The sun had barely risen when the caravan reached Canterlot. After some careful driving through the streets, it reached the gates of the castle. The guards immediately recognized the vehicle and led it to a parking normally for the carriages. They weren't surprised to see some ghosts and a robot come out along with princess Twilight. They were shocked, however, to see a skeleton, a scooter rolling by itself, and a small army of living dolls come out.
It was gonna be another weird day, uh?
Celestia was warned of their arrival just after she finished her breakfast, and she asked them to be led to the same room than the previous time, after that incident with the Valley. She immediately understood that it was very serious.
When they arrived in the room, she could only look in horror at Starlight who was now a ghost. She guessed that the skeleton was Sweetie Belle, but she couldn't see Apple Bloom, Fluttershy, and Scootaloo. Was one of them the scooter? Wait, Fluttershy was now a doll nestled in Rainbow Dash's mane. And all those dolls...
It really was very serious.
"What happened, my little ponies?" she asked in worry.
Twilight then explained everything that happened. They were invited to a hotel by one Eternal Rest, the same mare who told Apple Bloom about Evershade Valley, but it revealed to be an ambush. Eternal Rest was actually a minion of Thanatos, and she captured everypony excepted Apple Bloom, Little Ghost, Sweetie Belle, and Applejack. Apple Bloom then had to climb the hotel floor by floor to save everypony, fighting many ghosts including some powerful ones like Piano Virtuoso, Emperor Gorros, a cavepony named Ooga, queen Leyla Rahfa, or captain Blackbeard. Eternal Rest, however, killed Scootaloo and Fluttershy and forcefully bound them respectively in the scooter and in a doll. In her fight against Apple Bloom, she also killed Starlight Glimmer. The dolls were other victims that were all part of Eternal Rest's 'Collection' that Apple Bloom saved. Finally, Apple Bloom managed to capture Eternal Rest, and the hotel was destroyed, but Eternal Rest was able to open a portal through which Apple Bloom disappeared, and now, they were told by Thanatos himself that Apple Bloom was in another dimension.
It was so much to take on, but Celestia had to take them one at a time.
First, Apple Bloom. She called Discord who appeared in the room almost immediately.
"You called?" he said before he remarked the dolls, then saw Starlight, then Scootaloo, then the very depressed Polterpup, and understood that something went wrong. He growled. "My brother?" Before they could answer, he then spotted Fluttershy in Rainbow Dash's mane, and his expression turned to horror before he grabbed her to better look. "What has he done to you?!"
Slowly, in a small voice, Fluttershy answered. "It... It was somepony working for Thanatos... Eternal Rest..."
"THAT WITCH?!!" he yelled. He quickly calmed however when he saw Fluttershy cover in fear with a squeak. "Oh, I'm sorry my dear. I didn't mean to scare you."
"You know about this witch, Discord?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Of course I know about her. Wherever my brother went, that mare was almost everytime beside him. She was his most faithful and powerful minion, and she was easily as sadistic as him. I hated her."
"She..." began Fluttershy. "She killed me... then trapped me in this doll... then she t-t-she tortured me with her lightning. It... It was... so..."
Discord put her against his chest and began to pet her. "Shhh... It's over," he said before his expression morfed to pure hate. "I see what you did, brother..." he spat. "You didn't like that I began to interfere so you went after the one I hold the most dear. You made a grave mistake."
The ponies looked insure for a moment at seeing him so... hateful. Discord never showed that much hate until now.
Eventually, Applejack spoke. "Discord, we need yer help. Eternal Rest sent mah sister to another dimension."
Discord groaned, putting his claw on his face. "She did? Very well. Give me a few days to track her. I just hope she wasn't sent to a dimension where time advances faster than ours, or we may recover her as an old mare. Bah, if this happens, I will just use some age regression." He then looked at Fluttershy. "Do you want me to get you out of this doll body?" he asked.
Fluttershy took some time to answer as she thought. "I don't know. I fear that I will scare the animals if I become a ghost. Many of them are so sensitive..."
"Alright then. You want to become a robot like Applejack?"
"Huum... How about I just remain a doll, but you make me the size of a pony?"
Discord rubbed his head. "Erh... I don't know about animals, but I personally find the idea of a pony-sized living doll more scary than a ghost. But if this is what you want, then very well. You can always change later if this causes problem." He then slowly put Fluttershy on the floor, floated back, and snapped, turning Fluttershy pony-sized. Discord then returned at Fluttershy's side and put an arm around her before he turned toward Scootaloo.
"Talk about irony," he said.
"You don't say..." replied Scootaloo. "Just get me out of here."
Discord nodded, grabbed the scooter, and pulled Scootaloo's ghost out of it. He then turned to Starlight. "What about you?"
