//------------------------------// // Ch.21: The Evil Within Us All - Part 2 // Story: A Hairier Problem: Rise of the Furball // by BlueBastard //------------------------------// Rise of the Furball Chapter 21: "The Evil Within Us All - Part 2" All Raspberry Beryl knew was she was going to die. Alone. She’d been a fool to believe the words of a little filly, that she could trust anypony. Absentmindedly, the soul-crushed unicorn glanced over at the youngest princess in the group, the words on the floor meaningless to her as she gazed intently, if rather unfocused, at the Princess of magic. Twilight noticed and tried to convey how sorry she was in her expression, but really it was just more lies as far as Razz was concerned. Twilight had failed to keep at least two of her promises. Heliodor was out there, somewhere, the uncertainty of his condition making Razz sick to her stomach, and even though Apple Bloom and Lightning Dust had promised to give their support, Razz had noticed the two had not returned after the court recess. Then, she barely recognized the judge speaking for more than a few sentences, which probably meant this was it. Even though she knew it was coming, she just crossed her forelegs on the table and rested her head on them, hiding the tears. But before the judge could level the sentence, which despite Shining’s best efforts (usually involving him dramatically slamming the table with his hooves and shouting 'OBJECTION!' at the top of his lungs) was almost certainly going to be the death penalty, the back doors burst open. “Wait!” cried out Candlewick, who then oddly hurried away from the doorframe, only to return a moment later with Golden Sun, between them was supported a birdcage. A birdcage with one very, very sick looking creature that was a bird in the vaguest sense of the word, the only suggestion of its identity being the faded green and gold plumage lying on the bottom of the cage. “H-heelee?!” cried out Raspberry, horrified. Her interest in life possibly having been restored, she barely resisted the urge to rip the cage to shreds with a mere thought and reclaim her bird. At least until the cage had been brought to the center of the floor. She then proceeded to use her magic to rip the cage apart and reclaimed her bird. “W-where did this come from?!” demanded Blueblood, who suspiciously seemed more angry than surprised. “And I don’t believe I recall anypony saying to bring a birdcage into the middle of a trial, especially when it’s practically over!” “Actually,” smirked Shining, “I think that’s my sister’s doing.” “Indeed” said Twilight, though no humor was in her voice, “I had the guards looking for any trace of where Heliodor might have been taken, then in the event he was found word was to be brought back of the discovery, if not the phoenix himself. Evidently, wherever he was, it was…seriously detrimental to his health.” “Um…” mumbled Fluttershy nervously, prompting everypony to look to her, “I’d say it’s a little more than that…” From the moment the phoenix had been brought in, Fluttershy’s attention had been on him and him only, the desire to respect the crown because that now included her friend Twilight being the only thing having stopped her from ripping the bird cage apart and giving its captive to Razz. But although she’d had quite the experience with phoenixes in their sickly-state right before the fiery rebirth they were famous for, Heliodor looked considerably worse than Philomena had back then. In comparison, Philomena had also been rather energetic at this point right up to becoming a pile of ash, and that was just to have some light-hearted fun at the expense of everypony worrying about her. Heliodor had finally returned to his mistress, but he was clearly struggling to lift even a featherless wing. “It’s going to be okay, Heelee, it’s going to be okay!” said Razz, trying to convince herself just as much as him of possible hope as she cradled her pet in her forelegs. Even though it clearly pained him, he managed to crack a small smile as his wing touched her cheek, before promptly combusting into nothing but a pile of ash that fell through her hooves. The only other creature in the world that had ever cared for her, who had done everything in his power at all times to ensure she was safe, was happy, had been reduced to something she couldn’t even bury properly. And while she knew of phoenixes having a life-death cycle, Heelee had still been a year off from when he should have gone through his first cycle. No…this…this had been a death on account of a broken heart. He’d failed to be there for her when she needed him most and had only found his way back into her embrace just in time for death to claim him. He wasn’t coming back. She didn’t try to stop it. No point now. She wailed hard, the tears coming hot and heavy, as she let the last of her lifelong friend drift away. But then she also realized that there was something else in the pile of ash. As the last bits of the former phoenix sifted through to the ground, she was left holding what looked like a hastily consumed bit of a monogrammed handkerchief, possibly Heliodor trying to tell her who had been responsible. He’d succeeded, as the piece within Razz’s possession bore