Brittle

by Rambling Writer

This Could Get a Little Violent

Talking with Sombra or his “diplomats” always had a… certain risk. Yes, you were supposed to meet envoys from the other side with peace if they came bearing a flag of truce. How else were two warring sides going to talk? It was a way to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. One of the only ways. You take that away, and two armies would just kill each other over and over and over, even if they could come to an agreement.

But it all depended on the honor system, and honor was a finicky thing. It only took one or two instances of misapplication for it to fall apart completely. A single exploitation of honor could mean the collapse of the whole system. If they weren’t going to honor our agreement this one time, they’d surely do it again some other time, and then why should I honor it? If you wanted to break the system, you’d better be damn sure that you were doing it at a time where it was worth it. Afterwards, your enemy would be pissed, and they’d never agree to your demands again. Not without you bending over backward.

Celestia had never broken the system. Sombra, on the other hoof, had once tried to meet with General Stormwalker to discuss a possible surrender. One dark magic spell to the brain later, and Stormwalker had forgotten how to breathe. By the time anypony knew what was going on, it was too late. The rage it incurred from the EUP… it hadn’t been worth it. Not by a long shot.

So Dash went to talk with the general flanked by no less than five guards. Two unicorns each emitting their own null-magic field around the group, and one of each pony type in case things still got out of hand. This wasn’t just because of who Dash was; if the general had wanted to talk with the janitor, they’d still get the same protection. The EUP was taking no chances whatsoever.

Dash felt the general before she saw them. The damp, crawling miasma of dark magic. The magic clung to her like dried mud clung to her coat, leaving a feeling that alternated between numbness, extreme cold, and aching. It was worst in her metal wing; it started twitching uncontrollably. Dash wasn’t the only one to feel it, either; the unicorn guards on either side of her were cringing, just a little. The same was probably true for the guards behind her, but she didn’t turn and look. This general was strong.

She was waiting a good distance from the camp, the white flag perched on a saddle in the middle of her back. She was deep in dark magic, drenched in it, and so far gone that she probably could’ve been mistaken for Sombra at a distance. Her coat was in the middle of growing darker, but was doing so unevenly and looked stained; wisps and whorls still showed, still had their original navy-blue tone. Her fangs looked like they had once been sharp, but one had been dulled to a nub and the other had had half of it snapped off at some point. Her sanguine eyes stared at Dash with a hungry look.

Two unicorns stood on either side of her. Not bucketheads, they couldn’t be trusted with someone this important. These were part of the cadre of bodyguards for Sombra’s generals, the Shades. They’d once been feared, the mere sight of their armor enough to send less brave ponies running. Now, their once-shining steel was dull, grungy, chipped. Ever since Dash had killed a general right under their muzzles in her escape, the last few weeks had thrown them through the ringer, and surprisingly-plausible rumors were floating about that said Sombra had killed half of them in a rage for their failure. Whatever the case, they weren’t intimidating. Not anymore.

Dash and her guards stopped ten feet from the general. “Yo,” said Dash.

The general chuckled a little. “Rain-bow Dash,” she said slowly. Her voice was raspy and sounded like she’d devolve into a coughing fit at any moment. She looked from side to side at Dash’s guards. “Come, now, I came under a flag of truce. Are those really necessary?”

“Knowing Sombra? Yes.”

The general placed a foreleg over her heart. “You wound me, assumin-”

Dash interrupted her with a sigh. “That’s a load of road apples and you know it. Cut the crap. Who are you and what do you want?”

“If you’re going to act that way, I guess I’ll be on my way.” The general tossed her mane and made like she was going to walk away. Dash knew she wouldn’t. She’d come out this far, called for her specifically. Trying to look aloof, like nothing mattered to you, didn’t work when you obviously went to such lengths to get into a certain situation.

“Alright then,” said Dash. “G’bye.” She waved, turned around, and began actually walking away.

The general grunted in frustration. “Wait! Don’t go, you stupid…”

Dash stopped walking and waited for the general’s voice to trail off before she turned around again. “You’re not very good at this, are you? Who are you and what do you want?”

“General Nocturna. I ca-”

“Creative.”

“What?”

“It’s all the same with you guys. Sombra, Nocturna, Shades, Night Fliers, Penumbra, Silhouettes, Black Sky, whatever.” Dash waved a hoof. “We get it, you’ve got a darkness thing going on. Can’t you try to mix it up a little? Call one of your spec ops groups Eigengrau, at least.”

“What’s… what’s Eigengrau?”

“Oh, wow. Wow,” snorted Dash. “You know what, forget it. So what do you want?”

Nocturna glared at Dash, then cleared her throat. Not that it made her voice all that clearer. “Give yourself over to Sombra, and you’ll save the EUP from a great deal of pain tomorrow.”

Dash waited, but Nocturna didn’t continue. “How?” Dash asked.

“You really think I’ll just tell you?” Nocturna said, smirking. “No, it’s going to be a surprise.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dash skeptically. “And how do I know you won’t just do it anyway? It’s not like you’ve given us much of a reason to trust you.”

Nocturna smiled, but it was hollow, brittle. “I guess you’ll just have to trust us this time.”

“Sure.” Dash wouldn’t do it. Not in a million years. The EUP was too strong by now for the bucketheads to do much, even in a surprise attack, and whatever Sombra was planning, Dash was still sure he’d just go ahead and do it either way. It was the way he worked. She raked her mind for what could make Nocturna so confident, but she couldn’t come up with anything. And there was another thing. “What do you want me for?”

“Isn’t it obvious? By now, you’re the… hero-” Nocturna spat out the word as if it tasted rancid. “-of Equestria. Draw your own conclusions.”

Probably torture, then. Spite. Something like that. Ah, well. “There’s no chance I can sleep on it and make you come back tomorrow, right?”

