The Everfree did not like Trixie’s interference.
At least, that was what Twilight surmised.
As with anything concerning the Everfree Forest, it was difficult to say for certain. The notorious unpredictability of the forest was a reality to which Twilight had long since consigned herself. This had only been confirmed when Zecora made it clear that she herself only understood the forest to a point.
Still, one thing that seemed consistent about the Everfree was that it in many respects resembled a macro-organism – a vast, complex, and self-sustaining entity that sought to grow and devour the lands around it. The forest seemed to tolerate the presence of creatures – both magical and mundane – as a shark might tolerate a remora. It had its own drives, its own impulses, its own instincts, and it acted upon them. The forest was chaotic, yes, but it was the sort of ordered chaos as one might find in a wild animal. It was not simply a forest; it was an entity, an entity with its own sort of primitive, animal will.
And right now, it looked to be willing Trixie’s storm to leave.
Rogue weather from the Everfree had a tendency to intrude into Ponyville’s airspace, as if testing its borders for weak spots. Sometimes it would send a cloudburst or even a storm to exploit openings in Ponyville’s weather coverage. Twilight had often wondered whether it was simply that nature abhors a void, and thus the clouds were drawn to Ponyville, or if was a deliberate action of the Everfree’s animal instincts.
Now, seeing the Everfree storms battle Trixie’s rising gale, Twilight was leaning towards the latter.
The clouds of Everfree and the clouds of Trixie had drawn up as if in battle lines, row upon row, rank upon rank; the wide, arcing clouds of Trixie’s vortex of tempestuous fury against the great, towering thunderheads of the Everfree. The harsh red and smoky black of the Dark Magic tempest crashed against the grim and grey towers of the Everfree.
It was unsettling to see the often-erratic forest and its strange magic cast as the defender in the present drama, and even more disturbing to see it seeming… normalized. The Everfree clouds typically looked bizarre or at least unusual compared to Ponyville’s clouds but, judged against the unnatural fury of Trixie’s tainted maelstrom, they appeared disturbingly orderly.
Most disturbing of all, the Everfree Forest seemed to be losing.
Such power… what sort of artifact could have given her such power?
Twilight wanted to tear her eyes away from the scene, but she could not.
Every second her power grows. If she can even push back this blasted forest…
A sickening feeling settled in her stomach like a rotting pit.
I had a chance to stop this, to stop this power. It would all be over now if I just… if I just…
“Twilight Sparkle,” said Zecora.
The unicorn did not turn around. She didn’t need to. She knew Zecora would be standing at the door, holding it open with the intent that the two of them go back outside to resume training.
Twilight Sparkle, time you waste.
If we are to train, you must make haste.
Twilight still did not turn, but kept watching the sky. “What’s the point?” whispered Twilight to herself. “I had one shot, and I blew it.” A horrible image of her Ponyville friends, dead and dying at Trixie’s hooves, flashed in her mind. “I should have stopped her… I should have done something…” She shut her eyes against the storm. “Now… there’s no point.”
Your voice is too soft, it would appear.
Whatever you said, I did not hear.
“I said there’s no point!” snapped Twilight, finally turning to glare at the zebra. “There’s no point, Zecora! I can’t fight…” she gestured out the window, “that! I might as well pick a fight with Princess Luna!” Twilight let out a bitter half chuckle, and there was no humor in it. “You know, when we faced Nightmare Moon, we were only facing a fraction of her power. The greater part of it was bound up in containing Celestia. And she still could have swatted me like a fly if she’d laid off gloating and just smacked me. THAT,” again she gestured out the window, “is more power than Nightmare Moon had in my encounter with her by a factor of ten!”
Twilight spun from her place by the window and started pacing back and forth, hooves clomping hard against the wooden floor.
“Oh, but I could have stopped it, Zecorra. I could have stopped it right there in the town square. I had the perfect chance to end it. Didn’t matter that she has the power of an alicorn somehow; didn’t matter that she could swat me like a bug; she was distracted, I had her, and then…” Twilight gritted her teeth and swung one forehoof futilely through the air, “and then… I couldn’t do it.”
Twilight hung her head in shame, not wanting to see Zecora’s judgment.
The zebra didn’t speak for a moment, and the longer she was quiet the more Twilight wished that she would just get on with it, even as she feared what Zecora would say. Yet, when the zebra spoke, her voice was soft, gentle even, devoid of anger and of judgment.
She is in truth a deadly foe.
Why then did you not lay her low?
“I don’t know!” Twilight exclaimed. “Pity? Cowardice? Mercy? Stupidity?” Her horn sparked with pent-up emotion. “Six of one and a half dozen of the other, Zecora, I don’t know!” She turned to the wall and let her head thump to a rest against it. “I keep turning the moment over and over in my head, analyzing my reasoning. I know the justification I gave myself was that I pity her, that I think she’s being used by that darned necklace. She’s not in control of her actions, she’s… enslaved to that thing, I think. She’s not in her right mind and I just… I just couldn’t ki—” Twilight swallowed, then softly concluded, “That’s what I tell myself, anyway.”
Zecora opened her mouth to respond, but Twilight spoke again before she could.
“But Celestia and Luna had to kill the mind thralls of Sombra just to get to him; their soldiers had to fight a long, grueling campaign against ponies who were being mind-controlled. It wasn’t the thralls’ fault, but they were still being used to kill innocent ponies. The thralls had to be stopped, so the princesses and their troops had to… and should I have done the same?” She turned to Zecora, her face anguished. “Did I condemn my friends to death because I didn’t have the courage to do what had to be done? Am I just a coward after all this?”
Again, Zecora tried to speak, and again Twilight cut her off.
“Fluttershy knew we would have to fight, Zecora! Fluttershy!” Zecora left the door and strode over towards Twilight. “The pony who’s been spooked by her own shadow, and she—”
Zecora struck with a viper’s speed, seizing Twilight’s muzzle and firmly clamping it shut. The zebra brought her face close to Twilight’s and said:
It is not a weakness to value life.
It is strength, in fact, in times of strife.
Pity it was that stayed your blade,
Because you think she can be saved.
The pony who redeemed Nightmare Moon
Should not give up on Trixie so soon.
