Mareicopa: October 2025
Chupacabra Stadium was a massive stadium in downtown Mareicopa with a retractable dome, which was now closed, making the stadium look like a giant egg lying on its side. Though the stadium wasn’t as grand as the stone and marble coliseums in Stirrup, it was a perfect place for a city like Mareicopa to have hoofball games, horseshoe tosses, and other athletic events. It also made a pretty good improvised concentration camp.
Pumpkin Cake stood on the side of the street in the parking area, scoping out the stadium. Second Kingdom police officers walked around near the front steps and stood by the doors, but other than their presence, it was difficult to tell anything out of the ordinary was occurring at the stadium. In fact, there would often be this much security during regular hoofball games, though the internment of earth ponies and pegasi in Mareicopa was an open secret by now.
Besides the front doors, there were several entrances to the stadium. The side doors had no door handles on them, being emergency fire doors. Pumpkin Cake walked around back to an unattended fire door, glanced in all directions to ensure no watchers, and walked through. The hallway was lit by fluorescent lights, with concrete floors and dust everywhere. The grey brick halls were unpainted. A door to the janitor's closet stood near the middle of the hallway. This was a maintenance hallway, she figured.
After stopping by the janitor’s closet, Pumpkin followed the hall, finding the door which let out into the stadium vestibule. A mop and a wash bucket were in her magical grasp, and she wore one of the janitor’s spare denim overalls that was hanging up in the closet. She wasn’t sure how the janitor had looked, but figured that there was more than one janitor for a stadium this big. So Pumpkin changed her mane and coat color to jet black and chocolate, respectively, since it looked nothing like either her or her Red Velvet alter ego. If anypony asked, she’d just say she was a new employee.
The door creaked open as Pumpkin made her way into the vestibule. All around were Second Kingdom guards with assault rifles. A few concession stands stood abandoned, with metal coverings over them. Her heart pounded in her chest as she approached one of the entryways to the green. She would say she was there to clean up a mess. One of the guards simply nodded his head and allowed her to go through. It was easier to get by than she had expected.
Pumpkin gazed down at the green from the stands, and gasped in shock. There were around 30,000 ponies here, she figured. Thousands and thousands of cots were set up on the field, on the sidelines, under the goalposts, and in the entrance to the locker rooms. There was very little talking, mirth or laughter, mostly silence, groans, and tears, just as it had been for her in Trixie's captivity.
Most of these ponies were elderly or sickly, and coughs and sneezes peppered the field. The stench of the field was nearly unbearable, and there were just half-a-dozen portable toilets scattered around, not nearly enough for this many ponies. Pumpkin wasn't sure how many ponies it would take to get Princess Twilight to crack and sign a peace treaty, but, hopefully for them, they wouldn't have to find out.
Pumpkin Cake now realized how difficult freeing all of these ponies would be. There were dozens of guards around, and a lot of these ponies were in no condition to run off. She couldn’t rescue them all herself. Pound Cake was correct: Pumpkin needed allies. However, she didn't have the first idea of how to find like-minded ponies in a city where speaking a different opinion from the regime could mean imprisonment or disappearance.
Perhaps, though, there was another way she could stop the internment. Something of this scale didn’t just happen by itself, and all of these guards had to be taking orders from somepony. She didn’t know who, since the documents at Trixie's house didn't contain much mention about the logistics behind the internment. But if Pumpkin could find the ponies in charge and take them out, she could turn the position of Concentration Camp Manager into the least-wanted job in the city. If she killed a few head ponies, the rest of them to get the idea: the internment stops, or those responsible will die.
Pumpkin Cake returned to the vestibule where the guards stood. They were walking around without a care, as if totally unaware of the misery on the green below. There was a churning feeling in her stomach from watching them laughing and joking with each other, seemingly oblivious.
She circled the vestibule several times like a shark in search of prey until finding a young stallion who stood alone, with nopony else in sight. When the guard’s back was turned to her, she pounced on him, her horn coruscating as they both disappeared, then reappeared inside of the janitor's closet.
The stallion glanced up at her, only having just re-materialized. He reached for his gun, but found it gone. Pumpkin Cake subdued him in a blue glow, pinning him against the wall.
“Listen closely. I will allow you to speak, but if you call for help, or if you don’t answer my questions, I will snap your neck. Now tell me, who is in charge of the internment?”
The pony blinked a few times, then stammered, “His n-name is F-fancy Pants.”
“Where can I find him?” she demanded.
“He's at the administration building downtown. Please don't hurt me! I'll do anything you want!”
Pumpkin chuckled. “Not so fun being on the other end, is it?” she scoffed.
His mouth moved a mile a minute as he spoke like a pony at the end of a radio commercial for experimental medicine.
“Listen, I’m just seventeen, and I’m from Copa, but I enlisted when I found out that Twilight was blowing up parade floats full of little kids; I just had to stand up to that, and those magic control laws. I didn’t want to round up earth ponies; I’m just following orders! I don’t like the internment either and it’s just as bad as what Twilight does to the zebras. Please let me go and I promise that I won’t tell anypony that you’re after Fancy Pants. I want him dead too for what he’s doing.”
Pumpkin was silent for a minute, considering his words. He had made some interesting points, and had certainly touched on her own issues with Twilight Sparkle. Could he be telling the truth, or was he just being crafty? Quickly, she formulated a plan that would tell her.
“Fine,” said Pumpkin Cake, as her horn lit up and she retrieved his rifle, that now was slung across her own back thanks to a teleportation trick. “If you really are serious, then go out into the hallway and shoot another guard dead. I’ll teleport you to safety once you do it.”
The gun floated over towards him, and then dropped to the floor. She waited for him to pick it up, ensconcing herself with magic in case he turned it on her. Surely enough, he glanced at the gun, sat for a few moments, then shook his head.
“Sorry. I don’t want to be a fugitive. But at least I might get a promotion from offing a partisan.”
He grabbed the gun in his own magic, and pointed it towards Pumpkin, pulling the trigger as a spray of bullets passed harmlessly through her.
And here I was, hoping I’d found a kindred spirit, she lamented. She grabbed the gun and turned it on the rather confused stallion. His blood and brains painted the closet with a gushy splat. Pumpkin disappeared, taking the gun and remaining ammunition.
