//------------------------------// // Opening Shots // Story: My Little Denarians // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// Warden Jenkins was wearing a red shirt. Poor bastard. Then again, I was always more of a Star Wars type of guy, so I guess I couldn’t really blame him for not grasping the perils of wearing red. Besides, he seemed be one of the youngsters the Council pulled into the Wardens on account of the Vampire War. He’d probably never even seen any classic Star Trek anyway; hell, his idea of Star Trek probably involved Captain Janeway and Captain Archer. Poor, poor Jenkins. Hell’s bells, as a Star Wars fan I’m obligated to hate Star Trek, but even I know that there’s a huge gap between the classic stuff and the recent crap. Or maybe I’m just a grumpy old man who can’t stop going on about the good old days. His possible exposure to the worst of Star Trek and possible impending death purely to add dramatic tension aside, Jenkins at least looked like he knew how to handle the whole Warden thing. Jenkins himself was a fairly fit and trim man who looked to be in his early to mid twenties, caucasian with a hint of asian ancestry that showed around his eyes, and dark hair accompanied by a five o’clock shadow that I suspect was missing when his hometown wasn’t being invaded by demons and an evil god of chaos. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. Apparently he shopped at the same military surplus store as Sanya, because he was sporting a tactical vest covered with so many pouches he looked like a bad nineties comic book character. It was nice to see him packing a pistol to go along with the downright disturbing number of throwing knives he had strapped to just about every place he didn’t have a pouch. I half suspected his cloak was also being used to provide storage space for more pouches, knives, or whatever else he wanted. Still, he was on our side and seemed reasonably competent. That put him above some of the Wardens I’ve had to deal with over the years. I shook his hand, and was pleased to see we weren’t bothering with the obligatory macho attempt to crush each others’ hands. Though if we had, I totally would’ve won. “So, you’re the infamous Harry Dresden.” He gave me the same quick once-over I’d given him. “Well, technically we met before in New Mexico. I was one of the new recruits at the training camp while you were there, but I don’t think we were ever properly introduced.” Dear God, he’d been one of the kids at that camp? I mentally adjusted his age down a couple years. Hells Bells, if they were starting to grab them this young, maybe it was a good thing that Molly had gone rogue after all; otherwise they’d probably be trying to come up with a way to slap one of those grey cloaks over her shoulders by now. “I heard you were dead,” Jenkins added. “I got better,” I answered simply. I swear, the worst part of being dead for a while is that freaking everyone feels like they need to comment on the fact that I’m not dead. In any case, it’s not like I wanted to share the whole long complicated story with Jenkins. Or just about anyone else, really. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone ended up less dead than we all thought they were. I've heard of a couple of wizards who play dead for a couple of years every once in a while to avoid taxes and awkward questions from the normals about why they’re still alive and well after a century.” Jenkins shrugged, and tossed a look back at my travelling companions. “Admittedly, I’m a little fuzzy on how you went from exterminating an entire race of ancient magical powerhouses to hanging out with pastel-colored cartoon ponies.” “It’s kind of a long story.” One I certainly didn’t want to get into while there were baddies to deal with. I wasn’t sure how much damage Discord was doing right now, but he had an entire city full of people to play with. Odds were that there were corpses, quite possibly a lot of them. Discord might not be out to build up a body count, but he wasn’t gonna care if he broke some of his toys while he played with them, especially not when he had almost seven billion more to play with. That’s not to mention Nicky and his crew were around, and the Denarians didn’t seem like they could start the day without shedding some innocent blood first. It was kinda like coffee for them. First things first, we were on Jenkins’ home turf, so he probably had some useful insight on the whole situation. “So, what’s the deal here?” “Right, the situation.” Jenkins sighed and hand over his face, then gave a sharp little nod and got down to business. “At first I thought I was dealing with some of your usual cultists or psychos backed up by a bush-league warlock. I went in to clear them out and a couple of them transform on me. Next thing I know, I'm dealing with a couple of freaky demon things trying to tear me a new one. Since then I've just been on damage control, trying to protect who and what I can until reinforcements show up. I’m guessing that’s you.” “Yeah, we’re the cavalry.” I tossed a look back at the ponies. “Not that we could actually ride in on the horses, but you get the idea.” Before I could come up with any more awkward or smartassed comments to make, something about what Jenkins said sank in. “Wait, you dealt with several of them? At once? Uh, don't take this the wrong way, but how are you still alive?” I know I had barely survived my first encounter with only a single Denarian, and that was only because I had nothing less than all three Knights of the Cross to pull my bacon out of the fire at the time. Jenkins gave me a tight, confident little grin. “By being crazy prepared, Dresden. By being crazy prepared. I learned to always have a couple escape options available after I got caught in a bad ambush in Toronto by some vamps during the war.” Oh. That would do it. You’d be surprised how important learning when and how to run away is to staying alive. It’s a skill way too many people will neglect, but if you make a habit of tangling with supernatural baddies and you don’t learn when to fold ‘em you’re not likely to live for long. There’s way too many things out there that can squish an unprepared wizard in ten seconds flat. The good news is, a wizard who can get away from the baddies long enough to recover and come up with a plan is likely to wreck face. Few things are scarier than a wizard who’s had prep time. Speaking of which, we needed a plan here. “So, you know the city better than we do, Jenkins. How do we get the ponies up to ... wherever their animation studio is?” “The city is under attack by demonic cultists backed up by the literal forces of Hell, and you want to get the ponies to an animation studio.” Jenkins stared at me like I’d gone completely insane. I get that a lot. “Look, getting the ponies where they need to be is the single most important part of the entire plan.” Okay, maybe I needed to give him a little bit more to go with than just that. I pointed to the upside-down buildings that dotted the skyline. “That’s not something that’s in the normal Denarian bag of tricks, they went and found an evil god of chaos to help them out. The only reliable way to stop said evil god is to use the ponies.” Jenkins let out a low whistle. “So that’s what the Gatekeeper meant about there being Outsiders mixed up in this. Funny, I