Chapter 16 - Empty Quiver
I won’t say too much about the day of the Friendship Festival. There’s nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. It was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards. It was worse than either of the Changeling incursions, or Tirek’s escape.
I was in Canterlot at the time. I’d gone up with Applejack in an effort to expand my social circle a bit, and have a chance to see the princesses face to face.
I still remember clearly when that first airship hove into view. I remembered one just like it all those months ago when we went on our cruise.
After that, it’s all just a blur. Twilight thinks the memory was so traumatic that my mind has blocked it out. I have no desire to relive those events in any case. I did my best, tried to fight any way I could. Dad joined me too. Naturally, as one of Celestia’s advisors, he was in the city. I was just grateful Lizzie and Mum were back in Ponyville. There wasn’t much I could do.
Those...vermin...had magic resistant shields, and there were too many to fight hoof to hoof. It was a lost cause.
Still, I did not go down quietly, nor did Dad. It took them a while to finally pin us down. That was when I met her.
At that moment, I swore by all that I held dear, that I would make that filthy, traitorous cripple pay for what she had done. By the moon, she would die screaming if I had anything to say about it! What she had done, at that moment, was beyond forgiveness, beyond redemption. All I felt was...hate. In all honesty, that’s the thing I regret about that day; I still fell back into old habits.
Like everypony else, we were locked up in those revolting cages, like animals. Since they deemed us more dangerous, Dad and I were kept far from the others, but still together, guarded by one of those strange badger/ape creatures that served the Storm King.
As the hours passed and it became clear that the city was occupied, my rational mind began to kick in again. Twilight and the others had gotten away. Celestia bless her, Derpy had made sure of that. They would get the Elements from Ponyville, or go to the Changelings, or the Yaks, the Crystal Empire, the Griffons. Someone would come to relieve the great city, of that I was sure.
That helped calm me down, made me lucid, as I tried to fight the terrible images of Celestia and Luna from my mind.
Time passed slowly over the next day or so. The sun had stopped moving. The Storm King, dangerous as he was with his army and magic stick, was not particularly bright. As I later learned his overall plan was limited to say the least. He didn’t even have the brains to know who he was screwing with. Evil I can tolerate. Stupidity, I cannot. His plan was reminiscent of Tirek that for a moment I thought the two might be in league; an idea I quickly dismissed as foolish, given his past with regards to teamwork.
Satisfied that he would pay for his crimes, my mind fell back into its habit of planning. While I knew it was up to Twilight and the others to save the day, I had little desire to just sit around. For Celestia’s sake, those vermin had Apple Bloom; a filly who is my daughter in all but name. As shocking as the initial attack had been, my observations of these creatures showed they were relatively few in number and none too bright. Plus, the cripple had been sent off in pursuit of Twilight and the others, and she was by far the biggest threat. The remaining garrison was certainly smaller than the city’s population. If the people could rise up when the time was right...it would be like Paris in 1944; the city would liberate itself.
First though, I needed to get out of my current confinement.
Looking across the room, I saw Dad, similarly restrained. He was sat cross legged, his fingers formed into a steeple, which he was staring at intently. Just as I was about to call out to him, quietly of course, our guards didn’t like us chatting and had made the fact abundantly clear, he looked up.
“Bones, I’ve got it!” he exclaimed in a shouting whisper. He’d beaten me to the punch. Before I could ask him to explain, he began shouting, loudly this time.
“Discord!” he bellowed, getting to his feet. “I know you’re out there! I know you can hear me! Get out here right now! We’ve got some arse to kick, old man!”
The guard stationed at the doorway snarled. Stalking over to the cage, he poked my dad hard with a spear, causing him to crumple to the floor again. He tried again.
“Discord!” He got the same punishment. After that, he went quiet again, and the guard returned to its post. After waiting a few moments, he called out to me.
“Why the hell isn’t he coming, Bones?” he asked with a scowl. “Discord could blow away these arseholes in ten seconds flat.” I sighed and was about to reply, when I heard another voice.
“Exactly, my old friend,” Discord said, materialising next to my dad’s cell. “And that wouldn’t be much of a friendship lesson now would it?” Dad leapt up in joy.