Three Days Later
Though Mareicopa was a large city in population, much of it was sprawl, and it had few tall skyscrapers. It was much like Fillydelphia in that respect. In fact, the administrative building of Mareicopa, at twenty-five stories high, was the second-tallest building in town.
Like all the other buildings in Mareicopa, it had a reddish-orange mesa exterior. It didn’t have modern air conditioning like many newer buildings in town, so most of its windows stood open all day, with window fans running on full blast.
Pumpkin Cake had spent the last few days scoping out the building and watching through the windows, taking copious notes. There were five armed guards stationed around the perimeter, and twenty-five inside, one for each floor. She had come to know her target’s security, including the times that he left for and arrived to work, took lunches and breaks, and when the guards would do their rounds and check on him.
She had also come to know the target himself. In addition to the internment, Fancy Pants was also in charge of propaganda. Every friday night, he organized a unicorn rally in the center of town with hundreds of ponies waving red and black Second Kingdom flags, though he usually didn’t attend them himself. Fancy Pants had also put up many propaganda posters around the town. There were so many falsities, Pumpkin had lost track.
“Better life for earth ponies and pegasi! Come to Chupacabra Stadium!”
“Blueblood, the savior of the unicorn race!”
“This zebra is your friend. He fights for freedom.”
It made her sick, and she would be glad to take out such a liar. She had also seen wanted posters hanging up with her own face on them.
“WANTED: Pumpkin Cake, age 15, female, for murder and high treason against the unicorn race. Magically proficient and highly dangerous, alert authorities upon sight.”
For this attack, she had changed her hair and mane color to jet black and chocolate again so she wouldn’t be easily spotted.
Fancy Pants’ office was on the top floor, and she had planned quite a show for his assassination. She brought a camera in her saddlebag to take pictures, because she figured that the Second Kingdom publicists would not wants to reveal the details about his gruesome death themselves. But she would take them to the Tall Tale Times, since that paper was still available in the Second Kingdom. Then it would percolate through the grapevine of the intelligentsia, and nopony would post for Fancy Pants’ vacant chair.
Initially, Pumpkin hadn’t planned on striking him in his office, preferring to take him out at home. But, unlike Trixie, Fancy Pants could teleport, and quite a long distance, too. It had been impossible for her to trail him when he left or arrived at work in a teleport flash, and she had failed to find his address otherwise, so she just settled on killing him in his office.
But you can’t teleport out of your office walls, Fancy Pants, she recalled. The principle of teleportation was that an unobstructed path had to exist between the unicorn and his destination. The path could curve, but its girth had to be at least as wide as the unicorn, so unicorns couldn’t merely teleport past obstacles like closed doors, walls, or jail cell bars. Good thing, or else unicorn burglars would have a field day.
Pumpkin Cake, however, could teleport past such barriers if she used her intangibility and teleportation spells simultaneously, a difficult combo she had used during one of her failed escape attempts from the Research Department, and that she had done when interrogating the stadium guard a few days ago. But it was easier to just teleport right up to a wall and then pass through it, which was what she had planned for the assassination.
In the run-up to the assassination day, Pumpkin had been conducting hit-and-run attacks against guards at the stadium, amassing a stockpile of various weapons until she found a small pistol, perfect for carrying around concealed in her saddlebag. Ironically, the smallest weapons were harder to come by, and she had to kill five guards until she found one who had a sidearm. But now that she no longer had to worry about ‘naturally’ falling asleep, it was surprisingly easy for her to kill. No more restless nights of pesky thoughts like whether any of those stallions and mares had families, or whether they deserved it.
That must be how Blueblood sleeps after everything he’s done; he uses the sleep spell in his book, Pumpkin figured. That, or he simply had no conscience.
Pumpkin had spent time out in the desert, shooting at tin cans to improve her aim and get used to guns again. Though she was rusty from being underground for months, the training from the range in Appleloosa soon came back.
The evening before, she had been into the administrative building after-hours and scoped out Fancy Pants’ office. It was a top-floor corner office, with two windows, both usually kept cracked open enough to let in air, but not enough to teleport out of. Today, though, both of his windows were closed, since it was a rather mild day.
Good, she thought. Nopony outside will hear.
Thankfully, Fancy Pants didn’t have any bodyguards in his office. There was one stationed about ten meters down the hall from his door, though, so she would have to be quiet to avoid alerting him. If he became a hassle, she planned on shooting at him through the door, since the angle was just right.
Once she was confident she had thought of everything and was ready, she teleported up onto the roof, appearing right in the middle, where the angle was too steep to be seen by anypony on the ground. She walked to the corner of the building and then counted seven paces inward, just like she had practiced earlier. Her horn created a hatch in the ceiling, and she jumped down, her weapon pointed towards Fancy Pants’ desk.
Fancy Pants sat at his desk, his horn glowing as he attending to some important business. His head jolted up as he heard a thud, and then his jaw gaped.
Standing before him was a young unicorn mare with a chocolate coat, jet black mane, and blue eyes narrowed in a determined glare. Her magic glowed blue, and in her telekinetic grasp, she pointed a pistol straight towards him. He had no idea how she had gotten into his office, since his door had been locked, and he hadn’t even heard it open.
Fancy Pants remained seated, but threw his hooves up into the air and begged, “Don’t sh--”
Suddenly, he was silenced by her magic.
“Don’t move another muscle,” The mare demanded. “It’s time to end your little game, Fancy Pants. You’ve done nothing but lie, and now ponies are dying because of you.”
Fancy Pants blinked. A shiver ran down his spine, and the room suddenly felt icy cold as the young mare stared him down with a scowl. He gulped as he reached an inescapable conclusion.
Blueblood knew he was a traitor.
He had no idea how. He kept his meetings with Agent Sparkler entirely secret and protected from eavesdroppers, and he’d churned out as convincing of propaganda for the Second Kingdom as he possibly could, and he’d organized the internment. Maybe Top Brass had tipped Blueblood off after the attempted Equestrian invasion of Mareicopa. Who knew? But somehow, Blueblood’s intelligence apparatus had caught up with him, he’d been discovered as a traitor to the Second Kingdom, and they had sent this hitmare to his office to kill him.
“Any last words? You’re normally so wordy on those posters,” said the mare.
What could he do? He would have to say something to save his own life somehow, or this mare would shoot him. For the first few moments, he couldn’t think straight. Normally, he was quite eloquent, but this time, his words escaped him.
