Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 95: Hold Back The Night

The Vertibuck wobbled dangerously, drifting to one side and starting to tilt and yaw at the same time. Hail rained down like bullets, and I could hear the engines surging, sputtering, and kicking with loud bangs. We dropped for a full half-second, a downdraft slamming us into freefall until the gust changed direction again in the storm.

“Are you sure you’ve got this?” I asked.

“Shut up and let me focus!” Emma snarled. Her snarl was a lot more effective now that she had fangs to go along with the regular glare. I backed off. Way off.

“I told you, don’t upset a hungry vampire,” Midnight whispered. “Old blood bags and that awful stuff you Enclave ponies claim is fruit juice? Not very satisfying!”

“That ‘awful stuff’ was developed for the space program,” I said defensively. “I drank it all the time when I was a foal. It also prevents scurvy!”

“It’s probably great for regular ponies like you,” Midnight said soothingly. I knew she was saying regular pony just to get on my good side, but it still worked. “It’s not great for her. See, drinking blood isn’t really about the amount of blood or the stuff in it. It’s a mystical thing.”

“Really?” Destiny asked. “I never heard this before.”

“Sure.” Midnight put a hoof around my shoulders. “What we really drink is life energy. It’s carried in the blood, like how you need calories and that’s in the food you eat. Even really carefully prepared blood bags only have a tiny bit of energy in them.”

“So she needs…” I trailed off.

“I can hear you!” Emma yelled back. “And what I need is for you to figure out how to undo this stupid curse! I can’t even keep solid food down!”

I winced at that. Clearly, her hearing was improving. I could barely hear anything over the weather but she could make out my whispers from a room away.

“There is a cure, right?” I asked Midnight.

“Rumors say yes,” Midnight admitted. “I don’t know what it might be, so don’t ask me. I never wanted a cure. Especially not now. I plan on outliving this apocalypse and seeing things get back to normal.”

“Sounds nice,” I admitted.

“But!” Midnight said, more firmly. “If there is a cure, it’ll be on the Exodus Black. Just about every vampire of note is onboard, and I’m sure somepony there will know something. Emerald Gleam isn’t the first pony in history to have regrets.”

I nodded. She was right. Oh sure, we were primarily here just to politely ask her mother what the buck she was going to do with bootleg megaspells and ask her nicely not to do whatever she was planning, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t also true Emma’s best shot at a cure was going to be onboard. There was no better place to find lore on vampires than in the biggest flying vampire’s castle in the world.

“I think we’re near the eye wall!” Emma yelled back. “Hang onto something!”

I grabbed one of the railings inside the Vertibuck’s hold. Midnight grabbed my butt. The Veribuck slammed through the storm wall with the graceful energy of a flying tank hitting concrete while going close to the speed of sound. I could hear the squeal of twisting metal in every direction around us.

Then the fire alarm went off.

“You know, I’m starting to think we should have sprung for a better ride!” Midnight yelled, clinging to my ass for dear life. Smoke poured into the cabin, and an interior panel popped off its rivets, flying into the opposite bulkhead.

“This is why we took the recon model last time!” Emma shouted over the alarms. The engines surged to full power. “The armor’s worse than useless in bad weather! I’m aiming for that big docking bay! Brace for landing!”

“At least we’re all pretty much immortal!” Midnight said cheerfully.

“Does it work if you burn to death in a fiery crash?” I asked.

“No, but I sure wish it did now that you bring it up!”

I caught a glimpse of where we were going through the hatch into the cockpit. Unlike last time we’d come here, there were running lights now, red and white, outlining a vast hole in the side of the city-sized flying wing.

“Glide slope indicators are online! I’m locked onto the VOR…” Emma flipped switches, and the Vertibuck started gliding sideways. The right engine sound cut out entirely. The transport started trying to pitch over on its side.

Emma yelled in frustration and yanked the controls. My hooves left the deck and only my grip on the railing kept me from becoming flying debris. It was like the gravity spell all over again. The Vertibuck hit something, bounced, then hit again and slid sideways to a halt, tilted to one side. The armored windscreen was cracked so badly it was an opaque spiderweb.

