• Published 12th Jul 2015
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Sisters in All but Blood - scifipony



At Moon Dancer's Party, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, Minuette, Lyra, and I realized that only we stood between a cursed Celestia, a conspiracy in Canterlot, and the coming of Nightmare Moon. Could we, with Shining's help, save Equestria?

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Chapter 10 - Perseverance in the Face of Despair

Author's Note:

Well, this is embarrassing. I published chapter 10, this one, before chapter 9. If I left anypony confused, I'm very sorry. Chapter 9 is now published, even though I had to do it in a reader dead zone, which will cost me new readers, but integrity is more important. I'll be more careful next time!

Crystalline ordered Shining to accompany us despite his injuries, and stayed back herself to guard the 1st lieutenant with two carriage guards. If our efforts failed, someone besides Bright Noon needed report what had happened.

Because of the fog, and Twinkie's inability to clear more than a couple pony-lengths around her, we were forced to approach packed too close together and roughly in a line, slowly following the remnant of a centuries-old stone road chiseled into blocks the diameter of a wagon wheel. By the suggestion of the guard, anypony who could do a force spell prepared it. If attacked, we might be able to knock Nightmare Moon unconscious. Big Mac dragged a rope and log sledge with rocks and large branches that could be levitated or kicked at a target. We would reserve spears as a last resort as our best theory still was that Celestia had been turned by dark magic into Nightmare Moon.

Our small army marched up the hill through shifting clumps of fog. Guards flanked us and led the way as we meandered around stunted trees and bushes that littered what might of one time been grand lawns. As we approached, the sound of our hooves and the scraping of the sledge echoed back, giving us our first sense of the enormity of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Then moonlight glinted off of broken glass, a dark ruby color in this light, set in a spooky tower that rose as high as the tallest of trees. Flying buttress ramparts came into view next, shining bluely against the moonlit sky.

As we neared the top of the hill, we rose out of the thickest fog, revealing ancient devastation on an incomprehensible scale. The castle had not collapsed due to abandonment and centuries of neglect; no, someponies had visibly smashed it. A tower lay shoved over broken in sections, like the stacked blocks toppled by an angry foal. Trees and ivy strangled the remains. Holes the size of houses were blasted through the ramparts, most far above ground level. Buttresses and flying bridges, knocked loose, had fallen in lines going deep into the keep. Through a doubly collapsed bailey wall, we could see crushed buildings in the inner courtyard. Undoubtedly, more damage lay obscured from view by mist and intact walls. I began worrying that we needed archeologists more than needed royal guard.

Bon Bon appeared out of nowhere. The guard immediately closed in around me, the pegasi shooting into the air. The MEL agent waited until I came to her with Shining on my right and Twin Forks on my left.

No, she wasn't an illusion.

She genuflected and said, "Your Highness. The castle appears unoccupied, best as I can determine not being a pegasus. I say 'appears,' because I triggered a number of illusions coming up here, and my thaumaturgometer indicates it's all fresh magic. I encountered illusions of a forest of flesh-eating trees that could move their limbs like tentacles, and something more intelligent that tried to convince me to run a new security agency tasked with Tartarus security. I've seen such horse apples before. I think I tripped any that might bother us during my investigation. Ma'am, I also found a building named the Hall of Harmony which contains a giant clockwork device resembling an image I saw in one of your books."

"Gems?" I asked.

"Uh, not exactly."

We exited a dark corridor into a three-story hall half the length of Celestia's throne room. The roof had exploded down to one side of the hall, opening half the ceiling to the light of the bright moon. Massive stone columns from which travertine casing had long ago crumbled, buttressed the remaining ceiling and walls. Despite the dirt and vines that had invaded the Hall of Harmony, it looked like it might remain intact for a few more centuries. Slime and moss hung from cracks and ledges. Much of the stained glass had been blasted, shattered. The jagged teeth of what remained glittered where the mist had wet it. In the middle stood a pristine mechanical device: a round thin-waisted gold pedestal with glittering radial arms. It stood in a hatch in the floor on a threaded cylinder. Neither it, the cylinder, nor the clockwork visible beneath looked as if it had been exposed to the weather as did the soil-littered floor, invaded by scrub bushes and sickly ivy.

