Rise of the Furball Chapter 32: “Fair Ultimatum”
The last thing Babs Seed could recall was being at the Ponyville train station, having waited for a train that wasn’t going to come, when somehow a bunch of identical werewolves erupted from a freight car and swarmed the platform. It was in the middle of the ‘swarming’ that at some point she’d been knocked out, evidently because she had been foalnapped herself.
“Unnhhh…” moaned Babs, putting a hoof to her head as it rang from whatever had knocked her out. She immediately registered the fact she was in some kind of prison cell, judging from the old iron bars right in front of her.
“Babs? BABS!” suddenly came the voice of Scootaloo. “Hey, Babs! Are you okay?” The brown filly’s sight started to refocus, allowing her to now see that she was not alone in the cell. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had evidently been waiting for Babs to wake up. They did not look to be in the best condition.
“Wha…what happened?” asked the Apple, realizing she didn’t feel quite up to snuff herself. “All I remember is a buncha werewolves comin’ outta some train car…”
“Yeah, somehow Fair Vista has a lot of identical twins all of a sudden. Must have used some of ‘em to foalnap us, though why they didn’t take Apple Bloom is beyond me.”
“Maybe she fought them off better than we did?” suggested Sweetie. “I mean, obviously we’re pretty beat up so we have to have put up quite a struggle…right?”
Babs could only nod, since how else could they explain the fact all three of them were bruised all over with one or two cuts for each filly and none of them were as energetic as they usually were.
“How much you wanna bet Tiara’s behind this?” snorted Scootaloo, “I’m thinking she wasn’t foalnapped at all, but instead allied herself with Vista!”
“Oh, bravo, the Crusaders finally figured it out.” The imprisoned trio looked wildly around for the sudden source of Tiara’s droning voice: “I’m over here, you idiots.” Then, right on the other side of the bars, materialized the altered form of the Crusaders’ scourge. “Do you like my new look? I think it’s quite nice, myself.”
“What, you finally realized your face is even stupider than before?” taunted Scootaloo, getting a laugh out of the Crusaders. “But seriously: you really had yourself be willingly turned into a monster?”
Tiara chuckled. “Oh, so is that what Apple Bloom is to you? A monster? Because she is not more of a werewolf than I am, I do hope you realize that.”
“You couldn’t even keep your best friend!” squeaked Sweetie Belle in angry retaliation. “Even she could tell the difference between you and Apple Bloom!”
The sudden grin with which Diamond brandished her jaws of sharp teeth intimidated the tiny unicorn. “You sure about that?” She then beckoned to another individual the CMC could not see…until a very unhappy looking Silver Spoon emerged to take her unwanted spot at Tiara’s side.
“You really are a monster!” shouted Scootaloo, face to the bars with her hooves wrapped around them tightly. She slitted her eyes, gazing daggers at the crowned lycanthrope. Diamond for her part didn’t seem to give a buck.
“Oh, come, come!” rang a new voice, eerily too cheerful given the circumstances. “Tiara, you know better than to tease the new recruits!”
“O-of course, mistress,” said Tiara, her voice taking on a tone of innocence once reserved for kissing up to adults. But of more immediate concern was who she was referring to as ‘Alpha’. It didn’t take much guess work, as a very contented Fair Vista was almost bouncing her way over to the jail cell.
“Once a plotkisser, always a plotkisser, even when you’re less of a pony then you were before!” snorted Babs, “I guess something never change, even when the rest of you does to the point of becomin’ the very thing you swore Apple Bloom was – but worse!”
The harsh-yet-still-haughty laughter that came from Vista and Tiara chilled the Crusaders to the bone, especially when the ancient werewolf seemed to have a gleam in her eye that couldn’t mean anything good. “No, young one, the real monsters are the freaks who rule this land and the pony who killed my love last year. Ah, ah, don’t give me that questioning look, you’ll understand soon enough when you’re part of our pack.”
“We will never join you!” seethed Scootaloo, Sweetie and Babs mirroring the same angry glare.
“Oh, but you already have!” Vista suddenly snapped her head backward and let out a fearsome howl. Babs reeled back from the volume, but when she noticed the terrified expression shared by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, it became clear that their wounds were not from having given their all in a fight, but were to hide the fact they’d been cursed by Fair Vista and her new cohorts.