“Out out out!” Emma yelled. “We’re on fire!”

She scrambled out of the cockpit, kicking the emergency release on the hatch. A wash of heat blasted over us, flames pouring in from severed fuel lines and hydraulic oil.

“Destiny, we still got the--?”

“Way ahead of you!” Destiny popped the Cryolator onto my left side, and I sprayed liquid nitrogen onto the flames. The cold didn’t do a whole lot to stop the burning, but displacing the oxygen did. Midnight and Emma bolted the second the fire was gone and I followed behind, spraying the Vertibuck until the ice gun’s tank was empty.

“We’re gonna need to figure out a different way back home,” I said, looking at the wreckage.

“I did the best I could!” Emma snapped. “It wasn’t designed to fly in a hurricane! I’d like to see how well you would have flown it!” She snarled, starting to lunge at me. Midnight grabbed her, holding her back with obvious effort.

Midnight twirled her to the side like they were dancing, redirecting the motion. “Woah, girl! I like the ambition but let’s remember we’re all on the same side!”

“I--” Emma shook her head, looking around in confusion. “Oh no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to--”

“You’re aching and sore and thirsty and cranky,” Midnight said softly. She put a hoof under Emma’s chin and raised it up so they were looking into each other’s eyes. “You’re under a lot of stress right now, but I promise we’ll get through this together.”

“Er… together?” Emma asked.

“Technically I’m like, ninety percent to blame for what happened to you, even if it was to save your life,” Midnight admitted. “I didn’t expect it to happen any more than you did, but here we are. I’m sixteen (hundred) so I’m old enough to take responsibility.”

“How did you manage to pronounce parenthesis like that?”

“It’s a vampire trick.”

“Let’s stay focused,” Destiny reminded us. “We’re here, and we’re alive.”

“(Bad choice of words.)” Midnight said in an obvious aside.

Destiny groaned. “I mean we need to make sure we’re all ready with a plan!”

“We should be ready for a fight,” I said. “We’ll take the tram to the crew section and hope she’s there. There’s a good chance everypony will be on alert and waiting for us to pop our heads up. Are you going to be okay with fighting against your family, Midnight?”

“I’m ready for anything,” she said solemnly. “If I have to fight them, I will. We can’t bring down the world with our greed.”
“We’ll give them one chance to stand down, then hit them as hard as we can,” Emma said. “It’s going to be brutal, messy, and dangerous.”

---

The tram pulled into the station on the crew deck, and everything was half-lit, a twilight of fluorescent light and shadow that flickered along with a subtle feeling in the air like a heartbeat. It was probably just my anxiety. There could be anything around the corner. Did Lady of Dark Tides know we were here already? Did she have an ambush lying in wait?

Midnight led the way, taking us down a poorly-lit corridor and past several servants that bowed their heads as we passed, averting their eyes and saying nothing.

Soon we reached a sturdy bulkhead door, solid steel and blocking our path. A vampire stood firmly outside it, arms folded and watching us as we approached.

“Hey,” Midnight said casually.

The vampire silently judged me and Emma for a moment before replying. “They with you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Midnight replied. “That gonna be a problem?”

The vampire considered that, then shook his head. “She killed Once and Twice Crimson and Azure Siaka, right?” He pointed at me. “I remember hearing about it.”

“It was a fair fight,” I said defensively.

“Nah.” The vampire smiled, showing off his fangs. “It was better than fair! You absolutely humiliated the smug bastard. You girls are cool. Head on in.”

The guard slid the door open, and what was beyond hit us like a hurricane.

Bass thudded through the deck, a driving techno beat blasting hard enough that I felt it in my chest. Dozens of ponies danced in strobe lighting on the expansive disco dance floor, and more lounged in the seats around it in the split-level room.

A red plastic cup was pushed into my hooves by a passing server wearing what was very clearly a bridle and saddle with a black moon symbol printed on it.

“Midnight,” I said, having to shout to be heard over the techno. “This isn’t what I expected!”

“Just be cool!” Midnight yelled back. “I forgot it was rave night!”

“You have scheduled rave nights?” Emma shouted.

“Yeah! Every new moon!” Midnight confirmed. “Do you guys see my mom anywhere?”