The zebra stared levelly at Twilight, and the unicorn felt herself growing calmer under the reassuring gaze of the elder mare. After a moment, Zecora released Twilight, who in turn sat down.
“Then what should I do, Zecora?” asked Twilight, suddenly very tired. “We’ve been training for hours but… it’s not gonna help me beat her. I can’t beat her. So what should I do?”
Zecora stood in silence for a moment, nodding slowly as if conversing with herself. After a thoughtful pause, she spoke.
If you would lose a stand-up fight,
Then with guile you shall set things right.
We must find a weakness to exploit…
The zebra trailed off and gestured towards the door with a knowing smile.
And Burnt Oak will help us on that point.
True to the zebra’s prediction, Burnt Oak strode in out of the rain, sopping wet and quite muddied from his long journey. Twilight sprang up and ran to him, ignoring the muck and grime to enfold him in a relieved embrace. “Thank heaven you’re all right! I was so worried you’d run into trouble!”
Burnt Oak chuckled as he gently extricated himself from her grip. “Oh, Ah was thinkin’ of gettin’ inta some trouble, but it just wouldn’t do fer me ta keep two pretty mares waitin’ on me just ’cause Ah got into a scrap.” He winked at Zecora as he spoke.
Zecora smirked and replied,
Such gentlecolt manners you have got,
But stop you in Zeb’babwe they did not.
I was waiting beneath the wall,
While you were fighting in a brawl.
“Yes, but Ah was younger and stupider then,” smiled the stallion as he reached beneath his rain-soaked cloak to access his saddlebags. “Ah found a few books that might help, Miss Twilight.” He passed one large, heavy volume to her. “Ye’d best start with this one.”
Despite the dire circumstances, Twilight still felt a little childlike delight at the prospect of a new book, especially one which apparently covered such grave matters as whatever amulet Trixie was wearing. Or maybe it should be ‘whatever amulet is wearing Trixie,’ depending on what’s really going on here. Her delight turned to confusion, however, when she studied the book’s cover.
It wasn’t a scholarly publication or an old tome of lore as she’d been expecting. Rather, it was more like a manual. A field manual, in fact, such as might be issued to firewatch ponies or sheriffs or…
I know Zecora said he’s fought monsters other than timber wolves before, and the two of them clearly know each other and have some history, but…
“Miss Twilight?” said Burnt Oak. “There a problem?”
“Burnt Oak,” she spoke his name slowly as she looked up at him intently. “This is an Equestrian Field Advisory. An R.E.R.C. Field Advisory.”
“That it is, Miss Twilight,” he admitted. “My old copy.”
“Burnt Oak… these are only issued to Rangers or to… um… how, no, why do you have this, exactly?"
The stallion seemed to chew his answer over for a moment before dipping his head slightly and saying, “Miss Twilight, Ah’m sure you’ve got questions, an’ maybe with all’s said an’ done we can see about answerin’ some of ’em but, with deepest respects Miss Twilight, we’d best remain on task. Suffice it ta say, Ah’ve served the realm in an official capacity. Ah’ve had my share of adventures over the years, an’ Ah came by that book by honest means. Ah’m… qualified to assist ya,” he tapped the book with one hoof, “but it’s gonna take a great mind like the one you got in that pretty head o’ yers ta make proper use o’ this old RERC manual.”
Twilight blinked several times as she processed what Burnt Oak had said. Once again, her curiosity over the increasingly mysterious stallion begged for answers, and once again she shoved that curiosity back down. Burnt Oak’s right. We have a job to do. “All… all right then,” she sighed at length, moving over to the table and opening the book. “Let’s have a look.”
Rainbow Dash and Morning Songbird – Dash was wise enough not to call the lieutenant ‘Songbird’ out loud, but the joke was too easy to not at least make in the privacy of her own mind – had made goodly progress in reaching various ponies in their Tuesday Bunkers and laying out the situation to those within with as much reassurance as was possible under the circumstances.
Dash had expected to need to explain the concept of Tuesday Bunkers to Songbird, only to discover that Songbird and the other troopers had been thoroughly briefed on many of Ponyville’s… oddities. I wonder how big a file they have on Pinkie, Dash mused with a smirk.
A smirk that quickly vanished when she remembered that Trixie’d done quite a number on her cheery friend. Which is nothing compared to the number I’ll do on Trixie when I get my hooves on her.
“All right,” Songbird said from her perch on Dash’s head, “the next Tuesday Bunker should be down Appleway Street—”
“Nope,” Rainbow cut her off. “Berry Punch’s tavern cellar.”
Dash could picture Songbird tilting her head. “Really? I guess I didn’t memorize the map as well as I thought I did.”
“Naw, it ain’t on the map,” replied Dash, oddly relieved there were some things the Ponyville Dossier seemed to have missed. “It ain’t even a proper Tuesday Bunker. Berry just reinforced the cellar after the…” she paused to think about it, “the Bearadillo Incident maybe? Or it might’ve been that time a minotaur picked a fight with Big Mac… or maybe it was when Twilight was trying to make a reverse alcohol that sobered you when you drank it but turned out to be highly combust—”
“So Berry reinforced her cellar after a Tuesday happened?” interrupted Songbird dryly.
“No, actually it was a Monday. Weirdly enough, I remember that fact clearly.”
“I’m sure,” demurred Songbird. “All right, the bar it is.”
It wasn’t much warmer in the cellar than it was outside, but it was, by Dash’s estimation, one hundred and twenty percent drier. Song graciously flapped over to rest on a nearby keg and dry herself off so Rainbow could give herself a thoroughly doglike shake. “Anypony in here?” she called out. “It’s Dash.”
There was a muffled sound deeper in the cellar, then a returning shout of, “Sound off, Troopers.”
Rainbow blinked in shock and exchanged glances with Morning Song. “That sounds like Medevac,” she said to the bird lieutenant.
“Agreed,” replied Song.
More loudly, Rainbow called back, “Flight Officer Rainbow Dash and Lieutenant Morning Songbird.” Even as the words left her mouth, her eyes widened in horror as she realized she’d just called Song ‘Songbird.’
