//------------------------------// // Ch.33: Nightmare Fiction // Story: A Hairier Problem: Rise of the Furball // by BlueBastard //------------------------------// Rise of the Furball Chapter 33: “Nightmare Fiction” Normally, the sheer numbers being pitted against the ponies who sought to stop Fair Vista would have determined their fate to be utterly eviscerated by the mirrored army. However, Applejack, Apple Bloom, and Silver Spoon had been able to hold their ground, albeit barely, simply because of how simple minded the Fair Vista clones were. They were dangerous, that much was obvious, but they were truly of a pack mentality and didn’t adjust to sudden changes in the situation at hoof. In comparison, the three non clone werewolves were much more capable of simply fighting defensively and so their better reactivity countered the sheer numerical disadvantage. But even with their boosted werewolf endurance, they weren’t going to be able to keep up the fighting forever. “How many clones did she make, anyway?!” shouted Silver, bucking a Vista square in the face before rolling to dodge two others making swipes at her. “Ah dunno, Ah lost count!” shouted back Apple Bloom, who was using what she could recall from those martial arts sessions with Rainbow Dash, back before the CMC had been formed, in combination with her claws to always be on the offensive while moving, never giving the enemy a chance to land a blow. “This would be so much - *UNH*- better if we had Twilight and that mirror spell of hers!” added Applejack, putting all of her might into double bucking into a packed group of Fair Vista clones, sending them flying every which way. “Hey, leave some for us!” suddenly came the voice of Lightning Dust, who subsequently swooped down and promptly used her aerial superiority to cause all kinds of new havoc, sending clones flying with miniature tornadoes. “What she said!” followed Sandalwood’s voice, as the tan pony galloped into the fray and just started punching and kicking everything she could. Unlike Lightning, who disconcertingly had taken to being in her wolf form a little too much, Sandalwood was determined to avoid using that form at all costs and wanted to prove she was a pony who could still hold her own in a fight. Though the fact her lycanthropy made it easier to withstand the return damage occasionally inflicted by one clone getting in a lucky shot was certainly something she wasn’t going to argue. But most shocking was when all the clones suddenly stopped upon detecting a third newcomer, taking one look at her, then running off into the shadows to try and avoid her wrath. As all the werewolves left in the courtyard turned to see, Raspberry Beryl casually walked forward with her eyes emitting purple haze and her horn enshrouded by the purple mist of dark magic. “Girl, you musta whupped Fair Vista’s plot something hard the last time you met, if her clones seem to remember how dangerous you can be!” commented Sandalwood. Raspberry shrugged. “Not like normal ponies wouldn’t run for the hills if they saw me like this anyway.” “True.” “Alright, somepony want to fill me in on what’s going on?” asked Silver Spoon, before her glasses suddenly became surrounded by a black aura and flew up from her face. “Hey, what gives?” “One sec, please,” said Raspberry, evidently casting some kind of spell. It was brief, for a few seconds later Silver got her glasses back, this time good as new with the broken side looking just as pristine as the other. “I figure you might want to have full vision if possible, no?” “Uh, yeah, thanks!” Silver smiled, happy to not be partially blindsided anymore. “But my question still stands.” “Yeah, apologies for not tellin’ you earlier, but there wasn’t any time to explain,” answered Applejack. “But really, we were just here to distract Fair Vista and her cronies away from wherever they were holdin’ Scoot and Sweetie. Heliodor and Spike went to go save them.” “But how? There was a guard!” “Guard shmard!” laughed Raspberry. “I know my Heelee, he can handle himself against a werewolf. And I suspect Spike has one or two tricks of his own.” “But now that the Vistas are scattered, we need to find those fillies.” Said Lightning. “While I’m sure Helidor and Spike can help protect them, it won’t take many Vistas to overwhelm their protection, so we need to hurry.” “I suggest we form three groups. Applejack and Apple Bloom, Lightning and Sandalwood, and then you’re with me, Silver,” suggested Razz. “With two capable mares, we should be able to handle ourselves.” “B-but you’re not a werewolf…” pointed out Silver, concerned for Raspberry’s sake. “Oh, Ah wouldn’t worry about Raspberry,” said Apple Bloom, “after all, she took on Fair Vista by herself and saved mah life.” “You’re sure Applejack and the others are around here, looking for us?” asked Sweetie, cautiously. “That’s what the plan was, at least when Fluttershy explained it,” answered Spike. He, Sweetie, Scootaloo, and Heliodor upon the phoenix’s return, were trying to navigate their way through the dark enclosures that formed the basement