//------------------------------//
// Werewolves 
// Story: A Witch in Broad Daylight 
// by Epsilon-Delta 
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Waking up before the sun messed with your head if you weren’t used to it. It was like she’d woken up in the middle of the night for a second time.

It was dark out, darker than Dash had ever seen it. They left behind them the electric lights of Oaken Field and then the smaller lights of the campfires set up around it. Then they headed off into total darkness, leaving the light farther and farther behind them.

Saccharin could illuminate the path with her flashlight-eyes but that would be all the light they got until dawn. There weren’t any ponies around now, but Dash still felt surrounded. Only now she was surrounded by things, things that hated Saccharin’s light and sank into the water or buried themselves in the mud to get away from it.

They still had the length of a half-marathon to walk before getting there, too, and they wouldn’t be able to use a wagon on such marshy terrain. The ground was soft enough that every hoofstep sank in slightly even on the most solid parts.

A harsh lesson she learned was that there was often nothing but water underneath what looked like a bed of grass. The water here was something you wanted to avoid at all costs, no doubt filled with all kinds of leeches and that’s if you were lucky.

When they were a safe distance away, Fluttershy finally woke up with a yawn. To her, this was like waking up at midnight but she’d just slept for over a day straight so what right did she have to complain?

She used her fear aura to keep just about everything away from them as they traveled. Unseen things would dart out of reeds and bushes to get away. The giant insects this area was known for wouldn’t get near Fluttershy’s aura of fear. Once or twice, Dash saw an enormous spider, far larger than she was herself, sitting in a tree above them but not once did they move.

Before long, the sun began to rise but they still had a few miles to go.

They had to zigzag all over the swamp, avoiding curses and other traps that’d waste their time as that skull buzzed every two seconds to tell them things they already knew.

But eventually, they finally got to a change in scenery suggesting they were close. Pumpkins started appearing all over the place. There were only a few at first, then they covered the ground, then they began floating through the water and hanging from trees.

Finally, they found one pumpkin with a face hanging from a tree.

“She might notice us soon.” Rarity made eye contact with the first jack-o’-lantern. “These are a sort of security camera, yes?”

“She’s got way too many of them.” Dash looked around at the exponentially increasing number of jack-o’-lanterns.

“I’m more concerned about all these chains everywhere.” Fluttershy floated ahead a little, looking all around.

“What chains?” Dash asked.

“Right there. There’s a big– ” Fluttershy pointed to a spot just in front of Dash.

She watched curiously as Dash walked a few steps forward.

“Oh.” Fluttershy stopped in midair, hoof out to Dash. “I guess you can just walk straight through them. Never mind.”

“You must be seeing something that exists inside the shadow realm,” Rarity explained. “The chains that bind the dark lord. I don’t know exactly where he is, but we must be getting closer to him.”

“They look like the same chains ghosts have sometimes.” Fluttershy cautiously poked at the air, at what was likely an invisible chain. “But you can’t see those either.”

They saw the walls of a castle rising above them. However, between them and the walls was a field completely covered in jack-o’-lanterns. As they got close, every one of them all turned at once and all their eyes lit up with fire.

Allegedly, this was the easiest path to get near the castle from too. These things could lunge at you and explode, or so Dash heard. Not a lot of ponies could get past this many.

“Yeesh. Doesn’t her book end on H?” Dash asked. “P and J are both after that.”

“Oh, those are flame pumpkins,” Twilight pointed out.

“Right,” said Dash. “Adjectives. Guess that’s how you get to ten thousand.”

“They shouldn’t be too hard to deal with.” Twilight put her hooves on the ground and began slowly casting a spell.

Rocky spikes erupted from beneath the pumpkins, quickly smashing them all and replacing the pumpkin field with one covered in pumpkin guts and jagged rocks.

“Ha! A bunch of plants can’t stop us!” Dash laughed at them.

“It’ll get harder,” said Twilight. “Let’s look the place over before going in.”

Dash flew them up to the top of a large tree so they could see the whole castle from above.

The castle was split off into three sections, each with one larger stone building inside. There was the large keep in the middle, the banners with Trixie’s images hanging from the side were so large you could make them out from here.

To the right, walled off by itself, was another large building that looked like a cathedral surrounded by a graveyard. One other building was inside the castle, far to the left and about half the size of the other two.

“The real problem here is that I can’t fight Trixie at full power while there are so many ponies being held captive,” said Twilight. “These buildings will collapse if we fight. I think I should go after Trixie while the rest of you get the hostages out of here.”

“And we have no idea where they are, do we?” Dash asked. “That skull wouldn’t know.”

Fluttershy sniffed the air.

“I think I can smell their blood.” Fluttershy pointed towards the graveyard and cathedral. “There’s a lot of ponies over there.”

“What about Trixie?” Dash asked. “Can you smell her somewhere else? She wouldn’t lock herself in the dungeon too, would she?”

“No, but– ” Fluttershy tried smelling again. “It’d be hard to smell just one pony from this far away. Oh! But if she’s psychic maybe I can feel her aura.”

Fluttershy closed her eyes to concentrate. That didn’t last long before she opened them again with an ‘eep’ and flew behind Rainbow Dash.

“Th-there’s another ghost here!” Fluttershy covered her eyes. “I can’t go down there!”

“You don’t have to fight the ghost,” Dash promised. “You can go somewhere it isn’t.’”

Fluttershy nodded with hesitation.

“Can you feel where the ghost is?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy pointed to the main keep.

“Alright.” Twilight nodded. “That looks like the one Trixie would be living in anyway. I’ll go to that one and make a scene to draw her to me. You and Dash can evacuate the hostages.”

“I can do that.” Fluttershy nodded.

“And I suppose that leave the building on the left to me,” said Rarity. “Of course, the worst-case scenario is that anypony but you runs into Trixie. We can use these to call each other if that happens.”

Rarity passed out a device she showed them earlier that day. It was like a phone, wireless but short-ranged, called a walkie-talkie.

“Right. It’s a bad idea for anypony but me to fight her,” said Twilight.

“I, uh, have a built-in walkie-talkie in this thing, right?” the Sweetiebot 8000 spoke up out of nowhere. Dash didn’t even think those could talk. “I was just going to keep playing dumb, but– ”

“Hm?” Rarity turned curiously to the Sweetiebot 8000, then ran over to it with some level of concern. “Sweetie, is that you? What are you doing here? I specifically told you to stay with Coco. It’s far too dangerous out here for a child.”

“But I’m not here. I’m just remote controlling this body. I don’t feel anything in this body so I don’t think I can get hurt even if I explode. So it’s fine.” Sweetie Belle hit her head hard enough to give an audible clang of numbness. “If I, uh, ‘die’ in this body I’ll be okay, right?”

“Yes, you would simply revert to your main body, but I still don’t want you getting traumatized by any monsters. Why just look at that thing!” Rarity pointed at a frog with one eyeball on its left side and a cluster of five on its right and shuddered. “So asymmetrical! It could give you nightmares!”

“Oh come one, Rarity!” Sweetie rolled her eyes at the mutant frog. “I wasn’t fazed by turning into a robot, the giant crab, or even that sewer clown. I think I’m just unfazable.”

“Whether you can be fazed is beside the point. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t be here and need to go back to Oaken Field this instant.” Rarity pointed back north.

“But I don’t know how to go back to um, ‘mote’ controlling my main body?” Sweetie Belle shrugged. “I kind of did this by accident and I still have no idea how to do things?”

“Oh my, we don’t have time to explain how it works to you, do we?” Rarity tapped her hoof, trying to come up with a solution. “I suppose you’ll just have to stay here and figure it out. Even if something dangerous damages this body it will just trigger the auto-reversion. But close your eyes so you don’t see anything too scary.”

“Oh, okay.” Sweetie Belle closed her remote-control eyes.

“We’d better hurry,” said Twilight. “If Trixie’s not coming out, it might mean she’s setting something up instead.”







Trixie looked up at the sky of the shadow realm. Everything was the opposite here. The sun was a massive black hole that sucked up the eerie glow that permeated this realm. Only under the shade of the trees, where the light didn’t get sucked up, could you make anything out.

It was just her and Applejack in the shadow realm, the two of them handcuffed together with a large chain so that there was no chance of Applejack running off. Her dullahan lackey stayed behind to guard the place, but he should be more than enough. He did have a single jack-o’-lantern nearby, sitting on the ground behind Trixie just in case.

