Insomnia

Canterlot was crawling with far more guards than in our previous arrivals. We were able to land most of the sky-carriages without notice, and most of the ponies went off in different directions. It would have been a bit suspicious to anypony seeing a hundred ponies all disappear into an alleyway.

The dozen or so of us headed to the portal were being tailed by a few guards, we made several detours to make sure, but they followed our every turn. It was decided that we would have to use the portal anyway. Two ponies went ahead of the group in order to prep the portal.

When we felt they had been given enough time, we broke out into full gallop toward the alley. The guards didn’t hesitate to give chase.

We dashed through the portal one by one, the guards not far behind. It took a few moments for two unicorns on the inside to being powering the portal so that the two powering it outside could make it through. By the time it closed, one of the pegasus guards had almost made it inside.

“And that’s why you don’t go through the portal too slowly.” Starfire pointed a hoof to the pegasus’ severed forelimb that lay twitching on the ground. “We won’t be using that entrance anymore now they’ve seen it either.”

I grimaced at the sight of the now cauterized pegasus leg on the floor.

I saw Starfire move to the corner of the room and speak to the doctor from before. He motioned for me to follow after a moment.

“The ponies with Candy got in through the railroad entrance we used before. She’s awake according to the doc.”

We walked down the hallway until we reached one of the bunk rooms. I saw Candy in a cot, wrapped in a blanket. Her brother sat nearby, silent as usual.

I stopped a few yards short of her cot, looking at Starfire and tilting my head toward it with a knowing look.

He shook his head, his cheeks only reddening slightly, and walked over. He sat down next to her cot.

“Nopony got hurt because of me, right?” I heard Candy struggling to ask. She wasn’t struggling with the energy to speak, but with holding back tears.

Starfire put a hoof on her foreleg.

“Ain’t nopony done anything that they didn’t volunteer to do. Worst anypony got was a few bruises. We’re just worried about what they put you through,” he said.

“I didn’t tell them anything, I promise!” Candy sobbed, pushing her face into her cot.

“We ain’t concerned about that... I just want you to know I’m here for you.”

“Me too.” I interjected.

Starfire shot me a glance before continuing.

“We’re all here, and we’re all safe for now. We weren’t gonna leave you behind.”

Candy looked back up at him.

“What about Aura, she’s not safe. I saw... while they were carrying me away. If you hadn’t been trying to help me you could have-”

“She chose to do what she did, and if she hadn’t there’s a good chance we’d all be dead and you would be too.” Starfire sighed. “Sad as it is, this was probably the best outcome we could have hoped for.”

Candy sat up on her cot and remained silent for several moments. She sniffed.

“I was just scared they would make me talk, that they’d make me betray all of you and Princess Luna.”

Since she had sat up, the blanket wrapped around her slowly slid from around her. It was only now that I noticed the two knots wrapped in bandages on each side of her back.

My mouth fell open with a gasp. I tried to speak, but couldn’t find words to express my reaction.

She usually kept her wings folded up like most pegasi, and I never noticed them except when she was flying. I had only managed to miss their absence before as the blood blended in well with her dark brown coat. Now, with the white bandages, it was painfully obvious to me.

I could only wonder to myself, if something this serious hadn’t been deemed worth healing by her torturers, what worse things must they have put her through and healed? Candy seemed to take  notice of the horror on my face.

“I know, I look terrible,” she forced through more tears. She covered the stumps back up with the blanket.

“They’re a sign of your loyalty and don’t you say anything different,” Starfire said. “Silver, come over here for a minute.”

He walked to the other side of the room, out of earshot of the others.

“Listen, you can’t go making faces like that, she’s already down on herself and you’re just gonna make it worse.”

“I just... I didn’t know she-” I stuttered.

“Just imagine how you’d feel if you lost your magic. It ain’t no difference for a pegasus to lose their wings. We feel pretty damn useless. She gave up everything short of her life to make sure we didn’t get found out.”

He walked back over and sat down beside Candy’s cot again. I stared for a few moments before choosing to leave the room and head to the quarters I had been given.

I sat down on the bed.

I kept imagining what kind of ordeal Candy had to have gone through. A cycle of mutilation and regeneration. I tried to imagine having my horn removed.

All that, and she simply had to tell her captors where we were in order to make it all stop: to retain what made her who she was. I’d have liked to think I’d do the same for a good friend in the same situation, but I knew I wouldn’t.

