12: Stratofortress
Dark corridor after dark corridor, she advanced. This far down in the bowels, the illumination from the skylight shafts didn’t brighten her surroundings so much as it brought to mind the faint memory that the sun actually existed somewhere outside. The few and sporadic enchanted lamps lining the walls failed to make much of an overall difference, their light only sufficient in making the pools of darkness even deeper by simple contrast. Thankfully, the soft composition of the walls, their even surface and their wide, smooth curve meant colliding with them was easy to avoid and painless either way.
She huffed when a misstep caused her to swerve to the left until her face came to rub into the wall. She had yet to get used to her new center of balance, to her great irritation. Using a hoof to push herself away and back to the approximate middle of the corridor, she grumbled under her breath.
Couldn’t the messenger have been any more annoyingly cryptic? The raiding teams had come back and the captain had said that ‘she’d want to see what they’d brought back’. Of course he couldn’t tell the messenger any more details; he had to be as unhelpful as possible, didn’t he?
“Annoying prick,” she mumbled as she passed a stallion standing guard in the middle of a side passage, under the dull yellow glow of an enchanted lamp. It took her three more steps to stop and turn her head back towards the pony, his eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “Not you,” she tsked, “I… look, just forget it, okay?”
She looked away and resumed her walk, adjusting the thick brown coat hanging loosely over her back. That spot was still infuriatingly itchy, she noticed.
She sighed, her mind quieting slowly, bit by bit under the sporadic pools of light that she traversed. At least that whole waste of time was somewhat of an excuse to avoid the mounds of paperwork she usually had to deal with after the raids. Or, rather, it delayed it by a few minutes; short-lived victory that this was.
Squinting in the dim twilight, she made her way through the unfamiliar bowels of the fortress. She rarely had any reason to come here, but the cryptic promises were as good a motivation as any. Arriving at the prisons let her see a slightly denser concentration of guards; the increased security reassuring a small, quiet part of her mind that she hadn’t actually gotten lost.
A quick query to one of the guards let her know which room she was looking for, and she soon found it among the grid of hallways.
The cloud door slid open without a sound, and she paused to grab the non-magical lantern hanging outside, lighting it in order to see inside the windowless, lightless room.
The quiet huff of the door closing once more behind her was the last sound heard within that room before the light of her lamp reached the three prisoners and a deathly silence fell.
The steel cage sat on the clouds, infused with pegasus magic to keep it from sinking straight through the floor like most of its occupants would. The young dragon, the younger pegasus filly, and the hornless unicorn mare all stared at her, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.
She stared back, her rose-colored eyes frantically jumping between the three faces before her, their own eyes locked onto her.
“What,” she said, her near-whisper shattering the silence. The prisoners mouthed the word as well, seemingly too dumbfounded to actually speak. In an act of synchronicity that would have been comical in another situation, the rest of her sentence was uttered simultaneously by them. “…are you doing here?”
Although she was done with her question, the three prisoners added, to the end of theirs, her name as well, for they recognized her as much as she recognized them.
“…Rainbow Dash?”
The blue pegasus stared at her friends, three of the many she had not seen in three months, three of the many more she thought she’d never see again.
The lantern fell, softly bouncing twice on the soft cloud floor. Rainbow Dash threw herself at the bars of the cage, reaching inside to embrace the three travelers. Her tears mingled with Rarity’s, peppering the floor with small craters in the cloud surface. She had no words, nothing could ever properly express her relief; no words could describe the warmth blossoming within her as she hugged her friends.
*Whack*
Rainbow staggered, pushed away from the hug more by the surprise than by the blow she had just received on the right side of her face.
“Where the hay were you!?” Scootaloo screamed at the top of her lungs, her hooves firmly planted on the clouds, through the bars of the cage. “It’s been three Celestia-damned months! What have you been doing? Why in the world didn’t you come back? Where. Were. You?!”
“Scootaloo!” Rarity put a hoof on the filly’s shoulder, immediately pushed away. “What has gotten into you?”
“Me? She abandoned us!”
“I’m sure she had good reasons, really! She would never abandon us without some sort of justification…”
“Oh, yeah,” Scootaloo replied, turning towards Rainbow. “What’s your excuse?”
Rainbow had just finished getting back up on her hooves, tightly holding her coat to prevent it from slipping from her back. “I… tried. I couldn’t… I-”
“What do you mean you couldn’t?”
The blue pegasus faced the younger one directly, her expression shifting more and more towards anger. “Hey! It’s not that simple! I tried to go back to Ponyville, but it’s complicated, okay?”
