Spitfire's office door opened, and a flame-colored jet of hair erupted out through the crack.
Extending her neck, Spitfire carefully scanned one end of the long corridor to the other. A perfectly-swept carpet emblazoned with the wing-and-thunderbolt insignia clashed festively with the perfectly-spaced arches of tinsel lining the corridor, having been arranged there yesterday by a small team of eager cadets.
Speaking of eager cadets, Spitfire's eyes quickly located and locked onto a viable target, a pink-feathered trainee skittering past without a care in the world.
"Hey, you there. Cadet." The trainee immediately stopped, surprise flickering through her eyes for the briefest moment before she snapped stiffly to attention, gritting her beak into an aggressively neutral expression.
"Cadet Silverstream reporting, ma'am!" she chirped with unnecessary indoor volume, making unblinking eye contact with the golden name plaque on Spitfire's door. "Ready for inspection!"
"At ease, Cadet." Spitfire waved her free hoof lazily, the other still keeping the door mostly closed. "I just need a favor. Could you find Rainbow Dash and send her to my office at once, please? You should find her in the mess, if not, try the Wonderbolt dorm."
"Yes, ma'am! Affirmative, ma'am!" Silverstream's wing swiped noisily against her trainee uniform as she snapped it into a salute against her beak, before pivoting and striding at speed in the direction of the mess hall. As her tail disappeared around the corner, Spitfire stepped back into her office and sat down on uncomfortable hindquarters to wait.
If nothing else, she admired the hippogriff's endless enthusiasm. Non-pony cadets were had become more common since Princess Twilight took the throne, with a few already in the reserves, and Spitfire was already preparing for the day when she'd welcome the Wonderbolts' first non-pony member. Sadly, it probably wasn't going to be Silverstream. The girl had boundless reserves of energy, and her sometimes-fearsome determination had pulled her through trials that had sent many other ponies packing. But it took a special something to be a Wonderbolt, and Spitfire wasn't sure yet if she had it. Only time would tell.
She'd certainly give her a glowing recommendation to the Seaquestrian Navy, at least.
The office door creaked open and Rainbow Dash strode in, closing it behind her. "Reporting as ordered, Captain. What's the problem?"
Not wasting any time, Spitfire reared up off her chair, planting three hooves on her desk and laying one leg across it so that Rainbow could see her thigh. "Mind explaining to me what this is about?"
For a moment, Rainbow Dash had absolutely no idea what Spitfire was doing... until the Captain's firebird cutie mark suddenly swelled with bright light, illuminating the small office space. Tiny flames shimmering around the mark's edges before the light died away. Spitfire started at Dash pointedly as her cutie mark - both of them, in fact - pulsed with light again, throwing a honeyed glow onto her desk stationery.
"Oh, hey!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, her confusion turning to pleasant surprise. "You're being called by the Map!"
"Yeah, I got that." Spitfire said gruffly, planting her haunches back on her chair. "What I'm asking is why. Friendship missions are your thing, not mine. Did your Map get its wires crossed?"
Rainbow shook her head. "No, I don't think so. The Map's calling you. It does that sometimes, it's not always me and the others. It can give missions to just about anypony."
"And it chose me," Spitfire stated flatly.
"Uh, yeah."
"Okay, I see." Spitfire calmly leaned back in her chair. "How do I turn that off?"
Rainbow wrinkled her nose in confusion. "Turn it... off?"
"Yeah, you know, opt out." Spitfire circled her hoof lazily. "I don't have time for a friendship mission right now."
"It, uh, it doesn't work like that," Rainbow gave her a sheepish grin.
"Like hay it doesn't," Spitfire scowled. "Okay, how do I delegate it to somepony else?" She frowned at Rainbow's increasingly guilty smile. "Are you telling me I have to go and sort this out myself?"
"That is how friendship missions work, yeah."
"I don't do friendship missions! There's gotta be a million other ponies better qualified for this than me. You can tell the Friendship department that I'm happy to leave it in their hooves."
Spitfire's flank pulsed again. She frowned curiously at it for a moment.
"What happens if I leave it?"
Rainbow's expression became quizzical, and she pondered this for a few moments. "Pretty sure nopony's ever tried. It just keeps buzzing, I think. Hey, at least you'll look festive?"
Spitfire gave her a Look.
"Okay, heh, look," Rainbow grinned sheepishly. "How about you just go to Ponyville and see what's up? Maybe it's something small, like... maybe you need to settle an argument between two foals. Or help a young flyer find their confidence, or something."
"Can't it tell me what the problem is? Heck, if it's flashing my cutie mark it could just send me Horse Code."
"Yeah, I know, it's kinda inefficient, but that's just how the Map works," Rainbow explained.
"So I gotta drop everything and go to Ponyville." Spitfire let out an annoyed grunt. "Okay, fine. But you're coming with, Crash."
"Huh? Why?"
"I need backup," Spitfire said, widening her forelegs encouragingly. "You can be my wingpony on this one."
Rainbow shook her head. "That's not how it works either. The Map didn't call me. Besides, for all we know, the Map's already chosen a wingpony for you. It likes to pair ponies up."
"Well, you're still coming with me to Ponyville, anyway. I'm gonna need somepony to report back to HQ, and it may as well be you. Got a problem with that?"
"No, ma'am."
Spitfire grabbed a form from the organizer on her desk, quickly filled it in and scribbled a signature on it, before heading out to the mess. She quickly located Soarin' on the Bolts' usual long table, in the middle of conversation with several other hungry flyers, although he stopped talking as soon as he saw she wanted his attention.
"Hey, Clipper. Something's come up," Spitfire said as she approached, hoofing him the signed form. "I'm assigning you temporary command of the 'Bolts, as I don't know how long this is gonna take."
Soarin' looked a little surprised, but quickly accepted the terms. "Understood, Captain. Anything I can help with? Any details I need to know?"
"If I had any intel I'd share it, but I don't," said Spitfire, sounding disgruntled. "Crash will report back later with more information. Flight rosters for the next few days are on my desk." She turned to Rainbow Dash. "Okay, it's your show. Let's head."
