//------------------------------// // Case Twenty-One, Chapter Six: From the Ashes // Story: Ponyville Noire: Rising Nightmares // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// They ran through twisting forests, stumbling over roots, grunting as branches struck their faces. Their rapid breaths blended with the chanting that sounded from the shadows around them, mingled with triumphant, taunting laughter.  A shriek cut through the night air behind them, the sound slamming into the trio like a physical blow. Phillip, Daring, and Rainbow grunted as they stumbled into a clearing, slowing to a halt amidst the jutting stones and ruins. Panting, throbbing hearts in mouths, they instinctively turned to face back-to-back-to-back, staring into the darkness surrounding them. Distant shapes danced through the trees, half-glimpsed in the light of the swirling, alien stars above them.  “Get back!” Rainbow shouted, her bravado a thin facade for her fear.  Laughter responded to her cry, followed by a deep intonation from several voices:  “NYAGLATH, GER’UH ANGFAH.”  At the chant, the ground beneath the ponies’ hooves shifted, like a great beast stirring in its slumber. The flesh of the ground ripped and tore, chasms opening up in the ground to swallow the ruins. Phillip yelped as a ravine opened up in front of him and he jumped back, nearly knocking over the two mares.  Hoofsteps thudded from the forest; a wave of rotting miasma struck their nostrils, sending bile up their throats. The trio turned, staring in horror as it burst from the trees, rotting limbs reaching for them, emerald eyes set in the yellowed skull blazing with hatred-- Phillip Finder gasped as he was pulled out of the nightmare, his eyes snapping open to greet the darkness of the motel room, lit only by the pale glow of the stars through the window. He wiped his face, panting and shivering as the memories faded away.  The shape next to him shifted, clinging tight to the pillow with a groan. In the bed across from him, he heard Rainbow tossing and turning with fearful moans.  Phillip rolled over to place a hoof on his sleeping wife’s shoulder, gently shaking her. “Daring, wake up,” he murmured.  Instantly, he froze, all grogginess banished in a heartbeat. He had felt the words come out of his mouth, but no sound reached his ears.  A shadow stretched out before him.  It saved his life. Phillip leaped away as he felt a hoof brush against his mane, shoving Daring out of the bed where they both crashed to the floor in total, unnatural silence.  Phillip spun about, one hoof reflexively going for the pistol on the hoofside table. Backlit against the window was an equine shape with a beaked head, already bringing the crescent-shaped blade around to bear.  His hoof slid into the hoofstrap of the .38. Phillip snapped the sights up and opened fire. He felt the gun kick with each shot, but heard no sound; the light from the explosions was instantly swallowed by darkness.  The shape vanished from the window, the bullets smashing through the glass.  Panting, his thumping heart in his mouth, Phillip pulled himself to his hooves as Daring rose up next to him, pressing her back against the wall as they both stared into the consuming darkness of the room. In the faintest glimmer that shone from the stars, Phil saw Daring hurry over to Rainbow’s bed and start shaking the younger pegasus awake.  Still aiming his weapon into the shadows of the room, Phillip groped for the light switch. He felt it click, but no light came to their rescue.  Something snagged the foreleg carrying the gun and Phillip was pulled in like a fish on a line. “Shit!” he felt himself gasp as he was pulled in, instinctively curling into a somersault, his gun pulled from his limb.  Pain flared across his back, the wound instantly turning cold as blood began to run down his skin. Blind and deaf, Phillip swung blindly at his foe as he returned to his hooves.  An iron rod slammed into his foreleg, then struck him across the face, sending him reeling as stars and colors danced before his eyes. Phillip felt the world turn, his pounding head crashing to the floor; the taste of blood filled his mouth as he gasped, trying to raise his forelegs to guard himself.  A vise seized his foreleg and pulled him up. Through the haze of pain, Phillip looked up to see darkness shifting against darkness as the blade was drawn back towards his exposed throat-- A gust of wind rushed into them both. The Plague Doctor was slammed into the wall by the two pegasi, his grip on Phillip releasing.  Friendlier hooves grabbed him, hauled him back to his hooves, pulled him away from the killer. As he regained his hooves, a dim light trickled into the room as the door was flung open, the faint hallway lights beckoning them to safety. The trio poured through the door and slammed it behind them in total silence.  