“Oh hey cool, Midnight, you’re back!” somepony exclaimed. A vampire wearing a cloak made with obscenely brightly-colored fabric printed with palm trees, dragons, and pineapples trotted up to us, saluting with a cup shaped like a stone tiki head.

He waved to the DJ behind the huge bank of turntables and mixers. The music quieted. The aloha vampire pointed to us excitedly.

“That’s great! Hey everypony, Midnight’s here!”

Ponies turned to look and waved a greeting, cheering and raising their glasses. The music restarted, the DJ dropping the bass and kicking everything up a notch.

“Chamomile, Emma, meet The Stallion With The Seven Word Name,” Midnight sighed. “One of my many brothers.”

“Literal brother or…?”

Midnight and Seven looked at each other.

“I can’t remember,” Midnight admitted. “Do you?”

Seven shook his head. “Not really. Hey, you want a drink? You look like you could all use a drink! It’s rave night, you know!”

“I don’t think--” I started

“Actually, yes, that’s a good idea,” Midnight interrupted. “Emma really needs a drink.”

Emma gave Midnight a look.

“You need something to take the edge off,” Midnight said. “No matter what ends up happening, having you at a hundred percent is important.”

The Stallion With The Seven Word Name waved to one of the serving ponies and she pranced over, bowing.

“How may I serve you, master?” she asked.

“Our friend here needs a drink, if you’d be so kind,” Seven said, motioning to Emma. “I’ll let you girls have some privacy.” He winked and walked away, waving his tiki glass at us.

“A drink? From me?” the girl asked.

“I, uh--” Emma started, trying not to stutter. “He shouldn’t have--”

“Oh thank you, glorious dark mistress! Take me into your cold embrace and plunge your long fangs deep into my body!” she tilted her head, exposing her neck. “Make me yours~”

Emma looked at me, scared and confused about the mare literally throwing herself at her.

“Let’s go find somewhere quiet,” Midnight suggested, putting a hoof on Emma’s shoulder. “Chamomile, uh… you’ll be fine here, right? A girl’s first time should be special so…”

“I will be fine. Standing here. Not looking.” I assured her.

Midnight winked at me and led the two away, leaving me there alone in the middle of the club. Well, not exactly alone.

“For the record Chamomile, this isn’t what things were like before the war,” Destiny said.

I scanned over the room, double-checking to make sure we weren’t going to be ambushed by Lady of Dark Tides. Destiny wiggled and popped off my head, floating next to me.

“I’ll watch your back to make sure you don’t get eaten,” she said.

I nodded. “I keep hearing that you didn’t have much of a social life. Maybe you didn’t get invited to parties like this?”

“I was a stick in the mud,” Destiny agreed, giggling a little. “I don’t think I’d enjoy this even if there weren’t vampires everywhere.”

“The vampires make it cooler,” I argued.

“Only because they don’t give off body heat,” Destiny countered.

I put the drink in my hoof to my lips and took a sip without really thinking about what I was doing. I only realized it might be drugged after I had the first sip, and it took another one before I realized it also could have been a cup full of blood. By the time I realized I shouldn’t be drinking it, I was on my fourth sip.

Thankfully it was just spicy tomato juice and a lot of vodka. It was salty and spicy and a little sweet and savory.

“This is pretty good,” I admitted.

“Didn’t anypony ever tell you not to just accept drinks from strangers in a bar?” Destiny asked, very clearly disappointed in my judgment.

“Yes, but I’ve already gotten drugged once, and the odds of it happening twice are like, almost zero,” I countered with perfect logic. I looked around and, empowered by what tasted like very expensive vodka - that is, like nothing at all - I decided to mingle.

I made my way onto the edge of the dance floor and did my best to bust a move. I was way out of my element. I’d spent a lot of my formative years trying really hard to avoid moving too much for fear of breaking everything around me via the art of being really clumsy.

“Can you really dance in that?” one of the vampires asked. She was cute, half my height, and the brightest shade of yellow I’d ever seen. She was practically fluorescent. “That armor looks clunky!”

“I can’t dance without it either,” I replied.

