Screams of horror and pain, primal howls of feral monsters that used to be ponies.
For thirty-three days Canterlot became hell on earth, infested with monsters that killed anything and everything that moved. For thirty-three days whoever didn't turn was subjected to the worst fate Equestria had to offer during The Event.
“Corporal Rose!” The booming voice echoed through the courtyard. Everypony turned to face the irate looking earth pony stallion who called out as he trudged across the open space. His golden armor gleamed in the sunlight, as did the bright white coat the enchanted armor granted him. The only thing that truly set him apart from all of the other Royal Guards that were drifting around the courtyard was the crimson sun emblem that settled on his chest. It was the Lieutenant.
“Lieutenant Golden Star, sir!” Corporal Rose Wreath snapped to attention and looked straight ahead as the officer stalked over to her. She was a taller mare and could almost see eye-to-eye with every stallion in the service, but Golden Star still towered over her. He was an earth pony that could only be described as ‘solid’. There was a joke amongst the guardsponies that he could stop a charging bull moose simply by planting his hooves.
The reflection of a stone gray pegasus mare with a plume of blue-almost white-mane sticking out of her golden helmet stared back at her. That wasn’t really her reflection. It belonged to her, yes, but that wasn’t the pony she was. It was the guard she became when the armor was put on and it was time to do her duty to Equestria.
“Corporal, would you mind telling me why in Celestia’s name you are not on the duty roster for the next week?” Lieutenant Star leaned down to look straight into Rose’s eyes. He furrowed his brow and flared his nostrils. “I don’t remember approving any leave, and you don’t look dead or dying to me.”
“I received approval from Princess Celestia, sir!” Rose kept looking straight ahead. Not even into the Lieutenant’s eyes, but through them. She had to keep from swallowing or licking her lips, any sign of weakness. It had to be suppressed.
“And is going over your commanding officer’s head for leave standard operating procedure, Corporal?” He was talking loud enough that everypony could hear him so he could make an example of her faux pas without outright yelling at her. “Last time I checked the manual, you were to go through the chain of command for such requests. Am I correct or did something change?”
“I-”
“Because I was not informed of any changes!” Golden Star cut her off before she could even get a word out. “Was anypony else made aware of changes to how we request leave around here?”
A chorus of ‘No Sir’ rained down around them.
“I did not request it from Princess Celestia personally, sir.” Rose replied, still as stone-faced as she could possibly be. “Her Majesty overheard me talking with Private Picket about my father’s illness and offered me the week off, sir.”
The thought of that moment when Princess Celestia herself approached her in the hall lingered in her mind still. Never had she been so close to the regent before, and now she couldn’t get it out of her head. The warmth rolled off of her body in waves, soothing and nurturing like the light from her sun. A shiver ran up Rose’s spine as she thought of it again. She wished she could stay in that aura forever.
Instead the Lieutenant stayed in front of her, shooting an ice cold glare into her eyes as he searched for any hint of a lie. Not that she was telling one, but he didn’t know that. After a few moments of the towering stallion staring into her soul, he huffed and backed off.
“I will confirm this little story with Princess Celesita herself.” Golden Star growled out as he moved away from the mare. “If you are lying to me, expect to spend the next week in the dungeons scrubbing the grout until it shines, Corporal.” He gave her one last scrutinizing glare then stalked back across the courtyard towards the entrance of the castle.
Once she was sure that he wasn’t coming back, Rose let out the breath she had been holding in. Getting grilled like that was never easy, but when it was done by Golden Star it was another level of bad. He was known for being especially thorough when it came to punishments. Thankfully, she wasn’t lying and didn’t have to worry about that. Well, as long as Celestia remembered that little conversation.
“Don’t worry, I got your back.” Another stallion, this one the same height as her, poked her flank. By the voice she knew it was the aforementioned Private Picket. Just like most other stallions, the armor gave him a bright white coat and a royal blue mane and tail. A white horn poked through his helmet and shone in the light of the clear day.
“Why would he believe you?” Rose quirked an eyebrow and ruffled her wings against her armor. “He was the one who demoted you, remember? It’s why he went to go as the Princess instead of you.”
“Maybe, but still. I’ll vouch for you.” Picket grinned at her and nodded his head towards the wall. “Come on, it’s a nice day. Let’s enjoy it before we have to spend the rest of it inside.”
Shift change wasn’t until noon, so they still had a few minutes to kill. Might as well spend it with a view. Mustering in the courtyard was a nice way to spend the morning before going to your assigned place, but getting away from the rabble there was even nicer.
The two ponies trotted up the nearby staircase towards the castle’s wall and when they arrived at the top, they took position against the stone crenelations. The view from the Royal Guard barracks courtyard was unmatched. It was one of the higher points in the city that wasn’t in a tower and was on the southern side, so it overlooked vast swathes of the country. The rolling hills of green stretched out to the horizon, only really interrupted by the patch of untamed wilds known as the Everfree Forest.
Rose closed her eyes and lifted her chin up towards the sky. Even behind her eyelids she could see the bright majesty of the sun as the warmth beat down on her. Her wings spread out slowly and she absorbed the heavenly light openly, ever grateful for the opportunity to find herself in its presence. All of the worries, the panic, the shame that the encounter with the Lieutenant had brought found themselves washed away by the powerful waves of light that cascaded down from the clear blue sky above.
“Any news on your dad?” Picket’s usually smarmy but cheerful tone dissolved into genuine concern. “Wing Rot is nasty from what I heard. How is he handling the diagnosis?” Rose frowned as the relaxing reverence she had been engaged in was broken and the comforting warmth of the star above was replaced with the creeping dread of her parents and the correspondence they shared.
“He’s handling it better than my mom is.” Rose muttered. Her eyes followed a little colorful train in the distance as it wound its way towards Ponyville. ‘The Friendship Express’, if she remembered the name and livery correctly. Smoke billowed from its smokestack and rose into the air to mar the clear skies the pegasi worked so hard to cultivate. “My dad just wants to spend time outside in the sunlight, but mom just fusses over him all day.”
“From what you’ve told me, he’s a tough old stallion. I’m sure he’ll make it through.” There were a few awkward moments of silence before Picket spoke again. “Magic is amazing, y’know. Us kooky unicorns can fix anything if we put our minds to it.” He tapped his hooves against the stone. “I had a buddy that had-”
“I really appreciate the concern, Picket.” Rose took a deep breath and patted her friend on the back and forced a smile. “I really do, but let’s not talk about it. I just want to get through today…”
So the two ponies stood there in silence and enjoyed the morning, waiting for the bell to ring and send them all to their posts. A more natural smile crossed Rose’s features as a breeze washed over the mountaintop castle and caught her plumed mane. She took a deep breath of the fresh air, probably the last peaceful moment she would have until after her vacation back home was done.
RAAAAAAAAUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOO!
A cacophonous noise shattered the beautiful morning. It sounded like a scream which devolved into an animalistic howl and seemed to bleed into the air. The birds that loitered around the castle all took to the skies to escape the noise and far below flocks of avians did the same. Even Rose’s instincts told her to take off and flee, but training overrode that primal need of flight over fight.
The bells across Canterlot began to ring in concert, a chorus of warnings telling the populace to shelter in place. It also meant that it was time for the guard to go to work, whether they were officially on duty or not.
The ponies that had been loitering around the barracks’ courtyard all lined up in formation, Rose and Picket quickly descended from the wall and joined them. All of the assembled guards had formed up just in time for Lieutenant Golden Star to burst out of the doors and look them over.
“Possible monster attack!” The commanding officer called out as he addressed them. “We are now in charge of securing the city gates and making sure every single stallion, mare, and foal are safe out there!” He went down the block of gathered ponies and separated them into thirds, Rose and Picket being in the last of the three sections. “One, you’re in charge of the southern gate! Two, you’re going to the train station! Three, we’re heading to the northern gate! Move out!”
There was no argument or discussion as the three columns of armored ponies moved out into the city. The Lieutenant stayed still, watching them march as they passed his spot until the end of the third column. When Picket and Rose came by, he locked step with them.
“You’re lucky, Corporal. I caught up with Her Majesty and she confirmed your story.” Golden growled out over the din of armored hooves against stone. He then looked away for a moment, a rare and brief moment of his facade faltering. “I am sorry to hear about your father though, I hope he recovers.”
“Thank you, sir.” Rose responded with a nod. “The noise, though.” That drew his attention back to her. “It came from Ponyville, I’m sure of it.” If there was one thing the big ears atop her head were good for, it was locating sounds. “Private Picket and I were up on the wall and it came from that direction.”
“Of course it was Ponyville, Corporal.” Lieutenant Golden Star fell back into character and glared at his subordinate. “Where else does any of this crazy stuff kick off? Use your head. Everypony from here to Whinnyapolis knows it came from Ponyville.” He then picked up his pace to head to the front of their column.
The march through the city was quick and calm. Anypony with an ounce of sense was holed up in their homes or one of the disaster shelters that dotted the more affluent parts of the city. Every once in a while they could see pairs of eyes peak through windows to catch a glimpse of the passing column of armor, but that was the only sign of life as they marched through the winding streets of the capital.
It took them about fifteen minutes at a brisk pace to get to the northern gate of the city. The guards who were usually stationed there had already shut the wrought iron gate and pulled up the wooden drawbridge on the other side. They were here to simply secure it and wait until something else happened.
“Tacks, Brass, Redoubt!” Lieutenant Golden called out the three names. “You three, take to the skies and keep an eye out for anything!” Three pegasi all left the formation and flew into the air, just high enough so they could see over the wall and nearby rooftops. “Rose, you’re my runner! Tell Captain Galea the northern gate is secured!”
Rose gave a brief salute and launched herself into the sky and set off back towards the castle. She wasn’t the fastest flier in their little company, no that would’ve been Redoubt the local Wonderbolt Washout. She was, however, the endurance flier. In her youth she had participated in long distance flying competitions and could fly all day if need be.
The flight back to the castle was much shorter than the march, about ten minutes shorter. She landed at the steps of the castle’s main gates and saluted the guards on duty. One of them raised his hoof to indicate for her to stop, while the other lit up his horn and shot a beam of magic at her. It did nothing of note, but a field did linger around her for a second before flashing green. The spell to detect shapeshifters was a nuisance during lockdowns, but it was now needed. The doors opened for her and the guards waved her inside.
“Runner from Lieutenant Golden Star at the north gate.” Rose told the attendant just inside the doors. He was a wiry little unicorn by the name of Pusher, he was one of the administrators that worked with the Royal Guard but was not formally part of the organization. He looked at her through coke bottle spectacles and nodded towards the door that led to the throne room.
There was another checkpoint before entering the throne room, this one with yet another duplication check and with an added patdown to make sure no weapons were smuggled in. Once she was clear of that, she was ushered inside.
The throne room was, as always, astonishing. The room was tall, imposingly so, and was lit by the myriad of stained glass windows that depicted moments throughout the country’s history. A red carpet ran from the door and up to the dual thrones of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who were sat in their places and talking to various ponies.
Guards were littered around the space, all wearing the black armor of the elite personal guard of the royal family. Most of them were unicorns with but a smattering of thestrals, batponies, amongst them in the armor of the Night Guard. They all eyed Rose warily as she began to trot towards the throne, where the armored pony she needed to speak with was.
“Your Majesties. Captain Galea.” Rose bowed as she stopped just before the ramp that led up to the thrones. The armored mare that was in front of the princesses looked down at her with cold gray eyes. The set of shining black armor that donned her figure did not change her appearance, but it did stand in great contrast to her baby blue coat and shockingly white mane through which a blue horn poked through.
“Corporal Rose Wreath.” Princess Celestia was the first to address her. “Please rise, my little pony.” Rose did as she was asked and looked up at the regents. Princess Celestia, in all of her glory, was smiling down at the guard pony. A certain kind of motherly warmth radiated from every little part of her, from her lily white coat to her pastel main that flowed in a nonexistent breeze. “What can we do for you?” Even Celestia’s voice was like butter through the air, so smooth and just calming.
“I came to speak to Captain Galea.” Rose stood up straight and did her best not to stare at Princess Celestia too much, so she focused on the captain instead. “Lieutenant Golden Star sent me. He wanted to inform you that the city’s north gate is secured.”
“Good.” Whatever warmth Celestia’s voice injected into the room, Galea’s sucked right out. She was flat, unnerved and unmoving as she looked down the dais. “Inform the Lieutenant that I want-”
The Captain of the Royal Guard was interrupted by a wisp of green smoke coming through the window and making a beeline straight for Princess Celestia. It seemed like everypony in the chamber stopped breathing when a scroll materialized from the smoke and landed in Celestia’s magical grip. Even Princess Luna watched on as her sister opened the scroll and read the contents.
Never in her thirty years had Rose Wreath seen Celestia look scared, but that was the look that crossed the face of the regent. It wasn’t there long, but it was there long enough for more than just Rose to take notice. The ambient temperature of the room seemed to plummet as the once sole ruler of Equestria read the note again, and then again. The sight of Celestia swallowing nervously was all Rose needed to know that it was bad, whatever it was. The scroll was then passed to Luna, and it turned in the air just enough for Rose to catch a glimpse of the big panicked letters etched across its surface in ink.
Rose was exhausted. After Celestia had received that letter, she had demanded the city be put on full lockdown. That meant double shifts and about four hours of rest if you were lucky and could sleep. It also meant that travel in and out of the city was heavily restricted. Which meant that more guards were needed at more places throughout the city to maintain that integrity.
On the sleep front, Rose was one of the unlucky ones who couldn’t even catch any. She had stayed up most of the short night, worried about that letter she had seen Princess Celestia receive. What did it mean? Obviously it was about Princess Twilight, but what was wrong with her? Was it something that the royals had known about previously or was this something new? Both possibilities were equally terrifying in her mind.
Now here they, Lieutenant Golden Star and his same detachment of ponies from yesterday, were. They had switched from the gate in the north of the city, to the south. They were joined by yet another detachment of guards so they could hold the more trafficked path into the city.
“When was the last time we were on lockdown for this long?” Picket was still by her side, as always. He looked far more rested than her, and she would hazard a guess that he had snuck off at some point and caught up on lost sleep. “Tirek, I think?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Rose yawned and leaned against the city wall. “There was some stuff in Ponyville, I remember hearing about it. Never reached Canterlot, though.” She thought on it for a moment. “Oh and that one thing somewhere in the mountains with the cult.” Rose shrugged, the armor resting on her body shifting and jangling with the movement. “Princess Twilight and her friends will handle it. I don’t think we have to worry about it too much.” She didn’t even quite believe that at the moment, not with what she had seen in the throne room yesterday. If something was wrong with Twilight, then it would be up to her friends to figure it out. Did she still have that same level of faith in the Elements of Harmony sans the Element of Magic?
“I wish they’d hurry up with it, though.” Picket grumbled and cast his eyes towards the gate, where Lieutenant Golden had stopped somepony and was checking their papers. “Usually they’re a little quicker than this. A full day? I think they’re losing their touch.”
“Alright fillies and colts, gather round!” An older unicorn stallion announced as he approached the group of guards. Almost everypony recognized him as one of the Royal Armorers, more specifically the enchanter of the bunch. “We’re re-doing the enchantments on your armor on the fly, so get in line! We may be in a lockdown but that doesn’t mean you can go around out of uniform!”
So everypony that wasn’t immediately on lookout duty or specifically guarding checkpoints around the gate lined up. Rose and Picket were at the front of the bunch for once, lending to the fact that they had just rotated out of their active duties. So they were just a few ponies back from getting their spells refreshed, which was good. She didn’t need to see any of her coworkers with their natural coat color under their armor. That would be weird.
Soon enough, both Picket and herself had their uniform charms renewed, ensuring they would keep the look of stock guards for a little while longer. It didn’t take very long, thankfully. The elder unicorn simply grabbed the gem on her chest without removing it and did something to it with his magic.
“We got some panicked civvies incoming!” One of the pegasus lookouts called out from above. “They look hurt!” That got everypony’s attention quickly and the line to the enchanter broke up in an instant. “Three, coming in quick!”
“Open the gate!” The Lieutenant barked.
The drawbridge lowered first with a thundering boom as it hit the ground on the other side, then the wrought iron gate was slowly cranked up by the two earth ponies manning it. The civilians were visible as they ran up the hill towards the gate, three of them, all earth ponies.
A brown stallion wearing a green tie led the charge, his hooves stained with crimson and a wild look in his eyes. Two mares were behind him, one cream colored with a two tone red mane while the other was pink with a darker pink mane. They all looked harried and exhausted as they approached.
“We got wounded!” Golden shouted again. Two ponies rushed forward from the gaggle of guards that were converging around the gate, both of them with red hearts on their armor. “Come in, come in!” He waved the trio of ponies inside. “Are there any more?” He received a shake of the head from the brown stallion. “Close the gate!”
Rose pushed forward through the crowd to get a better view of the newcomers. The stallion’s front two hooves were caked in blood, most likely owed to the deep looking bite marks that were on both of his front legs. The mares didn’t look much better: the pink one had a blistering burn that covered most of her face, the cream colored one was missing a piece of one of her ears and had similar bite marks to the stallion on her flank.
“G-get away from me!” The cream colored mare kicked at one of the medics, a unicorn named Suture, as he tried to get closer to look at her wounds. “No unicorns! No unicorns! No unicorns!” Panicked yet serious demands.
“Hey, it’s okay Roseluck.” The stallion of the group approached her. “We’re safe. We’re safe.” That did nothing to assuage the mare, who once again pulled away from the unicorn medic. “I-I’m sorry about this, really.” He had an accent, Trottingham if she had to guess or somewhere over there.
“Go fetch a non-unicorn medic.” Lieutenant Golden Star put a hoof on Suture’s back and sent him away. “We’ll take care of you and get you patched up, but we need you to tell us what happened out there.”
“M-my filly!” The pink mare suddenly burst into a sobbing fit, tears running from the one eye of hers that was still open and down the burned skin that covered her face. “I-I-I-” She didn’t even finish another word as she devolved into a blubbering mess.
“Monsters.” The stallion said. “I-I’ve never seen anything like that. Ponies just started turning into monsters and attacking everything…” A shock of murmurs went through the assembled guards. “We made a break for it last night…I don’t know how we made it.”
“They turned into monsters?” Golden asked. “How?” Then his eyes fell to the bite marks on the two ponies. He backed up from the trio slowly, then waved a nearby unicorn guard over to him. “Quarantine spell, now.” That was all it took for a golden bubble to me raised around the new ponies. That did nothing but make them panic. “I’m sorry, but we can’t risk whatever that is spreading.” He spoke calmly, but everypony could see that facade faltering a little. “You’re from Ponyville?” He received a solemn nod from the stallion now in the bubble. “…Corporal Rose!”
“Yes sir?” She stepped forward out of instinct and stood ramrod straight.
“Go to the castle-” He approached her slowly and spoke quietly. “-do not find Galea, go straight to the Princesses. I want you to tell them we have a possible contagion outbreak. I do not know of what. You heard what these ponies said, report it. Do not embellish. Do not exaggerate.” He leaned down a little to look her in the eyes. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“You’re an honest pony, Corporal Rose.” Golden rested a hoof on her shoulder to keep her from flying off for a moment longer. He spoke lowly, just loud enough for her to hear him. “I’m trusting you with this task because of that fact. You are a good pony and a good guard. Do not make me look like a fool.” He stood back up. “Dismissed.”
Rose thought on that as she flew back to the castle. She had always assumed the Lieutenant hated her, not that she knew why he would. Run of the mill sexism was the obvious answer, the Royal Guard was a pretty big stallion’s club. Maybe one day, when one of them retired, she’d be able to ask him why exactly he had been so tough on her if he thought highly of her character.
She had done her best in her career to simply do her job and not much else. There were nobles that joined to hunt for glory, there were others who did it because they had nothing else going for them and sought cushy assignments, there were those who liked the small bit of power it gave them. She was none of those. She was a patriot who wanted to keep the Princesses safe and wanted nothing more than to serve. Whatever was asked of her in service of the crown, she would do it.
The process of getting into the castle was the same as last time. Initial duplication check just outside, checking with Pusher and telling him where she needed to go, then another security check before going into the throne room.
She would never tire of entering the throne room. The simple majesty of it took her breath away every time. There was just something ethereal about it all, and the two goddesses sitting on the thrones at the very end of the room enhanced that feeling. Rose had to keep her eyes focused ahead and keep her head on straight in here. There was no time to get distracted with the wonderful room that surrounded her
The night and day made flesh and blood sat on their thrones high above the world and were conversing with one another. Whatever they were saying faded into the air far before it would ever reach Rose’s ears, but it looked to be serious. Both of the alicorns were frowning with furrowed brows as they spoke. Princess Luna looked exhausted too, dark bags hung from below her eyes and she was hunched over in her throne. It was a stark contrast to the bright figure that her sister cut in front of the sun motif that decorated her throne.
“Your Majesties.” Rose spoke loud enough for the two royals to hear and bowed before them. “I have urgent news from the north gate.”
“Rise, my little pony.” Celestia’s angelic voice commanded, and Rose obeyed. “What news?”
“Civilians from Ponyville, Your Majesty.” That earned a surprised murmur from the assembled guards and castle staff. “Three of them, all of them badly injured. They were panicked and told stories of ponies turning into monsters and attacking others.” That earned a shocked gasp from everypony, including Princess Luna. Celestia slowly took to her hooves and looked down at Rose intently. “Lieutenant Golden Star wants to inform you it’s a possible outbreak. He’s not sure of what, but the bite marks on the survivors have him worried.”
“Are you sure about this?” Celestia descended from her throne and approached the guardsmare. “That’s what he said?”
Suddenly, Rose felt like she couldn’t speak. Princess Celestia was less than a foot in front of her and words failed her. The aura of warmth that radiated from the alicorn enveloped Rose again and shut her brain off. It made her want to lay her head against the Princess’ chest and doze off. It felt like a lazy summer afternoon.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Her sense of duty powered through the sensations that kept trying to overwhelm her. “He didn’t explicitly state it was the bites that worried him, but I intuited that from his actions.” Was assuming something a lie? There was no way to know what the Lieutenant thought about that, but she was going to just assume that he didn’t. “He has the three ponies quarantined now.”
“Sister.” Princess Luna approached Celestia from behind and put a hoof on her elder sibling’s back. “With what we already know, I think it is time for the emergency order we discussed.”
“Mmm.” Celestia turned her head towards the ceiling and closed her eyes. The sunlight streamed through the multicolored windows and bathed her in colors that only enhanced the ethereal nature of her visage. “Perhaps. I just…wish we could give Twilight a little more time.”
“Tia…” Princess Luna gripped Celestia’s leg tightly. Her eyes pleaded with the other alicorn silently, but when Celestia refused to meet them Luna spoke again. “...we have not heard any word from Ponyville since yesterday. We must assume-”
“We must assume nothing, Luna.” The warmth that cascaded from Celestia’s presence turned blazing hot for a moment. It was enough to cause Rose to stumble backwards from the sudden change. “When have they failed us before? They have earned every benefit of the doubt. We must let them have more time.”
“We do not even know what the problem is!” The throne room fell to silence as Luna shouted at Celestia. “We must act before it is too late to do so, Celestia. What if your pupil needs our assistance and cannot reach us to ask for it?” Celestia did not respond, nor did she look at her younger sister. “If you refuse to do anything, then I will!”
Princess Luna was the opposite of Princess Celestia in many ways, chief among them being her lack of composure. There were not many public appearances with the younger alicorn, and it was clear there was a reason why. While ponies would often flock to Celestia to even be near her, they would also avoid Luna when they could. Rose could see why that was now. A temper like that was unbecoming of a Princess.
“Luna, no.” Celestia put her hoof down, both metaphorically and literally. Her gilded hoof hit the tile and stopped her younger sister in her tracks. “I’ll…I’ll put out the order, but we must give them more time. It is important that they’re tested.”
“The test must be survived to be of any value, dear sister…”
Day Three
“Citizens of Equestria, we are in the middle of an unknown and ever unfolding crisis. It’s imperative that you remain in your homes and out of contact with those not in your immediate family. Food will be delivered, you will be taken care of. Stay safe, my little ponies.”
Celestia’s voice belted out the same messages from speakers all over Canterlot and was repeated on all publicly owned radio stations. Like with most things Celestia said, the ponies listened and obeyed.
Rose and Picket walked through the city, the sound of theirs and countless other armored hooves against pavement echoed across the dead capital. It felt eerie and wrong. At least with most other disasters, there was chaos in the street with how sudden they came on. Now though? Utter silence and calm.
“I think this is scarier than the Changelings.” Rose muttered to her persistent partner. “At least we knew what that was. It was instant and we could fight back against something.” Her skin crawled at the thought of the chitinous creatures and their failed invasion. She couldn’t even look at them even after their ‘change’.
“You’d really rather be fighting for your life against those bugs?” Picket shook his head. “No way, nuh-uh. I remember having that green gunk covering me and how bad their teeth hurt when they got ahold of you. No thank you.” The unicorn’s hoof connected with a rock and sent it clattering down the cobblestone in front of them. “Weren’t you in the castle that day? How could you even want that again?”
“It was better than this.” She motioned towards the buildings that all had their curtains drawn and the empty streets. “We could actually take action rather than wait. Even better, we knew what we were fighting. See the bug, fight the bug.” Rose nodded. “Now we’re just…waiting. For what? We don’t even know other than ‘monsters’” They caught up to the rock that Picket had kicked and this time Rose brought her hoof forward and pelted it down the road.
That was one thing she agreed with Princess Luna about, the need to proactive action rather than just being reactive. The princess of the night was riddled with rough edges and was generally unpleasant to be near, but she was right in this case. Sitting back and waiting for monsters to come to the doorstep was a mistake.
Rose looked up towards the sky and closed her eyes as she turned towards the sun. She uttered an apology to the heavenly body and its controller whom she second guessed. Normally there would be no thoughts that went against Celestia going through her mind, but this was one thing she would be adamant on. The Royal Guard was here to keep the crown safe, she just wished Celestia trusted them with that task and would let them do their job a little more aggressively.
“Why do you do that?” Picket’s voice drew her head back down and she turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “The ‘raising your head to the sun’ thing. I’ve seen you do it before. I thought it was just you enjoying the day at first but I dunno now.” Rose tried to ignore the question but Picket jabbed a hoof into her flank. “I’m not going to make fun of you or anything, promise. I’m just curious!”
“My Dad…” Rose started with a sigh. “Well, he grew up in the middle of nowhere. His parents believed that Princess Celestia was divine. Literally. They believed her to be a literal goddess above every pony alive. It’s how he was raised and…y’know, I picked up some of it.”
“Your family are those sun cult ponies?” Picket was suppressing a smirk. “Really?”
“No.” Rose spoke slowly and deliberately, all the while she glared at the shorter stallion. “They lived in the middle of nowhere, they were farmers. When your entire livelihood depends on the sun and you know there’s a pony who controls it, you start to believe some things. They weren’t a part of anything organized. They just…had faith.”
“And you?”
“I…have a deep admiration for Princess Celestia.” Rose had to be careful with her words and she knew that, lest Picket think her even more weird. “I remember the first time I saw the Summer Sun Celebration when it was held in Las Pegasus…” A shiver shot up her spine and she smiled at the memory. “I saw her bracketed with gold…her hooves left the stage and it seemed like she lifted the sky with a thought. Then I understood, I got it.” She couldn’t help herself but to indulge a little, no matter how normal she wanted to look. “I have faith, too. It’s different, but it’s there.”
“Hey, I don’t judge.” Picket threw up a hoof and shrugged. “Even if you are from a family of weird sun cultists.” That earned him a kick in the shoulder. “Ow! What? I said I don’t judge!” He laughed and rubbed the spot on his armor where she had hit. “Oh, c’mon. You dented it! I’m going to get in trouble for this now, you know that right?”
The attention of both guards was captured by the sound of a door opening near them. The sound of a shop’s bell stood out amongst the dead city. A small unicorn filly with a white coat and lavender man poked her head out of the door and looked around outside, then at Rose and Picket.
“Hey little one…” Picket was the first one to engage. He lowered his head and smiled at the filly. “We’re gonna need you to go back inside, okay?”
“Why? Nothing’s happening.” She furrowed her brows and looked up at Picket. She was obviously old enough to have a cutie mark and old enough to be a little skeptical. “Usually the monsters would already be here and gone.”
“Yeah, we know…” Rose said with a sigh.
“Well we can’t control when things happen, but we’re going to keep everypony in the city as safe as we can no matter how long it takes. I promise.” Picket grinned and reached out to pat her on the head. “Tell you what, here.” His horn lit up and he pulled something wrapped in brown paper from inside of his armor. It was slowly unwrapped with magic to reveal a pair of cookies inlaid with colorful chocolate candies. “You’ve been really patient for us and you’ve made our job a lot easier by being so good.”
With a smile and a squeal the filly took the cookies with her own magic and took a bite out of one. She thanked the two guards and waved at them before shutting the door. They waited for a few moments to see if she’d open the door again, but when that didn’t happen they happily went on their way.
“Breach! Breach! We have a breach!” A voice called out through the city. It was distant, but it was there. Both of the guards froze in place as their ears swiveled on top of their heads to locate the source. That wasn’t an easy task given the tight streets that let noises bounce off of the buildings and throw sounds all over the place. “Need help! Please!”
“Go up, I’ll follow you!”
Rose launched herself into the sky and over the rooftops. She had just barely cleared the tops of the buildings around her when she saw a lance of magic shoot into the sky from the direction of the north gate. It was followed up by a second blast that confirmed it was from the city’s north gate. She pointed a hoof in that direction, received a nod from her partner, and they both raced off towards the destination.
Along the way, Rose was joined by other pegasi guards that were all headed in the same direction. They traded questions and what they had heard from their various posts. They learned that it was Lieutenant Mustang in charge of defending the gate today. Nothing should’ve been able to breach them, so what happened?
The gaggle of guards caught sight of the courtyard and all of them froze for a moment. Below them was what could only be described as a massacre. Several bodies lay strewn about the place, all guards save for one. The fallen guards’ armor had all been shredded or penetrated, leaving them to shift back to their natural looks rather than the forced uniformity the armor provided. About three pegasi were flying above the mess already, two of them bleeding and listing heavily to one side.
It was the thing below that caught everypony’s eye, though.
It almost looked like a pony but it wasn’t one, at least not anymore. It stood on four long spindly legs, about double the length of a normal pony’s legs. The blue coat was stretched taught all over its body, bones pressed painfully against skin so hard that you could count the vertebrae on its spine and the ribs in its chest from a distance. Its muzzle was elongated and filled with sharp teeth and crimson dripped freely from the pulled back lips. A long horn with a visibly sharp edge protruded from its wild white and gray mane.
A stream of wild magic erupted from its horn and swept across the sky. It was an attempt to swat them from the sky, and it worked. The beam caught one of the already injured guard’s wings and sent him tumbling down to the ground. His body hit the pavement below with a clatter. The creature descended on him instantly.
Rose was flying directly at the thing as soon as she heard the stallion’s scream. She impacted its side as teeth cut through the guard armor like a knife through butter and sent herself and it tumbling across the ground. She got up a lot faster than it did, and it was long enough for the other guards to react. In a few moments, the creature was swarmed by the pegasi guards that had arrived on the scene. A pile of a dozen bodies all fell on top of it to keep it pinned.
Its jaws snapped audibly and one of the guards cried out in pain as it obviously found purchase. Lances of pure magic flew out from its horn but only hit the building directly behind it, which meant its head was pinned. They had it contained, for now.
Rose looked around at the bodies that surrounded her. It had done all of this. Even if it had caught them off guard, they couldn’t risk trying to just lock it up. The unicorns already lying dead or dying on the ground had to have already tried that. No.
Rose picked up a spear that was on the ground with her mouth then shifted it to her wings.
“Please forgive me…” She looked up at the sun again and closed her eyes for a split second, just enough to send up that message to the heavenly body. “I need an opening!” She called out to the group of guards still holding the thing down. The group of bodies grunted and shifted until she could see a patch of blue on its chest. Her front hooves left the ground and she stood on her back legs. The spear went from her wings to her now unoccupied front hooves.
Bones crunched and a sickening howl went up into the air as the metal tip of the weapon punctured the thing’s chest. Rose grit her teeth and twisted the spear a few times until the monster quit making noise and until all of the blue fur she could see was fully stained red. When there was no doubt that the thing was dead, she pulled the spear out and tossed it aside.
“What in Celestia’s name happened?!” Lieutenant Golden belted out as he came into the courtyard, a full contingent of guards from across the city now behind him. “Where’s Mustang?!”
One of the stallions who had been stationed here and had now peeled himself off of the felled beast pointed a hoof at one of the bodies. Rose followed his hoof briefly and saw a jet black stallion with a hole in his chest and part of his throat missing. She immediately looked away.
Her eyes fell to the ground, then she stumbled backwards and fell to her haunches. The heart in her chest was beating like a drum and she could hear her blood rushing in her ears. Her front hooves left the ground and she looked at them. They were shaking uncontrollably.
“Close the gate.” Golden Star ordered. When no one responded to it, he turned around to the crowd following him. “Did I stutter? CLOSE THE GATE!” That got ponies into gear as several of them scattered to do what was ordered. “Cover the bodies and get somepony out here to take them away.” The bulky officer then stalked over to the monster and poked at it with a hoof. His jaw tightened and he looked around. “Who killed it?”
Rose didn’t even need to lift her head up to feel the hooves pointing at her.
“Corporal, is this true?” The Lieutenant spoke and Rose pulled herself to her hooves and stood at attention without much prodding. She wanted to look at him, but that thing was still behind him and her eyes wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, they stayed focused on the ground.
“Yes sir.” Her voice was shaking and quiet. She cleared her throat and tried that again. “Yes, sir.” False confidence coated her words and she forced herself to speak. “It had already done so much damage by the time I had gotten here. I got it to the ground and the others held it down. I-...” The words caught in her throat. “-I did what I felt I had to sir.”
“Go to the barracks, Corporal.” It wasn’t a hard order. It was more of a suggestion wrapped in a strange level of concern. Their eyes finally met as she lifted her head and met his gaze. “I’ll get the report from the others.”
“With all due respect sir, if there are more of these things out there then we everypony who can hold a spear and fight.” A compulsion to look around overtook her and she looked around at the carnage that surrounded them. “Look at what it took to take one of those things down. If there’s a whole town of them…”
“We’ll be fine for a few hours, Corporal Rose.” A heavy hoof landed on her shoulder. “Go catch some sleep. If you’re needed, you’ll be retrieved.”
She wanted to argue some more, to tell him that it was her duty to protect this city and she had to fulfill it. The fight wasn’t there, though. That rush that had accompanied the initial moments after the kill was fading and the fatigue was setting in. Golden’s hoof felt immense on her shoulder, like it would even collapse her if it stayed there for too long. So, with no other recourse and the come down setting in, she just nodded.
Sleep didn’t seem like such a bad idea, and hopefully Princess Luna could keep the nightmares at bay.
The sound of bells and screams roused Rose Wreath from a fitful sleep. Around her ponies were already getting up and filing out of the barracks. A nearby window showed what seemed to be the early morning light filling the sky. Another scream echoed through the guard sleeping quarters, this one a lot closer than before.
It was that second set of screams that got her up on her hooves. She had passed out in her armor as soon as she touched her cot, so the familiar stiffness of sleeping in the metal garment plagued her joints and neck. She pushed through the soreness and fell in line with everypony else as they filed out.
It wasn’t early in the morning like Rose thought. In fact, it was still the dead of night. The full moon was hanging high above the city and some stars were still visible overhead. It was just that multiple fires throughout the city had pushed back the veil of night and created a false dawn. Several members of the guard all froze in place as they saw flames licking over the tops of buildings and leaping into the night sky.
“Grab a weapon! We have multiple breaches in the city!” An officer she didn’t recognize was standing outside and directing the lethargic ponies coming out of the barracks towards racks of swords and spears. “Orders are to evacuate ponies into the castle walls! The Night Guard is already working on evacuations but they need help! Golden Star’s guards, you’re going out into the city! Mustang’s you’re helping set up defenses here!” He kept speaking, but Rose was already focused on the task ahead.
“Rose, thank Celestia you’re awake!” Picket appeared at her side and placed a hoof on her back. “I hope you’re well rested, because I think we have our work cut out for us.” As if on cue, a feral howl came up from the city beyond the castle walls.
“How did they even get in?” Rose’s mind slowly shook the sleep from itself and she was able to think through what was happening. “Wait, if it’s an outbreak…what if that thing from earlier spread it? She looked down at herself and thought of the other guards that had pinned it down. Were they infected now? Would they turn into those things? “Oh no…”
“The rumor is something got through the north gate again.” Picket said as he picked up a sword from the rack with his magic. “Ah!” The white unicorn grabbed his head with a hoof and dropped the sword to the ground. “Mmmf…ow…” He looked to Rose, who was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “Magic headache, I think. I’ve been overdoing it today…” He picked up the sword again and slipped it into a sheathe hanging around his barrel. “I’ll be okay.”
Rose grabbed herself a spear and tucked it under one of her wings. They followed the flow of ponies until they came upon Lieutenant Golden Star waiting at the gates of the castle walls. Even from a distance he looked tired. Heavy bags hung from his eyes and he didn’t stand as straight as usual. Then there were the splotches of dark red around his hooves that really tipped ponies off to the severity of the situation. There were other officers there with their own groups assembled in front of them.
“LISTEN UP!” Golden Star bellowed. “There’s chaos out there right now and we have to go out into it! We’re going to save every pony we can and get them behind these walls!” His jaw tightened and he turned his head to the gate briefly. “Those things out there are not Changelings! They’re not here to capture you, they don’t want to steal your magic like Tirek! They want to kill you! They will stop at nothing to achieve that goal and we must fight like Tartarus to make sure that does not happen!”
There was a moment to let everypony absorb that sentiment before he continued. “Our job is to secure and maintain corridors to get ponies from out there into here! The Night Guard is responsible for finding and securing civilians and we’re going to set up checkpoints at intersections and courtyards! Your commanding officers will direct you where to go!”
The mass of armored ponies broke up into their designated groups and orders were quickly issued in sharp loud tones. As Rose and Picket shuffled with their group, the stallion stumbled on his hooves and leaned on her before righting himself. He once again waved her off as she was about to ask if he was sure that he was okay.
“Alright everypony!” Golden Star now addressed his ponies only rather than the entire mass. “We’re in charge of securing the Canterlot Carousel intersection, The School for Gifted Unicorns, and the entrance to Restaurant Row! They’re going to be heavily trafficked and full of civilians, but our first order of business is to set up defenses!”
“GATES OPENING!” The call came from up on the wall and every eye in the courtyard fell on the gate as it was slowly cranked open. As the outer gate, a thick wooden drawbridge, fell the sounds of panicked screams truly flooded the space. Before the walls had dampened them and kept back the heat from the blaze that was raging across Canterlot. Now they were faced with the brunt of both.
A stream of civilians and Night Guards flooded in once the inner gate was even cracked open. There were scores of bloodied and harried individuals amongst them not even limited to just the civilians either. She saw members of the Night Guard with holes in their leathery wings and teeth marks in their armor.
“I don’t think I want to go out there…” Picket whispered.
“But we need to.” Rose answered flatly as she looked into the burning city.
“Alright, let’s move out guardsponies! Double time!”
There was no hesitation as the order activated the hooves of the columns of armored guards. Their hooves struck the pavement in time with one another as they filed out into the city, not even to restore order but to save who they could. Immediately outside of the gates was a group of guards with spiked wooden barricades, which consisted of a long unbroken log with spiked rods pushed through the central core to keep it upright and deter those who would rush it, spread out in front of them in a semicircle. One of the creatures had already impaled itself on a spike after having tried to jump over it, now it sank onto the pikes still twitching while its blood filled the cracks between cobblestones in the street.
Howls of the damned and screams of the doomed flooded the air as the guards fanned out and went their own ways. Along the way to their destinations, they saw little outposts of guards already set up at certain intersections. Some of them had the barricades the guards at the castle gates had erected, others had carts and furniture pulled from nearby houses piled to make a wall. More often than not, if it was a four way intersection, two streets would be blocked off in order to create a single corridor to funnel ponies through.
The further out from the castle they got, the less defenses they encountered and the more carnage they saw. Golden Star had been right, there was only one mode these things seemed to know: kill. Mares, stallions, foals…there was no quarter given. Batponies, pegasi, earth ponies, all types of blood watered the streets of Canterlot.
A window shattered nearby and one of those things tumbled into the street, a stallion’s neck in its twisted jaws. It was yet another unicorn with beady black eyes and a sword-like horn jutting from its deformed head. Blood seeped out between its curled lips as its teeth collapsed the poor pony’s windpipe. It dropped the victim, who hit the ground like a forgotten doll, then stalked towards the guards.
“Keep moving!” The Lieutenant called out, before barking orders to the ponies around him that were lost in the din of the moment. Rose, Picket, and the vast majority of them kept moving even as the sound of unleashed magic and steel echoed from behind them.
They finally reached their first destination, Canterlot Carousel. It was a small two story building decorated in pink, purple and white with gemstone accents. The only resemblance it had to its namesake was the circular shape and the vague tent shape of the roof. It belonged to one of Princess Twilight’s friends and was a popular spot for ponies with too much money, but that was all most ponies knew of it. It sat at a three way intersection with a thick stone wall behind it that housed some old defunct fortification.
A third of the company of guards split off and took up residence in the spot, Rose and Picket among them. They were all going door to door to get ponies out of their houses when something unexpected happened.
All at once, everypony in armor changed. The enchantment on every piece of guard armor in the vicinity failed simultaneously and the familiar hues of white and gray that flooded the ranks disappeared in an instant. They all looked around, clearly confused as they saw their counterparts ‘out of uniform’ for what was likely the first time.
Rose lifted her hoof and confirmed that even hers was gone. Instead of the slate gray fur that usually resided under her armor, now only the dark red coat from her private life was there. She looked to Picket and still found the same white unicorn, the only difference being his white mane now turned golden blond. They both looked at each other with astonishment before Picket broke the stalemate.
“I…like your mane?” He gave an unsure grin. “I’m not really sure what I expected with a name like Rose Wreath. Green, I guess?” She looked up in vain, trying to catch sight of her mane. She knew what color it was, a deep gold with a white stripe down one side, why did she try to look? “But how did this happen…?”
“I don’t know…” Rose was just as confused. They had just gotten this charm refreshed yesterday. It shouldn’t have run out yet. For it to fail, not just on them but everypony else all at once? Something had to be seriously wrong beyond the obvious.
“Rose, Picket! Clear the Carousel!” The call came from somepony in the group, not Golden but just as authoritative. It was enough of an order from somepony who sounded in charge that they followed it without hesitation.
Rose took the lead and her wing tightened around the spear tucked under it. She stood parallel to the door and raised a hoof to knock on it. There was no immediate reply, but there was a noise coming from inside. It sounded like somepony rummaging around in the dark.
“Canterlot Royal Guard!” Rose belted out in as deep of a voice she could manage. “We’re coming in to get you somewhere safe!” She looked back at Picket, who had his sword drawn and in his mouth, and he gave her a nod. She put her shoulder into the door with all of the effort she could manage. The bolt tore through the frame and one of the hinges failed, leaving the door to swing inwards at an angle. Rose followed it inside, her spear leveled.
“Light, coming up.” Picket whispered to her as they entered the darkened interior. Her eyes were kept on the space in front of her but she could see and hear his horn sputter. “Argh, come on…ow…” It took a few seconds, but he eventually conjured a light that revealed the room in front of them.
The Canterlot Carousel’s interior was as circular as its exterior. Racks of fancy clothes well out of Rose’s budget were strewn across the floor, and what looked to be a semicircular stage took up one whole side of the room only for now it was shrouded in a dark purple curtain. A staircase hugged the opposite wall and terminated in a landing that expanded into the darkness above where her companion’s light couldn’t reach.
“Hello?” Rose called out, dropping her harder tone she had used before breaking down the door. She walked into the building until she was standing in the middle of the room and her eyes searched the darkness for signs of life. “I know it’s scary outside, but we’re here to get you to the castle! It’s safe there!” The curtain covering the stage rattled and something clattered from behind it. Both of the guards turned and faced it, their weapons pointed and ready. “It’s okay to come out…” Rose was suddenly a lot less sure than she had been that they were there to help. It seemed like they might be the ones in need of help before too long.
The curtain split and one of those creatures jumped out onto the floor of the boutique. Another unicorn on gangly legs, its cerulean coat stretched thin over the elongated body. A shaggy mane of hues of orange and purple fell around its eyes and it let out a vicious howl that seemed to shake the building around it.
That old urge to flee built up in Rose’s chest and threatened to break free, but she pushed it back down. Even if she listened to it, there was no way she could beat it to the door. Turning her back or side to it was also a patently bad idea. She had to face it down and hope to Celestia above that the other guards outside would come to help.
“Picket, go get-” before she could even finish the order, the light from her unicorn friend’s horn died and the building was once again bathed in darkness. The only source of light was the gentle moonlight that spilled through the windows. It was just enough to see the beast in front of her, but that was it.
Then the creature’s horn lit up and supplied even more light. The golden magic glow from its horn cast long shadows across the room from the various racks of clothing. It also let Rose see, for at least a moment, that Picket was on the ground clutching his head.
Action needed to be taken. She knew these things liked to use their magic, so she had to strike first. There was no use being on the back hoof here, reacting would get her killed. Her wing extended, the end still curled tightly around the shaft of the spear. She took a short hop backwards, planted her hooves and drove forward as she threw the spear. It cut through the air like the bolt of magic it was attempting to beat.
The tip broke the thin skin of the beast’s front leg. It threw its head back and let out a feral scream of pain and its magic buildup released at the same time, sending a stream of raw magic straight through the ceiling above. It must’ve hit something vital, as a large chunk of the roof came down and landed squarely on the head of the beast with a sickening crunch. Rose felt the splatter go across her armored chest and neck, but tried not to dwell on it.
Even more of the soft moonlight illuminated the boutique thanks to the new skylight and brought Rose’s attention back to Picket. He was writhing around on the ground in pain and whimpering. She quickly rushed to his side and placed a hoof on his head.
“Hey, hey Picket!” She took his helmet off and let his golden mane spill out onto the floor. “What happened? Are you hurt?” He only answered with another cry of pain. “Don’t worry, I’m here. I’ll get you help. Just hang on. Please. Just hang on.” Her heart started to seize in her chest and she could feel tears well up in her eyes. She didn’t see any blood, nor any injury. She couldn’t tell what was wrong, how was she supposed to help? She needed to, but she just didn’t know how.
“RAAAAAAAGH!”
The whimpers and whines erupted into a rage filled scream. Rose got to her hooves and stumbled backwards. Picket’s mouth, now frozen and still letting out the terrible sound, changed in front of her eyes. The flat teeth of an herbivore shattered and sharpened, lengthening until they pushed down against the bottom of his mouth. His muzzle cracked and lengthened while his pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. The screams continued and the sound of bones cracking joined the chorus of carnage as his legs grew longer and longer, the bones telescoping with crunches and cracks as the pony writhed in incredible pain. The golden armor wrapped around his chest split at the seams as if it was made of tissue paper when his body got too big for it. His horn then extended and shed one side until a sharpened edge was left instead of the usual blunt protrusion.
When all was said and done, something that decidedly wasn’t Picket now laid on the ground, its chest raising and falling slowly. Rose’s eyes stayed fixed on the thing that used to be her friend. Her hooves carried her backwards slowly, the thought of potentially waking the beast that had once been Picket filled her head. She had gotten lucky with the last one and had a lot of help with the first one, but doing this alone…
Rose backed right into one of the racks of clothing that littered the place and it clattered to the ground. Picket’s head shot up, his now beady black eyes glared right at her. Like a newborn foal, he took to his gangly hooves and stumbled a little at first. Her eyes tracked across the floor to the other dead monster crushed beneath the fallen roof and the shaft of the spear that was sticking out from the rubble. She moved to get it.
Picket was faster.
The malformed jaws of the creature closed around Rose’s helmet before she was even halfway to her weapon. The masterfully crafted helm began to crumple as if it was made of tin and she could feel the pressure on her head as its casing got smaller and smaller. In a blind panic, one of her hooves shot up and connected with Picket’s throat, causing him to pull away in a howl of pain. As he did so, his razor sharp teeth caught on one of her ears and she could feel the flesh ripping in half as he lunged backwards.
The pain didn’t have time to set in as the pegasus spread her wings and launched herself towards the hole in the ceiling without a second thought. Why this had not been the first course of action, she wasn’t sure. The night air, once cool but now made scorching by the fires ravaging the city, stung the open wound on her head.
The crumpled helmet came off with some difficulty and a little grunt and cry of pain as it scraped against the mangled ear. One side of her ear was still upright, but the other was now flat against her golden mane and was spilling blood onto her head. The urge to fix it, to try to piece it together, was removed in a flash by a bolt of magic grazing her breastplate. It was enough to superheat the metal and burn the skin underneath. Not that she had any time to try to free herself from her armor or wallow in the agonizing pain as another bolt was loosed by Picket that was aimed right at her again.
The nearby airspace out of range of the hole in Canterlot Carousel’s roof offered a much worse view than just looking down on Picket. Before she had gone into the building, it had been chaotic but it had also been relatively distant. They had run into one of those things on their way here, but only one. Now they were everywhere.
Wherever she looked, there were more of those monsters. Even down below where her squad had been deposited to put up barricades, now there were half a dozen of those things fighting over whatever was left of the bodies of her comrades. Some of the new monsters were still wearing remnants of their royal guard attire, mainly scraps on their backs or the slot on the helmet that plumed their mane still remained. She hadn’t even heard them turn…then again, she had been occupied.
Rose Wreath wasn’t the only one in the sky right now. The airspace above the rooftops was awash in throngs of pegasi and batponies, all of them either looking around in horror or dodging beams of magic being hurled at them by the monsters below. Screams of those unable to get away filled the air, as did the unearthly howls of those turned. All around was death, destruction, and mayhem.
There was nothing she could do about it.
Taking on one of those things was a challenge. It required overwhelming numbers or luck, both of which she had been blessed with the two times she had emerged victorious over the creatures. Even merely escaping one had cost her two injuries of varying severity. There weren’t enough guards in all of Equestria to deal with an entire city of those things. There might not be enough ponies in all of Equestria to deal with this if it was in other cities as well.
“PONIES, TO ME!”
An earth shattering voice pierced the din of chaos that erupted from the city. In the distance, a dark blue pony bigger than most hovered above the castle walls. Lances of blue magic erupted from her horn and lashed out at something on the ground. Behind her a dome of golden light erupted around the castle and covered the walls. Any of the magic thrown at it by the creatures bounced off the glorious light.
It was all Rose needed to see. Like a moth to a flame, she buzzed towards the light. In the sea of chaos that was around her, it was the light that led her to a safe harbor. The pain in her body seemed to evaporate as she got closer and she could almost feel the light of the sun on her skin as it filled her with warmth, even in the depths of the night.
Even as she flew across the city towards the palace’s gate she was accosted by the things. Some of them had somehow gotten onto the roofs of buildings and were firing wild beams at the fleeing pegasi. The screams of the innocent, howls of the turned and the sound of magic being fired constantly turned what should’ve been a calm Canterlot night into a warzone.
A pegasus ahead of her, either a guard who had lost their armor or maybe just a civilian hoping to get to safety, took a lance of bright blue magic to their wing. One half of the appendage was suddenly separated from the other and the pony plummeted to the pavement. No sooner than the body had hit the ground had a swarm of those creatures descended upon it to end the suffering. The screams were covered up by victorious cries from the monsters.
When she finally got to where Princess Luna was stationed, right above the gate to the palace, she briefly understood the majesty of the night. Luna wore a harsh scowl and whipped her head as she threw out streams of magic to keep the savage beasts that besieged the city at bay. What had taken overwhelming force by normal ponies only took a mere thought and move of the head for the alicorn. In the light of the moon, with the stars of her mane fading into the night sky and the darkness surrounding her, Rose got it. The eternal protector, the pony who kept the nightmares at bay and did the job that nopony else could. That was who Luna was and it was why the ponies loved her.
“Please get inside now!” Princess Luna barked at everypony as they approached. “We do not know how long we will be able to keep this up!” There were some unchanged ponies running towards the castle gates down the main avenue of the city, but they were soon swallowed by a wave of the feral creatures. “EVERYPONY IN! NOW!” Princess Luna bellowed out again in that tone only a Princess could produce. That got everypony who was loitering around the entrance, mainly guards who were trying to aid the alicorn above and what little fleeing civilians there were, to move inside the castle walls.
As soon as they were in, the gates were closed as fast as they possibly could be and Princess Luna herself phased through Celestia’s barrier and landed amongst the panicked ponies. She was immediately bombarded with questions and panicked pleas for assistance. In response she raised a hoof, and the ponies around her went silent.
“There are many questions that even We do not know the answer to.” The calm and level tone was betrayed by a sigh that accompanied it. “We are working tirelessly to figure out what is happening and how We can stop it. Until such a time that the city is…habitable we are opening our home to the ponies who need it.” She then turned and talked directly to the guards, mainly batponies and pegasi with a few earth ponies mixed in. “Where are the…” her words trailed off as her bright blue eyes turned to the gate. The princesses’ eyes widened as she came to some realization before quashing the thought and addressing the guards again. “I suggest you all get aid if you need it then report to your commanding officers. Do not expect rest. It is going to be a very long day.”
“I did my best, hope it’s good enough for now.” One of the castle doctors said with a grunt as he finished bandaging up Rose’s mangled ear. The cleaning of it and stitching had been the worst of it, but he had also made some kind of splint to keep her ear upright and stable. It also meant that it couldn’t swivel at the moment and severely limited her ability to locate noises on her right side.
“It’ll have to be.” Rose sighed and looked down at her chest, where a patch of fur was now gone and some kind of patch with ointment on the inside was affixed. The burn from superheated armor pressing against her body. “Sorry…” she caught her ungratefulness and shook her head. “Thank you, I mean it.” She offered the best smile she could, which was returned by the doctor. He gave a nod then trotted off to go help others that needed it more than her.
On the way to the medical wing of the castle there had been ponies with all kinds of injuries, almost all of them a lot worse than what Rose had suffered. There had been limbs loose in their sockets, wings torn from bodies, and cuts so deep muscle was visible from a good distance away. Being able to walk, being able to fly, and being able to operate without severe impediment was a blessing.
“Even at night, the sun’s light blesses and protects.” Rose muttered her father’s old words and gave a quick look up towards the ceiling. It had certainly felt like the divine had intervened on her behalf more than once in the last couple of days. There would be no complaints, not from her at least.
The next order of business was to figure out if Lieutenant Golden Star was still around and figure out what needed to be done. The guard may be depleted, but it was still their job to help no matter their condition. Until she couldn’t walk anymore, until she was in the ground, Rose wouldn’t stop doing her duty for the crown.
The walk down the overcrowded hallway with ponies strewn about with varying injuries was a morbid one. The sight of weeping stallions and mares, of foals crying for their parents and ponies gripping where limbs had once been would stick with anypony that saw it. The deep shame of knowing the Royal Guard had been powerless to help most of them was heavy and weighed down on the heart of Rose as she sulked through the halls.
The obvious place to gather was the courtyard outside of the Royal Guard barracks. After all, she didn’t have a set of armor anymore. A new set would have to be issued and she would have to get back into uniform, that was if the enchantments on any of them still worked. If they didn’t, at least she would have armor again. She felt distinctly naked without it inside of the castle.
The strangest thing about the events of today was seeing ponies in guard armor around the castle without their signature uniform colors. A pony in armor holding a spear, wearing armor, who also happened to be bubblegum pink with a cherry mane was a very surreal sight. Any color except white or gray was an odd sight to see under the armor, but it was the current reality. It was something she could adjust to for a little while.
“Lemme go!” Two guards, one of them a golden brown pegasus and the other a violet earth pony, dragged a thrashing stallion down the hallway past Rose. “You tyrants! Lemme go! I haven’t done anything!” At first it appeared to be an earth pony, but as he tried to break free from the grip of the guards she saw the remnants of a horn poke through his mane. It was broken off about halfway up the appendage.
“You heard the orders.” The violet guard barked at the stallion. “All unicorns are to be isolated.”
“Featherbrains!” The captive stallion spat back. “I ain’t gonna turn into one! I ain’t! Just watch! Throw me in a cell and wait!” The two guards looked at each other, smirked and nodded. Then they marched off down the hall, probably looking to fulfill the stallion’s request. A guard was always a little too happy to throw a pony in a cell and wait.
Rose made her way through the castle at a nice clip. She was eager to get back into the swing of things and figure out how she could help. She was stopped a few times by guards she knew who were set up at checkpoints throughout, but they let her pass when she properly identified herself. Eventually she found herself in the courtyard that belonged to the Royal Guard.
The Royal Guard usually had a force of about two-hundred to three-hundred ponies available at any given time. Usually there were one-hundred on duty, one-hundred off, and then the reserves that could be called in for special occasions. The Night Guard, newly reconstituted after Princess Luna’s return, had a head count of one-hundred and fifty the last time Rose heard with a similar split of fifty on, fifty off and fifty in reserve. Gathered in the courtyard, a fighting force that altogether was supposed to equal close to five-hundred ponies on the best possible day, were less than a hundred ponies. Of course, there were still some left in the halls of the medical wing of the castle still receiving treatment for their wounds, but how many of them were still able to serve? Then there were those already at their posts throughout the castle. In her best possible mental estimates there had to be maybe one-hundred and fifty left.
“Corporal Rose?” A solid stallion with a daisy yellow coat and light blue mane approached her. It took her a moment, but the stern look and furrowed brow made her recognize him.
