//------------------------------// // 2. Undying Loyalty // Story: A Ghost of a Chance // by Epsilon-Delta //------------------------------// Sugarcoat moved so much faster than Zest, needing to slow down for Zest to catch up. As they crept on over to the buildings in the distance, Zest slowly realized they were approaching an abandoned school. Two dorm buildings and a schoolhouse made up the bulk of the estate. It was the school itself that Sugarcoat led her to. The building wasn’t falling apart, but it was still far from new. The paint had long since faded, but the siding remained in place. Weeds grew tall all around the building and vines thick enough to climb stretched up to its roof. A statue lay broken and unrecognizable just in front of the entrance. Just before entering, she learned the name of the school. Written above the entrance were the words: Shadowbolt Academy. She liked it! A fine name for a ghost’s home. Sugarcoat brought Zest not to the main doors, but off to the wall on one side. Zest opened her mouth, then closed it when Sugarcoat went through the wall without hesitation. She supposed she’d have to get used to that. Still having the mind of a living pony, Zest needed to stop briefly and brace herself before floating into the wall. The cafeteria waited for her on the other side. A few abandoned chairs and tables lingered here but were all pushed off to the side. A layer of frost covered the entire room and orbs drifted all around her. Zest had seen a number of them haunting the school grounds as well. She supposed there had to be at least a hundred of them around. The place should have been terribly uncomfortable, but Zest could no longer feel cold. If anything, the place felt cozy. Along the side were what Zest assumed to be a new addition based on how it clashed with the school’s architecture. Three brick ovens lined the walls, with chimneys leading off somewhere. Sugarcoat had a fire already burning, to Zest’s relief, in one of them. It was a charcoal fire, glowing dimly. Still, the charcoal was purple and darkened the room with its haze. Zest looked up but saw no smoke. She supposed smoke was invisible to ghosts. Ghosts and the living saw the world differently, after all. The purple haze made by the light of the fire had an interesting effect. It didn’t reach any place where it cast a shadow, nor did it blur the areas to either side of the oven. Zest bobbed her head back and forth around the edge of the oven, aweing at how the fog came and went. Sugarcoat gave her a dull, unamused look. Wisdom and experience had killed any wonder such a phenomenon might have. Zest smiled sheepishly. An earthen pot rested just above the fire. Too unfamiliar with her new eyes, Zest couldn’t possibly tell what it contained. But some sort of thick, goopy liquid filled it and bubbled slowly. She wanted to call it nasty, but it smelled so good! Sugarcoat had plenty of supplies for fire-building too. She had kindling, firewood, charcoal, and dried herbs all neatly stacked away. A pony who could build a fire held infinite value in Zest’s eyes. “I can feel your hunger. Have you eaten anything yet?” Sugarcoat threw a few of the dried herbs onto the embers. They lit up soon after touching the charcoal. “You can take heat from the fire but try not to put it out.” Those herbs bursting into flames made the fire smell so much more delicious! She felt like a barbarian who’d just discovered cooking even existed. In fact, she had no idea you could ‘cook’ like this at all. Hunger and the irresistible aroma overpowered Zest’s dignity. She crouched down and breathed in, absorbing the heat. It filled up the hole inside her and then some. She more full-bodied, the lightness and thinness retreating. But that itch in the back of her head remained. The fire blew out, yet she still felt hungry. She smelled little heat left in the embers, and they no longer sucked the light out of the room. Sugarcoat frowned down at what remained of her fire. She took out a fire poker to turn over the charcoal. “You took too much.” It didn’t sound like she was scolding Zest, but it was hard to be sure given how monotonous her voice was. “You need to slowly draw heat away from the fire as it burns or you won’t get enough to eat from it.” Zest watched sideways as one of the orbs grabbed the fire poker and took over Sugarcoat's job of stirring some life back into the fire. “Sorry. I’m new.” “It wasn’t my dinner, anyway.” Sugarcoat took the pot off the fire. Zest sniffed. That goop still had tons of heat in it. It smelled better than the fire had and Zest was still hungry. Maybe she stared at it a bit too longingly. Sugarcoat watched Zest in the corner of her eye wearily. Then she gave a defeated sigh. Sugarcoat took out a bowl, filled it with a large portion of her dinner, then passed it to Zest. Zest looked down at the bubbling, tar-like substance and smiled brightly. “Thank you!” Zest clapped her hooves together. “You’re a nice ghost.” Both ponies froze their meals. Zest sucked up all the heat in one go again. That had to be one of the most delicious things she’d ever eaten. Zest glowed in satisfaction as her hunger was finally satisfied with a burst of pleasure. Sadly, it only lasted a second. Sugarcoat, meanwhile, slowly and carefully siphoned her heat away with steady breaths. She gave Zest a look at eating that bowl so quickly. Zest blushed slightly. She just now realized she must be eating like a barbarian, the equivalent of swallowing without chewing. In retrospect, it would have been nice to savor the flavor more. “Most things are better being burned slowly to ash.” Sugarcoat took another breath of heat from her meal. “Only a few materials are good to eat by repeatedly heating and cooling. It needs to be something with high specific heat, you see.” Zest nodded, realizing she really was starting from zero. Zest didn’t even know how to eat. “It’s best to cook in earthenware or glass pots,” Sugarcoat went on. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed yet, but hot metal tastes disgusting to us. Even something merely cooked in a metal container, or a metal oven, can end up with a sharp, acidic taste it not cooked properly. I can show you how to make clay pots that don’t break when rapidly cooled.” “Wow! You seem to have it all figured out.” Zest nodded. “You’re like a pro ghost! I don’t even know how to make any kind of pot.” “Knowing how to eat hardly makes one a professional.” Sugarcoat took another pause to enjoy the last of her dinner. “But there is a great deal of knowledge I could share with you. I would like to know a little about you before we make any sort of deal.” A deal? Zest didn’t exactly have a lot to negotiate with. Though that did make it sound like a chance existed to be taken under Sugarcoat’s wing. “What do you want to know?” Zest asked. “Did you do that thing where you bite down on a wire to get psychic powers?” Sugarcoat asked. Zest looked down at herself. Small sparks and arcs of electricity still appeared on her every so often. “What? Nah!” Zest chuckled. “I got struck by lightning! Come on!” “Don’t they teach you in school not to do that?” Sugarcoat asked. “Your chance of dying is ten times your chance of getting psychic powers.” “Well look, some of us are desperate, okay?” Zest turned a cheek on her. “To some ponies, a nine in ten chance of dying and a one in ten chance of getting out sounds good.” “Oh?” Sugarcoat folded her hooves and rested her chin on them. “You don’t seem suicidally depressed to me. You’re chipper, considering your situation.” “Yeah, well I technically got out.” Zest huffed and looked up at the ceiling. “So what do I have to be sad about?” “Do you mind me asking what you ‘got out’ of?” She probably couldn’t hide it forever, not if her goal was for Sugarcoat to take her in, but Zest hesitated. Maybe it was silly to worry about being judged here. Smuggling contraband was bad, but ghosts were something else. No other faction liked ghosts. No cult, crime syndicate, government, or any other kind of monster would take in ghosts. Not even the cartel would let ghosts work for them. For all she knew, Sugarcoat would see her old career as respectable in comparison. “I owed money to the wrong pony,” said Zest. “I got stuck working for a criminal organization. I smuggled some… stuff around. They threatened me with worse if I didn’t. I know enough to take out the guy above me if I snitched but not the big boss, so it wasn’t safe for me to just quit. I figured if I had strong enough ESP I could– well, nopony could sneak up on me and I could leave my life of crime behind.” She didn’t mention any names or explicitly state what she smuggled. “But I was only twenty thousand in the hole!” Zest put her hooves up defensively. “That’s not enough to justify running after me over the tiny, miraculous chance that I ended up a ghost. And even if they did fight me, well who’s going to fight a specter knowing they won’t even get the money back!” “I imagine you’re right,” said Sugarcoat. “Ponies are loathe to go against one of my kind.” Zest let out a sigh of relief. She expected the revelation she’d been a smuggler to be a bigger bombshell. Maybe ghosts just didn’t give a crap. Or maybe just Sugarcoat didn’t. She seemed almost too chill. “I’m sure you’re wondering how I get away with living so close to a predead settlement,” said Sugarcoat. “Um!” Zest hadn’t even thought of that but nodded anyway. “Yeah! How can they not notice a specter living next door?” “They know I’m here,” said Sugarcoat. “They’re simply too afraid to start a fight with me. You know at least the power I wield that the predeads fear, yes?” Was Zest being quizzed? She answered quickly, fearing Sugarcoat might kick her out if she came across as too stupid. “I remember learning in school that a specter is created when tons of ponies die in a single disaster,” she said. “And you have the power to create an echo of that disaster. So you could summon a giant tornado or something.” “A massive earthquake,” Sugarcoat corrected her, “in my case, that would destroy the entire town and kill hundreds even here. They won’t attack me unless I gave them a profound reason. No. Maple Hill has given me a small offering of incense– an unspoken treaty to ignore me so long as I keep the other ghosts under control.” Zest smiled wider. That was right! Sugarcoat was like a walking weapon of mass destruction. Nopony would push Zest around if she had a friend like that! She needed to make some kind of deal with this pony. “I suppose even if it came down to it, I would buy your freedom for twenty thousand bits,” said Sugarcoat. “I do have a small amount of gold hidden away here. It’d be worth the price to have you work for me instead.” “It would?” Zest pointed to herself, tilting her head in