//------------------------------// // 14 - The Black Knight // Story: The Hollow Pony // by Type_Writer //------------------------------// My vision was a horrific kaleidoscope of bleeding colors and blurring oil paint as reality became unreal, and we shifted through the spaces in-between. The fire of the forest became the concept of orange, and the muck of the forest became the shadow of brown. Light itself seemed to distort as Dinky’s magic replaced the sun’s glow, and wrapped us up in a cocoon of sorcery. It was only because of this cocoon that we survived our passage through the void between spaces. There was nothing else in that space, besides ourselves, huddled against each other inside the bubble. Only absolute, unbroken void loomed beyond. We couldn’t see it directly, because our eyes didn’t work right during the passage. But we could feel it; there was no light, no warmth, no magic, and no fire in this empty abyss. Instead, our vision passed backwards through the embers that represented our eyes, and the thoughts within bled out into the void that surrounded us. We could barely last more than a few seconds in this place, as the unreality clawed and screamed and battered against our bubble of safety, but we endured. Our home reality slammed into us as though we had fallen from the sky, but in truth, we fell only a leg-length from our point of arrival. Dinky and Snails gasped like they were drowning, but I merely fell onto my unfeeling rump, and was unable to stop myself from slumping back against the muddy side of the ditch. Dinky landed atop me, while Snails fell onto his back by my side, but facing upwards. He slid down the hill head-first a few hoof-lengths, then friction dragged him to a stop. Dinky seemed to panic for a few seconds, but calmed down a moment later as she realized we were all alive and alright, relatively speaking. “S-sorry!” Dinky groaned, as she pressed a hoof to her smoking, red-hot horn. It hissed like a branding iron as she touched it with her frog, and she jerked the hoof away in surprise. “That was- that was a bad wink, I was panicking, and I didn’t do it right, and I never practice that enough, because that type of teleport is really scary and I don’t ever practice it when I can just blink instead, even though the mana required increases exponentially with dist-” I could still move my forelegs, at least. Dinky’s babbling ceased as I gently pulled her against myself in a hug, and pressed my chin against the top of her head. She shivered against me, and I focused on my breathing, to calm the both of us down. In the distance, I heard Dinky’s wail…a second time? And then a pop…strange. The air smelled like smoke, and blood. I focused on the fires of the two ponies alongside me, and paused. There was another, very close to our three fires. Almost directly in front of us. I opened my eyes in confusion, and looked up. The ichor clogging my veins solidified in an instant. The first thing my fear-stricken mind understood were the eyes—twin embers, burning like tiny suns full of malice. Despite how brightly they burned, they totally failed to illuminate the face within the helmet. All I could make out clearly were the eyes themselves, but I recognized the creature from the shadowed scars it had left in my head. With those memories came the feeling of pain, sharp and stabbing, as I remembered the weapon that had pierced my belly. I dimly recalled my body as it grew cold around the blade, while that shape stood above me, and watched me die. It was tall, taller than I, and closer in height to my dim memories of Celestia. But she had worn golden regalia, while this creature was encased in metal that I couldn’t recognize. Something had happened to it, and had blackened the metal like flesh lit aflame. It was hard to even focus properly on the smooth surface of the armor plates; my vision seemed almost to slide away, or focused instead on the dull reflection of the burning Everchaos all around us. Perhaps it was because of the way the metal seemed to absorb light, or perhaps my own eyes would not let me gaze upon the equine-shaped beast before me. It was going to kill me again. I knew it as soon as I had looked into those eyes, but only now did I understand, after my mind had been screaming those words at me, over and over and over. I had to run, had to hide. I couldn’t fight it, or if I did, then it couldn’t be beat. It would find me eventually, no matter where I ran, but if I just kept running then maybe it would never catch up. But