//------------------------------// // It's Raining Deer // Story: Spike's Doom and/or Destiny // by terrycloth //------------------------------// “So now what?” Moondancer asked, as they stood around in the snow next to the church. “I guess we look around for Death Mountain,” Bon Bon said. “Unless you want to break into somepony’s house and sleep in their bed.” Moondancer seemed to consider it. “No,” she said, at last. “We can sleep on the train, I guess. Just don’t expect me to do any fighting.” “We should be safe in town,” Spike said, as they made their way back to the road. There was a major intersection in front of the church, and the cross-street had a marked slope to it, although the uphill segment curved out of sight. “I mean, unless we fall into a sewer or something. Or run into a cutscene.” Bon Bon led them up the hill. “How do we avoid cutscenes?” she asked, as they rounded the corner and followed the winding road through a snowy park. A mountain cliff loomed nearby, leaving the place in shadow, but it was lit by magical floating globes. “There you are!” came a familiar, if unwelcome, voice. Obvious Trader emerged from behind a cluster of globes, and approached them. “Come! You must come! Death awaits!” “Death Mountain?” Derpy asked, as he grabbed her tail in his teeth and physically dragged her off the road and into the park, the others scrambling to keep up. “Yes. Yes. No,” Obvious Trader said, as they reached a small grove of firs. Red eyes appeared in the shadow of the evergreens, and something started to move towards them. “No, not Death Mountain. Just Death. At last!” A massive diamond dog emerged from the grove, dressed in red felt with fluffy white trim. In his claws he clutched a thin, slightly curved sword longer than he was tall. Three reindeer pranced out to join him, decked out in color-coded barding: red, green and blue. “This is your death!” Obvious Trader said, standing aside and pointing a hoof at the diamond dog. “The Red Ninja is the most feared assassin in the land! Once he catches your scent, there is no escape! He knows when you sleep, and when you wake!” The Red Ninja said nothing. “You traitor!” Spike said. “We trusted you!” “No we didn’t,” Bon Bon said. “We kind of did,” Moondancer said. “Which is embarrassing in retrospect.” “Yeah, when you think about it, it was sort of obvious,” Derpy said, then suddenly grinned. “Oh! I get it!” “You will get nothing, except your long-overdue death!” Obvious Trader screeched. “Red Ninja, kill them! Kill them all!” The Red Ninja stood silently, sword at the ready. The heroes stared at him for a while. “Is he… waiting for us to go first?” Bon Bon asked, relaxing a bit from her ready pose. “Oh, I know what this is!” Spike said. “Iajitsu! He’s waiting for us to attack him, so that he can strike first and kill us in one blow.” “So does that mean we can just walk around?” Moondancer asked, turning to the side and trotting carefully in a wide circle centered on the ninja. “That is why he has us,” said the blue reindeer, his voice high-pitched and proper. The tips of his antlers glowed as he cast a spell, “Spirits of winter, scourge these fiends!” A gust of wind quickly built into a swirling vortex of snow, and the heroes raised claws and hooves to shield their faces from the stinging bite of the blizzard. “Ruby fires of all creation, gather in my hooves and become an inferno!” intoned another reindeer voice, and then a massive fireball exploded among them, burning Derpy and throwing Spike and Moondancer to the ground from the blast wave. Somehow, it did nothing to stop the stinging cold from the snow. There was a thwack from the direction of the Ninja, and they could vaguely see a small pony shape sinking a blade into the back of the Ninja’s neck, having darted around behind him, concealed by the blizzard. The ninja flung her off quickly, and slashed her badly with three quick swipes of his katana before she could hit the ground, but it was obvious that her sneak attack had staggered him. “Heal us, oh Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster!” cried the third reindeer, and a green glow shone from the sky, illuminating the Red Ninja well enough for them to see his wound heal over and vanish, as if it had never been. “Hey!” Spike said, running