The Paladin of Prismatic Light

by Keeper of time RD

Chapter 13: Broken Chains

The shadow pegasi had returned a few times before the Sky Knights were ready for the next move. Although to say they attacked Liberty Castle wouldn’t have been accurate. They had harassed the defenders near the edges, but they never really tried to make a move to take the castle in those recent attacks. It was almost like they were suddenly afraid of taking losses or something.

Although, the first group of Sky Knights that had finished training under Storm Gale as weather ponies, creating a new layer of defense with the ring of storm clouds around the fountain plaza likely helped deter serious attacks, too.

In Equestria Rainbow Dash might have celebrated her enemies' apparent timidity. But she had long ago accepted that this world was ruled by cruelty. So if the shadow pegasi were holding back, it was because they thought they could cause more suffering by doing so. She couldn’t see how, but she was sure that the enemy going easy on the castle couldn’t possibly be a good sign.

Even Cloud Sword had voiced similar concerns when he had shared the observation of the shadows’ new behavior. Although he had seemingly dismissed the thought by adding something along the lines of ‘we’ll see soon enough.’

To some extent Dash could agree with that sentiment. Seeing as the shadows were the puppets of the Dark Summoner and they’d have to face the Summoner sooner or later, they’d no doubt find out why she had changed her tactics with the shadow pegasi then.

Taking a moment to pause her trip through the halls of Liberty Castle, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. She could worry about that another time. Right now she needed to focus at the task at hoof. And that meant it was time to see what all of Cloud’s fussing over the command room maps had amounted to.

Pushing open the door to said command room, she found him and Elder Cherry Blaze at the central table.

“Paladin Rainbow Dash!” Cloud greeted. “Ready?”

“Ready as I can be, seeing as you haven’t told me the plan yet.”

“The short version is that we will be leading separate strikes. Being the paladin we need you in the strike going against the prison and it’s warden.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be leading the strike in Ponyton proper. If all goes well, by the end of the day Ponyton will be free of the Dark Summoner’s control.”

With a nod and a wave of her hoof, Rainbow Dash let Cloud lead the way out of the command room.

Although, it wasn’t really until they emerged from the keep that Dash realized just how big what was going on really was. The silver-vested ponies were missing from the castle walls, replaced by pegasus ponies that she knew to be civilians. Even the fountain in the middle of the courtyard was manned only by Scooter and two pegasus ponies she had only seen working as cooks before.

In fact, the only Sky Knights she could find were the ten lined up at the steps of the keep, clearly waiting to follow the paladin and former paladin into the field.

“Are we really leaving the castle undefended?” Rainbow Dash asked, as she and the remaining knights took to the sky.

“The fountain will suffice while the sun is up. And we don’t exactly have the numbers to hit two places at once and defend the castle. We’ll just have to be sure we finish our jobs and get back with a enough ponies still in fighting shape before dusk is all.”

Even as he’d said it, Cloud’s tone acknowledged that this was a calculated risk based on making do with what they had.

After his less than reassuring reassurance, they flew on in silence. Along the way Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but notice that the knights who’d all taken off with them had disappeared into the forest below, leaving her and Cloud to continue on alone. And once they’d left Liberty Forest behind, Cloud led her the low and fast, the long way around the town.

By the time they made their way up a gully leading to the prison they were flying so low that they would have been taller just standing on the ground. And when they did set their hooves down and crawled up to a line of bushes, Dash could see the shimmer of silver within those bushes.

Needless to say she wasn’t exactly surprised when Trixie and a few Sky Knights poked out of the bushes and greeted them with silent gestures.

“Trixie will explain the details of this strike. I need to get back to my team,” Cloud whispered before sneaking back the way they had come.

After following the orange-ish unicorn back into the bushes, Rainbow Dash asked for those details.

“You will be going in alone,” the unicorn whispered. “As usual we need the paladin to sneak in and disable the lockdown device,” she added, presenting a backpack to Dash.

Two objects floated out of the pack, held in Trixie’s magic aura. One was a pulsing red crystal and the other was a flare gun. Separating the crystal out and creating an illusionary image of a machine made of black stone and gold pipes, Trixie continued, “Shove this crystal into the regulator, here.” The imaged highlighted an open pipe near the base of the object. “That will cause the machine overload. Once that’s done find a window and fire the flare.”

Rainbow Dash took that as a good time to look over the flare gun. The device was a bright orange and was basically a barrel with a handle and three buttons, a small one on each side of the handle and a large one on the top of the barrel. The intent was clear, the two buttons on the handle could be pressed down together by biting down on the handle and they were to unlock the firing button on top. Or side as the case would be if a pegasus or earth pony held the handle in their mouth.

