Brightly Lit 2: Pharos

by Penalt

Chapter 35: First Moves/Last Moves

“Explain," demanded Recon, not at all appreciating Foxfire’s cryptic reasoning.

“On the way. We’ve got to get to Mayor Montcalm right now,” the white unicorn replied, turning and setting off at a ground eating canter that forced her three students into a jog to keep up.

“Why?” Recon demanded again, breaking into a sprint to draw even with the mare who was quick on her hooves in spite of her gravid state.

“Because I think the windigo is on its way back to take another shot at us,” Foxfire explained, turning a hard left to head up Brightly’s long main road; the eyes of passersby were drawn to the obvious urgency of the group.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, that thing’s got no reason to come back here,” countered Recon, though an uneasy feeling began to crawl up her spine.

“We hurt it. We hurt its pride, and its power, and its ego,” the mare recalled, eyeing the distance between where they were and where she wanted to be. “It wouldn’t come back unless it figured we were easy meat, and it wouldn’t do that—”

“Unless it had gotten some kind of power boost,” Recon concluded, seeing where her charge was going with her line of reasoning. “And it would probably look like a big, out of season storm with super cold temperatures. Temperatures that could freeze a town solid.”

Darrell Montcalm was just finishing off his morning paperwork, along with his second cup of coffee. He sighed with pleasure at the sweet taste of the drink, and while he knew that some considered it an abomination, he preferred his cup of joe heavily sugared and with lots of either cream or creamer. Medevac, his doctor, had been regularly after him to reduce both the amount of caffeine and sugar in his diet, but he was too old to change his habits at this point.

Besides, what harm could an extra cup of coffee do?

“Mayor!” shouted Foxfire, as she burst into his small office at the head of a mixed human and pony delegation.

“Gah!” replied the older man, completely taken by surprise. His right arm automatically flailed about in response, sending the remaining half cup of hot liquid flying directly into the just completed two hours of work.

“Dammit,” growled Montcalm, grabbing some paper towels in an attempt to absorb the tidal pool of coffee and save at least some of the morning’s paperwork. “This had better be good.”

“I’m pretty sure the windigo is on its way back here,” Foxfire said in a rush.

“Give me the details,” Montcalm said, forcing himself to sit calmly as Recon and Foxfire spoke of the strange weather that was rapidly approaching their town and Foxfire’s conclusions regarding it.

Darrell Montcalm may have been descended from one of the most famous soldiers in Canadian history, and though he himself was not a military man, the past year had taught him how to roll with the ebb and flow of the strange events that now seemed to happen on a regular basis to his tiny community. Both Foxfire and Recon looked completely serious, and by this time he knew that neither the town witch nor her bodyguard were given to panic.

“How long do we have?” Montcalm asked, and Foxfire breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that the mayor believed her.

“Two hours, maybe less until the stormfront hits us,” Recon said, stepping forward and sketching a salute. “Sir, you and Foxfire are the civilian authorities here. What do you want me and my team to do?”

“Tell your people to get ready to go four-legged,” Montcalm stated, standing up and making his way through the group and walking toward the reception area of the village’s office.

“Margaret, warm up the phone tree. Get everyone to the rec center immediately,” he said to the receptionist, before turning back to the five individuals behind him. “Rest of you, with me.”

Brightly’s firehall and village office were interconnected via a pair of doors and a short hallway that took barely a dozen steps to cross, and the mayor made those steps in less time than it took to think about it. Moving with purposeful strides the older man flipped up a protective cover and brought down his thumb on the large red button beneath.

Above their heads an old air-raid siren spun up to full volume in the space of a few seconds with a torrent of sound that could be heard for miles around. Everyone, except the mayor, put their various appendages over their ears in a vain attempt to keep out the din.

“What the hell is that?” Recon demanded, wincing.

“Fire alarm,” shouted Montcalm. “Cell phones and pagers don’t work in town, so this is how we get the fire crew together. Plus this will reach anyone who isn’t near a phone.”

