Boats: The swift birds of the ocean. The car that you can drive drive across a lake. The only vehicle in the world without wheels.
After traversing through the cluttered hospital zone of Seaweedattle's Waterfront District™, Dr. Mayor Craig led Shining Armor's rescue party down to wharf. All of the boats in Seaweedattle were required by law to be moored at the wharf when they weren't being used by ponies to illegally hunt whales. Of course, since most of the ponies in Seaweedattle were too sick to kill those mighty leviathans, every boat was currently docked.
There were exactly seven boats. Only two of them were on fire.
“I've never seen so many boats in my life!” Blueblood exclaimed.
The rescue party came to a stop. Shining Armor looked over the boats they had to choose from. All seven boats were exactly the same, just like all boats are. There were no differences in their appearance or their performance. Since all boats are completely identical, the group didn't need to waste any time weighing their options.
“Mayor Greg, which of these boats are for rental?” Shining asked Dr. Mayor Craig and his magnificent sash. “I will pay you five bits to let us take them out to the nuckelavee's lair.”
“How should I know? I'm a doctor-slash-mayor, not a boat rental agent.” Dr. Mayor Craig said. Even though his face was obscured by his beaky mask, Shining could tell that the mayor was glaring at him. He was angry at the prince's presumptuous questioning.
Shining, appropriately, was ashamed. He sighed and shook his head.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Well, do you know anypony who owns one of these boats? We're going to need to ask them to let us sail out to the nuckelavee's lair.”
The Mayor scoffed. “What, you need permission to take a boat?”
There were a few chuckles behind Shining Armor. He turned and saw, to his confusion, that Thorax, Flash Sentry, and Blueblood were all snickering to themselves. Much more confusingly, they were very clearly snickering at him.
At first Shining Armor assumed that the others were laughing because of his innate charisma and great sense of humor. But then he remembered that he wasn't funny at all, so that couldn't have been it.
“... What's so funny?” Shining asked.
“Dude, just take the boat,” Flash said with a smile.
Shining stared at Flash Sentry in bewilderment.
“We can't just steal a boat,” Shining pointed out. “I know this is a desperate situation, but we don't need to do this illegally. We can just find one of that boat owners. It would take, like, ten minutes, max.”
The others laughed. So did Mayor Craig. Shining looked back and forth between them.
“Oh, look who's too good to steal a boat!” Blueblood said, nudging Flash jokingly. The younger guard laughed and nodded.
“Don't be such a dork, Shining!” Thorax said. “Just steal a boat! It's not even hard!”
Shining felt like being called a dork by Thorax was a sort of 'pot calling the kettle a cooking implement' situation. That hurt a little. But more than that, why was everyone acting like stealing a boat was no big deal? It was a crime, and crimes were one of the most illegal things you could do.
“But we don't need to steal a boat!” Shining emphasized. “We can get someone to cast off for us! I actually think it would take more time to steal the boat than to just find the owner and ask him for help!”
“Ooh, you're so practical,” Dr. Mayor Craig said mockingly. “'Oh, I'm too scared to steal a boat. I'm not cool enough to break the law.'”
“You're the mayor!” Shining exclaimed, exasperated. “Why, of all people, are you telling me I should break the law?! You should be the most against this!”
The Mayor scoffed once again, and everyone laughed. They all talked over each other, laughing and joking about Shining's reluctance to steal a boat. Shining Armor felt like he was the Fool of All Clowns. It was just too much to take. He just couldn't handle the peer pressure.
“Alright, fine!” Shining shouted, silencing the laughter. “You want to steal a boat? Let's steal a boat! Can we just get a move on? This is kind of important!”
“Jeez, calm down, Shining,” said Thorax the Bug.
“Yeah,” Blueblood agreed. “Lighten up a little, will you? You've been such a downer lately; it's really annoying. Not everything is about you and your problems, you know. Stop being such a wet blanket.”
Shining looked at Flash Sentry. He was nodding solemnly in agreement.
Shining took a deep breath. They were right. He was being unreasonable. Just because everyone he loved had been kidnapped and a magical plague was threatening to devour the world, that was no reason to be so serious. He'd lost sight of how important it was to have fun every now and again.
“Okay.” Shining chuckled and shook his head. “Alright, you knuckleheads. I'll lighten up a little. Now what do you say we steal one of these boats and go beat up the nuckelavee?”
Everypony cheered.
“Why don't you steal my boat?” Dr. Mayor Craig offered. He fished around in his cloak and produced some Boat-Keys, which he tossed into Shining's hooves. “That should save you some time.”