The disdain on Scootaloo’s face told far more than even her words when she replied. “Tsh, element of loyalty, huh?”
Rainbow’s mouth hung open for a second, the blood-red glow of anger rushing to her head as she took a step forward. “You take that back! It’s not that easy! It’s not like I can just fly out of here, you know!”
Scootaloo stepped forward as well. “Oh yeah? Why not? Who’s going to stop you? Aren’t you the fasted dumb flyer in all of Equestria? You can just outrun any-“
“I CAN’T!” The shout came with a burst of tears, loud enough to silence the room as the three prisoners watched the usually proud face melt into a mask of pain. Rainbow averted her gaze, turning to her left as her lips quivered. Her left foreleg came up to her right shoulder, nudging the thick coat as she whispered breathlessly. “I’m… not the fastest. …Not anymore. Not like… this.”
The coat slid from her back, snagging on her left wing and causing it to twitch in discomfort. As it did, the coat was pushed further back, revealing the wiggling stump where another wing once stood. The bare, pink, lumpy flesh occupying the space where a bone should have extended to support a fan of feathers that was now missing entirely.
Rainbow Dash cringed at the gasps of horror, refusing the idea of looking at her friends’ faces. She would only see…
She knew they would only look at her like a victim; a helpless pony to be pitied and cried over. A weak, pathetic filly who needs a hug, a sad whining puppy, a…
“I’m sorry,” Scootaloo stammered, her voice barely audible. “I didn’t kn-“
“Don’t.” Rainbow cut her off, her own voice gaining an edge even she did not like. She couldn’t bear to have the conversation continue on its current course. “Don’t any of you dare feel sorry for me. I’m Rainbow Celestia-damned Dash! I don’t need your damn pity!”
She still didn’t look at them, her eyes locked onto the first thing she had found to latch onto. The flickering lamp rested silently, nestled in the cloud floor. Her heavy, furious breathing filled the silence, until Rarity’s voice arose, quivering in an almost imperceptible manner.
“Rainbow, who… who did this to you?”
Rainbow Dash’s head sunk lower, and she somehow couldn’t stop herself from letting out a chuckle. She knew what she was going to answer. She welcomed the distraction from talking about her wing, and a small part of her also relished the idea that her revelation would put them in the same torment they had put her through by digging up the feelings she hadn’t had time to bury completely. Some sort of payback, some sort of horrible prank whose punchline was its absolute honest veracity.
That is why she was smiling, weakly, somberly, when she looked back at them and answered “Princess Celestia. The signal got her too.”
“So I flew to Canterlot, right? Well, there wasn’t much left to see. Most of the buildings were still standing; I guess all that white marble can take a few hits of those crystals before going down. Everything was empty though… Well, I guess everything looked empty, since I stayed pretty high just to be sure. The… bloodstains were obvious enough anyway, I didn’t really need to get closer to understand what’d happened. And everything was so silent, I felt like I was flying in space or something. So after I took a look around the city, I went to the castle. That was what I was there for anyway, and I was kinda starting to worry about the Princess. You know, not getting a word from someone and then seeing that the town where she’s supposed to be in is just an empty ruin… it’s the kind of thing that gives you ideas, right?
“The castle… well, if you think you’ve seen a ruin, you haven’t seen the castle. I don’t think there’s even a single wall left standing, just floors and piles of rock. I looked around for a while, and then I spotted her; just a big mess of those four colors of her mane lying on the floor of what I think used to be the throne room. She wasn’t moving or anything, just lying there, so I… I…”
Rainbow cleared her throat and frowned. Deliberately avoiding facing her friends, she walked up to one of the walls, ripped out a chunk, and put it in her mouth. After about a second of something between chewing and gargling, she swallowed, and cleared her throat again.
“I’m going to be honest here, I was really dumb that day. I saw her lying there, and the first thing I thought was that maybe she was hurt or something, or maybe dead or I dunno. When I saw her, I just thought ‘she needs help’ and I started diving towards her and yelling ‘Princess’”
She brought a hoof to her face, sighing. “I guess… I didn’t expect her, I didn’t expect the signal to be able to get her of all ponies, right? …When she heard me, she just jumped to her hooves, looking everywhere. And when she actually saw me, I… I heard her scream, she sounded like she was already crying or panicking or something. You know how she’s always so calm and… in control? Yeah, the total opposite of that; she was completely terrified, and do you have any idea how scary that is coming from her? I stopped right then, trying to reverse as hard as I could.