“Lieutenant Golden Star!” She immediately snapped to attention. The wounds that peppered her body made her regret the sudden motion, but she ignored them. “I got back here as soon as possible, sir.”
“At ease. It’s good to see you Rose.” The Lieutenant nodded. The wounded pegasus did relax, but only a little. “What happened out there? Did you make it to the Canterlot Carousel?”
“We did, sir.” Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath. These were already memories she didn’t wish to relive, but he had asked. “Private Picket and I were asked to clear the building where we ran into…one of those things. It was dealt with.” There was no use going into detail. Not with what came next. “Picket…was unresponsive. I tried to help him. But…” The words caught in her throat and she had to take a deep breath to collect herself. “...I saw him turn into one of those things, sir. He did it right in front of my eyes.” Her jaw clenched and her chest tightened. “Picket…he did this to me.” Her head moved to point out her ear and she tapped the bandage on her chest. “I got away and came back here.”
“Picket…” Golden shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.” This was more emotion than the usually stoic stallion had shown in Rose’s entire career, even more than what he had shown yesterday after their first encounter with one of the monsters by the gate. Now he looked genuinely sorrowful. “I’m glad you're alive, Corporal.”
“Thank you, sir.” There was a moment of silence between them before Rose spoke again. “If I may, what happened to you? The last I saw you were fighting one of those things on the way to the Carousel.” Golden didn’t even look injured, not really. There were little scrapes and a little cut below his right eye, but he wasn’t mangled or hampered in any visible way.
“It got Brass Tacks.” The blunt statement was enough to turn Rose’s stomach. It was an awful way for somepony to describe your demise. “We got it back, though. I…don’t want to get into it. I’m sure you understand.” Only a nod was needed in response to that. “We were going to rejoin the main force when…the unicorns with me turned. It was Parade and I alone against five of those things. We thought we were done for, but then Princess Luna appeared and just…dealt with them.” Pain and shame twisted his mostly featureless face for a moment, thoughts of the comrades lost to the swift action of one of those they were supposed to protect.
“Why just the unicorns?” The question had been bugging her since she noticed it, really since she had seen Princess Luna notice it just inside of the castle walls. “Every single one of those monsters I’ve seen has been a unicorn.” A cursory look around the courtyard and the remaining guards would only further validate that line of thought. They were the only pony race native to Equestria that wasn’t present now. “Is it targeting them?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Corporal.” Lieutenant Golden straightened and his voice hardened once again. “I don’t get paid to think about that. The best we can do is let the Princesses worry about that and just protect them while they try to figure it out.”
“Right. Sorry, sir.” Rose nodded and shifted on her hooves a bit. “Is there spare armor? Mine was ruined in the fighting.”
“There’s more than enough in the armory.” Golden tilted his head towards the building that was against the outer wall of the palace. “Get yourself some and a spear. Afterwards go find Princess Luna in the throne room, she’s coordinating the guard effort inside of the castle.”
The question of ‘what about Captain Galea’ died on Rose’s tongue as quickly as it appeared. The Captain was a unicorn. Of course she now couldn’t be in charge, she was probably one of those things.
Rose did as she was told and visited the armory. The old quartermaster, an ancient earth pony stallion by the name of Lock, looked her over and nodded before retreating into the building to get what she needed. He came back with a suit of armor and a spear which he pushed across his little table with a solemn nod.
Rose, along with a bevy of other guards, got their new kit and put it on. This wasn’t her armor and it sure felt like that. Her previous set of armor had been with her for years. Extreme care had been taken to keep it in tip top condition. Beyond that, she had gotten used to all of the places where it was tight and where it had some give. Now it seemed like this new set pinched in all of the opposite places and gave where it didn’t need to. It felt wrong.
Not that there was any time to try to adjust or fiddle with the fit. As soon as it was on Rose and a bevy of others, including Lieutenant Golden, were all headed off towards the throne room. The group stayed silent on their march through the halls, not out of fear of reprisal most of them just looked lost in thought.
Rose was busy thinking about what she had seen. The ponies who had run from Ponyville the other day were all earth ponies, but they had never said anything about-no, one of them had said something about it. One of the mares had been adamant about not having a unicorn near her, so much so that she wouldn’t let a unicorn medic even tend to her wounds. That still didn’t answer the question of rather it was airborne or not. Nopony in Canterlot had turned until after the first monster showed up, so it had to be, right? The guards had gang tackled it and then went off.
“Did I spread it…?” She whispered to herself.
After all, Picket hadn’t turned until after they had met up. She washed off her neck to get the blood off before she passed out last night, but that wasn’t exactly a decontamination. The blood coursing through her veins turned to ice as the thought that she had been responsible for her friend becoming one of those things solidified in her mind. That familiar lead ball of fear and panic sat in her gut and threatened to slow her down.
“Perfect, more guards.” Princess Luna’s voice broke through Rose’s thoughts. She hadn’t even noticed they were in the throne room, probably because Princess Celestia’s radiant warmth hadn’t alerted her to their arrival. Also the light of the moon didn’t make the stained glass windows light up quite like the sun.
“Lieutenant Golden Star reporting, Your Majesty!” The commanding officer belted out and saluted. He received a nod from the sole alicorn in the room. “I have brought more of our recovered ponies for you to assign posts.”
“We see that, thank you.” Princess Luna stood up from her throne and put a stack of papers she had been leafing through in her seat. “The goal is no longer to secure the city.” The Princess of the night strode down the ramp from the raised dais of the dual thrones and looked over the assembled guards. “That has been deemed impossible. Now the only goal is to maintain the security of the castle until assistance can arrive. We could leave right now, but that is not who We are. To leave the ponies who have served us so well behind to the beasts beyond the walls would be unconscionable. So instead my sister and I will stay here, with you, until we can ensure that every single last pony can make it out alive.” Luna, despite being smaller than her older sister in almost every metric, was more imposing. The cold aura of confidence and determination that she gave off was enough to bring forth a wellspring of courage from even the most fearful pony in the room. “Lieutenant, please select three of your most trusted guards and have them meet with Our sister near her quarters. She has a special assignment. The rest of you will take up posts around the wall. We do not want any of those things getting through.”
“Rose, Bulwark, Parade!” Golden called out after he was sure Princess Luna was done speaking. The three ponies emerged from the crowd and approached the commanding officer. One of them was an earth pony stallion who looked like he was about to burst out of his ill-fitting armor, his brown coat was covered in scratches and bite marks while the black mane that poked through his helmet. The other was a pale yellow pegasus mare with a red and yellow striped mane, almost the inverse of Rose’s own. “You three, go to Celestia’s quarters. I know you can handle yourselves around these things so you’re to do what she asks and keep her safe at any cost, am I clear?”
“Yes sir!” They all three chanted in unison.
“Dismissed.” Lieutenant Golden said with a nod then trotted off to follow the rest of the departing ponies.
The trio of armored ponies marched in silence through the halls, only motioning every once in a while to indicate where they were going. Everypony knew where the quarters of the princesses were, at least generally. One of the first things you learned on palace patrol was to steer clear unless you were specifically assigned to it. If you happened to stumble into that hall without express permission you were liable to get severely reprimanded or just fired if you were a repeat offender. If you entered with a weapon they might toss you in the dungeon for a little while. Luckily they had orders and were let down the hall even with their weapons.
“The Lieutenant said you and him were saved by Princess Luna.” Rose addressed Parade as they stood outside Princess Celestia’s quarters. “How’d…uh…that go?” Sweet Celestia she was bad at small talk.
“Not great.” Parade said with a deep sigh. “The ponies I’ve spent the last decade with every day were ready to kill me. There wasn’t any hesitation after they changed, it was like there was nothing left but hate inside.” Both Bulwark and Rose looked away, awash in their own similar experiences. “I didn’t think I’d feel anything when Princess Luna…dispatched them. I did though. I will be eternally grateful that she saved my life…but those were still ponies and she still did that…they had families.”
“If it’s any consolation, their families are either dead or turned too.” Bulwark grunted.
“It’s not.” Parade retorted.
“When Picket turned I froze.” Rose mumbled as the memory kept playing back in her head. “I made a move for a weapon but…I don’t know if I could’ve done it.” The feral howl and his jaws around her head replayed again and again. She could still feel the pressure in her skull as he threatened to pop her head like a grape. “The ponies I didn’t know…I mean, yeah. It’s a fight for survival and I don’t know you, but when it’s somepony you know like that, a friend…” Parade’s hoof rested on her side. “We’re here though, right? We made it and now it’s our job to keep everypony safe.”
“Right.” The other two ponies answered in unison.
“Oh hello my little ponies.” Princess Celestia’s melodic voice shattered the melancholic mood that had overcome the hallway. Rose’s own sadness melted away in the presence of her radiant warmth and she couldn’t help but to smile as she looked up at her princess. “I’m going to assume my sister sent you for my little assignment?” She received nods from the three guards. “Wonderful! Please, walk with me.”
The guards, of course, complied with that request. Princess Celestia led them away from the royal quarters. It was a quiet walk as nopony dared question what this assignment was, they all knew that Celestia would tell them when they needed to know. Eventually they came to a halt in front of a door that was covered in a shimmering veil of golden light.
“Very well, here we are.” Celestia turned to face them and her smile dropped. For the first time, Rose actually looked past the aura that the alicorn gave off and focused on what she saw. Princess Celestia looked tired. Her posture wasn’t as rigid as usual and the light of her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. Then there was the slight wince of pain as the golden light disappeared from the door. “When the bells rang I ordered an evacuation of most of the castle’s staff and residents to the east wing. When it was confirmed what was happening I had the unicorns separated from everypony else…there are a few stragglers that evaded the dragnet in the chaos.”
“What happened to the unicorns that were ‘separated’?” Bulwark threw up the first question.
“They were placed below the castle in the old crystal caverns.” Princess Celestia answered solemnly. “Once this is all over we will retrieve them, but we couldn’t risk them being in the dungeons and so close to everypony else in case they got out.”
“How many stragglers?” Parade asked next.
“Two, we think.” That answer inspired very little confidence. One of these things was enough to deal with, two would be overwhelming and any more would be cataclysmic. “My nephew, Prince Blueblood, is one of them. He refused to leave his room, even after I ordered him too. The other unicorn, we’re not sure who it is. All I can tell you is that they are definitely still in there.”
“We’ll get it done, Princess.” Bulwark nodded and turned towards the door. “You can count on us.”
“I know I can.” Princess Celestia stepped forward and pulled Bulwark into a small hug. “I want you all to be as careful as possible. These creatures are still ponies, but they aren’t themselves.” She let go of the stallion and did the same with Parade, who had a stunned look on her face. “I care for all of my ponies, but this must be done for the safety of those in the castle. I wouldn’t ask you to put your own lives in danger if it wasn’t for the greater good.”
Then Rose was pulled into a hug. Her face was pressed against the alicorn’s chest and it sent a shiver down the pegasus’ entire body. An incredible warmth filled her entire being and it was like she was enveloped in a wonderful memory of a lazy summer afternoon. There was a split second of hesitation from the pegasus, but it vanished and she pressed her face against Celestia’s fur in response.
“Good luck, my little ponies.” With that, Celestia pulled away and frigid reality crept back in. “I will remain here just in case.”
Rose bit back the disappointment that was rising in her throat and swallowed a heavy sigh. Princess Celestia was now counting on her, and she had received something that even her father couldn’t imagine in his most fervent ramblings. There was a job to do, and now she was certain it would get done. The spear at her side found itself in the grasp of her wing as she looked to her comrades.
They nodded.
Bulwark, who was a sergeant according to the amethyst moon on his chest, took the lead. One of his shoulders pushed the door open while Parade and Rose were stationed on either side of him with the tips of their spears poking in front of him to provide some cover in case of attack. As the door opened further, the two mares moved in slowly and took up residence on either side of the hall with their spears pointed inward to form a point.
An ideal formation would be two more ponies on either side with their spears also converging in the middle. It would allow the two outer ponies to properly check corners or flip around to cover the rear. Instead they had this, and at the center was Bulwark with a sword in his mouth. It was an odd choice as a sword was usually the weapon of choice for unicorns who could use such a thing at a distance. If that was what he felt comfortable with, who was anypony else to argue?
There was no noise in the seemingly abandoned wing. The sound of their breath and the beating of their hearts rising into their ears were the only noises. From all available experience, those things liked to make a lot of racket. That made Rose’s heart pound a little faster and made her eyes dart around.
“Maybe he’s still in his room?” Parade whispered. “It should be two halls down on the right.” Both of the other ponies gave Parade a quizzical look. “What? My first detail was his personal guard. You don’t forget where he lives so you can avoid it after.”
“Okay yeah, but what about the other one?” Rose wasn’t keen on focusing too hard on one target and forgetting about the other. “If he’s in his room, fine, but we still have to worry about the other one getting the drop on us.”
“Let’s focus on the one lead we have.” Bulwark growled out past his sword. “We got to Blueblood’s room first and deal with him quickly. Noise will draw the other one out.” It was a solid plan, and seeing as how the stallion was the ranking guard amongst them, they would go with his plan.
The trio crept quietly down through the halls, their hooves clinking against the marble floor the only sound in the entire place. Every time they came to a door that was even slightly ajar, they had to clear it. So they would do what they had done to enter this wing of the castle: the ponies with spears on either side of the door, then Bulwark would open the door and Parade and Rose would sweep in with Bulwark on their heels.
They encountered nearly a dozen open doors, most of them containing nothing but lavish quarters meant for palace residents like Prince Blueblood or functionaries that helped keep the place running. There was one, however, that held something unique.
When Rose and Parade had first entered, they had frozen and pointed their spears directly at it. From the outline, it was a unicorn. It was one of those things, the gangly limbs and mouth full of sharpened enamel confirmed that. It wasn’t moving though, and it seemed to be encased in some sort of black crystal. Its eyes were fixed on the door and its mouth was opened in a silenced howl. The light of the room reflected off of the sleek surface that seemed to cover its entire body.
“What in the world…” Parade murmured as she approached the monster and tapped it with the tip of her spear. It produced a small ‘tink’ like a spoon against a teacup. “...is it dead?” The three ponies surrounded the thing and all took turns tapping it to gauge what the answer to that question should be.
‘I don’t know.’ Seemed to be the consensus based on available evidence.
“Maybe they just do this.” Bulwark offered with a shrug. “Maybe come morning they’ll all be stone and we can just shatter them.” To that end, the big burly earth pony tipped the creature over. It landed on the carpeted floor of the suite with a solid ‘thunk’.
“Or maybe they’re like butterflies.” Parade was the next to throw out an idea. “Like this is a cocoon and they’re turning into something a lot bigger.” That sent a shiver up all of their spines. These things were already twice their height, they didn’t need to get any larger. “Either way, I say we should definitely smash it.”
“Maybe after we deal with Blueblood?” Rose hissed out. “If we smash this thing it’ll draw him and anything else to us. I’d rather we take him by surprise than the other way around.” All three of them looked at each other in a silent duel, eventually the other two relented and nodded at her. “Okay let’s try to get this over with. If we’re lucky, this was the other unicorn Princess Celestia mentioned.”
They went back to their slow sweep of the hall until they came to the intersection that Parade had mentioned. The group swung down the right hallway and their eyes immediately landed on the set of double doors that were now blown off of their hinges. The slumped body of one of the monsters, a white stallion with a long shaggy blond mane, was halfway in and halfway out of the doorway. Its neck was bent at an unnatural angle and its cold blue eyes stared off into a nonexistent distance.
“Is that…Blueblood?” Rose wasn’t sure who said it, she was too focused on the already dead body of their target. They approached it slowly, weapons drawn and ready in case this was some sort of lure to get them to get close. It wasn’t until they were right next to it that they could see the individual vertebrae in the Prince’s neck pressed against the side of his neck that they were absolutely certain he was dead.
Parade’s face twisted from a grimace into a scowl as she brought her spear up and drove it straight into Blueblood’s chest, right where his heart should’ve been. The way she was grinding the tip into his chest cavity Rose could only guess that she was trying to ascertain that he even had one to begin with. The red and yellow mare gave the corpse a kick with a grunt.
“You done?” Bulwark looked at Parade expectantly. “Anything else you want to get out of your system?”
“No.” Parade responded with a grunt as she pulled her spear from Blueblood’s body. Rose wanted to ask what that was about, but she figured that wasn’t an answer she was ready for. Nor was it one she wanted. Blueblood’s…exploits with female members of the guard were widely known. Vague rumors swirled around and if truth was truly stranger than fiction then Rose was fine with letting the truth wither along with his desiccated corpse.
“What killed him?” Bulwark went back to ignoring Parade’s outburst and kneeled down next to the body.
“Maybe her?” Rose offered, pointing into the room.
Against the far wall of the room was a pony slumped against the wall. It was a mare, tall and skinny, with a dark fuschia coat and a dark pink mohawk running from between her ears down her neck. There were three things that stood out about this particular pony; one such thing was the broken horn that sprouted from her forehead, another was the scar that went vertically across her right eye, and the final thing was the outfit she wore. It looked to be a black bodysuit that cut off at the very top of her legs. Similarly colored plates of armor ran down her back, along her haunches and she had armored horseshoes on each hoof.
“Do you guys recognize her?” Bulwark asked. “I don’t think she’s a guard.”
“I’ve never seen armor like that before.” Parade stepped forward to get a better look. “Maybe some kind of special forces? Maybe not with the broken horn…I don’t think Princess Celestia would allow somepony like that in.” The mare flipped her spear around in her grip and poked the passed out pony with the blunt end.
The mystery mare’s eyes shot open. They lit up with electric blue lightning as her hooves snatched the spear, spun it around and whacked Parade across the face with the shaft in one fluid and blazing fast movement. That sent the guardsmare stumbling right into Bulwark, who tripped over one of Blueblood’s legs and tumbled to the ground.
Before anypony had a chance to respond, the mare was on her hooves and sprinting past the trio of guards. Rose dropped her spear, turned on a dime and launched herself off of her hooves and after the interloper. The hallway was more than wide enough to accommodate a pegasus in flight, it would just be tight corners.
The unicorn wasn’t very far off, and the limp she was running with allowed Rose to close the gap quickly. They were maybe halfway to the intersection when they collided, the guard’s hooves wrapping around the slim torso of the unicorn and pushing her to the ground. The two tumbled in a conjoined ball down the hall, their armor making sure to raise a ruckus against the stone floor as they went.
As they skidded to a halt, a knee found its way to Rose’s lower stomach and the wind was knocked from her lungs forcefully. Then an armored hoof connected with her helmet and sent her vision swimming. The mare beneath packed a mean wallop and there was no way the mare above could survive an onslaught after the day she had.
Rose’s wings beat furiously as she lifted them both into the air again until the tips of her feathers kissed the high ceiling of the hall. Then with all of the force she could muster, she pushed right back down. The unicorn she had in her grip slammed into the stone floor hard enough to knock the wind out and stun her for a moment.
“Y-youre under arrest…” Rose panted and tried to catch her breath in the brief moment she could. “You-” Before she could get another word out the unicorn kicked her right in the stomach again, except this time instead of going for sheer sudden impact, she followed through. It was enough to loosen Rose’s grip and send her into the air.
The unicorn was like a dancer with how she moved, so fluid and graceful that she could be mistaken for a performer at the Canterlot Ballet. She rolled backwards from her position on her back and found herself on her hooves, and somehow carried all of that motion into a spin that ended with a kick straight into Rose’s breastplate that sent the pegasus clattering down the hall and away from her.
Rose’s head bounced against the ground more than a few times as she tumbled flank over teakettle down the hall until she came to rest on her side. Darkness encroached on the edges of her vision and her thoughts were moving like molasses across her mind as she tried to will her hooves to comply with the orders she was giving.
The unicorn got to her hooves and started to run again, but something was chasing her. A long thin object flew through the air, Rose wasn’t sure what it was. There was a distant cry of pain and the sound of a pony falling to the ground and uttering every swear word they could think of. That was the last thing Rose heard as she passed out on the cold floor.
“It’s the reason I married your mother, you know. Kissed by the sun and blessed to work the fields under its light.” The wrinkled pale red face of her father smiled at her, his mouth obscured by the golden beard that sprung from his face. The smile lines and permanently raised bushy eyebrows didn’t betray his typical demeanor. He always seemed to be happy, always finding a reason to smile through it all. “We’re lucky to be able to fly, to soar above the clouds and get closer to her grace than anypony else. The ponies who work the fields know the harsh truth of the light, though. It cares not how hard they labor, it still beats down all the same.”
“No use complaining about it.” A mare said with a grunt as she moved behind the stallion. She was a solid yet stout earth pony, her coat the color of freshly tilled soil and her eyes golden like the morning light. “It makes you sweat, but it makes the plants grow too. You can’t have one without the other.”
“It’s part of the world, little sunbeam. It has many facets which must be understood” Her father nodded at the mare’s words. “The sun is a great and terrible thing. It loves, it nourishes, but it can also burn and sting. It doesn’t discriminate and the only remedy to avoid its wrath is the shade, something which is only possible through its light.”
The face of the stallion began to fade, swirling into a messy mix of colors like fresh watercolors. His words became a garbled mess that blended into the background and warped into static. One word pierced the veil, repeated over and over.
“Rose.”
“Rose.”
“Rose!”
She jolted upright and looked around, suddenly alert and ready. Her wide golden eyes met Parade’s pink irises and the two mares locked gazes for a few moments before Rose finally relented and looked around the room. They were back in the barracks and the late afternoon sun cascaded through the dusty windows. The murmurs of off-duty guards filled the space by the dull roar of the monsters outside of the castle walls still filled the background.
“Finally.” Parade sighed and gave a small smile, her hoof patted Rose on the shoulder. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to wake up today.” The other mare’s helmet was off and her red and yellow striped mane fell around her head in curls. It almost looked like streamers were sprouting from her head and hanging around her face. “You good?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Rose could still feel her thoughts swimming around her brain in an unfocused tizzy. It wasn’t easy to focus and her stomach was turning constantly, but she was alive and that’s what really mattered. “What happened? I tackled that unicorn and…”
“And you got your flank kicked.” Parade couldn’t help but grin. “It’s not every day you get to see a Royal Guard get roundhouse kicked down a corridor, in fact it might be a first. So congratulations on making history.” The pale yellow pegasus offered a hoof, Rose took it and was pulled to her hooves. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she was out of her armor once again.
“Thanks…” The armor was quickly located, sitting right next to her bed. “Did she get away?”
“Pfft. No.” Parade rolled her eyes and a smug grin replaced the cheeky one. “I’ll have you know my marks in accuracy paid off. Pegged her in the leg with my spear from thirty yards.” Rose couldn’t help but roll her eyes as her companion’s chest puffed up and her wings ruffled. “She got patched up and she’s in the dungeon now but she won’t be running away any time soon.”
“Do we know who she is? Why was she there?” The additional question of ‘how did she kill one of those things?’ was also there, but after being on the receiving end of some of those moves there wasn’t much left to that question. Rose picked up her breastplate and slipped it on. “I doubt she was some lost castle servant.”
“She wouldn’t even tell us her name.” Parade sighed again. “Princess Celestia and Luna both tried and couldn’t get anything out of her. All we know is she’s not a changeling.” There was a pause. “Bulwark and I think she’s a spy.”
“She’s a pony, who would she even be spying for?” Rose scooped up her helmet and put it on. She wasn’t careful and her damaged ear caught on the hole it was supposed to go through, causing her to wince and recoil.
“Got me.” Parade shrugged. “Oh by the way, they’re already rationing food. The LT gave me an extra so you wouldn’t go hungry.” A small brown paper bag was produced from inside of the other mare’s breastplate and she tossed it over to Rose with a wing. “You’re supposed to come to the front gate when you’re done.” Parade then promptly turned around and left the barracks.
Rose sat back on her bed and opened the bag. Inside was just some bread, dried apples, and a single haycake. How long had it even been since she had her last meal? It had to have been over twenty-four hours at this point. A long low growl from her stomach let her know that the time didn’t matter and that it needed to be filled.
As she ate, her eyes wandered around the barracks. Other ponies were in there, all of them on their cots. Not all of them were sleeping, though. Some of them were simply staring up at the ceiling while others were shifting around and trying to lay down in a way that didn’t disturb new wounds. Then there were the others, souls who were sitting on the edges of their beds and staring into space. One of them was facing her, and she could see a bit of blood splattered across his armor.
He had taken a life. It was easy to see the thoughts of ‘what have I done’ spilling out of his ears. It was understandable, ponies were a peaceful bunch. Violence was a rarity and killing another living thing was nearly unheard of unless you lived on the fringes of society and needed to.
The first time Rose had needed to snuff the fire of life from something else was shortly after she had gotten her cutie mark. The memory of the wolf’s breath pouring over her face, the hot stench of meat still made her stomach turn. The feeling of something in her hooves, a rock in that case, striking flesh and digging in never left. It was something that could always be recalled and something that could never be truly buried. That had been her first, and her second had been that beast at the gate the other day. Could she count the one in the boutique? She had caused the misfire that led to its death, but she hadn’t directly killed it.
“Why do I even care?” She asked herself. It wasn’t like she was some griffon who was liable to etch tally marks in her armor for every kill she scored. ‘Because the light of the sun shines favorably on those that know their sins.’ the little voice in her head answered with one of her father’s favorite sayings from his little book. With a deep sigh, she conceded to the nagging voice.
Two. The wolf and the first unicorn. Both of them she had meant to do mortal harm to. The unicorn in Canterlot Carousel didn’t count because she had aimed for the leg. It was nothing but a random chance that had caused its death, not her directly. She could be at peace with two.
There were those that could never be at peace with even one, not even with the sight of violent death. That only raised the question of what those types of ponies were doing in the Royal Guard. They had armor and weapons, which they trained with to even become certified for the job. It was explicit in the charter of the Royal Guard that they were to use all possible methods to protect the royal family. Canterlot had already been attacked by an invading army once, and she knew that there had been fighting in the streets on that day.
Had the hooves of so many guards frozen then too? Is that why Princess Celestia was attacked and hurt by the bug queen? They had expected peace for so long that violence was abhorrent, even for the ponies meant to be the shield for such violence. That made Rose’s stomach turn more than any amount of death.
They had categorically failed to keep Canterlot, and by extension the Princesses, safe because they weren’t prepared. After all of this was over, they needed a reorganization. They needed something to be in line with the threats that continually came knocking. Maybe this would be enough to make them more proactive and more attuned to violence.
Fire gave light, it gave life, and it provided the crucible through which steel was forged. Right now they were all stuck in the roaring fire that tempered the best and made ash of the rest. On the other side of this, whatever it was and however long it took to get resolved, they would all either be charred remnants of themselves or finely honed weapons for the crown. Expect the former, but act and prepare for the latter.
Rose knew she would keep doing what was necessary for not only her survival, but for the lives of the alicorns she served as well. She only hoped that the other guards would as well. Judging from the stallion sitting across from her and mumbling incoherent thoughts, that hope seemed distant.
Rose finished her rations and left the barracks in short order. Once the door had opened and she stepped outside, she was greeted with more of reality's little cruelties. It was supposed to be a nice day out, cool with a stiff breeze. The skies were supposed to be clear and beautiful. That wasn’t the case. Acrid black smoke poured into the sky above Canterlot and obscured the sun, while fires still leapt into the air from beyond the walls and made the whole place feel like a desert with the amount of heat the blaze put out. If the sights and smells weren’t bad enough, the sounds were worse. Those creatures were still howling, and there were still ponies beyond the wall screaming.
The courtyard belonging to the royal guard was bustling with activity. Tents were now set up everywhere with guards, most of them severely injured from the looks of things, inside of them. There were the lucky few who were off-duty and attempting to relax in their off time while they dug into their rations. Usually there would be smiles and laughter as they traded stories from their shift, now there were only solemn frowns and sighs.
Everypony just looked tired.
The thought of going through the castle was not one that stuck in Rose’s mind for long. It would take too much time and she had been out of the fight for long enough already. So instead she took to the skies. It would be faster and help her loosen up a bit before going to her post. Luckily the wind was blowing the smoke north rather than east, which meant she could take off without being consumed in thick black clouds.
When in the air, she got her first proper view of the city since the night had passed. Most of the buildings in Canterlot were made of stone, so they wouldn’t actually burn down like wooden buildings put up elsewhere. The interiors would burn though, the ponies and things in them would as well. That’s exactly what had happened since it all went to Tartarus. There wasn’t exactly a clear cause of why everything was burning either, unicorn magic didn’t set fires by default. Maybe one of those things had hit a gas main, or there were a lot of panicked ponies that knocked over lanterns. Whatever had caused it, the results were the same and the city was being consumed by blood and fire.
Even if you could look past the colossal flames that kissed the sky, you couldn’t ignore the monsters. There were some that were still roaming the streets, still searching for elusive ponies that had somehow escaped the jaws of death for a while. Then there were the rest. They were gathered around the castle walls, their hooves scrabbling at the smooth stone and their magic trying to blast through.
There had to be over ten thousand of those things amassed at the walls, all of them growling and howling and itching for more blood. The throngs of multicolored monsters stretched out into the streets beyond as they all just sort of stood and waited for the ones at the front to do something. The carnage had not stopped in over twelve hours at this point and it didn’t seem like the mass was even tired, they still looked as eager as they had at the beginning.
Her hooves touched down at the front gate, where an exhausted Golden Star stood. Rose’s hooves immediately came together and she saluted her superior with a crisp movement. The barrel chested earth pony looked her over with bleary eyes then nodded softly at which point she relaxed a little.
“Good to see you, Corporal.” The Lieutenant grunted. “I was told to pass along a message from Princess Celestia herself: ‘Good job.’” He rubbed his chin, where a healthy five o’clock shadow had already formed. “I don’t think anypony was expecting you to capture an honest to goodness spy in there.”
“We were just as surprised as anypony, sir.” Rose responded. “Parade said we still don’t know who she is yet, is that true?” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Parade, it was just that some things could get lost in the grapevine or muddled by a tired mind. It was just better to go to the source, or at least a main tributary of a source in this case, when in doubt.
“Whoever she is, she’s not from Canterlot. That’s for certain.” Golden tried to stifle a yawn but failed. “Wouldn’t say a thing either, not a word. She even refused to talk to the doctor while he patched her up.” Come to think of it, the supposed spy hadn’t even said anything while Rose chased her. The only words that anypony had heard her utter were the various swears after the spear hit her. “That’s not why I wanted to talk to you, though.” He reached one of his wide yellow hooves into his armor and pulled out a purple crystal in the shape of the crescent moon.
“What…” Rose couldn’t even formulate words as she stared at the insignia. “A promotion? Now?” It hardly seemed appropriate with everything going on, and the Captain of the Royal Guard herself was incapacitated if not dead somewhere in the depths of the mountain.
“A lot of our best ponies were out there and they…” The sentence was left hanging but they both knew what was meant. “...you survived. You’ve dealt with those things, you accomplished Princess Celestia’s mission, and you’ve caught what seems to be a spy or intruder or…something. So you’ve earned it.” There was no waiting for Rose to respond or properly accept it, instead it was snapped onto the front of her armor. “Congratulations, Sergeant Rose Wreath. Now go join Parade on the wall above the gate. Dismissed.” Every word from his mouth was drawn out and sluggish. He gave a half–hearted salute and trudged off. “I’m going to get some sleep…”
Rose looked down and studied the gem now pinned to her chest. A hoof traced around the edges and pressed gently on the center. She wished it was a sun, but the moon would do for now. Maybe someday she could reach the higher ranks and earn that sun on her chest, maybe if she proved herself during this crisis. As Golden Star had said, they had lost a lot of ponies so far. There would be opportunities to climb after this was over.
After a moment of absorbing her new promotion, she made her way to her post atop the wall overlooking the gate. Parade was there, a shield strapped to one of her wings and slightly crouched behind the crenelations. The sounds from the monsters on the other side crawled up the wall and assaulted the ponies that stood along it.
“Don’t get too close!” Parade held a hoof out to stop Rose from trotting much closer to the edge of the wall. “And try to stay low!” Rose opened her mouth to ask why, but Parade cut her off with the same raised hoof as before. The pale yellow pegasus grabbed her spear and scooped up a spare helmet beside her with it. She then raised the helmet aloft over the wall and waited.
It wasn’t more than a few seconds before several bolts of magic came from the blob below and turned the piece of armor into very expensive swiss cheese. Rose then immediately understood that being that helmet had already happened to more than one pony up on the wall, and she definitely didn’t want to add to those numbers. So she crouched down next to her fellow guard.
“Oh hey, Sergeant Rose now, huh?” Parade gave a little grin then nodded. “If I was promoted every time I got my flank kicked by a bigger mare I’d be captain by now. But hey, I do it for the love of the sport not the recognition.” Her smile cracked and she broke down into a fit of giggles. “I-I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
Rose couldn’t stop herself from laughing either. It felt good to let it out, to just smile and laugh at something for the first time in what felt like eternity. “Well thank you anyway. I wasn’t planning on getting promoted, but if all it takes is bodily harm then I think we’re all in line for several.” A collective howl from the unicorns below punctuated the statement. “So…we’re just keeping a lookout?”
“It’s busywork.” Parade said with a sigh. “Those things are trying to break through the wall, but at the rate they’re going it’s going to take weeks. I guess we’re up here in case they try to climb it, but I don’t think they’re smart enough to do that.”
They had been smart enough to get onto the tops of buildings to get better shots at fleeing pegasi the other day, though. So why had that ingenuity faded when faced with a wall? There were buildings around that were taller than the walls, and there was no doubt in Rose’s mind that there were some floors where those things could get some shots in on the guards stationed on the walls if they wanted to. So why weren’t they taking advantage?
“Weird…” Rose mumbled, concluding the thought. “How long is the shift for anyway? Are we still pulling doubles?” Parade just stared at her. “Triples…?” A shake of the head was the response she received. “Until we’re relieved, then?” A nod. “Great…”
“Sleeping in shifts is the way it goes for now.” The other mare shrugged. “They have ponies in pairs stationed everywhere inside and outside of the castle doing the same.” Parade pursed her lips for a moment and her eyes focused on Rose. “We might as well get to know each other, right?”
“I guess?” Rose wasn’t much of a talker. The only reason Picket had been somepony she had considered a friend was because he had forced himself into that position by making her talk, by always being around and becoming a friend by default.
“Well I’ve seen you around for basically my whole career, but I don’t think we’ve said two words to each other since today. It’s more than a little weird, right?” Parade sat on her haunches but slouched to keep her head below the firing line. Rose joined her in a similar position but kept her eyes focused on the edge of the wall as if one of the creatures would poke their malformed head up over the side at any moment.
“Not really.” She had to raise her voice a little more than she was used to while patrolling outside. The large walls and solid surfaces let voices bounce usually, meaning something a guard said on the wall could find its way to the city center if it was said loud enough on a calm day. Now it was the din of growls and magic blasts that bounced at them from the other side of the wall. “I’ve always tried to keep a low profile. It’s still a job so I’ve always been more focused on doing it than mingling…no offense to anypony else.”
“But…just Picket?” Parade raised an eyebrow. “How long have you even been in?”
“Eleven years.” Rose answered flatly. “Twenty-sixth day of the third moon of the year nine-hundred and ninety-eight. That’s when I was officially accepted.” The day was ingrained on her brain like a brand. How could she ever forget it?
“Do you have a place in the city?” Rose finally turned to face her conversation partner at the question and she cocked her head to the side. “Y’know, for leave and stuff? Mine’s in an apartment building by Pony Joe’s.”
“No.” Rose shook her head. “I usually just go back home when I get some time off.”
“Every time? For eleven years?” Rose nodded in the affirmative. It caused Parade’s jaw to hang open before she could find words again. “But…why? No offense Rose, but it kinda seems like you don’t have a life.”
“What?” Rose couldn’t help but scoff. It was a ridiculous assertion. Of course she had a life! “I do. It’s right here, being a Royal Guard. It’s been my life since I decided to join.” Once again she was met with an agape mouth and a bewildered stare. “What?”
“And you’re just now making sergeant…?”
“Like I said, I like to keep a low profile.” Rose tightened her jaw and she had to keep her wings still lest they betray her feelings and begin to ruffle. “I’m not here to get promoted, Parade. I’m here to serve the crown and do my best to keep the princesses safe. No matter what job I do, I’ve always done it to the best of my ability and never complained. I’m not a rabble rouser and I’m not here to play politics.”
“I mean…” Parade searched for words, even waving her hoof around as if it would conjure them from the ether. “...I guess. Okay. But would it kill you to live a little outside of all of this?” She motioned towards the castle with the hoof. Her head followed the hoof and her eyes fell on something and stayed glued to it. “What in the world…is that a ballista?”
Rose’s head followed her compatriot and landed on one of the towers that seemed to sprout from the castle like a hydra’s head. This was one of the few flat topped towers and on top of it, barely visible from this angle, were the front of the frame and two giant wooden arms poking out from the sides. It was something she had seen in books before, but never before in reality. She didn’t even know the castle had one.
“I think it is.” Rose rose to her hooves, only to be forced back down as several lances of pure magic whizzed over her head. A few strands of her mane from the plume that sprouted from her helmet fell down onto her muzzle. “What are they doing with it?”
“Maybe thinning the herd?” The answer provided by the other mare was better than any one that Rose had. “No, the angle isn’t right…” Both of their eyes followed the probable line of sight for the giant siege weapon and both determined that it couldn’t hit the street even if it wanted to. Well, it couldn’t hit the streets around the castle. Maybe the ones on the other side of the city.
A projectile was loaded with the glow of blue magic, Luna’s. Of course she would be the one to pull out a weapon of that caliber. The projectile had to be thrice the length of Rose, and the metal tip attached to it was a big metal sphere instead of an arrowhead. All of the onlookers in the castle courtyard and up on the wall murmured as they saw it.
“AIM!” Luna’s voice boomed from atop the parapet. The ballista swiveled a bit until it was pointed into the city. There was a beat and everypony held their collective breath. “FIRE!”
The catch holding back the giant bolt was loosened and the projectile launched from the ballista at blinding speeds. Dozens of heads tried to track the missile as it sailed through the air, but all of them were slightly behind. It struck one of the buildings near the castle, one of the tall ones whose upper floors could see over the walls that Rose had noticed earlier. The stonework buckled under the impact of the makeshift wrecking ball and one corner of the top few floors crumbled and collapsed.
“Just in case they’re smarter than they look…” Rose mused. Her appreciation for the princess of the night was growing with each passing moment. She was proactive and tactical and thought like a protector. “In another life where she wasn’t an alicorn, Princess Luna would’ve made a perfect guard.”
“Oh yeah. Not a shred of politics in her. Just all action.” Parade looked directly at Rose as she spoke. “You two must be kindred souls or something, all you’re really missing is a spell on the moon.”
Rose declined to refute that or offer a rebuttal. She really didn’t want to get into her personal beliefs or how if her father had heard somepony compare her to the scion of the moon he would’ve laid his hoof across their face. Instead they just watched on as yet another projectile was loaded into the weapon and was fired off into the city in short order.
“How long do you think they’ll keep this up for?” Parade wondered aloud.
Day Five
Six hours and counting. That’s how long that ballista had been lobbing what equated to battering rams disguised as arrows into the city. So many buildings had their top floors lopped off, and even more had just straight up collapsed from the floors pancaking on top of one another from the top.
At some point in the last few hours Princess Luna had left the parapet after crying out in what sounded like pain. Parade thought she had just stubbed her hoof, but Rose had her money on her mane or tail getting caught in the ballista. Now there was a group of three ponies up there loading and firing the thing without the aid of magic. It was much slower without an alicorn’s assistance.
The upside was that ever since they started leveling buildings around the castle, the monsters had gotten a lot more quiet. Whether that was because the siege weapon had struck some semblance of the fear of god into them or if it was just because the sounds of buildings collapsing was loud in comparison to the constant droning growls and howls? Who could say.
The sun had set shortly after the ballista had started its work and now the moon was left hanging in the sky. The only way to tell that any time had passed since Luna had raised the moon was the distant sound of a clocktower bell at the top of every hour. Without that, it was almost as if the moon was staying still among the inky blackness of the night.
“Can they please stop…” Parade groaned and let her armored head hit the ground in front of them. “There’s not a building around that’s higher than the wall now! They can’t level the whole city!”
The two mares, and most of the guards on the wall now, were laying down with their hooves tucked under their bodies. This wasn’t because they were lazy or bored, but bored did cover a lot of the emotions, it was because some of the closer buildings had sent debris up and a few guards now had brand new dents in their armor.
“Maybe this is for more than just safety.” Rose offered. “Think about it, Princess Luna was out there last night attacking those things. Now if she does it again, they can’t go scurrying into the buildings to hide.” The theory had come to her as she watched some of the placement of some of the shots and the pancaking of them from the top down. It was all very deliberate. Yes, they had failed to collapse some of the buildings, but they had gotten the vast majority. “So the next time she goes out and tries to clear a path for a breakout, she can just open fire.”
“You do know you’re still talking about ponies down there, right?” Parade tilted her head towards the monsters. “Picket is still out there, our fellow guards are down there. Innocent ponies are down there.”
“Maybe.” Rose answered quietly as she thought about Picket. “Some of them, a lot of them, killed ponies. We saw them kill our fellow guards and innocent ponies all the same.” She looked up at the moon that was still visible even through the thick layer of smoke in the sky. “If this is the only way out, the only way to save the ponies trapped in here, can we really let what they used to be get in the way of our duty?”
“As long as I don’t have to kill any more of them…” Parade refused to meet Rose’s eyes and instead turned away. “...what if they’re still in there though?”
“The light always shines through the darkness.” Rose responded immediately with an old saying from her father. “Even through the thick veil of night, the light finds us and guides us.” When Parade gave her a very confused look, Rose cleared her throat and simplified. “If they were, they wouldn’t be doing this. Anypony should be able to overcome a darkness that overcomes them as long as the light of who they truly are stays lit.”
“You sound like a preacher on a street corner.” There was a bitter laugh that followed and a side eyed glance. “You’re a very weird pony, you know that?”
“It’s why I keep to myself.”
So they returned to the blessed silence that had flourished between them over the last few hours, punctuated only by the sound of the ballista firing and striking yet another building. A liberal estimate of the damage would be about a fifth of the city either damaged or reduced to rubble, while the remaining bits were still on fire.
“They’re leaving!” The cry came from somewhere down the wall. “The monsters are leaving!”
Everypony got to their hooves at once and the guards already on the wall quickly crowded the edge while the ponies on the ground quickly got up there and joined them. Sure enough, the mass of mutated monsters were mobilized and were moving away from the fortified walls of the castle. Cheers went up all around as the beasts retreated into the rubble of the nearby buildings. Guards hugged each other and celebrated as they finally had peace for the first time in nearly a full day.
The peace didn’t last
AAAAAAAUUUUOOOOOOOO!
A feral cry from the direction of one of the castle’s towers broke through the cheers and drew dozens of pairs of panicked pony eyes and ears. Nopony seemed to breathe as the sound faded. The wind didn’t blow, the retreating monsters made no sounds and it even seemed like the fires in the city stopped crackling for a moment.
Then the tower shattered.
A beast well over twenty feet long broke through the old and regal stonework, it’s bright white coat matching the bricks it tore asunder. A mane of pure fire billowed from its head and tailed down its spine, spewing thick black smoke in its wake. A pair of blood red, almost black, eyes stared down at the gathered guards as the thing flashed a mouth with what looked to be multiple rows of razor sharp teeth down at them. A horn the length of a pony sprouted from its head and was surrounded in a golden light that turned night into day around it.
“RUN!”
Rose heard the call, and she understood it. She wanted to follow what it demanded, but her hooves refused to move. A beast straight from her deepest darkest nightmares was right before her. The wrath of the sun made manifest. Even from a hundred feet or more below it, she could feel the scorching heat coming from its body. It was angry, and it was looking to exact its vengeance upon the ponies of Equestria.
“Rose, move!” A substantial force impacted Rose and sent her falling off of the wall. That still didn’t knock her out of whatever stupor the sight of the colossal beast had sent her into. “We need to move! Now!” It was Parade yelling right into her good ear. “Get inside, come on!”
The red and yellow pegasus got to her hooves first between the two of them and tried to drag Rose to hers. As much as she wanted to join her new partner in running, her hooves felt like cement and her heart was a lead weight in her chest. Her eyes never left that thing, not even as it came around and its horn charged with the blinding light of the sun.
“MOVE IT SERGEANT!” Parade shouted as loud as she could right into Rose’s face.
That finally did it. The order activated some deep seated response and her hooves carried her into a full sprint towards the front entrance to the castle. They all looked back as they beat a panicked retreat into the safety of the castle to see a beam of shining golden light erupt from the leviathan’s horn and impact the wall that had been keeping the horde beyond at bay. The stones melted beneath the might of the sun until nothing but an inconvenience remained where a wall once stood.
They were up the stairs and beyond the threshold before the first unicorns crossed the ruins of the once mighty barrier. The door was closing even as stragglers were trying to make their way into the castle. Dozens of ponies screamed out in horror as the door slammed shut in front of them. Then the massive door bar swung down into place to make sure that it couldn’t be opened from the outside again.
“W-what do we do?” Parade’s question was echoed across the interior of the castle. “We need to…we need to regroup somewhere. Fortify or something, right? We need to do something!”
The panicked rambling meant nothing to Rose, who was once again frozen and starting at the door. Hooves were beating against it from out there and the screams of ponies, guards, filtered through the reinforced wooden doors. As did the growls from those things and the dying cries of her comrades as they succumbed to the beasts in terrible ways.
That wasn’t what had her stuck though. No, her brain was trying to work something out through a fog of horror and shock. It was something important. It was right there and it was struggling to form the idea into something solid. After a few moments of silence and her mouth silently moving as it searched for the words, she finally got it out.
“Hey Parade…” The fellow pegasus guard stopped to look at her, tears stained her pale yellow cheeks and bright red veins were creeping their way towards her pink irises. “...where’s Princess Luna…?” Those pink eyes somehow became wider as the question sank in.
The question was almost immediately answered.
A pitch black creature nearly the same size as the one outside, if not just a few feet smaller, crashed through one of the walls of the entry hall. It had leathery wings that sprouted from its back and its mane looked like somepony had just cut a section of the night sky out and glued it to the monster’s head. It didn’t roar, its mouth was too occupied with a guard already caught between its gnashing teeth. Blood ran down its chin and shreds of golden armor fell from its mouth as its victim was turned into a fine red mist in its jaws.
This time, Rose didn’t freeze. The night was something she was already plenty wary of and didn’t need any extra motivation to flee. A whole gaggle of guards fled into the next room as the thing that had once been Princess Luna was too busy turning others into paste to pursue quite yet.
A dark and treacherous thought crossed her mind, one she felt shame about immediately but at the same time she agreed with it wholeheartedly.
Chaos erupted all throughout Canterlot Castle. In the entry hall, a monstrous Princess Luna was busy tearing through any Royal Guard or regular pony who had not gotten away fast enough. Meanwhile, from deeper into the castle the sound of more wild howls and cries came from the unrelenting tide of monsters that had found another way in. The screams from outside carried through open windows and gave a small glimpse into the grim reality that was now descending upon the survivors in the castle.
“We gotta get somewhere safe!” Parade screamed over the chorus of carnage that surrounded them. They hadn’t really stopped moving since Princess Luna had busted through a wall and began tearing through their comrades, but they didn’t have any destination in mind. They were simply running through the halls of the castle in the opposite direction of the turned unicorns.
Their hooves carried them into the dining room, where dozens of ponies were already situated. That included both Lieutenant Golden Star, Bulwark and several of the wounded guards that had been in tents by the barracks. Some of them had weapons and shields, but to say they were wielding them would be an understatement. They were surely holding them, but there wasn’t much intent in the action.
Some healthy and able bodied guards shut the doors behind them and pushed an overturned table up against it. Was it enough to stop the coming horde? No, probably not. It might be enough to slow them down, though.
“Sergeant Rose, Corporal Parade!” Golden’s face, a fresh cut above his left eye that spilled crimson blood down it, lit up a little as he saw them. A long gash was opened across the front of his breastplate, one that had dislodged the red sun that had once adorned it, but there was no sign that it got to the skin underneath. “Thank Celestia you made it in. We need to set up defenses, somewhere ponies can rally to and-”
“Rally? Are you insane?!” Parade scoffed right in the officer’s face. “We need to run! Celestia and Luna have turned! That’s it! Game over!” The upstart corporal marched right by the Lieutenant. “Canterlot has fallen and I’m not going to kill myself trying to hold onto a castle with a dozen cripples! Sorry..” She stopped herself and looked back at Golden. “I’m not going to kill myself, Sir.”
“I’m not asking you to do that, Corporal.” Golden reached out and grabbed Parade’s tail and then pulled her right back. “I’m ordering you to help your fellow ponies to stay safe.”
“What’s the difference…?”
“Parade is right.” Rose finally found her voice again. “H-how many unicorns in the city? Ten thousand? How many of us now? Less than one-hundred…maybe even less than fifty…” She swallowed and let out a shaky breath. “I-it can’t be about anything other than our own survival now, sir…” The look of pure betrayal and hurt that flashed across her commanding officer’s face was enough to make her stomach turn. “I-I think we should hide, not fight. Not now.” That pained Rose to say after all of her internal bravado about what the guard needed to be. What it needed to be in the future and what it was in the present were two different things, though. For there to be any kind of future, they needed to survive the present in any way possible. “I understand you want to save others, sir…but…” the final ‘are they worth it’ hung in the air without being said.
That question would have to be answered sooner rather than later, as blasts of magic perforated the door that Rose and Parade had come from. One of the guards that had shut it caught a beam to the head and he crumpled to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
“Sir…” Rose reiterated. She looked into his eyes and found a stallion battling his own code and trying to figure how much his own life was worth. Rose didn’t have time to wait around and find out. Parade was already halfway to the other door and Rose galloped after her.
As they left the dining room they found themselves in the kitchen. It was all but abandoned, but the ovens were still going and piles of dried fruit littered the counters and there were racks of freshly baked bread left unattended.
“Thank Celestia…” Parade muttered and grabbed a sack from the floor that had once held potatoes and began to fill it with the food that was left behind. “C’mon Rose! Get it together! If we’re going to be hiding, we need food unless you want to come out to get it later.”
Rose was still processing everything and her brain was moving like a turtle through particularly thick molasses. She couldn’t accept what was going on around her, not anymore. Something very deep down in her soul rejected the very reality she found herself in. The disconnect between what she wanted to be and what was caused her to move in slow motion. She still complied with Parade’s request, though.
The two mares went around the kitchen, dumping more and more food into potato sacks as fast as they could. They stopped briefly as sounds of violence came from the dining room, but it wasn’t the growling magic of the unicorns. It was preceded by angry shouts between stallions, then the sound of hooves against metal. Then a few moments after Bulwark came into the kitchen with an unconscious Golden Star draped across his back.
“We’re coming with you.” Bulwark stated flatly.
As the door to the dining room swung closed, Rose caught a glimpse of the ponies left in there. Some were missing limbs, some with long painful wounds winding down their bodies, and all of them had the look of a pony condemned. Rose wanted to ask for forgiveness, but the reality was that there was now nopony to even hear her pleas.
If there was no god to see them, did their actions matter anymore?
“Th-the dungeon!” Parade started moving towards the other end of the kitchen and to the door. “It has two big metal doors to get in, right? We shut ourselves down there and stay quiet until there’s an opening to leave.” There was no argument, nor any new ideas. So they all just nodded at the suggestion. “Okay then, cmon!”
As they left the kitchen, they could hear the door in the dining room finally fail. The roars and sounds of flesh being ripped filled the air, but there were no screams. Just resigned silence. Nopony else seemed to hear the silence, but it was deafening to Rose.
The group moved into the back halls of the castle, where the servants usually traveled to avoid getting underhoof of government functionaries. Now they were one of the last clear avenues of travel from the monsters that were no doubt still pouring into the building. They galloped down the halls and followed the maze of little side spaces and rooms until a terminus near the back of the castle.
The beasts still seemed to be preoccupied with sweeping the castle and getting any survivors, so they hadn’t gotten this far back yet. One thing working in their favor was the single entrance into the place most likely causing the mother of all logjams. It had to be the only thing preventing every square inch of the castle from being covered by one of the turned unicorns.
The group of guards came out of the halls back in the bunk room where the castle servants lived. There was nopony back there, just rows of empty bunks and heirlooms left behind. The pictures that were set on the nightstands featured unicorns almost exclusively. These were the ponies the princesses had no doubt deposited in the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot to keep the castle safe.
Turns out, that didn’t really matter.
They were let out into what was called ‘the dusties’ by the Royal Guard. It was an area of the castle that was so disused that it was rarely cleaned, simply because nopony important ever went back here. It included several closets full of supplies, copious amounts of holiday decorations, and the entrance to the castle dungeons.
The big metal door with ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’ stenciled in black stood out amongst the hearth’s warming lights and plastic trees like a sore hoof. A few big boxes were pushed out of the way, a clear sign that somepony had already been around here recently. None of them even thought to comment on it as Parade pulled the door open and ushered the others inside.
The stairs leading down seemed to spiral forever into darkness. After a dozen feet or so the white marble of the castle was replaced with the naturally dark stone of the mountain itself. There were lit torches every go around the central column, but that was the only light provided. Something slammed into the metal door at the top of the stairs, which only sped up their descent.
Eventually after what felt like five straight minutes of walking they reached the door at the bottom. It was of similar composition to the one up top, save for a small opening in the middle with three vertical bars and it was left slightly ajar. A rock was propping it open, one just big enough to keep a space between the door and the frame.
Parade put her shoulder into it and struggled to push the door open. It had to be a couple inches of pure metal with how heavy it was, which made sense. This was a dungeon. If it was flimsy or easy to get into or out of, it wouldn’t be very good at its job. If what little luck they had remained, then this would be enough to stop those things. Once everypony was inside both Rose and Parade shut the door together. It latched shut with a mighty ‘clank’ and for the moment they were safe from the monsters outside.
The dungeon was what you would expect from such a place. It was a giant room, probably about one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, carved from stone. Ten cells lined the walls, five on each side and each of them twenty foot squares. Only two were occupied though, and both of them were at the very far end of the cavernous room.
Bulwark was the first to break off from the group, and he entered the closest cell and tossed Lieutenant Golden onto one of the cots inside. Then the imposing earth pony took his helmet off and tossed it to the floor before sitting on his haunches. His eyes closed and his chest swelled with a deep breath which he held for a few moments before letting it out.
“So we just wait now?” Bulwark asked. “Wait for what exactly?”
“Help.” Parade answered as she took off her own helmet and tossed it to the ground. She shrugged the bag full of purloined food next to her as well. “What that looks like, I don’t even know.” She then joined Bulwark, but outside of the cell. The pegasus laid her head back against the bars and sighed. “Or maybe those things will just leave if they don’t think anypony else is in Canterlot? Then we can walk out of here.”
“And go where?” Bulwark retorted. “Then there’ll be ten thousand of those things out in Equestria, maybe more if it spreads to other cities.”
“Cloudsdale? The unicorns can’t exactly get up there. At least, I don’t think so.”
“What about the LT and I?” Bulwark glared at Parade and flared his nostrils. “Or are you okay with leaving us to die like you were with the ponies in the dining room?”
“Hey!” Parade jumped to her hooves and stormed into the cell and glared down at the stallion. “You left them behind too, you know that right?” She jabbed a hoof into Bulwark’s chest. The stallion, thoroughly unimpressed, rose to his full height and glowered down at the mare. “So don’t get all high and mighty with me about it! I was just offering a solution, something nopony else seems to be willing to do!”
“Hey, anypony want to fill us in down here?” One of the two original occupants of the dungeon hollered from the opposite end of the room. “What’s going on up there?” It was the stallion from last night, the one that asked the guards to throw him in a cell and wait to see if he turned. He was a slate gray with a white mane and a wrinkled face.
In the cell across from him was the pony that had knocked Rose out last night, the supposed spy. She was without her armor, and was sitting on the cot in her cell and studying the group of guards with an intense gaze.
Rose finally felt the events of the last little while catch up to her. She collapsed to the ground and shook violently as sobs choked her airway. Tears streamed down her eyes as the weight on her heart finally tore it in half. She buried her face in one of her legs and just cried.
What remained? Almost everypony she had ever worked with was either dead or turned into one of those things. The castle she had thought a bastion was now a prison. The pony she knew as a divine being joined the ranks of the damned and had almost killed her.
The sky had fallen and flattened Rose Wreath’s entire world beneath its weight.
She thought of Picket, of the ponies that had been locked outside of the castle doors, of the ponies left to die in the dining room. She had done nothing to save them, she hadn’t even tried. In fact, she had condemned some of them to death directly. She knew of her sins, but now it seemed like the sun would never shine favorably on her again no matter how much she wallowed in her shameful actions. The next time she felt the light of the heavens, she knew it would not be the gentle warmth she reveled in. It would be a scorching accusatory flame.
“WHAT?!” The cry made Rose lift her head up from the floor. It was the gray stallion in the cell. Parade was on the other side of the bars from him and nodded. “Nonononono! That shouldn’t be possible! They’re not even unicorns!”
Rose got to her hooves and did her best to compose herself. She looked a mess, but there wasn’t much to do about that right now. Not that it mattered. What use was professionalism now when the institution it stood for was defunct? She found herself down the length of the room and by Parade in short order.
“Yeah wait a minute…” Parade mumbled and looked at the stallion, then turned and looked at the mare in the other cell. “...why aren’t you two monsters? You’re unicorns. You should be one of those things by now.”
