//------------------------------// // An Irish Lullaby // Story: Ernest Saves Equestria // by Emerald Harp //------------------------------// Ernest stared open-mouthed out of the sky-carriage’s window. His head was right beside Rimshot’s as both man and dog took in the night sky of Equestira in all its majesty. The company had flown past the frozen north of the Crystal Empire and were now gliding through the midnight-green fields and forests of Celestia’s domain. It was too cold in the Crystal Empire to fully enjoy the view, but now free from the ice and snow, the horizon brimmed with wonders. “Ain’t this something, boy? It’s not every day you get to fly on Halloween. Not as many witches up here as I thought there’d be though. I wish Vern could see us now. He’d be super jealous.” Rimshot’s asnswering bark was nearly lost to the wind whipping past their ears. Ernest waved and called out to the dozens of other carriages and chariots ferrying soldiers from the Crystal Empire. Some of the pegasi smiled and waved back. Others just stared at the gangly creature riding in the Prince’s carriage. “Give ‘em heck, boys. I’ll see ya on the ground. We’ll show those stuntties who’s boss.” The redneck continued on like this until he felt a tapping on his shoulder. Ernest looked to see a very nervous Sunset Shimmer beckoning him to come back inside. The troll fighter pulled his head back through the window into the spacious compartment he shared with his pony friends. Shining Armor’s enclosed carriage was the size of a compact train car with plenty of room for passengers to stand and stretch. “What’s wrong, Sunny?” “Now that we’ve crossed the Crystal Mountains, we’re getting radio transmissions from Ponyville.” Ernest felt ice form in his belly. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the news? One being clear weather overhead with a 0% chance of trolls, ten being we’re near the eye of a trollicane.” The unicorn paused to consider this, and then shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s bad. The messages are choppy, but from what I heard, the trolls have captured enough children to raise an army and assault the town directly. A lot of trolls are attacking Ponyville hospital where the foals are sheltering. The mayor is calling for help from anyone who can give it.” Before Ernest could reply, Shining Armor and Zecora entered the compartment. The white unicorn looked like he had aged a decade in just a few minutes. He took a seat in one of the booths and started to drum his hooves against the table in front of him. In a low tone he muttered, “My sister was shielding the hospital. Just as the last of the trolls were being turned to goo, her spell collapsed and fed back into her horn.” Sunset Shimmer gasped in shocked horror. “Is she alright?” “Nopony knows. A black barrier is blocking anypony from entering or leaving the hospital.” The Prince locked eyes with the Troll Fighter. “You’ve fought these things before, Ernest. What are we dealing with?” The Redneck fidgeted. “Ohhh, the ones I met didn’t bother with shields. They had weapons and could change their voices like one of those Walmart Yak-baks. But that was so they could get close to ya. So they could use their hands, like a wild mongoose . . . except a mongoose doesn’t want to turn ya into a doll, ya know what I mean?” “It would be best if you could get to the end, so our strategy we can amend,” Zecora said gently. “Oh, right,” Ernest said sheepishly. “The point is trolls always want to either fight ya close up or turn ya into a fancy door stop. If you ask me, these little snot covered gremlins are getting help. Magic shields aren’t really their forte.” The white unicorn chewed on this information for a moment before speaking. “From what I’ve gathered there are two different species of trolls attacking Ponyville. One type matches what you’ve described, Ernest. They attacked a fortified position until they were all destroyed. The other type is small, wiry, and cable of using magic. Very chaotic magic. In fact, no two attacks seem to be alike. Does that sound familiar?” The orange unicorn pondered this for a moment. “Discord? Could Discord be helping the trolls?” asked Sunset Shimmer. “I do not think that is the case. Discord would not want to see Ponyville erased,” the zebra ventured. “Who’s Discord?” asked Ernest. “Is he an electrician? Always repairing dat cord or dis cord.” Shining Armor shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a snicker of mirth. “I’m sure you’ll get to meet him before this night is done.” The white unicorn sobered. “There’s another problem. I don’t know how much I believe this, but you three should know.” Rimshot barked indignantly. “Sorry, Rimshot. Excuse me, you four should know. I have been receiving frantic reports of sightings of a black alicorn around the town. Everypony who has mentioned this thing is calling it Nightmare Moon.” Zecora frowned. “But this cannot be. Princess Luna has been turned into a doll, you see.” “Wait a second,” said Sunset. “The Tree of Harmony is nearly underneath the Castle of the Two Sisters. Could the trolls have wandered into the old castle and awoken something?” The Prince thought for a moment. “You’re talking about the Pony of Shadows legend, the last remnant of Nightmare Moon after she was banished by Celestia.” The orange unicorn’s lips pressed together into a thin line. “What if it’s not a legend? What if the trolls are in league with her and are making her stronger?” The leader of the Crystal Empire’s armed forces sighed. “Then our job just got a lot harder.” ************************************************************************************* “Over in Killarney, many years ago, My mother sang a song to me in tones so sweet and low. Just a simple little ditty in her good old Irish way, And I’d give the world if she could sing that song to me this day. Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral Too-ra-loo-ra-li Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral Hush now, don’t you cry. Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral Too-ra-loo-ra-li Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral It’s an Irish lullaby. Oft in dreams I wander, to that cot again I feel her arms a-hugging me as when she held me then. And I hear her voice a-hummin’ to me as in the days of yore when she sued to rock me fast asleep outside the cabin door. Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral Too-ra-loo-ra-li Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral Hush now, don’t you cry. Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral Too-ra-loo-ra-li Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral It’s an Irish lullaby.” The robot’s Irish brogue trailed off as the last note of the song settled on the lethargic children. Willey smiled at the costumed foals gathered around him in a semi-circle. He stroked the mane of a nearby filly and whispered, “Go to sleep now, lass. It’ll all look better in the morning.” The sleepy pony dressed in a ladybug costume nodded tiredly and whisked off to dreamland. The automaton stood up on his wheeled feet, careful not to disturb the fillies and colts. He heard a hushed sob by the exit to the day-care. The robot looked up to see Big Mac shedding tears unashamedly. “That was beautiful,” the massive earth pony dribbled. The image on Willey’s monitor smiled. “Thanks. I didn’t realize I had an adult audience.” The robot eyed the distraught pony and said, “Come, let’s have a talk outside and let these wee ones get some shut-eye.” The strong pony nodded and wiped his nose on a massive hoof. There were other ponies armed with milk down in the basement of the hospital. Those who saw the large pony in tears respectfully turned their heads and gave the automaton and Applejack’s brother as much privacy as they could. As soon as Willie and Big Mac were outside the room and as far away from listening ears as they could get, the Clydesdale spilled his soul to Twilight’s bodyguard. “My grandma and Applejack got turned into dolls earlier tonight, and I don’t know where my other sister is. She’s probably with her other friends, but I haven’t seen her in a spell. I want to look for her, but I can’t just blindly search the whole town and turn my back on these other kids. Not while there are still trolls out there. I don’t know what to do. My parents are gone, and that song you were singing to those foals plucked at my heartstrings something fierce.” The earth pony stifled a sob. “I’m . . . sorry. I swear I’m not this much of a wimp on a good day.” “It’s alright, lad. Lord knows you’re not the only one weeping tonight. There is no shame in it. But I would not fret about your wooden kin-folk. My da is coming to set things right. He’s dealt with these devils before and turned all the dolls from our native sod back to right. I wasn’t just tootin my own horn in there and telling the wee ones false. Once Ernest P. Worrell is back in town, things will fall in place.” The robot paused before continuing. “As for your sister, I wouldn’t worry. If she is anything like her brother, I pity any troll that gets in her way.” Big Macintosh laughed at that. He looked at Willie and said, “I can’t believe that clumsy, gangly, two-legged, denim-wearing varmint built ya.” This time it was the robot’s turn to laugh. The yellow smiley face opened its mouth and threw back its head in mirth. “You’re not the only one who’s told me that down here. I guess he didn’t make a convincing pony, did he?” “He fooled most of us while he was here, but not everypony. I had no clue he was a genius though. That someone like him could make something as great as you just blows my mind.” “Believe it, my friend. When it comes to my da, no one knows what to expect. Faith, I’m his creation, and I have not a clue how he made me. God, alicorns, and Ernest work in mysterious ways.” “Amen to that,” replied Big Mac. The Clydesdale cleared his throat and said, “Well, I’d best be getting back to the others.” The big pony hesitated for a moment before bringing up his hooves and shaking one of the metal hands of the robot. “Thanks for listening, Willie.” “You’re welcome.” Willie watched the large pony leave around the corner before starting on his own patrol around the basement. The lower-halls of the hospital were not as well lit as the floors above, but even so Ernest had blessed his creation with ways to combat the dark areas. Willie’s servos hummed softly as he made his winding way around the cavernous basement. The robot paused when his internal radio came to life with chatter. “Big Mac, do you have a copy?” “Yeah, go ahead Braeburn.” “I’m here by the elevator and the stairs leading back up . . .” Willie would have listened more to the radio conversation, but something caught the attention of his rear sensors. He turned to look back down the hallway but nothing was there. He frowned. His monitoring equipment had never given him a false positive before. A feeling close to dread settled in the robot’s mainframe. He could not quite put his finger on it, but it felt like he was being watched. To test this theory Willie slowed to a