1 - Victory and Sponge Cake
They marched.
Four by hundreds of hooves, they marched in dreary lockstep towards their fate, be it to serve as beasts of burden or be herded into cages. From all over the nation they had come to this place in the name of friendship, and a mere hour before their patriotic pride had brought them all to celebration; be it by soaring feathers, horned glow, or hewn from the greatness of the earth.
But now their colors were struck and their ears drooped, as scorching sulfur invaded their nostrils and heavy chains bore them into capitulation. As they walked, their eyes strayed to the ruined banners and cracked towers of their homeland’s majestic capital. The sky above was choked with black sails and airship exhaust that coalesced around the stone-locked bodies of three rulers. Defeated, each princess had been left where she stood on purpose, to stand in full view of every loyal subject that passed by.
Tempest Shadow, commander of the armies of the north and mistress of her own name, stood between the trio of royal statues. She met each wandering eye with a firm stare, until the fire that had smoldered through her formative years inevitably caused each prisoner to back down and look away. There was much yet to do in preparation for the arrival of her lord, but Tempest allowed herself a moment of personal revenge as she painted a wordless picture of hopelessness for her vanquished foe.
Though she was unlikely to recognize them so many years later, Tempest wondered if perhaps those who had cast her out - who had made her what she was today - were somewhere in that chain gang. She wondered if they too were suffering by her hoof. The thought made her cheeks twist into a smug smile.
A snotty voice broke her reverie, accompanied by a peppering of spongy crumbs on the shoulder plate of her segmented armor.
“So hey, Tempest-” The voice paused for a spasm of gluttonous chewing, “-don’t we gotta get the royal stiffs here up to the throne room?”
Tempest impaled another snivelling mare with her lancing gaze. She addressed her subordinate, but ignored his visage for the show of the cowering pony, who could neither break step nor cry out with fear due to the iron muzzle locked tightly over her face.
“In time, Grubber,” Tempest replied. “For the moment they are far more valuable to us right where they are.”
Grubber, the runt of the Storm King’s proverbial litter, wasn’t much to look at. Portly and stout, his cousins dwarfed him by three times his own height, such that he had long since taken to wearing his white hair in a starched plume just to add to his hopeless stature. He was a non-combatant in a race of warriors, but he had one thing his brethren lacked - where he was stunted in body, they were stunted in mind. Beyond the rudimentary intelligence that dawned just above that of a common animal, Grubber enjoyed a position of authority over his kin because of his ability to communicate and think for himself.
Intelligence, however, did not guarantee shrewdness. Grubber tilted his head, eyes as empty as those of the enshrouded princesses that stood tall around him.
“Yeah? Why’s that? You know they ain’t any good to the big boss down here.”
Tempest’s ear flicked. Refusing to show an excess of reaction to her enemies, she cooly glanced toward a hanging garden palisade. Beneath it, a few remaining ponies who were helpless to defend themselves were being subdued by the hulking walls of muscle and fur that were the Storm King’s vanguard. The sound of each clanking manacle as it drew another leg into imprisonment rent the air, mingling with cries for mercy that more iron muzzles cut down into feral whimpering.
“Never underestimate your opponent, Grubber. Morale can be as sharp as a spear and do just as much damage, but…” Tempest trailed off as she watched the one-sided conflict unfold, glancing away only when the last pony had been added to the chain gang and marched off.
“But what?” Grubber urged as he produced a slice of shortcake from what seemed like an interdimensional portal to nowhere.
Tempest eyed the frozen princesses with a look that hovered somewhere between pity and contempt. “But...nothing. Perhaps there is no purpose after all in breaking the spirit of mewling urchins that never had any to begin with. Order the transplant of the princesses to the throne room. I want a report from your search parties around that waterfall in an hour. If they haven’t found the purple one, I expect my flagship to be ready to launch ten minutes later. Am I clear?”
Grubber saluted - somehow the slovenly creature always had a habit for making the gesture look sloppy. “You bet, other boss! Yanno I gotta admit...I didn’t think it would be this easy.”
Piqued for once by Grubber’s commentary, Tempest favored him with an arched eyebrow. “Oh?”
Grubber polished off his last few bites all at once, by the simple expedient of shoving the entire slab of cake into his maw. “Wull shure,” She spoke whilst masticating, “Iz like deez ponies dun even care ‘nuff to defend themsuulves.”
“We lopped of their head in the first ninety seconds of the conflict,” Tempest pointed out.
Grubber swallowed loudly. “Yeah yeah, but you’d think even then they’d at least try, right? You’d think if they cared at all they’d put up their dukes a little bit or something. Instead it was all ‘oh blah blah blah, big hairy monsters, let’s run around and scream until they tie us up’. That’s weak.” He meandered over to the fourth statue - the one that was not a princess - and considered it like a work of art in a museum. “This one here is like the only one who even gave a crap at all.”
“Don’t flatter them,” Tempest reproached. She came up beside her subordinate and nodded at the frozen face of the pegasus. “Look at this one, with her lopsided eyes and vacant expression. She’s probably got about as much going on upstairs as most of your lot. What she did wasn’t heroism. It was an accident, and it's as much a result of interference by the rainbow-colored one.”
