//------------------------------//
// Chapter 23 
// Story: Lost Reflections 
// by Purple Patch 
//------------------------------//

“She rises.”
An acid-green eye opened wide at the sound of an unfamiliar voice.
A violet hoof threw itself forward.
It found itself stopping suddenly.
There was no sign of magic but she was familiar of the feeling of it.
Something was holding her.
A mare approached. Tall, ochre-coated with a flowing mane of bright red and piercing ebony eyes.
“Do not exert yourself.”
“Let me go.” the young mare on the stone slab snarled, her hoof refusing to move.
“Not without instruction.”
“I’m giving you your scudding instruction!”
“Insufficient. My instruction comes from the greatest of all warriors.”
The Horsetralian-speaking mare hissed in fury.
“Then let’s see him and I’ll kill the bastard! Then I’ll give you your scudding instruction!”
A stallion’s voice sounded from behind her.
“I don’t think that would end particularly well for you, Balisong.”


Balisong stopped, looked behind her and noticed Cascadius sitting patiently on the stone steps in a dark underground chamber carved out of rock.
“Boss...” she murmured in a much more passive tone “Where am I?”
“Doctors.” he said plainly. He wasn’t smiling.
“...why?”
“You’d hurt yourself.”
“Who’s she?”
“A friend.”
Basilong found her hind legs, twisting round and standing up on the ground once more.
She felt groggy. Her teeth hurt. So did her eye.
The left side of her felt...numb.
“Boss...” she mumbled “What happened?”
“You were attacked.”
“Yeah...yeah, I remember that but...am I okay now?”
Cascadius pulled an awkward face.
“For a given definition...” she turned to the tall ochre mare “Give her a mirror.”
A hairless goat appeared from the shadow carrying a disc of thick, bottle-green glass.
“Be at ease, good mare...” he whimpered with a nervous chuckle “You’re still prettier than old Ratbag.”
Balisong did not listen, she sent the goat away with a snarl and held the glass as the top with one forehoof, staring at her face.
It was divided into two halves by a trailing silver scar, running like a river from her brow to her chin. There was a dark, colourless patch spread across the right side of her face and the right eye was as black and shiny as a bullseye marble. Metal caps had replaced most of her teeth and some of the locks of her mane had gone missing from the front of her scalp where the silver river met its end. Part of her lip had been torn, the black iron running over her gums, leaving a cleft below her right nostril. The piercing she’d once had there was gone.
She stared for a moment.
Sinews in her neck were twitching.
Ratbag was crouched in a corner, watching with unease. Cascadius and Servilia meanwhile stood nonchalantly.
“Any questions?” the Paymaster asked.
Balisong slowly put the mirror down and turned to her mentor with a cold, dead gaze augmented by the very cold and dead new right eye.
“Just one...” she murmured, the unmarred side of her face twitched feverishly “Where’s...the scudder...that did this?!”


Cascadius gave a shrug.
“In Ponyville.” he said plainly “Likely licking his wounds.”
The demented mare hissed and made for the exit.
“He’ll have something worse to lick when I get to work on him!”
“You don’t want to go back to Ponyville, Balisong.”
“There’s nowhere else I want to go right now! I’m going to make that stupid, scarlet scud bleed from every hole for-”
She stopped.
Cascadius was standing before her, one hoof raised in front of her, blocking her from stepping forward. His face was flat, his eyes lidded.
His voice came flat and even. And nothing else seemed so terribly out-of-place, unnatural, uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry...perhaps I didn’t make myself clear...let me try again...” He widened his gaze as Balisong’s zeal diminished under it, those eyes feeling as though they were swallowing her up “You do not want to go back to Ponyville, Balisong. There is nothing for you there that would be beneficial for you to pursue at this moment. The time to deal with that particular site will be soon but do not ask me how soon.”
Balisong blinked, her undamaged eye twitching.
Words got stuck in her cold, dry throat as she processed what she’d been told.
“But...what they did-”
“Can wait.” Cascadius interrupted “I gave you the opportunity to indulge yourself in aid of our operations. But that opportunity has now been exhausted. You went to Ponyville on my orders, you were brought back here on my orders, and it stands to reason that if you wish to return to Ponyville, you shall do so...”
He waved a hoof slightly, asking for the end of his line.
Balisong felt something stuck in her throat.
The words came out in a strangulated tone.
“On your orders...boss...”
“Correct.”


*


Silence oversaw the train back to Canterlot. Night and day.
Twilight Sparkle gazed around, observing her friends and how they’d changed so greatly in a matter of hours.
She wasn’t sure anypony had slept at all.
Pinkie Pie especially was huddled next to Applejack, her eyes wide and blank, her mouth flat and expressionless.
It wasn’t that she was obviously sad. They’d seen her sad before. Sad Pinkie was streaming eyes, trembling bottom-lip, drooping mane.
This Pinkie was simply...Still. Motionless. Locked in a state of uncertainty, she’d become unresponsive.
Her world had become so strange, and not in a way she felt safe in exploring.
And to be fair, Twilight felt the same. She reckoned all of them did.
Applejack was wearing two bandages around the same foreleg. While her present concern was how she’d be able to bring in the harvest if her leg didn’t heal in time, she knew there was more to it than that.
The Boulettan troops had used some serious weaponry. On her.
She was nursing a bruise at the side of her shoulder and there was a trembling feeling at the base of her spine. All in all, this feeling of lingering unease was just unfamiliar to her.
But even that didn’t blind her from Pinkie’s plight.
With her free forehoof, she hugged Pinkie by the shoulders.
To their surprise, the normally-cheerful pink mare jerked slightly and edged away, her eyes wide as she blurted out.
“I didn’t do it! I didn’t mean to! I couldn’t stop it! I...” she caught her breath, glancing round the cabin “I...I’m sorry...I just...”
“Hey, hey, it’s alright now...” Applejack held Pinkie gently but firmly by the shoulders, her green eyes warm and sincere. Breath by shaky breath, Pinkie Pie grew somewhat calmer in her cousin’s hold.
The quiet Fluttershy reached over and hugged her normally merry pink friend from behind.
Pinkie seemed to flinch but Twilight saw there was definite improvement.
“Okay...okay...” she was murmuring “I’m...I’m really sorry, girls, I just...I don’t know how this got so...so...”
“Crazy?” Twilight asked, nursing her temples “We...didn’t know how serious these ponies were going to get, how serious the situation was, it just...it just kinda’ blew up at the last minute. We expected victory to come easy and that’s something this...Cascadius or whoever he is doesn’t want. Maybe he was cleaning up loose ends, maybe he was leaving us with one final insult but either way...”
“I don’t get it.” Rainbow Dash, for the first time in many months, sounded doubtful in her own abilities “I mean, didn’t the Princess say they’d take precautions?”
“She did. It’s just that...well...” the young alicorn wracked her brains for the analysis that made the most sense to her “It sounds like these mercenaries knew that she’d take precautions.”
“...how?”
“Well, because that’s what she’d do, wouldn’t she.” Twilight explained “The biggest danger here is that they know us but we don’t know them. I think the first priority, when we get back, is find out who and where they are. Knowing them, they’ve probably got ponies hidden away somewhere close to Canterlot and Ponyville. If he’s been doing this for as long as he has, he must have left something behind, no matter how careful he thinks he is. Obviously don’t get paranoid but keep aware, you never know-”
“Oh, ‘scuse me, sorry.” the portly blue mare with the Trottingham accent from the station poked her head round the door bashfully “You wouldn’t know where the toilet is, would you?”
“Oh sure, it’s just down the back of the cabin. It doesn’t have a sign but you’ll know by the lock.” Twilight answered.
“Ta.” And with that, she disappeared.
“So, as I said, girls. Be on your guard.”
Fluttershy felt herself shiver slightly.
She felt almost certain that she’d heard that blue mare’s voice during the attack.
Not quite the same accent nor the manner, just the tone.
But if she was on a train to Ponyville and the towns close by...
No, that wouldn’t be possible.
If she was with them, she wouldn’t be taking a train. She’d be in some secret, sordid mode of transport with the other thugs.
Fluttershy weighed the situation and found it simply irrational and against everything she knew about ponies.
Obviously, the mercenary leader Cascadius had ponies in or around where they lived but...
They wouldn’t be actually living there. Among the town, getting to know ponies, having work, having friends and family, knowing that they’d have to kill them.
Fluttershy felt certain that no pony living in the world could possibly be that cruel.


