Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 80: The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea

“Are you sure?” I asked. “You don’t have to come with me.”

Karma snorted. “First of all, you get into enough trouble even with adult supervision. I can’t imagine what you’d do if you were left alone with a megaspell.” He used a rag and quickly wiped down the lenses of his hardsuit.

“I’m not that much trouble,” I countered. “I know all I need to do is pop up, fire it off, and run away.”

“Second,” he continued. “If something goes wrong, you need a pony who can fix it. There’s a chance the matrix could fail, or the incantation lens doesn’t go off, or the launcher has some damage we missed.”

“If something goes wrong it won’t be my fault,” Destiny supplied over the loudspeakers. “I did the math correctly. Blame him when we find out he half-assed the modifications.”

“Third,” Karma said, trying to ignore his sister. “I don’t actually have a way out of here except riding with you. I can’t swim the whole way. The suit is way too heavy for that. And--” he winced. “I’m already not in great shape.”

My eyes strayed to his side. There was a patch of steel taken from a wall panel covering over the hole shrapnel had opened up, but the welds were messy and uneven. I wasn’t sure if it would hold, but I also wasn’t an engineer.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “You’re not in the best shape already, and…”

“And it won’t get better stuck down here at the bottom of the ocean,” Karma said. “There’s an elevator up, but that would just be the fastest way to get arrested. They’ll be watching the station. I’m better off riding with you and getting dropped off while they’re busy. I doubt they’ll even notice me with you around.”

“Megaspell-launching assault armor would definitely occupy their attention,” Destiny agreed.

“I’ve still got the spear launcher and a few flares and other tricks,” Karma said. “I’ll try and give you some support while you get the spell going.”

“It would be better for you to find cover,” Destiny retorted. “The Nightingale is designed specifically to shield against spell effects, so Chamomile will be fine. You won’t be. The spell is designed to transmit through walls, but it’s highly directional. As long as you’re not in the main effect cone and behind something sturdy and made of conductive metal, you should avoid the worst of it.”

“Understood,” Karma said, with a salute. “I’ll avoid standing right in front of Chamomile when she launches the giant death beam.”

“The only thing after that is getting away,” I said. “I really hope you’ve got a better plan than I do, because the only thing I’ve come up with is hoping that everypony is so grateful that we saved them that they throw a parade in our honor and let us go.”

“Once you launch the megaspell, just ditch the assault armor,” Destiny said. “I think I can wire the hydrojets to fire on their own. We’ll let them chase it and you can slip away.”

“One problem with that plan. I don’t have a rebreather.” I looked around. “And I don’t see one around here, either.”

“But you know what we do have?” Karma teased. He held up a bottle and shook it, the contents just a little more viscous and slimier than water.

“Noooo,” I groaned, covering my face with my hooves.

“Gillwater. It’ll give you an hour or two to get inside. No chance of drowning. Best of all, it’ll fit in the cockpit!”

“I saw how they make that stuff!” I said very eloquently and not whining at all. “They make it out of mucus from a bunch of angry gross lampreys!”

“Would you rather drown?” Karma asked. “Drowning is what got this mess started in the first place.”

“No,” I mumbled.

“That’s what I thought.” He slapped my side. “Let’s get this thing on the road.”

---

“System check,” Destiny said. “Hydrothrusters are clear. Power transfer is good. The megaspell launcher is throwing errors.”

“Is that bad?” I asked, settling onto the control bench and getting my hooves in the pressure cuffs.

“We expected this,” Destiny said. “It thinks the spell is broken. Don’t worry about it, I can override the warnings.”

“Let me climb onboard before you set off,” Karma said. He shifted the long rifle on his back, the barrel packed up in thick cloth and separated from the body of the spear launcher. He carefully climbed onto the outstretched manipulator claw and slid on his flank until he’d reached the main hull, using a tether to tie himself to a hoofhold there.

“You ready?” I asked.