of Castle Everfree. As Heliodor’s original route out of the dungeons was a hole in the ceiling, through which he was not strong enough to individually lift any of the three ground bound members of the group, they were forced to find an alternative exit. Because they couldn’t light a torch – which would have been a luxury given that they didn’t have one – or have the path lit up by either fire breather without risking detection, it was up to the werewolves to lead the way because of their improved night vision. “Figures we’re stuck doing this instead of having already been on our way to the perimeter all because of me,” Scootaloo moped. “What are you talking about?” asked Sweetie in a whisper, before remembering the obvious. “Oh, right, you’re a pegasus. But even if you could…um…you know, ‘that’, we all still couldn’t make it out. Heliodor is barely strong enough to lift Spike, there’s no way you would be strong enough-“ “Yeah, just remind me why I can’t fly, why don’t you?!” snapped Scootaloo, tears starting to form in her eyes. “Shhhh!” hushed Spike, finger to his mouth. “Oh, right, sorry.” Apologized Scoot. “Scootaloo, is…is there something you need to get off your chest?” Sweetie had to wonder how long Scootaloo had been keeping this hidden. Everypony knew that there was something wrong with her, given that she had such difficulty in using her wings to stay aloft for any amount of time when other pegasus ponies who were younger than her already had mastered liftoff and landing. Previously, she always tried to dodge the question whenever she was asked, especially if it was Apple Bloom or Sweetie doing the asking. “N-no…” the orange werewolf lied, knowing full well the unicorn, the dragon, and the phoenix didn’t believe her for a second. Oddly, Heliodor suddenly took off from his perch on the old torch mount on the wall, flying a short distance forward before taking a hard left and disappearing from view. He then banked right into a circle such that the non-avians could see the doorway. “I think he wants us to follow him,” said Spike. Acknowledged with nods by the werewolves, the three followed the bird. The room the phoenix had found was quite large and, in contrast to their previous location, well lit thanks to openings in the ceiling that seemed purpose built to let in light, whether it be from the sun or the moon. Heelee himself had taken a perch on the right side of an ancient pipe organ – why there was a pipe organ wasn’t exactly clear – and seemed to be gesturing to a small corner just under his vantage point. “Do we really need to do this?” whined Scootaloo. Her answer was the phoenix nodding impatiently and emphasizing the gesture to the spot under his perch. “C’mon, Scootaloo,” prodded Sweetie, “you need to say your piece, and it’s just us three. Or do you not trust us?” “No, no, it’s not that,” relented Scootaloo, walking slowly over to the little hideaway near Heliodor before plopping down on her butt. “It’s…It’s…” Her whole body was trembling at this point, but she sighed in defeat, knowing there was no point in hiding it any longer. “It’s because I was born a cripple.” Confusion was all she saw on the faces of the trio looking at her. “No, seriously, what’s eating at you, Scoot?” asked Spike. “I am serious!” retorted the pegasus, “nopony really notices since all anypony sees is just my wings, which while below the average size for wings of my age, aren’t the reason why I can’t fly though they sort of contribute. In truth, I’ve got what’s called ‘muscular dystrophy’ due to a birth defect.” “Muscular dystru-wha?” repeated Sweetie, struggling with the unusual word. “Don’t worry about it, all you need to know is that it’s some medical term given to describe muscles that didn’t form correctly before I was born. It’s only in my flight muscles, but they’re naturally always going to be weaker than they should be. I have to work them harder just to accomplish lift off, so combined with my small wings not giving me nearly enough surface area to generate thrust, I literally am no better than a chicken!” The tears were starting to fall now, with the dam looking like it was going to burst. “But you’re not!” retorted Sweetie, “I know flying is a big deal for you since you idolize Rainbow Dash, but your wings are still far from useless, and you know it! On your scooter they’re your means of going faster than anypony else can, as they seem to generate more than enough ‘thrust’ or whatever that is, and you’re still the most athletic of all the crusaders!” The tiny werewolf unicorn moved back to stand atop the pipe organ’s bench like a soapbox, her rant continuing; “If there’s any one of us that has a right to complain about not doing what they’re supposed to, it’s me! After all, you’re not the one who has a bone sticking out of her head that has absolutely no purpose since just as you can’t fly, I can’t do magic!” Scootaloo was stunned, having admittedly never realized Sweetie’s own birthright as a unicorn not having been developed by now was far worse than her wings just being too weak to lift her. “I…I