Everypony cheered again. Then they sang a five-minute song about boats. It was a great and wonderful time.
Shining, Blueblood, Thorax, and Flashing Sentry all piled into Mayor Craig Doctor's boat. In no time at all, they were taking off. The boat began to drift towards the nuckelavee's mountain lair, sailing at the breakneck speed of 2 knots.
“Have fun, you crazy kids!” Dr. Mayor Craig waved the group off as they sailed away in his boat.
Nobody acknowledged him.
It took about an hour of sailing for the rescue party to reach the boat. The ocean was very slow, and there weren't any dolphins or whales to ride. Thankfully, they were able to speed things up a little by blowing into the sail really hard. This a was a very sophisticated sailing technique that Blueblood said was used only by the most experienced boat-ponies.
Eventually, the group reached their destination. The rocky spire rose out of the ocean like a big thing rising out of a different thing. A small stone landing jutted out of its front, extending from a large cave entrance like a tongue coming out of a mouth. The inside of the cave was dark and inscrutable, like a simile that was also a metaphor.
Shining wasn't going to let a spooky cave stop him, though. There was no way to go but forward. Once they had sailed close enough, the rescue party disembarked and climbed out onto the landing. Then, just to be safe, they scuttled the Mayor's boat.
Shining led the others into the cave and the spire's cavernous interior. A tunnel-like passage of porous stone stretched out in front of them. With the limited light of Shining's horn, there was no telling how far into the mountain this passage went. The group cautiously ventured forward.
The further into the cave the rescue party went, the more cavernous it became. Strange, rocky growths surrounded them, the result of untold centuries of erosion and condensation. This place, Shining realized, was old. Very old. There was no way the nuckelavee could have made it. Had they raised it up out of the very ocean itself?
Shining shuddered at how little he cared about where this mountain had come from.
“It's funny,” Blueblood said as they ventured further into the cavern. “I can never remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites.”
This wasn't actually funny at all. Nevertheless, the conversation continued.
“There's an easy way to tell them apart,” Thorax said. “A stalactite hangs on tight to the roof of the cave. A stalagmite, meanwhile, also hangs from the roof of the cave.”
“Oh, that's right. I remember now.” Blueblood cast a wary glance at the stalactites and stalagmites hanging up above.
It only took a few more minutes of walking to reach the back of the cave. There, they found a single panel door had been set into the rock wall that terminated their path. The door was white, with a shiny brass doorknob and knocker on it. A doormat set at the foot of the door read 'DOOM' in big, blue letters.
“This must be the door the nuckelavee has his pizza delivered to,” Flash Sentry mused.
“Do you think he's in?” Thorax asked, concerned. “What if he went out to buy groceries? Will we have to wait for him to show up?”
Shining Armor nodded.
“Yes. That would be the polite thing to do. We'd have to wait for the nuckelavee to come back and let us into their lair before we do anything else. It would be rude to do otherwise.”
“Let's break into his house to see if he's home,” Blueblood said.
Shining Armor nodded.
“Yes. That would be the polite thing to do.”
Shining tested the doorknob to see if it was locked. It wasn't. They could open the door easily. That was boring, though, so instead they all worked together to use Thorax as a battering ram. Thorax was not in favor of this plan, but the others chose to ignore his clearly biased opinion.
Thorax's mighty chitinous antlers slammed into the delightful panel door with as much force as the group could muster. The door buckled from the impact and swung open with little resistance. That wasn't enough for the rescue party, though. They needed to make sure this door understood that it had been beaten. They rammed Thorax's head into the now-open door a few more times, just to be safe.
“Good job being used as a blunt object, Thorax!” Shining said.
The rescue party set Thorax gently down onto his back. After a few seconds, the leader of the Changelings stood up on shaky legs. He looked a bit dazed for some reason. What was that about?”
“Alright, guys,” Shining said. “We should start looking for where the princesses are being kept. They could be anywhere in this place.”
Blueblood looked around the room they were now in and pointed at something behind Shining.
“Do you think they could be over there?”
Shining turned his head around like an owl to look behind him. Then he turned the rest of his body. What he saw made him gasp.
A massive bubble of pure magic occupied the center of the chamber. It floated ominously just a few feet above the stone floor, gently bobbing up and down. It gave off a cold, red light that bathed the entire chamber in a crimson glow. The air practically hummed from the magic that the thing was giving off.
It was definitely a surprise to see an orb. But as shocking as that was, Shining was more shocked by what was inside of the bubble.
