119 - Made to Bend
Fencer hadn’t gone very far by the time Lex found her.
He’d headed back towards the shelter, thinking that she’d have gone there to try and find something to replace her ruined clothes. Instead, he caught sight of her down another hallway in the wider warehouse, giving a roll of fabric a critical look as if evaluating it. Then she noticed him stalking towards her and turned to face him, giving a sigh that was equal parts resignation and irritation as her expression hardened. “Here we go,” she muttered, just loud enough to be audible.
“You…!” he hissed, trying to contain his outrage. “What do you have to say for yourself?!”
She raised one eyebrow, and then telekinetically lifted the roll of fabric she’d been studying, holding it in front of her. “You still owe me for that dress you ruined. I’d like to have a new one made before I go back there,” she canted her head towards the shelter, “since I prefer to keep my cutie mark priva-”
“Silence!” snarled Lex. Grabbing Severance in his own telekinetic grip, he gave the weapon a furious swing, cutting the roll of fabric in two and leaving large gashes in the metal shelves on either side of them. “You deserve nothing except an extremely harsh punishment for what you did to Cozy’s husband, and quite likely many other ponies as well!” He knew he couldn’t read other people at all, but even he was cognizant of Fencer’s complete and utter lack of remorse for her actions, and it made him livid. How could she not care about what she’d done?!
Fencer tossed the sliced fabric aside, annoyed. “So what are you going to do? Kill me? If so, bring it on.” She widened her stance slightly, dipping her head just a little to move her horn in his direction. “I’ll defend myself with everything I have. Or will you cut me up like I did that crystal pony?” She paused, pretending to consider that. “Nah, you don’t have the guts. So what then? Tell everypony in that shelter what I did? Go right ahead; I told you, I’m not ashamed.” She smirked at the enraged look on his face. You see? You can’t control me. Nopony can. “So how are you going to ‘punish’ me?”
Despite being apoplectic, Lex somehow managed to keep his temper from exploding. “First, you’re going to show me where you left Pillowcase. Then, I promise you, you’re going to pay for what you did.”
Fencer was unimpressed. “I told you, I don’t take orders from you. If you want me to show you where we left him, you’re going to have to give me something in return.”
Lex’s response was to stand there and seethe. For a moment he’d considered finding Aria and having her use her detection spell to try and track Pillowcase down, but knew that wouldn’t work. She’d shared the details of that spell with him before, when he was looking for ways to pinpoint the locations of the undead ponies infesting Vanhoover, and although that hadn’t been enough to let him learn to cast it, she had informed him that the spell had limits. It could track down specific individuals, but only if the spellcaster had met them before, and Aria was adamant that she’d never seen a crystal pony before Cozy. It could locate particular kinds of creatures instead, but when he’d had her check for nearby undead ponies – “ghouls,” Aria had called them, a name based on how one of the other undersea denizens had referred to them – he’d thought to ask if she could track down a crystal pony as well.
She had tried, but as it turned out, the spell hadn’t been able to; while it could differentiate between pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies, “crystal ponies” was apparently a distinction that it couldn’t make. Although that had been frustrating, it had made sense to Lex. He’d seen crystal earth ponies and crystal pegasi before, which suggested that crystal ponies were an ethnicity rather than a different kind of creature from their non-crystal counterparts. Even so, Lex had been tempted to have Aria simply search for earth ponies – according to Cozy, that was Pillowcase’s tribe – but the spell only found the closest instance of a given creature, which meant that their current group’s earth ponies would generate a false positive. So he had no choice but to have Fencer take them to Pillowcase if he didn’t want to search blindly.
Standing behind Lex, Sonata – who had been quietly watching the exchange up until now – nervously moved forward. She knew that as much as Lex was prone to ranting and shouting when he was angry, his worst fits of rage were when he couldn’t bring himself to speak, and that looked like what was happening now. Between what he’d said before about making Fencer suffer something that would make death seem tame if Cozy’s husband wasn’t alright, and how he’d swung Severance around just now, she was beginning to grow worried. “Listen, it’s not such a big deal, right?” she asked Fencer, her eyes flitting back and forth between her and Lex. “If it’s just one of the warehouses around here, you can point it out to us in a jiff, no problem.”