Grubber squinted and peered at the statue of Derpy Hooves, as though he thought it might move if he looked long enough. “Eh, I guess she is kinda stupid looking. But if it hadn’t been for those two horses, we’d be looking at a statue of the last princess.”
Tempest gritted her teeth. Anger flushed her sangria cheeks and brought sparking life to her horn. “My aim isn’t why we lost her. If your people had half a dozen brain cells to play tetherball with, they’d have ensued this went off perfectly the first time!”
Grubber summoned an unusual display of nimbleness to hop away from the threat of being sizzled by magic. “Whoa, okay! We’ll find her! Don’t get your hocus-pocus in a wad!”
Tempest seethed, but allowed her raw power to wink out. “See that you do. I am not about to be embarrassed by letting one of these wretched little nags get away.”
Grubber let out a bated breath. “Day-ummm Tempest, that’s harsh. Calling your own people that.”
“They’re not my people!”
“Alright fine, whatever you say. You don’t gotta be all emotional about it. Maybe you oughtta consider some anger management classes or someth--”
The rest of Grubber’s words were overwhelmed by a sudden slamming noise, and a howl unlike any Tempest had heard so far that day. She recognized it, and knew in an instant that the deep, guttural cry had not been made by a pony - it had been made by one of her own retinue. Her ears perked in unison with all the other ponies, but unlike them, she was free to turn about and seek the source.
“What was that?” she demanded.
Grubber looked alarmed. “Uh...I dunno? It sounded like somebody done got planted.”
“Yes,” Tempest agreed, “but that somebody was not a pony.”
Her reflexes back on high alert, Tempest scanned the broken crags of Canterlot. A small fire that appeared to have been brought about by some discarded sparklers was burning a vending cart full of cakes. Several soldiers were tending to it, but none of them appeared injured. In another place, a marble tier built directly out of the side of the mountain was being organized as a mooring place for three airships, but the beasts who trampled party accessories to work the anchor chains seemed none the worse for wear from their task.
The deep cry erupted again, and Tempest’s ears swiveled as she zoned in on a spot deeper in the city, invisible from the main plaza. She turned to a pair of guards that were minding the already well-staffed chain gang and nodded sharply at them.
“You, and you. With me!” The commander was off at a gallop, her booted hooves clacking metallically against the stone street. “The rest of you mind the prisoners and tend to your tasks!
Grubber, forced into a run, was already huffing. “Hey! Wait up! Do ya think Princess Purple Hooves was dumb enough to come back!?”
“Oh, she’s dumb enough all right,” Tempest muttered to herself. “She’s the last princess, after all. She has to try something. Pity she’d throw her lot into a random attack so soon without time to plan out a strategy, but really, what do I expect from pitiful ponies who give up before the battle’s even joined. For that, they disgust me most of all.”
This time, the commander’s victory would be absolute.
Tempest didn’t break stride until she’d cleared three side streets and a smattering of blocks that were glutted with wrecked carts, flattened tents, and smashed produce. She could hear Grubber’s complaints about the pace, but the fact that she could still hear him at all made it clear he had goaded one of the guards into carrying him. She could have cared less. The sprint had given rise to a torrent of adrenaline, and the flood of it through her veins was making her feel alive. Things were finally getting interesting. Somepony was putting up a real fight.
Sounds of a scuffle became more prominent as the commander stopped short of a building that had been badly dilapidated in the assault on the city. The plaque on the wall by the main entrance was still readable enough to mark the place as a schoolhouse, but it was ruined so badly by the toppling of a high tower that its structure was very much in question. It was a tenuous place at best to mount a counteroffensive, but a clever adversary would know that made it an unlikely and therefore excellent headquarters for subterfuge. At least, Tempest thought, the final princess wasn’t a total fool.
Tempest stood tall before the building, her adjutants flanking her, and offered her ultimatum:
“Come out, friendship princess! I know you’re in there and there’s nowhere to go! Surrender peacefully and I’ll see to it that your subjects remain unharmed!”
Grubber was suddenly hovering by Tempest’s side; held out in the claw of one of the guards. He was munching on a cupcake he had snagged from a vending cart as his ride passed by. “You already ‘harmed’ them though,” he pointed out. “They’re all scuffed and bruised and muzzled and chained and frownyfaced and--”
“Silence!” Tempest barked, and then to the building: “This is your final warning, Princess! I have every citizen of this fair capital of yours under my hoof! We don’t need that many slaves - one word from me and there’ll be fewer to have to feed!”
“Wow,” Grubber blinked. “You’re one bad mother, you know that?”
A figure emerged from the building. Tempest squinted with anticipation, but the bulky silhouette could scarce have been a pony, unless one of them was carrying a half a dozen others on his or her shoulders. The figure stepped into the afternoon light and revealed itself to be a guard, bereft of his spear and stumbling about in a daze. Tempest closed the distance to the creature, and could see in the small courtyard of the schoolhouse another half a dozen of her warriors, lying about in various stages of dizziness.
“You!” Tempest growled. “Report!”
The waylaid guard staggered itself with a salute and began to mutter in the unintelligible language it’s brain was limited to. Tempest rolled her eyes and glanced down at Grubber, who had finally bothered to walk about under his own power.
