Lateral Movement

by Alzrius

28 - Newly Departed

Lex’s eyes snapped open, making the transition from sleep to total wakefulness instantaneously.

For all that he’d embraced austerity in his personal life, waking up so suddenly each and every morning – a byproduct of his nightmare-ridden sleep – was not something he enjoyed. While Lex wasn’t one to start the day by excessively lingering in a state of half-aware drowsiness the way he knew some ponies did, it was far more preferable than the jarring awakening that he always had now.

Still, that was the least of his concerns at the moment. Quietly climbing to his hooves, Lex quietly folded his blanket and tucked it into his haversack, pulling out a large traveling cloak a moment later, which he then donned together with his bag. The soft breathing coming from the bed told him that Drowsy was still asleep, for which Lex was thankful. She had proven to be among the more irritating ponies he’d ever met, and the thought that this was likely the last time he’d ever see her was not an unpleasant one.

Glancing at the clock, he could just barely make out that it read 4:30 on the dot. Giving a perfunctory nod of self-satisfaction at having been able to wake up at precisely the correct time due purely to personal discipline, Lex strode towards the door.

As he crossed the room, his eyes flared green with purple contrails appearing from them. Unlike with his own magic, which required chanting and gesticulating to activate it, the dark magic that Lex had inherited when he’d taken King Sombra’s horn could be utilized with just a thought, with his eyes being the only outward sign of its use. And even that was suppressed a moment later as Lex’s body dissolved into incorporeality, becoming a shadow that passed through the wooden door as though it wasn’t even there.

Outside, Lex headed towards the town square, the location where the newspaper had said that the first wave of evacuees would gather. Utterly silent and almost invisible in the darkness, Lex made sure to stick to the edges of the street to better minimize the chances of anypony catching sight of him. It was fortunate that this form sharpened his visual acuity to the point of having sight that could penetrate even complete darkness, even if it was limited to black-and-white only.

Finally reaching the square, which was already milling with ponies, Lex hung back, glancing around before flowing over to a particularly thick set of shadows clustered around an alleyway. From there, he observed the growing crowd in silence.

Lex’s plan was a simple one. It was a given that there’d be some sort of attendance taken, designed to weed out anypony that wasn’t supposed to be there. In this form, Lex knew that he could avoid that easily enough, and once the assembled group set out, it would likely be simplicity itself to slip back into corporeal form and move among them.

Under ideal circumstances, Lex wouldn’t have bothered retaking solid form, but prudence demanded that he did. It would take a few hours for the group to reach their destination, and while Lex could stay as a shadow that long, it would place a drain on his horn’s dark magic. Not much of one, of course, but he was determined to conserve as much of his strength as possible before the actual conflict began.

Watching as the crowd grew, Lex sneered at them in his mind. How could nopony there realize the trap that they were being led into? Even now, the total number of ponies gathered there was barely more than a hundred. It should have been obvious that trying to evacuate Tall Tale, a city whose population Lex knew was in the low tens of thousands, in groups with such small numbers was a fatally flawed endeavor. And yet there was no sign that anypony there was even remotely suspicious.

For all his disdain, however, Lex never considered changing his current course of action. The ponies there were all in serious trouble, even if they didn’t realize the full extent of it. As someone who did, and who had the capability to do something about it, Lex knew that he was therefore morally bound to help them to the best of his abilities, regardless of what he thought of them personally. Otherwise he would be morally culpable for whatever fate they’d suffer.

Even the thought of abandoning these ponies – of abandoning his entire moral code – was enough to send a shudder of visceral revulsion through Lex. His moral framework, byzantine though it was, was couched in absolute terms and could not be abrogated no matter what it cost him. That was what Sonata had failed to understand.

Sonata…

Thoughts of his ex-girlfriend, for he had no more lingering doubts about her sincerity in ending their relationship, sent a pang through Lex, reminding him again of just how much he’d sacrificed in order to maintain the sanctity of the only way he had for dealing with a world – with more than one world – that steadfastly refused to make sense no matter how hard he tried to decipher it. It was one thing to hold that a principle was inviolable; it was quite another to have to live up to that.

Lex was saved from sinking further into the mire of his regrets as he heard a voice speak up from the nearby crowd of ponies.

It seemed the evacuation had begun.

---

“Everypony! Everypony please settle down! We’re now going to begin the evacuation!” Breezyleaf’s voice quieted the murmurings of the assembled ponies, drawing all attention to her. Doing her best to put on a smile, she waved a hoof lamely at the crowd.

Inwardly, she felt like she was going to be sick. Not only had she helped terrorize these ponies over the last several days, but now she was pretending to help them while in fact leading them to their doom. Although she knew she was imagining it, she could almost see the silent accusations on the faces in the crowd, asking her what they had done to deserve this.

She wished again that Rockwood was the one who had to address the crowd – nothing ever seemed to get to him – but he and Shadowvine had insisted that it be her. “You’re the most personable,” Shadowvine had told her. “And besides, you’ve even picked up some of the local slang, like calling them ‘pony’ all the time. Just say it like we rehearsed, and walk in front of them, and we’ll do the rest.”

Licking her lips, Breezyleaf kept speaking. “I’m…” She paused, unable to bring herself to tell them her name. Somehow that made it even more personal, the horrid betrayal that she was carrying out.

For a moment, she wondered what would happen if she confessed everything right there. That she was one of the horrible spiders that had been attacking them. That they’d only done it because their brother was being held hostage by a dragon, who’d already killed another member of their family and would do it again if they didn’t do everything it said. That she and her family weren’t bad people, and didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but just wanted to get Brightrose back and find Fireflower, wherever he was, and go home.