Spitfire had flown over the Castle of Friendship many times - in fact, she'd had to alter flight routines to account for it after it had become the biggest obstruction in Ponyville's airspace. But she'd never been inside, and frankly had no idea what the castle was even for. She imagined it being full of dungeons, magical laboratories, and friendship research facilities, but once she got inside, it seemed like any other royal building: spacious, showy, and boring.
Her cutie mark, or at least an translucent image of it, had zoomed off of her flank the moment she and Rainbow entered the castle, and they followed the winding firebird up the main staircase and through curving corridors, until they entered a large round chamber on the upper floor.
Now this, Spitfire had to admit, was more impressive. As she entered the room, a wall of magical light met her, casting shadows onto the walls in sixfold symmetry. A great round table made of a solid block of crystal took up the room's center, surface illuminated all the way to the edge by an illusory map of Equestria. This felt much more like her fanciful image of the mystical friendship arts. She could see her cutie mark bobbing gently above the center of the table, being examined by an anxious-looking unicorn.
Spitfire presumed the unicorn was the one running the show, so approached her genially. "Captain Spitfire, reporting. I'm here for my briefing, ma'am."
The unicorn straightened up and turned to face her, flicking a worried curl of mane out of her eyes as she looked momentarily relieved. "Oh, good! I literally had no idea who the Map was calling. I'm glad you managed to find your way here."
"Starlight!" Rainbow exclaimed, hovering off the floor in dismay. "This is Spitfire! She's only the Captain of the Wonderbolts." She hovered close to Starlight's ear and gritted her teeth. "Also my boss. How do you not recognize her?"
"I'm sorry, I'm just not a big Wonderbolts fan like you are." Starlight said neutrally, before turning back to the Map. "So, uh. This is a bit unusual, the Map doesn't usually call ponies outside of our group. Did Rainbow Dash explain what this is all about?"
"Not really," Spitfire said, shrugging her wings. "At least, not more than I already know, which is that I gotta go sort out a problem somewhere. I was hoping you could tell me more, ma'am."
"Right, right," Starlight nodded and turned back to the Map.
"Are you okay, Starlight?" Rainbow asked. "You look kinda... really nervous."
"I am," Starlight admitted. "That's why." She pointed a hoof out over the map, where Spitfire's cutie mark was staining a tiny desert hamlet in a shade of burnt orange. "Villa Ocaso. That's what they call it now, at least. It's my old village."
"Your old - oh," Rainbow said, her face sagging with realization.
"So why aren't they sending you there instead of me?" Spitfire planted her hooves on the table and levered herself closer in for a closer look at the target. All she could see was a dull dust bowl in the middle of a mountainous valley, with a tiny village right in the center, consisting of two parallel rows of houses -
Spitfire's eyes shrank to points, and her lips tightened to an ugly line.
"Oh. Well, that makes this real easy," she said curtly, rebalancing onto her hooves. "I'm not doing it. Send somepony else. I've got work to do."
"Whoa, wait, what?" Rainbow Dash said, startled by the shift in Spitfire's demeanor. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm sorry, did I stutter?" Spitfire clucked impatiently. "I am Not Doing It. And I've had enough of my time wasted today."
Rainbow flapped over to Spitfire as she turned to leave, alarm on her face. "What do you mean? You have to do it -"
"No, I don't have to do anything, Crash!" Spitfire roared, rounding on the pegasus and forcing Rainbow to waddle backward, swanlike, as the Captain's muzzle advanced relentlessly into her personal space. "There are exactly eight ponies who can tell me what to do, and your bucking lounge table isn't one of them! I will see you back at the compound."
The Map Room door slammed behind her as she left.
Spitfire punched an amethyst column, giving it a new spidery interior as the delicate crystal cracked under the force. She tried to take a deep breath, but her stupid flank kept buzzing and throwing her timing off, leaving her feeling thoroughly un-calm.
"Look," came Starlight's voice from behind her. "I don't know what your problem is with my old village. And you don't have to tell me. But whatever it is, this must be exactly why the Map's chosen you. It must be a problem that only you can solve."
"No duh." Spitfire slumped her head against the cracked crystal pillar, staring down at the floor. "And what if I don't want to solve it, huh? Your Map's just going to keep buzzing my ass until I do?"
"The Tree of Harmony is known for being a bit... blunt, when it wants to be," Starlight admitted. "It doesn't really think in the same way we do. All it cares about is bringing about order through friendship."
"By screwing with my life!" Spitfire yelled, turning on her. "You know, I was having a real great day until all this started. Finished up all the scheduling for the next flying season, put the final touches on the New Year show, no cadet drama to sort out for once... everything was just peachy, and that sure sounds like harmony to me! The hay is your Tree's game?"
Starlight wilted a little under the verbal assault, but remained resolute. She brushed some spittle off her cheek. "I know it's difficult to put your trust in something so... ineffable. But the Map has never steered us wrong. It knows what it's doing. I mean, it saved me. I wouldn't be here now if it hadn't sent Twilight and her friends to my village."
"Yeah, well, obviously you were one of the smart ones. You didn't get mind-warped by that braindead cult," Spitfire clucked.
"Uh..." Starlight's brow furrowed in confusion. "Oh. Oh no. You don't know the story behind my village, do you? I, uh... I made that braindead cult. I was the one Twilight stopped."
Spitfire froze. She turned, looking Starlight up and down. Taking in her mane, her face. Eyes lingering on that spiralling cutie mark. Mentally comparing it to the black-and-white photos she'd seen in the reports.
In a single bodily motion, the crystal pillar cracked again, this time splintering under the weight of a full-grown unicorn being slammed against it. Starlight clutched frantically at Spitfire's foreleg to try to regain some leverage as she flailed inches off the ground, while Spitfire's eyes burned into her. "And you're here," Spitfire said quietly. Somehow, her quiet voice was ten times more frightening than her shouting one. "Trotting around a royal castle with full access to magical artifacts, instead of rotting in a dungeon."
