I just knew it was going to be a lovely morning for helping out my animal friends. Angel Bunny even offered to come along for my morning walk. I had to be very quiet on the way out so I wouldn’t wake up Cloud, Blossom, or Aurora. It would’ve been nice to spend the morning with them, but a couple of my animal friends told me there was something in the woods that had been bothering them and they wanted my help. I wasn’t quite sure what exactly was bothering them—it was one of those things that didn’t exactly translate well, but whatever it was I was sure I could take care of it. And if I couldn’t, I could always ask my friends to help.
There’s something special about the early morning, right after dawn. Seeing the whole world just starting to wake up at the start of a wonderful new day. There were barely any clouds in the sky, and it was warm enough to be pleasant with a nice cool breeze. The birds were already out and singing, and all the cute little forest critters were poking their heads out of their burrows to greet the sun.
I turned back to the chipmunks who’d come to find me. “Okay, could you please try to explain what happened one more time?”
The creatures immediately started chattering away. It was a bit tricky to follow. A lot of ponies don’t quite understand how communicating with animals works; they think my talent lets me hear them speaking perfectly normal, clear pony speech. It’s actually not quite that simple: I can understand what they’re saying, but they’re still animals. Any creature’s language can only communicate things they understand, and most animals have a very different way of looking at the world than ponies do.
“Dead-smell bad-smell fear-smell from tree-food-shelter-place!” Mr. Nugget answered.
“Strange-smell danger-sounds!” Ms. Pistachio added.
“Okay.” I frowned and thought it over for a moment. They wouldn’t be this agitated if it was just a normal predator, especially since it would be a lot more complicated for me to get involved if it was something like that. I normally tried not to interfere in natural processes. Not that I’d needed to worry about that too much, since being next to the Everfree Forest meant that most of the predators in the area weren’t exactly natural. Besides, after talking to Zecora I’d learned that a lot of Everfree’s predators played a role in their own ecosystem, like keeping the parasprite population in check.
Still, just like parasprites could cause a lot of ecological damage if they got out of the Everfree, any of the predators from the forest could hurt animals from outside of it. If something like a cragodile or a pack of timberwolves had started terrorizing my animal friends, I needed to put a stop to it before it got out of hoof. Especially since whatever they were talking about didn’t sound like anything I’d seen before. Maybe I should ask Zecora or Twilight?
No, not just yet. I didn’t know enough about what could be going on, and I wouldn’t want to bother them until I knew a bit more about what we were dealing with. After all, it could just be nothing.
I followed Nugget and Pistachio deeper into the woods. The Everfree wasn’t as dangerous as it was before we’d rediscovered the Tree of Harmony, but there was a big difference between being less dangerous and completely safe. I wasn’t too worried though. Most of the creatures in the Everfree knew me by now, and knew I wasn’t dangerous. A lot of ponies don’t understand the animals there: they think they’re just monsters. Some of them are very aggressive, but they’re not evil. Animals can’t be evil since they don’t have any choice but to follow their natural instincts. Only ponies or other sapients can be evil, because we have the capacity to know better. Or at least we should.
As we moved deeper into the forest, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising, and tension building in my wings. Something ... something was wrong. The chipmunks felt it too. “Bad-place danger-place scurry-flee hide-climb!” Both of them bolted for the trees before I could even try to calm them down. Though I suppose I couldn’t blame them, since running and hiding away from something scary was a natural reaction. It had taken me a long time to get brave enough to face my fears.
Whatever was out there, the best way to handle it would be to face it. Especially since most predators would instinctively respond to running away. If you act like prey, they’ll respond like you’re prey. By the same token, if you don’t act that way... “Hello?” I called out. “If you could please come out, I’d like to talk to you. If there’s anything wrong, I’d be more than happy to help you with it.”
I’d seen some very strange creatures in the Everfree before, but nothing quite like what came out of the trees to meet me. For a moment I thought it was a pony, maybe one of Twilight’s guards. It certainly looked like a pony in armor and carrying weapons, but Twilight’s guards weren’t supposed to start patrolling in the Everfree for another month.
