//------------------------------//
// Case Twenty-Three, Chapter Four: The Profane and the Sacred 
// Story: Ponyville Noire: Rising Nightmares 
// by PonyJosiah13 
//------------------------------//

The congregation lunged at the trio with a roar, those with melee weapons charging in while the gunponies maneuvered for a clear shot. 

A flash of light and a clap of thunder shook the room as smoke erupted from where their targets were standing, blocking their view. The congregation staggered, the closest ones shielding their eyes and coughing on the fumes; the organ player momentarily stumbled over a note but immediately picked back up and resumed his uncanny hymn. 

A pair of whistling noises streaked through the air, soon accompanied by yelps and oaths as their weapons were knocked from their hooves. 

Phillip and Daring charged from the smoke, slamming into the nearest foes and knocking them to the ground, catching their returning boomerangs as they plowed down the central aisle, headed straight for the priestess like a pair of sharks making for a wounded seal. 

Raconteur merely smirked and gestured with her crosier. A pair of huge wooden pews were sent hurtling towards her foes as though they’d been thrown by a tornado. 

Phillip dove and slid beneath the pews like a runner trying for home base, while Daring leaped over the pews, tucking into a forward flip. The pews flew into the back wall and smashed into pieces that flew everywhere, sending Strider and the rest of the congregation diving for the ground. 

As Daring landed, she pulled her bullwhip from her belt, uncoiling the leather cord. Even before she landed, she drew the whip back with a grin, then snapped it out with a crack. 

The air around Raconteur hissed, a sphere of emerald flame flickering into being around her as the whip bounced harmlessly off the shield. 

At the other end of the room, Strider drew his .45 Filly and opened fire, sending three quick shots at the priestess. Every bullet evaporated against the shield with a faint hiss. Phillip snarled and swung his waddy at the shield, but the strike merely sent him reeling with a grunt. 

Raconteur cackled, her laughter mixing with the strident notes that the organ was emitting. “This is the wrath of the Stormbringers?” she taunted, slamming the end of the crosier against the ground. A blast of eldritch fire burst from her, shoving Phillip and Daring aside like the blade of a bulldozer. "Gods, what fools these mortals be!" 

The congregation recovered their guns and turned towards Strider, who dove behind a pew. Phillip and Daring rolled out of the blow, recovering instantly and rushing back into the melee. 

“No, you don’t!” Daring shouted, snapping her whip out again. The donkey that had been aiming a pistol at her yelped as the leather cord ensnared his foreleg and he was reeled in like a fish on a hook. 

Phillip closed in and snapped a roundhouse into the donkey’s gut, leaving him gasping on the ground like a beached whale. Sidestepping around him like a dancer, Phillip smashed his waddy into a pegasus, sending blood and teeth flying, and threw his boomerang in the same motion. The weapon spun through the air and struck two ponies that were trying to flank Strider’s position, pinballing between their craniums before returning to Phillip’s hoof. 

“Thanks, Phil!” Strider shouted, popping back out of cover and opening fire, dropping both of the mares with one shot apiece. 

A roar alerted Daring of an incoming hulking coal-black griffon, a broken piece of a pew raised over his head; at the same time, a young buffalo cow seized a dropped knife with a snarl and charged in. 

“Please,” Daring scoffed, sidestepping the griffon and raising her hooves, the cord of her whip held taut between them. The griffon’s roar turned to a grunt of confusion as his talons were bound with the cord, his own momentum pulling him forward to the floor. 

At the same time, Daring swung the other end of the whip over her head, the handle swishing for the buffalo’s head.

“Ha!” the buffalo taunted, ducking beneath the blow. 

“Ha-ha!” Daring laughed back as she deftly brought the handle down like an ax onto the crown of the target’s foreleg, the weighted end knocking the knife from her grasp. 

Talons grasped at her hind limbs, the griffon at her hooves trying to pull her to the ground. Daring rolled out of the attack, her momentum carrying her towards the buffalo and she drove her elbow into her temple, knocking her to the floor. A spinning step back towards the griffon and her hoof crashed into his beak as he tried to rise, sending him to the ground. 

Silence fell over the sanctuary, save for the groans of the defeated cultists left sprawled across the floor. Strider, Phillip, and Daring all turned to face Raconteur, whose smug expression had evaporated as she looked over her defeated cohort. The organist paused, turning to stare at the scene of destruction beneath him. 

“Just you and us now, Your Holiness,” Daring taunted. “Why don’t you drop that shield before we break it down for you?”

