Cold Light

by Scramblers and Shadows

Together at Last

Chapter 16
Together at Last

Come evening, Millie arrived at Ilmarinen, its bloated habitation spheres and graceless docking towers casting distorted shadows on the rocky plains in the distance. She registered her docking request with light signals, got an affirmative reply and directions to a free berth, and finally manoeuvred Dignity into place below Docking Tower Two.

In the main cabin, Gregor sat looking about as relaxed as one could be while still tied up.

“Want me to grab owt while I'm up there?” she she said brightly.

He didn't reply.

She stopped at the door to the gondola lift and turned to him. “I'm serious,” she said. “I can get some meat, can't I? Want anything in particular?”

“Why are you doing this?” said Gregor.

“'Cause clearly every once in a while I go a bit mad and become a big softie. Now do you want summat or not?”

He turned back to the wall.

She went in the gondola and began to inflate the balloon. As the doors closed, she heard Gregor call after her: “Mice!”

Soon the balloon was fully inflated, and the gondola began to rise. Millie scanned the other airships. Another Aquileonan pirate ship. Probably not after Gregor, but it was worth being cautious. And, one tower along, a salvor ship she recognised. It was the one Sweetie Belle had arrived on. Hinny's Revenge. That was convenient – if she and Scootaloo had made it back, the captain would probably know.

As she neared the top of her tower, something else caught her eye. Off in the distance, barely visible: A lone gunship. It posed no threat – with the Ilmarinen Navy here, even a battleship would – but it was odd to see one alone.

The air in the tower was thick with bitter residual smoke and sickly-sweet oils. She trotted through it, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be a griffon pirate, and headed past a group of chevaloids and across the bridge to one of the spheres. First order of business, she decided, would be to check in with Hinny's Revenge to see what the captain knew.

She stopped halfway down the bridge and sighed. Why are you doing this? She'd already done her part, done more than she'd needed to. And she was already saddled with Gregor because of her efforts.

Best to just leave it, get the supplies she needed, get Gregor home, and forget about the whole thing.

At the entrance to the sphere, she looked down at the cluster of buildings. Then she turned left and headed towards the tower where Hinny's Revenge was docked.

---

For Sweetie Belle, everything felt slightly unreal. The same loop kept playing in her head: She'd left Scootaloo behind. She'd abandoned the entire reason she came to this shithole of a parallel world in the first place. She was back to square one, back to Ilmarinen, having made no progress.

She wanted to turn back, but a small thread of prudence kept her from pulling the gunship around. She had no idea how much fuel was left, and gunships got through their fuel very quickly. If she ran out halfway back and crashed, there'd be no way she could help Scootaloo.

She flew onwards, towards the growing cluster of balloons of Ilmarinen, glowing dull red in the dusk. There, perhaps, she could check the fuel levels. Or just sell the gunship – they were expensive – and use the money to get passage back to the facility. She'd have to act fast, though …

Something squat sat on the ground beside on of the docking towers. A hovercraft! Dignity!

Would Millie help? Of course she would. She'd grumble, but she'd help. Especially if Sweetie Belle gave her the gunship. They could go back to the facility and trail Scootaloo from there.

Through the unhappiness and the pain, some confident part of her emerged to offer congratulations on coming up with a plan and thinking on her hooves.

As she approached, one of the docking towers began to flash. Of course. Light signalling; every ship she'd been on had used it before approaching a base. She stared at the array of controls, looking for anything that might be a light button. She asked Saffron, who didn't know either; Scootaloo hadn't shown them that much.

Even if she did find the right button, it wouldn't be any help. She didn't know the signal code. Neither did Saffron.

“I thought you'd have picked it up by now,” she muttered out loud “You've seen it used before, haven't you?”

“I'm smart, and I have some powerful mental tech,” said Saffron. “I'm not fucking omniscient.”

Sweetie Belle brought the gunship to a halt, then after a few seconds continued more slowly. With any luck they wouldn't read her approach as aggressive and shoot her down.