Wincing, she cast an apologetic glance at the lieutenant. Even as a small bird, the flat gaze Song gave her made Rainbow want to flinch away. “How long have you been sitting on that one, Dash?” asked Song dryly.
“Uh… since about when Trixie first ’ported you into that cave and I realized you were a bird, LT.”
“Mm. You’ve shown remarkable restraint then.”
Further banter was cut short by Medevac, who emerged around the corner with a relieved smile on his face. “Ladies, am I glad to see you—” the sight of Song jolted him into immobility. He stared at Song for a long moment. “So, to clarify,” he said with remarkable aplomb, “when you said ‘Songbird,’ did you by any chance mean you found a bird with her colors and thought it would be funny if—”
“She did not mean that,” declared the bird in question.
“—that’s what I was afraid of,” sighed Medevac. Turning, he gave Dash an appraising look. She sighed and braced herself for the abject horror. Each Ponyville resident’s reaction to the loss of her wings had been… hearty. Strangely, it seemed to upset them more than Song’s transformation. Song, thankfully, had been unbothered, noting that depriving someone of limbs was the sort of thing that might in the moment seem worse than transmogrification. After all, transmogrification was a common theme of fairy tales – or, in some cases in Ponyville, a common theme in personal experiences – and so the average citizen concluded (likely without even being aware of it) that transmogrification was more readily reversible than de-limbing somepony.
So, Dash waited for Medevac’s reaction.
After staring for a moment at her absent wings, he grimaced and tapped his prosthetic leg against the floor. “Dang, you too, huh?”
Wait, that’s it? thought Dash. It was so mundane, so calm so… kinda nice, actually.
Medevac shrugged and continued, “Welcome to Club Amputee, I guess. We have monthly brunches and membership perks.”
“Don’t bother ordering my punchcard,” retorted Dash with as much devil-may-care jest as she could manage. “Trixie just magicked ’em off. Twi should be able to magic ’em back on. And, if not, I’ll just have you surgically remove ’em from Trixie and stitch me back together.”
Medevac smirked with a veteran’s grim humor and said, “Sure thing, Dash. Just let me just get my sewing kit and—” he jerked his head suddenly, giving himself a firm shake before asking, “wait, did you say remove them from Trixie? What, is she wearing them or something?”
“Yeah, she’s going for the whole ‘dark alicorn princess’ thing.”
“Huh,” snorted Medevac. “That nag sure doesn’t do anything by halves, does she.” He turned to go deeper into the cellar. “Well, you might as well bring Redheart up to speed at the same time as me. Just don’t let Song sample any of the adult beverages down here, what with her being a featherweight and all that.”
“Very droll, I’m sure,” said Song, mild amusement coloring her dry tone. “I see they fed you the Marine MREs with quality crayons.”
“Yup. The sixty-four pack special with the little crayon sharpener in the back. De~ee~licious.”
The brief break for jokes they’d enjoyed didn’t last. Both parties swapped their respective stories. There were islands of good news sprinkled throughout the sea of catastrophe, but on the whole the situation was grim, with little to lighten the mood.
Rainbow was immensely relieved to see that Spike was under the nurses’ care, but seeing him hurt and unconscious brought her fierce anger back to the foreground. Intellectually, she knew that punching Trixie repeatedly in the face was a Bad Idea (and that she probably wouldn’t get to ‘repeatedly,’ and would be lucky to get one), but that didn’t mean she didn’t really, really want to.
“Stay on mission, Dash,” said Song softly.
Rainbow looked at her in shock, wondering how the lieutenant had known what she was thinking. Though I guess I’ve never had much of a poker face.
“If you think you’re peeved,” continued Morning Song, “take a second to think about how Twilight feels.” She indicated Spike with a tilt of her head. “If Twilight can stay on mission, you can too.”
“And what is the mission?” asked Redheart. The part of the cellar they were in wasn’t large, and the nurse had clearly heard the exchange. “Is the plan for you two just to keep folks from panicking?”
“That and keep Trixie sitting fat and happy,” Medevac pointed out. “No small mission.”
“I’m not saying it is,” Redheart clarified hastily. “I didn’t mean it to sound like I don’t think you two are doing something important, especially when we can’t do much but keep an eye on Spike, but…” she trailed off miserably, “I just feel like we’re sitting on our hooves and Twilight is out there somewhere and… what are we doing?”
“Buying time,” replied Morning Song. “It’s the most helpful thing we can do right now. We can’t fight Trixie, so we can at least keep her from hurting anypony worse than she already has until Twilight can find a workaround to the amulet.”
Medevac chuckled humorlessly. “They also serve who stall and distract, eh? You’re right, of course, but I can’t say I’m happy about it.”
“Now you join the club,” snarked Rainbow Dash. “The ‘Stall While Twilight Figures It Out’ Club.”
“Please. In this town, we’re all members of that club.”
Redheart sighed and stroked Spike’s head gently. “I just wish there was more we could do to help her. I know she has Zecora and Burnt Oak, but… three of them against Trixie?”
“If we stall long enough, it might be six,” stated Morning Song. The others looked at her in confusion. “Friar Jacques, Rarity, and Oaken are outside the barrier, remember? When they get back, they’ll bolster her forces.”
Redheart gave a tentative grin. “And Friar Jacques has both magic nullification and Curatrix Magic, so he can stand up to Trixie better than the rest of us.”
“Or they could call in the big guns,” Medevac pointed out. “If they’re on the other side of the barrier, why not call Celestia?”
“I don’t understand how Celestia’s not here now,” said Redheart. “Can’t they see the storm from Canterlot?”
Song shook her head. “Canterlot may be highly visible from Ponyville, but the reverse isn’t true; you can barely distinguish it from the surrounding terrain, and then only if you know where to look.”
“But that storm…” protested Redheart.
“Perhaps it just looks like a bad storm,” responded Song. “One with a splash of Everfree chaos. Hardly unheard of."
“With red lightning and a vortex?” said Rainbow, skeptical. “I don’t think so. Somepony’s got to think something’s up.”
