“Luna?”
The princess groaned as she tried in vain to open her eyes. The whole world spun on its own, but she stayed still. Her heartbeat throbbed in her head, sending pulses of pain through her entire body. Darkness’s embrace held her softly while silence tore at her ears. Everything hurt, and yet everything felt… right.
“Please…”
The utter lack of sound was broken by a familiar voice’s plea.
“... come back…”
Light consumed everything.
Luna’s eyes shot open and she gasped raggedly. Crisp air filled her lungs. Bitter yet sweet sounds of the castle around her came crashing down. Gunfire. Screams. And his laugh…
She inhaled sharply as a pair of forelegs wrapped around her neck. Button pressed his face into her messy and knotted mane.
“Stars… Luna… You’re okay.”
“Mmmpf,” she grunted in reply. “Hurts.”
“Oh, oops.” Button let go of her and pulled away. Her eyes focused on his face and his smile. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay…”
“You’ve mentioned this,” she intoned as she pulled herself to her hooves. “What happened? How long have I been out?”
Button was about to reply, but another voice interrupted. “Seventeen minutes.”
Luna turned as her sister strode toward her. A smile began to spread across the younger alicorn’s face, but it stopped as she saw Celestia’s expression. “Tia?”
“We do not have much time,” Celestia said, her voice monotone and completely cold. “There is an anti-magic field covering the castle. Dmitri is preparing his nuclear strike. Chrysalis is here in the castle. The battle rages onward. The Elements are fighting off the windigo army. You are only alive because I managed to heal you before the field activated.”
“I… what?” Luna gasped. “Anti-magic… nuclear… changelings… What happened in those seventeen minutes?”
“I do not have time for useless questions,” Celestia replied coldly, and Luna recoiled in shock. “I have a plan. You must listen, for you have your own part to play.” She turned to gaze across the room. “Chaput. Dr. Wing. Dovetail. Flair. Come here, now.”
Luna took a moment to look around the throne room. Button still sat beside her, but he was far from the only pony in the room. Several earth ponies carried the corpses of changelings and griffons into a pile in the corner of the room. Shards of glass littered the floor, bathing in the blood of the fallen. Several windows had been shattered, and Luna could see flashes of rainbows and light off over the horizon.
Chaput arrived at Celestia’s side first. “I just got off the radio with some of my officers. The attacks continue, and they’re barely holdi—”
“They don’t matter,” Celestia interrupted. “Unless we can defeat Chrysalis, disarm the bomb, and remove the anti-magic field, they’re all dead anyways.”
Falling silent, he took a step back. Luna saw a flash of indignation in his eyes, but he hid it quickly. “As you say, Highness.”
Celestia hummed to herself, and a very faint golden glow surrounded her horn. A map of the castle appeared in the air in front of her.
This time, it was somepony else’s turn to gasp. Knight-Captain Dovetail flapped her wings twice and turned her startled eyes to her princess. “I thought that there was an anti-magic field up?”
“This is a weak-ass bullshit field.” Dr. Wing snorted before nudging Dovetail. “It’s just reducing magical capabilities, not suppressing them. The Germane judge gives it a three point one four out of ten.” He turned his front hoof downward in a gesture of disapproval before blowing a raspberry and snorting to himself. “Pi. Nice.”
“I can still manage some simple spells,” Celestia replied, ignoring the scientist. “As I have already stated, time is short. I need you all to listen attentively and carefully.”
The rest of the beings in the room crowded around her. Button stood up beside Luna while Captain Flair, Agent Breeze, General Streak, and Captain Ivanov joined them.
Celestia nodded to herself. “We now have four areas which require our attention. Princess Twilight has the windigo issue well in hoof, which leaves us to deal with the attack on the castle, the anti-magic field, Father Dmitri, and Chrysalis.”
Dr. Wing muttered something incoherent to himself.
“General Chaput.” Celestia inclined her head toward the griffon. “I want you to lead the defence of the castle. Organize our troops. Keep them occupied. Take your captain as well as Agent Breeze. General Streak, you will follow his orders as if they were my own for the duration of the battle.”
Agent Breeze gasped, and both of the generals stirred uncomfortably. Captain Ivanov wrapped a wing around Breeze, and Luna regarded them with a cool gaze.