Except, as Babs could only watch on in absolute horror as the pegasus and unicorn’s bodies were malformed in the same manner to that of Apple Bloom’s first transformation months prior, something else wasn’t right either.
Tiara was the first to voice what everypony had noticed by that point; “Waitaminute, why isn’t she changing like the others?”
“You did bite down as I told you to, right Silver?” said Vista, her charmed mannerisms having instantly changed to that of a pony on the verge of going postal. “After all, I do recall having you be the one who was to turn the brown one into part of our pack!”
“I-I swear, I did bite down! Hard!” pleaded Silver, the one non-cracked lens in her glasses showing her eyes quivering in fear. “But maybe some ponies just can’t get cur-“
“Blessed is the term you should be using, pup,” interrupted Vista, closer to going off the deep end with her rage. “Though I suppose it can’t be helped if she’s immune or something, she just will have to rot here alone while the rest of Equestria is allowed to bask in what ponies were meant to always be. It would be nice to know how she is still burdened with only being a pony, unlike her liberated companions, to be fair and all.”
“Uh…” Babs racked her brain, trying to come up with some kind of excuse. “I ate a lot of garlic pizza back in Maneha-“
“DON’T YOU DARE MENTION GARLIC HAVING ANYTHING TO DO WITH WEREWOLVES!” screamed Tiara, smashing her face right up against the bars and trying to swipe with her claws at Babs in vain.
“Ha. That’s five bits, Sweetie,” said Scootaloo, evidently still having the strength to laugh despite the agonizing pain she’d just gone through, especially with how hard it hurt to just talk with a canine’s muzzle.
“Now? Are you serious?” Sweetie was slightly farther in recovery, having managed to sit up in a slouched position.
“Um…what are you talking about?” ventured Silver, still wary of setting off Fair Vista.
Babs rolled her eyes. “Sweetie didn’t believe that whole garlic thing at the school actually was your doing.”
Silver just stared. “But I literally told you guys it was us. During the whole Nightmare Night thing? Sandalwood went bezerk from the news. And you still didn’t believe me, even though the rest of what I said was all true?”
Sweetie, now fully sitting upright, slowly shrugged. “I didn’t think Tiara was actually that stupid at the time.”
“You think these bars will protect you?” threatened Tiara. “When you get outta there, I’m gonna teach you why you need to show me more respect.”
“Now now, Tiara,” chastised Fair Vista, slowly resuming her over-abundantly cheerful attitude, “we can’t let them out yet, we need them as bait to lure the Apple bitches here.”
“I-if I may make a suggestion?” asked Silver.
“Yes?”
“Since one of them evidently can’t be cu-I mean, blessed - with the gift of lycanthropy, I would suggest we use her to our advantage in a different role.”
“Go on…”
“I say we release her to deliver a message to the so-called ‘princess’ and her friends, letting her know that Applejack and Apple Bloom are to come to this castle by themselves or else we hurt the other two captives by turning them into our own.”
“Uh…we already did that, Silver,” pointed out Tiara, skepticism heavy in her voice.
“Then we already win, even if the Apples somehow have a chance against our pack.”
Diamond looked like she was going to argue a point, but Fair Vista’s nodding of approval silenced her. “Maybe I was wrong about you, Silver Spoon, you might make a good werewolf yet. You may take the brown one and send her with an ultimatum.”
“Thank you, mistress.”
Babs, on the other hand, barely had time to say goodbye to the other Crusaders before Silver insisted on hauling the urbanite away.
“I thought you were cool, Silver,” seethed Babs, “but I guess now-“
“Shut up, stay quiet, and do exactly as I say if you want any chance of making it back home alive,” whispered Silver, swinging Babs around so they were face to face. Then, with some effort, Silver willed herself back into pony form and took off her broken glasses. “Tiara’s fallen too far to know if she can be saved, but do not doubt my spirit. I am and always will be a pony at heart, and right now it is my duty as a pony to help warn those who actually can stop what Fair Vista plans to do.”
