Not Always Hugs

by David Silver

16 - Cities Burn

Black smoke raised from the city, her city, their city. She spread her wings. "Forward!" Her Shining was not there. It fell on her entirely to oversee the defense of their kingdom, to see that the Crystal Empire still shone against the darkness. "Evacuate any unarmed creatures towards the palace, press on!" Her guards were doing just that, pressing against the violent tide of griffons assaulting them, but there weren't enough of them.

She was an alicorn, certainly, but she as no wizard, like Twilight. She had no great shields, like her beloved Shining. She could not rise the sun or moon. She was a princes of love, and that felt like a concept so far removed from the current condition as to basically not exist. "Shining..." She could only hope he was intact and safe, even as she wished he was right there to provide her a helping hoof. But he wasn't. She could only send him well wishes.

The crystals wolven in her mane jangled as she turned sharply to address an approaching guard. "What is it?"

"They've gathered." The guard pointed to where the fighting seemed to be a fierce melee the pony guards were ill-suited for. "And are pushing. I don't think they can hold them back, Your Highness."

Her beloved was not there, nor was her niece, or aunts. She was alone. The city... was alone. They were alone, and losing. Dread gnawed at her as she turned away from the guard, struggling to think of what to say, to do, to turn it all around. They were all relying on her, to lead them, to keep them safe. She had to protect them!

"Your highness?" The guard took a step after her, not catching up, but looking to her, worry in his eyes clear as the sky overhead where the smoke hadn't interfered. "Are you alright?"

"We are not alone." She turned back to her guard. "We need to get a message, to the tsuki, yesterday."

"Ma'am?"

With a glowing horn, a scroll appeared, words rapidly scribing onto it as he eyes darted across it, ensuring it was right. "With all speed. Do we have any guard that can teleport there?"

"I'm afraid not. Pegasi are the fastest method we have." It would take them time, even otherwise unburdened. A pegasus flying in the cold would need to be dressed for it, slowing them down considerably.

She needed it faster than that.

---

A guard hurried to the room, shoving his head in even as the rest of him slid, the tilted hallway ruining his timing. "Your highness! What's going on? What should we do?"

"There is little time to explain." She gestured with her wing for the emissary to hurry past her. "The city may well be falling. We must get every creature to safety as quickly as we can."

"Your highness!" He saluted sharply, then fled, his calls echoing out to others. The guards would start moving, but to others, it was a time of panic. She could hear the castle start to scramble to safety.

Celestia heaved a soft sigh. That was not the day she had seen coming. "There can only be a few places this could be coming from." She trotted to the window and burst free, her wings pumping to carry her up above the damaged city. She could see lazy fires that had stared. Perhaps gas leaks and running furnaces and ovens that had been damaged by the sudden movement?

She couldn't tell, and it wasn't her business, not at that moment. She looped around the city, streaking with folded wings in a dive to get a look underneath it all.

Movement in the corner of her eye prompted her to turn in time for a lance of magic to strike her in the right of the chest, driving her back with a pained yelp, her own magic flaring in a too-late shield that at least prevented it from digging in further.

"Your Highness!" Other guards were coming, unasked for, to assist.

"I'm alright," she got out in a hurry, scowling at where some creature was scurrying away, not daring to try striking her again. "They're--" She didn't get to finish, another beam lancing up from below and striking her left rump from behind. The pain was localized and burning like acid. Her position dipped, her wings failing a moment, and that was, perhaps, a blessing as it carried her out of the way of the beam.

"Princess!" came another worried shout, the guards hurrying, some towards her, others zooming past her towards whatever had fired magic at her. "The Wonderbolts are mobilized," informed the guard that reached her side first, moving to support her flight as best he could. "We have to get you out of here." It was one of the guards' first duties to ensure the safety of their princess.

A battle, a proper one, broke out as griffons and guards clashed violently. Bright beams of magic came from both sides, unicorns and griffons both equipped with battle magic that allowed them to make ranged strikes as their foe.

A griffon staggered back, a hand at a spear impaling it from the front, coughing as they tried to get out words. Magic wasn't the only ranged weapon available.

"Fall with your city," boomed a voice, like the Royal Canterlot Voice, but far more sinister. A griffon brought down a brightly glowing axe on one of the great supports that held up the city, slicing into the metal with a deafening screech of abused pillar. All of Canterlot began to shake and shift.

It was all about to come down.

Celestia reached for the griffon, as if she could take hold of the unfolding fortune before them, unravel it, somehow, turn it all back, save the city she had spent years, decades, centuries, some could even argue millenia building, but the guard beside her was hurrying her away, out from under the city, towards a safer place, away from the fighting.

"No," she called out, both forever, and feeling so empty and small. As if such a cry could deny destiny. As if she could shout it all better. As if she had any real power at all, in the face of such horror. Some of those who could fly were already in the air, but the rest was coming down. Stone broke from stone, metal snapped as if it were little more than loose clay. The plate that was Canterlot fell away from the mountain that had been its home, collapsing down the mountain with a deafening rumble that shook all of Equestria. Even ponies in far away Baltimare and Manehatten turned towards the noise, some of them at the right angle to see the rising smoke.

They couldn't know what had happened, but somewhere in their hearts, they could feel something had done terribly awry. The not knowing was, for them, perhaps the worst part of it.

This meant nothing to the citizens of Ponyville.

