Warning: Minor Gore
If Tron were aware of the glares aimed in his direction, he chose to ignore them. Considering it was Tron, it was likely he wasn’t even aware of the animosity. The only two in the wagon who were not imagining stuffing his face into the gyro he was eating were Titanium and Hawk Eye.
“Come on, guys. Lay off of him, he doesn’t even remember he did it.” Hawk tried to placate the others.
Five heads turned their glares to the gryphon, who smiled sheepishly.
“He got drunk off of salt and that abhorrent alcohol…” Quick Recovery noted.
“He burnt the endangered Iros plant before I could get its seeds,” Midnight added.
“He acted completely unlike a military official should, around civilians, no less.” Red grimaced.
“He erased my memory of the past two weeks!” Thunder exclaimed.
“He flirted with me.” Lake ground her teeth, her voice dripping with malice.
Hawk cast his gaze to Tron, who was currently curling up in a ball from eating the gyro too fast. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his beak.
“I did warn Thunder not to let him get near the alcohol. Everything that happened is the result of Tron’s inebriation.” Scowls from the others turned to Thunder, who wilted under their glares. “But don’t blame him. He doesn’t remember anything, like the villagers. They don’t remember the traumatic events, so that’s a win in my books. It’s a good thing I got most of you to avoid looking at the flash. We still need to make a report to the princess.”
Bwoop Bweep. Bwoop Bweep.
“Speak of the draconequus.” Hawk pulled the SCS out of his satchel and tapped it, revealing Luna’s face. The team saluted, even the unicorn curled up in a fetal position. “Princess, we’ve got news.”
“Enlighten me, Hawk Eye.” The gryphon raised his brow, but responded.
“Having arrived in the Hayseed Swamps, we quickly noticed something was wrong. It was only after some investigation that we found that villages were being deserted because a self-proclaimed descendant of the Platinum bloodline had used a book of dark magic to control several hundred villagers with, erm, flowers.”
“Flowers?” Luna sounded incredulous, but she knew Hawk wouldn’t lie to her. “That does sound odd. Tell me more.”
“In the end, we found the unicorn, Rising Dark, as he was summoning some creature. In the end, we got the villagers out, and Thunder and Red managed to cure them of the flowers’ influence with the help of a dragon.”
“A dragon? What was his name?”
“Mossclaw, your Majesty,” Red cut in, bowing his head slightly. “We promised him he would be rewarded for aiding the Crown in our plight.”
“It shall be so.” Luna nodded. “It would provide a great precedent for other dragons.” Red bowed and motioned for Hawk to continue.
“While Thunder and Red were occupied, Titanium, Tron, Lake Lily, Midnight Azalea, Strong Recovery, and I fought off several of Dark’s creations. We were making slow progress, but Tron finished the fight by luring a murder of corvi to the battle as Lake Lily knocked Rising Dark unconscious.”
“Isn’t it called a ‘flock of corvi’?” Strong whispered to Midnight.
“No, it’s called a murder, since they’re like crows,” Midnight muttered back. “Now hush up.”
“After applying a mithril ring to his horn and destroying all of his notes, we regrouped with Red and Thunder before making it back to the closest village. Unfortunately, they insisted on there being a celebration and gathered up all the surrounding townsfolk for, and I quote, ‘One big shindig’.”
“Uh-oh.” Luna’s eyes widened slightly.
“Yeah, that went about as well as expected.” Hawk scratched the back of his head uneasily.
“So how many of you actually remember what happened?” Luna asked.
“Wait, Tron’s done this before?” Midnight squawked. “What the hay!” She threw her forelegs in the air and pouted. Lake Lily got off of her seat and started making her way to Tron…until Strong Recovery placed a hoof on her withers.
“I must ask you not to injure the stallion. I have to fix him up after all.”
“This foal-” Lake scowled and waved a hoof in Tron’s direction “-is the reason I woke up a few months back with no memory of what happened the night before. He’s probably also the pony that drew on my face!”
“Actually, that was Thunder Strike,” Hawk said, trying to ease the mare’s wrath. That was the last time Hawk ever tried to cool Lake Lily’s temper by redirecting it.
“WHAT?!” Lake turned around and pounced Thunder.
“Why, Hawk?!” the pegasus cried, dodging Lake’s blows even as she pinned him down. “I don’t even remember doing that!”
Titanium got up and separated the two, Lake shooting death glares towards Thunder. He sat down on the booth with both ponies secure under each foreleg.
“How do you guys think I knew to cover your eyes when Tron’s horn started glowing red?” Hawk said before turning back to the SCS. “Anyways, the victims have lost all memory of the ‘problem’, so mental trauma will not be a problem. Of course, when they woke up, they realized they were all in one place, so they took the opportunity to throw another party. We decided it was time to make our way out. We dropped Rising Dark off at the Dodge guard station and started making our way back to Canterlot. We didn’t find Lucid, but we did manage to stop a potential threat. Any news on your part?”
Instantly, Luna’s face hardened.
“I have much to tell you. First of all, my sister and I have been working on identifying the large thaumaturgic wave we felt; we have devised a particular spell array to better identify similar signatures. The results were…not good. We’ve analyzed it to an extent before discovering the signature is remarkably similar to a teleportation spell…except that nothing is disappearing and reappearing. Just…appearing. We’ve also identified where the pulse originated. Not over Hayseed Swamp, but Froggy Bottom Bog.”
Thunder stifled a groan.
“That’s not the bad news. We only sensed this phenomenon because whatever came through was enormous. The good news is that we would have noticed something that big moving about. Whatever came through most likely sank to the bottom of the bog. It is probably best that it remains there.”