“Your highness, we cannot permit you to do this!” declared Skyracer, slamming a hoof down on the table inside Golden Oaks. With Sandalwood back on her hooves and under the careful supervision of Applejack, the ponies closest to the princess had gathered in the library to discuss the grave situation at which Ponyville and five of its fillies were in.
“I have to, Corporal, I’m a motherbucking princess!” retorted Twilight, “and I’m not going to let a couple of fillies be killed or worse, be turned into werewolves against their will, without me having done anything in my power to try and prevent that!”
“Your reasoning is sound, my liege,” conceded Daffodil, “but as it is our sworn duty to protect the Royal Tetrarchy, of which you are a member, and that protection extends to preventing you from wadding barrel-deep into a den of werewolves who would probably try to turn you into one of their own!”
“Um, actually, they wouldn’t be able to,” meekly corrected Raspberry. “The raw magic that flows through their blood is far too strong for any strain of the curse to latch on to, generally they’re the only species of pony that’s inherently immune to the curse. I’m only immune because Sombra built a failsafe into the curse that prevented him and any of his descendants from contracting it.”
“Does that mean her majesty also can’t be killed by werewolves?”
“Well…no…”
“Then my point stands!”
The angry murmur from the gathered ponies did not indicate that was what they wanted to hear.
“Then what do you propose we do, Corporal?” asked Rainbow. “Looking past the fact you and the rest of the guards don’t want us going into their lair to at least try and save innocents, the result of fusing a tornado with a hurricane is still building up over Castle Everfree and we’re certain Fair Vista has something to do with it as no weatherponies can do a thing to stop it!”
Skyracer scowled. “And we can’t evacuate the town because that would give that monster and her duplicates the perfect opening to attack the entire populace while the ensuing chaos would prevent the guards from defending against the werewolves in an effective manner.”
“So, I guess this is a case of ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’ more or less?” rhetorically asked Rarity. “It’s a shame that we can’t just borrow the Elements of Harmony for this from the Tree of Harmony, since we can’t risk the Tree losing power again. Who knows what horrors would be unleashed.”
Rainbow nodded. “For all we know, the only reason that storm hasn’t gotten worse than it already has is because it’s being tempered by the Tree’s power, though in that case we don’t know for how much longer it can hold the tempest back, since there’s some kind of magic involved.”
“Ah think Razz said somethin’ about it bein’ dark magic,” said Applejack. “What on account of what lycanthropy is made from and all, right?”
“Yeah,” acknowledged Raspberry, “but how Fair Vista can form such a thing when she was originally an earth pony is beyond me, as there’s no way she can control any kind of magic without a horn or a possible biological adaption to serve a similar purpose.”
“I’m pretty sure her ability to spread lycanthropy through magically created clones, if that Mirror Pool theory is at all true, means she can use some magic,” pointed out Sandalwood. “after all, we all pretty much agree Applejack spread the curse to Apple Bloom by accident and not by a bite, so I have to assume that means she cast magic in some way.”
“This might sound crazy,” interrupted Lightning, “but even though you think it’s dark magic, Raspberry, what if it’s not directly from Vista?”
“Wh-what do you mean?” stammered Fluttershy.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that stupid wolf and her army of narcissism is under that storm, but if they’re holed up in those ruins – the same ruins where Nightmare Moon was both created and destroyed – then that place is ripe with uncontrolled magic. The Everfree doesn’t play by normal rules of anything as it is already, who’s to say that storm isn’t the forest reacting to a large, evil presence building up in the same place?”
“I hardly see how anypony can come to that conclusion, given that it didn’t do this whenever Nightmare Moon was around.” Said Twilight, “What makes Fair Vista different from the beast that possessed Princess Luna?”
“Nightmare Moon was merely the manifestation of Luna’s dark side,” said Raspberry, having figured out another part of the puzzle. “For all the evil alicorn did, she was neither a resurrected spirit nor was there more than one of her. Additionally, of the two times Nightmare was at Castle Everfree, she was there for less than a couple of hours if what has been told to me is at all accurate. Vista has been there – times how many clones of herself there are with her – for days. The Everfree may not have reacted to Nightmare Moon simply because it didn’t have time to form a response like this!”
