“I can’t believe we’re really just going to stay here like this,” murmured Slip ‘n’ Slide incredulously.
“We heard you the first ten times, Slip,” sighed Hopscotch, shifting her weight from her right legs to her left nervously.
“Seriously,” chimed in Funshine. “You keep saying that, but it’s not like you’re coming up with any better ideas.”
“Here’s a better idea for you: we run away!” The last two words were uttered as a strangled shout, his voice only barely kept at normal volume. Even then, it was still enough to cause several of the ponies around them to glance over at him, interrupting their own conversations to send looks ranging from disapproving to uncomfortable to sympathetic at him. But Slip ‘n’ Slide barely noticed, his attention firmly concentrated on the ponies that he’d grown so close to in the wake of what had happened to Vanhoover. “Seriously, we pick a direction and start galloping and don’t look back! Somepony please explain to me why we aren’t doing that?!”
“What good would it do?” asked Granola Bar morosely, though it might have been exhaustion in her voice instead; they were all aware that she hadn’t slept since they’d found out what had happened to Turbo. “We could run until we couldn’t move anymore, and the ghouls would still catch us. They don’t get tired, remember?”
“Besides,” added Funshine. “Sonata said that Lex is going to waste them all, and I don’t wanna miss that.” He sat back on his haunches, clopping his forehooves together sharply. “It’s about time they all got what was coming to them, especially after what they did to Turb-” He didn’t get a chance to finish as Granola Bar cuffed him on the shoulder, shooting him an angry look before nodding toward where Garden Gate was sitting.
Funshine winced, but Garden didn’t acknowledge his faux paus. Of course, that wasn’t unusual; ever since Lex had told them what happened, Garden had become withdrawn almost to the point of catatonia. She hadn’t said one word to anypony, and had barely moved without being prodded to do so. Even now, she simply stared forward blankly, looking at the empty space where Lex and Sonata had been a few minutes ago.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the group then, but it only lasted for a moment before Slip ‘n’ Slide spoke up again, looking at Funshine. “Lex,” he said slowly, as though his brother were a very young child, “is crazy. Whatever dark magic he’s got has obviously driven him berserk. He’s been looking for fights ever since we met him, and now he’s finally found one he can’t win, and we’re all going to pay the price for it.”
“But he is really strong,” protested Hopscotch. “You remember how easily he defeated all of us, right? Plus all that stuff that newsmare was saying he’d done before we met him. And don’t forget how he made all that food yesterday. Plus, I think Sonata’s going to fight with him. I bet she’s really incredible too.” The hope in her voice bordered on desperation, wanting to believe that a miracle was possible.
But Slip 'n' Slide had no such hope. “They’re just two ponies against all the ghouls. Literally, she said all of them were coming here! That has to be, what, a hundred of them? Two hundred? Three? And the two of them are going to defeat them all, completely on their own, without letting any get past them and reach us?” He paused to let that sink in. “I’m telling you, they’re both going to get eaten, and then we are too.”
“It would serve them right for stealing from my mom’s bank,” snorted Piggy. His face was still twisted in the same scowl he had been wearing for over twenty-four hours, ever since he’d heard about how – and more importantly, why – Lex was sending a team into Vanhoover. “Those awful temptresses too, they got what they deserved for embarrassing me like that and trying to take what didn’t belong to them. Them and those idiot sailors-”
“-and Turbo?” finished Hopscotch, her voice taking on a dangerous tone as she glared at the fat little earth stallion. She wasn’t alone either, with Funshine and Slip ‘n’ Slide giving him dark looks. Granola Bar didn’t, but she pointedly turned her back on him, moving to sit closer to Garden Gate, as though worried about how the unresponsive mare would react to hearing their deceased companion’s name. But the cursed mare continued to gaze straight ahead emptily. “Is that what you were going to say?” continued Hopscotch. “That Turbo got what he deserved too?”
Blanching, Piggy looked around nervously, twisting his head around to glance at everyone else as a look of worry broke through his sulking. Folding his ears back, he lowered his head and shuffled a hoof listlessly. “…those loose mares probably tricked him,” he muttered uncomfortably, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’m sure he didn’t know what their plan was.” It was a grudging admission, which was the only kind he knew how to give, and even then only because everypony was suddenly picking on him. If my mom was here, she wouldn’t let any of you talk to me like that! And she wouldn’t have let that awful unicorn even think about taking our money either!
Despite the resentfulness of his capitulation being obvious, the others turned away from him, mollified. “Anyway,” started Slip ‘n’ Slide, only to trail off. For some reason Piggy’s outburst had undercut his anxiety, replacing it with a sense of bitter fatalism. “…nevermind. It’s probably too late now anyway.”
“They’re coming back,” announced Granola Bar suddenly, sitting up straighter as she peered ahead.
