Chapters
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“You really plan on doing this?”Silver looked up from his charcoal drawing, several sheets of parchment scattering around him. He winced at the thought of putting them all back in order, then slowly spun around to face the speaker. Magpie, obviously. Nopony else would leave their posts, not with an attack potentially coming any second.He turned, and sure enough there she was in the doorway. She hadn’t removed her armor—who would, with an enemy at the gates? But she didn’t have a rifle nearby…-
231.4 K •
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Silver’s little band did not attack the heavily fortified doors of the skytower. They did not fight their way up through its levels to the heat-core. He didn’t even go between the shelters gathering help, as he had initially thought.Instead he returned to the first shelter, gathered every willing pony, and marched for the Gatecrashers’ guild. There were plenty of old suits of air-armor inside, abandoned from the days of exploration. More importantly, their enemy had left them ample supplies to defend…
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231.4 K •
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Silver Star advanced slowly, creeping along the back of the crowd. This was the moment he declared war on Flint and probably her whole army as well. In a city that has done almost nothing but prepare for a war for the last century. But what good would all that preparation do when the ones they were fighting were in their own streets?The shelters weren’t armored fortresses, their doors were only thick to hold all the heat in. That’s why they needed guards.Silver hesitated, taking aim. He’d like to…
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231.4 K •
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Silver wobbled on his hooves, momentarily overwhelmed by the magical strain of the jump. Even charging the return portal over a few days, the passage between still felt like it was going to suck all the heat out of his body and leave him to freeze. Considering his immunity to freezing, it was the coldest he’d ever felt.Then the world came back into focus, showing him basically what he expected. The guild’s empty hall had been fortified with pickets, sandbags, and a single mounted rotary gun, all aimed…
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231.4 K •
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Silver Star kept his word, and stood watch over Magpie’s body. It didn’t matter to him that he had to do it in the company of a potentially hostile spirit. It didn’t matter that he had no food or water, he’d gone without food for weeks at a time without real issue.At least he didn’t have to look directly into the terrible consequences he had invoked for Magpie, since she was soon completely encased in crystal. At first he could make out the faint shape of her cloth cloak within, a dark patch in…
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231.4 K •
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Silver Star walked away from Magpie, knowing that at any moment the Polestar might decide to kill her. There was nothing he could do—nothing beyond the threats he had already made. And I still don’t know why it wants me working for it. He wasn’t surprised the Polestar hadn’t volunteered. The less he knew about its desires, the less pressure he could put on it.If it keeps its word and doesn’t hurt her, I don’t care. He approached the shimmering field, the shield more powerful than anything…
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231.4 K •
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Silver was frozen in place—not by any power of the Polestar, but with absolute horror at what he saw. All the time she warned me this would happen, I thought she was just being paranoid. Why didn’t I listen?A few excuses flashed briefly through his mind, before being swallowed just as swiftly. “No,” he said, stepping directly between the gemstone and Magpie. The light blasted through him, penetrating the suit and even his closed eyelids. The helmet was still polarized, but now even that didn’t…
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231.4 K •
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The Alicorn air-armor changed everything for exploring their city.Silver could use the bubble spell just fine, but using it limited their time out to his endurance. The longer they stayed in a bubble, the more stale that air would become. It was why his ancestors had been forced to restrict themselves to short trips, so the air within could be refreshed. The armor required none of that, though it did have a dial of “filter entropy” that dropped whenever he was outside and rose again when he left the…
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231.4 K •
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Just because Silver wanted desperately to be out in the city didn't mean his magical recovery was going any faster. He could cast the spell just as easily as last time—easier, really, since he hadn't been teleporting around. But almost the instant he'd finished performing the spell, he could feel the pressure of it against his brain. It was like working his legs again after a difficult day digging. They moved the way he wanted, but they didn't want to. All he had to do was push a little too hard and his…
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231.4 K •
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Silver awoke in the library.It was like nothing he'd ever imagined, a place he'd heard stories of as a child, but knew he would never reach. The Sacred City, where no creature was allowed to visit. The graveyard of the ancient Alicorns. There were no bodies in the library anymore, or anywhere else in the city for that matter.This time Silver had a proper meal, not just drinking down the water saved at the bottom of the cans they'd stolen. Magpie wasn't sitting vigil over him, though he suspected she would…
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