Chapter 04 - What lies in the Shadows

PV-01
Admistratum quarter, planetary archives

Twilight wasn’t moving.

Time had slowed to a crawl. Second stretched to minutes, hours, days even... But her brain was racing. Information piled in her mind and was just as quickly filtered depending on its usefulness. Scents, sounds, colours, shapes… each one of her senses unravelled the scene to its bare components

She could almost feel the grenade rolling slowly toward her hoof. She sensed Spike turning toward her. She could almost taste his concern before it even started worming its way on his face.

The unicorn didn’t move as the grenade hit her armoured hoof, but shock had no hold on her; her training had already kicked in.

Her brain was racing.

Everything disappeared from Twilight’s consciousness. Everything but the grenade at her hooves.

The device was custom made, but clearly based on regular, imperial, anti-vehicule, krak grenade models. Impractical. Enough to hurt her. It hadn’t exploded yet... So the fuse was still on. She had ten seconds. Likely less. She had to get rid of it. Her focus shifted. She looked around. Herds of ponies were coming from a distance.

Not the streets.

No way around.

She looked up.

The sky was clear.

There was a way out.

Time resumed… and Twilight moved at last.

The warmare gripped the grenade in her ceramite clad hoof and teleported.

Twilight ascended... – Not high enough. Roofs flashed before her eyes as she went - Higher. She teleported - Once more – until she reached her goal: a small opening in the confining of buildings. Here!

Gathering as much strength as she could in such a short notice, Twilight threw the device. It exploded as soon as it left her hoof, but the equustode was already gone. Lavender lights flashed once again in the darkening sky like the first thunderbolts of an incoming tempest. There was a heavy shock when the massive unicorn in armour fell on the ground, right at her starting point.

Less than ten seconds had passed. But Twilight came back to a very different scene than the one she had left.

Fresh blood flowed lazily around her golden horseshoe. In lieu and place of her serf was the corpse of a pegasus. Blood poured irregularly through his sliced throat. A simple look was enough to understand that the pony was already beyond salvation, save maybe for the work of a skilled medicae. Twilight, however, didn’t care for their fate, she had more important problems right now: Spike was missing.

“Spike?”

For the second time in a very frustrating day, her servitor didn’t answer. But this time, none of the possibilities were reassuring. She checked her surroundings, her retinal display scanning the room in detail, her other senses instantly looking for any trace of the dragon.

She didn’t locate him. But she found something else. Hooves, clapping on the ground, going away from her. She instantly turned toward the source and let and exasperated groan left her muzzle as she found herself facing the archives. What had been a haven less than ten minutes ago was now a potential battlefield.

“Why am I not surprised?” she brooded, her horn glowing as her staff left its maglock to levitate at her side. “At this point, I should expect Chaos cultists and an ambush.”

Without further ado, Twilight teleported inside the building.

The empty entry hallway of the Administratum archive was briefly illuminated by a flash of lavender light before returning to its flickering, dark and, by many standards, impractical level.

Despite the circumstances, Twilight could not help but spare an appreciative glare at the place. While not as big as Canterlot’s libraries, the archives were still inviting. Years of underponied care had turned the place into a maze of shelves filled with raw data in any form known to ponykind – any form known and authorised by the Inquisition anyway – grouped in the faintest semblance of order. The majority would be useless, but there should be interesting pieces of information lying here and there. Unfortunately, she would have to wait before she could study it further.

Twilight went further into the archives, hoping that the running poney had her serf and some answers.

Twilight ran, like a thunderstorm closing on an unsuspecting shore, her heavy, armoured hooves thundering on the stone floor like the fury of some old pagan goddess. She bolted through walls and flashed through shelves, reclaiming metres after metres on her prey. Twilight ran, and the place shook in fear from her rumbling course. And Twilight ran, her steady heartbeats and the rhythmic laps of fleeing hooves pacing her. A few shelves and turns only prevented her to see her prey and strike... for now.

Soon.

Twilight still ran, getting closer. She could glimpse her mark now. A dark cloak hid most of their features, save for a puffy tail and locks of a curly mane... and an unconscious dragonling on their back. More magic poured into the staff each passing second. Bolts of energy crackled around it making the shadows recoil in terror. All she needed now was the right moment. The right opportunity.

Soon.

Twilight and her prey ran, deep into the archive through hidden paths and halls, old and forgotten. Separated by only a few meters, Twilight felt their chase nearing its end. The tang of ozone, sweat and chemical stimulants filled the air around her. It smelled like victory.

NOW!

A golden and lavender thunderbolt flew toward the runaway pony at an astonishing speed. There was no place to hide, there was to time to dodge. She was about to hit. She should have hit.

But she didn’t.

In a instant, as if sensing the incoming attack, the runaway turned. It was a nonsensical, almost unnatural movement but it still happened. The running pony turned, losing none of their speed, right into the wall, getting through it as if it was made of paper.