“Oh, he says there’s no princesses in there.”
“What!?” Incensed, Tempest fixed the guard with a withering stare. “What’s in there then, a manticore?” She glanced about, counting the prone forms of the fallen. “There had better be, if it takes eight of you to subdue it!!”
The guard shrunk and began to blubber again. Grubber translated:
“He says it’s just ponies in there.”
“Ponies,” Tempest repeated. Her voice was low and even, which struck far greater fear into the guard’s heart than any measure of shouting. “Just ponies.”
The guard grunted some more.
“He says pony houses are really tiny for the guards, and with all the broken junk all over the place they can only attack the pony one at a time.”
“The pony? ONE pony?” Tempest sputtered. “Eight of you are having trouble bringing one pony, who is not a princess, under control?”
The guard covered its head, expecting to be electrocuted. Instead, Tempest spun on her heels and snapped her hind legs in a wicked buck, kicking it aside. “Get out of my way. I’ll handle this.”
Grubber had a corndog now. “Mmh...hard to find good help these days, huh.”
“If I could find a competent subordinate for each piece of junk food that’s attracted to your orbit, the entire world would have belonged to the Storm King years ago.”
“Yeah well--hey!”
Tempest ignored the complaint and drew herself up to her full imposing height. Steeling herself with a breath, she marched slowly into the building, followed by Grubber and the two fresh guards. Overturned student desks and chunks of ruined masonry from the ceiling did indeed present an imposing defense, but she lit her horn and pulverized them into powder, sending up a cloud of chalky dust to mark the now open path.
There was a high-pitched cry of alarm from more than one voice. Tempest waited patiently for the smoke to clear and the images in the room to come into focus.
There, amid the blasted hulk of the building and cracked chalkboard, was a collection of ponies. Three of them were fillies - a unicorn with a slightly grayish tinge to her coat, and two blank-flank earth ponies that were beneath her notice. They might all have been beneath her notice, save that the unicorn had a rather interesting cutie mark - a colorful shield emblem with a musical note inside it. The lot of them were huddled into a corner shaking with terror, and Tempest wrote them off immediately as potential belligerents.
Before the fillies stood a single adult - a diminutive earth pony mare with a scraggly mane of unkempt pink and a wine-colored coat dingy with sweat. This one stood her ground, with a baleful look in her pale green eyes. Her fragile looking shoulders were heaving with exertion, and she brandished the sharp end of a broken metal flagpole in her teeth. Upon her flank were three daisies, each depicting a joyous expression meant for simpler times. Around the mare lay the unconscious bodies of no less than four adult ponies of various tribes, each marked as faculty in their own right by the ties, pocket protectors, or horn-rimmed glasses they wore.
Tempest silently watched the mare’s lungs greedily grab at oxygen for several tense seconds before finally addressing her.
“And what are you supposed to be?”
The mare was able to speak clearly despite the obstruction in her mouth - a proper skill for a progressive, multitasking teacher.
“I’m their...hahh...their...hahh...teacher.”
Tempest quirked a brow. Then she snorted and began to chuckle. “Very funny. Don’t lie to me. You’d have to be some sort of commando to best eight of my guards all by yourself with a scrawny body like that. Who are you really?”
The grayish unicorn filly abandoned her schoolmates and took three large, bold steps forward to her professor’s side. “She’s Miss Cheerilee! She’s our teacher! Wh-what have you done with my friends!?”
Tempest considered this. And then she threw back her head in a hearty belly laugh.
“Teacher...ah hah...a teacher! Hah! And a bunch of urchins! No crack special forces unit, no princess counterinsurgency...just a field trip! I should have known! Were there even any royal guards present today at all!?”
Grubber glanced at his commander and began to chuckle along with her, just because it seemed like the right thing to do. “Yeah, eh heh, I sure didn’t see any. What’s she gonna do, beat us to death with a slide rule? EEP-!”
The stubby creature suddenly found himself nose to nose with Tempest. The stump of her broken horn was sparking like a blacksmith’s wheel, and he went a shade whiter even than his hair.
“Get rid of those eight guards out there,” Tempest seethed.
“What? Get rid of them?” Grubber sputtered. “What do you mean? Send them away? There’s nowhere for them to go unless you want me to have them chucked off the side of the mountain or something, heh heh…”
Tempest loomed. Grubber meeped.
“...yer kidding right?”
The commander did not answer. She turned her attention back to the situation at hoof. The ‘teacher’ called Cheerilee had caught a measure of her breath, but she was quite battered - it was only for her coloring that her wounds weren’t so obvious. She was poised like a feral cat ready to pounce, with her rump in the air and her head dipped with her bent front legs. The boldest of the fillies was still by her side, swallowing through a lump in her throat over and over again to no avail. The child was dirty, but appeared otherwise unharmed. As if to add insult to her opponent’s injury, Tempest addressed the child first.
“What’s your name, filly?”
“Wh-why should I tell you?” The child managed, though she stepped partially behind her professor as she spoke.
Tempest’s smile was poisonous. “How do you know your ‘friends’ haven’t been asking about you? If you tell me, maybe I can tell you something in return. Give and take, that’s how the world works, child. Best you learn that lesson now.”