what looked like a coat of arms. The same coat of arms that was on the cufflinks of the pony who for the past few hours had been insulting every last aspect of her life, now revealed to have gone even further. “Oh, for crying out loud!” complained Blueblood, “it’s just a dumb bird.” “Just a dumb bird?” she replied, her head slowly turning to glare at the one responsible for murdering Heliodor, “Just a dumb bird?!” “Uh, Miss Raspberry…?” said Shining, cautiously, “please, let us handle this, you don’t-“ “Oh, but I do.” seethed the unicorn, instantly setting everypony else on edge, even the alicons, “Clearly, it was wrong of me to think that anything close to actual justice was going to come of this, even if a princess promised me that would be the case.” She instinctively knew that by this point the guards behind her were going to jump her, so right as they were about to tackle her she cast one of the most powerful spells she had on hoof. Instantaneously, a pulse of dark energy irradiated from her horn and spread out to fill the entire room. Nopony moved – they couldn’t. It was as if she had just frozen them all in ice, without the ice. Even the alicorns hadn’t had time to cast a counterspell, while the effect wouldn’t last nearly as long on them they were still critically vulnerable. Blueblood, appropriately, had been frozen with a look that, had the action not been prevented by the spell, clearly indicated there was now bodily waste fluid backed up in him. Most shocking of all, however, was what seemed to have happened with Razz. Her mane and tail, normally sky blue and lilac, was dotted with darker spots, the spot around her cutie mark having color shifted from raspberry red to a much darker shade of mulberry, her cutie mark seemingly going with the color shading and looking far less bright than before. “All I’ve wanted in life was, well, an actual life,” said Razz, her unblinking gaze right into Blueblood’s eyes having never broken contact. “The thing that almost universally is guaranteed to every colt and filly, where they have loving parents who shower them with affection and raise them, where they go to school with their friends and learn their places in life when that life-changing moment occurs and they get their cutie marks. Then they grow up into adults, to start their own families and find happiness there with even more friends and live productive, cheerful lives.” Still looking at Blueblood, Razz slowly got up, the rage building in her voice as she kept talking while taking her time to get close to the target of all her pent up anguish. “I didn’t get to be that lucky; instead I got stuck with a father who hated my guts because I was a physically weak unicorn who he’d been forced to take in place of my mother, who had died by birthing me. I got the lifestyle where I had to run from home when I was scarcely in my teens because everypony in town thought I was a monster and couldn’t find a stable place to live. In all honesty, the only reason I only put up with the hell that is my life was because of ‘a dumb bird’ who would love me for who I am when nopony else wanted to. But thanks to you; a wealthy royal who decided you deserved ‘a dumb bird’ and so stole from a pony who has lived in near poverty her whole life, Heelee is dead. And I am going to make you understand just how much that upsets me.” One particularly strong blast of dark magic later, Blueblood found himself rocketing backwards into a wall, his path marked by the gradual release of his fear-induced self-relieving. But any relief to be found from regaining bodily control was instantly countered by the discovery his horn would not conduct magic, for there were now black crystalline growths all over it. He only knew of one other time this had happened to anypony; to Shining Armor as a matter of fact, except the cause of his horn growths had been from one particularly infamous individual. Which could only mean one thing, a fear that was confirmed when he looked down from his ruined horn to the one he’d been trying to destroy just minutes ago and only then did he begin to understand the gravity of what horrors he’d unleashed. Approaching Blueblood once again, Razz seemed to not notice the changes in her body. Her mane and tail were gradually shifting from its regular coloration to that of a jet black, highlighted by bright red streaks. Her coat changed as if from a falling shadow, assuming the same, much more subdued shade of red as that around her cutie mark, which itself had changed fully. Now the six gems around the border were all as black as the crystals on his horn, the blue heart gem now having turned to the same shade of raspberry the mare’s coat had been previously. But it was her head that scared him the most. While the sudden change to her teeth had now given her two very dangerous looking fangs, and her irises were now a blazing blood red, it was her horn that spoke volumes. It was the same shade as her new coat, as expected, but it had no ridges carved into its flawlessly smooth surface, instead it had a very scary curvature to it suggesting a much more… invasive …functionality and around the tip it blended from the dark red into what looked like a splotch of dried blood. “I may be Raspberry