Turning Points

by Slatewings

Act Three: Chapter Fifteen - A Shred of Hope

Act Three Chapter Fifteen - A Shred of Hope

Phalanx quietly closed the door as he slipped out of the makeshift operating room. He wasn’t even remotely useful when it came to medical care, having only barely passed his first aid training way back in boot camp, and he hated not feeling useful. As the rough hewn door clicked closed, he found the entirety of the shelter’s ponies waiting for him in the hall. They looked at him with expectant expressions on their fearful faces, silently inquiring what was happening.

Phalanx took a deep breath, trying to still the pounding of heart that had not slowed since the moment he saw his princess plummet from the tower, and explained what was happening. He told them about the changelings and their last desperate assault and how Lumine had been able to drive them off by giving himself over to his own dark magic and how that magic had consumed him, twisting him into the self proclaimed King Sombra and driving him to attack Princess Benevolentia and Prince Dutiful.

Mares, foals, and stallions alike cried openly while he relayed the news of their beautiful empire falling and of how Peridot had been so willing to throw down her own life to save the already doomed princess.

“So, then, there is no hope?” asked a lime green mare.

Phalanx leaned against the wall as the weight of the mare’s despair settled over him. “Ye… maybe,” he answered truthfully. “Peridot, she believes she can still save the princess’s baby. If the child survives then...maybe.”

The gathered ponies hung their heads in silence and the toughened soldier felt his eyes well as he realized they hadn’t asked about their own predicament. They thought only for their fallen prince and beloved princess. It touched him deeply and he wondered if the ponies back in Equestria loved their own princesses so.

There was a creak as the door cracked open a hoof-width.

“Mister Phalanx, you can come back inside…” said Doctor Bandage’s tired voice. Phalanx offered the crowd a weak smile before slipping back into the operating room.

He blinked as the glare of the operating lights washed out the relative darkness in the rest of the room. His vision began to clear and he immediately wished it had not. The room was much as he had left it: a smattering of small carts randomly positioned around the room, topped with various instruments, a bright magical lamp hanging overhead, washing away the darkness with an unnaturally bright glow, and a single table in the center of the room, covered in a crisp white sheet that concealed a heartbreakingly shaped form underneath it.

Phalanx felt his heart begin to squeeze when his eyes caught sight of a single dandelion yellow feather laying on the ground beside the table. “She…” he started, his voice catching in his throat. The doctor placed a hoof on his shoulder. He heard somepony crying softly and for a moment wondered if it was him before seeing Peridot’s crumpled blue and green form huddled in the corner, sobbing.

Peridot startled as she felt somepony brush her mane out of her face. She turned her tear reddened eyes to see Phalanx sitting beside her. The poor guard pony looked every bit as wracked as she felt.

“Could you… save her child?” Phalanx asked, his voice cracking.

Peridot’s eyes squeezed shut, sending tears down her cheeks. Peridot nodded and Phalanx saw that she was clutching a small bundle wrapped in pink swaddling to her chest. “I… I did what I had to,” she said painfully. “I promised Dutiful I would. And,” she sobbed, “and Benny…” Peridot’s throat squeezed, pinching her voice, “… she… she asked me to promise I’d stay to deliver the baby. I just…” the wretched mare broke down again, “oh poor Benny. If I’d... just gone home none of this would have happened. None of this…” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “It’s my fault you will never get to see your baby.”

“Peridot…” Phalanx said, “Lumine wasn’t your fault. He choose this, he had to know how dangerous that spell was. You were just trying to help a friend.” He ran a hoof down Peridot’s tear streaked face. “Lumine would have found a way either way, another unicorn, some magical amulet, healing potions, something. He was trying to save us, it just… maybe the empire was doomed either way.”

Peridot absorbed Phalanx’s words for a moment before giving a half hearted, thankful nod. “Benny… she loved her baby so much.” A sad smile crossed her features, “It’s just not fair…” She drew the bundle of swaddling closer to her heart.

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t know what Benny was going to name her. She always called her ‘my baby’ or ‘My Love’” Peridot looked up, “There was a song she used to sing to the baby when she thought nopony was paying attention.

My Love, my baby, my precious little one.
Rest well, my baby, listen your mothers song
Sleep now, sleep deeply, until morning sun.
You’re safe here with me, til night’s dark is done.

My Love, my darling, happiness I’ve found,
Dear one, my sweetheart, though I’ve had you not long,
In my hooves, my baby, sleeping safe and sound.
Already around your hoof, my heart’s been wound.

My darling, my baby, my sweet little dove.
Sweet babe, trust me now, I’d do you no wrong,
Rest now, sweet baby, while stars shine above.
You’ll always be my darling, my baby, My Love.”

Peridot finished she realized Phalanx had laid a hoof across her shoulders. She could see the effort in his face as he struggled to hold back tears for the orphaned newborn and her murdered parents. “Can I see her?” he asked.