“So...what you’re saying...” Rainbow Dash worked out the words in her head, wondering if they made sense “...is that these ‘mercs’ or whatever, are one step ahead of us and know what we’re about to do because...they know we’ll try to be as kind and smart as possible?”
“Basically, yes.” Twilight answered “The Doctor said that these ponies operate a spy network. It doesn’t take long for anypony to know how we do things in Equestria and, rather than combat it, they’re working along those lines to essentially trap us in our own system while they work on unravelling it.”
There was a pause.
“Well then what do we do?” Rarity asked, checking the injuries Corax had left upon her and hoping they wouldn’t start to itch “I mean to say...we can’t stop being kind and smart or else...where will we be?”
“...I don’t know.” Twilight shook her head.
“Well, maybe it’s the fact that we’re slow.” Fluttershy piped up, shuffling her shoulders “I mean, taking care of a whole kingdom during all of this. It takes time, ponies to see, things to organise, and that means they keep ahead. Maybe what they’re not expecting is for us to...you know...be more assertive.” She gave a meaningful nod to Rainbow Dash who cracked a bashful grin “I mean, faster with our responses, more...more, oh-what’s the word?”
“Spontaneous?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, that’s right. I mean, I remember back when I was studying animal behaviours in the Everfree, I saw a young manticore separated from its mama and chased by a timberwolf. It ran and ran but it couldn’t get away and then the big mean timberwolf chased it into a gulley and up against a rocky outcrop, nowhere left to run or ride. And then, this little manticore just jumps up and scratches the timberwolf’s muzzle. And-and then the timberwolf, he’s just so shocked that he runs away and the manticore gets out and I made sure it found its mama again.”
There was a pause...
“So er...we’re the manticore right?” Spike asked.
“Right. We’ve got to do what they’re not expecting.”
“Oh, well, if that’s the solution, I’d say Pinkie’s our expert there!” the little drake chuckled as all eyes turned to Pinkie who was beginning to slightly perk up.
“Huh?”
“Yeah, I like your way of thinking, Spike.” Twilight ruffled his spines “Next battle, Pinkie’s in charge of tactics. They’ll never see that coming.”
“Aw, come on, Twi...” Pinkie was practically blushing, looking unusually humble “I mean, I’m good for helping out but...c’mon, I’m not as smart as you. Not your kind of smart anyway.”
“You don’t have to be my kind of smart, you just have to be good at what you do. And what you do best, Pinkie, is surprise ponies.”
“Of course, Nova told us how you outwitted that Bloodstone-User.” Rarity said cheerily “I mean, my goodness, bringing out a boom-box quite literally out of nowhere and dancing your opponent into submission? I can’t imagine any of those brutes know what’s in store for them!”
“Right on! She’s got the power of randomness!”
“An’ with the randomness she has, that makes her one of the most powerful ponies who ever lived!”
“Aw, stop it you girls, cut it out!” Pinkie was giggling, falling on her rump to the floor and tapping her hind hooves on the ground giddily, hiding her eyes behind her mane.
“No, really, Pinkie. I think that could be a good way to go.” Twilight patted her forehoof “You’re up first, next time. We’ll follow your lead. It’ll be just like that scary forest we crossed back when we were up against Nightmare Moon. Nobody knows how to deal with scary stuff better than you.”
Pinkie seemed to snuffle a bit between the broad smile and reddened cheeks. She began to nod her head rapidly, shaking a tear out of the corner of her eye as she put on a brave face.
“Well, if you need Auntie Pinkie to help out, I’ll do it. Pie’s Honour.” She crossed a forehoof over her chest and nodded.


“And I guess if we need surprising ponies to do our planning for us, Derpy’s the mare you want too.” Rainbow Dash chuckled.
“Maybe. Maybe.” Twilight sighed, thinking back “How’s she holding up?”
The mood in the car turned somewhat solemn.
They’d heard from Big Mac, Applebloom and Starlight Glimmer what had transpired back home shortly after departing via a communication crystal.
It had come as a shock in an already harrowing day.
“They said that Dinky’s recovering...” Fluttershy said softly “Which probably means Derpy will too.”
“Ah still can’t work out how it happened.” Applejack said with a shake of her head.
“Neither can I.” Rarity added “I insisted Big Mac make sure Sweetie Belle be checked for whatever awful ailment Dinky was struck by, you can’t be too careful these days. Still, I...I suppose if she’s recovering...”
“We’ll look into it. Starlight said Princess Luna was going to take care of it later.” Twilight said.
“It sounds like Derpy’s blaming herself a lot. But I’m sure she would never let anything bad happen to Dinky.” Fluttershy said softly.
“You kidding? She’d go to Tartarus and back for her.” Rainbow Dash replied “I mean, look, I know Derpy. I’ve known her for a long time. I’ve always been like a big sister to her even though she’s like seven years older than me. And I’ve known that no matter how much she tries, there are just some things she’s not good at and shouldn’t really be trusted to do, alone anyway. But, and I know the Element of Honesty is your schtick, AJ, but I’m gonna’ tell ya’ll the honest truth. I have never once worried for Dinky with Derpy looking after her.”
“I know, that’s the strange thing.” Rarity said, thinking back “I remember once, quite a long time ago, I saw Derpy and the Doctor in Ponyville, not long after that Gala where she freed herself from her horrible aunt. And I learned, shortly before I walked in, that Dinky was...teething at the time.”
“Oof.” Pinkie Pie winced “I know the pain. Pumpkin and Pound gave me a couple of long nights when they were getting their first nibblers. Me and the Cakes took it in turns calming them down.”
“Yes, well, I think we’ve all seen that rather less-than-pretty side of siblinghood.” Rarity continued “Now I remember Sweetie’s first teething, it’s etched into my memory. And mother’s too. I kept glancing at her expression every time Sweetie began crying again and she needed to be settled down. First time, full of sympathy and comforting coos. Third time, still fairly relaxed, perfectly understanding. Seventh time, definitely showing signs of stress. And Sixteenth time, I tell you, my mother looked as though there was murder in her mind!”
“Ooh dear.” Fluttershy murmured.
“Yes, well, after that I didn’t know what to expect from Derpy. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her get angry.”
“So...what was it like?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t know.” The glamorous unicorn said plainly “She didn’t get angry. Dinky started crying, wailing loud enough to bring the house down, at least twenty-three times. At least.” She shook her head “And each time was the same. Dinky simply got up from what she was doing, completely calmly and caringly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mother so in-control.”
“Derpy? In-control?” Rainbow Dash shook her head “Dinky really did change her life.”
“Her father too. Remember, it’s them Cascadius really has it in for. We let them know what’s happened as well as the Princesses.”
Rainbow Dash sunk into her seat and ran a hoof through her mane with a weighty sigh.
“At least they’re still where we left ‘em.”


