And Carry a Big Torch (9)
Darkness. Pipes. More darkness. The sound of incredibly distant, incredibly large fans. More pipes. Strange lights. Grates. Stranger lights. Hello Darkness, my old friend…
Did I ever take normal vacations? Twilight wondered.
An Unknown colony took a lot of work to maintain. For starters it was designed to house every single need its residents could possibly have, which was useful for Crystal and Twilight’s purposes. Despite odours, the best of which could be described as ‘stale’, the arteries of Attilan were clean apart from either dampness or dust.
Twilight wasn’t sure what happened to the…speciality of some of the tunnels but, given the number of generators and the occasional miles of glowing strips Crystal cautioned her not to touch, she wouldn’t be surprised if energising featured somewhere.
For all the long stretches of darkness, Attilan’s infrastructure did offer variety every now and again. The sections of sewers they couldn’t avoid passing through felt almost like futuristic cathedrals, with Twilight having to tell Crystal about how the porcelain idol imagery was making her snigger and cracking them both up, taking the edge off their mission. Crystal kept inadvertently fulfilling her duties as host by pointing out recycling plants and transit systems, if only to warn Twilight what not to touch.
The underworld went by in a gradual montage of grates and air vents. If they hadn’t been trying to avoid what few guards were posted down here, Twilight would’ve felt like she was just in a more industrial version of Canterlot’s undercity. Or some strange futuristic music video version, given how advanced even the most mundane of Unknown ordinance was.
They even came with elevators and floating platforms to ferry workers across the vast distances. A few swinging maces on chains with a catchy synthesiser track and it would have been something out of an arcade cabinet. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie would have loved it.
***
“So, uh, come here often?” Twilight smiled lamely as the platform they were riding passed between two massive cables, light spiralling down each of them like metal waterfalls.
“Would you believe this is not the first time I’ve had to sneak into jail?” Crystal smiled back. “Actually, wanna hear something depressing? Knowing my way around all this is part of my job.”
“Shut up, that’s awesome!”
“Knowing how to break into jail through the sewers is awesome?”
“Yes!”
“Do you do that kind of thing often?” Crystal smirked.
“Harmony takes us some interesting places,” Twilight grinned.
“Sounds it!”
“Like this!”
“Eh, give it a few more minutes, you’ll be as sick of this tub as I am.”
“You just guided me through a few hundred miles of funny smelling tubes to save this tub.” Twilight smirked and stuck her tongue out.
“We Unknowns can be a fickle bunch,” Crystal chirruped with mock-primness and her nose in the air.
“You and Ponykind have that in common,” Twilight chuckled. “You should hear about my week.”
“Yeah?”
“Later. Maybe. It’s personal.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—!”
“Crystal, I followed you through…all that.” Twilight waved a hoof behind them to indicate the miles of pipes and circuits and shadows. “I think we can safely say we’re friends at this point.”
“Yeah, well.” Crystal was smiling but her brow was furrowing as she looked ahead. “Help me save Attilan and maybe the whole Unknown nation and I’ll let you call me whatever you want.”
“Nearly there?” Twilight asked as a single walkway came into view.
“Almost,” Crystal sighed. “We’re nearing one of the maintenance ports for the mobile sections of the Maze. If we time it right and hold on, we can hitch a ride. After that it’s up to the rune to get us to Lockjaw.”
“And then we save Attilan,” Twilight concluded, hoping this was a boost and a little unnecessary.
Crystal leaned down to do something with the exposed section of circuitry she’d manipulated to get the platform drifting this far. Twilight suspected this wasn’t something you were supposed to do, and had been flying a little bit on the teacher’s pet thrill of rule breaking. Crystal slid some bits around and yanked a transparent tube up like her mother’s suitcase handle, sending the platform turning gently towards a walkway.
Its railings seemed to be built out of the same patterns covering most of Attilan, but Twilight was oddly grateful to realise they were imposed on amazingly transparent sheet of glasslike material. The gaps between patterns were too small for them to fall through, but still…nothing beneath them but shadows and pipes, and you could feel which of those would run out first if you fell.
The walkway consisted of three curving and interlocking fork like paths, octagonal landing pads jutting out in places that probably made sense to Unknowns. Futuristic pieces of equipment lay here and there, lightyears ahead of Equestria and incongruously, casually abandoned like garden furniture. Crystal paused on the fork prong between two of these.
“Do we have to wait for, uh, for the Maze to…land…or…?” Twilight asked, haltingly.
“We should be so lucky,” Crystal muttered, squinting into the darkness. “But we can both fly, so.”
“Right.”
Concrete, immeasurable, ocean bottom, underground silence.
Crystal seemed to be trying to psych herself up and what, the weight of this entire situation wanted to know, was Twilight supposed to say to lighten the mood? That was the problem with these seat of the pants adventures, never anytime to put a proper checklist together so you had something to make small talk over! Ponies didn’t wear pants, why had she said that? What was this place doing to her brain?!
“Uh…” Crystal was looking at her now, so she had to say something. “A-after this is over…”
“Yeah?”
“…uh…wanna just…hang out in Ponyville? Sometime?”
“Really?” Crystal’s eyes were flickering with emotion and thankfully not the contempt Twilight felt that deserved. “Would that be okay?! Everyknown, sorry, everypony seems so cool and I dunno, it feels like your rainbow one doesn’t like me?”
Twilight blinked. “Rainbow Dash?”
“It’s just…” Crystal avoided eye contact and tried to stop scuffing the catwalk. “She yelled at Johnny.
“You’re not Johnny,” Twilight said before she could stop herself.
The Unknown smirked, in a way that reminded her of Rainbow Dash. “Nice of you to notice.”
“Well, I…do…researching…” Twilight tried, then cracked up. “Sorry, I’m not… You need a prepared statement I’m actually very good at them, I was on the debate team, well, that is, I went to meetings and joined in sometimes, but it wasn’t really to be part of something or anything like that, just did my turn on the rota, was the sole opposition once which is ridiculously sad now I say it out loud and I don’t know why I had to tell you that. I’m not good at banter or whatever, is the point.”