“So what’s the bad news?” Hawk asked.
“The bad news is that, upon investigation, there have been many more incursions since then. The majority of these incursions seemed sloppy and concentrated in entropic zones. Discord’s ‘little walk’-” Luna gritted her teeth “-caused the number of incursions to increase in these zones.”
“I’m assuming you sent some guards to investigate?”
“Of course. Sometimes we found rocks, sometimes odd plants. Mostly just things that weren’t supposed to be there. We even found a wardrobe! However…” Luna’s eyes hardened once more. “We found carcasses. Magic varied between working too well or not at all on them. They were unrecognizable, merely piles of meat, but we’ve detected an incursion unlike the rest. While the usual ones were unstable and completely random, much like a unicorn’s first teleport, this one has been stabilized. There was another one like this one south of the Draconian Range, but this one is even more stable. And far closer.”
“What?!” The gryphon clenched the SCS, and a few of his soldiers gasped.
“I have reason to believe there was an incursion in Trottingham. An intentional one. Mayhaps Lucid is there and can illuminate us further on the subject. Mayhaps he is even responsible for this.”
“He?”
“I am now reasonably sure that Lucid is a male.”
“Did you go back over your conversation with him, or is there new information?”
“That would be my second bit of news. I have recently been able to enter another one of his dreams. Several important facts have been made available to me. He is of great mental acuity, capable of shaping dreams to a legendary extent. Whereas most lucid dreamers have to take time to shape landscapes, he had created a city in an instant, right before my eyes. He scorns love, and considers himself an intellectual. Apparently he fell in love once, but it must have ended badly. Now for the most important parts.”
The team tensed.
“Lucid does not care for his own life, but that of his species as a whole. He sees his faults as something that mustn’t be passed onto future generations, so has resigned himself to not reproducing. Be wary, he may consider taking his own life. Now, after taking a bet, I managed to get him to reveal himself to me. He is unlike any other species I have ever seen before.”
There was a moment of silence before Strong Recovery managed to find his voice first.
“An undiscovered sapient species? Or just one that was very secluded, like the yaks?”
“No,” the princess said, shaking her head, “a completely undiscovered species. He looked like this.” With a flash of her horn, a blue construct came into view, making the basic shape of the creature. It had the torso of a minotaur, except slimmer, its legs were backwards, its head round, and it seemed to lack a tail.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a projection?” Lake Lily asked. “After all, you did say he had incredible mastery over the dreamscape.”
“I’m positive. I could sense that was where his psyche was centered, and any disguise made, even by mater dream-weavers, even by myself, would have seemed false or blurry. That is clearly what he sees himself as.”
“So he should be easier to find, right?” Midnight asked.
“Do not underestimate him.” Luna stared into the eyes of each of the team members. “He is unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before. Keep your eyes open. Good luck.” And with a whirr, Luna’s image disappeared from the crystal display.
Hawk Eye sighed and leaned back.
“I guess we’re going to Trottingham. No rest for the wicked.”
“At least we’re going to something like civilization.” Lake grumbled.
There was a sickening crack, and all heads turned to Tron. Tron was trying to find the source of the noise, whipping his head back and forth, oblivious to the rustling within his mane. The other froze when they saw a tiny black head with an orange beak peek out of the catastrophe that was Tron’s mane.
“Cree?”
“Um, Tron…?” Hawk Eye pointed to his mane. “You got something there, buddy.”
A blue glow encased the chick, and Tron marveled at the little creature.
“Oh, woooow! It’s a majestic blue-backed robin!”
“Tron…”
“You get like three wishes from this thing.” Tron held up the bird in his hooves, which looked around curiously.
“Tron,” Hawk Eye tried again.
“Haven’t you ever read the fable?!”
“Tron, you nincompoop, that’s a corvus chick!” Lake threw her forelegs in the air and rolled her eyes. "We should get rid of it before it gets dangerous."
The bird and the unicorn slowly blinked before meeting each other’s eyes. Tron pulled the chick closer to him.
“But we’ve bonded so much! I’ve already named him!”
“Really?” Midnight asked. “What’s his name?”
“Uuuhh…same as Hawk’s grandfather’s.”
“George?” the gryphon asked.
“Nope. Jacques.”
“But I don’t have a grandfather named…ah, whatever. Just keep him under wraps in Trottingham. You and Midnight Azalea are with me.”
“Can do!” Tron smiled before levitating Jacques back into his mane, who busied himself by making a proper bird nest.
“Titanium, stick with Red. Lake Lily, Strong Recovery, and Thunder Strike, you guys will be the last group. We’ll be taking different hotel rooms, and we’ll scout in groups. We’ll cover more ground, figure out what’s going down in Trottingham. And above all, act like civilians. We’ve got the element of surprise this time, so let’s not waste it.”
Red raised a hoof.
“Yes, Red?”
“Sir, how do we know if our target is still there? All we know is that something came from nowhere.”
“We don’t, Red. We’ll ask around for clues, and if it’s nothing, we’ll go elsewhere. Understood?”
Red nodded and saluted.
<><><>
Trottingham was one of those small towns one would find around much bigger cities: close enough to be connected to a major urban center, yet far enough away to be considered its own, independent town. Small towns like these were scattered across Equestria, each with their own little staple products. Ponyville was prized for its apple products, Bowowen Island had a particularly unique lumber industry, and Trottingham? Trottingham was the baker’s dream. Rolling hills of golden wheat, sugarcane so tall you could hide a dragon in the pastures, and a sizeable population of cows were just a few reasons the town held the unofficial title of ‘Baker’s Nirvana’. But there was one flaw.