“They’ve been down here since last night.” Rose said between sniffles. “Maybe they just haven’t caught it yet?” They had effectively been quarantined. “Princess Celestia-” the name hurt to even think about now, let alone say out loud. “-said they put all of the unicorns in the castle down in the crystal caverns. Maybe they’re not infected either?”
“Maybe.” Parade rubbed her chin with a wing. “I’m not going to check, though. Either they’re not turned and ‘safe’ or they’re all turned and we have an army of monsters above and below us…” There was very little reason to open that particular box, everypony could agree there.
“We should kill them to be safe.” Bulwark appeared next to the mares and with a dagger between his teeth. Both of the unicorns backed away from the doors to their cells. The stallion looked frightened while the mare looked eager for a fight.
“I’d like to see you try…” The fuschia mare growled out.
“No!” Rose raised a hoof towards Bulwark. “We could…we could learn a lot from them, right?” Both of her fellow guards raised an eyebrow at her. She didn’t even know what she was saying, she just knew she couldn’t have any more blood pooling around her hooves. There was a moral deficit now, and she had to try to balance it out someway. “I-if they don’t turn, then we know it’s not airborne right? We would have to be carriers by now.”
“If they do turn?” Bulwark asked.
“They’re in cages already.” Rose tried to reason with the stallion the best she could. “Look at them, they don’t have horns. They won’t be able to blast us if they do.” Her eyes went around the room until they fell on a discarded spear near the wall. “Then we can…do away with them.”
“So what do we do in the meantime? We just sit here and wait for them to turn into murderous monsters?” Parade didn’t sound too excited about the prospect and nopony could blame her.
“I ought to throw you in one of these cells for insubordination!” Golden Star roared and shoved Bulwark with two powerful hooves. The Lieutenant had been awake for maybe two minutes, but that was long enough for his blood to boil. “No, I ought to throw you in there for murder! All of you!” An accusatory hoof swept across the three guards in front of him. “We were supposed to protect those ponies! Not leave them to die!”
“Even if it cost us our own lives, sir?” Parade made sure to put every bit of contempt she could into the honorific. She seemed to be the most stalwart of them when it came to the issue of the ponies they had left behind.
“Yes, Corporal.” Golden made sure to spit Parade’s title right back with equal venom. “That’s our job! We’re supposed to protect the ponies of Canterlot! We’re supposed to be paragons for ponies, not craven monsters!”
“Technically…” Rose spoke loud enough for everypony to hear as she stared up at one of the windows that lined the very top of the walls. “...the Royal Guard charter and the oath we take during initiation states that the only lives we’re obligated to protect are those of the rulers in control of Equestria.” She had spent enough time pouring over that document during indoctrination that she could recite it front to back if need be. “That’s the whole reason Princess Twilight doesn’t have any guards, remember? She’s not in charge.”
“Stow it, Sergeant.” Golden pointed a hoof at her then turned back to Parade.
Whatever was said next faded into the background of Rose’s mind. The sun still hadn’t come up, for obvious reasons. That didn’t stop Rose from focusing on it. It was stuck somewhere in the aether above the world instead of spilling its glorious light across Equestria. What a terrible fate it would be to die in the dark.
“We’re going to set up a defensible position upstairs in a few hours.” That brought Rose back out of her own thoughts. Everypony voiced displeasure at Golden’s new order. “I don’t care how much you don’t like the idea! If there are more ponies who survived upstairs, we need to let them know that we’re here!”
“There are thousands of those things up there!” Bulwark protested with some vigor. “If we draw any attention to ourselves, we’re going to get swarmed by every single one of them, including the princesses.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if you saw them but they’re…worse than the others.” The hair along Parade’s spine stood up straight. “I have to agree with Bulwark, it’s not a good idea. We stay put until those things move away.”
“Fine.” Golden grunted. It was obvious that nopony was going to go along with his plan, so he gave up on it. “I’ll think of something else, then. Everypony else just…stay alert.”
Rose went back to doing what she had been before the Lieutenant had woken up, sitting beside the unicorn mare’s cell and staring up at one of the windows. There weren’t even many thoughts going through her head as she did so. It was a comfort thing that she desperately hoped would start working again some time soon.
“What’s your name, sir?” Rose’s eyes briefly left the window to see who Golden was talking to. It was the unicorn stallion in the cell.
“Al.” The unicorn stated grumpily. “Are you gonna let me out now or am I still a prisoner despite the circumstances?” He didn’t sound as mad or panicked as he should have given the circumstances. He just sounded annoyed. Rose couldn’t help but notice his eyes flick over towards the rack where a singular spear was situated.
“Nope.” Parade answered for the commanding officer. “Like we told you, not until we’re sure you won’t turn.”
“Whatever.” Al grumbled and laid back down on the cot in his cell.
“What about you?” Golden trotted over to the spy’s cell and studied the mare. “What’s your name?” The only response he received was a cold stare from her electric blue eyes. “We’re trapped down here together and if you want any chance of being let out you might as well be a little sociable.” The soft side of the LT shone through again and he tried to be as nice as he could be in the moment.
“Tempest.” The mare said through clenched teeth.
“Edgy.” Parade snorted.
“I’m not going to ask what you were doing in the castle, don’t worry.” At that, Tempest cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? I just care that you don’t try to kill us. Celestia knows there’s enough stuff trying to do that already. We don’t need to help them.” He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. “Can we trust you once we’re sure you won’t turn?”
“No.” Tempest responded flatly. “I won’t kill you, but you can’t trust me.” That was both helpful and not helpful and the grunt that came from Golden confirmed he felt the same. “You won’t ask and I won’t tell, but just know that I’m not on your side.” Everypony tensed up at that. The implications were definitely not good. Changelings maybe? Was she one? Had the griffons gotten a bit more aggressive and decided to use pony spies?
“If you’re alive and not one of them, you are on our side.” Golden rebutted her. “Whether you like it or not.”
The dungeon fell into relative silence after that. Bulwark and Parade were talking about something, but that was really the only sound. Rose was still fixated on the window, just waiting to see the light again. The pit in her stomach was aching to swallow the hope she had left, but as long as there was darkness then there had to be light. It had to be coming. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice Tempest approaching her from behind until the mare tapped on her shoulder.
“You’re the one that tackled me, right?” Tempest’s voice traded defiance in for condescension as she spoke.
“Yes.” Rose answered curtly. “And you’re the one that knocked me out.” The wings on her back bristled and ruffled slightly. She got up to face the mare she had sparred with not even twelve hours ago and tried to match the intensity of her gaze. “How did you kill that monster you were in the room with? They don’t go down that easily.”
“I have my ways.” Tempest answered coyly. “What do you know about killing those things anyway? I didn’t think yelling ‘stop, you’re under arrest’ at them would be fatal.” The two mares just locked eyes. They were both searching for something, but Rose found it first. Through the intensity, through the anger, in those intense blue eyes there was pain. Maybe nopony else would see it, but Rose did.
“I killed one a few days ago…” Rose mumbled. “The very first one to enter the city. I stuck a spear in its chest until it stopped moving. If you count…indirect methods, I got another yesterday. I hit its leg as it was about to blast me and it got itself crushed by part of a building instead.”
“Huh.” Tempest looked genuinely surprised. “I didn’t think you ponies had it in you. Makes sense that you’re the one that went after me, then. You actually have a little fire.” The unicorn walked back to her bed and climbed on top of it.
“More than you know.” Rose whispered to herself.
“Okay. I wanna make a deal.” Al spoke up and gave his cell a rattle. “You want a way out of the city? I have one.” Everypony made their way over to his cell, even Rose peeled herself away from staring out of the window and joined her comrades. “I wanna be let out though. I won’t run or hurt you, I just can’t stay locked up.”
“Tell us first.” Golden offered his side of the deal. “If it pans out, then fine. If not, then no.” There was a nonverbal standoff between the two stallions, but in the end the one not in a cage won.
“Listen…” Al started, one hoof raised. “I’m an…entrepreneur of sorts.” All three guards looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Hey! I’m a legitimate businesspony, alright? Just…sometimes you need to get things into the castle without certain prying eyes.”
“You’re a smuggler.” Bulwark clarified for everypony. “A criminal.”
“No! No!” Al shook his head and glared at them all. “I bring in things the important ponies want! Just…usually they don’t want the guards or princesses catching it.”
“Fine.” Golden raised a hoof to cut off any potential dissension from his subordinates. Celestia knows all three of them wanted answers of how and when and what. “We’re not going to adjudicate all of your wrongdoings. How’d you get these things in?”
“The tunnels.” Al said with a nod, as if anypony knew what he was talking about.
“The catacombs?” Parade asked with a scoff. “No way. We patrol those. Every entrance is gated off and locks are checked every night.”
“No, not the catacombs!” Al sighed and put a hoof to his face in exasperation. “The tunnels! The bug tunnels!” Again, he was met with confused mumbles from the guards. “The changelings! Y’know they dug tunnels all throughout this mountain, right?”
“No…?” Golden answered for them. “I…I was never told that.”
“Sweet Celestia, you didn’t know?” Al guffawed and stomped his hooves with glee. “Ahahaha! I can’t believe you didn’t even know! We just thought you guards thought that nopony would ever use them! Oh man, I wish the fellas were around. They would find this hilarious!”
“Enough. Where’s the closest entrance?” Bulwark wasn’t one to be made fun of. He made sure to get that across by slamming his hoof on the ground. That was enough to make Al shrink back and clear his throat from the laughing fit he had fallen into.
“I know…” It was all coming together in Rose’s mind now. Al had already tipped them off earlier, just nopony had noticed. Nopony except her.
She trotted over to the mostly empty weapon rack, pulled the spear off of it and set it against the wall. Then she dragged the wooden rack away from the wall. The backboard of it had been hiding an entrance to one of the so-called ‘bug tunnels’. It was big enough for a pony, an average sized one at least, to crawl into. The contraband they had been getting in and out must’ve been small enough to be pushed in front of a single pony or dragged behind. There was no room to carry anything on one’s back.
“That’s why you wanted out! You wanted to escape!” Parade grabbed the bars of the cell and shook them as she yelled at the stallion. “You were going to wait until we weren’t paying attention and leave without us, weren’t you?!”
“We all want to escape, lady!” Al pushed himself against the back wall of his cell and put up his hooves in surrender. “Maybe I was thinking of skedaddling before the going got any worse! Maybe!” The stallion shrugged. “I told you, didn’t I? I didn’t do that, so that has to count for something.”
“Bulwark and I aren’t fitting through there.” Golden completely ignored Parade’s outburst as he knelt near the hole. He looked between the two guardsmares and chewed his lip in thought.
“Not Parade, sir.” The other guardstallion openly denying her of the opportunity, turned the mare’s ire right on Bulwark. “I worry she may try to leave us behind and just fly off to Cloudsdale.” The two corporals stared each other down. “You know I’m right.” He growled out at her.
“Hey, you don’t think Rose will try?” Parade barked back at him. “Anypony with a brain would try to get away from here as fast as possible!” Rose wasn’t even sure she wouldn’t try if the calling became too strong to resist when she was out there. “Just say you don’t trust me!”
“Okay, I don’t trust you!”
“Enough!” Golden got up and shouted the other two down. “Both of you!” Both Parade and Bulwark laid their ears back and gave a quiet ‘sorry sir’. Even in the midst of it all, the training was still there and they still reacted to it. “Sergeant, I’m sending you out there. You’re to confirm that there is a path to the outside and come back. No delays. Am I clear?”
“Yes sir.” Rose stood up straight and looked Golden right in the eye.
“If you fail to return and you haven’t been killed, then I will consider it a dereliction of duty.” Rose’s heart stopped for a few moments and her blood ran cold. “Do I make myself clear?” Deep down, Rose knew there was no way for them to know if she was killed or left. So if she just didn’t return, then her memory would just be dishonored even if she died carrying out orders.
“Yes sir.”
“Al, anything we should know about the tunnels?” Golden didn’t stop looking into Rose’s eyes, even as he was talking to their unicorn prisoner. “Anything dangerous?”
“Well, it’s a maze.” Al approached the edge of his cell closest to the tunnel entrance. “Darker than sin, too. But we have a system. There are little…plaques, I guess you’d call them. They have bumps on them. Different patterns of bumps lead to different things, what you’ll want to do is follow the ones that feel like the letter H. Means ‘home’ or ‘headquarters’ depending on who you ask…” he shook his head to clear the line of thought. “To get back, same deal. Just follow ‘P’. For ‘prison’.”
“Get going, Sergeant.”
Rose had to take off her armor to get into the tunnel and even then it was a tight fit. She could still fit and move, but if it got any more narrow then she would be in trouble. That was the problem with being a taller mare, nothing ever seemed to fit like it was expected to. Parade would’ve been a better fit for this, but nopony trusted her at the moment.
Pegasi were not meant to be underground, that was a simple fact of life. They belonged in the wide open skies of Equestria, not down under tons of rock. Being in a dark hole with only the sound of your breath and your heartbeat to accompany you would be enough to spook anypony but it was different being a pegasus. Wings were never meant to be confined to the sides of the body, not forcefully. Being constrained like this activated a very primal fear.
If she ignored her rising anxiety level, it was pretty easy to find her way around. The first junction came not one hundred feet into the tunnel. It split off in three different directions, each one had a little stone square right in front of it that was raised enough to provide a speedbump for somepony going a little too quickly. One of the tunnels had a ‘Q’, one had an ‘H’, and the last one had the dual letters ‘CC’ on it. Rose briefly wondered what the others led to, but focused on the path she needed.
There were countless intersections along the way, some with familiar letters that kept appearing and others had one off letters like the ‘CC’ at the first decision point. The bugs, and by extension the smugglers, had an entire network down here that went all over the castle. If Al was to be believed, then they went all over Canterlot as well. It was one massive security threat. No wonder the changelings had gotten in so easily, even before Shining Armor’s shield. They had really been planning to make one giant hive out of Canterlot…
She was crawling for more than an hour before she reached her exit. It hadn’t been a continuous crawl either. She had to stop more than a few times to catch her breath and suppress a panic attack she felt coming on. It wasn’t easy to get a hold of oneself when the feeling of claustrophobia was so overwhelming, but somehow Rose had overcome it time and time again. In the darkness she searched for the ever present fire deep down, the light that made her bloom, and she clung to it.
The exit wasn’t even blocked on the other side. It just dumped her out in the middle of some old stone building. There was no time to examine the interior to determine where she was in the city, as something far more important caught her attention: the sun was shining through a singular circular window.
Rose scrabbled to her hooves from the hole in the ground and rushed over to the beam of light where it impacted the ground. The feeling of its light, somehow unobscured, hitting her body washed away every negative thought that had plagued her for the last day or so. She just bathed in the majesty of it for a few moments with tears running down her face. She had been so convinced the sun would never rise again. To see it felt miraculous. To feel it was as much of a blessing as it had always been.
After a few minutes of solar recharging, Rose finally looked around the building. It was full of stuff. Nothing in particular, but a little bit of everything. There were crates of alcohol, designer dresses, statues, and even very old bits of Royal Guard armor. Anything that somepony couldn’t get easily in Canterlot, was right here.
Rose picked up a little leather sheath with a golden handle carved to look like a griffon up. Her wings grabbed the handle and pulled, revealing a perfectly sharp curved knife. Canterlot was an explicit ‘no weapons’ zone except for the Royal Guard itself. The booze and fancy dresses, fine. Ponies could have fun. But if Al had been smuggling weapons into the castle…well, Rose would have to talk with him about it. For now she just tucked it under one of her wings for later.
There was a ladder nearby that terminated in a hatch on the ceiling. The only means of egress were either that or a door that had a metal bar that kept it locked. Going outside at ground level seemed like a bad idea, so she went with the hatch.
Canterlot was a disaster. Even that was an understatement, but it was the only word that Rose could find for it. The majority of the fires had burned themselves out now, leaving only the husks of buildings behind. Smoke still fluttered into the air from broken windows, but it wasn’t a dense cloud like it had once been. In the distance she could see the castle and the semicircle of rubble the ballista had left around it. The view was horrific, but the smell was worse. Rotten bloated corpses littered the streets and decomposition had already taken hold. It made Rose want to gag.
Then, of course, there were the unicorns. The beasts still roamed the streets, growling and grunting and sending up the occasional howl as they stalked through the capital. The bulk of them were still surrounding the castle and trickling in through the doors, but some were still out here. The only think Rose couldn’t figure out from what she was seeing was why they weren’t eating anything they killed. They had to be hungry, and they certainly had the teeth to tear the meat from bone now. So why did it seem like they were killing for sport over food?
There was a reason she was here though, and it wasn’t to pontificate on the monsters that now ran the city. An escape route needed to be found. She was at one of the old guard annexes in the middle of the city. The Royal Guard had stopped using them after the guard barracks had been built on the castle grounds a few years ago. They were supposed to be completely inaccessible, but that was yet another thing the Royal Guard had failed to see to.
Rose turned away from the castle and towards the north gate. That would probably be the best route of escape from here. It was the closest of the city’s gates and let out into the relatively less developed northern lands. If the road was clear, maybe they could make it to the Maresouri River and make a raft or something.
“What…” Something was flying through the sky, something that wasn’t Princess Celestia or Luna. Two streaks were coming towards the city at a breakneck pace, both of them wearing the blue and gold uniforms of the Wonderbolts. “No way…” Rose couldn’t yell, not without drawing the attention of the monsters below. So the only way to get the attention of the fancy fliers was for her to jump up and down and flap her wings without taking off.
As the two Wonderbolts came in for a landing, the monsters took notice. Bolts of white hot magic were thrown in their direction, but the two ponies expertly dipped, dove and dodged the incoming fire with ease. Their hooves came to land right in front of Rose.
It was Spitfire and Soarin, the captain and co-captain of the Wonderbolts. They looked to be in tip top condition, not even a scratch on their uniforms. Both of them raised their goggles from their eyes and looked out over the city. One of the monsters from down below let out a piercing howl which caused the two pegasi to jump and scoot further away from the edge. That sound didn't really affect Rose anymore.
“What…in Equestria happened…?” Spitfire looked at Rose, then back towards the city. “Sweet Celestia…” The poor captain was doing the best she could to keep the horror from showing, but it was a battle she was losing by the moment.
“Sergeant Rose Wreath, Canterlot Royal Guard.” Rose saluted her fellow pseudo-military compatriots, which they awkwardly returned. “How much time do you have?”
“You’re Royal Guard?” Soarin raised an eyebrow. Rose nodded in the affirmative. “You guys might be slacking a little, huh? This place is a mess…” They had to talk a little louder than they were used to thanks to the returned zeal of the monsters below. “Well Sergeant, what’s the status?”
“Bad.” It was an accurate assertion and it got to the point. “Yesterday…at least I think it was yesterday…ponies, unicorns, started turning into those things.” Her hoof pointed to the edge of the building. “We tried to get ponies into the castle but we didn’t get a lot before the infection, or whatever you want to call it, spread throughout the entire city.”
“Where are the princesses? Are they safe? Did they escape?” There was hope in Spitfire’s voice. Dangerous and deadly hope. Rose couldn’t even find the words to say what happened to Princess Celestia and Luna. How were you supposed to tell somepony just how cataclysmically bad you had failed at your job? “The sun rose today, they have to be okay.”
“Neither of them raised the sun today.” The implication was enough to make the reality sink in for both of them. The thing is, Rose wasn’t even certain that Princess Celestia didn’t raise the sun. Maybe she did, but given how these things behaved it was a long shot.
“It has to be Princess Cadance or Princess Twilight, then.” Soarin chimed in. “When we get back we’ll send somepony out to the Crystal Empire to make sure Cadance is okay. We’ll go to Ponyville after this.” Ponyville was also a bad idea, but once again Rose just didn’t have the heart to tell them.
“No, we can send a message to the Empire from there.” Spitfire pointed at one of the castle’s many towers, one that had a long antenna growing from its top and a blinking red light at the very top of that. “Emergency signal beacon. We can send a message out and tell them what’s going on.”
“Alright.” Soarin nodded and pulled his goggles over his eyes. “Rose, are you with us?”
It was the dream of every little pegasus to be in this situation: to be faced with a monster battle and have the Wonderbolts ask for your help. Reality was different from the foalhood fantasy of heroics, though. Rose knew what was waiting for them in the castle, and she wanted no part of that.
There was no chance to answer as the sky was shattered by another impossibly loud roar. The two titans of the sky, Celestia and Luna, appeared from the castle and took to the sky. The sight of something else in the sky, something hostile at that, sent both of the Wonderbolts into the air.
“Is that…” Both of the Wonderbolts gawked at the twin beasts for a moment before they nodded at each other.
“Y-you need to RUN! NOW!” Rose yelled up at the two Wonderbolts. The panic of seeing Princess Celestia like that again threatened to freeze her, but she needed to make sure they got away. Somepony needed to survive this city that wasn’t her.
“I’ll distract them!” Soarin waited for no argument as he sped off right towards the alicorns. Rose knew he was as good as dead, even if he didn’t.
“Get to that tower!” Spitfire fished something out of her flight suit, a little metal card, and then tossed it down to Rose. “That’ll let you use the radio! Tell the Crystal Empire what happened! We’ll run interference!” Spitfire then raced off after her co-captain, a trail of smoke coming off of her orange and yellow tail.
—-
Soarin narrowed his eyes and corkscrewed through the air as two bolts of blue magic hit where he had been just seconds ago. He quickly dipped down and skimmed underneath the monstrous alicorn, the top of his mane brushing her ugly distended belly. When he came out the other side, he pushed himself vertical and shot straight up into the clear blue sky.
It was hard not to think of the princesses and their current plight, but he had to push them out and focus on the task ast hoof. He needed to get them tangled up, to distract them. He would be okay, but Spitfire and Sergeant Rose needed a lane to that tower. That was his mission for now: distract the alicorns.
They were bigger and more powerful, but he was small and agile in comparison. The biggest worry were the horns. He needed to stay where he could see their horns and where he could react to their magic.
Celestia came from his left, seemingly out of nowhere, and her jaws were open to reveal two rows and sharp teeth that were glimmering in the sunlight. Soarin quickly put on the brakes and rolled into a backwards dive, letting the twisted sister sail right past him and chomp down on empty air. Another bolt of Luna’s magic came a bit too close to comfort and he could feel the crackling heat from it as it flew within inches of his flank.
“Hey, watch it! The ladies love that too much for it to get damaged!” Soarin couldn’t help but joke. It was one way to keep his brain away from the reality of what he was actually dealing with. “I’ll clear out the treasury if you so much as dent it, let alone make it a rump roast!”
Soarin pulled up a good fifty feet before he hit the ground. He was worried about those things below, the unicorns, despite the fact that all they seemed to be doing was staring at him as he flew. None of them fired magic at him, they just howled as he went overhead.
A quick look behind only revealed that Celestia was still on his tail. Her massive white wings beat hard enough to kick dust up from the destroyed buildings that surrounded the castle and create an effective smokescreen. His goggles did enough to protect his eyes from the particulates, but that didn’t let him see any better through it.
Soarin made his way past the debris field and into what remained of the burned city. The streets were narrow, which meant that Celestia would find it hard to follow right on his tail like she had been. He now needed to stay low, but not too low, and weave between buildings.
His plan would have no chance to develop though. Luna finally caught him off guard. She had been laying in wait down one of the streets, an intersection. A beam of her magic hit him right in his back legs and the appendages vanished in a single violent instant. The shock caused his wingbeats to syncopate and the co-captain of the Wonderbolts fell to the ground and skidded along the pavement.
The sound of Princess Celestia’s colossal hooves crunching the pavement from behind was enough to keep him going. His suit was burning against his body and causing his fur to ignite. Even as the burns began to consume his body, he willed his front hooves on and they dragged him down the road. His goggles had broken on impact, sending shards of glass into one of his eyes and rendering it useless.
He couldn’t see Princess Celestia’s maw open and approach his prone form even if he wanted to.
“SOARIN!” Spitfire’s horrified call was the last thing he heard as rows of teeth closed around his head.
—
Rose hadn’t even bothered to follow the Wonderbolts. Her wings wouldn’t even lift her if she decided that idea wasn’t suicide. By the time she saw Soarin twisting and diving around the two alicorns, she was already inside. There was nothing left to feel other than numb. She had told the two Wonderbolts to run, but like foals they decided to be heroes. There was little hope they had gotten away, but maybe they had heeded her warning when they saw she was not following.
Probably not, though.
Heroes fought and cowards ran. For now, Rose was more than happy to be one of the latter. Heroes always seemed to die while the cowards persisted. The heroes could die as much as they wanted, but it wasn’t Rose’s time.
“We can’t leave, then.” Parade slumped against the wall and let out a bitter chuckle. “We’re just dead. Great.” The news of the Wonderbolts’ demise wasn’t going over well. “Even Rose and I…if the unicorns don’t get us then Celestia and Luna will…” The pale yellow pony put her head in her hooves and began to openly weep. “W-what’s even the point then…”
“We still have a chance. We have to try!” Lieutenant Golden seemed to be the only one still riding that train of logic. Everypony else, even the two prisoners, were broken. “We could distract them and create a gap for a breakout! There are bells all over Canterlot! We could…send somepony out to ring them. Right?”
“The bells that have been ringing once every hour forever?” Bulwark shook his head then joined Parade and slumped against the wall. “They’re used to it, LT. It’s just noise to them now…”
"What about the code for the radio?" Golden pointed a hoof at the little metal card that Spitfire had given Rose. "We could get up there and call for help! We could get reinforcements and get us out of here!" It was a mad scrabble for any kind of hope that he could get a hoof on, but nopony else was biting.
"Why, so you can watch even more ponies die?" Now it was Tempest's turn to join in on the pessimism. "Look at what they did to the 'mighty' Royal Guard, Equestria's supposed best defenders. Or what, you want to actually get ponies from the Crystal Empire down here? Are you that eager for another alicorn to turn?" The disabled unicorn seemed to hit the right buttons as Golden's eponymous coat turned from golden to red with frustration.
“I will NOT give up!” Golden shouted at his subordinates. “Neither will you! Am I clear?!” No one even bothered to respond, they just looked at him through bleary eyes. “We WILL find a way out and we WILL all survive! That’s my promise to each and every one of you!” Again, they all just looked at him, expecting him to break along with them. “Have some faith, okay?”
“My whole life has been about faith.” Rose muttered to nopony in particular. “All I’ve done is have faith and look where it got me.” Her mane was still sticking to her face with sweat from her frantic crawl back from the city. She was exhausted and felt like she was about to collapse, and her spirit was once again in pieces. With all she had seen, was faith even enough anymore? “Where did it go wrong? What did we do? Were we too prideful? Too comfortable?”
“What, you think this is some divine punishment?” Al scoffed at the thought of it. “You think our hubris caused this? Sweet Celestia, I thought you ponies died out moons ago.”
Rose stayed silent as her faith was mocked. It happened every time she opened her mouth about it. The fire deep inside of her chest burned a little brighter with quiet fury but she did not act on it. Where would it get them? Nowhere.
“Shut up Al.” Golden knocked a hoof against the bars. “Ponies cope in different ways. Let her make her peace in whatever way she wants to.”
This wasn’t an attempt to make peace, it was an attempt to rationalize. None of this made any sense. If it was airborne then surely Tempest and Al would’ve turned by now. It couldn’t be that. So why did it only attack unicorns? It had to be their hubris. They had the audacity to play with magic and so it finally struck back. That had to be it.
“The sun is a great and terrible thing…” She muttered her father’s old line. It felt more true than ever now. The sun was out there, ready to kill whoever and whatever stepped hoof outside. Its wrath was now made manifest and it was ready to dole out swift punishment. Maybe she should’ve followed Soarin and Spitfire. It would’ve been a quicker end than whatever met her here and would’ve been appropriate for somepony like her.
Rose got to her hooves and grabbed the jailer’s keys from a nearby hook. She then went over to Al’s cell and unlocked it. The door swung open and a baffled unicorn looked at her. She did the same for Tempest’s cell and received a similar look.
“If we die, we all deserve to die free.” Rose told them both and then promptly took up residence in the cell next to Tempest’s. She fell on the bed and let out a long low sigh. What was even next? What was there to do other than wait for their deaths to come?
—-
“Everypony get down!”
The melancholy moping that had pervaded most of the day faded as Golden spat out the order in a hushed tone. The Lieutenant had selected the cell closest to the door so he could keep an ear out for anything, and obviously he had heard something. His bulky yellow frame was crouched in front of the door, the solitary barred window just above his blue mane.
Everypony complied and got as low to the ground as they could. The ponies that could fit under the beds in their cells, so just Parade and Al, did so. Rose and Tempest were a little too tall and Bulwark was just too big all around. The muscular earth pony instead got behind the old weapon rack and covered as much of himself as he could.
After a few frenetic moments of silence, they heard it. The low mumbling growls of one of those things. Even from across the long hollowed out room of the dungeon the fur along the ridge of Golden’s spine visibly rose as the noises got closer.
Rose was so focused on watching the door that she didn’t notice Tempest moving until the unicorn was in her field of view and skulking towards the door with the one spear they had in her mouth. Her hooves didn’t even make a noise as she slinked across to the floor until she was right next to Golden Star. The two ponies whispered inaudibly to each other, then shared a nod.
It took about a minute as it seemed they were waiting for the creature to get closer to the door. When it was close enough, Golden Star nodded at the once-captive unicorn. This caused Tempest to rise to her back hooves effortlessly, the spear held in her front hooves. The tip of the spear was just inches from the small window in the door now.
Tink t-tink tink t-tink
Golden Star tapped a hoof against the bottom of the door in a continual rhythm. A sound of a hoof scraping against the other side of the metal door with some force. He then traced his hoof up the middle of the door, continuing the rhythm all the same.
Tink t-tink tink t-tink
All the way up he went, the sound of hooves, and what Rose could only imagine was a very sharp horn, scratching the other side and following it diligently. Golden stopped as he reached the bottom of the little window carved out of the solid metal block. That’s when the creature raised up on its back legs and tried to look through the window.
The unicorn was white with a mess of a blue mane that almost covered its shockingly blue eyes, and surprisingly a blue mustache sprouted from its upper lip, now overgrown and frayed at the edges. Beady blue eyes looked into the room as its deformed mouth tried to gnaw at one of the bars.
That’s when Tempest struck. In a smooth motion she pivoted so she was in front of the door instead of flanking it, planted her rear hoof and drove the spear forward. The monster had enough time to open its mouth to try to let out a howl, but that was it. That mouth was soon occupied by the tip of a spear that soon found its way straight through the other side of the head. The wet crunch of bone breaking and flesh tearing echoed throughout the cavernous dungeon.
With a grunt Tempest pulled the spear free and placed it gently against the wall next to the door. She mumbled something that sounded like ‘dumb animals’, then lowered herself to all fours once more and walked away from the door as silently as she had approached it.
“Good job. Smart.” Rose nodded at the mare as she passed and went into her own cell. She received only a side eyed glance in response. Unlike most other ponies in the city, and probably in the country as a whole, she was so calm in the face of violence and she was quick on her hooves in a pinch. Rose had seen that twice now, and been on the receiving end of it once.
While she had explicitly stated that the guardsponies couldn’t trust her, it was nice to have a pony like that on their side.
Day Six
The sun rose again. A fact that they had all discussed when it had done so. It couldn’t be Twilight, at least Rose didn’t think so. The note she had seen Princess Celestia receive on the day all of this started was ominous enough to rule out the Princess of Friendship for most things. They had all come to the conclusion that it had to be Princess Cadance. However this thing was spreading, there was no way it had reached the Crystal Empire yet. If it traveled the way the ponies thought, through the air or some form of contact, then the kingdom in the far north would stay safe.
That was little conciliation for the ponies here in Canterlot.
Rose was going around the room with her sack of pilfered food stuff and offering what she had. The guards had all taken a modest ration, while Al had taken more than he probably needed to survive. Then she got to Tempest, who was sitting on her cot with her armor on again, and just staring off into space.
“Here, take some.” Rose held the sack out to the unicorn and gave it a shake. Tempest blinked a few times, looked at the sack then reached in to grab some bread and a few pieces of dried fruit. “Mind if I join you?” She just received a nod from the unicorn in response.
This was a surprise, as Golden and Parade had both attempted to converse with the mare and had been swiftly and thoroughly ignored. Even getting a small acknowledgement was more than Rose had expected. So she sat on the edge of Tempest’s bed and fished out half of a loaf of bread with some dried apples.
“Yesterday, after you got back-” Tempest popped a piece of dried apple into her mouth. “-the other unicorn said he thought ‘you ponies’ died out moons ago.” She chewed the food as she talked and then swallowed. “What’d he mean?”
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Rose broke the piece of bread in her hooves and took a bite. The hardened loaf wasn’t tasty anymore, but it was carbs and it would keep her going for now. Tempest shook her head as they both ate. “Back in the old days, when alicorns were new and there were only two of them, ponies saw them for what they were. They were seemingly immortal, they looked like every pony race at once, and they had command over the heavens: they were gods.”
“Those two?” Tempest couldn’t help but let loose a bitter chuckle. “I mean, I guess I can see why. It’s just…weird. They’re just ponies.” She held back something, a venomous insult on the tip of her tongue which was bit back.
“That’s how most ponies think.” Rose nodded and took another bite of her bread. “They got used to seeing them around, they got used to ponies so powerful and…so above us that eventually they forgot just what they were.” How ponies couldn’t see what was before them, how they couldn’t see the inherent divinity in the alicorns, she would never know. Yes the familiarity made them more ‘normal’, but all they had to do was really look at them. “There were ponies that carried the torch of that old faith. They kept the belief that the alicorns were more than normal, that they were still divine.”
“You’re one of them?”
“”Not…exactly.” Rose turned over a piece of dried apple in her hooves. “I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. It was over a day’s trot from Las Pegasus and we didn’t have any neighbors. Just my folks and I.” She had fond memories of the little house they shared, of working out in the fields. It was hard not to feel nostalgic for it all. “My dad was pretty devout, but nothing really organized. There was no church, all he had was a book that had been passed down for generations with old scripture. I thought it was a bunch of nothing…until we went to the Summer Sun Celebration in Las Pegasus…then I was a true believer.” Her heart fluttered and she let out a wistful sigh. “Imagine being told your whole life about this pony that is so…powerful and majestic. You’re told how much she provides for you and how you should be thankful for her. Then you actually see her. You learn she can be touched, she is a physical being. If that wasn’t enough, then you see her raise the sun into the sky with nothing but a thought.”
“When you put it like that…” Tempest shrugged and took a bite of the stale bread without complaint. “You really think they’re immortal, though?”
“They certainly don’t age. Can they be harmed? I..I don’t know.” Rose blew air through her lips. “Chrysalis did a number on Princess Celestia, but I don’t know how bad she was actually hurt. I’ve spent most of my life trying to prevent that from happening.”
“What if we put it to the test?” Parade interjected from the door of the cell. How long the fellow guardsmare had been there, Rose wasn’t sure. “The immortality thing, I mean.”
“What are you talking about…?” Rose furrowed her brow. That suggestion implied things that deeply offended Rose, and she hoped that her reading of it was wholly wrong.
“All I’m saying…is that the biggest obstacles to getting off of this mountain are two giant monster princesses.” Parade nodded, a small smile spreading across her face. “We also have a giant ballista on one of the towers with a bunch of stuff ready to launch up there.”
“No.” Rose stood up and vigorously shook her head. The fire of passion that passion had built in her heart intensified into one of rage at the mere suggestion of using a weapon on the princesses. “We’re not going to try to kill one of the princesses! I refuse!” The crimson wings on her back spread out in a show of anger as she advanced on her comrade.
“Do you want a way out of here? Because the way I see it, that’s our shot.” Parade didn’t back down and instead puffed out her chest and ruffled her own wings to appear bigger. “If that’s the only possible way we survive this, then why shouldn’t we take the chance?”
“Because of our oath!” Rose pressed her forehead right against the other pegasus’ and flared her nostrils. “Does it mean nothing to you? We’re supposed to protect them, not kill them!”
“I think the oath went out the window the moment they turned into monsters who kill every non-unicorn they see!” Parade butted her head right back against Rose’s. Both mares had shed their armor some time ago, so if they kept this up one of them was liable to get another concussion. “So if you don’t want to do it, fine!”
“I don’t like it…” Golden joined the two mares and separated them with a hoof. “Who’s to say that the ballista is still intact? Plus, how would we even get up there? The tunnels only go to the ground floor and it’s at the top of a tower.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Rose was flabbergasted. Her mouth hung open and the fire in her chest continued to rage at the indecency of the conversation. “She’s talking about killing a princess!”
“A monster.” Bulwark corrected. “They’re not princesses anymore, they’re monsters.”
“What happened to yesterday, huh?” Parade challenged Rose again and tried to move Golden’s hoof out of her way to no avail. “You didn’t care if the monsters died at all, ‘they’ve killed innocent ponies’ you said! Well we saw Celestia and Luna kill ponies! We saw Luna eat ponies whole and we saw Celestia melt an entire wall with ponies still on it!”
“Yeah and you were saying I was cruel!”
“That was before we had no other option! A wall and two of the most powerful ponies in Equestria on your side makes a lot of difference!”
The two mares glowered at each other, both steadfast in their opinions on the matter. Neither was winning the battle for dominance that raged between them and an effective stalemate had been reached. Rose was very close to letting her hoof rocket across the shorter mare’s muzzle, but before she could act on that very strong desire she was interrupted by Tempest pulling her back.
“What if we think of it as a mercy killing?” Tempest chiming in wasn’t what Rose had even expected. “I’ve been…away for a long time, but one thing I still know is that Celestia wouldn’t want to hurt her ponies, right?”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Bulwark shook his head.
“Yeah so we have to save her and Luna from themselves.” Parade picked up the train of thought and stoked its fire a little more. “Imagine if somehow this all gets fixed, right? Imagine what killing all of those ponies would do to them. We’d be doing them a service.”
It certainly felt like the group wasn’t trying to rationalize the logic for themselves, it seemed all directed at Rose. It felt patronizing, and all that did was make her even more stalwart in her position. They were here to protect the princesses, not harm them. That was their sworn duty, no matter the current state of the world nor even the princesses themselves.
“No.” Rose stated flatly, which earned her a round of groans from the ponies around her. “I will not violate my oath and try to kill one of the princesses. Are you hearing yourselves? We are supposed to put our lives on the line in service of them!”
“I think we’ve done that, Rose.” Golden addressed her with a sigh. “If I ordered you to do it, would you? To at least go with Parade and help keep her safe while she carried out the deed?”
“Why me?” That was the question that wouldn’t stop raging around Rose’s head. “Why can’t you or Bulwark go? Why does it have to be me?” The tears started to well up in her eyes again and a familiar angry heat returned to her cheeks. It all felt like some punishment for her faith, a persecution from the very beginning. “Anypony but me, please…”
“We can’t go through The Dusties. Not after one of those things tried getting in here last night. So whoever does it is going to have to go through the tunnels, and we won’t fit.” Considering Rose had barely had enough room to move around in there, Golden was right. Maybe Al could go, but he was an old pony and couldn’t fight. “Parade can’t go alone.”
“Can I…can I just think about it?” She needed time. A thorough search of the soul was the only thing that could really get her through this. It wasn’t something she could even imagine being complicit in. The mere thought brought nothing but revulsion and contempt.
“We’ll give you the night.” Golden clenched his jaw and suppressed a sigh. “Come morning we’re carrying this out one way or another. So I expect your thoughts to be in order by then.” The crowd around Tempest’s cell quickly disbanded, with the other guards all gathering in a circle around Parade’s bed and whispering to each other about their plan.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Tempest whispered as she retreated from Rose’s back. “Betrayal, I mean. Thinking you know what ponies stand for only to see the facade crumble…” Rose turned around to see Tempest sitting on the bed with her back flush against the stone wall. “It really opens your eyes, huh?”
“What do you know about it?” Rose mumbled and joined the unicorn on the bed, opting to sit on the edge of it with her back to the other mare. Her one good ear was laid flat against her head as she tried to lose herself in the battle her soul was raging.
“I was like you once…I thought I could belong.” The calm cool demeanor left Tempest’s voice and that familiar bitterness coated the words as they left her mouth. “I thought that ponies could accept me despite the differences.” Even though they weren’t facing each other it was easy to hear the unicorn’s jaw clench. “Like you, I was wrong. It’s not an easy feeling to get used to.”
“It’s not new to me…” Rose twiddled her hooves and felt the wings on her back ruffle and readjust. “When I first got to Canterlot I wore it on my sleeve…I learned to keep my beliefs to myself pretty quick.” A hoof went to her neck and gripped at something long gone, something that had been taken from her. “I keep to myself now, or I try to. Sometimes a pony gets in though…”
“Then they just hurt you again.” Tempest finished the all too familiar refrain. “The same way. Every time. You see it all so clearly…the best way you can survive is all alone.” Rose turned just enough to see one of Tempest’s armored hooves go to the shattered horn that sprouted from her head. “I don’t know you but I do understand you, Rose. All too well.”
“So what should I do?” That question wasn’t even directed at Tempest. It was just cast about into the air for Rose to ponder aloud. She still felt betrayed by her fellow guards and the reality that they were so ready to abandon the oath they had swore. They were so ready to do harm to the pony they pledged to protect. Even getting around Rose’s spiritual objection to that plan, the mere facts would still boggle the mind. If you were to ask anypony before this to choose between their own life and Princess Celestia’s, surely they would overwhelmingly choose to save the sovereign.
“That’s up to you.” Tempest let out a long slow breath and closed her eyes. “I wouldn’t put up with it if I were you. Are other ponies, ponies like them, really worth it? What’s the price of who you are? How far are you willing to go to prove to them you belong?”
“You’re gonna wanna follow the Q’s for the first good bit until you have to choose between it and an ‘AT’, then you’re gonna wanna follow that.” Al was talking them through the directions as he hastily drew a map in the dirt that gathered on the floor. “You should pop out in the astronomy tower, right in the fireplace. From there…uh…well, you probably know the place better than me.” The old smuggler rubbed his chin and sighed. “Used that route to get to my best customer…”
The guards all looked at each other, all of them acutely aware of what pony spent the most time in the astronomy tower. Princess Luna wouldn’t need a smuggler though, she was a princess after all. Why would she need anything smuggled in when she could just as likely have it brought in the front gate with little to no questions?
Another mystery that would never be solved.
“Astronomy tower…” The Lieutenant mumbled. “...not very far from where you all said the ballista was. I think you should be able to just follow the corridor past the Royal Quarters and get to the right tower from there. It’s nearly a straight shot.”
“Rose could probably get to the top of the astronomy tower and glide over to the ballista to make sure it’s clear.” Parade offered the suggestion and Rose was all too ready to reject it outright.
“No.” The red and gold pegasus shook her head vigorously. “I’m not flying, not with the princesses out there.” She had already seen what had happened to one of the best fliers in the entire world against those two and she was nowhere near their level. Her death would be magnitudes quicker and just as painful.
“The long way it is…” Parade said with a sigh. “So we get to the tower. I ready the ballista and wait for one of the princesses to get in a good position, then we…” She looked at Rose and decided to choose her words carefully. “...do the thing. What then? That thing is loud. We’re going to have the entire population of Canterlot chomping at our flanks in no time.”
“Get back here.” Bulwark stated.
“Well duh!” Parade thumped the solid wall of muscle that was Bulwark on the chest. “That might not be too easy though. We need a backup plan of some kind in case getting back the way we came isn’t really an option.” One of the pale yellow wings on her back twitched repeatedly as she thought through the options.
“Hide. Wait for them to lose interest.” Tempest was the first pony to offer a backup plan of some sort. “They’re dumb, just pick a closet or room nearby and bunker down. No matter how long it takes.”
“If all else fails I guess we could fly to the astronomy tower…” Rose thought about it in her head. There was a window on the lower level of Princess Luna’s favorite spot, one that they could make a break for if they absolutely needed to. “It’d be more a dive than a real flight. We’d just be letting gravity do a lot of the work.”
“I expect you both back here. I don’t care when that is, but I expect it eventually. Am I understood?” Golden Star stood ramrod straight and looked down at the two mares. Both he and Bulwark were the two left wearing the golden armor of the Royal Guard. The mares had abandoned it a while ago, and now they couldn’t wear it even if they wanted to. The restrictive tunnels prohibited that.
“Yes sir.” Both of the guardsmares gave their commanding officer a salute, not as crisp as it had been before but it was still some semblance of decorum. They hadn’t been in their armor for some time now and it now lay in a heap in one of the corners gathering dust.
“Good. Stay safe. Look out for each other.” Golden’s voice hardened into a very familiar dictatorial tone. “We’ve been arguing in here, but we’re all we’ve got right now. Out there, it’s just going to be you against all the monsters in Canterlot. Those are long odds, but I have faith in you two. You wouldn’t have made it this far without something on your side. Call it dumb luck…” He then looked right at Rose as he spoke the next words. “...call it providence. Whatever it is, just hope it doesn’t fail you now.”
“I’m going with them” Tempest suddenly appeared behind the mares with the spear strapped to one side of her armor. Everypony’s eyes went wide as they adjusted to the assertion they all blinked a few times before the Lieutenant spoke again.
“No. Absolutely not.” Golden put his hoof down and looked at the unicorn. “I am not sending you out there with my ponies.”
“I can handle myself, sir.” Tempest threw the honorific in his face and flared her nostrils at the imposing stallion.
“I don’t doubt that. I just don’t trust that you won’t stab my ponies in the back, or try to run and get yourself killed.” The two ponies, the guard and the spy, stared each other down. Neither wanted to back down, and it seemed like neither would.
“We could use her.” Parade spoke up in favor of the interloper. “She’s good in a fight, we know that. We know she’s killed at least two of those things, one with her bare hooves even. If this is going to be as dangerous as we think it is, then we need all of the help we can get.” That was all true. Tempest, as far as they were concerned, was the equalizer in all of this. Rose could attest to her prowess and how much of a wallop she could pack.
There were a few tense moments between Parade’s advocacy and what happened next. Golden Star advanced on Tempest which caused the mare to instinctively back away. He gave her a look, and she stood still for a moment. His hoof reached out and snatched the spear from her side.
“Fine. This stays here, though.” He put the weapon against the wall then his eyes fell on the entrance to the bug tunnels. “There’s weapons out there, you all know where they are. We need this, though. It’s all we have if something comes down here.”
“I have my dagger.” Bulwark added. “It’s…not much, but it is a weapon.” Everypony just ignored Bulwark.
“Get going.”
The mares broke from the little pow wow. In an unusual lack of coordination, Tempest spun on her hooves and bumped right into Bulwark’s armored chest face first. The unicorn gave a surprisingly flustered apology and patted him a few times before moving on. The little outburst earned varying degrees of surprised looks from the ponies in the room.
“Rose, you wanna take the lead?” Parade stepped to the side and gestured to the hole with a wing. “You’ve been in there before, so you’re the expert here.” That was a very very low bar, but she would accept the responsibility of guiding them where they needed to go. “Nu-uh, you’re not going to be last. You’re in the middle.” The other pegasus pushed Tempest right behind Rose and she took up the rear. “You’re not slipping away on us that easily.”
“Whatever…” Tempest scoffed and sighed as she glared back at Parade.
There was no use waiting around anymore and letting the group bicker even more, so Rose got down and crawled into the tunnel. The darkness crept in around her and the rock and dirt of the surrounding mountain pressed in on her sides. It was that feeling of being somewhere she wasn’t meant to be that made her chest tighten and heart rate rise. She kept crawling until she was sure that the other two mares could fit behind her.
“Everypony in?” She couldn’t even turn her head to make sure they could hear her. The volume at which she spoke meant her head rang with her own words from the close quarters. The vast network of tunnels carried her own voice forward enough that she could hear her own echo from multiple directions in the darkness.
“Yeah, we’re good!” Parade called up from the back. “Just let us know which way to go when we come to a split, okay?”
“Heard!” Rose responded.
Then off the train of ponies went through the track of tunnels that criss crossed through the core of Canterlot. At every major intersection where they needed to take a turn, Rose would call out the way they were going and the other two would call it right back to confirm. They went on for this for close to half an hour before one of them decided to break the monotony.
“So what are we doing about weapons?” It was Parade, because of course it was. “Luna might have some in her tower, but it’s probably all swords. You know how much the magic users love their swords.”
“I already have one.” Tempest joined in. “Swiped that stallion’s dagger off of him before we left.”
“You WHAT?!” Parade’s shout caused Rose to stop abruptly and wince. If one of her ears wasn’t already in constant pain, that would’ve done it. “You stole Bulwark’s dagger?! Why?”
“I need a weapon.” Was Tempest’s simple response to that.
“There’s a guard outpost across from it, remember?” Rose cut in and started crawling again. “It’s the night shift’s post…what was his name…Harker? He had an office there.” She would never get used to the batpony naming conventions. They were always strange and unwieldy for the tongue.
“You’re just ignoring the fact that Tempest stole Bulwark’s dagger?” Parade sounded incredulous, and Rose could imagine the other pegasus’ mouth agape as she crawled. “You’re not worried that a spy with a weapon is right behind you right now?”
“Do you want to go back so I can return it?” A faint whiff of mirth flowed through Tempest’s words. When she received a frustrated grumble in response, the unicorn chuckled. “I thought not.”
They went with no more complaints or questions, just silence between Rose reading the little stone letters in the ground and telling them which way to go. This path was far more circuitous than the one that led to the smugglers’ headquarters. It was most likely due to the face that they were climbing a lot of grades through switchbacks that were almost a little too tight to turn in. Then the general layout of the castle was working against them as well. Getting from the dungeon to Princess Luna’s tower was already annoyingly long on hoof, but getting there through the ground was far worse.
It was an hour and change before the trio reached their final destination. It wasn’t a grate or just a plain opening. It was in fact fake brickwork that took some real force to dislodge. It did eventually come off and fell into the awaiting fireplace with a clatter as it landed on some prepared logs.
Getting out of one of the holes that wasn’t at ground level was a lot easier than expected. It wasn’t so far off that her hooves couldn’t touch when she had her front legs all the way through, and that let her sort of just walk out. She didn’t even have to duck to get out of the fireplace either because of how large it was.
The room beyond was appropriately massive for its purposes. The walls were decorated in rich tapestries that mapped the night sky and connected stars in constellations that only the regent of the night could truly appreciate. There were astrolabes, models of the moon, and rows and rows of books all dedicated to the study of the star studded heavens. There was a massive window opposite the fireplace, its heavy blackout curtain currently open and letting the glorious light of the sun into the sanctuary of the night. A metal staircase hugged the inside of the tower wall and went all the way up to the very top, where it terminated in a landing. Above that, as anypony who looked at the castle would know, was a telescope.
The most important thing was, of course, that there were no unicorns in sight. The door was open, but the monsters were not going to bother them at this moment. They at least had time to exit and regroup.
“Alright, the coast is clear.” She called back into the fireplace before creeping over to the door and gently pushing it closed. Her eyes were too focused on making sure that she didn’t make any noise as she did all of this that she didn’t even look out into the hallway proper yet. Castle maintenance was still up to par as the door didn’t even squeak as swung on its hinges. Rose made sure to grip the handle with a wing and turn it before it hit the frame so it wouldn’t make any sound as it shut.
By the time Rose had returned to the fireplace Tempest was already out and looking around the room, but Parade was having a much more difficult time than the two taller mares. She was more of an average height for a pony and her legs didn’t reach the floor as they came out like theirs had. So Rose and Tempest watched as Parade tried to get out without incident. She eventually succeeded, but it was a very awkward minute or so.
“Thanks for all of the help…” The short pegasus grumbled as she emerged from the fireplace and pushed them out of her way. “There’s no weapons in here at all. Just nerd stuff.” Parade kicked at the floor and huffed. “I thought Luna was supposed to be the cool one.”
“Right there.” Rose ignored Parade’s disappointment and pointed a hoof at the solitary window. Through it they could spy their target, the tower with the ballista still on top of it. The angle was bad, so it was hard to see how functional it was but the fact they could still the very front of the frame and one of the arms was a good sign. It was a lot farther than she had thought as it looked to be a good thousand feet or more away. In the event of an emergency, that was a lot of air to cover for them to get back here. Could they even carry out that plan with Tempest here now?
“Time to get to work, then.” The motor of the other guardsmare kicked into gear and she went to the door. “First stop is across the hall to get something to fight with, right?” As her wing reached out to grab the doorknob, Tempest pushed it away and looked at them both.
“I’ll take the lead.” The unicorn did not ask, she insisted. Parade looked to have an objection on her tongue but after a moment of thought she swallowed it and stepped back to allow their third wheel to take the lead. The logic was plain as day to Rose: ‘If the spy wants to die first, she’s more than free to.’
Tempest opened the door slowly and stuck her head out to check for threats down either side of the hall. When she was satisfied that the coast was clear enough, she pulled the door fully opened and stepped out into the hall.
Right across the hall from Luna’s tower was indeed a door painted with the familiar silver sigil of the Night Guard, but between this door and that one was the remnants of a battlefield. Corpses of Royal and Night Guard alike littered the ground, their collective blood had stained the usually spotless white marble red. On either side of the hall had once been barricades, hastily made things from office desks and tables save for the one spiked barricade that they had somehow acquired. Upon the upturned wooden spikes of said barricade was the corpse of one of the monsters, the end of the spike jammed through its head but hadn’t come through the other side.
The smell was enough to make Rose retch. Bodies had been left out in the hall for days now, left to swell and rot. It filled the entire hall and clung to the mouths of the three alive ponies. When baths were an option again there would need to be a full day of cleaning to get the stench of death from their fur.
“To think, this is what the LT wanted to do…” Parade mumbled. The thought alone was enough to send a shiver up Rose’s spine. It had been a devastating decision in the moment to run and hide, but it looked like the correct one now more than ever. No matter how cowardly and reprehensible it seemed, it had been the right thing to do. “Idiots…”
The only criticism Rose had was the position itself. In the middle of the hall, intersections at each end. They were probably overrun in moments once the tide of monsters surged through. They could have held up somewhere else, maybe even in Princess Luna’s tower instead if they had the time to fortify the door. The observatory on top would’ve made a good defensible position because of the staircase.
She would make sure to pass along her notes if she ever met them in the afterlife.
They didn’t actually have to go into Harker’s office for weapons, as they were littered around the formerly fortified position. Both Rose and Parade picked up spears, weapons they had actually trained with and could use with some level of proficiency, while Tempest picked up a sword and put it on her back.
“Kinda hard to use a sword without magic, isn’t it?” The yellow mare asked, her pink eyes trailing up to Tempest’s broken horn. “A spear might better suit you for now.” The unicorn did not bother to respond. “Fine. Whatever.”
No more words were exchanged and Tempest trotted off down the hall towards their destination. Somehow her armored hooves didn’t make any noise against the marble, a trick that Rose would need to ask her about at some point. The two guardsponies couldn’t duplicate that feet and their bare hooves clicked against the floor with each step.
The castle itself was a mess. The walls were pockmarked from where magic had impacted, and all of the priceless valuables that had once lined the walls were now destroyed. The beautiful marble floors, when not marred by the bloodstains of the dead, were scuffed to the point that the janitorial staff would have a stroke if they saw them. It was hard to see a place that meant so much to Rose in such a state.
There was still one question as they moved along, though. A very important one. Where were the unicorns? The castle was a big place, yes, but there were thousands of those monsters in the city. The only thing that made sense was if they really were nothing but dumb animals now. Their last sight of prey had been outside, so they were still outside searching for more. It was the only theory that Rose had, and she hoped it was right.
A noise broke their collective silence. Big heavy hooves on tile. They weren’t clean hoofsteps either, you could hear the sound of the tips dragging against the ground as whatever it was put one hoof in front of the other. The mares all froze in place and waited. They were in the middle of a hall, far away from the shattered barricade and without any doorways to duck into.
One of the creatures lurked across the upcoming intersection. The long gangly legs of the thing were lacerated in multiple places and it had long dried blood running down to its hooves, which were almost all red instead of the uniform white of the rest of its coat. Its deformed head swiveled as it came to stand in the middle of the hall and eventually its eyes came to the mares. Then it opened its mouth to howl.
Something impacted its elongated face, a sphere of some kind that exploded into a gray green dust. The point of impact, which had been the things snout, quickly solidified into what looked like crystal. From there the dark substance spread across the unicorn's panicking body at a lightning pace until the fully malformed creature was consumed and turned into a statue.
“You did that.” Parade had the realization at the same time as Rose. She spoke in a whisper, just loud enough for the other two mares to hear but didn’t dare to speak any louder. “The one in the place where we caught you looked just like that! What even is that stuff?” One answered question only gave rise to many more that needed closure.
“Nothing for you to worry about.” Tempest gave a side eye to the inquisitive pegasus. “Besides, I only have one more now and I’d rather keep it for an emergency.”
“As long as you don’t use them on us.” Rose mumbled. She was certain that Tempest wouldn’t, not unless they decided to turn on her. With the unicorn being the most seasoned combatant of them all, they weren’t liable to do that.
They took a right at the intersection, which meant they headed in the direction the statue’d unicorn had come from. Tempest’s quick thinking had spared them from trouble, as one of those things was laying down in the middle of the hall with its back towards them. There was no visible wounds from where they were standing, so it didn’t look to be dead.
It was odd, though. This was the first time that any of them had seen one of the monsters in any sort of repose. This was not the growling and gnashing of teeth that they were used to. It almost looked serene in the soft light of the sun that beat down upon its pink coat.
“We got this one.” While Rose was more than content to let Tempest handle these things, it seemed that Parade was not. The shorter pegasus even made sure to bump into the unicorn as she trotteed by. “C’mon Rose.” With a sigh, Rose joined her fellow guard.