“She only had the time to yell ‘no’ and ‘flee’, and then the crystals came out.
“I… I still remember those things when I go to sleep. I don’t have nightmares about them or anything, okay? It's just… you guys saw Twilight’s crystals, right? How they were a little bigger than the other unicorns’? Yeah… Celestia’s… those things were kayaks. On fire. Shooting them literally blew rubble away from her… I managed to avoid the first ones, but she just kept shooting and shooting and screaming and I… I just decided to bail out. So I tried to just fly down and away from her until I could hide under the edge of the castle’s floor level.
“Thankfully she couldn’t chase after me, because I don’t know who or how or when or whatever, but she was chained to the floor. There was this big, silver-looking chain around her neck, keeping her stuck about ten feet from the spot where it was just planted in the floor. So, yeah, you guys can probably relax, she’s not going anywhere. I think. …I hope.
“So then I was heading for the edge of the cliff to just fly down the mountain and away from her, while she just shot hundreds of those insane burning crystals everywhere… and, and…"
She shook her head, taking a deep breath which she exhaled in a shuddering sigh.
“I really tried, guys, I tried to dodge them all…”
She was lost in thought for a moment, taking the time to adjust the coat draped over her back. After a deep breath, she continued.
“I don’t even remember the pain. I think I blacked out as soon as it touched me. I was almost low enough to be safe, too… which I guess is what saved me; she didn’t get another chance to shoot me. I must’ve crashed into one of the waterfalls and drifted downriver, because the next thing I remember is waking up in here, about four days later. Apparently a raiding team spotted me floating in the middle of the river splitting Vanhoover in half and rescued me before I got swept out to sea.”
Spike broke the tense silence they had been wrapped up into while listening to Rainbow’s tale. “So then they amputated your wing because it was too damaged?”
“Ha!” The short bark that escaped the blue mare’s mouth could only be considered a laugh if filtered through a heavy dose of imagination. Her mirthless grin was much the same. “No, no one did anything to my wing. That… that’s just where it stopped burning. Cauterized on contact.” Pulling her remaining wing out of her coat, she touched a point just past the furthest joint. “This is where she hit me.”
In the stunned silence that followed, Rainbow picked up the lantern and suspended it on a cloud hook she extruded from the wall. Then, with her usual grace and follow-through, she proceeded to change the subject away from any more talk about her wing.
“So, what are you guys doing here?”
Visiting the grand office was a chore at the best of times, making it an outright torture for the blue pegasus given the urgency of her business. Several security checkpoints slowed her progress to the point where she considered taking the shortcut of plowing through the walls and getting to her destination immediately.
Nevertheless, at least and at long last, she pushed open the sturdy double doors of the grand commander’s office.
The harsh glare of the nearly-setting sun caused her to flinch and squint, turning the silhouette of the room’s other occupant into an indistinct blur.
“Major Rainbow Dash, what do you need.”
The words were thrown at her dejectedly, in the kind of monotone that only exists in the mouths of ponies who are beyond busy. Rainbow’s eyes gradually acclimated to the light, letting her finally see the turquoise coat and golden mane of Cloudsdale’s grand commander.
“Can we drop the formalities, Dust? I have a favor to ask.”
Grand Commander Lightning Dust looked up from the report she had been reading and into Rainbow’s eyes. “What is it?”
Rainbow Dash compulsively adjusted her coat, straightening the collar over her neck. “I need transport to the surface,” she said, “one of the balloons or something.”
“For you?”
“Err, I’m also going to need a prisoner release authorisation.”
Lightning Dust narrowed her eyes, immediately moving to pull out another piece of paper from one of the piles on her desk. “A unicorn, a dragon, and a filly?” she asked as she read from the page. Just as soon as Rainbow Dash began answering yes, before the word had a chance to be completed, Lightning Dust interrupted. “No.”
“What? Why?”
“I have all the reasons in the world to say no to that, and you know it.” The report went back to the pile it used to rest on, and Lightning Dust joined her hooves over her desk before leaning on them. “You know how it works, Dash: I have to look good for those who like me in charge, and even better for those who don’t. Releasing prisoners we just captured is going to raise questions, and questions make me look bad.”
“Oh, come on! This is important! Can’t you make an exception just this once?”
“Ha!” Lightning’s short, aggressive bark echoed in the wide room. “Make an exception? Who do you take me for?”
“For someone who wasn’t afraid to break a few rules, remember?”