Canterlot was not entirely over them. By some measures, it wasn't at all. It was up on the mountain, with much of the mountain separating them, but as the city came down, countless ponies and other creatures with it, the mountain did little to stop it. It fell. It rolled. It slid. It was a landslide, started not with gravel, snow, or sand, but with an entire metropolis, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, spreading, shattering larger stones as it went and creating even more mass that joined in the tumult.

Canterlot was falling, and some of it was heading towards them.

"The horror. The Horror!" wailed Rose, her cry, for once, not at all overplayed for the moment. Her flowery peers were passed out at either side of her. "Help me! Help us!" They could, all of Ponyville, see the oncoming disaster. It wasn't coming instantly, but it wasn't slowing either. That made it, in some ways, worse. They could see their end, and no immediate solution was at hoof.

Those at the train station were shouting, shoving, even fighting to get onto the train. "Back off," barked Bon Bon, lashing out a hoof and sending Time Turner flying back. "We have this ride." She threw a leg over Lyra and hurried her onto the already full train. The doors closed behind them, forced by conductors that knew if they didn't start moving, they just wouldn't move at all. There wasn't even any assurance they'd get out of the way in time, but they rolled out of the station, engine trembling as they pushed it as far as it'd go.

Spike rested his hand on Big Mac's side. They could see it coming. All the Apples could, struck silent, staring, watching it come towards them. "Maybe... it won't reach us." Big Mac had no reply, just watching. He reached up a hoof and nudged free the harness around his neck, turning to place it around Spike. Sure, it didn't fit, and it made Spike wobble even holding it up, but it was a gift. Perhaps the last.

"Thanks." The wave had hit the bottom of the mountain itself, spreading out in untold tons of debris and broken stone. "Don't suppose Discord could... do his stuff?"

But there was no Discord in sight to save the adventuring party he was a part of. "We're gonna have to build that barn again."

A faint little smile touched at Big Mac's face. "Yup," he spoke quietly, leaning in a bit closer to Spike.

Suddenly they were both hugged, Sugar Belle finding them and wrapping an arm around either of their necks, no words, just tears, chocked sobs as she held close to them as if she could hug them hard enough to banish the problems away.

Big Mac suddenly shoved Spike, sending him sprawling. Big Mac thrust a hoof into the sky. "Go."

"What? I mean, no!"

"Go," joined Sugar Belly, burying her face in Big Mac's neck. "Stupid little dragon. Don't just... Go!"

"Go," repeated Big Mac, a few lonely tears escaping from him.

Spike lifted a little into the air, but not very far. There had to be something he could do, for his friend, for all his friends. But he was just a dragon, a little dragon. He could barely carry more than himself into the air. The destruction was coming, too quickly. "I'll dig you out if I have to," he promised, teeth clenched. "You better be there when I get to you."

Big Mac nodded softly, then turned away, hugging Sugar Belle all the tighter.

Spike ascended into the air, safe from what was to come. He would, at the least, bear witness to it. It would be some small task he could accomplish, even as a small dragon. Even as his friends suffered so close, but so impossibly far away, out of his grasp to help.

It was a fast destruction, but it was so painfully slow. Trees had joined, soil and dirt intermixed with the rolling metal and stone. Spike could see it impact with the buildings closest to the mountain. They did not buckle and give. They were brushed aside as if by the arm of a foal tired of their placement. They simply ceased to be, crushed and joining the mass. "I'm so sorry, Twilight." He had, to add to the other things, failed to protect her home, or any of their homes.

The girls would come back to ruin on a magnitude none of them could imagine. Well, except maybe Twilight. She had seen the world reduced to dust. She had seen the world reduced to war, to paranoia, and to darkness as well. Twilight had seen a lot. Of them all, Twilight, at least, had seen worse.

But there would be no easy way back. There was no undo button for what Spike beheld. It was slowing, coming to a stop, misshapen and strange, jagged bits of what might have once belonged to something poking free of the broken ground. There were little hints of the town. Twilight's castle was visible, if only for its odd color, washed down stream and broken into great uneven pieces. That was all that was left of Ponyville.

Author's Note:

Um.

Well.

That hurt to write. Poor Spike. Poor Big Mac and all the other ponies. Think Bonnie got away on that train?

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Comments

[Booster Spice]

Twilight learnt all about Gravity spells.

How is this guy against Singularities or Inverted there of?

He should be very glad ponies are so forgiving. Its a pity to lose All gryphons due an unrestricted range speciifically targeted termination effect.

[Scintor]

I'm afraid that I have to down vote this. Way too much diablos ex machia. The bad Griffin's come out of nowhere and cause unopposed massive damage to the most magically defended places in the world while just learning magic and somehow defeat an army that should outnumber then a hundred to one. This is pure evil power trip fantasy and I am dropping the series.

[David Silver]

10531719
So you never watched the movie, or the series, I gather? I look forward to counter-examples of Equestria displaying its mighty army and defensive magics outside of one static bubble upheld by one talented unicorn that was apparently all they had.

[tsaukpaetra]

Whelp, RIP cities, Empire, and town.

[Shadowshame]

10531727
OK not defending or attacking what happened in canterlot but with the crystal empire Cadance was capable of a shield much like shining's and that was when she was exhausted from repelling sombra surely at the moment where it is obvious that she is well rested she would be capable of repelling a few griffons who at the moment seem mainly armed with spears

[David Silver]

10544136
They are not armed only with spears.

They did not use magic on Arnavon since they know tsuki can do funny things with magic being thrown at them.

A pity Arnavon doesn't know the trick, but the threat that he could know it was enough to keep him intact.