Cadance. Twilight. Spike. Twilight's friends. The other two princesses. There they were, floating lifelessly in the center of the bubble. They looked like they were asleep. A dark aura of magic surrounded their bodies, outlining them against the red glow. Frequently, globs of dark magic would break off of them and drift away, gradually breaking apart. Whenever this happened, their dreaming faces would contort in discomfort.
“Sweet beans!” Shining screamed in horror. “My wife is inside of that sphere!”
Thorax and Flash turned to see what Shining was talking about.
“Oh, hey, yeah,” Flash said. “How about that?”
The rescue party galloped closer to the bubble. The atmosphere grew colder the closer they got, as if they were being submerged into the depths of the ocean. The air felt heavy and oppressive, and smelled faintly of salt water.
As soon as he was close enough to touch it, Shining pressed his hoof to the surface of the bubble. It felt firm; there was absolutely no give when Shining pushed against it. As something of an expert on magical barriers, Shining knew at once that this thing was practically impenetrable.
“What is this thing?” Thorax asked. His voice was quiet as he looked up at the floating princesses.
“I mean... I think this is what's draining their magic,” Shining said uncertainly. “Don't quote me on that, though. It just looks like the sort of thing that would do that, you know? It definitely looks like a big, evil battery.”
“Enough science.” Blueblood's face displayed a rare determination. He looked up and glared at the magic bubble that had dared to eat his aunt. “How do we get them out of this? I don't like that they're stuck in there.”
Shining didn't know. This was a strong shield, and he had no clue how it was being cast. There was no guarantee that taking down the nuckelavee would dispel this thing. It would probably take an incredible amount of magical force to crack it open.
But even if Shining did have a solution, it didn't matter. A voice from the darkness interrupted them.
“Hey, what are you doing in my house?”
Everypony froze. The voice was deep and powerful, like a bossy whale. It had come from behind them, from one of the numerous holes that lined the walls of the cavern. Slowly, Shining Armor and his recuse party turned around to come face-to-faces with the owner of this lair.
The nuckelavee was exactly as Draft and the Manuel had described them. A huge, skinless, two-headed combination of a centaur and a pony. Three red eyes glowed maliciously in the dark as the creature made their way closer towards the rescue party. Its hooves made a disgusting, moist sound with every step forward.
There was one significant detail that didn't line up with Dusty Draft's story, though: This creature was huge. The nuckelavee must have gone through a significant growth spurt in the years since its confrontation with Draft and Celestia. At its current size, Shining couldn't imagine this creature fitting inside of a trendy nightclub. It was easily as big as two or three elephants standing on top of each other and wearing a trench coat.
“Are you the pizza guy?” The nuckelavee's over-sized ape head asked. “Why did you come in here? Why are there four of you?”
Shining and the others remained frozen, staring at the nuckelavee apprehensively. But as the two-headed monster continued to ask whether or not they were the pizza guy, Shining felt his fear give way to something else: Anger. Pure, undiluted rage directed solely at the giant in front of him.
This nuckelavee was the creature responsible for all the hardships Shining had faced over these last few weeks. They were responsible for the political mess between Equestria and Griffonstone. All of the stress and absurdity was a direct result of the nuckelavee's scheming.
But more than anything else, Shining was angry because this two-headed beast had messed with his family. And that was something Shining just couldn't forgive.
“You!” Shining growled as he stepped forward, boldly interrupting the nuckelavee's pizza inquiries. “You're the one who's responsible for all of this garbage I've had to put up with, aren't you? You're the nuckelavee!”
The nuckelavee's two heads looked at each other, then turned back to Shining. Well, they tried to look at each other. The over-sized head on top of the ape torso jutting out of the pony-body's back couldn't move much.
“... Yeah?” The nuckelavee's ape head, Dennis, said uncertainly.
“I'm The Robert Bruce Experience,” the pony head said.
“My name is Shining Armor!” Shining said. He was angry, but he still needed to introduce himself. That was only polite. “I'm here to stop you!”
It was difficult to make out the expression on Dennis's face, since his oversized cranium caused his head to dangle to the side. Even at that awkward angle, though, Shining was fairly certain that the nuckelavee looked upset. Or sleepy.
“Aw, what?” Dennis asked. “C'mon, man. Don't be lame.”
“Don't listen to him, Shining!” Thorax said. “He's trying to trick you!”
Shining narrowed his eyes into a furious glare and stepped forward. Both of the nuckelavee's heads looked at him with something that might have been mild annoyance. They probably didn't take Shining very seriously as a threat. Shining didn't care. He was so angry that all of his previous doubts had more or less disappeared. Nothing else mattered.