“Huh?” blinked Funshine. “Who?”
“Lex and Sonata. They’re coming back.”
“I’m just saying, I think a really big cage would be better.” Sonata’s voice was light and airy as she spoke, as though she were discussing her favorite flavor of ice cream. “Or maybe, like, a super-huge fortress with giant walls and stuff. And a big moat, filled with those fish that eat people.”
“The ghouls would throw themselves against an obvious fortification, Sonata,” replied Lex levelly, holding the scroll in his telekinesis. “They might be insane, and I suspect that a consequence of that is that their sense of self-preservation has atrophied to virtually nothing, but they’re not stupid. The sight of a defensive structure large enough to hold a great number of ponies would inevitably invite a siege on their part. I want them to take one look at this and completely lose interest.”
“Something boring then,” she grinned, determined to be helpful again. “In that case, how about a croquet course? It’s totes a more-boring version of mini-golf. Or maybe cakes that don’t have any frosting on them. It doesn’t get any boring-er than that!”
“…just tell everypony what’s about to happen,” sighed Lex.
“Roger!” Not noticing his lack of enthusiasm, Sonata saluted and trotted toward her box, still sitting right where she’d left it.
But this time, Lex didn’t go with her. Instead, he hung back waited until she’d started to address the crowd before he turned his attention to the scroll in front of him, more specifically to the tenth of the eleven spells it contained. If the theory that Sonata had given him was correct, and he managed to successfully cast this spell by forcing energy through the scroll, then in theory the problem of keeping the ghouls away from everypony would be taken care of, leaving him free to devote the bulk of his efforts to annihilating the undead ponies without needing to keep them at bay.
Ironically, this spell wasn’t even designed to be defensive in nature. There was a defensive spell on the scroll – the very first one, in fact – but it wasn’t suitable for the current circumstances. It relied on enchanting a place or a thing so that it created a powerful sense of antipathy in a particular type of creature, driving them away from it. But that enchantment was mind-affecting in nature, and as he’d told Sonata, the undead had no vulnerability to such things. They wouldn’t even have noticed the magical aversion created by the spell, going right through it to get to everypony.
But the same couldn’t be said for this spell. Although it didn’t actually create any protective elements, it was designed to cover a large area in a powerful illusion. With it, he could effectively make whatever he wanted appear, or disappear, from the affected area, altering sight and sound to his whim. Of course, direct interaction would potentially reveal that something was amiss – a pony made to look like a tree would still feel like a pony if touched – but that was why Lex wanted to cover the place in an illusion that would make the ghouls lose interest immediately.
But that’s purely academic if this doesn’t work, frowned Lex as he raised the scroll in front of him. In theory there was no real danger here; despite the brief amount of time he’d had to review the writing on the parchment, the spell appeared to have safeguards in place designed to prevent the magic from running wild if something went wrong. In the event that the casting was disrupted, it should simply short-circuit and fail to take effect. That would waste the energy involved, but presuming that didn’t completely debilitate him, he would be able to try again since the writing would remain.
But over the course of his life Lex had learned, repeatedly, that theories quite often failed to live up to reality. In this case, he was using the scroll in a way it hadn’t been originally designed for. It was entirely possible that something would go wrong, some unforeseen complication would occur, and that the entire process would produce unintended consequences. But even if it didn’t, a failure would mean that he’d still have to start the casting process all over again, and this spell wasn’t one that could be invoked quickly, not to mention that he’d have pushed himself- Enough! Forcing his anxieties from his mind, Lex let out a slow breath and waited for Sonata to finish informing everypony as to what he was doing and what they should do. Fortunately, it didn’t take her very long to explain; the instructions consisted of letting them know that he was using an illusion, and that they needed to remain within the area of its effect in order for the ghouls not to notice them.
Even as he took a breath and began to prepare to start reading, Lex was already thinking ahead. He’s chosen to do this first not only because safeguarding everypony else came first, but because he wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to endure channeling more energy through himself, and this was the lengthiest of his last-minute preparations. Ergo, it had to be undertaken before he’d depleted his stamina any further. After this, he’d need to balance how much further he could push himself via enhancing his magic items and how much he’d need to conserve his strength for the actual battle. Assuming that this left him with any stamina at all…
Refusing to get drawn into that line of thought again, Lex forced all extraneous thoughts from his mind as he began to read.
Fencer watched silently as Lex started casting his spell.
She idly ran her tongue over the small knife in her mouth, feeling the sharp edge of the blade. Her jaw ached from carrying it there for so long, having managed to swipe it when nopony was looking, but she bore the discomfort silently. She knew that her prolonged silence was worrying her friends, but the thought was distant, as though she was thinking about the weather on the other side of Equestria. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. Not comfort. Not her friends. Not surviving the night. Nothing.
All that mattered was that it was almost time to take revenge for Turbo’s death.