I was paralyzed. Apple Bloom had made sure of that, when we had fought. I could still move my fores, but I would never be able to crawl fast enough to flee, even if I could force myself to even breathe as I stared at it. But I was too overcome with sheer terror, and I thought for sure as soon as I moved a muscle, it would strike. I stared at it, but when the Black Knight stared back, I had almost a sense that it was…measuring me. That it was examining my being in utter totality, every action I’d taken, and every step of my hooves. Those two suns full of malice never shifted, never strayed. They dissected my being and my very soul without even an errant twitch. Dinky shuddered under me. I think she was concerned that my breathing had stopped suddenly, and she shifted as she opened her eyes. Then she too froze, with her back pressed against my barrel, as we both stared down the creature.. “Wha-what is...who…” Dinky fumbled over her words as she was surely struck with the same unshakeable terror that had me frozen in place. But to my surprise, her eyes narrowed a moment later, and her horn lit with golden fire, as she pushed away from me. Dinky was clearly tired, clearly still hurting from the fight we’d just had with Apple Bloom and the burned deer. And we were still close enough to hear the few remaining screams from the caravan, so we were far from safe. But Dinky still stood, shielded Snails and myself with her body, and glared down her glowing horn at the Black Knight. “Are you with Apple Bloom? Are you going to try and steal our fire, too?” The Black Knight barely acknowledged her, for the briefest of moments. The ruined helmet turned as the gaze of the burning suns within shifted to Dinky, and they examined her being in turn. Through it all, Dinky never flinched, and never broke her composure. She stood over us, horn aglow, and waited for the Black Knight to make its first move. The metal armor ground together slowly, as though it were made of tectonic plates, as the Black Knight slowly turned away from us. It seemed to have lost all interest in us as it left, and it picked up speed as it strode confidently, but never broke into a gallop. Long strides on longer metal legs carried it into the forest, and the last we saw of the creature was the silhouette it made as it walked straight through the forest fire. It was neither hindered nor harmed by the inferno, but we had no hope of following it. Dinky’s hinds collapsed, and she fell back beside me, panting from the mere exertion of standing and guarding us. If the Black Knight had chosen to strike, would she have survived even a single blow? “What…?” Dinky shook her head, and turned back to me. “What was that? Holly, you- Holly?” I shook myself awake. It was gone. It had left. I was still alive, or something akin to it. “Holly, are you okay? You look- I’ve never seen you look so scared.” I nodded to reply, but it was almost lost in how hard I was shaking. Dinky winced, but turned to Snails, who was still lying on his back. “Alright…Snails, how about you? Can you move?” I hadn’t even looked over at Snails, not after I’d seen the Black Knight. Had we landed directly at its hooves? When I looked over now, I could see Snails was just as shaken as us both, and he kept twitching as his eyes darted from tree to tree. But he nodded too, and Dinky took a few sharp breaths. “Okay. We’re in bad shape, but the caravan’s gone. We need to leave, now, before Apple Bloom finds us. She already has to know we winked out, and I bet she’s searching for us right this second.” Dinky looked back at my belly, and the ugly wound Apple Bloom had inflicted upon me. “Snails, can you carry Holly? With your magic or on your back, it doesn’t matter, but we’re not leaving her behind. I can’t carry her—I’m not even sure I can gallop, not after those fights.” Snails nodded again, and turned to face me. As he shoved his horn under my back, and I watched my limp hinds flop loosely, I tried to help seat myself on his back using my fores. I ended up laying on my belly, with my legs dangling over his own. I would have blushed, but I wasn’t sure I was capable of it any more, and we had much bigger problems at the moment. Dinky took the lead, even though her best gallop was hobbled, and I heard her hiss as she tried to ignore the pain that came with every step. Snails followed behind, encumbered by my weight, but we left the burning caravan behind us as we fled into the woods. * * * We paused at the foot of a gnarled oak, twisted by