“Yes, Dash, I remember exactly how breaking rules killed my dream!”
Rainbow stomped a hoof on the cloud floor. “Oh, come on! These are your own rules we’re talking about now! This is different! Why do you even care about breaking them if you’re the only one who could punish you for it? Besides, it’s not like your dream would’ve had a chance even if you didn’t screw things up at the academy!”
“Wow, Dash!” Lightning slammed her own hoof on her desk. “Thanks for reminding me I was destined to fail no matter what! It’s great to know I never had any control in my life!” She held out a hoof to silence any reply while she took a deep breath, eyes closed. “Look, everything I’ve ever wanted was ruined because someone, somewhere, failed to control something. I failed to control myself at the academy, everyone failed to control those damn unicorns, and my dad failed to control his stupid disease!”
Lightning rose up behind her desk, stomping once more on it. “Well guess what, Dash; now that I’m in charge, I. Will. Control!” A hoof blindly swept across the wide window behind her, beyond which the vast cavernous expanse of the central room could be seen. “All those idiots down there might not like it, but I’m in charge, I make the rules, and I’m damn well going to enforce them for absolutely everyone; because if I don’t, I look weak, and if I look weak I lose control; and if I lose control, something, somewhere, goes to shit!”
The turquoise mare slowly lowered herself back into her seat, straightening her golden mane while breathing deeply. She then clapped her hooves together and adopted a thoroughly insincere smile of smug arrogance. “So, Dash; tell me why, in the wide, ugly world of Equestria, I should release those prisoners.”
“Because that thing with the unicorns? I think they can fix it.”
“Pfah! Fix it? How do you fix mass treason?”
Rainbow dash took a step forward, a glint of hope sparkling in her eyes. “By the fact that it’s not treason! They’ve all been brainwashed!”
“By who? Who in the world could brainwash every single unicorn in Equestria at once? Who even has that kind of power?”
“Dragons. Dragons did this to the unicorns.”
Lightning eyed the one-winged pegasus with an expression of complete disdainful bafflement. “You’re kidding right? Dragons? Those big dumb overgrown lizards found a way to voodoo all our dear innocent unicorns into killing everything against their will? Do you really expect me to believe…-“
“Yeah I do, it’s true-“
“…That unicornist propaganda bullcrap?” Her hooves waved out in front of and around her face in a mocking imitation of placating gestures. “Oooh, the poor widdle unicorns killed everyone and laughed about it but it’s not their fault! Ooh, it’s the big bad dwagons that did it!” She leaned forward, stomping both hooves on the desk again. “Are you even hearing yourself, Dash? They’re obviously trying to shift the blame like the slimy assassins they are! Why are you even listening to them? That’s a unicorn we’re talking about! A unicorn and a dragon, the kind that you just said yourself are responsible for all those deaths! They’re the enemy, Dash! Why do you trust the enemy?”
“They’re not the enemy! No one is the enemy! Dragons are the enemy! And I mean the other dragons, this one’s cool!”
“Are you seriously telling me that you trust those liars and their stupid lies?”
“I trust them more than I trust you!”
Lightning’s mouth hung open for a mere second, quickly setting into a grim companion for her narrowed eyes.
“I-I mean,” Rainbow stammered, trying to defuse the quiet anger she could see on the other mare’s face. “I know them, they’re my f-“
“That will be all, Major. Dismissed.”
Rainbow stood there, wracking her brain for a way to calm Lightning down, looking for the perfect word to convince her to listen to her requests. An irresistible hook that would make her instantly reconsider her decision to expel her from her office. She did this under the ever darkening glare of the grand commander, instinctively looking to buy herself some time by taking slow steps backwards in the hopes of fighting Lightning’s growing impatience with appeasing gestures of minimal compliance.
“I mean,” she eventually croaked, halfway to the door, “you can trust them if I do, ri-“
“GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!”
And so, reluctantly, she did.
Spike slowly dipped his hand through the cloud floor, waving it around in the wet mass before bringing it out, glistening with newfound moisture. Licking the water from the appendage was one way to quench his thirst at least.
Glancing at Rarity beyond the apparently sleeping form of Scootaloo, he could easily see the same unease he felt show on her face as well. The panic of the tumultuous morning had made way to a few dozen minutes of tense dread as they rose ever higher in the air, eventually coming to a stop inside this gigantic and mysterious cloud structure. The following few hours had been spent wallowing in a roller-coaster war between helpless dread and boredom, until Rainbow Dash had come to meet them.