This was the final confrontation.
“I'm going to give you one chance to resolve things peacefully,” Shining said. “Let everyone go and stop spreading the mortasheen.”
“That sounds really dumb. Why would I do that?” Dennis folded his arms over his chest disapprovingly.
It was clear that there was no reasoning with this guy. But Shining Armor had a thought. The nuckelavee had two heads, right? That was more than just one. Shining lowered his gaze to look at The Robert Bruce Experience's horsey face. Maybe he could reason with the nuckelavee's other brain.
“How about you?” Shining asked. “Do you want to stop being evil?”
“We're not evil,” The Robert Bruce Experience said. “We're doing good things.”
“Don't listen to him, Shining!” Thorax said. “He's trying to trick you!”
Regardless of if it was a trick or not, Shining was thrown by a loop by what he'd heard. Did the nuckelavee really think they were in the right? Did they not really grasp the moral repercussions of what they were doing? They were a creation of Grogar's; maybe their sense of good and evil were skewed slightly?
If that was the case, then maybe, just maybe, Shining could make them understand what they were doing was wrong.
It was time once again for Shining Armor to break down the walls of moral relativism.
“No,” Shining said patiently. “Unleashing this plague isn't a good thing. Ponies are getting sick. They're suffering. I don't know what Grogar taught you, but there's nothing good about this. I--”
“Grogar didn't teach me anything,” Dennis interrupted. “He took one look at me after I was created and then he threw me and the other nuckelavees into the ocean. That's why we've gotta... do plague stuff. Because he threw us in the ocean.”
That reasoning was incredibly flimsy. Were they trying to say that the mortasheen was some kind of attempt to earn Grogar's approval? Or that this was some way of proving they weren't worthless? If that was the case, Shining could emphasize. He supposed that having a bunch of amazing, super-powerful relatives wasn't a problem unique only to him.
“I understand,” Shining said, even though he really didn't. “I feel the same way. I feel like I was just a normal pony thrown into a bunch of crazy magic nonsense I don't understand. My wife or my sister are always the ones who save the day, and sometimes I just feel like I'm useless to them.
“But you can't use others to judge your self-worth. You can't keep trying to measure up to the creatures closest to you. If you do, then you'll wind up doing something dumb like... well, like marching into a super-monster's lair without any real plan. And even then, you'll feel like you still aren't good enough. You have to find your own worth. Do you understand?”
The nuckelavee's two heads stared at Shining Armor uncomprehendingly. They looked like Shining had just rattled off an incredibly complex math problem and asked them for the solution. Dennis was even drooling slightly. Shining was losing them.
“Guys, a little help?” Shining glanced over his shoulder to look at the others.
Blueblood just shrugged at Shining with an apologetic frown, looking to be just as lost as the nuckelavee. Thorax was busy staring at the Big Orb. Flash Sentry, though, stepped forward to join the conversation.
“Maybe you could... explain your motive?” Flash Sentry asked tentatively. “You know, help us understand why you think it's a good idea to unleash a devastating plague to wipe out most life on the planet?”
Dennis frowned. “What do you mean?”
There was a flicker of impatience on Flash Sentry's face. Shining Armor empathized.
“I mean, why are you doing this?” Flash asked. There was a hint of restrained frustration in his voice as he put the question forward as simply as possible.
Dennis's oversized head flopped forward a bit. It took a moment, but Shining realized that he was trying to exchange a look with his other head. The Robert Bruce Experience was looking up at Dennis blankly. After a moment of silence, they looked back at Flash and Shining.
“I don't understand the question,” Dennis said. “Why wouldn't I do this?”
“Yeah,” The Robert Bruce Experience added. “It's great.”
Shining Armor felt like he was hitting a brick wall, both because he wasn't getting anywhere in this conversation and because his head was starting to hurt. It was getting difficult to tell if the nuckelavee really did have some sort of different moral code of if they were just an evil idiot. He really should have listened when Monster Manuel's Monster Manual had called the nuckelavee an idiot. It turned out that hadn't just been the bizarre vitriol Shining had thought it was; it was pretty much the truth.
“Okay,” Shining said, sighing in defeat. “Okay. We're not going to be able to reason with you, are we?”
“Nope,” Dennis said.
“Nope,” The Robert Bruce Experience agreed.
Shining rubbed his temple.
“Alright.” He exhaled and opened his eyes. “In that case, we're going to have to fight. And I really don't think you stand much of a chance, just going off of what I've seen so far. So it's probably in your best interest to--”
“Wait, hold on.” Dennis said. “Hold on. I know you, don't I?”