The things they brought from the real world looked normal, but everything else was distorted, blobby shapes of things that twisted out of shape whenever the anti-light of the sun got too near them. They weren’t actually at the castle, but a little bit south of there, in the swamp that surrounded Trixie’s house. The water was pools of a blue darker than black that got clearer and more visible the deeper you went.

Miles to the south, but still visible even from here was a veritable mountain of chains. These were the enormous chains that wrapped around The Darklord. A pile of them rested on the ground, but some rose indefinitely high like they were hooked onto the sky or stars somewhere.

Even from here, you could see his eye, a tiny red pinprick, but an unignorable pinprick, watching you. Trixie tried not to look up at it. There wasn’t anything he could do. He and his powers were all but completely sealed away, but there was still something unsettling about even his distant presence.

It must have been so frustrating for Applejack to be this close to him and knowing there was nothing he could do to help.

Trixie kept her attention on the transformation ritual. She had everything she needed laid out.

A blood sword that had absorbed blood from two thousand werewolves, the malfunctioning transporter turned gene-editor Trixie would use to splice her DNA, the clump of ursa fur, and of course the magic circle she’d need to regulate the whole thing.

All she had to do now was wait another hour or so for those batteries to finish charging.

There was a small chance this would go poorly, but it would be worth it! She could just imagine the look on Flash Bang’s face when she revealed that she’d already completed her transformation into a were-ursa before that army even got here! It would be such a cool moment.

More importantly, was that Trixie had to do this before somepony with the lucky coin showed up. It could turn even a ninety-nine percent chance of success into a certain failure.

Trixie levitated the blood sword in front of her, a massive thing not meant to be wielded by a pony, now stained red with the blood of the werewolves. In a few minutes, she was going to have to stab herself with that.

Just then the fire in the jack-o’-lantern behind her lit itself. Her guard dog needed something, that annoying twat. If he had put dish soap in the dishwasher and filled the kitchen with suds again –

Trixie put a hoof on the jack-o’-lantern, but the message she got wasn’t about a mess for once. He told her every single pumpkin was destroyed at the same time.

Somepony had gotten past her barrier and first line of defense. That feat by itself wasn’t enough to worry Trixie. Trixie could have destroyed all those pumpkins in a single move. Yet there still was a tiny number of ponies who could do the same. The number who were also presently coming after her was one.

“Drat!” Trixie stomped her hoof. “Flash Bang is already here! And I got so excited about getting to reveal I already completed my plan. Well, without an army there’s no way she could beat me so whatever.”

The jack-o’-lantern shook back and forth.

“No? You’re saying it’s not Flash Bang?” Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Who else could it be?”

Trixie used her magic to look through one of the remaining jack-o’-lanterns. Through one of them, she could get a good look at these intruders.

Sure enough, it was a ghastly sight. Pumpkin guts everywhere! Oh, the flies those would attract would be such a headache later.

She could see three ponies standing at the top of one of the larger trees outside her castle. Two unicorns, one pegasus, but that pegasus wasn’t Flash Bang so that much was good.

“So it was three random idiots I’ve never seen.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “What a twist. And here I was expecting to get hit by a tsunami of cosmic irony but all I get is the weakest kind of subversion.”

“Hold up!” Applejack moved forward. “You’re saying that somepony other than Flash Bang is here?”

And now Applejack was getting her hopes up!

“Oh, please! As if anypony can defeat me!” Trixie threw her cape back. “Don’t get too excited that they were able to defeat a bunch of vegetables.”

“Actually, pumpkins are a fruit,” said Applejack.

The dullahan nodded in agreement.

“Oh, I don’t want to hear it from you… guy!” Trixie glared down at the pumpkin. “Do you even have a name? You know what? Don’t even care.”

She turned her attention back to the intruders.

Whoever they were, they had to be unusually tough to get even this far. Trixie only had so many options unless she walked back to the castle. The laziest option was the best here.

“Just watch! I’ll take them all out with a single spell.” Trixie grinned.

“I can’t see anything, but alright.” Applejack shrugged.

Trixie inhaled and let out a silent scream, a howl of terror spell that radiated out from the jack-o’-lantern she was spying on them from. That would incapacitate everypony within miles of her castle. At least, that’s what it normally did.

The pegasus stumbled around, looking like she’d just got off of the hurl-a-whirl, but regained her composure after only a few seconds. An odd reaction. The white unicorn, Trixie knew in a second, was a mad scientist. She resisted the attack by closing her eyes tight and breathing in and out slowly to center herself. Trixie had seen that one a million times. The robot with them should have been a dead giveaway.

But then there was that purple-maned one. The other unicorn was completely unaffected.

That last fact was a worrying sign. Typically, only ponies who’d gone completely insane and witches could withstand an attack like that without flinching. Did this pony have some witch training?

Trixie didn’t recognize her, and she thought she knew all the witches. Did one of them take on a student recently?

Her eyes slowly returned to that pegasus. Come to think of it, she reacted exactly like a witch in training would react to a howl of terror spell.

“Suspicious!” Trixie let off the pumpkin to think to herself.

Something felt wrong about all this, though Trixie couldn’t say what. She tapped her hoof trying to solve the mystery. Then something clicked!

“Ah! Right! Now I remember! I have seen that white one before.” Trixie nodded to herself. “She’s uh, oh what was her name again? Marshmallow? Or something. I suppose the Mad Science League didn’t get the message after our last fight.”

Trixie just had so many enemies it was hard to keep track of them all. They might be here trying to disrupt Trixie. They were competent enough to demand a response.

“And she only brought one robot,” Trixie noted to herself. It was always when they only brought one that you knew you were in for a more serious fight. “Well, whatever. I’m willing to bet that marshmallow brought them all here to try and undo that curse I put on her. If I knock her out, the others will all run away. Seen it a million times.”

Trixie moved forward, dragging Applejack behind her. In truth, she was concerned enough now to warrant returning to the castle instead of leaving it all to her idiot sidekick. But she doubted it’d take long either way.







Twilight tried to make the most bombastic entrance possible.

She teleported down to the entrance of the keep and set off a series of loud explosions. She uprooted all the trees near the entrance, blew the large door off its hinges, and shattered all the windows in the front of the building.

The building had five long banners, all with Trixie printed on them. Twilight lit those on fire. They burned slowly so that smoke would continue to rise from this location.

“Trixie!” Twilight shouted up at the building. “I’m here to uh – steal all your Twilight memorabilia or whatever!”

No response.

“Well, I’d better trip whatever alarms she has.” Twilight stepped into the castle.

Ten suits of armor lined the walls of the great hall. All of them came to life the second Twilight stepped into the room. They all took one step themselves before Twilight cast a single spell that melted all of them at once.

To her left, the floor gave way to reveal a pit of glowing green acid. A hideous thing that was little more than a ball of tentacles and fangs jumped out of the pit, screeching at Twilight. A single kinetic burst splattered it against the far wall and put it out of its misery.

She felt bad for whatever that thing was.

Twilight started up the stairs without anything else attacking her.

Was that really it? Twilight felt like there should have been more. She began exploring Trixie’s keep, occasionally calling out Trixie’s name or blowing holes in the wall with some smaller spell. Yet Trixie still hadn’t shown herself.

As she walked through the keep, Twilight became increasingly disturbed but not in the way she would have guessed.

There were portraits all along the wall. Most of them were of Trixie but a good quarter of them were of Twilight. There was zero doubt Trixie would recognize Twilight in an instant without this disguise. The only thing that was off in the portraits was that Twilight’s hat was patchwork for some reason.

Twilight got to a place with a mirror and a portrait of herself not too far apart. She glanced in the mirror, then at the painting, and decided that they weren’t similar enough for most ponies to get it.

Eventually, she got to one portrait that was drawn of Trixie and Twilight standing together like they were friends. Twilight shuddered. This was getting creepy.

Eventually, she came to the heaviest door she’d seen so far, one with a heavy arcanium bar bolting it shut and several force field spells protecting it. Something important was there.

Instead of wasting her time with the door, Twilight quickly melted a hole in the wall a few feet to the side and simply stepped inside.

It looked like a trophy room. Several objects, each on their own table and underneath a glass container, were arranged neatly. Twilight needed only to look at the first to realize what this was.

