Chapter 12
The plane impacted in a shallow angle and bounced off the water like a skipping stone. Its momentum carried it across the water and onto the banks of the lake where its nose dug into the ground, and the front window burst. The three ponies in the cockpit were shaken around in the cockpit and thrown against the dashboard.
Manehattan Silver was the first to recover. With one swift and slightly shaky leap he escaped through the broken front window. He stumbled and fell when he landed but quickly got back on his hooves. Twilight was still busy picking herself up when she saw Rainbow Dash dart through the window and after the stallion. She shakily followed, careful not to strain her injured leg. She could see that Rainbow had knocked Manehattan Silver over, and his saddlebags had flown away. Now they were engaged in a heated brawl at the banks of the pond.
“Get the statue”, Rainbow grunted through gritted teeth as Manehattan Silver tried to grab her in a sleeper hold. “I’ll deal with this jerk!”
“You’ll do no such thing!” the stallion cried and, instead of the sleeper hold, threw Rainbow Dash over his withers. The pegasus just spread her wings and darted back at Manehattan Silver who was already crawling in the direction of the saddlebags, sending him to into the dirt. Then Rainbow settled down on Manehattan Silver’s back and started pounding his back and neck with her hooves.
With a mighty roar the stallion bucked Rainbow off his back and got to his hooves again. He leapt to the saddlebags before Twilight could react, and reached for them. Expecting him to pull out the Golden Princess, she actually saw the glimmer of gold for a second before she realized that Manehattan Silver had pulled out a second gun.
Immediately she tried to disarm him with her magic, but this time Manehattan Silver was prepared and firmly maintained his hold to the gun. He fired a bullet that flew closely over Twilight’s mane. “Stop!” he roared so loud that his voice broke. “I’ve had enough of you!” Rainbow got on her hooves again and made a move for the brown earth pony, but he quickly fired another warning round. “You too! Over with your girlfriend! And don’t you so much as twitch!”
“Okay, okay, chillax”, Rainbow groaned and slowly trotted to Twilight. The lavender unicorn gladly leaned against her for consolation, and she put a wing around her withers.
Manehattan Silver picked up the saddlebags, never letting Twilight and Rainbow Dash out of sight. “This statue”, he explained with hardly contained anger, “is property of the Goat Empire. And you, you just keep ignoring the facts!” He began pacing in front of them. “But I have it now. I won. And you lost!” He spat out a nasty laugh. “So what’s going to happen now is, I will swim across the lake, I will walk back to Malatierra, and I will travel to the Goat Empire. And there is nothing you can do about it because you will be dead!”
Then, suddenly, across the lake on their right, a bright orange light flared up, accompanied by the alpacas’ war cries. All three ponies turned towards the light, only to see a big group of alpaca warriors lined up on the banks of the lake.
In the center of the warriors stood the old alpaca with the large headdress Twilight had seen in the alpaca village the night before, his eyes closed, his body swaying to an unheard rhythm. The orange glow was centered on him and apparently emanated from the old shaman. As they watched, the light seemed to gain density until it seemed almost physical and took the shape of a snarling angry alpaca head of at least four meters height. Instead of eyes it only had two lifeless voids, and yet it seemed to be staring at the island with an unwavering, inquisitive gaze.
Rosetta had a good idea what it was, and it scared Twilight to death.
“Manetezuma’s Wrath”, she whispered, her eyes wide open in terror.
“What’s Manetezuma’s Wrath?” Rainbow asked.
Instead of Twilight, Manehattan Silver answered, his voice shaky as well, “It’s an ancient alpaca ritual. Legend has it that they summon Manetezuma’s spirit, since his soul was taken by Trotathiu after his defeat against the pony army. And Manetezuma’s spirit descends onto earth, wielding the power of Trotathiu to punish anypony who wronged the alpcas. Nopony has ever seen the ritual be cast and lived to tell the story.” He had lowered his gun and was slowly walking towards the two mares, while the giant fiery alpaca head on the other side of the lake was still solidifying its shape. Twilight nodded her agreement with Manehattan Silver’s explanation.
“It must be after the Golden Princess!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“We have to give it to them now!” Twilight said insistently.
“No way!” Manehattan Silver protested albeit with a still shaky voice. “We can’t give it to these savages! It belongs to the Goat Empire!” He pointed his gun at Twilight again. “You! You’re a unicorn! Cast some magic and keep this thing away from us!”
“You can’t possibly think I’ll – “ Twilight started, but was interrupted by a shout from the alpacas.
“Ponies! You stole what is ours! Surrender the Golden Princess now, or face the Wrath of Manetezuma!” the voice of the old alpaca carried across the water. Twilight was sure that he spoke Alpacan, but Rainbow’s snarl made it obvious that she had heard and understood the message as well, even though she didn’t speak any Alpacan. The shaman had probably used some sort of magic to transmit his threat.
“We can’t just give up!” Rainbow Dash agreed. “After all that! We can’t just quit!”
Twilight was a bit surprised that Rainbow agreed with Manehattan Silver, but she couldn’t deny that she felt similarly, that they deserved to win the Golden Princess after all their adventures, after being captured and beaten and even crashing with a plane. She lowered her head aggressively and, almost unconsciously, began casting a protection spell which was probably beyond Rosetta’s abilities. Bright purple sparks began flying from her horn as she gathered magic energies for the spell, and a faint green sphere began to take shape around the three ponies. She was mildly surprised that she was actively protecting Manehattan Silver, the very pony who had caused them all this trouble.
