Armor's Game

by OTCPony

Hard Sell

Fancypants did not hear the steady rattle and groan of the train as it lumbered its way up the sheer face of the Unicorn Range. He was lost in the emergency report dropped into his in-tray that morning.

Toffeenose Mining had experienced a sharp fall in profits last month, the report said. Not a huge one, but certainly a rapid drop. Fancypants knew exactly the reason: they had underestimated the full cost of paying for the farm investment programme. Crops were being harvested but had yet to go to market, and what with soldiers only just returned from the war still trying to re-order their farms, Toffeenose Mining and Rich Industries’ cash outflows were only going to increase in the month to come, and their profits shrink.

The board will want me to cut and run, Fancypants thought grimly. He anticipated a few contentious meetings, but all he had to do was hold his ground. He was the majority shareholder, and his business integrity depended on seeing the investment programme through. For the sake of both his company and his personal honour, he could not just abandon it and saddle Filthy Rich with the loss.

This is a squall to be weathered, he thought decisively. We’ll back in the black before Hearth’s Warming once the crops get sold.

Fancypants turned his mind to happier matters: the value of his company’s stock was high, as was market confidence in his business. And Toffeenose Mining was leading the way in employing ex-soldiers who had left behind their old jobs when they joined the Army. He was on his way to inspect the first results of that at the Mount Sable Mine, Toffeenose’s largest coal mining operation in Equestria.

An aide strode up the Spartan carriage to him. He laid a hard hat and a high-visibility jacket on the table in front of Fancypants. “Five minutes, sir.”

Fancypants sighed as he pulled on the hated concessions to health and safety. They always creased his suit and ruined his cravat.

The narrow-gauge railway wheezed to a halt. Not for the first time, Fancypants was acutely aware that he was hanging thousands of feet off the side of the mountain. He calmly stood up and stepped out of the bare wood carriage and strode through the morning chill across the pithead towards the waiting line of foreponies. Behind him, the push locomotive gently puffed steam while freshly-mined coal was dumped into the trucks waiting in front of it.

There was no escaping the fact that a mine of any sort would never be pretty: the Mount Sable Mine’s pithead was literally a chunk taken out of the side of a mountain and flattened off, but Toffeenose Mining prided itself on its mines being as environmentally-friendly as possible. Contaminated water from mine processes was stored in mined-out shafts before being pumped into tanks on the trains for transport to cleaning plants. Slag piles were kept out of sight and sold on as quickly as possible for gravel, construction, or rock science. Trees had been planted around the site. Most importantly, ninety percent of the operation was below ground in a labyrinthine warren of shafts and drifts. Fancypants would have nothing to do with the open-cast mining it was rumoured less-than-scrupulous companies used in Zebrica. But for a hooful of outbuildings and the five winding gear towers, nopony would ever guess this was a mine.

He smiled as he reached his workers, shaking hooves and joking. Despite the early morning, carts of coal were already racing from the winding gear to the preparation plant to be washed, and miners in bright overalls with lights on their helmets were bustling into cages to be winched down to their drifts. Some, he noted, were gaunter than others and had faraway looks in their eyes. Some of them bore scars. Our new soldiers.

“Jolly good business you have going on here!” he laughed to his overseers heartily. “Take me through everything!”

***

“Okay lads, look busy!” cried Mine Overseer Charcoal. “The boss is supposed to be coming down here in an hour. Let’s get full carts for him!”

Drift 12’s ponies gossiped and joked as they made their way down the gallery. Toffeenose Mining was such an expansive company that some miners might go their entire careers without catching so much as a glimpse of Fancypants, and proud though he was to be a coal miner, Charcoal had never believed that his unglamorous pit would be graced with such a visit.

Charcoal frowned at the Earth Pony trotting next to him. He was a young stallion. He looked to have barely earned the pickaxe on his flank. He was carrying the firedamp detector lamps and the toolkit for checking ventilation pipes for leaks. “You new here, kid?”

“Yes sir!” The stallion’s voice was almost a squeak, eager to impress. “First day!”

“Where’s what’s-his-name... Grey Slate? He’s our vent pony.”

“Sent in a note this morning saying he fell sick over the weekend,” said an older miner with a pickaxe over his shoulder. “Didn’t say what.”

Charcoal shrugged. He wasn’t going to question the kid’s qualifications. Nopony got down here without impeccable credentials.