*


Princess Luna felt the cold slate under her hooves feel somehow familiar.
The Eternal Knights had modelled Darkhorse HQ on their ancient base they’d used in the Civil War on Sunless Isle.
Dark, quiet and lit by sparse blue candles fitted in gaps in the rock.
She met the three around a great stone slab.
Luna glanced at it.
Then what was upon it.
The three strange ponies wearing dark garb and darker looks bowed.
“Your highness.” The batpony said flatly, one ear twitching as if to signal.
“Bright may the moon shine.” The pegasus said.
“Long may the stars blaze.” The unicorn said.
“Where once we lived the nightmare...” The batpony said.
“Now the nightmare lives through us.” They said as one.
“Rise.” Princess Luna said, her face appearing tired and unimpressed as she asked frankly.
“What’s that?”
The head of the warty, greasy, shaven-headed, pink-grey stallion was standing slightly askew with its jaw lolled open and eyes half-closed. The side of its muzzle was flared in a deranged fashion.
The three glanced at it then looked up. White Wolf toyed uneasily with her braids while Fletcher Fray shuffled a forehoof bashfully.
Midnight Blade however simply answered.
“A severed head, your highness.”
“Why is there a severed head on the table?”
“Because we put it there, your highness.” Fletcher answered.
“Where did you get it?”
“A body, your highness.” White Wolf answered with a slightly cheeky look, her sharp incisors gleaming.
“Don’t be difficult.”
“We haven’t broken the rules on disassembly of casualties in conflict. The subject took his own life upon knowing he’d be questioned.” Midnight said plainly “Therefore, he was neither a prisoner of war nor retreating vanquished.”
“The purpose of the Code of Equestrian Warfare is not to find loopholes, Lord Commander.” Luna retorted.
“We understand your distaste, your highness, but this subject requires questioning. His faction’s activity is unprecedented. We need to know how he did this and where they came from.”
“Nothing known to ponykind can build such an intricate tunnel system under Equestria.” Fletcher Frey explained “If Cascadius and the Cult of Piggsicorn are aligned somehow, which all evidence seems to suggest, we need to find out what they’re using to cause such excavation.”
“If Cascadius does own a Geoweapon then we are all, if you’ll pardon the phrase, royally bucked!” White Wolf summarised.
Luna glanced at her bodyguards, then at the head. She shut her eyes and bowed her head.
“Do what you must.”
The Knights nodded and White Wolf stepped forward, holding up two long pale-iron needles with twisting copper handles.
Fletcher’s horn glowed a luminous electric-blue and the wings of White Wolf opened up fully, primary feathers bristling with electricity.
As the needles crackled with arching volts, White Wolf jammed the needles into the sides of the severed head just above the ears. Spinning them round, she turned the head to face Midnight Blade who raised his own forehooves which were tipped by shimmering shadowy claws. Raising them with a pteropine hiss, he grabbed the sides of the head and pressed hard.
The head didn’t move but the way Midnight writhed and snarled, one might have thought a storm had thundered through the chamber. Luna even felt certain there was strong wind in her face. His wings stretched to tearing point, thick blue veins showing in the skin turning pale as they pulled taut. His frost-white mane bristled and billowed. A force of great and terrible magic took hold.
Wolf turned the needles to differing angles as the eyelids of the head began to open and close.
The shadow it cast upon the table seemed to stretch ominously.
All three Eternal Knights wore expressions of extreme discomfort as the necromantic ritual commenced.
“The living demand answers from the dead!” Midnight Blade finally snarled “Speak!”
The head’s mouth stretched open and a series of horrid gurgles filled the room.
“You er...might want to step a little to the side, your highness.”


Luna did so and narrowly avoided a spurt of pale-grey fluids that erupted from the head’s mouth. Now it did begin to move, writhing and jolting until at last, held immobile in Midnight’s claws, it spoke...
“Guh...Ah...I...Where...where am I?”
“A world of hurt.” Midnight answered “No less than you deserve for the lives you took.”
The head blinked, one eye only half-closing before opening again, and spoke.
“Where are the eighteen thousand concubines ready to feast on the filth of he who dies for the Great Sow?”
The knights glanced at each other and Fletcher answered.
“They’ve gone to get some mouthwash. Anyway, that’s not your concern. You’re in our control and you’ll remain as such until you tell us what we need to know.”
“Wait...” The head glanced down and stared “By Crommyonia’s Seventeen Teats! Where is the rest of my body?!”
“Right where you left it.” White Wolf answered darkly “Now start being useful. I don’t necessarily have to make you feel pain...and only pain...” She turned a needle slightly and the head winced, squealing as the nerves in his brain were tweaked in the wrong place “But I will...if you push me.”
The head gave a snarl of its own and snorted.
“You servants of the false goddesses will not harm me! The Great Sow has beheld your softened soul!”
“Well, when we let you go, you can tell her to look again.” Fletcher retorted “Are you willing to know exactly why they don’t let us out of our castle unless things really get this bad...Or are you going to be smart?”
“Or as close a Piggsicornist can get to smart, anyway.” Midnight added as the head raised one of its brows.
There was a pause. It wasn’t possible for the head to show too much but what little it showed was uncertainty.
It spoke at last.
“What knowledge do you seek, heathens?”
“Where is Cascadius?”
The head looked to his left and right.
“We were never told.”
“You must have been. How else would you have-”
“We were never told where we were.” The head interrupted “We could trace our distance and direction based on how far we were from our coven. But whereabouts in Equestria that was, we could not say. The Paymaster gave us the hideout and left us with no clarity.”
“So...there’s nothing you can tell us about Cascadius?” Luna asked.
The head snorted derisively and muttered.
“The Paymaster...He believes himself immortal...omniscient...and like all false deities, his end shall be calamitous! He does not see the threads of his own web wrap around his hooves!”
The Knights and their Princesses looked to each other.
“Cascadius’s allies plan to betray him?” Fletcher supposed.
“Let’s not forget, one of those allies is Countess Magnifying Glass. It stands to reason.” Wolf said sardonically.
“That doesn’t sound like the Cascadius I remember.” Midnight pointed out “He’s brought together armies of thugs and cut-throats before. At least thrice now. He’s not one to withhold a backup-plan. He’s got quite the ego on him, sure, but he’s devoted to his own sense of organisation and preparation. If he can’t trust his allies, chances are he has plans to get rid of them.”
“And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they know that too.” Luna added “Good grief, all these power-games and conspiracies. It’s like our first years as Princesses! How does he cope?”
“With all due respect, your highness, I fail to see how anything Cascadius has ever done would convince you he’s sane.” Midnight murmured, turning back to the head.
“So what would Cascadius do if he found out you’re up to something?”