forwards and breathing a gout of flame at the Red Ninja to get his attention before he could finish Bon Bon off, while Derpy zipped overhead to feed her a muffin, ignoring her burns. He swung his sword at the ninja, but with a flash of steel something wrenched it out of his claws and sent it spinning through the air, out of reach. “What?” Then there was the scrape of metal on metal, and a searing pain in his chest. The diamond dog’s glowing red eyes met his, and locked him in place as he felt his knees weaken, and slowly slid to the ground, the ninja’s katana scraping its way back out of his chest, coated in blood. “Ow,” Spike said, staring at the clear blue sky as fireballs and ice bolts and flashes of lightning raged around him. “Derpy?” he croaked, “I think I need a muffin…” There was a painful scream, and then silence. The wind died down, and a shadow descended as the looming figure of the diamond dog ninja blotted out the sky. The Red Ninja’s mouth opened, glistening with fangs, and a sinister laugh echoed in Spike’s fading ears. “Ho, ho, ho…” Then a flash of steel, and then – === “Aaah!” Spike screamed, sitting bolt upright in the basement of the inn, surrounded by treasures and artifacts illuminated by the calm blue glow of the Giant Floating Crystal. He patted his chest, and his neck, making sure everything was attached. “Ahhh!” “Let’s not do that again,” Moondancer said, not sitting upright from where she lay on her side on the cold stone floor. “We won’t have to do that again, will we?” “That depends on whether or not he believes we’ll stay dead,” Bon Bon replied, rubbing her head. “He doesn’t know we found this crystal.” “But the Red Ninja knows, doesn’t he?” Derpy asked, getting to her hooves and shaking her wings out. “He knows when we awake!” “Ah.” Spike said, calming down a bit. “Wait, we’re alive?” Moondancer rolled her eyes. “Virgins.” “Alive, and cursed,” Bon Bon hissed, holding her hooves to both her temples as if she could squeeze out the pain. “I knew we were supposed to be weaker, but I didn’t realize it came with a screaming headache.” “How long does it take to wear off?” Moondancer asked, still not rising. “Nevermind, I’ll just lie here until it does.” “I think you just have to go to the church,” Derpy said. “When I was sad that the resurrection spell cost money, the old priest said that it was cheaper than having him remove the curse.” “Good,” Bon Bon said. “Money we have. Spike, are we going to have to fight that ninja again?” “Huh?” Spike asked. Bon Bon stared at him. “You know the genre.” “Oh, right. Right,” the dragon said. “Um… that fight seemed pretty impossible. If it was a fight we were supposed to lose then we won’t have to fight him again unless we screw up. He did a one-hit kill on me and Bon Bon both, which is usually how you tell.” “She wasn’t dead,” Derpy said. “I mean, she was really hurt but I was able to muffin her in time. I just had to keep muffining her though and didn’t have time to muffin myself and eventually all the fireballs just kind of… ow.” “Yeah, it took him three hits to kill me,” Moondancer said. “You should have been able to handle him, Spike. What happened?” “I don’t know. I just swung my sword at him, and then –” “Ah,” Bon Bon said. “Oh Spike,” Moondancer said. “Why did you do that?” “What?” Spike asked. “What did I do?” “You attacked the ninja with the instant-kill counterattack, and got instantly killed by the counterattack,” Bon Bon explained. “You warned us he was going to do that,” Moondancer said. Spike cringed. “Oops?” === Getting the curse removed was more expensive than Derpy’s resurrection spell, but not as expensive as they expected – for one thing, a single spell covered the entire party. “How did you get cursed?” the priest asked, as he sprinkled them with holy water. It wasn’t part of the spell, as far as any of them could tell, but he insisted on doing the long version of the ritual – there were people watching from the balcony, after all. “We haven’t had a Giant Floating Crystal in town since the one in the inn went missing.” “Arena town,” Bon Bon said. “We couldn’t afford to remove the curse then, but we’ve come into some money since.” “Couldn’t… afford?” The priest narrowed his eyes at them. “I don’t understand. What does that mean?” “It means we