For the New Lunar Republic

by Moxypony

Chapter 13 - Chilling Fate

The lab ponies working on Chillwind turned in shock at the sound of Moxi’s anguished cry, only to find themselves in a shower of shattered glass. Moxi leapt through the window, her passion and fury making her completely ignore the deep cuts it left on her face and body. Her glasses were knocked away and her scarf, caught on a jagged, protruding piece of glass, was torn from her, but she ignored it.

She dropped into the room, landing directly atop one of the scientists, she saw a look of pure terror on his face as she swung her hoof down onto his skull, she heard a crunching sound as the lab pony’s skull bounced off the floor and he settled into unconsciousness, a pool of blood immediately forming around his head. Moxi turned her eyes on the other technician, scrambling at the door out of the theater, he cast fearful glances back at Moxi when she pounced on him, her wings beating hard against the air to propel her faster. She slammed into him with more force than she would have believed herself capable, and as he slumped back against the door, she wrapped her hooves around his throat.

The lab pony struggled, his hooves scrabbling at Moxi’s in a vain attempt to release the beserk pony’s grip. She watched with grim satisfaction as his eyes watered and his face grew strained, she gripped tighter as his eyes rolled back into his skull and his body went limp. She released him, letting his limp form slump to the ground and turning with bright eyes to face her long lost love.

Chillwind lay still on the operating table, a pang of guilt rushed through Moxi as she saw that the glass had left its mark upon Chillwind’s body as well. Moxi carefully swept away the shattered remnants of the window, clearing her love’s body of debris. Chillwind’s body was covered in cuts, but she did not bleed. Moxi brushed back the icy hair from Chillwind’s face, placing one hoof against her love’s cheek and speaking softly to her, “Chill, Chill wake up, it’s me, it’s Moxi.”

Dreamcatcher arrived at the window, looking down into the theater with shock evident on his features. “Come on, Chill,” Moxi said, grabbing Chillwind by her shoulders and gently shaking her, “this isn’t funny… wake up!” Dreamcatcher jumped down into the room and approached his partners, new and old. He took Chillwind’s hoof in his and felt her for a moment before turning back to face Moxi with sorrowful eyes. “Moxi…” he begain.

“Chillwind!” Moxi cried out, her voice cracking and her eyes watering, but the aching smile still on her face, “Wake up! It’s time to go home! It’s time to go back to Manehattan, you said we’d be happy there, you said we could live our lives together… just the two of us… Now wake up!”

“Moxi,” Dreamcatcher tried again, “Moxi, she’s gone…”

“Wake up…” Moxi said, tears streaming from her eyes.

“She’s gone, Moxi!”

“She’s NOT GONE!” Moxi screamed, her face contorting in rage for a moment before slipping back into sorrow as she brushed at Chillwind’s hair, “I saw her… I saw her move, I didn’t kill her… I didn’t kill her….”

Dreamcatcher eyed her in disbelief, “What?”

“She was moving, she moved when I saw her down here,” Moxi cried, laying her head on her lover’s still, cold form, “She was alive, she can’t be dead, she can’t be dead…” Moxi sobbed unashamedly into her lover’s coat, “I didn’t kill her…”

“She was never alive, Moxi,” Dreamcatcher said, placing a consoling hoof on Moxi’s shoulder, “she never reached this facility alive, I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t what you think.”

The sound of shifting glass shards made Moxi look up from Chillwind’s body, she turned back to see the lab pony she’d ambushed first beginning to stir on the ground behind her. She rose from her position and approached him. “Moxi,” Dreamcatcher called after her, warily, “what are you doing?”

“You may never know my pain,” Moxi spoke to the stirring technician, her voice flat but her eyes streaming, “but I will bring you as close as I can before the end.”

“Moxi?” Dreamcatcher started towards her, but Moxi was too fast for him to stop her, she scooped a hoof full of the glass shards littering the floor and forced them into the lab pony’s mouth, forcing it shut and pressing him to swallow it. The technician struggled, but he was dazed and weakened, and was never really a soldier, and as Moxi made him to swallow the shards, she wrapped her hooves around his neck, twisting and squeezing as the shards went down. The scientist tried to scream in agony, but managed nothing more than a strangled gurgle as the blood filled his throat, mouth, and lungs.

