//------------------------------//
// Chapter 33: Don’t Clear Your Mind! 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: High School, High Stakes 
// by TheColtTrio 
//------------------------------//

As he jogged to where Bael and Holdfast were bound, Wits End muttered a prayer under his breath. “Oh sweet Celestia, please don’t let me die today. Tomorrow would be so much better.” Once he got closer, he found two things that put dents in the beginnings of his plan.
One, both of the villains appeared to be unconscious.
And two, they were bound together by the same magical energy that was protecting the Hydra.
“Why doesn’t anyone just use rope anymore?” he grumbled. “Good old-fashioned rope that can be cut with a swo-” He was cut off by a jolt of energy jumping his way, preventing him from getting any closer. “Really? Man, this lizard put a lot of thought into this plot.” With a sigh, Wits turned back to where his companions were standing guard. “Hey, how do you wake up someone you can’t touch?”
Light Patch tilted his head to the side but didn’t dare to take his eyes away from the pile of bones and vines. “Sound maybe?” Any further remarks were cut off as Just Duty launched himself from the bone pile towards the grey teenager. “Ask Purple Heart! I seem to suddenly be a little busy at the moment!”
“Keep at it Barbossa, you got him on the ropes now!” Purple Heart encouraged, picking up a skull as he walked the perimeter of the bone pile, eyeing the grappling pair. “Here, Wits! Throw this at it!” He tossed the skull at Wits. With a sidestep and a glare at the purple teen, Wits picked up the fallen skull and dusted it off.
“Alas, poor Yorick,” he recited. After a moment of thought, the mint-colored teen turned back to the bound villains. “I mean, worst case scenario is that it’s just funny…” Wits reeled back and pitched the skull at Bael’s head. Bone met flesh-covered bone with a crack, and the tossed skull rolled away with a large split across the forehead. Wits clapped his hands together loudly. “Wake up, Bael-er! We’re going to the zoo!”
The pint-sized ex-villain groaned, rolling his head to the side and cracked an eye open. “Wha? Whut happened?” His head rolled forward, both eyes opening. “I’m tied up. Why am I-” He looked up, eyes locking on the Hydra. “Oh. Fantastic.”
“Thanks for joining the party.” Wits jerked a thumb at the Hydra just as one of Sunset’s fireballs impacted fruitlessly against its shield. “That’s the cheeky blighter who’s been messing with this world. Somehow, you and Holdfast are being used as the Endor shield generator, and somehow I doubt you want us to set up explosive charges in and around your personage. So, got any ideas?”
Bael blinked up at Wits, processing what the teen had said. “Uuuuum,” he grunted intelligently. “Any idea how it’s siphoning the power from us? You could find a way to disrupt the connection. While explosives are a viable option, I’d rather not be kaploded.”
“Tried disrupting it,” Wits replied. “But hitting you with a skull just got us here.” He ignored Bael’s perplexed look and continued. “Detective-turned-midboss Just Duty’s acting as the power converter. We tried bringing him down, but…” He looked back at the fight in progress. “How’re you guys doing?” he called. “Good?”
“Not bad,” Purple Heart called back. “I think he’s getting angry though.” Bones were flying every which way while Light wrestled Just Duty back into the bone pile. Every time the suped-up officer managed to take a few steps out of the pile, either Light’s vines or a punch to the adult’s solar plexus from Purple forced the man back in.
“This whole blunt force trauma plan isn’t working,” Light Patch chimed in, using what little control he had left over the vines growing through the bone pile to constrict Just Duty. “I’m trying to find some other solution with the magic I got left.” He yelped as Just Duty used a kick to shotgun several bones at the teen.
“I will not stand for this impunity,” Just Duty droned, speaking for the first time since entering the cavern. Purple Heart’s eyes flashed.
“Then sit-” the teen leapt up, spreading arms and legs wide to maximize area of effect, “-DOWN!” He landed on Just Duty, casting bones and Light Patch into the air.
“I’m not Team Rocket!” Light Patch shouted at his compatriot as he flew through the air, only to slam back into the ground. He shakily pulled himself off the ground and stepped up to Purple Heart to slap him with a healing spell. “I really hope I have something really clever up my sleeves,” he said quietly. “That was my last healing spell.” He watched Just Duty pull himself back to his feet.
“Don’t get hit anymore, then!” Wits shouted. He turned back to Bael and shrugged. “So yeah, that’s where we are now. The defective detective isn’t cooperating with the disrupting, so we’re gonna have to do it over here. Can you, like, turn it off or something?”
Bael furrowed his brow in concentration. “Ehm...” he muttered. “No. Considering the fact that I was unconscious when this siphon was emplaced, I doubt merely knocking me unconscious again will do the trick of severing the link. Only way we’re disrupting this thing is if we get drained of energy. And unfortunately for us, I have quite the reserves. Only other option would be to pull a Doc Brown.”