“But why a storm that is full of dark magic? It doesn’t make sense that the Everfree would put out something like that, the forest is wild but it’s not evil like King Somb-“ Twilight froze when her eyes were locked with Raspberry’s, the mulberry mare’s face looking hurt at once again being called evil because of her magic handicap. The princess immediately made to apologize, before realizing more of the truth. “No, it’s because the Everfree isn’t evil that it’s using dark magic in a way we don’t understand!”
“Huh?” Everypony in the room was confused.
“Raspberry, you’re an example of this phenomenon: you are the closest thing to King Sombra in both lineage and raw dark power alive, but ponies still call you evil simply because you use dark magic! They see that as a sign of you being a high-level threat, thus they will act accordingly if they don’t know better!”
“Uh, Twilight?” interrupted Pinkie Pie, “You want to try explaining that in terms we can understand?”
“The Everfree is trying to help us!” exclaimed the alicorn, the full picture now clear to her. “Normally, some animals employ a form of mimicry such that they serve as warning signs to ward off predators with false illusions of being more dangerous than they really are. Here, the Everfree is doing something of a similar nature, but it’s warning us of the danger within!”
“That makes no sense!” argued Daffodil. “It’s a forest, not a living creature!”
“We don’t know that.” Fluttershy caught everybody off guard when she turned out to be the one responding. “Like Lightning said, the Everfree doesn’t play by the rules as defined by ponies. Maybe this is its own way to try and communicate to us?”
“Well, it certainly takes out the guesswork in figuring out where Fair Vista is, but that still leaves us with the problem of-“
Just then, there was a knock at the door. “Your majesty, one of the patrols has returned with one of the fillies who was foalnapped! She says she needs to talk to you!”
“For Celestia’s sake, boys!” cried out Skyracer, “let the poor girl in! The door isn’t exactly locked!”
The two-part door into Golden Oaks opened up, revealing a slightly beaten up Babs Seed with a guard flanking her on each side.
“BABS!” exclaimed Apple Bloom, saying the first thing to leave her mouth since leaving the hospital and instantly charged right at her cousin to grapple her in a big hug. “Ah was so worried!”
“Yeah, how did you escape?” asked Rainbow. “And what happened to Scootaloo and Sweetie, or Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara?”
The way Babs seemed to try and figure out how to voice what she was going to say immediately informed everypony that it was not good. A curt nod from Twilight had the guards outside shut the door for privacy.
“It’s good to see you all, but really the only reason I’m ‘supposed’ to have been able to return is to deliver some ultimatum to Applejack and Apple Bloom.”
“Ah guess this is where we figure out why she’s cooped up with her army of lookalikes in the Everfree ruins.” Said Applejack. “Let me guess; she wants me and mah sis to go alone to the castle to go fight her, with any funny business meanin’ the other four fillies she’s got in her grasp get turned into werewolves like us?”
Babs blinked a few times in surprise. “Uh, yeah, that’s actually pretty much it. How did you-?”
Applejack laughed. “It’s not the first time Ah’ve had to face off against an evil werewolf, though Sable Loam didn’t actually come back from the dead or have identical clones, come to think of it.”
Raspberry was more grim in her outlook. “But why would she even bother sending an ultimatum? After that stunt at the train station she should have figured out we know about the duplicates.”
Babs sighed. “When she was talkin’ to me and the other Crusaders, she seemed to not exactly be quite all there in the head, if you know what I mean.”
Pinkie nodded as if in agreement. “That means she did clone herself with a Mirror Pool and then possessed the body. Two identical minds occupying the same form…while the original could easily dominate the mind of the inferior copy, they aren’t exactly the same mind to the level that they could work in harmony. Thus, the original is getting distorted in her thought processes and slowly going insane.”
“How did you know all that?!” asked Raspberry, dumbfounded.
“Just a hunch!” cheerfully answered Pinkie, leaving Razz with no further clue as to what had happened.
Twilight just chuckled before getting back into serious mode. “Unfortunately, that means that nest of wolves is all the more dangerous, and for all we know the other fillies are already werewolves.”
“Well…” Babs started, then became unsure of if she should continue or not. However, the horrified reactions from the older ponies showed she’d already said enough.
“No! Not Sweetie Belle!” exclaimed Rarity, “she’s too young for this!” The thought of her sister befalling such a fate, the latest in the series of ponies close to her becoming cursed one by one, shocked her so terribly that she couldn’t even ham up her emotions.
