“Well, that was weird.”
Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo sat in a triangular formation in the center of the Crusader Clubhouse. The fortified nature of the clubhouse, in addition to its formidable altitude and hidden location (known only to the Crusaders, Applejack, Granny Smith, Big Mac, Applejack’s friends, a half dozen of their classmates, the smelly drifter whom they’d found sleeping in the clubhouse one day and were forced to call the police on, and the entirety of the Canterlot Police Department), made it the ideal place for keeping secrets.
Sometimes those secrets were little, like the time Scootaloo had told them about the dream where she’d kissed Rumble, and other times they were for big secrets, secrets like when Sunset Shimmer had turned into a demon and blown up part of the school, or when someone had broken the head off of one of Rarity’s mannequins.
Sweetie Belle was pretty sure this was one of the latter.
Between the three girls sat a book opened to the final page of its first chapter. But this wasn’t just any book: it was bound in a strange leather, charred black and lacking any discernible text that would indicate a title or author. Its interior was no less peculiar, bearing strange, otherworldly diagrams and alien runes that seemed to squirm in the corner of one’s eyes and whose meaning etched itself into the mind of the reader, all written in red ink so dark that it could easily be mistaken for black.
If all that wasn’t enough, the book itself had ejected itself from the portal in front of Canterlot High and hit Sweetie Belle in the back of the head. Sweetie Belle wasn’t supposed to know about the portal, of course, but Rarity had carelessly left a description of it written in the locked diary she kept under her mattress (along with the other thing Sweetie Belle wasn’t supposed to know about), so, really, it wasn’t anyone’s fault that she’d found out about it.
Anyway, Sweetie Belle understood that a strange book from a magical land could pose. Every movie she’d ever watched had told her the same thing: it was vital to keep this sort of knowledge from falling into the wrong hands, or the results could be disastrous. So, she’d thought to herself, Sweetie Belle, who are the most qualified people you know to deal with a potential magical artifact?
The Crusaders, of course.
Sure, their sisters and their friends might have had more practical experience with magic, but Granny Smith had always told Apple Bloom that enthusiasm was just as important as experience, and if there was one thing the Crusaders had a lot of it was enthusiasm. So, if Sweetie Belle was doing her math right (and her C+ average in math indicated that she was doing it at least sixty eight percent right) she was fairly certain that made them even.
Besides, she’d found the book, and finders keepers.
Not that any of that mattered, anyway. Despite the dire warning contained within the book’s rather ominous foreword warning of madness and irreversible curses, Sweetie Belle was dismayed to find at the completion of the first chapter that, for all its bluster, the book was really, really boring.
When neither of her friends responded, Sweetie Belle looked up from the tome and regarded each of them in turn. Apple Bloom must not have finished the last page yet, as she continued to stare intently at the book before her, while in the corner of the clubhouse Sweetie Belle spotted Scootaloo, a look of abject horror carved into her face, curled up into a ball beneath a table.
“Uh, Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle put her hands on her knees, forcing herself into a standing position, before taking a few steps towards her cowering friend. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” demanded Scootaloo, slinking even further beneath the table. “Did you even read the book? I’m hiding from the Entity!”
Sweetie Belle frowned. “Which Entity?”
“Which Entity?” repeated Scootaloo. “The Star-Beast! The infinite cosmic lifeform whose form shapes the night sky! It that is driven not by any rational thought, but by an unending hunger for those foolish enough to have learned its name!”
“Right,” said Sweetie Belle, “that Entity.”
“Don’t you understand?” said Scootaloo, now completely out of view beneath the table. “We know its name! Should we so much as step outside it might notice us and tear us from this plane into another, darker world where suffering is eternal and the only escape is madness or death!”
“So you’re under the table because..?”
“Because I’m hiding! And you should be, too! Come here, I think there’s enough room for both of us, but we might have to leave Apple Bloom outside to be devoured.”
Sweetie Belle stroked her chin, considering the offer. “No, I think I’ve got to get home. If I’m late again Rarity will kill me, or worse, tell Mom and Dad.”
“Suit yourself,” said Scootaloo. “Post in the group chat later if you’re not devoured?”
“You know it!”
She’d taken her first step towards the door to the clubhouse when a hand shot out from under the table and latched onto her ankle. Sweetie Belle groaned.
“What now, Scootaloo? I just told you I have to leave!”
“What about the book?”
Sweetie Belle cocked an eyebrow. “What about it?”
“Aren’t you going to take it with you?”
She glanced over at the book, which remained untouched in the middle of the floor.
“No.”
“Well you can’t leave it here!” said Scootaloo.
“Why not?”
“What if the written name of the Entity is enough to draw it from its lair above the cosmos?”
“It isn’t,” said Sweetie Belle. “...Probably.”
“What if the drifter comes back?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s in jail.”
“What if Applejack finds it?”
That was a legitimate concern. It wouldn’t be the first time Applejack had gone through the clubhouse just to ‘check up’ on them, and if she discovered that the Crusaders had hidden a book of arcane lore from her and her friends (despite the fact that they’d found it) would almost guarantee that they’d all be grounded.
“Ugh, fine,” groaned Sweetie Belle, turning around and stomping back towards the book.
Apple Bloom hadn’t moved in the few minutes since Sweetie Belle had left her, her unflinching gaze still glued to the final page.
Wow, what a slow reader, thought Sweetie Belle. “Alright, Apple Bloom, I’ve got to take the book with me, you can finish reading it another time.”
Apple Bloom didn’t respond. Instead, she rose from her sitting position, her blank expression betraying nothing as she turned mechanically and walked straight out of the clubhouse.
“Alright then,” said Sweetie Belle. As she reached down towards the book, she noticed for the first time that the tips of her fingers were stained the same blackish-red as the ink from the book’s musty pages.
“Oh, come on!” she cried out in frustration, wiping her hands on her skirt to no avail. It reminded her of when she was a kid and she’d played with the rat Opalescence had brought her, the one that was covered in tomato juice and that Rarity had assured her was ‘just sleeping’.
Not wanting to get any more of the ink on her hands, Sweetie Belle nudged the book closed with the toe of her boot before scooping it up in her backpack. She hoisted it onto her back, but the weight of the tome combined with that of her other school books was enough to give her a sharp pain in her back.
She slung the backpack off, dropping it onto the table with an audible thud.
“Ouch!” cried the disembodied voice of Scootaloo.
“Sorry,” said Sweetie Belle. She opened the bag and withdrew the second largest book: her math textbook.
“Do we have math tomorrow?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Scootaloo.
“Oh well,” said Sweetie Belle, dumping the book onto the table.
“Seriously?” cried Scootaloo once more from below.
“Sorry!” repeated Sweetie Belle. She tested the bag. It was still heavy, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t give her any lasting back injuries—nothing that wouldn’t be covered under her parent’s insurance, anyway—so it would have to do.
“Alright, see you tomorrow!”
“See you!” said Scootaloo, adding, “and if the Entity gets you, don’t tell it where I am!”
“I won’t!”
Sweetie Belle stepped out into the crisp evening air. If there was an Entity out there, it must not have been ready to take her quite yet.
“I’m home!”
Sweetie Belle peeled off her jacket, discarding it in a crumpled heap on the floor of the entryway to the house she shared with Rarity and her parents.
Well, that was when her parents were around, anyway. Her mother and father had gone on an impromptu cruise to avoid the cold weather, and despite Sweetie Belle’s impassioned and well reasoned pleas, they had left Rarity in charge.
Sweetie Belle was fairly certain the whole system was rigged against her.
After she was free of her jacket she next kicked off her boots. The first landed on the rug (where it was supposed to land), but the second got caught on her heel. She gave it an irritated shake, but the boot caught on her toes and went spinning into the air until it eventually struck the wall, leaving behind a perfect footprint inked in dirt and mud.
All of this would have been amazing, had Rarity not chosen that exact moment to enter the hallway.