The two guardsmares crept up on the sleeping beast with as much care as they could muster. Both had their acquired spears held in a wing and leveled right at the thing’s back as they got close. The usually beady eyes were closed and it looked to truly be enjoying itself bathing in the sunlight. The enjoyment was ended swiftly as spears from either side were jammed into its twig of a neck. Whatever cry it tried to make turned into a gurgle as blood filled its throat and poured from the mouth full of teeth. Parade made sure to twist her spear a few times before pulling it free from the unicorn’s neck with a wild grin.
The monster thrashed for a few moments in obvious pain. Its eyes looked back and forth between the two mares that had taken its life as its legs kicked in the air. For a brief moment, Rose could see the fear of death in its eyes. She could see the equinity still there, deep down. The only solace Rose could find for the poor beast was that it at least was able to die in the light of the sun.
Tempest marched past both of them and Parade followed quickly behind the unicorn. Rose couldn’t though. She knelt down and placed a hoof on the bloated barrel of the felled unicorn and looked to the sun as it shone through the window. It had still found comfort in the warmth of the sun, so that meant it was still a pony. The others might not see it like she did, but at least now she knew that there was a chance at redemption for these poor creatures if the process that made them feral could be reversed.
“I’m sorry it had to end like this for you…”
“Rose!” Parade hissed and pulled the pegasus to her hooves. “We don’t have time for your nonsense, come on!” So she was pulled away from her ‘nonsense’ and was made to catch up with Tempest, who was dutifully waiting for them while keeping an ear out.
Their current hallway terminated at a T-shaped intersection, at which they took another right. The deathly quiet of the palace persisted as they trotted along, that was until they were spotted. One of the unicorns had come walking out of a nearby room and had nearly bumped right into Parade.
They couldn’t act quick enough to stop it from letting loose a blood curdling howl into the musty air of the palace. The sword from Tempest’s back was lodged into one of its eyes not soon after and then quickly retracted and placed right back where it had been drawn from, but the damage had been done. Howls and growls came from seemingly everywhere around them. The cavernous halls of the castle carried and amplified the noise, which only caused more of the horned creatures to join in the chorus.
“We have to get to the tower! Now!” Parade was already in the air and flying towards their destination by the time the word ‘now’ even left her lips. Tempest was already running too, her eyes narrowed and focused as she galloped down the hall. Rose was lagging slightly behind but declined to join her fellow pegasus in taking to what little airspace the interior of the castle provided.
A unicorn skidded out from a door in front of them. Its hooves couldn’t find purchase on the slick floor and its gangly legs gave and it slammed against the ground. While it was prone, the horn on its head still charged with deadly light and was pointed right at the unicorn of the group.
“Tempest!” Parade slowed so she was directly overhead of her temporary comrade. She extended her front hooves out to the unicorn, who nodded and jumped up to grab them. She struggled to lift them both, but she forced all of her might into her wings and got enough clearance that the beam of magic that had been aimed right at Tempest easily missed. When she was sure they were over the monster, Parade let go of the infiltrator. Tempest, to her credit, did not miss a beat and just kept galloping at full speed as soon as she hit the ground again.
Two more rounded a corner about fifty feet in front of them and let loose lances of light without aiming. One went wide and hit a window, while the other nearly grazed Rose’s wing as she ran. Only chance had saved her from taking one of those beams right to the chest.
Tempest grabbed the sword on her back and tossed it into the air in front of her, she then launched herself after it and slammed one of her hooves into the hilt. The blade went rocketing down the hall as if it was on a wire and it stuck into the chest of one of the monsters. The other let out a feral howl, which meant it wasn’t firing at them nor ready for what happened next.
Rose’s spear, which she had kept a hold of since she decided not to fly unlike Parade, pierced its chest. The pegasus didn’t stop running as she ran the monster through and as she tried to turn the corner she felt the shaft of her weapon give and then snap off completely. The tip, and almost the front third of her weapon, were now left in the unicorn’s body cavity. So she dropped the broken part of the weapon she had and kept following her comrades.
The entrance to the tower they had come all this way for came up quickly once around the last bend. Parade was the first one there, of course, and she threw open the door and waved the other two in with a wing. They hurriedly complied, the roaring tide of the monsters came up quick from the hall they had just arrived from.
The door was shut as quickly and quietly as they could manage and all three of them put their sides to the door and dug their hooves into the stone below. The hope that the ravenous horde would surge past them prevailed. A few of the beasts banged into the door in an attempt to open it, but the combined might of the mares held that off until they lost interest. They were lucky that the things weren’t keen on using their magic as battering rams unless they were absolutely sure there was prey behind an obstructed door. If that had not been the case then at least one of them would have lost their lives so close to their final destination.
They stood there bracing the door for ten minutes just to make sure it was clear. Even when they were mostly certain that nothing was going to try to batter the door down, Tempest left to grab a chair and lodged it under the handle. Was it enough to stop the monsters? No, but it would slow them down and give the ponies enough time to react or get away.
The tower they were in was nothing special. It was mostly bare stone, not even the white marble that most of the castle consisted of, just plain boring gray stone. It was a rare sight but there were little rooms all over the place. If Rose remembered her lessons on the history of the castle from her training days, they were some of the oldest parts. There were a few features that stood out amongst the dull rocks; the massive circular indent in the floor, the giant wooden crank affixed to the wall, and chains that went all the way up to the very top of the tower.
“It’s a lift.” Rose understood it after a few moments. “You keep the ballista in here and just raise it up whenever you need to use it.” It was pure old school pony ingenuity at its finest, back when they had actually used their heads to defend themselves instead of their hearts. She loved this old school warfare stuff. “Imagine trying to siege Canterlot and just seeing one of those things just come up from inside the castle…”
“Yeah, very cool.” Parade interrupted Rose’s moment of wonder and pointed to a long ladder that went all the way to a hatch on the ceiling. “C’mon, we have regicide to commit and no time to waste.” The yellow pegasus then spread her wings and took off into the musty air of the tower.
That grim reminder of their purpose sucked what little wonder Rose had left out with a quiet sigh. It didn’t help matters that Parade seemed a little too eager to do the deed, which should be a somber affair if it was to be done at all. It made that too familiar rage build in her heart once more and the fires would consume her if she dwelled on it for too long. It needed to be a distant thing, something that was out of reach and she had nothing to do with. She needed to dissociate from this moment and try to focus on anything else.
“It’s almost over.” The encouragement came from Tempest, whose hoof patted right between Rose’s wings. “We’ll be done with this and you can keep your hooves clean of the mess.” No, she felt that this would stain more than her hooves. It would be a stain on her very soul and it would never come clean.
Tempest started up the ladder and Rose followed close behind. She wasn’t even ten rungs up yet when Parade lowered her altitude until she was following Rose’s own slow progress. The question the other pegasus wanted to ask was clear and it was a few grueling moments of silence before she finally did.
“Why aren’t you flying? You have wings, y’know.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Did you get hit?” One of Parade’s hooves reached out to Rose’s wings but Rose just glared at her. “Okay fine. Sorry. Just find it weird you want to climb a super long ladder rather than fly.” Even after Parade began to ascend at a faster pace than the two mares could climb the ladder, Rose found her wings clinging tight to her body.
They finally made it to the top and they exited the hatch one after the other as quickly as they could. A slight breeze met them as they emerged into the relatively fresh air of Equetstria. It carried the same stench of death as the air inside of the castle but it wasn’t as concentrated. It was downright refreshing compared to the stale air inside.
They weren’t here for the fresh air. No, they were here for the siege engine that now sat before them. From down below it looked massive, but from up close it was downright brobdingnagian. The frame was twice as tall as any pony here and the arms looked to be close to twenty feet long each. The ancient weapon of war was a good fifteen or twenty feet long and the projectiles sitting nearby were at least ten feet long and looked to just be logs with metal tips fitted on them.
“Okay, we can be a little impressed…” Parade muttered as she stared at the massive weapon. “Sweet Celestia, how am I supposed to load this?” She looked right back at Rose, but quickly looked to Tempest instead. “Are you going to help me?”
“I can.” Tempest answered noncommittally.
“Okay…but will you?”
“I don’t see why not.”
The two went on like that as they haggled and then figured out how to load the weapon. While they did so Rose went to the edge of the tower and looked out onto the city she had called home for so long. It was just as she had left it yesterday, a husk of what it once was. The shining city on the hill had turned into little more than a dull smoking ruin infested with monsters. It hurt to look at its faded majesty.
There was something that wounded even more than the state of the city, though. It was something she saw in it. It wasn’t the throngs of monsters who had fanned out across the streets, it was one particular monster. She was sitting atop a building, her once pure white coat now stained with blood. The mane of fire that erupted from her head scorched the other buildings around and started old blazes anew. Princess Celestia sat atop the wreckage of her own capital and her blackened eyes scanned the horizon.
Rose couldn’t help but think of the unicorn from earlier, the one she and Parade had dispatched together. It had been enjoying the day, savoring its time in the sun. She had seen panic and pain in its eyes, and she had seen the light leave its body even as it was bathed in the sun’s majesty. She had seen its equinity and now she couldn’t help but to think of Princess Celestia’s. What if the regent of the sun was still in there? What if she just couldn’t control herself and was watching her body do things without her input?
Tears fell from Rose’s golden eyes and stained the fur on her face. From this distance she could see Princess Celestia and through the horrors of transformation she could see a certain sadness. Others might say she was imagining it or that she had projected her own feelings onto the monster. But she knew Princess Celestia as well as she knew the light that shone overhead.
The fire rose again in her heart and it burned throughout her entire body. The ephemeral sadness evaporated in its presence and was replaced with a righteous anger that the Royal Guards around her had been so set on this plan. Then that anger turned inward and she was even more furious at herself for going along with it.
Why had she agreed to come along in spite of her misgivings about the whole ordeal? Because if she didn’t Parade would’ve died? Maybe Parade deserved to die if this is what it led to. This was an affront to everything any decent Equestrian held dear and whoever wanted to do it should’ve been here to deal with the consequences. Rose shouldn’t be here though.
The wing on her right side twitched and curled in on itself.
“Okay, it’s time.” Parade appeared next to Rose and slapped her on the back with a hoof. “Aaand there’s our target. Good. What do you think…like half a mile out? It looks like it to me.”
“I think you’re blind.” Tempest trotted up behind them both. “I have the range set already, we just need to turn it now.”
Rose turned her head to look at the ballista. Loaded onto it was not one of the blunt ball-tipped projectiles that had toppled so many buildings around the castle. Instead there was a proper arrow, the broad flat pointed tip a good four feet long and razor sharp around the edges. This was it, then. They were really set on doing it.
“If you want you can go back d-” Parade froze mid sentence and the hint of a grin that had adorned her face fell away as her jaw opened in shock. The guardsmare’s head turned and her brilliant pink eyes fell on a dagger lodged firmly in her abdomen, right at an angle where the blade would go under her ribs. Blood trickled from the wound and down her barrel, turning the pale yellow coat of the pegasus crimson.
They could not be allowed to do it.
“R-rose…?” Parade’s wing gripped the handle of the dagger, a gilded thing designed to look like a griffon. As soon as the curved blade came free from her skin, blood poured from the now gaping wound in her stomach. “W-what…” Shock morphed into denial, and eventually betrayal, in Parade’s eyes as she looked from the blade back up at Rose.
“I…” A storm of emotions raged through Rose’s mind as she looked the other member of the guard in the eyes. It was all anger and sadness with more than a little religious fervor mixed in. “I’m sorry…” Her words caught in her throat as her body tried to reject the phrase from even being uttered. “I just…I can’t let you…I can’t let you do it.”
“You…you crazy…” Parade stumbled towards Rose. The shock wore off in her eyes and it was replaced with betrayal and rage. A bloody hoof came to rest right against Rose’s neck. “I..I should’ve let you die on that wall!” She growled out through gritted teeth even as blood began to pool on the stones around her. “I…you…”
The two mares looked deep into each other's eyes and found nothing but mirrored emotions. Tears streamed down both of their cheeks, hot and angry tears that fell and mixed into the blood that stained both of their hooves. Rose had nothing more to say. She couldn’t bring herself to admonish Parade anymore. The dagger in the belly was the final condemnation she had to give.
Rose put a hoof on Parade’s chest and pushed her away. The wounded mare stumbled back and her wings flapped uselessly as they tried to stabilize her. Blood trailed across the top of the tower and followed Parade’s trail as she got too close to the edge. Her hooves found nothing but air beneath them and she tumbled off the edge of the tower. The sound of ceramic roof tiles shattering was the only thing that let the ponies who still remained that the empty vessel that had once been Corporal Parade Grounds had landed.
Tempest had said nothing. When Rose finally faced the unicorn, she found those intense blue eyes fixed right on her. One of her eyebrows raised slightly and then she looked down at Rose’s hooves.
“So much for keeping your hooves clean of a mess.”
The zealot looked down at her hooves. Her coat was a darker shade of red than the blood that stained it. It was almost impossible to see the difference.
“They aren’t worth it…” Rose looked up at Tempest and echoed the words from their conversation last night. “Not at that price…”
Tempest had not stopped Rose as she adjusted the weapon and pointed it far away from the intended target. In fact, the unicorn hadn’t said much. It was almost as if she had expected this to happen, or at least she had been prepared for it. All that Tempest had requested was a lift as they made their way back to the astronomy tower. It was puzzling, but the mind of the lone guard couldn’t even focus on that. Other things were far more prevalent, like the image of Parade with a knife in her belly.
Sadness had gripped her heart in the moments after but that was burned away in the knowledge it had been the right thing to do. The doubt of the action had been so momentary that it ought not have existed at all. It had all been swallowed by certainty and by a fire that now refused to die inside of the pegasus’ chest.
Parade’s death was necessary. It was warranted. More importantly, it was righteous.
“Are we doing this or not?” Tempest was waiting at the edge of the tower closest to Luna’s observatory. Her face was placid with a hint of annoyance as impatience pervaded her words.
“Yeah.” Rose nodded and took a deep breath. “Give me a minute.”
The sun had reached its zenith and hung directly above the castle. Being so high up, on top of a tower on top of a mountain, it was almost like you could reach out and grab it. The light beat down on Rose’s dark red coat and shook free whatever ice remained on her heart. Her head lifted and she closed her eyes as she looked right up at the beautiful ball of light in the sky. The one she had protected. The one she had saved. Somehow it seemed so much brighter and so much more gentle.
“You don’t seem surprised at all…” Rose spoke calmly as she lowered her head again and opened her eyes. Golden orbs with renewed purpose and vigor stared at the fuschia unicorn standing next to the edge of the tower. “You just saw me do that, and yet you did nothing.”
“Seems like you saw the light to me.” Tempest shrugged. “They pressured you into this, they guilt tripped you and made you feel bad for who you are.” She stepped forward towards Rose and her eyes narrowed and filled with a fire Rose knew all too well. “I knew you wouldn’t let it happen. You couldn’t.”
She was right. Of course she was right. Rose would never allow harm to come to Celestia as long as she could stop it. If she could’ve prevented this transformation in some way, she would’ve. Even if any of those things resulted in her own death, Princess Celestia and even Princess Luna needed to persist. For the good of Equestria.
“Don’t…don’t you want to get out of here? Canterlot, I mean? You should want to escape as much as us.” It still wasn’t adding up though. Tempest obviously had some sort of higher power she was serving just like Rose. If she was a spy, then everything happening here was incredibly valuable intelligence and she should want to get away and report it. The longer they all stayed here the more certain their deaths felt as well.
“I could leave right now if I wanted to.” Tempest’s assertion once again caught Rose off guard and her mouth was left hanging open for a minute. Did this spy have some sort of secret way off of the mountain? If so, it had to be somewhere near the castle…but where?
“Then…why don’t you…?”
“And miss all of the fun?” The unicorn offered one of the rare smiles that she produced as she spoke. There was that wild look in her eyes, a spark of excitement, that showed she truly did enjoy what was happening here. “Can we leave now? I’d rather just be done with this particular bit now.”
Rose nodded and went back to double check everything. They had rotated it enough so that when it was fired the arrow would be launched harmlessly towards the city’s south gate. Hopefully it wouldn’t kill anything, but the main point was that it wouldn’t kill one of the alicorns and they could still say they ‘tried’.
Rose’s hoof slammed down on the firing mechanism of the ballista. The gears creaked and the taught rope snapped as the log-like projectile was launched from the frame and sent into the city beyond. The sound of the air being split by the colossal arrow was like thunder from this close and it left a stream of rough air in its wake.
By the time the arrow had hit one of the buildings, the two mares were already in the air. Rose was flying with her hooves hooked around Tempest’s front legs to keep her aloft. The world seemed to shake as dual roars went up from the two turned alicorns and thousands of voices joined in unison with them and filled the air with the terrible call to action. Even flying through the air with the wind rushing by her ears, Rose could hear the savage wingbeats of the princesses as they took off to investigate.
It wasn’t easy as Rose was never the strongest pony, nor the best flier. She could go the distance, but that was with just her armor on a good day. With a whole extra pony to lug around, it was a lot harder. She wavered a few times as they sailed towards the big circular window of the opposing tower and she had to make more than a few course corrections to make sure they would hit their target.
When Rose was absolutely sure they had enough speed and altitude to carry them right at the window, she tucked her wings against her sides and wrapped all four legs around the mare she was carrying. Tempest did the same and both of them buried their faces in the other’s fur.
The weight of two fully grown mares at speed was enough for the glass of the window to shatter. They hit the ground of the observatory and tumbled for a few feet before coming to a complete stop. Even before untangling themselves from one another, Rose knew she was now covered in small cuts from the landing. She could feel the air sting the newly opened wounds all across her body.
Rose got to her hooves and Tempest joined her soon after. They both looked back and up at the window just in time to see the dual titans of the sky appear over the tower. Their long gangly legs dangled beneath them as they hovered and their eyes searched the top of the tower. From this distance their fangs were visible and dripping with saliva that made them shine in the sun, and of course so were the bloodstains that ruined their usually perfect coats.
Their horns, both five foot long spears, lit up with gold and blue light respectively. They then unleashed vicious beams of magic upon the helpless ballista. It disappeared beneath a blinding barrage of the beams. Then the two alicorns began to circle the tower and the output from their horns seemed to increase as the old stone melted.
“We should get out of here…” Rose muttered as she watched the destruction. It was hypnotizing in a way. Never before had the full power of those two ponies ever been seen, not by anypony alive anyway. The chorus of growls and screams added a haunting texture to the moment.
When her eyes could finally be peeled from the apocalyptic spectacle, she saw Tempest holding a small gray box about a foot wide in her mouth. It took a moment to realize what it was but the small metal antenna gave it away, it was a radio. That wasn’t a bad idea, it could give them some much needed insight on what was going on in other parts of Equestria.
Getting into the bug tunnels was never a good idea, but it became substantially worse when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were shelling part of their own castle. The systematic destruction of the old artillery tower was causing the whole castle to shake, and when you’re surrounded by solid rock on every side the last thing you want to feel is it rumble around you.
That kept up as they went along and Rose felt like her teeth were about to shatter in her mouth. The vibrations shook her very bones and rattled her brain around her skull like a jumpy pinball. So on top of the usual anxiety of being down here, she was now developing a severe headache in the dark.
After enough time and distance, the shaking became nothing but little rumbles in the distance that would occasionally cause sharp pebbles to drop around them. Once it faded, they were left once again with only the sound of their breath and the weight of their thoughts. Rose wished the tunnel had collapsed and killed her back at the beginning because being trapped with just those treacherous thoughts was far worse than that.
Parade’s face wouldn’t leave her mind: her mouth open in shock and the look of deep pain and betrayal consuming her pink eyes. Rose could feel the dagger as it pushed into the soft flesh of the mare’s belly and she could feel the warm blood on her hooves. Then there was the sound of the body hitting the roof below the tower. In her replay of the moment, Rose swore she could hear the lightweight bones of the other pegasus shatter against the ceramic tiles.
Rose’s progress through the dark maze of tunnels halted abruptly as her breathing became far too quick to handle in the confined space. The wings on her back bristled and pushed against the walls in a fruitless attempt to keep them at bay but they kept closing in no matter how hard she tried.
“Rose?” Tempest’s voice cut through the deafening silence. “Rose. Calm down.”
It was an easy concept but nearly impossible to execute. Rose’s hooves scrabbled at the rocks beneath them in some feeble venture to dig herself out of there. The wings on her back kept trying to spread, to flare out and flap and take her away but all that did was kick up the dust in the tunnel and make it even harder to breathe.
“ROSE!” Tempest’s booming shout echoed throughout the tunnel system. “Listen to me: take a deep breath.” She grabbed one of Rose’s rear hooves with her own in a show of solidarity. “Just follow me: deep breath in through your nose.” She could hear Tempest follow her own command and take a deep overexaggerated breath in through her nose.
Rose closed her eyes and did just that. Her eyes closed and she took a long deep breath.
“Let it out through your mouth slowly.”
The air passed through her lips slowly and a shiver went up her spine.
“Deep breath in.”
“Let it out.”
They went through this cycle about a dozen times until Rose’s breathing was normalized. The feelings were still there, the guilt. It was still sinking in. When that had been accomplished, Tempest spoke up again.
“What happened?” She sounded annoyed, if not downright sick of Rose at the moment.
“I…I killed Parade.” Rose swallowed, the dust that caked her mouth and throat made it painful to do. “I killed another pony.”
“Yeah, you did. So?” Tempest just kept tapping Rose’s back leg rhythmically as she spoke. “Was the alternative better or worse than what you did?”
The alternative was, of course, Princess Celestia being injured or outright killed. This was better than that, but it didn’t make it any more digestible as an act. Killing another pony, one who meant you no harm and was in fact on your side…Rose worried that the true light of the world would never shine on her favorably again. She would stand in the sun again but it would never warm her bones or bless her with its majesty.
“Rose. Answer me.”
‘I-I could’ve talked her down.” Rose found her voice again and croaked out a response. “I didn’t need to. I could’ve-I should’ve tried to tell her not to do it.” There had been other avenues. Why in the world had she resorted so quickly to the extreme? Before all of this she only had one kill-a single wolf in self defense-to her name. Now she had how many? It was so easy to lose count…
“No you couldn’t.” Tempest answered. “I know I’ve only been around you guys for a few days now, but I get the feeling Parade wouldn’t be one to hear your objections. Think about back in the dungeons when they were planning this. They stopped at nothing to get you to go along because they were convinced it was the only way. If she thought you were a serious threat to stop her, she would’ve killed you first.”
Yeah, she would’ve. If push came to shove, Parade would’ve done it gleefully. Tempest was right. None of the survivors Rose had escaped with liked her, they all thought she was a weird religious fruitcake.
“They were using you.” Tempest’s smooth words echoed into the darkness that surrounded them. “Face it, you’re a tool for survival to them. Not some equal partner or somepony whose life they valued. Ponies like that don’t value life, they value use. That’s why they throw your faith in your face, because it’s not useful to them right now.”
The panic in Rose’s chest morphed into something that was becoming all too familiar: anger. It had been flaring up more and more and each time it felt like she came closer to letting it burn her out entirely. It was stoked by the realization that Tempest was right.
She had gone through these tunnels and back two times now, each time risking her life all the while Golden Star, Bulwark, and Al sat around nice and safe back in the dungeon. When she got back last time she wasn’t met with thanks, she had been met with arguing and insults. What was waiting for her this time? She had failed her objective this time after all.
“We can’t tell them about Parade…” That was the next reality that hit her like a ton of bricks. Maybe they would believe she got taken out by one of the beasts, but could they risk a maybe.
“No.” Tempest confirmed Rose’s feeling. “We’ll tell them she tried to leave. They were worried about that, right? Then what happened? One of the princesses got her and spotted us. We barely got out alive.” She paused for a moment. “Right, Rose? That’s what happened.”
“R-right…”
After another minute of silence so Tempest could confirm that would be the story going forward, they resumed their march back towards the dungeon. There wasn’t another panic attack, but a sense of dread lingered. It crept in on the edges of the fire that burned in Rose’s heart and kept it from consuming her. It was the delicate balance between the light and the dark that existed in all ponies.
“What happened? The whole castle was shaking and we thought you all were done for.” The Lieutenant was waiting when they got to the exit of the bug tunnels in the dungeon, and he grabbed Rose’s front hooves and helped her get out of the confined space. Bulwark then tried to help Tempest in a similar manner but was swatted away with a hoof. Golden dusted Rose off and looked at the hole for a moment as he waited for the third that had left with them.
“...where’s Parade…?” His blue eyes turned icy and the pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. “Please…don’t tell me…”
“She tried to fly away as soon as we got to the ballista…” Rose uttered the damnable lie with as much confidence as she could. “Princess Luna saw her and…” The words would not come, she couldn’t even force them anymore.
“We didn’t get a chance to even try to kill one of them.” Tempest picked up the thread for Rose and continued. “We barely got out of there and they melted that whole tower into a pile of slag.”
“Parade you…” Golden growled out and ground his teeth. The imposing stallion galloped up to one of the helmets that was on the floor and kicked it as hard as he could. It went careening across the room until it impacted one of the walls and fell to the ground with a clang. “I knew we couldn’t trust her! I knew it! Bulwark, you were right. I can’t believe it!” The lone commanding officer paced around in circles, steam coming from his ears as he fumed.
“What else were we going to do, LT?” Bulwark opined to Golden. “We couldn’t send just the Sunny-” He pointed a hoof directly at Rose. “-you know she wouldn’t do it. It was a dumb risk but it seemed right at the time.”
Rose silently fumed at the name. ‘Sunny.’ It was a word she had learned to hate over her life and one that she hadn’t heard in years. It was a derogatory term she had first heard as a filly in Las Pegasus at the market. It was a few weeks after her birthday when she had gotten the sun pendant as a gift. She thought it was a cute nickname. She knew better now.
Sunny, Lightbulb, Cultist. All things she had been called when her faith became known. All things she had become sick of so long ago. Now it felt more intolerable than ever. There was nothing she could do about it. No post to get moved to, no barracks to hide in, no home to run to. She could not hide from her faith anymore, she had to embrace it now more than ever.
The fire inside burned brighter.
“If it’s any consolation, I managed to swipe a radio.” Tempest sat the little device down on the floor. “I figured we could try to get a signal and see how the rest of the world is faring.”
“Great..” Golden grunted and sighed. “Do…whatever, I’ll try to think of something else to get us out of here.”
—
Rose was on watch that night, because of course she was. Very little conversation was had at night and nopony really did anything. That was thanks to the oppressive darkness that weighed down on the dungeon. The Lieutenant had decided that keeping the torches lit was a danger since it might draw attention to their little hiding spot, so now they spent the nights like this. There was also very little light that filtered in through the small windows since the blaze above died out. So here Rose sat, alone in the darkness and listening for any of those things to come down the stairs.
She had lost track of the time. It was easy to do when you were alone with your thoughts.
Parade was still on her mind, as were the other ponies in here with her. The grip on the spear that she was to use as a deterrent tightened, as did her jaw. All of this was another reminder of why she stayed so isolated, why she kept ponies away. Every time she got too close to others they punished her for it. She could give them everything, she could even put her life on the line and still be mocked and degraded.
It was becoming intolerable.
They had tried to use her faith against her. They had tried to make it seem like killing Princess Celestia was a righteous and holy thing to do. Heretics. The lot of them. She had seen through it, though. The light had shown her the truth and it was that the monsters could also be the ponies that had not turned. Their capacity for cruelty could match that of the feral unicorns and they were just as keen to kill.
These were all lessons and tests, she was sure of it. Princess Celestia’s divine light had shown her something and now she had to trod the path it illuminated before her. She had to find the strength and courage to do so. It would be tough, but it had to be done.
“Our pony of the sun, alone in the dark.” Tempest’s voice came from the darkness as merely a whisper. It was a moment before she was close enough to see in the dim light and the unicorn came to rest by Rose’s side.
“I’m never truly in the dark, not as long as the light within me still shines.” Rose retorted with another saying her father used to repeat. That one was said on the nights when the monsters under her bed menaced her and the darkness threatened to take her. “What are you doing up?”
“I don’t need much sleep.” Tempest assumed her usual pose while sitting down, back flat against the wall and eyes closed ever so slightly. “I figured I would come check on you. After all, you’re the one pony I can actually stand in this place.”
“Thanks.” Rose felt a smile form on her lips. It was the first time in a long time, probably since the day where Princess Celestia got that note about Twilight. “I’m…I’m managing.”
“Yeah? Even after…” Tempest let the sentence hang and left Rose to fill in the blank.
“It was the right thing to do.” The smile fell from Rose’s face and grim determination replaced it. “If we had gone through with it…I…I don’t know if I could have lived with myself. I don’t know how I would’ve looked at the sun ever again.”
“Hmm.” Tempest made the sound and said nothing else for almost a solid minute. “What will you do if you make it out of here and somehow things go back to normal?”
That was a very loaded question, and one that Rose didn’t have an answer ready for. The first thing she needed to figure out was if she expected to survive this at all. Obviously she was doing what she could to not die, but really was she doing all she could to survive this?
“I…assume I would just go back to being a Royal Guard.” That was the simplest answer she had. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna would still need protection, and I took an oath that I would do so.”
“What if things don’t go back to normal? What if this is the world now?”
“Then I’ll have to find some way out of Canterlot and…I don’t even know. My whole life has been this. I guess I could go home and spend what little time my dad has left with him?” That seemed like the ideal plan. Their place was isolated and it was a farm. “What about you?”
“If it goes back to normal then…I guess I will go back to what I was doing. That means you and I will meet again. Eventually.” That was certainly ominous, but Rose knew asking what exactly that meant would earn her no answer. “If it doesn’t go back to normal, I’m not sure. I do what I do because the normal wasn’t something I liked. If it’s changed, then I guess I won? Hmm.”
“What if we survive this and somehow everypony gets fixed, but it doesn’t go back to the way it was?” That cloud hung over the concept of ‘normal’. How could anything in Equestria go back to how it had been after this?
“Then the ponies of Equestria will have their work cut out for them.” Tempest answered grimly. “Maybe then they will see how broken their way of thinking was before, and maybe they’ll change. I’d like to think that they might finally see the light.”
“Me too…” Rose tapped her hooves against the spear she held. There was something she needed to ask of the mare beside her. “Hey Tempest?” Rose’s ears caught the sound of fur scraping against stone as the unicorn turned her head to face the pegasus. “You said you had a way out of here…do you think if we can’t figure out something…that I could join you?”
“Your friends can’t come.” That wasn’t a no.
“They’re not my friends…” Rose gripped the spear a bit tighter as she stared into the darkness where she knew Golden Star and Bulwark were sleeping. They never would be her friends now, not even if they all survived this.
The sun rose again. This time it wasn’t as smooth or quick as before, though. It was a slow and aching motion that hauled it into the sky, one that Rose had hovered in front of one of the windows to see. At first she thought it wouldn’t get above the horizon, but once it was firmly in its place her heart settled.
Now they were all sitting around doing nothing. This morning after waking up they passed around the bag of rations again. One less mouth to feed meant their food would stretch on a bit longer. The bread was growing harder though and the haycakes were smelling a bit more ripe.
Lieutenant Golden Star was trotting around the room, the radio in one hoof and raised as high as he could manage. He had been at this since he had gotten the thing to work early this morning and received nothing but static. Being underground meant the signal wasn’t great and that they were hunting for a magical spot down here that might not even exist.
“Can I ask about the horn?” Rose was in Tempest’s little ‘room’, which she found more cozy than her own for some reason. “If not, it’s okay. I get it, you know.” She just needed to talk about something with somepony that wasn’t an argument, that didn’t end in name calling and hoof pointing.
“Ask.” Tempest was sitting with her back against the wall and her eyes closed. “I may answer, I may not.” That was about as nice of a response as Rose was going to get, at least in the public existence they carried out down here.
“I’m going to assume asking how it broke is out of the question?” There was no answer, just the placid features of the unicorn. “Alright…uh…how does it prevent you from actually doing magic?” Rose tried to remember what little anatomy lessons she received from her parents as a filly. “I thought the important bit was actually like…down in your brain, not the tip.” That got Tempest to actually open an eye.
“If I were to duct tape your shut and pinch your nose as tight as I could without closing it completely, could you breathe?” Rose was going to answer but Tempest continued. “Your lungs are the ‘important bit’ so you should be able to breathe, right?”
“Ah…” That simplified things incredibly. “So you just can’t take in whatever it is you use for spells?”
“Yes.” Tempest nodded and closed her eye again. “I can produce sparks if I really try but…it’s unpleasant.”
“Leaves you tired as all get out, too.” Al chimed in from across the room. The old gray stallion was laying flat on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Can’t drink it up so anytime you use it you gotta spend a lot of time recharging.” Rose forgot that Al was even a unicorn as his horn was broken off much closer to the base than Tempest’s. It was less than an inch and could easily be lost in his mane.
“How’d you break yours?” Bulwark, who was sitting by the bug tunnel, asked.
“I was a teenager and forgot to pay somepony on time.” Al didn’t hesitate to answer and he never took his eyes from the spot on the ceiling as he spoke. “Got it sawed right off.” He made a motion with his hoof as if he was sawing it off himself. “Worst day of my whole life…”
“You didn’t report it to the guard or anything? That’s a hate crime in Canterlot.” Rose was horrified that Al had to go through that, but she was even more horrified that he didn’t tell anypony.
“Oh yeah, become a snitch. I’m sure that would’ve ended well for me.” Al sat up on his bed and chewed a lip in thought for a moment. “I knew this one pony, Fence, he snitched to the guards about some stuff and-”
“-Mayor Bay urges all citizens to remain calm and stay in their homes. It’s imperative we think of our neighbors in this time of crisis as friends and not adversaries, no matter what rumors may swirl around the streets”
The radio crackled and sputtered out the words loud enough for everypony to hear. Golden was in a precarious position, balanced on one of his rear hooves with one hoof braced against the wall and the radio held into an outstretched hoof and pushed as high as he could. The sweet spot was apparently one of the corners closest to the entrance and he had actually found it.
In less than a second the other ponies in the dungeon surrounded the stallion to listen in on the reports. Bulwark gladly helped support Golden’s awkward position and rose up to provide another hoof to balance the squawking metal box.
“Once again, remain calm and at home.” The feminine voice came back on over the radio. If they had all heard right, this was a station in Baltimare. “It is imperative that you remain indoors. This is also a reminder that any and all travel in or out of the city is not allowed and violators will be…dealt with.”
“Well it doesn’t sound like complete chaos.” Golden muttered. “Baltimare seems to be safe or the problem is at least dealt with…” He then reached up and fiddled with the dial. Static swept through the signal and fragments of voices broke through it momentarily but faded back into the thick audio fog.
“GET SOMEWHERE SAFE!” The panicked cry was the next thing to solidly break through and spill from the radio’s speakers.”GET INSIDE AND LOCK YOUR DOORS!” It sounded like something was banging on the door of whatever radio station this was coming from. Then the blood curdling howl of a turned unicorn came through the tinny speakers. The pony who had been broadcasting screamed and the wet sound of flesh being torn from bone was heard.
“Manehattan…” Al groaned. “I recognize the station…it’s Manehattan…” The largest city in Equestria had gotten infected then. At least that population was heavily mixed between the three main pony races. It wasn’t as lopsided as Canterlot was. So maybe that meant the non-unicorns would stand more of a chance of survival. Surely it would help that they didn’t have any alicorns around to police the pegasi and keep them contained.
The station flipped again as the only thing coming from Manehattan was dead air. Golden kept fiddling with the knobs until he found another one that wasn’t static. This one was already dead air. There were sounds, distant growls, that could be heard but they were faint. Bulwark informed them that the station was Fillydelphia. Equestria’s fourth largest city joined the infestation.
“This is Cloud Cover from Cloudsdale at Seven, coming to you live with breaking news.” Yet another signal found its way to the dungeons beneath Canterlot. This one didn’t need identification thanks to the broadcaster. “Ponies once again filled the streets of Cloudsdale and rallied against the mandated lockdowns. Local forces helped disperse the ponies, but demonstrators promised to return tomorrow if the lockdowns were not rescinded. This came on the back of the mayor openly denying entry to ponies from other cities, some of which were seen to be visibly injured. Captain Spitfire of the Wonderbolts offered a comment on the unrest, saying: ‘If the mayor doesn’t get this under control, then the Wonderbolts will.’ I think I will let that speak for itself…”
“Spitfire survived?” Rose was the one to speak first. “I…I can’t believe she got away.” She had expected both Wonderbolts to die in Canterlot. If one had successfully escaped, maybe both had. Considering the last she saw of Soarin he was right in the middle of both alicorns, that seemed unlikely.
“Yeah and it sounds like she’s about to do something stupid.” Golden said with a grunt as he set the radio down. Its little speakers sputtered with static until he turned the device off. “Great, so Manehattan and Fillydelphia are both gone. Did we not get travel locked down soon enough? How did this spread so far…”
“Do we really need to worry about that?” Al started to trot back to his cell. “Seems pretty pointless to worry about where you messed up considering we’re already deep in this mess. Better to spend energy on figuring a way out than wondering how we got in.”
“Well maybe if we knew how it spread we could reverse it!” Golden stepped into the middle of the room and puffed out his chest as he spoke. “The Crystal Empire exists and we have the means to get a message to them! If we can figure it out here then maybe they can make a cure or find some way to reverse it!”
“This sounds like a foal’s errand.” Tempest huffed and trotted away. “Are any of you experts in diseases? Biological warfare? Whatever this is?” Nopony answered her. “I thought not.”
“Maybe not, but we were at the epicenter of this.” Golden rebutted. “Canterlot has the most unicorn dense population in all of Equestria. We were right in the middle of it as ponies started to turn. We had to have seen something to give us a clue.” He waited for a moment. “Did anypony see somepony turn into one of those monsters? I was a little preoccupied fighting with one of those things and I didn’t see the others turn.”
“I did.” Rose raised one of her wings. “Picket.” She hadn’t even thought about the poor unicorn in days now, but those memories kept flooding back all at once. “I was in the same room when Picket…yeah.” The sounds of bones cracking and growing and Picket’s cries of pain echoed in her head. A hoof came up to her damaged ear and she grimaced.
“What did you see? What happened before he turned?”
“Well…” Rose poured over that day which now seemed like a lifetime ago. She had woken up to the screams and howls…then she had met Picket outside. “He had a headache.” She remembered that he had complained about it twice, once when they got their weapons and again when they had entered the Carousel. “But…only when he used his magic. It was like it hurt to use.”
“Hey my partner, same thing happened to him.” Al spoke up from his cell. “He was rearranging our warehouse and had to stop because he said he had a really bad migraine. I didn’t see him become one of those things-I was already on my way here through the…uh…usual avenues.”
“That’s why we didn’t turn…” Tempest came back over to the group. “What if it travels through magic? That’s why it only turns unicorns, that’s why it turned Celestia and Luna.” Her skepticism that they could even figure something out vanished in an instant as she rejoined them.
“I don’t know enough about magic to confirm how that would even work.” Golden mused and the rest of the ponies around him joined in that exact sentiment. Nopony here could even use magic, and Al didn’t strike them as a particularly educated stallion. So all the eyes in the room turned to Tempest.
“Don’t look at me.” The unicorn protested. “I lost my horn as a filly, I don’t know a thing about how it works. Once you lose the ability, the mechanics don’t exactly matter anymore.”
“Okay, well it’s our one lead.” Golden said with a deep sigh. “If it was airborne then you two would’ve turned by now, especially you Tempest. We’ll try to get this information to the Empire tomorrow. Today we need to figure out how to get up to that tower. What’s the closest tunnel to it, Al?”
“Where is it?” The old unicorn called out from the comfort of his bed.
“Northeast section of the castle. It’s a big tower with an antenna and a red blinking light.” Rose called back as she recalled where it was. “I think it’s near Princess Twilight’s old tower when she lived here.”
“Ah okay. Hmm.” Al rubbed his chin and mulled it over. “Probably the same one we used last time? Those bugs couldn’t tunnel everywhere, but they sure as shoot tried. Can’t say you’d get any closer.” The problem with that was Princess Luna’s observatory was in the northwest section. The distance between the two was maybe triple the distance between the astronomy tower and the now nonexistent ballista.
“Not ideal.” Bulwark concluded for the group.
“Two ponies covering that much distance is suicide.” The Lieutenant sighed and began to pace again. “Are we closer from here? I think we are. We could go through The Dusties and make a break for it as a group.”
“A bigger group will just make us go slower. You need speed out there, not bulk.” Tempest refuted the plan and then offered an alternative. “I say we split into two groups of two. You and Bulwark go through the upstairs while Rose and I go through the tunnels. That way if one of us gets swarmed then at least the other group still has a chance. If we’re all together then one mistake torpedoes the whole plan.”
“Splitting up means I could lose another pony. Absolutely not.” Lieutenant Golden put his hoof down and glared at the mare. “We do this by the book: take it slow and be careful.”
“I agree.” Bulwark rumbled out. “Gives us a chance to keep an eye on you too.”
“Sir, Tempest is right.” Rose decided to address her superior officer with some of the fire that still burned in her chest. “The book is out of the window right now. If you really want a chance of this working, then we need to have some redundancies in case things go wrong.”
“Why are you on her side, Sergeant?” Golden advanced on the pegasus and affixed his cold eyes upon her. “Need I remind you that I’m still your commanding officer? What I say still goes. We’re all going together, that’s the end of it.”
“With all due respect sir, your judgment hasn’t been good since this started.” Rose puffed up her chest and ruffled her wings as she addressed the stallion and leveled a look of similar intensity right back at him. “If we listened to your plans, then we would be dead up there right now instead of alive. Doctrine is dead, we need to be smart and flexible.”
“Not when it comes to the fate of Equestria, Sergeant.” Golden flared his nostrils and stood up as straight as he could and towered over his subordinate. “If we can get this information into the hooves of ponies that can make a difference, a princess even, then we need to maintain strict order to ensure success. We have a chance now to undo the suffering you just heard on the radio. If you don’t want this to be the reality of every stallion, mare, and foal in Equestria then we do this the right way or we don’t do it at all.” He didn’t give Rose a chance to respond as he trotted right by her. “We move out at sunrise. End of discussion.”
Rose was not ecstatic about the prospect of throwing themselves out there again. Nor was she excited about watching the backs of Golden or Bulwark, both ponies who seemed more and more antagonistic towards her by the day. This couldn’t be about personal feelings, though. This was about faith and duty, not petty squabbles.
Princess Celestia was trapped in the body of a monster. She was suffering and Rose knew it. If there was an opportunity to save the diarch from that grim fate, then she would take it. There was no other choice.
The armor of the Royal Guard felt weird to wear. It had been days since she last put it on, the longest stretch of time she’d been out of the uniform in years. Rose and Bulwark had both protested the idea of wearing the armor as the effectiveness of it as armor had proven to be nonexistent against the unicorns. The Lieutenant didn’t want to hear it, though. They were still Royal Guards.
So the three remaining guards all huddled around the door that would take them up to The Dusties. Rose had their lone spear tucked beneath her wing, she had been entrusted with it on account of her wings. The two earth ponies wouldn’t be able to wield it and still have full mobility, but she would.
“Tempest, come on.” Golden shouted to the unicorn, who was waiting in her cell.
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” Golden marched down the long room right up to the door of Tempest’s ‘room’. “We need everypony we can get to do this. So get up.” He marched into the cell and tapped one of her hooves.
“Your plan is stupid.” Tempest looked the stallion dead in the eyes as she spoke. “You are all going to be killed and I’m not going to be part of it.” Even from across the room Rose could see the red creep up Golden’s neck and face as the unicorn in front of him kept talking. “We were swarmed going one-third of that distance and we were a lot faster than you three in armor are going to be. We also had a fast route out. What do you have? Are you going to run all the way back here if the entire city is on your tail? What about the princesses? What if they just decide to melt that tower when you’re in it?”
“We’re doing this the right way, together.” Golden glared at her to no effect. “We need to make sure this gets done and we’re going to march across this entire castle to do it. I don’t care how many of those things we have to fight, we’re getting what we know out there. Maybe we can even reach Cloudsdale or somewhere else to help get us out.”
It was obvious that Golden Star had an idea in his head that this was going to be a grand heroic campaign. He saw this as a defining moment not just in his life, but in the story of Equestria. The holdouts lead a breakout in a dire siege. It was a war story that had been told dozens of times before and he wanted his entry into the ledger. It was even more obvious that Tempest didn’t believe in heroics.
“Then you will die. Together.” She assumed her usual pose with her back against the wall and closed her eyes. “I’m not one of your toy soldiers, you can’t make me do anything. If they were smart, they’d see reason and not listen to you either.”
Rose wished she could agree with Tempest on that front. They had similar views on the broad strokes of things, this idea was stupid and probably really dangerous. It needed to be done, though. They needed to tell the Empire what they knew and that they were still here. If it provided even a spark of hope that this could all be reversed, that was all Rose needed to go along with it.
“I’m not against the whole ‘telling ponies what we probably figured out’, by the way. The concept is good, but your execution is beyond idiotic.” Tempest tacked on the little epitaph, which only seemed to drive Golden’s frustration.
“Fine! You don’t want to help? Then don’t!” The Lieutenant stalked away from her cell and marched right back to Bulwark and Rose’s side. “We don’t need a criminal on our side anyway.” He lowered his voice so only the two guards could hear. “Rose, go try to talk some sense into her.”
With a sigh Rose trotted down the length of the room towards Tempest’s cell. She grumbled as she sat on the edge of the bed and tapped the unicorn’s leg with a hoof. One of the mare’s eyes cracked open and she raised an eyebrow at her.
“Is there anything I can say to get you to come along?” Rose knew of Tempest’s general temperament by now and knew the answer would probably be ‘no’. The unicorn didn’t seem to be one to do things she didn’t want to. That was one thing they did not see eye to eye on at the moment.
“No.” Tempest answered her firmly as she opened both of her eyes. The usually intense look in her blue eyes softened just enough as she spoke next. “You shouldn’t either. It’s suicide.” She reached a hoof out and tapped Rose’s armor. “Especially with that stuff. Tell those two to do it themselves and then you and I will go into the tunnels and do it while they get themselves killed.”
“I can’t…” As much as Rose wanted to, something deep down wouldn’t let her abandon her fellow guards. The hatred for them was growing by the day, but she still felt like she had an obligation to stand by their side. For now at least. There was no way to communicate how she felt in any way that made sense. She knew this was the worst course of action for this goal, but she just couldn’t shake that Royal Guard part of her that couldn’t refuse orders. It was a contradiction that existed between her head and her heart and the closest she got to breaking through it was last night when she had disagreed with Golden Star.
“Whatever.” Tempest shrugged and closed her eyes once more. “Die then, see if I care.” That hurt Rose more than it should have. She tried to shrug that off and stood up when Tempest’s voice in barely a whisper reached her ears. “I’ll do it myself, I guess…”
Rose trotted back to the other two guards and just shook her head. Both Golden and Bulkwark grumbled and glared at the placid unicorn in the cell. They all then checked each others’ armor and gear before stacking up at the door again.
“Just remember, we don’t have the key! So keep an ear out for us coming back!” Rose decided to lob that reminder into the dungeon. The last thing they wanted to happen was to be banging on the door with a horde of monsters on their tails.
“Sergeant, you take point until we can get some more weapons.” Golden nodded at her and then pushed the heavy metal door open. It took the collective effort of both stallions to get it open enough thanks to the bloated corpse of the unicorn Tempest had killed the other day. Once there was sufficient space to move through the open space, Rose did so.
The stairwell was now filled with the stench of death, but it was not as overly revolting as it had once been. The ponies had all gotten used to it now as the scent had become so omnipresent it basically did not exist for them anymore. They stepped through the viscera that decorated the first few steps and started up the nearly pitch black steps.
It was a silent and dark ascent, all eyes focused ahead for any sign of an approaching beast. Though as they rose higher and higher, nothing materialized. Even as they approached the door that let out into The Dusties, there were no signs of those things. Not even the distant sound of growls filled the air. It was oddly silent.
The door at the top of the long spiral staircase was pushed open and the trio of guards were let out into The Dusties for the first time since their initial escape. Many of the boxes and decorations were knocked over and otherwise scattered around. Some of the closet doors that dotted the walls were torn open or blasted apart and the contents inside rummaged through. There were no monsters, though.
Bulwark picked up a shield from the ground, an old decorative one with white paint on the front and emblazoned with Princess Celestia’s cutie mark in the middle. The stallion strapped it to one of his forelegs. If their armor wouldn’t stop the teeth or magic of those things, then a decorative shield wouldn’t either but it might be handy as a weapon in a pinch.
Rose pushed forward with the two stallions behind her. The path they would take was in the opposite direction of the servant’s quarters and kitchen which they had come from the night the walls were breached. They would have to go through foreign dignitary quarters, Captain Galea’s office, and a myriad of rooms that Rose wasn’t sure anypony knew the true function of to even get to the staircase that would get them up to the second floor. Maybe once they were on the right level they could talk about where to go from there, but first they had to make it to that lofty goal.
The guards stalked through the halls they once controlled with their heads on a swivel. Every open door was checked for one of those things to make sure they wouldn’t be ambushed. Tempest had said they were dumb, but Rose had seen some evidence to the contrary. They had gotten up on buildings to shoot down fleeing pegasi, they howled to signal prey, and they seemed to have some sort of pack mentality. They may be operating on some baser instincts, but Rose wasn’t convinced they were stupid.
The door that let out into the hallways of the castle proper, the hallways that weren’t The Dusties, was ajar and through it distant growls could finally be heard. The hall itself was clear though and the ponies piled into it. Without wasting much time they hurried across the open space and to the door opposite. If their collective memory served, it was the area reserved for one of the ambassadors that spent way too much time in the castle.
They were proven correct as the room beyond the door was decorated in a very non-Equestrian fashion. A massive rug with intricate patterns of black and gold swirls dominated the floor, a large sofa made of what looked to be leather sat in front of a fireplace right in the middle of the rug. Above said fireplace was a massive shield with a stylized black griffon on a golden field. Two long weapons, one halberd and one polearm, crossed behind the shield. A large desk sat at the back of the room and was stacked high with forgotten paperwork.
In the middle of the room, behind the sofa, was the body of the ambassador. Rose didn’t know his name, it wasn’t important for her to know such things, but she had seen him around. He was a portly griffon with black feathers and a gray back half. He was on the floor, his claw still gripped the handle of a sword that was lodged into the chest of a unicorn. In turn, the unicorn’s horn was sticking through the ambassador’s neck. There was yet another unicorn beside him, that one with its head completely separated from the rest of its body.
“I knew the birds could fight but…” Bulwark let out a long low whistle as they looked at the carnage. “Two at once and he got both of them. Maybe with an army of them we could’ve held off the horde.”
“Maybe.” Golden trotted up to the dead griffon and pried the sword from his grip and then slid the blade out from the unicorn’s chest. “I don’t think I’d be too eager about an army that wasn’t ours marching through the gates, though.” The sword wasn’t built for hooves, it was made for the delicate grip of a griffon’s claw. Golden studied it for a minute, then went over to the ambassador’s desk and grabbed a piece of paper and proceeded to clean the sword’s hilt. If he planned to use it, it was probably best not to have any blood on the handle since it would need to go in his mouth.
Rose knelt beside the ambassador’s body and placed a hoof on his face and tilted it so he was looking out one of the windows and towards the sky. She didn’t know much about the beliefs of griffons, but she would bet they would like to be directed skywards. A prayer was muttered from her lips, something to help him on his way.
“LT, Rose is…being Rose.” Bulwark groaned.
“Sergeant, knock it off.” Golden rejoined the other two guards and grabbed Rose by the armor and dragged her to her hooves. “We’re on a mission. So until further notice, no more of your religious stuff. This is a serious matter and there's no time for games.”
It wasn’t a game. That was the first thing Rose wanted to say but she bit back those and so many other words. She pursed her lips and bit her tongue, but just nodded at her commanding officer. Her wing gripped tighter around the spear. Her faith, and by extension the safety of Princess Celestia and Equestria itself, were a very serious matter even if they didn’t see that yet.
After they looked around the room for anything else of use, they found nothing, they moved on. The door on the opposite side from which they entered was nonexistent, shattered by a blast of magic from the looks of it. The damage had made egress easy and exposed them to making much less noise. They moved down the hall from there until they came to the door that led to Captain Galea’s office. It was a big wooden door that had her name on a plaque beside it.
This wasn’t her public office where she would take official meetings or meet with members of the guards. That one was overlooking the courtyard with the barracks in it. This one was smaller, more private, where she could do whatever paperwork was needed and where she kept more private matters of state.
What those matters were would remain a mystery as the door was locked, and tightly. There was no give to the door in the frame. Bulwark had put his shoulder into it once and was left with a brand new sore spot for his troubles. There were certain doors around the castle that had both magical and physical protections built into them, doors like this and the ones to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna’s rooms. They wouldn’t break this and to do so would be far too noisy and therefore dangerous.
“Okay…” Golden spoke softly as he conjured a map of the castle in his mind. “We double back then and go through the throne room if it’s clear. Back stairwell will get us up to the second level.”
Rose’s stomach turned at the mention of the throne room. Seeing such a majestic place in the current state of the world would be hard. It was once a comforting place to set hoof in, but now? How many bodies would cover its floor? How many of its regal windows would be broken? It was heart wrenching to think about.
They turned around and went back the way they came. They went through the griffon ambassador’s office again and came out the other side. Instead of going through the door back into The Dusties, they swung right and headed towards the throne room. From here it would be a straight shot, but that didn’t mean it would be easy. It never was.
The growls they had heard earlier got louder and louder as they approached a three way intersection. They peaked around the corner and saw two unicorns in front of a door and they were blasting at it indiscriminately. Of course the overpowered magic was making swiss cheese out of the wood so it wouldn’t last for much longer.
“There might be another survivor in there!” Golden hissed. “We need to get them away to check! We have an opportunity to save them.”
“We can’t let them howl, though.” Rose had to drive that part home. “It’s how they call for others. If we’re not careful we’ll have the entire city on our backs…”
“How good are you at throwing that spear, Rose?” Bulwark asked.
“Middling accuracy in marks.” Golden answered for her. “About average, nothing special.” He knew her record, he had been the one to administer the tests every year after all. “Still it’s about 20 yards. Easy shot.” At least he tried to salvage her confidence a little bit. “Pick a target and take the shot. As soon as that spear is in the air, we rush the other one.”
Rose took a deep breath and took up position. When the Lieutenant gave her the signal, she stepped out into the intersection and set her hooves. She short hopped backwards, planted her back hooves and then drove as she threw the spear as hard as she could with her wing and this time she made sure to follow through.
As soon as the spear was in the air headed towards its target, Golden Star and Bulwark were right behind it. As the projectile hit the dead center of one of the unicorns, the two stallions tackled the other. Bulwark had its mouth closed with his powerful hooves while Golden plunged his stolen sword into the things chest. Before they were even sure it was dead, Bulwark went to the other unicorn and brought the shield on his foreleg down onto its neck. A sickening crunch echoed through the hall.
Rose slowly approached the two downed unicorns and raised her head towards the ceiling. She sent up a prayer for her new transgression before she rejoined the other two. She would give a more detailed account later when she had a little more privacy.
While Rose got the spear out from the unicorn it had struck, the two stallions went to the door. Luckily for them, the two beasts had already done quite a number on it. It was more splinters than door, which meant all Bulwark had to do was put his hoof through one of the few connecting planks still left and the thing crumbled before them.
It wasn’t a room, it was just a closet. It had cleaning supplies and linens that were now stained with blood. A mare in a tattered maid’s dress was slouched against the shelves, her body riddled with new holes from the magic onslaught released by the assailants.
“If we had just been faster…” Rose mumbled and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She told the mare. For the first time the other two stallions echoed her sentiment somberly.
“The only thing we can do to prevent even more of these deaths is to get what we know out there.” Golden reiterated their mission statement. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can stop the bloodshed.”
There would be time to bury the dead later, or at least they hoped so. For now they had to leave the mare where she died and work to prevent even more of those wrongful deaths. So they got back on track and headed towards the throne room.
Somehow, someway, there were no more incidents. They heard distant howls from the castle, and some from outside thanks to broken windows, which signaled more and more hunts across the whole city. Maybe there were other pockets of survivors…but the howls and carnage meant there wouldn’t be for long.
The side door to the throne room, reserved for guards and functionaries that had things to pass along to the princesses, didn’t exist anymore. It was gone, as was a portion of the wall around it. The bricks lay on the floor, a smattering of blood around them and the glimpse of a body underneath a particularly big chunk of brickwork.
Inside the throne room was much worse.
Dozens upon dozens of mangled corpses littered the floor, some with ramshackle scraps of guard armor still clinging to their bloated forms. Others just looked like normal ponies, some castle staff she even recognized. There were a few unicorn bodies mixed in too, but they were few and far between. The ratio told tales of a last stand that was doomed to fail.
The masonry was damaged and scorched from where bolts of magic had struck it. One of the stained glass windows was shattered completely, shards of colored glass scattered across the floors and bodies in front of it. If Rose remembered correctly, it was the one that depicted the first defeat of Discord at the hooves of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
Those are the things that they had seen coming towards the throne room with a view towards the main entrance. When they actually got to the destroyed door, they saw something much worse on the reverse view.
Laying atop the raised dais at the far end of the throne room were the two monstrous alicorns. Somehow there was enough space between them on the cramped platform so the fire billowing from Princess Celestia’s body didn’t scorch Princess Luna outright. The hooves of the diarchs dangled off of the dais and revealed that the area around the hooves were coated in crimson. As were their muzzles and the tops of their heads right around their horns.