Not like Peter, she avoided saying. And wondered how she should feel that there’d been a slight delay before she’d thought of him.
“And now you’re in government!” Crystal nudged her. “Funny how things work out, huh?”
“Not really!” Twilight flustered. “There’s some functions and a code of etiquette, but I don’t really have to…do anything! Too new, I suppose.”
“Wow.” Crystal blinked. “I’m actually a little jealous.”
“Rainbow Dash doesn’t hate you!” Twilight blurted, trying to get back on track. “It’s just, she and Johnny have…” She tried to find the right words and sighed. “They have a history, which is pretty obvious given that night in the hall. She doesn’t like to talk about it. We all went out for drinks at Plucky’s once and she seemed okay around him. I don’t know, she and Quicksilver were gone for a long time and she won’t talk about it, maybe something happened.”
“Silver can be very…” Crystal hesitated as she also tried to articulate another person. It looked a bit like wincing. “She’s had a difficult life. Not making excuses for anything she did do, but she feels like her guard’s got to be up all the time, y’know?”
“I got that impression a little,” Twilight agreed. “Anyway, I promise whatever Dash is feeling it’s not aimed at you.”
“That’s a relief,” Crystal smiled. “Seriously, filly has some mouth on her. It was impossible to look away!”
“She’s like that,” Twilight chuckled. “So, uh, I have to ask, how do you feel about Dash?”
“Nervous? Maybe? Not sure.”
“Why? I mean, okay, they could hear her in the Summer Isles, but it’s not like she was mad at you! Not specifically!”
“She and Johnny…they, ah, they had a thing, didn’t they?”
“Yeah,” Twilight persisted, “but that’s nothing to do with you.”
Something about the way Crystal’s ear flicked gave her a lot of information she couldn’t quite translate. “What?”
“It’s just…” Crystal shut her eyes, trying to dredge something simple but immense. “I can be like him. Sometimes.”
Twilight blinked. “You’re into race karts?”
There was nothing but the yawning silence of the tunnel for a while and then they were both laughing, an odd drunken relief.
“Okay, okay!” Twilight heaved, trying to get herself under control. “Okay, Crystal, listen!”
“Y-yeah?” The Unknown had a hoof over her chest, but she couldn’t stop smiling. It would’ve cracked her face in half.
“If that’s true then it means, hay, you’re also like Rainbow Dash sometimes.”
“I’ll...take that as a compliment,” Crystal smiled.
“You should!” Twilight peered left and right as if waiting for a flap of wings in the industrial darkness. “Just, ah, do me a favour and don’t tell her I made that comparison.”
“No promises.”
“Wow, you are like Johnny.”
“Shut up!” Crystal swatted at the laughing Alicorn, one swipe inadvertently overbalancing her. Twilight leaned forward to catch her as she tried to pull herself back and they slumped against the railings in a sniggering heap, supporting each other’s heads on their shoulders.
“Hey,” Twilight managed as they finally began to wind down.
“Yeah?” Crystal sighed.
“Come to Ponyville.”
“Sure.”
“Best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Twilight…”
“Oh gosh!” Twilight sat up excitedly. “I just realised. We can teach you how to Pinkie Promise!”
“Twil—Pinkie what? Never mind, come on!”
Twilight tried to look over her shoulder as Crystal seized her foreleg, realising she could hear something humming towards them, but was yanked down and behind a large filing cabinet like piece of equipment.
Twilight shrank into the space beside Crystal as the forks of the walkway began to come alive, sections sliding out like the jibs of ships or more cabinets, some of them clearly cranes, unfolding out of the floor. The hum began to mix with a slight rumble and a wall of metal was passing over them.
They were looking at the underside of a pentagonal ship. No, Twilight corrected herself, a building. And more were hum-rumbling out of the darkness. The Maze was arriving.
With a hiss of hydraulics and the rumble of large, old machinery, the walkways began to receive different floating…what, corridors? Storerooms? Basements? Twilight was trying very hard not to think about cells.
She couldn’t help admiring the mechanisms at work around her, which helped a little. Loud as it was, the process was fascinating, and all done without any magic! The platforms each sported a part of the Maze and gently swung them into range of a crane, lowering and rising to remove small hatches. Others ferried things from the cabinets into the now open spaces, which let out the odd burst of strangely coloured mist or sparks.
"A patch up? Man, we're way too lucky!" Crystal gestured to the block on their left as some lightning bolts slid open, pouring light across the walkways.
They crept forward as a reptilian Unknown in a blue-grey jumpsuit plodded despondently towards one of the cabinets. Crystal smoothed her mane down despite not needing to and coughed. It was lost over the sounds of maintenance. Other Unknowns further up the walkways didn’t notice, simply extracting tools and hoses from their own sections.
“Excuse me?” Twilight tried. The reptile just kept sliding tabs out of the cabinet until they found the right one, then began to sift through the tools kept in there. Finally, Crystal just trotted up and tapped her on the shoulder.
The Unknown squawked, large fins bursting out of her head and tail as she spun around. She boggled at Crystal then practically threw herself at her hooves. Crystal quickly grabbed her by the shoulders and Twilight scurried after them back through the doors.
“Princess Crystal,” the Unknown was babbling, “you-you-you-you’re Princess Crystal! I swear, I was just thinking about sticking the hose up my supervisor’s--”
“Good to know,” Crystal cut in quickly, “but Princess Twilight Sparkle and I really just need to catch a lift into the Maze. Can I borrow your cuffs? Thanks.”
She took the Unknown’s trembling hoof and pressed the cuff around it to the rune sticking out of her collar. It lit up with gold and purple light, projecting arrow runes onto the floor.
The prisoner blinked. “A pony? Here?”
“Hi?” Twilight waved awkwardly.
“Wait…” The Unknown stared at her wrist, her fins unfurling slowly as realisation dawned.
“Yeah, if you could spread that among all your cellmates that’d be great,” Crystal grinned.
“B-but I’ve still got three weeks on my--”
“Not anymore you don’t! How long until we’re supposed to take off?”
“Uh, an-an hour and a half?”
“Cool, so that’s at least one free prisoner to contaminate most of their block.”