The head began blinking wildly, the colour in its eyes fading. The batpony signalled to the pegasus who adjusted the needles.
Another jolt of electricity ran through the head, causing it to twitch frantically and cry out in pain.
“Eyargh! Blasphemous craft!” it cursed “End it! My soul belongs to the Great Sow! Cast my essence unto the Noxious Void!”
“After you’ve finished being cooperative!” Midnight said, baring his teeth “What’s he planning?”
The side of the head’s lips twisted, almost in mirth.
“Planning? Heh...The fates are out of his hooves! He controls less than he believes! We have seen it! All of us! In our dreams!”
“He’s gibbering.” Fletcher said “The arcing’s scrambled his brains.”
“Wait...” Midnight murmured as the head’s voice grew louder and more demented, a sardonic, bleeding grin stretching across its morbid face.
“A golden egg! But gold that isn’t gold! Gold as pus! Gold as venom! Gold as the festering corpse of the old world! And its key, black as night and full of screaming stars, begging for freedom! And as it cracks open, we saw...the end!”
As it began laughing, one of its eyes burst and the left side of its face began to smoke and char. The needles shook in White Wolf’s forehooves as the head decayed before them, still laughing, snapping and yelling.
“NO ESCAPE! HE LEAVES US NO ESCAPE! HE’LL HAVE THIS WORLD OR SEE IT RUINED AT HIS FOREHOOVES! THE GREAT INFLICTION MANIFEST! IT COMES FOR US ALL! NO ESCAPE! NO-”
Its mouth hung open mid-word then hit the table. From the ears down, it crumbled into a burned pile of flesh, bone-fragments and brain matter.
The Princess and her Knights stood back and stared to one another.
Princess Luna broke the silence.
“Is it over?”
White Wolf nodded.
“Bucked up beyond all repair, your grace.”
“We were already dealing with a broken mind.” Fletcher said “Its hysteria intensified the arcing to burning point.”
“I see...” Luna was thankful that the gruesome spectacle had come to an end but concerned that things were no less evident than they were before.
“Does...anypony have any idea what any of that meant?”
Midnight Blade looked up, his face graver than usual.
“I have some idea...” he said flatly “But I pray to Laurelore that I’m wrong...”


*


“I realise you are used to hearing this and that, at this point, my opinions on the matter aren’t as imperative as they once were...but you look dreadful.”
“Thank you, auntie.”
Fancypants felt dreadful.
Fleur had been away for some time. He understood the importance of course.
With things in Ponyville being the way they were, she wanted to make sure her parents were safe and prepared. Recently he’d heard from her that she and her parents were arguing about going back to Stirrope.
She had asked him not to get involved and he had obliged not to.
But nights alone were difficult enough without the continuous nightmares he’d been suffering.
He’d been forgetting to wear his monocle when he left more recently of late. Thankfully, with all the recent chaos, nopony noticed.
He was wearing it now however and resting upright against the carriage as he rode with his aunt, Grand Duchess Bustle Bloomers, to the royal entourage awaiting the return of the Bearers.
“You’ve been keeping in communication with Miss de Lis, I hope.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Fancypants answered, wearily but not dismally “She seems fine.”
“Good.” The Grand Duchess was peering out the carriage window through her opera glasses.
“I must say, I’m curious...” she said nonchalantly “She’s had a habit of being rather quiet around me and I wondered if it was something either of us said.”
“Well, she does get a bit nervous around...well...”
“Me.”
“A lot of ponies do.”
“I should hope so.” The old noblemare cracked a smirk “But I hope she didn’t react too gravely when you told her about...her.”
Fancypants looked puzzled.
“What...you mean...Countess Magnifying Glass?”
“No, no, Fancy, you silly colt.” The Grand Duchess said tiredly, shaking her head “Your...previous venture in the field of marital protocol...”
There was a definite pause.
“...ah...”
The Grand Duchess’s eyes narrowed and she looked down at her nephew in a fashion that had always cowed him in his colthood.
“...‘Ah’-what, nephew-of-mine?”
Fancypants gave his collar a small tug.
“Well...I’m not entirely sure I ever did.”
Bustle Bloomers blinked.
“Do you mean to tell me...that you have lived with your young wife for a period of just over seven years...and you have never once told her that you were once married?”
“Would you believe me if I said the opportunity never arose?”
“Fancypants...” Grand Duchess Bustle Bloomers pressed the edge of her forehoof to her temples “You are my nephew and I love you very dearly but you really can be a bloody twit!”
“I know, I know...” The gentlecolt shook his head “I mean...it’s not as though it’s a memory I enjoy holding onto.”
“None of us do, Fancy. I have no idea what your Great Aunt Geestringente was thinking. In fact, any attempt to understand what your Great Aunt was thinking at any point was doomed to failure.”
They both gave a shudder at the memory at the late matriarch of the Pants family who took steps in controlling young Fancypants’ life after the death of his parents.


Grand Duchess Bustle Bloomers was stern and much sterner in his foalhood. But he’d preferred her company over that of his great aunt any day of the year.
It wasn’t that Lady Greestringente Wedgeworth-Knicks was cruel like Countess Magnifying Glass had been to Derpy.
But she had been raving mad. That, the family agreed, was apparent.
“In any case...it happened so soon after...” he trailed off quietly “My parents...”
“Don’t mumble, Fancy.” His aunt fussed “Yes, yes, I’m well aware of that. Quite unacceptable I thought, as much now as I did then. But reasoning with your great aunt was a ruinous expedition. And as for the character of your first bride in itself...” 	She gave a snort.
Fancypants’s young life had already been turned upside-down by the death of his parents. So it came as a bit of a shock when his great aunt took him into her home and informed him that he was to be married.
And the timing wouldn’t be the only way in which Lady Geestringente Wedgeworth-Knicks had ignored her grandnephew’s emotional state. The marriage had not been a happy one. His great aunt’s admiration for his bride’s family was not repaid and for the whole of his nineteenth year, his wife spent every moment they were together rigorously crushing his soul.
It was shortly after his twentieth birthday and a hellish argument over his friendship with Raven Inkwell that Fancy returned one night to find an insulting letter from his disappeared wife, detailing her own interpretations of his infirmity of purpose, the absence of quality in his house and family, his deficiency of any future worth speaking of and the far-superior status of the stallion she’d left him for.
Afterward, Fancypants had become very distant to the world and, for a period of two years, took very little interest in the state of affairs until a private meeting from the three princesses invigorated him considerably. He ran for Royal Council Chairstallion, won in a landslide, rehired the manor staff his wife had routinely sacked for any imagined offence and became who he was today, albeit before he attended that fateful Rejuvenation Play in Ponyville.
The carriage began to slow as Grand Duchess Bustle Bloomers stood to exit, casting her nephew another stern look.
“Whatever the circumstances, nephew-of-mine, and however unpleasant they were for all concerned, it happened. And Miss de Lis must know at some point soon. Or she will be decidedly slow to forgive...as will I.”