She almost said it, but as she opened her mouth she caught sight of her remaining siblings hovering at the edge of the crowd. Shadowvine was staring at her silently, a pleading look on her face. Nearby, Rockwood’s expression hadn’t changed, but he shook his head slowly.

Swallowing, Breezyleaf bit back what she’d been about to say. They were right, of course. Even if she told them everything, nothing would change. All that would happen would be that Brightrose would be killed, and they wouldn’t be far behind. After all, if they didn’t take the ponies to the dragon, it would come to them, and the result would be the same. After all, every time she and her siblings had staged an attack, they’d never met even a token resistance. This world’s ponies were good people, but they were defenseless, and Breezyleaf and her siblings didn’t have the power to defend them.

Resigning herself to what was about to happen, she spoke up again. “I’m going to ask that you follow me to the rendezvous point. Since we’re short on time we’re going to leave right now, but while we go I’m going to ask you to try and form a line behind me so that my si-, my secretary,” she nodded towards Shadowvine, who waved the clipboard that the mayor had given them previously, “can check you against our list of approved evacuees.”

She paused for a moment, making sure to sweep her eyes over the assembled ponies. “If you weren’t on the list for being evacuated at this time then please, please do not try and join the departing group. We will have another official working at the back of the group to make sure nopony falls behind,” now it was Rockwood’s turn to nod towards the crowd, “and we can’t afford to escort anypony back to town if you’re not supposed to be here.”

That was all pointless, of course. While the mayor had furnished them with checklists of individuals for each phase of the evacuation, the araneas knew that those didn’t matter in the slightest, since this was going to be a one-way trip for everypony involved. As such, Shadowvine was just going to ignore any discrepancies that came up and turn in a completed list to the mayor after each group departed.

Steeling herself, Breezyleaf turned around and started walking, hearing the ponies following behind her. She kept up a brisk pace, knowing that her brother’s life would be the first one forfeit if the dragon thought that they weren’t going to show up.

---

Nosey had always taken pride in getting her work into print, to be able to share her captivating words with ponies all over Equestria. But she knew that the words she was uttering right now wouldn’t make it past any editor worth their salt. Nevertheless, she kept up her steady stream of cursing as she rushed down the street, her surrounding illuminated only by the dark grey glow around her horn and her camera.

She’d been so certain that she’d developed a foolproof plan for following her pugnacious guest, and initially it seemed like everything had worked exactly like she’d planned. The alarm had gone off when she’d set it for, and sure enough Lex had been gone. But as she’d rushed to gather her things, she’d realized that she’d outsmarted herself.

She’d broken down the camera that she’d bought yesterday after Lex had thrown a hissy fit about her photographing him. In hindsight, that had been a huge mistake on her part. The camera was one that had multiple parts to it, and since she’d bought it secondhoof there hadn’t been any instructions about how to set it up. The result had been that it had taken her almost an hour to put it together when she'd first used it.

As such, when she had reached for it after waking up this morning, she’d paled when she realized that she’d need to assemble it again in order to take any pictures. She’d briefly considered just carrying the box and setting it up on-site when something happened, but had immediately discarded that idea; there was no way anything newsworthy would wait around while she figured out how to get everything set up!

With no other choice, Nosey had started to frantically assemble her camera right there. It hadn’t taken nearly as long, since she’s already assembled and disassembled it once before, but it still took her over twenty minutes to get everything put into place! Now she was charging through the dark streets towards the town square, desperately hoping that she hadn’t just missed the story of the century.

But as she charged into the town square only to find it completely empty, it looked like that was exactly what had happened.

---

“I can’t believe you forgot to set the alarm!”

Sonata’s voice would have been angrier if she hadn’t been panting as she galloped all-out towards the town square. As it was, she had to struggle to speak at all while she was pushing herself so hard, but she couldn’t resist the urge, being extremely upset.

“I’m…sorry…!” came Fireflower’s gasping voice from behind her, struggling to keep up. Sonata risked a glance back and saw that, even with all of his huffing and puffing, he was pretty shamefaced. He’d only said that something had distracted him and he’d forgotten to set the alarm, but for some reason had refused to say what. It made no sense to Sonata; what could possibly have distracted him? The two of them had been all alone in that room without anyone else there! It was a good thing she’d needed to use the bathroom, or they might both still be asleep!

Biting her lip, Sonata pushed thoughts of blame out of her head, instead focusing on pushing herself to get to the square as fast as she could, even though her legs were already burning. Just a little more…

Rounding a corner, she let out a cry of despair as she saw that the plaza was empty. They were too late! Except…no, there was one pony there, a mare carrying a camera, of all things. Ignoring Fireflower’s labored breathing behind her, she galloped over to the other mare, hoping she knew which way everybody had gone.

The other mare, a familiar-looking unicorn with a dark coat, a blonde mane and tail, and glasses, was already heading towards her, and Sonata could already see the same tension on her face. Maybe she had overslept too?

““Do you kno-”” The two of them spoke in unison, then stopped, two sets of eyes widening.

““I remember you!””

Author's Note:

Everyone sets out, but will this be their final destination?

One way or another, the end is coming into sight!

Comments

[Not so New Brony]

Well, the cavalry assembled...yay?

[David Silver]

Phew, caught up.

[Alzrius]

7699808 Just in time for me to post a new chapter!

[James Fire]

Nooooo!!!!!! I'm late!
Oh well, onwards and upwards.

[James Fire]

7699808
Did you read? Same to you Alzrius.