“Discord, get us out of here!” he snapped. The draconequus though, shook his head.
“Sorry, no can do,” he replied. My dad turned scarlet.
“They hurt Fluttershy. They hurt Tia!” he said quietly, waving a proverbial red rag in Discord’s face. He was unmoved.
“And I am unbelievably furious,” he replied evenly, smiling to hide his own rage. “But higher forces have compelled me to step aside.” Dad buried his head in his hands.
“The map?” he asked with a sigh. Discord nodded.
“Relax, my friend,” he said reassuringly. “It’s a good thing. This insolent copycat has lost before he even set foot in Equestria. I saw what happened, and was about to snap my talons, when I was told to stop; high level friendship business. But I figured I at least owed you an explanation.”
And with that, he snapped his talons and vanished.
I had a good idea what the two of them were on about. Twilight’s map back in the castle was part of the Tree of Harmony, and it had a habit of pulling strings from beyond the veil. Dad had told me that the same thing happened that one weekend when Twilight had locked herself up in the library for re-shelving new stock. When she came out, Discord had been mean as anything to her, leading to her thinking he’d used his magic to mess with her friends’ heads or something. It was out of his usual character, and the map was the reason for that.
Still, what he said confirmed my own beliefs. To put it simply, the Storm King and his pet unicorn couldn’t even imagine the hell that would soon fall on their heads. And for that I was glad. Still, as I said before; I had no desire to stay cooped up in here till then.
“So now what?” I asked my dad, who looked back across to me. “Ah don’t know about you, but Ah don’t fancy waitin’ around here until Twilight and the others get back or our allies turn up. We can help fight the Storm King. And Ah for one wouldn’t mind havin’ a back up plan, just in case.”
I trusted the Tree of Harmony, and I believed in Twilight and the others. But this threat was more serious than anything we’d faced before. Sure, it was only Canterlot now, but how long would it be before this lunatic started looking elsewhere, say all of Equestria and the lands beyond? It never hurt to have an ace in the hole.
After a few moments of thinking, my dad looked up and snapped his fingers. Smiling, he whispered to me.
“Follow my lead,” he said. I nodded in understanding.
With that, he started coughing and spluttering, sounding like he as death’s door. With a hoarse voice, he called out.
“Guard! Guard!” The coughing fit then resumed.
The creature turned to look at him. It watched him for a moment, deciding whether it should intervene or not. After a few moments, it walked over to my dad’s cell again. It stared at him as he continued to cough, which now grew increasingly weak. I never realised my dad was such a good actor. He soon got worse and appeared to pass out completely.
Moving closer, the guard pushed it’s spear through the bars and prodded him. He didn’t move. Making a faint guttural growling noise, the creature prodded him harder, moving slightly closer to the cell.
That was enough for my dad. With a speed I didn’t know he had, he got back on his knees, grabbed the end of the spear with both hands and yanked it hard. That pulled the storm creature right into the bars. Releasing his grasp on the weapon, it clattered to the floor. The beastie tried to pull away, but Dad quickly wrapped both his arms around it, one going around it’s neck, the other covering it’s mouth so it couldn’t cry out and pulled it back close.
The pair of them struggled for several moments. The guard was facing me, its back pinned against the bars of the cell. I could see the fear in its eyes. Nice to have the horseshoe on the other hoof, eh? Its squat form and shorter legs meant it couldn’t gain any leverage against my dad, and its arms were too short to be of any use either. After a few prolonged seconds that felt like hours, its struggling slowed and finally abated as it realised it was caught. Dad didn’t relax though. After holding on a few moments longer, he spoke quietly and calmly to the creature.
“I’m going to take my hand away now,” he said, his voice deathly calm. “If you scream, I will break your neck. Do you understand?” The beast looked terrified now and promptly nodded.
I was quite shocked myself actually. I never pegged my dad as the type to make a threat like that, never mind the type who knows how to put someone in a restraint. For a moment, it was as if I was looking at someone else.
“Good boy,” he went on. “Now, you’re going to give me the key to this cell and the one my son is standing in.”
