Crusade at Midnight Castle

by Carabas

Improvisation

Rain slashed down in iron-grey sheets. Thunder roiled and lightning flashed. Wind drove across the palace's sides, which didn't help Zecora in the slightest.

“Just bloody well let me through, you impediment, you,” she muttered to herself, a crowbar held in her teeth. She balanced on the ledge of one of the upper-storey windows, a solid rectangle reinforced front and back with iron bars. She worried away at its edge with the crowbar, and tried not to look down at the cobblestones a bone-liquidising distance below.

The old seven-league shoes had borne her all the way to the farmland below Canterlot before finally combusting. It had been a slow creep across the open countryside and a hard scrabble up the mountainside before she'd finally reached the unobserved edge of the city proper, and the sheer wall to be climbed after that had been a bitter icing on the dung cake.

But she'd ascended the wall, had crept through the streets, and had finally climbed the side of the palace itself without being spotted once. Let any Collegium-trained Zebrican mare half Zecora's age do that. She wasn't going to be defeated by a window at the last hurdle.

A gust swiped at her with an alarming strength, catching Zecora's cloak in an almighty billow, and she fought to keep her footing. The crowbar fell from her teeth, tumbled just out of range of her hoof, and vanished off the window ledge.

“No, of all the luck!” Zecora breathed out heavily as the crowbar clattered far below. “...Control. I'm not stuck.”

She turned back to glower at the window. Did she have any good corrosives at hoof? Nothing at this distance that didn't have the risk of corroding her as well...

A purple claw poked up on the window's other side, jumped up to fumble at a latch, and swung it open inwards. “Hey,” said Spike.

The little drake's face was haggard, his body was thin, but as he looked over Zecora, a purely delighted smile spread over his face.

Zecora paused. “...You, Spike, I'm very glad to see. But how did you behold me?”

“Tirek sent me out.” Spike waved a claw in the direction of one of the towers that sprawled out from the palace. “I, uh, went to Twi and I's old dorm. Almost like home again. Looked out the window and saw somepony with black and white stripes come over the city wall. I guessed where you were going. You here to take on Tirek?”

“Against sense telling me otherwise, yes. I'm not as yet sure how, I must confess.” Zecora stepped through the window and into the unlit stretch of corridor.

“Eh, good enough for me.” Spike regarded her. “You know where to find the throne room from here?”

“Not exactly, in all truth. The way, I'd hoped to sleuth.”

“Take me on your back.” A fire had been kindled in Spike's eyes. “I'll show you. I can even help you in.”

---

The ape's hand tightened into a claw, seized hold of the fur on Tirek's leg, and pulled. Yrr rose, and a pained hiss escaped his lips as his paltry muscles bunched with effort. He staggered upright, bipedal once more. Tirek's leg was near, and while one hand may be briefly caught up in the fur and his other one was useless even past the pounding tides of adrenaline, he still had a serviceable set of teeth.

Tirek, who watched the ponies before him go through the motions of his inevitable victory, was distracted by a mild tickling sensation on the lower half of his lower leg.

His attention, his will, his focused onslaught of magic were all briefly turned away as his gaze descended to Yrr flailing and gnawing at the thick hide of his shin.

And in that instant, Applejack crashed back to the ground with a pound that echoed around the room. Shuddering, she opened red-rimmed eyes, and they were the green of fields in spring.

The very air shivered. Apple Bloom looked up at Applejack through a vision wet with tears. “A – Applejack?”

She was immediately swept into a hug. Orange limbs held her close. “Never,” whispered Applejack. “Never, ever. Not if the whole world was screamin' for it. Never.”

There came an un-ladylike groan, and to their side, Rarity slumped against the side of her cell. Her coat shone once more, and when her eyes opened, they were the brilliant blue of the sky. “I … oh, stars,” she murmured, and reached out for the smaller unicorn before her. “Sweetie? Sweetie Belle? Please, I wouldn't … ”

Whatever chain-reaction had been started, whatever weight had been lifted from everypony's withers, the effect was spreading. Rainbow Dash's mane and coat now lit up the room once more, and her gaze refocused upon Scootaloo. “Oh cripes,” she muttered, her expression briefly horrified beyond words. “Squirt, ignore everything I just said. You – you know I wasn't myself, right?”