She nodded and pulled back a fold of swaddling, revealing a tiny pink pegasus filly with a small puff of pink, lavender, and white mane atop her head. The newborn foal looked for all the world to be sleeping peacefully, if not for the perfectly smooth planes of Peridot’s stasis cocoon spell.

“She was very lucky,” Peridot said. “The nearest foci hadn’t been corrupted yet. The connection must have been broken during the battle, I don’t know. I had to use every last drop of energy it held to finish forming her and put her in stasis.” She shook her head, “Months of time spent floating in her mothers womb compressed down to a single burst of magic… It’s not right. She deserved better. Her mother deserved better.” Fresh tear’s shown in her eyes, “But, I kept my promise to Dutiful and Benny. Their baby will live.”

“If we can get her out of the city,” Phalanx added, darkly.

Peridot nodded. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna… they can fix this. Put things right… some things at least.”

“Any idea how as to how we get out?” Phalanx asked. “Maybe there’s a gap in the forcefield or a service tunnel for the Prism?”

“No…” Peridot answered. “Nothing like that. We don’t need it anyway. I can get us through.”

“How?”

“Neither of us were conceived and born here, we’re not crystal ponies,” she explained. “Lumine’s forcefield spell was selective. That’s how it was able to pass over us the first time while pushing the changelings back. When Lumine… well, Sombra… recast it, he must have turned it around to hold things in, except now instead of keeping changelings out how it’s keeping the crystal ponies in. We should be able to push right through it.”

“I see,” Phalanx said thoughtfully. “What about the baby?”

“She’ll be okay, she hasn’t been through a Heart Flare yet, like at the Crystal Fair. She isn’t attuned yet. Not fully anyway. We can get her out and to safety.”

Phalanx considered. “What about you?”

“What about me? I told you, I’m not a crystal pony.”

“Your leg,” he said. She looked back at the broken limb, only the brace applies by the medical ponies back at the spire kept it in anything like it’s natural shape. “I can’t carry you all the way back to Equestria. Can you heal it?”

Peridot shook her head, “No… I can’t. If it was somepony else I could take the time and repair it bit by bit, but even then it could take days or weeks. I don’t even think I can heal an injury like that to myself. It’s all I can do to keep it numb. Maybe we can put a cast on it for the trip. It’ll slow me down but I can make it.”

“Impossible,” interrupted Dr Bandage. “Lady Peridot, the ligaments are torn, the muscles are rent, and the bones are little better than shattered glass. If you try to travel on that leg you’re liable to hemorrhage the artery if not succume to infection. It’s not a question of ‘making it’ to Equestria, you won’t survive the trip at all.”

“I don’t have a choice!” Peridot said insistently. “I have to get to Equestria, I’m the only one that knows anything at all about the black spell or how the Prism works. What would you do in my place?”

“In your place? I can’t say. I thank harmony that I’m not,” he answered coolly. “But I do know what I would do in my place if I had a patient as badly injured as you.”

“And what is that, Doctor,” she responded, her temper beginning to show through her tears.

“I’d amputate.”

“Wait, what?!” Phalanx sputtered.

The doctor regarded the guard pony sympathetically before turning his gaze back to Peridot. Peridot sat still on the floor quietly, her eyes downcast, deep in thought.

“Doc, I’m sorry but that’s just not an option,” Phalanx insisted. “You can’t just cut her leg off because you don’t have time to fix it. Peridot, you stay here and heal. I’ve traveled back and forth a number of times. I can get word to the Princesses myself.”

“What would you tell them?” she said, her face visibly strained. “Do you know anything about the black spell or where it came from? Or how the Prism works and where it’s weak points are? What about the baby? Do you know what she needs to finish her development?”

Phalanx was taken aback. “Well… no. But there is no reason why you can’t explain it all to me or write it down.”

Peridot shook her head. “Impossible,” she said, “We invented half of the spells that went into the Prism ourselves. There isn’t even proper arcanic notation for most of it because we did a lot of it on instinct. Besides, no offence, but you’re an earth pony. Trying to explain how magic moves and feels would be like trying to explain color to the blind.”

Phalanx worked his jaw. “Then we put together a sled. I can pull you faster than you could move anyway.”

“Her, bouncing on a sled for the next who-knows-how-long?” Bandages winced as Peridot’s injured leg spasmed. “I’m sorry but, no. You’d be burying her before you were half way there.”

“Well you can’t just-”

“There’s really no other way.” Peridot hung her head. “He’s right. Even with my magic, I’d amputate too. It’s not worth the risk.”

“But… you just said it yourself! You’re the only one who can fill in the princesses!” Phalanx argued. “How are you supposed to travel?”