The neon pony laughed. “So are you exclusive to Midnight, or could I borrow a big mare like you for the night?”

“I have to warn you, my blood isn’t drinkable,” I said. “Midnight said it tastes like poison.”

“Darn,” she sighed. “You’ve got really strong life energy.”

“Thanks. Say, have you seen Lady of Dark Tides around?”

“She’s up in the cathedral deck again,” the vampire scoffed. “On rave night! Can you believe it? She’s totally missing out.”

“You have a cathedral deck?” I asked.

“Oh sure! You should see it sometime! It’s really nice if you just want to contemplate the dark mysteries of blood and the night!”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I muttered.

The music shifted into something with an even more driving beat, and the brightly-colored vampire hopped on my back, using me as a moving stage to bust her own, superior moves to my own. The lighting shifted, all the colors fading except red.

“Wooo!” she yelled. “It’s time!”

“Time for what?” I asked. She didn’t get to answer before the sprinklers overhead turned on. Thick crimson drops splattered across my face. All the vampires in the club started cheering.

“WOOOO!” the vampire standing on my back screamed. “Bloodbath!”

“I am gonna need ten regular baths,” I groaned.

“If you ask nicely, there are plenty of ponies in here that will lick you clean!” Midnight shouted. She landed next to me and motioned to the vampire on my back. The little mare hopped off. “You ready to leave? I think I know where my mom went!”

“The cathedral deck,” I said.

“You found out too?” Midnight patted me on the back. “Nice! I know you’re having fun, but we should leave before the blood orgy starts. You know how it is. Next time, right?”

“If I agree with you, can we find a sink so I can wash my face?” I asked.

Midnight laughed and slapped my back a little harder.

---

“It was really weird,” Emma said for the tenth time. I was still finding streaks of blood in my fur every time I used one of the paper towels we’d grabbed from the supply closet. That and a bottle of water had at least made me feel less crusty. “She was just so… into it! What kind of pony wants to have their neck bitten?”

“Hey, lots of ponies like getting the suck on,” Midnight countered. She relaxed on the tram seat as we sped through the Exodus Black. “You probably feel a lot better, too, right?”

“Yeah,” Emma admitted.

“And it would have been worse if she hadn’t been throwing herself at you?”

“Yes,” Emma sighed.

“There we go, then,” Midnight shrugged. “The first time is always scary and exciting. You just gotta pop that cherry and suck out all the cherry juice and then you’ll be less nervous for the second time! Eventually, it gets normal. Then it gets boring and you spice things up. It’s like any other relationship.”

“Is it just me or did the sprinkler system full of blood seem… unnecessary?” Destiny asked. She settled down around my head, apparently satisfied that I was clean enough to wear her again.

“Wasteful is the word I’d use,” I corrected. “And super messy.”

“You can say the same about everything fun,” Midnight retorted. “You don’t need food that tastes good. You could just eat plain oatmeal and vitamin pills. Yummy!”

“Can we talk about what we’re doing next?” Emma asked. “I’m going to need a lot of time to process my way through everything that happened and decide how much of it is trauma, and in the meantime, I’d like to save the world if that’s okay with everypony else?”

“Sure,” I said. “We’re gonna go talk to Midnight’s mom, and when she inevitably refuses to give up and stand down, we’ll have a big, drawn-out battle with her and it’ll probably end because I fall down on top of her and crush her ribs with my butt.”

“That’s a really specific scenario,” Destiny said.

A tone sounded and I looked up at the scrolling sign. Now arriving at the Cathedral Deck. “Yeah, but with how all our fights go, it’s more likely than anything else.”

The doors of the tram opened, and I tossed the dirty paper towel away. Smoke wafted in. For a moment I feared fire, but then the smell hit me. It smelled like cloves and perfume and flowers.

“Incense?” Emma asked.

“I guess it makes sense,” Destiny mumbled. “This whole deck is built for religious use and ritual spells.”

“Any idea what we should expect?” I asked.

“It’s literally a cathedral and observatory merged into one space,” Destiny replied. “Almost all of it is clockwork and mechanical instead of electric. With really sensitive spellcasting, electronics can cause interference.”

I sighed. “So what you mean is, you built them a megaspell firing pad.”