In comparison, Rainbow found herself at a loss for words. Although it had been only slightly over a year since she’d filed the paperwork to be Scootaloo’s mentor, the squirt had been the little sister Rainbow never had and it could be said learning of Scoot’s fate hurt Rainbow even more than what Rarity was going through. She was the Element of Loyalty for Celestia’s sake, but she’d-
No, thought Dash, her distress slowly boiling into a blistering hot anger, I will not fail her, I will not let my little wingpony down!
“Uh, Rainbow, are you okay?” asked Lightning. For all the time she’d spent around Rainbow since coming to Ponyville, she’d never seen Dash get this angry.
“No, I’m not okay!” shouted Dash, “we’ve done nothing but talk and talk in here while Fair Vista’s been doing who knows what to our little sisters, so I don’t care what you all decide to do but I’m going out there with or with-AH!” Rainbow suddenly felt her rear hooves be grasped by something, which subsequent examination showed they were now planted in the floor and held down by dark crystal.
“No, Rainbow, there’s a freakin’ werewolf army in there, you’d be mincemeat well before you got close to the ruins!” pointed out Raspberry, much more firm in her voice than before. “As loathe as I am to say this, we can’t send anypony into that hollow bastion who isn’t either already a werewolf or is otherwise able to survive…” a quick glance at Rarity, fully in shock at this point, inspired Razz to change her next few words, “…fatal wounds in critical areas of the body.”
“I’m down with that,” said Sandalwood, “as long as I can kill as many Fair Vistas as I want!”
“Easy, Sandy,” warned Applejack, not wanting to have to deal with a repeat of Sandalwood’s earlier incident. She then turned to Babs. “But until we can know that the fillies are safe, there is still the real chance they can be hurt by Fair Vista if any one of her bodies sees there is another pony or werewolf other than Bloomie and Ah, so Ah have to figure we’ll both need to somehow distract all the Fair Vistas and any other goon she’s got while the rest of y’all go and save the fillies. Though…” Applejack’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, “Ah don’t believe you explained how you managed to convince Fair Vista to let you go without bein’ bit or anythin’ Babs.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” said Babs, oblivious to AJ’s suspicions of her, “it was all Silver Spoon’s doing.”
“Uh, that doesn’t explain anything,” pointed out Pinkie.
Babs sighed. “Tiara…she’s pretty much lost it herself, she’s willingly serving Vista and everything as a werewolf, but Silver’s there against her will. When Silver was getting me outta there, she said that she was supposed to have bitten me and made me a werewolf, but she faked it to spare me. “
Lightning nodded an acknowledgement. “Alright, so we might have an ally on the inside, but that still doesn’t answer how we’re going to rescue Scoot or Sweetie.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, actually,” piped up Fluttershy. “Raspberry, how hot would you say Heliodor’s fire aura can get?”
“Uh…” Raspberry scratched her head, “I don’t have a real measurement or anything, but back when I was still making faked precious stones with dark crystals, he helped power the blast furnace I used to artificially pressurize the gems so they looked more like the real deal does with microscopic imperfections and such. Why do you ask?”
Fluttershy smiled. “Simple, Fair Vista only demands that Applejack and Apple Bloom be the ponies who go into the ruins. She said nothing about there being any retribution for there being, say, a fire breathing dragon and a fire breathing phoenix. To her, they’re just animals-
“HEY!” exclaimed Spike, who had been running around and serving minor refreshments to all the ponies, “who’s calling me an animal? I was only a dog on the other side of the mirror thank you very much!”
“Easy, Spike,” laughed Twilight.
“As I was saying,” continued Fluttershy, “we could get the fillies free from wherever they’re being held captive – I’m guessing they’re in the old dungeon cells or something, so they’re prevented from leaving by the old iron bars – if the lock holding their cell or cells closed was simply melted off. Spike or Heliodor alone would probably take forever to do it, but together…”
“It wouldn’t take much time at all!” finished Apple Bloom, jumping into the air with glee. “We might actually have a chance to save everypony!” Her ears then drooped. “Well, from Vista, at any rate, not the lycanthropy.”