The crew turned into Drift 12, hanging up lanterns of fireflies as they went for the day’s shift. The drift sloped down gently into the depths of the mountain so the gas had collected at the bottom. They were halfway down the drift before they smelled it.

Charcoal came to a dead stop as it hit him: an overpowering reek of rotting eggs. “Stinkdamp.”

Hydrogen sulphide, he knew the eggheads called it. It wasn’t the smell that had stopped him, but what it implied. It meant that the drift wasn’t properly ventilated, and over the weekend had been filled with poisonous, explosive stinkdamp, a gas that was invariably accompanied by the just-as-dangerous firedamp.

The lamps, Charcoal thought, staring at the detector lamps slung around the new kid’s barrel. He already had a leg over his muzzle to block the stink. Why didn’t the lamps flare when we entered?!

“Get out!” he spluttered. “Get those lamps out! Slowly!”

But the kid was jumpy. Nopony could have expected it to all go wrong on his first day, and he was startled by the urgency in Charcoal’s voice. He turned quickly, fast enough to cause a draught through the gauze in the lamps and cause the flame to pass through.

The pony Charcoal thought was called Grey Slate had not just disconnected Drift 12’s ventilator, he had also tampered with the oil feed to the drift’s detector lamps. It had allowed the flames to burn low enough not to flare when they entered the gas-choked drift. Twist Turn had counted on a spark from anbaric equipment to set the firedamp off, but the breeze passing through the lamps generated a white-hot spot on the gauze that was more than enough.

Charcoal never heard the roar, but he felt his face and coat burn as the kid vanished in a terrifying flash of flame. He just had time to see his miners torn apart by the expanding blast front screaming towards him, kicking up coal dust from the drift floor and igniting that as well, before the wall of fire consumed him.

***

Fancypants felt the tremors first. He paused mid-joke to look down as the grey stone beneath him began to shake. His foreponies spun round to stare in disbelief at the mine shaft heads. Then, beginning with a growl like a beast woken from sleep, building to a thunder loud enough to shake the heavens, pillars of smoke and fire erupted from all five mine shafts.

Fancypants was catapulted off his hooves. The very ground seemed to be alive. He could see nothing but choking grey dust and an endless roar filled his ears. He caught snatches of screaming ponies being hurled away from the pitheads, carts weighing multiple tons toppling over and burying miners in coal, the trees surrounding the mine being blasted clean of leaves, the outbuildings being blow to splinters, the winding gears being lifted fifty feet into the air before crashing down, blazing meteors of coal launched from the shafts streaking down through the grey autumn sky...

Fancypants didn’t know how long the horror lasted. He didn’t remember it ending, or even getting up. He only remembered galloping through the dust and shattered rubble as his miners staggered around him, desperate to rescue a few more from the ruin of what had once been his.

***

Hundreds were out shopping on Whinnysota’s Main Street in the bright, crisp autumn morning. The sky was blue, cold and cloudless. Dozens were filing in an out of shops every minute, and it was never too early to get a few Hearth’s Warming purchases in before the rush.

Fleur de Lis was no exception. She trotted happily down Main Street, revelling in the admiring stares ponies gave her as she passed. There was no need to hurry: Fancypants would be up inspecting his mine all day, and she had hours and hours left to browse before she would have to settle on a present for him.

At that thought she instinctively turned to look east, across the valley over the River Ramube to Mount Sable. The last peak of the Unicorn Range was dark and forbidding even in the sun. She could just make out the switchback course of the mountain railway zigzagging up its face. In its shadow was Downtown Whinnysota. Unlike here on the Neighing Heights, with its fancy shops and glass-fronted towers holding big businesses and smart apartments, Downtown was a flat, sprawling collection of miners’ suburbs.

Fleur shuddered at the thought of Fancypants being up there, down a mine of all places! And a coal mine at that! She might take an active interest in her husband’s business, but she viewed mines as most ponies did sewage systems: fascinating works of engineering, but hardly something to go poking around in!

Then the bustle of Main Street fell still and silent as a roar like thunder filled the air. Confused ponies looked up expecting to see a storm brewing, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

But there is, Fleur realised suddenly, with a thrill of horror. A great grey pillar climbed from Mount Sable, thrusting into the sky and casting a shadow over Downtown Whinnysota, as if the mountain had suddenly become a volcano.