Chaosfire, so that Snails and Dinky could catch their breaths. I kept an eye out on the forest around us as Snails sagged under my weight, but try as I might, my legs were still disconnected from the rest of my body. Would I even manage that small bit of autonomy before we reached Ponyville? Snail’s mind was clearly elsewhere. “What…what was that knight?” he gasped, “That pony, or...whatever they were, it was like I was being petrified when they looked at me.” “I don’t know.” Dinky shook her head. “I’ve never even heard of anything like that out here. I’ve never seen armor like that...Holly, you…you seemed to recognize them, or...something? Have you seen them before?” The silhouette, one of the few memories I could scrape together when I had first awoken, flashed before me once more. It was far from clear, but it was more defined now at least. Tall, and angular, and with two glowing eyes full of malice. I swallowed to work my dry throat. “Y-yes...it...th-that thing...it k-killed me. B-back in the b-bookstore, that kn-night was what k-killed me…” “You remember now?” Dinky’s eyebrows widened in hope, but I had to dash them. I shook my head, and mumbled, “Only v-vague flashes...r-remember th-the eyes, th-though…” Underneath me, Snails nodded slowly. “That knight...they had an empty scabbard at their side. Like they had a sword, but lost it somewhere? I don’t think they could have attacked us, at least not without using their bare hooves. Or armored hooves.” Dinky rubbed her shoulder, where Apple Bloom had kicked her. I could see just barely under her cloak that a dark bruise was beginning to form there, and the frantic gallop away couldn’t have helped. “And Holly…you said you woke up with a sword stabbed through you, right? If it’s the same one...where’d that sword end up? Maybe there’s some clue we can glean from it about…whatever in Tartarus that knight was, or who you were.” I shrugged slowly, and limply. “The b-blade was r-ruined, an-and it w-was too h-heavy to c-carry...I l-left it in the b-bookstore, I th-think...” “Okay, maybe it’ll have some clues we can use. After we get back to Ponyville, we can go out together to retrieve it. That shouldn’t be too tough, as long as we can get back to…” Dinky trailed off, as the color drained from her face, and she looked back the way we’d come. “Wha-what are we gonna tell them when we get back? We lost Zecora…Oh Celestia, we lost Zecora.” I couldn’t help but close my eyes and huddle tighter to Snails at the same thought. Zecora was dead, and Apple Bloom had her research now. So much for my lessons, and Zecora’s cure for the Hollow Curse, unless Meadowbrook also got away. But we hadn’t run into her during our own escape, while the rest of the caravan was lost…which didn’t bode well for her. I felt Snails swallow under me. “Miss Applejack’s not gonna like this…we lost Snips and the other guards, too.” Snails had a point. Were we the last survivors? Grapeshot had been stunned, but I hadn’t seen her get attacked directly. The last we’d seen of Magnus, he was flying back over the caravan to chase after Apple Bloom, and he clearly hadn’t defeated her. I felt sick at the thought of all of the ponies we’d left behind in our panic to escape. I hadn’t seen Cattail, but I hadn’t been looking for him either; he and Meadowbrook could have been any of the ponies fighting that we ran past, when we were so focused on Zecora. We took them from their homes, only to leave them at the mercy of Apple Bloom, the Deer, and whatever that Black Knight was. Snails mumbled quietly, “Are we deserters?” Dinky shook her head. “We…no. I don’t think so? We…” She trailed off, then stamped her hoof against an exposed root. “We didn’t desert! That battle was lost, and staying behind to fight more would have just gotten us killed too!” I looked at Dinky, but she couldn’t meet my eyes. She was right, but...it felt wrong, all the same, leaving all of those ponies behind. And it was too late to take it back now. Far, far too late. After a few moments, Dinky looked down, and spoke quietly again. “When we get to Ponyville, we need to just...avoid Applejack. More than we were before. See if we can take advantage of her Hollowing, maybe she’ll forget we ever left at all.” “An’ then...then what?” Snails asked, more out of confusion than anything else. “I...I don’t know!” Dinky barked, and we all flinched as we heard the echo through the burnt forest. She continued as it faded, much more quietly than before. “I just...I just wanna go home. I wanna lie down in my