“This place is so booooooooringuh!” Thunder groaned as he hung from Hawk Eye’s bed. While the three groups had agreed to check in at different times so they wouldn’t be associated as a task force, Lake Lily pushed Hawk Eye to have daily meetings in his room to discuss what they’d learned so far. Needless to say, even after the first day of prodding about, no clues jumped out at them. While some (namely Thunder) would have liked to rush a pony off the street and yell at them until they talked, cooler heads (everybody else) prevailed, insisting on a more patient approach.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.” Hawk rubbed his temple. “We’ve got the element of surprise, here. Hay, for all we know, whatever came through isn’t even hostile. But if we give any hint that we know there’s something wrong, we might as well bite our own tails.”
“Eeeeeeurgh. Laaaaaaame,” Thunder groaned.
“Thunder, I sympathize with you,” said Red. “We are both experts in combat, and as much as it irks me to say this, our abilities aren’t of much use in this situation. We must act with tact, for it is only when the enemy is revealed that we can reciprocate in kind, with all of our martial prowess in tow.”
“Like a striking viper.” rumbled Titanium.
“Well said, Titanium.” Red nodded.
“Fine,” Thunder hopped off the bed and making his way to the door. The others watched him walk out the door, the only movement being Jacques nibbling on Tron’s ear.
“Thunder’s got the right idea, gang. Get some rest; we’ll be snooping around during different periods of the day. Red and Titanium have got the early morning shift, Lake, you’ve got midday shift, and my group has the late day shift.”
Lake eyed the gryphon.
“Are you sure this isn’t some excuse so you can sleep in?” she smirked.
“You’re just jealous,” Hawk shot back. Lake allowed one of her rare chuckles to emerge before heading out. “And Red, could you dispel the noise-nullifying spell? An occupied room that is completely silent is too suspicious.”
“Yes, sir.” With a flash of his horn, the spell fell apart. The rest of the team left the room, leaving Hawk Eye alone in his room. Hawk Eye listened carefully as the clopping of hooves faded away.
He sighed, allowing ‘Lieutenant Hawk Eye’ to fade away, leaving just Hawk Eye, the gryphon. He walked over to his bag and began rifling through it. Only a few strips of jerky left. He closed his eyes and calculated how many more weeks he could go without being forced to feed on the flesh of another. A few seconds of murmuring calculations later, Hawk was forced to admit to himself that he needed to find a source of meat. Fortunately, Trottingham was in between Hollow Shades and Manehatten, both of which had a sizeable omnivorous population. It was likely that Midnight might be running empty as well.
Hawk Eye shook his head of depressing thoughts and pulled out a framed picture before setting it up on the bedside table. He felt a small smile grow on his beak as he looked at his father giving him, his brother, his sister, and his mother a bear hug, his beaming expression contagious. Hawk’s sister was rolling her eyes, trying to keep a similar smile from reaching her beak, his mother was fussing over their crests, his brother was struggling for a breath, and Hawk Eye himself was in the center, smiling proudly at the camera, in his very own Guard Recruit armor.
Now he could rest easy.
<><><>
It was just another day. Another day after over a week of no progress whatsoever. It was only due to Red’s placating words and Titanium’s glare that Thunder did not act out. But the rest of the team was starting to get restless. Strong Recovery began fidgeting anxiously at meetings, Lake was getting angrier for longer, and even Midnight, cool and collected as she was, began showing signs of nervousness. Hawk Eye took a deep breath and expelled the worries from his mind. He leaned back on the chair outside a diner, Midnight Azalea facing him, and focused on the conversation that brought about his worries.
“I agree.” Midnight nodded. “We’re running low on ‘supplies’. We could always go to Hollow Shades, but I’m worried about missing any-” the batpony shifted her eyes from side to side “-event that may happen around here.”
“That may be, but we’ll have to move on eventually. After all these supplies are exhausted, we’ll have a week at most before we get sick.”
“I guess.” Midnight’s tufted ears fell. “I just wish some ponies didn’t give us so much trouble…”
“Yeah, some ponies are like that. Don’t let their flak get to you, it’ll end up driving you batty.” Hawk Eye chortled.
“Don’t let Lake Lily hear you say that.” Midnight smirked. “You know how she hates stupid jokes.”
“Trust me, I learned that the hard way.” The gryphon rubbed the back of his head, reminiscing on the phantom pain. His eyes caught Tron, who seemed to be walking across the road towards a mare in a white uniform. “Hold up, Tron’s doing something.”
Midnight’s ears swiveled towards Tron, and her eyes fell on the mare he was heading towards. Her cat-like pupils narrowed, and she almost let out a gasp of surprise.
“Sweet Luna’s starry skies! Did you see her-” Hawk Eye grabbed her muzzle and pointed it away from the mare.
“It’s rude to stare,” he said chidingly. “Can you just tell me what he’s saying, word for word?” Midnight’s ears twitched, but stayed aimed towards Tron.
“Okay, fine.” She closed her eyes to concentrate. “Oh, wow. He started very politely. ‘Good morning, madam! You are looking full and robust today!’” Midnight’s high-pitched impression of Tron widened Hawk’s grin. “I didn’t know he had it in him. You think you know a colt. ‘You are blossoming like the most beautiful flower in all of Equestria! Oh, and one more thing; your te-’” A blush developed on Midnight’s cheeks. “Aaaaand there it is.”