Crystal turned and began heading for the hatch. Twilight felt hesitant to follow, wondered why, then thought about the system she was getting an impromptu close up of.
“Uh, excuse me,” she ventured, “but…Gosh, how to put this…how many of you are, uh, awaiting release?”
“A couple.” the Unknown blinked some more as they watched Crystal tap the rune to a worker per platform. Some were noting and hesitantly trying to approach, prompting the princess to wave them over. “They say we’re relocating so there’s delays. One Known in my garden rota was supposed to be out by now, but, y’know. Lockdown.”
“Right,” Twilight said with a slow nod. That couldn’t be the only example, and Attilan had apparently been hovering off the coast of Equestria for at least a week. She suddenly had a fair idea of how exactly Crystal was feeling.
30
The doors to the silo hanging off the side of the Baxter Building began to slide open, then paused. Enough light had fallen over the various aviation miracles inside to tantalisingly play over the many fins and pipes.
“Reed?” Johnnycake asked, poking his head into the gap, eyes flicking left and right. “Grim? Sue?”
Nothing.
“You guys here?” Johnny asked, even though he was pretty sure he’d timed this right. Armarilla had a gallery thing today, so that was his sister and the Thing taken care of.
He placed a hoof against one of the doors, tapping his 4 logo to activate a security enchantment, travelling up his forelegs and allowing him to push it further open. Something cool, something cool…which was a problem because he didn’t wanna be ostentatious.
“Just swingin’ by,” Johnny said casually but not too loudly to the hanger, trotting over to the main bay. Nah, no good. One of the combined Fantasti-Chariots was under construction. Two of the four backups were missing from their own bay, which at least confirmed most of the fam was on the other side of town.
“Takin’ a lil’ jaunt,” he continued to tell Reed’s security systems as he trotted further into the racks. It was a loophole he’d come up with in college when he’d first been out of the Barn. Sue might be mad, but she couldn’t say he didn’t tell her anything! This tape would just be the superhero equivalents of a note on the fridge!
No. No. Hmmm, maybe. He wouldn’t take anything experimental (not if he was trying to make an impression on Crystal anyway) because Reed and Grim needed to have those certified by the Crown. The problem with so many of these was that they were explorer class, designed for at least a four-pony crew. Johnny could totally fly one solo but it’d take hours to set up properly without help and be kinda like showing up to the grocery store in a bulk carrier.
He smiled affectionately at one of the Thing’s sky-cycles and took a turn around a shipping container. One of the skimmers maybe? They couldn’t be too mad if he bought it back in one piece. Would they have enough charge to reach Attilan though? The backup chariots definitely wouldn’t.
“Should be back around sundown,” he called idly, retrieving his compact. It was an all-purpose choice. Romance for Crystal, a big honking visual clue for when he should return the ship and, best of all, vague.
“Huh.” Johnny blinked. He’d been going through their inventory and glanced at the map. The rune for Attilan was flashing in the corner. It was transparent and uncoloured, so not a danger signal, just the spells Reed had been allowed to weave into the city’s signals going ‘hey, over here btw’.
Johnny quickly clicked through maps until he got to the continent, then scrolled over to the exact location. The rim of the compact let out a pleasing whizzing noise as it spun, the numbers for longitude and latitude glowing into existence on it.
“Thought I’d, uh, get a lil’ sun ‘n’ surf,” Johnny said for the security systems. That close by? He wasn’t complaining! Less far to go and he wouldn’t have to be gallant and try and guilt Sue out of punishing him by offering to cover the fuel cost.
…well, it wouldn’t be that high, anyway.
He looked around, grinning at the skimmers and cruisers. Crystal was somewhere over a sweet ocean view and even the oldest of these puppies could get him there and back again in no time. With her in the co-pilot’s chair for preference.
Man, what had he first showed up in when Crystal talked the Unknowns into letting her spend some time in the outside world? Grim would probably have retired it way before now, shipping it off to Blue’s Birds or somepony as he and Reed churned out something to redefine the concept of an airship.
She’d liked that flying kart he’d had, but it figured Spark would monopolise them then give the best ones to Shining for a wedding present. The private sector sure was oppressive when it wasn’t working exclusively for him.
Karts…now there was an idea! He couldn’t get his hooves on one without a lot of legwork, but Crystal also liked…he doubled back and shone his collars flashlight spell over…yes! One of the skimmer-sleds! Compact as one of the chariots, sleek as one of the skimmers and best of all, big enough to hold the Thing, and so two normal sized ponies.
“Okay, cool, love ya!” Johnny called cheerfully, activating the levitation runes inside the cockpit with his collar sigil. He cantered alongside the sled as it hovered into position on the runway strip, clambered in and began the start-up procedures.
He hesitated before hitting the ignition, then fed Attilan’s new coordinates into the compass and activated the autopilot rune. It would mean a slower flight, but these sleds were designed for weaving between mountain ranges or switching to alt-terrain mode more than tearing it up. In fact, Johnny decided as he leaned back in the pilot’s seat and put his hooves up on the console, a longer flight meant longer to decided what exactly he’d say to Crystal.
He was so preoccupied with this that he didn’t even let out an obligatory whoop as the sled cruised out of the silo, swung towards the horizon, and gunned its afterburner.
Take care of him, Johnny had said.
Well okay, Rocky reflected, it was Johnny, so he hadn’t actually said that. And if he had Rocky wouldn’t have been too sure how. Plus? It was Peter.
“I mean, you worked together before, right?”
Spider-Pony let out a single loud slurp from the straw in his mouth, a hoof despondently cradling his half-unmasked chin. That meant yes, Rocky had translated. Two would presumably mean no.
“That must’ve been cool!”
Srpp
“Lotta history!”
Srpp
“So maybe if you focus on the really good--”
SRPPSRPP
Rocky winced and looked in every direction. The waitresses pretend they hadn’t been looking and apparently none of the rest of the afternoon crowd cared, but still!
The afternoon crowd. That was the problem. It had been a while since Rocky had hit up Plucky’s but this early in the day seemed to belong to what he’d guess were the detective side of the business and wandering martial artists. He and Spidey were the only two actual factual superheroes in the bar, and Peter being in full costume was drawing glances. Rocky felt guilty for not icing up in solidarity, but knew it would be even more awkward. If not for the rest of the bar, then him.