Then the smoke spread over Uptown, bathing the Ramube and the Neighing Heights in shadow. Across the city, board meetings stopped, carriages slid to a halt, and breakfasts were left as curious ponies looked up at the great grey cloud.

Then it began. A rain of rock and burning coal hailed down on Whinnysota, smashing through the windows of tower blocks and starting fires, crashing into homes and collapsing roofs, and slamming into packed streets like meteorites, ripping carriages to splinters, bursting fire hydrants open in jets of water, and sending thousands of screaming ponies scurrying indoors.

A winding gear, spinning cable like whips, fell from the mountain and obliterated the Toffeenose Miner’s Club. Even as it came to a halt in the mound of shattered brick and tile, its trailing cables landed in the surrounding streets and scythed ponies in half. A boulder the size of a six-seater carriage swiped a Pegasus delivery truck team from the air before it crashed through the roof of the mercifully-empty Whinnysota Convention Centre. And one piece of debris arced down over Main Street.

Fleur ran, her mane flying. She did not know where to go, but none of the hundreds of other panicked, screaming ponies around her seemed to know where either. Chunks of rock trailing flame landed all around her, filling the air with choking smoke.

Then another fireball, bigger than all the others, landed before her. It tore through the bell tower of City Hall, hitting with an absurd bong as the bell shattered. The tower was left a jagged ruin, and the fireball tore a trench right down the middle of Main Street towards Fleur, before it slid to a halt.

Fleur stared in dumb horror at the thing before her as other ponies continued to scream and run. It was a huge slab of wood, forcibly split down the middle so that one end was a jagged mass of splinters, but the rest of it was varnished and polished on it she could still make out the remains of three gold crowns, and the bold letters MOUNT SABLE MI..., and below that, TOFFEENOSE MINI...

Fleur spun on her hooves and galloped back down Main Street, shoving past every other pony who was trying to run in the other direction. She ran, dodging round abandoned carriages, threading through side streets, her mane a mess and streaked with coal dust, towards Mount Sable. Fancy!

***

Twilight sipped her tea, curling up on her chair as she drew her book closer. Rear Echelon’s damned project was done, her friends were home, and tonight, as Pinkie had been very quick to remind her yesterday, was the ‘Welcome Home From The War’ Party for all of Ponyville’s soldiers. She smiled as she took a teaspoon in her magic and stirred some of Zecora’s finest home-brewed tea. It was past time she saw everypony.

Then the rumble struck Golden Oaks, shaking dust from the rafters, knocking books from their shelves and rattling Twilight’s scientific instruments on their stands. Owlowiscious tumbled from his perch and Spike, until that very moment snoring in his basket, leapt from it screaming to hide under a bookshelf.

What in Celestia’s name is that?! Twilight leapt from her chair and raced up a spiral staircase out on to the highest balcony. Ponies, some still in nightcaps from long lies, were filling the streets below her as they tried to discover the source of the noise.

On her balcony, Twilight turned her telescope east. From the balcony, the source of the explosion was just a smear of grey in the distance, but as she turned the focusing knob on the telescope, Twilight saw the column of smoke issuing from Mount Sable.

***

“Your Highness,” said War Minister Rear Echelon firmly. “You must understand, Their Highnesses’ Government is finding it increasingly difficult to justify even the current level of mobilisation. Radical Road’s lot won’t even accept the recruitment infrastructure we’re building as a contingency plan. They won’t let this request fly!”

Shining Armor faced Echelon across the desk in the Minister of War’s office in the North Tower of Canterlot Castle. Rear Echelon was perhaps the least-popular politician in Equestria at the moment and he was not about to accept something that would lead to more public opprobrium. When he’d first raised the Army all those months ago, Shining Armor had frankly hoped that the civilian War Minister would just be a yes-pony facilitator for the professional Commander-in-Chief. Rear Echelon had proved to be anything but that. Perhaps, Shining Armor realised, the appointment had been Celestia’s way of getting back at him.

“This is a matter of urgency,” he said tersely. “I need more troops.”

“You already have the Guards and five other regiments, and we could only give you those because they’re billeted in their home cities.”

“We could raise a new force from unemployed demobs, then.”