“But people always have phones with them!” the soldier yelled back.

“NO CELL SERVICE!” yelled the mayor, with a grin as he added, “Which is why I have to do THIS!”

Montcalm then began to push the siren button again in a measured cadence, and each time he did, it made the siren’s restart its banshee wail, resulting in a staccato of sound that felt utterly and totally wrong. The mayor kept up the cringe worthy avalanche of sound until Thunder burst in through the fire hall door a few minutes later.

“Who sounded the alarm?” the pegasus demanded, before seeing his boss and the group around him. “Oh, hey!”

“Hey yourself,” Montcalm replied. “You’re here first, so you get to direct everyone to the Rec Center. Got it?”

“Right,” replied the pony, ruffling his wings, the silver tips of which sparkled with static charges.

“Rest of you, with me,” Montcalm commanded, turning and striding toward the door at the fire hall’s far end.

“Foxfire, you don’t need to be in on this,” Recon said, heatedly. “You’ve got me and my squad. There’s CFB Comox barely an hour away by helicopter. If you think it’s that bad we can call in reinforcements from all over.”

“Recon… Ram, I trust the lives of my children to you, but you aren’t from here,” Foxfire replied with a sympathetic tilt of her head. “You still don’t get how isolated we are here or how little the provincial or federal governments have done for us over the years.”

“But—” began Recon, only to have her objection overridden by the white unicorn.

“Yes, since magic came to Brightly we’ve been getting a lot of things. The old ferry dock refurbished, road repairs, all the work being done at the dam,” Foxfire carried on with, as they all entered the huge open space of the rec center’s gym. “But all of that is recent, and none of it makes up for the neglect of decades. All the requests for help that went unanswered, all the jury-rigs and make do’s we’ve had to create over the years.”

“When it comes down to it, Brightly tends to depend on Brightly,” Foxfire concluded, as the first of many vehicles screeched to a halt outside. “But don’t let that stop you from calling in the cavalry just because we’re a bunch of small town ponies.”

“Like you could stop me,” Recon riposted, reaching a wing for the powerful satellite phone on her harness.

“Like I’d try. Anyway, I’ve got to wrangle my students. If you see Iron Hoof or Shield Maiden before I do, send them my way,” the unicorn answered, before moving over to join Montcalm who was already busy greeting arrivals.

“Okay folks!” Montcalm began, a bare five minutes later. “Foxfire thinks that the windigo is on its way back here, and combined with what I’m hearing from the military I believe her, which means we need to be ponies again.”

“Why isn’t the military here now?” asked a voice from the crowd, gathering several murmurs of agreement.

“Me and my team are here, so is the RCMP detachment, plus we’ve got Polaris and Luna’s friend from American special forces,” Recon spoke up, as she trotted up to join Montcalm and the others up front. “I’ve called Captain Malinski asking for reinforcements and he said that every Canadian forces base is sending everything they can, but that none of them will get here before the storm does.”

“Which means we show the world that Brightly stands together,” declared Foxfire, her voice echoing off the rafters far above. “We stood together in the face of darkness before and by all the powers of light and dark we can do it again.”

“You tell ‘em Mom!” shouted a young voice, and the crowd parted to make way for the Power Ponies, Shield Maiden at their head with the Crusaders forming the core of their advancing wedge.

Recon could feel the doubts of the crowd melting away like snow in August, and she suppressed the urge to try to take military command of the situation. Other than Rios, she was the most experienced military person in the area, and it would have made sense for her to take operational command, but as Foxfire had pointed out, she wasn’t from Brightly. These people had fought for their town before, and Foxfire’s words combined with the arrival of the Insane Eight was raising that army again.

“The moral is to the physical as three to one,” the pegasus murmured, seeing in a moment the way to add her strength to that of the town. Bracing to attention Lieutenant Mercy “Recon” Ram snapped out a parade ground salute and bellowed out, “YOUR ORDERS?”

