"Mrs. Remedy, you and your 'Followers' will surrender your weapons. You're usefulness to us is waning, and at this point I require you and Deadshot, the rest are nonvital."
I turned away from the unicorn before I could see her undoubtedly shocked expression, looking at Quartz Stone instead, and said, "Quartz, disable them if they try to leave. Do not kill Remedy or Calamity, but I have no qualms about depriving the world of some alicorns should the need arise."
Whirling back around towards Velvet, I saw the look on her face turn from one of shock into anger at my words.
"Excuse me! Alicorns are peo-" she started to say, only to be interrupted by a loud gunshot that was accompanied by a brief scream that cut off into a gurgle.
A cold, unyielding voice said behind us both, "Another word, another death, Remedy."
I could see the conflict in her eyes. Velvet clearly did not want to cause more harm to her alicorns, yet she clearly wanted to contest the treatment of them.
While Quartz was stalking about, taking the weapons from the now understandably frightened, but thankfully silent alicorns, I looked around.
The Storm hadn't changed much since I'd left all those years ago. Same pure white snow, same scattered rubble, and the same examples of spitting in the face of physics. The only real difference was that I wasn't alone this time.
Divided, I was not much of a fighting force against the things you'd find. I had lived in fear of the Morphics, the elements, and of the void wells.
Speaking of which...
"Remedy, do you see the abyss over there?"
The unicorn in question looked at me, still obviously angry, but with an amount of curiosity in her eyes.
Why wasn't she talking... Oh!
"Feel free to speak, Mrs. Remedy. As long as it isn't about the alicorns, said alicorns won't be excused from life."
She opened her mouth and said, "Yes. I do," shortly followed by her asking, "Why?"
"That's one of the void wells I told you about. You know, the gravity wells that have the magic that doesn't let light or sound through it?" I responded.
"Really now? Right over there?"
"Yes, that. I tell you this because we're going to toss the next alicorn we need to kill in there for a bit to see how she reacts to being alone, then pull her out using some rope. Consider the information to be a warning to ensure your compliance."
I'd been paying more attention to her face than to her horn, so it came as a complete shock to me when I heard the screech of a very familiar alicorn.
My hypersensitive hearing located the sound near instantaneously, and I twisted to look at a section of the void well that'd been outside of my sight. What I saw made my blood grow cold. Silver Scroll, the only constant I'd had since the early days, was struggling to fly out of the crater.
"Silver!" I shouted.
A quiet voice, that of Velvet Remedy's but in a tone much colder than I'd ever heard it, said, "Say goodbye."
And then Silver Scroll's wings failed her.
Things happened in a blur after that, at least for a bit, but here's what I remember doing:
I shot Calamity in the throat, and jumped into the void well, like an idiot.
===========
As I fell, several things ran through my head, ranging from the irrationality of me not having a plan all the way to the mundane observation that holy hell this hole was deep what the fuck was I thinking.
But on top of all of them, even more so than my own stupidity, was a fact my brain had processed.
I was not going to be able to catch Silver at the speed we were both falling. Terminal velocity and all that crap..
So I started to craft matrices for gravity wells of my own, using the console attached to my hoof.
After I had three crafted, I slapped one onto my chest and I immediately started to fall faster. Significantly, dangerously fast.
But it worked; before long I could see the flailing form of an alicorn in the fading light below me.
Once I was within touching distance of here, I scared the crap out of here by doing just that, touching. As her eyes opened in shock, she looked up and seemed surprised, as if she hadn't expected to see me. Which, in hindsight, she probably hadn't. What fool would jump into a void well, right?
I mouthed two words at her, "Grab me," and without another thought attached the second and third gravity wells to myself, slowing myself down substantially.
Luckily for the both of us, her reflexes were up for the task and she grabbed hold of me, and as a result began to slow down substantially.
I flapped my wings experimentally, and lo, behold, they provided upwards momentum.
We'd begun flying up, or rather I'd begun carrying her up (alicorns are surprisingly light with 1/10 of Equestria's gravity) when I felt her grip tighten. I looked down at her, and saw tears in her eyes. It was only then that I saw she was shaking, and the reality that I could do nothing hurt.
That continued for the entirety of the trip up, and when we finally breached the top of the well I looked around momentarily for the rest of our group. Seeing no sign of them, I sighed internally and begin my second order of business: comforting my friend.
"Silver?"
No response, just tears.
"Silver?"
Still nothing.
After several more tries, I sat down on my haunches in the snow next to her and wrapped my forelegs around her, saying nothing, just letting her know I was there.
After a while she quit shaking, and she whispered to me, "Thank you."
"Silver Scroll, don't ever do that again. I can only take so many loved ones dying." I responded.
We both froze. When did I start thinking of her as a loved on...?
Silver spoke first, saying, "Loved ones? Midnight...?" She trailed off, leaving an unspoken question.
"Yes, I suppose. I'm in love. With you. I mean, if the amount of pain I felt when I thought about losing you or the pain that came from being helpless to assist you on the way out of the well are any indications. The feeling is similar to the way I felt when Fortune died, so... Bah. What about you? Have I any hope or should I begin research on the friend-zone and how to escape it when we get back to Canterlot?"
She chuckled lightly, a wonderful sound that I felt like I was noticing for the first time. "I... you said to me once that love was an irrational emotion you didn't have time for. So I didn't let myself develop any feelings. Before you ask, yes, that implies there is potential."
That simple statement made me happy. Oddly so.
I released her and and made to stand up, but she held me down with her magic.
"Oh no you don't. I'm not letting go. Not this close to that," Silver said, shivering as she continued, "thing."
"Well we'd best be moving away from it. Besides, we have no actual group to be seen so we're in the Storm. Alone."
"Alone you say? You're good with probability. What's the chances of them finding us instead of vice-versa?"
"Well that's a question I'd have to think about... Off the top of my head I'd sa-" My answer was cut off by Silver's magic grip going... substantially lower...