“I’ll still be able to walk with a cane, my other legs still work” she said before turning to the doctor. “Bandage, do you have the supplies to make a prosthesis?”

“Yes but it’s all up in the third floor,” he answered. “I can send out a volunteer to get what we need.”

“Thank you…”

“I’ll go too,” Phalanx insisted. “I… I think I need to walk around anyway.”

“I’ll be okay, Phalanx,” Peridot tried to comfort the concerned stallion. “It’s not the first time I’ve helped do this. Though it’s been a while… and it wasn’t on myself…” she shook her self, “I’ll be fine.” She offered a strained smile. He tried to return it but gave up, settling for a nod.

Doctor Bandage scribbled out a note and pressed it into Phalanx’s hoof. “Grab one of the nurses and have them show you the way. Be quick, even at the best of times I’d be rushing her into the operating room. As it is, I’ll have her prepped and ready by the time you get back.”

Phalanx straightened, the soldier in him recognizing a mission assignment when he heard it. “Of course, sir. I’ll be back before you get her on the table.” He spun to face the exit and trotted out. A second late his head popped back through the door. “Peridot, just hold on. I’ll be back before you know it.” She had enough time to smile thankfully and he was gone.

Peridot felt her heart sink as she looked back to the doctor. “This really is the only option, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, Lady Peridot,” he answered apologetically, “with how little time we have, I can’t see any other.”

“Couldn’t we just remove the bone and insert a rod into the leg?” she asked hopefully. “I wouldn’t be able to bend the joint, but at least it… no… you’re right. It’s only a matter of time before Lu...Sombra finds us, now that I’ve tapped into the Prism, and it could take hours to retrieve all the bone fragments.”

Peridot’s and Bandage’s face was grim as a pair of nurses entered and respectfully rolled away the table holding the princess’s body and replaced it with a new one covered in fresh linen. “Are you ready for this?” Bandage asked, his voice solemn.

“Not even a little,” Peridot answered as she handed the crystal encased infant to a nurse and climbed onto the table and lay back, trying for all she was worth not to watch the body of her dearest friend recede down the hall. The doctor held a vial to her lips and she leaned forward to sip the contents. The thin concoction slipped down her throat, leaving numbness in it’s wake. Peridot stopped Bandage’s hoof with her own as he pulled a sheet over her torso. “Please take good care of Benny…” she begged.

“I promise,” Bandage answered sorrowfully. “Now try to relax. I’ve given you as much as I dare to block the pain without putting you too deeply asleep and it won’t work properly if you don’t let it.”

Peridot nodded and focused on calming her frayed nerves and stilling her racing heart. A moment later, a curious warmth began spreading outward from her stomach, leaving numbness in it’s wake. She swooned when it reached her head and heaved a deep breath as her limbs went slack. There was a touch of half-felt pressure and she weakly looked upward to find Phalanx standing beside her with a caring hoof resting on her shoulder.

She tried but couldn’t make out his words as he spoke. She smiled anyway. Even her potion-fogged mind knew when a friend was trying to be there for her. Peridot made an effort to smile but couldn’t be sure if she succeeded or not. Her friend’s eyes suddenly screwed shut and she felt a curious pinching in her leg as her mind descended into sleep.

Peridot awoke to Pain.

“Phalanx! Hold her down!” somepony yelled. “Don’t let her thrash, I’m almost done!”

“I’m trying!” somepony answered. “Can you stop her from screaming?! They’re going to hear her!”

Peridot felt her ears ringing with a sound that could have only come from within her.

“It’s autonomic, I didn’t give her enough potion to subdue her subconscious. Anyway, I don’t think that matters much at this point. Either way, she’ll die if I can’t get her sewn up.”

She realized how ragged her throat felt and tried to swallow, cutting off her ears’ ringing for a bare moment.

“Harmony preserve us! I think she’s coming to! She can’t wake up like this.”

She felt something pull back her her eyelids. A terribly bright light lanced down into her vision. “Good! I’m almost done.”

“GOOD?! But the pain-”

“Will be unbearable. I know. I’m sorry but we are out of time.” There was a sharp pin prick of hurt, painful but completely swept away in the tide of agony that wracked her. “Annnnd done. GO now! Take her and the baby and run!”

“Bu… Now?!”

“The… the baby…” Peridot felt her ragged voice croak.

“Peridot! Can you hear me?” She heard Phalanx say. She couldn’t form a response. “Doctor, how am I suppose to transport her like this? How do I even get out? How am I suppose to-”

“I don’t know!” Peridot swung her head to follow the voice. A harried Doctor Bandage stood at her hooves in a stained smock, streaked with reddish blotches. “But I do know that if you don’t leave right now, you won’t be leaving.”

To accentuate his point a terrible crash shook the shelter. Followed by the sounds of armored hooves and ponies screaming.

“The baby…” Peridot gasped through bitter groans and cries. “Where is the baby?”