The staff continued its course, pulverising a shelf and crashing into the wall behind it. Surprise dulled the reaction of the equustode, making her pass the hole for a few metres before she could react appropriately. It didn’t take long, mere seconds, but it was enough; when she finally got through the new passage, her target was gone.

Frustration made its way through Twilight’s throat, manifesting itself in a low grumble. With a thought, she took back her staff and made it hover at her left side as she penetrated the new room with circumspection.

As the thrill of the chase was fading, Twilight realised how deep she had gone into the building.

Darkness had grown so thick the faint glow of her staff was barely enough for even Twilight’s senses to correctly assess the room. Wary of ambushes, Twilight increased the intensity of the light surrounding her horn and staff. The shadows fled, hiding between the shelves and various rubbles and irregularities on the ground, revealing a room which made the entrance looks organized.

It was vast, though it was hard to have a precise idea in that obscurity, and was as much filled with knowledge as it was made of it. There were scrolls and books made of paper, vellum and papyrus and every support where a pony could put ink on. There were dataslates, holo-projectors, cogitators and even deactivated servitors whose sole functions seemed to be to recite the informations they had been filled with, and this was only half of what Twilight could see. All around her, knowledge in all its variety of physical forms, escaping the restraining confines of shelves to join the walls, floor and even ceiling in some parts.

Decades, centuries, millennia worth of data, reports and story gathered in one place. Yet, Twilight ignored it. The only thing she could see was the way too numerous hiding places it provided.

She went on, cautiously now, all her senses in alert, wary of ambush. She had let things get out of control, a luxury she could not afford. It was becoming quite the bad habit. Maybe she had neglected her training more than she cared to admit... However, now she was focused, and her mind was clear. She could think and analyse her situation, making some details she had overlooked blatantly obvious.

It boiled down to one thing.

Her prey had successfully escaped the wrath of an equustode by hoof, with a dragon on their back, without getting lost or getting into an impasse. This showed an incredible strength, willpower, endurance, training, and an extensive knowledge of the building. This was not a feat within everypony’s reach. Whoever this was, they were no ordinary pony.

Twilight was still formulating hypothesis when when something caught her attention. At first, it was nothing more than a distant whisper, but the more she focused on it, the wronger it felt. It took her a few moments to identify the sound and a few more to get its provenance. In the depths of the archives, ponies were chanting.

Twilight dimmed the light of her staff and get deeper into the archive.

Soon.

☀☀☀

Spike shifted in and out of consciousness.

Senseless dreams plagued his fevered mind. Sometimes he could grasp something out of his visions, or maybe his visions were influenced by what was happening around him...

He was fleeing something. Or something was running away from him. Sometimes, when reality drew closer, he could feel the steady pace of a pony running under him. Not a mere pony... a warmare – Twilight? – he knew the difference.

Something inside him woke up at the thought of Twilight fleeing. A spark in the midst of the fog that now inhabited his brain. Thoughts started to gather around it, creating a semblance of coherence. Consciousness was winning its battle for dominance. The fog was starting to retreat, leaving him confused but aware.

The first thing he realised was that he wasn’t running anymore. He was sitting. And nothing moved. Not even his own body. A slight panic took him as felt his body struggled to obey his command. It was numb and heavy. Opening his eyes asked more efforts that he could gather. Even his senses were dulled to the point he barely felt the books uncomfortably pressed against his back scales. A painful groan formed and stayed into his throat turning into an barely audible gurgle. Next to him, something – somepony? – moved and got closer. The sound of hooves softly clapping on the stone floor reverberated strangely in his fins.

“Are you awake?” said a distorted voice.

The faint feeling of a hoof pressed on his scale made him flinch, or the pathetic equivalent that his body now permitted. That was enough for the pony, however.

“Good!”

Spike tried to move, to force his muscle to obey. A shiver went through his muscles as a result.

“Don’t worry! It’ll pass. You’ve been a tinsy winsy drugged, you see? It should be gone in a jiffy, maybe two.”

Another failed groan passed through the dragon lips.

“Shush, silly! You’re gonna swallow your tongue! And we don’t want that do we? Now stay here and don’t make a noise. Your mistress is coming and I don’t want to miss the fun~! Just relax and enjoy the soothing sound of gunshots.”

The “click” of a rifle being loaded punctuated her sentence and sent a chill down Spike’s spine. Inside the confines of his fogged mind and drugged body, all the dragon could do was to curse his weakness.

☀☀☀

As she drew closer to the chantings, Twilight started to grasp more of the words, and she wished she hadn’t. She wasn’t sure what made her skin crawl, the words spoken or the heresy contained in them. Probably both. It didn’t matter either way.

The empty hallways were dimly lit by archaic torches probably made with the materials on hoof. The thought was cringe-worthy but the mere presence of heretic in her living quarters left little to no room in her mind for more “dissatisfaction”.

