Chapter 14
It was getting late when Rainbow Dash finally arrived in Manehattan. The sun had already set and the lights of the city illuminated the night sky. Dash ignored the more recognizable districts, heading towards the residential ones, which had less glitz and glamour.
Soon she was very quickly flying above Hoofington. No longer in the sorry state it had once been, most of the buildings were repaired and looked downright presentable. The streets were mostly clean and the ponies walking them didn’t look furtive or nervous, or alternatively aggressive and dangerous.
Jeez, Barricade has done a bang-up job cleaning up here, Dash thought as she started descending. She had never really been to Hoofington itself, although the pegasus had done flyovers in the past when she had been in Manehattan for other reasons.
Now Cooper told me that his dad lives… uh… crud, forgot the name. Rainbow Dash hoofed her face when realizing she didn’t know exactly where Barricade lived. So far she had only met him when he had come to Ponyville.
Rainbow figured she might as well just ask for directions and started to search for a potential candidate on the ground to ask. She spotted a small crowd of ponies near an apartment building and started to approach. But luck was clearly smiling on the pegasus, as in front of the crowd, along with a large blue earth pony, was Barricade.
“…And that’s all. Keep it easy, keep it clean,” the unicorn was finishing addressing the group just as Rainbow Dash landed next to him. Barricade just gave the pegasus a quick surprised look. “Oh, hello.”
“Hey, Barricade. Something up?” Rainbow asked and glanced at the various ponies in front of them.
“Nah, the gang just wanted to use the gym for a party. Just telling them not to wreck it before opening hours,” Barricade explained and returned to the crowd. “Well, it won’t start here. Get lost. Blue has the key.”
There was some chuckling amongst the other ponies before they started to head off, followed by the large blue pony. Barricade glanced over at Rainbow again.
“So, what are you doing here?” he asked curiously.
“I need to talk, preferably with someone who gets it. You know this whole situation about this Queen Rabia and how King Sombra is supposed to help them,” Rainbow Dash muttered as she glared around.
“Not so happy with that situation, huh?” Barricade frowned a little, his own frustration about that showing.
“Right, give me a minute. Just going to let Barbell know that I’ll be going out, then we’ll go to a place I know. I have a strong feeling we’ll need a drink before we are done,” he told her before heading into the apartment building.
Ain’t that the truth, Rainbow Dash nodded and leaned on the wall of the building while she waited for the unicorn to return.
“Ugh it’s just frustrating. We’re supposed to be searching for Queen Chrysalis, this Queen Rabia is on the loose and thanks to that, they let that stupid King Sombrero out of Tartarus to help with that,” Rainbow Dash grumbled and took another swig from her mug.
“Oy don’t remind me,” Barricade grunted and rolled his eyes. “He’s staying with my brother in Fillydelphia. The same brother who got possessed by that asshole and who abducted all of us during our own birthday party. And we are just supposed to be okay with that?”
The two disgruntled ponies had gone to a pub near where Barricade lived. There weren’t many customers around, but the stallion had assured the mare that nobody here gave a hoot about you and what you talked about as long as you minded your own business.
“Yeah, seriously, who came up with that idea?” Rainbow Dash snorted. She stared darkly at her drink. “Ugh… I still have nightmares about him torturing me.”
“I can believe it,” Barricade nodded and sipped his drink.
“During the magic drain incident, when we went to Tartarus to question Tirek, Sombra tried to pull me into his cage to eat me,” Dash then said and shuddered. Barricade cringed a bit at that.
“That’s sick,” the stallion muttered and shook his head. Rainbow just nodded and both ponies drank from their respective mugs.
“Well I grabbed Coal out of the house. Not having my daughter staying near that asshole. Private and the rest can risk their hides, but my kid is not going to be anywhere near that messed-up situation,” Barricade snorted and slammed down his mug. “Seriously, what was Foxy thinking?”
Rainbow Dash only nodded in agreement, then pointed to the bartender to give her a refill. For a moment they sat in silence. Then the pegasus looked at the unicorn. “How are the kids, by the way?”