She felt something diamond hard wrapped in cloth pressed into her grasp. Peridot opened her eyes again to see Phalanx standing beside her, his hoof resting on the bundle of cloth against her chest. The look of fear and concern in the unflappable stallion’s face stung her worse than the pain in her body. With a trembling hoof, Peridot pushed back a fold a cloth revealing the tiny pink filly’s face.

The pain and shaking began to fade as the memory of her promises filled her up. Peridot clenched her teeth and focused as she cast her pain spell, deadening the assaulted nerves in her leg. She breathed a sigh of relief as it washed over her.

She steeled herself and looked down, knowing what she would see. The top of her right hind leg was tightly bound in clean white bandages, no different than the dozens that she had applied over the years and blessedly free of the stains that spotted the doctor’s smock. She could almost make herself believe that Bandage had been able to save the limb after all. She used her magic to slide the sheet down and that fleeting hope quickly vanished. Her leg simply ended an inch or so above where her knee joint had once been. Below that, her blue coat gave way to the smooth milky tinted crystal of her new prosthetic. A perfect facsimile, set in the bone of the stump. Peridot swallowed as the word crossed her mind.

Peridot wanted to scream again. She wanted to race straight back to the palace and blast Sombra for what he had done to her. She even wanted to plant a hoof squarely in Bandage’s face for being the one to wield the scalpel. She settled for hanging her head and crying, heavy tears falling from her cheeks and splashing down on the tiny princess’s cocoon.

She flinched at a touch to her side. “Peridot… can you move…?”

“Yeah,” she answered and redoubled her pain masking spell. She slid to the edge of the table and made to hope down.

“Hang on there miss,” said the doctor. Peridot could barely bring herself to look at him. “Phalanx, I think you better carry her.”

Peridot nodded in agreement as Phalanx positioned himself so that she could slide onto his back. She clutched the baby to her chest as she did what she could to hold on with her three remaining legs. Outside, the sounds of fighting were growing.

“Here…” said Bandage. He slung a bag over Phalanx’s back. “I had the nurses round up some supplies.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” Phalanx said a he tied a strap around himself so the bag wouldn’t slip off. “Don’t worry. We will be back with help.”

“I know,” Bandage answered. A thunderous crash shook the room as cracks radiated across the door to the operating room. “Quickly now. Through there.” He pointed a hoof to a cabinet in the corner.

Phalanx opened the front to reveal a hidden door in the back. “Escape route?” he asked.

“Of course,” Bandage answered smiling, despite everything. “Prince Dutiful didn’t want anypony to be trapped inside should the changeling’s find a shelter. Once you’re inside, get to the bottom of the shaft and kick the lever to collapse the way behind you. Follow the tunnel and it will let you out behind the Berry Baker Kindergarten.” He addressed Peridot. “Lady Peridot,” he said, “please, get the baby to safety. She’s the only princess the Empire has now.”

Peridot still couldn’t meet his eyes, not after what he had to do, but she nodded, “I… I promise.”

He guided them through the open passageway, holding back the spring loaded doors as Phalanx crouched down to crawl through the narrow opening with Peridot on his back. “Good,” Bandage said, “Now go, be quick and don’t stop unti-” the doctor’s voice cut off as the butt end of a spear shaft drove into the side of his head.

Phalanx recoiled down the tunnel, his hoof instinctively reaching for his spear.

“No, Phalanx,” Peridot yelled. “We have to go!”

A guard pony stuck his head into the tunnel, eyes glowing with Sombra’s dark power.. He yelled back over his shoulder, “I found them! They’re in here! They’re-!” Phalanx cut him off with a buck to the chest and tore down the rough tunnel as fast as he could.

“RUN!” Peridot cried, squeezing Benevolentia’s child to her chest, as they raced through the dark corridor. She had to keep her head low against Phalanx’s back to avoid hitting the earthen protrusions hanging from the ceiling between embedded crystal supports. Soon they could hear the clanking of armor as the passageway behind and above them began to fill up with the Sombra’s enslaved guards.

“Hold on!” Phalanx yelled. He planted his hooves, allowing him to slide down the incline. They quickly outpaced their pursuers as they sped down the slope. When they reached the bottom Phalanx found the lever Bandage told them about and gave it a quick kick. A moment later the determined shouts of their pursuers became screams of alarm as tons of rock and dirt collapsed down on them. Phalanx stood with his head lowered, listening until the last of the pained cries silenced itself.

“Phalanx…” Peridot managed. “It’s not your fault… Sombra…”

“I know, Peridot. I just…” his voice grew dark. “When we return… I don’t know if I’ll be able to honor my promise to try to spare him for making me do this.”

“I know, Phalanx.” Peridot, bit her lip. “Let’s, let’s go. We still have to get out of the city first.”