My Little Dynamite: Book One

by Fuzzyfurvert

At the Safehouse

Chapter 4

Twilight kept her channeling staff leveled with the street as they cantered toward the recessed safe house door. The close brick walls made the clopping of their hooves echo and seem unnaturally loud to her ears. She ground her teeth together harder with every yard they covered, her nerves on edge.

A few choice evocations were ready in her mind should anything happen. With her staff out, she could easily unleash any of them at a moment’s notice and limit possible damage to the public or the nearby buildings. Any Battlemage of sufficient talent could fling a massive fireball into her enemies, but add a warstaff to the mix and she could focus all that destructive power into a single point only a hoof wide. Then—if the Battlemage also happened to be the personal protégé of Princess Celestia—she could take the resulting drop in ambient temperature and create slabs of ice to block or slow any pursuers. Attack and defense, fire and ice, all with one spell in elemental perfect harmony.

When they reached the door a moment later, Twilight was almost disappointed nothing had gone wrong. The door opened with a quiet creak as soon as Cadance put her hoof on it, allowing them into a small enclosed patio garden lined with berry bushes and dwarf fruit trees. The safe house itself rose above them like a small, wide fortress with narrow windows and iron bar lattice. Twilight closed the door the moment her hooves touched the short grass in the patio and dropped the crossbar to lock it. She could feel the air near it ionize as the security enchantments inscribed on the door and bar activated.

“You made it!”

Twilight whipped around, staff pointing at the sudden noise. She yanked the tip of the staff up at the last moment when she recognized Spike’s smaller bipedal form in the safe house’s door. She let out a relieved sigh and smiled happily at her assistant. “Glad to see you made it too, Spike.”

“I’ve been here for almost an hour already. Princess Celestia told me something was up and had some plainclothes guards escort me here. She didn’t give me much info to go on, except that I was to expect you two.” Spike set his clawed fists on his hips. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

Candance smiled sheepishly. “I seem to have an assassin after me. The Royal Sisters worked out a plan to set up a decoy while we got away. You, Twilight, and myself are supposed to lay low here until they know the assassin has been dealt with. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry, Princess! My day just got a whole lot more interesting.” Spike grinned like the shark that ate the albatross. “Besides, you should check this place out! The Royal Sisters didn’t spare a bit when they had this place built and stocked. There are even gems in the basement!”

“Probably provisions so no one would need to leave for a while.” Twilight lifted her cloak and tucked her staff away into its holster at her side. “I believe you were saying something about a shower, Cadance?”

---

Cadance hummed to herself as she stood on her rear hooves, the hot water spray of the shower soaking her coat and mane. She watched the runoff take the dirt and sweat back into the drainage pipes she and Twily had slogged through earlier. It felt like heaven to be clean again after so long. Hardly anyone would understand what a wonder it was to simply be in an Equestrian shower again. Hot water and indoor plumbing was not as common outside Equestrian borders as some thought.

She murmured pleasantly as her shoulders and back started to unclench under the heat and steady beating of the water. Cadance might have yet another assassin after her, but she wasn’t about to let that get her down. She had dodged them in Staliongrad, behind the Iron Barding. She had a close call in the Republic of the Camule when someone had bombed the building she was staying in. Even in the walled and relatively safe Minotauran Collective she’d had a few mysterious run-ins.

“It doesn’t matter,” Cadance whispered to herself, “I’m in good hooves now.”

“Huh?”

Cadance wiped her mane from her eyes and looked at Twilight. Without her hooded cloak and harness or her staff and Battlemage gear, Twilight looked surprisingly like a normal unicorn. In the dim lighting of the setting sun coming in through the window, Cadance could see Twilight had become quite the grown mare since she’d left. The unicorn was a little taller and her body looked strong with sleek lines that hinted at more than a little muscle under her purple coat.

“What did you say?” Twilight blinked at Cadance, flicking her own wet mane out of her eyes.

“Um...I was just mentioning our water reserves, and it’s lucky that the shower is just big enough for the both of us to stand in.” Cadance smirked lopsidedly. Now that they could sort of relax and they were both standing close in the shower, she felt her earlier bravado waver. Twilight was no longer the adorkable bookworm she had spent time growing up with. “Otherwise, you’d have to wait ‘til tomorrow to have a hot shower. I’m sure neither of us wants you to smell for that long.”

Twilight shuffled in place awkwardly, her eyes darting around the bathroom, desperate to look at anything other than the wet alicorn that shared the shower with her. “I-I’ll just be here for a minute, really. In and out quick so you can enjoy the shower by yourself.”

Cadance chuckled, leaning into Twilight when her hooves slipped on the wet tile. She flailed wildly for a second until Twilight moved to brace her. They ended up facing each other, nose to nose, Twilight’s back pinned to the tile wall under the single showerhead. Twilight blinked in surprise, starting to turn away when Cadance gripped her shoulders. “No, don’t. I want to enjoy the shower with you. I’ve waited five years to be with you, Twily. Can’t you let the whole ‘professional bodyguard’ thing drop for a moment and just be cute, dorky Twilight?”

“I-I…” Twilight swallowed nervously, twitching under Cadance’s hooves. The Battlemage blushed and looked down. Her voice was soft when she continued. “I’m not cute, Cadance. I want to be friends with you like we promised, but right now I’m your protector, your guardian. And...you keep throwing me off balance. I feel...like I wish there was a spell that would allow me to melt and escape down the drain. That’s what you do to me, Princess.”

Cadance could feel the short, quick breaths Twilight was taking. “Twily, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Her eyes widened, focusing on the purple hoof that was suddenly pressed against her muzzle.

Twilight held her hoof there for a moment, and then the tenseness left her and she slumped limply. Twilight looked into Cadance’s eyes. “Ok…we can be just Twilight and Cadance. Is that alright? If just for tonight?”

“I would like that.” Cadance sighed happily and pulled Twilight into a hug, which the unicorn returned a moment later. “I would like that very much.”

---

The sunset painted Canterlot in hues of orange, red, and gold though the haze of dust and smoke of powered carriages and airship exhaust. Across the city, ponies were calling in their foals for dinner, diamond dog merchants were closing shop, or calling in the markets for one last sale. Overhead, airships docked, while pegasi and drakes jostled for perches along the walls and towers as they came to roost for the evening.

When the sun fully sank below the horizon, Canterlot became a miniature copy of the sky above, thousands of tiny lights peeking out through the darkness. Above the city, the brightest point was the castle with its glowing dome of pure arcane force sealed like the closed petals of a flower. In the dark places, between the points of light, people slept and a monster moved.

Pale green glowing eyes searched the night, hunting its prey.

The Royal Sisters thought their distraction tactics had worked. They thought they could capture her. Her free, silently prowling hooves proved how wrong they were. That little pink trollop is still in the city, I can smell it. I’ll find her and then, when I do, I will claim her head.

Her spells and poisons would make sure of that.

Comments

[Fourpony]

“I would like that.” Cadance sighed happily and pulled Twilight into a hug, which the unicorn returned a moment later.

Guess it is time to make up for all that college experimenting that got missed.