This was the room Trixie kept her collection of Twilight’s stolen possessions!

Right there, near the entrance, was an infinity flask she distinctly remembered making. It was one of the ones she’d made with Flash, and it had a small impurity near the neck because of his incompetence. It was still filled to the neck with a sleeping elixir and always would be, hence the name.

She did smile a little, looking at the deformed neck of the flask and remembering that day. He’d been so clumsy with everything Twilight tried to show him. He had been a lot like Rainbow Dash in some ways…

Come to think of it, in a roundabout way he was the only reason she’d met Rainbow Dash or ever left her house at all even if he never encouraged it directly. If he hadn’t betrayed her like that, Twilight would have moved on ages ago like she was supposed to. Instead, she was still stuck here, in a world that felt less like a cage with each day.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have any happy memories of Flash. Most of her memories were happy. It was just that… in the end, they were all lies. The memories never stayed happy for long.

She put the flask back down and looked at the other items, confirming that everything here belonged to her.

At the far back, on a jeweled pedestal like it was the most treasured possession of all, was Twilight’s original witch hat. It was curious Trixie would reserve the most ornate spot for that. It wasn’t magical in any way and had barely survived the centuries. The hat was so patched up that hardly any of the original was left at all.

Come to think of it, was that why she wore a patchwork hat in all those pictures? Because ponies just assumed the hat was always patchwork?

That was the hat her master gave her in an even more distant, less tainted memory. She remembered how excited she was when he finally told her she’d become worthy of it.

At least his intentions were pure. He wanted Twilight to obtain ultimate power and become the strongest witch ever. Maybe Dash’s influence was making her a little peeved at just how much she missed out on because of his methods, but he never lied to her. He never told Twilight he loved her or that he wanted anything more than for her to become strong.

Maybe Twilight would try taking that with her.

At any rate, Trixie valued this stuff. A few explosions over here and Trixie was sure to come to defend it.

First, she went to take her old hat out of its glass case.

Behind her another suit of armor formed, the pieces rising from below the floor. When it was done, all but the head had appeared. A jack-o’-lantern descended from above to form the head and at either side of it appeared two scimitars, each covered in blue flames.

There was the ghost!

Twilight shot a small fireball at it, accidentally blowing its ghostly armor to pieces and leaving the pumpkin and swords to drop on the ground.

“Oh! Sorry! I guess I hit a little harder than I meant to.” Twilight ran over to the pumpkin head that now sat lifelessly on the ground. “Tell me where Trixie is.”

The pumpkin didn’t respond.

“Oh. Right.” Twilight dropped the pumpkin. “You can still talk to her, right? Let’s see. Oh!”

Twilight took her old hat out of its case and put it on.

“Look! I’m stealing this priceless hat!” Twilight pointed up at it. “I bet that’s making Trixie mad, huh? Boy! I sure hope I can get away before she shows up to stop me! Especially since you can just send her a message that I’m here. That’d be so horrible if you did that.”

Even though it couldn’t move, Twilight was certain she saw a lack of amusement on that jack-o’-lantern’s face. She couldn’t even trick a pumpkin.

“And – yeah! I’m taking all this stuff and there’s nothing Trixie can do to stop me!” Twilight grabbed the flasks off the shelf. “I’m taking these bottomless flasks, these socks, this self-weaving netherweave!”

Twilight paused when she found a small ring just big enough to go over a horn. What the heck was this? It had been a long time, but no! Twilight never made anything like that. Somepony must have tricked Trixie into thinking she made it.

“I don’t think this one’s authentic so I’m leaving it behind.” Twilight threw the ring to the side. “But I am taking this uh – uh oh.”

Twilight stepped back as she recognized one more item that was stolen from her long ago, though not one she’d created.

Things had suddenly gotten… dangerous wasn’t the right word, but difficult.







Dash flew down to the ground just in front of the church. Nothing tried to stop them from getting here. Maybe Trixie had been banking too much on those pumpkins.

The whole area was a massive graveyard with the church pressed up against the far wall and several tombs facing towards it. Dash was already mentally preparing herself for the undead to come crawling out of the ground. How could that not happen?

“That one.” Fluttershy looked up at the towering cathedral. “Most of them are in there, but there’s a few in those crypts too.”

Sure enough, the old church looked like it’d been converted into a jail of sorts. The stained-glass windows depicting alicorns along the edge all had thick, metal bars running down them, preventing anypony trapped inside from simply smashing their way out.

“A weird place to put your dungeon.” Dash flew up to the door of the cathedral and put her hoof on the large, wooden door. It wasn’t even locked. They had to be in cages inside the building.

“Their hearts are beating fast,” Fluttershy warned in a hushed whisper.

“So?” Dash asked. “They’re probably just scared or something.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“No need to fear!” Dash threw the doors open. “Rainbow Dash is – whoops!”

They weren’t in cages but that was a bad thing. They were not afraid nor were they even ponies.
Dash just now remembered they were werewolves and there were a lot of them in there. Snarling wolves filled the main room of the church to occupancy, some of them far larger than a pony. It was nothing but red eyes, fangs, and claws in every direction. There had to be hundreds of them cramped together.

Maybe Dash could have closed the door and simply walked away, but a heavy thunk and the sound of shattering glass all around her killed that notion. From the looks of things, a mechanism was in place so that if you opened one door or window, all the other doors and windows of the place opened.

The two doors on the other side of the room swung wide open. The bars covering the windows lowered and vanished. Every window simultaneously shattered, leaving gaping holes in the building. When Dash tried to close the door, something held it tightly in place.

A small tape recorder next to the door was also triggered.

“Hi! It’s Trixie!” The voice came over the recording. “I can’t be here to gloat at the moment, but– ”

Dash didn’t hear any more of the tape. The wolves went ballistic and drowned it out. This tidal wave of claws and fangs consumed the room and barreled towards Dash.

She jumped outside and Fluttershy blocked the door with a wall of ice. Then she froze new windows of ice where the glass had once been. Werewolves were slamming against the walls and the way those stone walls shook was enough to convince Dash they could tear through even the stone before long.

“Uh! Um!” Fluttershy looked around desperately trying to find other exits to close.

Even if Fluttershy had been fast enough to seal up every exit from the building it wouldn’t have been enough. The crypts behind them opened and rabid werewolves came charging at them from every angle.

Dash flapped a wing at the ones coming from behind, casting the wind wall spell. It didn’t feel like the wind was moving, but whenever a werewolf tried to cross that invisible line Dash set, it would suddenly kick in with enough force to throw them back several feet.

“Ha!”

The only problem was that she could feel them ramming up against the invisible wall like she had to hold their weight up with that wing. The harder they hit, the more she had to strain her wing to keep them at bay. This spell took concentration to keep up. There were twenty of them, and she could hold them off, but this was close to her limit.

The ice behind Dash shattered and a much greater number of them came pouring out through the windows and door. Even more were running out from around the other side of the building.

There was no way Dash could block that many! She turned into crows and flew up, a few of them not fast enough to make it. But dash did get above them.

One of the wolves lunged at Fluttershy, who cowered like she was in actual danger, only for the wolf to go straight through her. One of them was safe, at least. Not that the wolves took the hint. So enraged, they were, that they kept pouncing and clawing at her despite the futility.

Dash’s highest crow turned back into a pony and Dash continued to fly up until she was about level with the spire of the church. Thankfully, pegasi didn’t keep their wings when they became werewolves.

“I think I’m safe up here.” Dash looked down at the sea of fangs. Those wolves were going ballistic right now! They were tripping over themselves in a crazed rage, trying to jump up at Dash even where it was impossible.

As if doing it just to prove her wrong one of the bigger ones jumped off the ground all the way up to where Dash was. Dash dodged out of the way again and took off into the air, going a good distance from the church.

“How can we get them out of here when they’re like this?” Fluttershy asked. “I could try freezing them, but then they’d get hurt.”

“Okay, hold on! Maybe this still works?” Dash suggested. “They’re chasing me, so they’ll chase me out of here, right?”

“But will they be safe once we get them outside?” Fluttershy asked. “They might run off in every direction. Then when they turn back, they’ll be exhausted and in the middle of a dangerous swamp.”

That was true, but then what else could they do?

Knocking them all out would just make it even harder to escape with them.