The priestess growled, then lifted her crosier above her head and slammed the end to the ground. The emerald flames around the decorative head grew, the flames on the chandeliers overhead suddenly turning the same eldritch color and flaring. The shadows that the light cast twisted unnaturally; the silhouette behind Raconteur seemed to grow into a serpentine shape slithering across the wall of the sanctuary, twisted horns and wings growing from the shade. The organist grinned and resumed playing, blasting out bold, echoing notes that rumbled through the sanctuary.

“EMBRACE THE CORRUPTION!” she roared, her voice echoing impossibly loudly, somehow musically blending with the organ's chords. “LET THE TOUCH OF DISCORD CLEANSE YOU!”

Emerald flames erupted across the bodies of her congregation, who began to spasm and twist, gasping as their faces twisted in a mixture of pain and ecstasy. 

“What the hell…?” Daring said, her eyes widening. 

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Daring Do, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Raconteur smirked. 

The buffalo mare that she’d knocked down let out a groan that turned into strident laughter, her jaw opening impossibly wide with a cracking noise. Her teeth began to grow and curl, turning into uneven fangs in a maw that was nearly a foot wide open; curled horns erupted from her shoulders, turning into asymmetrical growths. She laughed with every growth that burst from her body, the unnatural sound sending chills down the investigators’ spines.  

Cracking, bubbling, groaning, and stretching sounds filled the air; bones and muscles began to twist and warp, drawing gasps, groans, cries, and laughter from the mutated congregation. Eyes tore through skin, claws and talons sprouted from shoulders and backs, tumorous growths burst and bubbled forth, impossibly long tongues slick with acid dangled from open mouths, and limbs melted and fused like clay, turning into tentacle-like appendages that dripped with foul-smelling ichor. 

A clap of thunder sounded from overhead, muffled through the stone; rain began to patter against the stained-glass window, running down the colored patterns and distorting the light that was filtering in through the sanctuary. The organ music quieted down to sinister murmurs and groans that one felt more than heard. 

“You guys got a plan?” Strider asked as he slapped a fresh clip into his sidearm. 

Daring flapped her still-glowing wings and grimaced when she failed to gain any lift. “Gotta find an exit!” she said, glaring up at the stained-glass windows, all of them high up out of reach. The smiles on the alicorns' faces seemed to grow taunting in the darkness of the rain outside. 

Phillip drew his .38 with his left hoof and nodded towards a door at the front of the sanctuary, behind the altar. “Push through, get out there,” he nodded. 

Raconteur raised her crosier and two of the pews lifted off the ground, hanging threateningly overhead. The mutated ponies roared, hissed, and snarled as they closed in, a tidal wave of twisted flesh and bone.

Daring threw another smoke bomb at their hooves, creating another cloud of choking smog that obscured them from view, but the monsters merely pushed through it, claws and fangs snapping towards them. 

“Yikes!” Daring shouted, dodging beneath an appendage not unlike a scorpion’s tail that had erupted from a stallion’s shoulder blades. 

Strider grabbed a broken pew fragment and thrust it in front of them, creating a momentary barrier that their foes stumbled against. “Go, go!” he cried, urging his friends on. The trio dodged around the horde of attackers, vaulting over pews and charging for the door at the back wall. 

“Ah-ah-ah! Where do you think you’re going?” Raconteur taunted, dropping one of the pews in front of the door, blocking their exit. The other pew came spinning at their heads. 

“Duck!” Daring cried, shoving both stallions to the ground. The pew passed inches over her head, knocking her pith helmet off. 

“Get them!” the priestess snarled, gesturing with her crosier. 

A thing that had formerly been a light yellow earth pony mare screeched and lunged at them, snapping at them with the claws that had torn from her forelimbs; bloodlust glowed in her four eyes, all of them a different color, and bile flew from her mouth. 

Strider put a bullet into the beast’s forehead with a crack of thunder and it tumbled to the ground with a crash, its body twisting in disturbing insect-like spasms. The corpse was instantly trampled by the other monsters as they surged in, scrabbling against the stone and vaulting over obstacles in their way. 

“Ah, shit,” Strider grimaced as the other two drew their own sidearms and opened fire as well, dodging around the swarm. Two, three, four monsters fell, but the others just kept coming on. 

Strider stumbled over a piece of debris and fell against the stone wall, grimacing as his shoulder rammed into the wall. He fired off a wild shot at an approaching beast; the elderly earth pony stallion raised a foreleg covered in a chitinous material, the bullet deflecting off the deformed limb. The limb blurred and slammed into Strider’s jaw, sending him flying into the opposite wall. He crumpled to the floor with a cry, the world spinning as his pistol flew across the floor. 

“Strider, look out!” Phillip shouted, dodging around a pegasus that was lunging at him, grimacing as the talons that had torn from his attacker’s hind legs slashed at his foreleg. 