Then the pony stepped forward, and I realized it was something else entirely. The armor was a completely different style from what Twilight used, and instead of the purple and gold uniforms Twilight’s guards used it was wearing black and gold. When the pony turned to face, instead of a face and eyes there was nothing but bare bone and empty sockets that burned with a sickly green light.
I gasped and stumbled back, tripping over a tree root and tumbling to the ground. I barely even noticed that, all my attention was on the thing, the monster in front me. This wasn’t a natural creature or a predator, it was an undead. Necromancy!
Not only was this skeleton dangerous on its own, but if it was here it probably wasn’t alone. Someone had to have animated it, and if it was in full armor and wearing a uniform it was probably part of a larger group. There might be a whole undead army hiding in the woods. Ponyville could be in danger! I had to warn everypony!
I tried to get back to my hooves, but they were shaking so much it was hard to stand. I could barely even breathe as my throat clenched up from raw terror. What was I supposed to do?! Were they going to kill me and add me to their undead horde? What if—
No!
I didn’t have time to be scared right now! Everyone needed me! I clenched my teeth and pushed through the fear, forcing myself to stand up. I made my wings unclench from my sides and tried to get out of there.
The tree cover was really thick, so my first instinct was to try and run for a clearing before flying for it. Then I saw more movement in the trees, and I could see other skeleton ponies starting to close in on me. I looked up and was about to risk clipping a wing while trying to fly through the canopy when two more ponies flying on skeletal bat-like wings landed in the trees above me.
Oh no ... I was surrounded. What could I do? A brave pony like Cloud or Rainbow Dash would probably try fighting them, but I couldn’t ... I didn’t know how to fight. Maybe I could try talking to them? Everything I read told me it was impossible to reason with things like undead, but if there was a necromancer controlling them I could talk to that pony, or whoever it actually was. Maybe I could even convince them not to do whatever they were going to do with their army of skeletons that were so dangerously close to Ponyville. Just because I couldn’t fight like Cloud or Rainbow didn’t mean I was helpless, or there was nothing I could do.
I did my best to stand up tall and look more confident and sure of myself than I felt. I turned to the closest skeleton, and hoped that whoever was controlling them would actually be able to hear what I said next. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I don’t mean you any harm. I just want to talk to you.”
The skeletons kept closing in around me, but none of them were pointing their spears at me. One of them stepped up to right in front of me, then gestured with a hoof and walking in that direction while the others settled into formation around me. After taking a couple steps the lead skeleton stopped, turned back around, and waved for me to follow.
Okay, so that had actually worked. Good. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but at least I would get a chance to talk to whoever was in charge. That was better than just being killed and turned into another undead minion, or whatever could’ve happened if I’d just tried to run for it or fight back.
I followed the skeletons as they lead me deeper into the forest. Eventually I realized where they had to be leading me: the old, ruined castle of the pony sisters. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise a necromancer hiding somewhere in the Everfree Forest would go there, but I was a bit surprised the Tree of Harmony wasn’t doing anything about it. I didn’t understand all the details about how the tree worked, but surely it wouldn’t approve of a necromancer setting up a base so close to it.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to see when we finally emerged into the clearing around the castle. Probably a tent and a couple more skeletons wandering around attending to their master, and no more than a few dozen at the most. Anything more than that couldn’t have stayed hidden in the forest so close to Ponyville without someone noticing them. Even if the ponies didn’t see them the other animals in the forest would’ve, but Nugget and Pistachio had been the first hint I’d heard of anything out of the ordinary.
Yet, somehow there were hundreds—no, thousands of undead in the clearing. Every last one of them was wearing that same black-and-gold armor, and they were all armed too. They were all standing in neat rows and blocks like some sort of big scary undead military parade. That wasn’t ... where could that many skeletons have come from? Even if there was a necromancer who could make that many of them rise from the grave overnight, where would all the equipment have come from? Their armor and weapons all looked brand new. I only knew a little bit about how armies worked from listening to Cloud when she talked about that kind of thing, but I did know these things took a lot of time to organize. An army this big and this well-equipped couldn’t just pop up out of nowhere.