always pictured the Outsiders as more Lovecraft and less ... Saturday Morning.” Jenkins frowned at the collection of candy-colored miniature equines. “Wait, Saturday morning ... and you need to go to an animation studio ... don’t tell me ... huh. Well, that's a new level of weird for this job.” Lash let out a low chuckle. “You have no idea, young warden.” Sanya grinned and gave me hearty slap on the back. “Harry is very strange man, but his plans work. They are often so crazy they should not, but they do work.” Rainbow smirked up at the young warden. “Ya know, you humans seem pretty weird to us too.” Most of the other ponies nodded in agreement. “But we like you anyway,” Derpy added as she flew up to him and opened up her saddlebag. “Want a muffin?” Jenkins hesitantly accepted the baked good from the wall-eyed pegasus. “New levels of weird are the story of my life,” I declared. “Well, except for all the times when the story of my life is pain, misery, and guilt. And the rare occasions when it’s both at the same time.” For some reason known only to particularly insane pink earth ponies, that prompted Pinkie Pie to break into song. For the sake of what little sanity I had left, I decided not to ask any questions about where the background music accompanying her song came from. “When you’re rife with devastation, There’s a simple explanation: You’re the Toymaker’s creation Trapped inside a crystal ball! “And whichever way he tilts it, Know that we must be resilient. We won't’ let let him break our spirits As we sing our silly song! “When you were a little Harry, Magic made everything dark and scary, They’d’ve shipped you off to the orphanage If it hadn’t been for mean ol’ Justin “So you learned a thousand spells And suffered through a thousand hells. Now the memories are sad But Elaine wasn’t so bad You two had your fun before long! “Now you’ve bungled all your bangles And your loved ones have been mangled, Listen to the jingle-jangle Of this wizard’s tambourine! “For these chords are hypnotizing And the readers’re harmonizing So please, Harry, stop your crying And just sing along with me!” Pinkie ended her random song to deafening silence, though a second later Derpy began stomping her hooves in approval. I have to say, out of all the random songs she’d broken into, that was one of the stranger ones. Mostly because it was sad, but had a deceptively happy tune that was annoyingly catchy enough to permanently lodge itself in my brain. Still, before I’d gone and soul-ified her, Pinkie sang songs about smiling and baking cupcakes--but now this? Was this my fault? Knowing my luck, it was. What had I done to these cartoon ponies? I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Sanya started applauding Pinkie’s performance along with Derpy. Of course the Russian would like the oddly depressing song. “Very nice. Michael will most enjoy this song, I believe.” Lash raised a single eyebrow at that. “You believe?” “Da,” Sanya confirmed. “Little cartoon pony makes quite an impression. I like fighting alongside the cartoon ponies, they are much more enjoyable to be around then the horrors I normally fight.” He frowned and gave a philosophical shrug. “I will admit, though, the ponies do not do much to convince me I am not insane. Still, this plan already 100% better then normal plans for fighting Denarians with Dresden, thanks to ponies.” I let out the groan of a horribly put-upon wizard. “This whole adventure is starting to fill up my top ten weirdest things in my life list. And when you consider how strange my life has been up to this point...” Jenkins gave me a moderately worried look “That's not very comforting, sir.” Kids these days. Always worrying about the little things, like the fact that everything happening around them was an assault on their reason and sanity. You have to learn to accept that sometimes things just don’t make any sense, and trying to understand it all is only going to give you a headache. “Hey, the good news is that we have the perfect weapon. Once the cute little cartoon ponies get close enough, they can one-hit KO the big bad of the day. Usually by this point I'm just making stuff up as I go and hoping it all turns out for the best. This time we have a plan that definitely has a decent chance of working, so I’d say we’re doing pretty damn good.” Sanya grinned and declared with fatalistic joy. “Yes, we have a good plan. This means there is likely some type of horrible surprise waiting for us, da?” Only a Russian could be so cheerful about the chance that we might all die horribly before the day was over. “Damnit Sanya, don't point that out, something always goes wrong when someone points that out.” Jenkins was quick to voice his agreement. “Don't jinx it. We’re in enough trouble without anyone jinxing it.” Twilight applied hoof to face and let out an exasperated groan. “You have no idea how difficult it is to actually make a working plan with this group of ponies. And that’s back in Equestria, where everything makes sense.” “Pfft, who needs a plan?” Rainbow scoffed, before getting up on her hind legs to throw a few punches into the air. “I say we just get going, and kick the ass of anything that comes after us!” Jenkins looked at me askance. “You taught them to swear? That seems ... wrong.” “Maybe a little bit,” I admitted. “But the thing is--well, I thought it was funny. Besides, they already know how to swear, I just taught them how to do it in English instead using pony words for it. So ... that makes it slightly less horrible, I guess.” Jenkins looked over to the side and chuckled. “I don’t think that’s something everyone’s gonna buy--your girlfriend looks like she's going to kill you. I think I'll just step out of the line of fire.” Jenkins rather pointedly took a couple hasty steps away from me. Lash was just as quick to back off. “Dresden and I are not bound in that fashion, Warden.” If not for all the very good reasons we didn’t want anyone thinking Lash and I were bumping uglies, my pride might have taken a bit of a hit at how quick she was to make sure everyone knew she was not my girlfriend. At least I could get a bit of a confidence boost from people thinking Lash was not completely out of my league. Discounting all of the reasons it would be a horrible idea to act on that particular observation, it’s hard not to notice she’s a bit of a knockout. I’m a guy, I can’t help noticing these things. Still, clarifications come first. “No, no we are not, that would be weird on levels you Do Not want to know.” Jenkins let out a conspicuous cough and mumbled something under his breath about rivers in Egypt. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, not everyone (or should it be everypony?) was content to keep their thoughts mostly to themselves. Rarity looked Lash and me over and approvingly declared, “They do make a rather handsome couple, don't they?” “No! No we do not! That is an awful idea!” I really didn’t want to get into all the details about where things were between me and Lash, but I also didn’t want everyone going on about how the two of us should hook up. “Let me put it this way: my relationship with Lash is weirder than the time I took down the pretty princess of the ponies. In ways you do not want to know.” Fluttershy let out a disappointed little sigh. “Oh, but...you two look so cute together.” “Yeah, and special someponies--er--special somehumans are super funneriffic!” Pinkie chimed in. Derpy couldn’t resist tossing in her own opinion. “I think the foals would be adorable.” Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Sanya decided to join the fray. “Harry could use nicer woman than Ice Queen. Not that Mab is ugly, but Winter Queens do not help keep beds warm. Lash certainly looks like she would be warmer company during long winter.” Applejack seemed to be the only pony who could actually tell that Lash and I weren’t okay with this line of discussion. “Um, y’all? Might wanna back off a mite, ah think they're serious.” Rainbow looked like she was about to say something, and from the smirk on her lips I just knew she was about to hit us with the kind of smartassery that I would probably be using against someone else if I was in her position. I really wasn’t in the mood for that, so I decided cut her off and shut this discussion down. “She was the shadow of a Fallen Angel in my head for several years who spent most of her time trying to convince me to pick up a coin. She wound up getting a soul after she nearly got herself killed saving my life--and when she finally got a body of her own, my DNA was used in the process, which technically makes her my genetic daughter! Us being together is not cute!” That pretty much killed the conversation deader than dead. Nothing makes for awkward silence quite like letting everyone know that they’d kinda-sorta been promoting incest. Lash stepped up to me, and her voice came out in a tight, angry little whisper. “In the future, perhaps you could show a measure of discretion instead of revealing the details of my history to all and sundry?” I gave a guilty little flinch. Typical dumb me, running off at the mouth without thinking about the fact that there were reasons that everyone there didn’t know why Lash and I should never be romantically involved. “Sorry, Lash.” Rainbow said what everyone else had to be thinking at this point. “Ew.” Fluttershy let out a high-pitched little squeak of what was presumably agreement, while Rarity was looking distinctly green at the gills. Funny enough, everyone seemed more concerned by the incest part rather than the bit about her trying to make me sell my soul to demons. “Ah warned ya'll,” Applejack grumbled. “Ah toldja to let it be, but everypony just had to go an’ say their piece...” Pinkie sighed and slid her party cannon behind her back, where it promptly disappeared in defiance of at least half a dozen laws of physics. “I guess that means I should cancel the ‘Congratulations on Hooking Up Harry and Lash’ party, right Harry?” “That would be wise, little pony,” Lash answered tersely. “So,” I said to forestall any further commentary from the peanut gallery. “Are we done here, or do you all want to ask some more awkward and embarrassing questions?” Warden Jenkins raised a hand. “So if you two aren’t a thing, does that mean she's single?” I stared at Jenkins blankly for several seconds as I tried to wrap my mind around that one. “You have to be kidding. I'm... not so sure that would be a good idea.” Lash didn’t even try to let him down easy. “My consciousness stretches back to the very dawn of the universe, mortal.” Seems kinda odd to me that she’s still calling people mortals after she came down with a case of mortality recently, but I guess you don’t break several billion years’ worth of habit in a couple days. “I would no sooner lie with you than you would lie with a mayfly.” Jenkins shrugged and let out an easygoing laugh. “I've always had a thing for older women.” Okay, that line couldn’t help but remind me of another Warden I’d worked with in the past. “Have you ever met Carlos Ramirez?” Jenkins grinned. “Warden-Commader Ramirez? Yeah, he’s my commander. He did give me one or two pointers when it comes to impressing the ladies.” Okay, I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun with that one. “Oh really, he gave you lady advice? I guess that means he never mentioned that he was still a virgin.” Well, unless he’d fixed that since the last time the two of us got together to punch evil in the face. “Commander Ramirez hasn’t ever ... huh.” Jenkins scratched the back of his head. “Well, that would explain why most of his advice sucked.” “Look on the bright side,” I consoled the younger man. “Now you’ve got some great ammunition to use next time you need to deflate his ego a bit.” That brought a bit of a smile to Jenkins’ face, though I’m pretty sure Carlos wouldn’t be happy with me next time we met. I turned back to my friends and tried to put the matter to rest. “So, is everyone satisfied with this glimpse into my very messy and complicated personal life?” Most of the ponies seemed satisfied with awkward, uncomfortable silence, which was interrupted by the sound a of a quill furiously scribbling on parchment. Apparently Twilight Sparkle was taking notes. Of course. “Very much so, this is fascinating! Please, continue.” Oh, terrific. Well, I suppose Twilight in overeager scientist and academic mode beat the quiet, withdrawn, and hypersensitive Twilight we’d been dealing with up to this point. “I’m glad you find my suffering interesting enough to study, Twilight, but you should know that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the list of things you do not, or should not know that I do.” Next thing I knew, Twilight had yanked a couch from god-only-knows-where and set it down in front me. I’m not sure whether I would prefer the couch being a result of freak cartoon logic, or the possibility that she’d just casually stolen someone’s couch in a fit of academic eagerness. “So, shall we start at the beginning then, Harry?” Right, this was getting a bit beyond my capacity to just shrug it off as more pony weirdness. “Hey, remember the dark chaos god that's killing people by the thousands while we twiddled our thumbs? Well, those of us that have thumbs, while those of us with hooves did ... whatever it is ponies do instead of twiddling their thumbs. Maybe we should be more concerned about that then the whole ‘What the hell isn't wrong with Harry?’ thing.” Twilight wasn’t about to let a few inconvenient fact get in the way of satisfying her curiosity. “But Harry, if you're as crazy as your friend with the sword thinks he is, that could be the root of the entire issue right there! We can’t let this unique opportunity pass us by!” I started walking, and Twilight followed behind me with quill still furiously scribbling even though I hadn’t said anything to answer her question yet. After dealing with her eager, attentive stare for several seconds, I finally gave in and decided to humor her for a bit. “My root problem is that the whole universe persecutes me.” Twilight let out a little ‘hmm’ and her quill began rapidly scratching back and forth as she added more notes to her scroll. “Paranoia ... and ... persecution complex ...” Oh goody, someone thinks I’m being paranoid again. “Hey, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean there’s not an invisible demon about two seconds away from eating my face at any given moment.” Pinkie gasped and immediately checked behind me. “Don’t worry, Harry! He’s not there!” A second later she frowned thoughtfully. “Unless he’s sneaking up behind you while we’re talking ... hmm ...” Pinkie was giving this serious thought--why did that fill me with dread? Suddenly she started running and bouncing all over the place at random. Well, more so than usual. “Don’t worry, Harry! If any big nasty mean-mcmeaniepants tries sneak up on you by being all sneaky and invisible, they’re gonna bump into me first!” For her part, Twilight looked rather dubious about my line of reasoning. For some reason, convincing her that I wasn’t a paranoid lunatic was important to me. What can I say, I wanted the cute little cartoon ponies to like me. “‘Paranoid’ is what they call it when you think people are out to get you, but in reality nobody is trying to kill you. Me, I have lots of people and non-people trying to kill me. That means I’m exercising an appropriate level of caution, not being paranoid.” Twilight was still looking less than convinced by my line of reasoning. “Aside from the obvious examples of Discord and the Denarians, name one person who’s actively trying to kill you.” Lash shot the unicorn a warning look. “Young pony, I think it would be best if you did not pursue this line of inquiry any further.” If the quill and scroll hovering at her side and the eager little smile on her face were any indication, Twilight wasn’t going to take Lash’s advice. I suppose the best thing I could do was just give her the answers she wanted. “Shall I start with my enemies that are dead, or shall we skip right to the living? Because either way, the list is longer than that piece of paper you have.” Twilight opened up her saddlebags and pulled out several more scrolls of parchment. “It's okay, I always carry spares.” Of course Twilight had packed extra scrolls and bottles of ink for her trip to a dangerous war zone. Speaking of which, I really needed to see about introducing Twilight to the wonderful human invention known as the ballpoint pen. It certainly beat the hell out of quills and bottles of ink when it came to convenience. So, Twilight really wanted the low-down on every single thing that was out to get me. Fine. “Sure, let's just go down the list of things that have tried to kill me. I can't go a year without something taking a serious shot at me. So first there was He Who Walks Behind...” Sanya frowned at the two of us. “I am wondering if it is wise to be having conversation about potential allies our enemies could be recruiting.” “To be honest, I’m not sure I’d mind having a couple of my other enemies showing up,” I growled. “Right now I've got all sorts of pent-up rage and no Discord or Nickleheads to blast in the face. I could use a good outlet, and all that anger should be useful for the first thing that comes up that I can set on fire.” The sound of a quill scratching across parchment yanked me out of that line of thought. Apparently Twilight was still playing amateur psychologist. “Deep-rooted ... anger ... issues...” Okay, I’d been willing to indulge her curiosity, but this was getting into slightly aggravating territory. “I do not need you psychoanalysing me right now.” “Refusal … to accept help … when offered...” Twilight continued making notes and muttering under her breath for a bit, until she looked up at me with a hint of her old mischievous smile on her face. “Hmm, no wonder you get along so well with Rainbow.” That comment earned chuckles from most of the ponies and humans in the area, and the wrath of a certain pegasus. “Hey! Not our fault Harry and I are so awesome we don’t need any of your psycho-babble stuff!” Unfortunately, Rainbow’s attempt to defend our mutual honor only prompted more laughter from the others. I threw a companionable arm over the hovering pegasus’ shoulders, only to hastily withdraw it when the unexpected weight threw her balance off. Despite the fact that it stemmed from my desire to express a little camaraderie, Dash still gave me an annoyed glower for almost knocking her out of the air. “It’s just you and me, Rainbow. Everyone else is against us.” That seemed to smooth over the damage I did by almost grounding her. “Yeah, saying we’re all out to get you is doing wonders for convincing me you’re not paranoid.” Seeing Twilight starting to get back to her old smartassed self was enough of a relief that I didn’t mind being out-snarked by her. Well, I didn’t mind it much. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to help a friend who needs their self confidence rebuilt. Pinkie Pie perked up and enthusiastically chirped. “Ooh, I have a song for that too! Do ya want me to sing it? It’s super-neat!” Lash shot a dry smile Pinkie’s way. “I am curious, little pony, is there any conceivable situation for which you do not have a suitable song?” Pinkie beamed at her. “Oh, I’ve got songs for just about everything! I’ve even got a ‘my mouth is full of delicious cake, but I can’t sing right now because then I’d spray cake all over everypony’ song! I’ve never had a chance to sing it though, and there are a couple other situations where my mouth is too busy doing other stuff to sing.” A wave of discomfort shot through my gut when I saw how Pinkie’s eyes lingered on Rainbow Dash when she said that. Okay, I really hope that giving the ponies souls hadn’t bumped up their sex drives on top of everything else. God knows I’ve got enough enemies as is without adding legions of soccer moms out to get me because I’d turned a couple cartoon characters into lesbians to the list. Heaven forbid kids start getting the crazy idea that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality. Lash seemed to have picked up on the same thing that I’d noticed. “That was much too suggestive a thing for a pony to say.” “She probably didn’t mean it that way,” I reassured Lash (and myself). “I mean, they don't even have the things they need to do ... things with.” Or at least, I was pretty sure they didn’t. Unless the soul-ifying process had changed that too. I certainly wasn’t about to lift one of their tails to check. Jenkins gave a philosophical little shrug. “Hey, Dinky had to come from somewhere.” Jenkins uncomfortably shuffled his feet as everyone turned to look at him. “What?” There was just a bit of defensiveness in his voice. “My little sister likes the show, that’s all.” I couldn’t resist smirking at him. Could he be any more obvious? Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he’d never asked us to introduce him to the other ponies. Almost like he already knew their names. “Yeah, sure. Your sister. That's why you were able to pull the name one of the obscure background ponies off the top of your head” Jenkins awkwardly cleared his throat and couldn’t quite meet any of our eyes. I went in for the kill. “For that matter, it hasn't been established where any of them come from. In fact, it’s technically against the Laws of Magic to know much about them now that I think about it.” Jenkins looked just a tiny bit panicked for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. “I'm not the one who broke the laws of magic to hang out with cartoon characters. Just saying.” “Hey, It was for a good cause!” I offered in my own defense. “We wouldn't have weaponized friendship to take Discord down with if it wasn't for my flagrant disregard for the rules. I sacrificed so much of my masculinity to get us to this point that I'll be lucky to still have my man card by the end of all this! Seriously, as soon as this is done I’m going to spend a month doing nothing but drinking beer and watching football games.” Lash shot an amused little smirk to Sanya. “I had missed the entertainment Harry’s antics provides whilst we were separated.” “Da,” Sanya agreed with an easygoing smile. “At least my life is not boring with Dresden around. I would tell you story of time I hunt down giant rat demon in sewers of New York, but it is boring tale. You would think it not be, chasing of demons can be very interesting, and New York sewers have great history. But no, this chase was most boring chase I have ever had.” Rarity stared at Sanya in abject horror and let out a dramatic gasp. “In the sewers, darling? Goodness, no wonder your clothes are in such an atrocious state! I simply must correct this! I must! I must!” Before the Russian could do anything to evade the horrified fashionista, a measuring tape and several fabric swatches were hovering around him. Sanya went along with Rarity’s attention with a bemused smile. “Can you do anything with kevlar? Tactical vest is very practical, but lacking in style.” “Kevlar? I’ve never heard of a material like that before...” Rarity trotted up to study Sanya’s tactical vest and give a few experimental pokes with her hooves. “Ooh, this material! Such longevity, such durability! Oh, the things I could make with this! Darling, you simply must tell me where I could secure of supply of this!” Sanya rapped a fist on his vest. “This material, I suppose you ponies do not have it. No need for it when you are not having to worry about guns. Maybe I help you get some of those too, if you want. Are very useful for times when demon is not wanting to come within reach of sword.” “NO!” Pretty much everyone jumped at Pinkie’s unexpected shout. After a couple second Pinkie let out a sheepish little chuckle and rubbed a hoof on the back of her head. “Sorry, it’s just that Littlepip is a friend of mine, and after I saw what guns did to Equestria there...” Jenkins was bouncing up and down like a kid on Christmas morning. “No way, you know Littlepip?! That’s awesome!” Everyone turned to look at Jenkins, until he realized that he’d undeniably just outed himself as a fan of a little girls’ cartoon. “Dammit...” Rainbow let out a single mocking laugh. “Bus-ted!” I swear, Jenkins was actually blushing slightly as he muttered something under his breath. Tempting as it was to join in on the mockery, there was a little something nagging at me. “Ok, now I know that was a reference I'm not understanding. What’s with the whole Littlepip thing? I remember running into some pony Pinkie called that when we were bouncing around in the Outside...” “It’s ... from a fanfic,” Jenkins confessed. That might’ve been a good answer if I had any idea what a fanfic was. Apparently my distinct lack of comprehension showed on my face, because Jenkins went on to explain. “You know, a fan-written story posted on the internet.” “So...” I couldn’t help smirking at him. “Not only do you watch a little girls’ cartoon, but you also read stories about cute little cartoon ponies. Man cred dropping ... dropping ... oh, there it goes.” Lash decided to do something slightly more productive than just mock Jenkins. “How were you able to read such a story?” She had a good point there--magic and technology generally don’t get along all that well. I could melt a cell phone at a hundred yards and kill a computer just by being in the same room with it, let alone actually trying to use it. “One of the perks of being a magical lightweight,” Jenkins answered with a grin. “A few precautions and a lot of preventative maintenance, and I can get along with most tech. Plus I can just print out stories or whatever I want to read on the web to reduce how much exposure I'm giving to my tech.” Huh. Well, I guess that figured. My apprentice Molly didn’t seem to be quite as bad at the whole killing technology thing as I was, and I always figured that was because she wasn’t the high-powered magic-slinger I was. Guess it figures that the weaker you are, the less your magic messes with tech. Kinda sucks when you need to throw some major mojo around though--personally I’d rather have the muscle to set the bad guys on fire than be able to mess around with a computer. On the other hand, being able to actually have a refrigerator instead of an old-fashioned icebox would’ve been a welcome improvement. Also, water heaters. Once the teenage hormones died down, having to take a cold shower every single day was a serious bummer. Maybe Jenkins wasn’t getting such a bad deal after all. I was about to comment on that fact when Pinkie Pie tackled me. With any other pony, being suddenly tackled without a moment’s notice might’ve surprised me. Since it was Pinkie, I mostly just felt a bit annoyed. That sense of aggravation disappeared when I noticed a fresh bullet hole in the wall, right about where my head had been before Pinkie tackled me. Thank Celestia for Pinkie Sense--I picked up a whole lot of goodies when I signed on as the Winter Knight, but catching a bullet in the brainpan was still very bad news. Hells bells, my temporary case of death had come courtesy of a sniper putting a single well-aimed round into me. I threw up a shield in time to stop the second bullet, but since the sniper taking potshots at us had decided to cheat by using stealth I had no real clue where he was shooting from. That made hitting back kind of problematic. Sure, I could hold up a shield that would stop any bullet cold, but that would just make the sniper move to other targets. Like the ponies--Pinkie and Twilight were covered by my shield, but that left five others exposed. I was expendable in the worst-case scenario, but we needed all six of the ponies ties to the Elements to take down Discord. Well, maybe we could try some kind of last-minute substitution game, but at that point we would basically be pulling a Hail Mary. The good news was that the rest of the humans had already sorted out their priorities. Lash and Jenkins both had shields up and were covering the other ponies as best they could, while Sanya busted open a nearby plate glass window belonging to a nice-looking restaurant. As soon as he’d gotten enough glass cleared away to make entering reasonably safe, he picked up a frozen-in-terror Fluttershy and rushed inside. Another bullet plinked off of Lash’s shield, and a third one went for Jenkins and dissolved into harmless powder the instant it hit his. Looks like Jenkins made his bullet-shields the same way Ramirez did; guess that figures, with what he’d said about not being a heavy-hitter. Sanya hastily moved the rest of the ponies out of the open and into cover. “Get down, little ponies! Alright, here is plan: first we--where is the blue pony with colorful mane?” Stars and stones, what had Rainbow gone and done this time? I was starting to seriously consider getting a leash for her. Then again, from what I’ve seen of her flying power, that would probably just result in me getting dragged along for the ride the next time she did something crazy and impulsive. I chanced a quick look out the shattered window and spotted a rainbow streak zooming along the rooftops. A second late she shouted loud enough for me to hear her all the way down at ground level. “Ya think you can hide from me?” She let out a battle cry and dive-bombed