“Sweetie Belle!” she shrieked. “What have you done? There’s mud everywhere!”
“Not everywhere,” said Sweetie Belle. “Just on the wall.”
Rarity’s eye twitched. She placed her hands on her hips and gave her sister a baleful look.
“And where is mud supposed do be?”
Sweetie Belle averted her gaze, mumbling her response.
“I don’t know.”
But she did, and Rarity knew it.
“Sweetie Belle.”
“Fine,” sighed Sweetie Belle. “Outside.”
“Outside is right! Now, go fetch a cloth and some soapy water to clean that up, then it’s straight to your room to do your homework!”
“But I don’t have any homework!” countered Sweetie Belle.
“Oh really?” asked Rarity. “Because I was speaking to Miss Cheerilee this afternoon, and she told me that she gave out worksheets in preparation for the math test tomorrow.”
Sweetie Belle winced. With all the excitement of discovering a magical artifact, she’d completely forgotten about the test—and, more importantly, Scootaloo had conveniently forgotten to remind her.
“I hope the Entity does get her,” she muttered under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing! Just, uh...” Sweetie Belle wracked her brain in search of an excuse that could get her out of a life sentence of homework. “There’s no school tomorrow!”
Rarity cocked an eyebrow at her.
“...On account of the blizzard!”
She smiled sheepishly, but Rarity wasn’t buying it.
“The forecast isn’t calling for a blizzard tomorrow.”
“You can’t trust the forecast!” insisted Sweetie Belle. “Everyone knows that observing the weather changes its outcome—it’s the first law of quantum meteorology!”
Rarity tapped her foot. “Are you done?”
Sweetie Belle slumped in defeat. “...Yeah.”
“Good,” said Rarity. “Now, I think I’m going to go have a bath. You’d better have this mess cleaned up and your nose stuck in a book by the time I get out, or else!”
“Or else what?”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed. “Or else I’m calling Mom and Dad.”
“You wouldn’t!” cried Sweetie Belle.
“I would, and I will! Now, get to it, young lady!” With that, Rarity traipsed off to her room.
It wasn’t fair. Everyone knew that calling Mom and Dad was a breach of sibling etiquette, and with Rarity in charge, Sweetie Belle knew that any argument they had would inevitably go in her favor. Despite Rarity’s many and extremely glaring flaws, their parents still had it in their minds that she was the mature adult, and Sweetie Belle merely the petulant child.
Probably because Rarity saved the world once or twice. But Sweetie Belle could have done that.
Sweetie Belle grabbed her backpack and began dragging it sulkily to her room. She made it about halfway there when its zipper caught on something and spilled the bag’s contents—mainly the black book—onto the floor.
She stared at it dumbly. Rarity was expecting her to study, but she’d left her math book at the clubhouse—once again, all Scootaloo’s fault.
“What the heck am I going to do now?”
But the seed of a plan had already planted itself in Sweetie Belle’s mind. With the tip of her toes she nudged the book open, watching as its yellowed pages spilled open to reveal the eldritch runes within. She squinted her eyes, confirming that, if you didn’t look too closely, the tome sort of looked like a textbook.
Sweetie Belle smiled. Rarity had wanted to see her nose in a book, but she’d never specified which book.
As she adjusted the salt in her makeshift pentagram, Sweetie Belle was confident that everything was going according to plan.
Just as expected, Rarity hadn’t looked too closely when she’d come to check on Sweetie Belle earlier that evening. In fact, she’d even apologized for being short with her and offered her ice cream!
But that had only been the beginning: as Sweetie Belle poured over the tome and delved deeper into the mysteries that lurked within, she discovered that the book wasn’t quite as boring as she’d first thought. It was filled with strange formula, spells, and incantations, but it wasn’t until she reached the section titled ‘Summoning’ that the second phase of her plan had fully come together.
Sweetie Belle was going to get her snow day.
The pentagram itself was only one part of the larger summoning circle required to complete the ritual. Finishing her adjustments, Sweetie Belle tiptoed carefully between the spiraling runes that made up the exterior of the circle. The book had cautioned that a single misplaced grain of salt could have apocalyptic consequences, so she was triple checking to make sure everything was just right.
Well, not everything—that would take forever, and Sweetie Belle was on the clock! She’d had to wait until she was certain Rarity was asleep before she could even begin her preparations, which meant she herself had had to pretend to go to sleep to fool Rarity! Fortunately, Sweetie Belle was very good at pretending to sleep (sometimes she even fooled herself), and so, clad in her pajamas and a pair of fluffy slippers she’d stolen from Rarity, Sweetie Belle was finally ready.
She held the book out before her, it weighed heavily upon her thin arms but she did her best to endure. Creating the summoning circle had been the hard part, and now that it was done, all that remained was the incantation.
“I beseech thee, Spirit of Winter, Aspect of Hate, come forth and deliver thine judgement!”
Nothing happened.
Or, at least, that was how it seemed. It took several seconds for Sweetie Belle to notice the thin layer of mist that had began to creep out of the center of the circle. The mist rose, growing in thickness and volume until it obscured the entirety of the circle, which amounted to the majority of Sweetie Belle’s room, and though wispy tendrils probed against the circle’s threshold, none dared cross it.
The room’s temperature was dropping rapidly. Sweetie Belle shivered, her hot breath hanging visibly in the air as she spoke the name of the entity before her.
“Windigo.”
For a split second the mist stopped completely. Then, as if reacting to her call, it began to twist and overlap, swirling impossibly before her as it coalesced into the humanoid form of a woman, though it trailed off at the midsection reminding Sweetie Belle of the genies she’d seen on television. But unlike those genies, this one didn’t seem to have any sense of modesty.
Sweetie Belle cleared her throat. “Uh, chilly in here, isn’t it?”
The Windigo opened its eyes, and though its lids had been made of the same semi-translucent mist as the rest of it, this act cast a bright blue light over Sweetie Belle’s darkened room.
It was blinding.
Instinctively, Sweetie Belle threw her arms up to shield her eyes, sending the black book tumbling to the floor where it landed with a loud bang. But the noise was the least of her problems. As the book struck the ground, the rush of air beneath it displaced the salty barrier, ruining one of the runes and scattering grains of salt in all directions.
The phrase apocalyptic consequences came to mind.
“Uh-oh.”
The Windigo howled, and the wind howled with it. Sweetie Belle was buffeted by a sudden blast of cold air, lifting her off her feet and sending her hurtling into the wall behind her. But it was more than merely wind. Snow, conjured from the same nothingness from which the Windigo had been summoned, began to cover every surface in Sweetie Belle’s room. The window next to her rattled as ice formed fractals across the glass.
Wait—the window! Sweetie Belle’s skin was so cold it almost seemed to burn, and some primal part of her brain screamed at her that if she didn’t escape this cold quickly, she wouldn’t escape it at all. She forced herself to her feet, clinging to the wall as she inched towards the window. She grabbed the handle at the base of the window and turned, but the window remained stubbornly closed.
The latch! she thought, and quickly refocused her efforts. But her hands were numb and stupid from the cold, and it took several precious seconds to unlock the mechanism keeping the window in place and keeping her from her freedom.
Another gust of wind struck Sweetie Belle, knocking her away from the window. Her body temperature was getting dangerously low, and she found herself unable to stand up against the roaring gale.
So she crawled.
Inch by inch she fought her way through the wind and the snow until finally she came once again to the window. She tried in vain to grasp the handle, but between her shivering and the numbness of her fingers this proved impossible. Instead, she gripped the handle between her two wrists, using them like a pair of tongs. She twisted, but once again the window didn’t budge.
“Come on!” she cried, and tried again. This time the ice on the window splintered as the window opened a miniscule amount.
It was enough.
The Windigo howled again and, sensing its freedom, threw itself against the window, which was almost knocked out of its frame as the Windigo disappeared into the night.
“Yeah, you b-better run!”