“As ready as I’m going to be,” he said. I nodded and carefully let go of the edge of the moon pool, sparks flying from the manipulator’s claws. The steel was torn up, metal plates ripped apart like paper.

“I wonder if the gillponies will repair that after we’re gone…” I mumbled.

“Probably,” Karma replied. “They’re not stupid. It might sit like that until one of them trips over it, but once they’re aware it needs to be fixed, they’ll stop at nothing until the job is done.”

“We need to get a job done, too,” Destiny interrupted. “I have to control half of the systems on the Nightingale because somepony didn’t spontaneously grow talons to press the buttons, so I’d appreciate it if we could do this quickly.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. “Here goes nothing…” I leaned forward and pushed back lightly with my rear hooves, the Nightingale diving into the black water of the trench.

Pressure squeezed the hull like a vice, the thick steel plates creaking under the strain. I looked over at where I knew Karma would be, his shape just a blur in the darkness of the trench, sonar doing little more than letting me know he was still there.

My fear of the water had mostly evaporated, thanks to a whole schools worth of half-remembered images and notions of being a fish, breathing water, feeling cool seawater against scales I didn’t have. They were like the last vestiges of a dream, when all that remains is emotion and a memory of a feeling you might have had. Nostalgia without anything to remember.

That didn’t mean I was going to go quickly. Down here the water felt thick and heavy. I could sense it in the sluggish way I cut through it, almost like swimming in jelly.

“Good, keep it at this pace,” Destiny said. “You’re in a pressure vessel but things are less likely to break if you ease it away from crush depths instead of popping up like a cork.”

“Got it,” I noted.

The waters slowly got brighter, and I could see my hoof in front of my face. Metaphorically. It was really a manipulator claw in front of the Nightingale’s bow camera. Once the utter blackness of the abyss passed, I felt the pressure come off my shoulders.

The trench opened up, and I eased over the ragged top of the rift and into the open waters beyond. Bright coral grew right up to the edge and not a step beyond, a sudden rainbow of color and life right on the knife-edge of the deep.

“This looks like my stop,” Karma said, rapping a hoof against the assault armor’s hull. He hefted his big rifle. “Remember, you break through their lines and fire off the spell. Nothing fancy.”

I snorted. “Please, who do you think I am?” I didn’t need to look at him to know the expression he was making. “I’ll get it done.”

“I know. We’re all counting on you. Me, my bratty sister, and all the ponies in the city.” Karma knocked on the hull one last time, then let go, dropping down to the sea floor and moving into cover. With a line like that, what was I supposed to say?

“I’m not bratty,” Destiny mumbled.

“You’re a little bratty,” I said, pushing back on the controls and guiding the Nightingale slowly forward, trying to orient myself. The dark sector was easy enough to spot. A black void in the neon glow of the city.

The newly repaired active sonar pinged with a chipper little noise and immediately popped up with dozens of alerts in every direction, most of them circling around like sharks very cautious of the new biggest fish in the pond.

To be honest, I’d expected immediate waves of torpedoes and spearguns, or at least for the Seaquestrians to send wave after wave of their soldiers at me until I ran out of torpedoes. It was always a popular way to wage war as long as your commanders could stay far away from the front lines. Instead, I was confronted with something totally different.

I saw a flashing, bright light, blinking in patterns.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Horse code,” Destiny said. “I think they’re asking for parley.”

“Parley?”

“It means they want to talk instead of fight,” Destiny said. “It’s an old word--”

“I know what the word means, I was expressing surprise, not confusion.”

“You’re surprised they want to try negotiation with the crazy pony holding a bomb? I’m returning the message and accepting their request.”

I glared at the PipBuck hooked into the controls. “Hey!”

“It’s the one chance we have to avoid a bloodbath. We’re taking it.”

I grumbled and waited, and the light source grew closer after a minute. I shouldn’t have been surprised by what I saw, but I was. Shore Leave swam closer, and for the first time, I got to clearly see what the Exodus Armor looked like when it was sized to fit a swimming hippogriff. The hexagonal scales went around the tail in distinct plates, making it look almost segmented and lobster-like. He carried a white flag, which seemed at odds with the speargun and torpedo launcher strapped to his sides.