"I sometimes... can't believe it... either," Starlight choked out, grimacing in pain at the hoof clamped against her neck. "Go on. Do what you have to. I won't stop you."
Spitfire's other hoof trembled, tensed to make a strike that would certainly leave lasting damage wherever it struck. After many agonizing moments of deliberation, she gritted her jaw and threw Starlight roughly to the ground.
"Just brief me and I'll be on my way," she muttered.
"No," Starlight said, rubbing her sore neck as she climbed to her hooves. "Wait. Let me finish what I wanted to say."
Spitfire wasn't used to ponies talking back to her after she had disciplined them, and especially wasn't in the mood for it now. "You are really pushing your luck. I don't give two feathers what comes out of your mouth."
"I know it feels like the Tree is punishing you. But it isn't. It wants to help." Starlight stood before her, looking her earnestly in the eyes, although Spitfire noticed she couldn't suppress the tremble in her legs. "All I ask is that you open your mind, and give it a chance to take you someplace new. And when you're done, if you still want to come back and give me my comeuppance... you know where to find me. I'm not going anywhere."
Spitfire stared impassively at her, and with a dying buzz, her cutie mark finally quietened down. "Fine." She walked roughly past Starlight, and wandered back into the Map room.
Rainbow Dash was nervously hovering above her throne as she entered, but dropped to the floor in relief upon seeing her return. "Oh good, you're back!"
"Yeah, I guess I'm doing this," Spitfire said, looking at the Map center with disgust. "I just need my mission briefing, and I'll be underway."
"Oh, uh... we don't really have those," Rainbow said. "You just kinda go and, y'know, see what's up, you'll figure it out."
"No intel? Crash, this is a total two-bit operation," Spitfire scoffed. "How do you work like this?"
"It's just how Harmony works. Friendship is magic, you know?" Rainbow shrugged. "I'm not going to pretend like I understand it myself, but just... do your best and everything will work itself out. You'll see."
"Yeah, I got enough of the tree worship from your resident mareharishi, thanks" Spitfire snapped. "Well, since we learned absolutely nothing of value here, you can report that back to Soarin'. Tell him I'll be back in two days, whether the problem's solved or not."
"But what if it takes longer?"
"Do I look like I care, Crash?" Spitfire strode to the doorway, pointedly ignoring Starlight. "You have your orders. Get to it."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Last stop, coming up! The Village. Last stop!""
Spitfire lifted the sports cap from over her face, and stretched out in the corner where she'd made herself comfortable, her wings cracking as she righted herself and looked around the train carriage. Empty. Nopony else wanted to come out this far. Even the train didn't seem like it wanted to, the rails having long lost their smoothness and complaining with a loud crunch every time they hit a bump.
"Last stop, The Village! End of the line, folks! Make sure you have your belongings!"
Spitfire was already wearing and carrying everything she intended to bring, dressed in an unassuming civilian outfit of a hat and shades. If the Map wasn't going to give her any intel, she saw no reason to prepare.
She alighted from the train onto a wooden board in the middle of the desert, and that was the entirety of the station. Only a hoofpainted wooden sign bearing the name "THE VILLAGE" gave any indication that the board hadn't just been left here by mistake. A laminated train schedule flapped in the frigid breeze, affixed to the sign.
To Spitfire's side, the window to the train cab opened, and a sweaty-looking earth pony found her through the clouds of steam coming off the engine. "You got everything you need, miss? Next service is in three days. Tuesday, 10am. Follow the mountain path and go over the bridge - the village is on the other side, you won't miss it."
"All good here." Spitfire waved him off. "Thanks for the ride."
Guess they haven't gotten the memo about the new village name yet, Spitfire supposed as she took to the air, keeping the mountain path underneath her. She already knew roughly where she was headed - at least the Map did actually serve its purpose of being a Map, so she'd gotten an overhead view of the target.
Plus, given her... personal interest in the situation, she'd read the reports that came out after the village's cult had been dismantled, so she knew what she was looking for. She hadn't known Starlight was the cult leader - while that undoubtedly had been in the report, it wasn't really something that interested her. She'd assumed - wrongly, it seemed - that the justice system would actually have done its job and locked her away.
After a brief flight up the rising mountain path, she found the bridge the driver had mentioned, a rope bridge which had been given a number of reinforcements to increase its supply potential. A new road made from bright limestone slabs led away from it on the other side, curving down a slope toward a perilous cliff-edge. It was as Spitfire soared over that drop that she got her first in-pony glimpse of Villa Ocaso below her, with its unmistakable double-row of houses lending the only structure to an otherwise barren valley floor.
From above, she could see scattered clumps of ponies wandering in the street between the house rows, which was criss-crossed with banners, streamers, and glittering tinsel to herald the coming of Hearth's Warming. Honestly, if she could ignore the psychological trauma woven into every last grain of the village, it almost felt like a normal place.
She let herself fall forward into a sharp dive, tumbling with precision into the open top of the village. Negotiating the decorations provided no challenge, and she bled off all her speed in a lazy curl before simply stepping out of the air onto the ground. Her stunt turned a number of heads, mostly from excited foals, but also two unhappy-looking stallions, who galloped toward her landing spot.
"Who are you?" demanded one, a snowy-coated earth pony, who looked her up and down with suspicion. Spitfire took the opportunity to do the same to him and his partner, a fluffy-maned blue unicorn with a balloon animal on his flank. It didn't exactly seem like the village had sent its biggest guns at her, but Spitfire didn't want to take anything at face value when dealing with cultists.
"Answer him," said the unicorn, who looked far too adorable for Spitfire to take him seriously. "Please. You don't want to make him mad. Like, madder than he already is."
Spitfire's mouth took on a quizzical expression, her sunglasses hiding the amusement in her eyes. Turning her attention on the earth pony, she decided to chill for a moment and watch his reaction.
"Hey... I asked you a question!" said the earth pony, managing to look indignant. "Tell us what you're doing here, or... or..."
