Rise of the Furball Chapter 14: “The Trine of Terror”
“Apple Bloom…” started Applejack for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Ah’m telling you, Ah don’t know how mah room got full of cats!” answered Apple Bloom.
“Well, somepony knows how, and Ah intend to find out!” declared Applejack bitterly. The previous night hadn’t been one that she could sleep easily through. The sudden appearance of Lightning Dust and the fact she was starting to turn into a werewolf had been on the farm pony’s mind all night, her conscience refusing to let go of the idea that she herself was the reason for Dust’s condition. It had been the only time she’d ever truly lost control of herself during her time as a werewolf, the actual memories of the brief incident only coming back to her slowly. But even well over a year later, the full course of events remained unknown to her and it was entirely possible that she may have bitten Dust during the fighting. As far as Applejack knew, there was no actual way to identify if Dust had been bitten by her or Sable, but she couldn’t be honest to herself without admitting feeling some guilt over the incident’s final outcome, even if it had been mostly Dust’s fault.
So, when she finally had managed to get to an unrestful slumber, with every intention to take a rare day of sleeping in, only to be awakened a few short hours by a loud racket from Apple Bloom’s room, she had been pretty angry. Then she was in shock as the house itself suddenly began to shudder violently at the same time a large pile of cats seemingly poured out of one of Apple Bloom’s windows and in front of the homestead. Right now, all the cat owners of Ponyville had journeyed to Sweet Apple Acres in search of answers to why their felines had been stolen in the middle of the night and for the felines themselves.
“You can count me in on that hunt!” huffed Rarity, appearing from the side of the still twitching pile of cats like a bloated whale. “A lady should not have to be forced to resort to this kind of business to find her cat. Still…don’t worry, Opal, momma’s coming!” She then promptly dived back into the giant furball of furballs in search of her cat.
“I still don’t get how somepony managed to get all those cats in the house!” Babs commented, walking up to join her cousins.
“Eeyup” replied Big Mac, passing the trio with a cart. The giant pile of cats in front of the Apple homestead was making entering and leaving the house through the front door very awkward, so it was decided to load them into some apple carts and truck them down to Ponyville, both to reduce the pile’s size and to speed up returning the pets to their owners. It was the trouble with the whole cat pile that had Apple Bloom and Babs Seed stay at the farm to help clean up the mess, while all the other fillies in town went to school regularly. However, it was a free day off neither filly wanted, and while Apple Bloom was still fighting the urge to wolf-out and go chase all the cats, she still had enough self-control to suppress the inclination. Or so she thought.
“Hey, Apple Bloom, you okay?” asked Babs worriedly as the two fillies loaded cat after cat individually onto the cart. “Your eyes are goin’ back and forth kinda all shifty like, as if you’re on edge about somethin’.”
“Ah, uh, Ah’m fine,” replied Apple Bloom.
“You sure?”
“Babs, Ah woke up to find mah room was packed full of cats and nopony knows how. Of course Ah’m on edge. Especially ‘cause…well, that’s not important, but all you need to know is that Ah’m perfectly A-OK.”
Especially ‘cause…what? Thought Babs, eying AB suspiciously as she loaded more cats into the cart. She didn’t notice her hooves reaching for a conspicuously un-catlike curly tail, which she proceeded to tug on.
“YE-OOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!” wailed a distinctly faked accent as Rarity’s head burst from the ground, one eye twitching in pain.
“This is gonna be a long day…” moaned Apple Bloom, facehoofing while Rarity turned angrily to face the embarrassed Babs.
Within her private chambers, Celestia worriedly paged through several different records that few ponies other than the princesses knew existed. Discord’s words from a few days ago about that phoenix being some kind of prophesied harbinger of bad tidings still echoed in her head, louder than ever when she’d received two letters from the two princesses based away from the capital.
The letter from Cadance had been concerning enough. The idea that there was a pony just as powerful in dark magic as Sombra boggled Celestia’s mind. While in theory any unicorn could use dark magic, the rate at which dark magic burned through a pony’s magic well was so high that only unusually powerful magic users could effectively maintain dark magic over any considerable length of time. Then, in regards to dark magic being highly uncontrollable by its very nature, the pony would need to have great ability in controlling magic either through skill and/or talent to actually direct a dark magic spell to do what was desired by the caster.