“...Sweetie Belle,” The filly replied. “My friends’ names are Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.”
Tempest shrugged. “No idea, sorry.”
“B-but you said if I told you my name, you would tell me--!”
“I said maybe,” Tempest interjected. “I’m running an army, not a census bureau. Get used to disappointment.” She nodded at Cheerilee. “Maybe they ought to teach you foals a lesson about trust. As in don’t.”
Cheerilee’s breathing had normalized as much as it was going to without several hours of rest. She stepped further in front of Sweetie Belle and brandished again the snapped bit of classroom flagpole, which still had a tattered remnant of the Equestrian flag hanging from the blunt end.
“Leave them alone,” Cheerilee muttered. “They’re just children, for Celestia’s sake.”
Tempest casually examined the bottom of one of her hooves. “You know I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. You fight better than, well...your entire race all put together, if this city is any indication. What’s your secret? Hoof-fu classes after work?”
“I’m their teacher,” Cheerilee replied.
“Right, we’ve been through that already,” Tempest snerked. “But if you’re trying to suggest that being their babysitter is the only reason you were able to buck my soldiers senseless, then you’ve got an awfully rare spirit, for a pony. I like that.”
“You do?” Grubber questioned. “I mean...you do! Yeah! I do too!”
“Shut up Grubber,” Tempest commanded, her eyes never leaving the other mare in the room. “A pony like you ought to be doing something better with her time then watching snot-muzzled brats while mom and dad go off to better paying jobs than yours.”
Cheerilee was doing her best to maintain a combat posture like the one she was taught in a self-defense class she once took. “I love what I do. Ponies like me help to shape the future of Equestria.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Tempest retorted, turning to proudly display the mark of her master on the flank of her armor. “The future of Equestria is the Storm King. Ponies aren’t going to need to be literate or know their times tables in order to be laborers. Knowledge is going to be against the law soon, so you’re about to be out of a job.”
Cheerilee pawed at the rubble with one hoof and clenched the makeshift weapon in her teeth, but said nothing. Her student spoke for her.
“Y-you can’t make learning illegal!” The filly shouted from behind her living barracks. “What would ponies do without knowledge!?”
“Knowledge is power,” Tempest snapped. “And power is dangerous. The less you know, the more useful you’ll be in the new regime, assuming you’re found to be useful at all.”
At this, Cheerilee’s scowl broke. She gaped to the point that she nearly dropped the flagpole, balancing it on her lower lip as she raised her head. “...what is that supposed to mean?”
Tempest tilted her head; a faint shaft of smoky sunlight from a crack in the wall glinted across the whites of her eyes, adding to their radiance. “Fillies and colts are only a drain on resources.”
Cheerilee’s hackles went up in time with the rising coat hairs on the back of her neck. “You...you wouldn’t…”
“You’re right,” Tempest smiled. “I wouldn’t. I consider it an accomplishment to annex your capital city with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises on either side, but the Storm King...he’s a different story. You should be very, very afraid of him...because he doesn’t care about the future of your race.”
“B-but you’re a pony t--” Sweetie Belle blurted.
“You will NOT hurt them!!” Cheerliee shrieked, cutting her student off to spring into action. With a unfamiliar growl that shocked the young unicorn, Cheerilee kicked off her hind legs and launched herself straight at the commander of the Storm King’s invasion force. For an instant, the common schoolmare was a paladin in flight - a wine-colored steed with piercing eyes and a fiery sword in her mouth that was aimed directly at her target’s black-armored heart.
Tempest didn’t move a muscle. Trained to make the most of every split second in combat, she observed her opponent and took note of the conviction in the teacher’s eyes. This little pony truly meant to go through with her course, and on some level, Tempest found herself appreciating that. Alas, Cheerliee’s lackluster poise and clumsy effort made it clear that she was not lying. She was no special operative. She was indeed just a school teacher with nothing more than a few night classes in self-defense training under her bridle. Such courses taught little beyond subduing your opponent sufficiently to run away, and what was to be learned there dealt only with riposte against an attack already in progress. On the offensive, this pony was nothing.
Tempest scowled. Eight guards. Eight.
Cheerilee felt herself soaring through the air. Her enemy had not moved, and she thought that perhaps she might indeed fell this one as she had the others. She caught a flicker of movement below, and glanced down to see a reflection of herself in a shard of glass that had once been a mirror. The pony there was one she had never seen before. Torn and battered, but her legs still carried her into action, and she had enough strength left to propel herself for a flight that, albeit short, could have impressed a pegasus.
That pony was a teacher, a defender, and a hero.
Cheerliee’s eyes came forward just long enough to see the sparks from a stubby horn. In her teeth, she carried a metal pole. The perfect lightning rod.
The arc of electricity that entered Cheerliee’s weapon engulfed every nerve in her body with an explosion of volcanic pain. Every image in her field of view burst into stars, her synapses rattling around until she momentarily forgot who or where she was. She had been through as many injuries in her life as any other simple citizen of Equestria, but this was something new - something impossible to endure. As though cast into a cauldron of boiling acid, her body seemed to erupt with white hot flame, and was still being consumed as she slammed into the hard concrete floor and crumpled into a rolling ball, desperate to put herself out.