the roof of one of the nearby buildings. Huh. Looks like Rainbow’s impulsiveness was working out for us this time. I guess a pony who could fly at supersonic speeds would be pretty good at dealing with a couple rooftop snipers. Hell’s bells, she could probably outrun their bullets if she went all-out. Before we could get to celebrating Rainbow’s victory, the squeal of tires on concrete echoed down the streets as two plain black vans screeched to a halt in front of the restaurant we had holed up in. My well-developed sense of paranoia told me I needed to get back into cover and get a shield up fast. I’ve learned through lots of painful experience that listening to my wizard-sense is usually a good way to keep myself more-or-less in one piece. My wizard-sense was promptly vindicated when the side doors slid open on both vans and we were suddenly on the receiving end of a downright unhealthy amount of machine gun fire. Now that we were in cover, Lash and I were in a good enough position to keep everyone (and everypony) protected, but that did kind of leave us pinned down. I put my brain to work on coming up with a way to neutralize those machine guns. Fire and force were out if I didn’t want to risk breaking the First Law of Magic. Fire tends to react badly to a stockpile of gunpowder and bullets, and throwing the kind of raw force you’d need to bend and damage a steel machine gun is probably gonna do just as many nasty things to the person wielding it. Sure, as far as the Council was concerned I was already a borderline warlock just for doing what I needed to by going to the Outside on Mab’s orders, but that didn’t mean I should just go around breaking other Laws as I pleased. One unpleasant lesson I’ve learned over the years, the Laws are there for a reason. I’ve seen what happens to wizards who get in the habit of ignoring the Laws, and it isn’t pretty. The thing is, magic is a fundamental part of a wizard’s identity. I’ve got enough of a body count to leave my soul in pretty bad shape as it is; if I got into the habit of just casually killing other humans with magic, it could push me over the edge. Lucky for me, I’d picked up a couple new tricks from Mab. I waited until the fire slackened enough to give me a bit of opening, and then I made my move. “Hey assholes, Winter is coming! Arctis!” That left one of the machine guns covered in ice and inoperable for a while, but it also prompted the remaining machine gun to start focusing all its fire on me. I’m a good wizard, but blocking a couple dozens bullets every second still takes up a pretty big chunk of my concentration. However, now that all the bullets were headed my way, the pressure was off of everyone else: Sanya put a couple bursts from his AK-47 into the other van and Jenkins joined in with his pistol, but I couldn’t really tell how effective they were. Judging by the way I was still getting shot at it didn’t look like they were doing too great. It would be be just like Nicky to cheat and armor-up his kill-team vans. Sadly, Lash didn’t seem to have picked up any old-fashioned firepower yet. Not that I had much space to criticize her on that point when I hadn’t gotten around to picking up a new gun myself. In my defense, Arctis Tor doesn’t have any gun shops. Hell’s Bells, they don’t even have a Starbucks. Just to make things even better, I could see the cultists in the other van taking the machine gun I’d covered in ice off of its tripod and moving another one up to replace it. Dammit, why did Nicodemus have to make his cultists be competent, professional, and well-equipped instead of the traditional ragtag horde of screaming fanatics? You’d think a baddie who’d been around for over two thousand years would have a little more respect for tradition. If he could just get over the whole cutting-out-their-tongues thing, his cultists would be just about indistinguishable from any ordinary group of mercenaries or special forces, and that’s just wrong. Insane demon cultists should wear tattered robes, not kevlar. Just to top things off, a grenade came flying over my shield. Oh great, now they were using tactics too. Before I could start panicking, Derpy gave a quick flap of her wings, met the grenade in mid-air, and batted it back where it came from. “Here’s your ball back!” The grenade bounced into the van with the iced-up machine gun, and the two cultists manhandling the replacement gun onto the tripod had just enough time to look horrified before the grenade ripped them and the rest of the van around them to pieces. Derpy flinched at the explosion and hastily landed. “I didn’t do it!” she hastily blurted. “Good work, Derpy.” I was a little shaken up about having another one of the ponies pick up a body count, even if it had been purely by accident, but under the circumstances I couldn’t really complain. At least I could still be horrified that things had gotten to the point where ponies needed to kill. Seeing their buddies go kaboom seemed to give the pair of cultists hosing me down with bullets a pause, and Jenkins took advantage of the opening to chuck something into their van. For a second I wondered if he was carrying a grenade of his own, but what he threw didn’t look anything like a grenade and instead of a big explosion there was just a loud bang and a flash of light bright enough to leave spots in my eyes. Considering I was a good fifty feet away from Jenkins’ little magical flashbang and it still kinda got me, I didn’t envy the cultists. Before the two baddies could begin to recover from being flashbanged, a bright blue aura sprang up around the machine gun and whirled it around to face its former wielders. They might have been wearing kevlar, but there aren’t any bullet-proof vests on the market that can stand up to a couple dozen .50 caliber rounds in the span of a few seconds. My old heavily enchanted leather duster had barely managed to stop a single .50 caliber round, and the hit still left me hurting. I shot a rather stunned look back at Rarity. Derpy accidentally blowing up a couple baddies was one thing, but Rarity had known exactly what she was doing when she took control of that machine gun. For her part, Rarity was staring at the mangled corpses of the cultists in open-mouthed horror, and her eyes watered with unshed tears. That lasted until we heard the sound of gunfire in the distance, probably some of the baddies taking potshots at Rainbow. That seemed to snap her out of it, and she gave a quick shake of her head. “I shall do what I must to protect my friends.” Her voice quivered at the word 'must' but her expression never wavered. So now I was seeing the ponies deliberately killing people. They were making some disturbingly fast progress in the death and mayhem department. Still, if the alternative was letting the baddies take us down... I took a quick look back to make sure everyone was still more-or-less intact. The good news was that I didn’t see any bullet holes in any of the humans or ponies. The slightly-less-good news was that Sanya and Applejack were nowhere to be seen. My ears were still ringing a bit from all the gunfire, but after a couple seconds I heard the sound of a struggle going on in the kitchen behind us, along with Applejack’s distinct country twang. I kicked open the double-doors to find Applejack and Sanya fighting back-to-back against