Halfway there, a battleship, one of the Ilmarinen navy, detached itself from city and flew over to meet her. It was a great, savagely elegant thing, with its gondola built into its superstructure, but clearly not Aquileonan. Its belly was a map of guns, cannons, armour, and gunships bays; its nose resolved into a line of five spikes underlining what must be the Ilmarinen sigil.

It came to a halt just before reaching her and swung into a turn. By the time she was level with it, it was facing Ilmarinen.

An escort, then.

It led her back towards the city, turning right near the end of the journey, leading her towards one of the smaller docking towers where a lone salvor ship was docked. On top of the tower, amidst the freight cranes, she saw a line of empty landing pads. When she'd landed and the engines were quiet enough, the battleship addressed her with a hissing loudspeaker:

“Docking is free for two days. After that, one hundred bits per day in advance. If you do not pay, your craft will be impounded.”

“Right,” Sweetie Belle murmured to herself. “Thanks for that.”

The landing pad entangled the gunship's underside with prehensile black ribbons, then offered her a key. She tried the key, found it made the ribbons retract, then activated them again.

With the gunship secured, she headed down a creaking metal staircase into the tower's main room, running through the plan in her head. Find Millie; give her the gunship; go back to look for Scootaloo; go home.

Easy.

Just keep going. One hoof in front of the other.

The primary room of the docking tower was almost empty, lit sharply by a few lamps in the ceiling that made all the shadows splay out. On one side a cluster of fat metal barrels sat beneath the crane hook. Just beyond them was an open door into the evening sky where the airship was docked. A lone, bored-looking pony guarded it.

Sweetie Belle trotted across the room to the bridge. Now, she thought, where had she seen Dignity? To the left, a little more than halfway round the city. She'd need to cross this sphere and the next …

Something tiny flew at her. By the time she noticed, it was already upon her. It hit her horn and stuck.

“Now!” called a mare's voice, and through the door to the bridge, a griffon stepped out. The captain of the pirates who had first captured her, holding a winggun. Behind him, more armed griffons followed.

She put up her shield. Or tried to – the moment she tried, something stifled her aura, and a white-hot pain billowed out from her horn and washed through her body. It left in its wake waves of overwhelming nausea, aches, chills, that sloshed back and forth through her. She cried out – perhaps. She wasn't sure.

When she looked up, the griffons had been joined by three ponies. A big one, a spindly one, and between them, Blueberry Pancake.

“Well,” said Blueberry, smiling, “here we are, together at last.”

The nausea was only slowly receding. Her ears roared. Sweetie Belle managed a look around. One griffon had his gun trained on the ship's pony guard; another was keeping watch down the bridge. The other three, including the captain, aimed at her. The spindly pegasus had a winggun too, but wasn't pointing it at anyone.

Blueberry looked at the guard, who was waiting wide-eyed. “Don't shoot him,” she ordered. “No one has to die here.” Then she turned back to Sweetie Belle. “And just as some advice, sweetheart, you probably won't want to try any more magic while you've go the inhibitor on.”

A streak of stubbornness made Sweetie Belle try and throw another spell a Blueberry. Maybe she was bluffing, after all.

She wasn't.

When awareness returned, Sweetie Belle found her knees had folded under her. She was was shivering, fighting the urge to vomit. Blueberry stood in front of her, leaning down, so close that Sweetie Belle could feel her breath against her nose.

“That was silly, wasn't it?” said Blueberry, brushing some stray curls out of Sweetie Belle's face with the back of a hoof.

A gunshot rang out.

Sweetie Belle looked over to see the guard lying on the ground beneath a growing dark puddle.

Immediately Blueberry was standing straight. “I said, don't shoot him!”

The griffon captain clicked his beak, and his crew turned their guns on Blueberry and her associates.

“You are not in charge here,” he said.

Blueberry took a step back, closer to Sweetie Belle. The wiry pegasus had his wing-gun raised. “Sorghum,” she said quietly. He lowered his gun and stepped towards her. “You too, Cannons.” The other pony also retreated.