bed, and try to forget all of this happened, and just go back to learning magic and not getting anypony else hurt.” The bushes rustled nearby, and Dinky leapt to her hooves. “We gotta go. Apple Bloom’s still hunting us, and there’s worse out here.” We nodded, and Dinky took the lead again as we limped quickly through the burnt underbrush. * * * We could only gallop so far before our relatively good luck ran dry. While up until that point, we had managed to avoid the worst the Everchaos had to offer, something finally caught up to us as we neared the edge of the forest. We were pretty sure it was Apple Bloom, who had finally tracked us down. But I was the one with the clearest view, since Dinky and Snails were too focused on not tripping as they galloped through the forest, and even I could only see flashes of bright red through the leaves. Whether it was her mane, the burning visage of one of the Deer, or just some hungry demon, it didn’t matter all that much. It was behind us, and we weren’t going to let it catch us. “We’re getting closer to the cannons!” Dinky shouted, as the distant thud of the report washed over us. They had been our only guide home, without Magnus and his maps, and the sound had distorted as it rolled through the Everchaos. A second later, the ground shook as the shell detonated, and Snails stumbled, and only barely managed to recover. I wanted to tell him to drop me, so he could run unhindered, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not when we were all so close to safety. Something whipped over our heads and burst on the ground before us, and a puddle of bubbling crimson blocked our way, but we never slowed down. Dinky vanished in a streak of light that snapped forward over the puddle, and then reappeared on the other side as the light flashed. A moment later, Snails repeated the trick for himself, and I felt a sudden lurching motion as the world flicked past us in an instant. Deceleration made me nauseous again, and Snails stumbled as he found his hooves once more, but we couldn’t slow down. Was that some other form of teleportation? Once again I was reminded how both my friends were unicorns. I made a mental note to ask about the difference between the two types at some point, preferably some time when we weren’t running for our lives. I had only the barest memory of the concept, and now I had experienced two different versions in a short period. I didn’t terribly like either of them, and I wished I could just fly to safety instead. After we had spent so long running through the Everchaos, where the sun was obscured by the thick smoke of the forest fire, and our only light was the writhing embers of chaos, even the dim sunlight of the world outside blinded us. We couldn’t see past the final treeline, but we could most certainly see the silhouettes of a great swarm of demons as they crawled, stomped, and scuttled in the cover of the trees. We were approaching too fast to stop, let alone to find a way through, and I have no doubt that I would have faltered in that moment if I were alone. Dinky did not falter. Not now, not when we were so close. She lowered her horn as she continued to gallop forward, and a cone of golden sorcery pushed in front of herself, while Snails followed directly behind her. The demons heard us approach, but by the time they turned and saw us, we had already begun to charge through their swarm. Acid, spittle, feathers like needles, and dozen different sets of claws all scraped at the cone of magic, but Dinky kept us all safe. She was the first to leap out into the sunlit space beyond the edge of the forest, and Snails followed her through afterwards. I was blinded for a few harsh moments, as my vision adjusted to the space beyond the trees. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t help but stare at the barren expanse all around us, for the forest hadn’t been razed to the ground, so much as it had been obliterated. Smoldering stumps, burning clumps of broken branches, and the broken bodies of a hundred dead demons, still bleeding as though freshly slain, had replaced the trees and bushes. Even the terrain here was ruined; the ground had been ripped apart by the passage of great beasts, and craters pockmarked the land like volcanic slopes. Our ears all popped as the ground exploded a few hundred leg-lengths to our west, and hard-packed dirt was thrown into the sky, before it began to rain down as ashen mud.This was all wrong. We weren’t supposed to be here—this was the free-fire