“Okay…” He let out a contemplative stream of steamy winter breath. “You and that redhead still friendly?”
Srpp
“Oh hey, she owns a bar too, doesn’t she!”
Srpp srpp.
“But I got a flyer?” Rocky frowned. “Photo on the front. Looked like a club or--”
Srpp
“Ah, okay.” Rocky looked over their drinks. Technically Pete’s and he had a feeling he was going to be the one to pay. Not that Pete would try to stick him with the bill, but even with a new job it probably wasn’t wise to expect Spider-Pony to have some swingin’ around scratch.
The drinks were all magenta if not outright purple and he wasn’t sure Peter had noticed.
He looked around some more. “…that a new foosball table?”
Srpp
“You wanna—?”
Srppsrpp
Rocky ran a hoof down his face then let it drop to his side. A pair of ice cubes crackled into existence in his pad and he began to work them like worry balls. “Alrighty. What do you wanna do?”
Peter took a long, rattling slurp of his straw. Rocky glared at the tankard he was using. How thick was the monstrosity in there that it was emptying with the speed of drying paint?
He hadn’t had much face time with, ah what’d everypony call them, the Elements? Of Whatstheirface, but they’d been there to help during Jean’s…episode, and just because the crown had passed strict laws against building giant robots to hunt him and his down didn’t mean Exquestrians couldn’t use all the friends they could get.
Also, sure, he could sit here in silence but somepony had put on the worst possible song for this situation on the juke box.
“Spidey.”
Silence. ♫Everypony have fun tonight!♫
“Spidey!”
Silence. ♫A celebration so spread the word!♫
The hay with it, it was Plucky’s, nopony would say anything. “Peter!”
“Mmm?” Peter kept glumly staring into nothing. The Street Fighters at the next table were wondering why he was looking over here.
“Wow, no freak out?” Rocky squinted. “You are in deep.”
Sr—“Byagh!” Spidey flinched away from the straw, blinking as ice finished forming over his drink. For good measure, more poured out of the mouth of the straw to encase all of it. He glared at Rocky, who was leaning forward enough to place a hoof on the underside of the table where his drink would be.
“Yeah, that was getting old, and I already avoided enough real conversation when I didn’t join in the move up to San Foalsisco.”
“I don’t feel like talking much right now, okay?”
“And that’s not supposed to make me even more worried?”
“You’re here because you’re worried, huh?” Peter pulled the mask over his muzzle, one lens squinting. “Because I seem to remember Johnny dumping me in your lap.”
“Yeah,” Rocky agreed, nodding and leaning back in his seat while crossing his hind legs on the table, “because Johnny’s job is visiting planets that have giant moustaches, so he expresses concern way differently than the average little pony. Remember when he got those personality test results, then wrote in demanding they change the entire system so he’d be his own category?”
“Those things always have a wide margin of error,” Spidey muttered, reaching for another drink. His hoof only touched a tankard shaped ice sculpture, one of several. He glared at Rocky, hind legs still on the table, who winked. “What, you’re tea teetotal now?”
“No, you are.” Rocky indicated the faint purple in the ice. “Am I supposed to believe the colour’s a coincidence?”
“…it’s her favourite,” the Web-Slinger said softly, staring at the tabletop.
“Her favourite drink or her favourite colour?” Rocky squinted, unsure if he was committing treason but too confused to care. “Her favourite drink is her favourite colour?”
“No, I asked them to add the colouring.” Peter shrugged. “Just letting you know what you’re in for if you really wanna talk about this.”
“Thanks,” Rocky said, meaning it. He sat up properly and drummed his hooves thoughtfully. “Talk to your aunt yet?”
“Sweet suns no!” Peter practically sprang to the rafters, perching on the back of his chair like a cat. His ears drooped. “Gem and MJ know and they’re on Twilight’s side, so if she does know then she probably will be too.”
“Give the lady some credit,” Rocky said, beckoning him back down. “Also both your exes hang out with your girlfriend? Uh,” he amended hastily as Spider-Pony’s head swung towards him like a faceless owl, “at least they all get along…?”
“Oh yeah, don’t they just,” Peter muttered. He reached out and made one of the iced over drinks spin. “And the best part? I can’t blame any of them.”
“Okay, that’s a start,” Rocky said carefully, “you blaming yourself too much. Something we can actually talk about.”
“How much is just enough?” Peter almost snapped, intently watching the spinning ice. “Could somepony kindly give me a graph or something so I can know these things?”
“Ooh, thematic deflection!” Rocky rolled his eyes. “You could take my spot on the team.”
“Maybe I should move out west.” Spidey slumped, practically slamming his cheek down on the table and making Rocky ice up as he flinched. “Not like Twilight couldn’t use the space, and practically stalking her didn’t do any good so what’s even the point? One of her rouges came back a while ago while I was in meltdown mode and y’know what? I was worse than useless.”
“Alright, spiralling, that’s motion so we’re counting this as progress.” Ice-Pony leaned out to get a waitress’ attention. “Hi, can we get some banana desserts if you’ve got any? Gonna be a long night.”
“It’s only past noon, sir…”
“I know, that’s why I’m stocking up now.”
32
I’m leading a jailbreak, Twilight Sparkle thought. Well, I’m accessory to a jailbreak. Shining would be so disappointed in me. And Princess Celestia! Rainbow would probably be proud and I’m not sure which is worse. I’M ACCESSORY TO A JAILBREAK!
A fairly quiet jailbreak, though. And it was hard to feel too guilty given what she knew about these Unknowns’ situation. Or maybe this hectic, off the grid, renegade lifestyle had eroded all that famous Sparkle family moral fibre! What was she going to be like when she got back to Ponyville?! Tagging statues in the park? Skateboarding in the wrong lane? Ignoring late returns?! No, let’s not go insane, centre yourself, woman!
“How you doing?” Crystal asked as she pulled the access rune from a wall port, clearing an entire floor of security. She quickly waved on a gaggle of Unknown prisoners, cautiously poking their heads out of their now open cells.