Her eyes wide with shock, Daring pushed them all down the narrow hallway, towards the window, barely illuminated by the dimmed light of a silver hallway sconce. The absolute silence of their hoofsteps against the floor as they sprinted towards the exit made Phillip’s heart pound even harder, every beat a painful hammer against his skull.  Rainbow shoved the window open, then paused, giving her stump a brief rueful glance before frantically waving the other two forward. Daring jumped through the window, pausing and hovering outside to wait for the others.  Phillip shoved Rainbow through the gap; the younger pegasus jumped out and grabbed Daring’s offered hoof.  As Phillip started to climb through, he saw Daring’s eyes widen, noticed the encroaching darkness at the edge of his vision. “Bugger!” he gasped, throwing himself through the window into the cold night air.  Hot wind streaked across his wounded back and glass fell upon him like snow as he tumbled towards the ground. Daring dove down and caught him with her free hoof, halting his momentum for a moment before allowing him and Rainbow to fall safely.  Sound returned as they struck the ground with a pair of grunts. The sound of crickets and night birds had never been so relieving to Phillip’s ears.  The window fractured like a spiderweb as a hole was suddenly punched through the glass; a bullet whistled past Phillip’s ear and struck the ground at his hooves, sending a cloud of dust into the air. The trio retreated from the hotel to the cover of a nearby house, pausing to catch their breath and stare up at the windows pockmarked with bullet holes.  Nothing rushed out after them.  “That was him, wasn’t it?” Rainbow panted. “The Doctor?”  “Yeah,” Daring said, then winced, raising a hoof to her side. It came away stained with red. “Shit,” she hissed, glancing down at the bullet wound in her side.  “Daring,” Phillip gasped, rushing to her side.  “He just winged me, I’m fine,” Daring reassured him, studying the small wound. Her eyes panned over the wound carved across Phillip’s back, blood staining his body and dripping from his broken nose.  “I’m okay,” he promised nasally.  “I don’t see him coming out,” Rainbow reported. “Do you think he’s gone…?”  The lights in their windows suddenly snapped back on. “I think he’s gone,” Daring said.  “Phil! Daring!”  The trio turned to see Deputy Braeburn rushing up, sweat running down his red face. “What happened?” he panted, skidding to a halt in front of them.  “Plague Doctor,” Phillip replied. “What’s going on?”  Braeburn’s eyes widened. “I was just coming over to tell you!” he cried. “The Plague Doctor kidnapped Starlight and set the buffalo village on fire!”  “Shit,” Daring gasped. “Come on, Deputy.”  Drawing his sidearm, Braeburn led the way back into the Watering Hole, pushing open the front door and rushing up the stairs. He spun about the landing to glare down the hallway. The only sign of anything amiss was a single door hanging open and stains of blood on the creaky wooden floor.  The four crept up to the door and stared into the bedroom. Wind whispered into the room through the holes in the window and Phillip’s discarded revolver lay on the floor near several drops of blood, but there was no one else to be seen.  “All clear,” Braeburn sighed, lowering his weapon.  “Great,” Daring said, rummaging around in her shirt hanging up on the coat rack for her first aid kit. Unwrapping a roll of gauze, she began to disinfect and bandage Phillip’s back.  “C’mon, we gotta move!” Rainbow said, grabbing her prosthetic wing from the outlet and carefully plugging it in.  “How long ago was the fire?” Phillip asked, stuffing gauze into his nostrils.  “We just managed to get it out,” Braeburn replied, prancing in place anxiously. “I just ran down here to get you. C’mon!”  Daring nodded grimly as she and Phillip finished patching each other’s wounds. Without a word, Daring snatched up Phil while Rainbow seized Braeburn beneath the forelegs. Two rainbows shot out of the window and headed for the buffalo village.  As Daring crossed over the hills, she spotted a great column of smoke rising up into the sky, illuminated by the reflection of spinning red and blue lights from below. She crested another hill and paused, gaping at the sight beneath them.  “Holy shit,” she breathed out, staring at the smoldering wreckage. All that remained of most of the teepees and lodges were piles of ash with tattered cloths and sticks jutting out of them. ATV fire trucks and ambulances surrounded the encampment; firefighters sprayed water over the remaining flames while paramedics tended to wounded buffaloes, patching up burns and wrapping shivering survivors in blankets. Villagers stood in shocked silence, staring over the remnants of their homes while holding family and friends close.  