Despite the gore and viscera that coated them, Rose still saw them for what they truly were deep down: sisters. They were in the throne room, resting where they ruled from, for a reason. They knew, even as feral as they were right now, where they belonged. They were still down there and they knew who they were. That mattered for the long run. It meant that the princesses were not truly lost and that they could not be fully corrupted. Some shred of light still remained.
“What do we do now, LT?” Bulwark whispered just loud enough for the two ponies to hear. It was barely audible over the breathing of the two sleeping alicorns. None of them had even moved since they caught sight of the diarchs.
“We need to get over there…we can’t keep crisscrossing this castle.” Both Rose and Bulwark’s hearts stopped as they realized in unison what he wanted them to do. “If we move quietly…then we can do it. I know we can.” She wanted to point out just how hard that would be to do in armor, but she knew that would be fruitless. In order to even take it off they would have to retreat and make noise.
“After you then, sir.” Bulwark gave the commanding officer a nudge.
They couldn’t even see the door they needed to get to from their current location. It was tucked away behind the dais, a little escape hatch for the alicorns if they needed to make a quick getaway to the same level as their quarters. In order to catch sight of it at all they would need to cross the entire room first. That meant they would have to avoid the broken glass and shredded armor that littered the entire room. Rose might be able to get away with it, but the two stallions would have a much tougher time.
Rose did what any pegasus would do and took to hovering instead of walking. She wasn’t going to be the one to jeopardize this part of the mission, she would not have more blame and ire heaped upon her because she decided to walk instead of fly. To make sure that she was far enough away to not rouse the princesses with her wingbeats she went much higher than she needed to as well. She would serve as an overwatch for the stallions in case they missed something from the ground.
The two earth ponies tread carefully through the ruined throne room. They had to walk on the tips of their hooves so the wide appendages didn’t knock into anything they weren’t supposed to. If one of them were to trod upon one of the many corpses that littered the floor it might lead to some gas escaping or skin tearing and alert the alicorns. Then there were the scraps of armor and bits of glass. Every step was a telegraphed threat to their lives.
Rose drifted over to the shattered window and looked outside. Canterlot was still the ruinous heap she had left it, but this time the swarms of the turned were out in force in the streets. She wasn’t worried about that though, she was too focused on the sun.
It was early in the morning, probably about eight o’clock if she had to take a stab at it based on her own internal clock. The sun was at its zenith, though. It looked like it was noon at the latest, but she knew that wasn’t right.
The star hanging high above the planet was wrong. It wasn’t just a feeling either, Rose knew it. The usual warmth it gave off was harsher and less controlled. It felt angry and scared. To most other ponies maybe they couldn’t tell, but Rose could. She had spent her whole life in the presence and in service of it. The light was supposed to be soft and gentle, like the embrace of a mother. If it was the same mother, then it was frustrated and shaking them all desperately.
She drifted closer to the window, her brow furrowed.
The downdraft from her wings loosened a piece of glass just enough for it to fall. She caught sight of it in her periphery. Time seemed to slow down as the little piece of colored glass tumbled down through the air, then time stopped when it hit the ground.
The eyes of the dual alicorns shot open as the glass shattered against the ground and they both took to their hooves. From placid sleeping figures to imposing colossi that dominated the space in an instant, the two alicorns leapt from their perch with fangs bared and horns already alight.
Golden yelled something, Rose guessed it equated to ‘Run!’ but it was lost in the chaos of the moment. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna let out deafening harmonized howls that shattered the other stained glass windows in the throne room from the force. So many moments from the history of Equestria disappeared and fell to the ground, lost in the sudden explosion of motion and violence.
Princess Luna leapt over her sister’s back and landed between the stallions and their desired exit. Princess Celestia’s eyes focused directly on Rose. Those blood red eyes looked straight at her as the turned alicorn bared her six inch long fangs and the horn atop her head became consumed in a blinding light.
Rose had expected to see mercy somewhere in the divine pony’s eyes, she had expected to see the sadness she knew was in there. Nothing was found other than rage and hatred. No matter how hard or deep she looked in the few seconds she had to act, she saw nothing of the pony she so adored. That scared her more than the fact the monster was leaping right at her.
With no other recourse, Rose flew through the window that had caused this. She bolted out into the bright blue sky as fast as her wings would take her. There was no coherent idea as to where her destination was, the only thing running through her mind was that she needed to get away. Briefly she thought about making a beeline but that idea evaporated as she heard Celestia’s wings begin beating behind her. The alicorns could not destroy that tower! They needed it.
Rose would just have to do what even a Wonderbolt had failed to accomplish.
What little flight training she had acquired in her life kicked in. She was small, which meant she was presumably quicker so she had to use that to her advantage. Rose shot straight upwards into the sky, hoping that she could change direction and climb faster than Princess Celestia could.
The alicorn’s deformed size meant that Rose was right to hope that. Celestia had to take a wide arc to chase the pegasus vertically while Rose was free to push herself as hard as she could to get as high as she could before stalling. As the wings on her back beat against the air her helmet came loose and fell off. It tumbled back down to Equestria while Rose kept going.
A lance of golden light flashed within inches of the red primaries on the tips of Rose’s wings. That was the signal that the target between her wings was now firmly locked on and she needed to act. So Rose closed her wings and held them tightly against her side.
The red guard hung in the sky for a moment as her momentum stopped and then reversed. A deep breath swelled her chest and she opened her eyes as she turned around and came face to face with the monster from her nightmares.
Princess Celestia’s mouth was open and the two rows of sharpened teeth greeted the pony. Rose thought that those gnashing teeth would have nothing to bite onto as she banked hard to one side. The alicorn was ready for that though.
The jaws of the corrupted god clamped down around Rose’s left wing. She felt the sharpened enamel puncture skin and shatter bone. The scream of the little pony was lost in the wind as Celestia whipped her head to one side as she caught her prey. The body could not withstand the motion. First the joint came loose from the socket, then the tendons tore, and finally the skin ripped. The pony came free, but the wing stayed firmly gripped in Princess Celestia’s mouth.
A pain the likes of which had never graced her body caused Rose’s mind to blank. All she could do was scream as she sailed helplessly through the air. The one remaining wing on her back futilely beat the air to attempt to stabilize her flight path, but it was for naught. She impacted something. It had to be glass as it gave way and shattered. Her broken body tumbled across the marble tiles of a random castle hall and trailed blood behind her as she came to a halt against a wall. Every nerve in the body of the battered guard screamed at her to stay down, but she knew she couldn’t. Something primal and inalienable pushed her to her hooves despite the trauma.
Rose trotted down the hall. She stumbled and wavered as she went while blood sputtered from the new wound on her back and dripped onto the floor behind her. The door nearest to her was open and she made her way inside. The energy to even turn around and shut the door was completely gone, so she opted to back into it and let her weight shut it.
It was becoming harder and harder to process what was being seen. Her vision swam and she stumbled a bit on her hooves. This was some sort of upper floor apartment, the purples and whites and golds told her that much. That meant there was a bathroom. She needed more doors between her and everything else.
Even as the darkness encroached on her vision, she kept going. The loyal hooves beneath carried her to the bathroom where the bloodied pegasus collapsed at the edge of the bathtub. With the last of her strength, she climbed inside and let the darkness take her.
As soon as the trio of guards had left the confines of the dungeon, Tempest was already in the smuggler tunnels. They could go and be stupid all they wanted, but that meant she had to be the smart one out of the bunch. If they were dead set on putting their lives in danger, then she would have to do her best to help prevent their deaths.
The ponies were just as dumb as she remembered. Just as stubborn too. Just as she had suspected, nothing had changed. They still preached a back-hoofed friendship that was used more as a cudgel than an olive branch. It was never ‘we’ll be your friend no matter what.’ It was always ‘we’ll be your friend unless.’ That ‘unless’ was different for different ponies, but it was pretty clear it usually covered ‘unless you’re not like us.’ That covered all of pony history, all the way back to the era of the three tribes and still continued in the present, just in more personal ways instead of completely generalized.
Tempest grumbled and shook off the thoughts as she continued to worm her way through the tunnels at a quickened pace. It was much faster this time around without Rose or another pony in front of her, and it helped that she knew her way around the place. Needing to pretend like she didn’t know Al or that he was the reason she had been in the castle had been more than a little difficult. It helped that the other unicorn remained a consummate professional even in these times. All of the bits she had to pay him also helped.
The map that he had given her of these tunnels had shown her of an exit on the other side of the throne room. They were going to be clinging to the back end of the castle to get to the stairs that would take them up, so she needed to create a distraction on the first level away from them in order to draw attention away from the group of guards. It would make their lives and jobs a little bit easier for the time being.
They needed to get the message out and hope that whatever princess was still alive and unturned could figure something out. This needed to be cured and the princesses needed to go back to normal and still have that magic. Tempest needed that magic, and she wasn’t going to let something as small as a world-altering plague get in the way of that.
For now the guards were useful, even though the whole lot of them were bickering morons. As long as they were working towards her goal, then she would keep going along with them. If they did die, though…well, she wouldn’t complain. She could use them to take some heat off of herself for now, when they dwindled enough or their usefulness ran out, she would finally do away with the rest of them.
It took her about fifteen minutes to get to the exit that let out into the mailroom. When she wasn’t being constrained by a claustrophobic pegasus, the tunnels were easy and quick to get through.
The exit was covered by a false wall that dumped the unicorn right out into a pony sized cubby meant for large packages. She crawled out and stood up, now left by herself in an empty mailroom. Idly she glanced over the envelopes and boxes left behind. Nothing of any note to anypony important. Letters to Celestia or the captain of the guard wouldn’t go here, they would have a different avenue.
With no useful intelligence to gather, at least not quickly, Tempest moved to the opened door and poked her head out. The hallway beyond was thankfully clear. Well, clear in the sense that none of the turned unicorns were around. There were bodies, but those were everywhere in the castle at this point. They were easy to ignore.
She had been spit out right at the front of the castle and while her side of the hall featured doors every couple of dozen feet, the opposite wall was almost entirely made out of windows. Briefly she looked up at the sky and felt like something was off, but dismissed it. Time had been moving weird since all of this started and this was just another case of that.
Now where could she cause a scene?
Tempest needed somewhere with a lot of loud things. Somewhere that could produce a racket. She also needed unicorns though, at least one. It needed to howl to draw its friends out and towards it. Then she needed to put up enough of a fight that it would draw others out and towards her. Only then could she make her exit.
A gold-plated plaque on the wall had a few different words stenciled on it and with little arrows pointing around for quick directions. A look at them showed nothing but duds save for one room in particular: the orchestra room. That was an idea. What could be better than banging on a bunch of instruments? It would help her relieve some stress and be beneficial to the cause.
That was the plan before everything changed.
The throne room, which was to Tempest’s left and which jutted out from the main structure of the castle so the stained glass windows could have some purpose, erupted. Twin howls boomed through the whole castle and caused the decorative windows of the throne room and the windows right in front of Tempest to shatter violently inward.
The unicorn had to shield her face and shards of glass passed over her and clattered against the ground. When she looked up again she saw a red pegasus adorned in golden armor take off into the sky with a hulking monstrosity right behind her.
Tempest immediately rushed to a now vacant window in front of her with eyes glued to the guard. The pony flew for a bit but then took a sharp turn upwards, while the great beast below had to swing in a wide arc in an attempt to follow.
“Come on, Rose…” Tempest muttered to herself as she watched the devout little pony flee from her god. The higher that Rose flew, the slower she became though and the closer Celestia got. Rose was about to stall. If only Golden had not insisted they wear that stupid gaudy armor. It was slowing the pegasus down, without it the juice would’ve been there to put some more distance between her and the monster.
Then Rose fell. From her position Tempest could see the mare tuck her wings and dive towards the monster. It was a gambit, a hope that she could surprise the princess and speed right by her.
It failed.
Tempest’s heart seized in her chest as she saw the alicorn grab a hold of the pony by the wing. The dazzling sunlight overhead contrasted with the dark scene that followed. Celestia tried to quickly change direction and she whipped her head to the side and Rose was flung away from the monstrous princess at mach speed. The unicorn tried to follow the guard’s trajectory, but all she heard was the sound of glass breaking from a higher level of the castle. Her eyes fell back towards Celestia, who still had Rose’s wing in her jaws and whose face was now painted with fresh blood.
Rose still had the card. The card they needed to use the radio.
They had to get to her, or what was left of her at this point. Surely if the immediate trauma didn’t kill the poor pegasus, then the impact would’ve. If that somehow hadn’t, then it would have to be the blood loss. There was no surviving that at any rate.
The thing that was using Celestia’s body looked right at her. Its blood red eyes focused on her and for that brief moment Tempest could feel the entire heat of the sun. The mare and the monster stared at each other, both full of equal hate and disdain. Tempest furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to yell something but was intercepted.
A deafening howl went up, but this time not from the princesses. It came from everywhere all at once. It seemed like every single unicorn in the entire city belted out the victory cry all at once, then the ground started shaking. The mass of unicorns that blanketed the city streets all moved as one, and all towards the castle.
Tempest tried to be a confident mare, she even bordered on cocky on occasion. At her peak she could take on the world but this was not a peak. Normal creatures of any shape and size could be reasoned with. They could be tricked and intimidated. These monsters were not like that. They were savage and brutal and single minded and now it looked like their one train of thought was on clearing out the castle permanently.
The mare booked it right back to the mailroom as fast as she could possibly move. She quickly threw herself into the tunnel and crawled as fast as she could in the cramped space towards the dungeon. Behind her, the roars of the monsters echoed throughout the entire castle and filled the space around the mare. She could hear them getting closer. She heard a blast of magic hit rock and felt the heat behind her. She heard the gnashing of teeth and a vicious howl let out right at the mouth of the tunnel she had entered.
It took a lot for Tempest to feel scared. For the first time in years, for the first time since she was a filly, she felt terrified.
The sound of magic blasts chipping away at stone kept coming from behind her and the interior of the tunnel grew hotter and hotter from the discharges. What had to be less than five minutes in close proximity to the unicorns seemed like an eternity in the darkness. The light from the blasts faded and the howls and growls became a dull roar that still followed her through the tunnel. Eventually those were replaced with screams of panic and pain from the area in front of her. They became louder and louder until she was in the dungeon once again.
Al and Golden were there, but Bulwark was not. Both of the stallions had their hooves on the heavy metal door and were trying to keep it closed with all of their might. On the other side the tidal wave of horrors was trying to break it down.
Al looked just as she had left him, but Golden looked much different.The stallion was, in a word, a mess. His helmet was now gone, a large chunk of his armor was missing down one side of his barrel and a vicious burn mark trailed down his side in the same place. His blue eyes were wide and wild as he looked at the door and his chest heaved in panicked effort. He looked like he was on his last legs, both metaphorically and literally as his knees were beginning to visibly buckle.
Their strength faltered against the horde beyond and the door opened just enough. The jaws of one of the monsters grabbed one of Al’s legs. The old stallion let out a cry of pain and his grip loosened. Then, in a split second, he disappeared. His hooves tried to grab onto something on the door or smooth stone floor but there was nothing to hold onto. The old smuggler vanished, his last words were screams and pleas as the things tore into him.
“I need it closed for just a second!” Tempest joined Golden's side and she looped one of her front legs around the handle and pulled as hard as she could. The Lieutenant seemed shocked to see her but gave a nod. Both of the ponies dug their hooves into the floor and with all of their might they pulled.
The head guard had now officially outlived his usefulness. With no more lackeys, his dumb plans would have nopony else to carry them out and Tempest was not about to start listening to him. If she had to do this herself, then she would. She did not need anypony before this, and she didn’t need them now.
It was time to put an end to the Royal Guard presence in Canterlot
With her free hoof, Tempest retrieved the last of her little glass orbs from her belt and got it ready. They were never going to get this door entirely closed though, and she knew it. There were scrabbling hooves still clawing at the opening that they would need a whole squad to push away. This was going to save her life, but more importantly it was going to serve a different and equally important goal
The orb was slammed against the very edge of the door and the obsidian crystals erupted from it instantly. They snaked across the surface and snared the hooves of the unicorns that were still desperately trying to claw their way in and they all were slowly turned to crystal. When the spreading crystals began to creep towards the handle, Tempest jerked her leg away and backed away from the solidifying door. She also yanked the stallion away.
The door became consumed with the black crystal and she could hear the tightly packed monsters on the other side quiet as they were also overtaken by the quick transformation. Once it had subsided and growls were held back by the solid wall of crystal that separated the living from the damned, both ponies let out the breath they’d been holding in.
“What in Celestia’s name was that?” Golden asked between heavy breaths as he looked at the mare beside him. “What did you do?” He looked at the crystal now before him. “Did you just…did you just trap us in here…?”
“It’s temporary.” She lied through her teeth to the stallion. The only way to get rid of this stuff was with her boss’ staff. Lieutenant Golden Star didn’t need to know that, though. He just needed to think it was the truth. “It’ll wear off in a few days.”
“A few days. Great.” The stallion sighed and fell to the floor, the weight of his injuries now taking their toll. “Where…where were you?” He sucked in a deep breath but an unseen internal injury overtook him and he collapsed into a fit of short quick breaths and little pitiful whimpers.
“I was trying to do what I said.” Tempest stated flatly. “What you refused to do: split up. I was going to cause a distraction so you could get to the tower. What happened with you? Where’s Bulwark and Rose?” She knew what happened with the pegasus, but why show the cards she had?
“Celestia…Luna…throne room…woke up…” Golden spoke through heavy breaths and he began to shake. “Got…separated.” Slowly he began to regain control of his breathing and spoke coherently. “Rose flew away, out of a window. Bulwark tried to keep going…I don’t know what happened to them.”
“The princesses were in the throne room and you decided to go through it?” Tempest nailed the point home. “Are you stupid?”
“They were sleeping!” Golden got to his hooves but winced in pain and fell to his haunches once more. “We…we were almost out, then…something fell. Glass, I think. Everything went to Tartarus. Luna got me…” He pointed to the burn that now ran the length of his body, just scorched skin without any sign of hair. “Sweet Celestia…what do we do now…?”
“Rose had that keycard, right?” Tempest interrupted Golden who had been saying something, but it didn’t matter what. It was most likely pointless prattle about defending his dumb decisions. She needed to confirm what she had thought to be true. He looked at her with a glare and gave a solemn nod.
“Well we have to find her and get it.” The lone mare received a baffled look from the solitary stallion. She remained stoic and raised her chin a little in defiance of the look she had received.
“Princess Celestia was chasing her.” Golden reiterated that point. “She’s either dust or mulch right now, pick one. That keycard is long gone. We’d be better off finding another one. Somepony else had to have had one in the castle…”
No. He didn’t know it, and now it would never matter to him again, but Rose was not destroyed. She was probably dead, but her body was still intact. She had to get up there and retrieve the card so she could get the message out and hopefully get this thing fixed. After all, she needed the magic of the world to be fixed. When she had her horn again, she wanted to make use of it without turning.
The most important thing of all though was to make sure no witnesses remained in Canterlot. Parade was gone, now Al. She would leave the good Lieutenant here to rot in the dungeon his peons used to jail her. Bulwark was no worry, that big oaf was no doubt dead now at the hooves of that stampede of monsters or one of the princesses.
All that was left was to get Rose.
“You stay here.” She told the stallion calmly. “Get some rest.” She forced a small smile and reached down to pat him on the head. “I’m going to go get one of those cards and send out the message myself.”
“You’ll die…” Golden croaked out.
Tempest didn’t even address the stallion, she just turned and left him to his fate.
Day Ten
Tempest had now taken up residence in Al’s old smuggler headquarters. The door inside was still barred and undisturbed, but to make sure she would not be disturbed, she had piled multiple boxes in front of it. It wasn’t completely monster proof, but it was the closest thing she had to it. She just had to stay quiet and not draw attention to herself.
It was supposed to be sometime at night, she knew it. The sun hadn’t set yet. When she was sure it was ‘night’ she had gone back to the dungeon and dragged away the two sacks of food that still remained while Golden Star slept.
Now there was just enough time to get some sleep before she got to work on her plan. The map on the table in front of her had the locations of all of the smugglers’ stashes throughout the city.
To get back into the castle safely she was going to need a very big distraction, and she had just the idea. Her eyes fell to a big barrel of fireworks that sat in one of the corners of the room. It was a good start but she needed more. A lot more.
That was the first sensation that returned to her delirious mind. The tongue in her mouth stuck to everything it touched and her lips were dry and beginning to crack. Then something else came through the thick fog in her head: she was starving. Her stomach rumbled and growled as it tried to rouse her into action. There was one final thing that came before her sight returned…
Pain.
An incredible pain echoed throughout every nerve and bone in the pony laying in the tub. As she attempted to move something caught and sent a shock of pain right across her back which caused her to cry out and whimper. Slowly she opened her eyes, only to be greeted with the sight of dim porcelain with a smattering of red around it.
Rose lifted her head, or at least attempted to. A layer of sticky dried blood made her cheek cling to the cold tub beneath. It took a little extra force but she eventually peeled her face free. She was laying on her left side and in a pool of dried blood. Her armored breastplate mostly kept her barrel free from being stuck but her neck and back half were all firmly kept in place by the sticky visceral seal.
There was yet another attempt to pull herself up, but when she tried a shock of pain shot across her back yet again. Rose craned her neck to try to see what it was, when she finally saw what was causing it the memories flooded back.
There was a loose flap of skin, the remnants of a joint that had once held a wing. It was practically tied to the porcelain surface with semi-dried blood. It looked like a scab had formed and it now had her tied down.
Rose bit her lip and pulled up as hard as she could. The pain was almost enough to knock her right back down, but she took a deep breath and propped herself up on a single hoof. That loose flap of skin now dangled beneath her and a small trickle of blood stemmed from it. Her vision swam and her head pounded as she looked at it.
Princess Celestia had done that. That thought made whatever blood still remained in her body run cold. Her wing was gone and Princess Celestia had taken it from her. Not just taken it, but ripped it from her. That felt deeper than cruelty, that felt like a personal condemnation.
Rose’s father had always said that pegasi were blessed because they could be closer to Princess Celestia’s light than anypony else. What did it mean when a god forcibly removed your blessing? What did it mean when part of what connected you to that which you held so dear was so violently stolen by the being who supposedly gifted it to you? What would her father say if he knew she had been so personally cursed by their patron?
Rose wished the blood loss had killed her.
It hadn’t though, which meant there was a reason why. Life was not done with her yet, so death had been kept at bay for just a little while longer. That rejuvenated her a little more and the blood drenched pegasus dragged herself from the tub. That wasn’t easy. The muscles in her legs were nowhere near ready for the physical activity and they nearly buckled when the full weight of the pony came down upon them. Then the pain came. It shot from the open wound and shot across her back. It felt like somepony had brought a sledgehammer down on her spine and made her lungs temporarily seize. She wanted to collapse, her legs wanted to give in from the shock.
Much like the pony they belonged to, they did not give in. They held strong just as she did. She limped over to the mirror and looked at the pony who greeted her. It barely looked like Rose Wreath; her golden mane was completely matted to the side of her head with blood, she looked incredibly pale, and of course now she was missing one wing. It looked like Rose Wreath had died and the pony standing in the mirror was her corpse come back to life.
Rose’s hoof turned the faucet and a stream of water poured forth from it. There was no use bothering with the little glass set beside the sink, Rose just stuck her muzzle beneath the faucet and lapped up the free flowing water. It was murky how long she stood there and guzzled straight from the source, but it seemed like an eternity. Every gulp of lifegiving water seemed to bring her that much more back from the brink. It was needed nourishment for a broken body and weary soul.
When she was finally done drinking she didn’t shut off the faucet. She had more use for it yet. The first order of business was to get her armor off so she could try to see what exactly the damage was to her body. It was bad, she knew that. Now she also needed to clean it and attempt to dress it with something. However long she had been out for was already too long with an open wound.
The straps on the side were not easy to get loose when it was already hard to stand on four hooves. When one had to be taken away to fumble with straps, it almost made the pegasus guard fall onto the tile more than once. Eventually the straps and buckles came undone and Rose slid the golden breastplate off as gingerly as she could. It landed on the floor with a heavy ‘thunk’ and the interior was revealed to be almost completely stained red. There was also the little metal card Spitfire had given her tucked inside, it too was coated in her blood. Rose picked that up and ran it under the water before putting it under her remaining wing.
The one-winged pegasus rummaged through some of the drawers until she came across a small first aid kit. It was just for small scrapes and bruises, shaving accidents and things like that, but she would have to stretch the supplies to their limit.
Rose slowly dealt with her brand new wound. The glass was used and filled up with warm water, which was then poured over that particular spot on her back. Despite the water being warm, it still stung. It carried all the blood from her red coat and the now red water dripped onto the floor beneath the pony. She did this a few times, enough to get the spot completely clean from any dried blood. Then she cobbled together some of the bandages and a few strips of gauze to cover the loose skin and empty socket. Was it thorough? No, but it would have to do for now. If they ever got out of this she could have it taken care of professionally. For now it just needed to be clean and covered.
She then proceeded to clean her mane the same way she had done her back. The water washed over her head and carried the dried blood off into a rapidly growing puddle of red around her hooves. It wasn’t the deep clean she so desperately needed, but like most things it would have to do for now. Taking a shower might’ve been the play in a world where she didn’t have an open wound on her back and noise wasn’t a deadly problem, but that was not a world that currently existed.
Once she was satisfied with what little cleaning she had gotten done, she looked at the armor on the floor. It would not be put back on. It had been stupid to wear it in the first place. They knew that it largely did nothing, they had seen the aftermath and in Rose’s case she had felt just how ineffective it was against those things. Whether that was because of innately low quality or the fact that it relied more on charms to be worth anything, Rose couldn’t say. All she knew is it just slowed them down out here.
If the Lieutenant hadn’t ordered them to wear it, maybe Rose could have escaped Princess Celestia. It was a possibility. She wasn’t the fastest pony, but she knew deep down that she was faster than she had been in that moment. The fire in her chest couldn’t light, not in her current condition. If the fuel was present though, it would be raging at the thought.
The one good ear of the mare was pressed against the bathroom door and she listened as closely as she could for any noises. There was silence from beyond, so she carefully pushed the door open.
The room she had found herself in was one of the ones meant for important ponies, like Princess Cadance when she visited or anypony the royals were trying to impress. It was equivalent to a full fledged apartment, complete with a kitchen and an attached bedroom along with the living space she was faced with now.It was decorated in whites and purples and golds, just like the castle itself. A plush white carpet coated the floor, one that also had a streak of red that led from the door to the bathroom.
There was a window in the kitchen above the large sink. Through it natural light poured through and helped illuminate the space. Something told Rose that was wrong, though. The internal clock that eternally clicked in the primal brain of all things told her it should be night. On one of the walls was a clock, a quick glance told Rose that it was eleven-thirty. That didn’t exactly clear anything up.
There was something she needed more than the time of day, she needed food. Badly. She had given blood a couple of times a year and she knew after losing any amount of it that food was needed. Also her stomach felt like it was going to digest itself if it didn’t get something inside of it.
The mare staggered over to the kitchen. On her way she found out that her front left leg was a new weak spot. Every time she took a step and that shoulder came forward the now familiar and sharp pain shot throughout her body. Every time it made her want to stop and cry. When she got into the kitchen she opened the fridge to see if anything remained inside. There was a pitcher of water and a chocolate bar, but nothing beyond that. The chocolate bar was removed and the fridge was closed. She then went about rummaging through the cupboards and found a few abandoned cans of fruit and a box of crackers. It wasn’t much but it would have to be.
After a struggle with the can opener, which she found was a lot harder to use with a single wing rather than two, she had a bowl full of mixed fruit and a whole box of crackers all to herself. She sat down on the couch and devoured the ‘meal’ as fast as she could.
Day Twelve
The clock on the wall ticked past twelve and gave a little chime. Rose had absolutely destroyed what little food she had gathered and she felt full for the first time in what felt like a week at this point. Her energy was coming back and she could feel her strength gaining with each passing minute.
That did not mean she felt good by any stretch of the imagination. A wing had still been ripped from her back and she was down more blood than she thought was possible, but she felt better. She needed to feel better, mainly so she could get away from wherever she was and either get back to the dungeon or try to complete the mission by herself.
As she sat there on the couch and let the meal settle she had time to think. What was this mission for now? At the outset it had been about saving Equestria for Golden and Bulwark. For Rose, though? This was more about the princesses. It was the whole reason she had killed Parade after all.
Rose looked at her back and the wing that was now missing from it. She could still feel the missing limb. If she thought about it and told it to curl, she could swear it was still doing it despite its absence. It was never coming back. Princess Celestia had ripped clean off. Rose could still feel the teeth sink in and she could still feel it be ripped straight from the socket and the muscle and sinew ripping.
When Princess Celestia had melted the wall the night the alicorns turned, it felt like a general threat. It felt like chaos, just unleashed without any particular anger or hate. It had felt primal and general. What had just happened though, this injury, it had felt personal. She had looked into the eyes of the beast and seen directed hatred and rage.
The little glimpse of Celestia that she had seen from atop the ballista tower and while she had been laying on the throne had been absent. Before there had been that little shred of who they were before and Rose knew it. She had seen and felt it. Had it just disappeared? Had it just been a figment of her imagination?
The princesses should’ve been immune to the same level of depravity the common unicorns relished in. They should’ve been pure and powerful enough to hold off the worst of the infection. They were divine.
Rose then thought about the sun. The gaffe that had caused the alicorns to rouse from their slumber had been caused because she was enraptured with the sun and how wrong it felt. Her heart outright rejected what she had felt was right. It had to be a sense of malaise or even just being so close to Princess Celestia while she looked at it. There was no way it felt the way she remembered.
The pegasus got up and trotted towards the door that led into the castle hall. She waited for a moment and took a deep breath before pushing the door open. The hallway was empty, save for the trail of blood she had left behind that went down the hall to a spot against the wall. Across from that spot was the shattered window she had been thrown through.
Rose trotted down the hall, following the drippings of her own lifeblood down to the spot she impacted. Her eyes couldn’t focus on that spot for long and she turned her gaze towards the broken window, and more importantly the sun outside.
Immediately Rose’s full stomach turned as she looked up towards the burning ball in the sky. It wasn’t even explainable, not really. It just felt wrong. There was no more gentle light to be given out, only harsh lashes of heat that struck Equestria. It wasn’t just that metaphysical feeling either, it was a literal one. The air felt like it was on fire. Every breath she took wasn’t of fresh air, it was of stiflingly humid muck where air had once been. The cool mountain breezes of the capital had been stripped away and something foul had replaced it.
The world was wrong, and so were the ponies in it.
Rose sat on her haunches and stayed looking up at the sky. She closed her eyes and sent up a desperate prayer in hopes that something would hear it and perhaps even answer. The usual calm that accompanied that action did not fill her chest and the little pleasant tingle that would run down her spine did not materialize.
For the first time in her life, Rose felt like she could not be heard by her god.
Tears fell from her eyes and mixed with the blood still in her fur that hadn’t been washed away. The fire in her heart was snuffed out in a single violent moment that caused her to double over and sob. She cried openly and loudly, not caring who or what heard her. If the unicorns were to come, then let them. It already felt like she was dead.
“What did I do?” It still felt personal. It was a friend or a lover giving you the cold shoulder due to some transgression you were oblivious of. It felt so wounding that it had to be personal. There was no other explanation that fit into her mind. “I saved you…” She recalled that moment atop the ballista tower when she had sunk the dagger into Parade’s belly in order to prevent Princess Celestia’s demise.
“I SAVED YOUR LIFE!”
Rose found herself on her hooves and shouting at the city before her. The sole wing on her back was flared and she felt the heat rise in her chest and up her neck to her cheeks. The fire reignited in her chest, but it felt different now. The effect was different too. This was not a quiet fire that kept her warm, this was a raging blaze that needed an outlet. It was the same inferno that had ravaged the shining city below, now contained within a single pony.
“M-my whole life! All I’ve done is believe!” She found herself still shouting at the great expanse of nothing beyond the shattered window. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done in service to you! I-I have forsaken friends! I have given up time with the ponies around me and every single time I knew I was doing it because of you!” Her eyes became blurry with the tears welling up in them. “This is what I get?!” A hoof pointed to the hastily bandaged wound on her back.
She had been cursed with by the god she adored, ripped from the sky she had been told was her blessing. She would never skim the clouds again or bathe in the rays of the sun in a way only a pegasus could. Now she couldn’t even look at the damned sky without feeling ill.
Why?
That kept coming back up in her head, that same question. What had she done to deserve this? What sin had she committed to earn the scorn of the sky above and its avatar? She had kept her faith throughout all of this, through every moment. Never once had she wavered, in fact she had leaned on that faith to keep her sane.
Was it that one moment of doubt in the throne room? Had it been so simple that one little moment where she thought it was wrong caused the light to reject her? Had the momentary revulsion she had felt looking at the sky been the catalyst? If so, and if this was the reward for the devout who strayed even a moment from the path of the light, then Rose was more disgusted than before.
What if it was a test, though? What if this was a challenge of her faith? Had she already failed if that was the case? By lashing out at the sky above had she proven the charge of faithlessness she had been accused of?
A war raged within Rose between the faith she had always known and the reality laid bare in front of her. Both tore at her heart and told her to choose one side or the other.
“Give me a sign…” The embattled pegasus muttered. “That’s all I want, just a sign. If I’ve failed some test of my faith, then kill me. Strike me down. If I’ve wronged you in some way, then explain it. Let me feel your kind warmth again so I might know you exist…” Rose lowered her head and closed her eyes. “I’ll wait…”
Rose didn’t know how long she had been sitting in front of the window. It had to be hours at this point. It was nearly impossible to tell, as the sun refused to move. It stayed there at its zenith and did not budge a single inch. Despite the heat beating down on her, the intense pain that radiated throughout her entire back, and despite the growing sense of dread in her chest, Rose did not budge either.
She had asked for a sign, and she would remain here until she finally got one. Be it death or be it something else. Rose Wreath was nothing if not doggedly stubborn, and she would prove that to anything that was still watching her.
The belief was still there deep down, or at least the need to believe was. It was there and it would not go away completely. It clung to her heart desperately, and there was a large part of her that could not bear to shoo it away. Not yet at least. Not without the sign she had asked for.
The inglorious sun above refused to comfort her either. Its harsh heat and blindingly bright light still beat down on the pegasus unrelentingly. It was a lashing she would gladly take the brunt of, after all if she had truly wronged her faith then she needed to receive punishment. It was the only thing she could do until she was instructed to do otherwise.
Then her sign finally arrived with a bang.
A massive explosion rocked the city below. Rose got to her hooves, her eyes wide and intense. The concert hall, a massive domed building on the far end of the city, was now engulfed in smoke and she could see bits of it fly outwards from the blast. Fireworks also accompanied the blast and they burst in bright colors and designs in the sky above it all.
It was all followed by a telltale howl from the monsters and the city shook as they rushed towards the source like a moth towards a flame. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna both burst forth from the throne room and took to the skies. Throngs of the unicorns also poured out of the castle as they rushed towards the epicenter of the blast. The biggest hornet’s nest on the planet had been kicked and the warriors were on their way to swarm the perpetrator.
The sign was loud and obvious, Rose just didn’t know what in the world it meant.
“Wait…” She mumbled. If the unicorns were all headed towards the blast, then that meant the castle would be clear, or at least a little more clear than it had been before. Could she make it to the radio tower now? The universe was telling her to keep working towards the goal of sending the message out. That had to be it.
Purpose had been reiterated and a path to complete it had now been given.
The pegasus got to her hooves and then immediately regretted the act. The empty socket on her back radiated pain and sitting still for hours had not helped it at all. Immediately Rose’s front left leg buckled from the pain and she bit her lip as tears fell from her eyes. Everything hurt, but she couldn’t let that stop her. Not now.
So she limped onwards towards the end of the hall. It was very slow going and every time she moved her front left leg an intense and debilitating pain shot through her entire body. Every time it brought her to a standstill and she had to gather herself before taking another step. Pain would not stop her, not even being at death’s door could do that.
Ten minutes had passed and Rose had covered about half of the ground between the broken window and the stairwell. It was slow going and sweat was now dappling her brow thanks to a combination of effort and the slowly rising temperature. She was stopped in her tracks once more by a second explosion from the city. It came from a building right next to the
The second was much different from the first. It was more violent and sent up a lot more smoke than the first. The sky shattering explosion sent out a shockwave that soon reached the castle and the windows that weren’t already broken rattled in their frames. Large pieces of masonry skipped across the tops of buildings and some shot high into the sky.
That had to be some form of black powder. Rose had seen stores of it for old antique cannons in a few of the annexes around the city, but it wasn’t held in such high quantities in one place to make an explosion that massive and destructive. This had to be intentional. Somepony had set it up.
It was also equal parts clever and mean: the first explosion drew in the crowds, then the second delayed explosion was to do real damage to the crowd that came to investigate. Dastardly, really.
Rose would still take it as a sign, even if somepony had manufactured it. She had been there to see it, right in the perfect spot. It was what she needed, a confirmation and a little assistance to complete her mission. Providence had once again intervened.
The wounded pegasus kept limping until she got to the stairs. Even from that short distance she felt exhausted, but with a renewed zeal she began to work her way down the stone spiral staircase. There was no way to descend them comfortably, but she opted to lean on the outside wall and keep her front left leg as immobile as possible as she hobbled down them.
As seemed to be the case now, it was slow going. Rose had to stop every dozen steps or so just to breathe and try to regain the fire that once burned in her chest. It seemed like it was easier to forget and let go out now, but she would just attribute that to the pain. It was sapping all of her energy and consuming all of her thoughts. To describe the pain would take more thought than she felt capable of while it was radiating across her entire back. It took every ounce of conviction she had to even walk.
Rose kept going.
The dual explosions had seemed to draw every single one of those things out, which was fine for the pony plodding down the steps. She was in absolutely no condition to defend herself at the moment. There was a lot of doubt that she could even run away in her current state, after all she could barely walk.
“Rose…?”
The voice, soft and full of surprise, caught the mare off guard. She had been so busy focusing on the steps and her own hooves she hadn’t even realized how close she was to the next landing or that the hallway beyond already had an occupant. Rose looked up and saw Tempest standing maybe a dozen feet away.
The unicorn was frozen in place and her eyes were locked right onto Rose, wide and full of shock. That look was quickly wiped away and replaced with the usual placid indifference the mare usually wore. Her fuschia coat and dark bodysuit were covered in black powder stains and the unmistakable scene could be picked up even from over a small distance. Rose couldn’t help but give a tired smile as the mare approached her.
“Hey Tempest.” Her voice still sounded rough. Her throat had residual dryness and she hadn’t used her vocal chords in who knew how long. Hopefully the fellow survivor would understand given just how bad she looked. Rose could not stop herself as she hobbled to meet the mare halfway and embraced her in a weak but needed hug.
The feeling of contact was what she needed. Warm skin and fur against hers that somehow still remained cold and clammy despite all of the time she had spent before the sun felt like heaven. Fresh tears formed in her eyes as she tried to squeeze the unicorn, who did not reciprocate a single bit of the action.
“You’re alive…?” Tempest let that surprise creep in again. “How…? I thought Celestia got you.” The other mare craned her neck to get a glimpse at Rose’s back and then she visibly cringed. Rose followed her gaze and saw the bandages on her back were almost completely soaked through with blood again. Whatever time had done to close up the wound, activity had completely undone.
“Divine intervention.” Rose croaked out with a small hint of irony in the words. Her heart was still heavily conflicted on the topic of faith, but she couldn’t deny that something had saved her. “Where are the others…?” That was more important. The Lieutenant needed to know she was still alive and that the mission would be completed despite everything.
“They’re dead, Rose. All of them.”
Rose’s heart shattered and the pain finally overcame the strength she had been holding onto. Her bad leg gave out and she fell to the stone floor. Her chest was filled with intense and suffocating pain as she tried to suck in air in quick but deep breaths. Dead? Had she cost them their lives? The last she had seen of Golden he was running away from Princess Luna. Had he been too slow?
“W-what about Al?” The old smuggler had been in the dungeon, he had to be safe.
“A horde of those monsters followed Golden Star back to the dungeon.” Tempest spoke in the flat even tone, like she was reading off of notecards. “They stopped us from closing the door and they got Al. Golden told me to use the tunnels to get away while he held those things off.”
That was it, the true sign she had been waiting for. They had all been dashed against the rocks. The survivors who had held out for so long against long and impossible odds finally were done in. Their protection had given in and whatever luck or providence that had been on their side had now surely abandoned them in a swift and vengeful way.
Rose was still alive, though. Why? Was it a message? Was she meant to witness all of this as some sort of retribution for her wrongdoings? If it was a punishment, then it was working. It was yet another blow meant to lay her low and it had done so.
“H-how long ago?” She finally found her voice once more.
“I’m not sure how much a ‘day’ is worth anymore considering the sun hasn’t moved since the last time it rose.” Tempest looked to a nearby window and the sun as it hung in the sky. “But you all left to go to the tower about three ‘days’ ago. So…” Tempest trailed off and returned her gaze to the pegasus who was still embracing her
“Three days…?” Rose asked as she finally broke away from the other mare. Tempest nodded. “What if we’re too late now…?” That question was immediately on her mind and it made her heart heavier the same as news of her comrades’ demise. What if Princess Cadance was turned now?
“Well we won’t know until we try.” Tempest moved to Rose’s side to give the pegasus some support to walk. “Come on, it’s not too far now.”
Rose felt truly blessed in that moment. Despite her own injury, despite almost all of the other survivors falling to the monsters,and despite the state of the world at large, she still had somepony to lean on. It was something that warmed her heart and made her believe a little more.
The pressure on her shoulder as she leaned against Tempest’s side hurt, but not as bad as when she tried to walk on it. It was a welcome relief from intense stabbing pain to more of an omnipresent ache. In a weird way, it was almost pleasant. Unlike the sudden debilitating pain when she tried to walk that made her want to give up and die, this only reminded her that she was still alive. That she could still feel something.
The two mares walked through the halls of the castle unabated. Not even the distant growls of unicorns echoed through the dead structure. The only company afforded to them was each other and the clicks of their hooves as they made their way to the radio tower to send a message to the world. It felt so good to be with somepony else, though. It felt good to have something else other than her thoughts and doubt.
“What do you believe in, Tempest?” The question naturally dripped out of Rose’s mouth. There was a primal need to be reinforced and validated. There was a little part of her in all of this that was beginning to feel a little crazy and she had to quash that right away.
“Hmm?” Tempest had her head on a swivel and had obviously not been paying attention to the mare that was using her as a crutch. “I’m not religious, Rose.”
“Beliefs don’t have to be religious.” Rose clarified. They were for her, of course. It wasn’t that way for everypony, though. “It’s conviction, it’s just something you think about and know is true. Most ponies believe in the power of friendship now thanks to Princess Twilight. Some ponies believe in the power of money. Some believe in Princess Celestia and the sun. It’s…it’s an idea you can’t live without, I guess.”
“Does it matter?” Rose could feel the annoyance in the words.
“I suppose not…” It was probably best not to push the mare who was now her only saving grace in the world, so Rose decided to change topics. “Did you cause the explosions?” She received a curt nod in response but no further clarification. That flipped some little switch in Rose’s head. Tempest had caused the explosions to get back into the castle. It was a distraction. What was the goal though? “Did…did you do it to find me?”
The two mares froze in place. Rose looked up at Tempest with hopeful eyes. Her heart felt light in her chest for a small amount of time as she saw the unicorn freeze and briefly purse her lips before the stoic expression took over her face once more.
“Yes.” There was no clarification or elaboration. Rose didn’t need it. Somepony still cared for her, they cared for her enough to set up an elaborate plot to even have the chance of finding her. That was all she needed.
Tempest felt much more distant than usual. In previous days Rose had been able to have some form of conversation with the mare, and she felt like the two of them had gotten on each others’ good side. Perhaps the isolation of the past three days had changed the alleged spy, or maybe Golden sacrificing himself for her was still weighing on her mind.
“Where are you staying now? You’re not just living in the tunnels, right?” That felt like a question that would actually get an answer. It was something she couldn’t just shrug off, as soon they would both be headed wherever that was. The dungeon had obviously been compromised, so unless Tempest had somehow reclaimed it then that wasn’t the answer.
“In Al’s smuggling headquarters in the city.” Tempest looked straight ahead as she walked and talked. “It’s safe enough as long as I’m quiet. Which I have been, and I expect it to stay that way.” Rose could certainly be quiet. That had been a majority of her existence since joining the guard. So that would be no problem.
It took about twenty minutes, but they finally arrived at a set of stairs with a plaque beside them that read ‘Emergency Radio Beacon. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’. They both looked up the staircase and at the door at the top. It didn’t look like anything special, just a standard castle door. It wasn’t even made of metal or anything. Rose figured it would’ve been locked.
Maybe it had a spell on it or something? It probably didn’t anymore. Persistent spells and charms had worn off long ago if the guard armor was anything to go by. She wasn’t aware of any posting that guarded this particular door, but then again there were jobs all over this castle she wasn’t aware of so that was a possibility too. There could also just be a lock.
“Let’s send a message to the world…” Rose muttered.
As they were about to take the first step together, something sharp and metal slammed into Rose’s back. Her vision flashed and she let out a cry of pain as her entire body was consumed in immediate debilitating pain. She collapsed on the steps in a pile. Her lungs wouldn’t even work. She commanded them to take in air and they staunchly refused. It was like the pain signals had completely shut down all other functions of her body.
“I should’ve known you weren’t dead…” That was a voice she recognized. It took a moment for the overworked brain in her skull to parse it out, but it eventually came to her. It was Bulwark.
“Bulwark? You’re alive?” Tempest voiced Rose’s surprise for her. Unlike the initial contact with Rose, this sounded more like an annoyance than genuine shock.
Rose rolled over onto her good side to see the stallion. His brown coat was covered in blood. She could see his massive muscular body was saturated in puncture wounds and scratches and one of his hooves was blistered to the point she was surprised he could even stand on it. On one of his legs was the same shield that he had picked up the other day in The Dusties. It too was coated in red lifeblood.
“She did this.” Bulwark leveled an accusatory hoof right at Rose. “She had to go stare at the stupid sun and wake up the princesses! Just move out of the way so I can get this over with, Tempest!” The stallion roared and his nostrils flared angrily.
“Does it matter now? It’s done.” Tempest stepped in front of Rose so that the prone pegasus could barely see the now hostile earth pony.
“Why do you care?” Bulwark stepped forward, puffed out his chest and rose to his full height in an attempt to intimidate the mare before him. “This isn’t your business. I saw Luna hit the LT, I saw him fall. So now two guards have died because of her!” She could see the stallion start to crack and tears began to form in his angry brown eyes. “She could’ve stopped Parade! She could’ve STAYED BY US! WE COULD BE DONE BY NOW! WE COULD ALL BE OUT OF HERE!” He was visibly shaking as he screamed at the two mares now. “MOVE!”
“Yeah, I did it…” Rose slowly got to her hooves. Her legs shook as they took on her weight and she could feel new blood seeping from the wound on her back. “I…I’m sorry, Bulwark. I thought that…everything I did was for the right reasons.” She paused and took a deep breath before she spoke the next words. “I did kill Parade…not through stopping her. I-I stabbed her. I…I killed her.”
Maybe it was the flood of adrenaline, maybe it was blood loss, maybe it was just good old fashioned catharsis but Rose felt better after saying it. A weight was lifted from her chest and for a brief glorious moment she felt her pain subside. It was the weight of hidden sin being lifted from her soul.
“You what…?” Bulwark stepped back from the mares. A mix of intense emotions whipped across his face in a frenzy. After a few moments they settled right back on rage. “She was a fellow Royal Guard! How could you?!”
“I couldn’t let her kill Princess Celestia.” There was no more passion in the words as she spoke them. There was no zeal or fire. A cold resignation rang through her voice. “Not then. I thought that maybe there was still a chance that Celestia was in there…” She had to drop the title for the alicorn. She had been staunchly refusing to use just her name without the title so far as some form of respect, but she wasn’t even sure the diarch deserved such respect right now. Not as long as the monster had a hold of her. Not as long as her divinity was in question.
“That was enough to ruin everything?!” Bulwark yelled and tossed his shield to one side thendragged a hoof against the tile in a sign he was ready to charge the two mares. “We had a chance to make our lives easier! Maybe even a chance to get out! Instead you kill one of your own?!”
“I’m sorry!” Rose stepped forward despite her body’s protest. “Is that what you want to hear? Because I am now!” Rose couldn’t say another word as a large hoof slammed into her face.
The one-winged pegasus immediately fell to the ground. A ringing filled her ears and her vision was nothing but a blur. She tried to get up, but the same hoof that had hit her connected with her ribs and sent her right back against the stairs. The only thing she experienced was pain, which seemed to be a common refrain as of late.
The colors of the world seemed to smear and blur together in a soup of whites, browns and fushcia. Somepony, Tempest it sounded like, said something but Rose couldn’t hope to parse it. Bulwark responded, then a hoof came rocketing down right at Rose’s face, but something stopped it.
The prone and pummeled pegasus blinked a few times and the world came together slowly. Tempest was now holding Bulwark’s leg so his hoof wouldn’t connect with Rose’s face again. They were both locked in an intense stare-off with one another. The silent stalemate held for nearly a minute until one of them finally blinked.
Somehow, it was Tempest. Bulwark’s hoof connected with her head, right against her already broken horn. It seemed to send a shock throughout the mare’s entire body and her legs gave way. The stallion jumped on the opening and pushed her onto her back and straddled her chest, then he began to wail on her with oversized hooves. From Rose’s vantage point, it seemed like Tempest was trying to fight back but she couldn’t overcome the superior mass of the hulking earth pony on top of her.
Rose dragged herself to her hooves. It was a sisyphean task at this point, but still she persisted. Her back and hooves all screamed at her to stay down, the ringing in her ears and the fact that the world kept swaying in her vision joined in the protest. She couldn’t though. She could not stay down, not now and not ever.
The fire in her chest rose to an inferno.
The shield Bulwark discarded was picked up in Rose’s hoof. She advanced on the stallion who kept savagely beating the mare beneath him and when she got close enough she got onto her rear hooves and brought the shield over her head. The pain that accompanied the action was intense, but she was used to that now. Pushing through it was something that needed to be done. With whatever strength she could muster from the fire in her chest, Rose brought the shield down right on Bulwark’s neck.
A sickening crunch came from beneath his skin as metal struck vertebrae. Bulwark slumped over and fell off of Tempest to one side. That didn’t stop Rose. A roar bubbled up in her chest and ripped through her throat with primal fury as she brought it down on his head.
Then she did it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
“Rose…”
A weak burbling voice broke through the sound of blood roaring through the pegasus’ ears. It was enough to get the guard to stop and drop the shield, where it clattered to the ground and dripped blood onto what had once been pristine white marble.
Rose’s whole body was shaking and she couldn’t stop it. Beneath her was Bulwark’s body and what remained of his dead, the bones now visible where she had thoroughly caved it in. He had stopped moving as soon as she had struck his neck with the shield, but now she was certain he would never move again. A quick glance down revealed that her entire barrel was covered in splatters of blood and she could see it in her mane again. She could even taste it as it rolled down her muzzle and onto her lips.
“Rose…” Tempest croaked out again.
Rose finally turned to look at the unicorn. She was still on her back, her head lifted up so she could stare at the pegasus. Tempest’s face was already swelling and she could see a tooth had already been knocked free. Blood was trickling from a laceration above one of her eyes and the scar that covered the other had been reopened from the impacts. Rose peeled herself off of the earth pony’s corpse and staggered over to the other mare.
A hoof was offered to Tempest, who gladly took it. Both of them groaned as the unicorn was pulled to her hooves. Both of them leaned heavily on one another and they staggered towards the stairs.
They still had a job to do.
Thankfully the door to the radio room wasn’t locked or barred or anything, so they were just able to push it open. As soon as they were both inside, Rose closed the door by kicking it shut with one of her back legs. Tempest staggered away from the pegasus and sat down, her back against the wall.
The room was small, just big enough for the radio equipment, a chair and maybe another pony or two. The radio itself just looked like big gray boxes with dials and wires coming out of them, but at the very front of all of it was a little square about the same size as the card Spitfire had given her. It had a small opening on the front where such a card could be inserted.
Rose tried to take a step but the adrenaline started to fade. First her legs gave out, then her vision began to fall to the darkness that closed in around it. Finally her mind quieted and she passed out.
Day Thirteen
Rose woke up with yet another headache that made her head feel like she had gone a few rounds with a jackhammer. As she roused from her inadvertent slumber, her eyes found the nearest window so she could figure out what time it was, but was quickly reminded that was not a good way to tell time anymore. She looked around the room and saw Tempest just where she had fallen, propped up against the wall and passed out. At least the hope was Tempest was just passed out.
Her eyes fell to the radio.
“I hope somepony out there can still hear us…”
—-
Sunburst ran a panicked hoof through his vermillion mane. It was well after midnight, or at least that was what his clock told him. The sun in the sky told a much different story, but these days it liked to tell more lies than hard truths. He was sequestered away in an old and ancient study near the top of the Crystal Palace just looking for something to help their predicament.
Princess Cadance had used all of her strength to raise the sun and moon for a couple of days, and now she was out. The sun needed to be lowered though. They needed to find some way to recharge her magical battery enough to set it for a while. That’s all they needed, just a little time before this all snowballed and it got way too hot to go back.
Then of course there was the whole pandemic thing. Outside of the initial guidance from Princess Celestia ten days ago, they had heard nothing. They had been told to close the Empire down and keep everypony home and safe, so they did. Not even the castle staff was allowed to stay in case whatever it was had already made its way here. They needed to keep the royal family safe, no matter what.
The maligned mage fired up his horn and moved a whole stack of books out of his way. He had gone through them all and found nothing he needed. There were supposed natural remedies for magic recovery, but they were all either known hokum or the ingredients couldn’t be acquired inside the Crystal Empire.
Then he had also been studying pandemic mitigation. It wasn’t an explored topic in Equestria, not really. The last time any sort of major illness had broken out and spread through most of the population was hundreds of years ago, and understanding of such things had progressed a lot since then. So they would have to wing it to keep everypony safe.
“Hello…? Can anypony hear me…?”
Sunburst’s ears stood up straight and swiveled around as the tinny voice broke through the stale air of the old study. He immediately stood up and spun around on the spot, his blue cape flowing out behind him as he did.
“Oh no…” The stallion readjusted his glasses with his magic and he ‘beard’ with a hoof. “...am I finally going crazy…?” He trotted around the tiny space he was using to isolate himself and still study in an attempt to find the voice. “Helloooo? Voice in my head?”
“Please…somepony answer…please…”
His ears finally located the direction the sound was coming from and he quickly trotted over and began moving stacks of books and scrolls. Settled in the back of the room, propped up against a wall was a pile of equipment. They were mostly gray boxes with all kinds of dials and readouts, but static was coming from one of the little speakers attached.
“Oh right, the radio…” He had moved it when he set up the little space for himself and had completely forgot about it. “Wait…THE RADIO!” Sunburst dove towards it and his hooves fumbled for the little gray standing microphone that was sitting on top of the whole pile. His hoof pushed the button on the stand in a blind panic. “H-hello! Yes I can hear you! Yes hello!”
Hopefully he had not missed his window to respond.
“Thank the sun…” A sigh accompanied the feminine voice. The first thing Sunburst noticed now that he was actually listening, was that the mare on the other end sounded so incredibly tired. It made him feel bad for her on a base level. Maybe she was sick. “...who…or where are you?”
“Um…I-I’m in the Crystal Empire.” Sunburst answered once he was sure the mare was done speaking. “Where are you?” A thought crossed his mind that he should immediately go get Shining Armor to have him talk to whoever this was, but he didn’t want to lose the signal or for the mare to go away.
“The Crystal Empire.” A sense of exuberance returned to the voice coming from the speaker and some of the tiredness vanished. “Princess Cadance, is she okay?”
“Yes? Why wouldn’t she be? Where are you?” He had so many questions and right now he needed a lot more answers than this mare. If she didn’t start answering them, then he would go get Shining Armor. He always had more patience for ponies.
“I’m in Canterlot-”
“Canterlot?!” Sunburst couldn’t help but interrupt her. “W-we haven’t heard anything from Canterlot in over a week! What’s happening there? Is everypony okay? Cadance is worried sick about Celestia and Luna! Are they sick?” He waited for a few moments and heard nothing in response. “Hello?”
“Things are bad…” The mare responded slowly. “...really bad. Celestia and Luna are infected and…and they turned. I think everypony else is dead except for me and….” She hesitated. “...and one other pony.”
“What do you mean ‘turned’?” It sounded like a phrase from an old zombie comic book. This couldn’t be that, right?
“It..it turns ponies into monsters. Killer monsters. Just unicorns, though…we think it spreads through magic.”
Sunburst’s mind immediately went into overdrive as the mare spoke and he rifled through the contents of his brain at hypersonic speeds. That didn’t sound like anything he had ever heard of before and didn’t even sound possible. Infections couldn’t spread through magic.
“Nonono.” Sunburst had to correct the mare. “ That’s impossible. If there was something spreading through magic then the Central Pool would clear it. It’s impossible. You have to be mistaken.”
“I only know what I know.” The mare responded with an exasperated and tired sigh. “It only turns unicorns, and it won’t turn a unicorn with a broken horn. It has to be spread through magic then, right?” She waited for a moment. “Please tell me I’m right.”
“It’s possible…I guess.” Sunburst readjusted his spectacles again and stroked his beard in thought. “Very improbable though. The unicorns that didn't turn had broken horns, you said?” He looked up to try to get a glimpse at his own horn, but he could only see the very tip of it.