Starlight sighed. "I don't know... I'm still not over the fact that I'm dead... I think that I will remain a ghost for now."
"I'm so sorry Starlight..." said Twilight.
"Don't be, Twilight. There's nothing you and the others could have done. The instant Eternal Rest entered my body, I was doomed."
Discord gave a nod and turned to Little Ghost. "I can see that Thanatos used a trick to weaken you," he said before he grabbed Little Ghost and pulled the talisman weakening her out. "There."
Little Ghost sighed in relief. "Thank you, I feel much better. It was like I was dragging a weight."
Discord turned to Sweetie Belle. "Do you want me to turn you back to a more fresh-looking undead?"
"I got some good uses of this skeleton body, but yes, please. Other ponies aren't used to skeletons."
So Discord snapped his fingers and Sweetie Belle was back to a more normal-looking filly, even if she was still an undead.
Discord then looked at the over one hundred dolls in the room and rubbed his head again. "This may take some time..."
One of the dolls said "Rescue the filly first, we can wait a few more days."
All the other dolls nodded.
"We owe her our freedom," one of them said.
"Please, be quick, she may be in a dangerous dimension!" said another.
"Very well then, if nothing more needs to be done... Ah, yes, tell me where Apple Bloom fought Eternal Rest. I need to get some remnant of the energy used to create the portal to better track her."
Twilight nodded. "Give me a map and I will give you the location of the ruins of Eternal Rest's hotel."
"Once you give it, I will send guards to retrieve anything we can from them, like the bodies of everypony who died there," said Celestia.
Starlight sighed again. "You won't find mine. Eternal Rest made it explode."
"And you will have to send a lot of guards. There are a lot of ruins, and the majority of the bodies were just skeletons that are now in pieces," said Rainbow Dash. "As for Fluttershy's body..."
"Eternal Rest forced us to fight it," said Sweetie Belle. "We beheaded it and cut its right wing before it fell beyond a window from the fifteenth floor. What must remain of it..."
Discord growled again, but quickly calmed down. "I can reconstruct her body with my magic. I will even help the guards gather the bodyparts of everyone who died in this cursed hotel, even Starlight's. What about Scootaloo's body?"
"It was thrown out a window from the fifth floor by Eternal Rest," said Little Ghost.
Celestia sighed. "This tragedy must stop."
"I'm still working on a way to capture Thanatos and keep him trapped," said Discord.
"Well... While ya work to recover Apple Bloom, Ah'm gonna free all the good ghosts she and her friends had to capture," said Applejack. "Wherever she's, Ah hope she's alright... Ah wish Ah could do more..."
King Boo (the round, white ghost) divided himself into two, and the two of them began to charge energy in their gem as stormclouds gathered above the roof. Areas of the roof then began to crackle, and Apple Bloom, Luigi (the guy in green), and Gooigi (the slime) quickly moved on one of the areas that weren't crackling before lightning struck the ones that did. The two King Boo did a second attempt, but they all escaped again.
In her mind, Apple Bloom was cursing Eternal Rest. Because of that witch, she was now in this situation! She popped out of her portal on this roof right in the middle of a big battle opposing Luigi to King Boo. She quickly understood that Luigi was in a similar situation than she was. He and his friends as well as his brother were invited in this hotel by the owner only to be ambushed by this King Boo. Luigi, armed of this version of a Poltergust, then had to climb the hotel floor by floor to save his friends. But it seemed like he had it easier. This King Boo didn't seem to want to kill them, but to trap them in a frame, the same frame that was now floating beside King Boo in which many people could be seen. And now, Apple Bloom had to fight King Boo too.
She wasn't given a choice. As soon as King Boo remarked the Poltergust on her back, he became furious and attacked her along with Luigi and Gooigi. Luigi quickly explained to her who they were and what was going on, she told him in return who she was, and they allied themselves to fight King Boo.
But a fight against another powerful ghost really was the last thing she needed right now. After her fight against Eternal Rest, she had to fight to remain conscious. Her body was hurting everywhere, covered in bumps, burns, and cuts, and she was so tired after this long night of constant fighting.
At least, the beginning of the fight against King Boo wasn't problematic. His attacks were easy to dodge, much easier than Eternal Rest's attacks. Then, King Boo did the error of throwing some explosive spiked ball that exploded into several smaller bombs. Luigi then grabbed one of the bombs with his Poltergust and fired it right in the mouth of the ghost. So the bomb exploded in him, and King Boo fell on the roof stunned, his long tongue out. Apple Bloom, Luigi, and Gooigi then managed to grab the tongue with their Poltergust before they slammed him a few times. The slams were so strong and King Boo so big that they left cracks on the roof. Really, for a ghost, King Boo was heavy!
