Pinkie Pie’s eyes slowly opened. The starry sky above her was broken by a dark silhouette whose eyes shone faintly blue and whose horn gleamed and crackled with a spell. There was something else next to it too, something very familiar.
“Ugh… Twilight? You’re okay?” Pinkie asked. She tried to raise a hoof toward the figure, then winced with pain and set it back down. Pinkie’s everything hurt, her head was ringing, she was half-buried under broken shingles and she was lying on top of something lumpy and irregular. How had she gotten here? She had been up on top of the roof, and that scary alchemist was coming closer and closer, and then...
“Still yourself, child. It is I. You had quite a fall,” said Princess Luna. The magic power jumped from her horn in a line of blue fire, illuminating a brow knit with concern. The magic rolled across Pinkie’s body, and the stunned mare’s aches and pains vanished in its wake, as did the familiar presence she dimly sensed beside her.
“I just thought I saw Twilight for a second,” Pinkie said. “But she’s not here, is she?”
The part of Twilight Sparkle that was there wanted to cry out in the affirmative, but she knew it would be useless. She was still getting over the shock of seeing her friend lying on her back half-buried in a pile of shattered shingles. From way up at the top of the roof, Pinkie had reminded her of a dead mouse Twilight had found found belly-up behind a bookshelf when she was a little filly.
“Our friend Twilight is safe.” Luna said brusquely. “Why did you not follow my plan? What folly possessed you that you would leap from the parapet?” Her bright eyes widened in shock and dismay. “Oh... O heavenly lights, did you give in to despair? Did you not trust I could keep you safe from harm?”
The accusation made Pinkie look away guiltily, not because Luna’s assumption was true, but because of how it must have hurt the princess to conceive of it. “No, no!” Pinkie said consolingly. “I would never... I just got more and more scared the closer Concord got, even after you made me un-seeable and un-hearable, and I just had to get away. But Concord was coming up the stairs and I can’t fly so I tried to climb down the side of the roof like I’d seen Dashie do once, but I couldn’t see my own hooves and I could barely see the roof because it was dark and besides I think she used her wings a little too and-and... whoopsie-daisy, I slipped!” Pinkie ran a hoof through her dust-coated mane. “I thought I was a goner,” she added in a much quieter voice.
Luna was glad that Pinkie was relatively unharmed but still somewhat offended at her lack of faith. “As did I. It looked most dire from above. I have heard you sometimes perform feats that defy understanding, but to be merely bruised after such a fall... I do not use the term ‘miracle’ lightly—”
Something groaned beneath Pinkie.
After quickly double-checking that Pinkie had no broken bones, the princess swiftly lifted the pink pony back onto her feet, revealing a stunned, flattened-looking white unicorn lying on his belly right underneath where Pinkie Pie had fallen.
Pinkie squeaked apologetically. “Oh! I’m sorry mister! ...So that’s what the lumpy thing I landed on was.”
Twilight was astounded. It was Verse! The loopy, incomprehensible spirit had gone off on his own, apropos of nothing, and somehow ended up in exactly the right place to break Pinkie Pie’s fall. Was it a freak coincidence, or did the spirit-stallion do this intentionally?
The princess recognized him too. “That is one of the ponies who approached with your alchemist!” Luna announced. “Now all three are accounted for.” She pointed an accusing horn at Verse. “What were you doing lurking about down here? Are you another of his unnatural creations?”
The unicorn peeled his face off the floor and gave her a dazed look. His mouth moved, but no words came out.
"I guess I fell on him kinda super-hard.” Pinkie said. To her own surprise, she didn’t feel the least bit afraid of him, even though he’d been with Concord a moment ago. Somehow, the unquestionable certainty that told her Concord was a fearsome alchemist was absent from his accomplice.
Luna leaned down and put her ear near the unicorn’s muzzle. “He’s trying to say something!” she said. “Speak up, fellow. What is it?”
