The sounds of a scuffle were audible from within the jail. The three members of the CMC looked at each other and ceased their barrage upon the hapless guard dog whining pathetically on the floor.
“Do you think he escaped?” Sweetie innocently asked.
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo sighed softly.
“I think there’s been a change of plan.” Lyra gave the little unicorn a hug and a sad smile. “Here, why don’t I play a song for you?”
A soft melody wafted through the jail once again.
. . .
“Bluebell?” Spike snorted derisively.
“That’s Prince Blueblood!” The stallion screamed. “I demand to be addressed by my proper title!”
The prince was not as Spike remembered him from his days in Celestia’s palace. He hadn’t often seen the royal unicorn when he ran around performing tasks for Twilight, but he had had the time to chat with his friends among the servants and guards. Bluebell was one of the kinder nicknames that they had given the ‘Royal Pain’ due to his constant preening. Some of the other nicknames he was given weren’t as kind. However his usually well kept mane looked dull and messy, several loose strands lying across his face, and there were several small stains on his face of different colours, which Spike could’ve sworn smelt like old icing. Upon closer examination, his right eye had slight tic, and both eyes looked fairly blood shot. Was this really the same stallion that had been voted Canterlot’s Most Attractive Stallion for five years running? Spike had read in one of Rarity’s discarded gossip rags that he hadn’t often been seen in public since the Grand Galloping Gala, aside from a few appearances where he’d been described as outshining all those who stood around him, so what was with his .
“So” the Prince continued. “You’re the little pest who’s been sneaking around here, hmm? Do you think you can stop me?”
“You, Prince Blueblood, have been taking ponies from their homes and forced them into slavery! Anyone with any kind of decency would want to stop you! Princess Celestia would be horrified to see this!”
“Wait, you know Aunty?”
“Of course I do, I spent over half my life in the palace.”
Blueblood tilted his head at that. “Do I know you?”
“No, but only because you don’t care about anyone but yourself. Look at the harm you’re causing to these ponies! Think of the lives you’ve destroyed!”
Blueblood’s face fell a little. “I didn’t want to have to force ponies to aid me, but I needed assistance to create a newer, better Equestria.”
“With Diamond Dogs?”
“Yes, well, these mongrels were all that I managed to find after I ran from Canterlot. I promised them I would help get them more gemstones than they had ever seen before, and I knew just the way to do it. I would help lure them unicorns from the nearby towns and villages, and they would put them to work in the mines. Of course this process was a little slow, so eventually I gave them leave to take ponies by force. This was the only way I could help fix the problems of the land.” He cast his cloak to the ground. Despite his dishevelled appearance, he still stood as tall as ever, with such a commanding figure that the guard dogs in the room shrunk down slightly.
“Problems? What problems?”
Blueblood blinked. “You want me to tell you my plan? Well, it will not hurt to explain it. You may even join me. Unlike these dogs, you appear to have an inkling of intelligence, so listen well, little dragon.”
. . .
“Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie cried out in horror, tackling her out of the thing’s grip.
“What the hay was that thing?” Dash yelled, getting back onto her hooves and helping her saviour up.
“I don’t know!” Twilight called out in distress. “Fluttershy?”
“I- I don’t know either, it mustn’t belong around this area” she squeaked.
“It must be the thing that took the ponies!” Applejack charged in with her rope and tried to lasso the wayward appendage. The rope found its mark, but the creature was too strong to be subdued by one pony, even one as strong as AJ. The farm girl soon found herself hanging on to the rope for dear life as she was jerked towards a giant pile of debris and filth, the origin point of the tentacle. Looking up at the tentacle she was tied to, she spotted several strange dots on its. Two of them opened, showing eyes gazing deeply into her soul. Applejack let go of the rope with a shriek of terror, the foul stench of the creature making her eyes water, and she fell quickly to the floor, luckily being caught by Twilight’s magic. “It’s got eyes! That thing’s got eyes on its tail!”
A gaping maw rose out of the pile of trash and roared, the overpowering stink of it stunning all the ponies for a moment. Over four pony heights tall, and five wide, it was the same colour as the scraps of garbage that rattled off its side, and its skin looked slimy and mottled. Two more tentacles popped out from either side of its body, joining the first, but lacking the eyes and nostrils of the original. Instead, their ends were sharp and spiked; the better to injure its prey. The monster looked around and opened its mouth wide again, in eager anticipation of its next meal, its breath causing those nearest it to shudder.
It was a truly horrific aberration. All the ponies were frozen in place save for one.
“YOU! I’LL BE WASHING THAT SMELL OUT OF MY MANE FOR WEEKS BECAUSE OF YOU” Rarity charged the monster from the side, screaming in the most unladylike manner, peppering it with little bits of rubbish thrown with her telekinesis before turning around and lashing out at it with a mighty buck, one that even Applejack would’ve been proud of.