Medevac frowned. “I don’t think we should make any assumptions about this magic of Trixie’s. She’s an illusionist, remember? With that amulet amping her, how do we know it doesn’t look like a normal storm from Canterlot. Maybe it’d be hard to keep up the illusion when you get closer, but from that far away?” He shrugged. “The storm barrier itself shouldn’t be possible, but it is. So why not a massive illusion too? If Celestia’s on the way, great, but I don’t think we can count on it.”
Song chirped in agreement. “Quite right, Marine. Help is coming – of that I’m sure – but we don’t know what or when, so until then we have to hold the fort. Which means…” she sighed, “we should probably get back to it.”
Rainbow groaned. “And I was just getting dry, too.”
“Look on the bright side, Dash,” Medevac urged, a mischievous smile on his lips, “at least you don’t have to fly in this weather.”
“So,” said Twilight, letting the word fall off for a time without completing the thought. “That’s it then.”
The three companions said nothing to fill the dead air, and only the storm outside and the guttering flame in Zecora’s fireplace broke the stillness. All of them were staring at the entry in Burnt Oak’s Field Advisory labelled: ‘Alicorn Amulet.’
Numerous grave warnings filled the pages. While the amulet did indeed endow the wearer with a level of power appropriate to the name, the book also made it abundantly clear that the amulet should not ever, under any circumstances, be put on.
The amulet was said to infect the wearer with dark magic, stroking their pride, feeding their paranoia, and even driving them towards megalomania and violence.
We blew through that stage with a full head of steam.
It was noted that the amulet could even come to so dominate the mind of the wearer as to render the wearer nearly incapable of making his or her own decisions. Instead, the amulet’s scripted directives would run the show. While the drives which moved the wearer would still be somewhat unique to the wearer, how those drives would be pursued would essentially be at the amulet’s discretion.
Throughout these distressing details, the book regularly repeated the command to never put it on.
Should that instruction not be heeded – or should the subject have put it on without knowing the danger – soldiers were advised to never attempt to engage the pony wearing the amulet directly. They were instead to evade and escape and call in a Tier One Pacification Squad. Failing that, they were advised three principle options.
The ideal method would be to persuade or – more likely – trick the wearer into willingly removing the amulet, the only non-lethal way to reliably remove it. Assuming the amulet had yet to take grievous hold, this could be accomplished without serious danger, so long as things did not escalate.
Failing that, they were advised to drive the wearer to magical exhaustion. While the amulet contained within it a tremendous amount of power, it still needed the wearer to use it. If she could be pushed sufficiently hard sufficiently quickly – and if the process was helped along by other means, such as potions – the wearer could over-exert herself and hopefully be rendered unconscious until such time as the problem could be dealt with. With the amulet boosting the wearer’s power reserves to staggering levels, it was an extraordinarily difficult hurdle to clear, but it was at least possible.
The final option was as simple as it was grim. While tremendously empowered by the amulet, the wearer would still be an ordinary pony. As such, while certainly possessing enough power to raise a shield or block most any attack, a strike from an unexpected direction would still be a strike against a pony’s vulnerable body, without even an alicorn’s natural resistance to attack. Thus, it was possible to catch the wearer off-guard and incapacitate her… or kill her.
One shot and you blew it, accused a familiar force in Twilight’s head. She waved a hoof as though to dismiss her own self-criticism. “Well, Zecora,” she said aloud, her voice geared toward an attempt at sardonic humor, “it’s a good thing you already drove the ‘don’t try to outfight her, try to outthink her’ concept home to me, or else I’d probably be freaking out right now.”
That, or I’d be freaking out about how this thing twists the wearer’s mind. Poor Trixie, she doesn’t even… nopony deserves this.
Burnt Oak cleared his throat. “Miss Twilight, if Ah might make a suggestion, why don’t we make a list of our available assets so we know what our options are.”
“Okay…” breathed Twilight. “Yes, okay, that makes sense. Well, I’m, uh, I’m hardly proficient at it, but I can shadowstep now. I can make some illusions and throw my voice, and I wonder if I’d be capable of…”
Twilight outlined the various schools of magic with which she was familiar, which happened to be a rather long list. Zecora followed on this by noting various potions and concoctions she had which could either enhance the effectiveness of Twilight’s abilities or else supplement them. Before they had even finished listing their respective assets, the beginnings of a plan began to organically emerge, one which would involve a great deal of misdirection, subterfuge, and pure bluff.
The ideal result of the plan would, ideally, involve tricking Trixie into removing her amulet. Since that was unlikely at this point – with the whole ‘amulet having such a hold of her’ thing – the next best plan would involve convincing her to drop the storm barrier, allowing a message to be sent to Canterlot. Despite the Alicorn Amulet’s power, Celestia or Luna – or, ideally, both of them – would be able to contain Trixie until the amulet could be removed.
In line with the rest of ‘option two,’ the three conspirators reasoned that it might also be possible to drive her to the point of exhaustion. Twilight wouldn’t have had much hope for that working, save that Trixie’s storm barrier had to be draining a lot of energy.
Cadence kept a barrier up against Sombra for days, but her love and light magic is practically tailor-made for fighting a creature like Sombra, and she had the endurance of a flesh and blood alicorn to back it up. Shining Armor kept his shield up over Canterlot for days, but that’s his special talent and he spent years training his body to handle that kind of magic load. And that was just a static shield that he could top off and let sit, with other unicorns giving it boosts which he fed stabilizing spells into; it’s nowhere near as complicated as the storm barrier, much less a storm barrier that’s fighting a magic forest with a bad attitude. Even with that amulet boosting her, Trixie’s got to be feeling the strain.
If I’m interpreting this book correctly, that is. And if I’m gauging the strain of the storm accurately. And if it’s been going long enough for her to feel the effects. And if she hasn’t been training up her magical resilience since the last time I saw her… and I didn’t even get that good of a read on her capabilities that time anyway.
If, if, if, if! Too many ‘ifs’ in this scenario!
Still, the exhaustion option was better than the final option, and it could be naturally incorporated into the rest of the plan. Even if they couldn’t trick her, they could at least try to wear her out.
Try and wear her out, and pray we don’t need ‘option three.’
Zecora has some potions that can help with that. Delivered via my magic, we have the assets to speed up the process and… her thought trailed off as she realized she was forgetting something.