It passed him the key in a shaking monkey paw. Dad quickly unlocked his cell and threw the keys to me. Catching them in my magic, I let myself out and ran over to help, cursing the noise my hooves made on the marble floor. Now free from his cage, Dad kept his hold on the guard and motioned for me to grab the jagged looking spear that sat on the floor. Grabbing it, Dad let him go. The beast quickly retreated to a corner of the room, whimpering like a scolded hound.
“Thank you,” my dad said, his tone still with that same dark menace to it, as he walked over. “Now, I’m afraid I can’t leave you to go running off and tell your friends about this. So...”
And with no warning, he socked the guard right on the chin. The punch sent it sprawling on the ground, out cold, but quite alive. Dad winced, shaking his fist and clenching and unclenching it to try and get the pain to go away.
“Impressive,” I replied, still a little shocked that my father, who I know had never so much as been in a school yard fight in his life, had just tricked, chocked out and coerced an enemy into letting us free, before knocking him out cold in one punch.
“All in the wrist, lad,” he said with a smile, now back to the friendly figure I was used to.
We were just about to make our exit when there was a white flash of magic as something teleported into the room. It was a grey woollen shirt. A note was left with it. Picking it up, Dad read it. It was from Discord. While he was unable or unwilling to help us, he did have his moments.
“Thought you might find this useful,” Dad read. “Maybe stick on that bozo you just sparked out.”
Picking up the shirt in my magic, I opened it up. There was writing on it, which appeared to be red marker pen. I found myself smiling as I translated the English.
“Now I have a machine gun,” I said, before adding with proper levity. “Ho...ho...ho.”
I didn’t know exactly what we were going to do, but I was planning on doing all in my power to resist this invasion and send the Storm King, Tempest Shadow and all his army fleeing back across the lines. We quickly put the shirt on the unconscious guard, threw him in Dad’s cell and locked him in before making good our escape.
Having broken loose and dealt with the one guard in our immediate vicinity (yeah, they left one guard to two prisoners after they’d worked out we were a bit more dangerous than your common or garden Canterlot snob), we quickly made our way out into the corridor. Dad’s watch said it was nine in the evening, but to my surprise, it was still light outside. The sun, though blotted out by the clouds that presently surrounded the city, forming a blockade of sorts, was clearly still up.
“How on earth can it still be light out?” Dad asked curiously, double checking that his watch hadn’t stopped.
“Simple,” I replied bluntly. “There’s no one able to lower it.” Again, horrible images of the princesses flashed in my mind. I did my best to suppress them. The last thing we needed was me freezing up from fear.
And let me tell you, I was terrified. At any moment we might be recaptured and end up just like them. I had no real plan beyond getting out of our cells. We couldn’t just go and spring everypony else. We couldn’t fight the massed army currently in the city, and I had no desire to end up on the receiving end of one of those…
Wait.
That was it! If we could get our hooves on one of those obsidian orbs, we could have a shot at knocking out the Storm King for good. Judging by their behaviour, the storm creatures wouldn’t fight without him leading them. Then the local populace might just have a fighting chance.
I turned to tell Dad my idea, when I realised, with quite a start, that he was no longer beside me. Quickly looking around, I spotted him at the far end of the corridor, looking down the next hallway. I ran over to him, doing my best to keep my footsteps quiet. Listening with my more sensitive ears, I picked up the sound of more enemies around the corner.
“What the hay are you doing?!” I hissed. Dad held a finger to his mouth, signalling for me to be quiet. After a few moments, I heard the creatures moving further away.
“Trying to get to my office,” he replied. “I’ve got a plan to save all our skins and get these bastards to sod off to whatever shithole they crawled out of.” I was caught off guard again; Dad hardly ever swore, certainly not in front of me or Lizzie. Still, he had an idea.
“What is it then?” I asked. “And why do we need to go to your office?” Dad sighed in annoyance.
“Because that’s where the thing I need is,” he replied tensely. “Call it a bargaining chip, Bones. If we can get to my office, I guarantee that I can get the monkey twit to haul down his colours.”
“What thing?” I pressed curiously. Dad turned to me.
“Never you mind, just now, lad,” he said evenly. “Just trust me, okay? Unless you’ve got any better ideas.”
