Rarity pressed her back to one of the featureless walls in Castle Bleck. For once, I wish I wasn’t stark white. I stand out like a sore thumb here. Two ponies were with her—a crystal pegasus filly the color of raspberries and a dull gray-blue unicorn stallion with an even duller face.
“Are you sure this is the right hall, Millwright?” Rarity asked the stallion.
Millwright nodded slowly. “I have memorized the local castle layout precisely. The rooms do not shuffle, this is the right place.”
Rarity poked her head around the corner. To her annoyance, the hall between them and their destination was occupied not by mad crystal ponies, but a monstrous creature. It was green and appeared vaguely like a plant, but it moved around like a slug. Its toothy mouth took up most of the upper part of its body, the lips ringed by red eyestalks.
“What is that?” Rarity wondered.
“It resembles nothing in our world,” Millwright offered.
“Imma call it the slugbug,” the filly said, smirking.
“Rasha.” Rarity addressed the filly with her nickname, seeing as Rasha despised her real name “Rash Ruckus,” a truly unfortunate combination of words. “Do you think you can distract something with that many eyes?”
“I can distract anything.” She flapped into the air, slipping heavy shoes made out of the same material as the castle onto her hooves. As a quick test, she tapped them against the wall, satisfied that the edges were sharp enough. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Rarity summoned her magic blade and gave Rasha the signal. Rasha grinned, flying out to face the “slugbug.” “Hey! Ugly! Look at me, I’m dangerous!”
The slugbug turned all its eyes toward her and belched out a poisonous ball of bile that Rasha easily dodged. “Too slow!” She flapped toward a nearby hall door, kicking it open with her heavy shoes. “That’s right, follow me…”
The slugbug followed her, leaving the hallway free for travel.
“Stay here,” Rarity ordered Millwright. He may have been a good mind, but he was used to working desks—he was anything but quiet and stealthy. Rarity, on the other hoof, knew precisely how to move without making a noise. She padded along the far edge of the hallway, passing the open door Rasha and the slugbug went through. The filly was, as expected, flying a little too close to the thing so she could smack it a few times. Crazy daredevil… Rarity shook her head—she didn’t have time to worry about Rasha.
Eventually, Rarity came to the door at the end of the hall. She knocked on it seven times in a musical pattern. A second after she completed the knock, it opened just wide enough for her to slide in. The interior was a square room devoid of all decoration or furniture, with only four identical doors. It would be very easy to get disoriented here.
There were also a lot of free, unbroken ponies huddled in the corners, fear in their eyes. But when they saw Rarity, some hope returned.
Rarity didn’t care about any of this, however, because an old friend had opened the door for her—a buttery yellow pegasus with a pink mane. “Fluttershy!”
Fluttershy pulled her into a hug. “I thought they’d taken you and done terrible things to you! I… I thought I was alone!”
“You’re never alone, dear.” Rarity squeezed her tighter. “Now, time is of the essence. What do you need to tell me?”
“We’re hungry and can’t find food.”
“We have food at base—we’re occupying one of the kitchens.”
Fluttershy nodded. “...I saw Applejack get taken by the red girl.”
Rarity recognized the description immediately. “Lulu. She’s a wizard. Some of our unicorns have tried to engage her. It… never goes well.” She put a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Applejack is going to be fine, Fluttershy. You have to believe that.”
“Right…” Fluttershy frowned but didn’t comment further on the topic. “I’ve got someone I think you’ll want to meet.” She flapped over to one of the pony piles in the corner, gesturing for someone to come out with a wing. The person who emerged wasn’t a pony, but a human in a green hat, overalls, and sporting a rather magnificent smooth mustache. Impressive, Rarity thought.
The man himself was not as impressive as his mustache. He moved forward timidly, tapping his gloved fingers together. As he approached, Rarity’s eyes lit up in recognition.
“You… you were that green fellow at the wedding!”
“Y-yeah, that’s-a me,” he chuckled nervously. “Imma sorry I ruined everything…”
“No, no, you did nothing of the sort.” Rarity waved a hoof emphatically. “I do believe all of us would have been captured if you didn’t trigger that explosion. You’re a hero, er…”
“Luigi,” he answered.
Rarity smiled. “Well, Luigi, welcome to the resistance. I’m Rarity, and we need to move these ponies out and to the kitchens for food. Can you help?”
“...Yes!” Luigi decided, saluting as though Rarity were a general. “I won’t let you down!”
“Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy nodded. “Everypony’s already arranged into groups, ready to be moved. We’re just waiting for your instructio—”
The doors to the room flew open, revealing Millwright and Rasha. At first, Rarity was confused by their presence—had Rasha actually defeated the monster?—but it became all too clear when Nastasia walked up from behind them. “This gathering is against castle regulations. I’ll be hypnotizing all of you stat, K? K.”
“Scatter!” Rarity shouted. Without realizing what she was doing, she grabbed Luigi and placed him on her back before running through one of the other doors. To her relief, Fluttershy and a few of the crystal ponies followed her, but enough went in the other directions to divide their pursuers up.
They lucked out—Nastasia wasn’t chasing them directly, it was the hypnotized Rasha. She flew at them with her heavy shoes, ready to attack.
Rarity whirled around to face her, allowing the others to fly past.
“Oh no…” Luigi pulled his hat down, shivering on her back. Rarity didn’t let this deter her. She aimed at Rasha and released a white laser, hitting the filly right in the chest. The poor child fell to the ground, dazed.