didn’t have enough money?” Spike said, squinting at his strange expression. The priest laughed, “Ah, I see. It’s true, you can never have enough money.” === Once they were all feeling better, it was time to shop. “If we can just find a couple of fire resistance accessories we’ll be set,” Bon Bon said. “Or Derpy could wear the battle saddle,” Spike suggested. “I mean, she’s the one we need to keep alive, right?” “Um… I don’t know, Spike,” Derpy said, staring down at Moondancer and prompting her to drag her braided tail down to cover herself more tightly. “Isn’t that wizard armor?” “Thank you so much for reminding me I’m prancing around town basically naked,” Moondancer hissed. “You always walk around naked at home,” Spike said. “No I don’t,” Moondancer said. “You’re thinking of every other pony in Equestria,” Bon Bon said. “But you know what? We’ve been here long enough that keeping covered is starting to feel natural. I’d feel a little weird going around naked myself.” “Not me!” Derpy said, doing a loop-the-loop in the air over their heads. “Whenever I start feeling weird about it all, I just imagine everypony’s naked!” “Huh,” Spike said, staring at Derpy thoughtfully, until Moondancer chucked a snowball at his head. Eventually, they found a store that pretended to sell weapons and armor. Extremely fancy, extremely expensive weapons and armor. “Be careful with that!” the shopkeeper cried in alarm. “This doesn’t seem very strong,” Moondancer said, waving around a jewel-encrusted staff experimentally, “Can you actually hit people with this without it breaking?” “Wait wait wait!” the desperate pony said, leaping at her and catching the delicate staff between his hooves. He twisted it out of her magical aura and set it gently back against the wall. “You want something you can actually hit people with?” “That’s what weapons are for,” Bon Bon said, looking up from the array of brightly colored scarves, none of which seemed to have any magical properties whatsoever. The shopkeeper looking around furtively, then headed for the front of the shop, where he locked the door and flipped the sign to ‘closed’. “Come with me,” he said, motioning to them to follow. He shifted a display of gleaming swords aside, revealing a small wooden door that he had to kick twice to unstick before he could open it. In the backroom was a much smaller selection of much uglier goods. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that you were real adventurers,” he told them as they started to look around. “It’s been ages since anyone who wasn’t an orc was interested in the good stuff.” “Do any of these resist fire?” Bon Bon asked, sorting through a small bucket of amulets. “I sell to fire-resistant orcs,” the shopkeeper replied. “If you want to resist ice, now that I can do.” === Obvious Trader paced back and forth in the clearing. “What is the problem? All I need you to do is to sign the form acknowledging the completion of your task, and then I can return to my master and report success.” He glanced over at the bodies of the so-called Heroes one more time. Yep, still dead. The little dragon didn’t even have a head.  “They wake,” the Red Ninja insisted, continuing to stand in the middle of the road, his sword sheathed but with one claw resting on the hilt. “Are you perhaps sensing them awaking in the Land of the Dead?” Obvious Trader asked, shaking a hoof at the ninja, who didn’t react. “I assure you, they are not among the living! Their crystal is smashed!” The hulking ninja did not reply. “They’re still here, and still dead.” He pointed at the charred remains of the pegasus. “The bodies didn’t vanish!” “The bodies don’t vanish,” said the blue reindeer. “How would the orcs eat their victims if the bodies vanished?” Obvious Trader froze, and turned to face him. “They don’t vanish? I was sure they vanished. Don’t the orcs eat their victims alive?” The reindeer shivered, little bells worked into his outfit jingling. “Sometimes they try? But you usually die before they finish.” The pony scowled. “It doesn’t matter. I smashed their stupid crystal. They have nowhere to respawn.” “And yet, they wake,” the Red Ninja said. Obvious Trader sat down and clutched at his head. “No. No! If that’s true, they could be anywhere!” “They still have to come through here,” the red reindeer reminded him. “That’s why we picked this as the ambush spot. If they don’t come back soon we’ll go back and hide in the trees again.” “We’ve got a whole camp set up!” the green reindeer said, prancing around in a circle. “You could wait with us. We don’t have an extra tent but the pine needles are soft enough.” There was a soft *shink!