Except ... it had.
As I looked over the huge horde of skeletons, I finally spotted something alive, and a familiar face at that. “Zecora! Do you know what’s going on?”
Zecora’s head snapped up when she heard my voice. There were several skeletons watching over her, just like the ones who were guarding me. “Hello my dear friend Fluttershy. There are undead here, but I don’t know why.”
“Oh.” I suppose I should’ve known she’d be just as confused as I was. I would’ve asked more questions, but the skeletons escorting me were still walking. They hadn’t done anything too threatening since they’d captured me, but I’d also been cooperating with them. I had a feeling they would stop being relatively nice kidnappers the instant I stopped going along with whatever it was they wanted me to do.
The skeletons lead me through the rest of their camp, and I saw a few other ponies they’d captured. Most of them were farmers like Golden Harvest, one of Derpy’s co-workers from the post office named Speedy Delivery, and Flitter and Cloudchaser, the weather pegasi in charge of keeping an eye on the weather near the Everfree. All of us lived or worked near the forest, or had just been passing by. I guess they were just capturing anyone who might see their huge undead army before it attacked Ponyville.
The skeletons eventually lead me towards a massive pavilion set up in the middle of the undead army. That could only be the headquarters of whatever necromancer was running this army of the dead. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the mare I found sitting at a desk tapping several elaborate crystal devices. “R-ruh-RARITY?!”
Rarity looked up at me, and I immediately realized something was wrong. Whoever this was might have looked like Rarity, but it wasn’t her. Her eyes weren’t as bright—quite the opposite, when I looked into them they seemed ... dull. Old. This Rarity might still look like the first friend I’d made in Ponyville, but one look in her eyes was all I needed to know that it wasn’t the same mare. Could it be a changeling? An army of the undead didn’t sound like something Chrysalis would do, and why pretend to be Rarity while leading it?
When the false Rarity looked up at me, there was no hint of recognition in her eyes. Just more proof that she wasn’t the mare I knew. “You wanted to speak to me?”
“Oh. Um...” I’d completely forgotten whatever it was I’d been planning to say once I saw that it was Rarity leading the army. Even if it wasn’t the real Rarity, it had still been enough of a surprise to throw me off track. “What’s ... what’s going on?”
Rarity’s eyes dropped down to the crystal devices on the table, and she used her magic to adjust a few of them. Her horn glowed blood red as she did, not the gentle blue of her usual magic. “We’re hunting a pair of dangerous criminals. Yourself and the others here have been interned for your own safety until the criminals have been taken into custody. No harm will come to any of you, I assure you, we are just temporarily removing as many bystanders as possible from the area prior to moving in for an arrest. We expect the criminals to violently resist before being taken into custody, and considering one of them is an alpha-plus unicorn while the other is an alicorn, the confrontation could be quite violent.”
I was about to ask who these criminals were when Rarity’s nostrils flared open, and her head snapped around. She looked utterly, completely focused on me for the first time in the conversation. “You’re bleeding.”
“What?” I glanced down at myself, and saw there was a small scrape on my knee. That must have happened when I tripped back in the forest. It wasn’t very bad at all, and considering everything else that had been going on it was no surprise that I hadn’t noticed it. “Oh.”
Rarity was still staring at the blood. “Ah,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “So that’s what it’s like. No wonder she warned me.”
“What?” I asked again. I had no idea what she was talking about, but this strange version of Rarity reacting so strongly to me bleeding was just a tiny bit was certainly worrying. In fact, the more time I spent around her the more uncomfortable I felt. My instincts were practically screaming at me to run away but … at the same time, she still looked like my friend.
Rarity cleared her throat and finally tore her eyes away from the scrape on my knee. “I do apologize for losing my composure. Would you please put a bandage on that?” A second later the medical supplies floated out of my saddlebags. I always kept a few things on me when I went out into the woods just in case I came across any animals that needed help. It was technically a veterinarian medical kit, but bandages and disinfectant are pretty much the same no matter what species they’re designed for.
