//------------------------------// // 233 - Cutting Through Obfuscation // Story: Lateral Movement // by Alzrius //------------------------------// Lex slowly trudged around the medical tent after Sonata, striving to make his steps appear sure and confident. He knew that everypony’s eyes were on him after that speech she’d given, and although she’d quite clearly used her magic to influence the crowd, he wasn’t certain that the calm she’d imbued them with would hold if he showed signs of weakness now. As it was, he had his work cut out for him figuring out how to live up to the assurances she’d made on his behalf. But at least she didn’t try to convince everyone to fight as well, he reflected silently. That had been his biggest worry when she’d started to improvise: that she’d make an effort at convincing the camp ponies to join in the fight against the incoming horde of ghouls. While Lex was fully aware why that wouldn’t work now the way it had against the kraken’s army of monsters, he hadn’t been sure if Sonata was, and when she’d started to extemporize he’d had a moment of panic. Fortunately, she hadn’t tried to treat the camp ponies as some sort of auxiliary fighting force, and disaster had been averted. Or rather, a greater disaster, since I still need to figure out how to actually protect everypony. He was still thinking of how to do just that when he finally rounded the medical tent. “Hey,” called Sonata, giving him a cocky grin. “So, how was that? Pretty awesome, right?” Lex gave her a level look for a moment before turning his gaze westward, peering into the darkness toward Vanhoover. “You did a good job.” Sonata’s grin collapsed immediately, her eyes widening and eyebrows shooting up to her hairline in surprise. “I did?” she asked, not even trying to hide her shock. “For realsies?” Lex nodded, only half paying attention as he turned more of his thoughts toward how they were going to fight the undead ponies. “You informed everyone of what was going on, while avoiding a panic that would have put them in greater danger.” She nodded slowly, still giving him a wide-eyed look. “So…you’re totes cool with all that stuff I said? And with my, like, enchanting everyone?” That was enough to make him glance at her. “Your use of magic was entirely justified due to the circumstances, Sonata,” he frowned, slightly irked that they had to go over this again. Wasn’t it obvious by now that there were instances where using magic to abrogate personal autonomy was the right thing to do? “As for the rest of it…” He hesitated then. In truth he wasn’t happy with the other part of her little outburst, since he was fairly confident that she’d been using sarcasm to try and suggest that his failings were somehow acceptable due to being beyond the limits of his abilities, a sentiment that he felt was utterly disingenuous. But there simply wasn’t any time to worry about that right now; chastising her for such a thing when they were less than an hour away from fighting for their lives was simply not a worthwhile undertaking. That, and he suddenly didn’t feel like scolding her. Not right now at least. “…we can talk about it later,” he finished. “Aw yeah!” whooped Sonata, apparently thrilled by his lack of overt disapproval. Rearing up on her hind legs, she wore a grin that was dazzling in its intensity. “Who’s the bigshot who’s hot-to-trot with the sexy voice and the killer plot?” she sang, before licking a hoof and reaching back to slap her rump. “This mare, that’s who!” Falling back onto all fours, she chuckled heartily. “Oh, I wish Aria was here to see this! She’s still a big whispery fish and I’m enchanting ponies by the hundreds! She’s gonna be so jealous!” She paused as something occurred to her then, her smile dimming as a realization slowly worked its way through her brain. “Come to think of it, where is Aria? She wasn’t with the crowd, but I know I told everyone to come gather ‘round.” “She’s gone,” murmured Lex, still devoting the bulk of his mental faculties to battle plans. Sonata blinked at that. “‘Gone’?” she echoed. “Whaddaya mean ‘gone’? Like, gone-gone?” “She abandoned this place a short time ago,” replied Lex absently. “The Night Mare informed me.” “Aria ditched us?” asked Sonata incredulously. For some reason that thought didn’t bring her the glee that she’d expected to feel. Instead, there was a hollow sensation forming in the pit of her stomach, empty except for a vague sense of hurt that her sister had just up and left without so much as a goodbye. But that doesn’t make any sense, she thought to herself uncomfortably. I’ve wanted her to leave ever since she showed up again, so why…? Suddenly not wanting to think about that anymore, Sonata shook her head, focusing on Lex again. “So,” she spoke up, slightly louder than she’d intended, “what’s the plan?” Lex didn’t answer for a moment, and she was about to ask him again when he called out, “Severance!” The scythe came floating toward him a moment later, and Lex waited until it was within a few feet of him before speaking. “Cut that tent down,” he ordered, pointing at the field hospital behind him. “I want the upper part of the material completely separated from the lower.” The scythe immediately moved to obey, swinging itself through the air and piercing the tent fabric at a low angle, a few inches above the ground. Without hesitating, it started to move around the circumference of the tent, its blade tearing through the material as though it weren’t even there. As it did, he turned back to Sonata. “Once it’s finished cutting the fabric, we’re going to lay it over the ground in front of us,” he explained, nodding back in the direction of Vanhoover. “How come?” asked Sonata, before her eyes widened a moment later. “Ooh, is this going to be like one of those traps in the cartoons, where they cut across it and then