The Royal Entourage was a gathering of assorted higher-ups. The nobility, the gentry, the clergy, the military and so forth.
Fancy left the carriage to find the first face that greeted him an old and friendly one.
“Stained Glass!”
The old stallion of the Glass family, supporting himself with a walking stick, ambled forward and held out a forehoof for the young gentlecolt he’d known ever since Fancy was a colt.
“Fancypants, my dear boy. Capital! No, yes, capital! How wonderful to see you1” he hugged him with a reedy laugh and patted his back “And Grand Duchess Bustle Bloomers, how long it has been.”
“Count Stained Glass, you are a welcome sight.” Bustle Bloomers raised a forehoof that Stained kissed magnanimously “I apologise for the state of my nephew’s dishevelled state.”
“Oh, no, no, yes, no, that’s...that’s no trouble at all.” he chuckled “I, ah...I’m no stranger to dishevelment myself.”
Fancypants gazed around. There were more than a few familiar faces. Some more welcome than others. He had a nasty feeling that through fate’s fickle hoof, he’d run into...
“Look! Look! There he is! At last!”
Fancy rolled his eyes behind his monocle as the shrill cry of Upper Crust filled the air. The lemon-yellow noblemare with the wavy lilac mane was cantering up with a very overenthusiastic smile with her silver-coated, slick-maned husband close behind.
Yet, to his surprise, the two frequent hangers-on raced straight past him, heading instead for Stained Glass whose eyes lit up as he cried out in wonder.
“Why...Uppity! Little Uppity Crust! Just look how you’ve grown!”
“Dear old Count Stained! It’s been so long!” the gaudy socialite practically flew into his forehooves and hopped on her hooves as if she were a giddy filly.
“I haven’t seen you in decades, dear girl. An-an-and who’s that with you now, I...why, is that Jettison Set Junior?!”
“It is, hello, dear old stallion.” Jet Set was brought into a hug by the old Count and the three laughed long and loud.
“We’re so sorry we haven’t made time to see you until now, Stained.” Upper Crust said “Things have been very difficult these last few years. In fact, just recently, we’ve both been very preoccupied with a, ah...unexpected bit of fortune.”
She gave a smile to her husband as Stained Glass blinked behind his massive spectacles.
“Oh, yes? Did your family win another pot? 'Pot luck', you might say?”
“Oh no, not quite.” Jet Set chuckled “But if you’ll show him, darling.”
Upper Crust rose a forehoof and gave her rather unusually large belly a gentle caress.
“We are delighted to say, Count Stained, that very soon, Maison Du Pompé will be resonating with the pitter-patter of little hooves.”
“Oh-hoh capital!” The old stallion shook with laughter “Congratulations, you two.”
“We’ll be sure to invite you to the blessing.” Jet Set said merrily.
“You are too kind, my dear filly.” Stained replied “I’m positively buoyant you two are so happy together.”
They laughed and appeared to trail off momentarily as Fancypants approached. The husband and wife bowed as the gentlecolt gave them a smile that, for the first time in a while, was absolutely genuine.
“Greetings, you two. And, ah...congratulations.”
“Thank you, Mr Fancypants, and we hope that your own marriage is soon blessed with child.” Jet Set smattered.
The thought gave Fancypants pause for thought. While they certainly had explored the possibility, Fleur de Lis’s condition she’d suffered from since foalhood made the possibility of safe childbirth less likely than either of them would be comfortable with.
And in any case, times like these, Fancy had felt, weren’t the best time to bring up a child.
He'd need this to be solved. The murderer of his parents put down for good. He wouldn’t feel as though his family were safe otherwise.
He changed the subject.
“I ah...didn’t know you knew Count Stained Glass.” he said.
Upper Crust gave a weighty sigh and explained, sounding more sincere and heartfelt than Fancy had ever heard from her.
“My late father, Stuffed Crust, was the Baron of Sumpton Field...” she said with an uncomfortable expression “He was also one of the most frivolous and unapologetic spendthrifts in Equestria. In memory, my foalhood divides pretty evenly between dining at the finest spots on Restaurant Row...and flitting from rented houses in the middle of the night to escape the bailiffs. When he died, I inherited his debts before I’d even got my Cutie Mark. All would have been lost if it weren’t for dear old Count Stained Glass. He offered us kindness when nopony else could and despite knowing we could not hope to repay him.” She shook her head “It pains me to think of what that dreadful Magnifying Glass put him through. If it was anything like what she put me and Jet through, forcing us to praise and defend her every act of spite and vileness in this city for fear of our debt taking an abnormal skyrocket out the blue...”
She winced. Jet Set patted her shoulder gently and spoke in turn.
“He deserved better than a parasitic old crone like her as a daughter. I myself owe him my apprenticeship at the Aviator’s Guild. It would have collapsed if it weren’t for him. I never got to know Looking, the other one...Or her own daughter. I’ll...I’ll need to make time for that. I’d never forgive myself otherwise.”
Fancypants gave the two a smile and turned as the grand host of prominence harkened to the whistle of the Equestrian train heading for the station.
The station doors parted and the lilac alicorn greeted her mentor.
Fancypants approached, the crowd making way for their Lord Steward, and it was then that he noticed the Princess of the Sun appeared to be crying.
Her flowing meridian-coloured mane swooped back behind her head as she dropped to her hinds, her gilded forehooves throwing themselves around her student as she sobbed openly.
The crowd stared nonplussed as Twilight looked for words.
“P...Princess...Are...are you okay? Has something happened to you?”
“Twilight...oh, Twilight, I’m so sorry!” Princess Celestia wept “I was so stupid to send off, knowing what they could do...not knowing what they planned...I-I should have kept you safe!”
“B-but Princess, it’s okay. We...we got through it alright. Things...got a bit dicey but...”
“No, no, it’s...things have happened...Horrible things. In Ponyville. In the Crystal Empire. Everywhere!”
Twilight’s violet eyes widened with terror.
“Is...is everypony okay?”
“I...I think so.” Out of the corner of his eye, Fancypants noticed that what he could see of Celestia’s expression did not look certain. “I just...I just needed to know you were alright...”
As mentor and student hugged, Fancypants approached and surveyed the scene.
“Erm...where’s the pink one?” he managed to say, sounding a little silly.
Rainbow Dash gave a shrug.
“Yeah, she went off. She does that. It’s kinda’ her thing.”
“She got the ‘Pinkie-Sense’.” Applejack explained “Something was happenin’ at Sugarcube Corner. If Twilight needs to stay here, we were gonna’ head there ourselves. Probably best we make sure everypony knows where each other is for now.”
“But...how did she go ahead of you if you were on the same train?”
“We-ell...” Applejack scratched the back of her mane.
“To be entirely honest, Fancypants...” Rarity said awkwardly “In the years we’ve spent in each other’s company...we’ve learned not to ask.”