* sound, and the Red Ninja drew his sword two inches from its sheath. The reindeer turned to follow his gaze, which seemed to be focusing on a cluster of glowing globes that was slowly creeping past them. The red reindeer slowly began to smile. “Crimson fires…” The cluster fell to the ground, revealing three ponies and a dragon. “Okay! Okay, you found us,” Moondancer said. “Are you sure we can’t just… not fight this time? I don’t think I mentioned it last time but I really hate being stabbed.” The Red Ninja pointed his sword at her. “You have been naughty.” “It’s fine,” Bon Bon said, placing a hoof on Moondancer’s shoulder. “Just remember the plan.” At that point, the red reindeer finished his fireball and chucked it at the heroes, and Spike raised his sparkly new shield and gave a fearsome roar as he charged into the fight. It was on! Once again, the ninja took his defensive stance, while his reindeer spread out to support him. He locked eyes with Spike as he charged… only for the dragon to turn at the last second and slam into the green reindeer, knocking her to the ground. “What? Hey! Get off!” she shrieked, kicking at him as he stabbed his sword into her gut, over and over. “Spirits of Nature!” “Crimson fires of all creation…” the other reindeer began, trying to distract the heroes as they all focused on their comrade, who was trying to heal herself. The blizzard didn’t seem to slow them down this time, though, and while the fireball singed the pegasus it didn’t stop her from lining up a shot with her portable cannon. There was a loud ‘bang!’, and a massive bullet ricocheted off three trees and struck the red reindeer in the side, knocking him off his feet, if not out of the fight. The Red Ninja himself advanced on the attackers, but Spike turned to face him, shield held high. The katana flashed, but couldn’t get past the dragon’s focused defense. Behind Spike, Bon Bon appeared out of nowhere, and sank her cleaver into the green reindeer’s throat just as she was starting another healing spell. She choked, and her eyes glazed over as she fell, bells jingling festively as her blood stained the snow. “Dark Eidous Dark Eidous Dark Eidous!” shouted Moondancer, and lightning descended to strike all three of the remaining enemies. “Flaming Hooves!” cried the red reindeer as he got back to his feet. He charged at Moondancer, only to slam into a bubble that sprang into being around her as she turned to meet his charge. He staggered back, off balance, and then one of his hind legs collapsed as Bon Bon chopped at the tendons with her cleaver. He turned and kicked her in the face, knocking her back, but her next blow lodged her cleaver in his forehead, right between his antlers, and he barely had time to go cross-eyed trying to look at it before collapsing in a heap. The blue reindeer glanced over at the Red Ninja, who was still trying to take down the little dragon. He’d scored some good hits, but the dragon was tough and wasn’t making the mistake of fighting back with his sword this time – he just held his shield in place and used his fire breath to get the Ninja’s attention whenever he looked like he was going to break away. “Dark Eidous Dark Eidous Dark Eidous!” Three lightning bolts crashed down, two of them hitting the reindeer this time, while Derpy flew over to give Spike a muffin and Bon Bon advanced on the last reindeer steadily, bloody cleaver held in her teeth. “Oh, I hate this part,” the blue reindeer said, taking a few steps back. His antlers glowed as he summoned an ice bolt, but it shattered against the chef’s apron without even leaving a mark. Suddenly, the pony crouched, and leaped, and the reindeer turned around and around to try to spot her. But it was no use – a sudden pain shot through him as she landed on his back, and the cleaver sunk into his neck. His eyes rolled up as he fell. Bon Bon yanked her cleaver back out of his spine, and sat down using his