Unicorns who possessed both the magic well capacity and the potential for mastering extremely high level spells were secretly registered by crown officials and kept under surveillance. Celestia’s own school, while actually mainly created to help train young unicorns with their powers such that should the time come they can help defend Equestria, served as a means of watching over the children of unusual ability and to ensure they didn’t even try to go down the path of darkness. All unicorns who were of school age were required by law to be evaluated by a local mage when they showed any kind of sufficient control over their magic, with any candidate who came within a set range of the estimated minimum magic power needed to have any dark magic ability automatically getting a scholarship from the princess herself to the school…and their name on the registry. In addition, all records of pony births were required to be submitted by all towns to Canterlot for archival record keeping.
Which is why Twilight’s latest letter just made Celestia even more concerned. Apparently, Raspberry Beryl came from a town called Lonesome Dove, but due to an abusive father she’d received horn damage and had trouble casting even basic telekinesis. Logically, Twilight summarized in her letter that while she’d felt Beryl’s aura as being different from the usual, it was not dark magic. If everything was alright, there was nothing out of the ordinary with what Twilight had said, even though it saddened Celestia to hear of a father abusing his foal.
But then she reread the letter and noted Twilight had been told by Beryl the town of Lonesome Dove was a pure earth pony settlement right up until Raspberry was born. A pony settlement made up of entirely one subspecies of pony was not unheard of, since only pegasus ponies could live in cloud cities for obvious reasons, but even so it was odd that a unicorn was born to two earth ponies without any further explanation given by Beryl.
It became even stranger when the records for Lonesome Dove weren’t all that consistent. Sure enough, on the list of newborns there was a “Raspberry Beryl” listed, but due to the town not having unicorns, there should have been a request sent for an evaluator to travel to Lonesome Dove when Raspberry had become old enough to attend school. Except there was no record of such a request ever having been made by Lonesome Dove, or of a royal evaluator having gone to the town anyway.
There was suddenly a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Celestia, not looking to see who it was as she already knew the identity of the new arrival.
“Celly, I thought I was supposed to be the book-loving recluse and you the public face of the monarchy?” asked Luna, walking up to her sister’s side, “and the one who is supposed to be overseeing court right now?”
“I canceled court for today. That one pony, what’s his name…Count Custard or something, was probably going to try to talk out in favor for a two percent reduction of the taxes the wealthy must pay, and I really just cannot deal with the stupidity.”
“Celly, you’ve dealt with idiots like that for centuries on your own, surely-“
“I didn’t deal with them at the same time a potential national crisis was potentially forming up.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? We aren’t anything close to hostile with any of our neighboring countries. I mean, even the griffons don’t want to wage war against us right now, and you know how much they would love to get their hands on the mining colonies near the shared border.”
Celestia leaned back on her haunches, closing her eyes and putting her hooves on her temples. “Remember what I told you about what Discord was doing that whole day he was out of Canterlot?”
“Wasn’t mother involved with that somehow?”
“Yes, that one. As far as anypony knows, Discord has an interest in that green phoenix who currently accompanies a unicorn mare named ‘Raspberry Beryl’. Her story, as relayed from Twilight, checks out up until there is apparently a grave violation of a royal edict.” Celestia continued to relay her findings to her younger, darker sister, along with letting her see Twilight’s letter where the story of Raspberry Beryl had been recorded.
“So…you’re saying something’s wrong here, because nopony associated with the crown ever went to evaluate this ‘Raspberry Beryl’ when she was of age?” asked Luna, glancing above the top of the letter which she held in her hooves.
“Correct. You know why, what with me having to explain the reason half a zillion times back when you first returned and your own experience with the consequences of not having that policy.”
Luna briefly shuddered. Even as a filly, Luna was the second most powerful magic user in the country, possibly world, but unlike Celestia she hadn’t put in as much time or effort to master her magic controlling skills. Then she tried overthrowing Celestia with dark magic, only the dark magic put her under its own control, resulting in the monster named Nightmare Moon.
“This is a mistake that could have been costly for Equestria; a unicorn whose only record of existence buried in the one place nopony would have thought to look. If this had been an intentional plan, it’s actually quite brilliant, really, the diamond hidden among the…um, just insert a word that works in reference to earth ponies that doesn’t make me sound like one of those upper class snobs.” Celestia couldn’t help but sheepishly grin at having tripped over her own words.
Luna smirked back in response, but quickly resumed a nonchalant expression as she reread part of the letter. “Celly, did you ever consider that maybe it was intentionally overlooked to have somepony come out to evaluate this unicorn?”
Celestia whipped her head around to face her sister for the first time in the conversation. “Are you suggesting somepony denied the will of the crown?”