“I already told you what happened to him,” replied Fencer coolly. She had decided to stick with the ponies here and learn about how Lex had supposedly turned them into a force to be reckoned with, but there was no way she was going to bow and scrape to him in the meantime. “If you want more than that from me, you need t-, WAAAGH!”
Her voice turned into a scream of shock in mid-sentence as black crystals began to sprout from her horn. In a moment they had completely covered it, leaving her horn hidden beneath the dark protrusions. In a panic, she tried to telekinetically pull them off, but it was futile; the crystals thoroughly disrupted her ability to channel magic through her horn. “What is this?!” Her cool demeanor was utterly shattered now, leaving her gaping with horror for several moments before turning her gaze to Lex. “What did you do?!”
“Exactly what it looks like,” he smirked, giving her a look of spiteful satisfaction. “I’ve sealed your ability to use magic. If you want to so much as conjure a light ever again, you’ll take me to where you left Pillowcase immediately.” It was a bluff, of course; he couldn’t make the black crystals remain permanently, but she didn’t know that. While Lex normally detested lies and deception, they were permissible in an adversarial situation, which this absolutely qualified as.
“Y-you…” Now it was Fencer’s turn to have her expression twisted in impotent rage. She glared at him for several seconds, as if trying to make him undo what he’d done through sheer force of will, then turned away. Gritting her teeth, she raised a hoof and then smashed it to her crystal-covered horn, to no effect. Taking a deep breath, she tried again, hitting her horn hard enough to draw a grunt of pain from her lips.
“That won’t work,” chuckled Lex, making no effort to hide his enjoyment as he watched her struggle. “Your horn will break off long before you’ll ever free it.”
Fencer shot him a murderous glare, and struck her horn one more time before she gave up. She tried to think, tried to restore her inner balance and find a way out of this problem, but nothing came to mind. Just the thought of never being able to use magic again, of being permanently crippled, was enough to terrify her. She looked around, trying to spot something that would let her get out of this without giving in, and her eyes fell on Sonata. “I told you what you wanted to know! Do something about this!” she blurted.
Sonata jumped slightly, unable to help a momentary burst of fear as the most callous person she’d ever met focused their attention on her. But a moment later she firmed up her resolve, setting her mouth in a hard line. “What’s in it for me?” she asked, letting her sarcasm speak for itself. Fencer looked ready to kill her, and even took a single step forward until Lex swung Severance back into a ready position, the warning obvious.
Breathing heavily, Fencer looked back and forth at the two of them, and Sonata saw her dig at the ground with one hoof in a clear gesture of aggression. For an instant, she thought that the other mare was going to charge them anyway, but then Fencer let out a breath and lowered her head down, her mane falling over her eyes. “Alright,” she said in a strangled voice. “I’ll take you to where it happened.”
“A wise decision,” Lex sneered, still unable to resist taking joy in her defeat. He mastered himself a moment later as he turned to Sonata. “I’ll search for Pillowcase. You stay here-”
“Are you kidding me?!” yelled Sonata, looking at him in disbelief. “After what happened last time, you’re going to go out there by yourself again?! You’re supposed to be, like, the smart one here!”
Lex frowned. It seemed like she’d been yelling at him a lot lately. “After myself, you’re the most powerful one here. It makes sense for you to stay behind in case something happens while I’m gone.” He tried to keep the peevishness out of his voice, but the look on Sonata’s face made him wonder how well he’d succeeded.
Sonata let out an unhappy grunt, and held back the urge to stamp a hoof in frustration. She loved how big his brain was, but sometimes having him be right all the time was so annoying! “Fine! But you’re taking Severance with you then!”