Sweetie Belle collapsed onto the snow covered floor. She tried to get up, to do anything, but couldn’t. She was too cold.
This is all your fault, Scootaloo. If you’d only reminded me about that test...
On the other side of the room, she heard the rattling of the door handle. The snow piled against it held fast… for about five seconds, until something on the other side struck it with monumental force, breaking it open.
It was Rarity.
“Sweetie Belle, what on earth are you doi—oh my god!”
Paying no heed to the piles of snow or her own bare feet, Rarity dashed across the room, sweeping her sister up into her arms.
“You’re freezing!”
“No… kidding,” murmured Sweetie Belle. Suddenly she was feeling very tired.
“Don’t you fall asleep on me, Sweetie Belle!” Rarity shouted, though Sweetie Belle didn’t understand why she sounded so urgent. Or so far away, for that matter. No, Sweetie Belle didn’t understand much of what Rarity was doing—not why she’d wrapped her in blankets or run a hot bath in the middle of the night—nor did she fully comprehend that, without a doubt, Rarity had just saved her life.
“Rarity, I’m fine, seriously, stop!”
She swatter her sister’s hands away for what must have been the eight millionth time that morning.
“‘I’m sorry, Sweetie Belle, but your fingers—”
“Are fine!” insisted Sweetie Belle, waggling her fingers around for emphasis. An unfortunate side effect to last night’s reading (well, one of them, anyway), was that the blackish-red residue that had affixed itself to Sweetie Belle’s fingers had spread down both her hands almost to her palms.
“It’s ink,” she said, because it was ink. Probably. She could worry about that later.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes!”
Rarity sighed and reluctantly pulled away. The two of them were sitting on Rarity’s bed, with Sweetie Belle wrapped in all manner blankets, scarves, and swatches of thick fabric that had been in the general vicinity while Rarity had scrambled desperately to warm her sister up. Sweetie Belle didn’t remember all of the details of what had happened that night into early morning, but she was certain she remembered the most important one.
The Windigo.
After it had escaped from her room, the Windigo had spread its frigid gift all across Canterlot. Schools across the county were calling in cancellations, and first on the list had been Canterlot High which, by all accounts, was ground zero for what was already being called the storm of the century.
So, other than the destruction of pretty much everything in her room, as well as massive water damage, Sweetie Belle was calling her experiment in ritual summoning a complete success.
“I still can’t believe all that snow got in through one open window!” Rarity climbed off of the bed and stretched. Given all the excitement of the night before, Rarity never had the opportunity to change out of her nightgown. Her blindfold—an accessory she claimed helped her sleep but Sweetie Belle had her doubts—was pushed up onto her forehead as a makeshift headband, keeping her uncharacteristically disheveled hair out of her eyes, themselves lined with thick purple bags.
She looked exhausted, and of course Sweetie Belle handled this with an incredible amount of tact and maturity.
“You look awful.”
Rarity shot her what should have been a scathing look, but Sweetie Belle struggled to find any actual malice in it. Rarity just looked so… relieved.
It was perplexing.
“Thank you, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity replied, sarcastically. She approached the room’s full length mirror and grimaced as she looked herself over. “Perhaps I do need to freshen up a little, then I suppose I’ll have to get to work cleaning that room of yours.”
Sweetie Belle froze (figuratively, this time). If Rarity cleaned her room, she’d almost certainly find the book, and if she found the book she’d realize that Sweetie Belle hadn’t really been studying last night. And if she figured that out…
She’ll call Mom and Dad.
“Did you hear me, Sweetie Belle?”
“Huh?” Rarity was staring at her expectantly. “You’re going to ‘freshen up’ then clean my room, got it.”
“And you’re going to be alright?”
“I’m fine,” repeated Sweetie Belle. “Go.”
“Okay, okay.” Rarity swooped in to give Sweetie Belle a tight hug, and given that she was partially mummified in blankets, she found it difficult to resist. When she was done she grabbed her cell phone from her nightstand, checked to ensure the room’s windows were securely closed, and disappeared into the hallway.
It wasn’t until Sweetie Belle heard the shower running that she made her move. It took a non-insignificant amount of struggling to free her legs from the cocoon Rarity had wrapped her in, and when she was finally free she shuffled over to the radiator where Rarity had placed her slippers. They were still damp from the night before, but they were warm, and that was a compromise Sweetie Belle was willing to accept.
Next, she shuffled down the hallway to her own room. The doorknob was cold to the touch and, as predicted, the interior looked like a disaster zone. Much of the snow had melted, though small piles remained in the corners and on top of Sweetie Belle’s dresser. The floorboards were waterlogged, some of them already beginning to warp, and her mattress was almost certainly ruined. In fact, there was only one object in the entire room that looked almost completely untouched.
The book.
It lay where it had fallen in the middle of the floor. Sweetie Belle leaned down to pick it up, discovering that not only was the book dry, it felt unnaturally warm. She flipped it open and, though the runes still seemed to wriggle, the ink hadn’t run at all.
“Oh, so you’ll get all over my hands, but fall in a snowbank and you’re fine?”
The book didn’t respond.
“Whatever,” said Sweetie Belle. She tucked the book into one of the many layers she was wrapped in and was just turning to leave when she was stopped by an abrupt buzzing sound. It was coming from the floor by her desk.
It didn’t take her long to identify the source of the sound. Her cellphone was buried beneath a small snowbank at the foot of the desk. A lesser phone might have succumbed to such harsh conditions, Sweetie Belle’s phone was made of sterner stuff.
It had to be, otherwise it would have ended up like her first seven phones.
Sweetie Belle wiped the phone’s screen on her fabric cocoon and checked her notifications. Her alarm had gone off, but after over an hour of going unanswered, it had finally given up. An emergency weather alert had gone out, but Sweetie Belle ignored that, too. What had drawn her interest was the Crusader’s group chat, which had over a dozen new messages.
The first message was from Apple Bloom, and the timestamp was from the middle of the night.
‘Girls?’ it read. ‘Is anyone awake?’
The next message came a few hours later.
‘Seriously, I think something really messed up happened last night.’
‘I know, right? There’s a ton of snow outside!’ Scootaloo’s response came not long after the second message.
‘No, not that. Something really weird happened when we read that book?’
‘?’
‘Like, last thing I remember was Sweetie Belle turning the pages of the book—next thing I know I’m standing in the orchard outside the house with a dirty shovel and a bunch of loose dirt in front of me. Then it started to snow.’
‘Weird lmao.’
‘This is serious, Scoots, I don’t remember anything for, like, six hours! What if I dug something up? What if I buried something? What if I dug something up, killed someone with it, then buried them?’
‘That seems like a lot of extra work.’
Apple Bloom sent an exasperated looking emoticon, followed by another message.
‘What about you, Sweetie Belle? Anything weird happen?’
‘She’s probably still asleep.’
‘Alright, well, Sweetie, when you see this, message the group chat and let us know you’re okay.’
‘I’m fine, Bloom, thanks for asking,’ responded Scootaloo.
‘I know you’re fine, you’ve been answering texts.’
The two continued to bicker back and forth for a while, but eventually tapered off. The most recent message was, again, from Apple Bloom.
‘Sweetie Belle, you up yet?’
Sweetie Belle tapped at the screen with her blackened fingers.
‘Yeah.’
‘Did you see what I posted earlier?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you just going to keep saying ‘yeah’?’
Sweetie Belle thought for a moment. ‘Yeah.’
Apple Bloom responded with another exasperated emoticon. Sweetie Belle giggled.
‘I think we need to get rid of the book,’ wrote Apple Bloom.
Sweetie Belle bit her lip. That was a bit extreme, wasn’t it? Sure it might have turned Sweetie Belle’s fingers black and made Apple Bloom lose six hours, but it also had the potential for on demand snow days. Sweetie Belle wasn’t crazy—she knew she could only use it once, maybe twice a week, but this was something they couldn’t simply throw away without seriously considering what they were giving up first.