Whatever Tron had said, the bright yellow mare with the curled mane just gaped at him as he smiled. Finally, she blinked a couple times, opened and closed her mouth a bit, then just sighed and walked away. Tron shrugged and continued his trot down the street. Nopony actually shied away from him, and a few were quite happy to see him. One could say that Trottingham was anything but a stranger to eccentric ponies. Hawk Eye struggled to keep his mirth from bursting forth, and decided to change the subject.
“So about Hollow Shades...” Hawk Eye turned back to a blushing Midnight. “All I’ve ever heard about it is that it’s a batpony village. Is it the only one, or…”
“Oh, no.” Midnight shook her head, thankful for the distraction from Tron’s faux pas. “It has the highest percentage of batponies, which is why it’s considered the main coven, but Manehatten and even Canterlot have higher populations. And there’s even a few small covens scattered across the Hayseed swamps. But we mostly stick to the east because of…reasons.” Hawk raised an eyebrow. “Alright, sorry, I keep on forgetting that you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. A couple centuries back, there was a really big coven, right by where Las Pegasus would be. It came to be that a Matriarch of the Cursed Coven had found a way to become stronger, faster, and more ferocious.
“Apparently, by using dark magic, she could alter herself and her children to gain strength from…well, you know how batponies are compared to vampires? There’s a good reason for that. It took a good century for the members of the Cursed Clan to either overcome the dark magic or to be…put down. Celestia had to intervene, personally. Which probably attributed to the myth that vampires turn to dust in the sun. But even after the Cursed Coven had been destroyed, ponies in the west still feared us. Hated us. Hay, even today, a batpony can’t visit the west without being glared at.”
Midnight sighed. “It’s easy to think of those that do evil as monsters, and separate them from ourselves by saying they’re different. But look at Rising Dark! When we brought him in, he wasn’t snarling, gnashing sharp teeth, or even glowing with dark magic. He was just…crazy. Sad and demented, yes, but if you asked me to pick him out of a crowd of other ponies only by saying ‘pick out the evil one’, I don’t think I’d be able to.” She slumped onto the table. “How do we know what we’re chasing blends in just as easily?”
“We don’t. But it’s our duty to find it.” Midnight looked away, but Hawk refused to let that be the end of their conversation. “Listen, Midnight. It’s only fair that since you told me some shameful batpony history, I should tell you a bit of shameful gryphon history. Senator Raptorum was a very prominent member of the Gryphon Empire Senate, just over a thousand years ago. Everybody loved him; he was charismatic, he publicly helped the lower classes, and he was handsome to boot. As a result, he was the one of the most powerful gryphons in the world, second only to Emperor Draco Interfectorem himself.
“As it turns out, Raptorum didn’t want to be second best. With numerous trade agreements, bribes, and promises, he managed to set the nation against the Emperor, and planned to kill him in the social turmoil. He made the mistake of trying to bring in Draco’s adoptive son, Leo, into the plot. But Leo was wise enough to spot a scheme, and he managed to warn his father. Draco was able to turn the tide of opinion and opened investigations on Raptorum. The Senator was not without allies, so he managed to escape outside the Empire. But upon going through his estate, many terrible things were brought to light. They found dozens of skeletons, skeletons of sapient species, eaten to the bone.” The mare gasped, and Hawk Eye’s gaze fell.
“There are some rumors about having found living hens, but I think the files were destroyed for a reason. Raptorum is the only creature to have a law made in place to kill him on sight.” Midnight’s eyes widened further. “Yeah, he was that bad. Gryphon parents tell their cubs Raptorum’s tale as a story to scare them into doing what they tell them, and a lot of our horror stories are based around him. What I’m trying to say is, there will always be bad eggs, pony, gryphon, or otherwise. It’s our duty to make sure these monsters don’t ever get the chance of hurting others.”
The two sat in silence, their somber conversation having sapped any good mood that was once there. The waiter came and brought them their meals, but they had lost their appetite. Midnight was pushing a mango around on her plate when Tron trotted up to them, smiling as if he had just won the lottery. Or just wearing his usual smile.
“Well, hi there! What are you up to today?”
Tron’s demeanor was infectious enough to be called a disease; Midnight and Hawk could feel smiles tugging at the corners of their mouths. Suffice it to say, Tron, strange as he might have been, was there when they needed him.
“Nothing, Tron. Just talking about some depressing stuff,” Hawk Eye said.
“Erch.” Tron grimaced.
“Pretty much.” A white stallion with a swirly mane of white and brown stripes, with one red lock spiraling off the top of his head, pulled a specialized cart to a stop across the street. “Looks like Ice Cream Sundae is setting up shop a bit late.”
Tron’s smile stretched even further, but before he could turn to ask Hawk if he could get some, he found the bit bag thrust in front of him.
“Just get me a vanilla swirl and…” Hawk turned to Midnight.
“I’ll go with him. I’m tired of getting the same thing every day.”
Tron and Midnight walked across the street, the batpony keeping a wary eye on the corvus chick rustling in his mane. Jacques had already grown a bit in the past week, most likely due to the rations Jacques had pilfered from Midnight and Hawk. Surprisingly enough, Jacques was a very sweet bird otherwise. He was careful to not scratch Tron, and popped out his mane occasionally to nibble his ears affectionately.
“Hey there Tron!” Sundae called. “Who’s your friend?”
“I’m Midnight Azalea ̶ ” she waved “ ̶ pleased to finally meet you. I’m the one who usually takes the vanilla cone. I just felt like having something different today.”