“Yeah…” There was a noise, it almost sounded like a growl that came through the speakers. “I-I’m sorry. I have to go. I won’t be able to talk again probably.” There was yet more rustling and a louder growl. “Don’t try to save us. We’re…we’re doomed. Canterlot is doomed. Please, save everypony else. Save Equestria.”
It was a feature of her life now, though. It was inescapable and saturated every moment, both waking and sleeping, of her existence. It was made worse by movement and strenuous action, which given the current state of the world was not ideal. At the moment, movement and strenuous action were both necessary.
The monsters were back in the castle now, and that meant they were in danger again. If only Rose wasn’t the only one awake to deal with it. On the other side of the door was one of those things, she could hear it growling and shuffling around. It was probably making sure that Bulwark was dead and would pass once it was sure.
The pegasus pony pressed her good side up against the door and dug her hooves into the smooth stone of the tower floor. The entire weight of her body would have to be enough if the unicorn on the other side tried to get in. Considering her waning strength and naturally light frame, that wasn’t much.
A hoof scraped against the other side of the wooden door. Rose sucked in a breath and held it. The pain of taking a deep breath while one of her ribs was cracked was immense but she knew her death would be much worse if she made a noise though. She felt the unicorn give the door an experimental nudge with its head. Rose did her best to push back in equal measure.
It was an eternity of these little pokes and prods before the thing on the other side of the door finally stopped. Even then, Rose dared not to let out her breath. Not until she heard the thing’s hooves click on the marble floor as it trotted away. Only when she could not hear it anymore did she finally breathe normally, and she still did that quietly.
How were they supposed to get out of the castle? The nearest tunnel exit that she knew of was still the astronomy tower, and that was too far in their current state. They couldn’t stay in this little room forever either, it was already hot enough and it wasn’t going to get any cooler as long as the sun stayed in the sky. It was a rock and a hard place.
Rose tentatively hobbled away from the door and over to the unicorn slumped against the wall. It was reminiscent of the pose she usually took down in the dungeon and there was even a bit of true peace present across her swollen face. The pegasus reached out with her wing and gave the pony a little shake.
“Tempest…” When the mare didn’t wake up, Rose did it again. “Come on, Tempest.”
“Mmmnnn…” Tempest shifted and winced then one of her eyes opened. The other one tried, but the area beneath it was too bruised to allow it. “Ugh…ow…” The unicorn shifted and groaned. She brough a hoof up to her face and winced when contact was made. “What…happened…?”
“I got the message out.” Rose gave a weak smile. “The Crystal Empire is okay. Princess Cadance is okay.” She wanted to add ‘we’re okay’ but that didn’t feel true, not at all. They were far from okay.
“Great…we need to get out of here before the unicorns get back…” Tempest pushed herself to her hooves with a grunt. Her breathing was labored and shallow and there was a slight wheeze, but she was standing. Through the new injuries, the same determined and stolid mare remained.
“We were out for a while, Tempest.” Rose leaned against the wall to give her legs a bit of a rest. “They’re already back.” Tempest mumbled a curse that Rose didn’t understand under her breath. “I don’t know if we’re in any shape to make a run for it. I’m not…”
Tempest looked her dead in the eye and there was something in there that Rose didn’t like. It was a moment of decision and it seemed like the spy was grappling with something. It made Rose swallow. Neither of them would be here without each other, there was no way that Tempest would opt to leave her behind.
Right?
“We can’t stay here…” Tempest stretched out her legs and rolled her neck in an attempt to get loose. “How much can you move? Can you run at all?”
Run? Rose was lucky to be able to walk at this point. Her entire left side was stiff and in constant pain. Any time she tried to move her front leg it caused a shock down her entire spine. Running might actually kill her, but she could not let Tempest know that. The warm feeling of camaraderie that had filled Rose’s chest when Tempest had found her was now gone. It had seemed so sudden. What changed?
“A little.” Rose lied.
“Okay…” Tempest closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she did she winced and a hoof went to her ribs. It seemed like Tempest might be in the same boat, but there was no way that those words would ever be uttered by the unicorn. “...the tunnel in the observatory. That’s our exit. We take it slow. If we get caught…” Tempest hesitated as she searched for the right words. “...we have to try to not get caught.”
So if they were spotted or caught, then they were pretty much confirmed dead. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but Rose could at least view it as another test. If they made it back to the hideout alive then that had to mean she had not been abandoned. It had to mean that the light still shone on her in some fashion, no matter how limited. So Rose gave her fellow survivor a nod.
Both mares hobbled to the door and waited a moment with baited breath. There were no sounds from the other side, no distant growls or menacing howls. Tempest then pushed open the door and stuck her head out to look around. After seeing nothing, she ducked back then and nodded to Rose.
Bulwark’s body was still just lying on the floor at the bottom of the steps. His mangled face looked up to the ceiling and his hooves remained splayed out. Flies were now gathering around his corpse and his stomach was visibly bloating. It was a sight that the ponies were used to by now, but that didn’t make it any easier to look at.
Rose felt worse about Parade than she did about Bulwark at the very least. Parade had been an unfortunate but necessary casualty. Rose knew that Parade wouldn’t have listened to reason, that was the only course of action. Bulwark had been killed in self-defense though. If she didn’t take him out, then she would’ve met an equally grisly end at his hooves. Both had been justified, but this one she could feel with absolutely zero guilt. There wasn’t even that shakiness that came in the moments after dealing with Parade.
Rose didn’t even send up a prayer for him. Part of that was because she didn’t feel like he deserved one, but she also still wasn’t sure if anything would be listening to her prayers.
They moved on, retracing their steps down the hall and until they came to the staircase. It was an achingly slow trek due to their injuries and the fact that they had to stop every hundred feet or so to listen and catch their breaths. Both of them were walking gingerly and in clear pain, but both pushed through.
The stairs were a nearly insurmountable obstacle. Rose had enough trouble going down them on her own before the last round of contusions. Now with some bruised ribs it made the activity all the worse, and Tempest was feeling the same. With every step the unicorn winced and had to grip at her barrel.
The small flight of three dozen or so steps took them five minutes to fully descend. At the bottom, the actual first floor of the castle, they were met with the hallway that ran all the way from the northeast corner of the castle to the northwest corner. It was one long straight walk on the same level that the monsters would be wandering around in once again.
It was a death march.
Away the two marched. The two mares leaned on one another as they went, sweat drenching their bodies from intense exertion and stifling heat. It was what they imagined Tartarus felt like on a good day, but loosed from its depths and sent to smother all of Equestria in its awfulness.
Tempest started to go limp against Rose and the pegasus had to steady the other mare with a wing and give her a little shake. The unicorn jolted back awake and gave her head a shake. The head injuries were doing more to hamper her than the busted ribs. Getting your bell rung as bad as Tempest had meant she most definitely had a concussion at the bare minimum. The hope is it wasn’t anything worse than that, it couldn’t be if Rose didn’t want to be the last surviving non-unicorn in all of Canterlot.
The pattern from the floors above still held true. They stopped every once in a while to catch their breaths, listen, and gather themselves. It was becoming more and more apparent that Tempest was not going to make it to their exit, at least not conscious. Every time the two battered ponies stopped, the unicorn would lean against the wall and start to drift off until Rose shook her back awake.
They were maybe halfway down the hall towards their destination when Tempest finally just collapsed. There was no wavering, it was just like somepony had cut her strings and she fell in a heap of magenta and black on the cool white tile. Rose tried to shake her awake, but this time she could not rouse her fellow survivor no matter how hard she tried.
With no other choice she used her wing to grab Tempest by the collar and dragged the athletic mare into a nearby room. It was one of the many extra dining rooms that seemed to sprout up around the place like warts. Once both of them were inside, Rose some chairs and jammed them under the handles of the double doors.
Once the doors were shut, Rose realized she couldn’t see anything. For the first time in days, she was in the dark. The only light provided was what little of it could slip in from under the doors. Usually that would cause some panic, but not this time. She felt an unusual comfort in the cool darkness that surrounded her. It was such a jarring change in temperature that Rose, for the first time in her life, felt grateful for the darkness.
With the guidance of the dim light, Rose dragged Tempest across the floor to the opposite side of the room. Then the pegasus finally fell to her haunches and took a deep breath.
It hurt. Everything hurt. There was no reprieve. No sigh, deep breath or meditations could make the pain subside or fade. Like the light outside, it was omnipresent and harsh. There was no escaping it. It was a fact of life.
Just like the sun, Rose wished it would go away for just a little bit.
That was a blasphemous thought to be sure, but it was getting harder and harder to hold onto the faith. She wasn’t dead, but that was little comfort considering their current situation. They were in no shape to escape Canterlot, even with Tempest’s supposed escape route. They were not ponies at the moment, they were shells who were lucky to be alive. How could she be grateful for anything?
Life felt like a curse.
It didn’t help that Rose kept swinging wildly between being the faithful and devout pony she always had been and the faithless shell she felt like right now. The evidence all around her fed into both sides of the argument. When she stopped moving, when the pain was able to settle into her bones and reach her soul, she started to lean towards the latter. The former only started to win when she was in danger, when the adrenaline kicked in or when she was presented with a miracle.
She sent up a prayer that she would be able to get just a little rest before they continued onward.
—-
Time meant nothing anymore, but she at least achieved that small goal of a little rest. It had been fitful and she had been propped up against the wall the whole time, but it was enough for now. Tempest was still out, though. It didn’t seem like she was any closer to waking up, no matter how many times Rose tried to rouse her. She wasn’t dead, her chest still rose and fell at regular intervals.
Rose knew that the longer they stayed here, the longer they were without food or water, the more danger they got in. They needed proper rest and whatever would count for relaxation in Canterlot. That would not be found in the castle.
After a short exploration of the darkened dining room, Rose found an old serving cart in one of the corners. It was elongated and made of metal, used for holding all kinds of little things the high class ponies would need for their multi-course meals. She felt around it in the limited light and found a carving knife on the bottom shelf, but nothing else. It might be long enough to hold Tempest, though. Once they were in the observatory she had no plan on how to get the mare into the tunnels or even transport her. The only hope was that she would magically be awake by then.
The pain caused by lifting a full pony’s worth of dead weight was enough to draw tears. It was enough to make Rose whimper and groan. Tempest was put on top of the metal cart after much struggle. Her hooves dangled over the edge on both end but she was at least on there and it didn’t feel like it would tip over. The pummeled pegasus pony got onto her rear hooves and put her front two hooves on the cart and gave it an experimental push. It was hard and her ribs and back shouted at her to stop immediately, but it was doable. The one problem was that the wheel squeaked.
“C’mon…” Rose groaned and rolled her eyes. The last thing they needed was more noise. Nothing could be easy or simple, not even the stuff designed to make life easier. It was just always something. She picked up the knife with one of her wings. In lieu of absolutely no other way of defending herself or Tempest, it would have to do.
Navigating the unwieldy cart in very low light was not fun or easy. It bumped into more than a few chairs and the corner of the table once. Each little impact earned a small, nearly inaudible, groan from Tempest. Then of course, there was the squeaking with every rotation of one of the wheels.
“Okay…how much do you have left in the tank, Rose…?” The question had to be asked, and she did not have an answer. All of the sleep she had gotten over the last few days had not been restful. All of it had been from exhaustion or she had been nearly dead. She was still exhausted and she still felt like she was about to die, but she wasn’t passed out and she wasn’t dead. There was still something there, and now she needed to tap into the reserves and get out of the castle.
The cart was moved into position and the chairs were removed from beneath the handles to the door. Rose opened one of the doors and peaked out then looked down both sides of the halls and listened closely. She didn’t see any of the monsters, nor did she hear them. Her senses were little comfort. Hopefully the beasts were still out in the city for the most part or in another area of the castle.
Rose tried to get onto her back hooves again to push the cart but one of her various maladies refused to cooperate at all and forced her back down to all fours. There was no way to push this thing on all fours where she could still keep an eye out for things. That wasn’t doable. Something needed to give and it couldn’t be Rose.
One last attempt to wake Tempest up, that was her final gambit. Rose nudged the mare a few times with her hoof and then gave her a good shake. Tempest needed to wake up. She needed to.
“Please…” Rose felt like crying but she doubted she had any more tears to give. She was tired, dehydrated, hurt and all around miserable. One thing needed to go right. Just one. Her eyes tracked towards one of the windows that lined the hall and the sunlit hell that awaited outside. Rose closed her eyes and decided to try for her hail mary. “Just one more miracle. Please. Let me know you’re still listening and help us get out of here. I…I don’t have anything else to give, but I’ll do whatever you want for one more miracle.”
It wasn’t really a prayer, she was begging. If she was sure she could get to her knees and be able to get up again, she would drop to them and grovel before the light. As it was, even this mockery of a prayer hurt. It made her feel vulnerable and weak where once upon a time such an action would fill her with strength and resolve. She was at the mercy of an angry and terrible god now.
“Ugh…” Whatever she had left to give was now forfeit. Tempest groaned and the eye that wasn’t swollen shut was barely opened. “Where…” The mare groaned and her hoof went to her head.
“Hey, hey.” Rose grabbed Tempest’s hoof with her own and squeezed as tight as she could. “Get up…please. We’re almost there and I just…I really need you to get up, okay?” The pegasus tugged at the unicorn’s hoof and after an awkward minute, Tempest was back on her unstable hooves.
The duo began their arduous walk to salvation once more. It was a lot of helping each other more than one of them relying on the other. Yes Rose was more lucid, but Tempest was keeping her up as much as she was keeping Tempest on her hooves. Every step still hurt and she had stopped sweating at this point. There was no way she would’ve made it pushing Tempest, no way in Tartarus. Somewhere along the way she would’ve passed out.
Rose had begun to fade just as Tempest had earlier but she clung to consciousness like a vice. She could not slip away into the darkness, she had more work to do in the light. It took forever, but they made it to the door that led to the astronomy tower. The shattered barricade erected by the night guard and the corpses that decorated it still stood watch and the door was closed, just as they had left it a lifetime ago.
Rose looked through the other side of the barricade, the side that led to the ballista tower. Down the hall was a group of four unicorns, completely silent and all just staring at the two mares. She turned her head around and saw the same sight behind them, except there were a half a dozen of those monsters all watching them as they walked. How long had they been followed for? Why weren’t they attacking? Why hadn’t they attacked? Why weren’t they howling?
Was all of this finally getting to her? Was delirium setting in and conjuring up phantoms to haunt her now?
“You see them too, right?” Tempest whispered, her voice much more alert than it had been previously. Adrenaline helped wipe away some of the fatigue as that is exactly how Rose was now catching her umpteenth wind.
“Yeah…we need to get inside now.”
The mares pushed inside to be met with a familiar sight. The cool blue hues of the observatory surrounded them, marked only by shattered glass and ashy hoofprints on the carpet. Signs of their struggle that seemed so far away and foalish now. Rose glanced towards the big circular window she had broken through with Tempest. The melted remnants of the ballista tower were there in the middle distance, the now smooth edges shimmering like crystal in the light of the eternal day overhead. Tempest broke away from the other pony for the first time in what had to be hours now and staggered over to the fireplace. Rose followed closely behind.
Tempest got in first and Rose was quick to follow. Raising her front hooves to get in hurt, it made that pain in her back double and caused her vision to flash white. So she had to keep her front leg on her left side against her barrel as she dragged herself into the tunnel.
From behind she heard the door to the observatory break and the sound of hooves against the floor. The two mares crawled as fast as their broken down bodies would let them away from the monsters. No blasts of magic were launched into the tunnel, but the sounds of magic striking stone did fill the entire space.
“Th-they’re trying to dig up the tunnels…” Tempest said through heavy breaths and whimpers. “They’ve been doing it…for a day or so now…it’s not smart to use them after this. We need to stay put for a while…”
Just how long ‘a while’ was worried Rose. How much time did they reasonably have left?
Rose dunked her face into the bucket of ice cold water and gulped down as many mouthfuls as she could reasonably take without drowning. She kept drinking even as the water around her started to turn red from the blood on her muzzle and in her mane. It wasn’t until her lungs burned from lack of oxygen that she finally came up for air.
When they had made it back to Al’s smuggler headquarters she had done the same thing and it felt just as good a second time. The first time she didn’t have much time to even savor it, as sleep beckoned her. Both she and Tempest had passed out not even five minutes after they had dragged themselves out of the hole. It wasn’t even clear just how long had passed during their slumber as they didn’t know what time it currently was, or even when they had passed out. The lone window and omnipresent sun gave them no hints either.
Tempest had changed this place since the last time Rose had been in here. There were numerous boxes stacked up in front of the door and a desk had been found and set up against one of the walls with all kinds of maps and documents laid out on it. There was also the cot that Tempest had fashioned out of a bedroll put atop two boxes. That’s where the unicorn was now, still sleeping and without her bodysuit. That had come off before they passed out and was crumpled up in a corner.
Rose had slept on the floor.
There was one thing that Rose needed to do, it was the one pressing matter she had. The patchwork bandages on her back were soaked through with blood and they needed to be changed. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it needed to be done. The sneaky smugglers had to have brought some medical stuff in at some point.
After rustling through several boxes she found nothing. There was no real rhyme or reason to what was in what box, it was all just stuff put wherever it would fit to be sorted later. It wasn’t until she looked around the boxes Tempest was sleeping on that she found a saddlebag with pink and red hearts stenciled on them. On a hunch Rose picked them up and looked on the inside and found the sigil of the Royal Guard, Celestia’s cutie mark, stitched on the inside of one of the pouches. These belonged to one of their medics at some point.
“Great, we had some of our own pawning off stuff…” Rose grumbled and cursed the guard who had sold off their supplies. How deep had the corruption gone in their ranks? What all had been pawned off to smugglers so it could be sent somewhere else? It was sickening.
Inside the saddlebags were a few rolls of beige bandage wraps with some plastic fasteners next to them. Rose fished them out and took them over to the side of the room with the bucket and spigot. Twisting to get the bandages on her back off was difficult and reaggravated every injury she had sustained thus far, including the debilitating one she was going to attempt to dress.
After a few uncomfortable minutes and some light cursing, Rose eventually undid them all and tossed the once white bandages to the side. Now they were about the same color of her coat, if not darker since a majority of the blood had dried. They had been haphazardly plastered over the wound, but with the rolls she could just circle her entire barrel to help keep pressure on it. The only question was how to do it. She needed to be able to go around her entire body and avoid pinning down her one good wing. She wasn’t the most dextrous mare on a good day, and her best days were long behind her.
“Need some help…?” The other voice caught her off guard and caused her to jump, which in turn caused her back to tighten and shot that all too familiar pain across her body.
Tempest wandered into view and looked about as good as she did when they got back, albeit far less exhausted. She had a massive bruise around the base of her shattered horn, her usually slender face was swollen to the point that her left eye could barely open and her right eye was covered in dried blood from the reopened scar. All that mattered is that she was awake.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind it.” Rose gave a small smile to the mare and shifted a bit. “Let me just-” She reached out to the bucket and poured out the blood saturated water inside into the drain beneath the spigot. Then the bucket was filled up again from the faucet and Rose pushed it behind her. “-would you mind just trying to clean it first?” Tempest took a seat behind her and her hoof prodded the wound on the pegasus’ back. Rose heard her suck in air through her teeth in sympathetic disgust.
“Really just ripped the whole thing out, huh?” The unicorn mumbled before she got to work.
The process of getting it all cleaned was long and grueling and involved too much prodding a very sensitive and tender area. Tempest had insisted on getting the flaps of skin that had once been a joint together in one place so as they eventually healed they would fuse together in a somewhat normal way. That had been unpleasant but the water being poured around it had been a decent reprieve before the actual act of bandaging started.
Tempest made sure the bandages were tight to Rose’s barrel. They were uncomfortably snug, but Rose didn’t know enough about medical stuff to tell if it was correct. It had hurt at first but after a few minutes the constant pressure around most of her torso felt good. It might not feel good in a day or so when they were soaked through with sweat or blood but it was already better than what she had before.
“I wish we had some ice for your face.” Rose lamented. “All of the ice in the city has probably melted by now…”
“I’ll be fine.” Tempest reassured her with a nod. The unicorn then dumped out what water remained in the bucket and filled it once more. Then she took long deep gulps from it in an effort to rehydrate herself.
“How’s your head? You were really out of it…” Rose wanted to say ‘yesterday’ but she still didn’t know if that was right or not. Instead she opted to let the sentence hang.
“Better.” Tempest answered curtly as she wiped her mouth with a hoof. She then picked up the bucket and dumped the rest of it on her head and let the water saturate her entire body. A pleased sigh escaped from her muzzle and Rose even spotted the hint of a smile.
Rose got up and trotted around the small space so she could test out the bandages. Moving still hurt but rest had softened it a little. The pain wasn’t as stabbing when she trotted and she could even raise her left hoof a bit higher without her body protesting. It was a little progress.
“Rose…” Tempest sighed as the name fell from her mouth. Rose turned to face her and found the dripping wet mare on her hooves. Her dark pink make was slicked back to go down her neck and water dripped to the floor and collected around her hooves in pools. A slight hint of red colored the pool. “I want to say…thanks. For what you did yesterday.”
“Hey, you did the same for me.” It was that simple. Tempest had gone looking for her, found her, and had been there to lean on when Rose was at her breaking point. “You saved my life too. It was only right for me to return the favor.”
There was a war behind Tempest’s eyes. It wasn’t often that something could be seen on the mare’s face, but the last day or so had worn down usually stalwart defenses and a hint of indecision and guilt spilled forth from the cracks. The cracks were swiftly filled in and Tempest returned the sentiment with a nod instead of whatever she wanted to say.
“So what do we do now?” That was the question of the decade as far as Rose was concerned. They had accomplished their goal and gotten the message out to the Crystal Empire, so now they had no immediate plan. “Your escape plan, what is it? You said you had some sort of way out of here.”
“We need the tunnels.” Tempest said with a shake of her head. “It’s a grotto down at the bottom of the mountain behind one of the waterfalls. There’s a boat, it’s how I was supposed to get out of here.”
“So if those things keep digging up the tunnels…”
“Then it’s non-viable.” Tempest finished. “We need to wait until they lose interest in the tunnels or until we can find another way out. Until then, we wait.”
Day Sixteen
They had found a bag of oats in one of the myriad of crates that dotted the little headquarters. It was a good thing because all of the food they had smuggled from the kitchen the night the princess turned had gone bad. Oats were something that would at least keep them going, but they weren’t exactly nutritious.
After that very unpleasant meal, Rose decided to go up to the roof. Tempest had initially called for her not to, but Rose wasn’t going to listen. They needed to see what the city was like and if there was an avenue out beyond just the tunnels. Rose also needed to get out of the stuffy room.
After some difficulty with the ladder, Rose finally emerged onto the rooftop. She could still see Soarin and Spitfire as they came into the city. She could still see them fly off towards the castle. It replayed in her mind over and over again as she stood in the same place she had that day.
There was not a doubt in her mind that she had done the right thing, though. Running had been the correct course of action. Even if Spitfire had not died, she certainly had not made it to the tower. If not even a Wonderbolt could outrun the princesses, then Rose would’ve been doomed from the jump.
Even though it wasn’t the reason Rose was up on top of the little fort in the city, she couldn’t help but look up at the sun. The familiar revulsion came back and made her stomach roll and turn. She grimaced and brought her one good wing up to cover her eyes. The connection she had once felt to the star was still absent.
That was odd because she decidedly didn’t feel abandoned by its blessings. Something had helped her get out of the castle. Something had woken Tempest up when she needed to. Something had given her the necessary strength to keep going, to push through everything that plagued her. None of it made any sense, not with what she knew to be true.
Rose shook her head and turned her gaze back to the city. The monsters still milled about, their snouts to the ground as they tried to sniff out hidden prey. The streets weren’t packed anymore, not like they had once been. The majority of the beasts were probably in the castle trying to dig out the tunnels.
What was the closest possible exit from here? It had to be the south gate, the one that would take them down the mountain and straight to Ponyville. It was now a major road thanks to Princess Twilight’s new castle. Did they really want to go there though? That’s where all of this seemed to have started.
As she mused over possible escape vectors from the cursed capital, she was suddenly interrupted by a brutal and guttural howl from the direction of the castle. Rose’s head whipped in that direction, expecting one of the princesses to burst forth from the structure and scream right at her. That didn’t happen though. Instead the northern side of the throne room superstructure seemed to fail all at once and it crumbled with a cacophonous crash that ejected white marble dust into the air. The debris did not settle though, instead it started to sink into the mountain below.
“Rose, what’s going on?” Tempest appeared right beside the pegasus without a sound. Normally that would’ve startled Rose, but her golden eyes were too transfixed on the castle to even be surprised. “What…what are they doing…?”
Rose was trying to piece that together too. This was more than just the tunnels they used, or at least that was the immediate gut instinct. Piecing together the puzzle with what she knew and what she was seeing now took a minute, but slowly the picture began to come together.
“The crystal caverns…” Rose muttered the words and then turned to Tempest. “Celestia moved all of the unicorns in the castle down into the crystal caverns when they figured out that only the unicorns were turning…” The guard didn’t even know how to get down to the caverns, the princesses had expressly forbidden it before the Changeling invasion and doubled that order afterwards. There had been some minor quakes after the invasion and Rose had no doubt that was due to the alicorns blocking off the caverns completely. “...they’re freeing them.”
“More unicorns is less of a problem than them disrupting the tunnel system. They had to have cut them off by doing that.” Tempest tapped her hoof in thought as she spoke. She opened her mouth to add something else but was cut off by a chorus of howls from the thousands of unicorns all across the city.
It sounded like a victory cry.
Day Seventeen
Rose couldn’t get comfortable.
Tempest had her little cot, but Rose was still left with the floor. She had sort of finagled together a simple pallet out of some of the tops of crates and some bolts of fabric that had been laying around. The one good thing was that they didn’t need blankets thanks to the constant sweltering heat inside of the little stone box they were effectively trapped in. When they were both awake and alert they would open the hatch on the ceiling and allow the mountain wind to carry what resembled a cool breeze overtop of their little pillbox. When they slept, it stayed shut and they were free to bake.
It also didn’t help that she couldn’t sleep on her back or left side. She was relegated to her right side or stomach, not positions she would usually sleep in. So now she was learning a completely new way to get comfortable along with trying to ignore the constant ache that emanated from her back. It was the small agonies that really compounded the misery of the monotonous day to day they lived in.
“I was going to let him kill you.”
Rose’s heart skipped a beat and she sat up in her makeshift bed and turned to look up at Tempest, who had been starting right at her. Maybe that was why sleep would not come, somepony had been staring hard enough that she could feel it.
“What?”
“Bulwark, I was going to let him kill you.” Tempest restated it flatly.
Rose felt something stir in her chest, a certain tightness. It constricted her heart and it hurt more than the missing wing on her back. It was a deep wound that no bandage could cover or heal. Yes Bulwark had gotten one good hit in and a kick, but Rose thought Tempest had been just as surprised as she had been herself.
“What…? W-why…?” Why in the world was she tearing up? She didn’t know Tempest at all. Everything that she knew about the other mare was inferred or just guesswork. They didn’t know anything about each other, so why did she care what this pony thought about her?
“Because I was going to kill him right after.” Tempest once again spoke in the cool calm tone she was known for. “There can’t be any witnesses that saw me here. None. Nopony can know I was ever in Canterlot.”
Rose immediately stood up and backed away from the mare. Tempest stayed seated but her intense eyes kept burrowing right into Rose’s. She couldn’t escape that gaze and the more she looked into the other mare’s eyes the more the walls seemed to close in around her. Could she make it to the ladder in time? Could she make it into the tunnel before Tempest could close the gap? If escape was impossible, was self defense viable?
“I didn’t, though.” Tempest’s voice broke its haunting monotone and a dollop of genuine emotion fell into it. “Maybe I should have, I don’t know.” Her voice fell to a whisper and ended in a deep frustrated sigh.
“Why didn’t you…?” That question now hung in the room and weighed down on everything. Rose would not be comfortable around the mare until she knew exactly why the unicorn had spared her life, or why she hadn’t killed Rose when she had the chance previously.
“When I was a filly-” Tempest ran a hoof through her spiked mane and closed her eyes in thought. “-I was playing with my friends and we went into a nearby forest. I got lost and came to a cave, one that had an Ursa Minor inside. It broke my horn and gave me this scar.” She pointed to the newly reopened and still raw mark that ran vertically over her right eye. “My friends thought I had died…even when I fully recovered they still looked at me like I had died. Even my own parents looked at me like I was a freak after it.” One of Tempest’s eyes twitched and her nostrils flared as a long and intense anger gripped her words like a vice. “I guess…some part of me saw you half dead and without a wing and I…” Tempest finally broke off from staring straight into Rose’s soul and looked around the room. “...I don’t know.” She did know, she just didn’t want to say it.
Rose relaxed. She understood even if Tempest didn’t want to say it. That was fine, sometimes it was hard to say what you needed to say. The best thing to come of the admission was the reveal that there was a pony underneath that hardened exterior. It felt good to know that they could connect over something.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Rose trotted slowly back to her little bed and sat back down.
“I don’t need your pity.” Tempest spat.
“It’s not pity.” Rose shook her head and smiled up at the other mare. “Why would anypony pity you? Look around, you’re still alive. You’re not one of those monsters. Why would I or anypony else pity you?” Rose felt her heart soar as an old familiar light filled it. “You’ve survived! You survived that Ursa Minor, you survived long enough to get here and you’ve even survived all of this!” Rose couldn’t help but take to her hooves and gesture around with a hoof. “You shouldn’t feel pitiful, you should feel blessed.”
“Do you feel blessed?” Tempest got up from her bed and pointed at Rose’s vacant wing socket. “You’ve lost what made you a pegasus, you went through all of the same stuff I did here. So give it to me straight, do you feel blessed?” Tempest scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Because I’m feeling pretty cursed at this point in my life.” She then began to pace around the room. Her lithe figure cut through the thick swampy air like the bruised ribs and slightly swollen face were of no hindrance to her now. “Celestia did that to you, you understand that right?” She pointed to Rose’s missing wing “Your god mutilated you and left you to die! How can you feel blessed?!”
“Because I’m still alive.” Rose had been grappling with the very questions that Tempest was demanding answers for. She didn’t have a comprehensive answer, but she had the bones of one just waiting on a little more meat. “I…when I first woke up I felt cursed. I was so…despondent. I felt abandoned. I asked for a sign, then I got one. The explosions you set off convinced me to move, to start back towards the radio tower. I asked for a sign and I got-”
“-you got me instead, sorry.” The unicorn’s stance changed: her shoulders fell and she lowered her head a bit.
“It led me to you.” Rose continued her thought and ignored the strange outburst of self-deprecation. “Then we pulled through together. I feel blessed because I’m sitting here right now. If I wasn’t then you would’ve let Bulwark kill me, then you’d be here alone.”
“I did that.” Tempest stamped her hoof and glared down at Rose. “Nopony, not a god or some sun or anything else, made me do that. It was a decision I made.” She took a long deep breath and held it for a few moments before she let it out slowly. “Whatever. I’m not arguing with you. You can feel however you want.”
It took Rose a few minutes to gather her thoughts. She had been used to masking her feelings and thoughts for so long and somehow she had let it slip. That was her worst outburst in years, and all it did was serve to alienate Tempest and make her angry. Rose couldn’t afford that anymore. All they had was each other right now, and if either of them wanted to make it out of Canterlot in one piece then they needed to get along.
“I don’t need you to believe.” Rose spoke quietly. “I just need you to let me believe. I know…I know it seems silly or illogical to you.” Rose tapped her hooves against the floor and thought of what to say next. “All I wanted my whole life was to have other ponies accept me for who I am and not try to change me or hate me for it. That’s the difference between us, I guess. I can hide it. You’re not so lucky…”
Day Twenty
Tempest and Rose had said nothing to one another for a few days now. They had just gone about their business: sleeping, eating, washing, and checking outside to get an update on things. A few hours ago-had it been hours? The bell stopped ringing at the top of every hour a long time ago now-Tempest had left. She had gone into the tunnel without a word.
If Rose was lucky, Tempest would come back. If she wasn’t, then there would be one less pony in the city now. Of course Rose had her money on the unicorn having gone to her escape route, that would be the sensible thing to do. The monsters outside hadn’t been focusing on the tunnels since they collapsed part of the throne room, now they were focusing on getting to the crystal caverns to free their trapped brethren.
Maybe their digging served both purposes. It would let them get to the monsters trapped below the castle and it would cut off the tunnel usage for Rose and Tempest. If they were as smart as they seemed, then that seemed like the right choice. They didn’t know that the tunnels came out this far into the city, or it didn’t seem like they did. They weren’t digging out here, after all. Hopefully that meant the little hideaway the two survivors had was nowhere on their radar.
Rose couldn’t sit down in the sauna that was the little brick fortress anymore. She had to get out into the fresh air. So that’s what she did. Up the ladder she went and out of the hatch on top. She made sure to leave that hatch open just in case she needed a quick escape.
It was sweltering outside. Worse than any summer day that Rose had ever felt. Even in the south, where she was from, it never got this bad. Maybe she had just gotten acclimatized to the chilly mountain climate and wasn’t used to the heat anymore but this felt different. It felt malicious.
She had been mulling something over for a few days, but she needed some sort of confirmation before she came to a solid conclusion. To test her hypothesis she looked up at the burning ball of light in the sky and closed her eyes, then reached out with all of her faith and prayed. It wasn’t praying for anything in particular, it was just an attempt to see what she felt.
The air still felt wrong on her tongue as she muttered some words. It tasted like rancid soup and was just about as thick. The heat beating down on the mountaintop was vicious and unceasing. Rose could feel it through the bandages on her back. Then there was just something else, something ineffable.
“Do you feel it? Take a deep breath, relax. Tune out the rest of the world.” Her father’s voice rang in her ears and she followed his old wisdom. “Block out all of your senses, but focus on the air. Don’t worry about its smell or the sound of the wind in your ears. Focus on what’s underneath. The magic.” She did so. She closed off her mind to all senses but that one so seldomly used by all other races except unicorns. Even though she couldn’t use the magic around her, she could still feel it if she tried. “All things are connected through it. From the dirt to the heavens above.”
It felt like sludge.
When she was little there was a silkiness to it. It was soft, gentle and inviting. It always felt so warm and ready for use. Now? Now it was like a hot tar that burned Rose’s proverbial hoof when she concentrated on it. The whole world was truly poisoned.
How far up did the rot go? Had it gotten to the sun? Had it reached the firmament above and poisoned the very heavens? Rose looked to the castle and thought of the two royal sisters somewhere inside. They were the links to that unknowable place. They had tethered the heavenly bodies and controlled them
Those tethers had surely spread this plague somewhere it should’ve never been allowed to go. Rose’s mind was awash with horror at the conclusion she arrived at, one that made the fateful decision from weeks ago at this point haunt her a little more.
“Tunnels are all ruined.” Tempest angrily announced as she pulled herself up from the dirt and brushed her fur off. “Most of the first floor of the castle is gone. It’s just one giant hole filled with monsters and those crystals.”
Rose wasn’t really paying attention to her fellow survivor. She was still consumed with the realization from earlier in the ‘day’. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had let this corruption climb into the heavens. That was the reason everything felt so wrong. That was the reason the sun refused to move. So that left only one solution, the princesses had to be dealt with.
That also meant, tragically, Parade had been right and so had Bulwark and Golden. They had been right for the wrong reasons but they had been right nonetheless. Rose should’ve let Parade kill Celestia. Maybe that would have prevented the spread and slowed the heavens from being tainted. Luna still would’ve been a problem of course, but it would have been a start.
“Rose!” Tempest waved one of her fuschia hooves before Rose’s face and snapped the lanky pegasus from her musings. “Did you hear me? My escape route is out of the question. We need…we need something else.” The unicorn sat on her haunches and buried her face in her hooves and let out a long frustrated groan. “Nothing is easy. Nothing is ever easy here.”
“What about another distraction?” The explosions came to Rose’s mind again. “We could set something off on one side of the city and make a break for it towards the other side.” There was no way Rose could run at her top speed or even close to it anymore, her wing being ripped from her back had done some serious damage to other parts of her body, most likely permanently. They could still try, though.
“I spent two days getting all of the explosives I could find in that concert hall.” Tempest got back on her hooves and began to pace. “I was in those tunnels more than I was on my hooves and I barely slept. I don’t know if we can sustain that kind of activity and I doubt there’s any more explosives anywhere. Unless you know of some secret bomb factory in Canterlot.”
“Well…there’s always the train station?” Rose was just as desperate as Tempest was at this point. “They usually have some of those carts you move on your own. If we could just get there we might be able to let gravity do most of the work?”
“Stand on your back legs and raise your front hooves above your head.” Tempest looked down at Rose sternly. When the pegasus didn’t comply, Tempest grabbed her and pulled her up. “Come on, let’s see.”
Rose grumbled and pushed herself into the bipedal stance. She wavered a bit at first but quickly steadied herself. When she was sure her balance was under control she tried to raise both of her hooves above her head as instructed. The right one was fine and did so without issue. The left one staunchly refused. Her shoulder blade caught on something in her back and every time she tried to push it past that spot she was met with stiff resistance and that blinding pain she so loathed. In tears, she returned to all four of her hooves.
“Yeah.” Tempest nodded and sighed. “Okay well…I don’t know. Are there any paths down the mountain that aren’t the gates? Some side areas or something that don’t require a lot of climbing.” Neither of them were ready for freehoof mountain climbing.
“No.” Rose shook her head. “After the Changeling invasion we did our best to lock down every unofficial avenue in and out of the city. Any of the trails we destroyed or blocked off.” Rose sighed and grumbled. “We missed the tunnels, obviously.” It didn’t help their cause that Princess Luna was gladly using them to smuggle things into the castle. What good was their security if the ponies they were trying to protect undermined them?
“Okay…so after we sleep we’ll go checkout the train station.” Tempest acquiesced to the one plan that was at least possible, if not viable. “I need a little rest before I go crawling through there again and I just…I need to get ready in case we face those things again.”
Rose hadn’t even thought about that. They had gone for so long without fighting or running from any hostile unicorns. They had seen them from atop their little pillbox, but they had not been noticed yet. They had been in no danger for what had to be going on a week or more now. There was the omnipresent tension and the unrelenting heat, but those were different from being face to face with those things.
What surprised Rose was Tempest’s need to prepare for it. The mare seemed seasoned when it came to combat and danger, but this was the first time that she seemed genuinely shaken. That was worrying. Tempest’s cool confidence had been a rock to lean on and rely on.
The two mares went to their respective ‘beds’ and laid down and lost themselves in their own thoughts. Rose was focused on her own internal struggles with the truth that had been revealed to her. It wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t something she relished, but if it had to be done then she would carry out the grim task.
Day Twenty-One
“Tempest, what were you doing in Canterlot?” There was no telling how much time had passed before Rose decided to ask the question. If her hunch was right, which it probably was because why else would somepony invade Canterlot, then she might be able to work something out with the other pony in the room with her.
“Does it matter?” The nonchalant and bored answer came back.
“Yes.” Rose answered. It actually mattered a lot. “I’m not going to be mad at you and I don’t think it matters…but I want to know.” She repositioned so she was sitting on her haunches and looking up at Tempest, who was sleeping with her back turned to her. “Please?”
“It was a scouting mission.” Tempest answered after a few silent moments. There was still something, it sounded like conditioning or training, that was attempting to hold back more. “I was supposed to get in and find anything relating to big plans or events, guard details, everything. I was supposed to find an opening…” The breath that was sucked in before the next words was audible. “...for an invasion.”
Yeah, no surprise. Canterlot getting invaded wasn’t anything new now. They would have at least had experience for this one, or at least that was the hope. If Rose was to decide on when to do it, the Friendship Festival in a couple of months would’ve been her target. Big gathering of ponies, security stretched thin. It would’ve been ripe for chaos.
“Why?” Rose wanted to keep the questions simple. There was no use in pressuring Tempest and making her retreat back into her shell. Rose needed the mare to be open with her intentions.
“We need the magic.” Was the simple response that came back. “My boss needs it, and therefore I need it.” One of Tempest’s hooves went up to her horn and her whole body tensed.
The magic? That would mean taking away alicorn magic too, right? That was certainly the most potent of all of the magic in Equestria. That would also solve Rose’s problem. After that then nopony could meddle with the sun or the moon, at least not those alicorns. The corruption had taken them and now they were no longer worthy of the honor. If this got fixed, and that was still a pretty big if, then Rose would need help taking it from them.
There was the solution Parade and the others had settled on, just killing them. That was not in the cards given the current situation. Not unless they caught the princesses napping again and Rose would not bet on that happening. Beyond an ambush, there was no way to kill them. There were no more siege weapons that Rose knew about in the city, the explosives were all gone, and doing it with traditional weapons would take skill that Rose did not have. She needed another option and one was now presented to her.
“...could I join…?” The question was heavy and would mean leaving so much behind. It would mean destroying her oath and betraying everything she thought she stood for. Then again, what she had stood for was rapidly crumbling beneath her hooves and she was moments away from freefall with one good wind. A lifeline was sorely needed.
“I’m sorry, what?” Tempest sat up and turned to the pony on the floor. There was an incredulous smile across her face and it broke out into a fit of giggles. “R-rose…” She managed to get out between bursts of laughter. “...you’re a Royal Guard, and a fanatical one at that. You think I would just take you back to my boss and just trust you not to run right back and tell everypony what you saw?”
“What’s left for me here…?” Rose asked the question softly. It was genuine, but it was also carrying a lot more behind it that she wouldn’t, and might never, tell Tempest. “Especially if none of this gets fixed, what am I supposed to do? Stay here with the monsters?”
“If none of this gets fixed, then the planet cooks.” Tempest answered crudely. “Half of it does anyway, the other half will freeze. Which would be the half I’m headed to…” Tempest puffed out her cheeks and let out a breath.
“Okay…so take me with you anyway. If whoever your boss is was planning on invading Equestria, then he has an army. He can deal with these monsters, right? He has to have a way to get the magic, so he could drain it from all of the unicorns and make them easier to handle, maybe it would even fix them.”
The prospect of being drained of magic was not a fun one. Rose had already experienced that once at the hands of Tirek. It was worse than what she was going through now by magnitudes. It was as if her soul had been ripped clean from her body and she was a wandering corpse. To inflict that on other ponies had once been unthinkable, but now it seemed like a mercy.
“Why?” Tempest hopped down from her bed and approached her fellow survivor with narrowed eyes. “We talked about you getting out of Canterlot and I’m okay with that, but why this? You’ve been a guard for how long and now you want to switch sides?” Tempest shook her head. “I saw you kill a mare to protect Celestia after she became a pony-eating monster.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day-” Rose had no time to think. The more time she spent thinking then the more suspicious it would become. The first thing that came to her mind was immediately spewed forth. She had to roll with it and try to convince Tempest it was the truth no matter what. “-when you asked if I was really blessed?” Rose looked back to where a wing should be on her back. “I’m alive but…but I’ll never be the pony I was again. Celestia took that from me. She took so much and gave so little…”
She wanted to throw up. With every half-truth and heretical word that spilled forth from her lips she felt more and more sick. She deserved to choke on these words, and maybe she would in Tartarus eventually. That would not be today though, and it would hopefully not be for a very long time. She would have plenty of time to chew before she was forced to swallow her sins.
“I-I have given Equestria my whole life. I’ve given Canterlot my whole life.” Rose continued and she choked back a sob. Real tears were falling from her eyes, tears of pain from betraying her faith not from the pain she was lying to Tempest about. “I joined the Royal Guard when I was nineteen years old and I go on leave once a year for Hearth’s Warming and that’s it.” Rose swallowed more of her lies and took a deep breath. “I have given everything to this job, to this city and to the princesses. Look where I am. Look what I am now. I’m a Royal Guard with no royals and a pegasus who can’t fly! What else is left for me? If this all gets fixed, do you think I could look at Celestia again the same way?!”
That last part was not a lie, not even a little bit of one. After this was fixed Rose knew that she would never look at Celestia or Luna the same way ever again. She didn’t even look at the same right now, not like she did at the beginning of this. That was the truth, and her intentions towards the alicorns would be genuine. Not for the reasons that Tempest thought, though.
“Sweet Celestia, that's the most sense you’ve made since I met you…” Tempest closed the gap between them and put a hoof on Rose’s shoulder. “I’m not promising you anything because he gets the final say, but I’ll introduce you to my boss. Okay? That’s all I can do.”
It worked.
Rose smiled a genuine smile and nodded and then wiped her tears away. Surely this was the light shining down on her and blessing every sanctimonious word that came from her mouth. In what other way would this work? Tempest was a pragmatist and would not be fooled by the crocodile tears she had shed. This was a blessing.
“Deal.” Rose held out her right hoof and smiled softly up at Tempest.
Tempest took the hoof in her own and gave it a shake.
“Deal.”
A thud came from the front door and some of the boxes moved from the impact. Both mares suddenly froze, their breath stayed in their chest, and they stared at the barricaded front entrance. There was yet another thud, this one more forceful than the last. When the door didn’t budge, a frustrated growl came from the other side.
Quickly and quietly, the two ponies backed away from the door and scrambled for some cover. The only cover they had was more crates, so that’s what they took. They had been right to do it too, as a bolt of magic ripped through the door and the boxes that blocked it. Some bricks across from the door were now scorched, but that was the extent of it. There were more frustrated growls and huffs, but the monster didn’t try to break down the door nor did it unleash any more magic.
They couldn’t make any noise now, not with the hole in the door. Anything they did would be fully audible to whatever was out there. For now they were both scared to even move. The two ponies looked at each other and exchanged a knowing glance.
The train station would have to wait. They needed to make sure their hideout would stay secure before they moved. That meant making sure whatever was out there would lose interest, and that meant not moving. It was yet another delay, but that seemed to be the story of their lives right now
Silence had reigned over the bunker for the last day. It was not the silence of death or sleep, but of fear and anticipation. Whatever was out there had not yet lost interest, not even after what had to be a full day. It had even let a few more bolts of magic at the door and ventilated the space a little more. The boxes, and the contents inside, prevented any clear view the beast might have to the interior where the mares where hunkered down.
The initial plan had been to wait for the unicorn to leave so they could leave and come back. That had devolved into just getting their things and leaving after a while. Then staying put had become the law of the land with how randomly the beast seemed to let loose with its magic. They couldn’t just leave with none of their food or supplies, and getting taken out by a random bolt of magic fired blindly while they were packing.
Rose and Tempest had maybe gotten four hours of sleep between them. When one of them had managed to close their eyes, the other had made sure to stay awake and alert. Then, rarely, when they had both dozed off, a shot from the creature outside had woken them up.
Another growl was punctuated by something slamming into the door to the little fort with monumental force. The steel bar across the door held, the door did not yield and expose the mares to the danger of the monster.
“Go away…” Tempest whispered as quietly as possible in a plea to the beast beyond the threshold. The plea was answered and the sound of hooves heading away from the door came through the many new holes that perforated the structure. “We need to hurry and get out of here!” Tempest hissed and started off towards where they kept everything.
Rose went over to the bag of oats and tied it closed with a rope. She would tie that around her waist and it’d drag behind her in the tunnels. It wasn’t a perfect solution and it would have to rely on the burlap sack not breaking and spilling their food everywhere.
Tempest had the medic saddlebags on the little desk and was sorting through them and adding papers and other things, maps probably. Rose walked up behind her and was prepared to ask where exactly they were going when she was cut off.
THUD
The noise came from the roof of the stone structure. A cloud of dust came loose from the ceiling and peppered the two mares. They both stared up in wide eyed horror, breath caught in their chests and eyes wide and waiting. Heavy uneven hoofsteps wandered across the top of the structure towards the hatch on top.
“Hide!” Tempest whispered.
Tempest rushed to hide behind the boxes that made up her bed while Rose tucked behind a crate beside the tunnel entrance against the wall. They could see each other from where they were hiding, and both of them saw the same uneasy fear in one another.
It couldn’t be one of the princesses, surely they would’ve crushed the structure by now. It was a sturdy little pillbox, but it was also old as all get out. These things had been around for about as long as the city of Canterlot. The massive hoof of a corrupted alicorn would’ve gone through the roof by now.
The hatch at the top of the ladder was pulled open. The decrepit hinges let out a long squeak that filled the entire room as it was opened in an agonizingly slow manner. It eventually hit the roof with a soft thud, a signal that it was completely open now. There was a tense beat of silence, followed by the sound of a low rumbling growl.
The bulbous white head of one of the monsters lowered into the hole and looked around. Its shaggy blonde mane hung around its baby blue eyes. Both mares ducked behind their respective boxes so they didn’t see how it lowered itself down, but they heard it land. They heard its hooves on the stone and the low timbre of its growl.
Rose peaked over the top of the crate she was hiding behind. The monster was in the middle of their space now, practically dominating it. When it stood, its horn scraped the top of the room. There were scraps of gold armor hanging around its neck and Rose could’ve sworn she saw some scraps of red fur between its teeth. Her heart stopped when the realization hit.
“Picket…” Rose whispered to herself and ducked back down. Her heart rate rose and a hoof went to the mangled ear on her head. It had to be him. He looked like a lot of other unicorns in Canterlot, but something deep down told her that was her old friend in the room with them. Had he heard her voice? Had he recognized it? Or had he seen her up there earlier?
Rose looked to Tempest, who was clutching what looked to be a piece of wood from one of the crates. It was long and sharp, but was it sharp enough to do any damage to the unicorn now trapped with them in here? Tempest looked right back at her and then her eyes darted towards the tunnel. One of them could get in there easily, and it wasn’t Tempest. There was no way that Rose was going to leave the unicorn behind. Not now. She needed her.
Every moment they were paying attention to one another was one where they weren’t paying attention to the monster Rose was sure was Picket. All it took was one of those moments for Picket to see something, maybe one of their ears. A lance of energy pierced one of the boxes and went right in front of Tempest’s muzzle, close enough to cause the mare to jump back from the sheer heat of the blast.
“We can’t let him howl!” Tempest shouted as she jumped over the box in a smooth motion. The shard of wood she held shifted to her mouth and she disappeared from Rose’s line of sight.
Rose steadied herself for a moment and then followed the other survivor. She opted to go around the box she was behind as over wasn’t really an option with her limitations. Tempest had already, somehow, gotten the pillow she had been using stuffed into the monster’s mouth to prevent it from signaling others. Now Picket was trying to get the fluffy thing out of his mouth while his horn fired off discharges into the stone ceiling above them.
There was a split-second to find a way to take advantage of this, and the spindly legs the beast had looked like the obvious target. With a very stiff and awkward gait, Rose ran at Picket’s leg and put her good shoulder right into his knee. It did not have the effect she wanted, either due to the fact that she couldn’t put as much power into it as she had once been able to or the naturally light bodies of pegasi. An earth pony would’ve had much more success with that particular maneuver.
Picket spat the pillow out finally and swung his leg forwards right into Rose’s stomach. The impaired pegasus not only had the wind knocked clean from her body but was also launched into the air, where she hit the stone ceiling and then tumbled back down to the ground.
Pain once again consumed Rose’s entire life. It flooded through every nerve and made her vision swim and blur. It was like the day she used the radio all over again. She could feel whatever little healing had been done to the wingless socket on her back become undone in an instant. The front left leg, now so maligned from that injury, refused to move. It wasn’t even locked in place, it was just limp against the ground and would not listen to the commands she gave it.
Rose looked up to see Tempest land a kick square into Picket’s jaw. The monster that had once been a guard stumbled away but recovered quickly. He leveled his sharpened horn at the mare that defied him and let loose two blasts in her direction. One missed, but the other hit close enough that Tempest had to roll to the side to avoid getting singed. That roll was when Picket lunged at her. Tempest tried to dive out of the way, but she was just too slow in that instance.
Teeth sank into the fuschia flank of the unicorn. The long sharp fangs dug in so deep that they had to be scraping bone. Once the top fangs were secured, Picket clamped his bottom jaw around the other side of her slender form. Tempest screamed in a mix of pain and horror as she was lifted into the air and it looked like Picket was going to attempt to swallow her whole.
Rose tried to get to her hooves but something still wasn’t working. Her body just wasn’t listening to her. The limp unresponsiveness that plagued her one leg seemed to spread to the others and it was making her entire body feel like it was on pins and needles. She couldn’t even feel the pain anymore, it had been snuffed by the static that was stretching across her body. All she could do was whimper helplessly.
Tempest was still in a fight for her life as Picket’s jaws tightened around her flanks. She still had the long jagged piece of wood between her teeth and she took it between her hooves. With a primal cry of fury she slammed it down into one of the monster’s beady blue eyes and made sure to plunge it as deep as she could.
Whatever sound Picket had been about to make died as Tempest slammed her hooves onto the end of the makeshift dagger and sent it into his brain. The monster collapsed to one side and the unturned unicorn tumbled from his mouth, blood covering her flanks and two big puncture wounds obscuring her cutie marks.
Tempest did something that Rose couldn’t do and got to her hooves. It was a slow and agonizing process, but she did it. The mare with the higher body count swore and spat on Picket’s body, then gave his head a swift kick for good measure. Blood poured from the open wounds on her flanks as she limped over to where Rose was laying.
“C’mon, get up. We have to move.” As she got closer, tears became visible rolling down her cheeks and the bags beneath the once electric orbs became more pronounced. “Rose, c’mon.” Tempest offered the prone pony a hoof.
It was like her entire body had been stunned after Picket had kicked her. She had never felt something like that, and she was sure she never wanted to again. It had to be due to her missing wing. Being so close to her spine, she was sure that it being ripped clean out had messed with something important, and that last hit had knocked that something loose. In a very painful attempt, Rose rolled her shoulder and felt her shoulder blade hit that familiar catch somewhere in her back. The pained and maimed mare took a deep breath and forced it past. Something in her back popped and blinding pain made her vision go completely white. It was so sudden and severe of a pain that Rose didn’t even scream, her mouth just hung open and she wheezed.
The tips of her hooves still had that tingly feeling and it wouldn’t go away. They were at least listening to her now. With tears in her eyes and with great effort, Rose picked herself up. Like a newborn foal, she wobbled on unsure legs and took a step forward. The problem child of her four legs buckled but the others compensated before she could hit the ground. She was able to move again.
She had denied Tempest’s offer of help. She had needed to get up herself, to prove that she still had the same level of fight left in her. Tempest looked at her and nodded approvingly at the show of individual strength, then she staggered off to finish packing.
While Rose made sure she could walk and move with just the usual caveats, Tempest busied herself with bandaging her flanks and packing the saddlebags. After a few minutes, Rose dragged herself up the ladder and shut the hatch on the roof. The last thing they needed was another monster dropping in on them while they got ready.
“We need to go, it’s not safe here anymore.” Tempest mumbled and intercepted Rose as the latter descended from the ladder. The unicorn had the sack of oats dragging behind her and she affixed the other end of the rope attached to it around Rose’s barrel.
“Where is…?” Rose asked between heaving breaths.
“I don’t know…” The statement of defeat was followed with a sigh. “Train station is out of the question.” She looked back to her own flanks and tried to flex one of her back legs, only to wince and stop the motion almost immediately. “We just need to hold up somewhere for a little while until we get to feeling better.”
They would never be one-hundred percent again. That was not an attainable state anymore. Rose wasn’t even sure she was at ten-percent right now and getting to fifty felt impossible. Whatever level of readiness they could reach had to be enough, or else they were both going to die in this cursed city. Rose knew that the light of the sun that was always shining would keep blessing her, though. It was the only reason she was standing. It was the only way she was walking. It was the only reason she was still alive in spite of everything.
As long as the light was shining, and as long as the fire in her chest still had a single ember left alight, then she would keep going. Only death could stop her now, and even then her grave would have a hard time holding her down. Back in the castle when she had demanded a sign from her god, she had been foolish not to see that the fact that she was alive was the sign that she needed. Now she saw the plain truth, that she was upright because something much more powerful than herself decreed it. She was needed for a righteous purpose now.
Getting into the tunnel was a trial for both of them, and moving through it was even worse. Rose still had to keep her bad leg pinned to her side as the other three dragged her through the smuggler’s route. Meanwhile it seemed like Tempest was using her rear legs as little as she possibly could and when she had to grunts of effort came from her mouth.
One good thing about the tunnels was that the sun couldn’t reach this far. The darkness and the cool air were a welcome reprieve from the little oven they had been living in. The cool stone against fur was soothing, and the darkness let Rose rest her eyes as she crawled. It was weirdly pleasant, as long as she ignored the exhaustion and pain that permeated every second of her own existence.
“Where are we going?” Rose finally had to ask the question. The longer they crawled through the tunnels, the more curious she became.
“Big hotel, I don’t know the name…” Tempest answered with a grunt. “The tunnel comes out in the basement. The train station is just around the corner from it, so I figured it’s the best place to hold up until we feel good enough to move again.” That ‘we’ was telling. Tempest wasn’t feeling any better than Rose did now.
“Is it the Rocky Top Hotel?” It was the only hotel that Rose could think of so close to the train station. While all hotels in Canterlot were some level of fancy, the Rocky Top was definitely on the lower end of expensive. It still had a penthouse suite that occupied the entire top floor like most hotels did.
“I think so.”
It was an hour-long slog through the dark tunnels beneath the city before they came to their destination. The exit was hidden behind a maze of water pipes with just enough room for the two mares to disembark. It was tight, but they came out into the cool air of a dimly lit basement. There were no windows, only bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling by dangling wires.
The bag of oats had to be picked up and held before it was dragged out due to the thin layer of water that covered the floor. The last thing either of them wanted was their dwindling food supply to be ruined by something as stupid as a busted pipe.
“Can’t stay here either…” Tempest sighed and kicked at the water with a hoof. “Okay…let me think.”