"Or leave," said the unicorn, softly. "We don't want visitors at the moment -"
Spitfire couldn't hold it any longer, and burst out laughing, much to the confusion of her two interrogators. "Oh, I needed that! This your first time intimidating somepony, kiddos?"
"Uh..." They looked at each other, uncertainly.
"I mean I sure hope it's your first time, because then I'd be inclined to give you boys another chance," Spitfire continued, advancing very much into the earth pony's personal space, causing him to recoil from her warm breath. "Now, let's try that again, shall we? Captain Spitfire. Here on official Friendship Business, which is why I didn't insert your friend neck-deep into your hindquarters just now. You boys got a problem? Or hay, if you wanna make one, I'm all up for that."
"W-Wait... what? You're from the military?" the earth pony spluttered, backing away and nearly falling over as he collided with his friend.
Spitfire decided, for efficiency, not to explain the complicated position the Wonderbolts occupied within the Equestrian military hierarchy, and nodded. "Yeah, but I'm not here in a military capacity. I'm here to find a problem and fix it. Now, you fellas can either help me with that, or stay the buck out of my way, got it?"
"No, wait! We do have a problem! A major one," the unicorn hurriedly confessed, steadying his friend. "One of our villagers has been abducted!"
Spitfire's wings fluffed out in surprise. "Abducted? By whom?"
"We have no idea! She was taken early this morning. We thought... we thought you might have something to do with it..."
Spitfire got a horrid, sickly feeling in her stomach. "Okay, slow down. Tell me if I'm right. Adult pegasus mare, dark blue coat, white mane, moon-and-feather cutie mark? Night Glider?"
"Yes!" the unicorn replied, looking surprised. "Wait... how did you know that?"
"Lucky guess," Spitfire muttered. "What mess has my idiot sister gotten into this time?"
Spitfire stood at the rear of the row of houses. Each one looked absolutely boring and normal, except for the one directly in front of her, which looked like it had been impacted by siege weaponry. There was a gaping circular hole where the rear door and windows had once been. Inside, the remains of a kitchen was scrambled in with white brickwork fragments and splintered chunks of timber.
"She mentioned you sometimes, I mean, we knew she had a sister," the white earth pony - Double Diamond - told her, as he followed her through the hole and into the rubble. "But she never said you were the leader of the Wonderbolts!"
"I'm not really surprised," Spitfire said, her face grim as she took in the destruction all around her. "We're not close. She went her way, I went mine, and that's just how it is. Or at least that's how it was. Now I've got a magic map busting my ass. What's the sitrep?"
Double Diamond looked at his unicorn friend - Party Favor - for an explanation, but he looked equally as confused.
Spitfire rolled her eyes and made an exasperated cluck. "Tell me what happened, greenhorns. What do we know?"
"The neighbors reported hearing loud noises early this morning. Huge bangs and crashes." Double Diamond told her. "When they came to investigate, they found this mess, and there was no sign of Night Glider. There's damage upstairs, too, which makes me think she was fighting whoever did this."
"Nopony got a look at the intruder?"
"Unfortunately no. But... that's not the only thing. The Eventide Garden was also ransacked. The Staff of Sameness is gone."
Spitfire tilted her head, confused by this new information. "The what now?"
"The Staff of Sameness," Party Favor repeated. He pulled out some floppy balloons he'd been carrying, and - with a number of topological operations that Spitfire couldn't even remotely follow - inflated and assembled them into what she assumed was a colorful replica of the staff in question, a long pole with a twisted neck that bifurcated into two prongs at the end. "It's the staff that Starlight used to take away our cutie marks and seal them in the Vault."
Spitfire's expression went even grimmer. "Horsecrap. Well, that just complicated things."
"Why?"
"A rogue magic stealer can't be ignored, rookie. That's an accelerating threat. I can't handle that by myself. I'm gonna need to call in special ops for this."
"No, no, you don't understand," Double Diamond quickly interjected. "The Staff itself doesn't do anything. It's just a stick of wood. It was Starlight's magic that took away our cutie marks. She just pretended it was the Staff so that we wouldn't realize she was the one doing it."
"There's no magic in the staff?" Spitfire raised a brow quizzically.
"Nope."
"Huh. Then why steal it?"
"That's the mystery," Double Diamond said with a frown. "It's just a historical relic of our village. It isn't really worth anything to anypony other than us. I do have one theory... but I really don't like it."
"I'm all ears," Spitfire said, placing an encouraging hoof on his shoulder. "Anything you've got, share it. Doesn't matter how small."
Double Diamond hesitated a few moments more. "I was thinking... could it be Starlight? I hate to even suggest it, but... what if she turned evil again and wants revenge?"
Spitfire shook her head. "It's a good idea, but that's a negative. Starlight Glimmer's in Ponyville, and she's the one who sent me here in the first place. We can rule her out for sure. What about the other villagers? Any of them holding any grudges against Night Glider?"
"No, never," Double Diamond said immediately and firmly. "We're a tight-knit community and I would personally vouch for every one of us. I don't think anypony here is capable of doing anything like this. Also, everypony is accounted for and Night Glider is the only missing pony. It has to be someone from outside the village."
Spitfire felt a worried jolt in her nerves. She shook it off, ready to start taking action. "Okay, let's focus on finding her, then. You boys know the ground better than I do. Where's the most likely place she would have been taken?"
"Most likely? The caves. There are extensive cave and tunnel networks all around here. You could easily get lost in them for days. That's where I'd go if I wanted to hide," Double Diamond said.
"But if she's there, we don't have a hope of finding her," Party Favor added.
"Like Tartarus we don't," Spitfire growled. "I'll scour every inch of them if I have to. Any other potential locations? What about that Vault you mentioned? Could she be in there?"
"The Cutie Mark Vault isn't big enough to hold a pony, and it doesn't exist any more anyway. We destroyed it when we defeated Starlight." Double Diamond told her.
"But we should probably start there anyway," Party Favor suggested. "The Vault Cave is the nearest cave to the village, so it's the logical place to start."
"Good." Spitfire straightened out and readied her restless hooves for action. "You two, with me. Let's check it out."