There was several dozens of ponies, all gathered in a relatively small room, or whatever the space delimited by books and furnitures could be called. As far as Twilight could see from her position, there was only one entrance and thus one exit, which made her task way easier.

“For the Empress,” she whispered.

Twilight entered the room.

The first cultist didn’t even realise his death. He simply wondered why his voice wouldn’t come out anymore. Blood loss quickly got the better of his thinking ability as the staff that had perforated his throat left the wound. Two more followed as the golden blade sliced through their neck and temple. The decapitated pony marvelled at the rising floor before everything went dark. The second gurgled as her jaw enjoyed the sudden freedom that a brain removal would grant.

At this point, some cultists realised something was wrong – namely a demi-goddess clad in gold slaughtering them. Three more ponies died before any alarm was raised. By the time the cultists’ defence started to organise, Twilight’s victim count was in the double digits.

There was a pause, as the equustode stood before the exit. The heretics watched her in awe, unsure of how to interpret the presence of one of the Empress’s daughter in their midst. The staff lazily flew at the left side of the warmare, the blade facing the assembly as if passing a silent judgement on the crowd.

Then its dance started anew.

And more heretics died.

★★★

Somewhere in the archive, through a sniper lens, somepony watched the fight with great interest. The spectacle was like nothing she’d ever seen. It was not mere destruction of the enemy, it was something else, something more. The cloaked pony watched in amazement as the lone unicorn moved with a deadly efficiency, each motion resulting in the disarming, impairment or death of a cultist. It was beautiful in its own way. It was a dance. A dance of death and the cultist were trying, and failing, to follow the pace imposed by the warmare. It was truly beautiful. Too bad she had to cut it short...

☀☀☀

Many more heretics lay on the ground before any worthwhile resistance manifested itself. At first, they had tried to fight, or flee, but miserably failed at both. Without the proper equipment, they could barely make a dent on Twilight’s armour, let alone hurt her. Now they merely tried to defend their life, with very similar results. For a moment, the unicorn wondered if they would keep getting in line to be slaughtered, but she suspected she wouldn’t be so lucky. And for once, unfortunately, reality met her expectations.

As one, the ponies started moving. At first glance, it looked like they were fleeing again, trying to get as much space as possible between them and the equustode.

Twilight knew better. This was not the panicked attitude of a herd of ponies fleeing. It was something else, something she had already seen countless times in the barracks. Ponies getting far enough not to get drawn into something bigger than them, but not too far so they could see as much as possible of what was to come. It was the organized yet unconscious moves of a crowd about to assist a duel. They were making a ring for her and whatever stood as their champion.

Pondering her options, Twilight decided to wait for her foe to come out.

Whispers and hushed praises rose from the crowd as the pony fended it.

Said champion was a unicorn. They were young – if their look was anything to go by, they were probably fresh into adulthood. They wore heresy as a robe, both literally and figuratively. It was almost stereotypical. If their unholy-word ridden piece of clothes wasn’t enough to identify their allegiance, they had elected to paint the characteristic eight-branch star on their unmaned head, centred on their horn, and did the same on their tailless flanks. But Twilight need not those to mark them. The influence of the Warp was thick around the yellow unicorn, enough to make the equustode’s skin crawl. If she could, she’d have sentenced them to death twice. Or more.

Twilight didn’t lose time. As soon as her prey was in sight, she attacked. She throughher staff with all her strength, making it spin so fast it looked like a disk. The golden, chakram-like projectile hit their position, crashing into the crowd of bowing cultists, leaving a pile of broken bodies in its wake.

Twilight dared a victorious smile. It quickly faded. In its stead, a frustrating groan almost managed to escape her muzzle. The psyker was still here, standing a few metres away from their initial position, a satisfied smile on their face.

They were waiting. Waiting for Twilight to make the first move. Again.

The warmare was happy to oblige.

She sent her staff again, faster. More ponies died… but their leader survived. Untouched.

This was no illusion. They were as real as she was, she had no doubt about it. Somehow, they used their vile sorcery to nullify her blows

She sent the staff a third time, trying a flurry of attacks instead of a powerful one, stabbing at the psyker’s position again and again. This attempt yield no results.

Twilight “dissatisfaction” was reaching a peak.

Instead of a fight, she was caught in another pointless chase. The psyker seemed to have no intention to actually confront their foe. They annoyingly shifted in and out of reality, escaping her attacks. Even more infuriating was the feeling, more of an educated deduction, that something was ahoof. It was obvious the psyker was waiting for something. They were stalling and she knew it, it was painfully obvious.