I was tempted to bring up my idea of getting our hands on one of those orbs. But since I had no idea where they were stored, or if there were any left, I kept quiet. Dad certainly seemed to have a better handle on things than me. Of course, there was one small problem.
We were on the other side of the castle from Dad’s office. How were we supposed to get there without getting caught? I voiced this concern to Dad.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said reassuringly. “Just stick on my tail, and we’ll be alright. It’s no worse than jumping the border; the local Garda are just a bit more nasty this time around.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that last part.
So the two of us set off. Dad knew this castle like the back of his hand. Having worked here for so long, he knows all the shortcuts and hidden passages that our foes didn’t. Canterlot castle is a maze after all if you don’t know where you’re going. I could find my way from the front gate to the throne room, but without a guard or somepony else taking me, I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.
A few times, we came across gaggles of enemies, and even a few imprisoned ponies. Most of them were down in the city itself, so I figured these were other castle staff. Dad confirmed this when I asked him. A couple of them were good friends of his. Although he kept his emotions under tight control, I could tell he was beyond furious.
I still couldn’t believe he was doing this. Dad was sneaking around like Solid Snake himself (except for the cardboard box). He’d never even hinted that he knew anything about this. When this was all over, I wanted answers. You had to be in the Super Army Soldiers to know stuff like this. We even ended up going off the main drag a few times, even ending up sneaking through the castle’s ventilation system, with me using my magic to light that way.
“Come up to Canterlot. We’ll get together, have a few laughs,” I said, trying to keep my spirits up. Dad quickly told me to shut up and keep moving.
Eventually, we found ourselves close to Dad’s office. I’d asked him a few times precisely what his plan was, but each time, he’d told me to keep quiet, lest we find ourselves discovered. I didn’t have much idea myself. There wasn’t much in his office, aside from a bunch of legal textbooks and confidential files and letters. How was that supposed to help us fight the Storm King? My own idea may have been half baked, but it least it could work in theory.
We were just around the corner now from the office. This part of the castle was pretty quiet. The city itself was where most of the bad guys were, along with their own version of a concentration camp, something my Dad dryly noted as another British invention; a relic from the Boer War. The throne room was busy too, since the Storm king had made that his base of operations. The rest of the castle was virtually unguarded though.
Until now.
There were a couple of those storm creatures stationed outside the very door we needed to get in. It was an open corridor, with no cover and ways to sneak past them. If we were spotted, they’d no doubt run off and raise the hue and cry to the whole city, and we’d be right back where we started or worse. Dad surveyed the situation and frowned, before coming back round to the relative safety the wall presented.
“Any ideas, Bones?” he asked. He hadn’t listened to me much the entire way here. But now that he seemed stumped, he was more inclined to listen to me. And while I may be just an apple farmer, I studied military strategy. I turned to my dad.
“If Ah remember rightly,” I said, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy, without fighting.” Dad rolled his eyes.
“Thanks for that, Sun Tzu,” he replied. “But do you have anything useful to contribute.” I snorted.
“Ah’m sayin’ that one on one we can’t beat those two. Their armour stops my magic from hurtin’ them, and they’re stronger than you in a fair fight.”
“What do you suggest then?” I thought for a moment before an idea popped into my head.
“Ah can draw them off,” I said. They can chase me for a bit, then Ah’ll use an invisibility spell to lose ‘em and come back here. Y’all can then get in your office and do whatever it is ya need to. Which is what exactly? We’ve made it this far, Ah reckon Ah deserve to know.” Dad, for the first time in a couple days, smiled at me.
“You’ll find out when you get back here, Bones,” he said. “Trust me, it’s safer if you don’t know until the time is right.” Ah, I saw how the land lay.
“Ya mean in case Ah get myself caught, right?” Dad nodded.
“You’re sharp as a tack sometimes, you know that?” I balked.
“Sometimes?” He waved me off.
“Go to it, lad,” he instructed. "I’ll hide back in this closet here. Draw them up the corridor and then make your way back. Go with God and be safe.”
“Ah’ll see ya in a minute,” I said. Dad hugged me briefly before the two of us parted, with him quietly secreting himself inside the nearby storage room.