*


Carrot Cake puffed the air out of his cheeks as he gently closed the door to the nursery at Sugarcube Corner.
“Well, they’re asleep. Both of them.” he sighed wearily as he turned to his wife in the kitchen “Your turn next time.”
“I know, honey, I know. Thank you.” She gave him a cheery smile and kissed him on the muzzle before turning to apply the finishing touches to a day’s work.
A large cake pink from top to base with a fondant and wafer sculpture of a smiling mare with cotton-candy mane. Cup Cake was just touching up the wavy icing and adding little fizzy chews with smiley faces on them all around the base of the cake.
Carrot Cake gave it a glance and smiled, impressed as always by his wife’s handiwork.
“Pinkie’ll like this for sure.”
“Well...the poor thing must have had a hard time out there.” Cup Cake shook her head as she made sure to carefully carry the cake down onto Pinkie’s favourite hot-plate and put it on the table out of harm’s way.
“Well, our Pinkie has a way of finding a bright side when things are at their worst.”
“I know, honey, but this isn’t your average day of danger in Ponyville. I mean...ponies are dying.”
“True enough.” Carrot Cake brushed his bright orange mane thoughtfully “I remember when she told us...about her-”
“I know. I know. It’s not something a cake’s really going to solve, is it.” The two bakers looked to each other thoughtfully.
“Well, it’s a good start. If she’s really feeling down, we’ll be there. Nothing else for it.”
Ta-Ring!
The door to the bakery rang.
The bakers left the kitchen, readying themselves to greet their adopted daughter with bright smiles.
They faded as soon they saw who had entered.
Cup Cake gestured with her forehoof, gesturing her husband back into the kitchen as she spoke steadily, eyes fixed on the two strange-looking visitors.
“Er...I’m sorry...sirs...we’re about ready to close...”
“Oh that’s fine.” the rangy piebald stallion in the wide-hat said, his forehoof reaching for a pistol at his side “We’re not hungry.”


Cup Cake took in the pair, knowing almost at once that the horrors on Equestria’s horizon, spoken of so often nowadays, had come to their bakery. She moved behind the counter her forehoof trailing underneath the cubby holes, hoping to find something useful.
“Then...I don’t quite know how I can help you...do we know you?”
“No. But we know you, butter-berry.” Tybalt said with a cocky smirk.
The baker narrowed her gaze.
“My name is Cup Cake.”
“We are aware.” A hard-eyed dull-lilac mare showed off blue-tattooed teeth as she began drawing a blade out of a long wooden sheath.
Tybalt glanced around, noticing the colourful balloons and ribbons and the ‘Welcome Back’ sign hanging from the ceiling. He idly tapped a balloon with his forehoof, sending it gliding across the room.
“Nice decorations...” He smiled wider “Are they for someone special?”
“Now look...we...we don’t want any trouble. We’ve never done anything to hurt you.”
“Again, we are aware.” the mare said “However, we do not intend to wait until you do. Consider this a message to your adopted-”
Scrunch!
Miura stopped, her expression turning from cold calmness to tired irritation as she glanced at Tybalt who had removed a vanilla and cinnamon swirl from the counter and taken a large bite, showering flaky pastry over the floor. The young mercenary gave Miura a casual look as he munched away.
“What?” he asked, his mouth half-full.
“Must you?” Miura hissed “While we’re working?”
Tybalt shrugged.
“Not really.” he swallowed and nodded approvingly with a smile “Mm. These are good.”
“Enough!” the sword-wielding mare barked “Get your husband out of the kitchen. Both of you are required.”
Cup Cake furrowed her brow and spoke firmly.
“Now, I don’t know what your game is, but you aren’t putting a hoof on my husband. Or my daughter.”
“Oh, we doing this then?” Tybalt cricked his neck and spun a pistol round his forehoof, siding up to look Cup Cake face to face.
The baker’s hoof curled around the handle of something hard and wooden.
“That’s okay, love-handles. I love a mare with meat on her-”
Bop!
The rolling pin came around and clouted the young gunslinger across the side of the scalp. For a moment, Miura could simply stare at the audacity of the scene as Tybalt clasped the side of the counter before he could hit the ground, one forehoof nursing the smarting side of his head as he turned to look at Cup Cake with a mixture of anger and alarm.
“Did you just whack me with a-”
“Heads up, honey!” Carrot Cake yelled to his wife who ducked swiftly. The yellow and orange stallion, using impressive strength from one so lanky, then hurled a generous-sized sack over the counter. Before Tybalt could raise his pistol, he was bowled over with full force, the impact bombarding the area he’d been standing at with a great puff of flour.
The stallion fought the great weight off of him as he looked up with a look of rage, dusted all over in white.
“Okay, this just got irrita-ah-ah-Ah-Choo!” He sneezed over and over, crawling around, half-blinded and disarmed “Ah-Choo! Ah-Choo! Oh, are you bucking kidding m-aaah-Choo!”
Miura turned and drew her katana, drawing it sideways and growling.
“Now you die gruesomely.”
With a squeak, Cup Cake ducked as the blade swept across the counter.
She then came up, holding in her forehoof an unsold pie.
Thought came quick and simple strategy was achieved.


Splat!
Miura opened her eyes, her shocked face plastered by cream, custard and crust. She took a moment to properly comprehend the fact that here, in this war of attrition, she, Miura, Flying Terror of a Thousand Battlefields, raised by the last Iron Sun Samurai who spoke only the language of the blade, had just been hit in the face by a custard pie.
Gritting her blued teeth with a snarl, she drew the blade round again.
Cup Cake hopped up again, this time tossing a strawberry tart.
Splat!
Miura took a moment to wipe fruit compote from her eyes before she swept again, swifter and keener.
Splat!
“Stop it!” she roared as she shook the thicker parts of a chocolate-cherry gateaux from her muzzle as she attempted to land another strike “Where do you think we are?!”
“A bakery.” Cup Cake said, ducking and drawing up a cherry-meringue-bombe “Where else?”
Splat!
“Enough!” the sweet-spattered swordsmare screamed “Stop doing that and die!”
“I’d do as she says! She’s lactose-intolerant!” Tybalt piped up, picking himself up “Seriously, don’t give her too much cream! It’s not pretty!”
“Shut up and kill something, baka yaro!”
“Okay, okay, I’m on it.” Tybalt grabbed one of his pistols and lined up a sight.
“Don’t you dare!”
Wham!
The gunslinger stumbled back, clutching his muzzle that felt slightly flattened by the force a baking tray. His forehooves wrestled with those of Carrot Cake’s, who’d left the kitchen, as requested, to defend his wife and place of business.
“I promise, this only gets worse for you, string-bean!” Tybalt growled as one forehoof broke free and tightened round the baker’s neck, the other fighting for control of the pistol.
Choking, Carrot Cake reached for the closest thing in reach which happened to be a large bright blue balloon.
Desperately, he buffed the side of Tybalt’s face with it, rubbery squeaks sounding with each feeble pummel until-
Pop!
“Ow! Owowowow!” Tybalt’s forehoof flew to his ringing ear, the balloon having burst while pressed against it. Discombobulated, he fought for control but was grabbed by his own ponytail as Carrot Cake slammed his opponent’s head into a small red table at the side of the dining area. The gunslinger fell as the victorious baker turned to his wife, feeling strangely exhilarated.
“You okay back there, honey-buns?!”
“I’m fine. But I might need some more pies.” Cup Cake said as she ducked again and landed another hit with a banana-nut flan.
Splat!
“DIE!” Miura shrieked as she grabbed the counter, readying to vault.
“Hey!” Carrot Cake grabbed her by the wings, holding the other forehoof behind her back. Miura’s hind-legs kicked rapidly against the counter and at Carrot Cake’s shins as Cup Cake held the forehoof that wielded the sword tight.
“Let’s just drop that, shall we? No weapons allowed in the store”
“I will open your throats and pull out your tongues!” the struggling Miura howled as she thrashed.
“Careful, she’s slippery.”
“Hold it!”
All three ponies turned to the bedraggled-looking Tybalt who stood with his other pistol ready.
But it wasn’t pointed at any of them.
He was directing it through a door he’d opened. Leading to...
“No!” Cup Cake said at once, eyes filled with dread. Carrot Cake’s mouth hung open with horror as Miura stopped struggling.
Tybalt looked upon two little foals in their cots, coming out of sleep with little whimpers. He then turned to the bakers and grinned slyly.
“Congratulations. You have beautiful children.” he said darkly, fixing them with a menacing glare “Go get them...slowly.”