its suddenly pulled upward like a net, catching them inside?” “It isn’t a snare, Sonata. What would the ropes even be tied to?” He gestured up at the empty sky with a snort. “We’re going to use this to cover the area where you had those holes dug, so that the ghouls won’t see them before they stumble into them. The fabric might even make it difficult for them to find purchase when they try to recover their balance.” But he didn’t hold much hope for that. In fact, the entire trap was a weak one, and likely wouldn’t do anything more than mildly inconvenience the undead ponies, but so far it was the best thing he’d been able to think of, and implementing it was better than nothing. Determined to keep being helpful after how successful her speech had been, Sonata immediately tossed out another suggestion. “Okay, how about this? When the ghouls come at us, we yank on the tent fabric like it’s a big tablecloth and knock them all down, and then pounce on ‘em!” Lex sighed in mild aggravation. “The ghouls’ collective mass is going to outweigh what we can effectively displace that way, Sonata. In the unlikely event that we managed to accomplish anything at all, it would only be to tear the material.” “We grab the edge and roll them up like a big carpet?” That time a snort of derision was the only reply she received, making her pout as she realized she wasn’t helping. Not wanting to let the silence stand, since she knew she’d only end up thinking about Aria again, she changed topics. “So how many ghouls do you think we’re going to be dealing with?” “I don’t know,” admitted Lex after a moment’s thought. “Without any sort of estimate as to how many ponies made it out of the city when the elemental bleed started, to say nothing of how many survivors are still in the city, there’s no reliable method for estimating the number of undead in the city.” What he didn’t say was that, using the ghouls he’d encountered so far as a statistical sampling, he’d still drawn up some theoretical equations regarding the ghouls’ potential population. Although there wasn’t enough data to come to anything conclusive, it still allowed for some degree of speculation…and the numbers weren’t to his liking. “…so, what, like fifty?” He gave her a grim look then. “I’d be shocked if there was anything less than ten times that number.” Sonata gave a low whistle of surprise at that. A hundred and fifty! Geez! That was a lot more than she’d originally thought! Sobered at the thought of fighting so many undead ponies at once, Sonata was silent as Severance returned, finishing up cutting away upper part of the medical tent. As the fabric fluttered down, Lex grabbed hold of one end of it in his magic, dragging it forward, only for Sonata to immediately wave him off. “Let me. You just keep thinking of a plan, okay?” Giving a noncommittal grunt, Lex dropped the fabric, letting her grab it in her teeth and begin dragging it toward the holes she’d had dug. It took her some effort, and he could already hear various things that had been inside the field hospital falling over as she pulled the now-collapsed ceiling off of it, but he ignored it as inconsequential. Instead, he turned and took hold of Severance in his telekinesis, bringing it over to him. “When the fighting starts,” he instructed it, “your job will be to keep the ghouls away from Sonata and me so that we can use our magic without interruption.” That was, he knew, the best use of the scythe’s self-directed capabilities, since unlike in the battle with the kraken there wouldn’t be a particular enemy that needed to be singled out for termination. Moreover, a defensive role would be likely to avoid the scythe’s nebulous prohibition about being relied upon too much. Although it could autonomously attack on its own, ordering it to act that offensively would almost certainly make it abandon- No, Lex realized suddenly, the thought coming through so clearly that it startled him. That’s not right. Severance could be used to a much more offensive degree without violating its restriction about being depended upon too much. It had before, after all. During the battle against the kraken, the monster had attacked them at range, picking up a huge piece of the ship it had crushed and hurling it at them. Cloudbank had been wielding Severance at the time, and despite her overall lack of combat prowess had swung Severance at the incoming missile, the result being that it had sliced it completely in half. Lex knew that because he had personally witnessed it happen. The weapon had never done that before, which meant it had quite clearly utilized that level of cutting ability by its own volition, but if that wasn't depending on the scythe too much, then there was no way… Lex grit his teeth as that train of thought became a cascade. Severance had slain a sahuagin that had taken him by surprise when he’d first arrived in Vanhoover, bisecting the creature as it had leapt out of the water at him. It had removed his horn for him when he'd had no other way of getting the drop on Fencer after she'd taken Pillowcase hostage. It was the only reason he could regain his primary magic! And yet somehow that didn't constitute a form of overreliance?! A shudder went through Lex as he realized that he'd never fully clarified precisely what Severance's parameters were for being overly depended upon. He'd flat-out told it to tell him when it had first given him that warning, and yet it had been cagey, refusing to provide clear and unambiguous parameters, instead being content to let him blindly navigate its warning without tripping over its threat of abandoning him if he relied on it too much. But now...now that threat seemed like little more than a cruel joke made at his expense. It was enough to make his features twist in fury as he turned his attention back to the scythe. "You lied to me!"