I meanwhile, carefully made my way around the corner and out into the open hallway. The two storm creatures had their backs to me, so at least I got the chance to have a little fun with them.
“Hey, turkeys! Behind ya!” I called out. The two of them quickly looked up and spotted me, taking a fighting stance. “Come and get me, ya damned dirty apes!”
With that, I took off running. And like the dumb beasts they were, they followed.
As it turns out, four legs lets you gallop a lot faster than two legs can run. With some clever twists and turns, I soon found myself well ahead of my pursuers. My plan was to get a little further ahead, making sure that I was out of sight, and then casting a quick invisibility spell. It took a lot of effort, but it was something I could manage. You set up a field around yourself and bent light around you, thereby making yourself invisible. I’d then simply let them two bozos behind me go charging past, wait a couple minutes, and then quietly sneak back to Dad. It actually reminded me of those old Assassin’s Creed games from back in the day.
As it turned out though, fate had other plans in store for me. And our breakout had garnered more attention that my dad or I realised.
Making a hard left, I was about to find myself some room to hole up in and wait for the bad guys to pass. Instead, I found myself staring at the bloody Storm King himself. My blood ran cold as my hooves skidded to a stop on the marble floor. Guess he wasn’t entirely as stupid as I thought he was.
He had that stupid staff of his with him, and I knew that made him magically dangerous. He planned to fill it with the power of all four alicorns, but right now it was still plenty dangerous, able to create the current storm clouds that surrounded the city amongst other things. He was flanked on each side by several guards and I quickly found my line of retreat blocked as my pursuers caught up.
I was caught.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” the ape said mockingly. “Looks like one of my slaves got loose.” My sides were heaving from my gallop, so I wasn’t able to be particularly articulate and explain why I disagreed with his world conquering plans.
“Buck you!” I spat back.
“Oh that’s not very nice, pony,” he replied evenly. His off-kilter personality sort of reminded me of Discord, back when he was still evil. “Now, I think it’s time you went back to your cell, hmm? I’ll let Tempest deal with you once she returns.”
The guards advanced on me, moving to grab me and pin me down. Evidently they’d learnt from their last encounter with me a day before. I quickly tried to think of a way out. I couldn’t get past the small mob in front of me, there were two bad guys behind me. I couldn’t fly away or anything. But I could…
I smiled to myself. In another situation, say with changelings, I might try to shoot my way out. But with their shields and armour, magic didn’t have much effect on this lot. That didn’t however, stop it from affecting me.
And I happen to know how to teleport.
Dad’s office was only a minute or so away. I could probably make it if I put all my energy into it. Still, I’m pretty sure they’d notice me powering up my horn. I needed to distract them, and get the guards to back away from me, lest I catch them in the teleport and either drag them with me to Dad, or lose the range I had and end up rematerialising inside a wall.
Relaxing my posture, I gave the impression that I was surrendering, while quietly preparing myself for the teleport spell.
“Fine. Ya caught me,” I said seethingly. I did my best to keep my smile from showing. I was going to enjoy this. “But there’s one thing you’re forgetting though.” The Storm King looked puzzled.
“Oh?” he asked curiously. I nodded.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Ya see...Ah was wonderin’...WHAT THE HAY IS THAT?!”
My sudden shout caught them all off guard as I pointed to some unseen horror just to the right of the Storm King. They all, amazingly, actually hesitated, including the tyrant himself. That gave me just enough time to power up my horn. And with a smile and a wave, I managed to get the spell going. The last thing I saw before I went was the Storm King, now absolutely furious, realising that he’d been tricked. Thank Celestia for TV-Y.
Luckily, my teleport worked, and I ended up right where I was supposed to be. It took its toll on me mind you. There’s a reason I don’t use teleportation unless I really have to. I certainly wouldn’t be putting up much of a fight magic wise for a couple of hours. Still, I’d gotten clean away from the Storm King. I’d faced down the scumbag who had hurt my friends and family and stuck my thumb to my nose and laughed,
“Ha, ha! Gotcha, ya overbred monkey!” I exclaimed.