The nuckelavee asked the question so casually that it was a little confusing. At first, Shining assumed the nuckelavee knew him from whatever research they had done on the princesses. But that didn't make sense; the nuckelavee definitely didn't seem like the type to do research. It was possible they knew Shining for his famous whittling tricks, but that probably wasn't likely.
“You should know me,” Shining Armor said. “You kidnapped my wife and my sister.”
“No, that's not it.” Dennis shook his head, eyes narrowing as he studied the Horse that as Shining. “You're the snoring guy! I remember you! You're the guy who snored, right?”
“Don't listen to him, Shining!” Thorax said. “He's trying to trick you!”
Now Shining was even more lost.
“I don't snore,” Shining said. A slightly defensive tone crept into his voice. “I've never snored. My breathing is super great.”
Dennis once again attempted to shake his over-sized head, but only succeeded in kind of rolling it off to the side. The Robert Bruce Experience picked up the slack for him by shaking his head. The light from his single eye left red trails in the air with every movement.
“Nah, man, nah,” Dennis said. “You totally snore. I remember it super well because you super messed up my plans. It put me in a really bad mood.”
A strange feeling came over Shining Armor. Something about the nuckelavee's nonsense was causing a gut reaction; an unpleasant feeling of foreboding. There was no logical reason for Shining to feel that way. But somehow, he knew that if he asked the nuckelavee for clarification, he wouldn't like the answer he got.
So, like a true brain champion, Shining asked for clarification.
“Give me clarification,” he asked.
“Oh, I'm sure you'd like that,” the nuckelavee growled.
“Yes, that is why I asked for it,” Shining said.
Dennis gave Shining and the rescue party a little sneer of derision. The Robert Bruce Experience blinked his one eye rapidly over and over again in a terrifying display of anger.
“Oh, I'll tell you,” Dennis said after five straight minutes of just sneering. “I'll tell you all about the first time we met. About how you ruined everything. About how all of this-- the mortasheen, the kidnapping, all of it-- is your fault!”
Shining blinked. He looked back to the others, who looked to be just as lost as he was. Confused, he turned back to the nuckelavee.
“... Wait, what?”
The nuckelavee lifted one of his hands up off the ground, his improperly long arms bending as he brought it to The Robert Bruce Experience's face. They began to stir their hand in the air, moving it in circles at the wrist. Small particles of red magic formed around the nuckelavee's fingers as it did this.
“It took me years to build up enough power to cast my kidnapping spell,” Dennis explained. “But it was worth it. By the time I was strong enough, Equestria had more princesses than ever before. So why settle for abducting just one? Why not kidnap all of them and put them inside of this cool magic-draining orb I bought?”
The nuckelavee gestured to the cool magic-draining orb he bought with his now-glowing hand. This was good, because if he hadn't indicated that the bubble in the room with them was what he was talking about, the rescue party might have gotten confused. They might have thought he was talking about some other giant orb.
“So I got to work,” Dennis said. “I infiltrated Canterlot's sewer system so I could use all of its slime to enhance my power.”
“I knew it!” Thorax exclaimed. “I knew that the slime would factor into things somehow!”
Dennis ignored Thorax's moment of triumph and continued.
“Then I cast a spell... A really, really good spell that makes kidnapping easy to do. With all of my magic, I was able to teleport the princesses, wherever they were, to my location. Then I put them inside of my duffel bag. A duffel bag, as I'm sure you know, is inescapable.”
“Of course we knew that,” Flash scoffed. “Everypony knows that.”
“What's a duffel bag?” Blueblood asked.
“I get it.” Shining nodded. “And to make sure you had room in your duffel bag, you had to get rid of the hoofball jersey you had in it.”
Dennis and The Robert Bruce Experience both let out a sinister chortle. Their laughter was extremely bad. It was an awful sound; like monkeys drowning.
“That's right,” Dennis said. “And to throw any investigators off my trail, I left a message on the jersey to confuse you. I made it seem like I was wearing the jersey, when really I hadn't been wearing it. I knew that would throw you off my trail.”
Ah, yes. Shining remembered it well; the jersey had had the words 'I AM WEARING THIS WHILE I KIDNAP THE PRINCESSES' written on it. Shining had thought it was a little strange that the kidnapper had left an entire jersey behind. He'd had a hunch that it had been done deliberately for some reason.
Unfortunately, any sense of triumph Shining might have felt at being right was sort of neutralized by the nuckelavee's reasoning.