“This has to be one of the stupidest betrayals I've ever seen,” said Blueberry. “I mean, thanks to your flunky over there, someone has probably heard us, and here you are messing about and wasting time. What, pray tell, do you hope to accomplish?”

“The amount of trouble you've caused me,” said the captain. “The pegasus you said we'd capture escaped. The number of good griffons who have died because of your recklessness …”

“ … are gone, and will have their sacrifice remembered.”

The captain ground his beak. It took a second for him to reply. “I'm done dealing with some … crazy representative. If S. wants the unicorn, he can make me an offer himself. He can pay for the ships I've lost. And he can pay extra for you – if you come along quietly and don't make us shoot you.”

“Stop being silly,” Blueberry said slowly. “If you lower your guns now, we can get her out of here before someone comes along, and I'll forget about the whole thing.”

“A tempting offer,” said the captain. “But no.”

Blueberry sighed. A silvery shield blinked into existence around her, her associates, and Sweetie Belle.

“Really?” said the captain. “That's the best you have?” He shook his head as if disappointed, then addressed his crew: “Kill h – ”

Blueberry's shield grew spikes – thin lances of glittering silver, two for each griffon, impaling them all. Their guns all fired together as the antimagic safeties were triggered. Then silence.

The shield vanished, and the griffons dropped to the floor.

“Quickly,” Blueberry ordered her associates. “Check those barrels over there. See which ones are empty.” As Sorghum and Cannons rushed over to the barrels, she looked over at Sweetie Belle, who was still barely able to stand. “I said no one had to die. I tried to stop them, but if they insist on being stupid, what's a mare to do?”

She lifted three griffons with her aura and carried them to the open barrels.

In less than a minute, all the bodies were hidden. “I'm sorry about this,” said Blueberry as she lifted Sweetie Belle. “But I don't have time to find a better way.” A violet bolt flicked from her horn, and Sweetie Belle felt drowsiness overcoming her as Blueberry dropped her into a barrel.

---

It was in the foyer of the Bounding Minotaur Adventure Tours office in Canterlot where Scootaloo first told Sweetie Belle about her plans, her eyes glimmering with excitement.

“It's called Magnesia. It's miles away, on the other side of the dragon territories, but legally it belongs to Aquileona.”

“How long will you be there?”

“Six months. At least. I might go back again!”

Sweetie Belle rubbed at her mane with a hoof and tried to look happy. She looked at the five yellow daffodils on the table between them, at the dull tiled floor, out the window through the open lilac blinds; anywhere but Scootaloo's eyes. “Six months,” she said. “Wow. And they really need you for this?”

“Totally! I'll be helping Rush set up a new adventure course. Right now, half of it's just like, empty rock formations, and …”

“You're going with Rush?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“It sounds like you're really getting on with him.”

“Well, yeah.” Scootaloo had that smile, the one where she briefly, very briefly, chewed at the left side of her lower lip. The one Sweetie Belle knew meant We fucked and it was awesome.

“I …” began Sweetie Belle. “Excuse me.”

The smile on Scootaloo's face vanished. Sweetie Belle swept up from her chair and into the toilet. There, in the mirror, she did the best she could to erase the evidence of the few tears that had escaped, and stifle the rest. Once she'd managed a halfway realistic smile, she went back into foyer.

It wasn't until a couple of days later, driven by nights of pullulating woes, that she finally confronted Scootaloo in the latter's apartment. She arrived unannounced in the early afternoon and launched into it almost immediately:

“Do you have to go, really?”

“Well, yeah, it's an important part of my job.”

“But it's … it's miles away. It's like a week by airship. And for six months!”

“I'll be back before you know it. Come on, it'll be fine. We'll have a load of cool stuff to share when I get back.” Scootaloo put a foreleg around Sweetie Belle's shoulders.

“Like how you're having sex with Adrenaline Rush behind my back?”

Scootaloo stared at her. She moved her foreleg back. Her brow knotted. “What?” she said.

“You heard me! You and he are, aren't you?”

