“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WERE THAT STUPID!” roared Lex.
Lying on the floor of her tent, it was all River could do to keep herself from shaking. The last time Lex had been this angry at her had preceded a curse that had utterly destroyed her quality of life. “I didn’t think-”
“I KNOW YOU DIDN’T THINK!” he screamed. “THAT’S PATHETICALLY OBVIOUS!” The roiling black cloud that was his body moved closer to her then, causing River to shrink back in fear. “Not only did you endanger yourself,” he hissed, his voice no less furious for its reduced volume, “to say nothing of the ponies you brought with you, but you put everypony else’s safety at risk as well! Did you not realize that each and every ghoul is a disease vector which could conceivably create a new plague?! That even a single bite can turn ponies into more of them, potentially starting a cascade like the one that destroyed this city?! Did you not realize that?!”
River felt her stomach twist at that, glancing down at her hoof. Although the bite marks from that undead monster were gone now, thanks to that pegasus filly with the snake – whom River had belatedly recognized as being, in a bizarre twist of fate, the daughter of that maid she’d browbeaten into serving Lex – the thought that she’d turn into a monster like that was still enough to terrify her. Fortunately, that didn’t seem likely now; the first thing Lex had done upon entering her tent (apparently having interrogated one of the doctors outside about the nature of her wound) was chant some sort of weird prayer to the Night Mare and then reach out to brush a tendril of shadow against her. He’d tersely explained that he’d cast a spell designed to remove an infection, before demanding that she tell him what had happened…and promptly blowing up once she had. “I…I thought that all of the ghouls were gone,” she whimpered. “You told me to take my yacht, and that meant going through the city, and you didn’t say to be careful or to take any escorts or-”
“OF COURSE I DIDN’T!” howled Lex, his voice stentorian again. “It’s one thing for you to make your way through the city’s most open thoroughfares in broad daylight! It’s another thing to go inside a building, which you’re apparently too dull-witted to realize is a high-risk area due to offering those monsters cover against the sun and plenty of places to hide!” His eyes glowed brightly enough that the green threatened to swallow his irises and pupils entirely, the purple contrails sprouting from the corners leaping higher. “I expected you to be smarter than this! That you could actually operate on your own without needing supervision! Instead, you’ve managed to court disaster before you even left Vanhoover! What do you have to say for yourself?!”
Despite how hard she was fighting to maintain her composure, River could feel herself breaking down. The terror and pain of what she’d gone through was still fresh in her mind, combined with the lingering fear of catching whatever horrible disease those ghouls had. The abuse that Lex was heaping on her now, combined with the fear of whatever punishment he was going to inflict on her, was simply too much, and she felt hot tears begin to slide down her cheeks. “I didn’t want to ask for help,” she sobbed, turning her face toward the wall of the tent. “I didn’t want to look like I couldn’t get the job done by myself.”
But far from calming Lex down, her weeping only seemed to enrage him more. “DO NOT CRY!” he thundered. The order was punctuated by a spike of black crystal erupting from the ground right beside River, the shock causing her to scream, much to Lex’s anger. “DON’T YOU DARE-”
“LEX!” Stepping into the tent, Nosey gave him a pleading look, making no attempt to hide that she was trying to placate him. “I think she gets the point.”
As gentle as the rebuke was, Lex still rounded on her in a fury. “Don’t even think to presume to tell me-”
“Everypony can hear you.”
The non sequitur threw him off. “What?”
Nosey gestured at the sides of the tent. “Everypony can hear you. The doctors, those kids, her son…everypony.”
“GOOD!” he snarled. “Since it’s apparently not obvious that Vanhoover is still a danger zone, then this should serve as-”
“That’s not what they’re hearing,” interrupted Nosey. “They’re hearing you picking on a helpless mare that almost died, and is already scared out of her mind.”
Lex’s eyes widened, and although they were his only visible features, the outrage and disbelief filling them was impossible to miss. “You can’t be serious!”
Nosey didn’t answer, instead giving him a helpless shrug before gesturing toward River. The mare in question had curled up into a ball, facing away from them both and shaking like a leaf. Her sobs filled the tent, audible despite how she’d buried her face in her hooves.