“We could…always try to go upstairs?” Rose offered carefully. The thought of getting into one of the rooms and getting to sleep in a real hotel quality bed was too good for her to pass up. “It would give us a better view of everything…” There was no real benefit to go higher up and away from their exit other than a chance at comfort. The only way back down would be a lot of stairs or an elevator, both not ideal.
“Hmm…” Tempest seemed to think about it for a moment. She would see the obvious flaws in this plan just as Rose had, the only hope was that she could also see the benefits. “We can go up there for a bit, just to get a view of the station.” And just like Rose, the temptation of some minor comfort was enough to pull her away from the idea of total safety, at least for a bit.
They stashed their belongings, the meager things that they were, amongst the pipes to keep them off of the damp ground. Once they were sure they wouldn’t fall, the two ponies headed towards the stairs that led out of the basement. The pain of trotting up the stone stairs got to them both and they had to stop and just wait about halfway up the two dozen or so steps to just give their aching legs a rest for a moment.
The door led straight out into the lobby, which was another place littered with corpses. It wasn't just the smattering from that dotted the halls of the castle, it looked like the throne room all over again. There were bodies on top of bodies, all rotting in the putrid hot air. It wasn’t just stallions and mares either, there were foals too. That sight alone made Rose sick to her stomach and she had to step away to stop herself from throwing up whatever contents remained in her stomach. It was the first time she had seen the grisly sight, and she wished she hadn't seen it at all.
They moved quickly through the lobby, which thankfully seemed to be free of any of the monsters. The glass on the doors and windows were all frosted, but even obscured they offered no sign of the turned unicorns on the street immediately outside. Still, they scampered up to the front desk and quickly got behind it.
A large board filled with little metal hooks that held keys was on the wall behind the front desk. Some of the keys were gone, but a majority were still there, including one that sat at the very top of the board. It had Celestia’s cutie mark emblazoned on it and the words ‘sun suite’ above the hook. Rose pointed at it and directed Tempest to get it. The unicorn snatched the key and tossed it to Rose, who caught it with her wing.
The two mares moved swiftly down a side hall that terminated at a set of elevators. One of the doors was fully closed, but the other one was blocked from doing so by the body of a dead pegasus mare. The doors kept on trying to close, hit her body, then opened back up with a plaintive ‘ding’.
The stairs were not an option either mare wanted, so they moved the dead pony out of the way and they got into the elevator. Once the doors finally closed, Rose hit the button for the top floor and they began to ascend.
They weren’t in any immediate danger, nor did they have to have their heads on a swivel as the little metal box dragged the ever upwards towards the penthouse. It allowed both of them to lean against the walls and do something which looked like relaxing. Relaxing was dangerous though, because it meant the fatigue got a real chance to set in. They weren’t moving, they let their aches and pains rest for a moment, and the adrenaline was able to settle. Rose could feel herself dozing off, the hum of the elevator’s motor and the nondescript music from the speakers provided nice white noise.
The elevator came to a jarring halt and dinged, which woke up both of the ponies from inadvertent slumber. The energy they had rushed into the elevator with had evaporated and the two mares trudged from the box with slumped shoulders and dragging hooves.
They weren’t let out directly into the penthouse, but a small little antechamber that had both exits: the elevators and a door that led into the main stairwell for the building. While Rose didn’t think the unicorns were capable of operating complex machinery, she wasn’t going to discount it yet. However, the stairs were still the most obvious route from which the monsters might come. If they were going to stay up here, they would have to make sure that door wouldn’t open.
Rose took the lead as they approached the door and she put the key in the lock and turned it with her wing. The door swung open and a wave of scented air slammed into them full force. The constant assault of rotted flesh had been so omnipresent that something that smelled good caused both mares to scrunch their noses and blink a few times. It smelled of lilac and it smelled like the room was drenched in whatever they used to scent it. It smelled like a poor pony’s idea of a rich pony’s hotel room. Which fit for the Rocky Top.
The room beyond the door was just as tacky as the smell that emanated from it. Purples whites and golds that poorly mimicked the rooms in the castle decorated the space. Imperfect marble made up the floor with cracks and discolorations all over, while the carpets and drapes looked like they were hand me downs from the castle itself, and a portrait of Celestia hung on one of the walls. There were three doors, two on the wall to the right of the entrance and one on the wall on the left. If Rose were to guess, two of them were bedrooms and one was a grand bathroom of some sort. They were probably all designed by the same interior decorator as the main room.
Rose wandered over to a sliding glass door that sat opposite from the front door and looked outside. They were near the edge of the city now and instead of the city stretching before them, it was Equestria itself. Pillars of smoke dotted the horizon and signaled ponies in distress. It hurt the heart to see.
It was easy to think of Canterlot as the lone pillar of violence when it surrounded you, but there were still others out there. Unicorns were everywhere in Equestria and the plague was spread to all of them by now. Across the countryside, in small villages or even single homes, ponies were still dying.
“Where are they going?” Tempest had appeared beside Rose at some point. Her eyes were not focused on the rolling countryside, but the streets below. They craned their necks to get a better look, but they saw a long serpentine line of unicorns all headed out of the south gate of the city. It wasn’t like the wave of ponies that had surged through the streets the first night either, it was an orderly line. Almost like a march.
The unicorns were slowly but surely evacuating Canterlot.
The unicorns were now filling the streets outside of the hotel and were even spilling into nearby buildings, that meant the lobby of the hotel was flooded with the beasts. They were all still filing out of the south gate of the city and into the mountain pass that would take them into Equestria at large.
That didn’t help Rose and Tempest, in fact it made their jobs infinitely harder. They couldn’t get back into the tunnels, and they couldn’t get to the train station. Even getting into the stairwell was a risk because they didn’t know where the unicorns were. It was safer to stay put.
Unlike last time in the bunker, they would have no escape though. If one of those things were to break down the door from the stairwell and get into here, they would have nowhere to go. If it howled, then they were dead. They had food, including the food stocked in the minibar, but that wouldn’t last them forever.
“It was dumb coming up here.” Tempest growled as she paced back and forth in the main room. She had a bad limp now and that made her gait much less intimidating, but she still had that predatorial stalk down.
“It looks like wherever we went we would’ve been trapped…” Rose peaked out of the window again. The shades were drawn on every window in the room, an abundance of caution for the alicorns that could still be lurking. “Maybe they think there’s nopony left in the city.” They had spent the last day trying to figure out exactly why this mass evacuation was happening now. “There haven’t been any howls for a really long time.” The monsters were done hunting. They weren’t even looking for ponies now.
“That could work to our advantage at least…” Tempest let out a sigh and sat down. One of her hooves went to a flank and she rubbed it gingerly. “I hate saying it…but stay put, stay quiet.” That was the mantra since they sent out the signal to the Crystal Empire and it was beginning to get tedious for both of them. While running and fighting was exhausting, it was something to do. It was something proactive. Staying here and waiting for the monsters to do something, to give them an opening, was maddening.
Rose briefly looked up to the sky, right at the sun. Her stomach turned and her heart ached for it. The star needed to set, it was yearning to light the other side of the planet. It was a wrong that needed to be righted as soon as possible. If Rose was not the one to right it, then she would be the one to avenge it.
What had happened here was a crime, not one codified in any official document but one against the sanctity of the heavens. While Celestia and Luna had not caused the disaster, at least Rose didn’t think they did, they had been the conduit for the sickness to reach the sun. They had aided and abetted, they were complicit. They were supposed to be divine and untouchable.
Rose felt deceived. Things needed to change after this, not just for her. For everypony who had been falsely led to believe in the superiority of Celestia and Luna. If Twilight and Cadance had been turned too, then Friendship and Love would be concepts just as sullied and they would have to be cleansed as well. Maybe that was why the other guards had been so opposed to her, because their hearts had been tainted with the sickness. They had not seen her as a comrade because even friendship was gone.
Rose wasn’t changed by it though. No, she was a true believer. She was somepony whose faith never wavered and whose heart remained pure. Even in her moments of doubt, in the darkest spot of her life, she still had the light and the fire of the sun burning in her chest. Who could say the same? Not anypony who had been down in the dungeon with her, that was for sure.
“My boss is called The Storm King, by the way.” Tempest cut through the fervor that clouded Rose’s mind. It caused the pegasus to turn around to find the unicorn lounging on a gaudy purple sofa in the middle of the room. “I don’t know his real name, but that’s what he calls himself.”
Right, Tempest’s boss. The creature who would help Rose carry out her plan. It was important to learn more about him and what he had at his disposal. Ponies weren’t a very martial race but, as evidenced by the unicorns below, they could put up a fight.
“Is he a pony?” That was Rose’s first question. Was he somepony like herself and Tempest, a disillusioned soul who was looking for some form of redemption through conquest? Was he something else that just hated Equestria for its friendship and prosperity?
“He’s a…I think he calls himself a ‘yeti’.” Tempest closed her eyes and rested her head against the arm. “He looks like a big monkey crossed with a wolf. He’s a simple creature, he just wants to conquer Equestria. He wants the magic of the princesses to help rule the world.”
“Hmm…” Rose furrowed her brow. That wouldn’t do in the long run. Ponies still deserved to be free, but that was a problem to be sorted out later. All she needed was whatever power he had to drain the magic from the alicorns, then she was sure she could convince Tempest to turn on her boss. First, she needed to know something. “What do you get out of all of this?”
“I get revenge on the ponies who rejected me.” Tempest retorted bitterly. “I get to show to everypony that their unity and friendship mean nothing. I get to expose a lie.” A fuschia hoof went to her broken horn. “And I get this back…he promised that with the magic of the alicorns he would heal my horn.” Rose couldn’t imagine a lifetime of such a disfigurement. A week without a wing was enough to make her bitter, but decades of doing it? That might drive her to such desperation too.
She was above that though. Rose would not do what she was doing for such personal reasons. She was above that. Her calling was holy, it was righteous. Tempest might never see that light, but Rose was sure that the hate in her companion’s heart would melt away when she saw ponies in chains. If anypony survived after this, then they deserved to be free.
“I hope you get to find peace.” Rose went with a neutral but friendly expression. She couldn’t say what she wanted to, that might just push Tempest away. “I understand how hard it is when nopony accepts you. I understand the need to show everypony how wrong they are…” Rose nodded as she spoke and took a seat on the floor next to the sofa. “If there’s anyway I can help you, I will.”
“Thanks, Rose.” Tempest smiled. It was not restrained or a half measure, it was a full smile. “I guess us weirdos have to stick together, huh?” Rose did not see it that way, not yet. She was not the weird one and she hated being called that.
“You’re not weird, and neither am I.” She pushed back on the sentiment immediately and harshly. “Ponies who see us that way for who we are, those are the weird ones. They can’t accept differences and that should be their problem, not ours.” Rose wrapped her wing around her body and looked towards one of the covered windows. “We should’ve been able to live normal lives, not have to live as outcasts.”
“We have to show them, then.”
Day Twenty-Six
Nothing happened. The days went on and nothing happened. Once something had come knocking on the heavy metal door to the stairwell, but when it did not open the monster went back down. That had been tense, but nothing had come of it thankfully.
Yet another blessing.
The last two survivors in all of Canterlot were sitting on the garish purple couch in the penthouse of the Rocky Top hotel eating a few candy bars they had scavenged from the mini fridge. They had the glass door to the balcony open while the drapes were still drawn. A nice mountain breeze blew in from the south and helped air out the musty air of the suite.
The huffing growling of mass of unicorns were still moving out of the city. The crowd was growing smaller by the hour, but it was still going to take days for all of the monsters to leave. They were running out of food in here already. Soon they would have to go down to lower levels to scrounge for meals.
“So you’ve never heard of Abyssinia?” Tempest tossed the wrapper to her candy bar onto the floor and then wiped her chocolate covered hoof onto the upholstery beside her. “I grew up in a tiny village so when I first heard of it I thought maybe our teacher just didn’t cover it.”
“No.”
Rose shook her head and readjusted her position on the couch. The pins and needles she had felt after getting launched into the ceiling of the little bunker still followed her. Sometimes they would get overpowering and she would have to get up and walk around to regain feeling in her extremities. That static-like tingle ran up her spine and caused her wing to unfurl and droop to her side. It took her one good shake to get control back of the rogue limb and tuck it back against her side.
“I was homeschooled.” Rose continued after shooing away the tingling feeling. “My parents taught me what they thought I needed to know. So the three R’s: reading, ‘ritin, and ‘rithmetic.” That earned a chuckle and an eye roll from Tempest. “I was taught about Equestria. Nothing else really mattered.”
“Even then, you never hear about these places in newspapers or general small talk.” Tempest shrugged. “Mount Aris, Panthera, Macawia. All of those places were taken over by a hostile invading army and nopony here has even noticed. Isn’t that odd? Celestia and Luna, two ponies with the power to move the sun and moon could end any conflict in the world. Look at what’s happening now-” Tempest gestured to the window and the sun that was currently baking this half of the planet. “-imagine if that was a threat and not just an accident. Then your god could bring peace to the entire world.”
“Hmm.” Rose had not thought of that before. Celestia did have control over the sun. Why did she never use it? Why was Equestria so isolated? Why did so much bad happen when Equestria had the capacity to stop it? “Disgraceful…”
That was the reason that Equestria was so bullied, why their capital had been invaded, why their rulers had been taken captive, why they had to rely on six ponies from a backwater town to save them from every threat. Celestia was too passive to protect the ponies she claimed she loved. Rose had even seen it with her own eyes and heard it with her own ears. Luna had wanted to be proactive, she wanted to quash this infection in its cradle in Ponyville. Instead look at what happened. The passivity of the strongest pony in the world had caused a disaster.
Their rot has spread to the Royal Guard as well. The reason nopony seemed to care about their duty, the reason there were brazen smuggling operations in the city, the reason Royal Guard medic bags were pawned off. It was corruption from the very top all the way to the bottom. Luna using the smuggling ring was emblematic of that harsh truth.
“Sorry.” Tempest mumbled. “I get a bit heated about this stuff. I didn’t mean to bring up your…y’know. I can’t even imagine what’s going through your head through all of this. I mean the sun never sets so that’s probably a plus for you right?”
“Not really.” Rose was always happy to talk about her faith as long as the pony talking with her was respectful. That was rare, though. “It’s not supposed to be up there for that long. It lives in equilibrium with the moon, just like the light with the dark. You must have both. I know the longer it stays up there the more dangerous it is for the planet.” Rose looked at Tempest and sighed. “I hope that this will end soon.”
“Well we can focus on that when we manage to get out of Canterlot.” Tempest got up from the couch and winced as she flexed her rear legs. “I don’t think running is something I can do, at least not for a while. So however we get out of here will be slow.”
“Yeah, me too.” Rose looked at her hooves, the tingling sensation had invaded the very tips of them yet again. They were cobwebs she had to continually shake loose lest they bind her in place. She knew of her previous limitations, but wondered how these new ones would affect her when the chips were down and action was needed.
A new and unusual sound broke the monotony of the day. It was in the background of the raucous din of growls the monsters put up into the air, but anything not related to the unicorns stuck out like a sore thumb. Both of the mares’ ears swiveled to locate it.
It sounded like rumbling. Not like a stampede, but something much more mechanical. Then they heard the telltale sound of a train’s whistle cut through the thick humid air. Both of the survivors looked at one another and then rushed to the door that led out to the balcony.
They had heard it and so had everything else in Canterlot. Every unicorn that flooded the streets below had their heads turned northwards, with their beady little eyes focused on the train station.
It didn’t sound like the train was rolling into the station quite yet. It was still coming up the side of the mountain. Why was it blowing it’s horn, though? Surely whoever was at the controls knew what was happening and knew it was unicorns that turned. So why would they blow the horn coming through Canterlot of all places?
“The Crystal Empire.” Rose spoke her realization aloud and let a smile creep across her face. She grabbed Tempest with her wing and gave the unicorn a shake. “They’re coming from the Crystal Empire! That has to be it!”
“One train wouldn’t be enough.” Tempest frowned and stuck her head out of the patio door. “Thousands of unicorns here, they’d need a whole army of ponies who couldn’t turn.”
“Well what if they discovered a cure? They could be immune!” Rose was looking for any semblance of hope and she was going to cling to it. “It’s been weeks, Tempest. Somepony has figured this out by now.”
Rose wanted to say more, but loud and powerful wing beats stifled all of her thoughts. Immediately both Tempest and Rose backed away from the windows and scurried behind the couch in the middle of the room. Princess Luna then flew right by the penthouse windows, causing all of the drapes in the room to fly around wildly from the draft created by her enormous leathery wings.
Then Celestia showed up. She was not seen, but she was felt. An enormous body landed squarely on top of the Rocky Top Hotel and caused the entire building to shake. Cracks began to form in the ceiling of the Sun Suite the two mares were in and a light fixture from one of the bedrooms audibly crashed. When they looked up they could see massive indents in the ceiling from where the alicorn was currently perched.
Then the fire started.
Celestia’s tail resting on the building caught the timber that composed the roof alight. With how dry and hot it was, it did not take long for a smoldering wooden beam to erupt into an inferno. Soon the flames were lurching across the ceiling at a rapid pace.
Unlike most buildings in Canterlot, the hotels were not made of polished stone. They were far too large for that so they were constructed of wood like most other buildings across Equestria but decorated to look like their more fancy counterparts. Somehow, Rose wasn’t sure how, the Rocky Top had survived the initial blaze of the first night. It had survived baking in the sun for weeks on end, but it would not survive direct contact with Celestia’s corrupted flame.
Rose and Tempest fled, with not even time to get their belongings or food. They did not even exchange words or talk of a plan as they bolted out of the door and into the little elevator lobby outside. Tempest started to head for one of the elevators, but Rose yanked her away and pointed at the stairwell instead. The mares opened the metal door to the stairwell and swiftly shut it behind them.
Going down the stairs in any fashion that could be considered quick was a struggle for the pair. Various grunts and hisses of pain accompanied little stumbles and clutches at the railing as they descended the stone steps.
They were blessed in that there were no unicorns inside at the moment, they were all too busy outside waiting for the train to appear. The blessing came with a curse though, the stairwell was quickly filling up with smoke from the rapidly spreading blaze. The heat was also ratcheting up, which was saying something because the sun hadn’t set in weeks. To feel hot at this juncture meant you ran the risk of boiling in the open air.
Rose was lucky enough in that she had a wing to cover her mouth to provide some sort of filter. The smoke still stung her eyes and her throat was desperate for clean air. Tempest had it worst as she was breathing in pure unfiltered smoke as it seeped into the stairwell and tears ran from her irritated eyes freely.
The mares exited the stairwell, thankful that the Rocky Top wasn’t an incredibly tall building, and came to a screeching halt. The wall of unicorns was still surrounding the building and throngs of them were pressed up against the frosted glass of the lobby.
“I left the map for the tunnels up in the room…” Tempest whispered to Rose. “I have no clue where we’re going after this.”
“We’ll figure something out.” Rose put a hoof on Tempest’s back. “First…let’s just get out of here, anywhere is better than here right now…” There was no argument.
Rose and Tempest trotted carefully across the lobby, their steps light as to not let their hooves clack against the marble. Their breaths were light and short and their eyes remained focused on the windows and main doors. It was a tense slow march where the only sound was the blood in their ears and the hearts pounding against their ribs.
They did make it to the basement door without incident. The floor was still wet and covered with about a half inch of water from the busted pipe that was still spraying its contents across the basement. They had taken a few showers since they got into the penthouse, but water still felt nice. Especially after the trek through the burning hotel.
Rose let Tempest take the lead as they climbed through the maze of pipes that concealed the entrance to the tunnel. The unicorn had more experience navigating through the city side of the tunnels by now and could no doubt find a familiar path. Rose just wanted to be out of this place and to maybe find somewhere they could keep an eye on things.
Tempest was about to crawl into the tunnel when a noise came from overhead. It was the noise of something cracking and giving way, and then crashing. The whole building shook in response. Then the same thing happened again, but the process seemed faster this time.
“The building is collapsing!” Rose realized and screamed. That was the sound of one floor pancaking onto the next. It was the sound of death coming for them if they did not hurry and get out of there.
Tempest got in and crawled as fast as she could, then Rose followed. The Pegasus even forced her bad leg to help carry the load and drag her along. That was excruciatingly painful and it made something along her spine pinch to the point it drew tears from her eyes.
As they crawled they heard the sound of the Rocky Top Hotel collapsing in on itself from behind them. When it finally all came to rest, a jet stream of dust shot up the tunnel from behind them and filled the cramped dark space with dense particulate and smoke. The mares coughed and sputtered but soon had to hold their breath due how unbreathable the air became.
Rose finally had to breathe and sucked in very little oxygen but quite a bit of dust. She coughed and wretched as her throat was coated in the grime. They kept going though, they kept going until they came to an exit.
It was some nondescript building, a pastry shop of some kind. It wasn’t Pony Joe’s, that’s all that Rose was sure of. There weren’t even any stale treats in the display counters and the smell of spoiled milk from a nearby cooler filled the hot air.
They were near the north side of the city now. It was easy to tell because the front of the shop was facing a large pillar of smoke that had to be the Rocky Top. They were not near the mass of monsters that were leaving the city, but they could still see some of the beasts a few hundred feet away. Luckily they were not paying attention to the mares.
The unicorns were all too busy paying attention to a train speed through the mountaintop city. Bolts of magic lashed out at the metal carriages and dented the panels and shattered windows. The train did not stop, it did not slow down. There was no army on board, and there was no cure.
Little did the two mares know, there were just two ponies onboard that particular train: an alicorn foal and her trusty steward.
A massive pillar of fire came from the heavens and swallowed Canterlot whole. The buildings, even the stone ones, were melted to their foundations and even those were made into heaps of slag. The castle, the seat of power for the whole of Equestria, was consumed in a light from the heavens that wiped all signs of equinity from the mountaintop.The rock beneath was turned to glass which reflected the eternal sun above and the cloudless sky.
It was not the only city. Fillydelphia, Manehattan, Baltimore, all met the same fate as divine flames scorched them clean. Soon the entire world was filled with the same flames, and they burned all signs of life away until only a charred ball was left. Not even the oceans survived, they had all dried up from the sheer heat of the onslaught.
The only thing remaining on the rock was Rose Wreath. The fire that burned in her chest was just as hot and pure as the flames that cleansed the planet and had saved her from annihilation. She stood alone in the charred ashes of the world she so loved, and she felt at peace. It was odd, knowing that she was the last living thing and feeling so calm. There she was, though. Her hooves were covered in ash and the sun continued to shine overhead, but she felt happy.
Day Twenty-Seven
Rose woke up in a sweat. Not from the dream she had just occupied, but from the heat. Her fur from muzzle to flank was coated with it and she was exhausted even after rest. Her mane was clinging to her face and she used a damp wing to peel it off and slick it back. She blinked a few times and tried to stop the sweat from stinging, but it did not help.
The power was out here, unlike the Rocky Top. The little bakery was hot and putrid and offered no protection from the elements. It was still getting hotter, too. This was not a good combination. They had come to the conclusion that the altitude was not helping them at all. It was higher up, which meant a thinner atmosphere, which meant less protection from the sun. The whole mountain was baking and it was only going to get worse the longer this went on.
“Sleep well?” Tempest was in no better shape. She was likewise covered in sweat. Her usual mohawk was pinned to her head and neck with perspiration. Dark bags underlined her dull blue-green eyes and her shoulders slumped forwards.
“No.” Rose answered and brought a hoof to her head. It felt like her brain was trying to break from her skull and her whole body ached. “We have water, right?” To answer the question, Tempest pointed to a deep sink meant for dishes that was filled to the very top. “Thanks...” She stood and every part of her body protested, from her neck to her legs. It did not want to expend energy in this heat, but it needed to.
Rose didn’t bother with civility or pretense, she just dunked her entire head into the sink and began gulping down as much as she could. It was cool water too and it sent a shiver down the length of her body. It felt so good and she didn’t want to leave, but her body began to protest and her lungs began to burn as they were deprived of air. Eventually she did have to come up again and she took deep breaths of the humid air that was little better than the water that had been about to fill her lungs. Tempest was staring at her with a bemused but tired smile.
“Have fun?” The unicorn stood and took a deep breath before speaking again. “We need to leave Canterlot. Today. If we don’t…” She slouched a little more as the fatigue threatened to take her down. “...if the monsters don’t kill us, the heat will. We just can’t…do this anymore.”
“Okay. How do we do that?” Rose was all for leaving Canterlot and putting some distance between herself and the alicorns, but that was easier said than done. After the train had sped through the city, after it was clear that help was not coming, hope had died. What little they had been clinging to went out of the window.
“They’re all trying to go through the south gate, right?” Tempest began to pace once more. It seemed to help her think and it usually worked from what Rose could tell. “Okay so we make our way to the north gate. It should be less trafficked. Though, we’d need to circle the entire mountain to get to the grotto…”
“It’s worth a shot.” The effect of the refreshing water was wearing off quickly as the oppressive heat began beating down on the poor pegasus. Already she could feel the fatigue setting in and the sweat began to form on her forehead. Yeah, it was worth a shot. Not trying would end the same as a failed attempt, so what did they have to lose?
Also, Rose needed to get out of Canterlot. She needed to leave Equestria as a whole so she could return with a way to avenge this travesty. It was now a primal need, as essential as breathing or eating. This Storm King of Tempest’s was going to be a necessary evil for her life to continue and she was going to get to him.
The sun would see to that.
That had to be the reason for the rapid increase in heat, too. It was a sign, a push in the right direction. They had dawdled too long in the ivory streets of Canterlot and needed to be on their way so Equestria, and the whole planet, could be saved. They needed to follow that sign and be free from this prison of marble and gold.
“If we move through the buildings we can stay out of direct sunlight and minimize chances to get caught.” Tempest finally stopped pacing right in front of the sink and copied what Rose had done minutes ago. She buried her head beneath the surface of the water and greedily drank as much as she could until nature forced her to come back up. The dark pink mane on her head fell forward and split her face down the middle, but she threw her head back to get it out of the way. “If we do this smart and slow, we can get out.”
“What about the mountain road?” She wasn’t convinced they could take any unicorn in a fight, not anymore. At the beginning of all of this it had been easy, but since Rose had lost a wing and since Tempest had been bitten by Picket it had been a different story. “It’s narrow and long. If we get caught or cornered…”
“Yeah, well if we stay here we’ll meet the same fate.” Tempest grumbled. “I’d rather die from a monster attack than a heat stroke.” That was a noble goal at least, and one Rose could get behind. Though getting off of the mountain did not guarantee any safety from heat stroke. The sun would still be in the sky and they would be in the open.
“Alright.” Rose nodded. “Let’s go out the back. Probably safer.” She nodded to the door at the back wall. They were lucky the kitchen had been completely unoccupied, by either a unicorn or some unfortunate soul who had been inside when their end had come. There was no corpse smell or anything out of place, just an ordinary kitchen. They plodded through the ordinary kitchen to the backdoor and hesitated.
Going outside wasn’t something they had done, not since the brief forays on top of the little pillbox that acted as a headquarters for smuggling. Before then the amount of time they had spent outside of the confines of buildings had been near zero, the ballista tower being the one exception. Thinking about going willingly into the wide world beyond at street level made their hearts race.
Rose pushed the door open and the heat washed in from outside. If it was bad indoors, it was twice as bad in direct sunlight. Even from their shaded spot they could feel the rocky ground radiate heat. The sunlight was blinding, and not even in the way that Rose was used to. Its corrupted and toxic light spilled forth and made the white buildings blinding to even look at. The whole world hurt to exist in outside of any building and they were supposed to make it all the way to the north gate?
They stepped out into the alley and immediately regretted it. The pavement below burned against their hooves and they wilted beneath the direct sunlight instantly. They kept moving though. They went across the alley, which was covered in hot and rotting garbage that would never be picked up, and into the backdoor of another shop. They could not be described as moving quickly, even as dire as the situation outside happened to be. Their odd gaits and limps prevented any kind of gallop and the exhaustion from the unrelenting heat made the act of moving hurt.
The next shop was some kind of novelty soda shop with bottles of all kinds lining the shelves. Some were from brands Rose recognized, but others were in strange languages and fonts she couldn’t place. There were definitely some griffon sodas she had seen in the castle, but beyond that it was all nonsense to her. It wasn’t nonsense to Tempest, who picked up an empty glass bottle and held it out to Rose.
“Take it. In case we need to cause a distraction.” The mare grumbled and huffed for a moment. “I wish I still had my suit…” That was still back in the smugglers’ HQ and that was where it would remain. It was sure to have at least one more trick in one pouch somewhere, but they would never know now.
Rose took the bottle with her wing and kept it tucked close to her side. She was used to being the pony who could actually manipulate things without using up a hoof these days that she hadn’t even thought to object. Both of them needed all of the hooves they had and those rarely seemed to be enough in recent days.
Tempest was the one to creep towards the front of the store and look out of the windows that took up most of the front wall. The mare looked both ways, and then did a double take just to be sure. When the coast was confirmed to be clear, she waved Rose forward with a hoof. The door was just about to be pushed open when the pegasus pointed to a bell right above the door. Both mares let out a deep sigh but were thankful that it had at least been caught before it had caused trouble. The door was pushed open slowly, inch by inch, so the little mechanism that would’ve caused the bell to jingle was circumvented.
When they had exited the same procedure had to be followed while Rose kept her head on a swivel. The streets were clear, with only the distant sound of growls coming from somewhere beyond the street they were on. The only threat to them were the ones produced by the sun, at least for now.
Just as Tempest shut the door a faint sound echoed through the city. It was very quiet and almost fell into the background, but it sounded like a bell of some sort being rang. It wasn’t in Canterlot and it wasn’t the one above the soda shop’s door. It had to be from one of the villages that surrounded the mountain. At least it meant other ponies were still out there, or that their town bells were all automated. She hoped for the former.
The two mares ran across the street once more and Rose directed them towards a set of stairs that led to a door just below street level. A faded and now dead neon sign above the door read ‘LP’s Records’. While Rose didn’t know if it had a rear entrance, she did know that it was underground and probably was somewhere to rest.
It also probably, hopefully, had water. The small stint outside and moving in the harsh light had left her drenched in sweat again and her muscles ached. She could feel her stomach turn and roil from a mix of very little food and overexertion in the melting heat.
The inside of the shop was surprisingly cool compared to other places, most likely due to the fact it was entirely underground and the lack of windows. The stench of stale cigar smoke flooded the small space and made Rose reflexively scrunch her nose in disgust. Rows and rows of boxes and racks littered the floor and every single inch of them were filled with records. There was a hallway behind the counter that stretched on into darkness.
“Sweet Celestia, it feels so good in here…” Tempest grunted and leaned against one of the racks.It wasn’t even that cool, it just wasn’t as hot as other places. In a normal and sane world it would still be considered too hot to live in and stuffy, but they were not in that world. This was as close to an oasis that they would find in the city, and they would gladly take a spell.
“I don’t think we’re making it out today…” Rose had to get that feeling out there. They had been outside for less than five minutes total and she felt almost completely spent already. This would be a multi-day affair to be certain. The mix of the condition outdoors and of the two ponies was one that slowed them down to a crawl it felt like. That wasn’t a recipe for getting it done today.
“Yeah…” Tempest ruefully agreed with the sentiment. “Maybe not today…whatever ‘today’ means anymore.” To them it meant one full sleep rotation where both mares could get a little rest in before moving again, but Rose understood the sentiment. Days were abstract concepts when the night never came. “For now lets see if we can get a drink and if there’s any food.”
They went about that business. Tempest opted to look around the front room while Rose chose to go back into the hallway. There were three doors down there; one on the left, one on the right and one dead ahead. She randomly picked a door and opened it.
The one on the left led to a small cramped office that was dominated by a large wooden desk overloaded with paperwork and overdue bills and accompanied by a backdrop of countless pictures of a once happy family of unicorns and one pegasus, all now surely turned or dead. It was a somber scene, one that reminded Rose that the unicorns outside had once had normal lives and families. It hurt to think about, it hurt to be confronted with the equinity of those things.
The door on the right was a bathroom. It was dark and dingy, but it had a functioning sink. Rose stopped the rain and ran the faucet until the porcelain bowl was full. She did the muzzle-first dive into the cool liquid and guzzled as much of it as she could until her body demanded air. The law of diminishing returns was paid its due and it just didn’t feel as refreshing as it had once been.
Once that was taken care of, Rose opened the last door. Beyond it was not a back entrance to the shop, but a simple storage room filled with boxes of records and old cardboard cutouts. If they were going to rest, back here would be the safest. The front room was too exposed and the office was far too cramped.
“Rose!” Tempest hissed her name as loud as she could without yelling. The pegasus limped as fast as she could into the main room, where Tempest was leaning halfway out of the door with her eyes on the sky. As she got closer to the door she heard a chorus of howls rise up from the pack of monsters on the other side of town. Rose joined her and tried to get a good view of what was happening. “The Wonderbolts are back.”
“What?” Rose pushed the unicorn out of the way and looked up at the sky.
Sure enough, two ponies were flying through the sky above Canterlot. The signature blue and gold uniforms of the Wonderbolts covered most of their bodies, but their manes were at least visible. One had a poofy yellow mane while the other had a mane that looked almost identical to Spitfire’s, it was just missing a color and was solid orange. They zipped around the skies and peered down into the streets. Lances of magic shot around them but none came particularly close to hitting their mark.
“Hey!” One of the Wonderbolts spotted the two mares leaning out of the door and they zipped down to the ground. Their partner was not far behind. As they landed their coat colors became clear from their exposed muzzles and the fur around their eyes. The yellow maned one had a bright white coat while not-Spitfire had a yellow coat…just like Spitfire. It also became obvious as they came closer that they were both mares. “I can’t believe anypony is still alive here!” Not-Spitfire beamed at the two.
“You need to get out of here or hide!” Tempest glared at the two and pointed up at the sky. “Seriously! It’s not safe here, even for you! If the princesses see you, you’re dead!” All Rose could do was nod eagerly along with her companion’s advice.
“Listen, we just need to know if there’s any food around here.” The white and yellow one spoke next. A hopeful but sad smile was on her face. That’s all Rose needed to see that the mare was a fool. She came here looking for hope? For salvation? Then she deserved the fate she was going to get.
“There’s nothing here!” Tempest reiterated. “There’s death and monsters, so if you’re looking for one of those then you’re in the right place” Rose could feel Tempest’s fur bristle as her frustration and desperation grew. “I’m being serious! Leave!” She was trying her best not to yell despite the need to scream at the two Wonderbolts.
“You should listen to her.” Rose nodded and motioned with a hoof to the sky. “I’m pretty sure one of your team already died here, don’t make that number grow.”
The Wonderbolts looked at each other and a realization flashed across their life, then their countenances paled. Had they not known about Soarin’s death? Or at least where it occurred? Why had Spitfire not warned them about this place?
Not-Spitfire was about to say something else, but the pounding of hooves on pavement mixed with a sky-shattering howl stopped the thought before it could be spoken. Both of the pegasi took to the air and looked around, alarmed. The two ponies in the door of the record shop resisted the urge to duck back inside to give one final warning to the mares.
“Fly! Get away from here!” Tempest ordered them. That seemed to stick and the mares launched into the sky without another thought. “We need to hunker down, now.”
Tempest and Rose shut and locked the door, not that it would stop any monster that truly wanted in, and hurried back to the storage room. They then shut that door and huddled in separate corners beside old boxes. The sound of violence followed as the two turned alicorns barreled through the skies overhead and let loose another set of blood curdling howls directly over the record shop.
The danger of sitting in silence in a darkened room was not the threat of monsters breaking down the door, it’s of the monsters your mind conjures for itself. It was the shadows of doubt and fear that crawled from the ether and wrapped their arms around you in an attempt to snuff out the light. The most perverse and damning thoughts came about in dark and quiet rooms, the kind that would not leave you alone until you broke.
Rose was stronger than the darkness, though. The fire in her chest burned bright enough to beat back the shadows and banish the thoughts to where they belonged. The light shone even in the pitch black and the fire roared in the silence. It was her eternal flame and it would keep her safe.
Tempest had no such flame, and if she did then it was dwindling rapidly.
“I…I don’t think I’ve ever felt so small.” Tempest whispered into the darkness of the storage room. “You know, I’ve spent my entire life acting bigger than I actually am. After I lost my horn I became a bully, I became mean. Then as a mare I learned how to fight, how to defend myself without magic. Finally I joined an army. I helped conquer cities.” A bitter chuckle escaped her lips. “I’ve never felt scared, not since that Ursa Minor…not until now. I mean…I’m shaking.” There was real tangible fear in the usually stalwart mare’s voice that sent chills up Rose’s spine. “Me! I’m shaking in fear.” That bitter chuckle morphed into a very erratic laugh that echoed around the small storage space. “What do we even do? What hope do we even have? Why…why fight it? We’re two crippled mares trying to sneak through a massive city full of literal monsters.”
This is where Tempest chose to finally have her breakdown. Not in the bunker, not in the hotel, not even in the bakery. It was here, in the dark recesses where the light could not find her. It was so that Rose could not connect her sadness and her pain with the image of a strong fierce mare that she projected to the world around her. It was an attempt to circumvent appearance by retreating where she could not be seen. Rose saw it though, and now it would stick in her mind.
“Should we give up?” Rose asked, now it was her time to be the calm one for once. Sure, she had thought about it once or twice in a dark moment a long time ago. By now those thoughts had all been burned away. “Should we just march out there and demand to be killed?”
“I don’t know…” Tempest’s voice sounded so small and unsure. It was a painful thing to hear from the usually strong and reliable mare. “But this? It’s just us. There’s nopony else. Even those two Wonderbolts, they’re probably dead by now.”
“It’s always been just us.” Rose countered. “As soon as me and the guards entered the dungeon, it was just us. Nopony else understood, nopony else got it. We did, though.” It was hindsight, but it was the truth. Everypony else had been so incredibly wrong at every turn, and that’s why they were dead. “We’re still alive because we got it. Because we understood that nopony else had our backs. We’re still alive because we know what needs to be done.” There was a beat of silence, punctuated only by slight sniffles from Tempest. “What we need to do now is get out of Canterlot.”
“We have each other's backs.” Tempest responded quietly.
They did in a sort of way. Rose had viewed it as ‘alone together’ for quite a while rather than any meaningful friendship. Maybe that was because of her penchant for keeping ponies at a distance, but Tempest had proclaimed to have that same habit once upon a time. Is that all it took to destroy walls built over decades of lived experience, just the end of the world?
Rose felt herself suddenly embraced by the other pony in the room. She felt hooves wrap around her back and press painfully against her missing wing. She felt tears or sweat drip from Tempest’s face onto her shoulder. She felt the other mare squeeze her appreciatively. She did not feel the fire she had so hoped was still in Tempest’s chest, there was just a scared little filly instead.
After an hour or so of waiting, Rose and Tempest left the storage room of the record shop. They had not mentioned what had happened in its confines and Rose was content to not mention it again. Instead they got another long drink of cool water, then silently stalked through the small shop to the front door. Tempest checked to see if they were clear, and they were.
What had happened in the storage room was dangerous for them both. They had each extolled how letting ponies get close only got them hurt, and yet Tempest had violated that virtue. Rose would not, though. She knew how Tempest felt about her faith and knew it to be for the best to not get close. They had saved each other's lives, they had been through some of the worst things a pony could imagine, and yet Rose could not bear to call her a friend.
The streets were silent, the monsters having long since searched it for the two Wonderbolts and found nothing. Their noises were even more distant and quiet, their dwindling numbers adding to that effect. It was a welcome yet eerie change of pace.
They had no more alleys to use, so that meant trotting down city streets as they were intended to be used. They went to the other side of the street, where the buildings were a little taller and cast a bit more of a shadow, to move westwards down the street. Rose took the lead as she knew the city better and could more easily guide them.
They took a right at the intersection ahead of them, and then they finally saw it. The beautiful north gate was visible now, the high white walls raised high above the walls around it and it beckoned like a forlorn lover. It was still quite a ways off, especially in the heat and in their condition, but it was now visible at least. That meant they were close, it meant freedom was all the more attainable.
Just because the world around them seemed safe didn’t mean it was, not by a long shot. They knew that better than most ponies and they had to act like it. They crept slowly along the sun-baked streets and kept their heads on a swivel. Their hooves never dragged and they never stepped heavily. Even their breaths were as silent as they could make them. If they got spotted this time, it would be through luck on the part of the monsters and not their own gaff.
They made it a few blocks before they finally had to stop. The promise of salvation so close at hoof had pushed them a little more than was wise. Exhaustion came slowly, and then all at once. Time in the storage room had let her coat dry and already it was once again soaked all the way through. With no wind, no reprieve was given from the oppressive heat and before Rose knew it she was stumbling on her hooves.
“Okay let’s get inside somewhere and rest…” Tempest steadied the pegasus and got her right on her hooves. They had been outside for what had to be twenty minutes or less and yet that was all they could manage. Lack of food probably played into that, but Rose couldn’t help but feel upset at herself for not being able to push harder. They were so close!
Physical limitations triumphed over will, though. Rose could feel her strength failing and she could feel her empty stomach call out for sustenance. It was a fool’s gambit to keep pushing oneself on little sleep and nothing to eat. Her head finally won out over her heart and she nodded then guided them towards a little corner store.
It was like something you might see in Manehattan, a simple little corner shop meant for the convenience of those living in the area, but a lot more expensive. The usual convenience fees applied, but to already expensive goods. Bottles of sparkling water, bags of food covered with labels that extolled their healthiness, and dozens of magazines that had now outdated gossip on the front pages littered the small cramped space.
There was a back room and that’s where they would rest, but first they gathered up as much food as they could handle. They also got as many bottles of overpriced water as they could carry on top of it. They were going to have a proper rest, not a panicked one where they weren’t sure if the building was going to come down on top of them or not. They would probably get their fill of whatever they wanted, cool down, and maybe take a quick nap.
The back room was surprisingly spacious. Products neatly lined the walls, some in boxes while others were in little shelving units and ready to replace whatever was out in the main room. A desk was pressed against the far wall with a high backed chair in front of it. On top of the desk was a little digital clock that handily informed them of the time: Eight forty-seven PM.
It was surprising, but easily ignored. In the end, it really meant nothing. Time did not inform anything anymore, from their sleep schedules to the rules those things outside followed. It was all anarchy against the concept of organized time. Rose briefly considered that on a normal day she would be winding down in her bunk and about to sleep, but that was all the consideration it was owed.
Tempest took up residence in the chair while Rose pulled up a milk crate and sat on it. They dumped their haul of goods onto the floor between them and picked through it for what they thought looked good. All of the food was hard or stale by this point and hardly tasty, but it was something. It was fuel that they desperately needed to continue.
“So tell me about your parents.” Tempest asked as Rose was chugging a bottle of expensive and warm water. “They seem to mean a lot to you.” Small talk, or at least an attempt. Rose didn’t want to engage with it, but just ignoring it would only serve to frustrate Tempest. Rose needed her cooperation, otherwise the other mare might rescind their agreement. Rose had to play along for now.
“Nothing much to tell.” Rose said with a shrug before crushing the plastic bottle she had just finished draining. “My father, Solaris, married my mother, Sunflower, sometime in their twenties. We live on land, and in a house, that’s been in my family for generations. We grow roses, it’s where I got my name, to sell along with all of the food we need to live.” Quick concise answer. Would she elaborate if prodded? Maybe.
“Huh.” Tempest answered flatly. “Your parents are both pegasi…?”
“No, my mom’s an earth pony.” Rose shifted uncomfortably and her wing twitched. “They live in the middle of nowhere so they should be safe, if that’s what you were trying to ask.” She thought about her father’s condition, though. Safe, maybe, but was he okay? Her hooves squeezed the plastic between them a little tighter. The house wasn’t the best insulated and could get pretty hot in the summer. In this heat? It would be unbearable…he was already sick and couldn’t fly anymore.
“You okay?” Tempest reached out with a hoof.
Rose snapped out of her spiral and backed away from the approaching mare. She could only nod. “Yeah, just…thinking.” That wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t the truth she wanted to get out. “I haven’t seen them in a while, you know?”
“I haven’t seen my parents in over a decade, so yeah.” Tempest nodded and took a big bite from a granola bar. “They’re unicorns, Cream Soda and Cherry Syrup, It was a mostly unicorn village so they’re probably okay just…not themselves.” The names of Tempest’s parents caught her off guard. She was expecting something more edgy and not so sweet sounding. The unicorn’s flanks were still wrapped or else Rose would try to see what her cutie mark was. “It’s a milkshake with a cherry on top.” Tempest chuckled as she saw Rose try to look. “It’s…a long story. What about yours?”
“Mine?” Rose didn’t think about her cutie mark much, or at all really. She looked down at one of her flanks and spotted the white rose that stood out amongst her red fur. “Traditionally, white roses stand for innocence or purity. They’re used for weddings a lot.” She wanted to say it, she had it because she was still pure. Despite everything, she was destined to remain pure of heart and of faith. Her cutie mark even decreed it. Once again, she held back and bit her tongue and uttered another half truth instead. “They were my specialty at home.”
“Hmm. Neat.”
They fell into silence again and picked their little hoard of food clean and drank all the water they could manage. Rose did not want to speak and Tempest wasn’t good with small talk, so they were both happy to focus on more internal matters. Rose was lost in thought about the future and what it held. There was still so much to figure out once they got out of the city. They were already running on nearly empty every day and that was in a city where food could be found. What would they do in the open country before they could rendezvous with Tempest’s allies?
“One of the first days down in the dungeon you said you learned to keep your…beliefs to yourself pretty early on after coming here.” Tempest broke the silence again with more prattle. Rose raised an eyebrow and tried to remember the interaction, she did and she nodded. “What happened? Were ponies really that mean to you over something so…silly?”
Rose’s eye twitched.
“Yeah.” She shook that feeling off and nodded. “I had this necklace-” her hoof went to her neck where it had set for most of her life. She couldn’t seem to help herself and she did spill that precious little tidbit from her personal life. “-it was made of gold and the pendant was shaped like Celestia’s cutie mark with a beautiful ruby at the center.” She could still feel it turn over and over again in her hooves, she could feel its worn edges and curves still. “It was something to use while praying, just something small and comforting. The…the ruby was enchanted to give off warmth.”
Tears started to form in her eyes. There was nothing she could do to fight them off as she remembered the little trinket and the day her father had given it to her. Every moment they spent together out in the sun’s glorious light learning, working and praying had their matching necklaces front and center. Her heart hurt from the thought, and now she knew her father was dying or dead and she would never share any of those things with him again. Now every happy moment was behind them, consigned to memory.
“I was on patrol alone, my first patrol alone.” Rose whispered as the memory kept plowing forward through the defenses she had so rigorously put up. “Some guards saw me praying near one of the ramparts and cornered me. They called me every name in the book and snatched my amulet…then they threw it off of the mountain.” It was the first day she had ever felt the cold, but it wasn’t the last. “I spent days looking for it. I reported it to everypony I could, I tried to get them punished, and instead I was given a demerit for wearing something against regulations while on the job…”
That was it. That was the moment she retreated into her shell, where she kept silent and kept her faith where nopony could see it. Nopony cared, nopony even noticed her as long as she kept to herself. She just did her job from that point on out and nothing more unless it was in direct service to Celestia. She now knew even that was a mistake.
In all of those years since even her thoughts had become chaste and decent to the common ponies, as if they could read her mind and see her faith through her thoughts. How foolish she had been to do so, to suppress herself and cower before the gazes of the nonbelievers that filled the world. How awful it was in retrospect to feel shame for it.
Maybe that was why she had lost her wing. It was her sacrifice for having been so cowardly in her beliefs for so long. What was worse is that she was still doing it, even right now in front of Tempest. Why? Why could she not shake off this veil she insisted on wearing?
“I’m really sorry.” Tempest said before taking a long slow pull from her water bottle. “Ponies suck…” It was obvious that the unicorn didn’t know how to handle or address the little outburst. What she said was true though, so Rose nodded. “Hey listen, why don’t you sleep first? I’ll keep watch.”
Day Twenty-Eight
Rose had slept for a surprising four hours. It was probably the longest she had slept in over a week at this point, maybe since she had lost her wing even. When that was over, she and Tempest had switched places so the unicorn could get some rest in the big soft chair.
The clock now read about two in the ‘morning’ and Tempest was still sleeping. Rose had eaten a few of the granola bars and was now just waiting. Every once in a while her eyes would drift to the door that led out into the main store, but they were mainly focused on her fellow survivor.
That tiny slight from before they had decided to sleep still stuck in Rose’s mind. Just like Parade and Bulwark and Golden, she had called her faith silly. Maybe Rose had been playing it down, but that didn’t make it right. Rose had saved her life and that was the thanks she received. There was not even understanding or acceptance, just more belittling.
It was sickening. It was awful. It was unconscionable.
Rose found herself standing in front of the unicorn and her wing had the heavy glass bottle Tempest had given to her earlier gripped in its feathers. Violent thoughts filled her head, ones she had to beat back down as quickly and savagely as they appeared. Slowly, she backed away and sat back down. There was no need to be rash or violent, after all Rose still needed Tempest. They needed to get to the Storm King.
At least there, surrounded by creatures that weren’t ponies, her faith would be a curiosity and not a point of ridicule. They would see her as a crazy pony, not a crazy pony. Maybe then she could be more open and she extoll the virtues of her faith to others who did not see it as something to be condemned immediately. She could finally be accepted.
Then they would come back to Equestria and she would show everypony else the light. After this how could there be any doubt? The survivors would see them come in and strip the power from the alicorns and the unicorns and they would see divine deliverance. They would see the world as she did: with bright eyes and a heart full of love and faith.
There was no alternative, she was sure of that. If this was cured would the ponies try to piece this mess of a country back together? How? How could any earth pony or pegasus look at a unicorn, a creature that had turned monstrous and whose tribe had killed an unknown but likely staggering amount of the population, and seek peace with them? It was not possible. The ponies of Equestria would need a new way forward, they would need a light to guide them through ponykind’s darkest chapter.
Rose was not that light, but she was willing to show it to them.
Rose and Tempest were making a decent headway towards the north gate. It was only a couple of blocks away now and rapidly approaching. The rest and what could be called a meal had done them well and reinvigorated them a bit. A breeze blew across the mountaintop as well, not a very cool one but it was enough for the mares. It was yet another sign that something far above their stations wanted them to push towards the exit today.
They had also procured a saddlebag for each of them, they had been on a rack near the checkout counter of the little convenience center, and then filled them with water and food. It was a good shout because it let Rose dig into hers with a wing, pull out a bottle of water, and drink half of it and then dump the rest over her sweat covered face. When the breeze caught her just right, she almost felt cool.
It was easy to feel lucky and blessed on a day such as this, even in the face of everything around them. Ruined corpses still lined the streets and their awful stench filled the air, but the two ponies trotting towards the gate were not among them. They were still alive and they were that much closer to finally getting out.
“How long does it take to get down the mountain?” Tempest asked. The unicorn did not even bother to whisper anymore as the monsters were nothing but distant noises at this point. All of the ones that had occupied the northern side of the city were moved over to the other side, leaving them free and clear. The train and Wonderbolts helped drive them elsewhere too.
“About a day on hoof in good conditions.” Rose answered. “My first time coming here I ascended the southern side on hoof and that took me a day and a half, but that was with a night of rest.” Then she reminded herself of their physical impediments. They were not in peak condition and would need to rest more often than she had in her youth. “For us, it might take a couple of days…”
It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow, but it was the truth. The trails weren’t bad, they were just long. They had been the primary mode of entry to the city for centuries before the advent of trains, at least if you were incapable of flight, and were well worn. The mountain was just tall and sheer. The path snaked in and out of the mountain itself through natural caves and through carved tunnels. Natural and ponymade plateaus littered the path where travelers could rest and spend chilly mountain nights below the stars and lights of the city above them.
For Rose it had not been necessary, but she had done it anyway. When she first arrived at the mountain, she felt unworthy. It was the highest point in the entire country, even the entire city of Cloudsdale was legally mandated to maintain an altitude below its peak in deference to its majesty. Rose had decided that she could not fly all the way up there and taking the train had felt like cheating. She had arrived on a pilgrimage to a place she had been sure her god on earth resided and she did not want to sully the moment by taking the easy way up.
Now here she was, years later, wanting an easy way down. She dreaded the long trek to the base and wanted nothing but to be out of the city and free of its lies and deceptions. She had arrived to the city a young believer looking for purpose and now she was leaving it a battered and maimed zealot with a purpose exceedingly clear in her mind. It was not the way she had envisioned leaving the city for what was likely to be the last time for years but it was, in a way, poetic.
“Of course…” Tempest let out a deep sigh and kicked a rock as hard as she could. It was sent clattering down the boulevard that led to the city’s north gate. “We’ll need to ration what we have, but I think it’s doable. At least we won’t be in the sunlight all the time.”
That was true, the sheer face of the mountain and winding trails would help them in that respect. They would be in the relatively cool shadow of the mountain rather than on its baked peak. That might help them cut back on water a little more and it would not be as exhausting. Yet another blessing that had been bestowed upon them.
“We’re at least going down and not up. Trust me, that’s not fun even in perfect health.” Rose could feel her muscles burn from that initial climb still. “Let’s just pray we don’t run into any unicorns. The path isn’t narrow but I wouldn’t want to get into a fight on it.” Once again, that was even in perfect health. They might be able to take a single unicorn if they got lucky. Lucky was something that defined them at this point, but Rose did not want to push that. Hubris was a good way to get on the bad side of providence.
They did not stop until they arrived at the gate. It had once been closed and guarded closely but those days were long gone now. The gate was open and spiked barricades were arranged in a semicircle around it. Some had been destroyed, others had bodies of unicorns on them while even more had the bodies of guards behind them. There were bodies of civilians mixed in with the guards, their backs turned to the city. All Rose could do was sigh and send up a prayer for the brave ponies who had done their best to buy time for the fleeing innocents. They deserved a good word for their struggle, and that was all she could offer them
Rose stopped by a fallen member of the guard, a pegasus stallion with a hoof sized hole in his chest, and pried a spear from his clutches. The metal tip and a majority of the shaft was coated in dried and flaking blood. He had at least gotten a few shots in before he took one himself.
As she gripped the spear with her wing, she looked at Tempest. The other mare had her back turned and was looking through a discarded saddlebag. A familiar compulsion surged through Rose’s mind and she had to stop herself from following through. The more she stewed on what Tempest had said, the more it had stung. It was haunting her now, every little thing Tempest had done.
While Tempest had been the only one in the dungeon to approach her genuinely, it now felt disingenuous. The outburst in the bunker where the unicorn had insisted they were cursed instead of blessed came up, too. Rose had spent most of her time with the mare hiding herself and even lying about what she thought and felt. What was worse is she would need to keep lying and this feeling of resentment would just keep building.
“I didn’t think much about you Royal Guard types when I first got here.” Tempest addressed Rose and the dead around them. “I gotta say, you put up more of a fight than I thought you would. It almost makes me wonder how much of a fight we would’ve had on our hooves if the invasion went through.”
“It depends.” Rose stepped carefully around the dozens and dozens of corpses that littered the ground in front of the gate. “The Changelings caught us by surprise and didn’t get much of a fight. A mix of infiltrators, capturing the princesses, and sheer intimidation through numbers did us in then.” Rose could still remember the day as she ran through the castle halls, as the Changeling soldiers told her they had captured the Elements and dealt with Celestia, and how the will to fight had left her body. She had heard other reports from outside about the sky being filled with bugs and how the sun itself had been blotted out by black carapaces.
“Hmm. We should file that away for later then.” Tempest trotted up to the little guardhouse that was situated right next to the gate and pulled the door open. A pony had been up against the door and their corpse tumbled out into the sun. Tempest stuck her head inside of the door, scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Well maybe we can keep going before we rest again.”
That was easier said than done. Both of them were already drenched from head to hooves in a thick layer of perspiration. Rose could already feel her legs begin to cramp and her stomach contort itself. This would be their biggest obstacle, the elements. If it was just a nice summer day on the mountaintop they might be halfway down by now.
Tempest was the first one to get to her hooves after a short little rest on the other side of the wall. The thin strip of land between the exterior of the city wall and the sheer cliff face was shaded by the tall marble barrier and made a good little camp for the two mares before they started their journey down.
She stretched her legs out, focusing more on her rear ones than the front. The stiffness still plagued them and deep bruises made walking difficult, but she would push through. She had to. They needed to get out, and now she had an even greater purpose for leaving than ever before: she had found a friend.
Rose didn’t care about her horn or that she had left Equestria, in fact the ex-guard seemed just as disillusioned with it all as Tempest was. It was hitting her pretty hard at the moment now, that was obvious. The other mare had retreated into a shell and refused to talk much unless prodded. Sometimes Tempest would catch the pegasus looking at her as if she wanted to say something, but it always amounted to nothing. When she felt comfortable she would say what she needed to.
There was this intense sadness that came when you realized you no longer belonged. It was something one of them knew too well and that the other was going through now. It was a thorough gutting that would take months to heal and feel right. Tempest had gone through it before and would be glad to be there for somepony else as they went through the withdrawals of belonging.
She reached a hoof out to Rose once she was done stretching. The pegasus looked up at her and their eyes met. Behind the golden irises was a distant and wild look that Tempest knew was a swirl of chaos and turmoil. Tempest offered a smile, one that was not reciprocated. Eventually Rose did take her hoof and Tempest hoisted her companion to her hooves. Her flanks ached with that action and begged her not to do it again, but she knew she would do it as many times as it took to get down the mountain.
They exchanged no words as they moved across the strip of land beyond the wall and got onto the main path down. From here there were at least two switchbacks visible on a tight and sometimes narrow trail on the way down, then it disappeared into the mountain for a bit and that was where Tempest lost sight of the trail. With a deep breath, they set off on their trek.