That visit had been a mostly pleasant surprise, at least. It would have been better to see her intact, but it was still an unexpected miracle to know that she was still alive.
Spike lowered his arm once more into the cloud floor, letting it hang freely in the ethereal mass. Somewhere below was the ground, and indeterminate distance away. The immensity of the cloud structure they were held in should have made it impossible to hide from the ground. From what he had seen of the colossal object, it was roughly the size of a small mountain; either they were at an unbelievably high altitude or they had been transported at least beyond the horizon he could have seen from Stoneshade. Where were they?
The only answer they’d gotten out of Rainbow Dash before she went away to attempt to get them out of there was that they were in Cloudsdale, somehow. Far from being helpful, this answer opened up so many more questions; what had happened here and why was Cloudsdale within flying distance of a small east coast town being the most prominent.
He closed his eyes for a moment, sighing as he laid his head on the cold metal bars that made up the floor of their cage. These questions were pointless for now. There was no way to answer them while locked inside a cage. He might as well try to sleep a little, now that night had arrived; he could not think of an easier explanation for why the clouds surrounding them now seemed as opaque as bricks. What little light managed to filter through the thick cloud walls had completely vanished hours ago, leaving only the dimming radiance of the dying lantern to give them sight.
“They could have at least brought us something to eat,” he heard Rarity mumble as the lantern finally died. “Oh great, now we’re in the dark. Marvelous.”
A few more minutes passed in silence, Spike opting to roll over on his back in preparation for what was to be an unbearably uncomfortable night. Scootaloo at least had the advantage of being able to put some of her weight on the soft clouds of the floor; without that luxury, both Spike and Rarity were going to have to endure cold steel bars as their only mattress.
The soft jingle of the lantern moving made him think that he might need to reconsider his plans for the night. “What was that?” Scootaloo asked, obviously still awake despite the appearances of a few minutes ago.
“Shh, guys,” came Rainbow Dash’s whispered reply, bringing both a small hint of relief and a fair amount of apprehension to the pit of Spike’s stomach. Why was Rainbow sneaking around in a place she was ostensibly free to roam? “It’s me. I’m breaking you out of here.”
“What?” Rarity choked out, nearly unable to contain her shout. “How would we even get out of here? This cage is the only thing between me and a fall to my death!”
“Shhhhh, look; I can carry you, and Scoots can carry Spike, okay? There’s a balloon hangar about six hundred feet from here. We go there and put you guys in one of them, inflate it to about half, drop out of the city and let the balloon act as a parachute until we land, or maybe even fly it if Spike can fill it up enough between here and the ground. We’ll be out of here and out of sight before they even know it.”
Metallic sounds could be heard for a few seconds, followed by the jingle of the lantern once more as Rainbow approached the cage. “Hey Spike, a little fire please?”
“Uh, sure.” Spike breathed a small spur of fire between the bars of the cage, which Rainbow used to reignite the lantern. Grabbing the handle in her mouth, she screwed back the cap of a small bottle labeled ‘lamp oil’, before hanging the light on the nearest wall.
Rarity reached through the cage to put a hoof on her friend’s shoulders. “Rainbow? What is going on? Why are we sneaking away in the middle of the night? Are… are we in danger?”
The blue pegasus bit her lip for a moment while she patted her large coat. “Not unless we get caught, ha-ha…” Her weak smile fell flat in mere seconds, soon after which she found what she’d been looking for and pulled out of her coat a pair of bolt-cutters. “Seriously though, she… I mean they don’t want to release you guys, and I’m not sure we can afford to wait until they change their minds.” In a second she snapped the lock of the cage, punching a hole in the floor with a hoof where she threw the bits of broken metal. “What you told me of this whole dragon conspiracy thing makes me think this is important enough to risk it.”
She opened the door, stepping inside and lowering herself to the floor so the unicorn could climb on. “So come on, we gotta move fast before the night patrols come around.”
Rarity slowly, hesitantly clambered on top of Rainbow’s back, laying down and wrapping her hooves around her friend’s shoulders. Rainbow Dash rose up once more, taking the precaution of putting all four hooves between the bars of the cage so they’d rest directly on the clouds. They sank slightly deeper than usual yet remained stable, the clouds providing solid support despite the added weight.
“Are you really sure about this, Rainbow?”