They could barely keep up at this; their breath was getting short and shallow, their coat was drenched in sweat, at times they almost struggled to stand up.; Meanwhile the equustode was barely phased. Yet they kept going. Soon they would slip up and get caught by the staff or claimed by the very forces they used to cheat death. Yet they keep going. And there was barely anything the lavender unicorn could do about it. Yet.
.
But it didn’t make things any less “unsatisfactory”. Every attack avoided by the psyker; every fanatical smile on the faces of the heretics as they died, taking blows intended for their leader; every second she was forced to stay here instead of looking for Spike just added to and already overfilled pool of “frustration”.

The staff struck again, killing two more cultists.

The psyker reemerged, a mere metre away, a mocking smirk on their face.

Twilight Sparkle was no longer merely “dissatisfied”.

☽☾

Despite their efforts and exhaustion, Lasting Chains could not contain a victorious smile on their face. True, the false-empress whorse had taken them by surprise and killed many of them... but she was alone and they had something in store for this scenario. The psyker just had to stall their foe long enough for the rest of the cultists to prepare the counter-attack.

Another blow was struck at them, and Lasting Chains let the grip of the Warp claim them again.

The material world faded to be replaced with the taunting faces of daemons. They were gathering around the psyker, testing their defences, haunting them, waiting for the small slip, the small lapse in their concentration that would expose the tasty looking soul of the unicorn. It was getting harder to ignore the inhuman faces shouting, pleading, shushing, promising, whispering, crying, laughing or, and not limited to, any combination of the former. But victory was at hoof, Lasting Chains knew better than blowing it up at the last minute. Drawing in their soon to be failing strengths, they emerged of the warp, ready to taunt the imperial foal once again.

Lasting Chains just had the time to see the face of a purple demi-goddess, contorted with anger, before the world collapsed.

Something thumped them. No, it felt more like they had been sent at an incredible speed on a plasteel wall. Their whole skeleton quaked at the impact. Their body went limp like a broken toy. Reality lost its substance. There was only darkness. Lasting Chains felt like they were flying. Maybe they were... they couldn’t feel the ground anymore.

Maybe sleeping would make things make sense again?

A shock, softer than the previous one woke her up.

“–astime... ismy... itor?” came a voice from outside the darkness.

It took an undetermined amount of time for the psyker to understand. It was as dreadful as staggering. They were screamed at so loudly it hurt like a kick in the face. For the first time since the beginning of the fight they foolishly got themself into, Lasting Chains realised just how dangerous the warmare was.

Must... stop her...

The thought emerged at the surface of her consciousness. They cast the spell, using whatever life force remained in their broken body. A spell that got them their name...

Lasting Chains died, with the small comfort that the Daemons ripping her soul to shreds were slightly less frightening after having faced the wrath of an equustode.

☀☀☀

The psyker hung limply at the end of the leg of a ticked off equustode, broken and barely conscious from a kick delivered to their face. Twilight groaned in frustration as she realised they were too far gone to answer her questions. She was about to direct her anger toward the crowd watching the spectacle when she realised the trap she had fallen into. They had managed to catch her attention long enough. She had not noticed the canon pointed at her.

It had taken her less than a day to show negligence again...

Unacceptable, she thought laconically.

★★★

A cloaked mare grinned as her prey was, at last, in position. There was a light “click” as she lightly pressed the trigger.

“Let’s end this party with a bang...”

☀☀☀

Twilight tried to move but she found herself unable to do so as chains of power were starting to cover her body. It wouldn’t hinder her long, a handful of seconds. But she didn’t really have that.

“Truly unacceptable.”

The detonation filled the room.

☀☀☀

The bullet shell rolled toward Spike with a maddening slowness, making a shrill sound while doing so. Anger and shame rose inside him, cutting through the fog that had invaded his thoughts, as they rallied behind one very simple idea. Getting up and bringing pain to those who’d hurt his Lady. His body struggled against the chemicals in his muscles, making him shake violently and erratically at the effort. The feeling of helplessness was nauseating, the pain, even worse, but the dragon refused to let go.

Or so he thought. The noise of a sniper rifle reloading had a bone chilling effect Spike was still unfamiliar with. A dissident thought started to hijack his efforts: I’m going to die...

Hungry for the territory it had lost, the fog came back... To be brutally thrown out.

There is no way I’m going without a fight!

Spike’s efforts redoubled and the fog definitively left as the anger rose inside him.

I am the monitor of equustode Twilight Sparkle! Defender of the Throne! And I will live and I will die like it!

The poison in his muscle started to recede.

Still shaking, Spike slowly rose on his feet.

Author's Note

"She spun like a dervish, her blade dancing around her. Death accompanied her, following her quick tempo without a fault. The death cry of her enemies made a pleasing counterpoint to the constant humming of the glowing blade swinging through the air.
And she sang for her Empress, chants of love and devotion for Her, of hate and spite for Her enemy, words of duty and fidelity.

She carried the dance of death until her own demise made her part from her duty."
- The dance of the Spacemare, author unknown.