what was left of a small squad of Nicky’s goons. Geeze, they’d actually been trying to flank us on top of everything else? Nicky's minions are way too intelligent to be proper goons. I swear, if they were any smarter they wouldn’t be working as cannon fodder for an omnicidal evil overlord. Then again, they couldn’t be that smart if they were getting their asses kicked by a cute little four-foot-tall cartoon pony. I walked in just in time to see Applejack plant her forehooves and buck one of the baddies hard enough to send him flying back like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. He didn’t get back up after that hit, so he was either unconscious or smart. Then again, the fact that Sanya promptly put a couple bullets in him to keep him from getting back up kinda ruled out smart. I decided to help them take down what was left of the flanking force with a couple quick spells. A couple cries of ‘Arctis’ later, the remaining cultists weren’t exactly capable of offering much resistance. “Looks like those guys have just been ... put on ice.” Sanya smirked at me. “I think you are enjoying these ice puns more than you should.” “What can I say, the ponies were a bad influence on me. Seriously, they’ve got cities named Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Canterlot. It’s a punster’s paradise.” Spending so much time in the land of pony puns was probably a contributing factor in my decision to start making like Mister Freeze. I should probably be grateful I hadn’t spent enough time around them to start adding words like ‘everypony’ to my vocabulary. I couldn’t spend too much time celebrating that victory though, since there was more gunfire coming from the front. Guess the baddies must have brought some reinforcements in. I felt kinda bad for whoever actually owned this restaurant. I hope their insurance policy covers fights between a group of demon cultists and a rag-tag alliance of wizards, cartoon ponies, and an agnostic paladin. I quickly rushed back into the main room, which was looking like a low-level warzone. Lash had a shield up and was working on defense, while Jenkins was alternating between taking shots with his pistol and chucking some more little odds and ends out of his pouches. Pinkie had deployed the Party Cannon and, to my ongoing discomfort, Rarity had also picked up an assault rifle from one of the downed cultists. One of the baddies managed to get into cover, but Jenkins pulled a knife and tossed it right at the guy. I was a little skeptical about how effective that would be until the knife curved around the wall the cultist was using for cover and buried itself in his skull a little too effectively for a vanilla, human throw. Huh, so he’d enchanted his throwing knives. That was a smart way of doing things. It’s a bit of a grey area with the First Law, but technically the sharp chunk of steel was still doing the killing--magic was just kinda helping it along. “Arctis!” The floor turned to ice right in front of a pair of charging cultists, sending them both sliding to the ground. “Stay frosty, guys.” I was relieved when Jenkins finished them off instead of one of the ponies. At least I hadn’t ruined them that much. Between the five combatants here, it looked like we had things under control.  In hindsight, I really should’ve known better than to think that. One of the cultists managed to slip around Lash’s shield long enough to get a couple shots off. The good news that I put up a shield of my own before he pulled the trigger. The bad news was that he wasn’t aiming at me. My stomach dropped out from underneath me when I heard Fluttershy scream in pain. Rarity riddled the guy with bullets an instant later, but the damage had already been done. I chanced a look back to see how badly Fluttershy had been hit. I couldn’t tell how bad it was, but she had both hooves over the right side of her face trying to stem the flow of blood. Oh god, please let her be alright. I couldn’t lose one of them. I was about to turn on the cultists and unleash a helping of righteous wrath when the building started shaking and I felt a mildly terrifying amount of magical energy building up. I shot a look at the source to see Twilight Sparkle trembling in fury. Her eyes were blank white voids, and her horn was glowing almost painfully bright. “Nopony hurts my friends.” An instant later, all the remaining cultists disappeared in a twinkle of purple light. For a few seconds, none of us moved a muscle. I was still locked in place, half-crouched with my shield bracelet at the ready, ready to kick it back up the second I heard gunfire. Sanya and Rarity both had their backs velcroed to the wall as they reloaded, while Derpy cautiously poked her head up over the top of the middle counter. A blur dove in through the shattered window, scaring me shitless and bringing every weapon or spell to bear in an instant. I heard an angry click as someone’s weapon malfunctioned, and Rarity let loose with a string of panicked words which I doubted would be permitted on any normal kids’ show. Fortunately for her--and our intruder--it was Rainbow Dash that had made the insertion. “Dude, it just got crazy quiet out there. What happened?” She saw Jenkins break cover to kneel next to a very, very still yellow figure. “What happened?!” She shrieked. Lash, Pinkie, Derpy, and Twilight kept the entrance covered while Jenkins and Rarity moved to take care of Fluttershy and Rainbow hovered over them anxiously. I was technically supposed to be covering the entrance too, but it was kinda hard to stay focused on that when most of my brain was busy panicking over whether or not we’d just lost the sweetest pony I’d ever known. It was probably a good thing Lash was on door duty with us, because I’m pretty sure Twilight and Pinkie were just as distracted as I was. After a minute of coaxing from Rarity, Fluttershy finally moved her hooves enough for the rest of us to get a look at how bad her injury was. To my immense relief, it was just a flesh wound: the bullet had just grazed one of her cheeks deep enough to bleed a lot, but not bad enough to do real damage. It could’ve been a lot worse--thinking I’d lost Rainbow Dash had caused more than enough pain for me. “Everypony else okay?” Shit, too late. My vocabulary has been infected by ponydom. The ponies and I were being co-bad influences on each other. The rest of the ponies slowly nodded, and I let out a relieved breath. That could have gone a lot worse. Lash turned to Twilight with a slight frown on her face. “Twilight, what happened to those cultists?” “Oh, I sent them to the moon,” Twilight answered with shocking casualness. “I picked up the spell after what happened when Cel ... when I was sent to the moon.” Lash, Jenkins, and I all stared at Twilight in horror. Seriously, she could do that? Just ... teleport a couple dozen people to the moon? That was ... wow. Twilight seemed to have picked up on how shocked and horrified we were. “I only sent them there for a couple days!” She offered in her own defense. “I just wanted to give them a chance to think things over and realize that what they were doing was wrong.” Oh ... oh man. I guess Twilight wouldn’t know that our moon worked a little differently from the one back in Equestria. I needed to break that bit of news to her, but I wasn’t quite sure how to let