Finally, Fancy Pants regained his composure, sat up straight in his chair, and proclaimed, “I’m not a traitor. I’ve been perfectly loyal to the Second Kingdom and to Blueblood. We have already captured 50,000 earth ponies and pegasi, surpassing Blueblood’s minimum number, and we’re on track to meet 100,000 by the end of October. Army enlistments have increased 10% thanks to my recruitment drive. And, I even have a long list of traitors and partisans that I’ve given to Blueblood. Maybe you’ve even been assigned to kill some of them.”
The mare blinked, a confused look on her face.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
Figures, she’s just a hitmare who probably doesn’t know about the role I play. She’s just been told to come kill me, no questions asked. Maybe if I show her the list, she’ll believe me, Fancy Pants thought.
“I’m going to slowly open my desk drawer. There is something inside I’d like you to see. Please do not be alarmed,” he said.
His horn lit up, and the old oak desk drawer slowly opened, a slight creak escaping the drawer. The mare’s ears shot up, and she floated her gun right up to Fancy Pants’ face, pressing it against his nose.
“That had better not be a gun!” she exclaimed.
Fancy Pants powered down his horn. “It’s a piece of paper. Grab it with your own magic if you like.”
A blue field enveloped the piece of paper inside of the desk, and it floated over to the mare.
She glanced at it with one eye, keeping the other eye trained firmly on his face along with the gun.
“That is my newest list of partisans and traitors,” said Fancy Pants. “I have been observing these ponies for months. I’ve gathered more names, ones that not even the intelligence service knows about, and ones that aren’t even on that list, only in my head. As the propaganda minister, I’m in a good position to find these names. I talk to a lot of ponies, you know. But if you kill me, you won’t get any more of the names. If you kill me, a true Second Kingdom patriot will die, but all of the actual traitors will still be walking free.”
Pumpkin Cake’s heart skipped a beat. Then, she smiled, and had to keep herself from laughing as she realized what he meant.
This Fancy Pants character was so wrapped up in his own propaganda, so wrapped up in fear and lies, that he thought that she was a hitmare, sent to kill him for being disloyal to the Second Kingdom! She had no idea what he would have to worry about, though. After all, given the internment of earth ponies and pegasi that he had orchestrated, and given the heaping helping of eyesore propaganda posters that he had plastered over the city’s walls like some graffiti gangster, only the most conspiratorial of ponies would question Fancy Pants’ unwavering loyalty to Blueblood.
She thought for a second. She supposed she could tell him that she was actually from Equestria, and that she was seeking retribution on everypony who marched under the flag of genocidal fascists, and that she sought to free the earth ponies and pegasi in Mareicopa from the same ponies who had killed her parents and enslaved her like a common farm animal, harvesting her magic like milk from a cow, all while supposedly standing for the supremacy of unicorns and their right to be free.
But then she decided against it.
If this clown was going to die, she thought, then his punishment would be to think that he had failed at his life’s mission of spreading hate and lies, not that he had succeeded. The Second Kingdom had destroyed almost everything that Pumpkin Cake held dear: her parents, Ponyville, Appleloosa. So it only seemed fair to her that, before killing this sputtering old windbag, she give him the same treatment and take from him what he valued most: his sense of usefulness to the unicorn race.
Fancy Pants would die thinking that he was a total and utter failure, and that Blueblood had ordered his death. She would not give him the pleasure of knowing her struggle, of knowing the train wreck of despair that the Second Kingdom had made of her life. Instead, she would execute him on the spot, his head filled with the same delusions and falsities that he had spent his life concocting. The irony was delicious.
That, and she had already wasted too much time to give a monologue, anyway. The guards would be doing their rounds soon.
“Sorry, but your fate is sealed. Blueblood’s orders,” said Pumpkin Cake. She placed the list from Fancy Pants inside of her saddlebag, and then her horn lit up as she prepared his execution.
Pumpkin had never actually ripped out a pony’s heart before. It seemed rather barbaric to her, but that was the point: to terrorize the Second Kingdom and ensure another pony didn’t simply rise up to take Fancy Pants’ place. Simply shooting him in the head? Too predictable, too painless, easily forgotten. But ripping his heart out? It would be talked about for centuries.
His chest turned intangible, and she felt around through his internal organs with her magic like a claw crane at an arcade until she finally found the prize: soft, squishy, and beating, but not for long. She yanked on it, but ended up just pulling Fancy Pants’ entire body forward, out of his chair, and on top of his desk, his heart still inside his chest. He passed out and slumped onto the desktop, seemingly lifeless, though his heart was still beating so it was just from shock.
Pumpkin realized her error: she hadn’t made the opening big enough for the heart to fit through. Come to find out, pony hearts were a lot bigger than she had thought, and she lamented not having planned this part out better. Perhaps she should have rehearsed this beforehoof on a corpse. Oh well, she’d just try again--
Suddenly, Fancy Pants disappeared in a flash of light.
Pumpkin’s head jolted as she turned around. He couldn’t have teleported out of the room since the door was shut. Indeed, he was next to the door, about five meters away. He was still slumped over, unconscious, so Pumpkin wondered how he had managed to teleport.
She turned to walk towards him, but a hoof whacked her in the back of the head. Her gun clanked to the floor and stars blinded her vision as she nearly blacked out, until she turned intangible to protect herself from her attacker. But then she did, and she looked back towards whoever had hit her.
Nopony was there. She and Fancy Pants were the only ponies inside the office. She floated there like a specter for a few seconds until she realized that her attacker must be invisible. No matter. The assassination would go on; she would simply do it while intangible. She approached Fancy Pants, floating at about half a meter per second, the quickest pace she could manage with levitation magic. It was the only way she could move while intangible, without solid hooves to touch the ground.
Just as she was close to him, he disappeared again. She turned and saw that he was now behind his desk, next to the window. The invisible attacker was just going to keep teleporting him around the room just out of her reach, she figured. So, she turned to plan B: just shoot him, since the bullet would turn solid as soon as it left the gun barrel. But she couldn’t find her gun. She called out a curse word which made no sound.
A mare’s voice spoke. “The invisible versus the intangible. Looks like we’re at an impasse, Pumpkin Cake.”
The voice knew her name. Her eyes widened in surprise.