“I am Sentinel,” Shore Leave said, his voice booming once he was close enough. “I’m authorized to negotiate with you on behalf of the people of Seaquestria.”

“Don’t mess this up,” Destiny whispered. “If we can convince him to listen, we can cure him, too! He’s got skin in the game, we can use that.”

I nodded tersely. “Right, sure. Turn on the loudspeaker.”

“I’m going to give you one last chance to surrender,” Shore Leave said. “I don’t know who you are, but you’ve committed a terrible crime. I’d like to think it’s because you believe you’re saving lives.”

“No deal,” I replied. “Even if I thought you’d listen, last time we met, you shot me a few times and slit my throat.”

I saw him react with surprise, the armored hippogriff rearing up as best a pony could underwater. “Chamomile?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sure you’d remember my name. With how many ponies you’ve stabbed in the back, it must be the ones you’ve faced head-on that stick in your mind!”

“I’ve never betrayed anypony,” Shore Leave said. “What I did was turn my life around and become the hero this city needs to survive.”

“That’s rich,” I snorted.

“It’s the truth. I’ve been helping ponies. Who do you think I’ve betrayed? Criminals? Murderers? Ponies suffering so badly death is a kinder option? With Marshall Law, I’ve helped make things better for everypony. Random crime and chaos is gone. Things are slowly improving for refugees. Once Marshall Law is put in total control, this won’t just be the safest place left in the world, but a place of justice. Real justice.”

“And you want to get there by blowing up half the city.”

“If that’s what I have to do to save the other half? It’s the tough choice, but it’s the right choice. That’s why I wanted to give you a chance to surrender. Somepony who cares enough about this city to try an insane, misguided stunt to save it? They might be the kind of pony who can make that same tough choice. It’s what a hero has to do.”

“Making the tough choices, like being the first to roll over and become a servant. Helping ponies in black boots stomp down on ponies that were your friends, just so they won’t stomp on you. That’s not heroism, that’s being a coward.”

“Do you think what you’re doing is heroic? What are you going to do with that bomb? Kill me with it, swat a sardine with a sledgehammer?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said, with a shrug. The clawed manipulators mirrored the motion.

“So be it, then. I’ll have to take it from you by force!”

Shore Leave tossed the flag to the side and his guns moved, the armor adjusting his aim. A streak of bubbles narrowly missed his head. He flinched and dove, getting out of the firing line.

“Almost had him!” Karma scoffed. “I knew I should have fired while he was running his mouth. Run for it, Cammy!”

I kicked back against the controls and swooped past Shore Leave. I saw him turn to follow, only to have a flare burst in his face. He swore loudly, his loudspeaker still on, and fired down into the coral reef below us at a brightly-colored pony shape.

The decoy popped with a strangled sound like a wet fart, soggy confetti and stale air exploding across the reef. More decoys inflated around the reef, drawing fire from the ponies overhead who saw a whole army appear out of nowhere.

“Ignore them and get to the firing point,” Destiny said. “Karma’s doing his job for once and getting their attention.”

“But--”

“Are you going to prioritize killing one pony over saving thousands?”

I shook my head and leaned forward, barreling through the water towards the point Destiny had programmed into the PipBuck. A place where the cone-shaped area of effect from the megaspell would cover the entire infected area with enough of a margin of error for both of us to sleep safely.

“I’m not letting you hurt this city!” somepony shouted.

A sled crashed into me from the side. I hadn’t even seen it coming. It knocked me off course, spinning me out until I’d flared the Nightingale’s wings a few times and sent bursts of compressed water in every direction until my drifting stopped.

“Carrot?” I asked, recognizing the voice after a moment. I turned to face the sled. The front corner was crumpled where she’d run into me, and the pony on board stood up, hefting an air rifle.