Luna looked incredulously at Celestia in return. “Did..did you just say what I think you just said?”
Celestia rolled her eyes and nickered in annoyance. “Yes, I did, and no, Lu-Lu, I’m not suddenly turning into some egotistical tyrant bitch like some of my enemies want everypony to believe. But for somepony or someponies to undermine authority like this, which goes from the local town government all the way to us, that could be a problem. Yes, practically all the ponies in Equestria love their alicorn rulers, practically throwing themselves at us to bestow their worship. But we are not omnipresent, we’re merely ponies who are gifted with powers well beyond-“
She was silenced by Luna’s gentle hoof being placed on her muzzle, the night princess bearing a smile on her own muzzle. “Celly, we already fought the Civil War centuries ago, and the only time we’ve ever had to exert more authority than a look of displeasure was when you briefly fought Chrysalis.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” groaned Celestia. Getting her plot handed to her by the queen of the changelings at the wedding, along with having been fooled about the fact her niece had been replaced by Chrysalis for about a week, was the most humiliating event she’d been subject to for the past fifty years, even accounting for the fact Chrysalis had been supercharged by Shining's love.
Luna smiled. “I foolishly tried to overthrow you, got turned into a monster, plunged our country into civil war, and then tried to do it again after my thousand years on the moon. You also give me no end of trouble because my duties include visiting ponies in their dreams. Allow me this one thing to hold over your head as you have so many over mine.
But that’s getting off track. The truth is, if this story is to believed, Raspberry’s father didn’t want her learning magic. Why would somepony like that want his child evaluated for her magic ability when he wanted her to have none?”
“You bring up a good point, Lu-Lu” agreed Celestia. “But we will need to send somepony to investigate Lonesome Dove. Undermining royal authority simply because of one’s position on how to raise a foal is something that cannot go unanswered.”
“I hope you don’t stick him on my moon,” requested Luna, jokingly, “I like my moon the way it is right now.”
“With the several life size plush dolls of Big Mac I put up there?”
“Yes, with the-wait, what?!”
That night, DT and SS secretly met up out the schoolhouse, the later having no idea what the former had in her packs.
“Hmm, so it would appear the ‘room full of cats’ idea didn’t quite work,” Said Fair Vista, emerging from behind the schoolhouse. The moonlight illuminated her form such that she appeared to be a tinted glass sculpture. One that could kill you with its claws or teeth.
“I’ll admit, after all the stress and trouble we went through to get all those cats in there, the fact nothing actually happened is disappointing,” Silver confessed.
“We shoulda thrown her stupid dog in there, too,” commented Diamond. “That would have riled them up!”
Vista shot DT a nasty look. “And completely undermined the whole point of stealing every cat in town. I know I’d have torn apart every last cat if I’d been in that filly’s place, as accustomed as I am to the non-pony urges that come with being a werewolf I do enjoy being violent to felines.”
The pink filly rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re a dog. We’re not.”
“So…what now?” asked Silver, reluctantly. She still had some bandages from the previous night, which had her get scratched by a few angry cats in trying to capture them. Thankfully, her parents had bought the excuse she’d been helping clean up the cats at Sweet Apple Acres, but she wasn’t too keen on trying that stunt again.
“This time, we’re going to try one of my ideas,” Tiara said confidently, putting her saddle bags down and opening them to reveal they were full of all kinds of vials. Silver and Vista quickly glanced at each other to make sure they weren’t the only one who didn’t know what the point of this was, then back at Tiara who opened up one of the vials. Instantly the smell of raw garlic poured out. “I did a little more research and I found out that werewolves actually hate garlic!”
“Uh…” started Fair Vista, her knowledge base on what werewolves like and don’t like being impossible to doubt, but then she thought better of it and then did her best to keep a straight face while the raw stench of garlic assaulted her undead senses. “I actually can’t tell you, when I was alive Sable and I didn’t really bother with spices and things for our meals, the raw taste was enough for us.”
“That’s…pleasant...” grimaced Silver, clearly trying not to go green in the face from the overwhelming smell and the sudden R-rated film playing in her head, “Tiara…where did you get all this?”
“Oh, you know…the local aromatherapist,” cheerfully replied the wealthy brat.
EARLIER THAT DAY…
“WHO THE BUCK STOLE ALL MY GARLIC SCENT OILS?!” screamed Sandalwood, her voice echoing from inside the spa to cover about a fourth of Ponyville.