The voice chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t care how often you change your hair color, but when you use that spell, you might as well wear a nametag that says, ‘Hello, my name is Pumpkin Cake, how can I kill you today?’ It’s a dead giveaway. Though I admit, you even had me fooled there for a second, and I honestly thought that Fancy Pants really was being killed for treason. But I had my doubts Blueblood would send a hitmare so young, and once you shielded yourself with that spell, I knew for certain.
“Now, I gotta say, your assassination plan was brilliant… you know, up until the whole ‘killing the target’ step. Tearing a pony’s heart out? What is this, a Daring Do novel? You should have just used a bullet, and your plan would have worked, but I guess that serial killers like you never take the easy route, huh? No, bullets are what well-adjusted, normal ponies do, and you’re anything but normal.
“Like all serial killers, you want your murders to have pizazz, that signature Pumpkin Cake flair. It’s just like how you killed Trixie Lulamoon: in a gruesome way nopony else but you could’ve done. And hey, as a pony who often kills in style herself, I can respect that. Protip, though: the more complex your plan, the more that can go wrong. When you pulled Fancy forward out of his chair during your failed heart-wrenching, you gave me room to get out from under the desk and subdue you.”
Pumpkin Cake raised an eyebrow. At first, she had thought that this mare was Fancy Pants’ bodyguard or something, but then why had she been under the desk? After pondering for a moment, Pumpkin realized there could only have been one reason, and it sure wasn’t to shine his horseshoes! She giggled inaudibly.
The voice became annoyed. “Oh, grow up. So you caught Fancy Pants with his fancy pants down. Big deal, we all have needs. At least my need isn’t to take ponies’ hearts… well, not literally. Metaphorically though, his heart is mine, and I can’t let you have it, Pumpkin Cake; that would be stealing.”
Pumpkin visibly shuddered at the idea of two fascists in love, particularly ones who must have been in their sixties. Ew and gross.
The voice concluded in a braggadocious fashion, “I have your gun. Now, I know that you can’t stay intangible forever, just as I can’t stay invisible forever, but I’ve been training in magic since before you were a twinkle in mommy and daddy’s eyes, so I’ll bet that my timer is a lot longer than yours. I don’t want to kill you, because I think that between said parents’ deaths and being tortured by Trixie, you’ve suffered enough. So why don’t you just phase through the wall and go float on, okay? Quit being a serial killer and get help. See a shrink or something.”
The invisible mare’s words hung in the air for a moment, floating just like Pumpkin Cake. She was flabbergasted. Even if she were tangible and able to speak, she didn’t know what she’d say. So, having been both physically and verbally vanquished, she did as the voice said and teleported away to safety.
“Hey, wake up.”
Fancy Pants grunted and moaned, turning his head over. Amethyst Star planted a single kiss on his cheek. That got his attention, and he lifted his head off the desk. Back when he had felt his heart being squeezed by that young mare, he had thought for sure that he was dead. But apparently, not today.
“That was Pumpkin Cake, Fancy,” said a now-visible Agent Sparkler. “I guess she’s out on some sort of revenge killing spree. Can’t really blame her, after what Trixie put her through.”
Fancy Pants raised an eyebrow. “Good gracious! That was Pumpkin Cake?”
Sparkler nodded. “Yeah! How come you couldn’t tell? I mean, I was under the desk where I couldn’t see, so at least I have an excuse, but you were staring her right in the face! Different mane and coat color, but still, you have a bunch of wanted posters of her face hanging all over the town!”
Fancy Pants shrugged. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Amethyst, but I was in fear for my life, and wasn’t quite thinking straight. I apologize that I gave her that list, but it was a saving throw.”
Sparkler sighed. “Well, that list was for you to give to Blueblood to further prove your loyalty to him, right before you kill him. But I guess that I can just write up a new list, since I memorized all the names on it. I’m not too worried that Pumpkin Cake has the original, since there’s little she can do with it.”
“Indeed, whose names were on that list?” asked Fancy Pants. “You never told me.”
“It was on a need-to-know basis, and you didn’t need to know,” Sparkler quipped. “But now that you ask: ponies who wanted to join the underground against the Second Kingdom in Mareicopa.”
Fancy Pants raised an eyebrow. “Why would you give me a list of real partisans to give to Blueblood? Don’t we need them?”
Sparkler shook her head. “Because the partisans on that list all had issues and weren’t good enough to join my group of elites. I’ve been helping to organize the resistance here in Mareicopa, remember? I vet them all to make sure they’re kosher. Even after the Second Kingdom is kicked out of Copa, we’ll still need good ponies in this city to restore the local government and smoothly transition this city back into Equestrian rule of law. The ponies on the list Cake took were gung-ho about the ‘kicking out the Second Kingdom’ part, but they weren’t so gung-ho about the whole ‘back to Equestria afterwards’ part.
“Equestria doesn’t need lukewarm, armed ponies in this city when we get it back; there will already be enough ponies upset over the reintroduction of the magic laws. I figure, let Blueblood’s intelligence service get rid of some of those ponies for us, and you get a nice little feather in your loyalty cap for giving him those names. Win-win. All of the true partisans, who are Equestrian loyalists to the bone, were not on that list or any other list that I have given you.”
Fancy Pants nodded. “Not very forthright of you, though I’m not one to criticize treachery, seeing as how I am the master of it.”
Sparkler chuckled, putting her arm around Fancy Pants and giving him another peck on the cheek. “You’re fancy and mysterious. But now I’m worried about your safety. You can’t stay here; Pumpkin Cake might come back and try to kill you again soon. I doubt she’d fail a second time. With that spell, she can follow you anywhere, and can become invincible. It was pure dumb luck that I stopped her plan this time. Our only hope is to get you inside of an electrified faraday cage that she can’t just phase through.”
“Like the one in the Magical Research Department basement?” asked Fancy Pants.
Sparkler gazed off into the distance. “That would be perfect, actually… but wait, no. Pumpkin knows about that one. How long would it take her to figure out that, after she tried to kill you, we moved you to the one place in Mareicopa specifically designed to stop her intangibility spell? And then how long would it take for her to cut the power and infiltrate it?”
Fancy Pants sighed. “Good observation. And it would take at least a week to put up a faraday cage anyplace else. The only other places in the Second Kingdom that I can think of with such anti-magic cages are the dangerous convict cells of the maximum security prison, which I can’t stay in for obvious reasons, and also--”
“Blueblood’s bunker,” they both said simultaneously.