“Ngh...aghhHAHhhhngggh--AAAAGHHHHGGAHHHHH!!!”
“Miss Cheerilee!” Sweetie Belle screamed. The two other fillies in the room hugged one another and sobbed loudly, but in true Crusader spirit, the young unicorn abandoned fear for the sake of her fallen friend and rushed to Cheerliee’s side. With tears on her cheeks, she stayed Cheerliee’s impulse to writhe on the floor by wrapping her forelegs around the teacher’s neck, and then fixed the commander with a look.
“Why did you do that!? If you’re such a bigshot fighter pony, you didn’t have to hurt her like that!!”
Even Grubber seemed at a loss for words. Tempest still hadn’t moved, standing erect like the sleek barrel of a canon.
“She doesn’t know her place very well for a mere teacher,” The commander sniffed. “And fighting is for the strong. The weak are either protected, or exploited.”
“She is NOT weak!” Sweetie Belle protested. “And she does too know her place! She’s our teacher, and she’s been doing everything she can to protect all of us!! That’s why she beat up your dumb guards! She’s worth a hundred-thousand of your mean monster-things who are only in it to hurt everypony!!”
“All of you?” Tempest quirked a brow. Aside from the unconscious faculty there were only the other two other fillies present in the room, paralyzed with fear though they were. Along the same wall was a door that was shut tightly. On a hunch, Tempest used her chaotic magic to launch a heavy textbook against it. The projectile impacted with a loud bang, and the commander listened for the satisfying sound of small cries from beyond.
Tempest exchanged glances with Grubber. Then she nodded at the door.
“Get them.”
Sweetie Belle shouted a protest and sent a small rock towards Grubber by the power of her magic, but the little creature deflected it easily and pushed past her, one of the burly guards in his wake. With a simple gesture from Grubber, the guard punched a hole straight through the door and used the leverage to yank it open, its lock shattering like glass in the process.
“Whoa, check it out,” Grubber said nonchalantly through bites of a scone. “There's like ten...twenty...eleventy-hundred and thirty of those brats in here.” He made a face at his own result and began counting on his fingers again. “Thirty. Yeah like thirty of 'em all up in here.”
Expressionless, Tempest gazed down at the withered form of Cheerliee, her head cradled in Sweetie Belle’s lap and her weapon nowhere to be found. “Marks for shrewdness professor, but ultimately futile.” Tempest nodded at the guards. “Take them.”
“N…no…!”
Tempest moved to step over the the fallen mare, but found her legs in a sudden tangle under her. Caught utterly off guard, she actually lost her balance and tripped backwards, impacting with a slab of rubble to keep herself standing. Her sangria cheeks and the low light were enough to hide the blush over her lapse in discipline, but Tempest was incensed, and her horn sizzled with the a sound like eggs in a frying pan as she stared downwards. Her intent had been to chastise an impudent Sweetie Belle, but it was Cheerilee’s mulberry foreleg that was held aloft.
“N-no...y-you...you will not t-take them…” Cheerilee whimpered. “I-I’m responsible f-for them...a-and I won’t...l-let them come to h-harm…”
Sweetie Belle was brushing her teacher’s mane. “Miss Cheerliee, don’t...she’ll hurt you again…”
“Pfft,” Tempest hissed, brushing herself off. “Never fear, little one. Like all your brethren this one is not worth my effort to destroy, though at least she wasn’t that way from the very start like all the others.” Offering that little bit of praise, the commander simply stepped around Cheerilee and passed her by. “Muzzle the mare and bring her too. Muzzle them all, actually. I’ve heard enough whining and crying today.”
The guards moved to collect the sniveling children, but a rustling noise coming from the direction of their commander roused them. They were all too late to respond, and Tempest was jolted two steps forward as a small rock impacted with the back of her head. Bearing her teeth with rage, the commander whirled about, intent upon deep-frying whatever newcomer would dare to stand up to her.
But there was no newcomer. There stood Miss Cheerliee, her foreleg outstretched as though she had just launched a shot put. Her lush coat had gone pale, and there was a deeper glint of grey over her sagely green eyes. She smelled like equine flambé meant for a dragon, and there was black mottling from singed coat hairs in various splotches all over her body. Behind her, Sweetie Belle cowered.
“W-we...we’re not finished yet!” The withered mare announced.
Tempest sighed. “You can’t be serious. Is being an educator such a dreary existence that you’ve developed a deathwish?”
This time, Cheerliee attempted to make use of the element of surprise. She launched forward again, intending to tackle her opponent and bear her to the ground, but Tempest spun about with expert skill and slammed the schoolmare with a hind leg in the softness of her unprotected stomach, sending her sprawling in another heap by a mound of desks.
“No! Please!!” Sweetie Belle begged. “You’ll kill her!!”
Tempest slowly closed with the last protector of the foals, who was curled into a ball on her side, shaking all over; her face a mask of pain.
“Listen to your student, professor. Stay down. Believe it or not, I’d rather not have to ruin my zero casualties streak today. I’m not a barbarian, but I will act if you force my hoof.”