My sudden arrival caught Dad off guard and I heard him go clattering onto the floor behind his desk. I was standing right in the middle of the room, so I quickly ran round to see what was the matter. I found Dad lying on the floor, nursing his injured back. He looked up at me with a mixture of surprise and annoyance.
“Jesus, where did you come from?” he asked. I helped him back to his feet.
“Got cornered,” I explained. “Had to use a teleport spell just to get away. Would you believe Ah actually ran into the big bad himself on the way here? Anyway, ya fixin’ to tell me what this plan of yours is?” Dad nodded and gestured to a large sideboard that sat in the far corner of the room. Opening one of the drawers of his desk, he passed me a brass key, which I caught in my magic.
“Go unlock that cupboard over there,” he instructed. You’ll find something quite useful.”
As I put the key in the lock, I took a look at the key chain. Since Dad had a bunch of different keys, including ones that let him into private areas of the castle, he’s marked all of them. Curiously, this one was marked simply as ‘Plan B’.
Unlocking the sideboard, I opened the cupboard to see just what it was that my dad had been hiding. I wanted to know just how it would help an old man and a single unicorn fight a dangerous lunatic and his personal army.
Initially, I was disappointed. The object’s size was impressive enough, but it didn’t look to be anything useful. It was a sort of barrel shaped thing, a little shorter than me, and probably weighing a little more. It tapered at both ends, with the top being round, and the bottom half having four tail fin like appendages. All in all, it looked like an old World War Two bomb upended. Activating my magic, I pulled it out into the middle of the office, Setting it down on the floor, it made a loud clang as it struck the marble floor and made Dad wince. I let out a breath, the thing had weighed a ton, and magic is just as exhausting as physical labour.
“And just what the hay is this supposed to be?” I asked, poking at the strange object with a hoof. Now in better light, I could see it was pained dark green and had some writing on it.
“That crazy Jack bloke Celestia put in charge of all the weirdness that comes out of the Everfree lent it to me. Apparently, it came through the rift, back when we sealed it up. The ponies didn’t know what it was, and none of them ever thought to ask me. When that Torchwood lot came across it after cataloguing everything, I asked if I could hang onto it. I’ve kept it in the office ever since.”
“Yeah, but, what is it?” I repeated. Dad let out a short laugh.
“You’re the military expert, Bones, not me,” he replied. “I’m sure you can use your considerable intellect to figure it out.” I frowned, this was hardly the time to be playing a guessing game. For goodness sake, at any moment, the bad guys might work out where we’d gone and burst in here.
Still, Dad wasn’t going to tell me on his own, so I took a look. I turned my attention to the writing. It was fairly small and done in white paint to contrast the dark green on the rest of the exterior. I did my best to translate it, but the English didn’t make much sense.
“Eiendom van die Republiek van Suid-Afrika*,” I read, curiously.
I wasn’t a total expert, but that last bit was fairly obvious ‘Suid-Afrika’ was South Africa. At a best guess then, this was Afrikaans; bastardised Dutch spoken by the Boers. So whatever this was, it came from South Africa, I said as much to Dad.
“Just right, Bones,” he commended. “You see, back in the days of Apartheid, the South Africans got the idea that they needed a deterrent against communists in Angola and Mozambique. So they decided to do what the Yanks, us, the French, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians and the Pakistanis did. They built a bomb.”
I’m fairly certain my brain just stopped working at that point. Between hostile attack, serious personal trauma and the stress of being effectively on the run, I was just done with today. Eventually though, I was able to come around and start, understandably panicking.
“You’re telling me this is a nuke?!” I exclaimed. “Ya brought a nuke into Equestria?! Are y’all insane?!” Dad held up his hands reassuringly.
“Relax, son,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Unless it goes off. Then your worries are over.” I didn’t laugh at such dark humour. “To answer your question though, I didn’t bring it here, the rift did. I just held onto it for safe keeping. I certainly wasn’t going to trust that Harkness character with it. I told Celestia and Luna what it was, and they turned custody of the device over to me. I was planning on having it decommissioned and buried. But then this whole mess fell on our heads.”
“But the hay do y’all plan on doing with it?” I persisted. “How can an atom bomb help us fight the Storm King?” Dad shrugged his shoulders.