Wits frowned. “I don’t like that plan. That plan sucks. I wanna replace that plan with a better plan.” He paused for a minute, hoping something better would come to him. Eventually, he sighed. “Fine. We’ll pull a Doc Brown.” The mint-colored teen turned back to where his comrades were fighting. “In about thirty seconds,” he yelled, “you’re gonna see some serious shit!” 
He turned back to Bael and cracked his knuckles. “Powers Combined: Diehard and Lightning Bolt.” The teen cleared his throat loudly. “CRAZY WITTY PLAYS WITH ELECTRICITY!” With that, Wits grabbed on to Bael’s shoulders. Wisps of energy that had been going to Just Duty suddenly reversed direction, flowing into the teen like atmospheric discharge to a lightning rod. Arcs of energy — both Bael’s green and Wits’ blue — jumped like ball lightning, and shone out from Wits’ eyes. “Unlimited... power!” he cried, firing off the energy in one continuous bolt into the roof of the cave.
“Do it!” Pinkie cheered.
The cavern rumbled as the continuous bolt of lightning crashed into the ceiling. The energy that once powered Just Duty was swiftly sapped from the old officer. The man attempted to heave Purple Heart off of him, but only accomplished a weak shove. The purple teen in question frowned, glancing down at his prisoner. Upon seeing the man’s current state, his eyes widened.
“He’s weakening!” Purple cried, looking at Light. “We just gotta keep him contained until Wits either brings down the cave or burns out.” Light Patch limped over, favoring his leg from his unneeded flight and peered down at the squished Just Duty.
“So what, you’re just gonna sit on him until something happens?” he asked drolly.
Purple Heart rolled his eyes. “Got any better ideas?” he retorted.
“No. Like I said, I’m out of magic other than some cantrips and whatever my doma-” Light balked. “Yes. I think I do,” he said, pulling his gloves off and kneeling down next to Just Duty. “I just hope this doesn’t make things worse,” he said before placing his hands on Just Duty’s shoulders and looking, causing the mind-snared officer to look him in the eyes. “Bless the good fortune of the Text Beast,” the teen said, prompting the sound of rolling dice to echo through the cavern. 
Seconds passed, and nothing happened. Then, Just Duty’s eyes lost their dilated look and focused on Light Patch before the sounds of battle drew his focus to the Hydra, and the girls battle with the creature. “That was the thing… in my head?” he hesitantly asked.
“That was mind controlling you? Yeah, that's it,” Light Patch said, motioning for Purple Heart to allow the freed Just Duty up.
“How’d you pull this one off?” Purple Heart asked, getting off the officer.
“One of my natural inclinations when it comes to D&D clerics,” Light Patch explained, helping Just Duty to his feet. “Dice are mean to me, so I find ways to try and be mean back. Like forcing them to roll my Will save again.”
“Ahuh.” 
“Mom always said Ogres and Oubliettes wouldn’t do anybody any good, and now I’m fighting for the world,” Just Duty simply replied.  “Okay, so I’m kind of tuning into to this fight a little late. So, uh, are we winning?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re losing…” Light Patch replied hesitantly before his face soured at the smell of burnt hair.
“But we aren’t exactly winning now, are we?” Wits said as he approached, a few errant arcs of lightning still jumping between staticky spikes of hair.
“Thought you were busy doing your best impression of lightning rod?” Purple Heart said to the just appeared Wits End, who was about to reply when Light Patch pulled something from his webbing of pouches and offered to his mint skinned friend.
“I thought you might like some burn ointment,” the grey skin teen replied, before Wits End slapped it out of his hands.
“Ah hah, ah hah. Jokes later. Finishing the fight now,” he snapped before looking at Just Duty. “You have a shield to break.”
“Your personality has gotten a little sparky there.” Purple Heart noted.
“It is quite the shocking change,” Light Patch quipped, unable to help himself.
“I’ve been electrocuted for thirty minutes!” Wits shouted at his friends, mumbling something that could have been “ish” before turning to look at Just Duty again. “You. Shield. Break. Now.” 
“I’d love to, but how?” Just Duty said, looking at the Hydra and how the attacks aimed at it stopped short.
“Get its attention,” Purple Heart suggested. The other three males looked at him skeptically.
“That’s your plan?” Wits deadpanned. “What, pray tell, will getting its attention do?”
“A brain can only keep track of so many things,” the purple teen defended. “So far, the Hydra is trying to use Bael’s energy to power a shield that, in my humble opinion, is taking more than a little amount of abuse.” The four of them looked at the Hydra and its shield, watching as the six girls flung attack after attack at the shimmering dome.
“But it has six heads,” Just Duty pointed out, “and so far, it only has two tasks it need worry about.”
