Chapter 4
“The Mansion”
I entered the foyer with Blackbird levitating beside me. Looking around, I saw the place was covered with a layer of dust almost an inch thick. All of the paintings and furniture had cobwebs on them. I prayed to Luna that none of the spiders stuck around…
I hate spiders okay, what of it?
Twilight entered, her horn glowing to light up the room. She was closely followed by Fluttershy and Big Mac. Her violet eyes scanned the room and she let out a whistle. “What a mansion…”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac said, his green eyes looking around as well. His eyes fell on an old picture; he wiped some of the dust off it. “Private, ya may wanna take a look at this.”
I walked over to the picture, my horn glowing like a flashlight. It depicted a pony family, all unicorns, a mother, a father, and a child. I looked at the child, those violet eyes, that violet coat…
Glimmer?
Crash!
I heard a noise coming from upstairs. Fluttershy squeaked and hid behind Big Mac. He gave a bemused chuckle at Fluttershy’s timidness. I simply rolled my eyes, and motioned for the group to follow behind me. We crept up the stairs quietly and headed down the hall. More old art was adorning the hallways. The crash I heard had seemed to come from the first room on the left.
I gently pushed open the door with my gun levitated beside me. I looked inside, and saw that the room was a library. The crashed object was a lamp on the floor. It must have been knocked down when somepony bumped the table. I looked around, I didn’t see anypony inside-
Suddenly, something fell on my back. I jumped a couple feet and I shook to knock it off. Standing before me, was some kind of monstrosity… Oh, thank Luna it wasn't a giant spider.
It looked like a pony, or what used to be a pony. Only it looked like a corpse sewn together with string. It had a golden coat, and its eyes were something I recognized…
“Dawnbird!” I exclaimed, as I backed away from the monster.
Months ago, Dawnbird's filly had fallen down a well. Originally she was thought to have been the murderer until I revealed that her sick mother, Glimmer, was the one who killed her granddaughter. Glimmer escaped by using Dinky to keep me from her. After the whole business, Dawnbird left Ponyville behind and disappeared.
Now what was left of her bore its fangs at me. I held up Blackbird. “Dawnbird, what happened to you?”
“Murderer,” the monster said, slowly. “Murderer…”
It started to crawl to me; I had to put this thing out of its misery.
It leaped at me and I fired a shot into one of its legs. It let out a shriek of pain, and crashed into a bookshelf. The monster bore it’s fangs at me again right before getting tackled by a red streak. Big Mac held the beast in his large hooves. “Private! Shoot it now!”
I ran to the beast and put my gun to its head, pulling the trigger with my magic.
The blood that came forth didn’t show on Big Mac’s coat, He gently set down the monster after it died, again. Twilight and Fluttershy came in. Fluttershy looked about ready to shriek at the sight of the monstrosity. Big Mac went to her and hugged her tightly. Fluttershy didn’t care that he was covered in blood; she just wanted the large stallion here.
Twilight looked down at the beast and her horn glowed. She shook her head. “This magic, I’ve never felt such ugly magic before.”
I gently set Dawnbird on a rug and rolled it over her so nopony could see her as this monster. I looked at Twilight. “What magic did this?”
“Necromancy,” Twilight said, with a shudder. “Dawnbird was already dead, somepony shoved life into her to act as a puppet.”
“How awful,” Fluttershy said, while wiping the blood off of Big Mac with dusty curtain remnants. “Why would anypony do this?”
“Somepony must know we are here,” I replied, slowly. “Big Mac, you move the couch and barricade the door.”
Big Mac nodded and went to move the old couch in front of the door. I admired how such strength could come from the workhorse. No wonder Sweet Apple Acres relied on him so much.
Twilight began levitating books off of the shelves. She cleaned a space on an old desk and began sifting through the books. She muttered to herself as she kept reading the books at lightning speed.
“All of these books,” Twilight said, as she went through the fourth book. “I’ve seen them in restricted sections at the library at Canterlot. You have to get special permission from royalty in order to even touch them.”
“What do they contain?” I asked, a large part of me not really wanting to know.
“Life binding spells,” Twilight answered, turning a page with her magic. “According to this history book, Alicorns once used these kinds of spells to reanimate the dead.”
“Which explains Dawnbird,” I said, grimly, as Fluttershy prayed over the body of Dawnbird. Big Mac put a hoof around his special somepony for comfort.
“There’s more, this practice was banned centuries ago when a group of magicians betrayed the Alicorn empire,” Twilight said, reading out of the book. “They defected to… Discord?”