Long seconds passed before Lex finally broke the silence, looking at River. “I’m suspending your mission to Las Pegasus until the doctors give you a clean bill of health,” he snapped, voice still thick with anger. “Once that happens, you will clear any and all special preparations that you need to make with me prior to your departure. Is that understood?”
“Y-yes,” sniffled River pitifully.
With that, Lex turned and gave Nosey a dark look, as though upset with her for interrupting. “I have preparations to make,” he snapped, before turning and exiting the tent abruptly. Outside, the sound of hooves could be heard as everypony that had been listening to him dress River down suddenly scattered, not wanting to make it obvious what they’d been doing.
One set of hooves, however, came closer. “Mama?” whimpered Piggy, sticking his head past the tent flaps. “Are you alright?”
“Ah.” Hastily wiping her face, River managed to sit up slightly, giving her son a shaky smile. “I’m…I’ll be fine, my little butterball. I’m just tired, is all.”
Piggy nodded, but didn’t look particularly reassured. “I was gonna come in and tell that Lex guy to back off,” he offered timidly. “I mean, he’s nowhere near as scary as fighting one of those ghouls head on. But, um…” He paused, face scrunching up as he tried to come up with an excuse for why he hadn’t been there.
But River sat up, a serious look crossing her face. “Piggy, listen to me. I don’t want you to ever speak with Lex if you can help it, do you understand me? Don’t talk to him, don’t be in the same room with him, don’t ever have anything to do with him if you can help it. Is that clear?” She had a little more respect for her son after he’d saved her life, but that didn’t change the fact that he was an uncouth lout…and that Lex had a volatile temper.
Looking supremely relieved, Piggy nodded quickly. “Yes, Mama!”
“Good boy,” smiling wearily, River laid back down. “Now go tell Trotsworth that my business trip is going to be postponed for a few days. You can do that for me, can’t you?”
“I will, Mama! Right away!” Without another word, Piggy withdrew from the tent, and the sound of his hoofsteps could be heard receding into the distance.
Nosey, who had watched the entire exchange silently, gave River a smile. “Your son is a good boy.”
River’s reply came with a hollow laugh. “My son is a fat, crude boor.” She sighed a second later. “But he’s braver than I thought…even if he did use up all of his courage facing that ghoul.”
“When he’s mad, Lex is scarier than an army of ghouls.” Nosey’s smile turned wry. “Trust me, I say that having seen both.” She licked her lips before continuing. “That’s why I know what I’m talking about when I say that Lex isn’t mad at you.”
River turned to regard Nosey, incredulous. “Excuse me?”
“He isn’t mad at you,” repeated Nosey. “I know how it sounds, but it’s true.”
“Of course,” snorted River sarcastically, running a hoof over her tear-stained cheeks. “Between all the screaming and telling me how I put everyone in danger, it seems obvious that he wasn’t really all that upset.”
“He was afraid.”
When River gave her an incredulous look, Nosey kept going. “He covers it up with fury, but I’m telling you: what you just heard was Lex trying to deal with being frightened very badly by what happened to you.”
Under other circumstances, River would have found the idea that Lex was concerned for her welfare heartening. But at that moment she could only snort in disdain. “You don’t say?”
Nosey, however, seemed entirely unperturbed at River’s disbelief. “Did Sonata ever tell you about Cloudbank?”
River frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but although she’d twice listened to Sonata give an unabridged accounting of Lex’s adventures – first when they’d met at the harbor, and second when Sonata had recounted Lex’s exploits to Princess Celestia – she couldn’t recall who that particular pony was. “I’m afraid I can’t quite recall.”
“What about Thermal Draft? Or C. Shells, Sandbar, or Turbo?”
“I’m sure I heard her mention those names, but I can’t remember the details.”
A wan smile crossed Nosey’s face. Even now, it felt good to be the one sharing information with someone else. “Before you arrived, Lex was concerned with the food supply here. He wanted to reestablish trade with the outlying villages, buying food from them. But in order to do that he needed money, and at the time he was too hurt to go collect any himself, so he sent those five into Vanhoover-”
“To take some from one of my institutions,” finished River. “I remember this now.”
“That’s right,” nodded Nosey, her smile falling away as she recalled what had happened next. She could still remember how it felt, being trapped in her own body as Xiriel toyed with those five, watching them try to work together to escape as she’d pleaded with the merciless devil to stop. But its only response had been to taunt her, making her watch as it used its magic-.