The creature didn’t even seem to notice.
With almost uncaring slowness, the creature turned to face her. Rarity quivered in fear, wondering if her rash action would cost her more than she bargained for. Before the creature could snatch her up, a pink blur rushed by and knocked her out of the way.
“Honestly, what’s with me pulling rescue detail today?” Pinkie smiled down at Rarity and held out a hoof to help her up before she suddenly started shaking. “Wow! That’s a new one… achy hooves, shivering shoulders and an eye flutter? I wonder what that one means.” She smiled back down at Rarity again, only to see Rarity’s wide eyed look of fear. Pinkie quickly bent down and picked up a small sign from the ground, writing down one word.
“Uh-oh.”
. . .
Blueblood took a deep breath and assumed a thoughtful stance. Spike groaned. Was he really going to go into a full on evil monologue?
“As you may have heard, my untarnished reputation has suffered somewhat of a mishap of late. In order to regain my noble status, I seek to remove that which has… blemished my pony. My lust for justice was frowned upon by Aunty Celly, so I departed the castle in order to improve the lives of Equestrians everywhere.”
Oh dear Luna, he is monologuing. Spike rolled his eyes. Maybe he could slip out somehow while the Prince was busy wrapped in his own thoughts.
“Before I left Canterlot, I met a pair of brothers who had the most wondrous inventions. I told them of my troubles, and they told me they had just the thing I needed to solve my problems. Although it cost me most of my bits, they sold me a set of blueprints to a wondrous device that they assured me would permanently rid me of all my problems. All I need to do is make the device and let it do the work for me. All I have to do is put it near the object of my loathing and it will make it disappear forevermore. But there was a catch. The device requires a large quantity of gems, and strong magicks to enchant them. Whilst I might possess the mental strength and skill to wield such arcane energies, I found that the amount of gems necessary for the device was quite large. Far more than my now rather meagre finances could afford. So I set out to find the creatures most well known for their hordes of gemstones!” Blueblood appeared to think that he was performing for a crowd of thousands, posing and strutting about.
“But… unfortunately I didn’t know the locations of any nearby dragon dens, and I doubt even I could best a fully grown dragon and steal his hoard. You wouldn’t happen to have a den of jewels, would you?” Spike shook his head.
“Pity. Where was I? Ah yes, dragon dens. So I sought out the next most well known creatures instead. The Diamond Dogs. They have a precious stone in their name, so I believed that they of all creatures would have the vast number of gems I needed to make the device. Unfortunately” Blueblood glared at the flea-ridden guards in the room, “this pack seemed to be facing difficulties lately too, and I, being the caring individual that I am, asked them for the reason for their misfortunes. We discovered that we have a common enemy, but I shall come back to that later. Actually, no. Let’s talk about her now. That white unicorn with the violet mane. She is the cause of my downfall. And after I’ve dealt with Equestria’s problem, I believe I shall do a little problem solving of my own.”
. . .
Even with Pinkie reflexes, the creature managed to grab her with its main tentacle and pick her up high into the air. With a speed that defied its bulk, it sunk its rows of fangs into the pink pony, but before it could bite down hard, it was hit in its side by a charging Twilight Sparkle and Applejack. The creature growled, dropping its meal, who was swiftly caught by Rainbow Dash, in a well coordinated, yet silent attack. Rainbow checked over her friend, and aside from a few small gashes where the teeth had cut into her, Pinkie appeared fine.
“Fluttershy! Take care of her!” Rainbow laid Pinkie down next to the shy Pegasus and flew back into the fray.
“I don’t know why she’s so worried Flutters” Pinkie said weakly. “I’m great. Never been better. Is it just me, or is it a little hot in here?” Pinkie closed her eyes slowly, looking a lot weaker than usual, although her wounds weren’t bleeding.
Fluttershy laid a hoof on her friend’s forehead. She felt like she was burning up from within, as if she were gripped in the thralls of a high fever. Fluttershy pulled Pinkie to the side of the cave, trying to take care of her as well as she could in the grimy location.
“Oof!” Applejack and Twilight were knocked over by the sweep on one of the creature’s aggressive limbs. Rainbow started dive bombing the monster, trying to corral its ability to lash out at them, Rarity continuing to cover them by hurtling small objects into its mouth and ‘face’. In spite of the resistance the girls were putting up, the creature was heedless, reaching out for the two ponies on the ground closest to it. AJ managed to roll out of the way, and behind some mounds of garbage, but Twilight was scooped up by it. She shrieked, her vision filled with teeth and saliva. She closed her eyes and prayed to Celestia for salvation, before suddenly, her hooves were firmly on the ground again, a blue aura surrounding her. She spotted Rarity sweating with the strain out of the corner of her eye. As the beast reached out for her again, an expertly aimed apple hit it right in one of the eyes on its tentacle.