cooling corpse as a cushion. “All right, girls. The rest is up to you.” The cannon roared, the lightning flashed, and sure enough, with only one target left every shot and spell was focused on the Red Ninja. It still took a long time to wear him down – Derpy had to break off and heal Spike with a muffin more than once – but without his reindeer cluttering the battlefield it was a foregone conclusion. At last, the Ninja fell to his knees. “You have defeated me,” he growled. “You’re all on my list now. Pray that we do not meet again.” Then he took a page out of Bon Bon’s handbook, leaping into the air and vanishing before they could finish him off. After a tense minute or so while they waited to see if he’d reappear, Bon Bon pulled out a smaller knife, and started skinning the red reindeer. “What are you doing?” Moondancer asked, looking horrified. Bon Bon stopped and looked up. “We’ve skinned people before,” she said. “You’re wearing something we skinned before.” “Didn’t we have the farmer skin him for us?” Spike said. Bon Bon looked thoughtful. “Oh, right.” She went back to slicing off the reindeer’s hide, mumbling around the blade. “Learned how to do thish in Cashle Town. No thenthe wathting a good corpsh. I mean, he’sh not ushing it.” “I’m going to be sick,” Moondancer said. “You could look away?” Derpy suggested, landing next to her and glancing at her for a second. “No. No I can’t,” Moondancer said, continuing to stare. “Yeah, me neither,” Derpy said. === After looting the three reindeer pelts, three sets of reindeer antlers, five perfect eyeballs, eighteen herbivore teeth, and one engorged liver, it was time to move on. The road they’d left just looped back to town, but pushing on through the fir trees revealed the entrance to a mine, set into the cliff that led to the mountain peak. There were some signs that it had been worked recently, although nopony was working there at the moment. Nopony except for Obvious Trader, who was busy tying some strange red sticks to the supports holding up the mine. Seeing them, he gave a cry of alarm, and tried to run off. They gave chase! It wasn’t a very long chase, because while the park had done a good job of looking vast, it was actually a tiny park wedged on top of a mountain pass, and in less than a minute, the heroes had him at bay, trapped on a ledge above a thousand-foot fall onto sharp, snowy rocks. “I may have failed, but don’t think that you have won. Death still awaits you!” the traitor screamed at them, clinging to the slippery stone as the wind tried to tear him off his perch. “Death Mountain,” Derpy corrected him. “Yes, this time yes,” he said, giggling to himself. “And what do you think waits for you inside Death Mountain?” “A train?” Moondancer suggested, hopefully. Obvious Trader glowered at her. “Who are you working for?” Bon Bon asked. “Who is your master?” “It was the princess, wasn’t it?” Spike said. “Ha!” Obvious Trader laughed. “The princess is but a pawn in my master’s plans. I serve the one true king, the rightful ruler of all who live on this blighted world!” “The Immortal Emperor?” Moondancer asked. “But we’re trying to help him. Why would he –” “No!” the traitor shouted, interrupting her. “Not that fool! The true master!” “King McGuffin?” Spike suggested. Derpy rubbed her chin, then her eye brightened and she raised a hoof. “Is it the Flying Spaghetti Monster?” “No you imbeciles! The pony the emperor betrayed and cursed! The nameless one! Dark Eidous!” Lightning crashed, striking Obvious Trader, who jerked in surprise and lost his grip on the ledge. He had time for one last terrified expression before slipping off the edge, screaming as he fell. Derpy crouched as if about to launch herself into the air to save him, then folded her wings back up and relaxed. The scream cut off suddenly. “I was going to save him, but then I remembered that he was a bad guy,” she said. “You forgot he was the bad guy,” Bon Bon said, deadpan. “He’s been our friend for days!” she said, pouting. “I got used to thinking of him as one of us.” Bon Bon sighed. “Derpy… he was in the middle of giving us a villain speech when he fell.” She smiled. “I know, but it was kind of a cool speech, wasn’t it?” “Yeah,” Spike said. “The next time I die I hope I get to make a cool speech like that.”