Phillip’s warning came too late: a hulking mass of tumorous flesh rammed into the pegasus, knocking him down. The thing pinned Strider down, snarling as it opened its gaping mouth and leaned in towards his head, the two forked tongues dangling from its maw. 

“Gah!” Strider cried, choking on the monster’s reeking breath as he tried to fend it off. He hissed as the tongues assailed his face. “Phil, Daring, help!”

His heart leaping to his throat, Phillip raised his revolver at the mass of flesh and fired twice; the bullets smacked into the twisted form, but he may as well have thrown peas at it for all the good it did. 

Click-click-click. 

“Bollocks!” Phillip sprinted towards Strider, but a beat of wings made him tuck into a roll. The pegasus with the talons soared over his head, letting out a screech of frustration as it missed. 

Unfortunately, Phillip didn’t see the other attacker coming at him from the left. He ducked beneath a swipe from a tentacle, grimacing as stinking mucus spattered over his face, then bellowing in pain as the acid bit into his flesh, his eyes instinctively slamming shut. 

As a result, he didn’t see the other tentacle barreling at his face. The battering ram crashed into his skull, sending him flying back as stars danced before his eyes. He crashed into the altar, pain erupting across his entire body and his breath leaving him in a cry as he slid to the ground. 

Vision returned to him in a blur of colors. The sound of his wife’s desperate grunts mixed with the cracking of her whip made him turn to see her back up into a corner, cracking her whip in a desperate bid to fend off the monsters surrounding her. Strider was still struggling against the crushing weight on his chest, gasping for air, his forelimbs trembling. 

Cardinal Raconteur approached him, dark pleasure shining in her eyes. Some of her other monsters fell in behind her, hounds on the lead. “Death is coming, Detective Finder,” she gloated. 

Phillip glared at the false cardinal, who merely smirked back at him. The eldritch fire crowning her staff cast her face in twisted shadows, making her eyes seem to glow. The bubble-shaped shield that she had surrounded herself with was faintly visible, the light green glow shimmering in the rain-streaked light.

He felt a snarl erupt from his throat, anger rushing through his body and smothering the fear and exhaustion and pain beneath a cold flood; a crack of thunder sounded from directly overhead. As he rose to his hooves, he took the surge of energy and stuffed it down into his core. 

He lowered his head and charged at her, swinging his waddy back. Raconteur’s eyes widened as he came on, then she growled and thrust the crosier at him. A crackling sphere of green flames shot at him with a roar. 

Phillip rolled beneath the attack, barely slowing. The sphere struck the wall behind him with a hiss of stone fusing into glass. 

A gesture of the crosier sent a bolt of emerald at Phillip, coming at him too fast to dodge. It struck him in the chest like the punch of a minotaur, but he pushed through it with a growl as the spell washed around his body like water running around a rock.

“What?!” Raconteur cried in disbelief, trying to push more energy into her spell, but Phillip’s ward held strong, baying off her magic. The pipe organ began to play even louder, the organist slamming down on the keys in seeming desperation, as if the louder bellows might drive Phillip off, but all in vain. 

Phillip thought of Daring, of Strider, felt their presence nearby, heard their grunts and oaths as they fended off the monsters, sensed their desperation and fear. His muscles tightened. Protect them.

The images of the mutilated corpses flashed before his eyes, every detail painfully clear to his mind. He saw the fear and pain and desperation on their faces. Anger made his heart race. Avenge them.

He felt a cool, familiar touch of rain against his chest: his Angkakert totem. He invited the coolness into him, letting it fuel him in his charge; the thunder overhead cracked again as though in response and he swore it felt like another set of hooves were gripping his weapon along with him. 

Raconteur stumbled back, eyes widening, raising her crosier as though to try to shield herself. The force field around her began to thicken in response. 

Useless. 

Phillip planted his hooves, twisted his shoulders and hips into the blow, and swung for the bleachers, putting every ounce of his fear, anger, and drive into the strike; he felt the energy rushing from his core up his arm and down the smoothly carved wood of the waddy. Lightning flashed outside, accompanied by a deafening roar of thunder and his own bellow. 

The round end of the waddy struck the shield and shattered it into pieces that dissolved into green motes. Raconteur fell to the ground with a scream as the pipe organ music screeched to a halt, the cloaked thestral tumbling from his chair with a cry of dismay. The monsters all flinched away, faces twisting in confused pain.  

“Defiler!” Phillip shouted, pinning her down with a hoof to the chest and raising his waddy for the final blow. 

Raconteur shouted and thrust with her crosier. Phillip was suddenly surrounded by a sickly green aura and lifted up into the air, struggling futilely. 

Swoop-CRACK!

