BEDLAM III: Quiet on the Set

"HEAVE!" Shining Armor roared. At his command, the guards and yaks atop the roofs on one side of the main Canterlot street toppled over the barrels of balefire they'd brought with them. The tar-like solution flowed down onto the troop of golems marching down the street and erupted into green flames on contact. Shining leaped from his post as the fire roared up. "BACK!"

The entire platoon withdrew as the fire swirled and boiled, spreading down the line of magically powered machines and melting them as it washed down the street. Much of the southern city would be consumed, but as Shining and his wife had evacuated Canterlot hours earlier, this was an acceptable loss compared to the threat Bedford presented.

The defending forces scrambled down the scaffolds they'd erected and hurried down the alleyways they'd covered with tarps to mask their retreat. And not a moment too soon, as the rooftops they'd launched the ambush from were themselves consumed by magical fire as the alicorn clones swept down and blasted them, heedless of the balefire that latched onto and climbed up their spells, until they themselves were consumed.

Against sane opponents, this would be a grim but positive occurrence. With those hissing and shrieking abominations, however, it only complicated things. Now, the clones flew through the air covered in flames and exploding as they attempted to cast more magic. Flaming motes were hurled in every direction, spreading the blaze even into the alleyways the defenders retreated through.

Shining grit his teeth and galloped on, keeping his eyes forward and off the tarps above even as they began to burn. "Hurry!"

While he and his team scrambled to escape the arcane inferno, a batch of golems had clambered onto the roof opposite where the balefire had been hurled. The humanoid machines crouched low and raced atop the lines of houses like wild animals until they cleared the fire, at which point they leaped down to the street and continued marching.

The golem at the head of the line paused for just a moment as something impacted the street ahead of them, but as the dust settled the lead golem's eyes lit up red and he sneered with uncanny awareness. A mental command rolled out and the troop began splitting and encircling the one who had come to halt their advance.

Celestia stood tall, her eyes slowly drifting left and right as the machines surrounded her. However, they'd given up their advance further into the city just as she anticipated.

"Hatred makes one predictable," she murmured. Her wings snapped out for a moment as she waited for one of the machines to attack. Instead, once she was surrounded by a ring six ranks deep, they paused. The red eyes that seemed to signal which golem Bedford was directly piloting flashed from head to head, but no movement was made. There was a whirring and a hissing as each golem began preparing their weapons, but still no attack came.

Then, they began laughing.

Each and every one of them began laughing with his voice. The red light continued to circle through their faces, but no attack came. Celestia lowered her head and spread her wings in preparation.

Then, they went silent and their heads snapped in unison toward the sky. Celestia peeked back for just a moment to see they were staring at the mountaintop.

"God damn it," Bedford hissed. The golem he was piloting waved its hand. "Just kill her." The red light vanished and the entire group charged at once. First was a spray of metal as multiple golems fired their projectiles. But while such weapons could incapacitate a normal pony, they only served to agitate a full-grown alicorn. She sprang forward, heedless of the stinging pellets, and body-slammed three of the machines.

Her hooves came down on the toppled animunculi and crushed their heads. As the rest of the horde doubled back and leaped upon her, her rear hooves snapped up and caved their chests in. She whirled around, toppling and trampling the machines as they hurled themselves at her.

However, without their master to direct them, many of the golems who were now circumventing the raging balefire chose to continue marching into the city instead of dog-piling the former princess. Instead, they ran headlong into the platoon of guards and yaks led by Shining Armor just as they emerged from the alley. The unicorn captain thrust his hoof forward.

"Charge!"

"BASTARD!" Tempest roared, which was all the intervention I allowed. In one movement, I rose to my full height and activated my distorter. I glared at my frozen double before looking back to Jury. Her side was bruised and scorched and blood welled up from a dozen or so holes in her flesh. I grit my teeth and drew a disrupting wand from my belt before stalking to my double.

"Careful, pal," he said suddenly, causing me to jump. My jaw dropped as I watched him scan the area before locking eyes with me. He was surrounded by a strange, blurry aura and left behind a faint trail like I'd seen other times I used my distorter. He smiled and raised his left arm, which held a glowing distorter all its own. "See, I put two and two together that you probably snatched up the one I left back at your place. So, figured I'd best come here personally with my spare."

I swallowed as he again scanned the area. "Neat reaction, though. First time I've ever seen two people using one of these each," he hummed. "Where's Discord?"

I looked between his face and the gun in his arm. "N-no clue."

"You lying to me?" He asked evenly, still idly studying the air around us. I watched the movements of his eyes and head carefully.

"No, he ran off while I was patching up your shoddy work," I replied. He laughed and turned his head away.

"Shoddy work, huh?" He looked back towards his Citadel. "Whatcha mean by that?" I sprang forward and raised my wand like a knife. I was stopped short when the barrel of his gun swept up and jabbed me in the chest.

"Scratch that," he chirped as I gasped and fell back. "I don't care."

click.