Noctura glanced to the west, at the setting sun, then turned back to Dash. “Not really, no.”

“Then no. I’m not going to just give myself over on vague promises and half-baked threats.”

Nocturna’s eyes flashed. Physically flashed. It was a dark magic thing. “You’re making a mistake,” she hissed. “If you-”

“Read my lips,” said Dash. “Bug off.”

Nocturna stared at Dash. “Fine, then. See you tomorrow.” Darkness bubbled up from the ground, completely enveloping Nocturna and her shades. When it vanished, they were gone.

Dash sighed. “Well, that was a waste of time,” she muttered. She turned around and marched back to camp with her guards.

---

Thunderlane was still sitting where she’d left him, one of the last two ponies in the mess. Somehow, he’d managed to grab a fourth bowl of soup.

“Veeeery last bowl,” he explained. “Got lucky. Want some?”

“Nah, I’m full,” Dash said as she took her old seat across from him.

“Suit yourself.” Thunderlane stuck his whole muzzle in the bowl and took a long slurp. When he pulled back out, he asked, “So what’d they want?”

“She said the EUP would ‘be in a great deal of pain tomorrow’ if I didn’t turn myself in.”

“She didn’t even describe the pain?”

“Nope. She said she wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Trying for the ominous route, I’m guessing,” Thunderlane snorted. “So which general was it?”

“Nocturna,” said Dash. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“I have. She’s supposed to be nasty.”

“She definitely didn’t look it,” Dash said with a shrug. “More worn than anything. Oh, and get this: she didn’t know what eigengrau was.”

Thunderlane froze. He stared at Dash for several moments, jaw hanging open. Eventually, his brain rebooted and he spluttered, “Th… Their leader is named Sombra! His title is the King of Shadows! All their names are based around darkness and shadows and stuff! Everything about them is darkness-themed! Just… just how do you do all that and not know what eigengrau is?”

“Hey, that was pretty much my reaction.”

“Wow. Wow,” mumbled Thunderlane. “You’d do a better job of being a general of darkness than they’re doing.”

“I couldn’t lead. I’d blow it. You heard Spitfire, I’m too… What was it?”

“Brazen, brash, and bumptious.”

“Yeah. That.” Dash chuckled. “And she’s got a point. But where do you think she picked up ‘bumptious’?”

“I dunno. Word-a-day calendar, maybe. I had one of those once. My favorite was ‘mesonoxian’.”

“Oh? What’s that mean?”

“It’s-”

“Hey! You two!”

Dash and Thunderlane turned towards the entrance of the mess. Framed against the last rays of the setting sun was a unicorn. It took Dash a second to realize she was the one who’d had the two of them pinned down outside the warehouse. She seemed self-conscious, trying to look at them without actually looking at them and constantly shifting her weight from one side to another.

“Yeah?” Thunderlane called.

The unicorn coughed and walked towards the two of them, on Thunderlane’s side. “I, uh,” she said, “I just wanted to, um…” She swallowed. “…to thank you for saving me. And, um, I’m sorry I tried kill you earlier.”

“You’re apologizing for that?” said Thunderlane. “You were being mind-controlled. That wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” said the unicorn, “but I-” She stopped and placed a hoof to her forehead, groaning.

“Something wrong?” Dash asked.

“It’s nothing,” muttered the unicorn. “I just have a bad headache. Anyway, I, I don’t know, I feel like I need to apologize for what I did. Don’t tell me it’s mind control, I know that, but I, I still feel guilty about it. So, um…” She swallowed again. “Sorry.”

Thunderlane chuckled. “Apology accepted. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone apologize for something that they know isn’t their fault.”

“I know,” the unicorn mumbled, rubbing her neck, “it’s just-”

Outside, the sun disappeared below the horizon.

The unicorn doubled over, clutching her head in her hooves, and started screaming.

“Whoa, hey,” Thunderlane said. He slid off his seat and tentatively approached the unicorn. “What’s-”

The unicorn jumped forward. Her horn speared Thunderlane in the throat, all the way down to the base. His eyes widened and he started gurgling. The unicorn pulled back and turned on Dash with a snarl as Thunderlane toppled to the ground. Her sclerae had turned green, her irises red.

Dash was over the table in an instant and socked the unicorn in the face, trying to snap her out of it. It didn’t work. The moment she recovered, the unicorn lunged at Dash, gnashing her teeth. Dash reared back, narrowly avoiding getting her nose ripped off. “Hey!” she yelled to the other pony in the mess. “I need some help!”

The unicorn’s horn started glowing as she prepared some magic. Dash smacked it, and the glow vanished as the unicorn’s focus was disrupted. It was a trivial method to nullify magic, but only if you could get close enough to use it. And if you were that close, you risked physical assault. The unicorn dove for Dash’s leg, tried to bite it. She was tackled by an earth pony from behind.

The earth pony wrestled the unicorn into a full nelson. The unicorn struggled against it, snapping at the earth pony’s legs, but it was no use. She couldn’t reach anything. “What- the hay-” grunted the earth pony, “-is going- on- wi-”

The unicorn’s horn sparked again. Before Dash could tap it, Thunderlane’s bowl on the table shattered. Encased in a magic haze, one of the shards jumped off the table and flew towards the unicorn and the earth pony. Running on instinct, the earth pony released the unicorn and ducked.

The unicorn wasn’t aiming for her.

With the shard, the unicorn sliced open her own throat, digging deep to cut through the arteries. Blood spurted out freely as she collapsed to the ground; soon, she was lying in a pool of her own blood and wheezing from the gash in her neck. She blinked a few times, and the green glow faded from her eyes. Her enraged expression changed to one of confusion. She tried to push herself up, but she was too weak. She’d lost too much blood too fast. She collapsed back down and coughed. “Wha’?” she slurred.