“Then comes the part that differs from our normal prison breaks.”

With a raised eyebrow, Rainbow Dash interrupted, “You do realize I’ve never been on one of your normal prison breaks, right?”

Trixie looked at the paladin for a moment, a slight blush formed on her cheeks as if she had only now noticed the rainbow mane of the mare before her. A feature that had gone extinct long ago in this world.

“You’re not from our world, are you?”

Dash shook her head.

“Right,” the unicorn whispered. “Well, in that case, we normally bust in, free as many prisoners as we can in a minute or two after the alarm sounds, and then high tail it out of there before a swarm of shadow pegasi show up.” Trixie paused for a moment to toss a glance toward the building above the ditch. “This time, we’re here to end the warden.”

“Okay, why?”

Trixie sighed at the question. “Because our information tells us that he’s the only one in there that’s truly loyal to the Dark Summoner. The rest of the prison staff only works there because of the protections that come with working for the Summoner, but are otherwise good ponies. Without the warden to enforce it, they won’t likely continue to support the cruelty that happens here. Any other questions?” she added with genuine curiosity.

“If we’re fighting to win, why do I have to go in alone?”

“Because only the sacred wing blade’s magic is strong enough to bust through the shield spell if the lockdown mechanism is activated. In short only you can survive a mistake, the rest of us can’t afford to be trapped in there long enough to get overwhelmed when the Summoner sends her puppets to respond to our attack.”

Looking over the backpack, Dash found another question.

“What else is in here?”

“I threw in some enchanted bandages. Use them to speed the healing of your wounds that will take too long for the wing blades to heal, or give them to others as you see fit.”

Seeing the lack of follow up questions, Trixie lit up her horn one more time. She created neon lines that formed a model of the prison building. Then a glow highlighted one spot on the roof.

“Use the access hatch there. That’s the one I disabled the alarm spells on.”

Another glow appeared in the middle of the wire-frame building.

“The lock down device is here.”

One more point of light appeared in the illusion.

“Once that’s dealt with, this is the warden’s office is. Although I can’t promise he’ll be there. If you don’t find him there I’d try the next room over, as that’s where the heart of the magic draining rig is.”

Looking up from the magical diagram, Dash asked, “Anything else I need to know?”

The unicorn shook her head.

“Good luck, we’ll await the signal.”

* * * * * * *

Whatever the building had been made for, prison wasn’t it. Prisons didn’t have hallways with double overheads and rafter that left enough room for a pegasus to stand on between them and the ceiling, but this place did. Clearly it had been converted into a prison later.

It was almost sad. Sneaking around here was virtually identical to sneaking through the halls of Liberty Castle. So far, two sets of guards hadn’t even bothered to look up at the rafters as they patrolled their way underneath her. Although there was one difference, these guards were armed with spears, not cameras. Correction, two differences, these guards were all earth ponies or unicorns, not pegasus ponies.

If she’d read the map Trixie had shown her right, then the T-junction halfway down the hall was the hall that should lead to the lockdown mechanism room.

The only reason Dash wasn’t moving was because two guards had entered the hall, so she was waiting in the rafters for them to go away. However, unlike the other patrols she’d past, these two had stationed themselves in front of the door just below her and hadn’t bothered to resume their patrol in the past five minutes. Of course they hadn’t bothered to look up and see her yet either.

And so she waited, like a cat ready to pounce, the instant her cover was blown… And she waited… and waited.

After a few more minutes Rainbow Dash was contemplating attempting making a move for the corner despite the two guards. They hadn’t noticed her when they came in, and still hadn’t noticed her sitting above them in what felt like forever, so maybe they wouldn’t notice her flying through the rafters after all, right?

Her thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when the heat of the sun warped the roof just enough to make the rafters creak. And although the sound was made by the building itself, it was enough get the older looking of the two guards to look up.

At first the stallion who’d looked up wore a casual look, just one of a million times he’d looked up only to find the building creaking. About a second later the wide, rose-colored eyes looking back down at him registered and he jerked his head back and returned the wide-eyed look of surprise back to the pegasus in the rafters.

After all that waiting, Rainbow Dash had forgotten her original plan of attack. Or if she even had one to begin with. And without any ideas queued in the back of her mind to draw from, she acted on the first instinct that jumped into her brain.

Diving down, she used one wing blade to knock away the spear and the other raked the front of the guard. The instant she hit the ground she dashed down the hallway toward her target. The lack of hoofsteps behind proved that the suddenness of her attack had left the other guard too stunned to peruse her in a timely manner.