Tentatively, both holding a forehoof in the air for pax, Cup Cake and Carrot Cake slowly edged past the irate Miura, who was now cradling her sabre in preparation for using it, and shakily attended to their crying foals.
Tybalt gestured them to the dining area while the seething Miura brought up two chairs and brought out a couple of rolls of cord from her cloak. She tossed one to Tybalt, throwing him an angry glare while she began tying the four Cakes to the chairs back to back, landing a quick punch to Carrot Cake’s muzzle while she did so. The baker gave a cry of pain, sniffed and looked down to soothe his whimpering daughter.
Pumpkin and Pound were, by now, crying fearfully as their parents held them tightly to their chests, cushioning the biting tightness of the cord around their foals with their hooves.
Cup Cake held her breath, her trembling hooves shielding her son from witnessing what was about to take place.
“P-p-please. You don’t need to-”
“Excuse me.” Tybalt said bluntly “I don’t think you’re in a position to be telling us what we need or need not do, ma’am.”
“Our foals. Please!” Carrot Cake protested “You can do what you like with us but spare our-” He was cut off as the cord was placed between his jaws, pulling his head back and preventing any more words as Miura hissed.
“No. We were ordered to deliver a message. We do not leave it only half-delivered.” She stepped back as she drew up a small dark device which she tossed to Tybalt. The gunslinger fiddled with the device a moment before pulling out a copper-coloured wire. Glancing into the kitchen, he noticed the cake the two bakers had prepared for their adopted daughter, still on Pinkie Pie’s warm-plate that depicted the end scene of one of Pinkie’s favourite foal’s tales ‘The Lamb Who Wasn’t Lonely In Winter’.
He gave something of a smile and took it to the end table of the dining area. He then rested the device between the cotton-candy mane and tail of the little pink fondant pony atop the cake, looking it over and edging it slightly to the left.
He caught sight of Miura’s unimpressed scowl.
“What?” he asked “It’s a nice cake. Don’t want to ruin it.”
Miura rolled her eyes.
“I’m not working with you again.”
“Please yourself.” Tybalt then drew the copper wire out of the detonator, wound it round one of the chairs then around the doorknob to the Sugarcube Corner entrance, twanging the wire taut and nodding approvingly. Miura closed each curtain and blinds on the windows and opened the one opposite the bakery, placing a shard of topaz in the corner of the windowsill.
As Carrot Cake and Cup Cake struggled, making muffled pleas and cries for help, the two mercenaries silently slunk out the window, Tybalt giving them a wink and a grin before they closed the window behind them.
“You die as you lived; baking to perfection.”


Shoeshine looked up a moment, glancing left and right, wearing improvised armour and cradling a motorised weapon made from parts of a floorbuffer.
She was certain she’d heard something around Sugarcube Corner.
Signalling to Pepperdance and Pokey Pierce, the three ponies of the Ponyville Volunteer Patrol ducked around the bakery.
In the corner of an alley, one could have just made out a disappearing tail of a shade and style unfamiliar to them.
Weapons at the ready, they approached the alley, the mares taking each corner while Pokey readied his bow and cast a spell to light up the area.
They sprung out and cast their eye out.
Grass, pebbles and a few trash-cans greeted them.
Shoeshine pursed her lips and signalled for her comrades to check the other side of the alley, going around the Boutique and out opposite the School.


From the shrub outside the town, Tybalt and Miura gathered their breath, brushed off whatever they’d been hit with at the bakery and looked out. Miura’s steely eyes focussed as a certain bouncing pink mare hopped along the path, approaching the bakery.
Tybalt turned on the communicator.
“Boss. Target is approaching.”
“Confirmed.” came the reply “Is the topaz ready?”
Miura pulled out a small block of topaz, traced her hoof over the intricate ridges of it and an image of the Cake family struggling in vain at their constraints greeted them.
“This will be a necessary study.” the voice of Cascadius came from the communicator “Have you two guessed, by now? The universal method to popping a balloon?”
The thought still made Tybalt’s ear sting as Miura gave a snigger.
“I believe you intend to enlighten us, master.”
Cascadius chuckled through the communicator as, through the shard of topaz opposite the door of Sugarcube Corner, the outline of a puffy-maned mare showed itself through the blinds of the door.
He answered as he could practically feel the hoof of Pinkie Pie curl around the doorknob.
“Apply sufficient pressure.”