I saw my magic as what set me apart from other ponies, that which made me who I was. The thought of giving up who I was in order to protect someone else seemed strange.

Candy had had her wings taken away, what did she have left?

We spent several days sorting and distributing supplies that had been taken from the base we raided. Candy spent the majority of the time in the infirmary having her wounds healed. She wouldn’t be able to grow her wings back, but they had been able to close the wounds and help her recover her strength once more.

Starfire had spent a bit of his spare time with her, and Crush hardly left her side. I chose to keep to myself mostly, both to give the trio their space, and to avoid any more awkward moments.

Now, we were all four together, heading to the large room for a meeting with Princess Luna. She had asked us, and many other ponies, to meet with her to discuss another move against Celestia’s forces.

There had been a few more small forces sent out on scouting missions, most of them without a hitch. They had discovered, however, that Celestia’s guards had been investigating the portal into the base, and were using it to pinpoint our location. Luckily, they had not been able to decipher how to properly activate it.

Either way, however, our time until being found was becoming limited.

We walked into the large meeting room, and saw many ponies already seated around the table. Luna had not yet arrived, but it was only a few minutes until the scheduled meeting time. We all sat down.

Starfire turned to a mare sitting beside him.

“Do you know what we’re supposed to be meetin’ about?” he asked.

The mare shrugged a shoulder.

“All I can get out of anyone is that we’re being sent on another mission. No idea what though.”

Candy sat silently, looking at the floor. She was wearing one of the cloaks bearing Luna’s emblem to cover her wings, or lack thereof. I wanted to say something to her; I wanted to be a comfort to her in some way. I could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t possibly be taken the wrong way, though, and I wanted to avoid any further scolding from Starfire.

Princess Luna entered the room, and several ponies bowed themselves. She took her seat at the end of the table. Looking around the room, she made eye contact with each and every pony, as if doing a mental roll call. Once she finished, she began speaking.

“We are sure that by now you have all been made aware that, thanks to our friend Silver’s unfortunate circumstances, we have confirmed our sister’s corruption. We have managed several more successful missions since freeing our member from the nearby base.

“The case is, however, that Celestia has not been idle in this time. She is coming very close to divining the location of this headquarters by use of the compromised portal. We have no more time to waste, we have to make a move.

“In some of the scouting missions that have been sent out, we have been able to take note of locations that Celestia is keeping the most guards in. If we are able to coordinate several diversions, we will have to opportunity to draw many of the guards away from her castle, easing our entry in order to directly apprehend Celestia herself. It is with regret that we make this decision, but it is not unknown to us that removing the head of a group is the simplest way in order to bring a stop to the whole.”

Silence filled the room for several moments. A few ponies began murmuring amongst themselves.

Directly attacking one of the most powerful beings in Equestria... this seems like a great idea. What the hay did I sign up for?

Luna continued.

“We can understand your apprehension in pursuing this, so, if you so choose, you may opt out now. Only recognize that it will make it more difficult on those who remain.” She scanned over the group of ponies with a stern gaze.

About a dozen ponies slowly made their way to the exit of the room. About twenty remained: a much smaller group than what we had raided a small base with.

I started to get up.

This is a suicide mission, there’s no way.

As I started to turn, I saw Candy still remained seated, looking at the floor. I froze.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said without looking up. “You’ve been through enough for me.”

It pained me to hear those words.

“I’ve been through enough?” I choked the words out. “What about you? What about your wings?”

“It’s- I don’t...” she stammered.

I did the only thing I could think to do and put a foreleg around her in a short embrace.

“I shouldn’t have even considered leaving you all to do this. I’ve hardly got a life to go back to anyways, and I’ve lost nothing compared to you.”

Candy wiped a tear away from her cheek.

“Thank you....”

The meeting later concluded, and plans were made for several small teams of ponies to go out into different parts of the city to create the diversions that would draw guards away from the castle. They wouldn’t leave Celestia completely unguarded, of course, but it would at least make it easier on the main group to get inside.

The diversion groups would attack known weapon caches and supply depots in order to make it seem like they were our main goal, and not just random locations. If the diversion were to fail on getting us into the castle, we would still be able to knock out those outposts.

Crush, Starfire, Crush, myself, and eight other ponies would make up the primary group, as we had the most combat experience of the twenty. The remaining eight ponies would split into groups of two to cause the diversions at different locations in the city.

If the plan went well, we would be able to all twelve make it inside the castle, and finally confront Celestia face-to-face.