her know that all the people she’d zapped to the moon were very dead. That’s not exactly the kind of news that easy to break to someone. Lash cleared her throat to catch the unicorn’s attention. “Twilight Sparkle: the moon in this reality has no atmosphere to speak of. You have sent our opponents to a cold vacuum.” Twilight gave a sharp shake of her head and let out a nervous little chuckle. “Nonono, I--I've been to the moon, it doesn't work like that. You just don't know how your own moon works, you must not have studied it enough. Look, I'll bring one of them back, and you'll see I'm right.” Twilight’s horn flashed, and next thing we knew one of the cultists was back. I was a bit relieved to discover that apparently all those science fiction B-movies had lied to me--people didn’t explode when they went out into space unprotected. He was still pretty indisputably corpsey though. Twlight fell onto her haunches in shock. “N--no, w--what have I...” I stepped up and gave her what I hoped was a comforting little pat on the shoulder. “First kill's always the hardest.” Twilight turned her head away from the body and emptied the contents of her stomach onto my shoes. “Eeyup ... always the hardest ...” Fluttershy, now sporting a bandage on her face, quickly flew up and wrapped Twilight in a hug. The unicorn sniffled into her friend’s shoulder. “I-I-I d-didn't... That wasn't - it wasn't supposed to happen that way. I didn't mean to...” Rarity set her gun down and trotted up to put a comforting hoof on Twilight's back. Honestly, Rarity was looking just about as shaky as Twilight was, but I guess it figured that the pony who picked up the Element of Generosity would hold off on her breakdown while one of her friends needed her. “Darling, you did what you did to protect your friends. I would much rather see them d--dead than allow my friends to be harmed in their place.” Now that it was reasonably clear we didn’t need to worry about any more cultist attacks or other unpleasant surprises in the immediate future, the rest of the ponies gathered round to offer Twilight some comfort. A part of me wanted to join in, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that. After all, I’d brought them here and put them in a situation where they’d needed to use lethal force to defend themselves. Hell’s Bells, from what I could tell of how the fight had gone down, Fluttershy--and possibly Pinkie and Rainbow Dash--were the only ponies who hadn’t racked up some kind of body count. Still, having a look at what Twilight was capable of when she went all out was just a little intimidating. Suddenly I was very happy that we had all dodged the possibility of fighting a Twinarian. Sure, Pinkie could be scary with the reality warping and cartoon silliness, but zapping people into outer space was the kind of stuff that would have made a lot of the baddies on my end of the gates shit their pants in terror. Even the big heavy hitters kinda needed to have a breathable atmosphere. I certainly didn’t have any tricks up my sleeve to get me out of being teleported to the moon, and I hadn’t heard of anyone else coming up with a counter for that either. This is what it must have felt like for my friends and allies to see me in action. Hell's Bell's, she was on my side, and I was just a little scared of what she could do. It was a little intimidating to know that she could take me down with a single spell and there was nothing I could really do to stop her. I made a mental note to look into coming up with some kind of anti-teleportation magic. I definitely didn’t want to find out that some other big nasty could pull that particular trick on me. There are all kinds of unpleasant tricks you can pull on someone when you have the ability to teleport them around.   I used to respect Twilight Sparkle. She was smart, capable, a natural born leader, and impressively talented with magic. But after what I had just seen, I didn’t respect her anymore. No, respect was a term I used for people like Karrin Murphy, a tough ex-cop with top marks in shooting and enough martial arts training to turn a guy like me into a pretzel. Carlos Ramirez, a fellow Warden who had jumped into the fire with me to get into some of the nastiest fights I had ever been in. Michael Carpenter, a former Knight of the Cross, and a man who I had called the Fist of God. They were people I would have gladly stood back to back with in any fight, and trust with my life. Hell’s Bells, it was a term I would have used for all the cute, candy colored equines with me now—except one.   I didn’t respect Twilight Sparkle anymore, no, I feared her. You see, fear is another category I also organized people under. I feared things that I don’t stand a very good chance of going toe-to-toe with and walking away. I’m kinda funny in that I like to live, despite what my habit of jumping head-first into mortal peril might indicate. I fear people like the senior members of the White Council because any one of them could turn a dumb muscle wizard like me inside out. I feared big nasties like He Who Walks Behind and the Skinwalker considering there was a very good chance I would end up as a bloody smear if I went up against them in a straight up fight. I sure as hell feared beings like Mab, Titania, and Celestia, who could kill me with pretty much contemptible ease. This was the company I now put Twilight with.   After what she had just shown me? Yeah, I was more than a little terrified of her. Twilight had used magic to kill. Sure, she hadn’t meant to, but that only counts for so much. Now that I’d gone and souled her up, she needed to worry about little things like having that soul corrupted. The thing about killing is, it starts getting easier after a while. I would know. I didn’t like the idea that this cute little innocent pony had just taken the first step on the path to the Dark Side. Especially since I’d been the one to nudge her down that path. I was now faced with the fact I may have been responsible for unleashing something very scary on the world. I was possibly in the middle of something a lot of people were going to regret. By giving Twilight a soul and then motivating her with a caustic sentiment like revenge ... God forgive me if I was taking a sweet, smart, and funny unicorn librarian and turning her into a monster as terrible as anything I had ever encountered--because I wouldn’t be able to. Still, that was a worry for the future. What Twilight might become in the future wouldn’t matter one bit if we all ended up dead today. Besides, she still seemed to have her moral compass more or less working. Heck, she was taking it a lot harder than ponies like Rarity and Derpy had taken their kills. Sure, I might have pushed the idea of using revenge as a coping mechanism on Twilight, but she was still clearly horrified by the idea that she had taken a life. She was going to be okay. Well, as okay as anyone gets after all the hell these ponies were going through. The worst part was we weren’t even close to done yet. This was just the opening skirmish with some of Nicky’s cultists; there were going to be more fights before it was all over, and probably against much worse than normal humans. Hell, if that one cultist had slightly better aim we would’ve lost Fluttershy. I just hope that when it’s over all the ponies can go back home.