“I’m sorry Burnt Oak,” she said. When he looked up quizzically, she explained, “You were the one who suggested we start by listing what assets we have at our disposal, and then we got so caught up in the planning that I forgot to ask you to list what you have on hoof.”
Burnt Oak shifted in his seat, and he had an expression on his face that suggested he was about to deliver some news he would rather not have to deliver. Rather than say anything immediately, he simply took off his cloak and laid his tools on the table.
Specifically, a heavy crossbow, multiple knives, a kukri blade, and a number of crossbow bolts which – along with the kukri – were products of a rather particular forging technique. A technique Twilight recognized from her studies into combat magic.
“These,” Burnt Oak gestured to his weapons, “are my current assets, Miss Twilight. Ah’m afraid they are of the… direct action variety.”
For a moment, Twilight didn’t speak, but instead picked up the kukri blade to examine it more closely. A quick scan with her magic sense confirmed what she’d already suspected. “This… this is a spell-splitter weapon.”
Burnt Oak nodded. “Some o’ the bolts too. Rated fer Master-level magics. Wouldn’t stand up against an alicorn or a particularly powerful unicorn who was expectin’ it an’ had shields in the right position, at least not without more’n one hit, but a surprise attack or repeated hits’d get the job done.”
Twilight’s mind flashed to the letter she’d gotten from Canterlot just before the storm barrier went up, the letter that warned her of the attacks on Windforce and Mason, the letter that now seemed so long ago.
One of the assassins managed to cut Luna in a melee. Maybe he was quicker, or maybe she just didn’t see it coming, but he got through either way. I had the drop on Trixie and could have gotten her without even needing a spell-splitter blade. She studied the grim edge of the kukri, a blade designed to cut and rend with brutal efficacy. Even if she puts a shield up, this might go through if she doesn’t treat it like a real threat, and if it does…
Twilight felt sick.
“I… I don’t want to kill her, Oak.” I’m not sure I can.
Burnt Oak reached over and gently took the blade from her. He spoke with a tone that was at once fatherly and sorrowful. “Truth be told, Miss Twilight, Ah don’t want to kill her either. The thought o’ that poor girl bein’ twisted by that evil thing…” he shook his head. “T’ain’t right fer such a thing ta happen, especially to a young’un who Ah reckon ain’t really cruel, just… lost.” He sighed deeply, then, with resigned conviction, said, “But she might not give us the choice. Heck, she probably don’t have the choice herself. Ah don’t like it any more’n you do, an’ Ah’ll certainly do everythin’ in mah power ta make this plan work out so it don’t come ta that. Best case scenario, everypony walks outta this one in one piece. But, if it comes down to it…” he tapped his blade, “Ah ain’t gonna stand by an' let her kill an innocent pony. Ain’t no mercy in lettin’ bad folks do bad things.”
“But she’s not a bad pony!” protested Twilight. “She’s just… lost! It’s like you said, she’s just lost!”
Burnt Oak’s eyes were full of sorrow and regret. “Miss Twilight, Ah’ve fought fer justice in some dark places. Ah had ta take lives. Some o’ them folks Ah killed over the years were as evil as the night is dark, but some of ’em…” he looked past her shoulder, and Twilight got the sense that he wasn’t looking so much at Zecora’s wall as he was looking at something much farther away, “some of ’em were just like Trixie. Not evil, just lost. Slaves ta some ideology or lie or awful thing that had ’em all twisted up inside, an’ even if they were just ordinary folk deep down, the things they was fixin’ ta do were monstrous, whether they knew it or not.”
He reached a hoof up under the bandana that hung around this throat. Likely, he was just shifting it around to settle it more comfortably, but as he did Twilight caught sight of scars beneath his coarse hair; scars she suspected were not the product of his logging.
“Sometimes, Miss Twilight,” he sighed, “sometimes there ain’t no happy outcome. Sometimes the only mercy is the mercy of stoppin’ them before they do somethin’ truly evil.”
The nauseating feeling in Twilight’s stomach soured further. Not because she thought Burnt Oak was wrong, but because she knew he was right. She felt tears tug at the corner of her eyes, and sagged miserably forward to hang her head over the table. “I… I’m not sure I can do it, Oak. When I thought she was going to kill Pinkie or Fluttershy that was one thing, but in the fight… I couldn’t… I’m not… I…” she trailed off as emotion welled in her throat.
She was startled by the rugged hoof that ever so gently reached out to clasp her cheek and tilt her head to look him in the eye. Burnt Oak’s weathered features were kind, and his words earnest. “Ah can’t promise how this’ll go down, Miss Twilight. Ah pray ta the Source that we don’t need ta take such measures. If needs be, though, Ah want you ta leave that up ta me, if ya can. A fight ain’t always so generous with the choices it gives us, but if possible… Ah’ll take that burden. Source willin’ you won’t have to.”
Twilight sniffed and rubbed her teary eyes. “I know she’s dangerous. She almost killed Pinkie, I…” she gulped and stifled a sob, “oh, Celestia, I feel like such a coward!”
Burnt Oak stiffened, and his gaze grew stern. “Now listen here, Twilight Sparkle, you ain’t no coward! You done saved the world three times now, and saved towns and cities a dozen times over at least. On any one o’ those adventures ya coulda shuffled off this mortal coil, but ya went along an did ’em anyway ’cause they needed doin’. Ya ain’t a coward fer valuin’ life. It’s because ya value life that you gone an’ risked yer own ta save others so many times. That ya don’t wanna kill this poor girl ain’t a mark against ya. It’s yer strength.” He gave her a light, encouraging tap beneath the chin, keeping her head from sagging as he gave her an encouraging smile. “Ah got confidence that if anypony can figure a way ta get everyone out alive, it’s you. An’ if that don’t happen, it’ll be on account o’ nopony coulda done it. So howsabout we finish hammerin’ out this plan an’ see if we can bring ’em all home safe, eh?”
Twilight sniffed again and rubbed her muzzle, then glanced at Zecora, still unsure. The unicorn wanted to believe Burnt Oak, but after the mistakes she feared she’d made, she didn’t trust her judgment.
Zecora nodded warmly, mirroring Burnt Oak’s encouraging gaze, and said:
What else can I say?