“Yeah,” the pegasus answered, lifting a hoof to lower her friend’s grip on her neck so she could breathe a little better. Stepping out of the cage gave her pause as the hooves around her neck tightened uncomfortably. “Rarity you’re kinda choking me, relax; I got you.” After a moment of hesitation, the unicorn’s hooves tentatively moved back, this time finding their grip just behind the pegasus’ legs. With her breath once more possible, Rainbow looked back at the two young ones still in the cage. Scootaloo seemed easily capable of supporting Spike’s weight.
“Okay, follow me very closely, Scoots.” Rainbow’s first step forward immediately brought, to her annoyance, Rarity’s left foreleg around her neck again. The unicorn’s breathing was shallow and fast.
“It’s going to be fine, Rares, I promise. Just… okay, you can put that leg around my neck if it makes you feel better, but just keep the other one where it is, okay?”
Feeling her friend’s weak nod, the blue pegasus advanced once more. Carefully, she made her way to the lantern and snuffed it out. “Just follow the wall, squirt.”
A few seconds of shuffling about led the group to the door, which Rainbow cracked open to peek at the hallway beyond.
“Coast is clear,” she whispered in the darkness. “Follow me very closely, and stop whenever I raise my wing like this, okay?”
Scootaloo observed the swift, silent motion of her idol’s wing; a movement blurred in the shadows visible only as a deformation of the misshapen black mass standing in front of her. The muffled hoofsteps signaled the resumed march through the darkness. They turned left.
“And be quiet, everyone.”
The penumbra of the corridors felt palpable, a thick blanket of shadows seeming to absorb their breath as much as the vaporous floor absorbed their steps. The few blinding pools of light cast by the lanterns brought nothing of the expected comfort; rather, the fear of being seen only increased in the few heart-pounding seconds where they had to cross them. Would this be the one where they would hear the surprised gasp of a guard behind them, or a commanding order to halt? Would this lantern be the one under which they would come across another pony at the meeting point of the hallways?
Thankfully, besides a few distant silhouettes, Rainbow seemed to know or intuit a path upon which they found no living soul. Every time any sign of life in the path ahead made itself known, she would change course into a different corridor, one always desert. She knew exactly where she was going, despite her three companions now being irredeemably lost amidst the maze of passages.
Soon, however, Rainbow opened a large door to the side, ushering everyone into a vast room whose ceiling would have been lost in darkness whether or not they had brought light with them. The vast space was necessary, they soon understood, for the purpose of storing at least a dozen hot air balloons, each one sitting on the cloud floor with their envelopes held by some unseen manner to hang loosely, deflated, above.
No one was in sight, and only a single lantern above the door offered any sort of illumination. The faint enchanted glow was just enough to guide the group to one of the balloons, where the two pegasi relieved themselves of their carried friends.
“Okay Spike, you can inflate that thing with your fire breath, right?”
“Uh, I think so, but…”
“What about our stuff?” Scootaloo interjected. “All my gear and their bags and stuff?”
Squinting as she did her best to inspect the balloon’s slack lines and fabric, Rainbow clicked her tongue. “Look, it’s not really important, guys. Not as much as getting out of here right now, okay?”
“Oh, Rainbow,” Rarity said, “I do hate to be contrarian, but we do need our belongings. The Signal Detector in Spike’s bag is our only way to know where to even go.”
Rainbow Dash tore her gaze away from the balloon’s rigging to look at her friends with wide eyes, before bringing a hoof to her forehead with a groan. “You’re kidding me.” It was a question as much as the bored groan of an office worker receiving an additional three hours’ worth of work at the end of a grueling day was a question. It was to the realization that one’s day had just become twice as much of an ordeal the same thing that a scream was to fear; an immediate instinctual response to a given stimulus.
She rubbed her temples, her eyes firmly closed.
“Okay, if they confiscated your stuff, it should still be in the raid triage room, I think. Probably.” She opened her eyes, looking around the room before turning back towards her friends with a tired, short sigh. “Right, fine, okay. You guys just stay here, hide in the basket, and wait ‘till I come back. I’m gonna go get your stuff, or at least that detector thingy. What does even it look like again?”
“A big metal cube about as big as my head,” Spike answered, “In the big green bag; should be easy to find.”
“Okay, cool.” With a flick of her coat she had turned around, heading for the door. “Stay hidden and don’t make a move until… I dunno, you hear my voice or something.” She waved a hoof. “I’ll be right back.”
After a quick peek outside, she was gone.
The three companions settled on the balloon’s rough floor, thankful for the return to a somewhat solid surface to rest on. ‘Rest’ was, however, a massive exaggeration, given the nerve-wracking proximity of their escape, and how every second passing was yet another chance to be denied that possibility. Thinking about the fact that the only thing keeping two of them from falling to their deaths was a relatively thin layer of pegasus-magic-infused wicker was also similarly unhelpful in their attempts to relax.