“The wealthiest filly in the town and you still steal what you need?” laughed Vista. “My, you are more like me than I gave you credit for. Still, what do you plan to do with all this garlic?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Tiara. “We’ll drown the schoolhouse in this stuff, make it unbearable for Apple Bloom to set hoof in it!”
Vista looked like she was going to say more, but then snapped her neck towards the forest as if she’d heard something. “My attention is currently needed elsewhere, but I’ll check in with you two again tomorrow night.” Without another word the ghost werewolf shot off into the night. She made sure she was at least a good kilometer away before she dared stop running and start laughing.
“AHAHAHAHAHA! Garlic! Oh, Sable, what morons that twit and her friend are if they think garlic has any effect on werewolves! AHAHAHA! I have got to be there when this backfires!
“That was one of the shortest days of school I’ve ever had,” said Scootaloo, the four crusaders hiking back to Sweet Apple Acres for lunch.
“Yeah, do you think it was the garlic smell?” suggested Sweetie.
“Ah’m sure it was the smell. Seriously, it wasn’t botherin’ any of y’all as much as me?” asked Apple Bloom.
“I could tell it was the most powerful garlic smell I’ve ever encountered, which is sayin’ a lot since I know what Manehatten pizza has heavy applications of!” commented Babs. “Poor Ms. Cheerilee, I don’t think she is familiar with the power of garlic aroma. Those spasms she went into the moment she came into the schoolhouse? Definitely somepony who has a natural distaste of garlic.”
Indeed, while all the fillies and colts who were students at the schoolhouse had reacted poorly to the sudden presence of garlic, the teacher seemed to have a considerably serious allergic reaction. Acting quickly, the students hurriedly dragged their schoolmarm back into the ungarlicy open air of the outside and Scootaloo shot off on her scooter to get medical attention. School was determined canceled for the rest of the day by order of Dr. Stable
“Like…maybe she’s a vampire?” Sweetie was dead serious about the question. “Everypony knows vampires don’t like garlic!”
“Vampires don’t exist, Sweetie,” answered Scootaloo. “Rainbow Dash says so.”
“What about werewolves? Does Rainbow think they exist?” Babs had intentionally been quick about the question, paying more attention to Apple Bloom’s sudden flinching instead of Scootaloo confirming Dash did think werewolves existed.
“Well, whatever the reason,” interjected Apple Bloom, hoping to steer the conversation away from werewolves, “Ah doubt we’ll be havin’ any more school until that garlic scent can be removed, for Ms. Cheerilee’s sake. And you know what that means for the Crusaders?”
“CUTIE MARK SEARCHING!” replied Sweetie, Scoot, and Babs in unison.
At the same time in Castle Canterlot, Discord was busy catching up with his quota of hallway paintings turned exactly 3.14 degrees clockwise when he suddenly had a peculiar feeling.
“Oh! My Chaos Sense is tingling!” squeed Discord, rushing off to go find a mirror with which he could use to remotely watch the events unfold. It wasn’t the same as actually being at the scene, but seeing as how he couldn’t just leave the castle again without Celestia’s permission and there was no way she’d let him go for something this small, it was good enough for now.
“Ow…ow…ow…”
“Sorry, but I have to be sure there are real fangs, Dust.”
It wasn’t commonly known that Golden Oaks library actually had a basement. It was even less commonly known that Twilight had turned it into her own personal laboratory during the three years she was a resident there. Right now, Dust was wishing she hadn’t learned of what lay beneath as she really felt uncomfortable. Well, okay, she was already uncomfortable on a daily basis since she still felt guilty of Rainbow having to be saddled with opening her home to the same pony who nearly killed her friends. Slowly becoming a werewolf also was very uncomfortable. But here? It was like she was a lab rat with a mad scientist alicorn ready to rip into her at any second.
“Dust, are you okay?” asked Twilight, putting down the sterile stick she’d been using to tap against the pegasus’s fangs.
“Yeah, I’m perfectly fine. Y’know, besides the whole holy-shit-I-am-turning-into-a-monster part.”
“I mean, with all this, I’m getting the impression you’re not exactly comfortable with being in my old lab.”
Gee, no shit princess, thought Lighting Dust, the last time I was here in this town I spent a month in a hospital practically tied to a bed because I was stupid enough to fight a werewolf, and now here I am turning into a werewolf while you’re probably going to start experimenting on me soon.
The words that came out of her mouth, though, were different. “To be perfectly honest, if that pink friend of yours-“
“Pinkie Pie?”