Fancy Pants shook his head. “But I wasn’t going to leave to go to Blueblood’s bunker until when I was going to kill him at the end of the month. He won’t be pleased if I take a trip to see him in Canterlot without having finished the internment first. In fact, he specifically excused me from every one of our minister meetings in Canterlot until it’s finished; that’s how important it is to him that I dedicate all of my effort to this.”
Sparkler shrugged. “We could use a few more weeks; it’s true, but you’ve just had an assassination attempt. Of all ponies, I think Blueblood would understand that. Besides, you’ve already rounded up 50,000 earth ponies and pegasi. That was the minimum, right?”
“Yes,” said Fancy Pants.
“Then just tell him that you have competent ponies in Mareicopa who can take the internment from here, but that you had to come hunker in the bunker with him due to a threat on your life,” said Sparkler. “Even if he does resent it, once you give him that big list of partisans, he will be pleased with you again. As long as he doesn’t say anything bad about you to anypony else before you kill him.”
“And now when will I do that?” asked Fancy Pants.
Sparkler nodded. “We’re moving the plan forward. Carry it out within a day of getting to his bunker.”
Fancy Pants raised an eyebrow. “But you said that I’d leave from here as soon as possible, so that means that I’ll kill him…”
“Tomorrow, yes.”
Pumpkin Cake sat inside Trixie’s house, laying down on the bed as she stared up at the ceiling. There were so many questions running through her mind. Who was that invisible pony? How did she know so much about her? How could she have been so stupid as to not plan out her assassination better?
Of course, those were the strategic questions. There were also questions about what the invisible mare had said about her personally. Was Pumpkin really a mentally deranged serial killer like the invisible mare said? No way, she thought, recalling the Detective Cold Case novel about the serial killer.
Serial killers usually killed more than three ponies over several years. She had only killed--well, dozens; she’d lost count. But that couldn’t just be it, because then every soldier on the battlefield would be a serial killer, and they obviously weren’t. She had only killed due to the war, and wartime didn’t count, did it? If not for the war, she’d be a regular high schooler more concerned with grades than genocide. Surely Pumpkin wouldn’t kill in peacetime, but serial killers were killers because something was wrong with them, and they’d kill even during peacetime.
Serial killers had a pathological need to kill, an uncontrollable desire, and it was a vice that they derived joy from--then Pumpkin thought back to when she had killed Trixie, partly out of wanting to escape from captivity, true, but also partly out of a wish to simply see her dead. She thought of how she relished in Fancy Pants dying thinking that he was a worthless propaganda minister. Did that venture beyond mere assassination into killing-for-fun territory? No, she thought. Roller coasters were fun, magic was fun, but killing ponies? Not so much. It did still bother her to kill, and if not for her sleep spell, she would suffer many restless nights from it. True serial killers had no reservations, no questions about what they did.
Besides, she didn’t meet the biggest serial killer red flag from the Cold Case novels: a lack of empathy. True, she was less empathetic than Pound, but she still cared for others and was no sociopath. She was only continuing to kill out of care for others, in fact, were it not for wanting to stop the internment of earth ponies and pegasi, she’d be content to never kill again. Also, serial killers usually had no friends, whereas Pumpkin did. She’d had friends in Ponyville. She’d had friends in Appleloosa. She didn’t have any friends now, true, but she’d only been out of captivity for a few weeks.
She levitated Fancy Pants’ list out of the saddlebag. There were dozens of names and addresses on it. Fancy Pants said that all of these ponies were partisans and traitors to the Second Kingdom. Pumpkin would fit right in. So she’d follow Pound’s advice.
“Time to make some friends.”
Aunt and Uncle Orange and Peachy Pitt were seated at their dining room table in Manehattan, enjoying scrumptious meals of saldade a l'orange. Opposite them on the long table, there sat Jet Set and Upper Crust, wine glasses levitating in their magic.
Uncle Orange tapped a wine glass with a spoon. “This meeting of the Minds and Markets Club has come to order,” he said.
“Hear, hear,” said Aunt Orange.
Uncle Orange grabbed a sheet of paper from the table, glanced down at it, and said, “Now, our agenda for discussion… Winston, could you fetch my reading glasses?”
“Why do you two always have to be so formal?” asked Peachy Pitt. “Can’t we just have a normal discussion and let the conversation flow naturally? I know that they’re business associates, but Jetty and Crusty are long-time friends of the family, too.”
The unicorn couple nodded in agreement.
“Perhaps a less-structured meeting would be best,” said Jet Set. “I’m more for synergizing and a meeting of the minds, and less for formality. We can always come back to your list if we miss a topic.”
Uncle Orange groaned. “Very well then; let us just go from topic to topic, grazing on whatever suits our fancy like cattle in the field.”
“Be civil, dear,” said Aunt Orange.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Jet Set asked, “How goes the Second Kingdom? Are we assured a perpetual adversary, so JSUC Munitions can keep selling weapons and warplanes?”
“Well, they’re willing to round up and perhaps kill tens of thousands of earth ponies and pegasi so they won’t have to surrender, so you tell me,” said Peachy Pitt, chuckling. “I think they’re going to be around for a long time.”
Jet Set and Upper Crust smiled. “That’s wonderful news for us,” said Upper Crust. “Though, obviously, not for those earth ponies and pegasi.”
“Or for the unicorns who could starve this winter,” said Peachy Pitt in between bites of her orange salad. “Not all of them have rich earth pony relatives with nice penthouses that they can go chow down at.”
Aunt Orange let out a chuckle. Uncle Orange grinned slightly at his niece. Despite Peachy Pitt’s commoner parlance, she had a quirky sense of humor which sometimes breached even the Oranges’ upper-class facade.
“Though they hopefully wouldn’t starve, I should think,” said Uncle Orange. “Despite that pegasus’ salting of our mechanized Flatlands farms, Orange Incorporated may be able to realize windfall profits. Our board of directors in in agreement here. Starving ponies will have to pay any food price we set, after all, and their hunger will trump their racism. Are those stealth transport planes ready, Jet Set?”