The pedestal held six white marble spheres. Each had a six-point star inscribed upon its face at the equator. The five on the arms were dwarfed by the giant sphere on the central pedestal.

None were gems.

My hoof falls echoed as I walked toward it, picking out a path through the debris. The warmth in my limbs drained out of me, along with the determination in my soul. Thoughts began spiraling downward, like numbers in a failing spell. We're too late. Nightmare Moon destroyed them. I began to shiver and had to sit down. My eyes began burning and soon I felt a rivulet down my cheek. Was Celestia gone for a thousand years? Nopony would survive a thousand years of night with no way to grow food.

It was all my fault. I hadn't risked everything. I hadn't gone as fast as I could. The only excuse for not being here on time should have been that I died trying. I fought a sob that forced its way up—even in failure, I remained responsible for everypony, for saving them from Nightmare Moon, for seeing it to whatever end I brought about by my actions.

My throat closed. I must not cry.

I couldn't do it; tears came.

Harps sat by me on the right, gazing up at the marble spheres. "I read a Daring Do novel where—"

"Not now, Lyra." My voice cracked when Minty Green turned her amber eyes toward me.

"—where Dr. Caballero got to the monastery atop Grand Glacial Mountain before Daring did. He took the original pegasus feather and controlled the weather. Like you, Twilight, Daring had naught but intelligence and cunning. It's how she prevailed in the end."

From the left, Twinkie said, "Since when does Twilight Sparkle ever fail?" I glanced over and she sat with compressed lips making an "Huh? Huh? Huh?" dopey expression, her pink mane shaking with her effort. She added, "I mean, really?"

Minuette snorted and wormed her way between Twinkie and me, assuring that I'd have to butt into Twinkie to avoid her, which I didn't do because she'd just fill more space. She laughed, "As I'd answer our princess: I do concur! Setbacks, piffle."

"Say," Hearts spoke directly into my ear with her warm breath. I jumped and turned to see a red aura light around her yellow horn in the sea of her chartreuse mane. "Those marbles would probably hurt if we hit Nightmare Moon with one." Her magic pulsed around the closest marble sphere and it lifted like an egg out of a spoon. It was easily half her rather large height and had to weigh four times what she did.

Or maybe not. It made a glassy coconut conk on the stone.

Lunettes said matter-of-factly, "Your Highness, it's hollow." She squeezed in on my right, laying her cheek against mine, leaving me a Twilight sandwich. "You're our glue, Twilight Sparkle. Equestria's glue. Time to be sticky."

For the moment, I really needed their warmth. For a moment, it kept the baying of the hounds distant. I took a deep breath and blinked away the tears that certainly wet Lunettes' cheek, too. If I could always have my five moons orbiting my sun…

I gasped. There was a thought and, and, and… I stood up, grasping for the flittering, maddening idea that refused to alight. "Uggh!"

I began pacing. How did Celestia deal with such pressure! I went back and forth in front of my friends, near the edge to the hatch from whence the pedestal had screwed out of the floor. I noticed the remainder of the troop watched; pegasi hovered above the others near the door. They saw my tears, but if it bothered them, I saw no sign. Shining lay on the ground, watching intently and giving me a smile, and Bon Bon was walking up to me.

I stopped at the moon-white marble sphere, shot through with varying grey veins of sparkle. The thing appeared translucent, but could just as easily been opalescent. I lifted my hoof to tap it, but the effort to lightly touch the metal of my shoe against what might be breakable glass stopped as if I'd touched a transparent rubber outer shell.

I tapped harder, and got closer to the visible surface.

I lay so I could look underneath, and it seemingly levitated over the floor like repelling magnets. I jumped up and tapped even harder, and went deeper. "Is it magic?"

Bon Bon had watched me experiment. At the question, she reached her mouth into a saddlebag and brought out a forked branch. It was hoof-sized and made of silver, despite having bark and it's end showing growth rings. She waved it in a circle. While I could hear a faint buzz, it rattled Bon Bon's teeth. She replaced the device and said, "No fresh magic; very little over all. They may not be the gems you expected, but they haven't been touched in years, at least according to the thaumaturgometer. Our alicorn perp didn't do this."

