//------------------------------// // Flutter Valley // Story: Spike's Doom and/or Destiny // by terrycloth //------------------------------// “Utter Flutter!” came the cry of several ponies in unison as they rapidly fluttered their wings, and a fierce gust of wind cleared away the smoke from a small patch of the burned forest, revealing three ponies and a dragon coughing and squinting in the morning sun. “Hey, look at that,” Moondancer said. “We’re alive.” She tried to take a deep breath, but fell into a coughing fit instead, puffs of ugly gray smoke emerging from her mouth and nose. “Chalk another one up for implausible magical healing.” “How did you know the antidote candies would work against smoke?” Spike asked. Bon Bon shrugged. “How do you think smoke inhalation kills you? Magic?” “It superheats your lungs and burns you to death from the inside,” Derpy said. “But we were all protected from fire, so yay! No fatalities this time!” She looked up at the trio of butterfly-winged ponies staring down at them. “And we found the flutterponies!” “Are you the ones who set our forest on fire?” the flutterpony in the middle asked, peering at them suspiciously. “No,” Moondancer said quickly. “It was the soldiers,” Bon Bon added. The flutterpony smiled. “Then thank the goddess you survived! Welcome to Flutter Valley. Come with us, and we’ll take you to the village!” === The village wasn’t far, as those things went – maybe an hour’s trot, since they couldn’t all fly. After realizing how slowly they were moving over the uneven ground, two of the flutterponies rushed on ahead. The slowest to react was left to guide them in, a green-furred, white-maned flutterpony apparently named ‘Lilypad’. “So this is the flutterpony village where we can find the four magic rings, right?” Spike asked. Lilypad tilted her head. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I mostly just water the lilies.” “So they drafted everypony for weatherwork?” Derpy asked. “I hate it when they do that. They never ask me and I have to sit home and watch and it’s just completely embarrassing.” “We don’t really work the weather like pegasi would, but it takes a team to Utter Flutter, so…” Lilypad giggled. “Yeah, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. We should be finished soon, though. Many wings makes light work!” “We really need to find those rings, though,” Spike said. “Who knows how long it’ll take for the soldiers to follow us? We need to be gone or they’ll kill everypony looking for us.” “They’ll probably kill everypony anyway,” Bon Bon said. “That seems to be their thing.” Lilypad frowned. “Kill everypony?” “We should have until tomorrow morning,” Moondancer said. “They have to enter the forest at night, then wait until morning for it to transfer back here. That’s assuming that the damage we did to the forest didn’t break the portal completely.” Lilypad whirled on them. “You said you didn’t burn down the forest!” “Um…” Spike said. “It caught fire during a fight,” Bon Bon explained. “The soldiers were using a lot of lightning spells.” “Oh,” Lilypad said. “Well… okay then. But I’ve never heard of any magic rings. You probably want to talk to the queen.” She led them on for a few more minutes, heading towards a large, unburned stand of trees, towering over the smoking remains of the forest. “And don’t worry about the soldiers finding you. No one finds our city without our help.” “It’s hidden in those trees, isn’t it,” Bon Bon said. Lilypad nodded eagerly. “Yep! Completely invisible. How’d you guess?” === From inside, the city wasn’t invisible. The platforms were blocked off from the sky by the canopy, and camouflaged from underneath, but once you flew up to them they were painted in all sorts of bright colors and full of flowers, shiny crystals, and flutterponies going about their daily business. At least, that’s what Derpy told them when she came back down after realizing they had no way to follow. “I guess you can lift us up one at a time?” Spike suggested. “No no, there’s a ladder!” Lilypad called down from above, giggling at them. “Just a minute!” After a few seconds a rope ladder unrolled from the edge of one of the platforms. Bon Bon wasted no time clambering up it like it was a perfectly normal thing for a pony to be able to do, and Spike didn’t have much trouble with it either, although it kept twisting and swinging back and forth and there wasn’t anything stable nearby to brace against. So he was only halfway up when he realized that Moondancer wasn’t following. She was still at the base of the ladder. Upside down. With the ropes twisted around one of her hind legs, which was supporting all her weight, and her neck, which thankfully had some slack. “Help?” Derpy and Spike helped untangle her, and then Derpy gave her a quick lift up to the platform, which was indeed quite colorfully decorated. Spike and Moondancer took some time to gawp at the crystals and flowers respectively, and when they looked up Derpy was gone. “We should go find her,” Spike said. “Bon Bon too.” “And the queen, apparently,” Moondancer added. She stopped a random passing flutterpony. “Excuse me, do you know where we could find the queen?” “In