Listen to him I pray.
Let us now focus on the plan.
It can be done; it’s you who can.
Twilight nodded, sniffed once more, then wiped her eyes and sat up straight, brushing her mane back and giving her head a firm shake. “All right then. Let’s review. We start slow, with auditory illusions and mindgames. Then we draw her out away from ponies, with the main problem of course being how we do that. We’ll need to come up with a plan that risks as little collateral damage as possible and…”
It was the morning after the attack, though the vicious weather made it nigh-impossible to tell.
Fluttershy wondered how it went unseen in Canterlot. Though it was far harder for the citizens of Canterlot to see Ponyville than for Ponyvilleans to see Canterlot – in fact, from what Twilight said, it was only barely possible to spot the township amidst the surrounding countryside – the storm above it should have been visible for miles. Had it been a regular storm, there might not have been much cause to notice. But the red-lightning-tinged vortex was far from normal.
Perhaps it looks like a normal storm from a distance, though I don’t know how that would be possible. Twilight might know… but Twilight isn’t here, thank heavens.
The yellow mare was sick with worry, but she forced the nausea down with the same iron will she’d imposed on herself since the catastrophe started. Instead of worrying, she focused on her charges, her injured friends chief among them.
Pinkie Pie and Ditzy Doo were resting. Not sleeping, and not unconscious any longer either, but resting. The pink mare had come to sometime the previous evening, not long after Twilight’s fight with Trixie.
Ditzy Doo had come to a short time after that with a throbbing headache and eyes that bounced back and forth between being more and less cross-eyed than usual.
Fluttershy had tried to explain the situation to them as best as she could under the circumstances, but with Trixie’s tendency to appear and disappear at a whim, it was difficult to give more than a cursory explanation in one sitting.
The trio currently resided in a gilded cage – one large enough to house multiple tigers – inside town hall. Also within the cage were their transmogrified friends, the tending of whom also fell under Fluttershy’s list of duties.
Another item on her list of duties was acting as a sort of herald or major domo to Trixie. It was Fluttershy’s job to coordinate Trixie’s ‘staff’ – various Ponyville citizens who had been conscripted into transforming town hall into a courtly seat for Trixie, complete with banners, statues, heraldry, and other baronial trappings. As Trixie plainly had designs on royalty, Fluttershy guessed that the merely baronial décor was but a placeholder, but she dared not speculate aloud.
Much as she would have preferred to continue monitoring Pinkie and Ditzy – she still did not know the extent of either of their head injuries – she had to play the part of major domo in order to keep the conscripted Ponyvillians from panicking.
Since she could not spend all her time monitoring her injured friends, and in fact could only tend to them periodically, she insisted they keep an eye on each other, ideally keeping each other awake until Fluttershy could be certain of the extent of their respective head injuries.
In Ditzy’s case that wasn’t a particularly hard request to make; the mailmare seemed immune to any hardship but a lack of muffins, and even that she bore with remarkable sanguinity, so staying up late into the night after a head injury while also staying relatively quiet was not much of a sacrifice to ask.
Pinkie, Fluttershy had thought, would be a different matter altogether. Simply sitting still was a hardship for the pink mare; sitting still and quiet was tantamount to torture. Fluttershy had been afraid that Pinkie would bring Trixie’s wrath down upon her within ten minutes at most without Fluttershy being there constantly to distract her.
Had feared… but no longer, for Pinkie was unsettlingly quiet.
Once she’d heard what was going on, Pinkie had simply donned a white-and-black striped prison uniform, pulled out a tiny stonecutter’s hammer, and begun carving soapstone into chess pieces whilst playing cards with Ditzy. Once she finished carving the set, the hammer vanished into her tail, and she started playing chess with Ditzy. She hardly raised her voice, broke into exactly zero upbeat song numbers, and scarcely wiggled.
Pinkie did sing one song. It was a chain gang song. And, far from angering Trixie, the mare seemed to take malevolent delight in a room full of captive ponies singing along with Pinkie about loading sixteen tons of coal and the sound of folks working on the chain gang.
Fluttershy was genuinely concerned that some damage had been done to Pinkie, damage serious enough to harm her brain, but when quietly pressed about it the pink mare had simply given a broad grin and a huge wink that was all Pinkie. So Fluttershy decided to let the matter rest the time being.
Of more immediate concern was Trixie’s rapidly deteriorating mood. The crazed showmare would frequently vanish in lightning-tinged smoke – where she went Fluttershy had not the slightest inkling – only to reappear in much the same manner at random, monologuing all the while.
Or maybe it’s a dialogue and not a monologue, thought Fluttershy, suppressing a shudder. She certainly talks as though there’s another pony in the conversation.
Trixie’s crazed ramblings varied greatly in tone and volume. Sometimes she was sickeningly, disturbingly happy, chortling and cackling to herself as she muttered, raved, and rollicked. Then she ranted, raged, and railed in the very next breath, uttering vile threats and spitting dire pronouncements, sometimes in a mumbled whisper, sometimes in a structure-shaking shout.
Most of the time, Trixie’s voice was low, just at the edge of hearing even for Fluttershy’s sharp ears, and her mumbling rants were so disjointed that even when Fluttershy could hear the other mare’s words she couldn’t always make sense of them.
What was clear was that Trixie was becoming antsy. If uttering murderously detailed threats can be called ‘antsy.’ Trixie was ‘antsy’ that Twilight Sparkle had yet to be found. While Fluttershy was thrilled to the point of fainting that Twilight had evaded capture, the problem remained that Trixie wanted Twilight in chains at her feet, if not something worse.
“—what dreadful heralds, a bird and a wingless pegasus…” Trixie was snarling. “Useless! Useless! We should fry them for their incompetence and find the Pretender ourselves!” Then, with a furious shake of the head, “No, Trixie is above hunting for such worms as the Purple Witch! The serfs shall find her, and then Trixie shall have her vengeance!” Snarling again, “Vengeance, VEANGEANCE! Vengeance now! If the serfs be in our way, then fry them too!” A gasp. “But, Trixie’s audience! Trixie deserves a captive audience!” A cruel, burbling cackle arose in her throat. “And if the worthless heralds and serfs fail to find the Purple Witch, they’ll find themselves the volunteers in our Dark Performance!”