“That’s really not-”
“You’re taking Severance with you!” This time her voice was a growl, and it was so unlike her usual self that Lex was momentarily flummoxed. For her part, Sonata could barely keep her frustration and anxiety in check. “The last time you went to look for survivors you were totes ambushed and almost died, and that is NOT going to happen again! So this time I’m not going to settle for a promise! Instead, you’re taking Severance with you and I won’t take no for an answer!”
“Fine!” yelled Lex, more from exasperation than anger. Something was definitely up with her; he felt fairly confident of it now. This level of aggressiveness was unlike her usual disposition. He’d need to investigate the cause of it after he returned. “I’ll take Severance with me.” Putting the weapon on his back, he turned towards Fencer and was about to order her to start moving when he heard hoofsteps behind him. Glancing back, he let out a sigh as he saw Cozy running towards them. He’d wanted to leave before she got back, since she’d be safer if she waited in the shelter. That probably wasn’t going to happen now.
Cozy looked mildly alarmed as she approached them. “I heard yelling, is everything alright?! I talked to everypony in there, but they’re all saying that they don’t know anything!” She looked between Lex and Sonata, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Did she tell you anything?!” Without waiting for an answer, she looked at Fencer, barely registering what had happened to her horn. “Please! Please tell me where Pillow is!”
“She told us,” answered Lex gruffly. He was preparing himself to refuse her if she asked for details. She didn’t need to know the specifics, not yet at least. “We’re going to retrieve him right now.”
“Oh! Oh thank Lashtada!” Cozy looked like she was about to start bawling, but instead sniffled and wiped her muzzle with one hoof. Managing a watery smile, she looked at Fencer. “Thank you! Lashtada bless you!” Sniffling, she looked at Lex. “So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Fighting back the urge to sigh, Lex looked at Fencer. “Go. Now.” She gave him a dirty look, but a moment later turned and headed for the warehouse door, Cozy following closely behind. Lex paused long enough to give a backwards look at Sonata. “I don’t think this will take very long. Have the doctors get ready in case we’re not too late.” Then he turned and left without waiting for a reply.
For her part, Sonata lingered there for a moment, eyeing the space where her boyfriend had been. She knew he was doing the right thing, and that he’d taken his strongest weapon with him this time, but she was starting to get really sick of him throwing himself into danger. At the very least, she wished he’d help her work off her stress from the last couple of times he’d done this. But as blatant as she’d made her last attempt to let him know what she wanted, she still wasn’t sure he’d gotten the message.
That does it, she decided as she turned back towards the shelter. When he gets back I’m gonna drag him off into a corner somewhere and not let him go until we’ve done it, like, five times.
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At the rate things are going, Sonatas going to be getting a new Spell Level by the time Lex gets back?
8262821 Well, at some point one of these outings has to go smoothly, right?
...right?
Well, that actually went better than I expected though this only made Fencer resent Lex more so the likelihood of her cooperating in the future lessens though I doubt Lex would care if she didn't given his current opinion of her.
Also, Lex's mental note to 'investigate' Sonata's aggressiveness is amusing as are Sonata's attempts to clue Lex in on what she wants. Relationships are never easy but even more so for these two.
8262881 It's amusing to consider that Sonata and Lex are basically taking the "good cop/bad cop" approach to trying to correct Fencer's attitude. Sonata is trying to reason with her (using a little coercive magic), whereas Lex is forcing her to submit to his will via punishments. It's an open question which method, if any, will be effective.
As for Lex and Sonata's relationship...yeah, they're still trying to figure out the finer details, such as Sonata's being increasingly less coy and Lex still not being able to intuit what she wants. Either she needs to be even more direct, or he needs to be more proactive (since he wants her too), or both.
Le’s -- Lex’s
8263110 Whoops, how did that happen? Fixed now!
No glaring typos this time around. Either you are getting better, or I am getting worse.
8384815 Hopefully the former!