She coughed again and her breathing stopped.

Dash and the earth pony stood frozen in horror, panting, staring at the unicorn’s body. Then a wet hacking pulled them both back to their senses.

Dash stumbled over to Thunderlane and turned him over onto his back. It was worse than she’d feared; the unicorn’s horn had gone clean through his neck and out the other side. Blood gushed freely down into his throat. His breaths alternated between death rattles and pained, blood-filled coughs.

“No,” Dash mumbled as she vainly tried to stem the blood flow. “No, Thunderlane, don’t, don’t do this to me.”

Thunderlane turned his head weakly towards her, tried to reach up, tried to say something. His lips moved. But no words came.

“Please, Thunder,” said Dash. Her vision was clouding. “Just, just hold on.”

Thunderlane’s leg went limp and his head fell to the ground.

“J-just a little longer,” whispered Dash. “P-please.”

The world seemed to slow, time seemed to freeze in a glacier. Tears dripped down Dash’s face. Every breath was an effort. Her heart was pounding in her ears. She couldn’t feel the earth beneath her hooves, the wind rustling her wings. Dash wanted nothing more than to lie down, curl into a ball, and forget it all.

Then it all stopped as the soldier kicked in. She pushed herself to her hooves. “Get them onto a table,” she said emotionlessly to the earth pony. “We need to take them to the hospital tent.”

The earth pony blinked and coughed. “Right. Yeah.”

The two of them piled the bodies onto one of the tables and awkwardly lifted it up across their backs as an improvised stretcher. They slowly headed through camp. Ponies started staring. Dash barely noticed them. She just wanted to get the bodies to the hospital tent.

But even when they were some distance away, Dash could tell something was wrong. There were too many ponies heading there. A lot of them had similarly improvised stretchers. They all had either wounded or dead. Mostly wounded.

“Dash!” Spitfire called from the crowd. She shoved her way to Dash. “Did-?” She saw the table. One look at Thunderlane was enough. “No!” she yelled. “Dammit dammit DAMMIT!” She kicked viciously at a rock and screamed. “Of all the cowardly…”

Dash and the earth pony lowered the table to the ground. “What’s going on?” she asked. “The unicorn was suddenly taken over by dark magic, and then she-” The words caught in her throat. “S-she…”

“Not just her,” Spitfire said darkly. “A whole mess of ponies. All across camp. The sun set, and something went off inside them. They went berserk, tried to attack everypony around them for several moments, then tried to kill themselves.”

“Sweet Celestia,” Dash whispered. “Do we know why?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Spitfire. She looked over her shoulder as a pony with a copiously-bleeding leg was carried into the tent. “But from what I’ve seen? Warmblood was a setup. All the ponies that lost it, I’m sure I saw them as bucketheads in Warmblood. I’m guessing Sombra put something in the helmets that’d stay there even when they were removed. We rescue them, take them in, fill our camp with ready-made sleeper agents. That son of a gelding.”

Dash’s mind slowed down. Every pony in Warmblood? There’d been fifty or sixty of them. And they’d all gone crazy? Even if that wouldn’t do much to stop the EUP, they’d still be able to do some damage. And there could be more out there, unknowingly waiting, the dark magic in their heads an unsprung tr-

Wait. Every pony in Warmblood…

Oh no.

Beryllia.

Dash bolted, heading towards the refugee pen. Spitfire yelled something, but Dash couldn’t make it out. She didn’t know where Beryllia and Chalcedona were. But she would find out. She knew where she’d found Chalcedona. She’d find them again.

For once, luck was on her side. It wasn’t long before she found a group of refugees who pointed her the right direction. They were in an old camping tent someone had given up. Dash reached the tent with a searing pain in her side and no breath in her lungs.

Before she could do anything, Chalcedona pushed the tent flap aside. She was yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Huh,” she mumbled, smiling a little, “thought I’d heard someone, but I didn’t think it’d be-”

“Are you- alright?” Dash wheezed between breaths.

“Yes, I, I was just going to sleep.” Chalcedona looked Dash up and down and recognized Dash’s tired state. “Dash, what-”

“Beryllia!” gasped Dash. “Where’s Beryllia?”

“S-she’s sleeping right back here.” Chalcedona stepped one side. Beryllia was curled up on a makeshift mattress, making small whimpering noises to herself in her sleep. Her body rose and fell steadily as she breathed. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Dash’s mind was racing. Why was Beryllia still okay? She’d mentioned headaches in both Warmblood and when they got to camp, so- Wait. She remembered something. Something Chalcedona had said right before they parted ways. “Did you take her to see a doctor?”

“Dash, w-wha-”

“Did you take her to see a doctor?”

Chalcedona cringed back and shrank down. “Y-yes,” she whispered. “She was complaining of a headache, and the doctor s-said there might be some residual magic from th-the helmet, and once she removed that, Beryllia was fine and went right to sleep.”

That was it. Dumb luck. Beryllia had escaped through pure dumb luck. If Chalcedona had waited just a little longer…

“Dash, what are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“You… Your daughter wasn’t the only pony we saved today,” Dash said dully. “There were others. I don’t know how many. Something like fifty. They were in this town, and… That dark magic in her head, I don’t think that was residual. I think it was planted. In every pony we rescued. When the sun went down, it went off. And they were made to attack everypony near them.”

“Oh, no,” said Chalcedona, putting a hoof to her mouth in horror. “That’s-”

“And right before it wore off, they tried to commit suicide. Some… succeeded.”

“Oh, sweet Celestia,” whispered Chalcedona. “I can’t-”

The full implications hit her and she whirled to Beryllia’s sleeping form, completely horrorstruck. Her mouth worked soundlessly. Her whole body shook. Tears streamed from her eyes as her legs gave out beneath her. “No,” she mumbled, “no, no, no, no… I… I-I… She… They w-wouldn’t…”

Dash sat down next to her and wrapped a foreleg around her. “Listen. It’ll be okay. She’s not going to get hurt again. You said so yourself, the dark magic’s gone.”