Swallowing, Nosey forced herself to stop thinking about that, taking a deep breath. Lex killed it. It’s dead, and it’s not coming back. “They all died there,” she croaked.
River blinked. “They did?” She couldn’t remember if she’d known that part; all she’d been focused on before was that Lex had succeeded in taking some of the bits from her bank vault, something which had upset her a great deal when she’d first heard about it.
“Yeah.” Reminding herself why she was telling this story, Nosey looked back at River. “They all died, and Lex blames himself for it. Not just because it happened on his watch, but because he was the one that sent them there.” She paused, letting that sink in. “They died after he sent them into Vanhoover in order to get money. And now you almost died, after he sent you into Vanhoover and you stopped to get money.”
River looked down, digesting that.
Satisfied that she’d gotten the message across, Nosey turned and left.
Still in shadow-form, Lex flew back toward the train station, his thoughts racing as he did. River’s brush with undeath made it clear that he needed to step up his efforts to reclaim Vanhoover. Although the Night Mare had told him that the ghoul army he’d slaughtered a few days prior had been the entirety of the city’s ghouls, there was clearly a loophole in that assurance: namely, that ponies who were still alive at the time she’d made that proclamation could – and, according to that journal that River’s son had found, at least one had – subsequently turn into those undead monsters.
That such a thing had happened was a damning indictment of his efforts to reclaim the city, Lex knew. Although he’d sent pegasi to fly over the city each day with instructions to loudly and repeatedly announce that the monsters infesting Vanhoover had all been dispatched and that the camp was now welcoming survivors – leading to a steady, albeit small, stream of ponies coming in from the city – it was clear now that there were some that were unwilling or unable to respond to those proclamations. That was not acceptable!
I need to send out a search and rescue squad, Lex decided as he approached the camp’s sole permanent structure. The thought was a bitter one, knowing that he couldn’t undertake that particular task himself. Aria was the only one with a spell that could locate particular types of creatures, be they ponies or ghouls, and she hadn’t been able to show him how it worked…though even if she had, without Severance he wouldn’t be able to prepare that spell anyway. That meant that she would have to be the nucleus of any team he sent into Vanhoover. And it would have to be a team. While Aria was a powerful spellcaster, sending her into the city alone was completely out of the question; for all her power, a single strike from a ghoul could still render her helpless, to say nothing of any number of things that could go wrong, ranging from simple accidents in crumbling buildings to running out of magic if she ended up in a prolonged conflict.
No, what she’d need would be a group of ponies who were experienced in countering the threats that Vanhoover in its current state presented. Who knew the layout of the city and where survivors would likely take refuge. Who could be counted on to faithfully perform such an important task.
But he’d sent the only ponies like that to Canterlot, almost certainly never to return.
Not that it matters, he cursed silently as he flew through the wall of the station, entering the lobby. Given that I’m about to end our relationship, I doubt Aria is of a mind to be cooperative-
A rapid chant pulled him from his thoughts, and he instinctively dodged to the side as he saw a small, orange orb streak toward him. An instant later a fireball erupted, the flames flashing over his shadowy form. Despite the fact that he had no physical body to burn, pain still washed over him, and Lex pushed it down as he traced back the trajectory of the spell, his mind already racing through various scenarios and contingencies, cross-indexing them with the resources he had at hoof that would best let him annihilate whoever had-
“Woo hoo! You got him!”
Sonata’s cheer stopped Lex cold, staring at the far end of the lobby. There, standing next to a grinning Sonata, Aria smirked as she lowered her hoof. “I’d say that was a warning shot,” she sneered, “but I really don’t like giving my enemies warnings.”
Lex could only stare at them. Enemies?! “What are you doing?!” he shouted, his voice filled with disbelief.
Sonata's eyes widened in excitement. “Dibs on telling him!” she yelled, before rising up on her hind legs. “We,” she announced, pointing at Lex dramatically, “are totes revolting!”
Aria rolled her eyes with a groan. “Rebelling, you idiot. We’re rebelling.”
Sonata tilted her head in confusion. “I thought it was revolting.”
Aria sighed. “If you say that we’re revolting, it makes us sound like-, you know what? Forget it. Either way…” She turned her attention back to Lex, giving him an unpleasant smile.
“This is the end for you.”