“Simple,” he replied. “Either he frees the princesses and everypony else, surrenders and sods off back to wherever he came from, or I blow him and all his friends to kingdom come.” I balked.
“You want to blow up Canterlot?! Sweet Celestia, Dad! That could cause a massive rockslide! Never mind irradiate the entire valley!” Dad rolled his eyes.
“I listed two options there, Bones,” he said. “I’m not going to blow it up, just threaten to. If it worked on the Ruskies, it’ll work on this joker.”
I was about to tell him precisely why that was a stupid idea, when we heard voices outside in the hall. We had barely a second before the buggers burst in, spears at the ready. A bunch of storm guards quickly stormed the office and surrounded the two of us. Realising we were both caught, Dad and I put our hands, or hooves up.
One of the guards gestured for us to move out into the hall. Dad however, was determined to follow through with his plan.
“I don’t think so, friend,” he said in reply. “In fact, I should be the one asking you to put your weapon down. See that thing there?” He gestured to the bomb. “That’s a bomb, an explosive. If it goes off, it will vaporise this whole city, and you and your master along with it.”
The guards looked at each other for a moment, before seeming to decide to call Dad’s bluff. They advanced on us again.
“Oh, don’t believe me huh, boyo?” Dad asked, his voice for a moment taking on something of an Irish tint. “If you lay a paw on me, I’ll detonate it. Trust me, I don’t blink.”
For effect, he reached over to an open drawer on his desk and pulled out what looked alarmingly like a detonator. That seemed to rattle them. So, we settled into an odd stalemate. Each side staring the other down, like some mad Mexicolt stand-off. After a few moments of tense silence, Dad spoke up again.
“Okay, here’s what were gonna do,” he said.
That however, was as far as he got. All of a sudden, the whole castle shook and there was an almighty crash. We all looked around anxiously as plaster fell from the ceiling. I for one, kept my eye on the infernal device that now sat in the middle of us.
Dad took the opportunity of the confusion to bolt over the window that overlooked the city. It had been a couple of days since this whole mess started, so you can imagine my relief when he told me what he was seeing.
“It’s Twilight’s lot!” he called out. "Spike’s going after the guards!” Then after a moment. “Ha, he’s set the bugger alight. That armour may be resistant to magic, but not flame proof.”
That was enough for me. This was the counter attack, and I was damned if I wasn’t going to have a hoof in it. Bringing my magic to life, which had had time to recover since my teleport, I blasted the lead guard with a fire spell. While the magical energy simply bounced off, the flames quickly took and set him off running for the nearest water source.
Dad, seeing my sudden attack, quickly joined in. With a war cry to boot, he threw himself at the other two guards, who were still shocked by their friend’s sudden flight. It quickly turned into a three way scuffle on the floor. I joined in, but was surprised to find my aid wasn’t required. About thirty seconds after the whole thing started, Dad had ended the short fight. The two storm creatures were writhing on the ground on considerable pain.
“Seriously, how the hay do you know how to do that?” I asked, amazed and bewildered.
“Ah, that’s a story for another day, Bones,” he replied. “Now come on. It’s time we put this whole business to bed.”
Did you know that 20 kiloton yield enriched uranium gun weapon weighs about a thousand pounds? Neither did I, until I had to carry the damn thing through Canterlot Castle. Magic or no it damn near threw my back out, particularly when I had to literally run with it.
Far below us, the city was rising up. Twilight and her friends seemed to have brought a few allies with them, though not the kind you’d expect. The storm creatures appeared to be in disarray as Spike went full on one dragon army, warding them off with his flame breath. The girls themselves were already up in the castle, unbeknownst to me at the time, helping Twilight get the Storm King’s staff. We felt the shock waves as the throne room began to fall apart, as we ran through the hallways. Dad planned to storm in there and lend a hand by forcing a surrender in the face of atomic annihilation.
All of a sudden though, both Dad and me felt something that made us stop; sunlight.
We were passing by some of the large panoramic windows. Looking out, we saw that the storm clouds were gone. I watched with great joy as a wave of magic swept across the city. All the crystal like structures shattered, and Derpy, stuck as she was, was suddenly unpetrified. The damage that had been done to the city by the continuous storm was repaired in the blink of an eye, and I felt the stone ceiling of the castle coming back together.