"So, uh..." Party Favor tried to make conversation as he galloped beneath Spitfire's soaring form. "Do you want talk about Night Glider? It seems like you haven't seen her in a while."
"I didn't bring you for your psychiatric skills, Balloon Boy," Spitfire said tersely. "If I want a therapy session, I'll ask for one."
"We just want to help," Double Diamond said earnestly. "We've known your sister for a long time. We love her. We might be able to offer a, you know, a new perspective, one that helps you see her in a different light."
Spitfire scowled. "Boys, that ass-whooping is still on the table. Don't push your luck."
"I feel you're just pushing us away because you're scared," said Party Favor.
Spitfire suddenly pulled out of the air and slammed down into a three-legged landing in front of them, cracking the barren ground. She turned to face them, her fiery eyes glowering intensely. "I said I'm not interested. I appreciate the support, and if we find her alive you can bore me with your armchair psychology all you want. But right now, we have a mission, do you understand?"
Double Diamond frowned, annoyed at Spitfire's obvious attempt to bully her way out of the discussion. "Fine."
They entered the Vault Cave. Spitfire flipped up her sunglasses, letting her eyes adjust more fully to the lower light level. Among the marbled stalactites and natural columns, one feature immediately caught her attention - an enormous door-shaped recess carved directly into the cave wall, many times the height of a pony. She cautiously swooped up to the top of it, finding a bold equality symbol carved into the decorative lintel.
There was magic here - at least, Spitfire had to assume there was, from the way the rock was glittering with unearthly blue light. A lattice of squares subdivided the entire structure from top to bottom, but it was severely damaged - great fissures had been torn through the regular structure, and the cave floor beneath her was littered with glittering stone fragments.
"This the Vault you're talking about?" she called down in an echoing voice.
"It was," Double Diamond replied. "We destroyed it to get our cutie marks back."
"Nopony really likes to come up here any more," Party Favor added, his horn now aglow with a warm pink light. "I think they're afraid it'll suck their cutie marks back in again."
"That a possibility?" Spitfire called down.
"No, but you know how ponies are with superstitions," Party Favor said. "We were without our marks for such a long time, it's perfectly understandable that ponies are scared."
"Yeah, a few of my flyers have some weird fears," Spitfire commented. "I compensate for that by being the actual scariest thing in their lives. Seems to do the trick."
"You're not really a people pony, are you?"
"Not when I'm on the job," Spitfire shrugged, swooping back down to the ground. "Okay, you guys need to give me some direction here. What's our best option?"
"Hey, over here! I got something!" Double Diamond called out, excitement in his voice. They ran further into the cave, where it began to narrow and split off into dark, damp tunnels, and found the earth pony a little way down a side tunnel. He held up a large wing feather - even discoloured by Party Favor's hornlight, the dark blue hue was unmistakable. "She was here! She must have been fighting with her captor."
"Or she pulled it out herself to give us a trail to follow," Party Favor suggested.
"Let me see," Spitfire requested, taking the feather herself and inspecting it under Party Favor's hornlight. She gave an involuntary shudder as she saw the bloodied root of the quill. "Balloon Boy's right. This has been pulled out, and she did it herself - and let me tell you, that's not a fun time. Glad she's not completely braindead. We'd better hurry."
"This way," Party Favor said, shining his hornlight down the tunnel where the quill had been dropped. It was circular, cramped, and felt like it led down into the bowels of nowhere. Spitfire didn't like it one bit.
"You know, I think you need to cut your sister some slack," Party Favor commented as they trod as fast as they could through the tunnel. "Night Glider isn't stupid. She's our friend."
"Did I not make myself clear about you shutting the buck up?" Spitfire snapped irritably. She very much did not enjoy being this far underground at all. All she could think about was the sheer weight of rock crushing down over their heads.
"We look out for our friends," Double Diamond added. "Party Favor is right, you know. I kinda get the feeling you hate her."
"Why the hay would I be crawling through the bucking bowels of Tartarus if I hated her? Believe me, I would happily do anything else right now," Spitfire grumbled. "I told you. We don't get along. That's pretty normal for siblings. Doesn't mean I want to see her hurt."
"It's more than that though, isn't it?" Party Favor said. "You keep snapping at us too, even though we're trying to help you as much as we can. What have you got against us? Is it because you don't like our village?"
"If I'm snappy, it's because of this bucking tunnel," Spitfire growled. "Maybe this is news to you groundhogs, but us pegasi? We tend to like open spaces."
"Come on," Double Diamond said, dubiously. "I'm not buying it. Tell the truth. You're burying something."
"You're one word away from a broken muzzle, Snowflake," Spitfire seethed at him. "Do not push me."
"Night!" Party Favor suddenly called out, racing ahead. His hornlight dispersed into a wide open cave as he galloped forward, and Spitfire saw a dim blue figure slumped on the ground. She took off like a bullet after him, landing beside the fallen pony, while Double Diamond retrieved a flare from his pack and began lighting it to give them some additional light.
"Night! Nightie!" Spitfire said, rolling her over. She looked terrible - weak, discolored, and missing a primary on her left wing... but worst of all, her flanks were completely bare. Her cutie mark was gone.
"What the hay?" Party Favor exclaimed. "Night! Are you okay? What happened?"
"Spitfire?" Night Glider said weakly. "What are you doing here? You guys have to get out now, she's waiting for you..."
"Who's waiting for us?" Spitfire demanded. "Who did this, Nightie?"
"Aaaaaargh!"
They jumped as they heard Double Diamond's wail, and turned to see him collapse on the ground, his eyes dulled and lifeless and his flank bare.
His snowflake cutie mark was being held between the prongs of a familiar wooden staff, and that was being held by... Night Glider. Except it wasn't her. The shape was right, her body matching the lithe pegasine figure sprawled at their hooves. Her mane was the familiar windswept shock, her tail an aerodynamic brush. But her eyes... they were orbs of ghostly blue light, sunken into an expressionless face.
She also wore Night Glider's cutie mark on her right flank, with the left now becoming the new owner of Double Diamond's snowflake.