“I h-had her again,” blubbered Chalcedona. “I thought I’d l-lost her, but then I had her a-again. And I almost… Sh-she… Oh, Celestia and Luna and Amore…” Words failed her. She buried her face in her hooves and sobbed.

Dash squeezed. It was all she could do. “I’m sorry.”

---

Casualties were low. But so was morale.

There hadn’t been enough ponies in Warmblood to make much of a dent in the EUP’s forces, and most of them were the easily-restrainable Crystal Ponies. But most of them had been among the defenseless refugees. They were refugees themselves, that was where they would naturally go. The killing rate varied. Some were lucky enough to be restrained, their suicides prevented. Some hadn’t. Some had whisked through the masses like a whirlwind through a wheat field. Some had gotten knocked out the moment their eyes turned green. The killing rate varied. But it was always too high.

Paranoia swept through the camp, eating away at ponies’ minds like a swarm of locusts. Dark magic could wait. It could bide its time, waiting for the right moment to pounce like a predator. Anypony who’d once been under Sombra’s control was at risk. Doctors were soon overwhelmed with ponies trying to find out if they’d snap. It was an easy test, something they could do blindfolded. But the patients kept on piling up. Even ponies who supposedly had never been part of Sombra’s army were waiting. If Sombra could control your mind, what’s to say he couldn’t alter your memories to make it seem like you’d never worked for him? No one could confirm or deny it. Dash almost went in herself. Almost.

Reports were coming in from other camps. Wherever an town had been liberated and its ponies freed in the past day, those rescued ponies had gone mad in the same way. Their situation was much the same. The sleeper agents had done some damage, but not enough ponies had been taken out of the action to hinder the EUP.

But those were just the statistics, the numbers. Dash didn’t like those sorts of numbers. They were a smokescreen between you and the truth, something you threw up to try and take the edge off, a brittle shield that disintegrated the moment you actually looked at it. There was a difference between saying she’d only lost a single ally and saying she’d lost Thunderlane, seen him die right before her eyes. It was like the old saying went: one death was a tragedy, a million was a statistic. Here, most ponies were lucky to only see the one million. Dash had to see the million ones.

She kept going through the situation in her head, over and over and over and over and over. She sent the freed ponies to get any dark magic scrubbed from their brains, just in case. Beryllia asked her to come to the doctor, where she asked the doctor what the residual dark magic was like. She jumped over the table as soon as the unicorn started screaming. She sat on the same side of the table as Thunderlane, rather than the opposite. She told Thunderlane to be careful once he got up from his seat. Rather than flying to camp once her helmet had been destroyed all those weeks ago, she went straight to the Crystal Empire, found Sombra, and punched his face in again and again and again and again and again until her hooves cracked and her ankles ached and her legs burned and she was coated with blood and there wasn’t enough left of the miserable bastard to fill a thimble.

It didn’t help. Thunderlane was still dead.

Try as she might that night, Dash couldn’t sleep. This is all your fault, her mind said. You didn’t jump on the unicorn fast enough. You didn’t hand yourself over to Nocturna. After all, this was what she meant about ‘a great deal of pain’, right? What else could she mean? If you’d just swallowed your pride and given yourself over, he’d still be alive. You failed him.

Dash protested. I had no way of knowing what the unicorn would do. Nocturna wouldn’t keep her word and stop this. None of Sombra’s generals would. If I’d let myself be taken prisoner, all this would still have happened.

You failed him.

There was nothing I could do. I didn’t know.

You failed him.

I did not!

YOU FAILED HIM.

It was four in the morning and Dash had had enough.

As a Wonderbolt, Dash didn’t carry much into battle aside from her uniform. She relied on her hooves and her speed. Especially her speed. She had a lot of that. Once she suited up, she was essentially done. She slipped out of her tent, careful not to make a sound. She couldn’t let anypony stop her. Not here. Not n-

“Dash!”

Of course. “Hey, Pinkamena.”

“Pinkie! Dash, what’re you doing?” Pinkamena didn’t look particularly angry or upset. Mostly curious.

Dash smiled thinly. “I’m gonna go to the Crystal Empire and I’m gonna make them all pay for this. For Thunderlane. For everypony else.”

“Okay,” said Pinkamena. She yanked Dash close and turned her head towards the Empire. Sombra’s shield was still up. “And just how’re you gonna do that with that shield still there? Or did you get the power to walk through walls since we last met? ‘Cause if you did, where can I get some of that?”

Dash roughly brushed Pinkamena off. “It’s dark magic. Dark magic doesn’t play nice with my rainbows. I’ll shatter it.”

“You only did that once! Correct me if I’m wrong, ‘cause I might be, but didn’t you try to do it several times again and fail miserably each time?”

“I didn’t have a reason before,” said Dash. She flared her wings. “Now I do. And I didn’t fail miserably.”

She lifted off and climbed into the night sky. Below her, Pinkamena didn’t say anything. Maybe she saw what Dash was trying to do. Maybe she just didn’t have a good response. Whatever the case, Dash left the camp with minimal resistance. She flew a short distance away; if she wanted to go fast, she’d need some distance for acceleration.

She landed to psych herself up. Miles away, the Crystal Palace was framed in moonlight, tall, dark, and ugly. Crystals jutted out of its surface like it was broken. Dash had seen pictures of the palace before Sombra took over. A bit too shiny for her tastes, but much nicer than this grotesque… thing. That was her destination, right beyond the shield. It was where Sombra would be. It was where his generals would be. It was wh-

“Dashie, listen to me!”