“You’re going down!” Carrot pulled the trigger, and bubbles limply blooped out of the end. “...Oh. These don’t work underwater?”

I rolled my eyes. “She might actually be dumber than I am.”

“Watch your six!” Destiny warned. “Incoming!”

The hippogriffs were coming down at me from above. There had to be dozens of them, all wearing archaic armor, though the torpedo launchers they were carrying seemed a lot more modern.

Alarms blared. I jetted forward and grabbed the damaged sled, ripping it away from Carrot and sending her tumbling to the bottom. Hopefully unharmed. She was stupid, not evil, and I could totally sympathize with that.

I leaned hard to the side, twisting around and using the sled as a shield. Torpedoes slammed into it, blasting it apart.

“Destiny, fire whatever we’ve got!” I yelled.

“Full spread of torpedoes!” Destiny confirmed, the assault armor’s steel wings flaring and sending a wave of steel fish into the oncoming rush of armored hippogriffs.

The warheads exploded with a range of effects. Some erupted in massive spurts of soap and foam, a few just popped with concussive force, two or three just flashed past the soldiers without doing anything at all, and the last torpedo--

Exploded dead-on, throwing shrapnel in all directions. Blood clouded the water.

“What the buck?!” I swore.

“Shoot,” Karma groaned. “I must have missed one. Sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough! That killed a bunch of ponies!”

“If we live through this I’ll make it up to them,” Karma said. He sounded hurt. I frowned.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Of course not. How close are you to the firing point?”

“We’re almost there,” Destiny said. I could feel the worry. “Do you need support? We can--”

The proximity alarm went off again, and one of the cameras cut out, loud pings sounding across the hull. I jerked to the side, throwing the Nightingale out of the way. Shore Leave swam past me, the Exodus Armor rippling around his tail like a jet engine turned inside-out.

“I’ve got you now!” Shore Leave yelled. He twisted around and made a tight turn, coming back towards me and launching torpedoes. I fired at the same time, foam exploding in a wall between us and taking the hit for me.

The foam also made me lose sight of him.

“Where did he go…” I mumbled.

“Looks like he took out one of the cameras with that speargun,” Destiny reported. “I’ll try to get a secondary camera online.”

The display flickered back to life in black and white just in time to catch Shore Leave right on top of me, swinging his tail around in a huge arc. The back edge caught the Nightingale’s left manipulator and smashed through it like an axe, severing it just below the joint.

I swung around and grabbed Shore Leave with the remaining claw, squeezing tighter than I had to. He yelped in pain, sparks flying where the telekinetic field powering the Exodus Armor pushed back against my grip, the magic trying to keep him from being crushed.

“You just really want to get killed today, huh?” I growled. I pressed harder and felt one talon sink in. He went limp. “If you’re smart, you’ll just stay down!” I yelled, tossing him aside. “Destiny?”

“We can launch from here,” Destiny confirmed. “It’s well within the margin of error.”

“Great, bring it online before the rest of the army catches up to us,” I said, settling back. I looked at the bottle taped down to the bulkhead within easy reach. “Gah, I hope I don’t really have to drink that…”

Around me, the Nightingale shifted, the rear sliding open and exposing a short barrel ringed with tarnished silver and gold, the precious metals inscribed with runes to activate and target the megaspell.

That’s when Carrot showed up and screwed it all up.

“Stop ignoring me!” she yelled, crashing into me from behind, the noise of the launcher being readied making her invisible to the sonar. She climbed on top of the Nightingale, using a combination of the hoofholds on the thick armor and a long knife to latch on.

“What the-- get out of there!” I yelled. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“I’m stopping you!” She said, stabbing at the megaspell launcher. Her knife glanced off the spinning rings of metal, raising sparks. Like the very smart pony she was, Carrot put herself right in front of the barrel, blocking it with her body like she didn’t care that she had a weapon of mass destruction aimed at her belly.

“If you’re that eager to get yourself killed,” I warned, reaching up with the remaining manipulator to grab her.