“Maybe you shoot fear beams at them or something?” Dash suggested. “Maybe we can herd them or something?”

“I tried but it’s not working.” Fluttershy shook her head. “They’ve completely lost control, even more than normal. Trixie did something to them. I’m sure.”

That sounded right. Now that she thought about it, werewolves weren’t normally able to transform during the day. They also didn’t normally foam at the mouth, nor were they this vicious.

They had to undo whatever Trixie did. But the two ponies who had a chance of doing that weren’t here.

“Okay, I’m gonna try calling the others.” Dash took out the walkie-talkie. “You keep them from getting out.”

Already one of the wolves was testing the limits of the greater cage that was the walled-off section of this area. It was so fast it managed to start clawing its way up the side of the wall. Fluttershy prevented it by making the walls icy, then adding more ice to the top of the wall.

That wolf slipped off, but they didn’t have long before one did get out.







Rarity strode through a dark and dusty corridor of what she was certain was the loneliest part of the castle. Even in the middle of the day, the lighting was so poor in here Rarity could hardly see a thing!

“Heat signatures negative.” Saccharin led the way through most of the abandoned building, though it was looking increasingly unnecessary.

“It’s starting to look like there’s nopony in this building,” said Rarity. “Just look at how dusty it is in here! I think it’s clear Trixie doesn’t even use this building. What a waste.”

The first clue this area was abandoned was that it had slowly sunk into the soft ground of the marsh whereas the keep itself was maintained. When Rarity first got here, the doorway and first floor were half-buried.

Enough dust to excite an archeologist covered each room. What little furniture survived was rotted to the point that it wasn't far off from collapsing to dust itself from the sheer peer pressure of it all. She couldn’t tell if the doors had once been made of metal or wood, but they were all rotted out of existence by now.

It was impressive this building was still standing at all.

Rarity knew just enough about architectural styles to trace it back, from its distinctive arches to the mythic period of Golden Feather some 1400 years ago. Rarity wondered if any of her creations could last that long.

“I can’t believe she’d let such an ancient thing go to waste like this.” Rarity had to hold her nose to keep any dust from getting in. Walking about was kicking up a bit of a dirt storm. “To be fair, there are plenty of rooms in my castle I don’t use, but at least I’m civilized enough to have a legion of robots constantly dusting them regardless.”

Rarity moved out onto a stone balcony, giving it a good stomp before going out onto it to make sure it didn’t collapse. It was a nice, large one, from which she could see the rest of the castle grounds. Nothing looked to be happening at the keep just yet.

Behind Rarity, there was a flash of light that sent a wave of dust in every direction.

It was the witch, Trixie! Beside her was some other pony coughing terribly from all the dust.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Marshmallow Cringe.” Trixie stepped out onto the balcony. “I have no idea what you’re thinking coming here. I beat you and fifty of your buddies last time. You think three ponies and one robot will be enough to take the legendary Trixie down?”

Rarity’s attention went to the other pony with Trixie.

It was her! The pony from the picture Rarity had been shown. Applejack was standing right next to Trixie, handcuffed to her. But the earth pony was acting strange. The moment she saw Rarity there was a look of surprise, of recognition. After that moment, Applejack looked away and kept her jaw shut tight like even one word might give away some secret.

Rarity was so close to their target, but with Trixie right here and Twilight on the other side of the castle, getting the earth pony away would be impossible.

The portal behind them didn’t look like it closed completely. Trixie kept one of her back legs extended back into it, stretching into a pool of blackness just behind them. Perhaps if Rarity could break her contact with that, Trixie wouldn’t be able to get back there on her own.

“Hmph!” Rarity turned her cheek on Trixie. “Well, I assure you that my designs have improved vastly compared to the 5000s you destroyed back then. Even still, I’m not the one who’s come here to fight you. Your true opponent is in the keep down there.”

If she could get Trixie to attack Twilight instead…

Trixie looked over at her keep with one eyebrow skeptically raised.

“Oh, please! Like Trixie would ever take such obvious bait.” Trixie laughed. “You’re clearly the leader and I’m taking you out first! Flame geyser!”

A geyser of magma, not flames (Rarity would have to have a word with Twilight about that), appeared under Saccharin, throwing her into the air. Trixie then summoned five more torrents of flame to blast her from every angle. Saccharin was enveloped in a ball of fire mid-air.

The fire was enough to get her to glow a little, but Rarity knew quite well flames that hot wouldn’t be enough to damage her.

“Huh! It’s not melting. This one’s pretty tough compared to the old ones.” Trixie looked over at Rarity. “In another twenty years, you could put up a fight. Though oh, you can’t do any more mad science without going crazy, huh?”

Rarity glanced at the chains but knew Trixie and her psychic powers would block any attack unless she was more distracted. No, this was the time to call Twilight. She quickly took out her walkie-talkie.

“Twilight– ” was all she could manage before Trixie crushed the walkie-talkie with her mind. Hopefully, that would be enough.

Saccharin surrounded herself in electricity, pushing the fire back and getting ready to send some down at Trixie.

“Ethereal hammer!” Trixie summoned just that, a lucid hammer with a head as large as she was.

The hammer swung and slammed into Saccharin, exploding in the process. A clang rang through the empty courtyard and Saccharin flew off like Trixie just hit a home run with her. But it wasn’t enough to put even a tiny dent in the robot.

Completely undamaged, Saccharin took out one of her buzzsaws and launched it down at Trixie as she fell. The speed of it was enough to force Trixie to use her psychic powers to catch it. This was the one opening Rarity would get.

Rarity took out a small needle from her mane and threw it at the chains binding Trixie to Applejack. The needle exploded with just enough force to break one of the links, setting Applejack free!

Applejack didn’t miss the opportunity. She bucked at Trixie hard and tried to push off forward at the same time. But Trixie hadn’t been caught completely flatfooted. Her horn glowed ever so slightly just before Applejack bucked her in the face.

It sounded like the witch had been kicked hard enough to bring down a brick wall. Yet from the looks of it, Applejack was the one who got hurt.

A look of horrible pain shot across her face, and she fell flat on the ground. Yet she gritted through it and pulled herself forward with her forelegs.

Another pool of darkness opened just in front of Applejack. The sort of chains you’d see on a ghost came up from the ground and wrapped themselves around Applejack, pulling her down to her stomach.

Before Rarity could make another move, Trixie summoned more ethereal weapons. Two swords made scissor blades against her neck and a spear hovered right in front of her heart.

“Another easy victory for Trixie.” Trixie flipped her cape triumphantly. “As if there was ever any doubt. What were you even hoping to do? I know you can’t seriously be stupid enough to think this would have been enough to defeat somepony as astounding as me.”

Rarity tried her best to turn her eyes to the back of her head to see where Saccharin was. She knew for a fact a blow like before could throw her, but not harm her. Then again, Trixie might slip if the robot came back in too hot.

“Well?” Trixie pushed the spear forward just enough for Rarity to feel a prick. “Maybe you’re thinking I won’t kill you? Well even if I don’t want to go that far I could always turn you into my pet frog for a few years until you do talk. I have loads of spells involving frogs, you know. Ten seconds until you start eating bugs!”

Rarity cringed. Frankly, she could deal with death. Sweetie Belle had died and gotten over it. But turning into a frog?!

“Seven. Six.”

“We came here to bring an end to your obnoxious ways!” Rarity declared. “As I said before, the pony who’s going to fight you is over in the keep.”

“You really want me to go over there, huh?” Trixie asked. “You’re sure there isn’t something else?”

Despite herself, Rarity did glance down at Applejack. Trixie caught it without missing a beat.

“Oh! Are you here for her?” Trixie gestured at Applejack. “You’re planning on kidnapping her for yourself, huh? Be honest!”

“Well, I – we’re not kidnapping her per se,” said Rarity.

“Hm.” Trixie thought about it for a second, then dismissed the ethereal weapons. “You know what? Sure! I’ll let you have Applejack!”

“Oh! Well, I wasn’t expecting you to be so amicable about this.” Rarity narrowed her eyes. “What’s the catch?”