Eyes still rolling and unfocused, Verse feebly beckoned for her to come closer. Luna and Pinkie both complied. Unbeknownst to them, Twilight drew nearer as well, even though she was expecting just another farrago of rhyming nonsense.
She wasn’t disappointed. The battered stallion was even worse than usual.
“My beautiful, my beautiful,
Who standest proudly by,
It was the schooner Hesperus
The breaking waves dashed high,” Verse whispered in a wavering wheeze.
Pinkie stared in bafflement at the declaiming stallion. “I think I may have cracked his noggin. He’s talking all crazy,” the earth pony said sheepishly. “Can you fix him like you did me?”
“Hush. I see now. He wishes to tell us about his master, for whom he certainly has no love,” the princess explained. “Alchemists will drug recalcitrant servants to erode their ability to betray them or even think clearly. Our prisoner had a similar fate in mind for you, no doubt. Let him speak further.”
That did sound like something Pinkie had suspected a while ago, even before she’d figured out what Concord was.
Just as Luna had thought, Verse had more to declaim. In spite of his injuries, he seemed to delight in having an interested audience once more.
“Why is the Forum crowded?
What means this stir in Rome?
Under a spreading chestnut tree
There is no place like home.”
“I can almost grasp his meaning,” said Luna. “A stir... at home? Canterlot? Is that the alchemists’ plan?” Something about this pony tugged at her memory, though she was certain she’d never seen his face before. Was it the words? Some seemed so familiar.
Their unseen eavesdropper harbored no such suspicions. Verse had never made much sense up till now, Twilight told herself, not even before he took a pony to the head. She dismissed her previous theory that he had come out here on purpose to catch Pinkie. Who knew if he actually ‘intended’ anything at all? The spirit might even be more like a living library than an intelligent being, just wandering around and responding to whatever prompt he was given with a vaguely-related piece of poetry.
“When Freedom from her mountain height
Cried, ‘Twinkle, little star,’
Shoot if you must this old gray head,
King Henry of Navarre.
“If you’re waking, call me early
To be or not to be,
Curfew must not ring tonight—” He broke into a fit of hoarse coughing.
“The mountain, the star, this night... yes. You have said enough, good stallion,” Luna said. “I begin to understand. Rest yourself now. We will see to it the alchemists who did this to you never harm another pony.” She had made up her mind that this unicorn was no threat now, if he ever had been before. The ancient scraps of memories his words evoked were strangely pleasant.
Verse’s recital trailed off, and he let his head sink back to the balcony floor, satisfied. Luna stood back up and gave Pinkie a grim look. “I swore I would protect you, but I need to return to the palace at once. Both you, Concord and the equinculus are coming with me.”
“If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll just stay down here, your highness.” Pinkie Pie glanced guiltily toward Verse, who smiled back, showing a gap where one of his front teeth had been. “What if this poor squished pony needs, uh, medical resistance?”
The princess peeled Verse off the ground, used her magic to sculpt the suspended pony back into more or less his original shape, the set him back down.
“Pinkie! Quit playing games. Your behavior borders on offense. You were in even more danger from your own blind fright than from that wretch above. We will conquer your fears, but you must first face them!” Luna said.
“Okay, sure, just—just not tonight, alright? It’s all too much to deal with all at once and I haven’t had any sleep or food or anything and I just need a week or so to take it all in, and maybe a tray of cupcakes and a hot bath and—”
Running out of patience, Luna shut her eyes and rubbed one of her temples. “Very well. Tarry here and do not stray. We will be traveling to Canterlot shortly.”
The princess turned abruptly and re-entered the stairwell. She could rise back to the roof with a snap of her wings, but she wanted a moment to cogitate on the meaning of the unicorn’s words before speaking to that alchemist again.
Pinkie sat down next to Verse, feeling relieved at even a brief reprieve from Concord. Still, she thought, the princess was right, wasn’t she? What had Concord done that justified her tempting fate on a steep roof at midnight? Something just didn’t fit.