confusion. “I mean. I’d appreciate that and all but we did just establish I’m too dumb to be left on my own. Remember?” “Do you know what type of ghost you are?” Sugarcoat asked. A good question! Zest had given little thought to that until just now. She knew there were plenty of different types of ghosts but the list in her mind was far from complete. She wasn’t a specter, phantom or banshee and had no confidence she could identify any other sort. “The normal type?” she supposed. “Wait! No! I’m an electric-type ghost!” “Close,” Sugarcoat granted. “We call you an elemental. When a pony is killed by an element – that is, fire, water, earth, or electricity – they have a chance of becoming an elemental, imbued with the force that took their life.” “So I have lightning powers? Are you sure?” She looked up at Sugarcoat. “I don’t feel like I have cool electric powers.” “You simply don’t know how to use them, but they are extremely useful and sought after. Lightning elementals are rare. You’re even considered good luck charms by superstitious ghosts. I can help you learn how to use your elemental abilities. I can show you a lot of things. How to fix your mane, for example.” “Oh yeah?” Zest looked back at her tail. It’d never been worse. All things considered, Sugarcoat was being really nice considering how pathetic and homely Zest looked. “Well, thanks chief! I know I say this a lot, but I got no idea what I’m doing.” “Would you like to be somewhere where you can be useful and appreciated?” “Oh, being somewhere is enough for the moment,” said Zest. “If you can offer me something as fancy as ‘appreciation’, then I’m buying.” “If that’s the case, then here’s my offer.” Sugarcoat stretched her hoof out in offering. “I’ll take you under my wing and put you under my protection. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. In exchange I want you to swear your loyalty to me and move into Shadowbolt Academy as my servant.” “Whoa. Servant. Eh.” Zest folded her forelegs. “You had me sold until you used that word. I’m kinda trying to get out of the pathetic, servile gig.” “Neh.” Sugarcoat sighed in exasperation. “The word ‘servant’ doesn’t have the same demeaning connotation with us as it does among predeads. It’s simply a ghost who lives with a specter.” “Well, it has the same connotation to me.” “If you’d prefer we could call you my ‘vassal’ or something more dignified.” “Vassal, huh?” Zest repeated the word. “I like the sound of that one.” She didn’t know the exact definition of a vassal, but that sounded way better than her old rank. What even was she? A grunt? A goon? A mook? Suddenly, even ‘servant’ sounded like a major promotion. “If you think it’s odd, you won’t find much difference elsewhere. Ghost societies typically center around a specter such as myself,” Sugarcoat explained. “Our massive auras make us a natural nexus point for other ghosts to cling to. We typically have quite a few ghosts orbiting us. Our presence is the closest thing you can get to civilization now that you’re a ghost.” Zest looked around, unable to find any other ghosts. That is unless you counted the hundred or so orbs floating about the school. “You mean these guys?” Zest pointed to one of them. “I’m just starting out. I don’t have any underlings yet. You could be my first.” “The ground floor is tempting,” Zest admitted. “But what are my options here? Isn’t there a ghost-to-ghost network where I can meet other specters and decide which one I like best? No offense.” “Not anymore there isn’t.” Sugarcoat cast her glance downward. Zest frowned and her ears lowered. This sounded like a more serious topic. “Then there used to be?” Zest floated over to her side. “Things have been going downhill for a while,” said Sugarcoat. “Of all the ghostland cities, only Old Manehattan remains. The rest are gone. The spectral federation is destroyed. Our old communication networks are silent. Most ghosts have become quiet and are warry of meeting up.” “Because of Pinkie Pie and the psychic’s guild?” Zest guessed. “They aren’t a problem for us. They don’t typically bother ghosts like us who just mind our own business. If anything, they’ve just chased all the troublemakers away from the edges of civilization, making things more peaceful for us.” Sugarcoat closed her eyes and shook her head, opening them again when her bearings straightened. “There is one vital reason you shouldn’t leave, at least not for some time.” Sugarcoat looked over at the window, swiveling her ears towards it as if to ensure nopony was listening in. “Our true enemy is to the south.” The south? Zest recalled the black wind and the warning she’d read. Suddenly, she felt as though she’d narrowly dodged a train. It seemed so odd, in hindsight, that she’d just completely disregarded that sign. “Did you feel something beckoning you to the south?” Sugarcoat asked. “Before you found me?” “Yeah!” Zest nodded. Finally, she’d get an answer to that. “That’s how I noticed you, even. The feeling of being blown down there vanished when I got close to you.” “Then you’ve seen it yourself.” Sugarcoat held out her hoof in offer once more. “A ghost’s aura is like their emotions bleeding out. Specters have massive auras and, if controlled properly, we can induce thoughts and feelings in weaker ghosts with it. That’s what you felt when I compelled you to come towards me.” Zest nodded, but she didn’t like it. “That’s