“A catch? From Trixie? Never!” Trixie jabbed a small syringe into Applejack’s side, causing the mare to seize up, barely able to still stand. “Here! I’ll even cast a few spells on her to make her tougher! Let’s see. Flame aura, fire breath, gigantification, dire rage…”

Applejack began to twitch violently. Her body was transforming into its wolf form, but that was only the start of it. She was growing much faster than she should be. She became enveloped in flames and fire spouted from her nostrils every time she breathed. Her new claws and fangs became metallic, and that same metal ran up her legs and over her jaw giving her something resembling armor.

“You two have fun!” Trixie waved at Rarity as she backed up into the shadows. “I’ll come pick her up in twenty minutes.”

Trixie vanished back into the shadow realm as Applejack finished her transformation. She left behind Applejack, a wolf now the size of an elephant and enveloped in flames,

Applejack stood on her hind legs and roared with enough force to make Rarity stumble back.

“Oh bother.”

The werewolf moved far faster than anything that size had the right to move, too quickly for Rarity to react. Applejack brought down a flaming claw at Rarity like she was swatting a fly.

Saccharin came back onto the balcony just in time to block the attack. She activated her buzzsaw, digging it into the werewolves' claws as she struggled to hold her ground.

The buzzsaw managed to slice off one of Applejack’s claws but wore itself down to a smooth metal disk with barely a tooth left in the process. The single claw fell to the ground next to Rarity. It was the size of a sword!

“Intimidation mode activated!” Saccharin’s eyes began to glow red.

Guns came out on either side of Saccharin and fired at Applejack. The shots hit, but Applejack wasn’t bleeding afterward and hardly moved an inch from the gunfire.

“Aggression level ten!” The guns changed out for the death ray. Two long rods with a large ball that crackled and glowed with electricity at the end of each emerged from her sides.

“Wait! We only want to pacify her!” Rarity called out to Saccharin.

“Death is the ultimate pacification!”

“No! We need her alive.”

Saccharin hesitated but turned the death ray down to its lowest setting. Two arcs of lighting surged from her to Applejack, enveloping the werewolf in electricity. Applejack was tougher than Rarity thought, struggling but ultimately shrugging off the attack. Rarity should have told her to use more power!

Applejack used the fire breath spell Rarity knew she heard Trixie call out. Only it looked more like a beam of lava than what you’d get from a flamethrower. The weight of whatever flaming liquid she was spewing slowly pushed Saccharin back to the edge of the balcony.

Rarity wasn’t the greatest mage in the world, but she could manage a basic shield, just enough to keep that from cooking her. Now both Applejack and Saccharin were on fire.

Applejack charged forward, tackling Saccharin and sending them both to the ground below.

A moment later they were back up and fighting again. Applejack was throwing and dragging Saccharin all over the courtyard but couldn’t damage the robot to any real extent. It was doubtful that werewolf could ever damage Saccharin at this rate.

Tempting as it was to follow Saccharin around, calling out her attacks and shouting ‘dodge it’ at her like this was a robot fight, Rarity could think of something more productive. In her haste, Trixie had carelessly left that syringe behind, lying on the floor.

Rarity lifted it with her magic and examined the few drops that remained. It was a bright green liquid, but more telling was the type of glass the syringe was made of, one made for containing super radiation. That must be what was exacerbating Applejack’s condition like this. Werewolves had a much harder time controlling themselves when exposed to that stuff.

“But if she has something like this,” Rarity said to herself. “What’s stopping her from doing this to all of them?”

“We have a situation,” Rainbow Dash came over the backup walkie-talkie. “All of the hostages are werewolves! Well, I mean in their wolf forms! They’re berserk and spreading all over the castle!”

Looking off to the east, Rarity could see exactly where Rainbow Dash was, albeit indirectly. Fluttershy had made that part of the wall much taller by adding a barrier of ice on top of it, no doubt trying to keep them from running off into the swamp.

“Yes, I noticed that myself.” Behind her, Saccharin was thrown up past the balcony. Applejack came up a moment later to clamp her jaws down on Saccharin and drag her back to the ground. “Oh, also I seem to have found Applejack. I may be able to help with that, but I’ll need Twilight to come here and you to lead the rest of them my way.”

“Got it!” Dash said.

“I might need another minute,” Twilight warned. “Actually, Fluttershy? If you come over here I can get out faster.”

Rarity glance back at the courtyard below just in time to see Applejack throw Saccharin through the wall, crumbling a large section of it. It was for the best they were getting farther away. Rarity would need a few minutes to put everything together anyway.







“Crud. Crud. Crud.” Dash messed up her hair as she looked over the situation rapidly spiraling out of control.

She was supposed to corral these werewolves over to Rarity, but she’d already lost so many of them! Those things could jump so high and run over walls. Despite their best efforts, a good number of them got out anyway. The ones not in the line of sight with Dash were constantly freaking out and ramming themselves against any wall they could.

Dash was sitting at the gate, unsure if she should open it and hope the outside ones would chase her back in or if that would just let way too many out. Any of them that ran into the swamp would likely die later.

“We have to try and get them back inside the castle walls,” Fluttershy stated the obvious.

“Sure! But what are the chances that they’re all just gonna spontaneously run back to us?” Dash asked.

At that exact moment, what looked to be a huge ball of fire came rolling past them, just outside the walls. It scorched everything it touched. All the trees outside the castle and that field of pumpkin guts were now on fire.

“And now we gotta deal with whatever that is?!” Dash pointed at the source of the fire, too far away to see.

The wolves outside the walls snarled at the fire, but their berserk state wasn’t enough for them to charge into certain death. Now they were desperate to get back inside the walls, clawing up with the same passion they had before.

Dash opened the gate and most of them came rushing back in.

“That was convenient,” Fluttershy said. “Thankfully that fire won’t spread fast given how damp it is.”

“Yeah. A little too convenient.” Dash looked out at the flames with suspicion. “That keeps happening! And every time…”

Every time she’d gotten lucky, she asked the same question just beforehand, didn’t she?

“Let me try something. Uh. What are the chances that they all start running towards Rarity?”

That same thing from before slammed into the western wall. It wasn’t enough to knock the wall over, but flames spilled inside. The fire started spreading through the graveyard, forcing them towards where Rarity was.

“That’s spooky even for a ghost,” Fluttershy whispered. “What’s doing that?”

“I have no idea.” Dash crossed her forelegs.

“Did you find anything with magic recently?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well.” Dash suddenly remembered and reached into her bag and pulled out that ancient coin. “Wait! I did find this coin! Do you think this is the one true lucky coin or something?”

“I have no idea.” Fluttershy shook her head.

“Whatever! I’ll just assume that’s the case for now!” Dash flew towards the gate connecting the graveyard to the rest of the castle. “We gotta go!”

She wasn’t sure how much it’d help, but Dash made a small cut on her foreleg, just enough for it to get bloody, before landing on top of the gate. From the looks of things, it helped a lot. Between that and the fire, the whole gang showed up.

“Alright. I’ll lead them over there, you go help Twilight with whatever,” said Dash.

“B-but the ghost!” Fluttershy squeaked. “It’s over there!”

“You remember your promise, right?” Dash asked. “This is your chance to do things differently!”

“I…” Fluttershy closed her eyes and trembled, paralyzed at the thought of confronting something bigger than a wisp. She forced herself to open her eyes and nod anyway. “I will. I meant it when I said I was sorry.”

Dash nodded too. She opened the gate and jumped down to the ground. The wolves came pouring out, forcing her to cast the murder spell but they kept coming after those crows as Dash led them to the oldest building.







As she moved closer and closer to the other ghost, Fluttershy breathed in and out heavily trying to calm herself. Fluttershy couldn’t breathe for real, but pretending to helped out sometimes.

There could be zero doubt where the other ghost was. He wasn’t making any attempt to suppress his aura. It led her to one room that she stopped in front of. Honestly, she wished she was about to go into a room filled with spiders. Spiders were cute. Ghosts were scary.

Fluttershy held her fake breath and poked her head inside the room.

What she saw was terrifying! A dullahan with a pumpkin for a head! Fluttershy froze the second she saw it.

It was wielding a scythe enveloped in blue flames. The walls of the room were covered in chains with the same blue fire covering them. Twilight simply stood in the middle of the room like she was waiting for a train.

Twilight instantly defeated it, destroying its armored body and leaving the pumpkin to smash on the floor. She wondered what exactly she was here to do.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight called out to her. “Okay, so before you say anything, I did not create the infinite death scythe. I just inherited it from my master and forgot to throw it out. So don’t blame me for it being so sadistic.”