“Well don’t you worry, Miss Midnight. Ice Cream SUNDAE’s ̶ ” Sundae’s eyes crossed as he screamed out the word before returning to normal “ ̶ got a flavor for everypony,” he said with a smile, as if nothing happened.
“Um…Okay. What do you suggest?” Midnight asked.
“Well, quite a few folks like my swirls, but I personally have a hankerin’ for my banana split. Of course, one of my regulars, who seems to have missed me the last three days, absolutely loves my SUNDAE! And there’s a pegasus from ̶ ”
“Wait, what was that last part?”
“Oh, my SUNDAE? A lot of ponies seem curious about it, and ̶ ”
“No, no, before that. About one of your regulars?”
“Aw, yeah.” Sundae kicked the dirt. “Gull was a bit odd, but she always came by. Seemed to have a thing against birds, but she was nice enough.”
Midnight frowned, thinking over the past few days. Her eyes widened when she realized they only asked if there was anypony new in town, or if something interesting happened. But they never asked if there were ponies leaving.
“Can you get us what you normally give Tron? I’ve just realized my friends and I have a train to catch.”
“Okay then! One Strawberry swirl, one vanilla cone, and one super special SUNDAE with a cherry on top for Jacques.”
Midnight considered asking Sundae about his…tic, but decided that it was difficult enough for the poor stallion without having somepony ask him about it every day.
“Thank you for the delicious treats, Sundae. I’ll miss them.” Midnight paid the stallion and passed the treats to Tron before grabbing him by the fetlock and dragging him away. “Come on, Tron. We’ve got to get back to ‘work’.” They trotted back to Hawk Eye as their ice creams were held aloft in Tron’s magic.
“Didn’t I say I wanted vanilla swirl?”
“Yeah, well, you’re getting strawberry,” Tron said, levitating the cherry up to Jacques, who swallowed it in one chomp.
“It doesn’t matter, Hawk.” Midnight Azalea smiled smugly. “Because I got us a lead.”
<><><>
Gull’s home was on the western edge of Trottingham, far away from most other homes. It was well maintained, orderly, and idyllic from the outside. The home of a model citizen. As Hawk Eye crawled through the window Tron had broken, he couldn’t help but notice the interior to be completely different. Mostly because he slipped on a pile of papers. Whereas the outside told the story of a pony who kept good care of herself and her belongings, the inside was cluttered with loose papers, garbage, spilled ink, and effigies of birds. The original hardwood floor was hardly visible underneath piles of papers, the walls covered in posters rallying for one cause or another. The effigies hung by their necks from twine hammered into the ceiling, some pierced by scores of needles, some burned, and some with their wings torn out.
Midnight was silent as she entered through the window, her face grim, with only her twitching wings betraying her nervousness. Hawk walked over to the door and picked up the pile of letters. He read them over, his frown deepening with each letter.
“What are they?” Midnight asked.
“Bills. Letters from concerned friends and families. Refusals from publishing companies.”
Tron crawled through the window and landed on his face. Jacques fell out and nipped him on the snout before jumping back into his mane. Tron shook his head and looked around.
“Hmm. If there were anything to give me the goosepimples, it’s probably that.”
Hawk tore open one of the letters from a publisher and began scanning them over.
“It seems Gull had taken a love for writing. But since she didn’t have a writing cutie mark, the ‘right kind,” whatever that means, and the fact that there was no ‘market for her unique literature’, she was advised to try another publishing house.”
“And their response?”
“Their letter of refusal is right below it.”
Midnight could see the sadness in the gryphon’s eyes, so she pushed down her own melancholy and patted him on his withers.
“Come on. We’ll find her.”
The rest of the home was littered with just as many pages as the first room was. Pages of Gull’s failed works, they realized. They tried to read some of them, but the more they read, the more scrawled the ink was, and the less sense it made. More and more effigies were found; the further they went into the house, the denser the forest of dolls, and the darker it got, the curtains having long been replaced by blinds. And it evolved. From effigies of birds to effigies of gryphons to effigies of pegasi. They all varied, and Midnight even recognized a few of the ponies that she saw around Trottingham. All cut, needled, torn, wrung, burned, and hanged. Until finally, they reached a door with only two dolls, one hanging on each side.
“Are those…the princesses?” Midnight said..
“Seems to be.”
The dolls were bigger than the others, and had their own set of wings as well as visible horns. Oddly enough, they were pristine compared to the others. They still hung by their necks, but their coats were unmarred, their wings splayed, unbroken. Their blue and white coats were immaculate compared to the squalor of the rest of the house, as if the occupant had dedicated a part of her day to keeping the two clean while ignoring the condition of her own home.
It was when Midnight opened the door that she almost fell to her knees. There, in the center of the bedroom, a corpse was strung up, hanging by not just the neck, but each of the legs as well, like a demented puppet. It was only upon closer inspection that the corpse was revealed to be none other than a life-sized doll. Midnight held her hoof to her barrel as she felt her heartbeat slowly return to normal. Hawk Eye followed her and stepped back a moment before coming to the same conclusion. The doll had been scratched, needled, torn, and burned…far more than any of the others. Oddly enough, it was an earth pony, one with purple buttons for eyes, and soft dull blue fabric for a coat. The mane and tail were torn and burnt away to almost nothing, but Hawk Eye could see streaks of cyan and light green. But what stood out the most was a hole torn right through the doll’s chest, fluff spilling out onto the bed below.
“Who was this?” he muttered.
“Hawk?” Midnight called. “You better see this.”