“Dr. Wing, Knight-Captain Dovetail, and Captain Flair. Your job is to find a way to destroy the griffon airship quickly. We cannot afford to allow their explosive to survive.”
“But—” Flair began.
“Do not argue,” Celestia said icily.
Flair shook her head. “But they have Blueblood! We can’t just shoot down their ship! We’ll lose him.”
“There are casualties in every engagement.” The princess regarded Flair cooly. “The life of one pony is not worth all of Canterlot.”
“Princess, I—”
“No.”
Flair huffed. “Please, just liste—”
“This matter is closed.” The alicorn nodded slightly. “I would encourage you to stop.”
“Like hell I’m just going to—”
Celestia’s wings sprung out from her body. “I have already told you, do not argue.”
“Bullshit!” Flair roared, slamming a hoof into the floor. “I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you, but this isn’t what we do!”
Everyone in the room froze as the Captain moved toward Celestia, her eyes like fire. Luna inhaled sharply as the two glared at each other.
“Captain Flair, you are becoming hysterical.”
“And you’re becoming a monster!” Flair stamped her hoof again. “We fought a war with the bucking zebras over one pony being held hostage. I lost two of my only friends over there, and the only reason I’m still around is up there in that airship!”
Celestia stared forward without blinking.
“Yeah, there are casualties, but not if there’s another way! We can try something else. Just…” She growled to herself. “Give me one of those suits and two other ponies. We can get on the ship, grab Blue, and disarm their bomb. And if we die, then we can blow the whole damn thing to hell. I might be dead, but at least I could die saying that I tried and that I’m not… I’m not…” Flair hung her head and stared at the floor.
“Not what?” Celestia asked quietly.
She peered back up, and Luna saw tears in her eyes. “That I’m not some monster… and neither are you.”
The only sounds that filled the grand room were the distant shriek of gunfire and the cries of the departing fallen. Both mares stared into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity.
“She’s right,” Luna whispered.
Every eye in the room turned to her.
“Oh?” Celestia raised an eyebrow.
“Blueblood isn’t expendable. Nopony is.” Luna winced and put a hoof up to her bandaged head. “Losses are just that. Losses. They are taken from us, not given because it is the easiest option. We don’t sacrifice them like pawns in a grand game of chess. You should know that as well as I do, Sister.”
The other alicorn remained unmoving.
“If there is another option, we should take it. If that fails, then…” Luna sighed wearily. “I am sure that our nephew would rather save the lives of others instead of his own.”
Celestia gazed forward without blinking. Slowly, so very slowly, she nodded. “Very well. Captain, you may attempt your plan. However, if the bomb gets too close, I will remove it myself, and there will not be any way to recover your bodies.”
Flair gulped. “Thank you, Princess. I won’t let it come to that.”
Celestia nodded. “Good. Now, for the other two issues. I shall confront Chrysalis myself. My magic may be weak, but I can still find her, and my might does not reside solely with my unicorn abilities.” The map lit up, indicating a section of the castle. “She is here. I can feel her now. She has unmasked.”
“Dummy,” Wing muttered. “Shoulda stayed hidden…”
“And, finally,” Celestia said as she turned to Luna, “you are going to destroy the anti-magic field.”
Luna nodded to herself, and Button coughed.
“Now, we have wasted enough time. There is nothing left to say.” Celestia turned and walked away from the group. In a flash, her armor appeared around her and her blade of fire hovered beside her. “You have your orders. Move.”
Blinking, Luna watched her sister leave. “That was… abrupt…”
“Princess?” Dovetail asked quietly. “Is she… stable?”
Luna didn’t reply for a moment. Before she could, Chaput spoke.
“Alicorn hyperfocus.”
All of the beings turned to him, and Luna took a step back.
“Magic is peace. The greater the magic, the greater the peace. Sometimes, emotions can stop the rational mind, and the rational mind is inextricably tied to the magical soul.” Chaput inhaled. “Alicorns are no exception. There comes a moment when one becomes so emotional that they cannot control their power. As you did, during the first attack, Princess.” He nodded to Luna. “It is ancient magic, overcoming the soul’s own aversion to itself. Magic and passion cannot coexist. So, the mind suppresses all feeling, for the sake of what must be. Surely you know this, Princess Luna.”
The younger alicorn slowly shook her head. “I… have not heard this before, General.”