Minutes passed, the nervous silence filling the basket as much as the shadows cast by the light above the door.
Perhaps Spike could begin inflating the balloon in advance, he thought, if only to pass the time until Rainbow’s return. If they were to somehow launch the vehicle without inflating it fully, it would still need a substantial reserve of hot air to attain buoyancy between here and the ground, however far that was.
As he pondered this choice, lying on his back and staring at the limp canopy dangling above, he heard the soft hiss of the opening door. Glances were exchanged; hopeful, relieved and curious. The muffled rattle of metal spreading around the room turned those looks to worried stares. More than one pony had just entered. The three froze, their breaths suddenly stuck in their throats in an effort to quiet any sound they could make.
The new ponies quietly shuffled around the room, not making a sound beyond the quiet clink of …armor, or tin cans, possibly, if one wanted to venture into less plausible ideas. The fearful glances shared among the three companions echoed the same silent questions; why were these ponies so quiet, what were they doing here, and where was Rainbow Dash? Was she with them? Who were they? Why had they not heard Rainbow calling out to them if she was with the strangers?
Then, all at once, these numerous questions ceased to matter; as the glaring ceiling lights flashed on and illuminated the three friends’ startled faces while someone outside their secluded basket shouted.
“Alright, fugitives, you either show your faces or you hope to get lucky when we start poking spears in all those soft little wicker baskets!”
The one thing that really surprised Spike as he and his companions rose up from their hiding spot wasn’t that they had been caught, or that their overall treatment at the hooves of this general group of pegasi had been infallibly rude beyond reason; what really surprised him was this day’s uncanny ability to constantly outdo itself in terms of getting increasingly worse. Clearly this was shaping up to become one of the worst days of his life.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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I'm glad to see the story continuing, i look forward to chapter 13.
i still remember being very disturbed by chapter 8, that was some pretty chilling stuff.
5176433
Because it wouldn't cure them. All it did for Rarity was that it prevented her from being affected in the first place.
For example, all the unicorns back in ponyville did get their horns cut off when they were captured/detained. They're still dangerous and violent, but less lethal in their attempts.
For the rest of the world, it's just a mix of not knowing about that, and not being willing to cripple themselves for no immediately obvious reasons.
Great chapter! Freaking love it!
Looking forward to chapter 13's spooky release!
More please
Damn it. Found it, read it, loved it... then proceded to check for update frequency, haha, and this isn't a frequency it all it's ... a sort of splutter. Don't be a unicorn, buddy, don't torture your readers like this. They need more.
Interesting, very interesting. Maintaining an air of authenticity despite such grim prospects is an achievement of its own, let alone the wonderful writing style and excellent use of fear. I look forward to your next update.
Appropriate listening muzaks for this story:
In Absentia, by Porcupine Tree.
It's an album about insanity, and somehow it fits very well with this.
5176933
Oh god, please don't tell me I made an accidental reference to Warhammer...
...Man, poor Celestia and Dash. And, the gang isn't having much of a break, either. When this is over, those evil dragons is so going to have a fate far worse than death. As for Dash, can't wait to see what happen to her.
C&C:
...and where was Rainbow dash?
> Capitalized 'dash'.
5177181
Fixed, Thanks!
5177097
5177234
The first thing to say about this question is that... well, the story is moderately old. As such, I planned it out and started to write it before he was un-stoned and reformed. So, headcanon timeline states that he's currently still petrified.
Secondly, as hinted/stated in 'Tyrant', most anything with a(t least one) horn(s) is capable of receiving the signal. However, I feel common sense (And maybe basic neuroscience, I don't know, didn't research this too much) would probably say that different creatures have wildly varying brainwave patterns and triggers or something. Given that the signal was made specifically for unicorns, it doesn't have quite the same precise effect on other things.
In short, if Discord was there, he'd be affected in completely unpredictable ways.
Hmm. I'm curious about Luna is considering she already had a nice batch of mental magic nastiness to contend with for 1000 years.
5177351
Considering that Discord was still able to percieve stuff when petrified, that implies that the signal is doing completely unpredictable things to him but he can't do anything about it... if he's ever de-petrified, he'll still have his reality-warping power, but his personality could be anything.