Then she saw something unexpected. The wing blades were stained red, red with blood. Screeching to a halt, Rainbow Dash looked back at the pony she’d struck.

His armor had guarded his body well, but his front right leg now bore a deep gash, which was bleeding rather badly despite his efforts to put pressure on the wound.

“I am so sorry!” Dash said as she trotted back. “I’ve been fighting shadows and demons so long it slipped my mind that actual ponies could be running this place.”

As soon as she’d finished her apology, she stuck her muzzle into her backpack and pulled out a bandage. “Don’t just sit there, help me get this bandage on!”

The command shook the younger guard from his secondary shock of seeing the intruder who’d just wounded his superior officer turn around and offer medical aid, and so he set his spear aside and helped wrap the bandage around the wounded leg.

Once they’d finished bandaging the elder guard, Rainbow Dash apologized again, turned and started to trot off down the hall only to be stopped when she heard the elder guard say, “What do you think you’re doing?”

At first she turned to answer the question. But then stopped as looking back made it clear the question wasn’t for her, but for the younger guard who’d retrieved his spear and looked like he was about to charge at the paladin pegasus.

“My job,” he answered. “Well meaning intruder or not, she’s still an intruder.”

“You fool,” the elder guard rebuked his younger pier. “Nothing good can come from fighting a paladin.”

“Doing my job keeps me and my family safe. I’d call that good.”

“Every pegasus mare, stallion, and foal lives in danger of the Dark Summoner, yet they have done nothing wrong. How long must you listen to their cries as the shadow pegasi drain them until they beg for death?” Shaking his head slowly, the elder added, “No, cowards like us, who are willing to follow a tyrant like that for the promise of safety, don’t deserve safety.”

The younger guard was left stumbling for words, but before he could answer, the bandaged guard looked to the lone pegasus in the hall and said, “Go, before he does something stupid.”

Rainbow Dash gave a thankful nod, turned around and dashed down the hall.

Much to her relief, she not only rounded the corner but also made it all way to the door at the end of the hall and she still didn’t hear any alarms sounding. The sudden thought that maybe she could keep sneaking her way through the prison allowed her the presence of mind to try the door’s handle quietly.

Much to her surprise it was unlocked.

A fairly large room awaited her as the door creaked open. In the middle was the device she’d come to sabotage. And above that was a skylight with thick bars insuring that said skylight couldn’t be used to enter or leave the building. Other than that the room was a dull stonework room, much like the halls she’d just come from.

Between her and her target however, were twenty shadow pegasi standing in two rows and a lone earth pony sitting next to a table off to the side.

The table held little more than an empty mug and a keg to fill it with. Judging from the stains below the nozzle, it had been used fairly frequently recently.

“What’s the matter?” the brown stallion with a rusty brown mane asked. “Didn’t expect the one thing you paladins always come after to be guarded?”

Actually Rainbow Dash had expected it to be guarded. Maybe not THIS guarded but guarded nonetheless. It was the small tin badge on the stallion’s black armored vest that had given her pause.

“I take it you’re the warden?”

“What, you thought I’d be in my office? Get real! The overlords drop one by one, day after day! I didn’t need a crystal ball to know this place would be next!”

As soon as he’d finished speaking, he drew a sword from its scabbard. The blade of the sword was blood-red steel, leaving little doubt who forged it.

“I’ll give you one chance to surrender peacefully,” Dash answered, flaring her wings and thus presenting her blades.

“You don’t seem to understand,” the warden growled through the handle in his mouth. “I don’t care if the Summoner’s utopia doesn’t have pegasus ponies in it! Once she wins, she’ll bring everypony else the prosperity she’s brought to me!”

A shiver ran down Dash’s spine. What kind of life of luxury did this pony have that he would consider the extermination of an entire tribe of ponies an acceptable price to pay for it? A question that she hoped never to find an answer to, mainly because she could imagine all the wealth of Canterlot and Cloudsdale combined, and that still wouldn’t be enough for her to consider such a price.

It probably didn’t help that she was a spirit of loyalty, so nothing would ever be worth that kind of large-scale betrayal in her mind.

Of course that only served to further boggle her mind as to how twisted this pony had to be to think it was.

The paladin’s thoughts were cut short when the warden waved his sword and shouted, “Attack!” The result of which being the shadow pegasi broke ranks, scattered and threw their lassos at her.

Rolling to the side, she dodged the first wave of lassos. Meeting the warden’s charge, she parried his blade and ran past him. Cutting her way between two of the shadow pegasi, dissolving them into showers of sparkling lights, and finding an opening to take to the air.

Zipping around the room, Rainbow Dash found a moment to shove her muzzle into her backpack and pull out the sabotage crystal. And with three more laps around the room she finally found a good moment to dive-bomb down and jam it into place.