Dash jumped in surprise and fell to the ground. Pinkamena was right behind her, looking at her with big, worried eyes. She hadn’t been suited up in the camp, but she was now. Dash rubbed her head to get some of the dirt out of her mane. “How-” she growled, “how did you get here so fast?”

“I can’t let one of my friends just do something silly like this!”

“That doesn’t answer my-”

“Dash. Think about what you’re doing,” said Pinkamena. “You’re gonna jump straight into the Crystal Empire and dance the cancan for them. That’s not exactly high on my list of smart things to do. See?” Pinkamena whipped a scroll out from… somewhere: My List of Smart Things to Do. She pointed up and down the top entries, which were mostly things like “cover your buddy so she can cover you”, “remember that ‘full-body armor’ is a myth”, “don’t burn the marzipan, for the love of Celestia”, and “hope for the best but prepare for the worst”. “Nowhere there.”

“I’m doing it for-”

“I heard that,” Pinkamena said as she tucked the list away somewhere. “That doesn’t make it not stupid. I want to do something about it, too, but flying headfirst into a shield at Mach 1 and hoping to break through it is, well, stupid.”

Dash sighed. “Pinkamena, the scientists explained this to me. The natural magic in the rainbow overwhelms dark magic. That shield-” She pointed towards the Empire. “-is dark magic. My rainbow can break it. Simple.”

“Well… well, okay,” said Pinkamena. She chewed her lip for a second. “But once you’re in there, there’s, you know, an awful lot of evil ponies that’ll want your head.”

“They’ll have to catch me first,” Dash said with a smirk. “Think they can do that? I’m the fastest pony in Equestria. Besides, I want their heads.”

Pinkamena stared deeply at Dash. “You reeeeaaaally wanna do this, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Dash began hovering over the ground. “You’re not going to stop me, are you?”

“Not if you insist on being so boneheaded. If you’re going to do it, then I’m coming with you.”

“Only if you can keep up. I’m not waiting.” Dash climbed into the night.

She was some distance above the ground when she stopped. Might as well get gravity to help her. And there below her was the Empire. It ought to be sparkling. But it wasn’t, not with Sombra in power. It seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it, darkening the land around it. Over it all was the shield. Her goal.

Dash took a deep breath and lowered her goggles. “For you, Thunderlane,” she whispered.

And then she flew.

Three weeks ago, when the scientists were talking with her about her escape, they said she’d broken the sound barrier. The whole thing with rainbows had devolved into a pile of impenetrable jargon and arcane terms, but she got the sound barrier bit: she’d flown fast. Faster than anypony had flown before. Faster than most pegasi could ever hope to reach. She lived up to her name in every possible way, and she was proud of it.

But there was a catch. Because of course there was. It was, to put it simply, quite hard to go that fast. Whenever she tried, she couldn’t go fast enough and eventually slammed into a solid wall of air. It annoyed her; she’d gone that fast once, why couldn’t she do it again? Spitfire said something about adrenaline. Escaping the shield had been a high-tension, life-or-death situation, so her body was working in overdrive. It was the same kind of loosened limit that let mothers lift trees off their children. Perhaps she’d never be able to go that fast again.

Dash didn’t think so. Flying that fast had felt right for her. That thing she’d been missing without knowing it. That thing she’d been meant to do. Maybe the first time had been a bit of a fluke amped up by her adrenaline, sure, but she was sure she good do it again. She just needed the right motivation.

Now she had it.

The air whipped around Dash, tugging at her uniform. Bits of dust pinged loudly off her goggles. The ground blurred beneath her as the Empire rapidly approached. She got closer to the shield, and her fur started to stand on end. Beneath her front hooves, the air began to harden.

She could do this.

Dash pushed herself. When she’d tried this earlier, it was for her. Now it wasn’t. And that made a lot more difference than she would’ve thought. If she let herself down, oh, well. She’d try again later. But she couldn’t let someone else down. Especially not Thunderlane. It drove her, made her beat her wings harder than she imagined. She went faster and faster, and the world began to bleed into itself.

Dash flew. The air pushed. She pushed back. The air snapped.

A shudder ran down her spine as the rainbow bloomed once again. Her nerves felt electrified and her wings were tireless. This was it. This was her thing. This was her domain and hers alone, that one thing that nopony else could do. In spite of her mission, Dash smiled to herself. She felt good. How could you not, flying at this speed?

Of course, there was still the matter of the shield coming at her face at around seven hundred miles per hour. She’d told Pinkamena all about how she’d be fine, but Dash cringed a little. She closed her eyes and turned her head away. If she was wrong, this was gonna hurt.

It didn’t. The shield shattered like so much brittle glass as she hit it, the rainbow’s natural magic slamming into it like a freight train crashing through a tent. Dash felt the rebound and nearly vomited. But she kept her head together and braked, hovering over the Crystal Empire.

It was worse than she’d heard. She’d heard all the story about the corruption of the place, seen pictures. She’d seen similarly corrupted towns when Sombra was on the warpath. That was bad, but not especially terrible. What she hadn’t heard of was how the place felt. Her metal wing ached and throbbed in ways she hadn’t felt in over a year. Pins and needles erupted down all her back. She kept wanting to avert her eyes from everything for no real reason. The air felt both too sticky for her to move her wings through and too slick for her to push enough down to stay aloft. A low sourceless moan rang in her ears just on the edge of hearing. Even breaths seemed an effort. It felt wrong on a fundamental level that nothing else she’d encountered had. This was a bad place.

The streets were empty, the windows of the houses dark. All the bucketheads were at the borders, trying to keep the EUP out in time for the shield to come back up. It bloomed again quickly, but Dash noted it was slower than previous collapses. Whoever was keeping the shield up, the EUP was wearing them down.

Dash turned towards the tower in the center of the Empire, the Crystal Palace. A large balcony was overlooking the central square. Two unicorns were on it; one was slouched over the railing, the other was nudging them. Pointy horns. Generals. Targets one and two.