Fluttershy shuddered. Rainbow and Song are in trouble. The whole town is in trouble! She’ll start tearing this place apart to find Twilight if I can’t keep her occupied! But what to do, what to do?!
She curled forward and pressed her hooves to the sides of her head. Think, Fluttershy, think! What would Morning Song or Friar Jacques do in this situation? She played through Trixie’s rants in her mind, looking for a common thread. It’s all about an audience to her. She has a huge ego, a need for attention, a need for…
Unbidden, a memory of Iron Will sprang to mind. Or, more precisely, it was a memory of how she’d acted following the minotaur’s questionable tutelage.
She had been abrasive, aggressive, and in one instance even violent. But it hadn’t been from cruelty or meanness. It had been lashing out after years of being treated as a doormat, a pushover, as somepony who could be safely mistreated because Sad Fluttershy, Weak Fluttershy, Pathetic Fluttershy would never retaliate.
She winced. Even now, the mocking words and dismissive actions of all too many bullies rang in her ears. To be disrespected like that, mocked like that… I just wanted to run roughshod over others the way they’d run roughshod over me.
And in a flash of insight, she understood Trixie.
How much mockery did she endure after fleeing Ponyville? And how much is that awful necklace now making it seem even worse? In her mind, she was probably run out of Ponyville, rather than leaving of her own volition. The consequences on her career seen as malice and not happenstance. The heckling of Rainbow and the others as the viciousness of Twilight’s ‘minions’ and not ordinary rudeness from ordinary ponies.
She’s doing all this because she craves respect, or at least an audience. So, to distract her… give her what she wants.
“Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy hissed. “Pinkie Pie!”
“Yeah, Fluttershy?” asked Pinkie with her usual perkiness, looking up from the chess game she’d been playing with Ditzy.
“Quietly, Pinkie, quietly,” whispered Fluttershy.
“Oh, right,” stage-whispered Pinkie. “I’ll just do your voice then.” In an eerily-accurate impression, she asked, “Um, excuse me, but, how does this sound?”
Like hearing myself talk, thought Fluttershy. “Very, um, impressive, Pinkie Pie,” she replied. Pinkie smiled. “I need you to do something for me.” Fluttershy glanced at Ditzy Doo. “And, ah, probably you too, Ditzy, if that’s all right.” Ditzy nodded.
“Ooh, what do you want us to do?” cooed Pinkie, regaining her exuberance but somehow keeping it at Fluttershy’s volume. “Break into a now stage-accurate rendition of ‘Sixteen Tons’ from the hit stage production Perpetually Plaid? Because we’d either need some more stallions for that, or for you to get some Poison Joke so you can tackle the bassline.”
Despite the urgency of the situation, Fluttershy took the time to blink rapidly as her brain tried – and failed – to follow Pinkie Pie’s line of reasoning. “Er, um, no, Pinkie Pie, that’s not it.”
Before she could say what it was, Pinkie nodded and said, “Ah, then you need us to be an adoring audience for Trixie to stroke her ego, right?”
Again, Fluttershy allocated valuable time to rapid blinking. “That’s… how did you know—?”
Pinkie shrugged. “Eh. Process of elimination. I mean, it obviously had to be one or the other, right?”
“I… well… okay,” murmured Fluttershy. “Well then, yes. That’s what I… need you to…” she cleared her throat. “I know it’s a lot to ask, what with her almost, um, killing both of you, and i-it’s probably dangerous, but…”
“Pfft!” snorted Pinkie, waving her off with a light wave of the hoof. “Easy peezy, eggs over-easy. Not like it’s the first time I’ve sat around laughing and applauding at some unstable megalomaniac that could easily kill me. How about you, Ditzy?”
Ditzy shrugged. “Meh. I’ve shaken off harder landings doing mail deliveries.”
In spite of herself, Fluttershy smiled. An impossible task, but I can’t think of any ponies better suited to the job. “All right. Do you have any ideas what we should—”
There came a knocking sound, as one might expect to hear from a door.
It came from underneath Pinkie’s chessboard.
Fluttershy and Ditzy Doo froze. Pinkie – in a manner entirely too sanguine for Fluttershy’s taste – remarked, “Hm. Looks like somebody’s at the tunnel.”
A moment of silence followed for the three of them. “The… tunnel?” asked Fluttershy, who was rather surprised by how calm her own voice sounded.
“Yuppers,” replied Pinkie. “I’ve been digging it whenever Ditzy’s napping and you’re off keeping Trixie busy at the same time.”
Another silence followed, broken only by a second round of knocking.
“So…” said Ditzy, “were you, like, digging a tunnel out of town hall, or…?”
Pinkie snorted with laughter. “Pssht! Nah! That’d take way too long! I just dug a little tunnel down to my Ponyville network of tunnels.”
There was probably another knock during the third stunned silence, but Fluttershy was too busy thinking through all the implications of the Pinkie Pie Tunnel Network to pay it any mind.
Pinkie Pie, not so inhibited, reached for the chessboard. “Howsabout I answer the board before whoever it is thinks we’re being rude.”
“Wait, Pinkie, we don’t know who— Angel Bunny?!” Had the exclamation come from any pony besides Fluttershy, it would have been a shout loud enough to alert Trixie. As it was, Fluttershy’s astonishment at seeing her pet barely reached the decibels of an average pony’s conversation.
The little white rabbit scarpered up out of the hole, leapt into Fluttershy’s forelegs, and gave the mare a surprisingly strong hug for all his tiny size. This was immediately followed by remonstrations about the danger she’d put herself in, though his rant was rather short when compared to his usual histrionics. With admirable brevity, he relayed several key points of intelligence.
Firstly, he and the animals had located Twilight. She was working in close concert with Zecora and Burnt Oak.
Secondly, the three of them had devised a plan for dealing with Trixie so as to incapacitate her or drive her off, or at least warn Celestia and Luna.
Thirdly, Angel Bunny – or, more precisely, the animals at the scene – had listened in long enough to know that the three conspirators were still hammering out a plan for how to draw Trixie out of town with the least amount of collateral damage possible.