While the princess was making her way back up the stairs, Twilight shot up to the rooftop before her, finding Verity and Concord right where she’d left them. Concord, still magically pinned, was trying to hold back tears with limited success.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Twilight said through Verity, surprised to find herself actually feeling sorry for the spirit. “Pinkie’s not hurt at all. I think Verse accidentally saved her somehow.”
“I know. Sis told me.” Concord managed between sniffles. “I still did this. I could have hurt her so bad! If Verse hadn’t wandered out there...”
“Shh! Don’t talk like that. It was the others, the ones that got me, that made her that way, remember? Just stick to my plan and we’ll fix everything.”
The earth pony spirit halfheartedly struggled against his bonds. “If it weren’t for your dumb plan, Pinkie never woulda taken that dive! How can we do anything if everyone thinks I’m public enemy number one? They’ll probably just leave me in a cell to rot.” Unable to break free, he sagged in defeat. “Oh, Pinkie....”
“No! You can’t back out now,” Twilight threatened. “Princess Luna will outright destroy you. When she figured out Verity was a spirit, she was all ready to blast her to atoms or turn her to stone on the spot!”
The stallion’s eyes went from sad to scornful in an instant. “And how’d that work out for her royal lunacy?” He asked. “I may be caught, but I’m not the one in danger here, Sparky. I’ll gladly take all this and worse, because Pinkie’s worth it, but other than that you’ve got no weight to throw around.”
“Don’t get mad at me,” Twilight protested. “I want to get Pinkie back to her old self just as much as you do. What are you going to do without my help? You promised her you wouldn’t use your powers, and Verity doesn’t want to do whatever she did again either.”
Concord’s eyes seemed to harden into orbs of polished flint. “Then you better hope this hare-brained plan works somehow. If it doesn’t, or if the choice is between either using my powers or letting Pinkie get hurt again, I’m going to take the direct approach and beg forgiveness later.”
“The ‘direct approach?’ ”
“I declare peace. I’ll fix all of you. You and all the ponies and everything else are never going to be able to even think of getting between Pinkie and me ever again. You won’t be able to think of much of anything, really. You’ll just lay there all peaceful-like.”
“You can’t just turn everypony into vegetables! Isn’t that wrong, like what Verity did was?”
“Yes,” said Verity.
“That's because it’s a horrible thing to do! Pinkie would hate you forever.”
Concord wore a smug grin. “Nobody would mind afterward. And who says she’d have to know I did it? We just found out I can lie, so I can say what’s necessary to keep the peace. Maybe I’ll tell her I saved her from whatever got all the rest of ‘em. She’d be eternally grateful.”
Twilight was aghast. “You’re a monster, just like the rest of them!” she blurted.
“Don’t get all high-and-mighty with me, Sparky. Bet you didn’t get whammied by a spirit of justice for littering. We can do it your way for now, but don’t even think of tryin’ to stop me. One way or another, I will get what I want.”
As he spoke, a patch of gray hair dropped off from beneath Concord’s cloak, and then another and another.
“Mm… ahh,” he sighed. “My back finally stopped itchin’.”
Twilight slipped her perspective beneath the cloak, worried that the chemicals she’d used to stain the disguise were having some harmful effect on the spirit.
It wasn’t the chemicals. A large patch of Concord’s back was now covered in silvery fish scales.
Twilight made the connection. Just Deserts had that scorpion tail and then those eyes. Verity had been a whole pony before, but now one of her back legs was hairless and she suddenly got those striped quills after her confrontation with Luna. And now this! All three were spirits. When spirits did something they shouldn’t, they got animal parts. The more they did, the more they got, until…
What had Luna said? ‘Twilight Sparkle of all ponies ought to know the danger posed by an enfleshed spirit.’
“You’re all turning into draconequui!” Twilight made Verity yelp.
Concord blinked mildly at the outburst. “Pinkie said something about that before. What are they?”
Verity checked. “ ‘Draconequus’ is the species name ponies gave to a summoned spirit who refused to go back Outside.”