As Daring landed, she saw a line of shapes set on the outer edge of the encampment, each of them covered in a sheet. Little Strongheart and Walks Many Trails were bending over the last one in the line, the shape beneath nearly as large as the two of them put together.  Little Strongheart was holding a massive blue and white headdress in her trembling hooves.  Daring Do felt her heart fall into her stomach. “What happened?” she asked, striding forward.  “He…” Little Strongheart sniffled. “He went back in to try to find some others…and the smoke overcame him.”  The shaman placed her hoof on the corpse’s head with a sigh. “He died bravely.”  “It was the Plague Doctor,” Tempest Shadow announced, stepping forward, hobbling slightly on her bandaged hind leg. “What happened?” Phillip pressed  Tempest took a shaky breath; Phillip noticed that her fatigue-shadowed eyes still glimmered with fear.  “He ambushed us,” Tempest recalled. “His raven…it had some kind of enchanted bell. When it rang, it created this…” She frowned, struggling to form the proper words. “Silence. It rang the bell and suddenly, everything was dead silent.”  “This bell,” Daring cut in. “Did it have a lot of eyes and mouths carved into it?”  Tempest nodded. “And when it rang, it glowed white.”  “A Thief’s Tocsin,” Daring explained. “Another favorite toy of Discord cultists; we used one a couple of times in the Family. Caballeron knows his stuff, I’ll give him that.”  “He must have used it to sneak past Starlight’s noisemaker spell,” Tempest scowled. “He killed all of our sentries, then got Starlight. I tried to stop him, but he used an owl to set fire to the tents.” She took a shuddering breath, shaking her head. “It’s not my fault…” she whispered. “I tried, but I had to save the others…”  “Which way did they go?” Phillip pressed.  “Towards Appleloosa,” Tempest reported. “He tried to use a teleportation crystal, but I destroyed it.”  “When was this?” Phillip pressed.  “Over an hour ago!” Tempest snapped back. “He and Starlight could be miles away by now!”  “Then we need to get searching!” Rainbow declared. “And start asking that crony of his!” She spread her wings and took off back towards Appleloosa.  “Kid!” Daring called after her, but Rainbow was already vanishing over the hills. Daring shook her head in disgust.  “Go with her,” Phillip said, giving her shoulder a brief squeeze. “I’ll look for clues here.”  Daring looked back over the line of corpses, fixing the sight in her mind. The wind rustled the sheets covering the bodies, allowing her to catch glimpses of scorched flesh and twisted limbs.  “Find him,” Little Strongheart urged them, looking up with tears sparkling in her furious eyes. “Find her and make him pay.”  Determination flooding her heart, Daring nodded grimly and took off after Rainbow. Phillip Finder watched her go briefly, then lowered his head to the ground and began studying the area for any clues, trying to sort through the mass of hoofprints and burnt wreckage for any useful signs.  He felt eyes upon him and glanced up to see Walks Many Trails staring at him, her face shaded by the whirling lights of an ambulance. She quickly looked away, but not before Phillip saw her contemplative frown.  Starlight Glimmer kicked at the side of the crate that she was trapped in, thrashing futilely against her bonds. Her prison continued to rattle its way down its path, oblivious to its unwilling cargo. The ropes refused to give an inch; she tried to force magic into her horn, but it was like trying to push against a locked iron door. All she could see through the blindfold was darkness, shadows against shadows.  The train tires screeched loudly, the cacophony burning into her ears as she felt the train start to skid to a halt. Maybe once the train stopped, she could get somepony’s attention and they’d let her out-- There was a loud scraping sound as the carriage door was pulled open. Hoofsteps approached, slow and quiet. Starlight screamed as loudly as she could, kicking the crate’s walls with every ounce of strength she could muster.  The hoofsteps did not speed up. Instead, the unknown pony continued towards her at an unhurried pace. A sense of deep foreboding clutched Starlight’s heart like a claw and she became still.  The crate creaked open, allowing a faint light to brush against her blindfold. She saw the vaguest of shadows bend over her. Starlight let out a muffled whimper, trying to curl up smaller into herself.  