--------------
Considering the story - it's very, very dark, but not entirely hopeless. I can see at least five possible ways for the group to leave Cloudsdale and continue on their journey (and in three of those cases Cloudsdale would still be standing afterwards) and at least two possible long-term endings for the affected unicorns/alicorns (in neither case are they cured, but in both cases unicorns are, as a race, eventually able to re-integrate themselves into Equestrian society - if the other pony races will allow them to do so, and with certain rules being followed).
One thing I don't fully understand, though; why haven't the dragons tried to take advantage of Equestria's fractured state yet? Part one of their plan has succeeded, so why give the ponies most of a year to recover and start rebuilding, instead of hitting them before they can recover?
5177630
Because they expect that the ponies will not recover. Their plan hinges on the fact that the unicorns will reproduce and multiply relentlessly, until they completely smother all other life in Equestria a few generations down the line. With their ridiculously long lifespans (the time unit they associate with the same feeling of "time-has-passed" that we associate with a year... spans roughly an entire decade), they tend to be very patient, and make some very long-term plans.
They expect to casually walk into Equestria in a few decades and come face-to-face with an overflowing population consisting entirely of delicious creatures who are physically incapable of defending themselves in any way that can harm the dragons. (they are immune to the crystal blasts, the unicorns can only attack that way, and there will soon be nothing else than unicorns in Equestria.)
They simply think their plan is going exactly as expected, and have no reason to 'open the oven before the souffle is done', if you want to see it that way.
What a story to find near Halloween! I just finished The Signal, and I'm looking forward to diving into this one later!
This is a good story.
5178462
I'm... I'm going to say: Magic.
cdn.meme.am/instances/51634969.jpg
But seriously, yeah. If we're trying to put real-world physics into this, there's no way a piece of carved crystal would even produce an electromagnetic transmission. So either we accept that the signal is electro-magic (Magic working mostly like electromagnetism) or something like that, or we just consider that this is still just an arguably cartoonish world with non-realistic, non-intuitive laws of physics.
5178829
Here's a few crazy analogies for how the signal works:
The signal is a four-disk video game where the very final victory screen turns you into a killer instantly and forever. Rarity lost her console before she could finish that game.
Or, another way to see it: the signal is a big jigsaw puzzle that, once complete and viewed in its entirety, turns you into a killer instantly and forever. Rarity lost the box before she could assemble all the pieces.
Or, closer to a literal interpretation; the signal is a big old-timey computer program that comes in the form of seven floppy disks. Rarity threw away the last three disks, so the parts of the code that are already there don't compile and are completely inert.
And, because no explanation is complete without a crappy car analogy:
The signal is a mail-order, piece-by-piece, do-it-youself car where you get each individual piece of the car at random from the mail, one piece every day or so. Rarity cancelled her subscription to that service before she received all the car's parts, so all she has is a pile of useless car parts that don't constitute enough of a car to be assembled as one.
5178462
5178562
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity (watch out for the crazy math)
Given that applying force to the crystal produces electricity and applying electricity produces force then an adequate transmission strength at the right frequency would be nearly inaudible and yet produce vibration in material conducive to the effect (i.e. if receives the signal and vibrates). Any deformation of the material could, I suppose, produce electricity which if conducted into the unicorns brain might have effects on their neural processes.
It might not work in reality, but it seems sound enough for fiction.
5179881
I'll have Rainbow explain it at some point. I hope it'll be plausible enough.
5177940
Huh. Okay, that makes sense... but they are nonetheless being idiots. They already know that their victims will be doing all they can to avoid the mind control, by creatively re-interpreting the rules set upon them where possible (that group of unicorns heading for the Cloister being a prime example, making a lot of noise and shouting ahead warning ponies to hide), thus giving the time to do so is a mistake on their part. It's a believable mistake, but it's a mistake.
Personally, though, I'm not expecting them to realise that until it's too late.
Oh, I almost forgot:
Next chapter: Our heroes are judged.
5180622
Probably won't be, but I'll read it anyway.
Cliffhanger! And is it just me or do they get stuck everywhere? I was kinda happy to hear that (insert character that appeared this chapter) was alive and well but it was still sad to hear her story
Im sorry I ever doubted her.
5205605 in dark souls 1, one of the bosses is named smaug. Could have sworn you were referencing that.
(Or was he named smoug...?)
5205701
You mean Executioner Smough?
Yeah, nothing to do with this fine dragon here.
5206140 my bad. lolz
The hate I feel towards that stupid commander and the cruel pegasi is only surpassed by my hate towards the Dragons. Obviously.