Midnight had found a broken picture case with the glass cracked across lying next to a dent in the wall. Hawk carefully removed the picture from the frame, revealing a smiling blue earth pony filly with amethyst eyes nestled between a gray male hippogriff and white female hippogriff.
“Her parents.” Hawk Eye said.
“Wha? But how?”
“The same way a unicorn is born by two earth ponies. Skipped a generation.” Hawk Eye frowned and turned back to the doll in the middle of the room. “Must have been pretty hard for her, growing up.” He noticed the purple buttons were staring at the entrance, as if fixated by something.
Slowly, Hawk Eye walked over to the door and closed it, revealing a calendar, and more importantly, a map. He took the calendar off the door and sifted through the earlier pages. It seemed as if all was well until a few months ago, when she fit more and more meetings in, each one getting more and more desperate. Meetings between publishers, editors, famous pegasi, and some gryphons. Some were scribbled out. Until finally, in the most derelict script, the date being three days prior, was written in capital letters: ‘LAST CHANCE: MUST GO. THEY WILL GRANT MY WISH’. In the same red marker, a circle was drawn on the map, arrows pointed at it to emphasize the location. It seemed to be an old country hotel, apparently abandoned due to the construction of a nearby mine.
“I think I know where we need to go.”
It was a lot easier to gather the team together than Hawk had originally thought. Granted, it was most likely due to Tron’s hyperactivity and the team’s restlessness rather than his own leadership skills, but the team was ready nonetheless. The hotel was in surprisingly good shape, and the only evidence of the passing decades was a fine layer of dust over everything.
Everything except a clear path on the floor, leading to the basement.
Not even Tron let out a peep as they carefully tread down the stairs, every step releasing a small creak from the aged staircase. It was there they found their first obstacle. The path clearly led to a huge stone door, and the grooves of dust in the floor proved that it had been opened quite recently. Hawk turned around to face his team.
“Okay, guys. I don’t know what we’ll face in there. All we know is that some ponies who seemed to be either really stressed or really desperate were offered…something. I suggest we ̶ ”
Titanium was grabbed in a blue glow and thrown through the stone door.
“Let’s do this hooperskotch!” Tron yelled as he jumped through the hole he created.
“Tron, you incompetent foal!” Lake Lily raged and rushed after him.
“Oooor we go all at once.” Hawk rolled his eyes and followed, stopping to check on Titanium. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He grunted. “It worked. All that matters.” The colossal pony got to his hooves and shook a few bits of stone off of himself.
Hawk Eye nodded and chased Tron and Lake down the tunnel, with the rest of his team in tow. The passageway was eerily silent, with only the clopping of hooves and the crackling of flames to accompany their charge into the depths. It was only when they saw Tron and Lake Lily staring at something that they slowed to a stop. At their hooves lay an earth pony with a dull blue coat, a spear piercing through her chest, lodged into the earth. Her purple eyes were open, staring at the necklace with two white and gray feathers tied together she had grasped in her hooves. Midnight backed away and held back a retch, Tron’s eternal smile was nowhere to be seen, and Titanium’s eyes grew moist, before they blinked the potential tears away. Thunder looked elsewhere, trying to hide his discomfort, and Lake Lily was trying to remain stoic as she wiped her eyes with her fetlock. Red used his magic to close Gull’s eyes as an uncomfortable Strong Recovery lifted her foreleg and dropped it.
“Rigor mortis has begun to set in,” he announced. “Couldn’t have happened more than twelve hours ago.”
Hawk reached over and grabbed the spear. With a mighty heft, he managed to pull the spear out of the poor mare and toss it aside. He considered for a moment before taking the necklace out of Gull’s hooves, wrapping it carefully in a cloth, and putting it in his bag.
Red took a few steps before stopping at a corner. He stumbled and gasped.
“Sir, you might want to see this,” he said.
Massacre. That was the only word to possibly describe the cavern. Blood stained the floor in such quantities, it was impossible to tell what color it was originally. Over a dozen dead ponies lay here and there, accompanied by a few minotaurs, gryphons, and numerous diamond dogs. Most held weapons: spears, swords, clubs, axes, and even pickaxes. Tables had been overturned, beds cleaved, silverware clattered about.
Thunder was retching, and Lake Lily wasn’t trying to conceal her tears at the sight, unable to move, frozen in absolute horror. Strong Recovery went about and identified what happened to the bodies, Midnight and Tron had closed their eyes and taken deep breaths to calm down, and Titanium’s normally massive stature seemed a lot smaller, the stallion broken down by the sight. Red had seemed okay, until he began to follow Thunder’s example and found a corner to lose his lunch in.
Hawk Eye fought down the rising bile and shoved away his emotions. He looked over the room, analyzing the positions of the corpses, even noting distastefully that a few had no weapons at all. A majority of the bodies were face to face, one group with their backs to an ornate silver door, and another facing them. There were no distinguishing marks between the two groups.
“Strong Recovery. What in the Sisters’ names happened here?”
“From what I can tell, they died in a battle between ten and fourteen hours ago. No distinctive markings of factions. Pony pitted against pony, gryphon against gryphon, dog versus dog. And any combination thereof,” the medic murmured. Silence fell.
“Damn it!” Hawk slammed a fist into a table, sending chips of wood flying. The loud noise snapped the others out of their reverie. “If I had been faster…If I had been smarter…I could have saved them.”
“Listen, boss.” Thunder flew towards him nervously. “There was no way you could know. We were searching for extra ponies, not missing ones.” Hawk shook his head.
“If I had listened to you…We could have stopped this. This ̶ ” He waved his claw around the room “ ̶ would’ve never happened.”
