“Oh, right. That old guy said that King Avarice was just a skeleton.” Applejack gulped as she stared down the king. “I kind of forgot. I mean, I thought he was just telling us a legend or something and the king wasn’t actually going to be just a living skeleton.”
“Applejack, I’m pretty sure he can hear us talking.” Daylight Gleam said from beside her as beads of sweat rolled down her face.
“You cannot take my treasure. You cannot destroy my crystal. It all belongs to me!” That deep booming voice came out of the skeleton again even though the jaw never moved and he shouldn’t be able to speak at all like that to begin with.
The pressure and fearsome aura he gave off was stifling. But it wasn’t enough to scare Applejack off.
“King Avarice?” She took a step towards the throne, the three unicorns standing behind her.
A rumbling thunder like growl came from the skeleton as she approached, its eyes seeming to glow brighter.
“I’m going to ask you this once. And I’m going to ask it as nicely as possible.” Applejack stood up straight, not letting any sweat or trembling mar her features, trying to look as strong and in control as possible. “Let the ponies in the city go free. Undo your spell, stop enslaving them all, stop forcing them to work for you. Please.” She added extra emphasis on the end there, hoping against hope that she could reason with the skeleton king.
Applejack couldn’t tell but Daylight Gleam stared disbelievingly at her, wide eyes boring into the back of Applejack’s head.
King Avarice’s jaw opened and his bones shook, the rumbling growl growing louder. “Everything in the world belongs to me!” His horn glowed so bright it almost blinded Applejack and a shockwave of magical energy knocked her backwards into the unicorns.
Star Blaze caught her so they didn’t fall over but they had been pushed back almost outside the door.
“Uh, I don’t think his mind is all the way there anymore.” Daylight Gleam said.
“It is all my treasure forever! My subjects serve me forever!” King Avarice yelled and stepped off his throne.
“I think you might be right.” Applejack grimaced. “Time to do this the hard way. I’ll distract him, you destroy that crystal and then we get out of here.”
Daylight Gleam nodded as Applejack ran to her left, trying to catch the attention of King Avarice. Star Blaze and Sugar Spirit both stayed back, clearly neither of them being the fighting type. The brightness that substituted for King Avarice’s eyes followed the apple farmer.
“You slaves are mine as well!” His horn glowed and a set of silvery snapping jaws like a bear trap formed from his magic, connected to his horn by a thin thread of magic. With a roar the wide open jaws sped towards Applejack.
“Gah!” Applejack jumped out of the way of the magical jaws, instead they collided with a pile of gold behind her.
Daylight Gleam meanwhile was charging up a spell to destroy the magical crystal, her horn glowing fiercely as she put every last bit of energy she had into it.
“Hn?” King Avarice looked away from Applejack to Daylight Gleam, seeing the powerful magic building up in her. “Magic. Delicious magic!”
“Uh oh.” Applejack saw his focus leave her for Daylight. “Hey stupid! I’m right over here and I’m taking your gold!” She swatted some gold coins onto the ground to try and grab his attention but his glowing eye-holes were purely fixated on Daylight now.
“Give it to me!” The conjured up jaws disappeared and the silvery glow around King Avarice’s horn was replaced with a deep black. “Magic! Everything!”
Daylight suddenly felt a strong tug on her horn. “Wha-”
She couldn’t even finish her sentence as the magic was sucked out of her, flying towards King Avarice’s horn. It left her spent and she collapsed onto her knees, weakly trying to draw up more magic but getting nothing more than a few weak sparks.
“My… my magic… he took it.” She muttered, breath coming out faintly.
“Magic! More!” King Avarice yelled out as Daylight’s magic flowed into his horn. “All the magic in the world belongs to me!”
That’s really not good.
Applejack grimaced at King Avarice as his skull swung to face the other two unicorns in the room.
“More unicorn magic! Give me everything!”
Star Blaze and Sugar Spirit tried to fight back but the same strong tugging sensation quickly overcame them and a large cloud of glowing magic was pulled out of the both of them. They didn’t look as wiped out as Daylight Gleam but it was clearly uncomfortable.
“What do we do?!” Star Blaze yelled to his friends.
“Run!” Daylight said, trying to push herself to her hooves.
“Magic! Power!” King Avarice walked towards the unicorns struggling to get away from him. “My slaves cannot leave me!”
Applejack ran towards him, it was like he completely forgot about her existence. She was coming in from his right side where he could easily see her but his focus was purely on the unicorns and the magic they possessed. Applejack drew up a tremor in her hoof, normally she wouldn’t want to do something like this but a skeleton wasn’t really alive anymore in the first place soooo…
She brought her hoof up and struck him on the shoulder blade. Her Hoof of the Earth tremor instantly shattered it as a loud growl came out from King Avarice. The tremor further traveled to his ribs, spine, and right leg, blowing them all to pieces and reducing King Avarice to a broken mess on the ground as the bright light went out of his eyes.
