Sun and Shield

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.