He responded by raising an eyebrow. “How interesting…”
“Doesn’t matter,” General Shadow Streak growled. “We have to go. Now.”
“Indeed,” Chaput agreed. “However, I will not be joining you in the defence of the castle, General.”
“What?” The commander of the Night-Guard bristled. “You heard the princess! She said—”
“—she said that you are to obey my orders.” Chaput waved him off. “I am ordering you to obey her and lead the defence yourself. I am going with Captain Flair and her team. I have a score to settle with our good Father…”
Streak growled. “Fine. Captain Ivanov. Agent Breeze. Follow me.”
Luna did not watch as the three of them left the circle. Instead, she focused upon General Chaput. He stared coldly across the room.
“You do realize,” Flair said carefully, “that we’re only going to survive this because of our experimental suits, right? If you come with us, you’ll be facing Dmitri without any magical assistance.”
“Oh, I know. That’s why I’ll take my own suit.” Chaput smiled sweetly.
Dovetail scoffed. “Yeah, sure. If you had one of those, we’d have seen it.”
“Unless it was sitting in your armory.”
Flair, Dovetail, and Wing snapped their heads toward the smugly smiling griffon.
“I’ve already had one of them tailored to my size. My spy has impeccable taste and skill.”
Flair gasped, and Dovetail spluttered. “I… you… he… what?”
Dr. Wing merely shrugged. “Meh. Doesn’t surprise me.”
This time, all heads turned toward him.
“Why do you say that?” Dovetail asked carefully.
“Well,” Wing said as he shrugged. “Chaput is a sneaky bastard.”
The general recoiled and raised his beak into a sneer.
“Sneaky bastards do sneaky things,” Wing continued, oblivious to Chaput’s reaction. “That’s a sneaky thing. Thus, Chaput did it. It all makes sense. Actually, it would make less sense if he didn’t, because that would make him a not-a-sneaky bastard, which would make him not Chaput, because a Chaput is a sneaky bastard. But he did, so he is, so he did, so he is, so everything makes sense.” He nodded to himself.
“I… am not sure how to feel about this,” Chaput said carefully.
"Aww." Wing walked toward Chaput and patted his back. "You're an okay sneaky bastard cat-bird." Wing paused and threw his forelegs around Chaput to pull the griffon into a close hug. "In fact, you're our okay sneaky bastard cat-bird, and we mean it and love you in the best possible way. Your vibes really touch my soul, sneaky Chaput." He gave the griffon one final pat and then released him, grinning broadly before booping his beak lightly. He then hummed to himself and headed for the exit. “You guys wanna come along?”
Captain Dovetail blinked. “Did he just…”
“Yeah,” Flair replied with a groan.
Clearing his throat and adjusting his uniform, Chaput began, “Why did he—”
“Just… just don’t ask. Go with it.” Flair shook her head and followed after Wing. The other two looked at each other before going after the two pegasi. After a moment, they were gone.
Button choked back a giggle. “That was, uh, entertaining.”
Luna’s response was to merely raise an eyebrow. “If you say so. I just hope that they can accomplish their task…”
“I’m more worried about ours,” Button commented as he moved to stand in front of her. “How are we going to get that bullshit field thing down?”
“‘We?’” Luna shook her head. “No. I can’t let you do that.”
“What?” His voice carried his shock. “Uh, I’m coming with you.”
With a sigh, Luna shook her head again. “Button, I’m an alicorn. There could be dozens of soldiers between us and whatever is generating the field. I can handle them. You… you can’t.”
Button’s eyes wrinkled and his mouth stretched into a confused grimace. “But you don’t have magic! You can’t go alone! I can help you.”
There was no reply from Luna for a moment. He was right. She didn’t have magic. At least, not any that would help her in combat. All that power felt so far away, as if something were blocking her off. All of it, gone… except for…
A broad smile spread across Luna’s face as a sudden realization hit her. “Oh my. Button, I think that I will have you come with me, but we’re going to be doing something rather odd.”
This time, it was Button who raised an eyebrow. “Well, that sounds interesting.”
“Oh, it is.” Luna bared her teeth in a brutal grin. “I want you to use your imagination for a moment…”
~~~
“So, let me get this straight,” the red coated unicorn seethed through his clenched teeth. “You thought that bringing the general of the enemy forces into our most advanced lab was a good idea?” Dr. Vial growled gutturally. “Fools!”