Having made his report, Angel Bunny rather stridently advised to Fluttershy wait this one out, keep her head down, and not involve herself further. Zap-Happy Mage Mare (Angel’s name for Twilight) had a plan. No need for Fluttershy to further involve herself.
The problem is… I think he’s wrong, Fluttershy thought to herself. Throughout Angel’s relatively brief report, Trixie had continued to pace and rant and dialogue with herself in ever-darkening tones. Knowing that Twilight had a plan was somewhat reassuring, but the fact that it hinged on drawing Trixie out of town – and who knew how well that would go – was… distressing. There are no good choices here, only risks and tradeoffs, thought Fluttershy. Well, it’s a twist on the old plan, but…
“Pinkie? Do you have quill and ink on you? A-and some paper?” Fluttershy felt her voice tremble, not over the message itself, but over how much the stakes had just been raised. It was always going to be risky to distract Trixie by being an ‘audience’ and helping with her ‘show’ she tried to tell herself. The only difference is that now we get to see how it slots into Twilight’s plan to get us all out of this mess. She was pleased to see that her hooves didn’t tremble as she took the proffered writing materials from Pinkie Pie. “Angel, I need you to take a message to Twilight for me. Something that can, or really should, help with her plan. I hope.”
Of course, she had to discuss the specifics of that plan to the others first.
“The… well… the short version is, Twilight needs to get Trixie outside the city so she and the others can fight her away from the innocent ponies trapped here. W-we can help them do that with the distraction ‘show’ we were going to do with Trixie. We just have to convince her to move her ‘show’ outside.”
After kicking around a few ideas, it was Pinkie who lighted upon the best option.
“Like to the old mining camp!” suggested the pink mare perkily. “You can be all, ‘Ah! Great and Scary Trixie, the mines were once infested with something something vile diamond dog denizens something something Ponyville would thank you for trashing the land there blah blah blah something about testing her destructive power on the terrain ahead of time so as to get the best use out of the show stage before carting all the Ponyvillians out there, etcetera. And, since the dogs got pushed out of the old mines, the land’s abandoned, so any blowy-uppy won’t be blowy-uppying anybody.”
“That’s… not a bad idea,” Ditzy agreed. “But what if she thinks it’s a trap? I mean…” one of Ditzy’s eyes drifted to track Trixie’s erratic pacing, “she’s paranoid. Like, super paranoid. Rainbow-when-she-read-her-calendar-wrong-and-thought-we-were-hiding-cider-from-her-on-opening-day-of-cider-season-but-she-was-off-by-a-week paranoid.”
“Which is a bad kind of paranoid,” agreed Pinkie with a sage nod.
The three mares furrowed their brows, trying to think of a solution.
Angel Bunny, who’d been sulking about Fluttershy again placing herself in danger, jabbered unhappily under his breath, then made a suggestion that once again drove Fluttershy’s decibels up into a normal register.
“You want me to do what?!” she exclaimed, aghast. “Say you’re my spymaster?!”
“I could see it,” observed Ditzy.
Impatient, the rabbit pointed out that Trixie already had the town ‘working for Trixie’ to find Twilight, and that Fluttershy was supposedly ‘working for Trixie.’ He stated that it would keep the townsponies safe – though he also made some editorial remarks about whether some of them were worth the trouble – and give Fluttershy another excuse to entice Trixie outside: playing to her ego and desire for vengeance. Angel Bunny smugly pointed out that a megalomaniac like Trixie could be persuaded to ‘enjoy herself by blowing things up while her underlings did all the work’ and that ‘since the townsponies couldn’t find Twilight in the town, that meant she was outside, and perhaps blowing things up at the old mines could draw Twilight out’ or some similar excuse.
Fluttershy found herself disturbed both by Angel Bunny’s language – in saying ‘blowing things up’ he had most emphatically used words other than ‘things’ – and by how confidently he talked about manipulating megalomaniacs.
Nor was she enamored with the fact that it would place herself and – more importantly – Ditzy and Pinkie in the danger zone when the trap was sprung. Still, without a better idea, she put it to the other two mares.
It was to her relief – and dismay – that they agreed to it. She was relieved not to do it alone, but would have much preferred the other two mares be kept far, far away from the danger. After all, before, we were just going to be doing a dangerous ‘show’ with her. Now, we’ll be on the battlefield, and if it goes wrong it will all be my fault for having the idea. And I still have to propose it to Trixie without being suspected, because if she does suspect me she might take it out on the others and if they get hurt I don’t know if I can—
A steadying grey hoof pressed her shoulder, and she looked up to see Ditzy giving her a reassuring smile as Pinkie absolutely beamed at her and made the odd squee-ing noise that so often accompanied her toothy smiles.
“You’ve got this, Fluttershy.”
As Fluttershy turned and made her way towards Trixie, it occurred to her that she wasn’t quite sure which one of them actually said ‘you’ve got this,’ or if either said it out loud at all. Both of them had such tangible positivity to them that the words probably wouldn’t have been necessary anyway.
Approaching the raving lunatic whose raw, magical danger rippled off of her like lightning, Fluttershy bowed low, cast her eyes to the ground, and intoned, “Oh most Illustrious and Beneficent Ruler, Trixie the Great and Powerful, I, Fluttershy, your humble servant, do request an audience.”
Outside town hall, above the Everfree Forest, and around the whole of Ponyville raged the black-red storm. Beneath its malice, ponies sheltered. Some quivered in fear. Others waited with baited breath. A select few deceived, plotted, and readied themselves for battle.
At one abandoned edge of the thunderous dome, near the railroad tracks, out of sight and mind of all within the dome, there swept the unbroken, deadly, swirling wall of the great storm.
Then a blade – gleaming white and wreathed in fire – punched through the wall like the lethal strike of a lance. The metal hummed with battling magics as the storm beat itself upon the blade and the blade held itself firm against the storm, bending and vibrating, but neither breaking nor withdrawing.
Slowly, painfully, the blade was forced downward towards the ground as though cutting.
There was the sound as of a sail being torn in twain in a roaring gale, and, through the tear, a ray of light pierced the corrupted gloom.