"What the hay is that?" Spitfire mouthed.
"Just go," Night Glider moaned. "Get out! Don't let it get any more power!"
Unfortunately, Spitfire could see that leaving wasn't going to be an option. The thing was between them and the tunnel entrance. Spitfire lined up against Party Favor's side. "You told me that staff wasn't magical!"
"It isn't!" Party Favor said fearfully, his eyes remaining fixed on the strange pony. "I have no idea what's going on!"
"Stay with Night. I'll deal with whatever that is. I'll hold her as long as I can - you get Nightie out of here as soon as there's an opening, got it?"
"Got it."
Spitfire quickly assessed the dimensions of the situation: flight ceiling, distance to enemy, maximum turning circle. With a quick flex and crack of her wings, she shot forward to meet the staff-wielding mare. Her eyes were trained on the business end of the staff - she couldn't allow the enemy to get a clear shot, so with a working estimate of its effective cone of fire, she kicked off the ground, angled her wings to kite sharply around the imaginary cone, and built up enough momentum in her curving flight path to slam her forehoof straight into the mare's face.
That was a big mistake. Her forehoof immediately screamed with pain as it crunched against what felt like solid rock. The punch sent the mare flying into the dirt with a crash, but it also jarred Spitfire enough to bring her down too.
"Gyaaaaah!" Spitfire howled, clutching her foreleg to her chest and looking at the downed mare in disbelief. "What the buck are you?"
There was no time to pursue that line of inquiry further, as Spitfire saw the mare getting up, and pressed her momentary advantage by jumping on her to pin her down and try to wrestle the staff away. Up close, illuminated by the mare's own eyes, she realized it hadn't just felt like punching a rock - this mare was made from rock, like a statue given life. Her skin was smooth and sculpted, down to the individual muscles, and Spitfire could see the surface glittering with magical energy -
With a flick of her head, the rock mare's mane swung round to smack Spitfire in the head. It was like being hit by a chunk of masonry, and her vision exploded in scintillating stars. The cave tipped upside down and she thumped against the floor, too stunned to move.
Half-expecting to feel her cutie mark being torn away, she was surprised when her vision cleared and she saw Party Favor standing in front of her, having jumped into the fray himself. For a moment she wondered if the blow had knocked her silly, but no - that unicorn was definitely wielding a sword and shield made from party balloons, and actually holding his own. The balloon shield deformed and absorbed the rock mare's blows, while the sword deflected her staff and occasionally bonked her on the head to distract her.
Spitfire stood up, her legs quivering as she sucked in a breath and tried to bring herself back to fighting readiness. Her head was still spinning and pain throbbed through a full side of her face, where she could feel a huge lump pressing her eye closed.
"Hey, take this," Party Favor thrust a balloon shield into her hooves as he backed off to her position. "You okay?"
"Told you to... stay with Night," Spitfire groaned unsteadily.
"It's a good job I didn't listen, then."
"What the hay is that thing?" Spitfire kept her wobbly vision on the rock-like figure.
"I think... I know this sounds weird... I think it's the Vault. Or rather, I think it's made from whatever the Vault was made from. Magic stone."
"Ugh." Spitfire took a fighting stance, gripping the shield in her uninjured hoof. "And it takes cutie marks. See, this is exactly why I needed to bring a team in. Any idea how to beat it?"
"Hopefully these balloon strikes will eventually wear it down."
Spitfire gave him a Look.
"Sorry. I joke when I'm under pressure. I don't know. Punching it to death probably isn't an option, though."
"Yeah, thanks, I got that," Spitfire grumbled. "Okay, we'll go in on three. You do whatever it was you were doing, I'll try to get that staff off her. Got that?"
"Got it."
Spitfire launched herself forward, her ringing forehoof urging her to more caution this time. Direct blunt force clearly wasn't going to do the trick, but she was far from out of options. Getting directly into the Vault pony's swing range, she baited a punch from her, then used her shield to block it. The wheel-shaped balloon assemblage compressed to the point she was sure it would burst, but it held up and took the power out of the blow.
With the enemy temporarily off balance, Spitfire put her Griffonian jiujitsu to good use, underhooking the foreleg holding the Staff and swinging under it until she was completely upside-down and vertical, with an aim to bringing all her weight crashing down directly on top of her opponent.
On a pony with bones and muscle, it might have worked - Spitfire had pulled shoulders out of their joints with this move before - but the magic rock didn't yield, and she squawked as the Vault pony grabbed her out of the air and slammed her on her back. Instinctively, she rolled and bucked hard at the pony's hindlegs, aiming to take them out from under her, only to yell in pain as one of her hooves slammed into solid rock for the second time.
"Gaaah!" she groaned, cursing her own muscle memory. She rolled away as Party Favor came back into the fight, balloon-sword slashing, and got back to her hooves, hobbling painfully.
The fight got increasingly ugly from there, with three of them scrapping. The Vault pony may have looked like her sister, but it moved with the skill and grace of an athlete, and hit with the force of a catapult round. Even with Party Favor's distractions, she couldn't get near the thing without risking even further injury.
Suddenly, Party Favor gave an alarmed cry. The Vault pony had managed to wedge her hoof into his sword and was busily taking the thing apart. Spitfire looked on in befuddlement as the two engaged in what she could only describe as a balloon-modeling duel, where each side was trying to make, unmake, and reverse their opponent's craft. In a bubbling blur of color and rubber, his weaponry fell apart. Disarmed, he cowered behind his balloon shield, which popped violently as she spun on her forehooves and bucked him across the cave.
Spitfire caught him just before he could make a heavy impact against the cave floor, gently lowering the dazed unicorn to the ground.
"Eurgh... did anyone get the number of that train?" Party Favor groaned.
"Careful. You might have broken something."
"Only my pride..." he groaned, before his eyes widened in pain. "Ow ow ow, and my ribs. Something is up with that thing. Those balloon moves she used... those are mine."
"What are you talking about?" Spitfire asked, only half-focusing as she turned her attention back to the enemy again.