line, on the Everchaos side of the Firebreak! Dinky screamed something, but our hearing was gone, thanks to the explosion a moment ago. We never slowed down, because to stop out here was death from either the demons behind us or the soldiers before us. At the very least, when I looked back, I couldn’t find our pursuer; they’d had the good sense to stay hidden within the trees, where they couldn’t be directly targeted. Another explosion shook the ground around us, and an instant rainstorm appeared in our path. This must have been one of the firestopper shells that Magnus had mentioned when we first left Ponyville, but if that was a compressed ice cloud, then it must have had a terrifyingly huge static charge that was being dispersed as it spread! Dinky charged right through it, even as I yelled for her to stop—that was incredibly dangerous, even for pegasi! But Snails didn’t stop either, and I felt the electricity of the cloud prickle at my dead feathers as we galloped blindly through the liquid air. I prayed to the winds that the cloud wouldn’t discharge, and those prayers were answered as we re-emerged, sopping wet, through the other side. The dirt turned to mud under our hooves as we got as far away from the cloud as we could, and when I turned back to look, a quadrupedal shadow was moving through the cloud behind us. I was blinded as the cloud flashed—the discharge. Lightning connected ground and sky within the low-hanging stormcloud, and a pressure wave, the silent thundercrack, rolled over us. A moment later, the smoking corpse of a demon slumped into the mud behind us, instantly fried by the positive charge. Once again, we had been lucky, but how long would this streak hold? I was jerked upwards suddenly as Snails leapt over the edge of an embankment, and suddenly the trench walls closed in on me. I turned my head forwards again, to where Dinky was leading us down the forward-most trench. We only needed one of the paths leading back to the second trench, and then we could find our way to the third, and then maybe we’d be safe- Dinky turned a corner and ducked, and her horn lit as she shoved Snails back. He stumbled, and I fell over him and landed with an undignified splat into the bloody mud. As I pushed myself back up, I could see Dinky shouting something down the trench, then both Snails and I were grabbed in her magic. Her horn burned as she tossed a golden flare into the sky above, and the walls blurred by as Dinky carried us both to safety at withers-height. She only released us as she jumped over a short wall of sandbags, and we both landed with another undignified splat on a woven hemp carpet laid on the bottom of the trench. I decided to continue lying there for a moment, and just relish in the feeling of staying still. How long had we been galloping? It felt like hours, but I didn’t think Dinky had that kind of stamina. How much distance had we crossed, in so short a time? Especially compared to our first run down the length of the firebreak. Eventually, I lifted my head. My hearing was still gone, but I could see Dinky, as she shouted at a soldier operating a crank gun mounted behind the sandbags. She looked like she was shouting so loud, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Eventually, he shouted something back and waved his hoof towards the back line, and Dinky stomped her hoof one last time, before she turned to us. She asked me a question, but it was lost to my new deafness. After a moment, I pointed to my ears, and her eyes widened, before she shook Snails awake. The colt seemed dazed as well from the run, but Dinky clapped her hooves together noiselessly, which he didn’t respond to at all. Apparently we had both been deafened by the blast. Maybe being as Hollowed as we were had made our ears weaker? When Snails finally understood, his hooves began to glow, and he pressed them to his ears. After a moment, his whole body flinched, and he kept his hooves pressed to his ears as he shouted something. Dinky shouted something back, then glared at the soldier again. He didn’t seem to care; he’d just returned to his duty, which seemed to consist of firing intermittently over the sandbags. Eventually, Snails shook his head and released his ears, though he kept jumping at noises I couldn’t hear. Then he trotted over to me, and wrapped me in a very tight hug. I leaned into it as much as I was able, as bloody, ashen mud matted both of our fur between us. Snails released me after a few seconds, then pressed his glowing hooves to my