Sweetie Belle was about to explain all this to Apple Bloom when the doorbell rang.
‘Be right back, doorbell.’
‘Okay.’
Sweetie Belle slipped back into the hallway. The sound of the shower stopped, and Rarity’s muffled voice echoed from the bathroom.
“Sweetie Belle, could you get that?”
“I already am!” replied Sweetie Belle, making her way towards the front door. The bell rang again just as she stepped into the entranceway.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, sheesh...” she muttered as she undid the deadbolt and flung open the door.
“Hey, squirt,” said Rainbow Dash, “is Rarity here?”
Rainbow Dash wasn’t alone. Behind her, six figures bundled up in jackets and scarves waved gloved hands at her.
“Rarity!” bawled Sweetie Belle, “your friends are here?”
“What?” Rarity’s bafflement was clear in her voice. “Let them in, I’ll be out in a second!”
“Come in,” said Sweetie Belle mechanically, stepping back to give the girls some room as the seven of them stumbled inside and began to shed their copious amounts of layers. As they did so, one by one Sweetie Belle was able to identify them: Rainbow Dash, of course, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Sunset Shimmer, and…
Twilight Sparkle. Again.
Uh-oh.
It was no secret that there were two Twilight Sparkles—everyone who attended the Friendship Games knew that. No, the original Twilight Sparkle was actually a pony princess from beyond the portal (thanks again, Rarity’s diary!) and, due to a busy schedule of princessing, was only able to come through when a matter of great urgency demanded her attention.
A matter like a missing spellbook, thought Sweetie Belle, nervously.
“Girls!” exclaimed Rarity. She’d poked her head out from around a corner, her hair wrapped in one towel while a second one was cinched around her chest. “How did you get here? Not that that it isn’t lovely to see you, but surely the roads haven’t been cleared yet, have they?”
Rainbow Dash, her nose and cheeks still red from the cold, cleared her throat and stepped forward.
“Here we go,” muttered Applejack, shaking her head.
“Ladies and, well, ladies, introducing Twilight Sparkle’s plowing service! You need a plow? She’s your gal!”
Rarity glared at her. “Seriously?”
Rainbow Dash continued. “Yes siree, folks, she’s got the magic touch! Why, she’s plowed half the town already! Stuck at home? She’ll come straight to your door! You don’t even half to pay—get plowed today!”
She placed her hands on her hips triumphantly. “Get it?”
“We get it,” said Sunset Shimmer, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice. “Plow. Very funny. Are you done?”
“I don’t get it,” said Sweetie Belle.
Rainbow Dash bent down to her level. “Well, you see, Sweetie—”
Rarity cut her off. “Rainbow Dash, if you finish that finish that sentence you’ll be the one getting ‘plowed’!”
“Twilight used the magic in her geode to clear the road,” said Sunset Shimmer.
“It’s a euphemism,” whispered Rainbow Dash.
“A euphe-what?”
Rainbow Dash cackled like a hyena, while behind her Sweetie Belle heard heard the audible slap of Rarity’s face meeting her palm at record speed.
“Rarity, we’re actually here to discuss something kind of important, would you mind...”
“But of course, Twilight!” said Rarity. Sweetie Belle hadn’t been watching them, so she wasn’t entirely certain which Twilight had spoken. “Give me five minutes to make myself presentable and then I’m all yours!”
Rarity disappeared once again, and Applejack shot Sweetie Belle a disbelieving look.
“How long is she really going to take?” she asked.
“Probably an hour,” said Sweetie Belle. “Longer if she does her hair.”
Applejack sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
The girls settled down in the living room and began the long wait for Rarity to become ‘presentable’. While many of them had some experience with Rarity’s lengthy routine, Sweetie Belle had spent her entire life sharing a bathroom with Rarity, and derived a certain pleasure from watching others suffer as she had.
“Oh, I wish she’d hurry up,” said Fluttershy, breaking the silence that had fallen over the group. “If it’s as dangerous as you say—”
“Shy!” interrupted Rainbow Dash abruptly, giving a not so subtle nod in Sweetie Belle’s direction. “Ix-nay on the ook-bay!”
“You know I can see you, right?” asked Sweetie Belle. “And I know Pig Latin.”
“Ah-way, ut-bay an-cay ou-yay eep-kay up-way ith-way e-thay ig-pay atin-lay aster-may?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“What?” said Sweetie Belle.
Pinkie Pie crossed her arms, her face plastered with a smug smile. “I didn’t think so.”
“What’s with all the layers, anyway? Did you guys lose power?” asked Sunset Shimmer, eagerly steering the conversation way from any books that Sweetie Belle wasn’t supposed to know about—or so she thought, anyway. Beneath her voluminous layers, Sweetie Belle clutched desperately to the black book, knowing that one wrong move and she would almost certainly be grounded for life.
“I left my window open last night,” lied Sweetie Belle. “A lot of snow came in and I got super cold.”
“‘Super cold’ is an understatement!” Rarity stepped into the living room and took a seat on arm of Sweetie Belle’s chair, wrapping an arm around her sisters shoulder. “When I found her last night there must have been six inches of snow piled up in her room, and the poor girl was shivering by the window—her fingers had turned black!”
“Blackish-red! And it was ink!”
“Well I didn’t know that, did I? Anyway, long story short, I called emergency services, cried on the phone for an hour while they helped me make sure she was alright, and now here we are.” She squeezed Sweetie Belle’s shoulder. “I trust none of you had a night quite that exciting?”
Six pairs of eyes glued themselves to Twilight Sparkle (the one without glasses).
“Ah,” said Rarity, “perhaps I spoke too soon?”
“Story time,” said Rainbow Dash, rubbing her hands together greedily, “which mean it’s time for you to scram, kiddo.”
Sweetie Belle frowned. They couldn’t just kick her out, she lived here!
“Oh, it’s alright, Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity, “hasn’t she seen enough magic to be allowed to listen in? Besides, Sweetie Belle is trustworthy… most of the time.”
“Yeah! Most of the time!”
So fired up by her sudden burst of indignation, Sweetie Belle leapt out of her chair and nearly dropped the book.
“Alright, Rarity, your call,” said Rainbow Dash. “We’re ready for the details, Twilight!”
Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat.
“So, as I mentioned to most of you on the way here, a certain magical object has been… misplaced into this world.”
Don’t say a book, don’t say a book, don’t say—
“A book.”
Darn it.
“Hang on—how does someone misplace something into a different world?”
Rainbow Dash had a point. Twilight Sparkle glanced around at her peers, a sheepish smile creeping its way across her face.
“Well—you’re going to laugh at this—recently a powerful Unicorn returned from a millennium of magical stasis.”
“A powerful Unicorn?” asked Sunset Shimmer. “You don’t mean—”
“Yes. Star Swirl the Bearded is alive and well in modern Equestria.”
Sunset squealed. “That’s so cool! But what does that have to do with the book?”
“So, here’s the thing: Star Swirl has a somewhat antiquated method of dealing with problems. Instead of overcoming the problem with lessons about love and friendship, he sort of just… opens a portal and lets some other world deal with it.” She paused. “Specifically this world.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Applejack. “Some old Unicorn is using our world as, what, a magical garbage disposal?”
“That would explain those magazines that keep turning up in front of the school,” mused Rainbow Dash. The group shared a collective shudder.
“Yes, well, I’ve spoken to him and he’s promised not to do it anymore, but there’s still one, teensy little problem.”
“The book,” said Sunset Shimmer.
“Right,” said Twilight. “The last thing Star Swirl sent to this world was a book—a tome of black magic known as the Book of the Unknowable.”
Pinkie Pie snorted. “How do you write a book about the unknowable? Either you know it when you write it down, or you read it and then you know it! Unless they just wrote a bunch of gibberish with their eyes closed, but that doesn’t seem very dangerous!”