“W-wait. I-infinite death scythe?!” Fluttershy didn’t dare to poke out more than a single eye.

“That thing.” Twilight pointed at the scythe next to the smashed pumpkin. “It’s a weapon that allows you to murder somepony an infinite number of times. You can also kill yourself as many times as you want while inside the stasis field which is why he keeps—“

The ghost that Fluttershy hoped was defeated suddenly remerged. The pumpkin unsquashed itself and the armor reassembled. He tried lunging at Twilight with the scythe, but Twilight quickly destroyed him a second time.

“Eep!” Fluttershy flew underground. “I’m sorry! This is too scary!”

“I know an infinite number of deaths sounds scary but if you think about it's more like an indefinite death scythe. That’s less bad than one definitive death,” said Twilight.

“No! I— I meant!” Fluttershy pointed a trembling hoof at the smashed pumpkin.

“Fluttershy, it’s basically a plant between reforming,” Twilight assured her. “Your phobia is completely irrational. Does that help?”

“Um. No?”

The dullahan respawned yet again and Fluttershy went back underground.

“As you can see, he can endlessly reform by killing himself infinitely. The wielder can just die whenever they feel like it.” Twilight allowed him a bit more time to swing at her, stepping out of the way as she talked. “We’re stuck in an infinite loop no matter who kills whom. I could summon an asteroid to blow this whole thing up or—"

Twilight immediately destroyed the armor again. That was enough for Fluttershy to peek her head out again.

“I can keep this up way longer than you can, buddy,” Twilight promised the harmless pumpkin. “But you can just tell him to give you the scythe, right? That’ll be faster and safer.”

“Well, t-technically I could.” Fluttershy swallowed. Rainbow Dash needed her! Dash rescued her and now she needed Fluttershy to do this! “O-okay I’ll try!”

The dullahan respawned once again and Twilight led it around the room as it slashed at her, giving Fluttershy time. Even though she was determined, Fluttershy hesitated. It was like having to jump off a cliff. Even if you knew you could fly, it was still something you had to force yourself to do.

Finally, she did force herself to do it. Fluttershy’s fear poured into him and filled them both, but his fear and hers weren’t exactly the same. She could feel so much fear directed at herself. But she could feel it wasn’t Fluttershy herself he was scared of. It brought his own deepest fears bubbling to the surface and there was someone else out there he was terrified of.

To feel so directly somepony else being so scared, and of herself of all things, was enough to cut through Fluttershy’s nervousness. She pulled back a little. Fluttershy and the dullahan looked at each other, both now surprised at the other’s fear, their emotions in sync.

Fluttershy wondered what he was so afraid of. She tried thinking of Trixie, but no, that wasn’t who he was scared of.

She could feel that he hated Trixie. The only reason he was down here was to hide from the ghost in Crater Cemetery. He felt like the specter from there used her aura to effectively put all the other ghosts in what amounted to mind control. He’d only barely escaped from that place.

Fluttershy could feel resentment towards Trixie. Even after being here for years, she still didn’t know his name, just called him ‘The dullahan’ all the time. Even if he hated it here, it was the only place he could go.

Fluttershy wondered what his name was and that took him off guard. He felt brief embarrassment before telling her.

She felt emotions around pumpkins and pies and realized that meant his name was something like ‘Pumpkin Pie’. Apparently, he’d been a baker who was… decapitated by a pie in the face?

Fluttershy nodded along like that made any kind of sense. She didn’t ‘talk’ to other ghosts like this a lot so maybe she didn’t get that right.

Fluttershy remembered how she used to get pushed around by the other ghosts all the time. She knew how Mr. Pie felt. She’d wanted so badly to get away from them as well. She too felt like she’d never find anywhere else to go but she’d been wrong about that.

Feeling her sympathy made him lower his guard and the infinite death scythe ever so slightly. She could tell he didn’t want to fight somepony who was being nice to him.

Fluttershy didn’t feel like it was okay for him to turn around and hurt other people like this. Even for his own sake, he needed to find somewhere else to hide. He’d never be happy working for Trixie.

Fluttershy knew her will over him was strong enough she could literally force him to hand the scythe over, to do anything she asked. But instead, she simply held her hoof out and gave him the chance to do the right thing.

He looked down at the scythe, then up at Fluttershy, and handed her the scythe.

“Thank you, Mr. Pie.” Fluttershy took the scythe. “But you really should leave now. I’m sure you’ll find somewhere better than this.”

He did feel happy to hear his name again. He nodded and ran off to the north.

At that, Fluttershy felt such an enormous relief she almost collapsed. That really… hadn’t been so bad. Though she had no idea what she would have done if Pie had been meaner.

Fluttershy was about to say she had no idea what to do with this thing when the chains around the walls all crumbled to dust by themselves.

“There!” Twilight straightened herself out. “And now you’re over your phobia forever, right?”

“I don’t know about that,” Fluttershy whispered.

“Come on! We need to get to the others.” Twilight ran off down the hall.







She must have cast that spell ten times in a row to get here, but she got here! Dash was right in front of the building Rarity had been assigned to. She could only hope Rarity was inside somewhere.

Dash darted inside with the wolves still chasing her. She put up the wind wall just large enough to cover the door and windows of the entrance. She only managed to hold this many off because of the choke point. Heck, she could feel them pounding against the stone wall. They might burst through the bricks!

And how long until some of them managed to go around to the back?

“Ah, there you are, Rainbow!” Rarity looked up and pointed a needle at Dash. “You did bring all the werewolves here, yes.”

Dash felt the wolves slamming against her barrier. It felt like she was holding up two hundred pounds right now.

“Um. Yeah!” Dash nodded. “Yeah, I did. You do have a plan, yeah? Cause I’m lost.”

“Well, it’s common knowledge that super radiation can exacerbate lycanthropy,” Rarity reminded her. “I know for certain now that Trixie injected them with a super radioactive serum to this effect. I’d estimate the effect would wear off in about one and a half days after the initial injection by itself.”

“Okay, cool.” Dash struggled to keep her wall of wind up as wolves continued to pound against it. Already they were getting smarter and slamming against it all at once instead of one at a time. “But you can stop it faster than that, yeah?”

“Why yes of course. Thankfully I have all manner of ways to deal with super radiation what with how commonly I deal with it myself.”

Rarity had a small pile of red needles that glowed a faint red by her side. The only thing Dash knew about super radiation was ‘don’t get near it’, so she stayed back and hoped Rarity knew what she was doing.

In addition to the red needle, Dash saw Rarity’s bag was filled with an enormous number of regular ones.

“Did you bring hundreds of sewing needles with you?” Dash asked.

“Hmph!” Rarity looked offended at the idea. “These aren’t mere needles, Rainbow Dash. They’re modular chronomatic–”

“Okay, okay! That’s super impressive!” Dash knew all too well how dangerous the nerd-tangent could be, having lived with one for months now. “Just tell me what to do with them. That’s my pay grade.”

“And you wonder why we call you barbarians,” Rarity muttered to herself. “You stick them with the pointy side, and they’ll go back to normal. Preferably in the thigh. But only the red ones. I need to make more.”

Rarity went back to her work, sticking a normal-looking needle into the radioactive potion.

Maybe Dash could throw them through her barrier? It’d be tricky, but worth a shot. She grabbed on in her hoof, but that plan got canceled when one of the wolves smashed its way straight through the stone wall to their right.

Dash recognized that one! He was the jumper from before, the biggest of the werewolves. It pounced at the two ponies, threatening to crush them both. Dash grabbed Rarity and jumped back with her, out of the way of the oncoming wolf. She got out of the way, but now he was standing between them and the needles.

“You’re the athletic one!” Rarity grabbed onto Dash, hiding behind her. “Get it with the needle!”

At least Dash had a chance to test out whatever the heck Rarity just made.

Dash used one of her other new spells to send her shadow out and grab a needle from behind the large wolf. As the wolf moved in on the two ponies, her shadow came in from behind and jabbed the wolf on his inner thigh.

The large wolf staggered but not from tensing up or anything of the sort. It looked more like he was confused and suddenly in control again, if exhausted.

Then he began to shrink, his claws fusing back into hooves, his fangs retracting and his fur shortening and turning red. Soon he was back to a normal pony. He was still bigger than a normal pony, but he was a pony.