He nodded. “Upper Crust and I have been running the production lines at full capacity, and with any luck, you should be able to fly crates of oranges and wheat to the Second Kingdom without detection from radar. Though we’ve run into a few issues with our union factory workers. The ASDF keeps demanding higher and higher wages for the overtime. If only we could mechanize the process in our factory like you have in those Flatlands farms of yours. Machines can’t unionize.”
“Someday we won’t need those troublesome workers at all, except a token few to oil the gears and monitor the automated lines,” said Upper Crust. “Even those few will be replaced with robots far in the future.”
Aunt Orange chuckled. “You may encounter a few difficulties in that. Why do you think that the Second Kingdom was our testing ground for mechanized farming? Our luddite farmhooves in Manesas started burning down our crop fields a few years ago when there was even a rumor of automation. Those simpletons think that the ‘earth pony way’ is to toil away with a hoof-pulled plow all of your days until dying of exhaustion. But we think the earth pony way is to make a profit and work with our minds and machines, not our muscles.”
“Hear, hear,” said Uncle Orange. “The Second Kingdom had to automate, because they had no earth ponies, and wanted to grow their own food to escape the Equestrian food tariffs. Necessity is the mother of invention. Flim and Flam were mechanical geniuses but otherwise idiots, making them useful puppets, and they provided the perfect shell corporation for us as earth ponies to reap the Flatlands profits without Blueblood’s knowledge.”
“When they died, it passed to me,” said Peachy Pitt. “The unicorn-run farms were supposed to out-produce even the Equestrian farms, proving to investors the need for mechanical tractors and harvesters in Equestrian farms as well. Our snag is the pegasus. We’ve tried killing him several times, but he’s hung on. But with the Oranges’ plan to sell the Second Kingdom our food using me as a unicorn cover, the SK should be able to make it through the winter, and the Oranges will recoup their profits. I don’t know if the war will continue, though. From what I’ve heard at the meetings, the SK may try to sign another truce and use the time to regroup.”
Upper Crust shrugged. “An unsteady peace with the looming threat of war from an intact Second Kingdom is still better for business than a reunited Equestria. Cold wars drum up arms sales almost as much as hot ones do, as shown in the last ceasefire. Besides, there is always the west coast theater with the Zebra Empire. That could be left smouldering for years.”
“Did you sell Zaporizhia those planes that the Second Kingdom couldn’t supply?” asked Peachy Pitt.
Jet Set nodded. “Yes. We flew them a few hundred of them east from the JSUC factory in Fillydelphia, circumnavigating the globe until we reached the Zebra Empire. Whatever Zaporizhia needs those planes for, he was desperate, and we charged him billions of ZE m’sukos. Of course, that only converts into a few million EQ bits, but still far better per plane than Equestria would ever pay.”
Peachy Pitt smiled from ear to ear. “That’s a sweet finders’ fee for me!”
Upper Crust smiled back. “Zappo even paid us wholly in cash. The money will be transferred to your account as soon as we can launder it through the zebra mafia in Tall Tale. Hopefully not more than a few weeks, though there’s been a disruption in business with the riots over there.”
“Yeah, I hear Tall Tale is a wreck, and they’re predicting more trouble after the court ruling comes out. Glad I live in Canterlot!” Peachy Pitt exclaimed.
Aunt Orange shifted in her chair. “Just so long as those planes aren’t turned against us, or used to kill Equestrians.”
“All of our facilities are on the east coast in Fillydelphia. Tall Tale and the entire west coast can burn to the ground or fall to the zebras as long as it means more arms sales. Our primary duty is to our shareholders, not to Tall Tale. Profits first. The war must continue,” said Jet Set.
“We have no interests that far west, either. Though we attempted to acquire Berry Punch’s orchards, we could not agree on a price,” said Uncle Orange. “The west coast can fall.”
“Perfect, then. To perpetual war and perpetual profit!” proclaimed Upper Crust. The five all raised their glasses in a toast, clinking them together and taking a drink.
Off in the corner was a single fancy suit of pony armor. It had become a boiling kettle of rage as Applejack stood inside, gnashing her teeth and trying her absolute best not to burst out and kick over the table for the lies and betrayal of her family. Beads of condensation formed on the metal facemask, and she was almost sure that steam was probably coming out from the ears on the suit.
Applejack’s family, ponies that she had trusted her entire life, were conspiring to make profit off of the suffering of other ponies. They were fomenting war and starvation to earn blood money, all while pretending to love her. It hurt more than anything else she had ever heard in her life.
But now, at least, she had proof for Twilight Sparkle. The top business executives and barons of Equestria were colluding behind the scenes, endangering Equestria and the lives of countless ponies with their recklessness, putting profits ahead of ponies. These were even the advisors that were on Twilight’s own economic council. They were probably giving her bad advice that could put the war effort in danger, and Twilight didn’t even know that she and Equestria were being swindled.
The last rays of the afternoon sun shone down on the grasslands of the continent of Zebrica. Crickets chirped as the wind blew through the tall grass. Rocks and the occasional tree were strewn about the otherwise flat savannah. High above the ground, Gilda the griffon soared through the air, her keen predator eyes taking in every single detail. She could see a mouse or rattlesnake rustle in the bushes from far above, though she was after larger prey.
She came across a small zebra village: the town of Poleka. Most of the buildings were huts made out of mud and straw. The great industrialization in the cities of the Zebra Empire hadn’t spread to the country. A fire was lit in the town center, with zebras sitting around it, singing and chatting. Mothers and children were standing at the pond outside of the village, taking drinks. Several zebras were out in the grasslands, grazing.
No zebra saw or heard her coming. Griffon wings were as quiet as a falling leaf. Her target, an elderly zebra stallion sitting on his front porch smoking a pipe, did not even realize. He was only aware of the pain for a second as her razor-sharp talons pierced his skull, scrambling his brain. Just as a young zebra colt had noticed Gilda, calling out in shock in the zebra tongue, she had already ascended into the air.
Some of the griffons just didn’t care. They’d snatch young children while they played in the yard, or they wouldn’t properly ensure their victims were dead, instead leaving them alive and terrified on the flight back to the Nest. Gilda wasn’t like that. She was a predator, true, but only because she had to be. She at least tried to take the oldest zebras who had lived full lives, or the injured ones who were on death’s door anyway, and make their death as easy as possible.