ears. Whatever he’d done to himself looked painful, so I braced myself, but I could never have braced myself enough. One moment, I was deaf, and the world was silent. The next moment, I could hear again, and the world seemed to be trying to cram all the noise I’d missed in the interim into my head in the span of a second, then just kept going. I flinched and yelped, and both Snails and Dinky held me tightly as I clapped my hooves to the sides of my head. I tried to focus only on them, and tried to breathe, as I felt the warmth of my friends embrace me. Eventually, the screaming din resolved itself into noises I could distinguish. There was the staccato repeated report of gunfire, the earth-shaking booms of the cannons, and the howls of the demons that had been once again denied their prize. And finally, I could hear Dinky’s voice, as she shouted over the cacophony. “Can you hear now?!” I nodded, and Dinky sighed in relief, before turning back to Snails. “Do you think you can fix her legs, too?! Unless you feel like carrying her back!” Snails shrugged, and seemed unsure, but I was more than happy to let him try. I pointed to my back, where my legs met my spine, and he blushed as best he could. Dinky gave him a kick, and he nodded before he gently laid his hooves above my tail, and felt the ridge up my back. After a few seconds, he shook his head. “I think it’s too deep inside, I can’t reach it! I can still carry her, though!” Dinky sighed and nodded, and then helped him haul me atop his back again. Once more, she took the lead, and we slogged through the trenches towards the back line. As soon as we reached it, Dinky ran into another soldier, who looked confused that we were even here. Dinky seemed only able to communicate by shouting at this point. Maybe her hearing had been damaged, after all. “Ponyville?!” she yelled in the soldier’s face. He pointed down the west end of the trench, unflinching, almost blasé, in spite of this mare’s shrillness. “Thanks!” Onwards we continued. We only passed one cannon emplacement, which meant we had somehow emerged from the forest, or at least had entered the trenches, between the first and second cannons. How we had gotten so turned around inside the Everchaos, I had no idea, but at least we were safe. Safe. The thought was odd; we were maybe the safest that we had ever been, in the last…however long it had been since we left these trenches, had left Ponyville. We didn’t know what our plans were once we got back inside, but whatever we did, we’d be a lot safer in there than we had ever been outside the walls. We couldn’t get back there fast enough. When we reached the final stretch of land in between ourselves and the gate, we paused to plan. Thankfully, Dinky’s speech had fallen back to merely loud conversational speech, which suited the booming trenches just fine. “Okay, so we can’t get the gate open from this side, but it’s not especially thick. I can wink us through, shouldn’t take more than a second. We’re going to run up the ramp, get to the gate, and then you two hold still once we reach it. I’ll take care of the rest.” “Can you do that?” Snails asked, with clear concern in his voice. “I thought you were tired.” “I was, and I am, but this is the last stretch now.” Dinky hugged him close, and hugged me as well on his back. “We’re almost back in, and we can lay in the street until the end of time if we need to. We’ll feel well enough to move eventually, we just have to get inside.” Snails still looked unsure, but we both nodded, and Dinky led the final charge up the hill. The great steel gate seemed to gleam in the light of the setting sun behind us, and when we came to a rest at the door, Snails looked ready to collapse. Dinky huffed a few times, and I braced myself as her horn began to glow one final time. It wasn’t more than a flash of unreality this time, and I closed my eyes before we passed through the space between, which helped. We landed with one final squelch in the mud on the other side of the gate, and we all flopped onto our sides as the sound of the magic faded. In its wake, we heard voices, and as my vision cleared, I took in the scene from where I had landed in the mud. “Whoa! What was- Dinky?” Magnus was the closest to us, and we’d apparently interrupted a conversation he’d been embroiled in on this side of the wall. By his side stood Mage Meadowbrook, with a few bleeding scrapes and scratches across her muzzle, breast and sides. She had jumped at the sound when Dinky winked us in, and galloped over to check that we were alright. Behind them both, and flanked by a half-dozen militia ponies, stood Applejack. She had a clear scowl across her face, and as Magnus trailed behind Meadowbrook to stand over us in concern, I could see her motion and whisper to a few of the militia ponies nearby. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I doubted it was anything good. Dinky jerked upright at Meadowbrook’s caring touch, and looked between her and the absent Commander. “M-Magnus?” He nodded, and indicated Meadowbrook with his wing. “We had to flee, I’m sorry to say. Managed to fly Meadowbrook out to safety, at least. Good to see you made it back too, with Snails and Holly, but...what about Zecora?” We all flinched, and Dinky clenched her teeth. Meadowbrook had been in the middle of healing Dinky’s ears and checking her over in general, but Dinky pushed her away gently and looked down at the ground, which was enough proof for tears to well up in Meadowbrook’s eyes. Next to them both, Magnus’ expression turned crestfallen, and he let out a frustrated sigh. “So ya got Zecora kilt,“ growled Applejack, as she stomped her hoof, and the other militia ponies snapped to attention. “Damn you, Magnus. Wish Ah had the authority to kick your rump back outside to cry home to Canterlot.” Magnus turned on her. “Yeah, well, you’re stuck with me! Sorry to disappoint, but your stupid little sister seemed to have it out for us! Real surprised you didn’t mention her at all when we were heading out, coulda maybe used a heads-up that she was poking the hornet’s nest!” “Apple Bloom?” Applejack raised an eyebrow, then shook her head. “Won’t have you talkin’ such nonsense about my family. If you saw her out there, then I believe ya, but I don’t believe she’d attack you. Filly ain’t got a mean bone in her body.” I wanted to laugh, from where I laid in the mud. I was still paralyzed from the withers down, after all. Magnus took up the torch for me. “Ain’t got a- Applejack, your sister has gone Hollow! We’re all beat to Tartarus and back thanks to her! You can be damned sure I’m going to report all of this to Celestia, and she’ll come down here herself and set you-” “Ah said, don’t you talk nonsense about my damn family!” Applejack bellowed. “Apples don’t go Hollow! What Ah see is a bunch of mo-rons went and took our only damned alchemist out on a nature walk through the Firebreak, and now you come back without any o’ my militia ponies, and a different alchemist to replace the one ya lost!” I could see Snails blink as he heard that, but we didn’t have time to question it, as Applejack continued. “Now I can’t punish you, but I sure can sure as hay punish the damned fools that went with ya! Snails! Been looking for you and Snips, you both missed your last shift! Arrest Ex-Archmagus Dinky Doo here, and her pet Hollow too!” We all looked at each other for a second. Snails...arresting us? We hesitated just a moment too long, and Applejack stomped her hoof into the mud. “Snails! Quit lyin’ down on the job, and arrest these two! That’s an order!” Snails leapt to his wobbling hooves and snapped off a limp salute that slapped mud across his muzzle. “Ma’am yes ma’am!” Magnus shook his head in frustration. “You can’t arrest them! They didn’t do anything wrong but survive! If you arrest them, then you might as well arrest me, too!” “An’ me!” Meadowbrook barked, as she stepped forward. Applejack actually laughed at that, right in their faces. “Ah don’t think so. Been meanin’ to rein in the Archmagus as it was, get somepony with actual experience in the role, ‘stead of some filly. And Ah can’t arrest you, not without Celestia’ comin’ down here and readin’ me the riot act anyhow, much as Ah might want to. So ya’ll go on back up to your fancy-pants castle and report back to the princess that Ah am doing my job, and protectin’ Ponyville, just like Ah promised! We’ll see whose side she takes!” “Maybe I’ll do that.” Magnus replied with a snarl. “Ah welcome it.” Applejack spat into the mud between them as she turned back to us. “You two! No funny business! Ah might not have my shotgun with me now, but ya’ll don’t wanna run afoul of Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee. Snails, with me, we’ll show ‘em to a nice cell to rot in.” Snails still seemed confused, but none of us brought it up, and we were all too tired to start another fight. Snails pulled me onto his back one last time, and Dinky let Applejack lead us in the direction of the crystal castle at the other end of town.