“Moxi!” Dreamcatcher cried, pulling her away from the scientist as he scrabbled at his own throat, slowly dying, “What in Equestria are you doing!?” Moxi struggled, swinging her hooves at Dreamcatcher in an attempt to force him to release her, “I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them! And if you try to stop me Catcher I’ll… I’ll…” As Moxi trailed off, she stopped struggling. When she had stopped struggling entirely and her angry screams gave way to anguished sobs once more, Dreamcatcher released her, letting her simply slump to the ground, where she ignored the glass digging into her legs.

Moxi shook her head and looked back up at Dreamcatcher, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s over, Catch,” she muttered, “grab what you need, I’ll fly us out the window, and then we’ll go our separate ways.”

“What?” Dreamcatcher reeled at her, “What do you mean go our separate ways!? We’ve got a mission to complete!”

“You’ve got a mission to complete, Dreamcatcher,” she shot back, turning to face her lost love, “my mission ends here. What more have I got to fight for? Chillwind’s dead, and I… I’ll be dead soon too.”

“So you’re just going to lay down and die?” He shot back, anger creeping into his voice, “You’re just going to let everything we’ve done up to this point be for nothing.”

Moxi shook her head, still not turning to face Catcher, “You’ve still got the data. You can still finish what we started, but as for me, Catch… I just don’t care anymore.”

“I cared about Chillwind too, Moxi!” Dreamcatcher snarled, “Can you honestly tell me you think she’d want this for you?”

“What does it matter!?” Moxi screamed, “She’s dead! The only pony I’ve ever loved, the only pony who ever made me feel like I was really worth something…” Moxi raised her hoof to her throat. Her eyes widened as she realized for the first time that her scarf was gone, she peered around before seeing it, still dangling from a shard of the broken pane above them. Dreamcatcher followed her eyes and stood on his hind legs to grab the scarf in his teeth. With a practiced Navapony motion, he flicked it away from the shard without tearing it any further. He set about wrapping the scarf around Moxi’s neck, whispering gently, “The love you two shared lives on, at least partially, so long as you do. Chillwind may be gone, but her heart was yours, no matter how far she may have gone from you, you always had her heart, so they could never take that, they could never kill her completely.”

Moxi nuzzled into the warmth of the scarf, sniffing it as she did. Any vestige of Chillwind’s scent had long since faded, but Moxi still took comfort in that simple act, the comfort of a filly. She looked up into Dreamcatcher’s warm, grey eyes. “What’re we going to do about her body?” she asked in a quavering, uncertain voice.

Dreamcatcher smiled comfortingly at her. “Well,” he said, “we damned sure aren’t going to leave it for the Empire to abuse further.”

The number of flammable chemicals in the lab made short work out of what the pair had to do next. Having spread the chemicals about the room, Moxi placed one final kiss upon the cold lips of her lost love before lifting herself and Dreamcatcher out of the window. Dreamcatcher lit one of the old files from the lab aflame and dropped it into the room below them. The chemicals caught fire immediately and after a few scant seconds the entire room was a blazing inferno.

“Goodbye Chillwind,” Moxi said, her voice still choked by tears.

“Moxi, I hate to put this on you,” Dreamcatcher spoke up after a moment, holding up a file folder, “but I think you deserve to know. I found this while we were gathering the accelerant… this file explains exactly what they were trying to do with Chillwind… and it explains what you saw earlier…”

Moxi eyed Dreamcatcher, his hesitancy creating a tense wariness about her, “What was it?”

“It was that Black Dawn project the scientist was talking about earlier,” he turned to her and fixed her with a resolute stare, “Moxi, it’s necromancy.”

Comments

[Moxypony]

20823

It's the pony version of Navajo, that's a bit of an issue with this story, there are a few scenes that don't make as much sense if you haven't read "Sweet Dreams, Luna."

Dreamcatcher is the OC of a friend of mine who wrote a fic that I liked, so I set mine in the same universe as his, but 10 years later.

I LIKE IT

[AskGrimdarkScootaloo]

This says its incomplete...What is going on? Can you finally destroy my hopes of another chapter or reassure them?

OH MY GOD CONTINUE THIS STORY NOW!!!

[Moxypony]

58531
61030

Haha, sorry to both of you, unfortunately my life has been a befuddling combination of extra-busy and writer's block. Every time I've sat down to write the next chapter I haven't been able to get out more than a couple of sentences. I hope you can be patient because I really do want to continue writing this story!

It might take a while, but hopefully fans like you guys getting on me to continue writing is just the kick in the pants I need to put pen to paper and get my flank to work!