“You don’t know that.” Lake Lily moved towards him. “For all we know, we could have been a part of those piles.”
“Your strategy was the best we had.” Midnight flew over to him and put a comforting hoof on his withers. “Whatever happened here, happened. It’s up to us to make things right.”
Titanium lumbered over to the gryphon and put him in a headlock. It happened so fast that the gryphon was speechless.
“Repeat: ‘It’s not my fault.’”
“Wh-what?” Hawk Eye struggled, but couldn’t move.
“Say it,” Titanium said. Hawk sighed.
“It’s not my fault,” Hawk said in a flat tone.
“Again.”
“It’s not my fault.” It was less flat this time.
“Again.”
“It’s not my fault…It’s not my fault.” Hawk Eye blinked away a few tears.
Titanium nodded and let him go.
“Come on.” Hawk sighed, catching a sob before it escaped his throat, and cricked his neck. “Let’s find out what’s behind those doors. Maybe then, we’ll find out what in the world happened here.”
The team pushed open the doors to find…another room. A set of stairs led up to five silver thrones, each with a pedestal at its feet. The room was eerily silent, lacking the usual sound of crackling flames, the carpet muting the sound of hooves. It smelt almost of burnt charcoal, but sharper, more rancid. There was no evidence of widespread fire, except a few piles of ashes. Hawk Eye approached a pile suspiciously, pinching some of the ashes between his claws, rubbing them together. He looked over the five piles of ashes in the room, his mind racing a mile a minute. Why was that smell so disturbingly familiar? It was then that the memories came back to him.
“I know this smell,” he stated.
“From what?” Lake asked.
“From when I tried cooking guinea pig over a fire. Burnt flesh.” The party steadily scooted away from the piles of ashes. “But this just raises more questions than answers. If an attacking faction came down here for whatever reason, why did they bother closing both the first door and the silver doors? But whatever did this to these…piles…couldn’t have been one of the attacking faction, because the only bloody prints there are here are ours! What was the point of all of this?”
Hawk scratched his head and looked from side to side. Strong Recovery stepped forward apprehensively.
“There exists a medical spell, one that is rarely used, that gives one an image of what happened to the patient’s body to better make a diagnosis. With enough power, one could expand the radius, allowing one to use the ambient magic as a record.”
“Can you do it?” Hawk stepped towards him, desperate for answers.
“Unfortunately not. I am a skilled unicorn, but I lack the reserves to do such a spell.”
“What if we did a runic array that would pour power into you?” Lake Lily asked. “We have two unicorns that could lend you their magic.”
“Maybe, maybe.” Strong bit his lip. “But I am not sure that will be enough. The larger the sphere of influence, the higher the thaumaturgic cost. I’m not sure the power of three unicorns will suffice, even if two of them are as adept as Tron and Red.”
“All of us?” Titanium raised an eyebrow. Everybody turned to look at him.
“Yes, I suppose that would work.” Strong rubbed his chin, doing a few mental calculations. “That should encompass most of the room. But it would require a slightly more complicated runic array.”
“Already on it,” Lake Lily said as she pulled a piece of chalk out of her saddlebags.
Once the mare had finished the symbols with some difficulty, less due to their complexity and more to do with the difficulty of using chalk on a carpeted floor, each pony and gryphon stood in their respective circles. Strong took a few deep breaths, then began the spell. The lines began to glow with blue light as a purple sphere began to expand throughout the room. Shapes began to coalesce until five glowing figures became completely visible.
“Orgh-Eurgh, it’s disgusting!” Tron exclaimed. “What is that? Izzat rancid? Is that a tap-dancing crab demon?”
They were tripedal beings, covered in a thick black chitin that resembled ancient armor. They had two arms connected to a torso much like a minotaur’s, except they had three fingers on each hand ending in claws. Their heads were angular, with points adorning their heads like crowns. Four beady black eyes shone from within each of their chitinous helms. One skittered about at the bottom of the staircase, gesticulating wildly.
“Strong? Where’s the sound?” Thunder asked.
“Right, right. Worry not, I only need a moment.” Strong Recovery stuck out his tongue in concentration.
“ ̶ and it is only by chance that we speak their language. I say we push forwards, faster!” The one at the bottom of the staircase chittered, its voice grave and seemingly vibrating. “Their magic fuels our own by inconceivable amounts. Add to the fact that they are susceptible to our telepathic suggestion, and we could easily become the new sovereigns of this world. With this magic, we are GODS!”
The creature in the centermost throne rose up and looked down upon the speaker.
“Brother. What about the two goddesses that we’ve heard about from our thralls?”
The speaker waved a claw.
“Pah. We outnumber them. But just in case, we can always make one of their servants a thrall, just to poison their meals. If it doesn’t kill them, it will weaken them.”
The speaker turned around dramatically and began speaking once more. At least he would have if there wasn’t what seemed to be a ripple of something flowed into the eyeholes of the creature.
“Pause!” Hawk Eye called out. The images froze just as the speaker fell to his knees. “What’s going on?”
“If I had to guess,” Red said, “something without magic flowed into the one giving a rousing speech to his brethren.” He frowned. “Which doesn’t make sense, because what would cause ripples in ambient magic? It’s difficult to see, but we can assume the shimmering non-magic zones to be a part of this new being’s form. But suggesting from the way it simply flowed into the creature, I doubt it even has a form. It may even be invisible.”
“It seems like these guys aren’t the only players on the board,” Hawk stated grimly.
“Great,” Thunder groaned, “just what we need. More problems.”