“It was an interesting challenge, okay? The architecture was fascinating and I enjoyed getting to add a little flair.”

We walked out into a tram station lit by flickering candles. Ornate flourishes of wrought iron and silver made it look like something gothic and ancient. The floor was black marble with specks of white like a field of stars. Gargoyles peered down from the corners, and I could just make out hidden loudspeakers and cameras in them.

“You don’t need to say it,” I told Midnight. “Even I can smell the blood.”

“Yeah, but you might not want to see how it’s being used,” Emma said quietly. She was staring at one of the shadowed walls.

Destiny activated her hornlight, and the light revealed a mural showing wolves hunting down prey animals. It was abstracted enough not to be really disturbing, but I could still sense the panic in the art-deco twists of color that represented rabbits and deer.

The mural itself had become a canvas for another work. Runes were painted over it in blood, and crumpled at the bottom of the mural were two bodies, ponies wrapped up in dark robes that left their necks exposed and faces covered by veils. There was no point checking for a pulse unless they’d found an inventive way to survive having their throats torn out.

Destiny drew glowing lines over the runes in my display, sketching them out.

“These are part of the megaspell,” Destiny said. “But…”

“She must have gone completely insane,” Midnight said. She knelt down next to the crumpled bodies, running a hoof softly over their covered cheeks. “She’s fueling the spell with their lives. But this is just…”

“Monstrous?” Emma suggested.

Midnight stood up, turning without a word and angrily stalking deeper into the cathedral. Black and blue candles lined the path, pillars set into stalagmites of old wax, remnants of the candles that came before them. They didn’t provide quite enough light to see the murals on the walls we passed, so I only caught glimpses. Revels in moonlight. Hunting. Death. They had a real theme going.

“Keep your weapons ready,” Emma cautioned. She stepped over bodies, wincing every time we came across another still form. “I don’t think they’ve been dead for all that long.”

The main hall of the cathedral was beautiful. It was built to make ponies feel small. Not the way a throne room does, that was the wrong scale entirely. Dark marble with traces of silver led to an open space dominated by low seats and a gargoyle-covered fountain burbling with hot, steaming blood. The cathedral’s roof was glass, showing the stars high above us, shining down into the candle-lit space an order of magnitude brighter than they should have been. The cathedral made me feel impossibly, invisibly small against the backdrop of an entire universe.

“It’s quite a masterpiece, isn’t it?” Lady of Dark Tides called out. “The glass is enchanted. Unbreakable, of course, but whenever a pony looks through it, it reshapes itself into a lens. Every single pane is like a telescope, letting a whole congregation enjoy the beauty of the night at the same time in their own ways.”

“Where are you?!” Midnight yelled. “Show yourself!”

“Ara ara~” Lady of Dark Tides breathed. She revealed herself among the gargoyles on the fountain, levitating away from it and smiling down at us. “I was wondering if you’d come. The Grand Eclipse is coming, and this is the perfect place to watch it from!”

She motioned to the ceiling, the glass roof showing the stars, clouds pressing in around the edges of the eye. I could just make out the new moon, black against black.

“You used us to get the eclipse megaspell,” I said.

“Do you expect me to feel ashamed of that?” Lady of Dark Tides asked. “You enjoyed the hunt, I enjoyed the result. I tracked the damn thing down ages ago, but some absolute tart had gone and encrypted the thing! You got me the key, and for that, I am very grateful. I’d offer you a reward, but I can tell you’re not interested.”

“If you use that spell, everypony will die,” I told her.

“Some ponies will die,” Lady agreed, nodding. “But they’ve proven they can survive anything! They’ll hide away in their Stables and little cities. This time, they’ll be guided by their betters.”

“Meaning you,” I guessed.

“Not just me,” Lady laughed. “I’m not some megalomaniac! I don’t want to be the sole ruler of the world. All of us! Together. Normal ponies are prey. They always have been, even if they pretended they weren’t. We were never equal, and it was silly to pretend we were.”

She gestured at the crumpled, wrapped bodies, lifting them from the ground with shadowy tendrils of magic. The hooded ponies danced around her like marionettes.