Regardless, she didn’t like having to eat sentient beings in order to survive. She’d much rather live off of oats and apples like her pony friends in Equestria. But that just wasn’t enough to support a three-hundred kilogram killing machine, even one that didn’t want to be a killing machine. Griffons needed huge volumes of protein that they could only get from meat.
“Herbivore” griffons would slowly rot away to nothing. First, their eyesight would go. Then, their talons would fall out. Finally, their bones would crumble, until they eventually died. It was a months-long, agonizing process, and only the most moralistic griffons undertook it, who were unwilling to either kill living creatures or commit suicide out of self-hatred for their own wretched existence. The rest, like her, simply had to live with who they were.
Thousands of years ago, griffons used to prey on ponies in Equestria, back when the three pony tribes were still apart. Once the tribes were united under Celestia and Luna, the princesses demanded that the griffons never hunt in Equestria again. After all, the princesses reasoned, they were raising sun and moon for the entire world, so the least that the griffons could do in return would be to leave their little ponies alone and go hunt in another country. With the three tribes united, they presented a formidable defense against predation. Either the magic of the unicorns, or the flight and weather of the pegasi, or the strength of the earth ponies could be overcome by itself… but not when the tribes were working together with these skills in harmony.
So the griffons resettled to the continent of Zebrica, where they tried to find new prey. They decided on zebras, because all of the other potential game in Zebrica didn’t work. The dingoes were vicious, tough to kill, and their meat was too sinewy. The herds of wild gazelles “belonged” to the manticores, who would fight griffons to the death for even looking at “their” prey wrong. Elephants and giraffes were too big. So zebras were the only game in town.
To solve the ethical problem of predation, the griffons had tried animal husbandry, but that had its own problems. How much better was it to kill twenty chickens to get the same meat that was in a single zebra? Chickens were quite smart for farm animals. Some of them could even cluck along at kindergarten level conversations. There wasn’t a moral exchange rate for different species’ lives like there was for foreign currency, so who was to decide how many chickens equalled a zebra? Some griffons said “five” and ate only zebras; some said “fifty” and ate only chickens. Some just didn’t care because they liked variety in their diet. Lots of meat tasted just like chicken, but not zebra flesh.
Cows, pigs, and goats were even worse because they were more clever than chickens, and they could comprehend their mortality. The few cattle ranches in the griffon lands more resembled slave labor camps than the free-range dairy farms in Equestria, where all that was expected of them was milk. Turns out that cattle would do anything and everything in their power to escape being slaughtered and served as steak, so they had to be shackled.
At least the zebras that Gilda ate had gotten to live a full and free life, and were never tortured. At least she wasn’t responsible for the death of dozens of chickens a week, instead only killing one zebra, the meat from which could easily last her a week. It was small comfort given what she still had to do, but griffons had long learned the mental gymnastics of predation.
The zebras, though, had never been pleased about it. For many centuries, they had been easy prey, as their only defenses were flint spears and their potion-making skills. Oh, and that thing that they did where they all grouped together and their stripes blended into an ocean in which no one zebra can be distinguished from another. Perhaps that trick worked on colorblind predators, but griffons could see the entire rainbow, and Gilda had never once failed to catch a zebra simply because he was standing in a group.
But when firearms had been invented a couple of centuries ago, it leveled the playing field somewhat. At first it had just been primitive blunderbusses and muskets, which were easy enough for skilled hunters to avoid. But with the advent of machine guns a few decades ago, griffons on the hunt would often be killed themselves. It had become harder to hunt the zebras, who found themselves with extra breathing room now that their population wasn’t being constantly thinned by the griffons.
The zebra population ballooned to ten million, their economy and technology improved, and they developed a navy under Zaporizhia’s leadership, but it wasn’t until the alliance with the Second Kingdom that the Zebra Empire truly became a global power. Blueblood provided Zaporizhia with cutting-edge planes to fight the griffons, and in return, Zaporizhia provided Blueblood with an attack on the west coast of Equestria to spread the Equestrians’ forces over two fronts.
The griffons had never considered themselves at war before; they merely saw zebra as prey, not belligerents. After all, griffons only hunted when they needed to eat, whereas wars were just killing over political disputes, which griffons considered wasteful. All that good meat, shot up with bullet holes and blown apart by bombs instead of being in their bellies. But Zaporizhia saw their hunting as an act of war, and started attacking griffon nests to stop them from eating his people. At that point, predator versus prey had turned into a shooting war.
Though the Zebra army outnumbered the griffon army five to one, the griffons had air superiority, better training, and better weapons. They fought the Zebra army to a standstill on many occasions, stopping every single significant advance that they tried to make into the griffon nests. But the griffons were reluctant to fight anything other than a defensive war, and had been locked in a stalemate for many years. If they launched a successful offensive but killed too many zebras, it would cost them a potential future food source, after all. Griffons were conservationists and tried to live at one with nature. They used every part of every animal they killed, not wasting anything.
But Zaporizhia was so determined, he would fight the griffons down to the last zebra, and every Zebra citizen was eligible for the draft. So the griffons found it best to fight to a stalemate, and since Zaporizhia was fighting on another front against Equestria as well, he couldn’t give the griffons too much trouble.
Gilda was one of the last griffons in her neighborhood to hunt zebras, since the war had made it so dangerous. But she was a skilled hunter and was confident in her ability to dodge bullets and catch prey even in a warzone. In a way, the warzone made hunting easier, since some of the zebras had gotten complacent, and thought that they wouldn’t be snatched up by a griffon during a war.
She soared back towards the tall, brown cliffs off in the distance. Atop them were giant nests made of broken tree limbs, sticks, straw, and other items. Griffons didn’t do modern construction like ponies or zebras, preferring to live sustainably with items found in nature. Zebrica was warm enough to where they could sleep under the stars without freezing, and there was little rain to fall on them in their open-topped nests.
Gilda returned to her nest, located in a crag about a kilometer up. She was the only griffon inside, and she sighed at how much room there was without a mate. Though she had looked, she hadn’t found a suitable partner, and her biological clock was ticking, driving her to it. Though her body said yes, her brain said no. Who would want to raise a young hatchling in such a world? Twenty years ago, sure, but now, with the planet torn apart by wars in Zebrica and Equestria? Even the ethical quandaries of predation were enough to make her consider not reproducing, and that was a peacetime problem.