“Maybe it’s a metaphor,” said glasses-Twilight.
“Sort of,” said Twilight-classic. “Like I said, the book contains powerful black magic, and is rumored to have its own, malign intelligence. It seeks out the mad, the weak-willed, and the evil, corrupting them into using the dark magic stored within.”
Sweetie Belle frowned. She wasn’t crazy, stupid, or evil. Twilight continued.
“Many scholars have sought to learn from the book, but all who delve into the book's mysteries are inevitably consumed by them. It’s unknowable because no sane mind can fully comprehend it.”
“Oh dear,” said Fluttershy.
“Oh dear is right. I came through the portal as soon as I found out, but everything was covered in snow! Sunset and Twilight—that’s weird to say—helped me clear the snow around the portal, but the book wasn’t there, which probably means someone picked it up and took it with them.”
“So, what’re we going to do?” asked Rainbow Dash. “We can’t exactly go house to house asking ‘hey, did anyone who lives here pick up an evil book yesterday?’”
“No, we can’t—not if we want to get the book before anyone gets hurt, anyway. Luckily, we’ve come up with a solution.”
No-glasses-Twilight looked at glasses-Twilight.
“Right, um, between myself, Sunset, and, er, Twilight, we’re pretty sure we can modify the amulet I brought to the Friendship Games to track the book’s magical signature—without the whole magic absorbing thing, this time.”
“So,” said Sunset Shimmer, “here’s the plan: we hunt down the book, manage whatever chaos it might have caused, and send it back to Equestria where Twilight will lock it away somewhere that it will never bother anyone again!”
“Why not just burn it?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“It’s been tried. The book just shows up again in a graveyard on the next full moon. Anyway, does anyone have any questions?”
“I have one,” said Rainbow Dash, leaping to her feet and point an accusing finger at Sweetie Belle.
“Where were you yesterday, and why did you steal the book?”
“M-me?” stammered Sweetie Belle. Sweat began to pour down her brow. “I was at the clubhouse! With the Crusaders! We were—uh—not reading!”
“Relax, I’m just kidding!” She reached down, ruffling Sweetie Belle’s hair before recoiling in disgust and wiping her hand on the sofa. “You might want to ditch some layers, kid, you’re kinda… gross.”
Sweetie Belle breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh, I do wish you girls wouldn’t hang out in that dingy clubhouse,” said Rarity.
“What’s wrong with the clubhouse?” asked Applejack. “Why, I had one just like it when I was a kid!”
“It’s not the clubhouse itself,” said Rarity. “But ever since the whole situation with that drifter...”
“Didn’t he, uh...” Rainbow Dash put one hand on her head and made a series of convulsions, accompanied by a buzzing sound. Applejack shook her head.
“No, they haven't done that in decades. Besides, far as I’m concerned, that would have been too good for him after what he did.”
Another collective shudder spread through the group, though this time Sweetie Belle and Twilight-who-was-a-pony-princess were left out.
Pinkie Pie grabbed a lamp and held it under her chin, casting a sinister light over her face. “You know,” she said, “I heard that the drifter broke out of prison, and is coming to take revenge on everyone who helped put him away.”
“Girls? I think we’re getting off topic.”
“Right you are, Sunset,” said Rarity. “Sweetie Belle, I’m going to go with the girls to get this whole book thing sorted out. Will you be alright here on your own?”
“Yes!” said Sweetie Belle, perhaps a little too eagerly. “I’ll be fine here. Great, even!”
She gave her sister a toothy smile.
Rarity leaned in to hug her, forcing Sweetie Belle to twist awkwardly so the book wouldn’t get pressed between them. Rarity pulled away.
“I remember when you used to love hugging your big sister,” mused Rarity. “I’m sure you’ll come around again, someday.”
“Shouldn’t you go save the world?”
Rarity nodded. “Right. Just give me five—no, ten—minutes to get ready for the snow.”
Everyone groaned.
It took another half hour for Rarity to pick out her snow-faring outfit, and a further ten minutes for the rest of the girls to suit back up. When Sweetie Belle was certain that they were gone she ditched her excess layers, laid the book on the coffee table, and sent a message to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.
‘We need to get rid of the book.’
Unfortunately for the Crusaders, when Twilight Sparkle had plowed half the town, that half had not included the trail from Sweet Apple Acres to the Crusader’s clubhouse.
“So you really don’t remember anything?”
Apple Bloom shook her head. She and Sweetie Belle trudged through the already knee-deep snow, making the normally short trip long and arduous.
“Not really. Every now and then I get these little flashes—an orange jumpsuit, the feeling of me dragging something heavy—but nothing concrete.”
Well, if Apple Bloom hadn’t been dragging concrete, that still left a lot of heavy things. But that was a problem for later, for after they’d returned the book to the portal. Right now they had a different problem.
Scootaloo.
There were no tracks in the snow around the clubhouse, and the snowdrift that leaned against the door looked undisturbed.
“You sure she’s in there?” asked Sweetie Belle, skeptically.
“That’s what she said, isn’t it?” replied Apple Bloom. She climbed up the ramp and began digging into the snow with her mittens.
“Yeah, I guess,” said Sweetie Belle. She began to join Apple Bloom in the digging, using the book as a makeshift shovel, but Apple Bloom stopped her.
“What are you doing?!”
“What? This thing is waterproof!”
Apple Bloom glared at her. “Can you just put that thing away? It gives me the willies.”
The work went by quickly (though, Sweetie Belle mused, not as quickly as if she’d been allowed to use the book), and before long the two girls had made it inside. Or, at least, they would have, if the door had opened.
“What the heck?” asked Sweetie Belle. “Did she lock the door?”
“The door doesn’t have a lock, she must have blocked it with something.” Apple Bloom pounded on the door with her fist. “Scootaloo, you in there?”
Scootaloo's muffled voice emanated through the door. “Entity? Is that you?”
“What?” asked Apple Bloom. “No, it’s us—Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. Let us in!”
“Oh, okay.”
They heard the sounds of heavy objects scraping against the wooden floor, but after several seconds the noises stopped.
“Wait, how do I know it’s really you?”
“When you dreamed about kissing Rumble he was wearing a pink dress and—”
“Okay, okay, jeeze!”
There was a crash from inside and the door creaked open just enough to let the two girls inside.
The interior of the clubhouse was a bigger mess than usual. Scootaloo had ripped the posters off the walls, instead pinning them over the windows, blocking out all light from the outside. She’d also rearranged the furniture (the stuff she hadn’t used to barricade the door, anyway) into a makeshift fort in the middle of the room.
“Uh, Scootaloo?” asked Apple Bloom. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Me? I’m great! Never better!” Scootaloo gave them an unconvincing smile. “You guys didn’t bring any food, did you?”
“No,” said Sweetie Belle. “We told you, we have to go to the school and send the book back through the portal.”
“Right,” said Scootaloo. “I’m not going.”
“What?!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, simultaneously.
“If I go outside then the Entity will get me!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Apple Bloom. “What entity?”
Sweetie Belle put a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. “Don’t get her started.”
“I figured it all out,” continued Scootaloo. “You guys will bring me my homework, when we graduate I’ll take courses online. I’ll get a job where I can work from home and just do it from here instead!”
Apple Bloom glared at her. “Seriously? What are you going to eat? What’s going to stop you from freezing to death? Wait, why isn’t it cold in here?”
“You guys can bring me food! And as for the cold, I have that covered.” She drew back one of the blankets of her fort, revealing an electric space heater plugged into the clubhouse’s powerbar. The electricity was a somewhat recent addition to the clubhouse, fed in through a string of extension cables borrowed from their assorted houses, it lead all the way back to Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack probably would have called the entire system a ‘fire hazard’, so the Crusaders were keeping the whole thing on a need-to-know basis.
“When did we get that?” asked Apple Bloom.
“I think the drifter left it here—you know, in the duffle bag with the machete.”