“Wait, how would that throw us off?” Shining asked, completely lost.
“I just told you,” Dennis said. “I made you think I was wearing a jersey when I kidnapped the princesses. I wasn't, though.”
“But... that didn't factor into our investigation,” Thorax said. “Whether or not you were wearing a jersey didn't really matter to us. In fact, all you did was point us towards Seaweedattle.”
“That part was deliberate,” The Robert Bruce Experience said. “We knew that anyone who saw the jersey would suspect we were in Seaweedattle. We wanted you to know that.”
Flash Sentry frowned. “Why? How would that benefit you in any way?”
Both of the nuckelavee's heads were silent.
“... That's not important right now,” Dennis said. “We're getting off-track. The point is, I kidnapped the princesses. All of them... Except for one.”
As if to illustrate this point, the nuckelavee held up a single index finger. Then, to further illustrate it, they lifted their other hand and pointed at the finger.
It didn't take Shining Armor long to realize what the nuckelavee was referring to. It was a fact that he hadn't considered at all in the last few weeks. But now that the nuckelavee was pointing at their own finger, Shining was face-to-face with something that shook him.
“... You tried to kidnap Flurry Heart,” he whispered.
“Yes, I tried to kidnap Furry Dart,” Dennis said dismissively. “Look, if I'm going to kidnap the princesses, I'm not going to leave one out, alright? Did you expect me to not kidnap one just because she's a baby? What are you, ageist?”
“This has nothing to do with ageism!” Shining said. He was getting more and more impatient with this non-explanation. “You tried to abduct my daughter!”
“Yeah! And if you hadn't been there, I would have!” The way Dennis spoke made it sound like Shining had done something incredibly inconsiderate. Which, to be fair, he probably had from the perspective of the nuckelavee.
“I was doing great!” Dennis continued. “I'd abducted four out of five princesses! But then, when I tried to nab the fifth one, there was interference! The spell should have grabbed all the princesses at once, but the baby one wasn't showing up. So I decided to open up a viewing-portal to see what's going on. And you know what I see?”
“No,” Blueblood said. “But I don't know most things, so this isn't really that impressive.”
“I see... YOU.”
The nuckelavee pointed one of his long, sinewy fingers at Shining Armor accusingly. Both of the monster's faces glared at the prince, who could only blink back in surprise.
“You were sleeping over her crib, snoring away!” Dennis rambled. “Just draped over the crib like a creepy jacket, dangling your hoof down onto her head. Because you were so close, I couldn't abduct her! I had to make due with just four princesses!”
Had he? Shining thought back to the night that Cadance had disappeared. Hadn't he gone to check on Flurry Heart? He could vaguely remember falling asleep standing over Flurry's crib. It seemed so long ago that Shining couldn't remember it all that well.
Still, the nuckelavee's story wasn't exactly unbelievable. It more or less checked out.
“I didn't mean to ruin your plan,” Shining Armor said. “But if I did, then I'll gladly take credit for it. I'll count that as a minor victory.”
“Good job, Shining!” Thorax said. He gave the prince a congratulatory pat on the head.
The nuckelavee, who did not give Shining Armor a congratulatory pat on the head, snarled and scowled at the rescue party.
“I don't care about that anymore!” Dennis said. “I'm over it. I managed to nab the Elements of Harmony and a talking gecko, and together they more than make up for not having five princesses. That's not what I'm mad about. I'm more angry about the snoring thing.”
For a moment, Shining wondered if the nuckelavee was trying to play off not being able to kidnap Flurry Heart. But there was a stupid kind of earnestness in Dennis's voice that told Shining that wasn't the case. This two-headed giant, for some reason, was super upset about hearing Shining snore, like, a month ago.
“It was so awful!” Dennis continued. “Those nasty throat noises you made were so... ugh! They were terrible! You made The Robert Bruce Experience cry! And you know what I realized? I realized that any species that could produce such a nasty snoreboy needed to be eliminated! So I made a plan... a plan to kidnap the princesses and unleash my mystical plague; my mortasheen! All to make Equestria pay!”
Shining frowned.
“Wait. But...” He held a hoof to his throbbing head. “You were already kidnapping the princesses! You had already made your plan to unleash the mortasheen!”
“Yeah, so?” The Robert Bruce Experience asked.
“So... So my snoring couldn't have been what motivated you to do this!” Shining snapped. “Because... you... you were already doing it when you heard me snoring!”
Once again, the nuckelavee became very quiet. Shining couldn't tell if they were quiet because they were confused or because they were offended. Their expressions were just kind of blank. Finally, after a moment, they spoke again.