Considering only one of them had a weapon, she let Rose take the lead. Tempest looked off into the distance as her hooves beat against the well worn dirt path beneath her hooves. The clear blue sky stretched on endlessly to the horizon. The sun beat ceaselessly on the countryside and vast swathes of grass and trees were various shades of brown instead of green. The whole world was dying.
Her new home on the other side of the world, the land of ice and snow known as Thundaria was as cold and mountainous as they came. If the sun had never risen there and night had ruled for the last three weeks, what was it like there? Plummeting temperatures were easier to survive in, at least she assumed so. There were always more ways to bundle up, there were always fires you could start and creatures to huddle together with. It wasn’t like the heat.
As they trotted further along the trail they came across more bodies, mostly ponies who had died trying to escape from the hordes of monsters. They all had holes in their bodies from blasts of magic or parts of their bodies ripped off from sharp and gnashing teeth. Old dried blood ran down the incline of the path and discolored the dirt.
“Do you think anypony else made it out besides us? Anypony at all?” It was something that had been bouncing around her head for a long while now. “Some pegasi had to have gotten away, as long as they flew out of the city early enough.”
“Probably.” Came Rose’s soft and disinterested reply.
“I hope they did. I hope some earth ponies managed to get away somehow too…” She sincerely meant what she said. This whole event had reignited something in Tempest, something she thought long dead. It was empathy for her fellow equines.
It was after the little spat she had with Rose in the bunker, that was when her attitude had changed for the better. Something that day had compelled her to admit to Rose that she had been ready and willing to watch her die. Then Rose’s subsequent breakdown andthen her request to join up with the Storm King had really changed things.
For the first time in forever, Tempest felt like she had an equal. Here was this pony who was scorned by the world, maimed, and barely functioning, but still wanted to fight. She had a desire to rally against the broken system that surrounded her. That was something Tempest could believe in along with her. Even if the system was currently burnt to the ground, there was still worth in fighting against what had built it. In that, they could stand side by side.
They came to their first hairpin switchback and took it. As the descended further, the looming cliff face blocked the sun and bathed them both in shadow. A shiver went up the unicorn’s spine as the ambient temperature dropped like a rock around them. It felt like paradise, even more than any building they had stayed in.
“Y’know…I’m starting to get that blessed feeling now.” Tempest said with a smile as she came alongside Rose and patted her on the back. A feeling of hope swelled in her chest and staved off the pain that radiated from her sore and malnourished body. It was just what she needed to keep going.
Rose hated Tempest, she was sure of it now.
The little ‘blessed’ quip from earlier in the day had soured her mood so incredibly that she had not yet recovered. It was a targeted barb, aimed right at her heart. Then she had of course patted Rose right on the back, right near her missing wing. All this pony knew how to do was cause her pain.
They were now in one of the caves which the path down cut through. It was cool and damp and a welcome relief from the world outside, and yet Rose still felt sweltering. The fire in her chest was a raging inferno that threatened to consume her and burn her to a crisp if she did not control it. Luckily, Rose had excellent control over herself.
Tempest was sleeping first this time while Rose kept watch. Once they hit the shade they got their second wind, and then once they entered the first tunnel it had quadrupled their drive. They had sat there for a bit to drink and cool down and then kept going. This was the second set of tunnels and if Rose were to guess, they were about a quarter of the way down, maybe a third. They had been climbing down all day with just one rest and Tempest had now been sleeping for well over four hours.
Rose’s grip on the spear tightened as she stared at Tempest’s sleeping form. If looks could kill then the unicorn would be lying dead on the smooth rocky floor. Each and every time that thought popped up she squashed it right back down though. It was imperative that she not act rashly.
Then there was the other little voice in her head, the one that reminded her of what had transpired. Tempest had been the one to go look for her. Tempest had stayed with her all of this time even though she had ample opportunities to leave Rose behind. Yet Tempest had remained by her side and had helped her time and time again.
Rose then squashed that voice too. Tempest had let Bulwark beat her down and had been prepared to let him kill her. Whatever shred of conscience the mare held onto had intervened, but that was not something to be trusted. For all Rose knew, Tempest was going to do her in as soon as they got to her means of escape. That was the logical thing to do, keep Rose on her side for as long as possible and then at the very end do her in.
Tempest had said she wanted no witnesses of her time in Canterlot and Rose was the last witness. She was the last loose end. Did Tempest look like the kind of pony who left those flapping about in the breeze, even if it followed behind her?
That was something to think about. They had a few more days until they were at the bottom.
Day Thirty
They were almost there, the end was in sight. They had about a fifth of the mountain left to go down and then they just had to get around to wherever the grotto was. They had slowed down yesterday because both of them had come down with something that made them pretty constantly empty the contents of their stomachs and that had laid them up in a cave for the majority of the day. They both were still feeling the effects, but they could move now. They were as close to whatever was their one-hundred percent as they would get and the base of the mountain awaited.
Rose’s shoulder kept catching on something again, the first time since she had been punted into the ceiling of the bunker that it had done it. Every time her shoulder rolled forward with a step she could feel the very back part of the shoulder blade stop and something scrape against it painfully. It took a little more effort to complete the process of a full step and push through the stabbing pain.
Then, of course, there was the tingling. After their last sleep cycle she had woken up with pins and needles penetrating her whole body. It had taken time and precious effort to get her heavy and desensitized limbs to respond before she could finally get up.
Tempest had called her lazy, as if it was her choice not to get up. It had sounded like a joke, but of course it had. That was how the ponies made you feel bad about it. You would call them out, they would tell you it was a joke and to calm down and then make you feel bad about being defensive. Rose hadn’t even pushed back. What was the point?
They exited a tunnel and came out back into the shaded outdoors. The shift in temperature wasn’t that much, something to be grateful for, but it was noticeable. Rose looked out into the horizon and let out a light sigh.
“Hey, what’s that?” Tempest asked and pointed an outstretched hoof towards the horizon. “Right there, look, in the sky.” Rose followed where the other pony had pointed and squinted to try to see whatever it was.
A pink blob was flying across the sky and headed right towards Canterlot. That was all Rose could tell from a great distance. That did not inspire confidence. What was big, pink, could fly, and would be coming from the north?
“Cadance…” The name fell from her lips like a curse.
Tempest ran to the edge of the trail and leaned over the railing to get a look below them. Rose saw her bright eyes scan the area beneath them and search for some cover or another cave. Rose looked back at the tunnel they had just come from.
The mares made for easily spotted targets. They were two colors that stood out against the gray edifice behind them. Hopefully they had not been seen yet, but the window to get hidden and stay that way was dwindling rapidly as what was most likely another turned alicorn thundered towards the mountain at top speed. Tempest got down from the railing and pointed back to the tunnel they had just come out of.
So back in they went. The two mares pressed themselves against the wall of the cavern and they waited. They did not so much as breathe heavily out of fear the approaching princess would hear them. Rose closed her eyes and prayed, hopeful that the shadows that surrounded them would carry her words into the light outside.
Eventually the sound of massive wingbeats filled the air and a savage howl went up. Something massive landed at one end of the tunnel they were in, the end that led higher up on the path. The natural curves in the path prevented them from seeing the alicorn and likewise prevented her from seeing them. A low and deep growl reverberated through the entire tunnel.
There was a beat of silence and then a set of hooves hit the stone floor. The sound was not loud enough to be Cadance, but it was alarming enough to make the two survivors start to back away towards the opposite end of the tunnel. Then they heard the steps come there way and the aggressive growls and huffs. A single blast of magic echoed throughout the confined space and momentarily chased away the darkness.
The mares kept moving backwards, their eyes focused on the interior of the space. They tread carefully and quietly. If the monster that Cadance had sent in to check saw or heard nothing, then maybe it would lose interest before checking the entire area. The only sound they made were quick short breaths. They could hear their own hearts beat against their rib cages in desperate bids to escape, but luckily that was not projected out into the cavern.
The monster moved faster towards them than they did away from it. It did not lose interest and soon enough they caught sight of the thing. It was a stallion, its white coat plastered with dried blood and its shaggy two-tone blue mane hung over its eyes. It stalked down the stone enclosure and let out a deep guttural growl. Its horn lit up with a bright pink aura and it let loose another lance of light at the wall.
Rose recognized it. She had been subordinate to him for most of her career and it was a pony she could never forget. Besides the princess, he was the most magically adept unicorn in all of Equestria. Shining Armor had come with his wife all the way back to Canterlot, and now he was staring right at them. The last bolt of magic was all the light he needed to finally see them.
“Run.” Rose mumbled the word to Tempest this time.
The thing that had once been Shining Armor let out a blood curdling howl and began to give chase. Both of the mares were already galloping by the time he had finished his howl. Fear and adrenaline wiped away whatever had been slowing them down and pushed them past their limits.
Rose’s shoulder clicked and scraped and shot pain throughout her back. She felt the old wound on her back, that troublesome empty socket, split and it spilled fresh blood out onto her red coat. Her body begged and pleaded with her to stop, but her mind and more primal instincts overrode the foolish and weak flesh that encapsulated them.
Tempest and Rose burst out of the tunnel and barreled down the sloped trail. They rushed down the incline at the top speed they could manage. Behind them several lances of pink magic were readied and fired, each one striking either the wall to their left or went just over their heads.
Rose looked back for a brief moment. The former Captain of the Royal Guard was about a hundred feet or so back and was charging towards them at a pace greater than they could flee. Behind him a head poked around the side mountain and watched. It was massive and pink, red streaks that looked like fresh blood ran down its face. The color and texture reminded Rose of the mountains of spilled guts she had seen over the last month, like a heart ripped straight from the chest of a pony.
The mares skidded around another hairpin turn and moved to the next level of the trail. Above them Cadance loomed and just watched as her husband chased them. Her beady little eyes focused on them and what could only be a smile spread across her deformed face.
A bolt of pink light went right between Rose and Tempest, close enough to singe the fur of both of them. It was enough to cause the pegasus to stumble and then fall. She skidded down the path until she came dangerously close to the edge. Her body had enough momentum to break the bottom part of a wooden rail. She did not fall but the back half of her body hung off of the edge and her rear hooves kicked at air. The spear fell from her wing and clattered down the trail.
Tempest did not stop running.
It was a few seconds of trying with all of her might to get back up before Shining Armor came into view. He towered over Rose and looked down as she flailed and tried to get back up. His long sharp fangs glistened with saliva as he snarled. Rose saw his horn light up, and she was prepared for the end.
Her blessing had finally run out. Here, in the shade, the light no longer looked upon her favorably. It was there that she would finally meet her end.
A fuchsia blur threw itself at Shining Armor’s thin and gangly legs. The stallion toppled over and went head over hooves off of the side of the cliff. He let out an almost equine scream as he tumbled . There was a roar as something much larger than Shining swooped down beneath Rose to chase after the stallion.
Tempest pulled Rose up. The unicorn gritted her teeth and dug in her back hooves as she dragged Rose back onto solid ground. Once all four hooves were back on the ground, the mares went right back to running. Tempest’s eyes were filled with tears and blood had soaked through the bandages on her flanks and was now running freely down her legs.
Cadance flew past the level they were on with Shining Armor, who looked to still be alive, carefully held in her jaws. Before she could get back and do real damage, the two survivors got into the next covered section of the path.
The cool tunnel air greeted them and welcomed them. This path through the mountain was much shorter than the one they had been so unceremoniously cornered in. It would have to do, though. They would both just have to hope and pray that Cadance did not find them.
Rose pressed against the interior wall and tried to make herself as small as possible. Her heart raced and her entire body pulsed with pain. The pins and needles came back, more intense than ever, and filled her hooves with their treacherous sensation. Her vision began to blur as it felt like her body was on the verge of just giving out. That had been the most she had moved in a very long time and it was more than the weakened and walloped pony could handle. Deep breaths filled her lungs and she shook the deadened legs that held her up. It was all she could do to stay conscious.
The cavern shook violently and small parts of the ceiling came loose . It was accompanied by the very unique sound of a long and sustained burst of powerful magic. They had both heard it more than enough, it was an alicorn letting loose. It was still coming from above their current location for now, at least. Another long stream of magic hit the mountain and the tunnel shook some more as Cadance continued to assault the stone edifice.
The telltale sound of massive wings that kept the turned royals aloft flooded the cave, then a howl that was enough to vibrate the bones of the ponies inside followed. Tempest and Rose both looked at each other.
They were trapped. This time, there was no way out. They could not run on a linear path from something that could fly, and the brutality of the alicorns would not allow their prey to escape. There was also the little fact that they had just hurt Cadance’s husband, and if something of the ponies still existed deep down, then that would be a slight the princess of love could not ever forgive.
An intense blast of magic hit the exterior of the tunnel and split the rock like it was warm butter. The blue beam went right between the mares. The heat from it was incredible, more than Rose had ever experienced. It was so intense that she could feel her skin start to blister from even the close proximity. The beam turned and carved through the rock, leaving behind a trail of soft bubbling slag.
Rose could not even thank whatever was above that she had not been hit, because the ceiling caved in on top of them.
Tight spaces did not bother Tempest anymore. She had spent hours in the smuggler tunnels beneath Canterlot and it had wiped away what little claustrophobia she had. Though, in those moments, she always knew there was an exit. In fact, there were always multiple. That wasn’t the case now. There might not be an escape from her current situation.
Rocks pushed against her on every side. Pointed stones dug painfully into her flesh and pushed against her spine. As soon as it began to fall apart she tucked her legs against her body in a small, but successful, attempt to save her limbs from getting pinned. If she was to be crushed, she wanted it to be wholesale and not piece by piece.
Every little bit of training she had kicked in as she fought off panic. She could not panic, not if she wanted to survive for any duration of time. It took a few seconds of mindfulness and deep breaths to get the swelling feeling in her chest down and to get control of the completely rational response her body had to the situation.
Tempest did her best to contort herself into a more advantageous position. She sucked in her stomach and pulled her legs as close as she could in order to scooch into a sitting, but hunched, position. It was uncomfortable, but it was necessary. Getting out while on her side or stomach would be much harder than in her current position.
The only way out was through.
A hoof was brought up and it prodded the rocks around her. She was careful in her probing and any stone that moved the ones around it even a little was quickly forgotten about. It wasn’t until she got to a spot right above her head that she found one that gave no resistance and did not seem to be integral to the little pocket she found herself in. With all of the strength her contorted position could afford, she pushed.
The rock went up, and it kept going with no hindrance. Tempest gave it one last shove and pushed as hard as hard as she could. The rock, which was just a bit bigger than her hoof, shot up and clattered against the pile on top. Light shone down through the hole and filled the small enclave, as did fresh air.
For the first time, Tempest understood Rose’s fanaticism. She had never felt so grateful to see light from the star above. Even though they were in the shadow of the mountain, it still was enough to illuminate her immediate surroundings and let her take stock of her courses of actions.
Most of the rubble around here were big boulders or slabs of rock that had once composed the ceiling of the tunnel. The stuff on top of her though was smaller in comparison and much more movable. If Tempest had to guess, that was where Cadance’s blast had been directed.
The hole that she had been lucky enough to find gave her a good estimate of how far under she was from any sort of freedom. The best guess was about a foot and a half. Luck had once more been on her side. Most of the rubble must’ve slid down the side of the mountain rather than settled right on top of her. There was one more thing she needed to check, one last thing that needed to be done, before she began digging her way out of this early grave.
“Rose!” Tempest called for her friend, her voice hoarse and rough. After clearing her throat and attempting to wet her lips she tried again. “Rose?!” There was no response. “I know you’re not dead, you stubborn mare.” She grumbled and huffed. That pegasus was too damn stubborn and tough to die, Tempest knew that. They had both come this far, and unless one of those monsters put a hole through their chests or ripped them in half, they were not going to die. Some rocks would not be the end of them.
That would be the fatal mistake of the alicorns too: half-measures. That was the entire history of Equestria at this point, its rulers inability to see things through. From Nightmare Moon, to Discord, now that list included Tempest. If they did not kill their enemies, they would always come back to haunt them. Tempest would make sure that she would come back to haunt this cursed country.
With sheer determination to come back, to claim the magic of Equestria for the Storm King, Tempest began her ascent from beneath the pile of stone. Her hoof went through the small shaft it had created earlier and she began to push rocks away from the top. She needed to make the top wider and work her way down from there.
—
Tempest had been at the laborious task of getting out of the rubble for hours. The transient nature of time in the sun soaked reality did not give her a sense for how many hours, but she knew it was approaching the double digits at least. There were a few times she had to rest for extended periods and try not to pass out, then there were others where she had touched the wrong stone and the entire pile shifted around her. That had caused her to stop and wait for everything to settle once more.
Now the hole above her looked wide enough to get out of. It was maybe a bit more constrained than the smugglers’ tunnels that crisscrossed the mountain, but it was also very short. As long as it didn’t collapse around her as she went through, then she would be fine.
Getting into a position where she could get both hooves above her head was difficult, but not impossible. She briefly thanked her parents for making her take some dance classes as a filly before the put both of her front legs up through the hole. Then she sucked in a breath and pushed herself out. Hard stone scraped at her body, some catching her fur and ripping the skin. Tempest only gritted her teeth and kept going. When her head and front hooves were finally on the right side of the rubble pile, she used her front hooves to pull the rest of her up.
The familiar heat beat down on her coat, which had more than a few new scratches and bruises littering its fuschia surface, and a cool wind swept in from the north. The mix of sensations made Tempest smile. Weary hooves carried her down one side and as soon as she was on level ground, they gave out.
Tempest rolled onto her back and splayed out her limbs. She looked up at the clear blue sky and the mountain that towered overhead and she began to laugh. At first it was a small chuckle, but it morphed into a full belly laugh in a few seconds. Tears streamed from her eyes and periodic sobs interrupted the laughing fit. She could not control herself or even settle on one of the emotions as the breakdown consumed her. It was a raw outpouring of pure unfiltered and undirected emotion that echoed out into the wild blue yonder above.
“I-I’m alive…” Tempest said to herself. “I’m…I’m not dead…” It was an obvious thing to say, but it felt good to say it. It set the entire experience into focus. “I’m alive!” She screamed at the world to let it know. A deep bitterness invaded her heart and welled up in her throat, one that cut through the laughter and the crying. Her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed as the next words rose in her throat and erupted with visceral ferocity. “FUCK YOU! I’M NOT DEAD!”
It was directed at nothing in particular, just at the world. It was a reminder that she was not going away and that she had not been beaten, not yet. As long as she drew breath, she would rage against everything that had ever doubted her or cast her down. Every slight was remembered. Every attempt to bury her, every chance the world had to do away with the problem unicorn it had created had not gotten the best of her yet.
The lone unturned unicorn in all of Canterlot laid there for what felt like ages. She cried and laughed and cursed the very existence of everything around her and everypony that had ever put her down. It was an exercise in catharsis that was so sorely needed. It had been bottled up for so long, held down by the immense weight of a need to keep going and pressure from every direction. It had escaped a little the other day in the record store, but this was the dam breaking fully.
When her emotions simmered down and she could bear to erect all of the walls she had worked so hard to build in the first place, she got up. There was just the matter of Rose, now. She needed to get the pegasus out from beneath the rock pile so they could finish this journey together.
She climbed over the fallen boulders and rocks until she was right by the hole she had dragged herself out of. If she remembered, Rose was right next to her when it all fell apart. Maybe a few feet. Cadance’s stream of magic had split the ground between them. So Tempest took a few steps to the side of where she had been and looked down. Her friend had to be somewhere around here.
Despite the fatigue and injuries, despite the aching and stinging pains that radiated around her body, Tempest kept going. The smaller rocks were kicked off of the pile while the slightly bigger ones were given a slight nudge so they rolled down the side of the rockslide and then down the mountain itself. The work was done as carefully as she could afford to do it. When something shifted beneath her hooves or she saw a load bearing piece of gravel, it was avoided. The process that had been done to dig her out was carried out from the top down this time.
As she got closer and closer to the bottom, she expected to see flashes of red fur through the cracks of the rocks, but it never materialized. Only more stone seemed to be present as she went down. What she thought was the bottom only turned out to be a particularly large slab of rock. From the current perspective, it looked like it covered the entire area that could contain Rose. How it missed Tempest was a mystery.
Tempest was not going to stop until she saw a body. Nothing else would convince her of the pious pegasus’ demise. She had thought Rose dead after Celestia had gotten a hold of her, and look how that turned out! There was no way that some rocks had taken her out. That pony was just as tough as Tempest.
The sight of the massive hunt of rock did give Tempest a little hope. If Rose was under it and somehow still alive, that meant Tempest could probably afford to be a little more reckless with her rock removal. It also meant that she could not tackle this from the top anymore. It had to be done from the side. At least, that was one option. There was one other.
Tempest tried to look up at the shattered horn on her head. Any time she had ever dared to use magic from it, the results had been volatile and dangerous. More than that, those attempts had also left her physically drained. Those were during times when she could afford to be, where she was not already practically dead on her hooves. She could not discount the possibility that this wouldn’t knock her out immediately.
There was also the small fact that using magic might cause her to turn. That was not lost on her and it caused much more hesitation than the small chance that she might pass out. They had the knowledge that whatever caused the transformation was in the magic, or at least that was the hypothesis. Would it hold true for a unicorn without a horn?
“She’s worth it…” Tempest muttered to herself. It was worth the shot. If she was right and she did not turn, then she had a chance at saving Rose and getting them both out. If she was wrong, well then…that was that. What would she care about when her thoughts were filled with murderous intent? It would be as if she died.
Going at it from the side would take a lot longer. It would be grueling physical labor and might take her a day or more. That would mean more time in the open, more time for one of the alicorns to spot her. It also might mean that she would be too late to save Rose. Time was of the essence.
The only way out was through.
Tempest took a deep breath and steadied herself. It had been quite a while since she called upon the power she had at her disposal. For so long she had relied on her physical talents and things she could actually control, now she had to give up that control and give in to the wild forces that could not be contained by a shattered horn.
Deep down, every unicorn had that sense of magic. It was something that could be felt and tapped into. She remembered the feeling from when she was a filly, it was a small pool that you dipped your proverbial hoof into. Then you would mix that with the mana from the world, the clay, you would wet it and turn it into something that could be shaped and molded for whatever purpose you could dream of. The only limit was the size of your own internal pool and your imagination.
Tempest’s own pool was as deep and wide as it had ever been. That was never in danger of shrinking, but it was harder to get to now. The journey to tap into that deep reserve was tough and required concentration. The moment she made contact it caused her horn to light up with electric blue light. She could feel the lightning course through the cracked protrusion on her forehead and leap out wildly.
There was little she could do to shape the magic, though. There was barely anything she could do to direct it. There was nothing there but wild and untameable energy that would do what it wanted if she did not send it out.
The mare took a short hop back and pointed her forehead towards the slab of stone below her. Whatever tenuous grasp she had on the building glob or pure mana at the base of her horn was let go. A crackling bolt of mana, stronger than anything the monstrous unicorns could produce, leapt from her head and struck the stone that concealed Rose.
The force of the detonation was enough to send Tempest rocketing backwards. It threw her against the stone edifice behind her and knocked the wind out of her lungs. The added pain was nothing, just another unpleasant sensation to be added to the pile of them that plagued her. A cloud of dust from shattered rock filled the air and obscured sight, but that was a sign that her plan had worked.
There was a moment where Tempest laid still on the rocks. She waited for the transformation to take her, to morph her into one of those vicious beasts and take her mind with it. The change never came. There was no bloodlust that invaded her mind, nor did her limbs contort into long and gangly things. She was still herself.
Once she was absolutely sure she would not turn, she pulled herself to her hooves. That was when a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her. With it followed a fatigue that she had not experienced in years. It was not like the physical fatigue that plagued her waking moments, it was something much deeper. It was not something that could be shaken off with sleep and in a normal environment it would take her days to recover from the expenditure. It was anypony’s guess as to how long it would take for this sense of malaise to wash away. However long it was, she could not wait.
There was a way to fix it quickly though, it was in the boat waiting for her in the grotto. The alchemists under the Storm King’s direction had ginned up a remedy to help restore her pool of energy faster, almost instantaneously. It was down there and waiting. They just had to get to it before she could not physically continue.
The drained unicorn stumbled towards the area she had unleashed her power on and waved a hoof a bit to clear the dust that saturated the air. Once enough of the particulate faded, she was able to see that she had punched a hole clean through the stone. Luckily, Rose had not been underneath.
Carefully Tempest climbed down into the sizable crater she had created and got as low as she could to the ground. There was maybe a foot clearance between the bottom of the slab and the path below it. Enough room for a pony to be trapped.
The pony she had been looking for was indeed there, just a foot or so away. The bottom of the rock was pressed down against her back and kept her flat. She did not look to be conscious, but Tempest could see Rose’s chest expand and contract with ragged and shallow breaths. She was alive. How functional she would be once extracted was another matter entirely.
Tempest laid flat on her belly and pressed herself against the edge of the hole she had punched through the rock. Her long leg stretched as far as she could manage and her hoof grabbed onto Rose’s. Even though they weren’t in direct sunlight, Tempest was already sweating from the exertion. It was as if every little movement was costing double the amount of energy it usually did. All of her limbs felt heavy and sluggish to respond to the commands she gave them.
“I-I’m really sorry, Rose…this is going to hurt…” She whispered to the pegasus. The jagged rock that kept the pony pinned was going to grind against her already shredded and tortured back. Tempest would not do this if it was not necessary. She would not subject somepony like Rose to such rigors. It had to be done.
The only way out was through.
Tempest summoned the otherworldly determination that defined her existence and she pulled. The unicorn ground her teeth and clenched every muscle in her body as she tugged on Rose’s hoof with tears in her eyes and care in her heart. It was tough and she could feel parts of the pegasus catch on outcroppings, but all she could do was hope that nothing tore too bad.
Eventually Rose’s head was out from underneath the oppressive vice of stone. The pegasus guard had let out a few whimpering cries of pain as she was dragged out, but not once had she woken up. Tempest used a hoof to move Rose’s mane from her face and then tapped her cheek a few times in an effort to get her companion to rouse from her slumber. That did not work either.
“Make me do all of the work, why don’t you…” Tempest huffed. She did not mean it, but it still felt good to say.
The other mare was gradually dragged from beneath the rock and that was when Tempest saw the extent of the damage. Beside the blood soaked bandages that covered her back, new scrapes littered her back and flanks and dried blood seemed to be everywhere. Tempest rolled Rose onto the side that still had a wing and was able to see a pervasive bruise that seemed to start just below her neck and stretch all the way down the length of the barrel. There was no telling just how much breathing hurt, but Tempest was sure it wasn’t fun.
“Probably can’t afford to rest…” Tempest spoke to Rose in a soft voice. “Well, I can’t. Obviously you can.” Rest was for ponies who had time, who were not on the verge of finally leaving. It was for ponies who had safety. They had none of those things.
As Tempest got to her hooves, yet another wave of weariness washed over her. This one was far worse than the last one, but it did not take her out yet. She shook off the feeling. There was no other option than to hold on for just a bit longer, at least until they could get to the boat waiting for them.
In an awkward dance, Tempest managed to get Rose onto her back. The one thing that made the act a little easier was the fact that pegasi were naturally incredibly light and Rose was made all the lighter from weeks of malnourishment. It was like she had a particularly devout sack of potatoes on her back if anything.
“Don’t worry, Rose…I got you. We’ll get through this, I promise.”
Pain was a common refrain in the world as it existed at the moment. Anypony who was not a unicorn probably was in some modicum of pain, either emotional or physical. There was no way to get this far without the accumulation of heartache or bruises. It was a fact of life. Some ponies, however, had it far worse than others.
Rose Wreath’s entire body radiated pain. There was not just one spot anymore, no, every bone and nerve cried out from the sensation. When she took a breath, her chest yelled at her to stop the basic function. She could feel ribs shift as her lungs expanded, which caused her to stop inhaling and to hold her breath and slowly let it out. Then there were the standard points of pain: along her spine, her missing wing, and her front left leg. Those were old injuries in comparison though, they were aches and pains that she was used to.
Slowly something other than pain penetrated Rose’s consciousness. It was grass. Cold bristling grass was pressed up against her right side. She could feel the tips of the blades tickle her ear, which she tried to flick away a few times. Then there was the sound of birds, actual birds. She had not heard any of them in weeks now. It was something that you didn’t know you needed until you had it again.
Rose’s eyes cracked open and she immediately regretted it. As light flooded in, she had to squint and recoil a bit. Her head pounded and she could feel her brain pulse as overstimulation overtook it. After a short time of trying to adjust, she kept them open long enough to take in her surroundings.
They were now nestled at the base of the mountain. The long shadow of the peak provided an oasis in the sun soaked apocalypse that was Equestria. Grass was still green here and covered with dew. There were even sparse trees that still held chirping birds and little squirrels among their branches. It almost felt like a time before monsters ran the world.
Across from Rose, just a few feet away, was Tempest. The unicorn was out cold on the cool grass and snoozing peacefully. Scratches covered her coat and dried blood ran in streaks through her coat. Then there was the mare’s coat itself: it looked pale. It was not the discoloration from blood loss, no, Rose knew what that looked like. This was something else. It reminded Rose of the pallor that followed after Tirek had drained a pony of their magic.
“Tempest…?” Her voice was hoarse and her throat was as dry as the world beyond the shadow cast by the mountain. She tried to clear it, but that only made it worse. When the other mare did not respond, Rose resolved to get up and go over to her.
That was easier said than done. Beneath the pain of it all, the pins and needles were there. That sensation had been masked by the overwhelming aches and pains that came from her back and chest, but as soon as she attempted to move her hooves it came back in full force. It made her limbs heavy and difficult to maneuver. The only way to make it go away was to shake it off and she knew that.
It took several agonizing moments to regain feeling and full control of her extremities. There was no way she didn’t have broken ribs, she learned that from even moving and breathing. Just as she had been doing, she pushed through it all and got to her hooves. The light had blessed her with another chance to survive, and she could not squander it by remaining idle. It demanded action.
Rose painfully limped over to the sleeping unicorn and tapped her with a hoof. Even that hurt and she had to hold her ribs with her one good wing. She gave Tempest another tap and that finally got the pony to open her eyes and look up.
“Rose…? Rose!” Tempest sounded so tired, but her eyes lit up when she saw Rose. Slowly, the unicorn got to her hooves and smiled softly. “Thank whatever it is you pray to…I didn’t think you were going to wake up.” She found the unicorn’s head resting on her shoulder a few moments later in what Rose could only assume was a pseudo-hug.
That little barb about ‘whatever it is you pray to’ once again ignited a very familiar fire in the pegasus’ chest. That flame burned away most of her aches and pains and caused her to furrow her brow in anger. Tempest just could not help herself, she could not stop the blasphemy from falling from her lips.
“What happened?” Rose had to ignore that and push forward. They had to get to Tempest’s escape route. Rose just had to keep reminding herself of that little fact. She could not lose her temper now. Not this close to the end. Tempest’s reckoning would come and the light would make sure of it.
“The tunnel collapsed…” Tempest finally pulled her head away from Rose and then sat down. “I dug my way out. You were trapped beneath a big chunk of rock and I had to…I had to drag you out.” There was hesitation there. She was not telling the whole truth, but Rose could not say why. “It took a lot out of me, and you.” Rose could see the scratches along every inch of the mare’s body and her swollen hooves. “We just need to get to the grotto and we’re out…I was just resting for a bit.”
Getting dragged out from under a rock would explain why Rose’s back felt like a timberwolf had been using her as a scratching post. That still didn’t explain why Tempest looked like that. There was a truth being hidden here, and Rose was going to learn what it was.
“But why are you…dull…?” That felt like the right word. It was a fitting descriptor of her colors at the moment.
“I…” Tempest seemed to chew on the next words before spitting them out. “It was over a day ago now, okay? I need you to not freak out.” Whenever somepony said that, to not freak out or overreact, it usually meant there was something worth freaking out about. “I couldn’t move the rock you were under even if I tried and you were almost right in the middle of it. I-I had to use my magic so I’m a little drained right now.”
“You what?” Rose’s blood turned to ice and her heart momentarily stopped beating. She stumbled back from Tempest but her eyes never left the unicorn’s body. Did her legs look a little longer than before? Was there a flash of forming canines? Did her muzzle seem longer than normal? Rose’s breathing picked up in pace against the wishes of her tender ribs.
“Hey hey!” Tempest stood up again and reached a hoof out towards Rose. The pegasus instinctually backed away from the attempt to touch her and she stared at the other mare with wide eyes full of fear. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not going to turn. Okay? It-it’s been more than a day…I think. I’m still here. I just…I can’t recharge. I used a lot of my…” Tempest was trying to search for the right words. “...my internal magic and usually it takes a bit to come back, but it’s just not now. There’s a potion in my boat, it’ll help me, we just really need to get there.”
“It might be delayed!” Rose protested her companion’s logic. “W-we don’t know how this works and you still used magic?” There was no telling how this actually infected and turned unicorns.
“It was either that or leave you behind!” Tempest got a little of her previous energy back as she yelled at Rose. She stood a bit straighter and puffed out her chest. “I wasn’t going to leave you behind or let you die!” Her stance and voice softened as the next words came out. “I did what I had to so I didn’t lose a friend…”
No, Tempest was wrong. She would have survived without the dangerous and foolish intervention. She had gotten this far by the grace of the sun overhead and the cave collapsing around them would not have been the end of her. It had been another test for Rose to overcome, and it had been circumvented. The opportunity to overcome a challenge set by the vast and unknowable forces of the universe had been robbed from her.
Rose recalled the feeling of the magic that saturated the world, how wrong it felt. That was inside every unicorn now, they had willingly accepted its corruption when they used the tainted substance. Now it was even inside of Tempest. Whether she would admit it or not, she had accepted the dark gift and was just as guilty as Celestia or Luna or any other unicorn in the world. They had both come so far, only for one of them to falter in the homestretch.
“Fine.” Rose felt sick. That might be because of dehydration or hunger, but she was sure it was because of Tempest’s actions. What could she do about it now, though? She still knew nothing about the location of the grotto or where to rendezvous with the Storm King. Sadly, she still had need for Tempest for now.
“I know it was a risk, okay?” Tempest pleaded with Rose, who would not even meet her gaze now. “It worked out, though. I’m not…one of those things. I’m still me.” The words were filled with absolute certainty in that fact, but Rose knew that was not the truth.
“When are we going to get moving?” That’s what Rose cared about now. Tempest just became background noise, another problem to deal with when the opportunity presented itself. Another heretic. Another blasphemer. Another traitor.
Unlike Parade and Bulwark, Tempest had been on her side for so long. The once-captured spy had been the one to encourage Rose to stand up for herself, her beliefs. To parse out whether other ponies were worth betraying what she knew to be true. Now Rose knew that even Tempest herself was not worth it. She was just another Parade, another Bulwark. The evidence had been mounting for some time now with the little quips and barbs and the argument they had back in the bunker, but this was the final straw.
“Soon…” Tempest answered with a sigh. “I just need to rest a bit more, okay?” She lifted a hoof and pointed towards the mountain. “There’s a stream over there if you need a drink. It’s the same one we’re going to follow to get to the grotto. We…we don’t have any food. So I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.” Rose answered curtly.
She had nothing else to say to Tempest, so she trotted off towards the stream. Every step hurt and now she had a pretty severe limp when it came to her front left leg. Walking even the short distance to the base of the mountain and the little stream that ran along it took much longer than anticipated.
When she finally did get to the stream, she found that bending down to get a drink was now a laborious task. When her trouble leg tried to bend, her shoulder blade shifted and caught and refused to budge at all. No matter how hard she tried, she could not force her leg to bend enough to let her get a drink. So instead she had to straighten the leg out and angle it beneath her so it didn’t have to bend at all. Then, as she balanced on only one front leg, she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her chest. That caused her to lose focus and fall over, her head splashing into the little stream.
Everything was difficult. Nothing was simple anymore. Even drinking was now something she needed to work for. Yet another challenge laid down before her, another way to test her resolve. She would not falter, she could not. After a few seconds of letting the chilled mountain water wash over her head, she managed to get back up. Her second attempt to hydrate herself was much more successful than the first and she felt marginally more refreshed than before.
After a drink, Rose looked up to the sky. The sun was not visible from where they were, it was obscured by the towering peak overhead. A sense of loneliness filled her heart. After the many weeks of being hounded by its constant presence she thought the first time it wasn’t visible would be a blessing. It was not. It was even more of a curse now that she knew it was there and could not see it in the sky.
“Give me the strength to do what needs to be done…” That was the one request Rose had of her god. She just needed the resolve to hang on a little more, to get out of Equestria so she could return and purge it of the evil that had gripped its heart. There needed to be something else to keep her upright, as her own fire was not enough to stay her hooves from what she wanted to do right now.
“Okay, I’m ready.” Tempest came up beside her and gave a little smile. Rose did not return it. “Let’s get out of here, huh?” There was nothing but a small nod in agreement.
The two mares trudged alongside the stream that hugged the base of the mountain. Rose’s limp and Tempest’s metaphysical exhaustion contributed to their glacial pace. Every once in a while Rose would have to stop to stretch or get her shoulder to unlock and Tempest would wait for her. When Tempest needed a moment to rest, Rose did not wait for her.
Rose was too busy thinking about everything that was about to happen. They would get out of here, away from Canterlot, but then what? The unicorns from the city had all poured out across the countryside. Would they be accosted all the way to the sea? Did Tempest have weapons aboard her boat? How many days would they have to spend out at sea?
“Hey.” Tempest interrupted the stream of questions and nudged Rose with a knee. “I…I need to tell you something.” When Rose’s remaining wing visibly bristled, Tempest shook her head. “Nothing bad, just…y’know. Just in case we don’t make it.” They were bitter words filled with sorrow and laced with defeat. “I think it’s important somepony knows the real me and I think it should be you.” Tempest took a deep breath before she spoke next. “My name, my real name…you have to promise you won’t laugh.”
“I promise.” Rose had no doubt that she would not laugh at it. What was funny about the poisoned unicorn before her? A name couldn’t change what she thought of the mare.
“It’s…” Tempest closed her eyes and shook her head. “My real name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. My parents used to call me Fizz or Fizzle as a filly, though.” The mare, Tempest or Fizzle, became momentarily lost in a memory before she shook her head and came back to the present. “If you want to call me that…well, I wouldn’t get onto you for it.”
“That’s…good to know.” Rose gave the most polite smile she could. None of this mattered, not really. There were more important things to worry about than birth names. She needed more pertinent information out of the mare. “Do you know how long we’ll be out at sea? We don’t have to go across the whole ocean, right?”
“Oh…” Tempest’s ears drooped and her head lowered a little. “Uh…no. We shouldn’t.” Tempest mumbled and looked away from Rose and towards the horizon for a few seconds before turning back. “There’s an airship anchored at an island off of the coast. When we get to the grotto I can contact them…hopefully.” Tempest at least shrugged off Rose’s dismissal easily and returned to the strong solid mare she needed to be. Or at least Rose thought that initially. “Are you okay?”
The question caught Rose off guard more than any other possibly could. She stopped in place and blinked. As she did so all of the pain settled on her bones and seeped down deeper and deeper as she remained immobile. It was as if her brain refused to process the question and that was causing the rest of her body to lock up.
“No.” Rose finally answered. “No, I’m not.” She had so much she wanted to say. There were so many words on the tip of her tongue that were begging to be poured out into the air between the two. Could she? “I’m just in a lot of pain…” No, she couldn’t. She could not bring herself to open up to Tempest, not even when every fiber of her body screamed at her to let it out. The statement wasn’t a lie at least. She was in pain, more than Tempest would ever know.
“Right, yeah.” Tempest nodded and let out a long drawn out sigh. “I think we both are…” She let that hang in the air and did not follow up. Instead the unicorn simply started walking yet again.
Day Thirty Three
They walked for a few hours more until they could hear the roaring of a waterfall from up ahead. They could even see it pour from the heavens above down into a basin that became a wide river that then stretched into the sun soaked distance. They could also see the end of their shade and the stark divide between life in the shadows and the desolation under the sun.
They had spoken a little in the intervening time, but it always started with Rose asking Tempest for more information. In the past weeks the Storm King’s disciple had been reluctant to share any, but in her current malaise it seemed those barriers were broken down enough to share freely.
“How does he plan to take their magic?” That was the last question Rose had on the matter. It was the most important one. Was he a creature who could naturally do it?
“An artifact called the ‘Staff of Sacanas’.” Tempest mumbled out the answer as she wavered on her hooves. The other mare had become much more unstable as they walked, a clear sign of the corruption taking deep root Rose was sure. “It’s…uh…I don’t know exactly, but it can take magic. Stores it inside of itself and acts like a horn would.”
“Do you think it still works?” Rose was reminded of the guard armor whose charms had failed them. “If whatever this is got into it, then…” Then that plan would be toast. Rose would just have to hope that it was still viable. She did not want this entire venture to be for naught.
“It couldn’t have spread everywhere, right…? The world is a big place.” Tempest countered. Slowly the drained unicorn began to lean against Rose, who just pushed her back away with a wing. “Sorry…”
Their progress was still slow. They had to stop a few times just to rest. Multiple times Rose had to stop to get feeling back into her hooves. Then there was one instance where her wing had become unresponsive and she had not noticed until Tempest accidentally stepped on the tip. Now was yet another time when she had to stop just because she needed to do some pain management. The continuous assault on her nerves from her various injuries was piling up and when it became nigh unbearable, she needed a pause.
“Deep breaths…” She reminded herself. The air came in slowly through her nose and she exhaled it just as slowly from her mouth. Each breath caused a sharp stabbing pain to shoot throughout her chest. It still hurt to breathe and to move, but that was the price she had to pay. It was another section of the crucible that was this part of her life. It was another test she needed to pass, one that she could not let somepony else do for her this time.
“We need to hurry up…” Tempest nudged the pegasus. “I don’t think I have much left in me…” Every word sounded like it was a chore to speak for the unicorn. Then there was the fact that her colors were becoming more faded by the minute. It seemed like she might be on death’s door.
Not that Rose cared. As soon as they got to the grotto Rose could withhold whatever potion it was that Tempest needed and leave the other mare to her fate here. Tempest could choke on the poison she so gladly let into her body. That was the price of sin. Everypony must face the consequences of their own actions.
The two mares plodded on. Tempest’s hooves dragged as they went and the unicorn began to lag behind her companion. It only got worse when the shadow of the mountain ran out and they were in the sun again. The strength sapping heat had them coated in sweat after just a few minutes in the light.
The heat was part of the sickness that saturated the world. It was another symptom. It infected the dirt, the air, the innocent and holy sun itself and every single unicorn who dared tried to use the magic that spread it. Then it exerted its pressure on everything around it. The grass died, the air became hard to breathe, the sun beat down mercilessly, and the unicorns wanted nothing more to kill. If you were infected, then you joined in their oppressive chorus that only knew how to kill.
Rose looked at Tempest.
The pressure she now exerted was directly on Rose. It was a ball and chain hooked firmly around her leg that was now slowing her down and jeopardizing the mission she had before her. It made her grit her teeth and glare daggers at the other mare.
Rose was still incredulous that Tempest had done something so stupid! That she had allowed that taint into herself was simply inexcusable! Rose’s life was not worth that kind of damage to oneself. Even if by some metric it was, there was no way Rose needed that help. Eventually she would have woken up and through the blessings that seemed to follow her everywhere and her own grit and determination, she would have made it out. Maybe she would have accepted Tempest’s assistance if she truly needed it. Maybe.
They came to the edge of the basin that the waterfall crashed into. Despite being in direct sunlight, it was still cool here. The water that was constantly thrown into the air and the rushing air provided enough interference to make something livable out of it. That this was their destination was a blessing and yet another thing to be thankful for. If need be they could definitely wait here for a bit to recuperate.
Or at least Rose could.
“We have to go through the waterfall…” Tempest raised a limp hoof and pointed at the torrential downpour that came from the peak. “Try to stick to the edge, sneak through without taking much of the force.”
That was the plan, then. From the angle they were at they could see between the waterfall and the edge of the mountain and there was definitely a cave back there. They couldn’t avoid all of the water that was coming down, but it would be better than trying to walk straight under it. Rose wasn’t sure that her back could take a straight onslaught from above.
The two mares hugged the stone wall of the mountain and kept as close to it as they could. Their hooves hit the cool water of the pool and moving through it drew even more effort from their taxed bodies. Rose managed as best as she could, even with her problem leg. She did not look back to see how Tempest was fairing.
As they got to where the water flow from above increased in volume, Rose used her wing to partially shelter her back. She pushed through and felt the pressure of the falls on her immediately. It sent shockwaves of pain that reverberated through her messed up ribs, wounded wing, and bad leg. It caused her to cry out and for tears to form across her already damp face, but she pushed through. The fire inside of her chest burned bright enough to keep her upright.
Past the waterfall was a massive cavern that was three-hundred feet or more across and more or less circular. It was dominated by a pool of water that held several small boats and that had a ramshackle wooden dock built around it. Thankfully there was a ramp just ahead that would take them up to the structure.
“My boat is…the black one…” Tempest came up beside Rose and leaned heavily on the cave wall. Her faded pink mane was plastered down her neck and around her head from the waterfall and she looked ready to fall over.
Sitting on this side of the cave and still moored to the docks was a small black speedboat with what seemed to be two blue lightning bolts painted on the front. If that was indeed their way out then Rose was far less thrilled than before. It had no roof so it offered no reprieve from the sunlight they would face. She could only hope it had supplies for the trip out to sea.
Rose limped up the ramp and over to the boat while Tempest had to practically drag herself to it. Once there, she hauled herself over the side and went over to a little black chest sitting against one side. It was opened and revealed a variety of bulbous glass vials, one of which was filled with blue liquid and was vibrating rapidly.
“Yeah yeah, give me a minute Grubber…” Tempest mumbled and grabbed the flask next to the vibrating one, this one full of pink and sparkling liquid. She uncorked the concoction and drank the whole thing in one go then tossed the bottle over the side when she was done. “I needed that…so bad…” Slowly it seemed like the pigment was coming back, just little by little. “Now, onto Grubber.” Tempest picked up a little metal bowl and put it on the dock, then poured the vibrating blue potion into it.
The liquid burbled and popped and then erupted into a little fire that filled the entirety of the bowl. In it Rose could see a figure. It was a stout little thing with gray fur and white spiky hair between its mangled ears. Rose could see it from the back only and saw it was wearing a sort of bib/shirt hybrid.
“Tempest!” The little goblin hollered and jumped. “I didn’t think we were going to hear from you again!” It had a lisp and a gravelly voice that was louder than it needed to be. “W-we waited thought! Just like you said! The others wanted to leave but I told them ‘no way! Tempest is fine!’ even if the sun doesn’t seem to be…” He then seemed to study Tempest for a moment. “You look awful, you know that?”
“It’s been a rough month.” Tempest deadpanned. “Is the ship okay?”
“Yeah it’s fine! Why wouldn’t it be? Did something happen?” Both of the ponies rolled their eyes. Ignorance truly was bliss and this little creature seemed to be the most blissful thing in the entire world.
“It’s a long story. I’ll…” Whatever second wind the potion had provided the unicorn had now slowed down and the fatigue caught up with her again. “...ugh. Okay. We’ll be there in a few days, okay? Just get everyone ready to leave.”
“We?” Grubber asked.
“I’m bringing somepony else. She’s good. I can vouch for her.” Tempest then dumped the little metal bowl on its side and the fire extinguished as the contents of the bowl trickled onto the dock and ultimately into the water. “I really hate him…”
“Grubber?” Rose had to ask about the little creature.
“He’s a…I don’t even know. He looks like a hedgehog. He’s my second in command.” Tempest waved a hoof at Rose and relaxed against the side of her boat. “He’s a little whelp, all he does is listen to orders as long as you’re forceful with him.” Ah, Rose knew the type well. She was a little like that before this all started.
Rose was about to say something out but a trio of howls shot through the space, loud enough to overpower the roaring falls and shake the cavern around them. Both mares stood alert and looked around as they waited for one of the alicorns to suddenly appear. After that did not materialize after a few minutes, they looked at each other.
“Should we go see what’s going on?” Tempest was the one to ask, and Rose gave a hesitant nod. Those monsters did not have an outburst unless something provoked them, so what was going on at the peak?
The mares made their way back outside into the harsh sunlight and both of them got enough distance between themselves and the mountain to get a good view of the top of the mountain. They could see three massive alicorns circling the dead city from on high like vultures. This behavior was far different from anything they had seen before. They had seen the beasts hunt before, but never circled like that.
“More survivors?” Rose asked. Had they missed ponies? It was possible as Canterlot was a big city, but it seemed like they would’ve known with how much of a racket they created. Other survivors surely would have been just as noisy, especially this far into this event.
“Either that or they’re about to leave. All of the unicorns have to be out of there by now.” Tempest mused. “If that’s the case, then you might want to send up a prayer to whatever’s up there for the two of us because I really don’t want them to come down here.”
That broke Rose. She had been holding all of this in for so long, but that was the last drop that the dam needed to burst. The fire in her chest erupted into an inferno and burned away every sensation in her body that wasn’t righteous fury.
“Can you stop belittling me?!” Rose rounded on the other mare and glared right through the sickly unicorn. “Every day it’s another little jab about me! A little joke or a little quip!” There had been so many she had lost count at this point. “Just stop! It’s enough! I don’t need to hear it from you! I’ve heard it from every other pony for my entire life!” Rose could not stop herself now if she tried, so she just kept going even as Tempest stared at her passively. “I especially don’t need to hear it from somepony like you!”
“Rose, it wasn’t a joke.” Tempest countered and stood at her full height, her chest puffed out slightly. “It wasn’t some joke at the expense of whatever you believe or believed. Maybe I was being honest? Did you think of that?”
“No, because you’re just like everypony else!” Rose screamed as hot and angry tears fell from her eyes. “You’re just like every other lowlife heathen in this whole country!” Not even her filter was working anymore and everything that needed to be said was coming out now.
“Hey I know you’re stressed, but so am I!” Tempest raised her voice right back and huffed. “So don’t go throwing around stuff you don’t mean because you might end up saying something you regret!”
“I won’t regret a word!” Rose roared right back. “Not when it's said to a sinner like you!” She jabbed a hoof into Tempest’s chest. “The spy! The thief! The liar! The blasphemer! The pony who opened themself up to this…this…taint! You aren’t clean anymore! You may not have turned but it’s inside you now, waiting! It’s already poisoned you and that potion you drank won’t stop it!”
Tempest stood genuinely shocked for a moment before her features hardened and the pony from the dungeons returned and looked upon the pegasus with a hint of loathing. Rose could see the tears well up in Tempest’s eyes and a snarl developed across her face. She could see anger in those electric eyes, a primal thing that didn’t belong to ponies.
Rose was right, there was that darkness from the taint. Right there. She had seen the exact look in the beady little eyes of every single unicorn she had stared down in Canterlot. It had developed right in front of her eyes when Picket had turned and here it was again.
“Rose…” Tempest spoke slowly and carefully. “...stop. You’re…you’re talking crazy.” Tempest wanted to say and do so much more but she was restraining herself. That was obvious to anypony. “Let’s just get back inside and forget this ever happened, okay? I-I’ll forgive you for it.” The walls were coming back down as quickly as they were being erected and Tempest’s voice cracked and faltered.
“I’M NOT CRAZY!” Rose roared and put both of her front hooves right into the unicorn’s chest. The action caught Tempest off guard and sent her to the ground and she tumbled a foot or two. “You wanted to kill me! Back when I was at my lowest, when I lost my wing, you were prepared to let me die! The only thing that saved me was the light! It was the only thing I had and the only thing that made you act!” Rose was fully crying at this point. Her throat was raw and begged her to stop screaming, but she persisted. “Now you let that…that rot in and it can’t even reach you anymore! Just like Celestia and Luna and every other unicorn! All you’ll do now is infect and ruin everything around you!”
Tempest got to her hooves and stared down Rose before tackling Rose to the ground. Two hooves hit Rose right in her sore ribs and caused her entire body to seize from the pain and her vision to swim. Then her back hit the rocky shore of the river behind them and her vision flashed with light as the pain overwhelmed her already overactive brain.
“I’m going to hold you here until you act normal again!” Tempest kept herself from screaming, but she did yell. It was not anger that coated her words but something akin to parental disappointment. Like she had just caught a foal with its hoof in the cookie jar. “Just think, Rose! I just saved your life! I-I could’ve died or turned into a monster and I did it to save you!” Tempest was pleading with Rose at this point, begging and bargaining with a side of the mare that no longer existed. “You are the first pony who has ever understood me! You’re the first pony I’ve ever felt any kind of…kinship with so please! Please! Snap out of it!” Tempest’s chest was heaving with effort and her hooves stayed on both of Rose’s shoulders to keep them pinned while she straddled the mare’s barrel. “We’re both broken! We’re both outcasts! We both get it!”
Rose could see it every time the other pony yelled. She could see the monster that was waiting just below the surface. The fangs were ready to jump out at a moment’s notice and her limbs were begging to crack and deform. The unicorn’s hot breath washed over her and it smelled of death, just like the wolf from when she was a filly. This was not a pony yelling at her anymore, this was a beast barking and snapping its jaws in her face. The light had left it and only darkness filled the shell.
CRACK-BOOOOOM
Rose saw it first. The three alicorns that circled above the city all unleashed a blinding barrage of magic upon the alabaster buildings. The light from the trio’s assault was so bright that it seemed to darken the world around it, even dimming the light from the sun. Chunks of white stone were sent into the air from the blasts and could be seen hanging in the air before they made an accelerated return back down to earth. Tempest had her head turned and was staring at the spectacle as well, and that was when Rose acted.
This creature, this wolf in sheep’s clothing, would meet the same fate as the one in her youth had. Rose’s right hoof found a sizable rock, then she called upon every spark from the fire in her heart to do what needed to be done. The beast needed to be slain, the sickness purged.
Rose overpowered the distracted Tempest and brought the rock up with all of the righteous and holy intent it deserved. The unicorn noticed too late and the flat side of the rock connected with her temple. Rose did not skimp on the follow through and made sure to carry the swing through.
The mare on top crumpled and fell to the side and onto the wet rocks of the riverbank. Blood seeped from the wound on the side of her head and those long legs twitched helplessly. Tempest’s eyes flicked over to Rose, tears still falling from them. Her lips moved, but Rose did not care what they were trying to say. Then the unicorn stopped moving and her eyes closed. The beast was gone, the threat receded for now.
One more nonbeliever dealt with.
Bits of flaming rubble and molten rock began to rain down around the area surrounding the mountain as Rose got to her hooves. The grass that had been baking in the eternal sunshine began to catch on fire from the rubble landing in it and it spread across the prairie surrounding the castle like the wildfire it was. Soon it would become impossible to remain in the area with the smoke and the fire.
Rose huffed and puffed as she caught her breath and the world came into sharp focus around her again. The adrenaline began to fade and the pain set in again. Her barrel was positively aching at every point and it protested every little movement and action she needed to take. She began to hobble off towards the waterfall so she could leave this place.
This would not be the last time Equestria saw Rose Wreath, though. No. She would leave this place a survivor and return a crusader to purge the land of the darkness that she knew plagued it. If that meant doing what she did to Tempest, Bulwark, Parade, and every monstrous unicorn that threatened her, then so be it. This would not be a half-measure.
An hour later, even as the trio of alicorns continued their total destruction of the nation’s capital city, the black boat sped down the river. Little ripples and waves lapped at the stony shores and washed over the fuschia body of Tempest as it passed.
A great explosion rocked the world. It sent out shockwaves of purified magic throughout the entire planet. Unicorns across Equestria suddenly found themselves reverted to something approximating ‘normal’, and the other races were left to step out into the dusk air and wonder if they were truly safe.
One pony laid at the edge of a river bank at the base of the mountain that once held the city of Canterlot. She had been in and out of consciousness for the past several days and had been awake long enough each time to weakly drink the water from the river as it lapped at her face. A wound on her head had stopped bleeding some time ago, but the pain and effects did not cease.
The shockwave reached her sooner than some others and it shocked her system. The broken horn on her head could not drink up the magic like it was meant to if it was whole, but the latent effects from being suddenly surrounded by clean magic would shock anypony back awake. It was just something ponies were attuned to.
The unicorn’s head lifted slowly and her vision slowly came into focus. Above her was no longer the bright blue sky that she had been baking in for days, now it was a sky full of oranges and purples, the sign of a setting sun. In fact, in the distance, she could see the sun peeking just above the horizon.
It was a miracle.
Before the mare could stand, she crawled towards the river and drank from its cool water. The waterfall that had been feeding it was no more, evaporated by the onslaught that melted the city of white and gold above. She still stole from its banks and drank as much as she could before she forced herself to stand.
Her hooves were shaky and unsure as she took to them. Something was wrong with her equilibrium and it caused her to wobble a bit. Her electric eyes went to the mountain that towered over her and she saw nothing on its peak, not even a peak at all. The top of the once iconic mountain was flat and it glistened in the late day sun like glass.
There were a few moments where the mare’s brain spooled up and began to think. That was when the memories all came flooding back. A sense of immense betrayal settled in her gut and whatever heart had remained in her chest shattered. It was not a new feeling, but it was one she had not experienced since her foalhood. She had hoped not to experience it again. Yet here she was, just as heartbroken and defeated now as she had been then.
She was a filly once more, sitting in the forest outside of a little village and screaming at the Ursa Minor who had taken her horn to finish the job. She was a mare sitting at the base of a mountain, weeping as she realized the only friend she had ever known betrayed her. Now and then, she was bitter and full of questions. She was mad at a world that did not make sense and whose violence seemed cruel and random.
She was just as lost and hopeless now as she was then.