Daylight and the others stared at Applejack in surprise, trying to catch their bearings.
“What was that?” Sugar Spirit asked.
“Nothing, now come on, let’s-”
Before Applejack could finish a low rumbling came from King Avarice’s bones again. That strange ethereal glow appeared around them, even the shattered ones and all the tiny pieces, and they started to float together.
“Uh oh.” Applejack said again as she nervously stepped back from the floating bones.
The bones started to mend themselves, all the little bits going back into place, the cracks disappearing and every last piece going right back to the way it should be until a perfectly normal looking unicorn skeleton was standing there again in front of Applejack. Well, you know, normal aside from the magical part.
The skull of King Avarice turned to face her, the brightness from his eyes like a flashlight beaming onto her face.
“Slaves do not strike their master.” King Avarice grumbled out.
Applejack tensed up and was about to jump forward to hit him again when a silver, shimmering, noose appeared around her neck.
She looked down at it and then back up at King Avarice. “Dang.”
“Raaaaghhhh!” King Avarice roared and threw her over his head with his magic, spinning her around like he was getting ready to throw a lasso. When that thought occurred to Applejack she felt vaguely insulted.
Dizzy, in pain, and struggling to breath from the noose Applejack was finally let go from his magic and thrown into a large pile of gold coins and jewels. She bounced off of it with a hard thud and fell to the ground, landing roughly on her side.
The unicorns saw her get hurt and not immediately get up and struggled to think of what they should do. Running was probably the best option even though escape was likely impossible in their state and with King Avarice right there. Fighting was totally out of the question, none of them were warriors and Daylight Gleam was the only one remotely competent in offensive spells. Plus, King Avarice had drained them of their magic and it still didn’t feel like it was coming back yet.
Daylight Gleam’s eyes widened in fear as she realized that what everypony in the city had been telling them was correct. They couldn’t do anything.
“It would’ve been nice if somepony in the city could of at least told us that he can drain our magic.” Star Blaze said in frustration, equally unsure of what to do but slowly backing up to the doorway.
King Avarice swung back to look at them, that low rumbling like distant thunder coming from him again. He said nothing but slowly started to walk on skeleton legs towards the three unicorns.
“You know I really wish,” Applejack said as she unsteadily got back to her hooves, catching King Avarice’s attention as he stopped approaching the unicorns and looked back at her. “That if I had to fight, it could be against a normal pony again for once. Green Field and now you, this is getting ridiculous.” She stared the skeleton down with her sharp emerald eyes.
“Strong slave. You will do well in the mines.” King Avarice said to her.
“Aint happening.” She replied back, cracking her neck.
“You belong to me! You cannot defy me! All of you belong to me!” King Avarice created another set of jaws that he shot towards Applejack.
Applejack put a tremor into the ground in the same moment she jumped back, causing the huge pile of gold, jewels, and who knew what else to fall over at King Avarice and his magic jaws.
The king roared as the avalanche of treasure collapsed onto him, smothering out his magic jaws and likely crushing him to pieces again.
Applejack let out a long ragged breath and walked around the pile towards the king’s throne and the pedestal with the large crystal hovering over it. Taking her hoof she put as much power into it as she could and slammed it into the crystal.
Green sparks erupted out of it and a high pitched shriek came from the crystal, causing Applejack to cover her ears. It shook for a few seconds but soon calmed down, looking completely unharmed.
“Ugh, of course. It just can’t be that simple can it?” Applejack groaned as she turned away from the crystal.
“I can destroy it.” Daylight Gleam said as she falteringly walked towards Applejack, still drained from having her magic forcibly taken out of her. “But it will take time for my magic to recharge. He took all of my magic but not permanently, it’ll come back for all of us.”
“Alright, we should get out of here for now then.” Applejack said as she grabbed Daylight’s foreleg and helpfully put it around her shoulder. “Come on you two, we’re leaving!” She shouted at Star Blaze and Sugar Spirit who nodded along and were already halfway out the door.
“YOU TRIED TO TAKE MY TREASURE!”
The knocked over pile exploded, raining its treasure onto the ground and the unfortunate ponies that were in the room.
As Applejack held up a hoof to block the stuff from hitting Daylight’s head she looked to the former clump of treasure to see King Avarice already standing up perfectly fine and staring at her again. Their chance to run was gone.
“Guards!” King Avarice shouted as his horn glowed and several portals appeared in thin air.
Most of them were around Applejack and Daylight but a few were even behind Star Blaze and Sugar Spirit. Out of them stepped or flew dozens of blue armored and dead-eyed guards that quickly surrounded Applejack and the others, waiting for their next orders from King Avarice.
Looking around at their situation Applejack scowled, eyes losing their anger and just turning to worry. She was tired and the whole right side of her body was still throbbing with pain. The unicorns were exhausted and couldn’t do anything. With a sigh, Applejack carefully removed Daylight’s hoof from her shoulder and let her sit on the floor. Sitting down herself she held up her hooves in surrender.