Well, that was one mystery solved.
“Scootaloo, you’ve gotta come with us!” pleaded Apple Bloom. “We’re Crusaders—we do things together!”
“Plus this whole thing is all sort of your fault,” added Sweetie Belle, under her breath.
“Sorry girls, but if I step outside and the Entity sees me, it’s all over! I can’t take that kind of risk.”
Something in the corner of Sweetie Belle’s eye caught her attention, and a new plan sprang fully formed into her mind. She smiled.
“What if the Entity can’t see you?”
Scootaloo fiddled with the cardboard box covering her head for what must have been the eight thousandth time.
“I think these eye-holes are too small.”
Sweetie Belle sighed. “Last time you said they were too big, and that’s our last box! Besides, we’re already here.”
Canterlot High was a tomb of snow and ice. The soccer field was indistinguishable from the adjacent parking lot, where a single bump indicated that some poor soul had left their car overnight. The area out front was a little better, with the path from the road having been plowed thoroughly by Twilight that morning.
The three girls stopped in front of the statue.
“We’re not going to get, like, sucked in, are we?” asked Scootaloo, nervously. “I don’t think I’d like being a horse.”
“A pony,” corrected Sweetie Belle.
“Same thing,” said Scootaloo.
“No, it’s isn’t,” said Apple Bloom. “A horse is—”
“It doesn’t matter!” declared Sweetie Belle, cutting her off. “Besides, that’s why we came prepared. You did bring it, right, Apple Bloom?”
Apple Bloom slipped her backpack off her shoulders and unzipped it, revealing a long coil of rope.
“What the heck is that?” asked Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo looked similarly confused.
“It’s Applejack’s lasso!” said Apple Bloom, withdrawing the rope and holding it out for the others to see.
“I’m pretty sure Applejack’s lasso isn’t usually red,” said Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo pulled off one of her mittens and felt the rope between her fingers. “Is this silk?”
“It’s her special lasso!” insisted Apple Bloom. “That’s why she keeps it in her bottom drawer with her special chaps!”
Sweetie Belle glanced at Scootaloo, and the two of them shared a concerned expression.
“Whatever can we just do this already?”
The plan was simple. One Crusader would have the rope tied around their waist, while the other two held on. The rope was a safety measure, so just in case the portal did try to suck in the Crusader who put the book back through, the other two would be able to pull them to safety. All that remained was deciding who the unlucky Crusader would be.
“What do you mean I have to do it?!”
Sweetie Belle looked between her fellow crusaders, shocked and betrayed.
“Well, you are the one who’s been carrying the book around all this time,” said Apple Bloom.
“And you did find it in the first place,” said Scootaloo.
“But—that’s not—it was—”
“Look, Sweetie Belle,” said Apple Bloom in a warning tone. “I can tie you up the easy way, or I can tie you up the hard way, but you’re getting tied up!”
“What did I just walk in on?”
The three girls whirled around. A hooded figure armed with a shovel now stood between them and the statue.
“The drifter!” cried Scootaloo. “He’s back for revenge!”
“What? No!” the figured pulled back their hood, revealing themselves not to be the notorious drifter, but Flash Sentry.
“Flash?” asked Apple Bloom. “What’re you doing here?”
“I came to dig out my car,” said Flash, gesturing with his thumb in the general direction of the parking lot.
That made sense. From what Sweetie Belle understood about Flash Sentry’s luck from Rarity’s journal, if anyone was going to have their car buried in an impromptu snowstorm, it would be him.
“Honestly, I’m surprised anything at this school has been plowed at all.”
“Well, Twilight does have a way of getting around,” said Scootaloo.
“Wait, what?” asked Flash. “And hang on—what are you three doing here? And why does she have a box on her head?”
“To hide me from the Ent—”
Sweetie Belle jabbed her elbow into Scootaloo’s ribs, making the other girl buckle over in pain while Apple Bloom came in with the save.
“...omologists! Entomologists!”
“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, regaining her composure. “Can’t trust anyone who studies… Ents.”
“Bugs,” corrected Flash Sentry.
“That’s what I said,” said Scootaloo.
Flash Sentry eyed them suspiciously. “Okay, then explain the creepy fetish rope.”
“It’s Applejack’s special lasso!” insisted Apple Bloom. “Here, take a look at it!”
As Flash Sentry stepped forward to take a better look at the weird rope, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle circled around behind him, a technique they had perfected when trying to hide things from their collective sisters (and Rainbow Dash).
Scootaloo pointed at Sweetie Belle’s backpack and mimed an unzipping motion, followed by pressing a single finger to her lips to indicate silence.
Sweetie Belle understood. She took off her backpack and laid it at her feet. Slowly and meticulously, she unzipped the bag tooth by tooth. It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually the bag was open and the book revealed.
Next, Scootaloo mimed retrieving the book from the backpack, which Sweetie Belle accomplished easily. Her next set of instructions involved a violent motion that Sweetie Belle didn’t quite understand, but assumed she got the general gist of. She raised the book above her head, took a step towards Flash Sentry, and prepared to strike.
Scootaloo waved her arms frantically and drew a finger across her throat. Sweetie Belle thought killing Flash seemed a little harsh, but it was true that he had seen too much, and it wasn’t as if Twilight was going to miss him…
She was caught mid swing by Scootaloo, who forcibly turned her around, holding her arms so she couldn’t resume her swing.
“What?” whispered Sweetie Belle.
“I didn’t mean hit him!” hissed Scootaloo.
“Then what did you mean?”
“I wanted you to throw it!”
“Throwing the book isn’t going to hurt as much as—”
“Into the portal!” shouted Scootaloo. “What is wrong with you?!”
Flash Sentry turned around. “What are you yelling abou—”
Sweetie Belle threw the book. It sailed through the air, tumbling end-over-end in a magnificent arc towards its target, when a rogue gust of wind caught it and sent it hurtling back towards her.
Then came the howl.
Overhead, the clouds began to turn and churn in the beginnings of a great cyclone. The snow turned to hail, bombarding the four teenagers with an endless volley of icy artillery.
The book landed about six feet away from Sweetie Belle. She threw a protective arm over her face and trudged towards it, each step a battle with the ferocious wind. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of her friend shouting, but all meaning was swept away by the roar of the wind. It wasn’t until she’d retrieved the book and was turning back around that she understood their urgency.
The Windigo was right behind her.
Flash Sentry leapt into action. He swung his shovel like an axe, only for it to pass straight through the translucent form of the Windigo. The creature turned, held out an icy claw towards him, and shrieked, conjuring a great gust of wind that lifted Flash off his feet and sending him hurtling back towards Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.
The attack might not have hurt the Windigo, but it was never meant to. With the creature’s attention drawn away from her, Sweetie Belle dashed past it and back towards her friends. The Windigo let out a howl of frustration and the ground around them began to shake.
No, not the ground, the snow.
All around them, piles of snow left over from Twilight’s morning plow (all that white stuff had to go somewhere) began to undulate. Great holes appeared in the snow banks, ejecting torrents of icy simulacrum in explosions of powdery afterbirth. The monsters—for that was what they were—each had the same blue, glowing eyes as their creator, as well as frigid claws and a horrible maw filled with razor sharp icicle teeth.
“Run!”
Flash Sentry was back on his feet and leading the charge towards the school. Two of the snow monsters tried to block their path, but Flash’s shovel proved much more effective on them than it had against the Windigo, slicing the first in twain and decapitating the second. He threw open the doors and stopped, waiting for the three Crusaders to get inside before slamming the door shut behind him.
“What,” he panted, “the hell was that?”
“A Windigo,” said Sweetie Belle. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo gave her curious looks, but said nothing.
“Great. Now, can one of you call your sisters so they can come shoot a rainbow at it, or something?”
Apple Bloom grabbed her mitten with her teeth and pulled it off. She shivered.
“Is it usually this cold in here?”