The two of us put on a burst of speed and made for the throne room.
Well, there’s not much to tell really after that. When we got there, The princesses were free, Twilight and the others were alright and the Storm King was very much dead about two hundred feet below.
And yes, I do mean dead. In a last ditch effort to nab Twilight, despite his defeat being imminent, regardless of all the magic he stole, he hurled one of those orbs at her. Amazingly though, it was his own vile enforcer that saved the day, Tempest Shadow got Twilight clear and leapt at the Storm King. They were both petrified in the resulting blast, only Twilight was able to save her. As it turned out, the only reason she was helping him was because he claimed he would be able to restore her severed horn. That turned out to be a lie on two counts; one, because it’s impossible to do that with magic, and two, he was a power hungry lunatic who betrayed her as soon as she served her purpose.
So, the crisis was over. The Storm King’s forces, now free of their master, surrendered, and Tempest was taken into custody when the Royal Guard got itself organised, with the Crystal Guard, along with Shining Armor arriving as backup not too long after. I was reunited with both AJ and dear little Apple Bloom and we were back in Ponyville before long. Dad came with us to have his own reunion with Mum and Lizzie, who we hadn’t seen for the better part of three days.
The last thing that happened was Celestia at last lowered the sun and Luna raised the moon. In the evening, the celebration began, and we had a proper friendship festival.
But this had been a watershed moment for Equestria. And despite the victory, it would have a serious impact on the nation for some time to come.
For one thing, we still needed to get shot of that bomb. I think the very first thing my Dad did after getting things back to normal, was see it safely disposed of. And nopony except me, Dad, Celestia and Luna would ever know anything about it.
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Makes as much sense as anything else. Unsettling to think of a nuke being there.
Still need some kind of aftermath on what the crap the acting captain of the guard was thinking.
9297098 My headcanon is that Flash Magnus replaced him immediately afterwards. The Royal Guard certainly seemed to fair better under his leadership in the most recent season finale. They are now capable of capturing a psychotic filly.
It's progress!
9297093 Well, like Roger said, you have nothing to worry about, unless it goes off, then your worries are over.
love this chapter.
one huge point that most missed till it was pointed out , Derpy taking the hit for Twilight and in the long run saving every one.
hum wonder wear this quote comes from?
I agree with you that the movie is riddled with plotholes and there's too many problems with it to list here. Listing all problems anywhere will likely cause a flame war anyway.
9351168 I accept it as canon, and I understand why the plotholes are there, but it just isn't my cup of tea. The only thing that really cheeses me off is the way that they jammed it into the show's story line. As a standalone movie in a sort of AU, non-canon setting, it would be fine, since you could excuse the plotholes that way. But it just feels so jarringly out of place otherwise, particularly as, in all of Season 8 there's only been like one real reference and a couple throwaway lines noting it even happened at all. And since there's no way they can afford to get any of the VA's back to bring the movie characters in, it doesn't even really have that much impact on the show. But hey, horses for courses right?
I think there's a typo in that last paragraph there.
9374392 It's just a bit of UK slang. To get shot of something is just another way of saying to get rid of it. Plus I thought it was quite punny in context.
I will never see this sort of thing and not imagine the line being delivered by Wallace Shawn.
I haven't read ahead, but I hope Derpy gets a medal or some other sort of official recognition of the fact that, acting as a civilian, she dove into the line of fire to save a princess.
9389302 I actually got that line from the Back to the Future films. And Derpy will definately be getting something in the epilogue. I just need to try and think of the what the pony version of an OBE or the George Medal would be.
Personally I would have said, “Come on, you dumb apes! You want breakfast, you’re going to have to catch it!”
*ENGINEER SCHAUFENFRAUDE LAUGH*
It would have been great if Blade Star was like, “But you don’t have one.”
Edit 5/21/2020:
So is the Storm King worse than Sombra?
10243981
IMO, no. He got very, very lucky. Sombra was dangerous whether you knew he was coming or not. If the princesses hadn't been caught unawares and subjected to the Worf Effect, they'd have wiped the floor with the Storm King.