never thought of it that way…” “Yeah, maybe you’re just both late bloomers?” suggested Spike. “Twi’s always been a magic prodigy, nopony can argue that, but few ponies actually know she struggled to do more than levitate things until the day of that magic entrance exam where she hatched me.” “Wait, how could you know that if that was when you were born?” asked Sweetie. “Simple, Twilight told me. But you guys gotta keep it on the down low, ‘kay?” The two crusaders nodded, along with Heliodor, with some much needed confessionals having been said. However, it was at that exact time that Lightning and Sandalwood found the three younglings and the bird. “There you are!” exclaimed Sandalwood, thankful that she didn’t need to keep going around the old castle any longer and risk getting attacked by hiding Fair Vistas. Her lack of tact in suddenly announcing her presence shocked the foursome, however, with Sweetie toppling from the bench and the back of her head hitting the first row of keys on the pipe organ. The ancient instrument reasoned with a loud, deep, reverberating echo that sent a chill down the spines of every pony all the way out to the perimeter of the ruins. “Uh oh…” said Lightning, immediately turning around in anticipation of an ambush. “Something tells me that is not a good sign…” As the deep tones of the organ echoed through the ruins, Apple Bloom suddenly found herself on unstable ground as part of the hallway suddenly flipped in towards the wall, causing the filly to go with it into a secret passageway. It was all she could do to scream before she found herself be pulled down by gravity into a chute defined only by touch. “APPLE BLOOM!” shouted Applejack, immediately rushing to where her sister had been only to find the wall and floor perfectly flush as to suggest it was all as much one piece as it looked. A frantic minute had the farmer look for any way of manually opening the secret door to no avail. “Hold on, Apple Bloom, Ah’ll find ya!” called out Applejack, hurriedly running down the hallway in the hopes of locating wherever Apple Bloom would end up. If there was another end. The elder sister didn’t want to think about the situation if Apple Bloom was now trapped in the walls. Apple Bloom, for her part, was hurled into the darkness in every direction imaginable and got more than a little green in the face from the ride. As far as she knew, it was like she was travelling down some kind of secret slide, though how it had been triggered such that she – and only she – was its first passenger in a millennia made the idea this was something created purely for amusement quite ludicrous. Fortunately, the “slide” did have an ending, though rather an abrupt one, as AB only just noticed the box of light she was heading towards before going through said box and being sent flying out of a wall to land rather awkwardly in a new room. Groggily, she got up, then had to hurry over to one of the windows open to the outside to void her latest dinner. It had been heavily loaded with something Pinkie had come up with to simulate the taste of those bacon flavored dog biscuits, which had somewhat helped with the hunger pangs but evidently it didn’t sit well if not digested fully. “Ah really don’t wanna be a werewolf anymore…” moaned Apple Bloom, still feeling nauseous after all the activity and having to sit down lest she need to give up the previous night’s dinner, too. As she waited for her stomach to settle, she noted she was in what looked like some kind of throne room. Castle Everfree had once been known as “The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters” at some point in the past, reflected in how there were two thrones still standing in perfect symmetry at the far end opposite of Apple Bloom. Above the thrones were a tapestry, one colored such to be invocative of sunshine, and the other the dark mysteries of the night, though the latter was notably in almost pristine condition compared to how parts of the former had been torn from its faded threads. Running down the middle of the far end was a smashed podium of sorts, from which a large hairline crack ran up the wall to a giant hole punched through to the outside, inside which was framed Luna’s bright moon, which as far as Apple Bloom knew was left in its ‘full’ brightness by request of Twilight such that it would give as much possible illumination to the events now happening in the ruins. “You know, had I been born in time to see the rise of Nightmare Moon, I probably would have joined the New Lunar...whatever it was called,” echoed the voice of Fair Vista, evidently fully healed from her earlier injury. “Even as a pony who was blissfully unaware of this far superior life of a werewolf, I never was a fan of the day.” “It’s over, Vista,” snarled Apple Bloom, turning to see what a less informed pony would believe to be a recolored version of Applejack, sans hat…and evidently sanity. “You’ve done enough to hurt Equestria, to hurt Ponyville, to hurt mah friends and family.” “Oh, there will never be enough!” cackled Fair Vista. As if in response, a crack of lightning erupted from the dark storm overhead, momentarily turning all views of the outside into nothing but featureless white, alongside a deafening crack of thunder. “You Apples took from me my Sable Loam, my destined love, and while I have come back to finish what he started, it will never be enough because he can not come to see his work finished!’ “What work? All you’ve done is just clone yourself a buncha times and turn a couple of defenseless fillies into monsters!” “Huh. And here I thought you, of all former ponies, would understand that’s not true,” commented Tiara, whose exact location Apple Bloom couldn’t pinpoint before getting broadsided with a headbutt from the prissy pink one. “Ironic, isn’t it? You started this whole mess by making me hate your guts for being a werewolf, yet now you probably hate mine because I’m a better one than you! Funny how-“ There was barely enough time to react for Tiara, as she moved just in the nick of time before Apple Bloom involuntarily vomited again, this time needing to roll over onto her stomach while propping herself up, as she couldn’t make it to the window in time. “Sorry,” apologized Apple Bloom, more out of habit than actual sincerity, “musta been somethin’ Ah ate…” “Sorry nothing!” fumed Tiara, “you just killed all the dramatic tension I had going! Do you have to ruin everything I try to do to humiliate and defeat you?!” “No, that’s my job!” Now it was Diamond Tiara’s turn to get headbutted, this time by Silver Spoon, only the descendant of the Silver family paranormal hunters did it far harder. It was enough to send both fillies toppling out of one of the windows. In fact, it was the same window Apple Bloom had been bent over a few minutes ago to safely dispose of her undigested foodstuffs. “Silver Spoon!” exclaimed Bloomie, rushing to the window. She stopped midway, realizing she was leaving herself open for Fair Vista to attack, this time of all times being the worst as now Vista had no reason to keep her alive. But, as AB assumed a defensive stance, she saw Sable Loam’s mate was too focused on something else. “My, you just can’t stay away, can you?” taunted Vista, evidently not remembering the events of last time. “Not having enough fun knowing every single thing you do is against the law of this corrupt land just because of who you are descended from and nothing else?” “Heh,” smirked Raspberry, standing from above on a balcony. “I actually would say being given a life sentence like the one I must serve marks the dawn of my brighter tomorrow.” A small leap had Raspberry take the quick way down, the unicorn deftly landing on all four hooves. “And the end of your past-welcome life!” “Hypocritical words, coming from one whose only power comes from the king of shadow himself, no?” At this point, Raspberry and Fair Vista had started to walk in a circle, Apple Bloom taking advantage of being forgotten entirely by hiding behind some rubble, offering a ringside seat of the inevitable battle. “I’m not a power monger, I understand what makes magic evil in nature is not the magic itself, but how it is used.” “Uh-huh. I’m not an idiot, I know why that apple farmer who looks so much like me wanted to kill Sable Loam. She must have heard that old legend of how ‘killing the werewolf who turned you’ supposedly would remove this blessing, but you know just as well as I do that it’s all a bunch of hooey. It only makes it become dormant, but merely being around anything associated with dark magic reactivates it. Considering how you reek of your ancestor’s blood and its magic, I bet you merely just sneezed at Applejack and turned her back into a werewolf, didn’t you?” “Hey, at least I’m not the one Sable Loam tried to replace because he was thinking about his loins ever since you died!” snapped back Razz, though she didn’t like how Vista seemed to know how to push her buttons this time. She also didn’t like how it was so easily felt in the ways her disguise was slipping, already her fangs were starting to lengthen and press against her lower lip. Worse, Fair Vista noticed as well. “My, are those fangs? Do you mean to tell me you actually did end up a werewolf as well? It must be hard for you to have all the power of your ancestor who created lycanthropy in the first place, except you and those other ponies who have since become werewolves yourselves will rot away because you just can’t handle being the top dog race like those Apple brats.” “No, I don’t have lycanthropy, because then if I did then I could have some hope of curing who I am!” With an unearthly wail, Raspberry dropped her disguise, letting her horn’s true shape emerge alongside her dark colors and the wispy trails of her dark magic being brought forward. “But there is no cure for having been molded in Sombra’s image, so it is all I can do to ensure I am the only thing that can be claimed to be his legacy!” The dark unicorn then charged Vista with determination and purple mist in her eyes, making the resurrected werewolf once again feel the grip of morality as they met in combat once