He was confused, but still standing,

“What—?” He understandably had difficulty taking stock of the situation. “What’s happening?”

At about the same time, Dash’s wind wall finally broke down. Werewolves charged into the entrance. The only thing that bought them time was them all jamming together in the doorway.

“Yo, guy!” Dash held up a bunch of the red needles in front of him. “Stand in front of the door and poke any of them that try coming inside! Trust me!”

“Uh. Eyup!”

Thank goodness the big red guy wasn’t the willful type. He rushed forward to comply with Dash’s order, running to the door with several needles. Were it not for those, even a pony of his size wouldn’t have lasted long.

Now Dash was freed up to go crow.

“Now we just gotta do that like, uh, three hundred more times.” Dash craned her neck and got ready. “Just cover me.”

Dash cast the murder spell.

One crow flew onto Rarity’s back while the rest each grabbed a needle and flew down into the pit of rampaging werewolves. With no concern for their own safety, they swooped down and jabbed the needle into random wolves, typically getting torn apart a moment later.

But it didn’t matter much. As soon as the first wave was done, Dash turned back, cast the spell, and sent a fresh wave of crows down again.

None of them tried to run away, all of them coming out from wherever they were at the chance to maul a pony. The number of those just outside the building was quickly growing. Dash knew she had to be fast as the wolves didn’t look to have any compassion for the recovering ponies.

Before long, the mass in front of the building flipped to the point that Rarity and that big guy were letting the ponies retreat inside for safety. A number of them got scratched or bit before Dash could get the attacking wolf off them but none of the wounds looked untreatable, what little Dash saw of them.

Then the whole central mass was converted, and the hard part was over. Dash merely circled the entrance, jabbing any wolves that charged at them from the sides until things finally calmed down.

Dash flew outside, as a pony, and looked around for any straggling wolves. It looked like they’d gotten them all.

They now had a small army of dazed, confused, and sometimes injured ponies making a rabble in and around the abandoned building. Dash might be able to lead them away soon, once they recovered.

“Let’s see here.” Rarity looked through her bag. “Five needles left. Are we missing anypony?”

“One more minute,” said big red. He was by far the most injured pony here, but the wounds didn’t seem to bother him at all as he looked over the crowd.

Saccharin came in like a meteor and slammed into the wall with a considerable bang. The paint on her was completely gone at this point and her armor was terribly scratched up, but there wasn’t anything that looked like serious damage.

“Ah yes.” Rarity nodded. “I neglected to mention that I found Applejack. Though she is a slightly larger werewolf than the others. My needle might not get through her hide, but I think if we can throw it into her mouth or some such, we should be fine.”

“Alright, but where is she?” Dash looked out to the forest.

There was a red glow coming from the north now. Dash’s first guess was Saccharin had set the trees ablaze with her flame throwers, but soon realized that wasn’t the case.

A single claw, metallic and flaming, curled around the top of the wall. A moment later, the head of a colossal werewolf appeared.

Applejack was now as tall as the wall itself. Metal had continued to grow over her body so now her entire head and legs were encased in it and still it moved up along her back. Around her mouth and claws, the metal was red hot and slowly dripping down to the ground.

By simply walking forward, Applejack was able to tear down the wall.

“Slightly larger?” Dash’s eye twitched.

“Oh my. I suppose the gigantification spell is progressive.” Rarity shrugged. “But my point still stands. You need only fly one of these needles into her mouth and stab a tonsil. Go on.”

Rarity made a little shooing motion. Dash rolled her eyes, cast the spell again, and had one crow pick up a needle.

Dash flew straight into Applejack’s gaping maw, which was hardly a tight maneuver. The only problem was that Applejack was covered in fire. Dash’s crow and the needle it was holding were both incinerated before they got close.

“Well that didn’t work.” Dash turned back to a pony. “Any more bright ideas?”

“I suppose I could, well.” Rarity looked around, desperate for an idea. Applejack reared down like she was about to pounce and crush them all. Rarity settled on Saccharin in a moment of desperation. “Saccharin! Now we set aggression level to ten!”

“Finally!” Saccharin’s eyes blazed red.

Her death rays began to glow white. Two lightning beams, each far larger than Saccharin herself, shot forward. The beams slammed into Applejack’s chest just as she jumped and flipped even that massive beast over, sending her back over where the wall had just been.

But even that wasn’t enough.

It only took Applejack a few seconds to get back on her feet and send a roar that shook the ground. The group of hostages was in full retreat now, trying to get behind the building they were currently in for fear it was going to be leveled any second now.

“Recharging in thirty seconds,” said Saccharin.

“Alright. I may be out of ideas now,” Rarity whispered to Dash.

“Ah, screw it! I’m using my magic coin!” Dash took out the lucky coin.

“Your magic what?” Rarity asked.

“What are the chances that Twilight shows up at this exact moment?” Dash asked.

“I suppose about—"

From the darkness, something unseen hit Applejack with enough force to shatter the metal mask that now covered her face and send the wolf tumbling to one side. As Applejack rolled, she took down most of what was left of the western wall. She kept rolling until she was back out in the swamp once more.

“See?” Dash dangled the coin in front of Rarity. “Magical lucky coin!”

“And how long has this been an option?” Rarity reached for it.

“Don’t touch it!” Dash snatched it away from her a little faster than she’d meant to.

Rarity raised an eyebrow with concern at that, but Twilight landed next to them a moment later with Fluttershy in turn.

“Twilight!” Dash called out to her. “That big one’s Applejack. Can you zap her back to normal?”

“It looks like somepony cast a lot of spells on her.” Twilight looked over at Applejack, still stunned on her side a good distance away. “It’ll take a while, but— oh.”

Applejack got back up, knocking over what little of the wall remained just by stumbling around.

“If she even gets close to us, somepony’s going to die,” said Rarity. She took out one of her needles, showing it to Twilight with a smile like she was trying to impress the witch. “Thankfully, I have a modular chronomatic—"

“Yeah, yeah! Gotta jab her with the needles!” Dash interrupted her again. “Fluttershy! Can you uh, cool her off? If I get close, I can turn her back to normal.”

“I really don’t like taking heat from living things,” said Fluttershy.

“This is the one time it’s okay! It’s for her own good!” Dash pointed at Applejack, who’d finally regained her balance.

“Mm.” Fluttershy looked over at Applejack like Dash just asked her to eat something out of the trash. “Alright.”

Applejack let out another breath of fire and Twilight erected a massive shield around the entire building behind her. If Twilight weren’t here, that absolutely would have killed all of them instantly. The entire courtyard and surrounding swamp were enveloped in flames this time. But it wasn’t enough to break Twilight’s shield.

The ghost reluctantly flew up and over the fire towards Applejack. Fluttershy sucked the heat away from Applejack. Not only did it extinguish the flames, but frost ran across Applejack’s fur. She began staggering about, the metal on her legs much more brittle and stiffer now. Meanwhile, Twilight ran forward and cast what must have been a shrinking spell.

Applejack opened her mouth to try and breathe more fire but only a wheeze came out. This was the perfect chance!

Dash cast the murder spell again and sent a crow in to try and jab a needle into her tongue. Applejack snapped her jaw shut the moment Dash made the jab, so Dash wasn’t sure if it had worked at first.

Upon turning back, she could see Applejack shrinking rapidly. It wasn’t until the fur began to recede that Dash was sure she’d jabbed correctly. Applejack wasn’t just shrinking now but turning back into a normal pony.

When she was about four or five times bigger than a normal mare, she fell over to one side. She was mostly a pony again, only those pieces of metal were still attached to her making it look like she still had fangs and claws.

Applejack wasn’t unconscious but she was in a daze. Twilight sat down next to her, slowly removing all the spells Trixie cast on her. The metal finally crumbled to dust and Applejack returned to normal size.

“Now we got them all!” Dash flew over to where Twilight and Fluttershy were.

“Oh, wow!” Fluttershy put her hooves on her cheek, smiling with absolute elation. “I forgot how wonderful it feels to take heat away from an animal. I could almost feel the blood running through me!”

The look Fluttershy gave Dash when she got near was one of absolute starvation.

“Uh– ” Dash took a step back.

Seeing that was enough to snap Fluttershy out of it. She shook her head to regain control.