I reared and rolled the sphere until it touched the cylinder and stopped. I adjusted my hooves and applied all my weight until I pushed as hard as I could. Harps, Hearts, Lunettes, Minuette, and Twinkie crowded around and copied me. Once we kept it from rolling, I said, "On three: one, two, three—"

The covering instantly popped. The sphere dropped the short distance to the dirty ground. It made a glassy hollow scrapping sound as it rolled into a divot, forcing us back.

I tapped it. Definitely hollow.

Before I could even ask, Twinkie levitated another sphere down, while pegasi gathered the rest by clamping their legs around them. Of particular interest was that none of the pegasi could even push into the transparent covering. I had Bon Bon test it also, but to her and the rest it might have as well been diamond.

I tried opening one using a few combinations of the six of us friends, three, four, even five at a time. While any of us could press in, and more of us could press further, it took all of us to release a sphere.

Echoes of ideas in the book about the elements ricocheted around my head. Somehow only we six could release the spheres. Did that mean we were aligned with the elements?

The big sphere in the center was completely different from the five. Not only did it prove to be solid, heavy, and mineral through and through, it had no protective barrier. And it wasn't marble except in appearance. Nothing we had could scratch it, and even with the big ponies lead by Big Mac—who deployed a makeshift winch—nothing could budge it. As best we could tell, it wasn't itself actively magical.

Bon Bon stood next to me, nodding her head and looking at all the sudden industry, a big change from ten minutes ago. She had a half-grin, which caused me to ask, "Did I miss something?"

"That's it, Your Highness," she appraised me with magenta eyes, "You aren't missing anything, except perhaps self-confidence. Self-confidence comes with stupid bravery or hard-earned experience. I doubt that Princess Celestia started her reign getting it all right. She probably made some very bad mistakes; this curse may be one of them, who knows? Persevere for all of us because I think you have the right stuff. With the help of your five friends, I think you'll go in the right direction even if we never get Her Majesty back. I, for one, have leaned on Lyra more than once to find where I lost myself. Her kindness of heart is extraordinary. Please value her as much as I do."

I didn't realize I had been glancing away. When I looked back at Bon Bon, she had again vanished.

I looked at the five smaller spheres, at my five friends chatting, then the five spheres. I pulled the book on the Elements of Harmony from Lunettes' saddlebag. I opened it in front of me as Lunettes trotted over and levitated her black-rimmed glasses on to her nose. I read aloud for the both of us, "When the five are present, a spark will cause the sixth Element to be revealed."

Lunettes said, "I'm thinking that we 'revealed' the five spheres. The five are now present, like your five friends."

"I'm thinking something like that, too. A spark will reveal the sixth unknown element."

"And you're thinking that's something you have to do?"

"Uh-huh. And between Twinkleshine and me, I think I have the spark spell pretty much assembled in my head."

Lunettes said, "42," and grinned.

"Huh?"

"That was the number that balanced the equation for me. The spark? Shining Armor?"

I hugged her. After a moment, she returned it, strongly.

Lunettes stepped back and addressed the herd, pushing up glasses. "Everypony!"

I said, "I have an idea. Please, stand back. I don't know what will happen."

Applejack said, "Come on now, y'all. She needs to concentrate. Everybody back away and clear the room."

The five spheres—hopefully, possibly, maybe cocoons containing the elements of harmony—would respond to a not-at-all-metaphoric spark. And if not, maybe the result would give me an idea. If not, maybe I could dig something else out of the book's musty pages.

I began concentrating, solving terms and plugging in values, trying to bend the physical world to my will. The numbers started spinning, but kept spilling out. I had missed a term, but I felt a breeze and opened my eyes. Not even moving in synchrony to my forming spell, the spheres had begun dancing in place. In moments, they lifted from the ground and began to rotate, then move.

I jumped back. Even so, a sphere barked my nose. I stepped back as the spheres began orbiting a point, faster and faster as I looked on in dismay. I smelled ozone and heard the crackle of electricity.

The electricity wasn't from me. My numbers shot apart, spell 42 lost. I turned toward the herd at the entrance to the hall.

They looked on blankly. No horns sported an aura.

They were as clueless as me! Together, we all realized that none of us had spun up the spheres. I felt a sudden chill not at all metaphorical.

Frigid cold.

That made me remember the black nothingness of my teleport spell. Without thought, I leaped blindly back, up, over, and toward the center of the whirling white marble spheres into what proved to be—

—Black frigid nothingness.