Alarming Voice

by AizakkuHorooee

Act 4

In the caves below Canterlot, everyone with even remotely anything that could stop the sirens, Spitfire and Svengallop are now locked below Canterlot with me: Twilight’s friends, Trace Light, Cozy Glow, Lightning Dust, Starlight, Firelight, Sunset and Garble and his army. Each cell is reinforced with a magical barrier like the one Gusty the Great employed against Grogar's bell. Only Tirek is visible to me, but he isn’t locked up like the rest.

“Now to finish everyone OFF!” Aria declares, only to be stopped by Adagio.

“Now now… I decide the fate of our guests. Let them live. Besides, we should entertain them. You still have that song of ours ready?”

“Seriously?” Spitfire questions, jumping up in the air. “We should go after Twilight and the changelings! As long as they’re free, they’re still a threat!”

“Sit down, Spitfire,” replies Svengallop. “Just because there’s one pony on the loose doesn’t mean we hunt them down. None of our friends are changelings anyway.”

“Yeah!” Sonata flies up close to Starlight Glimmer’s cage. “That fool for a queen only retuned her legacy to allow her magic to work through it again. Those shards still block every other being’s. But where we stand, we’re the most powerful in Equestria! Thanks to Grogar’s bell! Right… Tirek?!?”

Sonata pulls a nearby chain, causing Tirek to fall forward, who is bound by this chain.

“You won’t get away with this, monsters! Just wait to find out what Dragon Lord Ember will do to you!” Garble shouts across the cave.

“This is really bad…” Fluttershy murmurs in one cell with the rest of Twilight’s friends inside, prompting me to look at them.

“We gotta find Twilight!” declares Applejack. “She’s probably already figured out a way to defeat them!”

“Any idea HOW we get out of here to do that?” Rainbow Dash asks.

Spike tries to stick his claw out, but pulls it away the moment the wall shows itself, putting the affected claw in the other to ease the pain. “It’s Gusty’s barrier. There’s no way anypony can get through this.”

I put my hoof on my chin, Twilight’s friends turning to me when I speak. “Hm… did they put a shard over my cell?”

I look over to Starlight, who is sitting in a cell that is hanging from the ceiling of the cave. She is still pretty furious with me after all I’d done before.

“Listen, Stellar Flare. It would have to take WAY more than your help for us to consider freeing you.”

Applejack raises her hoof. “Hold it, Starlight. We need all the help we can get right now. I don’t think she’s even tryin’ to make us free her; maybe she genuinely wants to help.”

“Actually, there is someone ELSE who could help,” Fluttershy smugly counters. “And that’s because those monsters betrayed him, so there’s nothing left to lose.”

Tirek perks up as Fluttershy points to him. “Really… you want ME to help you?!? After all I’ve done?!?”

I suddenly get where Fluttershy is going at. “That’s right! Tirek, you were the one who stopped us from mobbing Discord. And you were the only one who stayed in that lair that paid Aita’s change any amount of respect. If anyone were most qualified to help the rest of them escape, it’s you.”

“But I let Spitfire and Sonata conspire against Equestria! I helped the rest retrieve the bell! I let you defame Aita! The only reason I went along with the change was because of Discord and his connection with her!”

“But that is not the point, Tirek!” argues Rarity. “You can’t let your actions from when you had magic define who you are without it! Question: who were the ones that took your magic?”

Tirek strokes his goatee. “The sirens, Spitfire and Svengallop?”

“And who were the ones that trashed Princess Twilight’s new castle?!?” Cozy asks. “The ones that got us in here! Would ANY of us prisoners do the same thing if we had the choice?!?”

Tirek shakes his head. “I don’t even think Garble would…” He opens his eyes now like he gets it now, then gets up and steps toward those targets with a shard in his hand. “You know… I could always teach you how to get my magic working in you.”

Sonata beams at Tirek. “Ooh! Is it singing?!? Please tell me it’s through singing!”

“Tirek! No!!!” Spike exclaims. “This isn’t the way to help!”

“Well, you’ve made me curious,” Spitfire remarks. “How DOES it work?”

Svengallop pushes Spitfire behind him. “Ultimatums are more my speed. Speak or we dispose of the bell!”

“He’s lying!!” Adagio points out to her colleagues. “He won’t tell us!!”

“Certainly not you!” Tirek replies. “Especially after you betrayed me and took my magic from me along with my share of Grogar’s, you air-bound beast!”

“This ‘beast’ can erase you before you inch, so choose your words delicately.”

Adagio air quotes what Tirek called her, points to him, and bobs her hoof back and forth three times.

Tirek shrugs. “You’re right. Beast is TOO nice for you. How about ‘malicious siren who makes a stink about competition, where’er she goes, for attention.’”

Angered at the amended insult, Adagio shoots a beam straight at Tirek, who deflects the beam, sending it every which way - the villains barely able to dodge it - before hitting its target.

“Ha! You missed!” Spitfire yells.

“Did he though?!?”

As it turns out, the beam ricocheted in a certain amount of ways to hit the shard above Starlight’s cell. She floats herself and slices the cell in half, causing the bottom to hit the floor. The villains proceed to rush her with beams, so the only way she dodges is through teleport spam.

Once she gets to the cells of Twilight’s friends and the others, they look to her.

“Get Twilight, Chrysalis and Aita!” says Applejack.

Starlight shakes her head. “No way. They’ve always needed you.”

She then uses a magical blast to disable the magical barriers previously in place, but ends up shot in the back once she lands back on the ground. Celestia stands over Starlight with Luna right next to her.