“I’m so sorry!” Fluttershy put her forehooves together pleadingly. “I can keep it under control! I just need a second.”

Fluttershy flew down underground. Dash hadn’t realized feeding off the living could make you relapse like that. She felt kinda bad for suggesting it now.

“Now what was this about a magic coin you found?” Rarity came up from behind.

“Oh, I think this coin I found before is magic.” Dash took it out again. “Whenever I ask what the chances of something happening are, it happens!”

“Rainbow Dash, you have no idea what that thing is,” Twilight lectured her. “You know that kind of magic can be horribly dangerous. Have you seriously been using that this whole time?”

“Not on purpose!” Dash pulled the coin away from her. “Okay, on purpose one time. Or two, I guess. But that’s it. Think about it! I could use this to give Trixie a heart attack. That’s the one vulnerable part of her, yeah?”

“This could be probability distortion.” Twilight ignored the suggestion and eyed the coin suspiciously. “Don’t you know anything about conservation of probability?”

“Conservation of probability?” Dash repeated it. “Did you just make that up on the spot? The heck does that even mean?”

“It means don’t use it again.” Twilight snatched the coin away from Dash with her magic. “Not until I can get a better look at it.”

“Can I at least try doing a ‘what are the chances this coin is completely harmless?’” Dash asked.

“No. That could potentially turn it into a probability bomb.”

Dash sighed but didn’t argue any further. They were right. No way Dash was that lucky. She sure didn’t want to learn what a ‘probability bomb’ was.

The werewolves were much more orderly now. Big Red had gotten them all lined up in columns and was counting them all with what looked like growing concern. It made Dash worry that they might have missed somepony.

From the group of werewolves came an elderly, green pony.

“My name’s Granny Smith. You lot are the ones who freed us, ain’t ya?” Granny Smith bowed her head to them. “Well let me thank you all for helping us since I’m not right sure the rest will ever get a chance to say it themselves.”

“It’s what we do!” Dash grabbed Twilight and pushed her in front of Granny Smith. “Just remember that if anypony asks, Silverstorm here is a cool pony!”

“But there is one problem I’m afraid I need to tell you about. Trixie put a curse on the lot of us. Keeps us from escaping.” Granny Smith walked up to the edge of the castle, where the wall used to be. “You see, if any of us tries to leave these grounds, they uh…”

The elderly pony put one hoof outside and nothing happened. She paused, confused, then stepped all the way out.

“Welp! Never mind!” She walked back inside. “Looks like somepony already broke that curse.”

“That wasn’t any of us though, was it?” Dash looked at the others.

She only got a shrug from Twilight.

“Whatever! We don’t have time to care.” Dash turned her attention to the big guy. “Hey, you got everypony over there or what? You guys gotta get out of here!”

“Nope!” He shook his head and ran up to Dash. “Apple Bloom! My little sister. She’s still out there somewhere!”

“Saccharin.” Rarity beckoned the robot to her and placed the last red needle behind her ear when she got close. “You’re the best suited for this. Go find the missing filly, please.”

“I shall acquire Apple Bloom!” Saccharin ran back off towards the keep.

“I’m going too!” Big Red pounded his chest. “Uh. You got more of those needles, don’t ya?”

At least two dozen other ponies all stepped up behind him, offering to help with the search at all.

“That’s not a good idea at all!” Rarity shook her head. “I don’t have any more needles. It will be better for Saccharin to go alone.”

“But—“

“I have to agree with Rarity that it’s the best idea,” said Twilight. “Listen, if I know a bunch of ponies are still in the castle – well there’s going to be a much bigger fight than what you just saw right now. Saccharin is borderline invincible but you’re not. It’ll be a lot easier for her to get just one pony out instead of dozens.”

“Not to mention Saccharin has far more sensors than a normal pony,” Rarity added. “She could find a pony fairly easily. Oh, and you’re not exactly in good shape right now, if you don’t mind me saying.”

The big guy looked down at himself as if he hadn’t noticed all the cuts covering him. The second the adrenaline wore off he was going to collapse.

“I can’t abandon my sister like that,” he said. “I don’t care if I’m in danger!”

“You’re not leaving her behind,” Dash promised. “We got this one! Please just trust us a little longer, okay? We got this far and we’ll get your sister out.”

He looked off towards the keep, restraining himself from running off and doing something stupid. He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly and joined the crowd of others.

“I’ll head out with them if you don’t mind,” said Rarity. “I can call you if anything happens.”

Rarity and the werewolves all started off, leaving to the east.

Applejack came hobbling down the way just as the others were setting off. Instead of walking to her group, however, she came up to Twilight and Dash instead.

“I’m a little shook up. But—” Applejack tried to stand as straight as possible. “Pretty sure I can canter a few miles yet. Let’s get out of here. Where are we headed?”

“About that.” Dash landed in front of Applejack, blocking her path to the others. “Listen, Flash Bang is after you specifically. If you go with the others, she’s going to come after all of you.”

“Oh, I already know about all that,” said Applejack. “See, The Darklord can talk to ponies in their dreams. Just a couple of hours ago he went and showed me your group. Your names are Rarity, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Silver, right? Said I should split up from everypony else and leave with y’all as soon as you got here.”

“He showed you us in your dreams?” Dash asked. That explained who was talking to them, then. But why’d he give Twilight’s fake name? That disguise couldn’t be enough to trick even a god, could it?

“Yep!” Applejack rolled her shoulders like she was trying to stretch the bruises away. “So no need to waste time convincing me or explaining nothing. I’ll go wherever it is you’re going. But we need to get out of here before Trixie gets back and she can get back in case you’re wondering.”

“We’re not leaving just yet,” said Twilight. “Dash and Fluttershy will get you out of here in a minute, but I need your help to go after Trixie first.”

Applejack stumbled and winced in pain, surprised at the suggestion, but quickly recovered.

“Now see? This is the part he doesn’t tell you about!” Applejack sighed in frustration. “Listen up. I’m not saying what you did so far ain’t impressive, but Trixie is on a whole other level. Trust me, we gotta get out of here before she finishes.”

“I know I can win against her,” Twilight promised. “I’m not asking you to help me fight against her. I just want you to open a path to the shadow realm before.”

“I just don’t want you putting yourself in danger after you helped me,” said Applejack. “There ain’t no shame in running away now.”

“I’m not putting myself in danger.” Twilight crossed her forelegs and closed her eyes. “There’s no doubt I’ll win against her. Just watch.”

“Please just help us,” Dash asked her. “Trixie’s going to keep hurting people until somepony stops her!”

Applejack looked at Twilight, then Dash, and bowed her head when she saw neither of them wavering even slightly.

“Ah, shoot. Well I know I’m just as stubborn as you all and there ain’t no way I’d be able to talk myself out of something like this.” Applejack rubbed the back of her head. “So fine. Heck. If you pull this off, I won’t ever doubt any of you again. Just remember to run if you can’t win.”

“Awesome!” Dash gave her a hit on the back which caused Applejack to stumble slightly in her given state. “Sorry.”

“Now. Last I was there, Trixie was about to finish the ritual.” Applejack walked a few paces south and looked out into the swamp. “I know where about she was. I say we might be able to sneak up on her and maybe pull her out before she can finish. Dunno if I can help any after that.”

“That’s enough,” said Twilight. “Thanks.”

Fluttershy came floating up from underground again.

“Sorry again,” she said. “I’m okay now.”

They went south through another half-mile of swamp, out to a relatively dry clearing. Applejack insisted that while they couldn’t see Trixie, Trixie would be able to see them, so they had to creep along the edge of the tree line until Fluttershy could spot the witch.

“I see her,” Fluttershy whispered to Dash. “Right there.”

“What is she doing?” Applejack asked.

“Um. Oh my. It looks like she’s about to stab herself with a sword.” Fluttershy covered her mouth. “She’s standing next to a pod thing.”

“That’s bad! I don’t know much about how it works, but that means she’s about to go through with it! We gotta move in now.” Applejack held out her tail for the others to grab onto. “I’ll go in when we’re right behind her. You’ll only get one free shot at her.”

Fluttershy silently floated forward, remaining underground. When she was right behind where Trixie was standing in the shadow realm, she poked her head up ever so slightly. It was just enough so the others knew the exact right spot.

At once all three of the others jumped forward.