“Uh, yeah, her. You know what I would be if she came in here, dressed in some macabre outfit made of cutie marks carved off of other ponies, with an unclean bloody knife, and raving about how she’s gonna turn me into a cupcake? I would be totally unsurprised. That sums up my feelings about being here right now.”
“I…see…” was all Twilight could answer back with. Awkward silence followed for a few minutes until Lightning broke it.
“I know I’m probably going to regret asking this, but…I gotta know; how much longer do I have?”
“Well…” said Twilight, stumbling with her words in trying to determine the best way to explain what she knew, “this is pure conjecture, so I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it’s possible you have well over a year before you actually experience turning into a full werewolf for the first time, and then after that I honestly can’t tell you the time-frame between then and when your mental state…”
“Hold on, what are you saying?” inquired Dust, now having taken much more interest in the discussion, “There are two stages to this lycanthropy thing? As in a step before I end up not having a clue of who I am and running around like some freak canine with wings?”
“Um…yes?” replied Twilight, as if confused by the question. “Werewolves have the ability to go from pony to some kind of pony-wolf hybrid form, the problem you have is that once you actually become a full blooded werewolf, the curse will slowly-
“Yeah, the dumbing-down thing, that’s what I was afraid of. But since you keep saying I haven’t undergone some kind of ‘transformation’ it sounds like I have a lot more to expect?”
Twilight levitated over a pad of notes. “Back when Applejack was a werewolf, she told me a lot about the process of becoming one. Namely, there was a lead-up of minor, physical changes she remembered experiencing. Much like the ones you’ve demonstrated, only…”
“She took longer to develop them.”
“A month, give or take a week, after Sable Loam attacked her. She wasn’t sure when the first full transformation was, only that it felt ‘like her whole body was on fire and itchy at the same time’ or something to that nature.”
“Well, can’t say I’ve had anything like that, as I told practically everypony in your little circle of friends the only changes are my teeth and the need to eat meat.”
“Oh, actually…” Twilight’s eyes brightened up at the mention of meat, “…could you describe what your hunger is like for meat?
Lightning could only roll her eyes and sigh, absent mindedly scratching some random itch on her back with a hindleg. This constant questioning by the princess…I’m sure that burning sensation of that first transformation probably is more pleasant than this…
The next day…
“Ah, yes, it was vampires who don’t like garlic!” laughed Fair Vista, who was uncharacteristically present in Ponyville during the daytime. She was barely visible, nothing more than a faint outline in the light of the sun.
“Okay, okay, I get your point!” angrily replied Diamond Tiara. Silver Spoon didn’t say anything, although she noted DT had been referring to only herself even though she seemed to mean both her and Silver. “You made it last night, anyway, so why did you want us to come up here?”
“Simple” nonchalantly replied the spirit, who gestured towards the giant water tower nearby that had been constructed in place of the old water tower which Twilight had sacrificed to calm a rampaging ursa minor. “We - and by that I mean you two – will flood her out into the open.”
The rich fillies gaped, only Silver finding the words. “You want us to flood the town?!”
Vista shrugged. “You’d need much, much more water than what’s in that tower, but if you bust the valve when Apple Bloom is within the scope of the flood, she’ll be trapped within the flow as she can’t cross running water.”
“Wait, are you sure about that?” incredulously asked Diamond Tiara, “Because if you were running around for centuries in the woods, you had to have had to cross a running stream or a brook or something that was running water before you died.”
“I don’t know what it is, but Sable never wanted to take a chance. So we merely lept over anything. We werewolves are great jumpers, you know.”
“And what’s to stop Apple Bloom from doing the same?”
“She’s still a youngling, she can’t jump nearly as far as I could when I was alive. Plus, she won’t dare transform into her new proper form in public, so it’s a non-issue.”
“Well…alright, then, let’s go wait for the Cutie Mark Losers.”
Silver was aghast. “Wait, you actually think flooding part of Ponyville is a good idea?!”
Diamond raised an eyebrow at her PFF. “Yeah, it’s not like anypony is going to get hurt, it’s just water. Except of course Apple Bloom. You don’t have to come help, though, it’s perfectly alright if you’re a chicken who can’t live up to her family history.” DT just cackled as she trotted off with the faint outline of the ghost werewolf, leaving Silver behind.
“N-now hold on just a second!” retorted Silver, rushing to join the duo. Her heart really wasn’t in it, though, that much she could not deny. This is wrong she thought, I know DT wanted to expose Apple Bloom, but hanging around this ghost…I have to wonder who the real danger is…