//------------------------------// // Ch.32 Afterglow "If You Know, You Know..." // Story: Cold Fire // by Arcanum -Phantasy //------------------------------// Starlight woke up with a groan, laying on her back and glaring groggily at her ceiling. Mid-dawn light filled her room with a few dim rays from her bedroom window. That was the first thing her slowly-awakening mind registered. The second thing was that her room was swelteringly hot; as if her bed had been set up in the open in the middle of a summer day. At five in the morning. "What the tartarus is going on?" she grumbled, wiping a sheet of sweat off of her brow. Grumbling tiredly to herself, she staggered out of her muggy bed. In spite of the fact that she lived in a giant magical crystal castle, her room was surprisingly mundane. The massive crystal room had a wall completely dominated by bookshelves, some housing simple novels or magical reference guides while others held domes of great and terrifying power. The latter of said shelves were covered with numerous wards and runes, all of them designed to contain the tomes' ancient dark magics as well as repel any would-be thieves. The rest of the furniture consisted of an ornate oak wardrobe with mirrored doors, an equally elaborate vanity, and a steal workbench complete with a few tools and kites in varying states of completion, along with her currently unmade princess-sized bed. In all honesty, the only extraordinary thing about her room, aside from the tomes, was its size.That being essentially an entire upscale apartment in terms of dimension. That, and the giant magically-charged crystal sphere at the center of its ceiling. With barely even a thought, her horn lit and the sphere activated, filling the room with a soft lavender light. In the same level of effort, her bed was made and her headmare uniform appeared floating next to her with two more flashes from her horn. After a quick shower, she donned her uniform before she made her way out of her room into the crystal halls beyond. To her adding confusion, the air felt slightly hotter the second she did so. A quick scanning spell revealed that this was not normal, but not the work of any particular spell that she knew of. To her relief, it also told her that the phenomenon wasn't destructive in nature or going to increase in power. What made her raise a brow was where the odd magic seemed to be centered. Cautiously curious, she made her way further into the castle. "I swear," she mumbled. "If this is one of Discord's stupid pranks, I'm going to feed him his own tail." *** I hummed a little tune to myself While I floated books into their shelves. It was a pretty huge stack of returns, but I didn't give a shit. I was on cloud nine and nothing was gonna knock me down! Everything was so bright and I was just full of energy! It almost felt like it was falling off of me, if that made any sense. "Ah, who gives a fuck," I chuckled, looking at the index number on the spine of the next book I needed to put away. "Now, where do you go...." Before I move from my current aisle to the right one, the library doors slammed open. My smile wilted, but came back when I peeked out to see who came in. "Hey boss. How's it hanging?" I asked, coming out to greet her. She gave me this weird squinty look and said, "Good morning Alex. Um...are you....doing okay?" "Better than okay," I chuckled. "Why? What's up?" "Well," she frowned. "You're glowing and it's making the castle a little hot." "I'm what?" I blinked. I looked down at my foreleg and....yep. When did I turn that on? I guess that explains the whole, "energy flowing off of me," thing. "Sorry," I chuckled, cutting off the flow. "Didn't know I left that on." "Right," she sighed, giving me a....knowing smile. "Looks like something good happened pretty recently." "You could say that," I smirked. "Enough said," she chuckled, putting up a hoof in a stoping gesture. "I'm glad to see you in a good mood. Usually, you look like you're about to bite somecreature's head off." "Yeah, sorry about that," I sighed. "I've got a few things hovering over me these days, ya' know?" "I've heard," she frowned, then gave me a wicked smile as she added, "I think you'll be happy to know that some steps have been taken to take some of that weight off of your shoulders." "Like what?" I frowned, raising a brow. She gave me an evil giggle and said, "Treehugger payed me a visit a couple days ago and gave me a few things to help beef up security around town." "Like what?" I asked, actually starting to feel some lingering tension fall out of me. "Like a barrier or something?" "Among other things," she said, still holding her wicked smirk. "Let's just say, if Sandra