Rear Echelon raised a sceptical eyebrow. “The Treasury won’t go for it, Your Highness. Nor will the Opposition. If you could just tell us why you need it then I could be of more help.”

Shining Armor wondered what he could tell him: of Diamond Dogs whispering of mythical creatures coming for them, of those same mythical creatures attacking his soldiers on the Dead Road, of demons coming in the night to kill him. Jade Stone was right; they will never believe me. “A matter of national security,” he said stupidly.

“So you’ve said, but defence policy cannot be built on tilting at windmills.” Rear Echelon sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Look, Your Highness, I trust your judgement. I stuck by you every day of the war, but Princess Celestia really wants to put this behind us. We’ve got an election coming up in eighteen months, and the Parliamentarians are going to make gains. Before then we need a good, non-controversial success. I doubt you’d get many demobs wanting to re-enlist anyway: Fancypants and Filthy Rich are hoovering them up.”

“Good thing too,” said Shining. “I’ve given Diamond Charm enough trouble with the budget already to leave him paying unemployment benefit to fifty thousand ex-soldiers. Good stallion, Fancypants.”

Shining and Echelon suddenly felt the desk shake. Moments later, the roar of an explosion filled the air. Panes of glass rattled in the windows. From the offices below, there was shouting and yelling.

“What was that?!” Rear Echelon raced to the window.

“The Dragonmount?” asked Shining Armor.

“No,” said Echelon, straining his eyes to focus on the distant column of smoke to the west. “Closer.”

***

Cordwainer was entering the drawing room with the morning tea when the roar struck. It was only as a result of years of practice that he did not drop the tray in shock, and it took all his self-control not to gasp in horror as the crystals in the chandelier rattled against each other, priceless vases and ornaments shook on the dresser and the mantelpiece, and dust rained down from the ceiling.

In the centre of the room, Blueblood folded his newspaper and quickly stood up from the sofa. “Leave that tea with me, Cordwainer. Contact the broker: tell him to exercise the put options immediately.”

Cordwainer stared at his employer for a few uncomprehending seconds. Then the horrifying realisation dawned. “The shares in Toffeenose Mining, you knew the stock would go down, and that noise...”

“You didn’t really think I’d risk that much money on Fancypants’ stock falling without making sure it would happen?” Blueblood took the teapot from the silver tray Cordwainer was still holding and filled one of the china teacups. “Thanks to your brother, within a few hours Toffeenose’s stock will be worthless. We’ll sell the puts back at the strike price, and make quite a reasonable return.”

Blueblood took a sip of tea and took the tray in his magic. “Now, see to the broker, and then send the agreed sum off to your brother. He’s done a great service to us.” He frowned as the dust slowly drifted down on to the fittings. “And sack the scullery maid. This is a stately home, and I do not expect to take my tea in a midden.”

***

Fancypants’ appearance was incongruous to the room he was in. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s office was a smart, oak-panelled chamber, lined with bookshelves filled with identical leather-bound books on economics. Fancypants dimly suspected that none of them had ever been opened. Portraits of the great Chancellors and economists looked sternly down at him from the walls. They and the ponies behind the desk in front of him seemed to demand why he was there dressed like that.

Fancypants’ suit was a ruin, the sleeves ripped to shreds by sharp rocks and debris as he’d torn his way through collapsed mine shafts in a desperate effort to drag miners out. His white coat was dark grey with coal dust and spots of brown where the blood of a screaming miner he’d tried to save had splashed him. His head was bowed in exhaustion and there were dark circles under his eyes. He had used so much magic to try to lift away debris that now he barely had the strength to lift a pen.

Four hundred and forty miners had perished at Mount Sable, out of nine hundred and fifty in the mine. The first explosion deep in the mine had kicked up coal dust on the floor and ignited it. The shockwave had kicked up more dust and ignited that as well. The explosion had fuelled itself until it burst out through the shafts. Hundreds had burned in the mine, and hundreds more had suffocated on the afterdamp. In Whinnysota, twenty ponies had died, fifteen of them in the miners’ suburbs, and the explosion had caused hundreds of thousands of bits in property damage.

It had been nearly five hours before a functionary had managed to get up the mountain railway to the shattered ruin of the pithead. With him had been Fleur de Lis, who had shrieked at the sight of her husband. Fancypants had wanted her to tell him that everything was going to be all right, but the functionary had had to tell him the truth: Toffeenose Mining’s stock had collapsed, investors were fleeing, and millions of bits were bleeding from the company every minute.