stop infront of one of the many doors that littered his section of hallway. He turned down the volume of his radio and boosted the power to his auditory nodes. He made as if to reach out and open the door, then at the last moment he whirled around to see if anything was behind him. His optics told him nothing was there, but his intuition told him he was not alone. For half a heartbeat he thought he saw something, something that didn’t belong, something very ugly. He devoted more processing power to scour his recent memory. In what passed for his mind’s eye, he relived the last thirty seconds of his life up to the moment he looked over his shoulder to catch his would be stalker. Frame by frame he ciphered through the images captured by the tiny cameras located just underneath for what passed as his head. Not for the first time he questioned the design of his body. More cameras would have been helpful, but as Vern would say, “Them’s the breaks.” Before Willie could perform any other task, his self-query was done. His usual smiley face emote that was plastered on the front of his monitor turned grim. “I knew it,” he muttered to himself. The last frame captured by his cameras depicted a small grinning troll. The monster was not unlike the one he had encountered in Twilight’s library; a squat, demonstrable thing with barely intact garments. But the power behind those small gnarly hands was something to be reckoned with. Willie sped off through the hospital at full speed, his tires spinning in place leaving tread marks on the tiled floor. He had to get back to the children and tell Big Mac and the others. The trolls had breached Twilight’s shield and were in the hospital. With one fluid motion he reached for his radio and broadcasted the bad news. “All ponies fall back to the nursery. I repeat, fall back to the nursery. The trolls are here in the basement.” ************************************************************************************* Big Macintosh marched back to the stairs that led out of the basement. His step was lighter since talking to the robot, but his heart was still heavy. Willie’s words had cheered him up, but could one lanky human really fix a mess this big? Could Ernest P. Worell turn everpony back to the way they were? He doubted it, but stranger things had happened. The big pony was roused from his musings when the small radio he had holstered hissed to life. “Big Mac, do you have a copy?” The Clydesdale fumbled for the walkie-talkie. “Yeah, go ahead Braeburn.” “I’m here by the elevator and the stairs leading back up . . . uh.” The pony hesitated before his choppy, country voice came back on the air. “Is Twlight supposed to be blocking us off down here?” Big Mac frowned at the radio. “What do you mean?” “I mean that there’s this blackish magic forcefield keeping me from goin up the stairs or using the elevator. Is Twilight or some other unicorn keeping us down here and we just didn’t get the memo?” The large pony ground his teeth. He didn’t like the sound of this. He pressed the transmit button and replied, “Standby. I’ll try and raise Spitfire.” Adjusting a knob on his radio he changed the frequency. “Spitfire, are you reading?” No answer. He tried again. “Mayor Mare, do you have a copy?” Static was his only answer. Big Mac bit back a curse as he readjusted his radio to talk to Bareburn. “This is Mac. I can’t get anyone from the outside. Stay there, I’m coming to you.” Before Big Mac could take a step in his cousin’s direction, Willie’s voice blared from his radio. “All ponies fall back to the nursery. I repeat, fall back to the nursery. The trolls are here in the basement.” The huge earth pony felt the all too familiar sensation of ice shoot up his spine. He whirled to gallop back down the passage only to be faced with a small snarling troll. The creature screamed at the top of its lungs and lunged forward. The troll’s maw opened to reveal a set of enormous buck teeth that could easily snap a pony leg in two. Big Mac jumped over the biting monster and haphazardly fired his milk gun at the troll in mid air. The pony missed his shot and was rewarded with a splatter of milk on the tiled floor. While still airborne, the troll snapped its fingers and teleported. The living nightmare reappeared just in front of Big Mac. The pony jumped backwards just out of reach of the creature’s very sharp fingernails. The Clydesdale fired from the hip and shot the troll between the eyes. After just a few seconds the troll was reduced from a short, twitchy, monster to an orange and brown puddle. Big Mac did not savor his victory but continued down the hallway towards the nursery at a full gallop. It did not take long for the big pony to reach where the children were sleeping. To the pony’s horror, he saw several wooden dolls on the floor along the way. Each one depicted a pony he knew frozen in either anger or fear. Big Mac skidded to a stop outside the nursery and opened the door, water gun at the ready. To his surprise, the earth pony was met with a deluge of milk. The stallion was soaked from mane to hoof before he could say a word. After a few sputtering attempts he yelled, “Cease fire!” Immediately the milk storm stopped. After wiping his eyes with a soaked hoof, Big Mac saw Willie staring at him sheepishly. The robot quietly came up to the stallion and whispered, “Sorry, lad. Couldn’t take any chances. If you weren’t a troll, I didn’t figure you’d melt anyway.” “Nope,” replied Big Mac. He looked around the room. To his surprise, he found three puddles of goo in various places around the