“Well, yeah, but –”

“And you didn't even tell me!”

“Why should I? I don't owe you a report on everypony I sleep with!”

“That wasn't what I meant,” said Sweetie Belle. She swallowed.

“Okay, look. I didn't tell you about me and Rush because … because it's not just sex. It's a relationship. I'm doing the whole relationship thing for the first time, and I didn't want to tell anypony until I was sure it was going steady.”

“We're best friends, aren't we? I thought we were, anyway. I showed you the adventure tours company. I introduced you to Adrenaline Rush! And look what I get in return: You and running off to the end of the world like it's nothing. Without me you'd still be moping in a pub about your wings!”

Scootaloo looked at her silently. She turned away; took a few steps; turned back. “Yeah. Best friends,” she said softly. “You've been a real friend. Yeah, I see that now. You didn't introduce me to Rush to help me out, did you?”

“I did! Of course I wanted to help you. It was what you wanted.”

“And now I want to go to Magnesia. Why aren't you happy for me? It's what I've always wanted, and all you can do is talk about how important you are. I'm grateful for what you did, introducing me to Rush, but that doesn't mean you can run my life.”

“I don't want to run your life. I just … don't want you to go.”

“Well, too bad. I'm going. If you cared about me at all, you'd understand why.”

Icy silence coated the room.

“Fine,” said Sweetie Belle eventually. “Do what you like.” She stormed out the door. It wasn't until she she got home that she started crying.

When something stopped Scootaloo from going to Magnesia like she'd planned, Adrenaline Rush went without her. Sweetie Belle visited a week later, but found the apartment empty, with only a note.

I've gone to Amaranth. Don't follow me.

---

Sweetie Belle woke lying in the corner of a small, windowless room. Daemons whispered almost comprehensible vengeances in her ears. The floor rocked slowly against a distant engine thrum. The wall dug into her back. She shifted experimentally and found, while her side did sting, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been.

A small lamp on the ceiling cut shuddering, indistinct shadows across metal walls, a reinforced door, a table with two chairs either side of it. She was about to try and pull one of them over with her aura, but stopped herself.

She put a hoof to her horn and found the inhibitor still clinging to it. It didn't move when she scratched it, and responded with a warning jab of pain when she tried harder. That was out then.

She climbed to her hooves and ambled over to the chair that faced towards the door. The interviewee position.

This was it, then. Blueberry had her.

“Saffron?” she asked silently.

“I'm here.” Saffron appeared next to her, sitting in midair.

“I'm glad. I'd hate to be tortured alone.”

“I'll do what I can to help. If it comes to that.”

“Thank you. For that … and for not sugarcoating this.”

“You know me. Never miss an opportunity to put a positive spin on the situation.”

Something on the door clicked and slid. Saffron vanished, saying, “Don't worry. I'm still here. I just don't want to distract you.”

Blueberry entered alone, carrying two cups in her aura. She set them on the table and closed the door. Her mane was less sleek that it had been when they met at Red Oak. A translucent blue strand had escaped the rest of the arrangement.

She saw Sweetie Belle looking and, once she was seated, said, “Yeah, I know. When we get back to my airship, I'm gonna have a lo-o-ong bath. You can too, if you want. I know you deserve better grooming than most of Amaranth has to offer.” This in a tone that suggested they were two friends in some fashionable café by Canterlot's outer districts.

Sweetie Belle said nothing.

“You'd broken a rib when we found you. I've fixed that, but the bone needs to finish knitting by itself, so try not to bump it. Everything else should be healed by now.” Blueberry took a sip of her water. “Anyway, let's get down to business. I am so sorry you got caught up in this. You may not believe it, but I really am. You've been through a lot, and you deserve better. But I promise you, it's nearly over. Being caught like this probably feels like a bad end, but it's actually the best thing that could happen to you. Soon you'll be free. And not long after that, with your help, I'll be able to fix everything forever.