Any other businesspony might have let his company collapse: he already had a fortune in the bank, and plenty of other homes he could disappear to to ride out the embarrassment of the disaster. But Fancypants was not any other businesspony and Toffeenose Mining was not any other business. It was the largest single employer in Equestria, and if it failed, nearly a million ponies would lose their jobs. Their pensions would vanish as well, the company’s finances were so awful, and all of Fancypants’ employees and their families would be dumped on to the charity of the state.

Disaster had begot disaster, not just for the miners caught in the explosion and Toffeenose Mining, but for Equestria as well. That amount of workers suddenly falling on to welfare and all their spending disappearing from the economy was going to cause a serious dip in growth. A recession loomed, so Fancypants had done the only thing he could. He had swallowed his pride, marched past the crowd of reporters massed below Mount Sable, and had climbed aboard the first train to Canterlot to beg the Treasury for a bailout.

The occupants of the room held their breath as the two ponies behind the Chancellor’s desk frowned at Fancypants’ terms. At Fancypants’ side was Filthy Rich, there to lend moral support at his request. With Chancellor Diamond Charm was Chief Secretary to the Treasury Penny Bag. To Fancypants’ surprise, also present were Princess Cadance, Prince Shining Armor, and Minister of War Rear Echelon, who had demanded an audience when they’d heard what was going on.

Diamond Charm shut the folder Fancypants had laid on his desk. “The Treasury cannot accept this last condition.”

That was what Fancypants had feared. “Chancellor, the farm investment programme...”

“Is unaffordable,” interrupted the Chancellor. Diamond Charm looked utterly furious. “You’ll have to suspend new recruitment for the foreseeable future as well. Your company was already in the red before this disaster! Even if the investment programme is totally suspended, this bailout will still cost us nearly all that’s left of our budget surplus! That’s going to be hard enough to explain to the taxpayer! I can’t ask them to keep pouring sand down a rat hole as well!”

Fancypants slumped in his chair. In a day it had all gone, everything he had worked for: his company, his legacy, and now his charity. Tomorrow he would be the most hated stallion in Equestria, a robber baron who let his workers die and destroyed Equestria’s economy.

“Chancellor,” said Filthy Rich urgently. “Rich Industries cannot afford the investment programme alone. If we bail on this, we’ll be condemning hundreds of small farms to fail. That’s going to cause a recession as well in the end!”

“But a smaller one,” said Diamond Charm bitterly. He threw a filthy look at Shining Armor and Rear Echelon. “A year ago I could have paid for all of this. Now I have to make hard choices. I will not countenance a structural deficit.”

Shining Armor stepped forwards. “Half my army was farmponies, Chancellor,” he growled. “The other half stood to benefit from Fancypants employing them. Now you’re going to put them all on unemployment benefit. Those ponies served Equestria, Chancellor. They deserve better than that!”

“Is that what you call what you did down south, Your Highness?” demanded Penny Bag. “Serving? The Opposition has some other words for it, and frankly I’m inclined to agree with them!”

Cadance swept a leg out as Shining Armor took a step forwards. “Is there nothing we can say to make you change your mind?”

“The last year may have torn up my entire fiscal policy, Your Highness, but I’m not about to abandon prudence entirely,” Diamond Charm said decisively. “I won’t treat some unemployed differently just because they once wore a uniform.”

“Then I shall pay for my soldiers’ welfare myself,” declared Shining Armor.

Diamond Charm stared at his prince in utter disbelief. “The Crown Estate will never cover it! You’ll bankrupt the monarchy in months! And you can’t expect any increase on the Civil Lists when it does!”

“I am more than willing to help.”

Everypony looked down at Fancypants. The stallion in his tattered, stained suit slowly rose from his chair, a picture of martyred dignity. “I’ve made a terribly bad business for you all. Trying to fix this disaster is the least I can do. Well, I’ve got more money than I know what to do with salted away already. However much you need per month, Your Highness, I’ll donate it. I doubt I’ll be throwing many expensive parties any time soon. I’ve got a gold-plated pension coming my way; you can have that as well. I’ll sell up in Canterlot, too, and you can have the profits from the mansion.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Fancypants,” said Cadance gravely. “You don’t have to do this.”