No, thought Sweetie Belle, realizing that, despite the fact they were now inside the usually quite temperate school, she could still see her breath. Not only was the school unusually cold, the temperature was dropping.
She looked back at the glass doors. The army of snow monsters stood in an ominous line on the schools steps.
“Why aren’t they moving?” asked Scootaloo. “It’s not like we blocked the doors or anything.”
“Because they don’t need to,” said Sweetie Belle. “Look!”
She pointed not through the doors but at them. Ice crept up the glass like a solid mass of vines, effectively trapping the four teens inside.
“They’re just waiting for us to freeze,” said Sweetie Belle, grimly.
“That’s messed up!” said Flash. He glanced over to Apple Bloom, who was alternating between blowing on her fingers to keep them warm and tapping frantically on the screen of her cellphone. “Any luck on your end?”
“I don’t have a signal! Whatever that snow lady is doing, she must be causing some sort of interference!”
“Well, that’s just great!” said Flash as Apple Bloom tugged her mitten back on. “What are we going to do now?”
“What does the book say?”
Sweetie Belle gave Scootaloo a quizzical look.
“You read ahead, didn’t you? That’s how you know what that thing was?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. It was technically correct, she did read ahead and that was how she knew what the Windigo was, but she thought it might be best to leave out the part about summoning it in the first place.
“Great!” said Scootaloo, clapping her gloved hands together. “So let's read more and figure out how to beat this thing before we all turn into kid-cicles!”
“Are you sure about this?” asked Apple Bloom. “After last time, I’m not sure I wanna get near that book, let alone read it. Wasn’t that the whole point of getting rid of it?”
“No, we’re getting rid of it so we don’t get in trouble!” argued Sweetie Belle.
“Do I even want to know?” asked Flash Sentry.
The three Crusaders gave him blank looks.
“Right, didn’t think so.”
“Alright,” said Scootaloo, “let’s put to a vote. All Crusaders in favor of using the book to beat the Windigo?”
“Aye!” said Sweetie Belle.
“Aye!” said Scotaloo. “All opposed?”
“Do I get a vote?” asked Flash.
“Nope,” said Scootaloo.
Apple Bloom sighed. “I abstain.”
“The ‘ayes’ have it!” declared Scootaloo, triumphantly. “Now, let’s go find somewhere warm to crack this sucker open. I bet the teacher’s lounge has a coffee machine!”
Fortunately (or unfortunately, if you were Flash Sentry) the teacher’s lounge did indeed have a coffee machine.
Neither Apple Bloom nor Flash Sentry wanted anything to do with the black book splayed out over the lounge’s table, choosing instead to lie on the couch and pace around the room respectively. Scootaloo had declared herself ‘too wired’ after her second cup of coffee, and took the rare opportunity to ride her scooter (which had been in her locker) up and down the hallway outside the lounge.
That left Sweetie Belle.
“It says here that the Windigo is fueled by conflict and hatred. Maybe if we can convince everyone to be friends it will go away?”
Flash Sentry rolls his eyes. “Do you watch the news? Not going to happen.”
Sweetie Belle frowned and turned the page. “We could summon a fire demon to fight the Windigo?”
“No summoning!” said Apple Bloom. “That’s nearly as bad as your ‘summon a second Windigo to fight the first one’ idea! Doesn’t that book have any good solutions?”
“I thought it was a pretty good idea,” muttered Sweetie Belle, darkly. If Flash and Apple Bloom weren’t going to help, why were they complaining so much? She flipped through a few more pages.
“I guess I could just banish it, or whatever.”
Flash Sentry stopped his pacing and stared at her. Apple Bloom sat up in her seat.
“You can do that?” she asked.
“Well, yeah, that’s like the first section after summoning.”
“So why didn’t you mention that earlier?” asked Flash.
“Because it’s really, really boring!”
Flash groaned. “Seriously?”
“Yeah! It’s just a bunch of chanting and hand gestures and...” Neither of them seemed particularly swayed by Sweetie Belle’s argument. “...Fine, we’ll do the stupid banishing.”
“Great!” said Flash. “Do we need anything to do this ‘banishing’ thing?”
Sweetie Belle skimmed the book’s section on banishing. “Not really. It does say that the ‘subject’ of the banishing will be made aware once the ritual begins, so she’ll probably show up and try to murder us.”
“Of course,” said Flash, “otherwise it would be too easy.”
“We’ll also need open space.”
“How about the gym?” suggested Apple Bloom.
“Should be fine,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Perfect,” said Flash Sentry. He approached the door to the teacher’s lounge and leaned out into the hallway. “Hey, Scootaloo! We’re going to the gym!”
Scootaloo whizzed by him on her scooter. “You could use it, spaghetti arms!”
“Whatever, box head! Let’s just get this over with!”
Sweetie Belle stood in the center of the gymnasium. Around her, standing in a triangular formation, were Flash Sentry, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo. They’d ditched their winter wear for a patchwork assortment of hockey gear and football pads, and the two girls had armed themselves with hockey sticks, while Flash had preferred to stick with his trusty shovel.
Sweetie Belle, too, had taken off her jacket and mittens, though in her case it was necessary for the intricate gestures and movements required by the ritual. The book sat before her on a lectern (stolen from the stage) and was held down with scotch tape, so that no amount of wind would be able flip the pages and interrupt the banishing.
That was the hope, anyway.
“You guys ready?” she called to her assembled protectors.
“Ready!” shouted Scootaloo.
“Yup!” cried Apple Bloom.
“We’re all going to die,” said Flash, earning him angry looks from the Crusaders. “Fine, yes, ready.”
“Okay then, here we go!”
The incantation was written in a tongue Sweetie Belle had never seen nor heard spoken, but nonetheless she read from the book with practiced ease. Similarly, the gestures came to her like she’d known them all her life—like the muscle memory of a dancer or a musician carrying them through a complex piece. Her voice cracked and warbled as she pronounced new and curious syllables, and for a while it seemed like the group’s preparations had been unnecessary.
A loud crack reverberated through the gymnasium, followed by the splintering of wood.
“They’re coming!” shouted Flash. “Everyone get ready!”
The gym’s outside door burst open and a horde of snow monsters began flooding through. The monsters were clumsy on the slick gym floor, giving the much quicker teenagers a slight advantage over their foe’s overwhelming numbers.
Once again, Flash made first contact. He swung wildly with his shovel, cleaving through monster after monster, leaving piles of powdery gore in his wake. Scootaloo zipped between the enemy ranks on her scooter, whooping and hollering as she scythed through them with her hockey stick.
“Yeah!” she cried. “This is easy—they’re nothing but a bunch of big, dumb snowmen! How’s it going on your end, Apple Bloom?”
Apple Bloom drove her own hockey stick down through the ‘head’ of a snow monster and down into its torso. The creature jerked forward, before collapsing onto the ground in defeat. But instead of reveling in her triumph, Apple Bloom let go of her hockey stick and stared at her hands in horror.
Another monster, sensing the opportunity, lunged forward, only to be cut down by Scootaloo just in the nick of time.
“Bloom!” she shouted, hopping off her scooter and grabbing her friend by the shoulders. “What’s the matter?”
“I remember,” stammered Apple Bloom, “I remember what happened last night!”
“That’s great,” said Scootaloo, “but is now the best time for—”
Apple Bloom wasn’t listening, her eyes were far away as she began to recount the events. “It was the middle of the night. I came down the stairs and he was standing in my kitchen, laying out knives one after the other. I don’t know what he was going to do so I… I hit him! The sharp end of Big Mac’s shovel to the back of the neck and he went down like a sack of potatoes. I dragged him out to the orchard and started to dig...”
She looked up, her eyes boring straight into Scootaloo’s. “I did it,” she said. “I murdered the drifter!”
“That’s great, Apple Bloom, tell your therapist about it, later!” shouted Flash.