Captain Flair and her fellows stood in the middle of X-12’s main lab. General Chaput and Dr. Wing stood face to face with the angry stallion, who glared at the two of them. Flair herself waited beside Dovetail as the other scientists walked into the room.
“Yeah, I did,” Wing snarked back to his subordinate. “In case you haven’t noticed, the castle is under attack by a bunch of homicidal maniacs who are not following our griffon buddy here. He’s on our side, dipshit.”
“Griffons only look out for themselves!” declared Vial as he sneered at Chaput. “I can’t believe that even you would believe otherwise, Wing.”
Inhaling through her teeth, Flair watched as Wing froze. Chaput also turned to face the pegasus.
“I… am going to try super hard to ignore that,” Dr. Wing responded quietly. “We don’t have a lot of time, but if we did, I would let you know exactly how I feel about that comment.”
All the ponies and the single griffon in the room paused for a moment. Vial’s stare met Wing’s, and then the first nodded in submission. “Fine. What are we going to do?”
A nearly tangible sigh of relief seemed to come from all the ponies. Wing trotted up to one of the whiteboards and grabbed a marker. “Okay, gang! Buck, that sounded way too after-school-special. Anyway, listen up! It’s time for super fast talking and probably a lot of fancy, big words, so make sure you have your adult-pony pants on!” He cracked his neck and quickly sketched out a rough drawing of the griffon airship. “This is the bad thingy. It has a bomb on it. It also has a pony on it. We need to kill the bomb and not kill the pony.”
Chaput coughed and looked at Flair. She shrugged.
“Hush, Chaput, I know I didn’t use the big words that my sneaky cat-bird loves so much, but that’s because this stuff sounds easy, but it’s really, really not,” Wing continued as he drew a large circular object on the deck of the airship. “This right here is a bullshit field generator. It makes our magic not work at-frickin’-all. That’s bullshit, and it makes our job a lot tougher. But let’s pretend that we figure out how to get past that. We still have to fight past a ton of cat-birds that we don’t like, find the bomb, figure out how to disarm it, find Blueblood, get him out safely, and make sure that that crazy asshat Dmitri doesn’t kill us all. That’s a lot of stuff, and we’ll need a plan.” He turned to the group. “If anyone has ideas, now would be a nice time to share with the class. Oh.” He clenched his jaw. “We also have about ten minutes before we need to take off to get there on time.”
Immediately, Flair stepped forward. “The griffons aren’t a problem. We can outfight them with our suits.”
Dovetail chimed in, saying, “And we can divide the workload here. One of us goes after the bomb. Another locates Blueblood. And one of us…” She exhaled deeply. “One will have to keep Dmitri distracted.”
“I will handle Father Dmitri,” Chaput said quietly. “I know how he thinks and how he reacts. If I challenge him, he will be unable to refuse.”
Flair nodded. “Good. While you do that, I’ll go look for Blue. It shouldn’t be too hard to find him. I guess that leaves you on bomb disposal, Dove.”
“Perfect,” the other pegasus responded. “So, how do I disarm a nuclear bomb?”
Silence reigned for several moments before Wing broke it with a sigh. “And that’s where things get complicated. See, the griffs have themselves a plutonium implosion device. Without getting too fancy here, it’s a bomb that has a bunch of thingies on the inside that do stuff to some plutonium, and then everything explodes. To disarm the bomb, we have to stop the little thingies from being in alignment with each other so that the boom doesn’t happen. We need to think about what a pegasus can do.”
“We need magic back, first off,” Vial answered as he stepped forward. “Then, we get a unicorn up there, and he can disarm the bomb using—”
“That’s not going to do a pegasus much good,” Wing retorted. “Dove is going to be the one there.”
“Have them teleport!” Vial insisted. “Once the anti-magic field is down, they teleport in to disarm the bomb.”
Wing shook his head. “No, there’s still a bullshit field active down here! That won’t work. We need something that a pegasus can do to the bomb. We can’t add extra steps. She’s got to do it.”
Vial scratched his chin and mumbled to himself. Flair stepped back, along with Chaput and Dovetail. The rest of Dr. Wing’s science team walked over, and they conferred with each other.
“Well, what about…”
“That couldn’t do it. But maybe…”
“No! That’s dumb! Stop saying dumb things!”