“...w-won’t...w-won’t let...y-you hurt...hurt...them…”
“I’m not planning to hurt them,” Tempest replied. “All I’m going to do is put them in their cages, where they belong. You should be honored that I’m going to have one of my guards carry you to your chains, without making you walk yourself. I’m not entirely without compassion after all, and at the very least, you put up some kind of fight.” She clucked her tongue once. “The Storm King can decide what to do with all of you when he arrives.”
Cheerliee was shaking her head as though a spring in her neck had come loose. She staggered and struggled...and they all watched silently as she somehow made it back to her hooves, planting them upon the floor with such force as to kick up masonry dust. Panting hard against the pain, she blinked several times and stumbled until she had again placed herself between Tempest and the door, with Grubber and the guards standing off to one side.
“M-Miss Cheerliee,” Sweetie Belle gaped, still very much in shock. “...please don’t…”
“N-no...no…” Cheerliee repeated. “I w-won’t...r-rest until th-the childdddrr...children are s-safe...I won’t…”
“I could kill you with a thought,” Tempest warned. “Right this very minute.”
“...th-that...that’s...th-the only way...urkk…y-you’re getting through this d-door…” Cheerilee sputtered. “...o-over m-my...my d-dead body…”
The guards moved towards the door again, but Tempest stayed them with a gesture. “Alright, I’ll bite. I can see protecting your own, but throwing your life away for some snotty brats who aren’t even your kin, when you don’t even know your enemy’s intent? That can’t be the only reason you’re still there, so what is it really? Got a loving stallion at home you can’t bear to part with?”
Cheerliee winced and held her ribs, but shook her head.
“A marefriend then? Swing that way?”
Again the teacher gestured in the negative.
“Don’t you have anypony who cares about you? Isn’t that what ponies are all about? Using each other for crutches?”
“...s-students love me....a-and I l-love them…”
Tempest cackled and thrust a foreleg at the door. “Them? Where are they when you go home to your empty house and eat your three-thousandth obligatory apple they brought you? What good are they when you’re longing for adult conversation, or even pillow talk? Has any one of them ever come back to see you after they graduate, or at any time at all unless they need something?” She sneered and wilted Sweetie Belle with a quick glare as she spoke. “They use you, professor. And when they’re done with you, they move on. You’re a tool.”
With all her strength, Cheerliee sent her foreleg hurtling towards Tempest’s cheek. The commander didn’t even bother to step out of the way of the blow. It landed with no more force than a drop of rain, and Tempest rewarded it by grabbing the leg and twisting it, as she brought her hoof down on Cheerilee’s knee joint in the wrong direction. The teacher screamed, and was soon back on the floor, holding her leg to her body in lameness. Sweetie Belle cried out her teacher’s name, and again was by her side.
“Anyway,” Tempest went on. “I gave you all an order. Collect the foals.”
The guards moved forward, but Cheerliee wrenched herself away from Sweetie Belle and threw her ungainly body against the door, slapping it shut again. She mashed her muzzle against the wood and wet its surface with her tears.
“...n-no...n-nooooo…”
Tempest’s eyes narrowed. She took a step towards the door and found the unicorn filly there; forelegs outstretched and blocking her path. Sweetie Belle was sobbing openly, but she stood her ground.
“PLEASE! Aren’t you a pony!? Don’t you have any heart at all!? Stop hurting her!!”
“Then make her stay down,” Tempest sneered. “She’s only doing this to herself.”
Sweetie Belle glanced between the two adult mares, and finally crawled over to her teacher, who had slid down the door into another heap. She gently patted Cheerliee’s withers. “Please Miss Cheerilee...it will be okay...just lay here and rest...we all know you tried to save us and we love you for it...don’t get hurt anymore…”
“Your students have already surpassed you in wisdom, professor,” Tempest scoffed. “So early in life, too. You must be very proud. Or very easy to surpass.”
Tempest nodded at the guards. They moved, and again, Cheerliee fought her way to her hooves to stand in their path. The bruise around her stomach was nearly as black as her scorch marks, and the hoof she had used to attack her enemy had a crack in the keratin. The joint of that leg was swollen, and the earth mare was making an effort to keep weight off of it. The guards paused.
Grubber stopped munching on the peanut butter doughnut in his grasp. “Dang, you oughtta offer this one a job, Tempest. She’s got more piss and wind than a thoroughbred in a hurricane. How much much you think she can take before she up and dies?”
“Don’t kill her, please…” Sweetie Belle wailed, “...she’s just trying to protect us…”
From the corner of the room and behind the door, other foals began to emit similar phrases. Tempest was losing her patience, and the perversion of the smug smile on her face into a twisted grin showed it. “I bet you hate me right now, little mare. How dare I come along and screw up your happy little Canterlot festival field trip.”
Cheerliee blinked through a puffy eye rim. She shook her head. “...nuh…” There was more, but the rest was inaudible. Tempest leaned in.
“Yes? Say what you want to say. It might end up being your last words.”
Cheerliee’s chapped lips parted. She formed words so soft, they filled the ear of the commander alone. Somehow they emerged freely from their broken source.