“We’ll handle that when we’re done with the bitch who took ma and pa, “ answered Applejack, though she was probably a little too happy at ending all the werewolf nonsense again. “Ah’m guessin’ you got a full plan in your head, Fluttershy?”
The pegasus nodded. “Uh-huh, but it’s going to put you and Apple Bloom in danger, possibly more than you’ve ever been in before.”
“Fluttershy, Sable Loam wanted me to basically become Fair Vista. Compared to that, the fact she wants to just kill me and Bloomie is nothin’ in comparison. But time is against us, so we need to get this underway as soon as possible.”
Two hours later, Fair Vista lay on her chest, watching the main entrance of the ruined castle, lying in wait. She knew her prey would come. She knew they had no choice.
“So…” said Tiara, obviously trying to start conversation. Her dedication and loyalty were indispensable, but she had much to learn if she was to be Vista’s right paw wolf.
“So what?” snapped Vista, figuring it was going to be some stupid question.
“What was he like? Sable Loam, I mean?”
The question caught Vista by surprise, which brought a small smile to her face. While normally surprises were to be avoided, the small ones like this question did liven up things.
“He was, in a word: wonderful,” replied the Alpha, her eyes glossing over slightly as she allowed herself to get lost in her memories. “Back when I was still trapped by the restrictions imposed upon me, a mare born in a society where I was nothing but a homemaker, where I had no ambitions to follow and life was the same day-in and day-out, Sable Loam was my savior.”
“By…turning you into a werewolf?”
“Uh-huh. The day he broke into what had been my prison of a home, he was the breath of fresh air I needed, the thing that saved me from drowning in the monotony that had been life. The wild, unrestrained ferocity he radiated was unlike anything I’d ever seen at the time…it helped he was also considerably much hotter than my former husband had ever been.”
“You were married before you partnered with Sable?”
“Regrettably, along with having a filly. I do not remember the names of either, but in truth I don’t care. All I know is that they were just two more shackles in my life as a pony, shackles I gladly cast off to enjoy the freedom that comes with being a werewolf. Plus, I-“
“Tiara, Vista!” cried out Silver, running up from behind the vantage point, “the Apples are here!”
“Huh, so they actually did show up?” grunted Tiara. “I didn’t think they had the spine.”
“Oh, on the contrary, I knew they’d come,” smirked Vista. “After all, they just have to save their little friends in the most brazenly dumb manner possible. Come along, you two, time to tie up some loose ends.”
“Are you sure about this, sis?” ventured Apple Bloom, “Ah mean, Ah’m totally with you in rescuin’ Sweetie, Scoot, and Silver, but…”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s probably a trap of some kind,” grumbled Applejack. “But it’s like Ah said earlier, until we can get the upper hoof, we gotta play by her rules. Besides, Ah actually do have a question or two Ah wanna ask her…”
The sisters didn’t say much else as by that point they’d passed under what was left of the castle’s main gate. While it hadn’t been mentioned where exactly they were supposed to confront Vista, it seemed almost instinctive to the Apples that the showdown would begin in the ruined courtyard. Indeed, the second they entered it, their fur stood up on end.
“Ah, and here they are at last,” came the sing-song voice of Fair Vista, stopping short just as her eyes went wide. “Wow, you really do look like me.”
“Considerin’ how your lover boy decided to try to make me your successor,” flatly replied Applejack, “that’s honestly old news.”
“As much as I do still love Sable, the idea that a wretch like you could ever take my place in full is laughable. You’re one of the worst werewolves that’s ever lived!”
Applejack gritted her teeth, already elongating to sharp tips. “You make it sound like Ah had a choice, when Ah had no say in becomin’ a freak like you or him, just like how you didn’t give mah folks a choice when you turned them into werewolves eleven years ago!”
“Is that why you killed Sable, because of some revenge-needing-dead-parent complex or something?”
“Actually…” interrupted Apple Bloom, “Applejack only really dealt the final blow, the one who actually did most of the butt-whuppin’ was a minotaur.”
“So you’re saying Iron Will is a fraud, then?” came the haughty tones of Diamond Tiara, the pink werewolf emerging on the right side of Fair Vista. Her counterpart Silver Spoon then emerged from the left, though unlike the other two she did not smile or look at all happy. There was suddenly sounds coming from all around, a number of pink eyes suddenly illuminating the dark with their glow.