As soon as the red crystal was in place, it pulsed with energy and the machine began to spark. Within seconds, seams in the casing were bursting open to spout jets of steam.

With another lap around the room to dodge the lassos being thrown her way, Dash managed to get back into the air and kick out the skylight window. The bars might have been enough to keep her from flying out, but she’d be able to shoot the flare gun through them… just as soon as she found an opening to get it out of her backpack.

Between diving back to the floor and a quick lunging spin, she defeated four more shadows and managed to put the steaming lockdown device between herself and her enemies just long enough to get the flare gun out of her pack.

It took a bit of fumbling to get the flare gun properly held in her mouth and three passes before she’d cleared the air of enough shadow pegasi to stop in front of the skylight long enough to point the flare gun between the bars and tap the button. But when she did, it fired off a bright orange flare into the sky.

Tossing the flare gun to the side, she now felt free to focus on the fight she was in with the warden and the remaining shadows.

Somewhere in the back of her mind a memory of her training played out, and Cloud Sword’s voice echoed, “Any warrior will tell you, ‘Fight the warrior, not the weapon.’ But a paladin must be more than a warrior, we must be champions of righteousness. This is why we must be better at fighting than those who actually like fighting, so that we can fight the weapon in the hope that the enemy will surrender once disarmed.”

The first weapon that needed be dealt with was the shadow pegasi. While the warden was content to fight a pegasus that he couldn’t even reach now, perhaps he’d lose his confidence once he didn’t have the Summoner’s magic to back him up.

Being the ace flyer that she was, Dash made quick work of the shadows foolish enough to fight her in the air. Things got messier when she moved on to dealing with the ones that stayed on the ground though.

Mainly due to the warden, thanks to his blood-steel sword. Unlike the shadows he could block her attacks and force her to parry his. And the warden’s relentless assaults had her surrendering ground to dodge the shadow pegasi’s lassos. But every so often she found enough space to dash away from the warden and take down another shadow pegasus before she’d be forced to spin around and defend herself from the psychotic earth pony.

Another dash and slash left Rainbow Dash standing amidst the shimmering sparks of dispelling shadow magic. She grinned at the realization that that had been the last of the shadows. That quickly gave way to a frown when she was forced to parry another hard blow from the warden.

Unfazed by his solitude, apparently the blood-steel sword was enough to keep the warden going.

Unfortunately for the paladin, she found she needed to lean into her parries to lock blades with the warden’s sword, leaving her far-side wing unable to reach the warden. With her forehooves matched by his, she couldn’t seem to wrench her foe’s blade away from him.

The echoes of the past returned and once more she remembered Cloud Sword’s voice.

“But always remember, some opponents may be too skilled to be disarmed, and too determined to walk the path of evil to be talked down. It is far better to deny those who have chosen the path of evil the chance at redemption than to deny the innocent the life that the evil would destroy.”

Was this that time?

The shadows were just spells that happened to be in the shape of ponies, so at the end of the day destroying them was no more meaningful than destroying a fireball spell. The demon overlords may have thought and bled, but they had proven that they were evil incarnate. The fact that they bled black burning blood and died in a wholly unnatural way probably also helped drive a wedge in Rainbow Dash’s mind between destroying them and killing.

But the cuts on their legs had proven that this stallion bled the same red blood as she did. He was a pony through and through. A pony who belonged in a prison cell, and not the warden’s office, sure. But a pony nonetheless.

For a moment, she entertained the realization that they were literally three hallways away from actual prison cells. Locking blades with him again, she discarded the thought when it occurred to her that, if she couldn’t even disarm him, there was no way she’d be able to tie him up, so she could throw him in one of them.

Was there really no way to defeat him and spare him at the same time?

Alone the answer was clear. No.

Then the growing sounds of battle coming from the hallway provided hope. Any moment now, somepony would come through that open door. And if it was one of her fellow Sky Knights they could help her pin this fool just by raw numbers. All she had to do was hold out a little longer.

The clang of armored boots announced somepony’s arrival. Both paladin and warden spared a quick glance to see who it was.

The warden grinned.

Dash cursed silently to herself. Stupid hope, if she’d acted sooner she’d have only had to kill one pony, now it looked like she’d have to kill two.

Even as Rainbow Dash continued to push her wing blade against the warden’s sword, she mentally prepared herself to parry the charging prison guard’s spear with her free wing and then breakaway. After that there would be no more fighting weapons.

The charging hoofsteps grew closer, the crimson gleam of the guard’s spear tip danced in the corner of Dash’s eye. The moment came. She lashed out her free wing and parried… nothing.