“I don’t hate you. I pity you. Ponies don’t end up like you unless some trauma drives them to it. Even if you didn’t have parents, you could have gone to your teacher about it. She would have cared for you and shown you the way. But you’re a coward, and this is the result. These are my students, whom I treat the way your teacher could have treated you, if you had given her the chance. And so help me Celestia, I will stand in front of this door until one of us is dead, if that’s what I have to do to keep them safe.”
Tempest’s smile vanished. Her eyes went wide, her horn sparked to terrifying life, and in that moment, she lost her cool.
“Who are you to claim to know me!?” The storm commander shrieked. “My friends abandoned me! That’s what friendship leads to!!”
Cheerliee winced so hard tears spilled from her eyes. Half-delerious, she emitted a bizarre giggle and strained to increase her voice beyond a whisper. “Y-you...you n-nn...never g-gave them a ch-chance…b-bet you ran away as soon as...g-going got tough...s’you...s’y-your own f-fault...”
“ENOUGH!!”
With fillies crying and guards muttering in the background, Tempest turned her horn into a live wire. She impaled the teacher called Cheerilee with a shock from it, sending another dire electrocution through the mare’s stringy body until she was literally smoking.
It took an extra minute this time, but eyes widened in shock all around the room as the simple schoolmare stood back up again.
“FALL!” Tempest screamed, enveloping Cheerliee in another excruciating shockwave. “Fall! Fall! Fall! You don’t know me! You can’t possibly understand my life and what I’ve been through! Fall down or I’ll bring this whole building down on your ears!! FALL!” With each cry of ‘fall’, Tempest sent another blast into her helpless opponent’s body.
“Whoa whoa whoa!” Grubber finally spoke up. “Stop beating a dead horse, Tex! At least let us get out of here before you ragefit the whole place down!”
Tempest continued her tirade. The shocks were less intense, but frequent enough that the diminished power behind them was no recompense. When she finally stopped, she was left standing over her smoking opponent, panting in her own right, her eyes wide.
“I won’t say this again. Don’t get up.”
Sweetie Belle was bawling, her face buried in her hooves in a subconscious attempt to protect her innocence.
On ruined hooves and shaky legs, a bloody, bruised, burned, shuddering and panting Miss Cheerliee rose. Her eyes were so gray that it was uncertain if she could even see, but as if on automatic pilot, she found her way back to the land of the living.
Nobody moved. Tempest gaped.
“How!? How can you still be moving!?” The commander cried. “You’re not a princess! You’re not even a guard! Ponies run away and hide when things get tough! Your entire city gave up without a fight! How are you alive!?”
“...deresm...estimitt…pon..evvrrr...”
“What?”
“She says you’re underestimating her,” Grubber appended. “That you’re underestimating ponies everywhere. Hey go figure, just a little while ago weren’t you going on about never underestimating your oppo--”
“SHUT UP, GRUBBER!”
Grubber yelped and saluted. “Shutting up, Ma’am!”
Tempest lifted Cheerliee’s chin and lanced her eyes with a demonic stare. “You could light up Hearth’s Warming with the amount of electricity I pumped into you. Tell me how you’re still standing. Magic? Technology? Are you some sort of clockwork pony machine?”
Cheerliee put all her effort into bending her jowls into an honest, caring smile.
“...m-magic…”
“What kind of magic?” Tempest replied. “If it can do something like this, I will have it.”
“...m-magic of...friendship.”
Tempest had no words. Cheerliee went on.
“...f-feel s-sorry for you...m-magic insss-side us all...m-makes us love...makes us care...makes us...m-move mountains…l-let...l-let stuudents g-go...w-won’t ever s-stop d-defending...let them go...”
“You don’t know me,” Tempest rumbled.
“...you j-just...n-need to let somep-p-pony...b-be your friend…”
Tempest’s hoof swung out like a mousetrap, sending a hard slap into Cheerliee’s cheek. The attack paled in comparison to the commander’s previous tirade, but it threatened to be the straw that broke the horse’s back. Cheerliee teetered and rocked on her hooves, her eyes rolling up as she began to swoon.
“Finally,” Tempest sneered. “I really would hate to kill off the only pony in this city worth anything in a fight. Who knew it would be a teacher, of all things.” Once again, she nodded at the guards. “Get the foals.”
Miss Cheerliee teetered. But she did not fall.
Tempest glanced down. With no small amount of effort, little Sweetie Belle was holding her teacher aloft, keeping her from hitting the ground. The filly’s tear tracks were deep, but her bloodshot eyes were unwavering, and the hard look on her face was hewn from granite.
“Why do you do this?” Tempest questioned. “Are you not afraid of me?”
“Y-yes Ma’am,” Sweetie Belle squeaked.
“Do you not fear what I will do to your teacher if she continues to stand in my way?”
“Miss Cheerliee is...i-is my friend,” Sweetie Belle meeped. “She doesn’t want to fall down so...I have to help her.”
Tempest sparked her horn just to make a show. “And what if I decide to burn you instead, filly?”
Sweetie Belle ineffectively swallowed at the lump of fear in her throat. “It...d-doesn’t matter. A Cutie Mark Crusader helps her friends. B-but…” the little unicorn tried her plea again, “...please don’t hurt her anymore.”