Colour breathed back through Fluttershy's body, and her previous unsettled glare settled into wide-eyed terror. Her gaze swept from the other Element-Bearers to the Crusaders to the base of Tirek's throne, and a low and tremulous sob escaped her. Pinkie Pie blinked, shook the grey off herself in motes, and her renewed pink self blinked around in surprise. Twilight Sparkle's gaze lifted from the floor, and colour slammed back into her like a shockwave. Her wings flew open, her eyes stared wildly.

“Squirt?” ventured Rainbow Dash, edging closer, her face fraught with concern. Scootaloo trembled before her, her gaze averted. “Please, you gotta believe me -”

Without any further urging, Scootaloo looked back to her, a smile breaking out past her mask of tears even as she took a step back. “I do,” she said. The smile was painted on that little bit wider. “H – heh, why break a good habit?”

Around from them, Rarity trotted cautiously closer to Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie?” she ventured, before gingerly wrapping her little sister in a hug. “You know I'd never hurt you. Never turn away from you when I was thinking straight.”

“He said they were under fire?” said Sweetie Belle.

“What?” said Rarity. She peered at Sweetie Belle's distracted expression.

It was an expression that, in the past, had heralded numerous mark-acquiring crusades. Explosions had followed that expression. Near-death experiences, diplomatic incidents, and heightening blood pressure on the part of caring elder siblings had trailed in that expression's wake. Sweetie Belle was furiously cogitating, and nothing good could result. “Under fire?” she murmured.

A melodious burst of laughter shattered their concentration, and everypony there turned to see Tirek, the source of it. He sat still upon his throne, still watching Yrr. The human's attacks upon Tirek's leg had barely slowed; he now seemed to be half-climbing, half-mounting it as he scrabbled his way up towards the knee with two pinioning legs and one functioning arm. He keened with the struggle.

“(I commend your diligence. Less so your sense,)” Tirek purred in the alien intonation. “(I have other things to do than indulge you. Do you want to remove yourself or be removed?)”

Yrr advanced another inch up Tirek's leg in a berserk flurry of motion, scarcely seeming to have heard.

Tirek shrugged, and gestured to the guards standing before the main door. Arrows were nocked, bows creaked, and arrows flew at Yrr in the space of a heartbeat.

One arrow missed. Another carved a red furrow across the side of Yrr's neck, and he hissed with pain. Another slammed into one of his legs, which kicked briefly and then flopped useless. He slid down the part of the leg he'd scaled so far, leaving two other arrows to snag his hair as they whistled past overhead.

The last arrow punched into the small of his back, and then he fell for good. His whole body contrived to twist as he crashed back to the floor. A breathless scream rasped out of his throat. One arm flailed out, like the limb of a pinned beetle.

It caught the golden box resting before the throne. The box skidded out across the floor and towards the plinths.

Scootaloo's gaze zeroed in on the box. She glanced around at the recovering Element-Bearers, and broke into a straight gallop at it. Her wings whirred to give that extra impetus to her charge. A quarter of the way there, half the way, it was almost within her reach, her hood grazed across the surface -

“I think not.”

Tirek voice boomed out as he brought one fist down on the arm of his throne. The room shook, the fires built and built and all but screamed with fury, and a great red force came down like a hammer blow upon the Crusaders and Element-Bearers. Their limbs were locked, the air boiled in their lungs, their eyelids were propped open as if with iron bars. Scootaloo couldn't so much as tremble where she stood, her hoof resting on the fire-dappled surface of the golden box.

“I see I'll have to be more thorough with Discord's magic next time,” said Tirek. “Before that … a certain and instructive end to this foolishness. Guards! Aim for the little ones.”

The blank-eyed guards, still standing in a neat line by the door, drew out a second volley of arrows and notched them to their bowstrings.

Hearts hammering, the Crusaders and Element-Bearers could only watch as the arrows were pulled back on the string. The bows raised, becoming black arcs in the incandescent light of the chamber.

The door exploded.

The guards stumbled back as shrapnel and streams of emerald fire slashed out from the pony-sized hole that had been bored through the door's centre. Before they could react, a small clay sphere flew through the hole and shattered at their hooves in an eruption of light and thunder. They stumbled back, disorientated, and in that opening, a cloaked pony leaped through the hole. Flaming splinters clung to and flew from their ragged cloak in flaming arcs, striped hooves clopped on the stone, and a drained-looking baby dragon flopped and wheezed on their back.

