“It’s you!” Juniper turned and shoved her hoof against Wallflower’s chest. “It had to be one of the five of us! It can’t be those three since they’ve been gone for months! That leaves the two of us and I know it wasn’t me.”
“What! N-no!” Wallflower backed up and shook her head. “I mean! I know it wasn’t me so–”
“Don’t try to pretend this was Juniper!” Indigo joined her old friend’s side immediately. “I know Juniper isn’t stupid enough to get suckered in by their promises.”
“B-but!” Wallflower was already hyperventilating.
“Yeah!” Indigo pressed her muzzle against Wallflower’s. “And you know what else? I looked it up and that thing about potatoes releasing solanine gas probably isn’t true. I wasn’t going to say anything before but now?”
“What? But then what killed me?!” Wallflower shifted her eyes uncomfortable.
Wallflower trembled, terrified. She had nopony to be her advocate, not even herself, so Zest decided to give Wallflower that much just in case.
“We don’t know that for sure, yet!” Zest flew to Wallflower’s side. “Wallflower was with us the whole time. How could she have given a message to them?”
“That is a good question.” Sugarcoat looked to Indigo. “Whereas Juniper could have heard about it second-hoof. Though we’d need to explain how she knew of the correct spot before then.”
Indigo scrunched her nose, taking personal offense that one of her friends was being accused of something.
“Y-yeah! There’s no way I could have gotten a message to them.” Wallflower smiled and nodded. Then she looked right at the notebook Juniper was carrying, the one with their list of everypony who heard each location.
It was way too obvious. Zest felt like she knew where this was headed, but…
“The notebook!” Indigo snatched it from Juniper. She flipped through the pages rapidly. “I bet. There! Look here!”
Indigo held out the notebook. One of the pages had been torn out.
Oh no!
Zest knew exactly what happened now. This was her one area of expertise. But should she say something? Things might turn out better if she kept her mouth shut for a second.
“She cut out a page, wrote a note, and dropped it,” Indigo concluded.
“I don’t think that means what you think it does,” Sugarcoat sighed. “I checked the notebook before she handed it off to Juniper. There wasn’t a page missing back then.”
Indigo blinked, briefly stunned by the revelation.
“What?!” Juniper tore the notebook back and looked at the ripped page. “I did not–! This is some kind of trick! Slight of hoof! I would never–!”
“Yeah!” Indigo nodded her determination already back.
“But there’s no other way, right?” Wallflower looked back at the others. “It had to be–”
“As if! She’s trying to delay us.” Juniper shot Wallflower one last look and threw the notebook aside in frustration. “Come on, Indigo. We can’t wait here any longer or they’ll get away. Your other friends can play detective or whatever.”
Juniper charged off, forcing Indigo’s hoof.
The only thing that could tear Indigo away from one of her friends was another one of her friends. She looked torn between staying with the Shadowbolts and charging off with Juniper. Maybe getting into a fight sounded more appealing than being a detective because she ran off, though not without reluctance.
It could have easily been a trap but Sugarcoat simply watched them go. Had she figured it out yet?
“If they were taking advantage of you,” Sugarcoat turned to Wallflower, “then this will be your last chance to confess without serious consequence. If you tell us everything that’s going on, I’ll cover for you.”
Wallflower merely shook her head. It wasn’t going to be that easy.
“I’ll stay with her!” Zest offered. “That way if she’s the traitor, I can keep her from doing anything wrong.”
Sugarcoat frowned at the idea. When had she become so protective of Zest?
“Come on! I can easily beat up Wallflower!” Zest grabbed and jostled the mostly helpless Wallflower, who barely responded by letting her head go limp.
Sugarcoat nodded. Then she flew off, leaving Zest to guard Wallflower.
Zest let out a sigh and looked at the wall. Alright! She was in a good position now.
Stealth mission! It was kind of like the old days!
Indigo and Juniper were both shadows, both able to suppress their auras enough to sneak up on other ghosts and psychics. That was something normally far more difficult. Add to that their abilities, and they made a great stealth unit.
They traveled underground, Indigo shadow-stepping most of the way toward the trench resting beneath the wall. Now they poked their heads up out of it in a spot where the banshees wouldn’t be able to spot them.
Behind her, Indigo could feel Zest staying behind while Sugarcoat decided to move. They must have realized Wallflower was the traitor after all. She’d be sure to rub it in their faces not to insult one of her friends like that. It was so obvious.
Specters had huge auras. There was no way for Sugarcoat to sneak up on those two, so she didn’t try. But the boss was trying to cover for them, moving in from the opposite angle. That’d make it much harder for the banshees to tell they were here.