"I mean, she was using moves that only I know. She turned my own balloons against me."
"This is a really weird day," Spitfire groaned. "So what are you saying? It's absorbing our skills?"
"I don't think so," Party Favor winced in pain as he turned on a bruised rib. "If it was the Vault, it held our cutie marks... the source of our talents... for years. I think it's using that knowledge."
"You're telling me that thing has the skills of a hundred ponies?"
"Possibly the Elements of Harmony too."
Spitfire let out a deep groan. "Really wishing that special ops team was here. Now I think about it, I thought there was something familiar about her moves. If you've got any ideas for how we get out of this, now would be a great time to share."
"The Staff..." groaned Double Diamond, who had managed to haul himself over to them. "Use the Staff..."
"What? How?" Spitfire bent down to the weakened earth pony. "Should we destroy it?"
"No! Use... hit it, it's weak to the Staff..."
"He's right!" Party Favor exclaimed, before yelping in pain again. "Aaah... the Staff is what we used to destroy the Vault the first time!"
"Okay, this I can work with," Spitfire said, finally glad to have some semblance of a working plan. "Just gotta take down an invincible power-stealing rockmare with the skills of an entire village. No biggie. Hey, if I die, make sure someone drags my body up to the surface, will you? I hate it down here."
"Aren't you supposed to inspire your troops?"
"I'm not feeling it," Spitfire grunted. She limped forward, taking to the air and looking down upon the Vault pony as she hovered just below the cave ceiling. "Okay, impostor! You might have hundreds of abilities, but you never met me before. You want this cutie mark, right?"
The Vault pony's blue eyes fixed on her, and with a beat of its stony wings, it rose into the air, Staff in hooves. Spitfire had absolutely no idea how that worked, but wasn't about to question the physics of a magical rock monster.
"Come get it, stonebutt," Spitfire taunted, patting her flanks. She made a careful mental map of all the visual points she could find in the dark cave: Party Favor's horn, the dropped flare, the glints of light off of the stalactites - trying to pull flight maneuvers in this space was just asking for trouble, even for her.
The Vault pony had no such concern, probably because it could shrug off collisions with ease, and it took the bait, shooting directly for her. Now that the secret was out, Spitfire could definitely see Dash's technique in its moves, and that made it pretty formidable on its own.
However, Spitfire had one big advantage: she'd trained Rainbow Dash for five years, and this was a Dash that hadn't had the benefit of any of that experience. So she knew exactly what this pegasus couldn't do. She flipped at the last second and dove downward with the Vault pony on her tail, hoping to Celestia she wouldn't brain herself on a stalactite as she tried to outmaneuver it in the cave.
All she needed was one opening, and after much dodging and many near-misses, she found it. With a swift - arguably suicidal - movement, she used the elasticity of her balloon shield to snag an incoming punch, spun the Vault pony around with its own momentum, and back-kicked the Staff right out of its hoof. She dove after it as it tumbled down to the cave floor, getting her hooves around it just in time as the rock mare slammed down after her, and skidding backward into a three-legged landing with the Staff clutched in her foreleg.
Panting, she took some time to catch her breath. Maybe she was imagining it - it was hard to get a read on the silent, stone-faced creature - but it definitely seemed more wary now she was holding the Staff. She gave it an experimental swing toward the Vault pony, and it backed away heavily.
"Okay, I can work with this," Spitfire said with satisfaction, spinning the pole in her hooves. "What's the matter, faker? You think I won't hurt something that looks like my sister? Bad play. I'll give you to the count of three to get the buck out of here. One, two... three."
The Vault pony didn't move.
"Yeah, I figured." Spitfire advanced on the pony with all the speed she could muster, fully pressing her advantage. She plunged the Staff in prongs-first, aiming directly for its chest, but then something weird happened. She couldn't quite figure out the order of events - there was a shuddering twitch in the Vault pony's tail, it moved before she could, and suddenly she was face-down in the dirt, having completely missed her target. She angrily wheeled around, thrusting the Staff where she knew the pony was standing, but it moved again, like it had seen the move before she'd even thought to make it.
Frustration began to mount as the Vault pony began to evade her attacks with its newfound precognitive ability. Every time it seemed like she'd make contact, the prongs just barely whiffed into dead air.
"Come on!" Spitfire raged.
Suddenly, it stumbled. It had tripped backward over Night Glider - or rather, Night Glider had grabbed its hindlegs from her position on the floor and was clinging onto them as hard as she could in her weakened state. The Vault pony's tail began to twitch madly and desperately.
"Now, sis, now!" Night Glider begged. Spitfire didn't hesitate. She charged forward with the Staff held like a spear, ready to end it.
Then - yet again - everything went wrong. The Vault pony's eyes, already expressionless pits of blue light, opened up, and Spitfire seized. The eyes drew her into a tunnel that felt a hundred times more claustrophobic than anything she'd experienced underground already. Her breath vanished from her lungs, and she clutched at her chest as it began to constrict. The Staff clattered on the ground, completely forgotten. She wanted to run, fly, anything, but her wings were seized and her legs didn't work. She could barely think. Was this what a panic attack was?
So it was in that state that she watched as the rock pony struggled against Night Glider. Watched the pair of them wrestle and clamber, saw her sister take a couple of painful blows, and eventually, maneuver herself to pierce the Vault pony with the Staff as it came down upon her. The wooden prongs somehow buried into its rocky chest like it was made of soft sand, and it let out a horrible scream before glowing cracks tore it violently apart from the inside, shattering it into chunks. The two stolen cutie marks popped off its flanks as the legs crumbled apart, swiftly returning to their owners.
Spitfire knew it was over, but her hammering heart hadn't recovered from whatever the hay psychic attack had been used on her, and she laid on her back, using every breathing exercise she knew to try to bring herself back to readiness.
"Sis! Are you okay?" Night Glider asked, dropping to her haunches next to her.
"Getting there," Spitfire gasped. "Oh buck, that was not pleasant." She groaned and sat up, wincing at the many bruises and lumps that were all starting to make their feelings known. "Thanks for the save."