Flair sighed and rubbed the sides of her head. She could hear the distant roar of battle far above her. The floor occasionally shook from the force of explosions above. While the scientists argued, ponies were dying…
“Is Vial always this… obnoxious?” Dovetail asked quietly.
“Pretty much has been each time I met him,” Flair responded in almost a whisper. “I swear, Wing’s gonna punch him if he keeps this up.”
“Wait!” Vial declared, as if on cue. “I read a paper from a Germane scientist talking about nuclear theory and how a bomb could hypothetically be disarmed by a powerful enough neutrino laser! All we need to do is get a neutrino generator, hook it up to a strong enough power source, aim it at the bomb and—“
“I’m not even going to comment on how dumb that is!” Wing responded. “Actually, I am because it’s just that dumb. First, beam, not laser. Second, it’d take a thousand TeV, so unless you have a way to advance Equestrian technology by several centuries in the span of a few minutes, then that’s—Are you ready for it?—a really dumb idea. We need to—”
Suddenly, Flair gasped as inspiration struck. She grinned to herself. “Hey, Wing?”
“—and if that doesn’t work, we have to find a way to—”
“Wing?” she called out again, unsurely.
“—so long as the bullshit field is up, we can’t do jack sh—”
“Enough!” Flair shouted. All eyes turned to her. “If I’m hearing this right, the bomb works because of… thingies that work together to detonate the plutonium, right?”
“Not really, but according to Dr. Wing’s explanation, yes.” Vial scoffed.
Flair shot him a glare. “Good. Then all we have to do is get them out of sync. The suits give improved strength. Can we just punch the bomb until it doesn’t work any more?”
The scientists blinked as one. Then, they suddenly spoke in hushed whispers. Wing grinned broadly at Flair once he glanced back at her. “If the emitters are out of alignment, the implosion can’t even start. Baby, I love it when you talk science with me.”
“Punching a bomb? That… is the dumbest thing I’ve heard!” declared Dr. Vial. “That plutonium is radioactive! Exposing it could kill whoever is disarming the device. This plan is ridiculous!”
“You already maxed out the group’s dumb quota for the day,” Wing countered. “They don’t even have to punch it too hard. Just have to keep the internal shielding intact, and they’ll be fine. More of a tap than a punch. Kinda like this!” Wing reached over and slapped Vial lightly across the face. “See? Barely even hurts!”
Vial balked and spluttered. “I… you… it…”
Flair stifled a giggle, but calmed herself. “Okay! So, we have a plan. Three of us go up. I get Blueblood, Dovetail goes after the bomb, and Chaput keeps Dmitri busy. All of us in suits. I think… I think we can make this work.”
“That’s almost right,” Wing said. “But there are gonna be four of us up there. You need someone to take down the bullshit field so that our forces down here can keep fighting. And there’s only one pony here who has experience with that kinda thing, and he also just so happens to have been the lead designer of those fancy suits you seem to like so much. I’ll be going with you.”
Immediately, Dovetail shook her head. “Absolutely not. You’re a scientist, not a soldier. Your work is too important for you to be out in the field.”
With a snort, Wing smirked at her. “You do realize that I’m an officer of the Royal Guard, right? It’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing. Changelings are orange. They saw it. They saw it! Frankly, I know these weapons better than any pony alive. And, I’m the one who has the keys to get into the storage room where the suits are.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Bam. I’m going.”
Dovetail stood very still, gazing at the stallion. Slowly, she nodded. “Fine. But we’re going to have a talk when all of this is done.”
“Woo!” Wing cheered. “It’s a date, and I’ll be sure to teach you some physics if you show me some chemistry.”
She sighed. “I have a bad feeling about this…”
~~~
Dmitri could only see red, now.
Red from the blood on his side. Red on the floor of his flagship’s bridge where he dropped Blueblood before ordering him taken to the brig. Red blinking on the tactical display, just as he ordered the ship toward the castle and the bombs prepared. Red on the uniform of his captain who refused the order, saying that dropping the bomb from that close would kill them all.
Dmitri didn’t care. The red didn’t let him care.
Red in air as he slashed the captain’s face and ordered him, too, sent to the brig. Red lights as the ship went into high alert and began its slow lumber into Canterlot City airspace. Red from the feathers of the First Officer’s face as he took command. Red all around. Red everywhere.
“The end is coming.”