“No, no, I do, Your Highness.” He laughed bitterly. “Somepony must be responsible for this. Why not me? I will be hated anyway, and I’d rather not be remembered as the stallion that torched his business then galloped off with his fortune. Just spend it well.”

He turned towards the door. “Be careful with the company, Chancellor. My father put a lot of work into it. I’m sure he’d want an able successor.”

He trotted slowly from the room. The last look Filthy Rich gave to Diamond Charm was one of utter contempt, before he followed Fancypants from the office. Shining Armor, Cadance and Rear Echelon followed.

“Where will you go?” asked Filthy Rich. He and Fancypants walked slowly around the mezzanine balcony past busts and paintings.

“Oh, Fleur and I keep a holiday home down in Braytain. We’ll take the yacht down there and weather this away from the news.”

Filthy Rich sighed. “I’m sorry, Fancypants. Just so you know, Shining Armor will be getting some help from me as well.”

From the balcony, Shining Armor, Cadance and Rear Echelon watched as the two stallions shook hooves. Fancypants slowly descended the grand staircase into the marble lobby to face the reporters crowding outside the Treasury.

“We need to expand our planning,” said Shining Armor. “Accelerate our cadre unit and training infrastructure development.”

“Your Highness, that’s going to be hard enough with the budget we already have,” said Rear Echelon. “After today, Diamond Charm might want to cut us entirely!”

“You see to the planning,” said Shining Armor. “I’ll get you the money.”

“Well, good luck, Your Highness.” Rear Echelon trotted away, heading for the back exit.

Shining took a deep breath and turned to his wife. “We need Twilight here, now. The royals have to face this crisis together.”

Cadance looked worried “It’s Ponyville’s party to celebrate the war being over tonight.”

Shining looked taken aback. “She’s still writing to you?”

“I am not you, Shining. If you want to mend bridges tonight, she won’t thank you if you make her miss this party.”

Shining Armor looked away. “I wasn’t expecting her forgiveness.”

***

The Canterlot Arms was a disgrace to its name. It was a two-room concrete cube with a tarred roof on the edge of the railway in the least desirable part of the capital. The walls were unadorned and the paint was peeling, the tables were sticky, and the only appealing thing about it was that it sold cheap alcohol.

The mood in the pub that night was sombre. Ponies nursed ciders while gathering around the old radio on the bar as news updates crackled out.

As the latest report ended, one of the patrons spat in disgust and switched off the radio. “Bucker’s getting away with it! Taking his yacht down to Las Pegasus!”

There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd at the bar. Above it, though, rose a quiet voice of opposition: “It wasn’t his fault.”

The crowd at the bar looked around to see a lone stallion sitting with a cider in one of the booths. “The buck you say?!”

“It wasn’t his fault,” the stallion repeated quietly. “Fancypants didn’t blow up that mine. And he’s giving away all his money too.”

“He’s still living better than any of us! These corporate types are all the same. Should be going to jail.”

No, thought Twist Turn, looking away from the bar and down into his third cider that evening. No, I should be.

Guilt gnawed at him. He’d followed Blueblood’s instructions to the letter, not thinking about what he was doing, looking forward only to the thousands of bits he’d been promised. He’d maimed himself and risked court-martial for desertion for money, how could this have been any different? But when the roar of the explosion had shaken him awake that morning, he’d known what he had done. He had killed ponies, hundreds of them, and if what the news was saying was true, he might have ruined thousands more.

He took another swig of cider, the glass shaking in his hoof. He couldn’t go to the police. He knew what would happen if he told the truth. He would become the most hated stallion in Equestria. Nopony would ever speak his name without a curse. He would be sent to prison, and he would be lucky to leave.

Twist Turn drained his glass and stood up. It was no longer about money. He had to see Blueblood. He had to know what his employer really wanted. He had to know that everything he had done – the deaths, the horror, the misery – would be worth it.

***

“Her Highness Princess Twilight Sparkle!” announced the red-uniformed Guard. “And the Royal Assistant, Sir Spike!”

The red uniforms were still unfamiliar, thought Twilight as she trotted into Princess Celestia’s private chambers, Spike at her heels. Maybe it was because so few Guards had been in the Castle these past couple of months. Even now, with the Guards being one of the few regiments still mobilised, there were still less of them than there had been three months ago. Those that remained, like the one holding the door open for her, were gaunter than they had been in the spring, with faraway looks in their eyes.