Tirek's gaze rose sharply towards them, his attention and will lifting like a suffocating weight from the backs of the Crusaders and Element-Bearers. “What is this further insolence?” he growled.

Zecora tipped her head back, shrugging off the hood of her cloak. A crossbow's grip was held between her teeth, and the crossbow's point rose to point towards Tirek's throat. Her grip tightened, and the bolt thrummed across the distance in a flash.

Quicker than chain lightning, Tirek rose from his throne, and the crash of his hooves hitting the floor made the palace tremble. One great hand blurred around to casually flick the bolt out of the air. A seething halo of blood-red magic built around his other hand, and he flicked it straight at Zecora with a bellow of “Enough!”

Zecora flung herself forwards to the ground, Spike tumbling down beside her. The magic slammed straight into the door with mountain-shattering force, blasting away the door and the wall around it in a cavalcade of thunder.

Unseen past the chaos, unhindered by crushing force, Scootaloo kicked the golden box behind her. It rolled across the floor towards the plinths.

Prone on the floor, unnoticed, the final piece of the puzzle slotted into place for Sweetie Belle. Soft green light gathered around her horn.

“Sweetie, you have been so brave, so, so brave,” murmured Rarity, lying just above her and shielding the little unicorn with her own body. “But you have to run. The others and I can buy you time -”

“Hush, Rarity. I'm concentrating.”

Probing green lines of magic carefully split off from the aura accumulating around her horn. Wavering with all the strength a filly's magic could muster, they snaked towards the tops of the plinths and plunged into the bellowing fires there.

Above them all, Tirek loomed like a stormcloud. He stepped forward and the shock of it sent cracks running through the stone floor.

“What must I do to you before ponykind learns to kneel?” He flicked a hand to one side and Spike was sent flying into a wall; he collided with a bone-jarring thump and lay still. “How much suffering do you want to take?” He flicked the same hand in the opposite direction, and the dazed guards were sent tumbling off towards the other wall. Zecora lay alone on the floor, and looked straight up at Tirek without hesitation.

“I lay upon you a witch's curse,” she spat. “Come on, weak king. Do your worst.”

Red magic seized her and hurled her up to Tirek's eyes. She struggled like a pinned insect, while huge black-and-white eyes bored into her. “Gladly.”

“You sure those'll do the trick?” came the small and unheeded voice of Apple Bloom.

“Maybe. They're what I found.”

“Yes, they're the keys we need. Step aside and let us get to them, girls. I'm not sure what'll happen when we open the box.” That was the bigger and significantly more heeded voice of Twilight Sparkle.

Tirek looked down. Before him, amidst strewn rubble and between the blazing plinths, the six Element-Bearers stood with a motley collection of red-hot keys pressed into the keyholes surrounding the golden box. To one side, the Cutie Mark Crusaders looked up at him with a certain grim satisfaction.

With only a slight gingerness, the six turned their keys in the locks.

Tirek just about managed to scream before the rainbow hammered out.

Comments

[Carabas]

4989449
That's a moustache rating I can live with.

4990276
Well, every centaur's got to have a hobby...

[Gen Brony]

NO! Stopping right there is what gets the book worms like me and to act like this.

[CCC]

Nice! A dramatic, last-minute save!

I must admit, I'd half expected Yrr to side with Tirek at the crucial moment - not because of anything Tirek had done, but because after all the abuse he'd suffered at the Crusaders' hooves, he would simply throw himself at the mercy of anyone who wasn't them.

Of course, Tirek would promptly have disabused Yrr of any notion that he, Tirek, was in any way a good guy...

[djthomp]

Ah yeah, crowning moments of awesome all around.

[Carabas]

4991694
Next chapter will be up shortly!

4992030
That probably would have been the exact outcome, if the lizardy hindbrain hadn't usurped everything away from the executive function at that moment.

4994174
You have to get a fair and even distribution of these things!

[Csquared08]

Not Yrr! Carabas, pls :(

[son_of_heaven176]

Reg magic seized her and hurled her up to Tirek's eyes.

I believe you mean "red". Unless Tirek somehow tapped into Azorius law magic.