kind of terrifying, but okay. How am I supposed to sleep at night if that’s possible again? You’re saying any other ghost can just fly up to me and emotionally control me?” “Another reason ghosts choose to live with a specter they trust,” said Sugarcoat. “My aura protects you from other ghosts. They cannot force their will on you so long as you’re with me. At least, not without great difficulty. I can teach you how to protect yourself from auric attacks like that in the future.” “Then–” Zest put two and two together in her head. “Wait. So that was the aura of another specter? And they were trying to reel me in the same way you did? But then when I entered your aura you blocked it?” “Yes. Her influence this far north is weak, but then so are you. You’re currently as weak as an infant, with no hope of resisting another ghost. Any high ghost you encounter could make you think or feel just about anything. Had you not met me, you would have kept thinking of some excuse as to why you should go south and never even realize you were being influenced.” Come to think of it, that had been exactly what happened. At the time, her idea to simply declare that warning to be a lie seemed so natural. Only now, under Sugarcoat’s protection, did she remember things more clearly. The thought had entered her head like a whisper, had snuck in from some foreign place unnoticed. “Even now, if I convince you of the danger here, you’ll decide I was lying and head south the moment you leave my aura,” Sugarcoat warned. “That’s why I think you should stay here at least a few months until you can resist her.” “And what would happen if I went all the way down there?” Zest asked. “What do you think would happen?” Sugarcoat shook her head. “Against a specter like that, your free will would be gone completely. You wouldn’t be a servant but a slave, incapable of thinking anything that goes against the will of our nemesis.” “There’s seriously something like that out there?” “It’s worse than you’re imagining, even.” Sugarcoat shook her head. “Our enemy is the leader of Crater Cemetery. She’s the one who destroyed the spectral federation and most of the other ghost cities. She’s enslaved tens of thousands of other ghosts with her powerful aura. We find ourselves at a late hour.” Crater Cemetery? Even Zest heard about that place. It was the biggest ghost hideout in the world. Though she never knew any of this mind-control stuff. “Wait! But Crater Cemetery’s over two thousand kilometers away,” Zest complained. “I read that’s the toughest specter, but she can get me from this far away?!” “Then you understand the extent of her power. Ghosts have been fleeing north ever since her intentions to enslave all of us became clear. I suspect we’ll be meeting some refugees who wish to become my servant in exchange for protection in the coming months.” Sugarcoat held her hoof out. “As I said. I can offer you that protection now.” “I suppose. But how do I know you aren’t using your aura on me right now?” Zest asked. “You could be manipulating me into thinking this is a good idea.” “I could be and there’s no way for you to possibly know,” Sugarcoat admitted. “I could make you bow down and worship me, and you wouldn’t even think anything of it. You’re weak and completely at my mercy. Even a less powerful specter could kidnap you and force you to do their bidding. You’re more alone than you’ve ever been. Anyone could do anything they want to you and you’d have no recourse.” “Heh! Wow! Well, thanks for being so honest. But yeesh. You’d think a pony literally name ‘Sugarcoat’ would, you know, sugar coat things sometimes.” “I admit the reality of things,” said Sugarcoat. “There isn’t much hope for you until you learn to use your aura properly. Once you get to that point, you’ll know if I’m manipulating you.” Zest looked around the cafeteria. Perhaps it was fitting she was in a school if she’d be learning the ropes here. Protection and knowledge were at an absolute premium at the moment. The more Zest thought about it, the more she realized she’d didn’t have nearly enough to offer to seriously ask for more than that. Of course, having just gotten out of one crime syndicate, there was one important question left. "Like what would I be doing for you, Boss?" Zest asked. "I want to create a sanctuary for other ghosts here," said Sugarcoat. "I think you could be useful in recruiting other ghosts to Shadowbolt Academy. I suppose you'll have some menial chores besides that." Zest could live with that! “Then we got a deal! I swear my undying loyalty to you.” Zest bowed to Sugarcoat but kept her gaze up, smiling, to see the other ghost’s reaction. Sugarcoat grumbled more than would have been expected. “The first thing I’ll teach you is the two-year rule,” said Sugarcoat. “It’s not okay for you to make ghost jokes until you’ve been dead for at least two years.” “Is that a real thing?” Zest straightened out. “Do I seem the joking type?” Zest shook her head. “Well, I suppose I am responsible for your education now.” Sugarcoat floated over to Zest, up and above her. She pressed the tip of her forehoof against Zest’s forehead, right at the base of her phantom horn. “I accept your vow of loyalty and acknowledge you as my vassal, Lemon Zest.” Zest smiled brightly. As she stood ready to begin her ghost training, the whole affair began to look less like an inconvenience and more like an adventure.