“Jailbreak,” Twilight squeaked from her bench.
There hadn’t been much for her to actually do so far. The rune passed on what Crystal referred to as a code, setting mini-Thinking Engines in the prisoners’ shackles to a release mode. Not only did it turn the shackles into projectors, purple and gold arrows blasting out to guide them through the thousands of variations of the Maze, Crystal had somehow activated an emergency release setting used in the event the Maze had to be evacuated, allowing the prisoners to spread it through contact. No magic or research required, leaving Twilight to shuffle after Crystal as she essentially dismantled her capital’s entire penal system.
“I know, isn’t it cool?” Crystal grinned. “I mean, there could be music…”
“I shall sing songs of this day!” called a gleeful zebra-peacock Unknown as he galloped past.
“Find Lockjaw yet?” Twilight asked as Crystal beckoned her around a cellblock corner and into what looked and smelled like an art room, trying not to trip on abandoned sketches.
The Maze was like this, weird jigsaw segments that didn’t quite feel like they belonged next to each other. At one point their markers had led them through a tunnel that she’d have sworn was underwater and they’d emerged in a shower room. That was as much sense as this place could hope to make.
“No, but I’m working on it,” Crystal said as they galloped down a staircase. “Our best bet’s probably the warden’s zone, then we can check the prisoner manifest. It keeps track of where everyknown is, even when the segments readjust.”
“What about your people?” Twilight asked, leaning to the right to avoid some liberated prisoners jogging up on the other side. “There’s no alarms yet but what about when the guards notice?”
“Once the cuffs deactivate, they all get their powers back.” Crystal smirked. But not for long. “And they’re supposed to be stationed at the surface exits, but I think it’s like the rest of the city. Anything that’s not a checkpoint is too complicated for them so they just leave it.”
Sparks danced briefly around her eyes. “The Maze is built to be self-sustaining but it still needs outside supplies! Seeds. Medicine. These faceless Noknows could’ve left my people to starve, Twilight.”
“At least they’re out now?” Twilight tried. She hopped into the air and started flapping her wings to keep up with Crystal. “Tell me about the warden. They must’ve noticed they weren’t getting supplies. And that all their prisoners are kind of, uh, well…leaving.”
“As far as their systems are concerned Triton released them.” Crystal slid to a halt in front of a lightning bolt patterned tube. “Bingo! People still say that on the surface, right?”
“Pretty sure!” Twilight swooped in as Crystal tapped the rune against the doors. She was too nervous/energised to land, which was awkward since they had nothing to do until the elevator let them off. “Any idea who these invaders could be?”
“Skrulls, maybe?” Crystal shrugged. “Their feud with the Kree extends to us depending on who’s Empress at the moment, but I dunno, they’d be familiar with our tech.”
“Maybe they’re local? I mean, there’re only about ten ponies I can think of off the top of my head who’d have any idea how to operate your stuff. This place makes Manehattan look positively rustic!”
“Oh no!” Crystal spun to look at her. “Please don’t think like that! If the Kree hadn’t left behind a ton of stuff and we hadn’t had to go into hiding we’d probably be on you guys’ level! Ah shock, that sounded super condescending--”
“If you think knowing how to work Thinking Engines is condescending,” Twilight grinned. “If so then condescend away, baby! You think those things are cool now, I guarantee you magic can make them cooler. We can talk about how once things settle down.”
She looked up as pair of lightning bolt emblazoned doors came into view. “Which should hopefully be any second now…”
“Tail tips crossed,” Crystal said, tying her hair into a ponytail with static cling.
***
Twilight had been preparing for just about every cliché she could imagine. Lasers, buzz saws, that kind of thing.
She hadn’t expected opera music and a nice lobby. It was like they’d picked a fight with the Grand Galloping Gala.
She flapped out after Crystal, looking around. Beyond the lobby was a lot of technological stuff she wasn’t sure about but was probably important. The branching hallways around them still looked more like a futuristic museum than the dungeon she’d been thinking of.
“This is…nice?” she ventured as they passed into a garden area. It was segmented in glass covered rooms and none of it matched, but it was still disconcertingly pleasant.
“Yeah,“ Crystal explained, “whoever gets elected warden has to spend a whole year in here, so we try and make it…Medusa keeps using the word amenable. They can even host long term prisoners for good behaviour. Keeps everyknown from getting too lonely, y’know?”
“Wow. You guys are advanced.”
“Aww, stop!” Crystal giggled, scanning the walls. “They can move everything in their zone around like a mini-Maze. Guess this year’s occupant is big on those garden parties.”
“Can we talk to them about this?” Twilight asked, landing to admire a futuristic chandelier. “You mentioned they’re usually the understanding sort and, I mean, they must’ve been told you were all moving suddenly.”
“Yeah, I was hoping to ask them before touching their stuff. Right now I’m just looking for a terminal so I can find--”
A spine curdling bark! Twilight squawked with terror as something large slapped against the glass in front of her, staring at a lolling tongue almost the length of her whole torso.
“Lockjaw?!” the two princesses chorused. The dog scratched at the glass and whined.
“The warden must’ve taken him in!” Crystal grinned, galloping up to press a hoof to the glass. “Aww hang on buddy, I’ll make sure they let you out soon!”
“Well,” chuckled an oily, almost musical voice behind them, “we do tend to elect the generous sort, don’t we?”
Crystal spun, hunching almost as low as Lockjaw as the beast snarled. Twilight turned slowly towards a snipping sound.
An Unknown was standing in the garden across from Lockjaw’s…Twilight realised it must be a cell, or at least being used as one. And she had a hunch who the Unknown in the green and black high collar outfit tending those rhododendrons was.
“Maximus,” Crystal hissed.
“Hail and well met, cousin!” the lunatic genius said cheerfully, not looking up from what he was doing. Two cables extended from his collar, one arranging flowers and shrubbery. The other ended in a pair of lightning bolt sheers and snapped with snake-like intermittence. “I must admit, you’re a tad late. I was getting worried! It’s been almost a week and your nose is usually so in Attilan’s business. Very patriotic.”
The regular cable caressed a flower.
“How’re you here?” Crystal practically spat.