“Everything. I mean it. All suffering, all loss, all death. Celestia may have built her empire of benevolence, but even she couldn't stop that. She couldn't stop the petty squabbles of the griffons, or the existential ache that drives even ponies to this ruined land, or the insatiable spectre of mortality that haunts us all. I can …”

Blueberry frowned briefly, like she'd just realised she'd gotten carried away. The quiet intensity vanished, and she gave Sweetie Belle another friendly smile. “Anyway, I want you to know I'm doing all this for a good cause. All I need from you is something that old statue dropped in your head. Something other than the spells you have. I'm going to use a mind-linking spell to find it. I promise I won't touch anything in your head that isn't mine, okay? But it won't work without your co-operation. All you need to do is read a few things, look at some pictures, and think about them while I do the spell. Then your job will be finished.”

At last she fell silent, and looked into Sweetie Belle's eyes.

Sweetie Belle's mind flicked through the possibilities. How easy it would be; what it might mean; whether Blueberry would kill her afterwards; whether she could even use Blueberry to get Scootaloo back.

“Don't,” said Saffron, still invisible.

Of course, she knew. Giving a pony like this, who compared herself to Celestia, even more power …

Even if she could get Scootaloo back, it wouldn't be worth it.

She shook her head.

Blueberry leaned back. “Oh well, you can't blame a mare for trying. Let's stop messing about then. I am going to save the world, and you're in the way. Leaving things the way they are would be an unfathomable cruelty. More than anything I could possibly do to you. So understand that I won't hesitate to do whatever I need to to get that information. Cannons!”

The door opened again, and the giant earth pony squeezed through holding a rusted toolbox in his mouth. He kicked the door shut with a rear hoof and dropped the box to Blueberry's right on the table.

“We found some of these lying around the ship,” Blueberry said conversationally. She opened the box and began taking out items: “Hammer, screwdriver, soldering iron, blowtorch, bolt cutters …” The last item reached the end of the table with a heavy clank.

“Now, I know what you might be thinking,” Blueberry went on. “You won't speak. We could take you apart on this table, bit by bit until there's nothing left, and then I'll never get what I want. Well, maybe so. Maybe you really are that wilful. Some ponies are.

“But I want you to consider this from my point of view. If I do kill you, what would I do next? You can see I'm very set on getting what I want, and I'd have nothing left to lose. So I guess I'd have to try some other way of finding the information. Who else might know, hm? Perhaps some of your friends? The donkey with the hovercraft. The diamond dog. Scootaloo.”

Blueberry leaned forward, all friendliness gone from her tone. “I promise you, Sweetie Belle, if things get to that point, I will leave you alive. I'll leave just enough of your face intact that you'll get to see and hear her reactions as we start working on her.”

Then, as suddenly as it had gone, the friendliness was back. “Personally,” Blueberry said as she put the tools away, “I think it would be best all round if you told me before then. You get to keep all your limbs, and Cannons here doesn't have to spend the next week picking bits of pony from between the floor plates. Now, I'm going to leave for twenty minutes, so you think it over and tell me your choice when I get back.”

She stood, lifted the bag over to Cannons, and they left. The door's lock clicked behind them.

Sweetie Belle wasn't sure how long she sat staring at the wall opposite, or even after if she'd spoken to Saffron.

When Blueberry came back, Sweetie Belle agreed to give her what she wanted.

Author's Note:

And on that cheerful note, we come to the end of part 2.

Merry Christmas, you lot.

Comments

[Scramblers and Shadows]

7785596

Thanks! As for the low view count? That's just the way things turn out sometimes, I suppose.

[Timeless Lord Slayer]

The Clock Chimes...

[Lord Max]

Well darn, this isn't good. I suppose I can't blame Sweetie Belle for giving in, but I sincerely hope that a rescue party is coming soon. Hinnie, perhaps? Or, knowing Sweetie Belle, she'll just rescue herself.

[greenboy135]

Any news on a new chapter? Absolutely love the story btw

[Scramblers and Shadows]

7875561
Cheers! I think it should be out in the next two or three weeks.

[greenboy135]

Cool, thanks for the update