again. “C’mon!” shouted Sandalwood, forcing herself to stay ahead of the pack of werewolves and phoenix while she grudgingly allowed Spike to ride on her back. Applejack had stumbled upon them – sans Apple Bloom – after they’d shortly left the room with the pipe organ. Apparently, Apple Bloom had triggered something (the connection between the pipe organ going off at the exact same time as Apple Bloom’s vanishing act never occurred to anypony) that had separated her from Applejack, and now the race was on to try and find the wayward filly. Unfortunately, it was almost a sure bet that, somehow, Apple Bloom was in the middle of whatever was going on around the middle of the castle, where the throne room would be. “We better grab her and get outta here!” exclaimed Lightning, Scootaloo upon her back, “Whatever the Everfree is doin’ with that storm, it’s getting agitated if I’m reading those cloud movements correctly!” “You girls go on ahead, Ah’m not leavin’ without Apple Bloom!” said Applejack, apparently forgetting Sweetie Belle was currently on her back. “Fair Vista’s already done more damage to mah family with Sable’s help than Ah think can ever be fully healed, if she gets Apple Bloom then…then Ah don’t know if mah family can survive a blow like that!” Just then, Heliodor came swooping around a corner, frantically trying to get somepony’s attention. Upon doing so, he led the group a short distance away where Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara lay. “Silver!” exclaimed Sweetie and Scoot, dismounting their werewolves and rushing to their compatriot’s side, “are you alright?” “Ow! Yeah, considering I just tackled my ex-best friend out of a window currently above us,” answered the gray filly, trying to point up to the throne room, “I think I’m alright aside from a broken bone or two.” “And Tiara?” asked Spike, “Is she…” “Hah! As if. I think I knocked her out cold following our landing, she won’t be posing a problem to us anymore.” Behind Silver was the unconscious form of Diamond Tiara, remarkably back to the recognizable form of a pony though her coat and mane/tail hairs were still a complete mess. Her namesake tiara also had been knocked off, landing rather unfortunately in what looked like a half-digested dinner. Silver paid it no mind. “Raspberry Beryl’s still up there, probably fighting Fair Vista again to protect Apple Bloom.” “Well, that’s a relief,” sighed Applejack. While she would not be fully relaxed until she could hold her baby sister in her forelegs again, right now Razz was the only pony AJ knew who could keep that insane werewolf at bay. “C’mon, we gotta get you and Diamond to the guards, you need medical treatment.” A slight gust of wind brushing past her right ear prompted AJ to look up and see Heliodor rapidly gaining altitude to rejoin his mistress. It’s up to you, Raspberry, thought Applejack, you’re the only one who can stop her. “GWAAAAHHH!” screamed one of the combatants, though at that point Apple Bloom didn’t know who was doing more of the screaming. Even though by nature Raspberry Beryl was not at all a violent pony, she seemed to have a disturbingly good idea of how to fully utilize her body’s traits to be a lethal weapon. In addition to her already formidable dark magic, her horn itself was purpose-formed to be used as an impalement weapon (as her father had found out in a very personal manner) and her fangs were just as sharp as Fair Vista’s, for more than once the unicorn resorted to using Vista’s own tactics against her by digging her teeth into the werewolf’s body. At the same time Fair Vista was truly giving it her all. Her years of experience as a predator, mixed with the insanity brought on by having to possess her own mirrored copy, combined with more easily utilized weapons on all four of her paws as evidenced by the numerous cuts she kept carving into Razz, allowed her to pose a far greater challenge than ever before. Additionally, she still had the race advantage of being an earth pony, which boosted with lycanthropy meant she was both physically stronger and had more endurance than her unicorn opponent, and her jaw strength was enough to snap bones in addition to driving her fangs in deep. Such was the situation Raspberry found herself in when, after a good fifteen minutes of the two lashing out at each other and dealing unnaturally gruesome amounts of damage to each other, enabled only by both of them having unnaturally high regenerative abilities, Fair Vista had managed to maneuver around and grabbed her left rear leg’s gaskin in her jaws. With malicious joy, the werewolf bit down as hard as she could, crushing the most important load-bearing part of Razz’s leg while simultaneously tearing through her flesh as the fangs dug down to the muscle tissue. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” screamed Razz, her abnormal healing not doing anything to stop the unimaginable pain of her leg’s middle section getting crushed like a cardboard box while oozing blood profusely. It got worse when suddenly Vista began to swing the crippled unicorn, leg still in her jaws, around and around in a circle before throwing her body against a wall with a loud *THUD* before the pulverized unicorn slumped to the ground, her left leg looking every bit like a broken chew toy that it had just been. “Is that all?!” demanded Vista, wild with bloodlust as she wiped away Razz’s blood, remembering what happened the last time the unicorn’s blood was allowed to pool and settle. “Is that the best I can get from the pony who inherited the legendary powers of Kind Sombra?!” Razz did not answer, or rather she couldn’t. The pain from her leg was mind numbing, but right now she couldn’t let her magic do its thing and fix it. Not if what she was planning was going to work, if she was short even the tiniest bit of magic then it would all be for naught. But unless she got her chance soon, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Taking the silence as an admittance of defeat, Vista felt the need to gloat. “HA! I thought as much, to think you caused me so much trouble in the past, that you were the greatest thorn in my side, yet here you are laying before me like the worthless wretch that you always have been! Does it burn you up inside? No, not the pain, though I do hope that hurts, too, consider it payback for last time. But what I mean now is the fact you had Sombra’s power, you had the best chance of stopping whatever it is that created lycanthropy, but you have failed. Everypony you know who has been blessed with being a werewolf will die because they are not worthy, or learn to appreciate the gift they have been given as they become part of my pack. Of course, this comes as no surprise, spawn of Sombra, you’re a dark magic user, and no matter what ‘good’ your kind ever tries to do, it always ends badly for you and those you are fond of! AHAHAHAHAHA!” Do you ever shut up? wondered Raspberry, the words not having their fully-intended effect partly because they were hardly unlike the things she’d been told all her life: how she wouldn’t be good for anything, that she was corrupted before birth because of her connection to Sombra, etc. But it was also partly because this was what Razz was waiting for; Vista thought she had won already so she was letting her guard down. She just needed a distraction and- “SCREEEEEEEE!” cried out Heliodor, letting loose a torrent of flame down at Fair Vista, forcing the gloating werewolf to take evasive action and take her eyes off her enemy. I swear I love that damn bird like a brother, thought the unicorn, smiling at how once again her ever faithful pet had done exactly the right thing at the right time. Without hesitation, Razz pulled out one of the few tricks she’d managed to learn from Sombra’s books, and her body instantly dissolved into a black mist-like form that vanished into the shadows cast by the castle itself. After a few minutes of vainly trying to catch the mocking phoenix, who had infuriatingly perched high on the balcony from where Raspberry had entered the room, Vista realized she’d let her enemy get away. “I know you’re around here somewhere, you damn, dirty demon!” shouted the enraged Vista, looking rapidly all over the place in vain. Oh, please, you think you’re the only creature who can hide in the shadows? echoed the voice of Raspberry Beryl, now with a touch of that evil reverberation in the vein of Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, and in a way of her own ancestor. You may have been born in the shadows, but I trained in- wait, damnit, I said that wrong, hold on… Fair Vista and the hidden Apple Bloom were dumbfounded at how Raspberry was managing to do something no pony truly had ever done before, yet she insisted on saying a horribly cliché and cheesy line that she kept screwing up. Uh, yeah, is it trained and then born? ‘You may have trained in the shadow, but I was shadow born’- ugh, sorry, I just gotta get this right… Fair Vista then became aware of a presence just behind her, a quick glance showing a pony-like shape forming from what could be described as shadow particles. “Enough of this charade!” screamed the werewolf, charing at the shape and clamping her jaws around the pony’s neck. She wildly swung the body around, snapping it back and forth, intent on silencing the annoying unicorn once and for all by ripping off her head. Finally, she did so, feeling the weight of the body go flying in one direction as the head and neck stayed in motion with the werewolf. Wait, realized Fair Vista, why am I tasting…cardboard?! Spitting out the “head”, she realized she had not just bitten off the head of who she thought she had, but instead all her attention had been focused on what had been a cardboard cutout of Twilight Sparkle. “Where does somepony even get something like this?!” whined Vista, not knowing what to make of the situation. “Oh my Celestia, you killed Cardlight Sparkle!” hollered Apple Bloom, “You bitch!” “You’re nex-HURG!” The totally livid werewolf had made to turn to face where she’d known Apple Bloom had been the whole time, only to stop short when she felt something very warm and pointy