Rarity’s frown deepened. She twisted around and ran after the others once more, leaving Rasha behind. There was nothing that could be done for her.
~~~
Back at the primary resistance base, Rarity fed all the ponies she’d returned with. Around a dozen. That was a lot less than she’d hoped for.
“This is… getting us nowhere,” Rarity confided in Fluttershy. “We get more ponies, but we can’t stand up to any of their warriors. Every time we take a risky mission, Nastasia shows up and brainwashes more and more of us. We grow in number but our most skilled ponies fall and get turned against us. The only good thing is that they seem to forget who they were while hypnotized, so they can’t tell her anything. Otherwise, we’d be finished.”
“That’s a good thing,” Fluttershy said.
“Maybe it’s just drawing out the inevitable?”
Fluttershy put a wing on Rarity. “We’ve been through worse, Rarity.”
“Have we really? I don’t believe we’ve ever been lost and fearing for our lives for weeks on end before.”
“...Okay, so maybe we haven’t, but we’ve been through a lot and we always come out on top. Even when we’re scared, when we’re together…”
Rarity glanced around to make sure none of the others were listening. “You know Applejack and Rainbow have already been taken, you saw Applejack yourself. And I don’t think Twilight’s here at all. We can’t rely on the magic of friendship without all of us.”
“Yes, we can.” Fluttershy tapped Rarity in the chest. “Have a little faith.”
“I…” Rarity let out a sigh. “Okay, Fluttershy. I’ll try. I have to look the part for all the ponies, might as well actually live into it, right?”
“That’s not exactly the spirit I was going for, but… it’ll work.”
“...How are you holding up?” Rarity gave her a sympathetic smile. “The wedding must have been… hard on you.”
Fluttershy looked away. “I’d rather not think about that… sham, okay?”
“Okay.” Rarity didn’t pursue the line of conversation. Which was good, because at that point Luigi walked up to them.
“So, uh, I’ve gotten them all-a calmed down and eating cake.” He scratched the back of his head. “...Why is there so much cake?”
“There was a lot of sugar and flour laying around,” Rarity explained. “The other ingredients were a bunch of herbs I didn’t recognize and some of what I swear are phoenix feathers. How you would eat those I can’t even imagine.”
“I was hoping for some mushrooms myself,” Luigi added. “Didn’t find any.”
“It is quite disappointing how little we have to work with, but it keeps us fed.” She gestured to one of the tables for Luigi to sit down. She joined him, pressing her hooves together. “Now, Luigi… you’re a human, correct?”
“I’m pretty sure, yeah.”
“Humans don’t exist in our world—Equis—and I’m pretty sure the Count isn’t human either. I haven’t seen much of anything brought here aside from those strange monsters and crystal ponies. How did you get here?”
“I’m not entirely sure…” Luigi put his hand to his chin. “Me and my bro were just hanging out when a letter came. Mario was called to the Princess for some adventure, like usual, and I decided to stay behind. Soon as he’s gone, bam, some weird guy with orange armor shows up and says I’m needed! Before I know what’s happening I’m at some kind of wedding with a lot of ponies.”
“Orange armor… did this man by chance have four arms?”
“Wh—yes! He did! Do you know who he is?”
Rarity sighed. “I’m afraid not, but he did save me from some hypnotized crystal ponies. It appears we have a powerful ally who wishes to remain mysterious. And he wanted you to be here, for some reason. Any idea why?”
Luigi shook his head. “Imma not that special. If he wanted someone like me, he should have taken my brother, he usually does all the hero-ing stuff. I tag along for some of it, that’s all.”
“No abilities? Nothing?”
“I can jump really high…?” Luigi suggested.
Rarity pursed her lips. “Well, I’m sure that’ll help us, but I’m not sure why he’d single you out for that…” She tapped her hoof against the table, letting out a concerned hum. “Regardless, welcome to the team, Luigi. I’m sure you’ll do great.” She gave him her best reassuring smile.
He managed an awkward grin in return. “I’ll do my best!”
~~~
Nastasia frowned. She’d only gotten about a dozen more turned after that raid. Their leader had gotten away, somehow, and with that annoying green man to boot.
Then again, all the ponies and that green man were of little consequence. They could only run and try to survive in the castle, they couldn’t really do any damage in the disorganized state they were in. The real danger was from that strange multi-armed warrior that had shown up a few times. Nastasia had never seen him, but he was becoming the most annoying thorn in their side.
She suspected he was playing games with the castle. And that wasn’t good for Nastasia’s spreadsheets.
She was pleasantly surprised to find that the Millwright unicorn was good with spreadsheets and paperwork, but that was a minor boon to her bureaucratic empire. Things needed to be clean. Having a resident resistance and a mysterious vigilante warrior was not clean.
Turning around, she led the new hypnotized servants away for instruction.
They passed by the dead monster. Rasha had slain it. It was the noise of the battle that had alerted Nastasia in the first place.
These ponies were brave and resourceful when they needed to be. If they ever properly organized…
Nastasia couldn’t bear thinking about that. It would be too much paperwork. The Count had enough to deal with. ...The Count had too much to deal with.
~~~
“You’re late. Did something happen?”
“Yes, my father caught me. Sneaking out of the castle wasn’t easy after that.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t come…”
“You are a strange girl… You know what I am and yet you do not seem afraid.”
“I don’t care what you are. I just wanted to see you. Is that… Is that so wrong?”
“No. No, of course not. I wanted to see you too…”
“Blumiere… Do you mind if I sit next to you?”
“Please do, Timpani. Let’s return to our conversation. I must know more of you…”