tries to enter Ponyville, she will get a very painful surprise. The same will happen if she enters any of the other surrounding territories under the town's legal ownership." "Nice," I smiled. "Should make things easier for all of us to get ready to bury that bitch." Starlight looked a lot less thrilled by that. "Are you sure you want to go through with that?" she asked. "I'm sure that if you all tried-" "I'm gonna have to stop you there boss," I frowned, putting up a paw in a halting motion. "Sandra isn't the kind of person that can be talked down or convinced to turn over a new leaf. When she tried to kill me, she enjoyed the whole fucking thing. Hell, she was laughing the whole time. Sid and Dahlia have a whole library of horror stories about the things she did or tried to do to people for the last three years. Things that make what happened to me look like a kid's picture book in comparison." "L-Like what?" she gulped, her face paling. I forced back a growl. I really, really, REALLY didn't want to tell her this, but I needed to make a point of just what kind of fucking monster we were dealing with. I just....hope she doesn't go as nuclear over what I was about to say as I did. "In one of her hideouts, Sid and Dahlia found a dead colt laying on a table." She gaped at me, but I wasn't done. God I wish I was. "The kid had all of his organs surgically removed from his body and preserved in jars. They were all around him like some fucked up alter. Dahlia said that he looked like some stitched-together stuffed toy. That's not the worst part though." "How...How can that not be the worst part?" she gulped, looking a little green. I took a deep breath, but I couldn't keep the hateful growl out of my voice as I said, "Sid said he gave the scene a full examination and that it looked like the colt was alive during the whole "procedure"." I spat out the last word like it was a rotten blob of shit. Starlight was frozen with a look of shock on her face for a second before a look of...yeah. She wants to murder a bitch now. Before I could say anything, she calmly stepped out of the library and slammed the door. A second later, I heard a furious scream followed by an earth-shattering crash that shook the whole library. A little bit later, Starlight came back in looking a little less blood-thirsty. There also may or may not have been a brand new hundred-foot wide hole in the wall just outside of the library doors. "I want to feed her whatever organ she uses to pump blood and evil through her veins," she calmly stated. "I'm afraid that there is a line for that," I snorted. "I'm thinking of skinning her alive." "And your friends?" she asked, still freakily calm. "Dahl said she wanted to yank out her eyes with a spoon while Sid called dibs of her tongue." "What about Autumn?" I was about to answer, but stopped myself at the last second. Not because Sandra didn't deserve what Autumn had in store for her, but because.....well... Let's just says that for such a sweet lovable lady, Autumn has one hell of a dark imagination. "I'd.....rather not say," I shuddered. "Enough said," Starlight calmly nodded. Okay, the fact that she's so calm about this is seriously starting to freak me the fuck out. Ditto, and I don't mean the pokémon. "Anyway," I continued. "Thanks for letting me know about the wards and stuff. Seriously, it's a huge weight off of my back knowing that she can't get into town." "You're welcome," she smiled. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to head off to work." "Same here," I chuckled. "Good luck with the kids out there, boss." "Same to you with Trixie," she smirked. "Try not to let her summon another eldritch horror, okay?" "I make no promises," I sighed. Giggling at that, she waved goodbye and headed out the door. As I headed back towards the aisles of bookshelves, I had a hard time keeping a wicked smirk from forming on my muzzle. Especially since I may have heard Starlight mutter something about adding a few more "surprises" to Sandra's wards before she walked out of my hearing range. Of course, there was no way my kind and reasonable boss would ever do something like that. "Must've been my imagination," I chuckled, floating a book back into its proper section. *** Vermillion and Zeal were not having a great morning. As changelings, they were no strangers to love. Puppy love, old love, hormonal love, even the primal version called pure lust were all things that they have been exposed to at one point or another. The only time it became too much for them to handle was during the failed first invasion of Canterlot. In many ways, what they were now experiencing was almost on the same level. The changeling couple