The commander glanced at her subordinates. The guards had not moved. Grubber was uncomfortably scratching the back of his neck and looking away, a stick of a lollipop jutting out from between his teeth.
Tempest Shadow, the Lady of the Storm King’s armada, had subdued the capital of the largest nation in the known world without a single casualty on either side. She had bested three of the four legendary alicorns in combat, and chased away the last. She had eliminated all of her obstacles, and found that none of them were equal to the task of standing in her way...
...except for a single school teacher, defending her students. Except for a helpless filly, who valued her teacher so much that she was willing to send her to her doom, if that was her intended course.
Miraculously, Cheerliee found her hooves again. The pain was beyond her imagining, but she made her neck straighten and forced her head to rise. Tears born from the mere effort of moving her body spilled from her eyes.
“Let my students go,” she said firmly.
Grubber, who had endured quite enough of the standoff, signalled the guards on his own. “Come on guys, let’s clean ‘em out like the boss said.”
The guards advanced, but Tempest, whose eyes were locked with Cheerilee’s, held out her foreleg.
“Let them go.”
Grubber balked. “...what?”
“We came here to do the Storm King’s bidding,” Tempest explained. “And the Storm King wants the magic of the princesses. We have too many slaves to watch as it is, and by the time the Storm King is finished, we’ll have conquered the rest of this nation anyway.”
By some defiance of logic, Grubber found himself without a snack. “Y-yeah but...you can’t just...I mean you’re not gonna just…?”
Tempest returned her attention to Cheerliee. “Leave this place. If you and your foals are not gone before the Storm King arrives, I will not be held responsible for what happens. My men will tend to the fallen faculty members - this is not a bargain, so don’t ask me to release them as well. I give you my word that they will not be harmed, so long as they do nothing more to bring harm upon themselves.
“You’re letting her win?” Grubber concluded with amazement.
“It’s professional courtesy, Grubber,” Tempest corrected. “One warrior to another.”
Cheerliee fought for words, failed, and offered several stiff nods by way of reply. She jerked one leg and repositioned it to keep herself up, lolling her head to look down at Sweetie Belle.
“T-tell your c-c-classmates we’re...heading down the m-mountain...to Ponyville...m-must go quickly.”
Sweetie Belle nodded at the two fillies who were still cowering in the corner of the room. They seemed to know that the task was being delegated to them, so they went about it. Sweetie Belle, by contrast, did not move.
“I’m staying here.”
“...n-no y-you’re not…” Cheerilee breathed, “...d-do what your t-teacher t-t-tells...you…”
Sweetie Belle stepped away from her teacher. Instead, of all things, she came up beside Tempest. “Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are still here. I can’t...I won’t leave as long as they are.” She smiled wanly. “I’m sorry, Miss Cheerliee. Thank you so much though...for everything.”
Half a dozen foals emerged cautiously from the back room. Sweetie Belle offered her smile to them as well, backing it now with resolution and encouragement.
“Miss Cheerliee needs you. Can you take her down the mountain path?”
The foals, some of whom had a passable measure of bulk, glanced between each other. A few hesitated at the mere sight of their shattered teacher, but none of them would let their classmates see them back down. They exchanged nods, and two older colts stood side by side to their teacher, propping her up by the flanks. Cheerliee tried to speak again, but Sweetie Belle cut her off.
“I’m staying here,” She repeated. “My mind’s made up. Thank you for protecting me, Miss Cheerliee. You’re right, your students love you very much. I know I do.”
Several little fillies and colts nodded in assent.
Tempest glanced at her guards. “Dismissed.”
“B-but-!” Grubber sputtered.
“Dismissed!”
As the guards began to collect the bodies of the unconscious faculty and file out of the building, Grubber let out a sharp breath. “Tch, whatever. We’ll get ‘em later anyway.” On his way out, he mumbled just a bit too loudly on purpose. “...the great Tempest Shadow beaten by a teacher and a couple snot-muzzled brats, heh heh...never gonna live that down…”
Sweetie Belle managed to smile up at Tempest. “...thank you.”
Tempest huffed. “Don’t thank me, urchin. You’re going in a cage.”
“I’m going in a cage with my friends,” Sweetie Belle corrected. “And that’s the only place I wanna be.”
Tempest placed a hoof on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder and guided her away from her companions. Before departing, she turned to address her adversary.
“My guards will be watching,” she warned. “Leave immediately. Do nothing else, or I will know about it.”
Cheerliee had caught a little of her breath. A filly added her weight to the mix, making three crutches for the professor as other foals began to spill out of the back room. Miss Cheerilee spoke.
“Y-your teachers would be p-proud of you, Tempest. I-it’s...not too late to embrace friendship. Think about it.”
“Hmph.”
Preceded by a brave unicorn filly whose chest swelled with the Magic of Friendship, Commander Tempest Shadow stepped back into the smoky gray world of a defeated Canterlot. Her stubby adjutant fell in.
“Prepare my ship, Grubber. We’re going after the last princess. I want to get this over with.”
Grubber was munching on something Tempest didn’t bother to identify. “What’choo want I oughtta do with the brat? Lock her up?”
Tempest nodded. She paused, and added:
“...put her in with her friends.”
Sweetie Belle smiled.
