the symbol he'd noticed spread throughout his sketchbook, hidden in every picture, "but I still can't understand why."
"You interested me." He paused, gauging Lucien's reaction. When none came, he continued. "I didn't watch everything, nor was I there to influence everything, but I saw in you a stronger motivation to help your planet in the best way you know. That sort of motivation spoke to me, I suppose."
"It spoke to you?"
Sandcroft directed his attention to his hat, rubbing a hoof along the top. "I come from a time far in the past. I was there to see the princesses take control over Equestria, and I was the Gatekeeper when the man you know as Discord entered this plane."
He paused again, giving Lucien time to interrupt. "You let him in?"
Sandcroft raised his eyes again, meeting Lucien's. "I did. Equis is no stranger to beings coming in from different planes of existence. Refugees of a sort, if you will. My existence is supposed to be based solely on monitoring what comes in and what leaves, as well as rejecting what may do harm to the plane. I don't always know what will happen when someone or something comes in, however. Discord was my first... let's call it an experiment into what would happen should I let something more dangerous stay."
Lucien felt his blood rush faster. "And you could have banished him at any time? You just let him wreak havoc on Equis?"
Sandcroft went back to looking at his hat. "Well, yes. As I said, it was something of an experiment. I wanted to see if the denizens of this plane could, well, toughen up. To see what would happen if I stopped watching out for everyone and let them handle it."
"So you wanted to see if you could shirk your duties. Your 'purpose'," Lucien nearly snarled.
Sandcroft was unperturbed. "That's a rather uncouth way of putting things, but yes. I wanted to see if Equis could produce the power necessary to contend with higher beings. With planar invaders, those who would come not as refugees but as conquerors. Even a Gatekeeper has his limits, as well as ways to circumvent their abilities, as you did in returning here." He gestured to Lucien with a hoof.
"So why do all this with the Engineers then? And why influence me to come here?"
"To answer your latter question, because I was interested in seeing your potential. As well as to see if you could defend this plane with the same fervor that you defended Earth. I was pleased to see your dedication is not just limited to mankind." He stood, prompting Lucien to grab his sidearm and aim it at him. He either didn't notice or didn't care, as he went to look out the window closest to him. "As to your former question, that's a bit more complicated. Equis, and Equestria as a country, had become complacent with the peace the Sisters brought. Conflict breeds progress, and this plane had stagnated for centuries without any real major discoveries due in part to their lack of desire for invention. Or, in this case, a lack of necessity. I'm sure you're aware of just how much technology on Earth was originally designed for use in warfare. The World Wars and the Space Race generated so much invention in such a short span of time... I confess I wanted to artificially trigger the same sort of effect. But a bit more modified towards the ends I wanted this plane to meet."
"What do you mean, your 'ends'?"
Sandcroft turned to face Lucien again. "As I said, I wanted to see if Equis could defend itself from enemies invading from other planes of existence. So I let in certain beings that would create trouble. Most monsters in the Everfree Forest, the Changelings, the Nightmares, and the knowledge of shadow magic that corrupted Sombra, to name a few."
"So you just... allowed these things to happen? Didn't you feel any remorse for the suffering you caused?" Lucien rose his voice.
"I will never feel any regret for helping Equis toughen up. Everything I let in eventually met its defeat one way or another, and the forces of this plane grew in the process. Conflict. Breeds. Progress." He looked back out the window. "Tell me, what do you see looking out the window?"
Lucien, eyes still narrowed staring down the pony, finally broke his gaze and attempted to look out the window. The light was still harsh, but his eyes attempted to adjust. After a few seconds of squinting, he was finally able to make something out. "It looks like some kind of city. But it's not Equestrian, or Terran." He could just barely see the outlines of buildings and vehicles.
"I would be surprised if you recognized it. It's another plane, one I doubt you've ever visited. As is my right as the one who controls the gate of this plane, I'm able to peek through the windows and see the neighbors. Earth's window is behind you, by the way."
Lucien didn't turn around. His eyes settled back on Sandcroft, and he pulled back the slide on his pistol, letting it snap back into position and catching the bullet that ejected.
Sandcroft flinched at the sound, turning to look back at the seated man. He smiled again, this time a bit nervously. "In truth, this has gone about the way that I expected. I've known you long enough to understand your actions. I know at this point you must be looking for a way to resolve this without murdering me in cold blood, is that right?"
Lucien held still for a moment, then stood. He picked up his sword and pocketed the bullet, keeping his pistol in his hand. He stepped back and pushed in his chair. "You and I both know the consequences of what is about to happen, is that right?" He took a step towards Sandcroft.
The smile on the pony's face immediately fell. "There is another way out of this. I can just leave, and you can be the champion defender of this plane like you were back on Earth." Another step. "You can found a new Company, train others to defend just like you did on Earth!"
Another step.
"There's no need for any more bloodshed, I yield!"
Another step.
Sandcroft had backed into the corner, Lucien had reached the end of the table the unicorn had been sitting at when he came in. "You're supposed to offer your hand to me! Your rage has been quelled with Discord's return to Earth, hasn't it? You don't have to kill me!"
Lucien paused. "This is the part where I say some one-liner and shoot you, is that right? Does that sound like something you know I would do?" He took another two steps and he was standing over Sandcroft. He leveled his sidearm at the pony's head, finger resting on the trigger.
"Well you're right. This isn't that kind of story."
And there were no words left to be said.