watched with strained smiles as their boss happily moved about her kitchen. The kirin was absolutely glowing, humming and giggling to herself as she practically danced around the room. At the same time, small heart-shaped sparks flicked off of her horn and messy mane. "I take it something good happened last night," Vermillion chuckled, forcing her stomach to settle. "You could say that~," she coyly giggled, setting a steaming pair coffee mugs down for them. "About time," Zeal sighed, floating his mug to his lips. "No kidding," his mate snickered, doing the same. "Any longer and we were sure one of you two were going to do something....drastic." Autumn rolled her eyes good-naturedly at that, then floated her own mug over to the table and took a seat. "Just because you two are into weird stuff doesn't mean we all are." "Says the doe that has a copy of Fifty Shades or Gray in her bookshelf," Vermillion smirked. "Who told you?" Autumn blinked, burning blush coloring her muzzle. "You did," Vermillion giggled, her smirk growing as she added, "Just now." "Are ropes and crops involved?" Zeal casually asked, adding a spoonful of sugar to his coffee. "No!" she squeaked, then cleared her throat and calmly said, "No, they are not. As I said, we are not into that kind of stuff." "Right," Zeal drawled. "And I suppose Smolder's roll of red ribbon just happened to disappear last night." "I thought a gentlestallion never asks and a mare never tells," she huffed, crossing her forelegs with an indignant pout. "I never claimed to be a gentlestallion," he calmly said with a slight smirk. "Besides, given how she is with her materials, did you really think Smolder wasn't going to notice that something was missing?" "....Maybe?" she sheepishly offered, avoiding eye-contact with her forelegs still crossed. "You could've at least swept up the rose petals," Vermillion sighed. "I bet even Zephyr would've figured out what that meant." "I....was going to do that," Autumn nervously chuckled, scratching behind her head. "But I...um....couldn't....move or...think all that well until about an hour ago." Both changelings looked at her with wide eyes, only for Vermillion to sport a half-lidded smirk and Zeal to regain his stoic mask a minute later. "Nice catch," they said in synch. Autumn could only nod, staring blankly at her mug with a burning blush and steam wafting off of the tip of her horn. "H-How did Dahlia's session go," she stammered out, in no way trying to shift the focus off of herself. Both changelings traded odd looks, then silently gestured for one or the other to answer. Letting out a tired sigh, Zeal eventually gave his report. "According to my employees, Dahlia's heart was severely poisoned. It was soaked with so much rage, self-loathing, pain, and depression that it was a miracle she hadn't....ended herself a long time ago. It is likely that her hatred for Sandra and love for her brother are the only things that are keeping her from doing so." Worry saturated Autumn's features upon hearing that, the doe already trying to think of ways to help her friend. Vermillion continued from there, a small frown replacing her usual smirk. "From what I heard, it took three hours and half of the staff working in shifts to pull all of that emotional poison out of her." "She was that bad?" Autumn gaped. "Worse," Zeal sighed. "With so much negative energy pulled out of her, there were almost no restraints left on her positive ones." "Yeah," Vermillion nervously chuckled. "She was absolutely ravenous. I don't think even dragons going through their first inferno season would've matched her." "...Really?" Autumn gulped. They nodded. "I had heard rumors," Zeal lightly chuckled. "But it seams there is some truth to a kitsune's legendary libido." "Guess you can confirm that as well, huh boss?" Vermillion smirked with a wink. Autumn didn't respond, but the flames enveloping her head said more than enough on her thoughts of the matter. *** Sid sat on a large blanket, face blank as he stared forward and took sips from an aged gray mug. Wallflower sat at his left doing the same, a look of mild shock being the sole exception. The Quarry was as quiet as it normally was, with shattered rock and deep gashes dotting the ground in random places. Both of them barely noticed the midmorning chill in favor of the large crater set before them. In scale, the perfectly round crater was roughly three-hundred feet wide and two-hundred feet deep at its center. Its interior was scorched pitch black with the sharp smell of seared earth still present even an hour after its creation. "So.....did Alex learn a new spell?" she asked, still staring at the crater. Sid responded with a simple "Yup," before he took another small sip from his mug. "I....see...." she stammered, doing the same with her own mug. "Does he....know how to control it?" "Not really," he calmly stated. "Oh..." she gulped. "Should I be worried?" "I'd be if you weren't," he shrugged. "Okay," she sighed, a very worried smile set firmly in place across her muzzle. The pair sat in silence for a long moment, the absol enjoying the peace while the mare tried to make sense of the direction her life had taken recently. In the last two months, she had went from a pony that nopony knew existed to one that was surrounded by some of the most exotic creatures she had ever met. For the first time in her life, she had some friends that she could fall back on if things turned dark. She was smiling more. Tomorrow was something to look forward to. On top of that, her curse was now something she could use to help her new friends if the need ever arose. Even if she had to occasionally see things like this, she agreed that her life had significantly improved. If that meant knowing that one of her friends could obliterate a small apartment, then she was willing to accept it. "I think now I should put more of a focus on his status moves from this point forward," he mused. "Should be a lot easier now." "Safer, too," she nodded, sipping her drink. He nodded as well, but before he could further voice his thoughts on the matter, a familiar cold wind washed over him. Wallflower felt it as well, letting out a surprised squeak as a shiver shot up her spine. Sid chuckled, earning a red-faced pout from her. Smirking and rolling his eyes at her expense, he looked around for the source of the chill. When he spotted his sister, his smile shifted into a confused frown. Dahlia slowly made her way across the barren wasteland, her coat shining with a dull silver glow. Her poise was relaxed, yet regal in presentation like a noble coming to meet with an old friend. Soft snow covered the ground as she walked, leaving a perfect carpet of white behind and on either side of her as she progressed. When she became close enough for him to see it, he saw that a calm and gentle smile sat on her muzzle. Her scars seemed less pronounced, almost faded in a way similar to aged ones on open skin. Sid watched her with a relieved smile, while Wallflower struggled to pick her jaw up off of the ground. With an almost etherial grace, she took a seat on the blanket on her haunches. The second she did, snow covered the ground around her in a quick spread, stopping just short of her brother and his "not-girlfriend". Sid met the cold with little more than a smile while it snapped Wallflower out of her awe with a deep shiver. Dahlia took in their reactions with a small giggle, then, with a voice as soft and gentle as the snow her presence summoned, greeted them. "Good morning Sid, Wallflower." "Good morning, sis," he said, offering her a short bow. "You seem to be in good spirits." "You could say that," she smirked, then gave the crater a passing glance before asking, "Did Alex learn a new move?" "Yup," he snorted, taking a sip from his mug. "Wallflower and I are going to teach him how to use his status moves and ability next." "Excellent," she giggled. "If things stay on track, he should be able to unlock his mana move before Sandra tries anything." "That's the plan," he sighed, then offered a cautious smile as he asked, "Speaking of, how are you about....that?" To his and Wallflower's shock, Dahlia sheepishly stared at the ground with a small blush and fluffed fur. "I'm still......working through it," she mumbled.. "I still need to talk things out with Autumn about....maybe forming a.....herd." "Not a skulk?" Wallflower asked, taking a nervous sip from her mug. Dahlia shook her head, a sad smile gracing her muzzle. "I'm not worthy of that. As much as it hurts to admit, Autumn earned her place as Alex's number one." "Oh," Wallflower nodded, offering an apologetic smile. "It's......fine," she sighed."Besides, talking to Autumn is the easy part. Telling Alex is going to be the real horror show." "I'm sure you'll manage," Sid smiled. "Now, what do you say we head to the bar later to celebrate? All of this sounds like as good an excuse to drink as any." "Actually," Dahlia reluctantly cut in. "I think I'm going to cut myself off from that for a little while." Sid's whole body froze, shock practically carved into his face. Both girls stared at him in worry, Wallflower even going so far as to poke him. The lack of a reaction made them trade worried frowns. "Sid? Are you okay?" Dahlia asked, waving a paw in front of his face. "I...think you broke him," Wallflower blinked, poking his cheek. "Seriously?" she deadpanned.