A flicker of sickly green light and she felt the world spin away as she was teleported. She whirled through nothingness for a moment before landing back down on cold, solid ground with a grunt. Starlight began to struggle again, wriggling on her stomach like a worm.  “Cinque. Treno.”  Starlight’s heart dropped into her stomach. No. Not him.  “Quattro. Bara.”  Starlight wailed in panic, her cries muted beneath the gag. Her struggles intensified, remaining as futile as before. Already she could feel the claws dancing up her spine, prodding at her cranium, digging into her mind.  “Tre. Ceneri.”  “Stop! Stop! Please!” Starlight begged through her gag, feeling tears forming in her eyes. The talons were ripping through her mind, fog seeping into her thoughts, into…where was she? Who…who was… “Due. Fiori.”  Starlight’s screams and pleas faded away to gasps as her struggles slowed. It was fine…all she needed to do was relax, surrender control… Faces flickered past her gaze, their ghostly eyes wide, imploring. An orange unicorn stallion…a dark purple mare…she knew them…she… “Uno.”  “NO!” Starlight wailed, screaming as loud as she could, her cry echoing through the room. Surely somepony had to hear it, surely somepony… “Casa.”  Everything went cold, Starlight’s scream dying in her throat. She felt herself relaxing, her limbs sagging and her heartbeat slowing.  The bonds, gag, and blindfold were pulled off. Starlight Glimmer blinked in the sudden light of a sickly green aura that illuminated the dark underground chamber, turning to look placidly up at the hooded figure staring down at her. The pale green light was the only feature that she could see of the shaded face, but she could feel the horrid, superior smile fixed upon her like a sniper’s scope.  “Doctor Glimmer?” the growling voice slithered into her ears.  “Yes, master,” Starlight Glimmer heard herself speak, her lips moving without her bidding.  The hooded stallion nodded to a nearby table illuminated by a lamp. Sheaves of paper were spread across the desk, all of them covered in magical formulae and notes written in a strange, swirling script. Without being bidden, Starlight trotted over to the desk and set to work. “Where did he take her?” Daring pressed Coal Tender, glaring at him over the table of the dimly lit interrogation room.  Coal rocked in his seat, muttering to himself, focusing on the blank white table instead of her.  “Where is the Plague Doctor hiding?” Daring Do snapped.  “The Plague Doctor isn’t real,” Coal whispered, looking up at her with wide eyes. “Celestia and Luna made him up. A boogeyman for the undesirables.”  Sheriff Silverstar snarled and leaned in from behind the suspect. “He set fire to the buffalo village, Coal!” he barked. “A dozen good buffalo are dead, including my friend Chief Thunderhooves! And he kidnapped an innocent mare! There are lives in danger, Coal!”  Coal let out a laugh that was far too high-pitched as he whirled on the sheriff. “You’re making it up!” he spat. “You just want to silence me because I know the truth! You planted the radio in my train, and if there even is a fire, you started it so you could blame me! I’ve known that you were coming for weeks, and I prepared for it. You won’t be getting into my head!”  He glared up at the ceiling. “You hear that, you damned parasprites?! I’m not gonna be your puppet!” And with that, Coal Tender covered his ears with his hooves and continued rocking, muttering in a strange monotone.  Sheriff Silverstar huffed through his nostrils, his black mustache bristling. “We’re getting nowhere with this,” he grunted to Daring.  Daring sighed and mopped her forehead, trying to stave off the encroaching headache that she could feel creeping up through her temples. “I need some coffee,” she muttered, turning and exiting the interrogation room. As she slammed the door, she could hear Sheriff Silverstar continuing to berate Coal Tender, whose only response was to continue his monotone chant in a louder tone.  Daring made her way down the stark white hallway of the sheriff’s office to a table bearing an old machine. Beneath the spout was a fresh pot of the black gold that somepony had had the foresight to make. Rainbow Dash was pacing next to it, frowning in thought.  “He’s still not talking?” she asked.  “Nope,” Daring replied, grabbing a paper cup and filling it up with the rich-smelling liquid. She stirred in some sugar and sweetener, then took a sip.  “Blech,” she grimaced, sticking her tongue out and glaring at the cup as if it had insulted her, the bitter taste clinging to her tongue. She scowled for a moment longer, then choked down a longer sip.  “Sheriff Silverstar said that they checked his apartment and they didn’t find anything else, right?” Rainbow Dash pondered.  “Right,” Daring frowned. “And honestly, sticking that radio in the coal tender was kind of a dumb idea.”  “Maybe he’s not the spy,” Rainbow considered. “But who would’ve put the radio there?”  “Somepony who would’ve had access to the train yard…” Daring mused, staring into her cup of coffee.  After a moment, the two mares looked up at each other, the same idea flashing in their eyes. Daring forced down the rest of the liquid and the two hustled out the door just as Sheriff Silverstar exited the interrogation room with a huff.  “Hey, where are you going?” he called after them.  “To find the real spy!” Daring called over her shoulder as they headed for the door.  “What? Hey!” Silverstar shouted, chasing after them. He reached the door just in time to see them taking off into the star-spangled sky. “Wait up!”  Silverstar chased after them, sprinting through alleyways and across streets. Ponies that had been drawn from their beds by the distant sirens watched from their porches and windows, turning to watch the sheriff and two pegasi rushing past with concern in their eyes.  Daring and Rainbow landed in front of a single house and paused, scowling up at their target. Sheriff Silverstar jogged up, panting.  “Are you sure?” he asked.  “No,” Daring murmured, frowning in thought. “But if we had some other clues…”  Her eyes wandered over to a trash can on the street. “The street belongs to the city, right?” she asked.  “Yeah, why?” Silverstar asked. “Wait, what are you doing?” he asked when Daring flipped the trash can open and began digging through it with Rainbow’s help, pulling out a flashlight with her wing and shining it into the plastic bin.   “There might be something in here,” Daring commented, tossing aside some clippings and other rubbish. Rainbow briefly frowned at some loose scraps of copper wire before tossing those aside as well.  Silverstar stared at her, aghast. “Is this how you do it in Ponyville?”  The lights in the condo snapped on and a figure peeked out the open door. “What’s going on here?” Della Delivery demanded, striding out of the house, her charm necklace bouncing against her chest. “Why are you going through my trash at six in the morning?”  Something caught Daring’s eye. She snatched up the discarded cup and sniffed it. The scent of carrots and apples filled her nostrils and her eyes narrowed.  “So how was Grand Apple Pie’s Curried Carrot and Apple Soup?” she asked Della Delivery, holding up the crumbled cup with the apple tree and horseshoe logo stamped onto it.  Della froze, her eyes bulging out of her suddenly pale face.  “You lied when you told us that you hadn’t been in the General Store on Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Daring said, approaching the delivery mare slowly. “You saw Starlight Glimmer in there and sent that message.”  “That’s…that’s my neighbor’s trash!” Della protested, cringing away.  “Right. Is your neighbor also into scrapbooking?” Daring scoffed, nodding towards the scraps of paper in the trash bin.  Della swallowed and glanced over to Silverstar. “Sheriff, I…I don’t know what she’s talking about!” she protested. “I wasn’t in the store! I--”  “Della, it’s been a long night,” Silverstar said evenly, his thick eyebrows lowering. “I’ve got corpses on my hooves. It’d be in everypony’s best interests if you started telling the truth.”  Della’s eyes darted from one pony to the other. She saw no pity or comfort in any of the eyes glaring back at her. She took a step back, and the two pegasi responded by flaring their wings and bending their knees slightly, preparing to launch at her.  Della took a slow breath, steadying her nerves. One hoof went up to the charm necklace, stroking a pale white pill-shaped charm.  “Okay,” she nodded. “Okay.”  “All right now,” Silverstar said, stepping forward. “If you’ll come with-- “No!” Daring shouted, lunging forward.  Too late. Della bit down on the charm, the disguised pill crunching beneath her teeth. Instantly, foam began to spill from her mouth, her breath coming in harsh gurgles as she fell, convulsing.  “I’ll get help!” Rainbow shouted, zipping off in a rainbow blur as Daring and Silverstar pushed Della onto her back.  Daring Do tried to tilt Della’s head back, but the mare shoved her away, a defiant rage in her eyes even as more foam began to bubble around her mouth. She spasmed violently as her body instinctively heaved for breath.  “Where is he?” Daring demanded, grabbing the dying mare’s shoulders. “Where is the Plague Doctor?! Who is he?!”  Della Delivery spat at her, delivering a thick wad of cold foam that dribbled down Daring’s cheek. The spy sucked in a raspy breath and snarled out two spite-filled words.  “Ave Sombra.”  