“This is what they exist for! They are tools to fulfill our desires! We feed on them when we hunger. We play with them when we’re bored. And when we need to fuel our magic, we take their lives.”

“You have to stop,” Midnight warned. “Can’t you see how crazy this is?”

“You were never ambitious enough,” Lady sighed. “And the way you play with your food is shameful. I don’t mind you having a pet, but they should be kept on a leash.”

Shadows surged around my hooves and tendrils erupted into the air, grabbing at my neck and dragging me down, trying to force me to my knees. Destiny sent a surge of magic through my armor that I felt crawl down my spine and the tendrils snapped, the edges dissolving like salt in water.

“Impertinent!” Lady chuckled. “Usually I admire that in a pony.”

“We have to stop her before she can activate the spell!” Emma called out.

“Oh, stop panicking,” Lady chided, waving her hoof dismissively. “A megaspell like the Grand Eclipse isn’t something I can set off by just pressing a button and watching the fireworks. It’s a massive, complicated arrangement.”

I let out a breath I’d been holding. The tension seemed to break.

“That’s why I started the ritual hours ago,” Lady said with the grin of somepony putting a knife in their best friend’s back and twisting.

I hadn’t really noticed the rumble of the storm until it faded. It had been a constant background roar, white noise that mixed with the distant sounds of engines and machines. The clouds swirling overhead parted, and we could see the whole sky clearly, practically from horizon to horizon.

The magic roared. The sky wheeled. The stars raced from west to east, the moon drifting like a lurking predator, the black night turning red as the sun tried to peek above the horizon and was blotted out, the moon covering it up. The surge of motion in the heavens stopped, and everything was left dark, the only sign of the sun a coronal ring surrounding the black orb.

“It’s beautiful,” Lady sighed. “Nightmare Moon’s final legacy. It’s what she would have wanted. True eternal night! To think the zebras wanted to use it as a weapon against Celestia and didn’t even see what they were really making!”

“We have to end this before it’s permanent,” Destiny said. “If we can rewrite this while the ritual is ongoing, maybe--”

“You’ll do nothing!” Lady of Dark Tides snapped. “If you want to enjoy existing in the new world, you’ll sit like a good pet and stop trying to ruin my moment of triumph! Even at my age you don’t get to enjoy them very often, you know.”

“Time for plan C,” Midnight said. She pulled out her glass-bladed dagger and flipped it around in her hoof, vanishing in a blur of motion. She slammed into Lady blade-first, forcing the levitating vampire back. “The C is for Chamomile-style!”

For a second I thought she might have gotten her. Lady held the dagger back with the tip of her bare hoof, stopping the magical blade effortlessly. Lady’s eyes flashed with red light, and she used her free hoof to bat Midnight away like she was swatting a fly, the younger vampire flying into the cathedral wall hard enough to shatter the stone facade.

Lady turned her crimson gaze to me. I didn’t have time to react, and my body didn’t move on its own this time. She might as well have teleported with how fast she appeared in my face. A hoof hit my chest and I slammed back into one of the ornate pillars supporting the glass roof, iron spikes punching through the armor and an inch into the flesh of my back.

“Chamomile!” Emma yelled. She glanced at me, then opened fire on Lady, lasers pelting the ancient vampire.

Lady of Dark Tides shielded her eyes, but it seemed like it was more from the glare than being worried about the beams themselves, the magical attacks glancing away from her alabaster fur without leaving more than a few scuff marks. She gestured at Emma and seemed surprised when nothing happened.

“Well, how about that,” Lady chuckled. “You had yourself turned into one of our kindred. I’d say you were the smart one, but you thought it was a good idea to shoot at your betters!”

Lady spread her bat wings and blurred sideways, flashing past Emma. The rifle on Emma’s left side sparked and exploded, the power cell ruptured. Emma was thrown back by the blast, rolling on the ground with her shoulder wounded and what was left of her power armor smoking.

I struggled and managed to pull myself free from the spikes impaling me, charging at Lady of Dark Tides and punching as hard as I could with my right hoof. It was a clean hit, smacking her face and almost dislocating my shoulder with the impact. I might as well have punched a boulder.

