//------------------------------// // 30 - The Beastmaster's Cottage // Story: Re:Harmony // by starcross7 //------------------------------// Chapter 30 - The Beastmaster's Cottage   Everypony dreaded a summons from the Honorable Chancellor Posey.  At the same token, everypony dreaded her sudden arrival.   With Rock Prison fully contained and secured, the Chancellor's flagship touched at a specially prepared landing strip in one hazy autumn afternoon.  In their best threads, President-Advisers Teddy and Ace stood in front of loyal prison guards and soulless Clone Soldiers as the airship ramp lowered, bringing out the red carpet arrival of Chancellor Posey, who was flanked by two hooded ponies and President-Adviser Ace.  Her neutral expression made it hard to tell if she was truly furious at the near-complete destruction or Rock Prison.  Instead, Lancer exerted her fury for her, and he pointed his blaming gaze upon Teddy and Ace.   According to the briefing, more than half of the guards defected and deserted, and out of that half, half them were captured and interred in special prison camps.  Staff was reported missing, and only half of the prisoners that made their attempted escape during the riot had been recaptured.  The walls of prison were still torn down, but construction crews had already arrived to lay out the new foundation.  The fire that scorched one of the prison wings had just recently been put out.   "We offer our sincerest apologies, Honorable Chancellor," bowed Teddy.  "We have allowed a criminal pony to cause the most destructive riot under our careful watch.  There is simply no excuse we can offer."   "There is an excuse," said Ace.  "An incompetent Warden and a strong-headed Lieutenant Warden are to blame.  Do we look like prison staff?"   "Watch what you say, Ace," said Lancer.  "Even if the prison was not under your direct jurisdiction, it is still your duty to report any issues with its operational performance.   "At least I didn't sneak out with the Chancellor's daughter and her governess."   "What did you say?"   "Mister Lancer, calm yourself," spoke Posey.  "What's done is done, and you have already served your punishment."   "If you call that a punishment," Ace muttered under his breath.   "My trusted President-Advisers, I want you all to coordinate with each other to plan the restoration of Rock Prison until our meeting with Mister Filthy first thing tomorrow morning."   "Filthy Rich?" said Ace. "I thought he was arriving today?"   "Unfortunately, his train had ran into some problems in the forest, and he and his daughter are recovering in the Ponyville Slums.  Trixie, Gizmo, come with me please."   The two hooded ponies beside Posey followed her to the scattered rubble of Rock Prison's once-mighty walls.  Gizmo's cybernetic eye scanned the damage, while Trixie's horn glowed red after a brief magical sweep.   "The unicorn was here," said the hooded Trixie.  "Her and her friends went into the forest."   "I could have told her that," said Gizmo as his mechanical eye whirred.  "Chancellor, I don't see the need to bring her along.  Besides, I think it's too soon to let her walk after her, ahem, 'operation'."   "Trixie has emerged victorious over her dominance of the Alicorn Amulet.  With this power, she shall have revenge against the unicorn who had wronged her!"   "I cannot take any chances at this stage," said Posey.  "Pegasopolis's Chaos Bomb is at seventy-five percent completion, and I need to consider all my options if we are to win the war against the abominable winged menace."   "Are you giving up searching for the Elements, Lady Chancellor?" asked Gizmo.   "While the Elements would be essential to turn the tides of war, I do not consider them an absolute necessity.  I do, however, want to make sure that they are not used against our motherland.  Retrieve them if you can, but if you are unable to, destroy them and their wielders.  You have your orders, my little ponies."   "Lady Chancellor, my roboponies will root out the traitors and the unicorn, even if we have to burn the forest down."   "What boasting," said Trixie.  "Even without the Alicorn Amulet, a single unicorn can wipe out Posey's enemies."   "We'll see, unicorn."   Whilst the cybernetic pony and the unicorn stared down at one another, a fluttering insect floated before Posey's eyes.  As much as she wanted to chomp at it and crush it under her molars, she did not act upon her hatred and anger.  The tense silence she exerted was enough for Gizmo and Trixie to break their stare down.   "Your Chancellorship," said Gizmo, "is there something wrong?"   "A Midnight Butterfly," said Posey.  "In the middle of the day.  An ill omen."       Boom!   Another explosive trap tripped.  Applejack barely avoided the full brunt of the blast in her duel against Ingrid, who kept on preventing Applejack from summoning her Sword of Truth.  The rebel mare could only hope that her friends were faring a little better.  She previously remembered Ingrid separating her from her friends by swinging her black machete at the orange pony.  She remembered Pinkie Pie pushing Twilight down before a sniper's bullet struck her, and then running off with the others towards safety.  However, the constant boom of bombs and bullets towards their direction did not sound reassuring.   "Ingrid, I don't have time to dance with y'all!" cried Applejack.   "Tough," said Ingrid.  "You humiliated us and wounded our pride.  My sister and I decided that the only way you can compensate for our losses is for you to give us the Elements of Creation."   "I need them way more than you do."   "Silly Rebel Applejack.  We all know that you're only using it for revenge.  I don't like the Government as much as you do, but we made our peace with Posey and her cronies a long time ago.  Of course, I do appreciate you and your friends' efforts at Rock Prison, but it still isn't enough.  Posey will rebuild it, but in spades."   "They why don't you attack the prison instead?  That is, unless you Unicorn Hunters ain't so mighty as they say."   Applejack tried for a third time to summon her magical katana, but a time shot from Ingrid's wrist-mounted pistol distracted her from doing so.   "Useless," said Ingrid.   "You underestimate me, Ingrid," said Applejack.  "I don't need my sword to take you down."   The rebel mare had something planned, and right when Ingrid looked down, the lasso around her hooves tightened.  Ingrid toppled over like a tied hog, and Applejack doubly wrapped the bounty hunter's legs even tighter.  Even with Ingrid secured, this did not give the orange pony a lot of time to spare.  Her friends might outnumber Bella, but knowing the Unicorn Hunters, they always had dangerous tricks up their sleeves.  And this was the Everfree Forest.  Applejack did not want to stay here any longer than necessary, especially with all the noise they were making.   Carefully, Applejack treaded over tripwires, one of the many traps the Unicorn Hunters had set up during the night.  She heard more explosions and gunfire, and while it sounded like an entire army had invaded the forest, it was still only one earth pony versus Applejack's friends.   She somersaulted over a large root, narrowly avoiding a spray of bullets coming from one of the Unicorn Hunters' many robotic autoturrets, which served the purpose of distracting and dispersing a group of bounties.  Her orange ears tuned themselves to the cries of her friends amidst the sound of bombs and bullets.  After a sprinting gallop, Applejack found them in a very small clearing, with Twilight casting a magical barrier in the center.  Spike cowered underneath Sunny, and Pinkie Pie lay upside-down with her Pinkie Gear's wheels spinning.   Applejack summoned her katana and slashed apart the nearest autoturret before she could reunite with her friends.  By then, the gunfire had stopped, but it became too quiet for them to relax.   "Twi, whatever you do, don't drop your barrier," said Applejack.  "They're waiting for an ambush."   The telltale red laser dot of a sniper floated over Applejack's forehead.   "Applejack," said Twilight.  "They're targeting you!"   "Twi, no!"   The sniper shot had been fired.  Twilight momentarily dropped the spherical barrier shielding her friends to cast a spell that deflected a bullet.  In that very moment, another shot had been fired from another direction and from another shooter.  Several more shots from the originating sniper kept Sunny and Pinkie Pie from coming to Twilight's rescue.  The unicorn had been struck, the force of which threw her head backwards.  Her companions gathered around her in a panic, but aside from bruises and scrapes, Twilight was not bleeding.  Twilight rose up to shake away her dizziness, but her head dipped slightly due to the extra weight placed on her head.   Wrapped around the base of her horn was a black ring spiked with geometric pyramids.  She grunted in her attempt to cast a spell, but all she could muster were harmlessly ineffective magenta sparks and exhaustion.   Eventually, the group's pursuing pair arrived with their sniper rifles aimed at their general direction.   "The thing about bounties traveling in groups is that there will always be one to pick off," said Ingrid.  "In some cases, that is a disadvantage, especially if each member are close to one another."   "What did you do to Twilight?" asked Applejack.   "We gave her a nice gift, courtesy of Uncle Curio," said Bella.   "That bastard," growled Applejack.   "Now that we disabled the most powerful member of your group, I would like for you to relinquish the Elements of Creation," said Ingrid.  "Including the pink one's."   "We ain't givin' you nothin'!" said Applejack.  "Twilight's half of soul is in mine, and she'll die if she ain't close to it."   "Then we'll just have to take her with us," said Ingrid.  "She'll be much easier to handle when she can't cast any spells."     "I won't give her up either!"   "Neither will I!" cried Sunny.   "Back off pretty," said Ingrid.  "We're bounty hunters, and while we don't like to kill unnecessarily, we won't hesitate to permanently cripple you to get what we want.  Now, give us the Elements of Creation, or we'll shoot you all in the knees."   "And that's only for starters," grinned Bella.           "AJ, what do we do?" Pinkie cried.  "I can't use my Pinkie Gear in the Forest.  These sisters are wicked good!"   Applejack grunted.  There were too many trees, and both served as an advantage and a disadvantage for whatever plan she could come up with.  But she had none.  