The crowd whistled and stomped out their approval at Recon’s declaration, but to the pony’s surprise Foxfire instead deferred to Mayor Montcalm. Who simply leaned forward a bit and declared, “Everyone get ready to get your hooves on. Foxfire and Shield Maiden will cast the spell in a minute.”

“I’d like to help with that, if I could,” added another voice, and the eyes of the room shifted to take in the dark furred batpony form of Father Addison and his wife, Natasha. “Sorry about being late, we were asleep.”

“Glad to have you, Father,” Foxfire said, getting a hug from the Anglican minister. “You sure this isn’t a violation of some sort of church law?”

“Oh probably, but wondrous is man and mysterious the ways of God. And I would have no ruling shield my eyes from the glory of His works,” replied the priest with a toothy smile.

“That sounds familiar somehow,” mused the witch.

“When we have time I’ll be more than happy to introduce you to the philosophy of Father Francis Mulcahy,” answered the priest, adding, “Your abilities and mine have meshed before, why not now?”

“Okay, let's do this right then. A circle of thirteen, using all the powers we can muster,” Foxfire said, looking around her at friends and family. “Power Ponies, Crusaders, join hooves. Father Addison, across from me. Windweaver, take the right side of the circle. Recon, you take the left. Captain Rios, are you here?”

“Yeah,” came the gruff voice. “And no, I don’t do this kind of shit.”

“We need you. Hearth and home, sword and shield, Earth and Equestria,” Foxfire replied, trying and failing to keep the begging out of her voice. “We need balance to make this work, and you’re a human who has been touched by Equestrian magic repeatedly. Please?”

“Fine,” growled the soldier, safing his rifle before laying it aside to join the others. “What do you need me to do?”

“Join hands with the others and get ready to repeat after me,” Foxfire said, looking over her shoulder to address her students. “Come here and put your hands on my shoulders. None of you are trained but this will let you feel what a big working is like.”

“Okay folks, get ready, and let's give them a big cheer!” Montcalm called out, loosening his pants and shirt in preparation.

“Brightly!” yelled the crowd.

“In Nomine Sol,” Foxfire began, opening herself to the magic.

“In Nomine Luna,” replied Rios, and Foxfire’s eyes shot up in surprise to see a cocky grin looking back at her as lunar power began to burst from around him.

In Nomine Equus,” Shield Maiden continued, her own horn lighting in power.

“BRIGHTLY,” called the crowd, as glowing outlines began to cover them as well.

“Orbis Terrarum Equorum,” chanted Father Addison with his trained voice.

“BRIGHTLY!” chanted the crowd, feeding their own power into the circle.

“Mannulus Terrae,” chanted Iron Hoof and Apple Bloom, as one.

“Mannulus Caelo,” chanted Windweaver, Skylark, Darter and Scootaloo.

“Mannulus Magi,” came from Foxfire, Shield Maiden and Sweetie Belle.

“BRIGHTLY!” roared the crowd.

“FACTI SUNT NOBIS!” called back the circle, and the transformative magic burst forth with the power of an unstoppable tsunami.

---

The storm rolled on west, flowing through the atmosphere like a shark through the water, and just as intent on its chosen prey.

“How much longer?” Ash Heart demanded of his companion as the pair rushed across the Kitimat ranges.

“Soon,” advised the windigo, its voice an icy hiss.

Ash Heart looked, and all around him was the wind in a whipped froth of cloud and icy water vapor, coursing along at sub-freezing temperatures and made frozen solid enough to hold both him and his army aloft as he traveled toward his just reward. The unicorn let out a low chuckle as he spotted the first of the deep inlets that marked the edge of the British Columbia coast.

“Other than revenge, you never said why you wanted to come back here,” Ash Heart casually began.

The windigo looked back over at the unicorn with barely restrained hunger and more than a tinge of envy. Ash Heart had taken to the power of the Hand of Franklin with an ease that brought a chill even to the frozen heart of the windigo. More than that, the artifact seemed to have unlocked some deep power within the unicorn, enabling him to “freeze” the minds of the people they had run across, even as the windigo stole the warmth from their bodies.