Dash bolted from her place in the air, charging for the balcony. The unicorn not slouched over, a stallion, looked up and saw her coming a second too late. Dash smashed into him hard, and the whiplash alone broke his neck.

Carried by Dash’s inertia, the two of them skidded through the balcony’s doorway and into a foyer. It looked much like the outside of the Palace: all dark and hard, with the occasional unnecessary spike. Doors ran out in every direction, including up and down; some of them had staircases. It was empty.

Breathing heavily, Dash pushed herself up from the general’s body. She looked back outside; the other unicorn was still hanging over the railing. A mare, she didn’t seem to be moving. Dash walked up to her, nudged her. No response. Dash pulled her over enough to put a hoof on her carotid. No pulse. Dead as a doornail, all right. Hard to say what did her in, though. She took a closer look.

Then she saw the horn. Or rather, lack thereof. The mare’s horn had flat-out shattered, leaving only a small sliver sticking out of her forehead. Dash looked around the balcony. For the first time, she noticed tiny bits and pieces of… something scattered around on the floor. Horn. Ew. Still, Dash smirked to herself. Magic overload. This was what you got when you put up a shield against Rainbow Dash.

Satisfied, Dash walked back into the foyer and realized she didn’t know where to go. The Crystal Palace was a big place, one she didn’t know the layout of. Sombra and his generals could be anywhere in here, and it’d be easy for her to get lost. After a moment’s thought, Dash picked a door at random. Hopefully, it’d lead t-

“Dash!” Pinkamena bolted up one of the staircases and slid up next to Dash. A sling was strapped to one of her front hooves, already loaded. “I’m here, Dash. Ready to help!”

Dash blinked. “How- how did you get here? You’re not even panting!”

“C’mon, Dash,” said Pinkamena, throwing a hoof over Dash’s shoulders. “I can’t just let one of my friends charge behind enemy lines with zero backup.”

Which, again, didn’t answer Dash’s question in the slightest, but Dash decided to just drop it. Pinkamena was Pinkamena. “Fine. But, please, try to stay out of m-”

The door Dash had been planning to go through was pushed open, and two Shades walked through, chatting with each other. They both froze when they saw Dash and Pinkamena, then went for their pikes. “Hey!”

Dash charged for the one on the left. Before he’d fully gotten his hooves into the handles, she’d wrapped her forelegs around the pike and wrenched it away from him. As he struggled to regain his balance, she quickly pushed her own hooves into handles and lunged forward, spearing him right in the chest. He fell without a sound.

Yanking the pike free, Dash whirled on the other Shade, but Pinkamena had already gotten him. He was lying on the floor, twitching, a hoof-sized rock lodged an inch in his skull. Pinkamena was still twirling her now-empty sling. She smirked at Dash. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought,” Pinkamena said as she fished another rock from her pouch and loaded it. She fell in behind Dash.

Bad guys coming from a door was a good sign when you were looking for bad guys, so Dash went through the door the Shades had come out of. No one there, but the Palace was a big place. It could probably hide a whole army comfortably. Dash and Pinkamena headed down the hallway.

But as they kept moving, the emptiness of the Palace began to wear on Dash. They’d encounter the occasional guard (always a Shade), sure, but rarely, and never in groups of more than two. Dash didn’t like the idea of something so large being so utterly vacant. The whole design of the Palace wasn’t helping things, either. The dark crystals were illuminated by torches that burned an eerie green-and-purple fire, casting strangely-colored shadows on the walls. The sounds of their hoofsteps reverberated weirdly, seeming darker and disjointed when they echoed back. Dash wasn’t sure she and Pinkamena weren’t getting turned around and doubling back on themselves. The floors felt like they were tilting slightly when she was walking, but once she stopped to get a better handle on it, they felt perfectly straight. The whole place felt borderline malevolent.

At least she had Pinkamena. She provided an antidote to the loneliness simply by her presence, and every now and then, she’d tell jokes (in a very hushed voice) to keep Dash’s spirits up. And Dash’s earlier worries about Pinkamena slowing her down proved to be not just utterly unfounded, but actually kind of silly. She was in the EUP, after all. After mostly seeing Pinkamena in the camp in the past week, and not on the battlefield, Dash had forgotten just how competent a soldier Pinkamena was. That changed when they were ambushed by a Shade and Pinkamena bashed his skull in with repeated blows from a loaded sling.

But as time wore on and they still didn’t encounter anything more significant than another pair of Shades, Dash began to wonder if she’d made a mistake. If Sombra and his generals weren’t here… well, then she’d come out all this way for nothing, hadn’t she? Great. Just great.

Then she heard something coming from a staircase. Voices. Muffled by distance, but voices nonetheless. She gestured for Pinkamena to follow, then stepped into the stairwell. The voices seemed to be coming from further up. A few steps confirmed this; they became slightly clearer. She continued upward, and they gradually sharpened into coherent words. There were maybe four or five different voices; Dash recognized Sombra’s and Nocturna’s, but that was it. Of course, considering how little contact she’d had with Sombra’s generals, that was all she could expect. She put up a hoof, directing Pinkamena to stop. Dash crept up a few more steps, trying to hear better.

“-ug in deeply in the north quarter, and we’re-” Dash didn’t recognize this voice. It was a stallion’s, somehow gravelly without being deep.

“How did the EUP get in once the shield fell? Who’s responsible for maintaining the soldiers there?” Sombra’s. Definitely Sombra’s. Too deep to be anypony else’s.

“Sir, we’re-”

“Whose division is that?”

“Nightfall’s, sir. He was with Noctis, ready to take control of the shield from her if it got too much.”

“So what happened with him? Why’d the shield fall the second time?”