the palace of course!” the flutterpony replied, with a grin. “Far end of the city – just go… thataway.” The next platform ‘thataway’ was twenty feet above the one they were on, connected by another ladder. “Nope,” Moondancer said, looking it over. “Um…” Spike said. “I can find Derpy and bring her back?” Moondancer looked down at him, then up at the ladder. “I have a better idea.” Which was how Spike found himself letting Moondancer ride him, for a change. === Thankfully, the way to the palace wasn’t all ladders. They caught up with Bon Bon and Derpy on a central platform connected to half a dozen others by fragile-looking rope bridges instead. The bridges were rickety, unstable, and obviously seldom-used, but they had planks woven in to make a floor, at least, so Moondancer could navigate them. They spent some time at the market, looking over the flutterponies’ selection of weapons and armor for sale, none of which were especially tempting except for a sturdy-looking crystal scepter that was both enchanted to improve magic, and useable as a bludgeon with some magic enhancing its blows. It clashed horribly with Moondancer’s Battle Saddle – lime green crystal set in pale wood did not go well with red leather straps – but it was a far better fit for her combat style than the frost staff she’d picked up in Moriaz to replace her broken scythe, since the staff only enhanced cold damage spells, of which she knew exactly zero. “So, we found the inn,” Bon Bon said. “We should all tag the crystal, but do we need to take a rest? It’s morning, so we’d be done before nightfall – we have the time.” “Let’s just get this over with,” Moondancer said. “The queen’s supposed to be ‘thataway’.” “In the big crystal palace?” Derpy asked, squinting her un-patched eye in that direction. “Sounds like a good place to find a queen to me,” Bon Bon said. “I just hope she actually knows about these rings.” === “Welcome! Welcome honored heroes!” said Queen Rosedust, as the four of them entered her throne room. “It’s been nearly an age since we last saw a group of young heroes come searching for our rings. Please, avail yourselves of everything our humble city has to offer – your journey here must have been long and harrowing, and I would like nothing more than to hear you tell your tale at the grand feast we’ll prepare in your honor!” “We’d really rather just get the rings first,” Moondancer said. “We’re being chased, and you’re probably safer if we’re not here.” The queen laughed. “Nonsense! Our realm is warded all about by the dark of night, and only the Heroes of Destiny have ever found it.” “My queen!” said a flutterpony, flying in through the door and ignoring the herald who was about to announce him. “We’ve cleared away the last of the smoke, and it revealed a massive airship, hovering over the forest! They must have floated into our realm during the night!” “Troubling,” the queen said. “But still nothing to worry about. Our city is hidden so cleverly, no enemy has ever found it.” The messenger bowed, and left… only to be replaced by another, seconds later. “My queen! The airship appears to be heading directly for the city! They must have somehow guessed our location!” “Somehow,” Bon Bon muttered. The queen frowned. “We are not without our defenses –” There was the familiar roar of cannon fire from outside the palace, and the all-too familiar sound of explosions and screams, as the bombardment washed over the city. A one-winged flutterpony staggered into the throne room, cradling her forelimb. The herald started to announce her but was cut off by her urgent message: “My queen! Our defenses have been destroyed by the enemy cannons!” “The rings?” Moondancer asked. “Please?” “Our people will not go down without a fight!” the queen insisted fluttering up into the air. “They will never set foot in my palace!” There was a high-pitched wail from outside the doors, and they shattered into glittering dust. Slowly, contemptuously, the enemy general walked into the room, her hooves clopping loudly on the crystal floors. Behind her were a hundred troops, of all pony tribes and species and (apparently) varieties of giant fruit. None of the queen’s soldiers even attempted to put up a fight, instead forming a wall to protect their leader. The herald picked himself up, shook off the glittering gravel, and started to announce: “Commander of the sixth army of the north, Envoy of he who must not be named, Conqueror of Flutter Valley, may I present General --” “Surrender the Heroes!” the general proclaimed, in her low-pitched, distorted voice. The heroes had already scampered out the back way, at this point, guided by one of Rosedust’s maids. “The rings are in the basement,” she whispered to them. “Down these stairs! Be quick, heroes!” The staircase spiraled down into darkness, with solid wood replacing the blindingly bright crystal of the palace and leaving them all stumbling in the dark and mostly feeling their way down. Somehow, nopony broke a leg, and they emerged into what looked like an ordinary wine cellar, with walls of stone and sturdy wooden shelves. “I don’t see any rings,” Spike said. “Does anyone have a light? I’m still