King Boo escaped however, and when he recovered, he divided himself. And now, here she was, in the middle of a second round of dodging King Boo's attacks. Excepted that now that he had a clone, they were harder to avoid. Already, the lightning attack was covering more area on the roof. Then, both King Boo flew high above the roof and violently slammed on it three times each, the real King Boo producing shockwaves.
At least, the clone didn't produce them when he slammed himself on the roof.
It seemed that Luigi's Poltergust was much heavier than Apple Bloom's, or he had less strength, because the poor guy couldn't jump high compared to her. So he and his slimy clone had to use bursts of air on the floor to propel themselves high enough to avoid the shockwaves. A really interesting use of the Poltergust that Apple Bloom decided to note in her mind.
After this, the two King Boo fired from their gem fireballs that rolled on the floor while they moved back and forth. The balls were rather slow, but because of the clone, their number was more problematic, and Luigi got hit on one of his legs. Apple Bloom herself got a few hairs of her tail burned.
This attack was followed by one where both Boos slammed their long tongue on the roof. This one was probably the trickiest to dodge because the Boos anticipated their moves and tried to trap them, and this got Gooigi destroyed. Thankfully, when the slime was destroyed, it reappeared in the tube on Luigi's Poltergust, and just one second later, it came out as good as new ready to continue the battle.
Once the King Boo stopped slamming their tongue, they then moved to both sides of the roof and began to move their tongue in a spiral pattern. It was a new one, and rather hard to avoid as they had to anticipate the spiraling movement of the tongues to either jump above or pass below. Luigi badly anticipated and got hit.
Finally, the two Boos took an explosive spiky ball from nowhere and threw them at Luigi and Apple Bloom. The balls exploded, releasing their content. One released random objects while the other released bombs. Like before, Luigi went to take one, and Apple bloom took another just in case.
She wasn't sure if Luigi remarked it, but the clone had less fangs than the real King Boo.
Luigi fired and successfully targeted the real King Boo, making him eat the bomb that exploded inside him, causing the clone to disappear. King Boo dropped on the roof, stunned, and like previously, the three of them grabbed his tongue and slammed him as much as they could until he escaped again.
King Boo disappeared only to come out of the frame where Luigi's friends and family were trapped. Then, he fired a bolt of electricity at it, and the image in it turned into a multicolored spiral as the frame began to grow. It grew, and grew, and grew, until it was so big that it could trap the whole hotel! As an effect, trees and objects from the hotel began to float toward it, and the hotel itself began to shake as it was pulled!
Apple Bloom and Luigi exchanged a look, then readied themselves. They had to end this fight NOW!
King Boo then created two clones, and the three of them laughed before they began to attack again, starting with the lightning attack.
Now, it was so bad that only a small area of the roof wasn't crackling, and they had to hurry to run to it before the lightning struck. And they did it three times this time! The third time was a close call because the safe area was at the opposite side of the roof from where they were.
The Boos then did a new attack were they three many explosive spiked balls in the sky above the roof. The balls exploded and released dozens of bombs that rained everywhere on the roof, immediately exploding. Their best solution was to go to a corner of the roof and blow air to push the bombs away before they exploded.
The fireball attack was even more difficult to avoid. There were just so many that there was almost no place to move, and more than once, the ghost hunters got some burns.
The attack were they slammed their tongue followed, and it was Tartarus to avoid being trapped by them. When they made them spiral after that, however, they all managed to avoid them this time, Luigi getting the thing.
They had some respite with the body-slamming attack, easier to dodge even with the two clones. They just had to not stop moving to avoid being under the shadows of the Boos when they slammed, and then they had to jump to avoid the shockwaves produced by the real King Boo.
Finally, the three Boos threw an explosive spiked ball, one of which released the much awaited bombs. As Luigi grabbed one, however, the Boos threw more spiked ball in the air, repeating the bomb raining attack. So Luigi quickly fired at the real King Boo, making him eat the bomb, then ran to a corned to escape the rain while King Boo dropped on the roof, stunned.
When the rain of bombs stopped, the three hunters quickly ran to King Boo and grabbed his tongue. Finally, they slammed him once. Twice. Thrice.
And King Boo's tongue was sucked in Luigi's Poltergust. Gooigi and Apple Bloom, knowing that it was the end, let go and watched as King Boo attempted to escape, without success with his tongue stuck. In the end, he was entirely sucked in the vacuum cleaner, only leaving the gem of his crown behind.
Apple Bloom dropped on the floor.
FI-NAL-LY! Now, maybe she'll be able to sleep. She really needed it.
So, as Luigi took the gem, and the giant frame returned to normal, Apple Bloom lost consciousness.