SWWC: Something Wrong With Canterlot

by Lighttone GryphonStar

File 10: Month 3-Part 1: Bleeding Hope

The train came to a loud stop and the doors opened to a swarm of ponies exiting. They flooded into the station, pushing against the ticket checkers as they rushed off the platforms. The clacking of metal echoed through the cavernous hall as the ponies of many different races rushed to safety.

Button Mash stepped off the platform last as the sight of everything was reality-shattering. So many were wounded to the point of barely hanging on. He saw many broken and bleeding unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, and batponies. Some had broken glass in their fur, and others were twisted and misshapen bodies barely recognizable outside of their species.

Yet, the worst was the ponies in pure panic, pushing the wounded aside, trampling over the legs of children and short folks just to reach the safety of this place. After the crystal barrier faded over Canterlot, several outer cities were made into safe havens. Las Pegasus was one of them. But that wasn't the biggest reason he was here.

He had arrived with Sweetie Belle on a mission. This could be seen perfectly in her eyes as he watched her scan the room. The stallion took a step back and let her try. He didn't see any hope in the effort but didn't want her rage and annoyance anymore.

"Damn it, where is he?!" Sweetie Belle stretched up higher. "He has to be here!" She moved away from Button and climbed onto a light post. "Where is he?!?!" She screamed as her annoyance returned.

"Maybe he's just further in the city," Button tried to assure her.

"There's no way he wouldn't get healed first." Sweetie Belle turned back to him. "You heard the reports!"

"Yeah..." Button shivered away at her rage.

"A purple dragon covered in blood, gashes, and wounds... Something about a suitcase!" She jumped down and got right in his face. "That makes it sound like Spike couldn't have been in the best shape at all. And he was trapped in there for two months!"

"I know, I know... we both read the reports." He lowered his head in shame. His attempts to mend her anger only made things worse. "But how are we going to find him by standing here--" He was stopped as she grabbed him by the arm and ran deep into the crowd.

"We aren't standing, we are searching!!" Sweetie Belle screamed as she shoved some of the more aggressive ponies aside without a single care. Button tried to play it off, but all their angry faces only matched the rage in Sweetie Belle.

As they moved forward, a couple of the weaker ponies looked at him. They were pleading with their eyes, begging him to save them, but he could do nothing but stare in shock and horror. The graphic gore of it all was so hard to stomach especially as Sweetie Belle dragged him closer and closer to some of the bodies while trying to find a way to the road.

"We need to move quickly, this is just wasting time!" Sweetie Belle yelled as she pulled him towards the exit.

"But..." Button glanced over his shoulder. The wounded dropped their hands in defeat as they got further and further away. The whole scene was just heartbreaking.

"Don't worry about them!" Sweetie Belle stopped at the edge of the road and held up her hand for a taxi chariot. "Our mission is far more important... He's alive."

Button Mash raised his eyebrow and looked over the road. "Yes, he survived, but it doesn't mean that..." His eyes stopped at the horizon and the lack of a sunrise. The Sun and Moon vanished two months ago, but their light could still be seen. That light was the only hope that everypony had about the princesses still being out there.

It was still early enough in the day that they could find him and get the answers that Sweetie Belle had been desperately seeking. She left Ponyville without saying a word to her family after the chaos happened and only decided to come here when she heard the news of the escaping ponies. They made it out of there, and Spike did too. But no answers on her sister's whereabouts.

The main six were still missing. Almost all of them were presumed to be inside Canterlot when everything fell apart. Yet, they weren't among the wounded, or the dead. Sweetie Belle stomped her foot down when the annoyance of these thoughts peaked. "I need to know. I need answers!"

"And how do you know?" Button Mash stood up and waited patiently beside her.

"Know what?" Sweetie Belle glared at him.

"What if Spike doesn't have any answers, either?" Button threw up his arms. "What if he doesn't remember or doesn't want to remember?!"

"He will!!" Sweetie Belle grabbed Button by the collar. "He will give me all my answers!!"

"And if he doesn't!!" Button Mash finally fired back. His raised voice made her eyes widen.

Sweetie Belle dropped him as her hands shivered away. "He will... He must know what happened to her, right?" Her voice seemed to be pleading with him to agree.

Button bit his lip, he didn't want to lie to her. The stallion stood beside the mare through all the unknowns only to break now at all this blood and gore. His hands clenched and his eyes winced tight. "Maybe he does know..." He didn't want to say, but he didn't want to break her more than she already was.

"Maybe?" She repeated with more anger. "Maybe what?! Maybe he remembers everything?! Maybe he can tell me where my sister is and why she never came out!!" Sweetie Belle shouted back with a mix of hopeful joy and malicious anger all aimed at his maybes and more maybes. She needed answers and now.

But as the taxi finally arrived, Button Mash hesitated. His greatest fear wasn't her getting no answers, but for her to get the kind of answers that would only make her mental state even worse. He cared for her so greatly and wished for the old Sweetie Belle to return. The one that loved playing video games all night long. The one who would torture everypony with her horrible karaoke; being a mix of her beautiful voice and poor lyric memorization. The filly who would stand up to bullies and fight hard for the ideals of friendship.

But Sweetie Belle was a mare now, and one standing on the edge of an abyss. The answers she sought would either lift her up to the beautiful angels she embodies or drag her down into the darkest pit beyond his reach. All he could do was stand beside her.

"Please Spike..." He whispered under his breath as he joined her in the taxi chariot. "Give her the truth about her sister or the kindest lie..."

Author's Note:

Yeah, Sweetie Belle and Button are treated as adults, in fact, to make things easier, All the CMC will be treated as adults, just like Spike and later young characters. I know timeline wise it makes no damn sense, but frankly, I don't care. They are adults, get over it.