She was running out of options, and Sunny looked as if she was ready to charge in for one desperate kamikaze attack.  Applejack did not hate the Earth-Alicorn enough to want to see her sacrifice herself needlessly against bounty hunter scum.  In fact, she might even leap in with Sunny for one final attack against the Hunters.   However, something much worse was about to transpire, and she knew this when the Midnight Butterfly passed by her muzzle.   "Ingrid, Bella," said Applejack. "You have to run."   "What did you say?" asked Ingrid.   "I hate you and your bounty huntin' kind, but you have to run.  It's no longer safe here."   "Quit stalling and hand over the Elements."   "This is no joke!  The Feral Pony is here!"   Bella gasped.  Her shoulder-mounted sniper rifle rattled as she tried to contain the fear that quaked all the way down to her hooves.  Ingrid would have ordered her younger sister to suck it up, but even she knew that when Applejack said these things, she was telling the truth.   "Sister, how long did you set the autoturrets to fire?" asked Ingrid.   "Five minutes," replied Bella.   "They stopped firing after four minutes and thirty-five seconds.  The Rebel is right.  The Feral Pony is already here.  Move."   Right as they spun around, squirrels and possums swarmed in and immediately smothered the Unicorn Hunters in a big mass of fur and claws.  The sisters shrieked as the critters carried them off, and along the way rabbits leapt in and out of the big rolling ball of fur to steal away any possessions of the Unicorn Hunters.   Not wanting to know the fate of the bounty hunters, Applejack and her companions turned the opposite direction and ran for their lives. Sunny slung a lethargic Twilight on her back, only to have a swarm of angry bees and hornets separate the two from the main.  Pinkie Pie sped after them with her Pinkie Gear glowing at its wheels, but she was pushed to a different path by a cheetah, an ostrich, and a roadrunner.  The speedy creatures led her to a large trap buried underground, and the pink pony, after a delay whilst holding a sign that read "EEP!", fell in.   All that was left of the group was Spike, who rode on the back of Applejack.  Neither of them realized they had lost their friends until their path was blocked by hissing snakes.  Applejack gave her best leap over the reptiles, but when she landed, her back felt lighter.  Behind her, chuckling chimpanzees hooted and hollered as they tossed the screaming and hapless baby dragon around the trees and deeper into the forest.   Applejack stood alone, and the animals in the forest surrounded her with knives, guns, and grenades in addition sharp claws, teeth, and poisonous stingers.  She wasn't too keen on hurting them, but this was the Everfree Forest, and they took her friends.   "All right you mangy varmints!" she cried as she clamped her jaws on the handle of her katana. "Bring it on!"   The last thing the rebel mare saw was a bear's paw smashing upon her face.     When she came to, her clothes had been shredded, and she was suspended upside down like a hog being carried off to slaughter.  Ostriches and emus were carrying the pole that carried Applejack, and a few more of them were carrying Sunny, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie.  Ahead of them, gophers pulled a metal cage containing Spike.   The animals led them to a large clearing where wooden stakes had been put up to hold up the tied mares.  In the very center was a very big cauldron cooking earth knows what, and with so many carnivores and omnivores, ponies were probably on the menu.  There was a path from that cauldron leading far off into the darkness, and the captured ponies barely made out what looked to be a mangled tree-shaped residence.   Then there were the animals, many of which were native to the continent, yet there almost as many that hailed from foreign lands.  They certainly behaved like animals in speech and movement, but their attire appeared more bandit-like.  They waved and shot guns in the air.  They donned military fatigues and banged percussion instruments meant for ponies.   "Aw," Pinkie cried.  "They invited us for dinner."   "And we're the main course," Applejack noted.   "These animals aren't behaving like what my books described," said Twilight.  "What's gotten into them?"   "It's the Feral Pony, the Beastmaster.  They're all trained to hunt and kill ponies.  And eat them."   "But they look so adorable," said Pinkie.   "They ain't, and we gotta get outta these ropes if we ever hope to survive.  Twi, can you use your magic?"   "I can't," said Twilight.  "The ring the Bounty Hunters put on my horn prevents me from casting any spell."   "I'm too tied up," said Pinkie Pie.  "My Pinkie Gear won't work in this position."   "I can wriggle myself free if I have time," said Sunny.   "We ain't got time!" cried Applejack.  "I think their leader is comin' this way."   A quartet of badgers marched from the path of the tree-shaped house carrying on their backs a covered palanquin too small to house a pony, and besides them marched a border collie and a beady-eyed owl.  When the collie and owl perched on their designated positions, the animals hoot and hollered as their commanding leader hopped out of the palanquin.   Out came a devil of a white rabbit dressed in a beret and camouflaged-colored vest.  