Still, they had to be careful and assess the situation.
Indigo noticed something worrying about the wall. A hole had been melted into the concrete, one big enough for something much larger than a pony to travel through. A perfectly circular ring had been removed but had since cooled.
Fire?
The only type of ghost that could do that was a fire elemental and those weren’t exactly low profile. Did they sneak one in?
Juniper didn’t say anything, but she did move her hoof in a wide circle. Indigo nodded. If a fire elemental melted through the concrete, it would have been all kinds of messed up, not a perfect circle.
Furthermore, this was way too big to be an entryway for ponies. And a ghost wouldn’t need to destroy the wall in the first place. Unless they had a battle doll in there. That would not be fun.
Worse, they had several objectives. They could go forward and try to intercept the meeting spot, go after the banshees, or…
Indigo sniffed. She could smell that the predeads in this base were in trouble. There was blood on the floor. Hearts were beating too slow and too fast. They were fighting something down there. There were maybe four or five predeads in the base. Four or five still living, that was.
Should she go help them? They’d still be in danger so long as the banshees were present. A banshee could death-curse the living, maybe they already had. Those two were a bigger threat to predeads than any battle doll or whatever that would fit in this place.
That was it! She had to attack the banshees and intercept the patsy with one stroke. And she could do just that.
She mimed some code to Juniper. They’d been through plenty together, she knew the plan. Lull her head to the side, ‘body’, blow slightly, ‘possess’, and pointing up was self-explanatory.
The two moved up through three levels before they were right underneath the Aria and Sonata. Sugarcoat had drawn their attention away. They were so close Indigo could hear their muffled voices.
The blue one, Sonata Dusk, always struck Indigo as the more pathetic of the two sisters so that’s the one she’d take out first. She could hear the older one talking for now.
“They could attack us at any moment so–” Aria began.
Perfect timing!
Indigo flew up from the ground, encased her hoof in ice, and punched Sonata as hard as she could.
“Gah!” Sonata tumbled back.
For a brief moment, Indigo saw her spirit partially thrown out of the body. The chains entangled around both her and it. Those kept her tied to the doll. While Indigo couldn’t get the chains off Sonata herself, she could at least throw them off the doll.
Then she could separate the two.
Indigo carried on by throwing two spikes of ice at Sonata’s wings. They collided and pinned her to the ground momentarily. With her pinned, Indigo charged in to body slam her.
Even with her wings pinned, Sonata managed to react. She curled up into a ball, ready to buck the incoming Indigo. Indigo tried swerving out of the way, only for Sonata to fly out of her body and spin around to get a surprise attack on Indigo.
She slammed a hoof into Indigo’s side, then went for a flurry of punches. Indigo was immediately put on the defensive, struggling to put up a barrier of ice just to protect herself.
Just as Indigo got it under control, Sonata kicked her rear legs forward, pulling her body off the floor via the attached chains. Normally, this wouldn’t collide at all with Indigo, but Sonata put a layer of enchanted ice over it as if flew forward, giving it the ability to hit ghosts.
Indigo flew out of the way, letting it fly past her. Sonata let the body carry her forward, giving her a second chance at punching Indigo. She just barely managed to dodge this one too, and once again, Sonata swung her doll back down at Indigo.
This time it hit, throwing Indigo back to the ground. It took all of her effort to keep herself from going through the floor to where Juniper still hid.
Crap! Indigo hadn’t intended for her to put up much of a fight! She wasn’t used to fighting like this!
Indigo glanced at Aria who appeared unconcerned with their presence.
“Sonata, you’ll have to fight that one by yourself.” Aria moved to the edge of the wall and pulled back her foreleg. “I need to focus on pushing that specter back.”
Sugarcoat was still far off. Aria threw blasts of ice down in her direction, intending to delay her approach as much as possible.
Indigo didn’t want to waste time waiting for Sugarcoat, even if it might only take another minute. She pressed the attack with Sonata.
But Indigo had one more trump card! Juniper was waiting just below for Indigo to give the signal. She just needed to get Sonata to throw her body
“Haha!” Sonata jumped back into her body and landed on the ground with a smile. “What are you even trying to do? You know you can’t win even if you beat me. And it’s not like those predeads will appreciate your help, will they? You’ll be a monster to them no matter how much you help them. This is completely pointless.”
Well she wasn’t wrong about any of that.
“I’m not fighting you because it makes sense!” Indigo threw a foreleg out to the side, encasing it in ice. “I’m doing it because I feel like it!”