“... What?” Both heads asked.
Shining Armor could feel his brain imploding.
“Look, none of this matters!” Shining said impatiently. “We're here to rescue the princesses and stop your evil plague thing!”
Dennis scoffed. “You're just trying to stop me because you're mean. I'm the good guy here.”
That was it. Shining couldn't take it anymore. Over the last month, Shining's life had been filled with nothing but hardship and absurdity. All of the frustration he'd experienced had been building up inside of him like delicious soda pop, and now that soda was coming to a boil. It was time to unleash all of the rage and anger that had been building up over the last three weeks.
With a roar of frustration, Shining picked up a small rock and threw it at the nuckelavee. He threw it with all the force he could muster. He threw it like he was a talented baseball-boy trying to win the grand championship. All of his anger was channeled into the rock as it left his hoof and cut through the air like a bird through butter. This was Shining Armor's killing blow.
The rock flew forward, hit the nuckelavee in the shin, and then bounced harmlessly to the floor.
“I'm out of ideas!” Shining exclaimed. The nuckelavee was too powerful.
“Don't worry, sir!” Flash Sentry said. “I can help!”
Flash Sentry hoisted the crossbow that he had been carrying with him throughout this entire story and aimed it at the nuckelavee. With a pull of the trigger, the crossbow bolt was launched., forced to leave its home. It zoomed forward, faster than a fish, the air whistling as it traveled. Crossbow bolts are the world's fastest sticks.
The crossbow bolt hit the nuckelavee in the shin and then bounced harmlessly to the floor.
“Oh no!” Flash Sentry said. “That was my only crossbow bolt!”
It had been his only crossbow bolt.
The nuckelavee chuckled mockingly. They looked down at the rescue party in derisive amusement, arms folded over their chest. Both heads sneered as they contemplated the intruders in their smelly lair.
“You guys are really dumb,” Dennis said. “You can't hurt me. I've become so much more powerful ever since I started siphoning my prisoners' magic. My bones are incredibly strong. I am the King of Calcium.”
It was true. Shining hadn't noticed because he'd been so distracted by the nuckelavee's stupidity, but the creature was supercharged on princess magic. Pure power was coursing through their body, giving it a subtle, red glow. It had been hard to make out before, though, since the nuckelavee's whole body was kind of red. Also, the nuckelavee was super gross-looking and Shining hadn't wanted to stare at them for too long.
“We need a new plan, sir,” Flash Sentry said as he put his crossbow back in the crossbow-pouch he was always wearing at all times. “Or just, like, a plan in general.”
Shining nodded, not taking his eyes off of the nuckelavee. “Any ideas?”
Blueblood rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“If they were an airship, I could get inside and fly them away,” Blueblood mused. “Unfortunately, that's not an option.”
“Okay. Good.” Shining Armor nodded. “I'm pretty sure that was the opposite of an idea.”
Blueblood smiled proudly.
The nuckelavee was still just standing there, watching the rescue party in cruel amusement. Shining wished he had really long legs so he could kick them right in their bloated, misshapen head. But even if he had amazing, beautiful, long legs, Shining doubted he'd be able to hurt them.
Once again, Shining wondered what his sister would do in a situation like this. What would Twily do if she was facing a two-headed monster and didn't have legs long enough to kick it? Probably shoot it with a rainbow laser. But Shining didn't have one of those.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. He turned and looked at the others.
“Do any of you have a special rainbow laser?”
Flash Sentry, Thorax, and Blueblood all shook their heads.
“Darn,” Shining grumbled.
There weren't many options left to them. The magic being siphoned from the princesses had made the nuckelavee nigh-on invincible. But as soon as Shining thought that, an idea occurred to him. There was one possibility left.
“We must break the sphere.” Shining said.
That finally got a response from the nuckelavee. Dennis's eyes widened in alarm.
“Hey, what?” Dennis asked. “No, man, don't do that. That's wack.”
Even if it was wack, breaking the bubble that was holding everypony prisoner had to be done. Shining didn't know if it would immediately rob the nuckelavee of their stolen power or not, but it would at least set everycreature free. The problem was that Shining had no idea how to actually do it. The bubble had felt pretty sturdy when he'd examined it earlier.
Whatever. They couldn't keep standing around.
“Quick!” Shining exclaimed. “Start kicking the orb!”
Thorax, Flash Sentry, and that other one all nodded. They were ready to kick and kick with all their hearts in order to crack that bad old egg. But before any of them could start attacking the bubble with their legs, something bad and magic happened.