Combined, the unicorn and ice spirit had created for themselves an army of utterly obedient ice warriors who cared for nothing other than obeying the voice of their masters. In the beginning of their relationship, Ash Heart had definitely been the junior partner, but with his minions and new powers he was nearly the equal of the windigo, and truth be told it worried the old spirit.

“I want, what you have,” admitted the creature at last. “Followers. Underlings, perhaps even other windigos. I have long been alone.”

Ash Heart thought for a moment, considering ways he could use that information to place the windigo under his command. He was, after all, superior to a mere beast of a spirit.

“And you plan on using the people of Brightly for that,” surmised the unicorn, nodding.

“Yesss, their warmth, their community, their magic!” crowed the icy spirit, prancing for a moment in mid-air. “It will feed me enough to create more of my kind. This world is full of selfish creatures who see their fellows as things to be used and discarded. With my full power I can touch them and give them the gift of cold and eternal hunger.”

“As long as I get their bodies, you can have the rest… except for Foxfire and the Crusaders,” Ash Heart replied, drawing another look from the windigo. “They are mine.”

“The mare, I understand,” the ice spirit said. This is why it had gone after Ash Heart. The hunger, the rage, the need to have others offer it everything, while giving nothing in return, all of it made the unicorn a kindred spirit to the windigo. “But why the three younglings?”

“They are from Equestria, the source of pony magic,” the unicorn answered, seeing the coastline beginning to resolve. “They have three diamonds from there. New gems, full of Equestrian power. With those ponies under my control, and the gems in my possession I can find the way to Equestria. Humanity has rejected me, so I’m going to leave Earth entirely.”

“Equestria has Princesses,” pointed out the windigo, before adding, “Get ready. We are almost there.”

“Human or pony, females are weak and easily controlled or manipulated,” replied Ash Heart, surging his magic outward to move his soldiers into something resembling a formation. “Foxfire will kneel to me, and with her magic to open a portal and the stones to guide my path I will set foot on Equestria, and it will be mine to rule as a king like no other.”

“We’re here,” called out the windigo, as the storm reached the north shore of Lake Carmanah. “Now Ash Heart, we both shall have what we want.”

Author's Note:

Next chapter is already completed and in the process of being edited. Will be out in a day or two.

Comments

[Bandit1990]

“Foxfire will kneel to me, and with her magic to open a portal and the stones to guide my path I will set foot on Equestria, and it will be mine to rule as a king like no other.”

That sounds familiar, let me know how that works out for you. I hear Tartarus is lovely this time of year.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

“Foxfire will kneel to me, and with her magic to open a portal and the stones to guide my path I will set foot on Equestria, and it will be mine to rule as a king like no other.”

Why don't you just say, "Nothing can stop me now!", or the perennial favourite "I am invincible!"

[Starlight Nova]

Don't you mean pharaoh?

[Gargon94]

I can't wait to see which type of pony Rios and the three witch students become.

[Penalt]

11543485
Small spoiler.
Rios is going to be very, very strongly built, and this will be his colour pallette
i.gyazo.com/d87e908c7507ecf52994ab0d35c2b9cd.png

[Gargon94]

11543616
Huh, thanks!

[redandready45]

The windigo looked back over at the unicorn with barely restrained hunger and more than a tinge of envy. Ash Heart had taken to the power of the Hand of Franklin with an ease that brought a chill even to the frozen heart of the windigo. More than that, the artifact seemed to have unlocked some deep power within the unicorn, enabling him to “freeze” the minds of the people they had run across, even as the windigo stole the warmth from their bodies.

When your megalomania astonishes the frost demon that recruited you, you know you need counseling.

[A.P.O.N.I.]

Father Francis Mulcahy

M*A*S*H?

[Penalt]

11551756
Indeed.
Season 5, Episode 12. "Exorcism"