Nothing Beside Remains

by BaeroRemedy

Red Eye

“Izzy, get us out of here!” Zipp yelled up to the cabin. “Home would be nice, but I think Zephyr Heights is closer.” At least she thought that was the case. This far up north, it was hard to tell exactly what was closer because everything was half a world away.

Something hit the Mare Stream, and suddenly an angry black crystal that crackled with purple and green energy pierced one of the walls. It seemed to grow and spread around the impact area, trails of smaller crystals moving out from the puncture site like roots searching for food.

“Whoa!” Hitch, who had been standing a few inches away from the puncture point, raised a hoof and kicked at the intruding object. The crystal shattered, but the energy it contained crawled up the sheriff’s leg like vines. “W-what in the…” Everypony saw his posture slump and his knees start to buckle.

“Stay away from it!” To his credit, the new pony was the first one to Hitch’s side. He supported the other stallion and helped him slowly to the ground. “That stuff is nasty. I don’t know what Sombra did since the last time I faced him, but he’s…different. It’s like he can drain us of our energy now.”

“Who’s Sombra?” Sunny was the one to ask the question. “...and what do you mean ‘last time’? He’s attacked before?”

The new stallion opened his mouth to answer but confusion washed across his face. His mouth shut and he looked around the interior of the Mare Stream slowly. Zipp could see the stallion taking account of everything he saw, then his eyes fell on Pipp’s phone, which was on the ground next to the still-unconscious princess. He looked back at Sunny and spoke slowly.

“What…what year is it?”

“Uhh…” Zipp and Sunny said in unison as they looked at each other, each with an eyebrow raised. “Well it’s not really that simple…” Sunny said as she rubbed the back of her neck with a sheepish grin. “You know, you unicorns have a different way of keeping track of that stuff, same with the pegasi and us earth ponies.”

“No, come on.” He got to his hooves, leaving Hitch on the ground. “I get that it’s still not ten-fifteen anymore. It was winter last time I went in, it’s a new year and I get that. Is it ten-sixteen?” He was met with blank stares. “Ten-seventeen? Ten-twenty?” He moved over to Zipp, a look of barely restrained panic in his eyes. “Please, if this is a joke you guys have to stop. It’s not funny.”

“It’s…not a joke…” Zipp said quietly.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Sunny came up behind him and touched his shoulder with a gentle hoof. “Tell us who you are. What’s your name?”

“You don’t recognize me…” It wasn’t a question, it was a realization that fell from the stallion’s lips. “No, that can’t be right. No. It couldn’t have been…” He was now mumbling to himself, not even looking at Zipp or Sunny. Slowly, the stallion fell to his haunches. “Shining Armor. That’s my name.” He waited a beat. “You’ve…heard of me, right?”

Zipp looked at Sunny, who could only shake her head. This was about what it was like when Pipp first spent a day in Maretime Bay without her entourage. It was somepony who was so used to being a focal point, if not a center of attention, deprived of that luxury for the first time. Pipp had spent most of that day whining, but Zipp felt like Shining Armor might be a little different than her diva little sister.

“I’m sorry, but no.” Sunny sat next to him and kept a hoof on his back. “Why don’t you tell me the last thing you remember?” Her voice was calm, soothing, almost motherly as she spoke to the sullen stallion.

“I…we evacuated the Crystal Empire.” Shining Armor’s anxiety melted and he adopted a martial tone. His back straightened and he stared into the middle distance. “King Sombra had returned and had been circling for days. We had to come up with a plan, so we did. Cadance took everypony that was left…that he hadn’t gotten already before the defenses went up. They got into the train headed for Canterlot-”

“-Canterlot?” Sunny interjected with wide eyed excitement extinguishing her caring attitude. Zipp could practically hear Sunny’s mind going into overdrive as the old city was mentioned.

“We had to get word to Twilight. We had to warn everypony that Sombra was back and he was stronger than ever. The last time he came back, when he took over Canterlot, we barely stopped him then. Now?” Shining shook his head. “We did what we could, what we had to.” He looked Sunny dead in the eyes, his cold blue pupils hard with determination. “I kept him busy. Cadance and Sunburst cast a spell over the entire Empire where-” Something seemed to hit him like a freight train, some realization that he had yet to vocalize. “-it was only supposed to be a few minutes…but…if it looped…how long…” He spoke in broken sentences to nopony in particular.

“You don’t mean Twilight Sparkle, do you?” Zipp was the next to speak. Sunny was too ingrained in her own thoughts at the mere mention of the ancient princes to even speak anymore. “I mean, you can’t.”

“Of course I mean Twilight Sparkle.” Shining Armor turned to Zipp. “What do you mean? Why can’t I mean her?”

“She’s…” Zipp knew these next words were going to be bad, she could just feel it in her gut. “She’s gone. She has been for a long time.”