And with that, Della’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as her body gave one last shudder, her final breath coming out in a low rattle. Then the light faded from her face and she was still; as fast as a switch being thrown, the pony was gone and all that remained was a corpse.  Silverstar’s jaw dropped in horror and he slowly reached up to doff his hat, placing it against his chest. “Faust have mercy,” he murmured.  Daring Do just grimaced, glaring down at the body before her as if its silence was mocking her helplessness.  “I still can’t believe it,” Braeburn murmured, shaking his head and staring at the tile floor. “Della…I met her when she moved here from Manehattan. She was always such a hard worker, so friendly…”  “What was she even doing down here?” Rainbow wondered out loud.  “I think she was already working as a spy during the war,” Daring theorized. “She ran down here when Manehattan was liberated and just hung around, waiting for other orders.” She huffed. “Seeing Starlight in the general store on Hearth’s Warming Eve was just a coincidence.”  “Hush,” Phillip grunted from the worktable that he was bent over, the centerpiece of the windowless basement room that passed as the sheriff’s forensic laboratory, the cramped space stuffed with tables and benches. He scraped some more dirt off of Della Delivery’s horseshoes and onto a circular dish, which he then placed beneath an old microscope. He flicked the light on with a faint humming and pressed his eye to the scope. Next to him on the table was a map of Appleloosa, just barely fitting atop the worktable, and a notebook crammed with his own shorthoof writing.  “Okay…that’s from around her home,” he murmured, pushing some of the samples. “Coal. The train station…” He paused, glanced at his notebook, and scowled. “Grass. From around the buffalo village.”  “She was scouting them out,” Daring frowned.  Phillip continued to study the soil samples, occasionally glancing at his notebook to look up a reference. As he worked, he would mark the map with dots, circles, and lines, tracing out parts of the dead mare’s path.  “Aces,” he finally declared, raising his eye from the scope.  “You’re sure that that’s where she was?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.  “Kid, if he says that’s where she went, that’s where she went,” Daring replied.  “Good ‘nough for me,” Braeburn shrugged, his eyes going over the map. “Hmm…now what was she doing over there?” He pointed to a circle around a line of train tracks far to the north of town. “Not much out there other than a train signal.”  “Hmm,” Phillip mused. “Best go check.”  Braeburn was right. There wasn’t anything out there in the barren, scrub-covered deserts save the iron tracks stretching towards the east and a lone signal light standing vigil next to the switch. The green light punched through the fading darkness of the morning, guiding the detectives forward.  Phillip made his way up to the metal post, bending down to study the ground beneath the light of his flashlight. “Aces,” he nodded, pointing. “These are her hoofprints here.”  He frowned at the metal box at the base of the lamp. “Screws have been removed recently,” he observed. Pulling out a multitool, he bent down to unscrew the panel and pulled it open.  “What is that?” he murmured, shining his flashlight into the box. The others gathered around to study the anomaly: a battery and a small switch attached to the tangle of wires and switches within by a set of copper wires.  “Hey, Della had some wire like that in her trash,” Rainbow said out loud.  Daring reached out and flipped the switch. Instantly, the green light on the signal turned off and the red light turned on. “She rigged that up,” Daring concluded. “Somepony could use that to stop the train.”  “But why?” Rainbow said out loud.  “The only train that came down this track earlier this morning would be the mail delivery,” Braeburn said out loud. “Headed to Ponyville…”  “That’s how the Doctor got Starlight out of here,” Phillip concluded. “He stopped the train and put her on it.”  “Which means we need to get to Ponyville!” Rainbow Dash declared, already zipping off.  Daring Do shook her head and grabbed Phil beneath the forelegs. “Think we can get a fast train back to Ponyville?”  “Smokey might be able to help with that,” Braeburn said. “Hey…you’re gonna get her back, right?”  “We will,” Daring promised, heading back to the Watering Hole with Phil in tow. The weight of a hollow promise bore down on every heavy wingbeat.  The surviving villagers dug through the ruins of their homes, searching for what little they could salvage from the ashen wreckage. Children clung close to their parents, whimpering as they stared at their ruined livelihoods; the elders consulted quietly on what to do next over the main firepit. The scent of smoke still hung in the air, scratching at eyes and throats.  