“I’m starting to think Chisel’s special talent is being a bouncy ball,” Barricade chuckled. “Ah, well at least he’s doing good. Still misses his mom, but he has a large family now to help him. Cara is a teenager, do the math. She’s found another colt friend to annoy me with. Well at least that kid isn’t so bad, but oy.”
“Coal was fine with leaving the house. She really did not want to be there with King Sombra. She is worried though. Don’t blame her. Her mother is still there and her aunt and uncle. She’s very close to all of them,” the unicorn sighed deeply. “Wish I could do something more… but…I was pathetic against King Sombra, and that guy was scared of Queen Rabia. Don’t think I would do any good against her.”
“Oh come on. You’re better than you think.” Rainbow elbowed him. “Seriously, you, Maud and Barbell helped me trap him in that cave, remember that?”
“Yeah, too bad that only worked for two seconds,” Barricade pointed out.
Rainbow only shrugged, although conceding that point she still felt that had been awesome. She spotted a movement by the entrance of the pub. The pegasus looked over and saw Barbell enter. The mare frowned. She was pretty sure Barricade’s wife was supposed to be back home with the kids.
“What? Barbell, what are you doing here?” Barricade had looked up and noticed as well.
“Hey honey. I need to speak with you. Can we step outside?” Barbell addressed the stallion with a smile.
Barricade arched his brow, Barbell had never called him honey. Then again as far as he could see that was his wife and she could have a reason for how she was acting right now.
“Uh, Dash, I’ll just be a second,” Barricade glanced back at the pegasus and rose up from his seat, leaving his mug behind.
Rainbow Dash frowned as she watched the couple leave the pub. She pushed her mug away and continued to watch the door even if the two ponies had long disappeared by now. Suspicion started to crawl over her face.
That wasn’t Barbell, oh horsefeathers. Rainbow jumped from her seat and in a rainbow flash, rushed out of the pub. Outside she flew a bit up and started to look around. There were no signs of Barricade or Barbell.
Mentally banging her head with a hoof for not having stopped the unicorn, she started flying quickly around the general area. Quickly zipping into alleys and back out when not finding anything.
“Ooooh this is not good!” Rainbow Dash whispered as her search started to become more frantic.
Barricade wasn’t sure what to think when Barbell ended up leading him into a secluded alley, then went even further down. So far she hadn’t actually said anything since the pub. This wasn’t at all like his wife, and the unicorn was starting to get very suspicious.
“Babe, what’s going on?” he asked when he realized they were much further away from the pub than necessary for a private talk.
The evil sounding chuckle coming from his wife immediately put Barricade on his guard. When green flames surrounded her and the mare suddenly grew in size and changed into Queen Chrysalis, the unicorn was already charging his horn with magic and slowly backing away.
“Who are you? And what have you done with my wife?” he snarled, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. Chrysalis glanced back at him for a second before turning fully around.
“Oh don’t worry, she’s still in that dingy apartment of yours watching your brats,” Chrysalis said. “As for who I am…”
Chrysalis didn’t get any further, an indigo-colored blast hit her in the face and was just powerful enough to throw her back so she landed on a dumpster with a crash.
“Actually, I don’t care,” Barricade shouted as he quickly turned around and started to gallop away, ignoring the growls and curses coming from behind him. He didn’t get far. Chrysalis landed right in front of him, seething in anger.
Barricade fired a shot again, but this time the changeling was ready. Using her own magic she deflected the shot so it scorched the wall of a building instead. Then she quickly fired her own shot that the unicorn barely managed to dodge.
Crap, this is out of my league, Barricade thought as he dodged another shot from the enraged changeling. He tried to run again, but Chrysalis did have air advantage and kept managing to cut him off by simply flying over him.
The unicorn did have one advantage, though. He knew these alleyways. Though it was taking a bit, he was slowly making his way back to where the pub was. He just had to constantly dodge the barrage of green magic blasts and go another direction every time Chrysalis cut him off.
“Agh, enough of this!” Chrysalis growled and this time went for a grab with her magic. She lifted the unicorn and slammed him up against a wall and let him go. Barricade slowly sunk to the ground with a groan. The changeling was seething as she stepped closer.