Shining Armor’s face went from momentary surprise to made of stone in a matter of moments. The stoicness didn’t reach his eyes, and it didn’t stop them from beginning to water. It reminded Zipp a lot of her own mother, whose heart you could see break through her eyes.

“Then…we need to get to Celestia or Luna.” He was met with another shake of the head from Zipp. “Cadance…?” Shining’s voice quavered ever so slightly as the name left his mouth. He had brought up the name twice now, it had to be somepony close to him…and that made this next moment all the harder.

“I’m sorry, I’ve…never heard of anypony named Cadance before.” Zipp admitted quietly. “I’m really sorry, Shining Armor…wherever you were, you were there for a really long time.”

“You…you knew Twilight Sparkle.” Sunny finally roused from her stupor with a grin that Zipp had to refrain herself from calling out. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you really knew Twilight Sparkle!”

“No.” Was all Shining said in response. He stood up and spun on his hooves to face the door to the cockpit. “No, we’re going to Canterlot. Now. This can’t be right.” His hooves carried him with purpose as he entered the cockpit, and Zipp was right on his heels.

“I’ll try to keep him calm.” Zipp said to Sunny as she passed her friend. “You just stay back here with Pipp and Hitch, okay?”

“But I have so many questions for him!” Sunny protested and took to her own hooves. In response, Zipp put a hoof on her shoulder and pushed the overly eager earth pony back to her haunches. “I have to know more!”

“Later.” Zipp stated sternly. “I don’t think now is the best time to interrogate him about this stuff, okay? Trust me, I get it. But just…lay off for now. I don’t think he’s okay.” Understatement of the year, but she hoped Sunny would pick up on that. Zipp didn’t say anything else as she followed Shining into the cockpit, where he was already talking with Izzy.

“-due south from here. You’re going to hit the White Tail Mountains and that’s where you start to head south west.” For her part, Izzy was happily nodding along while maintaining the heading she had already been on. “We need to get there fast, okay?”

“Oh yeah, sure!” Izzy smiled at him, two hooves still on the controls and the course didn’t alter at all. Shining Armor simply looked at her, then out at the landscape outside. The blizzard had seemed to let up to just a minor snowstorm now but it still wasn’t great flying conditions. “I’m Izzy by the way!” The unicorn tacked on cheerfully.

“Shining Armor.” He replied curtly. “What is this thing, by the way? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Everything that had been said in the back seemed to stay back there. Zipp didn’t hear any panic or worry in Shining Armor’s words anymore, just simple curiosity. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but they would have to let him have this for now. So Zipp just leaned against the doorframe.

“We built it.” She chimed in. “Izzy and I, that’s who I mean by we.” Zipp was still more than a little proud of this thing, and she puffed her chest out as she spoke to show that. “Took an old tram car and just threw some stuff together, y’know?”

“Bravo.” Shining Armor nodded and looked around the cockpit again. “I mean really, it looks so…futuristic. Like something in a comic book.” He moved over to the console in the middle of the dashboard and the screen embedded in it. Currently, it only displayed the time in blocky white lettering on a black background.

“Well-” Zipp was primed to dive headfirst into some of her design ideas when something shook the Mare Stream. The three ponies in the cockpit all braced themselves as a stream of green and purple energy shot by them and shook the van again. “He’s still following us?!” Zipp moved to the front and ushered Izzy out of the pilot’s spot and took the controls from her compatriot. They both knew she was the better flier, so she didn’t get any pushback from Izzy.

“Hold on, I can help!” Shining Armor widened his stance and closed his eyes. The horn on his head shone with pink magic. Sparks poured from the tip as small black crystals that decorated the length fell off one after another. Soon enough, a pink bubble appeared around the Mare Stream.

“Hey, good j-” Zipp was about to compliment the apparently skilled stallion, but they started to lose altitude as soon as the bubble went up. “Nope! Drop it! It’s not letting any air in, we’re not getting any lift from the wings!”

“Okay, wait!” Shining Armor’s horn flared once more and the Mare Stream gained altitude once again. “It’s a half-shield now, just on the back!” Sure enough, the pink in front of the windshield dissipated over a few seconds. “I-I’m not really sure how long I can keep this up, Zipp..” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the sweat pouring down his face. “..so please, lose him.”

Zipp pulled back on the stick and the Mare Stream went vertical. It was sharp and sudden and she heard Sunny and Hitch scream from the back, but there was no other choice. She pulled even harder on the stick, putting it straight into her gut and even then still pulling. Her wings flapped to give her a little more leverage. She could pull off a full loop in midair like nothing, but the Mare Stream was a brick and was about as graceful as one. It took all of her might and then some to pull off that simple maneuver.

Sombra, or at least the dark cloud that was Sombra, hadn’t fallen for the maneuver and was now directly below them. Eyes formed from the cloud and stared right through the windshield, focused entirely on Shining Armor. Lightning the same color as the energy the crystals displaced, crackled from the monster and lashed out at nearby clouds.