The alpacas who had been jeering and shouting at them suddenly fell silent, and the fiery ghost head let out a terrifying, unearthly roar. It snarled and began to slowly float at them. As it flew past trees and bushes on the banks of the lake, the leaves and branches caught fire almost immediately. Relentlessly, the giant head hovered across the water, bellowing and shouting threateningly as it went.
“I have an idea!” Rainbow Dash called out and immediately darted towards the lake. Twilight was too absorbed with the protection spell to even reply.
Rainbow started flying rapid wide circles skimming just above the water's surface, the suction created by her great airspeed drawing up more and more small water drops from the lake. She went faster and faster, creating a curtain of water around the burning head which curiously enough ignored the pegasus. As she reached the height of the head, she started to pull her circles tighter and tighter around the flaming ghost.
“What is that crazy pegasus doing?” Manehattan Silver asked incredulously. “Trying to get herself killed? Well, good riddance!” He turned to Twilight, gun still pointing at her, the Golden Princess lying on the ground in front of him. “You just keep that spell up!”
Meanwhile, the ghost head reached the translucent green shield Twilight had erected around them. For a moment, it stopped, warping its shape around the spherical green surface. Its roars turned into high-pitched shrieks of anger. Twilight pushed her hooves in the ground even firmer as she tried to withstand the onslaught of magical energy from the blazing head, sweat beads forming on her forehead. Rainbow Dash still drew increasingly tight circles around it but couldn’t get them tight enough to actually douse the head in the water she had pulled up in time.
As the spirit was fighting the shield, Twilight felt as if it was looking straight into her mind and in turn revealed itself to her. The spirit let her feel the hatred it felt for the ponies who once had taken this land from its people, and it let her know of its desire to retrieve the statue and punish whoever took it. The raw power of the sprit’s hatred was almost as painful as a physical punch in the guts. In return she felt like something took a very close look at her emotions and motivations, about her desire to beat Manehattan Silver and to spoil his plans.
When Rosetta’s limited resources finally faltered, the shield exploded into a cascade of small green fragments, and the weird and scary connection was broken. The spirit continued its slow advance, now almost completely obscured by the rainbow-colored trail and the mist curtain.
Finally the first drops connected. There was a loud hissing of steam and a white steam cloud exploded from the head. The angry shrieks suddenly sounded triumphant. Rainbow Dash was knocked back and crashed into the ground right next to Twilight and Manehattan Silver. As the steam cleared, they could see that the head had lost a small part of its volume, but otherwise continued its advance unfazed by the water.
“We can’t stop it!” Twilight cried. “We have to give them the statue!”
“Never!” Manehattan Silver yelled. He fired the remaining bullets from his gun into the apparition, to no visible effect. “The statue is mine! Do some magic!” Rainbow Dash started for him now that he was unarmed, but he saw her from the corner of his eyes and escaped the flying kick. The first bushes on the banks on their side of the lake were already on fire, the smell of smoke unpleasant and threatening in the nightly air.
“Give it to them now!” Twilight yelled at the stallion. “Or we’re all toast!”
“You’ll be toast!” he shouted with a hint of manic laughter in his voice. “I’m outta here!” He picked up the statue, threw himself around, and started galloping towards the far end of the peninsula where it was connected to the jungle.
Suddenly, the flaming head changed its course towards the fleeing stallion. It also picked up speed. With a triumphant howl it charged across the water and up the banks in hot pursuit of Manehattan Silver who quickly vanished in the jungle. Twilight and Rainbow only stared after it as it dove into the dense underwood, leaving a trail of smoldering leaves in its wake.
Without a word, the alpacas and the shaman vanished in the thick underwood behind them, apparently no longer interested in the two mares on other side of the lake, now that the spirit had revealed that Manehattan Silver had the statue.
“I wonder what will happen to him”, Twilight mused.
“Whatever it is, he totally had it coming”, Rainbow replied coolly.
The first light of the day became visible through the canopy. Twilight found that she couldn’t stand on her hooves any longer, her injured leg now aching badly, and half collapsed on the ground. Rainbow Dash settled down next to her and draped a wing over her. Twilight let out a relieved sigh and snuggled up against her friend – no, her girlfriend. Rainbow Dash was her girlfriend. And that also meant she could just lean over and plant a long and tender kiss on her lips, which the pegasus eagerly returned. It wasn’t so much the kiss that made her feel almost weightless with joy but the knowledge that there were as many kisses as she wanted, and she could just take them from Rainbow Dash.
“We did it”, the pegasus said proudly. “Still a shame we didn’t get to keep the Golden Princess.”
“It belongs to the alpacas”, Twilight remarked.
“Yeah, yeah, it feels kinda right that they get to keep it”, Rainbow agreed. “Still. It almost feels like losing.”
“But only almost.”
“How could this be losing?” the pegasus asked and drew Twilight into a long kiss. As Twilight teasingly tugged at Rainbow’s lower lip, and Rainbow’s tongue darted into her mouth, the two forgot the world around them.
The sun rose above the canopy and basked the lakeside with the two kissing mares in bright orange light, and the world slowly started fading to black.