“Discord?” I asked my jaw dropping. “You mean to tell me that Discord had an army of undead at his disposal millennia ago?”
“It says here Discord couldn’t use the magic himself,” Twilight said, with a sigh of relief. “I don’t know what we could’ve done if Discord summoned zombies to attack us.”
“So Discord had these guys at his disposal? What did the Alicorns do to counter it?” I asked, nervously.
“It doesn’t say!” Twilight said, slamming her hoof on the desk in frustration. “There are some passages about a red eyed beast, but then it just cuts off.” She showed the tears in the book. “I’m guessing these pages were gone ages ago, by rats or something.”
“If somepony is experimenting with this kinda freaky magic,” Big Mac said, grimly, “we can’t let it continue. We gotta shut em down.”
“I agree,” I said, firmly, “but what should we do about Dawnbird?” I gestured to the corpse.
Twilight looked at the fireplace that was in the corner of the room. She levitated Dawnbird’s corpse with her magic and put it inside the fireplace. Then she levitated some old furniture on top of her and lit the pile with her magic. Dawnbird’s corpse was soon enveloped in flames.
She looked back at me with those beautiful eyes of hers. “Now they can’t use her corpse anymore.”
I nodded. “Let’s get out of here, we have to move on.”
Twilight nodded, and levitated the couch out of the way. Big Mac and her walked out together. I noticed Fluttershy was still looking at Dawnbird’s burning body. I walked to the Pegasus, and put a hoof on her shoulder. “You okay?”
She shook her head. “It’s just so evil, to have somepony's life treated like it’s something you can just throw away, and do whatever you like with their body.”
“I know, Fluttershy. We have to stop this monster before Equestria is filled with more Dawnbirds”
Fluttershy nodded and hugged me. I hugged the Pegasus back, and for a minute we just sat there. Fluttershy held a special place in the hearts of everypony in Ponyville, including me. She’s always trying to remain kind in a world that was turning steadily towards evil.
There’s a lot to admire about that….
___________________________________________________________
Perspective: Tailspin
We settled into the shed, it was large enough to hold our entire group inside it. Inside were all sorts of tools and old boards, I could imagine this used to be where all of the tools were kept. Scootaloo set me down against the wall at the back. She looked a little tired from lugging my big flank around all day.
I looked at her with a little bit of guilt in my blue eyes.
She just smiled, able to understand what I was thinking. “I’m stronger then I look, Tailspin. It’s nothing.”
Applebloom was looking at the boards with a keen interest. She looked at me, “We should probably use them boards tah board up the door, in case the monster comes back.”
“Good idea,” I said, with a nod. “Everypony, let’s do a little inventory.”
“Inventory?” Snails asked, with a raised eyebrow.
“He means we should see all the stuff we have,” Sweetie Belle explained.
“There’s Sweetie Belle, the dictionary again,” Scootaloo said, with a smile.
Everypony snickered a little as Applebloom went about sorting all of the piles of wood and nails. I crawled over to my bag and opened it, inside was my small lamp. I pulled it out and turned the little nob with my hoof, lighting up the small shed so we all could see better.
Applebloom smiled at her work with sorting. “All right, that’s eight pieces of plywood, six four by sixes, two boxes of nails, three hammers, and one big screwdriver.”
“Yeah,” Pip said, with a frown, “but what are we going to do with all of this stuff?”
Applebloom smiled and lifted a piece of wood to the shed’s door. “Nail it, this way no monsters can git in.”
“All right,” I said, with a nod. “Everypony who’s good with tools get that wood up, everypony else start looking through the saddlebags for any food.”
“That is if Snails doesn’t eat it all,” Snips said, opening his bag.
“You’re still sore about the carrots?” Snails asked, rather dumbly. “Look, I told you we should’ve ate before we did the show.”
Everypony just rolled their eyes and set to work. Truffle, Twist, Applebloom, and Scootaloo went about nailing the wood on the door. There were no windows inside the shed, so we didn’t need to worry about that. There were some cracks in the walls that Pip and Rumble managed to patch up.
I dug through my bag and pulled out my candy bar. “Score!”
Diamond pulled out a wide array of foods, all canned and I was amazed at how much she packed. She glared at everypony. “Don’t think I’m going to share this with all of you! Get your own food.”
“Don’t be a brat, Diamond,” Dinky said, glaring at her, “or did you forget that we saved your flank back there?”
“You guys used me as bait!” Diamond growled. “Why should I help any of you after that?”