Maximus heaved a practised sigh. “Contrary to popular belief, sweet child, my parents did consider expanding the family after my precious brother was--”
“Noknown would let you out of the science-cells!” Crystal stamped forward, ice forming under her hooves and static dancing around her shoulders.
“No Unknown did,” Maximus trilled. The cable whizzed into the folds of his collar as he looked up.
He had a greasy black bowl cut mane and Black Bolt’s lilac coat, but his eyes were almost too large, ringed by bags, as if his face had trouble containing them. His smile curved a little too high, also creasing at the corners.
The way that collar framed his face gave Twilight the impression of a cobra’s frills as he glanced at her. “Oh! You’ve brought something! It looks like a pony! Hello!”
“I know what you tried to do to Saddle Arabia,” Twilight said, eyes narrowing.
“Always nice to have one’s works appreciated,” Maximus grinned, placing a touched hoof to his chest. He’d have been an Earth Pony if not for that smile. And those eyes…
“Why does the warden have you up here?” Crystal demanded, joining Twilight. Lockjaw banged a paw against the glass containing him.
“Why?” Maximus stepped back, four cables extending from his collar, and twirled on one leg to take in each landscape. “You don’t think this just happens, do you?”
Crystal slammed a hoof against the glass. “Do you have anything to do with this?”
“Oh, I didn’t even know it was happening,” Maximus said cheerfully. He made the cables clap each other.
The pair froze at a click and a hum. A glint in the corner of her eye and the smell of ozone made Twilight grab Crystal’s shoulders, hauling her away from the glass. Lockjaw howled, forced back as electricity surged across each cube. Crystal and Twilight stared from the floor as Maximus’s cell glass slid up into the ceiling, spilling the smell of freshly mown grass over them.
“At least not until my collaborators offered me the position of warden,” the mad Unknown purred as he stepped towards them. “Think I’ve got the previous incumbent around here somewhere. Would you like to join them? I’m afraid it’ll be a tight squeeze.”
One of his cables reared up like a whip, crackling with energy. Crystal brought a hoof up, a battering ram of super compacted snow blasting towards her cousin. It spat and sloughed off a sudden olive force-field, pushing Maximus back slightly but to no other effect.
Crystal pushed Twilight to relative safety and flipped backwards onto all fours, hurling thunderbolts. Maximus’ cable lazily whipped out to catch them and swung them back to either side of her, Crystal ducking and crying out as sparks burst around her. Lockjaw raged and hammered against his glass, barking with fury.
“Oh, shut up you witless mongrel!” Maximus snarled, then turned to Twilight, leering as her horn glowed. “And what is this one up to, hmm?”
“Something simple,” Twilight smirked, horn glowing. Maximus’ field, presumably technologically generated by his collar, was an oval shape inches in front of him, allowing his cables to work around it. And leaving his back exposed, particularly his long green cape...
The glass partition of Maximus’ garden, tinged purple, slammed down out of its housing suddenly. Maximus jerked and spun to stare at the tail of his cape, caught.
“And since you can see and hear us through that thing…” Twilight concentrated, firing a purple glowing musical note rune out of her horn, trailing a cheerful flute melody behind it. Maximus flinched as it flew towards him, passing effortlessly though his field and into his body.
The Unknown blinked, tried to send his cables towards Twilight, then froze. And began to vibrate. Rapidly.
“W-w-w-w-ha-a-a-a-at di-i-i-i-i-id y-o-o-ooo-ooo-OOOOU—?!”
He was now a blur of green and lilac, finally lifted off his hooves and sent slamming into the glass. He crumpled to the floor, still trembling. His cables made irritating but impotent skittering noises.
“Huh...” Crystal blinked, then smirked. “Yeah, you’re gonna fit right in.”
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked as they galloped up to Lockjaw.
“About to be.” Crystal held up Triton’s rune, tapping it against the glass as an excited Lockjaw fogged it up. “C’mon, work you shockin’ thing!”
Twilight had the presence of mind to trot backwards as it finally did. Lockjaw enveloped Crystal, bowling them both to the floor so hard they spun and bounced right way round and right side up. Maximus flinched as they almost crushed him, or maybe it was just another spasm.
“Okay, okay, I know!” Crystal giggled at each slurping lick. Twilight smiled as she flailed her hooves to try and pet a heaving Lockjaw. “I know, boy! Wanna go to the communications hub? Do you? I know I do!”
Loackjaw gave her one last slobber before his ears pricked up. He spun towards Twilight and growled, hackles rising. Twilight sprang back before realising he wasn’t reacting to her. She turned, registering the clatter of hoofbeats on metal then thumping on the soft carpet of the warden’s zone.
“Uh, Crystal? Company!”
Triton skidded around a corner and froze, glaring pure venom at Twilight. A few guards tumbled in after him, one almost hitting the floor. An imperious figure shoved past him, slowing as she registered the trio and the prone (still jittering) Maximus.
“Crystal,” Medusa said distantly, “step away from your cousin.”
“I think we all need to back off a little, yeah,” Crystal shot back. Twilight followed her and Lockjaw, trying not to make too many sudden movements.
“He’s very dangerous you know,” Medusa smiled, trotting forward with languid arrogance that was strangely familiar. She stomped a hoof into Maximus’ back, stopping his trembling with a wheeze. “You could all have been very seriously hurt.”
“Oh, well, wouldn’t want anyknown to get hurt,” Crystal muttered, lightning filling her eyes.
“Quite.”
“But you’re not Unknowns, are you?” Crystal reared up, sweeping a foreleg. Medusa froze as a trial of sparks slashed a blackened line into the last few paces between them. “You’re not even my sister!”
“Mmm, yes,” Medusa murmured to herself, “knew you were going to be that sort the second I laid eyes on you.” She smirked at Twilight, looking between them. “What a pair you make. And what a pair you will make...once we’ve studied you enough.”
“You’re going to replace them?!” Triton snapped incredulously. Medusa spun on him like an enraged lioness, but his own anger was too focused on Twilight to notice. “No! No way! My brother--”
“Will be avenged when I say so!” Medusa snapped. Triton backed up, eyes locked on Twilight as she leaned down to haul Maximus up like a fallen teddy bear. “And my little Maxie-Waxie’s going to help, isn’t he?”