“Yeah, Discord! You know, the evil spirit of chaos? You’re turning into evil spirits too! You’ve got scales on your back because of that awful plan. You have to stop being cruel and thinking about hurting everyone just so you can have Pinkie!”
“Were there any draco-equus alchemists?” Concord pondered. “Maybe if I went whole-hog she’d snap out of it.”
“Pinkie isn’t able to see you for what you are unless I heal her,” Twilight reminded him. “Please, please don’t give up yet. The plan will work! Listen, literally nopony else, including Celestia, thinks alchemists are real. Luna’s going to want to parade us around as proof, and when we go before her sister, she’ll recognize my voice and I’ll explain what’s going on and she can help us.”
“Princess Celestia believes that alchemists are real,” Verity interjected, annoyed at how Twilight was counting her chickens before they hatched.
Twilight was caught short by the statement. “What? But she always told me there weren’t any, and they probably never existed in the first place! She wouldn’t lie to me!”
The filly fixed Twilight’s point of reference with a withering look.
“Okay, okay, you’re the truth spirit,” Twilight hastily backpedaled.
“Witness.”
“Whatever! Still, if we can barely convince Luna we are what we say we are, and she really wants it to be true, there’s no way that Celestia will buy it. Then, when—eep!”
The door swung open, and the Princess of the Night emerged from the stairwell. The alicorn looked at the alchemist and his creation and smiled at them with cold cheer. She could tell the proud, power-hungry pony had been crying while she was away, but his face now looked conniving and surly. This was more like what she expected from an alchemist. So he had decided to drop the act at last!
For a split second Twilight was tempted to make Verity tell Luna the truth; that dangerous spirits were abroad in Equestria again, and that they had to be stopped, no matter the cost. Fear kept her silent. What if the spirits won when she forced them to act? What if they lost and Verity was turned to stone or banished, making it so nopony was able to notice Twilight ever again? She’d just have to stick to the plan too, now. It was agonizing.
“I apologize for making you wait,” Luna said sarcastically. “You’ll be glad to know that Pinkie is well. Also, that unicorn whose wits you addled has sold you out completely.”
“He did?” Concord and Twilight said in unison.
Luna swished her tail and smiled, gloating. “Are you surprised? Why should a servant who is treated so poorly keep any secrets for you? This is why the wicked will always succumb in the end; you see the world as enemies and victims to exploit, not as friends and neighbors.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s sweet,” said Concord, “but you actually understood what he was trying to say?”
“My wit easily overcame the chains you laid on his mind. He informed me by allusion and metaphor that I was being distracted, ‘standing by,’ while the ship of state is in danger. The main thrust of your allies’ plot will be in the place that I call home, none other than the palace in Canterlot. I am unsure about the ‘old gray head’ and the king, but I have my suspicions it is the very leader of your Order! Furthermore, I know that your plot is being carried out this very night.”
She had gotten all that from Verse’s random nonsense? No, surely this was just Luna’s hopes of vindication driving her imagination, Twilight reasoned. Regardless, it was awfully close to what was actually happening.
For his own part, Concord was still shaking his head at the idea of Verse sharing pertinent information.
“Psst,” Twilight hissed at the stallion. “She is onto us. She figured it out.” Twilight wished she could wink at him, but Verity seemed unwilling to relay expressions.
He got the message, but hesitated. Concord was beginning to wonder whether his benefactor was being totally honest with him. She didn’t really seem all that keen on his obviously meant-to-be pairing with Pinkie Pie. He hoped the threat of pacifying the world would keep her in line, but if she got her hooves back, and then got those hooves on Magic again, there’d be nothing he could do to about it. He narrowed his eyes and kept mum.
Luna took his anxious glower as a sign that she’d hit the mark. “Now you begin to understand the folly of your cause.” She paced in a circle around him. “But do not lose heart. It is not too late to redeem even one such as yourself.”
Corcord cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh? I thought I was part of some evil secret society that goes around terrifyin’ poor sweet mares.”