"Same," Night Glider pulled Spitfire into a tight hug. Spitfire hugged back, ignoring her many pains.
"Get the Staff. Let's get out of here. I'm going to assume that thing is dead, at least for now," Spitfire said, groaning as Night got a shoulder beneath her and helped lift her to her feet. She looked over the broken pile of glittering rock with disgust. Parts of it still had her sister's shape.
Double Diamond joined them, hauling a grimacing Party Favor on his shoulder. "Thank Celestia you beat that thing," he said. "I thought we were all done for."
"What can I say?" Spitfire shrugged. "We got a good team."
"Hey, maybe I should sign up for more of these Friendship Missions, if they're all this exciting," Spitfire mused. "I didn't expect this one to be such an... ow... adventure, you know? Ow. Ow."
"Sorry," Night Glider apologized, pressing the wet cloth to Spitfire's swollen eye a little more lightly. "You should really go to the hospital."
"Eh, I've been through worse," Spitfire shrugged, wincing in pain as she tried and failed to open her bruised eye. She remained seated in one of Double Diamond's armchairs, as Night Glider went to the kitchen to refresh the water bowl. "Do you have a hospital?"
"No," Night Glider called back.
"Figured."
Party Favor raised himself up from the couch he was laying on with a pained grunt. "This was an adventure for you? We all got... ugh... beaten to a pulp." He felt his ribs tenderly, wincing. "Call me boring, but I'm happy with the quiet life."
The lounge door opened and Double Diamond trotted in, looking businesslike. Since he hadn't been involved in any of the fighting, he was unscathed, although Spitfire knew he was still rather shaken from the experience. "I explained the situation to everypony. They're all celebrating our victory. Night, they're working on fixing the damage to your house. In the meantime, you're welcome to stay with me. Both of you," he added, nodding to Spitfire.
"Thanks, DD," Night Glider said gratefully, re-entering with a fresh bowl and more bandages. "Spitfire's not gonna be staying, though. She's got important Wonderbolt business to attend to." Night Glider nodded at Spitfire. "Gotta make sure that Staff is secured, right?"
Spitfire hesitated. "Well, yeah, I do need to do that at some point. But let's not be hasty."
Night Glider laughed as she set the bowl down. "Come on, Spitty, I'm doing you a favor. We know you hate it here."
"Yeah, uh..." Spitfire looked down at her bandaged hooves. "We should maybe talk about that."
Party Favor's ears perked up, and he suddenly leapt up off the couch, only to give a yelp of pain moments later. "Ow! Hey, uh, DD, let's go take a look at Night's cottage. Maybe I can help out with the repairs."
Alarmed, Double Diamond quickly moved in to prop up his friend. "Absolutely not! You shouldn't even be moving, let alone doing work. You need to rest up. Let me take care of things."
Party Favor inflated a few balloons and, in a tangle of hooves, outfitted himself with a couple of makeshift crutches. "One of these days, I'll teach you about subtlety," he said, limping out and taking Double Diamond with him. "See you guys later."
Spitfire watched them leave. "Balloon crutches. That seems really unsafe."
"He makes it work."
"Yeah," Spitfire chuckled. "It's always good to have a Party Pony on your team, especially when you're heading into the unknown. I always make sure I have a Surprise waiting for the enemy." She drew in a deep breath. "Okay, look, I've been feeling pretty bad about this whole thing. I still think you were a total featherbrain to join that stupid cult, and I still think you owe Mom an apology for running out on her. But... I'm sorry for how I've behaved, too. I used to think you were just being stubborn, but I can see I'm just as bad. It took a freaking magic map and a whatever-the-hay-that-rock-thing-was to bring us together. That just... that really sucks, you know? That's not the kind of big sister I wanna be."
Night Glider had started to tear up as she let Spitfire talk, and now the tears were coming freely. She wiped them off on her foreleg. "You don't know how much it means to hear you say that. Thank you."
Spitfire gave her a one-eyed grin. "You're right, though. I do hate this place. It's cold and desolate and you seriously need some real infrastructure here, stat. Or at least a town medic or something. I just want you to be safe."
Night Glider snorted a giggle. "We're working on it! We made all kinds of improvements. But it takes time to build a town. We'll soon have Villa Ocaso on the map. And look..." she paused, her mirth quickly evaporating to sobriety. "I'm sorry too. Well, I mean, I'm not sorry I joined the cult. I've made such wonderful friends here."
"Yeah, your friends are pretty cool," Spitfire admitted, grudgingly.
"But I am really sorry for how I treated you and Mom," she continued. "I was really dumb. I thought you were all trying to hold me back."
"I was," Spitfire admitted. "Since I knew you were about to do something completely idiotic. But that's in the past now and I don't care any more. If this is what you want to do, I'm behind you all the way. Just... maybe drop Mom a letter or something, now and then?"
"I will," Night agreed, blinking her shining eyes.
"I guess you probably have your own Hearth's Warming plans, but if you want an excuse to see me - not that you need one - come to Canterlot on New Years Day. It's the New Year Airshow, so you can come see me fly. I'll even save a spot in the VIP box for you and your friends, if you want. But if you don't want, I'll see you around." She hobbled up off the chair to pull Night Glider into a tight hug.
The sisters embraced for a few long moments, until Night Glider spoke up, sounding confused. "Your butt is glowing."
Spitfire released the hug and looked down at her legs to see, among the various bandages, her cutie mark sparkling bright orange. It felt different this time. Warmer. "Huh, would you look at that. Guess that means my mission is over."
Night Glider nodded. "Guess you'll be going home, then?"
Spitfire shook her head. "Nah, I would, but I can't. Next train out isn't until Tuesday."
"But you can just fly back," Night Glider pointed out.
"Next train," Spitfire repeated, with a gleam in her one good eye, "isn't 'til Tuesday."
Author's Note
Merry Jinglemas to Winston, who asked for Spitfire going through a major life change. I do love Spitfire as a character, so it was fun getting to write her!