Blood splattered Dash’s face and she stumbled back in shock. Why was the spear shaft imbedded into the warden’s head?

Slowly she turned to look at the pony wearing the prison guard uniform. Even slower it registered that the stallion holding the spear was the same younger guard who’s been talked down by his partner just minutes ago.

With a smile he said, “Sorry it took me so long to decide to fight for the good guys.”

* * * * * * *

It had taken a long minute before Rainbow Dash had even moved after the warden’s death. Seeing how quickly the remaining prison staff surrendered once word of the warden’s death spread helped. But she didn’t really recover until she was found her way to the cell of the young colt she’d seen almost a week ago.

With the warden’s keys, she opened the cell.

The young pegasus opened his eyes. Barely so, but he opened them.

When Dash cut the dark rope off of him and helped him roll over so he could stop touching it, he even smiled.

“You came back,” he muttered both happily and weakly.

“Just like we said we would,” she answered, as she unlocked the shackle on his leg.

Once she had the child on her, back she tossed the keys to another pegasus, whom continued down the hall freeing all the ponies he found. As for the paladin, she took her passenger toward the main entrance of the prison.

“Paladin! Our time runs short!”

Trixie’s shout had the tone of a formal notice in a nosy place.

Between the Sky Knights and the healthier prisoners helping those unfit to walk on their own, everypony seemed to be ready to go. A couple seconds more and the last of the Sky Knights returned with a few more liberated pegasus ponies.

“That everypony?”

With a salute the stallion answered, “Yes paladin! All teams have returned and this is everypony we found.”

Dash looked to Trixie, a single question on her mind.

“What’s the plan now?”

“We move as quickly as we can toward the center of Ponyton and hope that our retreat path isn’t blocked.”

“You heard her, ponies!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Move out!”

To say that they moved quickly would have been an error. At best the group was moving at a fast walk. Considering the state of the recently freed pegasi this wasn’t all that surprising.

More troubling than the group’s lack of mobility was all the dark figures flying around the air space over the town. Even though it was clear that the shadow pegasi were currently engaged with the Sky Knights over there, Dash didn’t need a fortune teller to tell her that it was only a matter of time before the enemy noticed them walking right into the middle of said fight.

They had made it halfway between the edge of town and the center of it before two of the shadows noticed them. Thankfully, some rather aggressively used firework spells from Trixie dealt with the problem before Dash even had a chance to react.

Of course the commotion drew even more dark pegasi to them. With that Rainbow Dash was just about to hand the kid balanced on her back off to one of the more wounded sky knights when a wall of light washed over them.

The paladin with the prismatic mane asked, “Was that the waters of night and day?”

“See for yourself,” Trixie answered, motioning toward the end of the alleyway they were in.

Stepping out into the main town plaza she found a dozen empty barrels scattered about, and the plaza fountain glowing brightly with the same magic waters that protected the Sky Knight’s castle.

“A shame that the light doesn’t reach the whole town,” Cloud Sword said as he came out of the fountain. “But at least pegasus ponies can use the buildings near the town center and be safe.”

“Are-Are we really safe now?” the colt still clinging to Dash’s back asked.

Looking to the child, Cloud Sword was the first to answer, “For the moment. But we’ll only really be safe once the Dark Summoner has been dealt with.”

* * * * * * *

Back at Liberty Castle, once night had fallen, Rainbow Dash sat atop one of the castle’s towers, admiring the glow coming from the other side of the forest.

“How’d we do today?” she asked of the approaching heavy wing beats, without looking.

“Two at the prison, three in town, so we lost five knights,” Cloud Sword answered. After a short pause he continued. “Tactically speaking five ponies to liberate an entire town is a wild success.” He ended that line with a sigh.

“And yet that’s five lives lost too many,” she said what she knew he wanted to.

“Yeah,” he muttered before sitting down beside her.

For a while the two just sat there, looking to the dome of light on the horizon. Ultimately it was Rainbow Dash who broke the silence.

“Funny isn’t it? This is the hardest I’ve ever worked for a ride home.” With a soft flap of her wings she added, “Of course this is also the first time I couldn’t just fly myself where I wanted to go.”

If her eyes hadn’t been transfixed on the glow coming from Ponyton she might have noticed that the captain of the Sky Knights suddenly found himself unable to look at her face.

“Now that Trixie isn’t needed to bring down the prison, the elder brought our deal with you to her attention. I can’t make any promises but at least you’ve freed up enough of our resources that we can start working on up holding our end of the bargain.”

Rainbow Dash gave a slight nod acknowledging that she’d heard him, but otherwise just continued looking toward the horizon.