“Really? You’re covered in guns and armor and your first instinct is a boxing match?” Lady joked. I threw a second punch, and she took it on the chin, not flinching. With a disinterested motion, she twisted the shadows around me again, lifting me up by the neck. They reached through the armor, starting to strangle me.

“We might be in trouble!” Destiny yelped. I felt magic surge again, but instead of overcharging the armor again, she fired a blast from her horn, hitting Lady of Dark Tides in the face.

Lady cried out in surprise, backing away and shaking her head, blinking and trying to clear her vision. The shadows let go of me, and I sucked in a big breath.

“Annoyances!” Lady roared. “Pathetic mortal lovers!”

“Oh my stars Mom, shut up!” Midnight yelled, appearing next to Lady and stabbing the transparent blade into her mother’s side.

Lady of Dark Tides turned on her, enraged, grabbing her and flying them both into the wall, shattering another bloody mural. Lady tore herself free of the knife, the wound closing near-instantly, then kicked Midnight while she was down, practically nailing her through the wall.

Emma got up, shaking herself off. I ran past her, forcing my wired reflexes to activate. The world turned cold and slow, red light from above fading to black and white. I got into Lady’s face and I was so arrogant that for a moment I thought I was outspeeding her. I snapped my knife into place and slashed at her.

Lady knocked it aside, clearly seeing it coming. We traded half a dozen blows before she spun and kicked at me, and my momentum from the charge made it impossible to dodge. The world snapped into focus with me punted aside. It had only lasted a second at most. I smashed through a formation of candles that had been allowed to melt and pool into geological layers of wax.

That second was enough for Midnight to get up and deliver a solid kick herself, knocking her mother down and sending her skidding across the deck, hooves sparking on the marble like they were made of flint.

“Ow,” I mumbled. “Destiny, give me the Junk Jet.”

“How annoying--” Lady started. A metal apple landed at her hooves and exploded in a ball of fire and shrapnel.

Emma panted and spat out the grenade pin. “That’s for wrecking my gun,” she said.

Lady of Dark Tides flew into the air, her ornate dress absolutely a ruin at this point, silk burned and torn until she was just wearing scraps.

“I’ll flay all of you alive!” Lady hissed.

“I don’t think so,” I said. I fired the Junk Jet. A broken apple tree branch, something I’d grabbed way back when I found the dried-out orchard, whistled through the air and slammed into Lady’s chest and maybe if I hadn’t given her warning first, it would have hit her heart. Instead, I think I got her liver.

“You little…” she gasped, grabbing the crooked branch. Screaming, she tore it free, blood pouring from the wound. It was so deeply red it looked black in the light coming from the eclipse. “I am The Lady of Dark Tides Clad in Sorrowful Shawls! And I have had enough!”

The shadows raged, a wave that caught all of us and tossed us to the far end of the cathedral. Everything went black, and when it cleared, I didn’t see Lady anywhere.

“Where did she go?!” I demanded.

“She scampered,” Midnight said, pointing to a trail of fresh black blood. “She probably went to find something to kill us with. If she already started the ritual she doesn’t have to stay here and foalsit it.”

“You need to go after her,” Destiny said. “I can try to undo this ritual.”

“But…” I frowned.

“I can’t fight and you can’t reverse a megaspell!” Destiny snapped. “Go! Even if I can stop this, she’ll do it again if you can’t find her!”

Comments

[Just a tree]

“What if he’d killed Chamomile?” Midnight protested.

Lady of Dark Tides scoffed. “Please, daughter, don’t fall into the bad habit of underestimating mortals. Especially ones that we need.”

So in hindsight, Lady was probably testing to see if the group was useful enough to recruit, huh.

The fact even Midnight, Lady's eldest daughter, couldn't see it, sort of shows that Lady didn't trust her enough to teach her how to do that kind of manipulation.

Knowing how tricky Lady is, I would worry about splitting the party here, but I guess they can't afford to ignore either Lady or the ritual.

[Ahsoka Tano]

Ah finally caught up. cant wait till we get back too Cube and the Civil war, Knowing Chams luck it will probably take place just after this lol.

[Reese]

"greed.”
“We’ll"
Missing line break?