pierce her chest right to her heart. “No, you’re next,” cooly replied Raspberry Beryl, who seemed to rise out of the ground, which had been in shadow and thus fully disguised her movements. At the same time, the impaled werewolf was raised up as well, her legs finding no traction in the air. “You…think this will kill me?” said Vista, a droplet of blood running down the side of her mouth as Raspberry’s horn started to tear deeper into the bodily organ. “I’m still a ghost, you -*ACK* can’t kill a ghost! Not like this!” “Oh, wanna bet?” snorted Raspberry. “You seem to forget dark magic doesn’t always play by the rules!” “Y-you’re bluffing!” “Not in the least! If a filly can see past the darkness of my magic to help ponies understand who I am, then there is a way to end this on my terms, to end it all!” With a loud wail, Raspberry’s eyes ignited in a bright purple light along with her horn. Simultaneously, the storm now swirling around Castle Everfree that was fueled by dark magic reacted as lightning came down from the heavens, through the hole in the wall left in the wake of Nightmare Moon’s creation, and struck Fair Vista. It was the second greatest display of dark magic in history, surpassed only by King Sombra’s terraforming of the Crystal Empire, but Raspberry was not subjugating an entire populace under her will. Instead, she was erasing one of Sombra’s few remaining legacies. At the same time, Fair Vista couldn’t comprehend what was going on. She wasn’t exactly dying but at the same time the unicorn she was impaled upon seemed to be doing something. “You like being a wolf so much?” shouted Raspberry over the roar of the raging storm of dark magic she was at the helm of, “then die as one!” This was the final attack Raspberry had been planning; a two-layer counterspell delivered straight into the heart of Fair Vista. Combining the dark magic versions of the fabled ‘age change’ spell and a specific custom spell of her own creation designed to amplify the werewolf curse within Vista such that her natural immunity to its corruption was neutered, Raspberry was doing more than cleaning Fair Vista’s clock; she was breaking it. “Sa…Sable…” gasped the rapidly aging Vista, who was far more wolf like than ever by the second, before all the spinning stopped and she was thrown off of Raspberry Beryl’s horn. Gone was the young looking werewolf who had been just as dangerous as her mate had been, for in her place was a very old and frail looking wolf who didn’t appear anything like the pony once known as Fair Vista other than being unnaturally green. And it was only a minute or two later that the wolf slumped over, its heart having been pierced and the years Fair Vista had cheated death finally having caught up to her. “That…was draining…” gasped Raspberry, before her eyes rolled up in her head and she fell sideways onto her right flank. “RAZZ!” shouted Apple Bloom, racing to the fallen mare’s side with a worried Heliodor right beside her. “I…I think I’m gonna need a cast...my leg still really hurts, ahahaha…” For somepony like Razz to try and laugh off the truly unreal amount of punishment she had just gone through, it was a testament to how much she had grown once ponies had accepted her, had believed in her. “You’ll be okay, Razz,” comforted Apple Bloom, who had shifted to her normal pony form now that the danger was eliminated. “Ah had to wear a large cast on mah leg mahself a few months ago. It sucked, but at least you can say it’s a battle wound. All Ah did was accidently give mahself a pretty bad cut. Oh, and thanks for savin’ me. Again.” “Y’know, Apple Bloom,” said Razz, already regaining some strength, “I’m wondering if my cutie mark is wrong and that it really should just be a picture of your head in front of a shield, since this rescuing thing is becoming a little too common, y’know?” The two ponies laughed, with Heliodor soon joining in. All around the ruins, the still living duplicates of Fair Vista didn’t react to suddenly winking out of existence, the bodies of both the living and the dead clones all turning back into magic energy and shooting off into the sky, returning to the Mirror Pool near Baltimare from whence they came. Back in Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle watched from the balcony of Golden Oaks as the magic residue of the Fair Vista clones shot into the sky, through the gigantic dark magic stormclouds which already were breaking up. “Corporal Skyracer?” called the princess to the interior of Golden Oaks, the summoned guard leader instantly at her side. “You summoned me, princess?” “Please, now that the werewolf problem posed to Ponyville has been dealt with, you should go to the ruins to check in with Corporal Daffodil and make sure everypony gets back.” “Right away, your highness, anything else?” Twilight thought for a moment. “Actually, yes. Have Raspberry Beryl come see me at her earliest convenience. I suspect she will have learned something that can allow us all to finally lay werewolves to rest as nothing but mere legends in the pages of young pony horror novels."