“That’s right big an’ ugly, step away from the unicorn!” AJ dropped down her saddlebags and stood her ground, wanting to make up for her earlier moment of weakness.
The monstrosity turned slightly and bellowed at her, swiping again with a spiked appendage. Prepared this time, Applejack leapt from pile to pile of rubbish, with her famed athleticism, but already Twilight saw that it was in vain. For all her and her friends’ abilities, they couldn’t hope to subdue the horror that beset them, and no way to find the missing citizens of Ponyville. She was too tired to muster a single spell right now, and couldn’t concentrate at all with the unnatural stench of decay the creature seemed to emanate. Applejack landed heavily near her with a groan, and struggled to her hooves again.
“We have to get out of here! There’s no way we can get past this thing, even if the missing ponies are here!” Twilight called to her friends, trying to get their attention over the din.
“C’mon! We can take him!” Rainbow Dash shouted, flying over Twilight’s head to try again, before being grabbed by the tail by AJ, who dragged her bodily from the cave. “Let me go!”
Rarity stood in the entrance to the cavern, her horn lit up brightly to guide them. “Girls! Come on!”
Fluttershy looked up at them from the far side of the cavern with a sinking feeling. There was no way she’d be able to get Pinkie out past the beast safely, even with the help of the others. There was only one solution. The Pegasus raised her voice, and very peacefully said “I’m staying with Pinkie. I know you’ll come back for us.” She ignored the horrified looks of Rarity, Applejack and Twilight, and Rainbow’s howl of despair at the thought of her oldest friend and her best friend being left in harm’s way. The others had no choice but to get out, the bulk of the beast and its lashing tentacles blocking off the sight of their timid friend.
Utterly defeated, Twilight turned to her friends. She felt like crying, but knew she had to hold it in, if only to encourage the others. “We have to get back to the library. Maybe I can find a book on how to defeat this creature, and then we can save Pinkie and Fluttershy.”
“I can’t believe you’re even suggesting that!”
“We don’t have a choice!” Twilight almost screamed. “If we go back in there, we’ll be as trapped as they are, and then who’s going to save anypony then?”
Rainbow grumbled, but agreed with this logic, although she refused to admit it. The battered four ponies headed back to Ponyville as fast as they could.
. . .
Fluttershy felt a strange sense of calm as her friends got away, the creature still roaring after them. She could do this. She could protect Pinkie until they got back. She just needed to be silent. More silent than Mr Mousey at the dead of night. She could do this. It was just like playing a game of ‘Shh’. Except her challenger was very scary. And the stakes were much higher. Much, much higher.
. . .
Spike’s voice was cold, colder than the young dragon had ever talked to anypony. “You… you’re going to hurt Rarity?”
Blueblood waved his hoof dismissively “Was that her name? She probably told it to me, but all I remember about that harlot was how she ruined my reputation and looks at the Grand Galloping Gala and stole my place of honour at the launching of the HHAS Harmony. You could tell what she wanted from me though. No different to the countless mares I’ve met in Canterlot. But she is the one who ruined me. If it wasn’t for her, I would still be regal, respected!” Blueblood finally started to show some real anger. “Thank you for giving me a name, so I know who I can ‘repay’ this gift to.”
Something inside Spike snapped. Nopony threatened his friends. Especially not Rarity. He charged at Blueblood, trying to inflict whatever damage he could upon the noble upstart to protect his friends. Without even looking Blueblood telekinetically threw him into a wall. Spike groaned, feeling his scales bend with the impact. He looked down at his injuries, and was shocked to discover that he didn’t actually feel them, and saw little flickers of blue energy ran over his rent scales, fixing them as good as new. He looked a little confused at this new development. Blueblood didn’t notice, still in mid monologue.
“So, as I was saying, after I finish solving the problem that threatens all life in Equestria, I shall find this… Miss Rarity, and take my vengeance. Before I can tell you how I shall this menace, I must ask you something.” Blueblood looked up at his audience. “Will you join me?” His face fell. The little dragon who’d proven to be such a good audience had disappeared. That wasn't very polite at all.
Spike kept running. He had to do something, find somepony that could help him. He hoped he could get far enough away before that buffoon realized he’d gone.
A petulant voice called out. “Come back! You didn’t even let me get to the best part! Dragons...”
. . .
“I still can’t believe we left them there” Dash muttered angrily as she stomped around the library.
“Rainbow, please, none of us wanted to leave them there…” Rarity pleaded to her unhearing friend.