Dinky was about to retort when I held up a hoof for her to keep quiet. I crawled my way to Diamond and looked at her right in her own blue eyes “Diamond, I picked you to be the distraction because I trusted you. I trusted that you could handle a job when asked to do it. Now, that food is for all of us to share. Everypony here is hungry, and do you really want to deal with everypony hounding you to get what they want?”
“Nopony talks to me like that!” Diamond fired back.
“Well, I am!” I said, firmly. Diamond was taken aback by this. It’s as though she'd never gotten chastised in her life. “Now quit your stupid whining, and start acting like you have a heart!”
Diamond looked ready to retort, but then, her expression softened as she gazed at me. I got a pretty uncomfortable feeling from this new look she was giving me. She slowly pushed her bag full of all the food in front of me. “There’s a can opener inside, help yourselves.”
“Thanks, Diamond,” I said, with a smile.
Did her cheeks flush a little? She shook her head and went back into brat mode. “Just take the food, before I change my mind!”
Truffle walked up to me and looked at the food. “I think I can make something out of all of this, if only we could get a fire going, we could cook.”
“Too bad we can’t inside a wooden shed,” I pointed out. “Just hold the can on my lamp, it’ll have to suffice.”
Truffle nodded and took the rest of the food to the lamp. He used the heat provided by the lamp to warm the food a little. Thank goodness the lamp was oil powered and not electric. We would never be able to cook anything at all otherwise.
Applebloom put the finishing touches on our barricade. She smiled at her work. “There, I’d like tah see that monster get through that.”
“You think it’ll hold?” Rumble asked, looking at the barricaded door.
“Let’s hope so,” Pip said, worriedly. “I don’t want that monster coming around here.”
I looked around at everypony. “We should all just try and relax until morning.” I pulled my bed roll off my bag. “We’ll worry about getting to safety tomorrow.”
“Ya think anypony is coming tah look fer us?” Applebloom asked, after setting up her bed space.
I nodded. “My brother is probably on his way now, I’m sure Cherilee would’ve called him.”
Applebloom gazed off somewhere else for a minute. “Yeah, Private’s amazin'.”
“Are you pining for my brother Applebloom?” I asked, with a raised eyebrow.
She blushed bright red “Ah’m not! Ah’m just sayin' he’s somepony tah admire!”
“I know, I was just kidding,” I said, with a smile. “Just wait, Private’s going to come here and save us all.”
I opened my bag a little more and there she was. Squished in my bag was Sasha; I brought her along more to humor Private than anything else. I’m ten years old, and yet he still thinks I would sleep with a doll. Still, it was the only thing aside from the camping gear I had of him. I pulled Sasha out of the bag, not thinking I was in a room filled with ponies.
“Is that a doll?” I heard a voice speak up behind me. To my horror it was Silver Spoon.
“No, it’s nothing!” I said, defensively, trying to stuff Sasha back in the bag. Before I could, however, Silver Spoon snatched it, and held it up for everypony to see.
“Hey everypony!” Silver shouted, holding the doll out of reach. “Tailspin’s sleeping with a dolly!”
“It’s a stuffed animal!” I retorted, my face bright red, as everypony was trying not to laugh. “There’s a difference!”
“Do you also suck your hoof at night as well?” Silver taunted, while everypony was laughing.
“I stopped sucking my hoof when I was five!” I shot back, angry and embarrassed.
Everypony was just laughing at it until-
“Silver, stop it!”
Everypony looked at Dinky who stomped over to Silver, and snatched Sasha away. She gave the stuffed animal back to me with a small smile. “Its okay, Tailspin. Here you go.”
I took Sasha back, and returned her smile. “Thanks, Private gave me this when I was two. It’s all I really have of him right now…”
Everypony got quiet for a moment. Even Diamond kept her mouth shut, then Applebloom pulled out her blanket from before. “Applejack gave me this when I was six.” She held the blanket to her chest and looked at me. “Ya ain’t the only one who has somethin tah remind 'em of their siblings.”
Everypony nodded, Sweetie Belle reached into her bag and pulled out an old doll that looked just like her sister. “Mom made these for me and Rarity’s birthdays. Rarity has one that looks like me.”
Rumble pulled out a small keychain with a lightning bolt on it. “Thunderlane got me this when we went to a Raiden Bolt concert. It was before mom left us.”
“You don’t have a mom?” I asked, looking at Rumble.
The grey Pegasus shook his head. “Our dad died a long time ago, when I was born. Mom kind of fell off the deep end after that. Thunderlane’s been raising me ever since she left us.”