Laying the zebra down, she gathered some firewood from the nest to start a fire. She would have to set it down next to the nest, because the dry branches and twigs that made it up were quite flammable.
As she kindled a fire, the crackling of the burgeoning flames mixed with the droning of military planes. She gazed off in the sky.
Hundreds of Zebra Empire planes were approaching, overwhelming the meager griffon guards that hovered at the edge of their territory. Though the griffons tried to shoot the pilots with small arms, these planes appeared to be newer, faster models that even rivaled the griffons in speed and maneuverability. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of the cockpits, and the guns on the sides strafed the griffon soldiers.
They’d need to use larger caliber weapons. But the anti-aircraft batteries on the ground were overwhelmed in a matter of minutes, as a wave of thousands and thousands of zebras with torches descended upon the gunners. It seemed as though every zebra in that part of Zebrica was there.
In fact, with her keen eye, Gilda noticed several zebra civilians from the little village of Poleka, some that she had been scoping out for future dinners. There were women and children amongst the crowd. The gunners were reluctant to shoot at so many zebras, particularly civilians, and the zebra stallions of the crowd took advantage of their hesitation, picking off the gunners with small arms fire.
The planes continued, soaring past the distracted anti-aircraft defenses. Gilda barely even had time to grab her valuable possessions and depart her nest, because the planes were soon right up next to the cliffs. Dozens of bright red cartridges fell from the sides, scattering all over the base of the cliffs. At first, Gilda thought they were bombs, but they didn’t explode when they hit the ground. Rather, the tops cracked open, and a sinister hissing filled the air like a rattlesnake.
From high up in the air where she soared, she saw a wave of death descend on the cliffs, starting at the bottom and working its way up. Griffons at the lowest levels of the nest didn’t even have time to wake up; in fact, many of them were asleep for the evening. They spasmed and coughed uncontrollably, seizing on the ground. Dozens of them, some of them her friends and acquaintances.
Gilda flew as far away from the chemical attack as she could as the planes continued to drop more and more nerve gas bombs. As she flew, her racing mind tried to process what she had just seen as she crossed the ocean towards Equestria to the east.
The next day, Gilda was staying the night at Cloudsdale. Griffons were welcome in Equestria and the Cloud Confederacy so long as they didn’t hunt there, and she sometimes came to visit some of her old friends here that she had made when she had been a flight school exchange student.
While in the hotel lobby trying to eat a nutritionally-deficient continental breakfast of pastries and crunchy oat cereal with milk, she had no appetite. She simply swirled the spoon around in the bowl, gazing off into space.
For perhaps the tenth time, her eyes returned to the table to scan that morning’s copy of the Cloudsdale Courier. Every time she looked at it, she expected to snap back to her nest, under her zebra fur blankets, waking from a dream. But this was real.
The headline read, “Fifty Thousand Griffons Dead in Gassing. Griffon Chancellor Surrenders to Zaporizhia, Predation Banned.”
Thousands and thousands of zebras packed the streets of Jalutso, the zebra capital. Dancers wearing grass skirts and golden jewelry frolicked in the streets, as a procession of military vehicles passed by. Zebras waved to the soldiers as the soldiers tossed out candy into the streets, and zebra fillies and colts rushed to the sidewalks to grab it. The sound of music filled the air, as zebras sung traditional call-and-response folk songs. The only time that the crowd was quiet was when the zebra clerics and holy stallions passed by.
Bringing up the rear of the procession was Zaporizhia. He wore a crown of gold studded with rubies and sapphires, and a purple cloak. Unlike Blueblood, he had no protection other than a few bodyguards, instead waving out from the top of his open-air car as it drove along.
“Thank you, my subjects!” he called out. Zebras rushed along after his car, trying to touch his hoof, which was said to have healing powers. But his bodyguards stood in their way.
Finally, the procession came to a stop before the zimbabwe, the zebra capitol building. It was thousands of years old, made of stones that had been chiseled to fit together perfectly without mortar or other bindings. The steps were all made of the same stone, and had been worn down to be as smooth as marble from millions of hoofsteps over generations.
Zaporizhia and his entourage of guards and clerics exited from the vehicle as the crowd gathered to hear him speak. His voice was gravelly and deep, which conveyed comfort when he whispered, and fear when he shouted.
“My dear zebras! Today is a prophetic and gloooooorious day!” he shouted, lengthening his vowels. He held his hoof to the sky.
“Praise be!” a million zebras shouted back in unison.
“Thousands of years ago, the Princesses of Equestria set the griffon menace upon our fair continent, where our people were left helpless as they were preyed upon! Husbands were separated from their wives! Mothers and fathers were separated from their children! Our children had to play insiiiiide so they wouldn’t disappear! All of this to feed their demonic hunger for flesh!”
The crowd booed.
“But the glorious hoof of GOD delivered a prophecy! Thousands of years ago, Zhytomir 4:92 proclaimed, ‘And all of the nations of the world will conspiiiiire against the chosen people, and God will deliver unto them a holy representative who shall reunite the chosen ones under Him! Through Him, the chosen one shall smiiiiite the wicked ones down, where they shall burn forever in the bed of flaaaaaames their own sin has made for them!”
“Praise be!” the crowd called back.
“Today, that prophecy has been fulfilled, and the Griffon Chancellor has bowed dooooown before the might of Zaporizhia, the representative of GOD on earth! Never again shall the chosen ones be feasted upon by griffons!”
“Praise be!”
“But our work is not done! For Zarathisima 7:31 further prophesies, ‘The Chosen One shall bring together the floooock, which is held in slavery and captivity in faraway places, straying from the teachings of God! God’s chosen zebra people shall be united even across vast rivers, oceans, and mountains!’”
“Praise be!”
“The cities of Tall Tale and Vanhoover contain millions of zebras who are held in oppression by the eeeeevil princesses and ponies who first set the griffons upon us thousands of years ago, in their own cowardice! They lock up the zebras for being God’s chosen people, for wearing his chosen stripes, out of their suspicion and distrust! But the prophecy is cleeeear! The army of the Zebra Empire, the chosen army of GOD, shall take Tall Tale and Vanhoover from the cowards and reunite the nation of the chosen people! And now, with their griffon attack dogs defeated, we shall turn the full force of our armies towards Equestria! Our great holy war now has but one front left to win!"
“PRAISE BE!”