“Well, if you really want to get nitpicky, it could also be keeping Holdfast and Bael asleep,” Purple sniffed. They looked at where the two ex-villains sat bound.
“Oh, he got knocked out again,” Wits hummed. “What a shame. What a dang shame.”
“Probably the billions and billions of volts going through him,” Light drawled.
“Fair enough,” Wits agreed. “Now, you,” he pointed at Just Duty. “Shield. Down. Quickfast. Chop chop.”
The old police officer sighed, rubbing at his head. “Very well,” he said. He walked several steps towards the Hydra, muttering under his breath all the while. “Just another week. That’s all I asked for. Just one more week before retirement, and then this all happens.” He cleared his throat and looked up at the Hydra, ignoring the cries of rage and pain coming from the girls as they did battle with the shield.
“Pardon me, sir!” Just Duty called. “I am afraid you’re trespassing on private property. I kindly request that you leave the premises post haste.” One of the heads broke its gaze with the girls and swung around to peer at Just Duty. Its violet fins flattened in anger and confusion.
“How did you break the control?” it hissed. “We had absolute power over you!” The other heads turned to stare at the officer, their concentration dipping long enough for the shield to lose some of its cohesion. Twilight spotted the minor flicker, and juiced up a spell to full capacity to punch through the wavering shield. The Hydra loomed over Just Duty, its heads weaving to and fro over the freed police officer.
“How did you do it?” Red Eyes demanded.
Just Duty shrugged. “Luck.”
“What?” the heads spat. “There’s no such thing as lu-” The Hydra gave a piercing shriek, its heads waving in pain. A hole in its flank billowed smoke. Six heads glared at the source of their misery and Twilight grinned.
“Got ya,” she smirked. “Fire everything!” A hail of attacks shot forward, impacting the Hydra’s fractured shield and shattering it completely. Six roars of pain echoed around the cavern as the Hydra flailed about in an attempt to escape. It backed into a corner, throwing up shield after shield to replace each one destroyed by one of the six girls’ attacks.
“Game set and match,” Purple Heart chuckled.
“WAIT!” the Hydra bellowed. The attacks ceased.
“Goddammit,” Purple swore.
“Oh for the love of...” Wits groaned. “You had ONE JOB. Just keep your big mouth SHUT!”
“Shhh!” Fluttershy hissed.
“All we wanted to do,” the Hydra panted, “was recreate the world we knew.”
“Well, you’re mucking up this one in the process,” Rainbow snapped. “I don’t like that trade off.”
“My world was set to end. The nine’s quest was finished. Soon they would return to their world. And the Creator would have no reason to continue our world,” Orange Spines stated.
“And no time to save anything,” Pink Scales continued.
“So you come to our world and twist it into your’s?” Sunset demanded.
“Our escape was made easy by unknowingly following through the path Bael had made,” Lavender Horn answered. “Our magic was limited, and we were afraid it would run out. We did not think we had much of an opportunity to find a new world.”
“And we thought, given the similarities, that this was a world created and then forgotten by the Creator,” Red Eye’s stated. “It was only after having access to the magic and thoughts of Bael that we realized our mistake, but to stop our plan or reverse it… It was too late by then.”
“So why not stop?” Just Duty asked, his hand hovering instinctively over his empty holster.
“We had no pattern to use to return the world to what it once had been,” Blue Tusks sadly stated. “So we figured better to restore our world to life, than devastate yours in a failed attempt to fix it.”
“That would be an excellent backup plan.” Several pairs of eyes turned to see Holdfast, standing and brushing dust from his clothes. “Inspired, really,” he drawled, “if not for the simple fact that your entire plot is based on a false premise that, honestly, at least one of the six of you morons should have considered.”
The Red Eyed head hissed. “And what would that be?”
Holdfast stared at Hydra, then shifted his gaze to the various teens waiting on his response. “Wonderful,” he muttered, “I’ve upgraded from dealing with 9 idiots to dealing with 16.” He sighed heavily as he walked closer. “Whether the mismatched monstrocity ever planned to destroy our world or not, he tied the very fabric of our existence to it. If our world had been eliminated, neither you,” he pointed his finger at each of the Hydra’s heads in turn, then back towards Bael, “nor he would be standing here at all.”
“Wow, professor,” Wits droned. “It almost sounds like you care.”
“Of course I care.” Holdfast sneered at the mint-colored teen. “Why destroy a perfectly good world when you can exploit them?”
“Aaaaand there it is...”
With a growl, the Orange Spined head leaned in towards Holdfast. “And how would you know this?”