Applejack just rolled her eyes. “Alright, look, before you start throwin’ copies of yourself at us, Vista, Ah just want to know one thing.”
Vista raised an eyebrow. “And that would be…?”
“Why mah parents? Ah need to know why you decided to sentence mah parents to their fates as werewolves, why mah sister has to grow up when the only family she interacts with on a daily basis is her two older siblings and our grandmother.”
The green werewolf smirked. “Is that all? Fine. If you must know, it was truly nothing personal. Sable was going to use these ruins as the base for his new werewolf army, and of course that army would need to be fed. Thus, we would need farmers to grow the crops to feed the pack. While regrettably I have to guess Sable killed them for being utter failures as werewolves in one way or another, it is fortunate you brought this matter up because I know you are a farmer just as much as your parents.”
“Over mah dead body,” snarled Applejack, instantly shifting to canine form. Apple Bloom followed suit, ready to back up her older sister.
“Such heroic nonsense, commendable really but it’s not like that will get-AH!” Vista’s taunting was suddenly interrupted by something having ambushed her and sinking its fangs into her throat. Some violent swinging managed to free her neck, but not before the incisions went deep enough that it was a struggle just to breathe without both raspiness and making the bloody wounds bleed more profusely than they were already.
At the same time, Silver Spoon got up from where she was tossed, which happened to be right in front of the Apples, and wiped the blood from her muzzle. “For Celestia’s sake, do you ever shut up about how you are so much better than everypony else because of your self-important werewolf bullshit?”
“Silver, what are you doing?!” shouted Tiara, aghast at her now once again ex-best friend had done, “Is constantly betraying your allies a hobby for you or something?!”
The gray werewolf just rolled her eyes. “Is it really such a bad thing when I betray the same ponies twice for the same reasons both times because I have moral standards?”
“Yeah, Silver, you’re such a bitch!” answered Apple Bloom with a grin, which in turn only got an Are you serious? glare from the bespectacled traitor.
“She’s going to be a dead bitch in a minute, just like the rest of you!” Vista finally had managed to say a complete sentence and with it she declared open hostility. Immediately the courtyard became an arena, a sea of identical Fair Vista clones, snarling and yapping at the trio now stuck in the middle.
“So, uh, I hope you guys had a plan, right?” asked Silver, worried she might have just become a liability.
“Of course!” replied Applejack. “We’re the distraction!”
“Huh?!” It had not been the response Silver had been hoping for, but there was no time for clarification as the mass of Fair Vista surged forward, the encirclement complete. As she frantically fought for her life, Silver now hoped that whatever this ‘plan’ was, it would save the Crusaders and stop Fair Vista, even if in the end she herself was lost in this carnage.
“Um, hello?” called out Sweetie. “Helloooooooo?”
“Hey, wolf-pony…thing!” added Scootaloo, “this is kind of important!”
The Fair Vista set in charge of guarding the cell, in the event the residents of Ponyville tried to mount a rescue operation, scowled as she glared back at the whelps in their pen. “What?”
Sweetie started dancing in place rapidly. “I really gotta go potty!”
“So?”
“So?!” retorted Scootaloo, “You expect her to just do her business in here?”
“I don’t see why not,” the clone emphasized the last word, making it clear that she was not going to let the pair out no matter what.
“Because we don’t want to be stuck in a stinky, rotten, old toilet of our own filth?”
Now the copy started having second thoughts. While she was simple minded enough that she had no qualms about being left out of the battle going on at the moment in the courtyard, she certainly was wary of having to be stuck guarding-
The train of thought the reflection had was interrupted by the sound of something in the area.
“Who goes there?!” barked the guard. No response, but instinctively she could feel the presence of another creature. “Clearly you have a deathwish, either for you or these pups, if you are still around here, but if that is the case then show yourself! Now!”
The answer was…a squalk. Then, literally falling from the sky, a pink fleshy thing slammed into the ground. It picked itself up, albeit in a dazed state, but it was such a stupid looking bird…was it even a bird? No matter, it was a joke of a life form and the clone thought it funny.