Beryl,” the thing that had once been that unicorn said, “but it is the blood of King Sombra which runs in my veins, his magic I call my own, and whose curse I bear. Make no mistake, however, because it will be my wrath, my anguish, and my horn that will claim vengeance for Heliodor.” She then grabbed Blueblood in her magic by the neck, lifting him off the ground just enough that his hindlegs were hanging uselessly in the air. “But before we get to that fun part, you’re going to tell me the justification for the biggest mistake of your life.” “Wh-what do you want?!” pleaded Blueblood, his forehooves grasping at his neck instinctively to try and remove the force choking him even though he knew it wasn’t going to work. “Why did you take him?!” demanded Raspberry, or more accurately screamed in his face, while the tears flowed freely down her face, “What was so important about him that you stole him like a common thief in the middle of the night, that you somehow treated him so horribly that even his nature as a phoenix couldn’t have kept him alive, since we both know if he was perfectly okay he would have resurrected by now!” “I…I don’t know what happened! Yes, I took the bird, something of that *gasp* beauty shouldn’t belong to scum like you! But all I did was put him in *gasp* my parlor! You think I would seriously go *gasp* to such lengths as to kill something as unique and valuable as that phoenix, for any possible reason?!” “I don’t think, I just proved it. This entire time you were lobbying for my death because I used dark magic, well what better way for that to have been proven than my reaction to the only creature I could ever trust dying in my hooves, the one responsible for it conveniently being five feet away from me? But at the same time, while I may be the monster people can see on the outside, you’re an even worse monster on the inside!” “Y-you wouldn’t dare!” “Why? I don’t have anything to lose thanks to you! All I’ve got left now is the need to avenge Heliodor, and there’s nothing that’s gonna stop-“ “DON’T DO IT!” rang out Apple Bloom’s voice. The yellow filly stood, the inherent moral strength of her Apple bloodline evident in her stance, in the doorframe at the end of the courtroom. “A-Apple Bloom?” stammered Razz, surprised at the appearance of a pony she’d been convinced was guilty of abandoning her. Her focus diverted, she dropped her chokehold on Blueblood. The prince landed in a puddle of his own fear, the fact he had more fear in the mental sense stopping him from immediately trying to run lest the crazed clone of King Sombra decided to make his death quick. “Razz, Ah don’t know what exactly happened here, Ah’d have thought the fact we found Heelee in Blueblood’s house would-“ she then saw the random pile of ash in the middle of the courtroom, the kerchief corner lying in its center, “that totally happened, didn’t it?” “Yes, but only because of this prick over here!” She wheeled around and fired a burst of magic at Blueblood, who had unwisely tried to make a run on the hopes he could make it through the doors. His hoof was a mere inch from them before he was frozen in mid-air, though this time completely encased in dark crystal save his muzzle, making him fear just how much worse she was going to be towards him by the end of this trial gone horribly wrong. “And no, Apple Bloom, even though Heelee was a phoenix, he was too ill for his magic to reincarnate him. He hadn’t even gone through a proper one yet…” Raspberry sniffed, all the things Heliodor should have been able to do by birthright as a phoenix now forever denied, “all I have left is this damn affinity for dark magic!” “No, you’re wrong!” Apple Bloom proceeded to walk through the sea of magically frozen ponies as if the hall was empty save for her, the emotionally overwrought unicorn, and what was left of Heliodor. “Ah understand you’re feelin’ like there’s nopony in the world who is on your side, but you’ve been livin’ that way for so long that when you finally find ponies who do care, who do want to help, you shut them out!” “B-but…” “But nothin’. Ah told you that you could trust Twi and friends, can’t you see they did their best to help support you? Or what about those two old ponies at the Traveler’s Retreat, the ones Rarity said you said were like the parents you never had? Or what about me and Dust?” “B-but you and Dust promised me you would be here, but after the court recess-“ “We found a lead to where Heliodor was, only reason she and Ah weren’t back at the same time as Heelee was because Lightnin’ was waitin’ for me to finish usin’ the little fillies room. Buddy system and all that, y’know?” Razz couldn’t find words to express how she was feeling. She was still beyond outraged at the fact Blueblood had been the main reason for Heliodor’s death, but at the same time she felt so stupid for having been blind to everything such that it required a filly to point out how she hadn’t been betrayed. Hell, even walking onto the scene of everypony, including the four most powerful ponies in the country, frozen in time and the responsible unicorn having turned much more evil (or as Razz had jokingly referred to herself in private on one occasion long ago, ‘more mary sue like’) and