He marched up and down the rows of animals for a quick inspection before he stopped before the metal cage that housed Spike.  With a click of his deceptively adorable mouth, he summoned the border collie and the beady-eyed owl for a quick huddle, and those three animals turned to set their eyes on the baby dragon.  With a wave of his paw, the devilish white rabbit commanded the gophers to move Spike and his cage towards the tree-shaped house.  He along with the owl and the collie followed after them.   "No, Spike!" Twilight cried.  "What are you going to do to him?"   The reptiles hissed and the big cats growled.  The rest of the animals began dancing around the cauldron and hollered louder than ever.   At the same time, Twilight struggled to cast a spell with all her might, and despite her effort, all she could muster up were harmless sparks.   "Applejack, do something!" Twilight cried.  "I'm responsible for Spike, and I can't let Dr. Octavia and Mr. and Mrs. Cake down!"   "I'm on it!" Applejack cried.  "Sword of Truth, come to me!"   The orange pony's golden necklace transformed into its katana form, and its handle found itself in her mouth.  She was not able to cut herself down, for eagles, crows, and falcons landed on the pole that held her and cawed and clawed angrily at her.  Aside from the predatory birds, she also had to keep bears and other tall animals from advancing to her and her friends.  A few of the gophers and beavers wielded blowtorches and chainsaws against the ponies.   "I can't keep them off for long!" Applejack cried.   "I almost forgot!" cried Pinkie Pie.  "I still got Gummy!"   "But he doesn't have teeth!"   "Yes, but he still have claws!  Go Gummy!  For great justice!"   From the pink one's mane, the baby alligator, still loyal to his mistress, began clawing away at her restraints.  Just as a bear was about to lunge in with a roaring pair of chainsaw, Gummy broke Pinkie Pie free.  She narrowly avoided the bear's chainsaw swipes, and in midair she activated her Pinkie Gear.  In one instant she landed on one hoof, and the she leapt up in the air shouting "SPINNING BIRD KICK!"  In that instant, she knocked down all the armed animals with a whirlwind of her hind legs.   Pinkie used her Pinkie Gear's rapidly spinning wheels to cut her friends free, and they stood back to back to keep the angry animals at bay.  Then Applejack had the great idea of knocking over the boiling cauldron to separate herself and her friends from the animals and giving themselves enough time to run down the path towards the tree-shaped house.  The Border collie and the beady-eyed owl emerged from the front door surprised to see four free and angry ponies stampeding towards them.  The two creatures howled and hooted for reinforcements, but the mares bowled them out of the way and kicked the door open.   The ponies did not arrive into the den of the bloodthirsty feral pony, where they expected the skeletons and skins of unfortunate ponies be strewn all over the floor or hanging from meat hooks.  Rather, this tree house appeared surprisingly homely and filled with bright and colorful furniture.  In the center, stood Spike, blinking with confusion, and then anger.  After carefully setting a wooden tray filled with a mismatched tea set on the table, he threw down a tattered pink and frilly apron that he just wore on himself.   "Aren't you ponies rude," he said.  "You could have just knocked."   The howling of the animals in the forest immediately drove the ponies to barricade the front door with tables, chairs, and anything they could find at a moment's notice.  There was only enough room for Pinkie Pie, Sunny, and Gummy to put on all their weight to reinforce the barricade as bears and tigers banged and scratched against wood walls and glass windows in their effort to take back the Beastmaster's lovely lair.   "Where is he, Spike?" Twilight asked.   "She," Spike corrected. "And for Pete’s sake, calm down.  You're scaring her."   "She better darn well be," said Applejack.  "Kidnappin' us and trying to turn us into stew?  The Feral Pony ain't a pony, and she gotta be put down!"   "You don't understand.  She's afraid of other ponies.  That's because she's a--"   They suddenly heard an uguu softly airing out from the stairwell, or more precisely, the closet underneath the stairs.  Twilight and Applejack nodded to one another and made their careful approach across the wood floor for their attack.   "AJ!" cried Spike.  "Twi!  Don't do it!"   The devilish white rabbit leapt out of hiding from underneath a flipped bucket and shot his derringer pistol.  It grazed Applejack's fur, and she swatted the bunny away with her front hoof.  Twilight stood ready to open the stairwell closet door on Applejack's cue.   "Uguu..."   One.  Two.  Three!  The door flipped open, revealing a naked pale-yellow pony with a pink mane cowering underneath toppled mops, brooms, and buckets.   "Posey!" cried Applejack.  "You're the Beastmaster?"   "Applejack, that's not Posey!" Twilight cried.   "Are you blind, Twi?  She has the same coat and mane.  It's her!"   "Look on her back."   "What are ya talkin' about?"   Applejack finally saw the truth revealed when one of the Beastmaster's feathery wings unfurled to cover her head.