Sonata laughed as Indigo charged forward, getting ready to counter. Then Indigo turned invisible.
“Dang it! I forgot they could do that!” Sonata looked in every direction, panicked. “Um!”
The one downside was that she’d still be able to see any ice Indigo created. So Indigo shot it forward at about the same speed she would have approached by anyway. Then she shadow-stepped around to Sonata’s left side.
She managed to hit Sonata with a hard hook to the face this time, followed by the ice spike slamming into her a moment later. Sonata reacted by swinging her body around, slamming it into Indigo.
Indigo managed to turn invisible a second time, but Sonata swung her body around in circles too wildly and too fast for Indigo to dodge. Her only option would have been to go underground, but that wasn’t the plan. Instead she took a few blows, letting Sonata push her back.
Indigo let the last blow carry her off to just the right spot. Sonata pressed the attack by slamming her body down at Indigo while simultaneously throwing forward a blast of ice to cover the escape routes.
“Rat!” Indigo yelled the signal.
Juniper flew up from underground, stabbing the chains connecting Sonata and the doll with a pillar of ice. Indigo jumped forward to hit it from the other angle. Alone, neither of them would be strong enough to pull the chains off the doll but together.
They snapped off hard, the tension sending them whipping about and hitting both of them in the head, momentarily dazing Indigo and Juniper both.
“Ack! Oh no!” Sonata tried flying back into her body, making it there in a second. “Haha! I can just reattach myself instantly so that did nothing! Ha! Ha!”
That was a lie. As if it wasn’t obvious enough, Indigo had seen this before. Now to go for the kill.
Indigo charged forward! She charged into Sonata full force, pushing her out of her body. Sonata didn’t try to dodge it, since it put her at such a huge advantage to intercept a wild attack like that.
The banshee grabbed Indigo with both forelegs, taking control of the force of the blow as she let Indigo push her out of her body. Sonata turned and launched Indigo into the air with the attack’s momentum. Then, knowing Indigo couldn’t regain control in time, threw her forelegs forward, creating a spear of ice.
“Ghek!” The ice hit Indigo hard in the gut! It hurt so freaking much!
A large gash tore off her right side. Most of that half of her torso, her right wing, and foreleg dissipated from the harsh blow. Threads of purple light drifted out of the wound's fuzzy edges as though Indigo were made of unraveling thread. She always wondered what that stuff was.
Thankfully, that would heal… provided she didn’t take a second serious hit and evaporate completely. There needed to be at least twenty-five percent of your ‘body’ left to head in the right direction. Otherwise, you’d slowly dissipate until nothing was left.
It still hurt like heck and her vision blurred slightly as she tried to regain control. Indigo willed herself to become invisible again to try and dissuade Sonata from pressing the attack.
Weary that this was indeed a trick, Sonata turned back to Juniper and now it was her turn to recoil. Not one, but two dolls rested on the ground. A few feet in front of her. Juniper floated just a few feet away, smiling.
That was the power of a shade. They couldn’t shadow step like phantoms, nor were they as good at becoming invisible, but they could project their shadow to create perfect illusions of ponies. There was no way for Sonata to know which was her real body.
Juniper crouched down, ready, not much farther away than Sonata. Sonata would still reach her body first, but if she went for the wrong one…
“So are you feeling lucky?” Juniper asked.
“Gah! I hate luck-based games! I always lose! What do you even want with my body, you sicko?” Sonata turned to Aria. “Aria! Which one do I pick?! Left or– ack!”
Juniper didn’t wait, she went for the one on Sonata’s left. In a panic, Sonata jumped towards the same body. She stopped just short.
“Wait! That’s what you want!” Sonata instead jumped to the body on her right.
The two of them reached their targets at the same time.
Sonata’s target rolled back and stuck its tongue out at her just before she reached it… then melted back into a shadow.
“No!”
Sonata waved her hooves, still trying to catch the fake. Meanwhile, Juniper, now in her body, got up to her feet.
“I got it,” Juniper called up to Indigo. Her voice sounded just like Sonata’s now. “Cover for me!”
“This is a serious violation of privacy!” Sonata shouted at Juniper.
She leaped forward to try and push Juniper back out, but Indigo came back down and smacked the banshee hard back in the head.
Juniper just laughed, slapped Sonata’s flank, then jumped off the wall.
“Aria!”
“I’m busy!” Aria pulled back her foreleg and punched forward just as Sugarcoat arrived.
She just barely managed to part the wave of incoming ice. The surface of the wall to her left and right became buried under four feet of solid ice, but Aria just barely avoided it.