“Indeed, but you folded like a moist towel at my slightest spell, your unnatural ‘copy’ of Twilight Sparkle hardly looks like a pony and you do not strike me, overall, as being the cutler’s keenest work. You say they abandoned you, and why should they not? You need help. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by cooperating with me instead.”
His eyes widened. “Everything? Even Pinkie?”
The princess regretted her choice of words immediately. “I am afraid arranged marriage is out of fashion these days, if that is what you mean. However, I suppose you have a better chance with her if you reverse your cloak and aid me rather than face the full penalty for your crimes. Do you know what they do to alchemists, little fool?”
Concord misunderstood the phrase and clutched at his disguise, suddenly self-conscious at the transformation that Twilight thought proved he was a spirit.
Verity paused from running a hoof over her new quills to chuckle humorlessly. “Every pony charged with practicing alchemy for the last six hundred years has been summarily acquitted by Princess Celestia, including those you personally accused.”
Luna shot Verity a nasty look, then recomposed herself and smiled coldly at Concord. “Your creature is as knowledgeable as she it mimics. If I were to attempt to see you jailed or tried, my poor, misinformed sister would have you released the moment she found out.” Her smile turned to a toothy snarl. “That is why I will not trouble the Equestrian legal system this time. I will not have my effort wasted and mocked and laughed at by the very ponies I spend my very life protecting! Never again, do you hear!?”
The change that had come over the princess had Twilight worried. It sounded rather like her reasons for becoming Nightmare Moon all those centuries ago. First spirits turning into draconequii, and now this! She was having second thoughts about her plan to trick Luna into giving them a free ride to Canterlot. How would the princess react when she discovered the truth?
Concord was more confused than intimidated. “So, uh, what are you gonna do?”
Still worked up at the memory of past humiliations, Luna paced and stamped. “Me? Me!? You will be doing the work, villain! You will tell them everything, swear whatever oaths they demand, submit to whatever spells and tests and questioning, and you will prove to them that I! Am! Right!”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“If you refuse, I will personally make you reconsider. First I will mauve you on an uncharted, barren island with neither food nor fresh water for a fortnight—”
“Um, I said ‘okay’.”
“—Then, if that fails to loosen your tongue, I will cast you upon the moon where my own pets will hunt and worry you without respite—”
“ ’Scuse me? Hello? The answer is yes.”
“—and then, I will take my own hooves and... and....” She ceased pacing and stared at him wide-eyed. “You’ll do it? Really? Just like that?”
“Uh huh.”
“Done, accepted and bound!” With lightning quickness, Luna pointed her horn and cast a spell at him. Blue light swirled around his neck, transformed into a midnight-colored choker, and then faded away. Twilight recognized the spell as a geas forcing the subject to abide by an agreement. She had no idea whether magic like that would actually work on a spirit.
The fury disappeared from the princess’s face at once. Luna reared and pawed the air in elation. “Hooray! Ha-hah, at last! Things are finally looking skyward! She dispelled the dome over Ponyville with a flick of her head, letting undiluted moonlight stream down once again. “PINKIE,” she called out in the Royal Canterlot Voice, “OUR VICTORY IS AT HOOF! READY YOURSELF, WE ARE GOING TO CANTERLOT FORTHWITH.”
Lights flicked on behind windows across town as the princess’s deafening command roused the inhabitants from their slumber.
Twilight allowed herself to feel a bit of hope too. In spite of Pinkie’s fall, Luna’s suspicions and Concord’s growing corruption, they were still on track somehow. She could salvage this mess. Pinkie would come to her senses, the spirits would all be sent away or captured, and Equestria would be saved once again. Once she and Verity got to the capitol and she could speak to Celestia, everything would be sorted out in no time!
The glowing sphere of Luna’s powerful teleportation spell expanded from her horn to engulf the entire roof of the building. Then, with a static pop, the magic dissipated. All the ponies and spirits had been whisked away to the mountain.
But one who was neither had been left behind.
Wait, no! Stop! Come back! Twilight howled silently.