The nuckelavee extended one of their long, long arms and pointed their bony finger at the rescue party. Red magic enveloped Shining and the others, paralyzing them just as they were turning towards the bubble. With another motion of their finger, the nuckelavee lifted their captives up off the ground. They floated up and up until they were at the Robert Bruce Experience's eye level.
“Hello,” The Robert Bruce Experience said politely to their floating prisoners. “I'm Roger Bruceperience.”
Shining Armor struggled to move against the nuckelavee's restrictive magic. He tried to cast a spell or do anything that would be able to help. It was no good, though. The nuckelavee had completely overpowered them, which was sort of a setback in Shining's plan to stop them. This was a total bummer, bro!
Dennis once again tried to shake their head, but once again wasn't able to move it much. Their head just kind of rolled backwards, dangling down over their back. It took them a minute to get their head back into a position where they could look at their captives.
“You break into my house, you try to ruin my plans to destroy Equestria, and you threaten to break my personal property and free my prisoners,” they said irritably. “That's awful; that's what bad guys do. You guys are the bad guys. I'm totally justified in all of this.”
The nuckelavee clenched its nasty hand into an even nastier fist. Shining Armor and the others were soon pulled together, bunched up with their backs to each other. It felt like the nuckelavee had grabbed all of them with their big, sticky fist. Shining was being held so tight he felt like he was being crushed.
“Oh man!” Shining said with a smile. “Talk about being in a tight spot!”
Everyone laughed. They were having a lot of fun together.
“I should probably just shove you into the battery with the rest of those ponies,” Dennis mused. “But it's not like I'd get too much power out of it. And honestly, you guys have me in a really bad mood. So... I'm probably just gonna eat you.”
This elicited a gasp from the rescue party, who did not want to be eaten. Shining in particular was not a fan of the idea. To make things worse, the nuckelavee had mentioned that they'd ordered a pizza. So if they did eat Shining and the others, it would ruin their appetite. Shining didn't want to be a part of that.
“I'm starting to realize we probably should have told Starswirl or somepony about this!” Flash Sentry said. “We were not equipped for this at all!”
“Yeah, this isn't looking too good,” Thorax said. “I, uh... I think this might be it.”
Blueblood shrugged.
“Eh. I'll probably be fine. I'm too rich to die.”
The nuckelavee began to pull Shining's group closer and closer to The Robert Bruce Experience. The one-eyed horse head opened its waiting mouth, revealing a jaw full of sharp, crooked teeth. The words 'EAT GOOD, FEEL GOOD' had been tattooed on their tongue in a spiky, jagged font.
Shining could feel the nuckelavee's nasty breath wash over him as they neared the beast's mouth. In a matter of seconds, he would be eaten. Shining had always known that it would end this way. There wasn't really any use in struggling. Shining needed to do the heroic thing and give up completely. He could only hope that he'd get to haunt some cool places when he was a ghost.
Unfortunately, though, Shining wouldn't get the chance to die and become a ghost. The nuckelavee was distracted from eating their prisoners by something happening.
“Hey!” Dennis exclaimed. “Stop trying to eat our prisoners! Something's happening, and it's distracting me!”
The Robert Bruce Experience closed its mouth just as Shining and the rescue party were about to be eaten. The horse-head blinked its one eye in confusion as the air in the cavern started to shimmer.
Up in the air, high above both the nuckelavee and their captives, something was shining. Brief flashes of pink light twinkled in the aether; slowly at first, and then rapidly. With each spark, the light grew more and more intense as it flickered faster and faster. The light continued to build in speed and intensity, until...
In an intense flash of light, something teleported in. With its arrival, an explosion of light and magic filled the chamber, shockwaves shaking the entire lair down to its foundations. The nuckelavee was knocked off of their hooves and fell to the ground. The magic they had been using to hold the rescue party in the air dissipated, and Shining's group fell to the ground.
They fell to the ground very, very slowly.
Shining quickly realized that someone was using magic to gently lower them down. It certainly wasn't the nuckelavee; the magic felt less cold and clammy. In fact, the magic felt very familiar to Shining Armor.
Shining knew at once who it was who'd just teleported in. He didn't even need to look up to see. But he still did anyway. He wanted to be scientific about this whole thing.
Sure enough, when Shining looked up, he saw the pony he'd expected. He instantly recognized the big head and giant wings on the tiny alicorn who was flying up above them. Nevertheless, a small gasp of surprise escaped his princely face.
Princess Flurry Heart was floating high in the air, up near the ceiling of the chamber. And she looked mad as heck.