“No!” Raconteur cried as her crosier was yanked from her grasp by Daring’s whip, lightning crackling along the leather cord.

Daring seized the staff, raised it over her head, and smashed it against the stone floor as another lightning strike sounded outside, light filling the sanctuary. The gold crownpiece shattered, the enchanted flame dissipating instantly. 

The mutated congregation members all immediately went into violent spasms, wailing and screeching in agony. The twisted limbs and extra eyes began to spasm and dissolve, turning into puddles of ooze that their unconscious forms collapsed into. After a few moments, all was still and quiet again, save for the rain against the windows and the moans of their defeated foes.

Phillip landed on the ground with a grunt, turning to his two companions. “You two okay?” he asked. 

“I’m good,” a sweat-covered Daring replied, flinging aside the broken shaft. She tested her wings and grinned when they lifted her off the ground slightly.

Strider coughed and spat as he pushed the groaning white-haired earth pony off him and raised himself to his hooves, his trench coat covered in slime. “Ugh…my wife bought me this coat,” he grumbled. 

"Hey, you," Daring ordered the organist, recovering her pistol and aiming it up at the balcony. "Why don't you come down and join us?" The thestral, his eyes wide with disbelief and fear, slowly made his way down the steps, never taking his gaze off of Daring. 

Phillip glared down at Raconteur, who was trembling beneath him, eyes wide with disbelief and terror. "But then I sigh and with a piece of Scripture, tell them that the gods bid us do good for evil," he hissed at her. 

"And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ," Daring finished the line. "And seem a saint, when most I play the devils." She gave Raconteur a vicious snarl. "Thing about saints: they usually wind up dying." 

The cardinal let out a bleat of fear and covered her head with her forelegs. “Mercy!” she pleaded. “Mercy, Stormbringers, I beg you!” 

Phillip and Daring briefly exchanged glances. “‘Stormbringer?’” Daring asked. “That’s kind of cool.”

“So how come I don’t get a cool nickname?” Strider asked, retrieving a set of hoofcuffs and securing Raconteur’s forelimbs. 





Swampfire and Judgement stared at the three ponies in silence, then slowly looked about the church, staring at the six corpses that were still laying amidst the destruction. 

“Okay…one more time,” Agent Judgement said slowly. “You came here and they all attacked you, and then the Cardinal…mutated them.”

“This is what you get for bringing these ponies here,” Swampfire complained to his SAC. “Bizarre stories that wouldn’t impress a third-grader.”

“Do I need to remind you about the Wonderbolt that choked to death on chicken feathers in front of a live audience?” Strider growled. “Or the one that drowned in swamp water in his apartment? Oh, how about the one with the chicken feet?!”

Swampfire growled. “Fine. Point taken.”

“Should check the church,” Phillip continued. “Might be more clues.”

“Agent Judgement!” came a shout from below. “We found something in the basement!” 

The five investigators hurried down the stairs into the wide, dark basement, which reeked of years-old dust and debris. Boxes were stacked all across the walls, and racks of clothing that had been worn down by time and moths hung in between the stone arches. 

Some agents and crime scene personnel were standing at the back wall, shining flashlights over a small cove that appeared to have been turned into temporary living quarters. A mattress was pressed up against the wall, the sheets upon it tossed aside. A table nearby was scattered with photographs and maps of Manehattan, with the Neighgency hotel next to Union Station circled; small gemstones like the one that Phil had recovered from the nighthawk were placed on the table next to polished stones that were curved like contact lenses. 

And set at the top of the table was a perch for a pet bird, with a bowl of water and a bowl of seeds set within. 

“Guess we found the doctor’s office,” Daring said with a scowl. 

"What've we got here?" Strider asked, bending down and using a wing to pull some loose objects from beneath a table: a cluster of brass cartridges. 

"Thirty-aught-six," Phillip scowled. 

"We're both pretty familiar with that caliber," Daring spat. 

Phillip examined the headstamp on the end of the casing. "HB...that's a Crystal Empire manufacturer that specialized in supplying the military during the Crystal War. Year...1943." 

"What's this?" Daring asked, snatching up a photograph beneath the maps of Manehattan, its edges tattered from being repeatedly handled. The picture was of a light pink unicorn with a long red and black mane. She was winking up at the lens, her horn alight as she levitated the camera up before her, a genuine smile on her face. She was holding up a piece of paper with a single word written on it in flowing red cursive: Pour toujours. 

Daring's face creased into a snarl. "Scarlet," she spat with acid on her tongue. 

“And look here,” Swampfire said, pointing his flashlight at a tall stack of blueprints. The front page depicted a tall fortress of stone and steel spread across an island, surrounded by a high gate. Every eye was instantly drawn to the name printed on the top of the page. 

Clovenworth.