“Punch…it!” Shining Armor, pinned against the back wall of the cockpit, said through gritted teeth as he moved the shield he had conjured from the back of the Mare Stream to the front. The windshield became coated with his pink magic, turning the flying brick into a battering ram.

Zipp saw the vision, and obliged. She let go of the stick, letting it shift back to neutral and deferring to gravity. Sure enough, the pull of the earth was too much to resist and the Mare Stream began to fall straight down. Once she was sure they were lined up, Zipp did as Shining Armor said and punched it.

The lantern on the dashboard flashed as bright as Zipp had ever seen as they built up speed. Rainbow light flooded the cockpit and bathed them all in its magical light as the barrelled towards Sombra. Once he figured out what was happening, which was too little too late, Sombra’s eyes turned from pure hatred to shock.

The Mare Stream slammed into Sombra like a right hook to the jaw. For ostensibly being a gas at the moment, he was surprisingly solid. The flying brick punched through the gaseous monster, but it was far more of a fight in which momentum helped them rip and tear through the magical sinew that kept Sombra whole. It was enough to keep them from plummeting directly into the ground and it let Zipp wrestle some semblance of control back and level out the vessel.

Wisps of smoke trailed from every edge of their vehicle, pieces of Sombra slowly sloughing off as they flew through the sky. She craned her head back as far as she could and pressed it against the curved windshield to see if she could catch a glimpse of what they left behind. Through the snow, she could see black clouds dissipating and falling apart.

“We did it!” Zipp cheered with a pump of her hoof in the air. “See, Shining Armor? Problem solved!”

“I wish…” Shining Armor stumbled and his horn fizzled. The shield he had erected on the front of the Mare Stream sputtered out and the unicorn fell to his knees. “We’ve ‘killed’ that thing twice before. At the most, we slowed him down. Celestia hopes it’s for a while.” He tried to stand, but his legs shook and faltered, and he fell.

“Hey, just relax okay? I think you’ve done enough today.” Zipp urged and motioned for him to stay down with a wing. “You’re still bleeding all over the place and everything…just please relax.”

“I’ll go get the first aid kit!” Izzy offered with a smile and trotted off towards the back. Zipp’s ears swiveled and followed her hoofsteps. She was waiting to hear the click of the cockpit door to speak openly again.

“Listen-” She started once that click signaled she was alone with Shining Armor. “-I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. I really can’t. We don’t know exactly how long it’s been since you were last around and a lot has changed since then.” She wasn’t good at this kind of thing. This soft stuff was Sunny’s realm, and maybe Hitch’s. Concerning herself with the problems of others was decidedly not an attitude she was raised to have, it was a skill she had to learn on her own. “I don’t even know if it’s possible to get you back to when you belong, but I know we’ll do anything and everything to help…” She looked back to see if anything she had said was having an effect on Shining Armor, but found him passed out on the cold floor.

“Well he certainly deserves a rest!” Izzy said after sticking her head back through the door. “It seems like he’s had a doozy of a day.” The unicorn flopped on her haunches next to the unconscious stallion and used her magic to lift up his forelegs and bandage them. “What’s his deal, anyway? He was talking to me about Canterlot like it’s not just ruins now!”

“I think he was trapped in that-what did he call it, Crystal Empire?-for a very long time.” Zipp sighed and combed over everything Shining Armor had said in her head. “I don’t even think he knew about the crystals or the ponies all splitting up…and he said he knew Twilight Sparkle.”

“Woah.” Izzy gasped. “He’s super old! He looks great though!” Well, there was no denying that at least. “So are we going to Canterlot again?”

“Maybe eventually. He seems dead set on it.” Zipp brought a wing to pinch the bridge of her nose. “But we need to get home, probably Zephyr Heights. We’re all a little banged up and need help, and we need to warn ponies about Sombra. Mom will have some idea of what to do, at least I hope so.”

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

“Who’s Sombra?” Sunny was the one to ask the question. “...and what do you mean ‘last time’? He’s attacked before?”

I felt like Sunny should know who he has since her father and herself read the old equestrian stories

[Yoshifan30]

“I think he was trapped in that-what did he call it, Crystal Empire?-for a very long time.” Zipp sighed and combed over everything Shining Armor had said in her head. “I don’t even think he knew about the crystals or the ponies all splitting up…and he said he knew Twilight Sparkle.”

Well yeah that his sister

[Yoshifan30]

Okay wow this is pretty crazy right now so zipp any others are trying to get away from King Sombra as fast as they can and not only that Shining Armor has been asking a lot of question about what was going on and even telling the truth what really happened and it must be tough for him to realize that he's been gone for probably a thousand years but to him and Sombra it felt like they only been gone for only a minute poor guy he's been through a lot so now they had to figure out another plan since King Sombra is returned which does not a good sign for ponies of this generation they need to do something now I guess we'll find out next time

[AgentKorpsman]

Welp there is one creature who could probably help fill in the gaps, time to call an old friend of there’s