Celestia’s chamber was a single room atop Canterlot Castle’s east tower. It was simple yet comfortable, with warm blue walls, a plush round couch that doubled as a bed, a fire crackling merrily in the grate, and a hanging tapestry that Twilight had sewn for her in her second year at the School for Gifted Unicorns. Standing there were Princess Celestia, rainbow mane flowing and radiant in her crown and tabard; Princess Luna, as dark as her sister was bright; and, shining pink, the Alicorn whom she had not seen since that fateful Privy Council meeting, Princess Cadance.

“Cadance!” cried Twilight, leaping happily on her hooves. “Sunshine! Sun...”

Cadance said nothing. Twilight had been so happy to see her that she hadn’t noticed the grim expression on her face, which was replaced by a weak smile. “Hi, Twilight.”

“Welcome, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia softly, her voice full of anguish. “Thank you for coming at such short notice.”

“The girls understood, Your Highness, but could it not have waited?”

“No,” came a different voice.

Twilight turned. Standing by the door to the tower balcony, not wearing his uniform, was Shining Armor. At his side was Chief of Intelligence Amber Spyglass.

Twilight stifled a gasp at the sight of her brother. He may not have had to draw his sword or fire a spear, but the war had not been kind to him: he was several stones thinner, and there were dark circles under his eyes. A few strands of grey had crept into his mane and tail. Shining was only three years older than her, but now she saw a stallion that looked as old as their father.

But she also saw a stallion who had sworn genocide upon an entire race right in front of her, who had nearly marched an army to its death in pursuit of vengeance, and through his strategies had nearly driven Celestia’s government to destruction. She was not ready to forgive that. “Shining.”

“Twilight,” said Shining Armor stiffly. For a moment the room was silent.

“Well this is a merry family reunion, isn’t it?” said Amber Spyglass in a syrupy voice. “Though mayhap we could proceed to the matter at hoof before I drown in the fraternal love?”

Spike sidled over to Shining Armor. “Bro,” he said sotto voce. “I’d apologise if I were you. Twilight’s been going on and on about it ever since we got back from the south.”

“YOU TRIED TO COMMIT GENOCIDE!” exploded Twilight. “AND YOU ENJOYED IT! You built an army and started a war just for your petty revenge, and you nearly brought down Princess Celestia for it!”

“I don’t deny it,” said Shining Armor quietly. “I won’t ask you for your forgiveness, or even your understanding. What I need now is your support.”

“What? Should I make some kind of statement for you?” spat Twilight bitterly. “Newsprint and Radical Road saying nasty things? Did I miss my friends’ reunion for this?!”

“That is enough, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia sternly, and suddenly Twilight felt like the filly that’d got only a B+ for her homework again. “I do not approve of what Shining Armor did, even if it may have been necessary. But that must be water under the bridge. We are here to discuss the reason I approved that army, and what we do with it next.”

Twilight frowned. “You’re making plans to remobilise the army. You’ve got me writing new doctrine. Why?”

“My agents can find no trace of Queen Chrysalis, Your Highness,” said Amber Spyglass. “Whether alive or dead. We’ve had no reports of odd behaviour or ponies acting out of character. Nothing to indicate a Changeling infiltration. No, we’re planning against something worse.”

“Twilight, if Chrysalis had galloped into the sea I’d have swum the entire army after her,” said Shining Armor. “Instead I turned back, and it wasn’t because I had a change of heart. We found something down south, and I think it’s the same thing in the north that’s been driving the Diamond Dogs to attack the Empire.”

“What?”

Shining Armor exchanged glances with the Princesses and took a deep breath. “Humans.”

Twilight reared on her hind legs in fury. “You go too far Shining Armor! You would defend your militarism with fairy tales?!”

“Shining Armor does not lie, Twilight Sparkle,” said Princess Luna coldly. “I have seen his proof, and since he returned from the south I am more convinced than ever of the humans’ existence.”

Twilight stared in disbelief as Shining Armor’s horn glowed and two small objects lifted from Celestia’s bedside table. “Last Hearth’s Warming one of our patrols was ambushed by an unknown force in the Crystal Mountains while it was pursuing a Diamond Dog raiding party. Only one of them came back, seriously injured. After he died we extracted this from his wound.”