“What,” Crystal and Twilight said in ear drooping sync, although the Unknown sounded queasier. And you couldn’t blame her since Medusa and Maximus were nose kissing and giggling.
“Oh my poor Maxie-Waxie!” Medusa cooed. “What’d the mean ol’ peasants do to you?”
“Something…simple,” Maximus wheezed, glaring at Twilight. It melted into a dopey smile that almost split his head open as he nuzzled Medusa back. “But everything’s going to be so much better now you’re here, my little Battley Axely! And do remember, my cousin is royalty, if only by marriage. A few chips in her head and she’ll soon act like it, so try and leave enough of her, hmmm?”
“Hmm.” Medusa glanced at Twilight, pouting and tapping her chin. “Can I have the upstart peasant then?”
“You knooooow I could never deny you anything, my poisonous precious!”
“Hey!” Twilight protested. “I’m royalty! Nobility! Technically! By marriage, even! And then I got coronated and everything! I’m even in Princess Celestia’s will!”
“How fortuitous.” The cold professionalism poured back into Medusa’s tone and body language as she began to step slowly towards them.
“Two princesses versus one poser?” Crystals shared smirks with Twilight before they both took defiant steps forward, both lighting up their eyes as fire glowed around her hooves and magic gathered around the Alicorn's horn. “I like those odds!”
“Mmm.” A razor glint in Medusa’s eye. “But I’ve got a king.”
“Aww shock,” Crystal murmured, ears drooping but eyes still glowing. She spun to Lockjaw. “Lockjaw! Get backup! Backup!”
The dog whimpered but his rune sparkled, and he vanished in a burst of Krackle.
“Oh, you’re going to need it,” Medusa chuckled with irrepressible delight, then clapped her hooves. “Black Bolt! ♫Darliiiiing!♫”
Twilight and Crystal covered their eyes at a sudden explosion of space and power. Twilight knew what she’d see, but was still caught off guard by the figure floating above the charred floor.
Black Bolt looked awful. His expression was vague, uncertain, his mouth hanging open in a silent moan. One of his metallic wings was still tucked in but the other hung limp and swaying. His eye flickered with sickly green light and his limbs dangled like an abandoned marionette’s. Which he might as well have been.
“For crimes against the state of New Attilan…” Medusa began, stopping irritably as one of her long, also strangely limp tresses got in her face. “Oh, One Below with it, incinerate them!”
Black Bolt’s head rocked forward, teeth clenched suddenly as he unleashed a battering ram of lightning and Kirby Krackle dead ahead. The explosion shattered and cracked glass the length of the entire garden, silver blue wind bowling the invaders over and into each other.
“I spent days on those, you fool!” Maximus yelled from beneath a startled Medusa. He waved a clenched hoof. “They were pristine! You’re always breaking my things! It’s not fair!”
“Calm down, my sweet,” Medusa winced, scrambling to her hooves, and sneering at the almost mile long scorch mark bitten into the corridor. “At least you’ve one less loose end between you and throne.”
“You can always find the silver lining, my little Battley Axely!” the Madknown cooed. “Like a garrotting wire on a moonless night.”
“Oh, stop! Not in front of the help!” Medusa giggled, adjusting his crumpled collar. “Hmm, of course we’ll have to hunt down that wretched creature all over again but--”
A tinkle of magic echoed from up the hall, followed by twin thuds. Triton and Medusa spun and sprinted around the bend to see Twilight and Crystal staggering to their hooves in the foyer.
Twilight met Medusa’s gaze then fired her horn. The faux-queen flinched but blinked as she registered a sudden wall of purple crystal covering the archway.
“Come on!” Twilight urged, propping Crystal up and dragging her into a gallop.
“AFTERRRR THEEEEEM!” Medusa howled, fangs glistening in her maw as her body flickered with furious green light.
Black Bolt spun tonelessly, blasting off in a contrail of lightning and Krackle that almost sheered a yelping Maximus’ mane off, crashing through Twilight’s barrier in a purple cloud that rained glittering shards around the gaping hole in his wake.
Triton sprang forward like a hunting hound, guards scurrying after him rather than be anywhere near the furious queen. The corridor filled with the sound of metal hoofbeats.
33
“Might wanna pace ourselves there,” Ice-Pony tried.
“You wanted momentum!” Spider-Pony has a spoon wrapped in his tail and was using it to stir the contents of a float glass like an industrial centrifuge. The contents included not only the banana float he’d ordered but the liquidised remains of his other order, an entire king-sized slice of Manehattan banana cheesecake, which he’d tipped into his float.
“Progress,” Rocky corrected. He looked at the rest of the bar, rows of faces making it abundantly clear they couldn’t look away but were absolutely not going to get involved. “C’mon man, everypony’s looking at us.”
“And?” Spidey looked over his shoulder, tail still blurring. “Hey, any of you geniuses know the mystery of the equine heart? Yeah, that’s what I thought!”
“Okay, this is getting seriously close to some kinda class warfare thing,” Rocky winced.
“Rocky, I absolutely intend to drink this beast, do I look like I care what the Great Pony in the Sky herself thinks?”
“Which is what Johnny would say,” Ice-Pony countered.
Spidey froze then squeezed his lenses shut. “Why can’t anypony just let me hang upside down and feel miserable?”
“Your girl and her crew are all about friendship!”
“Yeah, well this isn’t a friendship problem!” Spidey’s tail lashed, inadvertently hurling the spoon across the room.
A prosthetic leg blurred into its path before it reached the Fighter’s table, who’d all rolled out of their seats to take combat stances, except for the Earth Pony in the red gi who’d just fallen over. The spoon juddered into the mask logo of the coaster Plucky Stars was holding.
She jabbed a warning wingtip in their direction. “Strike one.”
“Okay, okay!” Spidey threw up his hooves and sunk back into his chair, which he’d been standing on for his experiment. Ice-Pony stared, mesmerised by the gross little galaxy of dessert swirling in the glass.
“You’re not actually gonna eat this thing.”
“Drink,” Spidey muttered despondently.
“Dude!”