Dash turned on them. “What kind of friends are we if we just leave each other behind at the first sign of trouble?
“You know we had no choice Rainbow. If we hadn’t left when we did, we’d be stuck there with them still, or worse, dead.” Applejack replied, scowling. “Do you think we would willingly leave Fluttershy and Pinkie behind unless there was no other choice?”
“Everypony quiet!!!” Twilight snapped. “If you would all shut up for just one minute, I can find out what that thing was and how to save them.” She looked back down at her aging tome, flipping through its dusty pages, her eyes moving so fast they were almost blurring. “No no no! Where is it?” she muttered to herself.
Applejack whispered to Rarity. “What book did she ask you to grab?”
“Some dusty old thing, I think it was called the ‘Monstrous Compendium of Equestria, 4th Edition’ or something like that”
“Shouldn’t Spike be here to help?” added Dash, still angry with the situation. “This is what he’s good for after all.”
“He’s probably still looking after the foals -”
“AHA! I knew I’d read about something like that before!”
“So what was that thing?” Dash flew up into Twilight’s face, demanding an answer, before she was suddenly yanked back to the ground by her tail.
Applejack spat out Dash’s tail. “Settle down Rainbow, Twi will talk in her own time, go on sugahcube?”
Twilight looked pained “According to my books, that thing was an Otyugh.”
“A what?” “Come again now?” “What in Equestria is that?” The other ponies replied, filled with confusion.
“An Otyugh. It’s a terrifying creature that lives in filthy places like dank caves or sewers. They’re supposedly very rare in Equestria, only living in areas like dark swamps or caves…”
“Enough about their background! What did that thing do to Pinkie and Fluttershy?”
“It’s said that its mouth is filled with germ that can cause a dangerous fever in ponies and other animals, paralysing them for several days unless they are given the proper treatment. They also live off a diet of filth and…” Twilight gulped, before squeaking “meat.”
The other ponies jaws collectively dropped, Rarity recovered first. “No! I refuse to believe it. They cannot have been eaten by that … thing!”
“They won’t have… yet. The book says that Otyughs leave their prey in the filth of their home for several days before they…” She snapped the book shut. “We should hurry. It says that there’s a potion that can puts an Otyugh to sleep for 10 years. All we need is a powdered ruby, the sap of a twenty year old apple tree, pure liquid rainbow and the essence of poison joke.” Twilight looked around the room at her friends’ resolute faces. “I think we all know what we have to get. I don’t have to tell you what’s at stake here, so get the things, and meet back here. Everypony clear? Let’s go.”
. . .
As Spike ran through the tunnels, the howling of dogs behind him, he stumbled across the tunnel he had fallen down earlier. A small piece of parchment lay on the ground, and he scooped it up. Despite the peril he was in, he felt compelled to read it. Luckily for him, as the number one assistant to Twilight Sparkle, librarian extraordinaire and egghead to boot, he’d learnt a few tricks when it came to speed reading small documents. The note was a message written in Twilight’s familiar scrawl, with a small sketch of a gem with a medical styled cross emblazoned on top of it.
Dear Rarity,
I’ve been doing a few more experiments with the gems, and this technology is highly unstable. Although it can be used to heal ponies, or power objects, having too many gemstones charged with magic could prove disastrous, causing a calamity of catastrophic capacity! I’m not too sure how many other ponies know about this now, Princess Celestia passed some of my research to her magicians and well, word could get out pretty fast. So whatever you do, don’t keep the enchanted gems too close to each other, we don’t know what could happen!
A smaller addendum lay underneath the first message, written in a much more elegant manner.
Dear Fluttershy,
Twilight and I discovered several new spells we could store in gem stones, and I thought this one may be of some use to you and your animal friends. All you need to do is rest it against their injuries and their wounds would heal. Do take heed of Twilight’s letter though, it wouldn’t do to find my gift to you accidentally destroyed your cottage.
R.
Spike’s mind raced with the logic the small note implied. He knew Twilight and Rarity had been working together a lot lately on a special project, but he’d been asked to not get involved in it at the time. They probably didn’t want him to accidentally eat some of the enchanted gems. Wait a minute, he thought, that was how he must’ve been revived earlier by Angel. Although, judging from what he remembered, Angel most likely shoved the gem down his throat rather than applied it to his wounds. That meant that a pure lump of concentrated magical energy was inside his stomach. And with what the note said later… d-did that mean if he got too close to another enchanted gemstone he would explode? And what would happen if he got too close to a bunch of enchanted gemstones? He shuddered at the thought and started sprinting again as fast as he could. If the wrong hooves abused Twilight’s discovery, horrible things could happen.
Spike stopped dead in his tracks.
Was Blueblood going to destroy his home?