“Well, looks like I get my dinner early!” The clone was pleased, moving slowly away from the gate towards the bird thing. Even though she was but a magical construction, she still needed to eat. However, hen she was right on top of the bumbling thing, there was a gleam in its eye and it suddenly shot green fire in the face of the werewolf.
“AAAAAAAHHHH!” The Vista clone reared up on her hindpaws, the fires burning her face severely. She did not see the baby dragon sneak up from behind and bathe her in a different green fire, one that made her vanish from view altogether in a flash.
“Sp-Spike?!” squeed Scootaloo, “You’re here to save us?”
“Yeah!” answered the heroic drake, “me and Heliodor!” At the mention of his name, the sick birdie became enshrouded in a cloak of emerald embers, dispelling it shortly afterward to reveal he was still perfectly healthy.
“But what did you do with the guard?” asked Sweetie, who no longer needed to use the bathroom. It had only been an attempted ruse, anyway.
“She went on a trip,” cryptically replied Spike, readying alongside Heliodor to melt the lock off.
The Vista clone materialized in mid-air only to fall to the ground with a large thud. Her face had been nearly burned off and now she had no clue where she was. But she was well aware of her not being alone.
“Hello, there,” snarked Daffodil, motioning with a bat wing to a group of her charges to ready their lances, “and goodbye.”
“Oh, buck me” said the doomed clone.
“Wow, you guys can melt metal?” asked Scootaloo, astonished.
“Well, yeah, we breathe fire, kind of a given isn’t it?” nonchalantly replied Spike, the phoenix hovering just above to his right nodding in agreement.
“Well, thanks for rescuing us!” squeaked Sweetie, “but what are we gonna do about the other werewolves? There’s gotta be like, a bazillion other Fair Vista copies along with the original, and then there’s Diamond Tiara who is just as bad as Vista!”
“Don’t worry, we planned for that,” answered Spike, who produced a raspberry beryl gemstone out of nowhere. “Heelee? It’s all on you, bro.”
Heliodor cawed acknowledgement, taking the gem in his talons, then with a mighty flapping soared into the sky. He didn’t stop until he was as high as the tallest remaining spire of Castle Everfree, at which point he threw the precious stone into the air. The red gem caught the moonlight, sending rays of the dark red color all over the ruins, before gravity pulled it back down and smashed it right in front of Fair Vista. The real Fair Vista.
“What the-?!” yelped the werewolf, causing her clones to all immediately look in her direction in worry that their template was in danger. It was momentary, however, for then there was a subsequent honking noise at the base of the ruins, followed by various howls and cries.
“Keep fighting, you fools!” shouted Vista, retreating as her copies surged forward again. The true Alpha ascended to her vantage point from before, only to see a terrible sight.
There, illuminated by the light of some strange wheeled contraption themed on apples, were reinforcements for Applejack and Apple Bloom. Surrounded by dead werewolves, Vista recognized the werewolf pegasus from Nightmare Night, along with a tan pony who seemed to be holding back for some reason (was she the one the clones she’d send to capture those young ponies had reported to her as the bitten one?), ready to move on and attack. Behind the truck, the forms of guardsponies could be seen darting out of sight, probably surrounding the entire ruin to ensure no werewolf escaped. But most worryingly was the unicorn in front of it all: the one with the purple haze around her horn.
“Pity you aren’t here, love,” whispered Vista. She knew this situation was bad; it was almost certain her trump card of having those two fillies in her grip had been undone, hence that damn phoenix lighting up the whole place with that gem as a signal. Somehow, despite there being almost a thousand of her, the almost insignificantly small trio of werewolves were holding their own. And now not only were two more enemy wolves joining the battle, but so was the one non-lycanthrope who Fair Vista had really, really hoped would not have gotten involved. And unlike the last time they fought in these same ruins, there was no escape as the guards were all around the perimeter. Sable would have loved the thrill of having to fight to his last breath in these circumstances, but the same could not be said of Fair Vista. But, even if she wasn’t going to make it, she would at the very least get revenge on the Apples for having killed Sable. It was what she’d set out to originally do and to her last breath she would ensure she at least avenged the greatest werewolf who ever lived.
But as she slunk back into the shadows to lie in wait, she was going to ensure it was on her terms.