“Don’t, Ensign!” Shore Leave yelled. He knocked her out of the way, smashing into the clawed manipulator and tangling himself up with it.

“What the buck is wrong with you people?!” I yelled. “I’m trying to save the city!”

“So am I,” Shore Leave said, his voice strained. He was obviously in pain. The telekinetic fields around the Exodus Armor were weaker, on the verge of breaking. I could see them glinting with light around his joints. “I told you, Chamomile. I’m not a traitor. I decided I wanted to spend the last days of my life as a hero, and if that means sacrificing myself to take you out? I’m happy with that.”

He took aim with the torpedo launcher. I tried to toss him away, but he fired before I could properly react, the torpedoes exploding against the Nightingale’s right wing, breaching the onboard torpedo tubes and blasting both of us like a mountain of fire and thunder had been dropped down into the ocean.

The shock hit me even through the thick armor and padding, the jolt rocketing me into the seabed. We hit hard, blood flying from my lips.

“Buck,” I swore weakly in the darkness. Only one display was still online, flickering with light. “Destiny, are you there?” I asked.

The only reply was a static hiss. I could see a big ‘Connection Lost’ warning on the PipBuck’s screen. I swore.

“I’m not dead yet,” I coughed. “There’s got to be something I can do.”

I started tapping at any controls I could feel, even if most of them were designed to be used with delicate talons and not big clumsy hooves. One of the buttons had to do something.

The projected display flickered to life, and a black-and-white version of the reef came to life around me. I was lying on the bottom, on my side. I couldn’t see the Nightingale itself through the cameras, but the status display was flashing a lot of red and unhappy-looking reports.

“Hydrojets are blown. Sonar is offline. Both manipulators are scrap. The megaspell launcher…” I mumbed, reading it over. “Everything is broken.”

I couldn’t even tell if the megaspell itself was working. That had been throwing errors since the beginning. Had the blast broken it? Or was it sitting there, ready to fire?

I sighed and leaned, knocking my head against the hull. “I’ll have to try and explain it after they bring me in. Maybe if I give them Destiny’s research and the math, they’ll find some other way to set it off.” It sounded like giving up. Like empty hope and praying somepony else did the job after you’d already failed.

Somepony knocked on the hull. I looked up.

Of all ponies, Carrot Kimchi was standing there.

“You’re under arrest,” she said.

“Really?” I asked. “Come on. How stupid and tenacious can--” I saw something else moving. Shore Leave. He stumbled into motion, dragging himself along the seabed. “I’m starting to think I didn’t kill any… pony…”

I could feel it crawling down my skin. Claws erupted from Shore Leave’s finned hooves. A glowing, draconic eye showed through a huge rip in the chest of the Exodus Armor.

“Get out of there!” I yelled to Ensign Carrot. “Shore Leave has totally lost it!”

She didn’t react at all, instead starting to read me my rights.

“What am I supposed to--” I struggled in the control restraints. “Get off me! I need to get out there and stop him!”

I tried to break free, and got my right hoof out just as Carrot noticed the zombie shambling towards her. She reacted exactly like I would have, throwing her knife at him and screaming. The knife slid to a halt in the water halfway between them, drifting to the sandy bottom. Shore Leave lunged for her.

A laser-straight stream of bubbles lanced through the water and slammed through Shore Leave’s head, ripping that archaic iron helmet apart along with everything inside. The reanimated body slumped down, really dead this time. Carrot slumped down to her knees, shaking.

“Sorry, I was busy back there with my half of the military,” Karma said, hopping over the ridge. “Looks like we really bungled this up, huh?”

I used my free hoof to knock on the hull over my head.

“Can’t talk?” Karma asked. “Got it. One knock for yes, two for no, eh?”

I knocked once.

“Can you still launch the spell?”

I sighed and knocked twice.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Right. No problem.”

“No problem?” I asked, not that he could hear. Karma stepped past Carrot and to the rear of the Nightingale, and I heard panels being opened up, mangled metal being pried apart. He walked back in range of the cameras, carrying something.