Ta-Ring!
“I’m ho-oooome!”
Pinkie Pie gazed a moment, a carefree grin on her face.
She stared a moment at the scene of her adopted family tied up to chairs and the detonator placed atop a bright, colourful cake, a length of copper-wire attached to it snapping at its threshold.
Cup Cake and Carrot Cake gave muffled screams and shut their eyes.
For a moment there was silence.
Pinkie Pie glanced around the room and giggled.
“Is this some kinda’ prank? ‘Sorry, we can’t do any baking right now. We’re tied-up with the kids.’ Is that it?” She hopped over and bit through the cord constraining her guardians “C’mon ya’ sillies, let’s get cookin’!”
Through the sight of the topaz, Tybalt and Miura stared with gaping mouths.
“Wha...?”
“How...?”
Silence came through the communicator until at last, the Paymaster could be heard.
“I...see...No, actually, I don’t see. At all.”
“Where’s the boom?” Tybalt blurted out “Where the buck is the bucking boom?!”
At this, to their shock, Pinkie Pie turned to look at the topaz shard on the windowsill.
Tybalt and Miura felt the eyes of the Bearer of Laughter upon them.
There was no doubt about it. She wasn’t looking just at the windowsill, or the shard upon it.
She was looking at them!
She could see them. And hear them.
Somehow.
With a cheery grin, she declared...
“Did somepony say ‘Boom’?!”
With a flurry of confetti and the sharp sound of party-poppers, the denotator jumped as something sprung out of it like the bird of a cuckoo-clock.
Gummy the Alligator, dressed in a pink vest and miniskirt waving miniature pom-poms side to side as wacky music shot forth.
With his vacant glare and robotic movement, Gummy was joined by his keeper in the bizarre dance to the bizarre music.
The two mercenaries continued to stare in bewilderment through the topaz at the scene.
There came a voice through the communicator.
“Tybalt...”
“Yes, boss?”
“Explain.”
“I...don’t think I can, boss.”
“Try.”
“Well...the target kinda’ did a thing...and then not...kinda’...”
“...I see...” Cascadius lied again “Okay, this mission has gone...rather sour. Return to base. Make sure you aren’t-”
“Hi!”
Tybalt and Miura spun round with surprise and alarm as Pinkie Pie, the same Pinkie Pie that was standing in the middle of Sugarcube Corner in quite literally the same second, had materialised behind them with her same unbreakable grin.
“Whatcha’ do-in’?”
“Yargh! Demon!” Miura screamed as she drew her sabre, cutting across Pinkie’s neck.
A fluffy pink cloud hovered where Pinkie Pie had been a moment ago. As the head came off, it blew a raspberry before dissipating.
“Over here!” She appeared to the right of Tybalt, standing on one forehoof.
The mercenary jumped and drew his pistols and fired off a couple of rounds, all of them perforated thin, pink air.
From Ponyville came the sounds of commotion.
“There! Over there!”
“It’s them!”
“Get ‘em!”
“Abort!” Tybalt yelled as he and Miura fled into the undergrowth, pursued by the bouncing sounds of the Bearer of Laughter’s hooves.


After a mile and half of galloping, Tybalt and Miura ducked behind trees and readied their weapons, gasping and wide-eyed.
“Okay...now she’s just flat-out terrifying!” Tybalt spluttered, grabbing hold of Miura’s shoulder and handed her his communicator “You need to run. I’ll hold them off.”
Miura stared at Tybalt a moment.
“What’ll you do?” she asked “What’ll they do?”
“Doesn’t matter! They can’t be allowed to follow us!  You won’t leave tracks! Don’t drop anything! Go!” He clicked his firearms and gritted his teeth “I’ll give Pinkie something to ‘thinkie’ about!”
She found it strange but the sound of him making one of his terrible one-liners he must have thought sounded cool was enough for Miura to leave without another word.
She made no noise and left no leaves or dirt blowing or trailing, such was her way.
Steeling himself, the gunslinger whistled a tune to put him in a focussed mindset suited for battle.
He saw his foe standing before him on the edge of the forest.
Just standing there...menacingly.
A bead of sweat ran from his brow, down his muzzle and dangled for a moment from the fur under his chin.
Pinkie Pie blinked.
The drop of sweat fell and hit the ground.
She jumped in the air.
With a battle-cry, Tybalt drew up his guns and fired off round after round at the Bearer of Laughter.
There was a bizarre metallic-sounding whistle as the body of Pinkie Pie began to spin, her cottony mane trailing both in front and behind her until her entire being was a shiny, magenta wheel, whirling faster and faster, trailing up the dirt and moss behind her, the bullets bounding off wildly.
Before he could reload, Tybalt gave a cry of utter confusion as the rosy wheel shot forth.
With a smash, both Pinkie Pie and Tybalt flew up into the air as they collided. Pinkie Pie unravelling herself, completely unscratched grabbing hold of the semi-conscious Tybalt’s shoulders and holding him down like some kind of surfboard as they fell to earth.
Thought could not be properly achieved by the confounded mercenary as the ground rose to meet him and pink gave way to black.


The whistle of the train sounded new arrivals.
Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy leapt off the train to be greeted by a restless crowd gathered round something in the middle of town, cheers of encouragement mixed with curses of scorn. On a nearby bench, Cup Cake and Carrot Cake, looking slightly bruised and shaken nursed their restless foals on their knees with grateful smiles.
Raising her eyebrows in curiosity, Applejack edged her way through the tight throngs and beheld the focus of the town’s attention.
Pinkie Pie stood before the fountain, wearing a gigantic grin and a strange wide-brimmed hat with a bandolier of teeth and other trophies around the head of it. As her four friends stared, she crossed her eyes and put on a ridiculous accent as she hooted.
“Howdy folks, ah’m a big dumb killermadickery-doo! Look at mah’ shmancy ha-yat!”
Under her back-hoof, a piebald stallion, gagged and trussed up with cord trying his forehooves to his back-hooves behind him, rolled his eyes.
As the crowd cheered, Rainbow Dash fly into the air, loop-de-looped at whooped with forehooves in the sky.
“Score One for Ponyville, Baby!”
Standing on the edge of the crowd, a grey pegasus mailmare, eyes looking more focussed and keen than anypony would have seen in some time, observed the scene.
‘So much for ‘professionals of the highest calibre’.’ she thought ‘Just wait and see what Dr Bittersweet makes of this.’


*


“They have Tybalt.”
Cascadius said aloud, pacing back and forth slowly as his students, allies and associates surrounded him with uneasy looks.
Miura was kneeling before him, breathing heavily.
“He told me to go on ahead, leaving no trace of our means of entry and exit around Ponyville. The Bearer of Laughter was...unlike any opponent we’ve ever faced.”
“I am sure.” The Paymaster nodded, looking up with a flat, evaluating expression “You both acted well-enough in the situation you found yourselves in and I commend you. All of you.”
The mercenaries glanced at each other.
“Boss, we didn’t kill a single one of the Bearers.” Bloodhound pointed out.
“Nor did I expect you to.” Cascadius replied “I said from the beginning that these are not going to be easy opponents. This exercise was a measure of that statement.” He stepped down and took turns in looking his cohorts in the eye meaningfully.
“The biggest strength the Bearers have is experience. They have faced such a wide variety of the abnormal and ominous that they have become highly proficient at adapting quickly to a situation. This makes them unique among the Equestrian military. Even though our method is unlike anything they’ve faced before, we can now say the same vice-versa. They fight in ways we are simply...unfamiliar with. Under the circumstances, we’ve done alright.”
“So do we take down the town then, Boss?” Balisong asked tentatively.
“Not yet. There’s still much to do.” Cascadius cricked his neck “What we must do, in order to properly surround our foe so as to be ready to attack from every angle, is to contain them. Place them in as tight and concentrated an area as possible. Lure as many as we can to one select spot.”
He stood atop the podium again.
“Fortunately, I had planned for this. Worst case scenario for the early-mid stages of our campaign.”
“What about Tybalt?” Bovril asked.
“He’ll never tell them anything.” The Paymaster said “And they won’t hold him in Ponyville, they lack the means. And they know I can get in and out of their prisons after that Echo Squad impersonator seven years ago.”
He brushed the mane out of his brow and said confidently, a smile creeping across his muzzle.
“This victory of theirs, though insignificant, will benefit us. The Equestrians will believe they have prevented us gaining the upper hoof. Our pawns are already in place. And tomorrow, we will ensure the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony cannot resist our lure.”
He spun round with a slightly theatrical atmosphere, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
“Because, my dears...Their next opponent...will be Me.”