Hawk motioned for Strong to continue.
The speaker was on his knees, and the glow slowly faded away from his body. Strong gasped, realizing that whatever had flowed inside the speaker had killed him, thus terminating the magical glow. But the chitin was still moving. Whatever it was, it made a show of slowly getting back to its feet and waving away the others, who had leaned forwards in worry.
“Brothers…” It rasped in the voice that once belonged to the speaker. “I have just been attacked.”
There was a muttering of outrage from the others before the being continued.
“Our mental battle was quick, but it did not hold back from its ferocity. I saw glimpses…glimpses of millions of others, just like that one, if not stronger. I rescind my previous statements. I suggest we leave at once, and never return.”
There was a moment of silence from the others.
“That does not sound like something Makrus would say,” The middle triped stated.
“Alas ̶ ” the being bowed its head “ ̶ I have been humbled. We should use our heightened magic to leave this world. I do not believe we can face millions of others like that one.” The team could glimpse within its left eyeholes, and a few shuddered when they could not find any glint of the eyes the creature used to have.
“We would agree with you…if your name was once Makrus.”
The being froze. It cocked its head.
“I underestimated you.”
“That will be the last mistake you make, creature,” the rightmost triped said.
“Is there any way for you to leave here? Or at least go into hiding for the next two years?” The being moved its limbs about, testing out its form.
“Not a chance, creature,”the left one said as they rose up and began walking down the stairs. “Our thralls will dispose of you.”
“They’re a bit busy.” The tripeds paused, each on a different step. “The sad thing about cults is that they tend to interpret your words in ways you do not want.” The being sounded a bit sad at that. It moved its arm in front of its face, as if observing the structure. “All it takes is a differing opinion and it all… falls apart.” It turned its head a full way round with a series of sickening cracks to look back towards the door...staring directly at the team. “Your mental manipulations are largely responsible for their… increased aggression. Your thralls are disposing of each other… good riddance. Your ideas will die with you.” The head turned back towards the insectoid beings.
“You are nothing to us!” The one closest to the being exclaimed, a sneer evident in its voice. “This foreign magic is the nectar that made us into gods! This ambrosia will make us live longer than a thousand empires, a million generations! So you managed to defeat one of us; you are hopeless against the might of four gods! Your existence is nothing more than a speck of annoyance at the start of our illustrious reign. You have nothing more than a shell, but we have our power, our ideals, our unity! All will ̶ what are you doing?”
There was a crackling as the being seemed to hold a shimmering box of something in a claw. It pulled a triangle of something out of the box, before bringing it to its mouth. If one forgot to squint, it seemed as if the being was miming eating a bunch of chips out of a box.
“Oh, this?” It held up the shimmering triangle. “Just some tortilla chips. To go with your cheese.”
“Why you ̶ ” The leftmost triped was interrupted by a flickering tendril of non-magic going through his neck. It had already swung through the necks of the two on the left before the second from the right brought up a shimmering golden shield, which seemed to cause the tendril to bounce back. Before the tripeds could act, the being bounded up into the air, making itself a target high above them. The two remaining tripeds raised their arms and screamed in unison:
“INFERNO PITFYRE!”
The being stayed still as possible, not bothering to avoid the flames that jettisoned from their claws. In a devastating roar, it was consumed by the column of fire, leaving nothing more than ashes to fall to the ground. The tripeds instantly relaxed and put their arms down.
“The plan continues?”
“Yes. We must honor our brothers. They will not have fallen in va ̶ ” His chest burst out, sending purple viscera all over his companion. The last triped instantly summoned another shield around himself, narrowly protecting himself from two tendrils that nearly cleaved his head in two. The tendrils wrapped around the shield and bounced away. Again. And again. The triped whimpered within its golden enclosure.
“I am impressed by your instincts. Even more so for your magic, no matter how idiotic the spells sound. Although I suspect that your magic reacts in such a way to my essence because you fed on Equestrian magic.” The tendrils stopped slamming against the shield, and an iridescent dome covered the shield. “But in the end, you were nothing more than Kichil. Strong ones, yes. But you have Kichil bodies, speaking in Kichil tongue, thinking Kichil thoughts. Not gods.” The shimmering increased in frequency.
“Can somepony tell me what the…thing is doing to that insect thing?” Thunder asked.
“I-I think it's burning away the air inside the shield,” Strong stammered. “It’s asphyxiating him.”
“No! NO! You may kill me, but It will avenge us! If The Snake was powerful enough to bring us here, It is strong enough to avenge us!” The triped fell to its knees. “Yo-you will…di-die.” With that, it collapsed. The shield fell. And the being hung there for a moment. Contemplating.
“Too risky,” it said. And with that, the triped was immolated. It hung over the one it had destroyed from blunt kinetic force. “I’m sorry, if it counts for anything.” His body caught fire, reducing him to cinders like his brothers. It flowed over to the next body and picked up a head. “I understand why you chose to puff out your chests. I myself have done it a few times to intimidate foes that I was unsure I could defeat.” The head was gently placed above the neck before his body burned as well. It reached the last body, trailing a tendril across the body. “I just wish…”
Strong Recovery collapsed, and the illusion followed. He stumbled to his hooves as his horn smoked, and the others walked out of their circles with shaky legs. Their expressions were sullen, and they looked towards Hawk for some guidance.
“First, we bury the bodies.” Hawk looked at a pile of ashes. “All of the bodies. We don’t know what that entity wants, but we know it and something called ‘The Snake’ are very dangerous. So after giving all of the victims a proper burial, we’ll contact the princesses.”