One of the objects floated closer to Twilight: it was a slightly flattened, acorn-shaped piece of lead.

“Two months ago on the Dead Road,” continued Shining Armor. “Two of my Hussars were shot while on patrol. One of them was hit in the leg with such force it blew the bone to splinters and it had to be amputated. The other was winged and it stuck in his pelisse.” He lifted an identical acorn-shaped lead slug in front of her.

“Then last week we found the Diamond Dog raiding party,” he concluded grimly. “All of them dead, and every one of them with at least one of these inside them.”

He lifted a small box from the table and opened it. Twilight gasped. Inside were hundreds of lead slugs, each one still flecked with the ingrained blood of dead Diamond Dogs.

“What Shining’s ponies say they saw down south matches every description of a human we have in our myths and fairy tales,” said Cadance urgently. “It matches a description a dying Diamond Dog gave to me when they raided the Empire in the spring. Something’s attacking them, Twilight. Whatever it is is powerful. You saw our report: the Dogs are massing to defend themselves against it. Shining and I were attacked by a Fluffy Pony. Those aren’t even supposed to exist! If these things are humans, then they are powerful enough to drive not just feuding tribes together, but two completely different races.”

Twilight took several deep breaths. She felt unsteady on her hooves. Wheels within wheels. Everything she thought she knew seemed to have tipped into a morass of uncertainty and doubt. She peered into it for answers, and what she saw scared her. A passage from a book she’d read once for fun years ago raced through her head: Blood and pitch and screaming fire.

Spike laid a comforting claw on her shoulder. “Heh, yeah!” he laughed mirthlessly, uncertainly. “Yeah, good one guys! Nice early Nightmare Night story, right?!”

“I am afraid it is not, Spike,” said Princess Celestia quietly. She levitated a book from the table. It was a huge, ancient thing. The leather bindings that held its thick parchment pages were cracked and creased. “You’ve heard of the Sibylline Books?”

“Only... only once, Your Highness,” whimpered Twilight. “In...”

“In The Origin,” completed Celestia. “I do not wish to confirm what I know you are thinking, yet I must.” She opened the book in her magic, turning to the second-to-last page. “This volume has never been removed from the High Tower since Luna and I laid it there over a thousand years ago, yet the time has come. I hope your knowledge of Old Equestrian is as good as it once was.”

Filled with dread Twilight leaned over the table and read the six-hundred-and-sixty-fifth prophecy. The autumn chill seemed to have seeped through the walls into the room. After a moment she staggered backwards and sank on to the bed. Tears filled her eyes. “Does... does this mean...? Princess, you can’t really...”

“I wish I could reassure you, Twilight, but I cannot,” whispered Celestia. Infinite anguish filled her voice. “The Books do not lie. I have known this for a thousand years. The darkness is coming, as was foretold millennia ago. My power will vanish with it. And then they will come. Ponies remembered once what the humans did, but now we read of it only in myths and legends. But I remember. That is why I approved the army, and at all costs, that is why we must keep it. But for this to succeed, the Princesses must be united. I must have your support.”

Tears rolled down Twilight’s face. “But, Princess, the prophecy! If you put another military bill before Parliament it will destroy your government! The public will never understand it! And if you have no power, Blueblood...”

“The government may break, or it may not,” said Princess Luna. “Blueblood may see, or he may not. We will pay for it out of our private estates if need be, but we must have the army. Twilight Sparkle, when the humans march and legendary demons come in the night, do you think it matters who rules Equestria? Now tell us, do you support us? Are you a Princess of Equestria who will do what is right for the nation, for Equus, be you loved or hated, or are you just a decoration that wishes to smile and wave and take only the adulation?”

Weeping, Twilight looked up at her brother, her sister, her mentor and her friend, ponies whom she now hated as much as she loved, all of whom now asked her to make another terrible decision. Her last decision like this on a cold January night back at Golden Oaks Library had committed thousands to die. Now whatever she said, millions more might perish.

Forgive me, she asked them, before she choked through tears; “I am with you.”

Comments

[PlatinumGale]

Good chapter but man that got harsh quick, I almost forgot how much of a bastard Blueblood is. Still, can't wait for more.

[OTCPony]

5756300 Well if you at all want to recommend me to any of the review groups...

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

I don't think coal is that explosive.