I kept an eye on Rarity while I bandaged my leg. She seemed to be making a point of not looking at me, keeping her attention focused on the strange crystal devices on the table in front of her. It took me a while to put into words what it was about her that bothered me so much, why I kept wanting to run away. The way she moved was just too smooth, too perfect. No little twitches, slight subconscious movements or minor little swaying and shifting. It was elegant and efficient. Too efficient, to the point of being sterile. When I figured out why she could do that, it made it even harder not to want to run away.
Rarity wasn’t breathing.
She never blinked. There was still a whiff of her favorite perfume in the air, but there was an odd little undercurrent to the smell that just wasn’t quite right. Her mane and coat looked just a touch off, in a way that reminded me of when the last time my Rarity tried to give Applejack a makeover and used far too much product and magic on her mane. There were no little trembles on account of her heartbeat. That was why she had that perfect stillness and economy of motion that no living pony could ever achieve.
I suppose it shouldn’t have been so shocking. Of course an army of the dead would have an undead leading it as well. In an odd way, she was even scarier than any of the obvious skeleton soldiers had been. Like being something so close to living without quite being real made it that much scarier. Not to mention that she looked and sounded exactly like one of my oldest and dearest friends.
Once I was done covering up my scraped knee, she finally turned back to face me. “Thank you.” She smiled politely, and I realized she had a pair of sharp fangs along with the rest of her teeth.
Oh. Oh dear. Considering the way she’d been staring at my scraped knee earlier, she probably wasn’t the sort of vampire that only ate apples. Though I suppose the fact that she’d told me to cover it up instead of jumping on me and trying to drain my blood was a good sign. Unless she was just waiting to eat me later.
This strange vampire version of Rarity was staring at me again. “You’re afraid of me.”
Oh. Oh dear. I couldn’t help but remember what I’d been thinking about earlier with predators. That you can’t ever show fear or act like prey in front of a predator. She was a vampire ... and vampires are definitely predators that are inclined to think of ponies as prey. I couldn’t let her think I was frightened of her, even if—no, especially if I was. “I’m not afraid of you, I’m just a bit confused because I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“You are afraid,” Rarity insisted, though she kept her voice gentle while she said it. “I can hear how fast your heart is beating. I can smell the endorphins and the sweat on you. I can see it in the tension running down your spine and the stiffness your wings. The way your eyes keep darting around, like you’re trying to find the best way to get out.” She stepped around the table and put a hoof on my shoulder. It was cold and dead, not warm and comforting like the hoof of a living pony. “You don’t have to be afraid of us. We’re here to help, and to stop a pair of genocidal monsters before they have the chance to kill again.”
I tried to swallow my fear while shying away from the vampire’s touch. “Wh-who are they? Who are these murderers you’re trying to capture? What did they do?”
A new voice spoke up from behind me. “They burned an entire world because it displeased them. They came to it, saw that it was imperfect, and believed our home was less worthy of existence than the world they came from. They doubtless intended to wipe the slate clean and erase us from the pattern of existence entirely. Perhaps they hoped none would ever know of their crime, as happened for countless other worlds, but they made one mistake: we survived. Or at least, we found something close enough to survival to bring them to justice.”
I took a deep breath and turned around to face this new pony. Or ... something that might have been a pony once, a long time ago. Now it was a massive creature of bone, metal and green fire. It looked almost like a skeletal version of an alicorn, with a pair of massive dragon-like wings instead of the feathered ones of a living pony. Its eyes and the gaps between its skeletal ribs burned with sickly green light, and as it drew closer I realized that what looked like bare exposed bone was actually something else. Some sort of strange black metal.
I took a deep breath. “Um ... I’m Fluttershy. Who are you?” I felt silly, introducing myself to this massive undead thing like it was just a pony I was randomly meeting on the street, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.
The undead creature turned to face me. “I’m Rising Fire.”
“Oh.” I tried to get my racing heart back under control. “And, um, who are the killers you’re trying to capture?”
Rising Fire stared at me for a long moment, then spoke two of the last names I’d ever expected to hear. Or at least, one name that really surprised, and one that still surprised me, but not quite as much as the first one. “Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer.”