about to actually murder another pony outright, Apple Bloom had kept her faith in a pony she by all rights should have run screaming from back on Nightmare Night. “Now, Ah did hear some of the stuff you were spoutin’, mainly the bit about how you have ‘the blood, the horn, and the curse of King Stupid-“ “King Sombra” corrected Razz, stifling a laugh at the filly’s mistake. “That’s what ah said: King Sombero, but that’s not important. It’s powerful magic, in the wrong hooves there is every reason to be scared of it. But your hooves aren’t the wrong ones, not when you are a good pony at heart.” “Uh, have you looked around you? I immobilized everypony in here without even trying.” “So? Twilight wasn’t even an alicorn when she made all of Ponyville go crazy for that old Smarty Pants doll Big Mac keeps locked in the chest under his bed, which was so bad that Princess Celestia had to come and fix everything.” “I…I understand what you’re saying, Apple Bloom, but…but just look at me! I’m the direct descendant of one of Equestria’s greatest enemies, I can do everything he did so much that my special talent of dark magic mastery prevents me from doing any other kind of magic! Who-“ Razz did not expect the sudden weight of Apple Bloom having launched herself at the unicorn, latching on with a big hug. “But you’re not him. King Sober was an evil pony, he never used his magic for anything good for anypony. You’re better than that; Ah’m only alive because your magic was the only kind that could have kept…well, you know, her away. And all you did with your magic normally was make gems. Who cared if they were fake, you sold them because they were pretty, which made ponies happy. Well, okay, except Spike, but really Ah think he has a problem and woulda choked the exact same way if you gave him a pile of real diamonds because he would have eaten them all at once.” Silence reigned as Apple Bloom just hugged Raspberry tigher and tighter, as if that would somehow work. Amazingly it did, as the dark unicorn found the young filly's attempt at choking her somehow calming. Naturally, that calm was quickly broken. “Okay, what the buck happened in here?!” shouted Lightning Dust, who had appeared at the back door…with Philomena of all creatures. “Jeez, we leave you alone for maybe an hour Razz, and you try to outdo everypony who has wanted nothing more than to torture that plothole Blueblood? Like, seriously, I’m pretty sure you didn’t need to do this to everypony, although…” Apple Bloom laughed. “Dash is totally gonna kill you for even considerin’ that, y’know.” Lightning shrugged. “Her loss, then, though a handlebar mustache really would look good on her.” Razz didn’t hear a word of the mustache discussion, her focus instead on Philomena. The red phoenix had immediately raced to the pile of ash that had once been Heliodor, a look of remorse on her face. “Heelee never met one of his own kind,” said Razz, moving to the remains of her own phoenix and laid down to look at the still living avian on an eye-to-eye level, “Though from what I’ve heard about you, Philomena, he would have liked you.” The phoenix seemed to consider Raspberry’s words for a moment, before taking wing. Razz wasn’t sure what was going on until Philomena banked around and promptly bathed the remains of Heliodor in bright crimson fire. Apple Bloom and Lightning Dust could only look on in horror at what probably was going to set off Raspberry again, since abusing Heliodor was evidently reaching a level above redundancy…until the ash began to move. Stirred by the constant fire of the phoenix circling above, the ashen remains began to coalesce back into one large pile, before in an instant launching upwards into a spinning cloud of gray. After a few moments, the cloud compressed down into a singular point of mass before, in a brilliant explosion, the reborn Heliodor spread his wings and let out a mighty cry. His rebirth, however, had not given him back much energy, as he struggled to even flap his wings hard enough to hover. That quickly became a non issue, though, as a familiar and comforting black aura encircled him. “HEELEE!” shouted Razz, tears once again starting to flow but now of sheer joy. Sitting back on her haunches, she brought her old friend down to stand on an uplifted leg where she could nuzzle him. “You have absolutely, positively no idea how glad I am to have you back!” He nuzzled back with a happy cry of his own with his own tears of happiness, their reunion being permanent instead of a fleeting few minutes. “Well, I think we can all say we’re of the same mind, Raspberry Beryl” said the calm voice of Celestia, who had actually broken free of Razz’s petrification spell a while back but had wisely chosen to not interfere with what Apple Bloom was accomplishing, “especially since, while there remains much to be discussed in regards to you, your little outburst probably has taught us all more about the situation then anything we would have learned from this trial.” “P-princess Celestia, please, I understand if you wish to heavily punish me,” said Razz, “but only do it on the grounds of what I did here, not on the sins of my ancestor whose legacy I carry on unwillingly.” “Oh, no need to be so melodramatic about