half-blind… There was this part of the roof that was reflecting the sun right into my eyes.” Moondancer lit up her horn, but all it seemed to do was cast more shadows. Derpy reached up and switched her eyepatch to her other eye. “Aha!” she said, and led them around the edge of one of the shelves, where a gap between it and the wall was hidden in shadow. And there, at last, were the magic rings – color coded red, blue, green, and yellow, on illuminated pedestals with plaques explaining their function. “One for each of us,” Spike said. “I think I remember this color coding – blue was wizard, red was warrior…” “I’ll take the red ring,” Bon Bon said. “It increases melee damage, and that’s mostly what I do.” “Um… green was thief?” Spike continued. “Right?” “Ooh, the green one is perfect!” Derpy said, reading its plaque. “It makes me faster! So I can summon more muffins for you all!” Moondancer levitated the yellow ring over to Spike. “Yellow ring increases toughness… and critical hits for some reason, but toughness sounds like what you need.” “Yeah, okay, nevermind,” Spike said, putting on the yellow ring, which fit snugly onto one of his foreclaws. “I was probably remembering them wrong anyway.” “Blue is definitely for wizards,” Moondancer said, slipping the blue ring over her horn. “It’s more spell power.” Derpy tried following suit, but the ring just slipped off her hornless forehead and clattered to the ground. “Here, let me,” Bon Bon said, picking it up. “Hold still.” Derpy blinked. “Still for wha – aargh!” Bon Bon shoved the ring into the cut she’d sliced in Derpy’s ear. “Now eat a muffin to heal it over.” “My ear! My poor ear!” Derpy whimpered, circling in place to try to see it and forcing Bon Bon to circle around her to keep holding the ring in place. “It hurts!” “So eat a muffin!” Bon Bon said. Derpy stopped short, almost making Bon Bon trip over her own feet as she had to stop as well. “Oh, good idea.” Sure enough, the muffin healed the cut around the ring, leaving it firmly stuck in place. “Does it work if you wear it like that?” Spike asked. “Umm…” Derpy said, swooping around to see if she felt any faster. “I can’t really tell. Is yours working?” Spike stared at his ring for a while. “Yeah, huh. I bet if we could see our own stats we’d see the bonus.” “It doesn’t matter,” Bon Bon said, balancing her knife on a hoof and offering it handle-first towards Derpy. “We really just wanted them as a symbol that we’re the heroes.” Derpy reached out her mouth for the knife, only for Bon Bon to snatch it away at the last second, and offer it to Spike instead. “Your ear?” Spike asked, taking it. At her nod, he carefully sliced into her ear, ignoring her sudden hiss. “Wow,” Bon Bon said, as she held her own ring in place and waited for Derpy to summon another muffin. “That really does hurt.” === The heroes took the escape tunnel located conveniently behind the rings’ chamber. The exit door was stuck, but they managed to smash it open, and emerged into what probably would have been a secluded grove if they hadn’t just burned down the entire forest. Instead, they found themselves among fallen, charred logs, completely exposed to view. The airship hovered just overhead, the roar from its lift rotors deafening. A large dragon with a very fancy hat looked down at them over the ship’s railing, and said something that they couldn’t make out. Spike shouted something back up at him that not even the ponies standing right next to him could make out. The dragon soldier frowned, and drew his sword, pointing it at them, while shouting something else. Spike drew his own sword, and made a ‘come on’ motion with his shield hand. The other dragon tilted his head, then turned to shout something at the troops standing behind him. Eight of them – mostly dragons and bananas – dropped into place around the party, surrounding them. The heroes were badly outnumbered, but the soldiers were badly outclassed, and after a short fight the last banana fell to the ground, clutching at the fatal slit in its peel. Immediately, without even a pause to loot, another squad dropped down to replace them. And another, after them. And another. And another. At some point, the heroes lost count of how many waves they’d fought off. A few waves later, Moondancer tried to surrender, and got stabbed in the chest for her trouble. Derpy swooped down to resurrect her, but Bon Bon stopped her with a hoof and shook her head, then turned to the enemies and dropped her weapon, letting them skewer her on their spears. Derpy cringed, and closed her eyes as they came at her, shuddering and twitching as a soldier’s spear found her throat. She thrashed around for a bit before running out of strength and lying still. Spike didn’t notice any of this, unable to hear what was going on over the noise from above and with poor peripheral vision from his helmet. Once he was the last, however, the soldiers were able to hold him at bay with their longer weapons while the gunners and wizards pummeled him with cannon and lightning until, eventually, he was too battered and bruised to stand. The soldiers gathered up the heroes’ bodies, and all of them were hauled up onto the airship.