“I was going to ensnare you in my magic, but wouldn’t you know it. Sombra just had to have a hidden spell inside of you that prevents me from doing that,” the changeling snarled.
Wait, what? Barricade slowly looked up.
“He is so obsessed with you and your brother, he just has to make it difficult for anybody else to have some fun,” Chrysalis snorted and lifted Barricade up in her magic aura, glaring at the unicorn. “Now where is he!?”
“Oh bite me, cheese legs,” Barricade grunted, hiding how nervous he was actually feeling. Having Sombra mentioned wasn’t exactly making him feel so good about this whole situation. Chrysalis pulled him closer until they were muzzle to muzzle.
“Don’t tempt me,” the queen snarled and gave a frightening hiss. “I would suck the love out of you if she hadn’t told me not to harm you.”
She? Barricade blinked and then it dawned on him who the changeling was referring to. Suddenly the dark alley was filled with a soft and very familiar-sounding chuckle. Oh…shit.
The shadows from the dim lights began to move. Slowly they congregated towards a single spot in front of Chrysalis and Barricade. The changeling queen slowly turned the unicorn so he would face them.
Slowly the shadows rose until they began forming the shape of a unicorn. Barricade started to get visibly worried, Chrysalis was smirking. A steel-clad hoof was placed under the stallion’s muzzle and it lifted his head slightly so he stared right into the smiling face of Queen Rabia.
“Hello again, handsome,” Rabia greeted him softly. “My, has my son done some work on you. I can feel the spells, they’re almost undetectable.”
“I was going to mesmerize him, put him under my spell, but I got a very clear ‘Barricade is mine. Get lost’ message when I tried,” Chrysalis grumbled. “So it took a bit to get him here. He would only be fooled so long by my disguise.”
“So possessive, my son. It isn’t healthy,” Rabia murmured and nodded as she removed the hoof from the stallion. “You did well, Chrysalis. I won’t fault you, at least you got him.”
“What do you want?” Barricade asked and tried to struggle against the magic aura that held him.
“Oh, I have simple needs. I just want Saddle Arabia burned to the ground, its citizens screaming in pain and terror, much like my subjects did when they were all slaughtered. I want their ruler skewered on a pike, tortured and violated, much like my daughter was,” the Dark Pony said with a small smile. “And I want to know where my son is.”
“And what makes you think I know where he - is!” Barricade grunted when he was dropped to the ground by Chrysalis, who had received a signal from Rabia to release him. He looked up only to have Rabia being right in his face, smiling sweetly.
“Come now, Barricade. I know what my son did to you. You have nothing to gain by keeping him secret. In fact, you will get so much sweet revenge against him if you reveal him to me. I have so much in store for him. He did betray me, after all,” the dark queen purred and reached with a hoof to gently caress Barricade’s mane.
“And he did so much to you and not to mention your brother,” Rabia rose up, her expression turning sympathetic. “Forcing your brother to become his vessel if he died, possessing Private, hounding and tormenting him and you could do nothing to help.”
“Doesn’t it just,” Rabia’s eyes turned green as she locked eyes with the unicorn. “Fill you with rage. Knowing everything he did to your brother, did to you and he just got a cozy cell in Tartarus? But he isn’t there now, is he?”
“No,” Barricade growled, feeling a sudden surge of anger come over him. It was odd. One moment he was nervous in the presence of Sombra’s mother. Now he was filled with anger. “They took him out… to help find you…”
“Oh now, what kind of punishment is that?” Rabia asked, the purple mist coming from the corners of her eyes was turning darker, the glow of her eyes was getting brighter.
Chrysalis watched with a frown; this was different from how she had seen Sombra do things, yet she recognized the signs of dark pony dark magic being fed. She glanced down at Barricade and saw he was starting to seethe; his eyes were glowing now too as if locked in a spell.
Oh, so that’s how she does it, the changeling realizing that Rabia was not feeding off of fear like her son, she was feeding off of anger. Ah, of course, Queen of Rage and Wrath.