Tempest Shadow sifted through the ashes of their former home. She lifted up one of Starlight’s former notebooks, the pages now a blackened, scorched mess. As she tossed them aside, she glanced over at a nearby ridge where several of the more able-bodied bulls were working. The rhythmic crunching of their shovels into the hard ground reached her ears even from so far away, each one a blow against her own chest.  She took a step and something snapped beneath her hoof. She looked down and saw a blackened skeleton of wood and fabric on the ground.  Tempest bent down to pick up the remnants of the kite, only for it to fall apart in her hoof, crumbling pathetically into pieces. Then she spotted a familiar blur of aquamarine among the wreckage. Brushing aside some ashes, she revealed the small wooden token. Burns and ashes covered the little ornament, but the sloppily painted cutie marks, though smudged and blackened, were still visible.  Tempest’s heart trembled in her chest and her eyes stung with more than smoke. “Fuck,” she mumbled, wiping at her eyes.  She stared at the token, at Starlight’s mark next to hers, then looked up towards the rise. She watched as a group of the largest buffalo slowly lowered a large wrapped bundle into the ground, with Walks Many Trails whispering prayers.  Grief suddenly vacated her and anger flooded in after it. She pocketed the token and moved to the remnants of her own mattress. Shoving aside the cot, she stared at the small, battered iron chest beneath it. She bent down to the combination lock and twisted the dial back and forth until the lock snapped open.  The chest groaned as it opened up for the first time in years to reveal its meager contents. Tempest froze at the sight within; an angular black helmet, the same color as the armor that she wore beneath her coat. Two Neighretta Modello 1934s, the charging crystals inside the spare magazines glowing pale blue. A small mirror set in a silver frame with runes carved around it. And a pair of double-headed throwing axes made of a burnished black crystal. A gem of a venomous green color was embedded into each of the handles; as she watched, the gems flickered faintly with power.  Tempest’s hooves trembled as she reached down and took the axes. She stared at her reflection in the burnished heads, wide-eyed and gasping through her open mouth.  For just a moment, a black shape appeared behind her, green eyes glowing in triumph. Tempest whirled about, her weapon raised to strike as sparks cascaded from her broken horn.  No one was there, but she could still feel him behind her, his breath on her neck.  With a growl, she banished the phantom. “I know I am a monster,” she growled. “But I am your monster no more.”  Tempest hooked the throwing axes into the holsters on her sides, then slid the helmet onto her head, her horn sparking as it scraped against the horn guard. She double-checked the pistols and pocketed both of them and the spare magazines. She retrieved the mirror, tucking it into a breast pocket. Finally, she dug around in the pocket of her coat and retrieved a set of keys that jangled in her hoof.  Tempest proceeded through the camp to a wigwam on the outskirts of the valley, fortunately untouched by the fire. She stepped into the wigwam, sorting through the stored blankets and tools until she reached what she was looking for.  The old motorcycle had been stored there for many moons, but there was only a slight layer of dust on it that she quickly brushed off. Tempest did a quick check of the gear in the saddlebags: spare tools, blanket, a folding saw, a small extra tank of gas.  She pulled the motorcycle out of the wigwam and paused when she saw Walks Many Trails standing in front of her, her sad eyes fixed on her.  “Don’t try to stop me,” Tempest said, swinging herself onto the bike.  “I won’t,” the shaman replied. “I merely wished to tell you one thing.”  She stepped forward and placed a heavy hoof on Tempest’s armored shoulder. “It’s all right to be afraid,” the shaman said. “The more you fight your fears, the stronger they become.”  Tempest stared at her for a moment, then leaned forward and pulled the buffalo into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.  “Don’t be sorry,” Walks Many Trails said. “Just bring her home.”  Tempest Shadow inserted the key into the ignition and turned it, the motorcycle roaring to life beneath her. She flicked the kickstand up and pushed the throttle, guiding the vehicle forward with a grumble. She felt the eyes of the other buffaloes on her as she left the village, cresting the hills.  For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine Starlight’s forelegs about her waist as she headed for Appleloosa.