well-lit room. What was even more surprising was that the children who were huddled together in the center of the room were still sound asleep. “Is anyone else out there besides those two-legged furry devils?” The earth pony shook his head. “I don’t know,” he muttered in a low voice. “I passed by a lot of dolls out there.” Willie nodded grimly. He went over to a nearby table that had a gallon of 2% milk on it. While he was reloading his cannons the lights went out, plunging the room into total darkness. He heard Big Mac’s startled grunt as the shock of what just happened set in. The lights were not the only thing that died. The omnipresent sound of the white noise generators in the basement went silent. The absolute quiet save for the snoring foals was grating to the robot’s senses. Something was very wrong here. “The little bastards must have cut the power to the emergency generators,” said Willie. “Eyup.” “Hold on. I’ll turn on some lights here in a jiffy.” The robot moved his metallic fingers along the unfolded keyboard housed in his chest. Running a subroutine in his mainframe, Willie checked his battery life. The number that was reported back to him wasn’t good. He had left Canterlot High with 89% charge, he was now down to 17.4%. The constant fighting and running had taken its toll. He had tried to plug himself in to one of the power outlets that were common throughout the hospital, but the outlets in pony land were incompatible with his equipment, and there were no adapters in sight. He did a quick calculation and predicted he had about 45 minutes left on his battery, assuming he kept activities like fighting trolls down to a minimum. He smiled ruefully to himself. “Not bloody likely that’s going to happen,” he muttered. “How’s it going overthere, pony, . . . uh, I mean partner?” asked a voice. “Could be worse. But . . .” What passed for Willie’s heart launched up what passed for his throat. Whoever asked that question, it wasn’t Big Mac. The voice was nearly identical, but to Willie’s ocular receptor, there was enough of a difference to raise a red flag. Without thinking Willie turned on every light source he had to illuminate the room. Battery be damned. The foals on the ground stirred and woke to a scene straight out of their nightmares. Before the terrified children was the tallest, most muscular troll ever seen in hundreds of years. The monster was flanked by much smaller mutant trolls that chattered and twitched below his knees. In the monster’s meaty hand was a doll of Big Macintosh with a comically small super soaker. The robot was fast. Willie brought up his weapon with a dexterity any pony would have been proud of. But the troll was faster. Like greased lightning the troll stepped forward and sliced off the milk cannons mounted on Willie’s back with a keen blade. The robot smiley face was no longer smiling. In fact the face’s jaw had dropped as it looked at the stumps of where his primary weapons had been. Milk was splashing everywhere from the ruptured hoses that had fed his milk cannons. He tried to aim the wild streams at the trolls, but to his disbelief, the smaller trolls were snapping their fingers and bringing up their own magical shields that not only protected them, but also the big troll that was standing there staring at him in contempt. “These trolls know what they’re doing,” Willie thought with grudging respect. Willie backpedaled to the other end of the room and revved up his internal power plant to dangerous levels. He charged forward on his worn tires. If he couldn’t dispose of these troll with milk, then he would try it the old-fashioned way: with his fists. The foals cheered for their protector as he made his last desperate charge. But quickly those cheers turned into cries of alarm. The troll stood watching his opponent close the distance. With casual grace the muscular troll ducked under the automaton’s punch. With a victorious cry the monster wrapped his arms around Willie’s midriff and slammed him into the ground. The tile and concrete underneath the robot was pulverized. Trolls and ponies alike dodged out of the way of pieces of debris that included chunks of the robot’s chassis and frame. Willie lay shattered and bleeding in the crater his body had made in the floor of the hospital. His vision was splintered. It was a miracle he could see at all. “This must be what an insect would see before it was swatted,” he thought to himself as the massive troll glared down at him. Willie looked at the foals behind the mammoth monster, and in spite of his mortal wounds, he tried to rise. He knew that his motherboard had broken in half and knew that his positronic brain accelerator and flux capasitor were destroyed, but still he tried to get up and protect the children. Those same children were being turned to dolls before his eyes. His sundered body rose an inch off the ground before falling back to earth. “Don’t worry, metal man. Their souls will be put to good use. They will spawn a race so powerful that none will . . .” Willie laughed a sparking, faulting laugh. With his rasping metallic voice he uttered four words. “My father . . . *bzzzt* *crack* is . . . *bzzzt* coming.” The face on the monitor closed its eyes and shut down. Iarumas stared down at the robot’s carcass. He pondered its last words for a moment and shrugged. He had more pressing concerns. The troll looked back at his small troupe and smiled wickedly. Dozens of small pony dolls filled the arms, sacks, and pockets of his remaining followers. “Good,” the massive troll grunted. “It’s time to go.”