“It isn’t!” Barricade snarled, feeling even more anger going through him. Finally, he roared in rage. “He should be still rotting in Tartarus! But they took him out and even put him with my brother - the pony he possessed and tormented the most!”
“Ah, so that is where…” Rabia’s words were cut short when something struck her hard, interrupting her spell and tossing her back.
Barricade gasped as his eyes turned to normal. He looked around confused, breathing rapidly, then saw Rainbow Dash hovering above them. The mare had just rammed herself into the dark pony queen.
“You!” Chrysalis snarled and took to the air, shooting a blast of magic that Rainbow quickly dodged.
“What… what just happened?” Barricade stood up, then cringed when seeing that Rabia was slowly standing up again.
Rabia ignored the unicorn, she was glaring towards the battle above them. Rainbow was zipping around, avoiding the magic blasts coming from Chrysalis, quite literally flying in circles around the changeling queen.
“Fall back, Chrysalis. We have what we want,” the Dark Pony called and sighed when there was no sign that the changeling heard her.
The Dark Pony growled and started to transform into her smoke form, but a violet-colored energy blast connected with Chrysalis, sending the changeling crashing to the ground. Immediately Rabia instead sunk into the shadows and disappeared.
Chrysalis snarled and started to rise up just as Twilight Sparkle landed in front of Barricade, who was still too dazed to do much. He had only been able to observe, still barely able to realize what was going on. Rainbow Dash landed right beside him.
“Give up, Chrysalis,” Twilight said, her wings raised and horn already building up for another blast.
“Never!” the changeling snarled and charged forward. She was rewarded with another blast that sent her flying. She had been too late to deflect it with her own magic. The queen smacked so hard against a wall that it left a large crack. From there she sunk to the ground with a groan.
Twilight wasted no time, casting a spell that chained the changeling’s legs and put a magic block on her horn. Only then did the alicorn turn around to look at Barricade and Rainbow Dash.
“Are you alright?” she asked, looking mostly at Barricade since Rainbow Dash seemed fine.
“Just give me a sec,” Barricade whispered as he tried to calm himself down. “That cheese legs over there… posed as Barbell, then Queen Rabia… it’s fuzzy after that.”
“Rainbow?” Twilight looked at her friend who nodded.
“Yeah, Chrysalis managed to lure him away disguised as Barbell. I kind of didn’t realize that it couldn’t be her until too late. Went out to look for them. I just about spotted Chrysalis and a female Sombra, guess it was Queen Rabia, standing over him. I heard Barricade roar something, but by then I was already flying towards them to give them a smackdown.”
Twilight nodded and glanced back at Chrysalis, who was snarling and trying to use her chained hooves to get rid of the block on her horn, to no avail. The alicorn went into her saddlebag and produced a quill and a scroll, wrote on it and sent it away via magic.
“I’ve contacted Princess Luna to come here and help me take Chrysalis to Canterlot. We’ll interrogate her there. You take Barricade home,” the princess told her friend. Considering what had just happened, she would wait to talk to Rainbow, though she had a feeling she now knew who the pegasus had gone to talk with.
“Right.” Dash nodded and soon she and the unicorn had departed the alley. Behind Twilight, Luna appeared.
“I came as quick as I could. We had a situation in Fillydelphia,” the moon princess addressed Twilight, glancing down at struggling Chrysalis. “And I see you have been busy as well.”
“What happened in Fillydelphia?” Twilight asked worried, fearing Sombra had done something. Her brow sunk when Luna told her what had occurred. “Wait, he was doing what?”
“We’ll speak more about it once we have dealt with this one,” the lunar princess said, glancing at the hissing and spitting changeling.
Twilight nodded and the two princesses used both their magic to lift up the changeling. Then Princess Luna used her own powers to teleport them away. They failed to notice a shadowy silhouette deeper in the alley who had watched the whole thing.
Still forming? That makes no sense at all, it should have been fully formed the moment he came back to life… Rabia frowned. What are you up to, my son? Well, guess it is time to find out.
She held back a chuckle and soon the shadow disappeared.
End chapter 14