Heck, Indigo barely avoided the attack despite not being the target! She had to shadowstep far to one side to get out of the way.
Sugarcoat created a huge pillar of ice beneath Aria. The banshee tried to avoid, but still got a large portion of he doll’s side torn. Some stuffing flew out as she tried to land on top of the block of ice.
This part of the fight was over. They wouldn’t be able to beat a specter just by themselves. Unless there was more. Aria didn’t look worried enough… something was wrong.
“Aria!” Sonata whined and pointed off at the predead half of the city. “She’s getting away with my body!”
“Let her go.” Arie cocked a smile as she turned to Sugarcoat. “It hardly matters. Does it?”
She smirked over at Indigo who’s heart dropped. Was… Juniper the real traitor? This would be the worst possible time for that to happen but–
Indigo shook her head. No way! Even if Juniper was the traitor, Indigo never turned her back on a friend. She’d drag Juniper back and savagely beat her until she was back to her senses if that somehow happened. But she wouldn’t even entertain the idea until it was beyond certain!
Indigo regained her confidence and faced Aria.
“Don’t look at me like that,” said Aria. “It’s impossible to go against our mistress. Our reason for coming here in the first place… has already been fulfilled. All you managed to do with this half-assed stunt was force us to pull the trigger a few weeks early.”
“Your real plan?” Sugarcoat asked, scanning the area.
“There are other dangers sleeping in this place. Ones that have been here before the ghosts,” said Aria.
A door flew open!
From a small hatch leading down into the wall below came a single pony. It was that lieutenant! Indigo remembered the freckles.
Sour Sweet breathed heavily with only a gas mask for protection. That battle staff levitated weakly by her side as she limped forward. He nose was bleeding, terribly since Indigo could see streaks of blood already down to her chin. And her heart was slowing down.
Poisoned! When whatever barged into the base, it must have brought toxic dust in with it. She might still survive if she got treatment in the next few hours. But already she looked on the verge of collapse. Her eyes lacked focus. She seemed to struggle just to keep them on Sugarcoat.
“It’s… you, right?” She panted.
“What’s happening?” Sugarcoat nodded.
“The – the sting!” Sour Sweet swallowed. “Forget about it! We have something far more urgent to worry about! We have to stop… If even one of them gets through!”
Behind her, Indigo heard a familiar sound, one she’d hoped to never hear again. The rapid ‘vzzzt’ and stomp. It sounded horrible and that was on purpose. Toxco made them sound loud, gave them the stereotypical glowing red eyes, did everything they could to make them as terrifying looking as possible.
Though she hadn’t done much with it, Indigo had spent nearly a month specifically training to fight these weapons specifically. Yet…
All of them were supposed to have been destroyed long ago! All of them but the ones smuggled out of the city.
But she couldn’t deny it right in front of her face. The blood red eyes glowing all too intensely in the darkness behind Sour Sweet. The smell of rapidly heating metal. Then the doorway melting to make way for its huge frame.
Zest took a deep breath before turning to Wallflower. Now that they were alone…
“Okay, I guess I have to interrogate you,” said Zest. She picked up the notebook and looked at how sloppily Wallflower had filled it out. She’d been writing way too fast, that was one of the signs. “You had two notebooks, didn’t you? You dropped the first one back there and handed Juniper one with the page torn out to frame her.”
“What?!” Wallflower shook her head way too rapidly. “No. No. No!”
“Look, I used to be a smuggler! I may not know about math and history or whatever, but I know how these tricks work,” said Zest. “Do you know how many times I’ve pulled almost this exact same thing?”
“You don’t understand!” Wallflower backed up.
“No, that’s the thing! I probably do,” said Zest. “Look, I didn’t immediately blow you out because I wanted to give you a chance, okay? I know what it’s like. I got pressed into working for some bad ponies too, you know.”
“You. Did?” Wallflower tilted her head.
“Yeah.” Zest closed her eyes. She didn’t like telling the story, but… well she still didn’t have to give all the facts. “They used to be part of the Bloodstorm Cartel before it broke up. When I was twelve, somepony offered me a job delivering packages around town. But it turned out the packages had illegal contraband in them. And they took pictures of me delivering it and started saying they’d turn all this evidence into the police if I stopped working for them and… I guess things got away from me after that. My ‘job’ seemed kind of normal. I didn’t know anypony outside the cartel anymore and…”
Wallflower watched her, ears lowered and sympathy enough to encourage.