“Find Twilight, Chrysalis and Aita! We aren’t completely helpless at the moment! We’ll hold them off as long as we can!” Celestia declares.

Twilight’s friends step back to Tirek.

“Wow! I’ve just found new respect for you, Tirek,” Spike notes. “We all have. You were willing to gamble your life for us.”

“Just save Equestria!” Tirek yells, running to join the team effort that even Garble and his army are participating in, prompting Twilight’s friends, Trace Light, Cozy Glow, Lightning Dust, Sunset, and Firelight to escape.

---

The ten of us come up to an underground entrance, where Lightning Dust and Rainbow Dash manage to break the bricks by ramming into them together. When we all get out, we notice a unicorn stallion running toward the school of magic.

“Why are you out in the open?!? HIDE!!!” shouts the stallion.

“Where is everypony?” asks Trace Light.

“The unicorns have been gathering at Celestia’s school of magic ever since the attack! That’s where I was headed when I saw you,” he explains to us.

“What about the earth ponies and pegasi?” Lightning Dust asks.

The stallion closes his eyes. “It’s everypony for themselves.”

“But that’s not right!” counters Sunset.

He points to all of us. “Well you can stand out here and debate. I’m going where it’s safe.” And so the stallion flees to the school ahead.

I look on in horror. “Sonata was telling the truth. She really has turned ponies against each other.”

Fluttershy hides behind Pinkie.

“Everypony’s just scared. That’s all,” explains Applejack. “We just need to get to Ponyville and find Twilight, Chrysalis and Aita pronto! They’ll know how to set things right!”

After leaving the ruins of Canterlot, we are met in Ponyville with a crowd of earth ponies. The apple family is right in the back of the crowd, Mayor Mare trying to calm them all down.

Because Ponyville’s own heroes of Equestria are here to save us!!! And then some!!!

“Where’d all these ponies come from?” Applejack asks.

“Earth ponies’ve been pourin’ in, lookin’ for someplace safe,” Granny Smith says.

“We don’t have unicorn magic to protect us, or a city in the sky to hide us like those cowardly pegasi!” one mare shouts as she approaches us. She has a straight aqua mane and tail, pink coat, and a hairbrush for a cutie mark.

Looks like this pony is the perfect earth pony to counter, so I keep a cute and happy face as I walk to her. “Golly, does cowardly mean to face your problems head-on? That’s at least something Aita and Twilight’s pegasus friends would do, and Aita and Twilight know everypony who lives in Ponyville.”

Behind all of us, clouds begin rumbling in front of Cloudsdale.

“The pegasi are blocking Cloudsdale!” shouts the mare. “Said they don’t want any grounded ponies up in their business!”

Lightning Dust is next to talk to her. “Get ahold of yourselves! We know you’re all scared! I can imagine literally every other pony is too! But we are ALL here to help!”

A hot pink mare in the crowd with a straight pink mane and tail stands on her hind legs and raises her hoof in the air. “OH YOU’D BETTER FIX THIS!!!”

The crowd raises their voices, making me and Lightning Dust back up and regroup with the rest.

Applejack looks behind her, alternating between sides to turn her head. “Twilight, Aita and Chrysalis are probably just as worried as everypony else and trying to find a somewhere safe. That’s why I was sure they’d be waiting for us in Ponyville. Where else could they be?”

Spike, Sunset and I all think. I have no idea where Twilight would be… but Chrysalis and Aita, yes. I hear Spike snap his claw and Sunset gasp.

“Sunset, find Aita! Cozy, find Chrysalis! I know where Twilight is!”

As Spike takes Twilight’s friends up north, and Sunset, Firelight and Lightning Dust wink out, I lead Trace Light to the south into the skies of the Everfree Forest.

---

A while after hearing everything going down in Canterlot, I decide to postpone the coronation until the crisis in Equestria is over. I also employed Chrysalis’ army to the front of the land in case Svengallop, human Spitfire, or the sirens decide to target our territory.

As I pace around on the throne, Sunset Shimmer teleports into the throne room with Firelight and Lightning Dust next to her.

“Sunset Shimmer!”

I jump down off the throne and hug Sunset.

“Carve, I need to you take us to Wisconsin. I have a feeling Aita is taking refuge there.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“All we know is that she escaped from Canterlot the same time as Twilight and Chrysalis,” Firelight explains to me. “And they all split up.”

I’m in shock at what he implies. “Escaped? You mean Svengallop, CHS Spitfire and the sirens attacked Canterlot?!? Sorry, Sunset, but taking you and the others there could easily lead to overcrowding her. If anyone's going to be there for her, it's Chrysalis or me. Just make sure Twilight's alright at the Crystal Empire. I hope Chrysalis is going to be fine with Tracey and Cozy.”

Everypony nods as I wave goodbye and teleport over to where Sophie’s home was last. As it turns out, she is home, as I can see the same car I saw over two and a half years ago in the driveway.

The house is still the same, what with a window on each corner of the front, and a door in the middle of the lower level. The siding is the same baby blue it ever was. When I walk up to the doorstep, I knock on the door, getting Sophie to answer.

“Wha…” she briefly drops her jaw. “Carve?!? What’s goin’ on?”

“I-is Aita here? Where is she?” I ask her.

Sophie nods and sighs. “Yes… just follow me upstairs. I-it’s… not good.”

I follow Sophie as she heads to Aita’s room, heading straight across the entrance, through the living room to get upstairs.