“I’ve been trapped, incorporeal, with Discord for months,” the villain replied. “Stuck in a parallel dimension of his own creation where time moves exactly as fast or as slow as he ordains.” He waited in silence for a moment to make sure his words sunk in. “Do you know how much he monologues? It seems since his ‘reformation’, he missed having a captive audience to share his plans with.” Holdfast spat the word ‘reformation’, as if using that term to refer to Discord left a sour taste in his mouth. “I’m not sure whether he sees me as a captive or a therapist.”
“I’ll try to feel sorry for you,” Wits muttered.
“And I’ll try to care about what you think of me,” Holdfast replied, shooting the teen a glare over his shoulder. “How do you feel that will work out?”
In response, Wits turned to the closest Hydra head. “If I let you rebuild Roads Crossed in the forest, will you eat him?”
“Wits!” Sunset shouted.
“What? It’s a hypothetical question!” Wits winked unsubtly towards the Hydra.
The Lavender Horned head pondered his question. “Well…”
“Do not give him the courtesy of an answer!” the Blue Tusked head hissed.
The horned head looked back at the teen. “He said it was hypothetical…”
“How bout just nibbling the evil out of hi-” Light Patch began before Just Duty smacked him upside the back of the head.
“Let the evil ghost possessed teacher finish saving my world. I’m one week from retirement, and would prefer to spend said retirement in a world with indoor plumbing,” the policeman replied before motioning for Holdfast to continue.
“My point,” Holdfast said, “is that if anypony would know if our world is still intact, it’s Discord. And if anypony would know what Discord knows, it’s me.”
“You can say anybod-” Wits was cut off by Holdfast holding up a single finger.
“Don’t. Start.” He turned his attention back to the Hydra, which was looking amongst itself as it processed this new information. “So, as I understand it, you have two options. Either you return to our world and do… whatever you want, as I could not care less at this point. Or, you can continue to live down here and leave the rest of this world alone, and its surface inhabitants will likely do the same.”
“Or,” the Red Eyed head said, “we could continue with our plan to-”
“Don’t. Start.” Holdfast repeated. “Believe me, you will not succeed. I have dealt with these troublemakers enough to know that anything you think you’ll win in this is not worth it.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Is that your way of saying you’re a good guy now?”
“All I’m saying,” Holdfast replied, “is not to be so obvious that you draw the attention of would-be heroes with far too much time on their hands. The headache is insufferable.”
The Hydra appeared to be pondering the villain’s words. As it did, Holdfast returned to where Just Duty, Bael, and the rest of the ‘heroes’ were gathered. “Do you think you convinced them?” Wits asked.
“Convinced?” Holdfast raised an eyebrow. “I thought I was buying you lot time to club them all in the back of the heads. Isn’t that what you do with your… what’s the word? ‘Big bads’?”
Wits blinked. “Are you freakin’ serious.”
“I figure we have about thirty seconds until the Hydra decides to eliminate us all right here,” Holdfast continued. “I do hope you’ve come up with a suitable plan by then.”
“Suitable plan?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Dude, you WERE the suitable plan!”
Holdfast went silent for several seconds as he looked at each of the teens in turn. Finally, he turned his focus to his fellow villains. “It appears that once again, I have overestimated the mental capacity of our antagonists.”
“Oi,” Purple Heart growled. “Let’s get clear with the terminology here. YOU lot are the antagonists. WE’re the protagonists.”
“Hey, I’m just the mind controled schlub who got caught up in the machinations of the actual antagonist and the protagonist,” Just Duty objected before covering his face and muttering ‘one week’ under his breath a couple of times. “Okay, focus. The three of us have some kind of magical power or connection. How do we use that if it...” he frowned for a moment, “they don’t decide to go peacefully?”
“Use our mana batteries to do more smashing?” Light Patch offered, earning a facepalm from Sunset.
“NO SMASHING!” Sunset yelled at the grey teen.
“We’ve got two goals here,” Twilight said cutting Light Patch off before he could offer any more dumb ideas. “Put our world back to the way it was before, and stop the Hydra. Do you think we could send it back to-”
“SCATTER!” Applejack barreled through the group, knocking everyone out of the way of a column of flame that burst their way. “Why am I the only one watchin’ the big lizard here?”
The Hydra’s tusked head blew smoke from its mouth. “We have decided…”
“You cannot be trusted,” the horned head finished. A shimmering shield formed around the Hydra as it faced down the group. “And are unnecessary.”
Wits groaned as he picked himself up. “They didn’t choose tea and cake,” he muttered.
“This is starting to get reaaally old,” Purple Heart snarled, cracking his neck as he faced the Hydra.
“Q'all couldn’t have at least kept one eye on the big lizard?” Applejack snapped.
“We were preoccupied,” Rarity retorted.
“Enough! We have bigger problems!” Twilight interrupted, pointing at the Hydra. A beam lanced out from one of the heads, scything across the wall above the group.
“Wuh woh,” Rainbow muttered.