“We don’t know, sir. We-”

Something smashed against something else. When Sombra’s voice came again, it was a borderline roar. “You DON’T KNOW? Why haven’t you sent someone to FIND OUT?”

The stallion’s voice was muffled, strained. Someone was choking him. Dash had a good idea who. “I h-haff, sir. They haffn’t reported bag.”

“Then you get out there and find out.” Sombra’s voice had dropped back to its normal levels. “If your Shades — your Shades — are too incompetent to investigate, surely you can do it.”

“S-sir?” The stallion sounded clearer. And scared. “B-but if someone else has g-gotten in-”

“I taught you dark magic for a reason. Use it, you imbecilic waste of air.”

“Y-yes, sir. R-right away, sir.” Frenzied clopping. And it was getting louder.

Dash scooched back down the steps and, when she reached Pinkamena, pointed to the door leading off the nearest landing, where they’d just come in. “We’ll ambush him when he gets there.”

Pinkamena nodded and quickly detached one end of her sling from her hoof, wrapping it tightly around the other. She and Dash ducked behind either side of the doorframe just as the general rounded the corner on the stairs leading up. His trotting slowed and he snorted. “Don’t see what the big deal is,” he mumbled to himself, “it’s not li-”

He stepped through the door. Pinkamena quickly slipped her sling over his head and squeezed tight, garrotting him. Before he could anything than the first reflexive struggle, Dash jumped in front of him and lightly poked his chest with her pike. “Listen,” she said quietly, “you try to escape, struggle, call for help, or don’t answer my questions, you die slowly. Capiche?”

The general tried to say something, but Pinkamena’s sling was too tight. Eventually, he just nodded.

Pinkamena loosened the sling just enough for the general to breathe a little. Dash nodded up the staircase. “What’s up there? A command center?”

“Map of the Crystal Empire,” gasped the general. “Magic. Shows what’s going on in here.”

“Uh-huh. And who’s up there? We heard Sombra, but who else?”

The general’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, you little birdbrain, why do-”

Dash was about to jab him again when Pinkamena tightened the sling. The general’s voice was cut off to a collection of strained gasps. “You’re not very smaaaaart,” Pinkamena said in a singsong voice. “Seriously, don’t insult my friend when you’re like this.” She loosened the sling a little.

“Alright!” wheezed the general. “Three other generals. All that’s left, besides me, Nightfall, and Noctis. Several Shades, too, just in case somepony broke in. That’s it.”

It was like someone lit a fire in Dash’s soul. All that’s left. Every single one of Sombra’s generals was up there. Plus Sombra himself. This… this was great. Unbelievable. All the leaders of the Crystal Empire, just sitting there, nice and cozy in one spot, waiting for her to come and get them.

She could end this all. And she could do it tonight. She would do it tonight. For Thunderlane. For Beryllia. For everyone else.

The general coughed, interrupting Dash’s thoughts. “You… you said…” he gasped, “you said you’d let me go if I answered your questions.”

“Actually, I said you’d die slowly if you didn’t.” Dash thrust with the pike, and the general died much faster than he ever expected.

Pinkamena unwrapped her sling from around the general’s neck and reattached the free end to her hoof. “You sure you want to do this, Dashie? That’s a lot of baddies up there.”

“Positive. I-” Dash swallowed and dropped her voice. “Pinkamena, I… I need to make it up to Thunderlane. I was there when he died, and I couldn’t do anything to save him. This wasn’t even a battle, where there was too much going on for me to keep track of. He… he was right there, just talking to me. I…” She adjusted her hooves in the pike’s handles. “I need to do this for him. I know it won’t bring him back, but I… I need to do something. Something personal. A-and this is all I can think of.”

Pinkamena reached up with a hoof, then paused. She looked up at Dash, down at the floor, up, down. There were several moments when it looked like she was going to say something, but she never did. After a while, she laid the hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “If… if that’s how you feel,” she said quietly. “Can’t really fault you for it; I’ve felt nearly the same way at times. I’d never do something like this, but you’re Rainbow Dash, and I’m Pinkie Pie. So let’s go do it.” She began twirling her sling.

Dash nodded and began advancing up the stairs. This was it. One way or another, it all ended here. She and Pinkamena would burst through the door. They would kill every last son of a gelding in there. They would end the war. And they would avenge Thunderlane.

Of course, they could also die. At least they’d go out in a blaze of glory.

She heard the voices again. “-breaking up. Was he really that incompetent?” Sombra’s voice.

“Sir, there is another possibility.” Nocturna’s voice. Dash clenched her teeth slightly. “After the shield fell-”

“I know what you said,” replied Sombra, “and I still say it’s unlikely.”

Dash and Pinkamena reached the landing the voices seemed to be coming from. Dash peered down the hall: nopony. She motioned for Pinkamena to follow her, then crept in.

Sombra continued. “Yes, it’s likely that Rainbow Dash broke through our shield somehow. But do you really think she would immediately come straight here? Even if she knows how thin our forces are, waltzing into your opponent’s base like that is beyond moronic.”

Pinkamena smirked and nudged Dash. Dash responded by flicking her tail in Pinkamena’s face.

They reached the door the voices were coming from behind and took up positions on either side of the door. “And let’s just say she is here,” Sombra went on. “Given how quickly Eclipse’s division fell apart, if she killed him, she’d have to be deep inside here. Almost right outside that very door.”

A manic grin jumped onto Pinkamena’s face and she stared at Dash with wide eyes. Dash knew what she wanted and nodded. Pinkamena stepped in front of the door, braced her hooves, and bucked the door clear off its hinges.

Dash was in before the door hit the opposite wall, screaming like a madmare and swinging her pike at the first pony she saw. Luckily enough, he was a general. Before he could react, the blade caught him in the throat and embedded itself in the wall behind him. Behind her, Pinkamena jumped in as well, hurling a stone at someone and also screaming her head off.