“Rumble, I’m sorry,” I said, slowly. “I know what it’s like to have no parents around.”
He gave me a small smile. “I’m fine, as long as I have this.” He pointed to the key chain. “Thunderlane is here with me, I know it.”
I guess we aren’t really alone…
Then I heard sniffling. I looked over and saw Dinky crying. My blue eyes looked at her with sympathy. “Dinky, are you okay?”
The periwinkle unicorn shook her head. “I just remembered, I didn’t bring along something to remind me of mommy.” She wiped her eyes. “She’s probably worried sick about me…”
Tears came to other ponies eyes as we were all reminded about our families. Diamond looked down, and spoke softly for once, “Daddy is probably freaking out right now.”
Pip looked down too and spoke just as softly, “Mum and dad probably called the police by now. They’re probably worried sick about me too.”
Dinky just began crying, I hated seeing her cry, and so did Pip. Pip walked to Dinky and allowed her to press herself into him. Scootaloo looked over at me with a frown. “We gotta do something to cheer everypony up.”
That’s when the singing started…
Come stop your crying
It’ll be all right…
I looked up to see Sweetie Belle walking towards Dinky as she sang. Wow, she had an amazing voice!
Just take my hoof,
Hold it tight…
I will protect you from all around you..
She took Dinky’s hoof, and smiled at the periwinkle colored unicorn.
I will be here don’t you cry…
We all knew this song thanks to Disneigh flicks. I began to join in and soon we were all singing around crying Dinky.
For one so small, you seem so strong
My arms will hold you keep you safe and warm
Everypony else began to sing along as well.
This bound between us, can’t be broken…
I will be here don’t you cry…
Pip wiped Dinky’s eyes of her tears. The pinto smiled at Dinky. “It’s all right, Dinky. As long as we have each other. We’ll get through this.”
“Thanks,” Dinky said, hugging the pinto tight. Pip blushed at being held by Dinky, but slowly returned the hug.
I looked over at Sweetie Belle with a smile, “That was amazing Sweetie Belle! You have an awesome voice!”
“I… do, don’t I?” the white unicorn said, slowly “I just wanted to stop Dinky crying the only way I knew how…”
A light shone on Sweetie Belle. We all shielded our eyes as slowly but surely a mark formed on her flank. It was a musical note, with a pair of bells crossing them. Sweetie Belle stared at her flank for almost a minute before leaping in air for joy. “My cutie mark!”
“Ya got yer cutie mark in singin'!” Applebloom exclaimed.
Scootaloo raised her hoof in the air. “The first among the cutie mark crusaders to get her cutie mark is Sweetie Belle!”
Everypony went to look at Sweetie Belle’s flank, Snips raised an eyebrow at it. “What’s with the bells?”
“I know those bells!” Twist said, knowingly. “They’re wedding bells! My cousin had these big bells that sounded after the wedding!”
“I think it means that Sweetie Belle has a talent for using her music to bring comfort and celebration,” I said, sagely.
Sweetie Belle looked around smiling. “I always knew I could sing well, I just didn’t figure it was my special talent.”
“You would’ve saved us a lot of grief at the talent show if we’d known that sooner,” Scootaloo said, laughing at the memory.
We all laughed at this joyous occasion, but then Applebloom frowned. “Do ya guys hear that?”
We all got quiet for a second, and Applebloom pressed her ear to a crack in the door. “Hey, Ah think Ah hear somepony crying.”
“What’s somepony doing crying out here?” I asked, slowly.
“Ah’ll ask,” Applebloom said, quietly. She spoke through the crack, “Hey there! Why are ya cryin'?”
“Applebloom!” Diamond said, warningly. “What if it’s the monster again?”
“Ah ain’t gonna just let somepony cry all day,” Applebloom said, firmly. “Ah wanna see if we can help.” She spoke through the crack again, “Hey, what’s yer name? Why ya cryin'?”
Applebloom looked out through the hole as a voice spoke, “I’m crying because I’ve never met ponies who act so friendly…” The voice sounded about the same age as us I could guess, probably a guy.
Applebloom spoke gently, “Come on out. We ain’t gonna hurt ya.”
After a minute Applebloom looked away from the crack, her expression quizzical. “Everypony, it is the monster from before”
“Then why are we letting that thing get closer?” Diamond demanded. “What could possibly make you think he’s safe?”
“Cause he ain’t big no more,” Applebloom said, slowly. “He’s a colt, just like us.”