The army was beginning to surround them, and with each second that passed they were losing ground. Scootaloo gave Apple Bloom an awkward pat on the shoulder before zipping back into the fray.
“That’s it?!” shouted Apple Bloom after her. “I just had a dramatic realization and you’re just going to give me a pat and go back to murdering snow monsters?!”
“What do you expect?!” cried Scootaloo, stopping to behead a monster. “We’re kind of in a dire situation here!”
“But I’m traumatized!”
“You don’t sound very traumatized!”
“Girls!” shouted Flash. “Stop fighting and, uh, fight!”
Another door burst open on the south side of the gym, turning an already losing battle into a desperate one. One snow monster managed to slip past their defenses, coming within two feet of Sweetie Belle, only to stop as a red lasso wrapped itself around the monster’s midsection. With a mighty pull, Apple Bloom ripped lasso straight through the monster, splitting it in half.
“Yeah!” cried Scootaloo. “Use that trauma! Get him like you got the drifter!”
“Not helping!” replied Apple Bloom, but she kept fighting regardless.
One last paragraph, thought Sweetie Belle, her body on autopilot as she recited the last of the incantations. Just a little more and—
The Windigo howled again, bursting in through the door with the force of a hurricane. The gale force winds surrounding the creature cut a swathe through its own line of snow monsters as it charged forth with a single goal:
Stop the ritual. Kill Sweetie Belle.
Apple Bloom threw her lasso at the Windigo, but like Flash’s shovel before, it simply passed right through. Scootaloo heroically charged it on her scooter, but was was swatted away with a single swipe from the creatures long claws, landing in a pile of snow.
“No fair!” she shouted. “How come she can hit us but we can’t hit—”
Sweetie Belle was about to speak the final line when the Windigo’s icy fingers wrapped around her neck. She kicked feebly, her boots finding no purchase as the creature lifted her into the air. Instinctively, Sweetie Belle grabbed hold of the creature’s arms to stop her neck from snapping and—
Wait. She could touch it!
The blackish-red substance that had coated Sweetie Belle’s fingers had now spread almost down to her elbows. Whatever this tainted substance was (Sweetie Belle was starting to get the impression that it wasn’t ink—she was clumsy, but she wasn’t get-ink-up-to-your-elbows clumsy), it was allowing her to make physical contact with the Windigo!
All thoughts of the banishing were gone. Sweetie Belle was now locked in a battle for her own survival, and suddenly she had a fighting chance. She reached forward, grabbed the Windigo on both sides of its head, and plunged her thumbs into its glowing blue eyes.
The Windigo screamed. Its hands clamped down harder on Sweetie Belle’s throat, but still she fought on. Deeper and deeper she drove into the creature’s skull—if it had one, anyway—as stars and darkness traced the edge of her vision. She felt her strength fading, and with the last of her energy she gave one final push.
It was enough.
The Windigo’s scream was cut short as its corporeal body collapsed in on itself. It twisted and buckled, turning back into the mist from which been birthed into this world and spreading out across the gymnasium floor. All around them, snow monsters shrieked and collapsed into harmless piles of snow. Sweetie Belle dropped to the ground, landing hard on the cold linoleum floor.
“Sweetie Belle!”
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo rushed to her aid. Sweetie Belle gasped greedily, sucking down the air her body so desperately craved. She even inhaled a little Windigo, which was gross, but right now she really didn’t care.
“That was awesome!” exclaimed Scootaloo, once she was certain that her friend wasn’t dead. “Why didn’t you tell us you could pop its head like a balloon?”
“I didn’t know,” rasped Sweetie Belle.
“Oh,” said Scootaloo. “Well, still, pretty cool.”
“Alright, girls,” said Apple Bloom. “If you can stand, Sweetie Belle, I think it’s time we get this book back through the portal before—”
“Before what?”
The voice came from where the south door used to be, only this time something much more horrifying than a snow monster or Windigo stepped through.
It was Rarity.
“A demon,” said Rarity. “You consorted with a demon.”
The Crusaders and Flash Sentry sat on the CHS stage, each wrapped in a thermal blanket. Before them stood their jury, eight girls whose expressions ranged from utter confusion to barely contained fury.
“Technically Windigos are evil spirits, not demons,” said Twilight Sparkle, earning herself a withering glare from Rarity. “Never mind, not the point.”
“You consort with demons all the time, how come you don’t get in trouble?”
Rarity balked. “I beg your pardon?” Sweetie Belle nodded towards Sunset Shimmer and the other Twilight Sparkle.
“Hang on—”
“We’re not—”
“And why are we in trouble, anyway!” continued Sweetie Belle indignantly. “You always tell me to clean up my own messes, and look! We beat the Windigo, we’re sending the book back to Equestria, the mess is cleaned!”
Rarity pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. “Sweetie Belle,” she hissed, “do you really not understand why what happened here today is not okay?”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. Rarity took a deep breath and began to scream.
“You stole a magical artifact, you lied about it, you summoned an evil spirit which caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage to the school—not to mention the rest of the city—and your flesh has turned black from all the dark magic you’ve been using! And you feel zero remorse for any of it!”
“Blackish-red,” corrected Sweetie Belle. Rarity gawked at her, her eye twitching in fury and bewilderment.
“Dude,” said Scootaloo, nudging her with her elbow. “Why didn’t you tell us you summoned the Windigo, that’s so—”
“And you!” said Rarity, focusing her ire on Scootaloo. “Get that idiotic box off your head!”
“But the Entity—”
“If there was a magical entity that ate you for knowing its name, do you really think a cardboard box would protect you?”
“But Sweetie Belle said—” Rarity’s furious glare cut Scootaloo off mid sentence. After a long moment of hesitation, Scootaloo tentatively removed the box from her head. She waited.
“Huh, I sort of thought the Entity would, like, tear a hole open in space and time, ripping me out of existence mid sent—”
She stopped, waited a few seconds, and continued. “—ence. Well, that was anticlimactic.”
“What about me?!” shouted Apple Bloom.
“What about you?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I killed someone! I murdered the drifter with my own hands, then buried him in the orchard! I should be in jail, or in an institution! Why isn’t anyone punishing me!”
Applejack shrugged. “He had it coming. Besides, if somebody had to get him, I’m glad it was one of my own kin.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Are you kidding me?!” exclaimed Apple Bloom.
“Don’t think you’re totally out of the woods, though,” cautioned Applejack. “Just wait till Granny finds out you’ve been poking through my, uh, unmentionables.”
“Let’s not forget about Flash!” said Rainbow Dash, pointing an accusatory finger.
“What about Flash?” asked Flash. “I saved them from snow monsters!”
“You should have called us first.”
“We tried, but—”
“You didn’t try very hard, did you?” said Rainbow, folding her arms.
“She’s right, Flash,” said Rarity. “That wasn’t very responsible of you.”
Flash hung his head dejectedly. “...I thought I did good.”
Twilight Sparkle stepped forward, holding out her arms in a calming gesture. “Alright, everyone, back in Equestria, when me and my friends would get into situations like this, we used to write down what we learned in our friendship journal. Why don’t we all talk about what this, um, adventure has taught us? Scootaloo, would you start?”
Scootaloo cleared her throat and looked down at the cardboard box in her hands. “I learned that you shouldn’t necessarily believe everything you read.”
“Good! Sweetie Belle?”
“I learned dark magic!”
Twilight’s smile faltered. “That’s not quite—”
Apple Bloom spoke next. “I learned that you can murder people as long as no one will miss them.”
“I don’t think—”
“I learned that when see something suspicious going on, you should ignore it and not ask questions,” said Flash.
The four of them looked at Twilight.
“Never mind,” she said. “This was a total, irredeemable disaster, and it would probably be for the best if none of us ever spoke of it again.”
On that, everyone could agree.
After a moment of silence, Sweetie Belle raised one of her blackish-red hands.
“So, are my hands just going to stay this color, or…?”