Wrenching her pike out of the wall, Dash locked eyes with Nocturna on the other side of the room. Whatever Nocturna saw, it must’ve scared her; her eyes grew huge and she backed up. Dash raised her pike and flared her wings, lea-

“StOp.”

She felt it again. Sombra’s voice clawing its way into her brain. She felt that it was a supremely good idea to just stop fighting and stay right where she was. But she knew it was false. And she could break out of it, the same way she had last time.

Count to four.

Inhale.

Count-

Count to…

Dash blinked. Why was she counting again? Something about ideas. It was stupid, probably. She should just stop fighting and stay right here. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good idea. Might as well lower the pike, too.

As she continued with the wonderful idea of holding still, Dash took in the room. Most of it was taken up by a big, circular map of the Crystal Empire, magic collecting crude details of what was going on outside and showing it in miniature on the map. Besides Pinkamena and herself, there were eight other ponies in the room: three generals (one missing his head), four Shades (one lying motionless on the floor with a rock embedded deeply in his eye socket, courtesy of Pinkamena), and Sombra.

Dash had never seen Sombra in the flesh before. But she, like everypony else, knew what looked like. Big, imposing, intimidating. With his fangs and pointy horn, borderline predatory, like he’d hunt you down and kill you just because. He wore a red cape rumored to be lined with the skins of dead ponies. The crown on his head wasn’t even gold or silver or anything like that; it was cold, hard steel. It sent the same message Sombra himself did: you’re going to do what I say, and I don’t care what I need to do to make it that way.

But that’d been three weeks ago.

Now, he looked gaunt and haggard, worn and weary. His crown was chipped and dented, while his cape had several tears in it, even a burn and some stains. His cheeks and his eyes were sunken, the eyes possessing visible bags, and his fangs, far from being menacing, just gave him a severe overbite. He was battered, bruised, sporting a scar down one side of his chest. He looked borderline defeated.

Except for the eyes. Those eyes were as alert as ever. He glared at Dash with an intensity she’d never seen before. It was almost a physical thing, the pure, raw hatred he was sending her way. If staying still hadn’t been such a fantastic idea, Dash would’ve taken a step back. He was murderous, almost enough to rip her throat out with his teeth.

But it never happened. “You still came,” he said flatly. It was surprising, how devoid of emotion his voice was.

Dash would’ve responded, would’ve told him why she came. But staying quiet was suddenly a superb idea.

“And you got this far in,” Sombra said. He sighed. “I guess I severely underestimated you.” He turned to Pinkamena. “You even brought a friend.” He returned his gaze to the map. “Grayscale, take control of Eclipse’s forces and move them to the northern quarter.”

The general who wasn’t Nocturna twitched and looked between Dash and Sombra. “Sir, don’t you think we sh-”

“Move them NOW, dammit!” bellowed Sombra, banging his hoof on the table. “I didn’t promote you to second-guess me, you idiotic excuse for a pony!”

“Yessir. Right away, sir.” Grayscale closed his eyes and his horn started glowing. On the map, dots, probably representing bucketheads, began shifting.

Sombra snorted and walked up to Dash. He looked her up and down. “You don’t look like much, considering this is all your fault,” he said.

Dash wanted to shoot back. But staying quiet was still an amazing idea.

“It would’ve been just a few more months,” Sombra muttered. “A few more months, and you would’ve been gone. Then… you…” He sighed and shook his head. “There isn’t even enough time left to find where I went wrong. If I just had that… I don’t know. I’ll have to settle for taking you with me.” He resumed his position at the map. “Nocturna, take them to the dungeons, and have them guarded. I’ll get to them in a few hours.”

“To… to the dungeons, sir?” asked Nocturna.

“Yes,” hissed Sombra. He was sounding closer and closer to his wit’s end. “The dungeons. As I said. You did hear me, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

Nocturna took a nervous step forward. “Sir, we should ki-”

“Listen to me.” Sombra was growling, but it sounded tired, like he’d explained this repeatedly before. “It will not make a difference whether or not we kill them now. We’re all going to be dead in a week, no matter what. I want to make the EUP hurt, and simply killing her won’t do much. Come sunrise, I’ll personally hang them by their entrails from the balcony. But right now…”

He leaned in close to Nocturna and bared his fangs. When he spoke, the weariness was gone. For a second, Dash could see the old Sombra. “…I’m busy making sure we’re still alive by then. Do as I say and leave me be.” He turned back to the map.

“Yes, sir,” Nocturna said with a nod. She pointed at the Shades. “You three, come with me.” Her horn glowed, and chains appeared around Dash’s and Pinkamena’s hooves. They prickled, like they were coated with dozens of miniscule needles. With two Shades to Dash and one to Pinkamena, Nocturna led the group out of the room.

The moment they left the room, the haze left Dash’s mind and staying put was no longer a stupendous idea. But though she could’ve fought back, Dash just walked in silence and hung her head. It was over for her. Everypony she was after had been in one place, and she hadn’t gotten them. Sombra was still alive. Nocturna was still alive. The war was still going. She’d killed some generals, but she’d accomplished nothing of consequence. Nothing that mattered. And now she was being led to await her execution in just a few hours. She’d come out here for nothing.

She’d failed.

Comments

[Neece]

Daaaaamn. Next chapter tomorrow? Could you do it today? Now, maybe? I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!!!

[lordofmyth]

....... Are you fucking serious dude? why would she just...........

God that jsut took the turn for the really contrived. "Hey lets turn outselves in so i can get myself and my friend svagely executed!!!"

,........ sighs. Just when i thought it could be good, you pulled this shit.

[Crimson Dawn]

Perhaps Pinkie has some tricks up her mane to get them out of trouble. She has had plenty of surprises so far.