I stumbled and collapsed, but was otherwise unharmed. His head whipped back around to look at me in surprise. We shared a look before both glancing at his gun. He kept it level, but leaned in close, studying it carefully

"Huh," he whispered, slowly sliding his arm back. There was a faint, warbling scraping noise as his gun retracted, revealing a floating fiery cloud full of little metal pellets, frozen in time.

"Fascinating," we both murmured as I rolled forward to get a closer look.

"Must be an effect of us both distorting time at the same instant," I offered, rubbing my chin and creeping closer to him.

"Wild," he added with a nod, before raising a mechanical eyebrow. "Guess I gotta get my claws dirty, huh?" I snapped forward and tried to stab him, but his leg shot up and kicked my arm. I cried out in pain and the wand went sailing back in an arc. I threw myself back and scurried away from him as he casually stalked after me.

Just as I was in arms reach of the wand, which had landed a few feet away from the frozen Tempest and Jury, he jumped forward and dragged me back by the ankle, before hoisting me up by the throat with his left arm. I gasped and choked and struggled against his grip, trying in vain to try and pry his phase distorter off.

"Alreet! Outta respect for your being a lesser me, your choice," he chirped, completely unfazed by my thrashing and kicking even as my bootheel collided with his jaw. "You can go easy, or hard. We can do this in real time and I just blow your head clean off."

He nodded his head at Jury. "Lil' ponies are sturdy 'n all, but you ain't so lucky. Should be quick and painless. Or," he traced one of his sharp claws along my stomach. "I can start digging and cutting until you bleed to death." I looked at him in dread, still struggling, but glanced just past him. I paused and met his eyes, at which he gave an expectant smirk.

I slowly nodded and raised my gloved hand. His smile widened and he nodded back. "Good choice. I'm sure your girls would prefer to see you drop, y'know?" My eye twitched and I snarled my lip, but slowly switched off my distorter. He followed suit and extended his gun barrel from his right arm.

BANG

But before he could shoot, the cloud of high-speed metal he'd fired previously resumed its trip and exploded into his back. His frame made a squealing noise and crackled as the blast struck, causing him to lurch and twitch.

"Aw, you son of a-" He was cut off as a beam of maroon magic sheered through his shoulders, cutting both his arms off and letting me drop free. He managed a bitter smile and we both turned to look at Tempest who stared at him with venom in her eyes as she stood over Jury.

I scrambled and retrieved my wand as he stood in place, shuddering and lurching with an awful grinding noise coming from somewhere inside him. I stood before him and glared into his eyes as he just grinned. Right as I raised my wand, however, there was a chirp and the light vanished from his eyes. His entire frame shuddered one final time and then sagged with a hiss. I stared at the derelict animunculus for a moment before jamming my wand into its head just to be safe.

Sighing hard, I turned and ran to Tempest and Jury. Sweeping off my coat I gently wrapped it around Jury, who squeaked and looked up at me briefly before wincing.

"Just hang on," I huffed, carefully scooped her up, and looked at Tempest. She looked at Jury anxiously before meeting my eyes. "Grab his right arm and get on the hovercraft."

"Balefire, huh?" I huffed as we sped toward the castle, eying the green flames consuming the southern portion of the city. "Good thinking." I scanned the rest of the city and saw that there didn't seem to be much fighting still going on, but there was a mass effort to haul bodies towards the castle. The sight caused me to glance at Jury who lay quivering in my lap. Dark stains were becoming visible even through the dark material of my coat. I anxiously held the underside of her head and she leaned into my hand.

"What happened?" Tempest asked, peeking over the edge of the hovercraft.

"If I had to guess, the balefire and Badlam coming up to confront us sort of put a pin in his attack plan," I replied casting a critical glare at the Citadel in the distance. "No telling how long that will last though. And there's no way he doesn't have more flying things lurking over there."

"It's Bedlam!" A scream echoed from below. We both glanced down to see we were directly above the castle courtyard, where dozens of yaks and guards and a certain pair of battered alicorns stood gawping up at us. I took a shallow breath and shared a look with Tempest before setting the craft to descend.

As we did, there was a clang and a growl, which drew our attention to the right. There, crouched like a cat and with death in her eyes, was Ember. She snorted a heavy gout of steam at me and jabbed a claw.

"Land. Now."

I raised both my hands and nodded. "Already in the process, alright?" To my surprise, she recoiled and looked at me in bewilderment.

"The heck was that tone?" She grumbled. She stared at me for a moment before looking passed me. I turned and saw Celestia fluttering next to the craft. Her cold, unreadable eyes drifted to my glove. Slowly and deliberately, I pulled it off and held it to Ember. Celestia blinked once before looking down at Jury who was still shivering, and hid her face in my shirt.

I looked over at Ember and shook my glove at her, which snapped her out of her stupor and she snatched it from my hand. Glancing between the two and back at Tempest, I slowly put my hands on the controls.

"I'm going to land it, alright?"

"That would be advisable," Celestia replied. "We can't treat her wounds this high up."