“I started doing more and more messed up stuff. Each step seemed so small, but eventually, I got to a point where I’m running– well I got to a point I couldn’t live with myself I basically killed myself because that was the only way out I saw!” Zest ran a hoof through her mane. “So that’s why – well if something like that happened to you, then I get it! People like them take advantage of ponies like us. This sort of thing can sneak up on you. I should technically be in prison for two hundred years, so I can’t judge you. But I got out of it and I’ll help you get out too if you want.”
Zest held out her hoof, so sure in the moment Wallflower would rush to switch sides. That’s what Zest would have done had somepony, anypony, given her any kind of offer like this a year ago. If she could give that to somepony else, surely that would balance all of her bad deeds out!
“Why are you so sure they’re taking advantage of me?” Wallflower looked darkly to the ground.
“No offense.” Zest thought carefully of how to word this. “You have the same kind of, I dunno, doomed energy I did when I was working for the cartel? Look, you’re obviously lonely and I know what it’s like to have your entire social circle be deranged criminals who–”
“Everypony always thinks I’m so pathetic and helpless!” Wallflower shouted at her, suddenly far bolder than Zest had ever seen her. Still, she had tears in her eyes and was already panting just from that single outburst. “But I’m not some idiot being duped, okay? I… I believe in their cause!”
Wallflower swallowed and straightened up defiantly. Even still, Zest could hardly take such a declaration seriously.
“What cause?! The cause of getting us all killed? They’re going to enslave all the ghosts and kill everypony else. Even I know that and I’m an idiot.”
“No! See! They’re not going to kill anypony!” Wallflower smiled, wildly, desperately. “No one has to die. We’re going to save everypony.”
“Eh heh.” Zest’s eye twitched. Well, at least she admitted it. Clearly brainwashed or something, though. “I really think you were lied to.”
“No! Think about it. Those two know a way to make sure you become a ghost when you die. I’ve seen it like ten times. So… if that’s the case then we can all be ghosts! Everypony will become a ghost and they’ll live far longer and there won’t be any more hatred since we’ll all be the same.”
“Even if that’s true, we’d all be under mind control! Forced to be literal slaves for an evil god!”
“And is that really so bad?”
“Yes!”
“No! Because we’d all be part of something greater! Nopony would have to be alone anymore. Nopony would get left behind or – or be worthless because we’d all have a role assigned to us.”
“I really think you’re projecting here!” Zest shook her head. “This evil monster thing does not care about you. She won’t be nice and give you whatever you're imagining. Look, I was really lonely before I met Sugarcoat too. But you don’t gotta join a cult and give up your free will just to make friends. I’m right here! Just switch sides and we’ll be friends.”
That, of all things, was what finally gave Wallflower pause. She opened her mouth to shout back with the same relative intensity as before. But she fumbled.
“Come on! Are those two even nice to you?” Zest put her hooves on her chest. “Who would you rather be friends with? I’ll actually care about you. They can’t say that, can they?”
Wallflower really looked like she’d say yes. Zest knew she wanted to say yes. She watched Zest for such a long time before sparing a glance at the wall. Then she lowered her head, resigned more than anything else.
“You’re just going to lose either way. This is inevitable.”
Zest… could barely protest such an argument. She tried to summon some grand speech! Would selling her on going out swinging with dignity really work on Wallflower?
“You see?!” Wallflower looked offended that she didn’t respond in time. “You’re the worthless one, not me!”
She ducked back to the road, where something that might have once been a bench sat. From there she produced something like a watch.
Zest looked around as the sound of heavy machinery coming to life began to fill the air. She didn’t think they had enough electricity for something like that in Old Manehattan!
The windows of the abandoned buildings just beyond burst open as things started coming out of them. Not all of them were complete, just a mesh of limbs and parts, but the one that ran out the furthest was...
An armored pony? No!
Weren’t all of these destroyed?!
“A robot?!” Zest gasped.
It wasn’t just a pony made of metal! What had appeared to be a set of the edgiest black armor zest had ever seen was actually just its body. Its elongated helmet blazed with red light from within, and it opened up wide into a mouth filled with fangs. Its entire body was covered in sharp spikes and hooks.
All of them looked like that! Zest got that there had to be death bots, but did you really need this many ‘scary’ flourishes on all of these things? They all looked horrifying in their own way.
Many of them were rusted up and warped by time, but that just made them worse! It was like they were melting away.
Half of them only used to look like ponies with the rest appearing more like wheeled vehicles only partially functioning, covered in guns and blades.
The pony-like one let out a screech as a gun emerged from its side and fired at Zest.
This was it! She closed her eyes and…
Opened them again, remembering she was immune to gunfire now.
“Okay! But this is still bad!” Zest turned back as several of them rushed to the wall.