“You’ll be okay with that armor protecting you,” Karma said. That was when I saw what he had. The megaspell. “You’d better get out of here, though.” He looked at Carrot.

“But--” Carrot said, her voice quivering. She looked over at Shore Leave’s corpse and her nerve broke. The ensign ran for it. Maybe she was smarter than I gave her credit for.

“I should be able to set this off manually,” Karma noted. “It’s not that hard as long as you’re willing to have your hoof inside the case while it’s going off.”

I knocked twice, as hard as I could.

“Damnit!” I yelled. “You’ll die, you idiot!”

“Sorry it worked out this way,” Karma said. “You know the old saying, it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission? I’m leaving you in the lurch to ask for forgiveness on my behalf later. Maybe you can blame it all on me. That’d be fine.”

He shook his head, twisting something inside the megaspell’s case.

“The only thing I’ve felt since I woke up was guilt. I got my whole family killed and a lot more ponies besides that. I was selfish and used my second chance just to make that guilt hurt a little less. Can you do me a favor?”

Karma looked over at me, and I knocked once, weakly.

He snorted, amused. “Don’t make guilt the only thing in your life. There’s still plenty worth living for. It’s tougher than finding something to die for, because you have to keep doing it. And… take care of my sister for me.”

Karma flipped a switch, and the spell erupted with light.

---

My head was pounding. Chains bound my hooves, and hippogriffs played the careful game of staying close enough to march me forwards while also being wary of remaining there. Fear came off them in thick waves. They were treating me more like a dangerous animal in a zoo than a pony in prison.

I really hoped we weren’t going to the airlock.

The guards stopped in front of a huge, curved door, forcing me to walk ahead of them and into the gloom beyond.

The room was huge, built in a vertical way that had a lot in common with Enclave buildings, though here it was cast out of damp, cold stone instead of clouds. High above me, too tall to reach even if I’d reared up on my back hooves, a gallery of ponies and hippogriffs in ornate outfits looked down at me with contempt, jeering when I walked in.

I spotted Quiet Seascape among them, and she gave me a scared, guilty look. I gave her a weak shrug and trotted to the obvious place to stand, a raised dias in the center of the low space, illuminated from above by a spotlight and surrounded by chest-high railings. The guards didn’t stop me, so it seemed like the right place to go.

A loud, sharp bang echoed through the room. I squinted through the glare of the spotlight up into the shadows. A hippogriff sat alone above me, wearing black robes and holding a massive head-sized pearl in one talon. He brought it down on the sounding block in front of him twice more.

“Order!” he shouted. “This court will come to order!”

“Oh, so that’s what this is,” I mumbled to myself.

I narrowed my vision, and saw the seats behind the judge. Or more accurately, thrones. A hippogriff larger by half than any of the other lounged on the center throne, watching me watch her.

“You are guilty of murder. Assault. Theft. Conspiracy against the crown. High crimes against the nation. These are known facts. Do you have anything to say in your defense?” the judge asked.

I looked away from what had to be the Queen to the judge. “Would it help if I said I was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons?”

The crowd didn’t like that. The gallery watching from their high booths around us broke out into jeering and booing. The judge raised the large pearl with his talon, bringing it down on the desk with another loud bang.

“Order!” he demanded. “This is the high court, not a circus!”

I winced. “Sorry. Do I get a lawyer, or is that a custom we’ve only got back home?”

“Back home,” the judge noted. “You are a member of the military of the Equestrian military remnants, also known as the 'Grand Pegasus Enclave'. Is this correct?”

“You know, that’s actually an open question,” I said. At the sound of murmurs in the gallery, I frowned and squinted into the shadows. “I’m not avoiding the question! I think there’s probably paperwork with all the right stamps on it, so let’s say legally, yes? Probably?”

The judge glared at me. “Do you deny you were sent here on a mission to destabilize one of the few remaining sovereign states?”