“Whatever.”
“Okay, you’ve never taken a breakup this bad before, what is going on?”
“There it is!” Spidey trilled cheerfully, flicking his tail at Rocky. “The magic word!”
“Aww…” Ice-Pony squeezed his eyes shut. “Pete, man, I just meant, like, y’know, scale!”
“Well this is a pretty big fowl up, so I think we got that.”
“It’s not a fowl up, you just freaked out! And I wanna help but I dunno why you freaked! I’m starting to think maybe you don’t either or you wouldn’t be trying to take the easy way out with…” Ice-pony waved at the nightmare float, refusing to make any more eye contact in case that somehow bought it to life. “That.”
Spidey flopped back in his chair, staring into the shadows of the rafters. “Because I didn’t think about what it’d be like.”
“Dating somepony else in the business?” Rocky squinted. It was admittedly kind of a blind spot for the Hex-Ponies/Befrienders side of things, where office romance was an inevitability.
“That too,” Peter said quietly, “but now it’s about everything else. For starters? I don’t do anything anymore. Which you’d think I’d be ready for, but here we are.”
“You’re like the busiest guy any of us know and you barely had a real job until now! Seriously, your blood pressure--”
“I do it without her.”
“…ah.”
“I get up in the morning without her. I go places without her. I even spent this week freaking out about how dangerous her life’s maybe always been, how big her destiny is, and now? I’m even doing that without her! And this is just day one! Of maybe spending the rest of my life without her!”
“Okay, inside voice,” Rocky urged, clamping a cooling hoof around Spidey’s foreleg to clam him down. “You’re not gonna fix this if you’re just ranting about how you can’t fix it.”
Spidey made to swat the hoof away but got a grip, sighing and eventually nodding. Ice-Pony released him and raised the temperature of his hoof to normal to pat him on the shoulder.
“She said we’ll talk when we get back,” Spidey muttered. “Even more to worry about. Which, ah, is why I’m being totally ungrateful right now, just so y’know.”
“Hey, I’m a Hex-Pony. Senior year was somepony trying to kill somepony else on the lawn practically every morning.”
Spidey chuckled, which was a start, but squeezed his lenses shut and massaged the space between them.
“I just want a future, Rocky. Is that so much to ask?”
Ice-Pony was trying to come up with something that wasn’t a quip or a reference to the Hex-Ponies own fun with quantum tunnelling when a giant bulldog materialised on their table, showering Krackle and frozen drinks everywhere, clamped the shirt of Spidey’s costume in it’s jaws and vanished.
Rocky stared at little lights still dancing across the table. The nightmare float had somehow remained upright.
Plucky Stars walked over with a pair of tongs, passed him the bill, then gingerly clamped the float and lifted it up to take it somewhere it could be freed from the torment of its existence. Rocky checked the bill and vaguely wished he could.
34
“—uuuuuuh…” Johnnycake concluded after almost twenty minutes.
He was running out of ocean, individual details of Attilan fading into existence as the floating city got closer and closer. The sled hadn’t received any hails, which should’ve raised his hackles, but Johnny was honestly just grateful to have more thinking time to waste.
“Okay, c’mon,” he urged himself, rubbing his temples, eyes squeezed shut, “you’re the face of Hoof Beat 2006 to 2008, you can do this. Crystal, I…I…eyes? No, she knows everything you think about her eyes, she’s named after her eyes for sun’s sake…”
He placed an exhausted elbow on the dash, nudging some runes and triggering a swarm of alarms, which he silenced with a hard swat of his hoof. He took a deep breath.
“Crystal…I love you.”
He looked out at the towers of Attilan.
“…is that enough?”
His eyes narrowed as he noticed some of those neat holo-billboards suddenly switch to an image of Medusa’s dumb face.
“Why can’t that be enough?”
As if in response the universe crushed him against the cockpit canopy with a loud bark and a smell like cinnamon and damp straw. He could feel a familiar tuning fork digging into his shoulder blades.
“Johnny?!” winced a red and blue blur in his peripheral vision.
“Pete?!” Johnny struggled to turn without breaking something important. “Lockjaw?!”
The dog barked cheerfully. The sled vanished in a burst of Kirby Krackle.
To be Continued
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I liked it, I'm to tried to write I'll review tomorrow
"It's not my fault a dog kidnapped please don't break up with me my life is falling apar.t"
Hooray for Pharynx! He and Johnny are great in this chapter. I wonder why he hates Twilight so much...
“
Are they in a real relationship? Huh.
So in this 'verse Changeling magic amplifies physical ability as well as magical? I don't know if I've seen that before.
Or do Changelings have super strength in this AU? He should not be moving.
That end fight was solid, Johnny especially. The stuff about the Totems is really interesting, I'm sure it'll pay off well.
10266487
His brother is still missing at this point and she's the only Element around, so.
(Johnny's going to be so heartbroken when Pharynx reforms.)
Maximus certainly thinks so.
Changelings like Chrysalis and Pharynx are on par with Spidey, yeah. Rank and file Changelings not so much.
Not really that into stats and scales but Chrysalis not only contorts her body in To Where And Back Again but knocks Celestia the fuck out during the wedding two parter and is surprised she did it. So that felt like it's okay to say she's usually capable of the same stunts Spidey is and stolen love boosts her to levels even she doesn't expect, which is why she's so anime cocky with Gorgon and Spidey: she knows she can take them.
Glad to hear it! My beta said the same thing but I always worry about how to keep action in pros interesting and this was basically just one long running fight scene.
Borrowed from J. Michael Straczynski's run where the concept was first introduced and it's not really that weird in a world like Equestria. Also it'll be used in this story but probably won't be too much of a thing going forward unless Changelings come up again. I kinda like hinting at how Spidey going berserk around Chrysalis works more than coming up with definitive rules for it because the totem storyline was all about Peter confronting a weird side of his powers he didn't like.
Like, Chrysalis mentions other spider totems existing before but she doesn't give much context, or outright say she met them. She implies they came to a sticky end and that she knows why Spidey turns into an attack dog at the sight of her, BUT!
In both cases she's vague and you have absolutely no reason to assume she's telling the truth anyway.