it,” laughed Celestia, who proceeded to cast a counterspell to un-petrify all the other ponies, though Blueblood remained encased in dark crystal, “If you truly were Sombra’s descendant in every way, you wouldn’t have spent so much time intimidating Blueblood and instead would have killed me and Luna right away, something he was never able to accomplish despite that being the main reason he took over the Crystal Empire in the first place.” “To be fair, Aunt Celestia,” said Cadence, who had been alone exactly one millisecond after being un-petrified before Shining instantly appeared at her side to support her, “there were a lot of ponies who wanted to kill you two back then.” “True, but Sombra had one of the better reasons. Nopony remembers, of course, but he actually was of royal blood and in line for the throne.” “Wait a sec,” said Apple Bloom, now by Applejack’s side, “are ya sayin’ Razz-” “I am, Apple Bloom,” Celestia promptly interrupted before turning with a warm smile to the confused Raspberry, “if Raspberry Beryl is truly the descendant of Sombra, then she is of royal standing.” Applejack stumbled to her room. After the mess that had been the trial, Applejack cursed the fact she seemed to have a really bad reaction to being petrified by dark magic. Sure, Razz had been off her rocker at the time and profusely apologized for it, Applejack herself comforting the shell-shocked unicorn by confessing to her secretly about her time as a werewolf. Razz had given an unusually strange look upon learning of Applejack’s previous lycanthropy, but agreed to keep the apple farmer’s secret and was happy to have somepony to come talk to about dark magic stuff if she needed to. Still didn’t do anything about the massive headache that came as a result of being unpetrified, though, which Twilight theorized was more of a reaction between Celestia’s magic and Razz’s magic within Applejack, who despite being cured of lycanthropy would always be a little more susceptible to dark magic thanks to her blood’s immunity to the worst effects dark magic would bring. The biggest headache was yet to come, however, and Applejack really didn’t want to think about it as she undid her mane and tail hair ties before stepping into the shower. The revelation that Raspberry Beryl was a true blooded descendant of none other than King Something-or-Rather, which explained why the unicorn was so good at dark magic, meant she was in fact important enough in the royal standing to be considered a pretender to the throne. Which, basically, meant all the nobility titles and other stuff King Snu-Snu had held were now by blood right the property of Raspberry. More importantly, the trial was thrown out of court thanks to Blueblood having violated a staggering number of regulations in having taken Heliodor from the evidence chambers, so Celestia decided to flaunt her ability as Princess to do whatever she wanted and now, tomorrow, Razz’s fate would be decided over a nice luncheon. But it had been a long stretch of time in-between being unpetrified and actually being allowed to leave the courtroom, as for whatever reason the Royal Guard wouldn’t let anypony leave until they had debriefed everypony who had been in the room. It had even almost delayed Luna from doing her main duty of raising the moon at night, to which she only managed to do by breaking out the classic Royal Canterlot Voice to hurry things up. Having had to deal with a massive headache the entire time, Applejack took leave of her friends to go get a long night’s sleep in the hopes that the headache would be gone in the morning. Thankfully, it was gone before she’d even fallen asleep, which she was thankful for. At least until the itching started. The fact she was so itchy surprised Applejack, normally the times she spent the night at Castle Canterlot were extremely pleasant with the softest sheets and pillows a pony could ask for. “Rainbow Dash…” grumbled AJ, who she had to come to blame for this. Obviously the pegasus had put itching powder in her bed as a prank. The farmer would need to figure out a way to get back at the flyer, somehow, probably with Dust’s help. But then the covers starting making her feel way too warm. To Applejack’s knowledge, there was nothing Rainbow could have done to her bed to make it both super-itchy AND too thick, at least not without having a deathwish by angering the entire cleaning staff of the castle. But Rainbow wasn’t that daring. Plus, now that Applejack thought about it, there hadn’t really been any point Rainbow could have put together any kind of prank, the pegasus had been with her the entire day. And then the answer stuck Applejack. She was super-itchy all over AND feeling unusually warm. And it wasn’t so much an ‘itchy’ feeling at this point as it was actual pain. It was all Applejack could do to grit her teeth and brace for what she feared the most, because there had been one specific time when this had happened before. When she had been launched into what had become a living nightmare. But she knew that, as the all-too familiar feelings coursed through her body, as her resilience failed to prevent herself from letting loose the signature cry of the night, there was no denying it. Bronze Shield had been wrong.