“Wow. Yes, I deny that! I got here by mistake!”

“How did you arrive here?”

“Err…” I hesitated. “The answer that’s going to sound least crazy is ‘teleportation accident.’ When do I get to just tell you what happened? Because I want to talk about the giant conspiracy and how I saved the city.”

“There’s no need,” a slim pony said. Fabula stepped past me, wearing a slim, tailored, grey suit. She smirked at me when she saw my surprise. “I’ve already informed Her Majesty of the details.”

She stopped next to the dais I was standing on and looked me over, leaning in to whisper.

“You’re lucky I’m not holding a grudge for raiding my pantry,” she said quietly.

“Does Her Majesty know what you’re guilty of?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Fabula said. “I turned myself in the moment I saw the way the tides were moving. You don’t get far in the fortune-telling business without trusting your own predictions.”

“So why are you here?” I asked. “Afraid I might tell her something you didn’t divulge?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m doing you a favor,” she said. “You’re a disaster walking on four legs. Killing you won’t work, so I’m trying something else.”

She smirked and stepped away, pulling a scroll out of seemingly thin air.

“Your honor, I have a signed order from the Queen. According to morgue records, the death penalty is not only inappropriate to apply in this case but potentially ineffective. Instead, with her great mercy, the convicted is to be banished from Seaquestria permanently with no chance of appeal.”

The crowd went wild with rage. The judge looked back at the Queen, who had shifted on her throne. She nodded in the dark.

“The sentence is to be carried out immediately,” the judge sighed, banging his pearl on the desk. “May the sea have mercy on your soul.”

---

I stumbled on the rock when the guard shoved me out into the dark pre-morning light, my hooves slipping on mossy stone. The cold wind whipped around us, the air here thin and somehow more alive than the processed oxygen down below.

A bag joined me, thrown out of the elevator with contempt.

“Thanks for the ride, guys,” I groaned. They’d taken the opportunity to work me over a little while I couldn’t fight back. I felt like one big bruise.

The guard at the door spit on the ground at my hooves and slammed the door shut, locks hissing with a sense of finality.

“Are you okay?” the bag asked. I sighed and opened up the burlap sack. Destiny floated out of the mess of broken armor pieces. “I didn’t see what happened to you after the PipBuck went dark.”

“I’m fine,” I said. It was close enough to the truth, but it felt like a lie for some reason. I lowered the bag and looked at the helmet. My best friend. Even here at what felt like the end of the world. “Did you see if the spell worked?”

She bobbed. “Yeah. After it went off… there were a lot of scared and confused ponies. Most of them will need therapy. Physical and mental. But they’re alive. We did it.”

“At least there’s that,” I muttered.

Destiny flew into my chest, and I grabbed her on instinct, holding onto her.

“I wanted to slap him, or shoot him or…” Destiny sobbed. “I didn’t even get a chance to see him face-to-face. The last thing we did was yell at each other!”

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“And the megaspell… I don’t even know what that would do to a pony like him! It might have…”

“I saw the whole thing,” I said.

---

The spell went off in a blinding flash that blanked the projector, the cameras going to pure white for a long moment before they started to clear.

Karma stumbled away from the device, the canister glowing hot at his hooves. The leg he’d had inside it was already gone, crumbling away like ash. The pressure suit around him ripped apart, bubbles pouring from the seams.

He took two steps before the rest of his legs shattered, the bubbles pouring out of his suit now carrying something darker with them, clouding the water around him. He thrashed in agony, reaching for the Nightingale. Reaching for me.

---

“It was instantaneous,” I assured her. “He didn’t feel a thing.”

Destiny sobbed in my grip, and the sun came up around us.

Comments

[Reese]

"I mumbed, reading it over."
"I mumbled, reading it over."?

"larger by half than any of the other lounged"
"larger by half than any of the others lounged"?

And with that... I'm caught up, at last! :D
Thank you for writing; I've been continuing to enjoy this story. :)